Destiny Perspective (Destiny)
A few months ago, amongst the fervors, excitement, and salt of that new Bungie game smell; I endeavored to create a review/critique of Destiny. I figured that since that's what I did with the beta - I might as well follow it up. As I stated in my beta review - I am not a writer. I don't get paid to do this. I am doing this because... I don't know... I have something to say, and hopefully its worth being said. All in all I'm a Bungie fan - though I have been wondering the particulars of the phrase that as of late.
Amongst the hours and hours of time I put into in creating said review/critique of Destiny, I obviously never released it. Bungie to their credit was patching things at a decent rate and by the time I tweaked my review another patch would come out. One of the things in my critique, which has been held hostage thus far to that lack of 100% is something that I have not seen discussed here at DBO, even as of now. This ever analogous golly-this-guy-is-a-master-of-suspense mystery subject was in my review/critique of Destiny because I felt if gave strongly needed context. At the time I was seeing alot of emotion and what not with little direction to dictate thoughts. Emotions are pushy little things, with a big bite. They don't do logic very well. Emotions don't fill things in, they blow them up. Live Long and Prosper... Bitches. :D
With the release of the Dark Below "Expansion", and seeing some ramblings of it in comments of multiple news sites reviewing the Dark Below I feel now is about time to free this subject from its pages and discuss if we can.
One more thing before I reveal what all this rambling and reminiscing is about - I never finished my research. I'm hoping that someone here - or even a lurker - and come out and join us in this discussion if they have the time and know how. Maybe they even played it.
All this setting up of the stage said - It's time for a history lesson. World of Warcraft.
I myself (as I mention) have never played an MMO of any sort. I presume that is also the case for a few of us here as well. Something something Halo. Something something Marathon something. Gnop.
Has anyone read about how this game was in year one? Or how everyone reacted with its expansion? Even now.
Let me quote what I have (very WIP & very bare bones), the rest I leave to you DBO.
So my fellow DBO – I shall take you back to the year 2004. It is November and a Blizzard that would eventually sweep the world is in effect. It is the 23rd and The World of Warcraft has been unleashed. It has been in production for about… OH! What do ya know? Four to five years.
What Happened? Did it go smoothly? Filled with seemingly endless content? I mean it’s WOW, OBVOUSLY it does.
Nope. Blizzard underestimated http://www.gamespot.com/articles/world-of-warcraft-wracked-by-problems/1100-6116566/ (and would do so again) the sheer mass of people who would play their game http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/editorial/remembering-the-launch-of-wow. There was also little content at the time, it took them about a year make… Keyword… make enough content so to have enough to do. They would keep updating (when they could) but it still wouldn’t be enough. More reading (comments and all): http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/r_wow_pc 1
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/10-moments-that-made-world-of-warcraft-article 2
As always - I reserve the right to be Horribly Wrong. :)
Destiny Perspective
While it is always good to get a fresh perspective or to compare things on an even footing, I think most of the complaints leveled against WOW that you listed are the weakest complaints leveled against Destiny. Size of explorable area, time to finish the game, and "quantity" problems do not address the core issues with the game. The go to example is Portal. Tiny amount of geometry and often beaten in 4 hours, but still one of the best games ever made.
The only other one you mentioned was launch issues, which Bungie handled very well, especially in comparison to other recent title launches. Playing day 1 was a smooth experience for tons of people.
Destiny Perspective
While it is always good to get a fresh perspective or to compare things on an even footing, I think most of the complaints leveled against WOW that you listed are the weakest complaints leveled against Destiny. Size of explorable area, time to finish the game, and "quantity" problems do not address the core issues with the game. The go to example is Portal. Tiny amount of geometry and often beaten in 4 hours, but still one of the best games ever made.
The only other one you mentioned was launch issues, which Bungie handled very well, especially in comparison to other recent title launches. Playing day 1 was a smooth experience for tons of people.
Admittedly - that is because this was made in September. I don't have time to search right now, so I shall direct to this thread of DLC Review links. Among the comments of the linked sites I have seen mentioning about "This is how it works" and then some reference to WOW.
The comment that sparked everything was... along the lines of...
"That's how MMO expansion Works, I all my progress became moot when Warlords of Draenor came out just like every other expansion."
WoW gets lots of things wrong
Like the expansions invalidating past progress, or totally revamping your skills, etc... It's the belief that the Endgame is The Game combined with a belief that the only way to draw in new players is to get them to the Endgame as quickly as possible. Somewhere along the way they forgot that the leveling up portion of WoW is REALLY FUN and GOOD and has GOOD STORY and CHARACTERS. The exploration is FUN and GOOD and has INTERESTING AREAS TO VISIT.
Destiny bought this Blizzard bullshit hook, line, and sinker, and contains (basically) 100% endgame content. Some of this is innovative and well planned (how low level monsters interact with high level characters), but lots of it is Blizzard Bullshit. Light levels on gear gets you to the endgame more quickly, which is both clever and bullshit, and lots of the stuff I love from Bungie games of the past is gone, which is super bullshit. Where's CTF? Oddball? Vehicles with more than one seat? Plant the bomb in the enemy base? Storm the beach / defend the base (was that called Assault?)? Flying vehicles? I have space ships but no space combat. I have "all" of Earth, but really it's just Old Russia.
The whole game is geared towards forcing you to run the same strikes and raids over and over and over to get better gear, but the strikes aren't really fun (more of a chore), and the difficulty balance and punishment for failure are so skewed that they favor even less fun play like cheesing boss fights instead of beating them the way they were designed. Instead of difficulty giving enemies better AI, they just have more HP, or shields, or yellow health bars, or all of those things.
It's really MMO design in a FPS shell, but they threw out the FPS design stuff that makes FPSes fun like smart enemies and effective use of cover and OMG a decent story.
So using WoW as the gold standard for comparison is only validated by the amount of money WoW has brought in, not by any of the design decisions that were made in WoW. There is, somewhere in there, a good game, but it's not the game emphasized by the company at all and is certainly not the game Destiny is trying to be.
I feel like Destiny is fun despite itself, and not because it was intended to be fun.
Beginning of the End
by Cody Miller 
, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Friday, December 12, 2014, 15:06 (3870 days ago) @ INSANEdrive
I stayed with Destiny so far because underneath it all, there was lots of fun to be had. However I look at this DLC pack, and I look at all the decisions made to string stuff out even longer than the original game. I look at all the stuff that requires an even harder grind than the original. I look at a world with fewer things to do and fewer possibilities than Destiny was 3 days out.
Right now, life is just way better than playing this grind all the time. I could kind of justify it to myself before, but I can't really now. I don't remember who said this, but they are spot on: Destiny is the best game I've ever played that keeps trying to get me to stop playing it.
I'm pretty sure I will do the raid with the crew here every week, as well as the nightfalls. But daily bounties, story missions, and all the other bullshit? Probably not.
Not giving up completely, just curbing substantially in an effort to figure out how to skirt around the stupidest parts of this atrociously designed piece of shit investment system. Maybe just wait till house of wolves and buy my way to 32, and upgrade my exotics to 344 skipping this round…