Up-front: This is not meant to be a "What happened to my game?!" entitled post.

Just watched a video that goes through snippets from pre-release footage, highlighting interesting changes that were made to Destiny. A good point is that much of this is footage not that far out from release.

Most of you have probably seen similar stuff to this, but some of them were new to me.

Highlights:

• Fully modelled and playable Reef area
  
• Faction-branded ships
  
• The Tower layout was significantly different - especially given how close to release some footage is.
  
• Crucible used to be called "Faction Wars", hinting that factions were to play a larger role in the scheme of things. This would help explain why Control is subtitled "Dead Sectors" and has Dead Orbit's emblem, and why Clash references Future War Cult.
  
• The Queens brother seems to be "less of a douche".

Seems a lot of people don't understand how development works if this is in any way surprising to them. More ideas are generated than are used. More assets are built than used. More levels concepted. More items built than ever get put anywhere.

This is especially so with an original IP.

Jason Jones is quoted as saying that - just like diamonds - games are cut from what you have, rather than polished.

Hell, Bungie showed us themselves in their first public talk about Destiny how many different stages it's been through. It was a medievel game at one point. Remember Tiger man?

Also, go compare how different Halo E3 2000 was to the finished game.

Frankly, I was surprised how CLOSE Destiny ended up looking to the E3 2013 demo.

Remember the outrage about the E3 Halo 2 demo?

Seems a lot of people don't understand how development works if this is in any way surprising to them. More ideas are generated than are used. More assets are built than used. More levels concepted. More items built than ever get put anywhere.

This is especially so with an original IP.

Jason Jones is quoted as saying that - just like diamonds - games are cut from what you have, rather than polished.

Hell, Bungie showed us themselves in their first public talk about Destiny how many different stages it's been through. It was a medievel game at one point. Remember Tiger man?

Also, go compare how different Halo E3 2000 was to the finished game.

Frankly, I was surprised how CLOSE Destiny ended up looking to the E3 2013 demo.

I think about how far Techland was into development of Dying Light before they decided to drop last-gen. They had a pretty massive and complex game world running, if previews and trailers were anything to go by... I think about how far Destiny's ambitions reached before last-gen yanked the chain back. Sometimes you carve too much from marble that you have to scrap the masterpiece and start over, losing lots of time to get things as you wanted them due to deadlines...

I imagine that huge chunks of the game had to be cut to polish what already worked, and what was compatible and reliable with the last-gen limitations...

I can't wait for that tether to be broken...

I read the title and just lost my shit

Seems a lot of people don't understand how development works if this is in any way surprising to them.

While I enjoy the video analysis, and don't really fault the laymen for not understanding, it still sorta bugs me that he keeps calling things "fully playable areas". Once they have the engine, it takes a small percentage of the required talent to make it so you can walk on it.
This would be like me hopping into the Halo editor, plopping down some assets, and saying it's fully playable. Just because you can walk on it doesn't mean it's worth walking on. I wouldn't consider it "playable".

I think it's also worth noting that just because a video was released on X date, does not mean all the things shown are actually FROM that date. Who knows how long those vids were in production, and how old the assets were even when said production started?

Just because you can walk on it doesn't mean it's worth walking on. I wouldn't consider it "playable".

Right.

I didn't actually watch the video because it sounded like a click-bait, but that point in the summary was suspect to me too.

I think it's also worth noting that just because a video was released on X date, does not mean all the things shown are actually FROM that date. Who knows how long those vids were in production, and how old the assets were even when said production started?

With the Halo Betas, I remember Bungie saying the build was already old by the time we got it. Because they cut from something that was relatively stable so they could test the stuff they wanted to test without it crashing.

Decisions were made, the reasons for which will forever be obscured to us.

I have to say if I could pick one story to ever write for the games journalism industry, it would fucking be the story of Destiny's development. Everything from the grandiose original vision, to Marty and Joe Staten's departure, to Activision's involvement and how many decisions they influenced, to what we ended up with...

Man I would love to write that story. Never gonna happen, for me or anyone else for that matter, but it would REALLY "scratch my itch" to borrow the original title's phrasing.

- No text -

Bungie used to release a lot of ViDocs tha gave us insight into their internal development practices. Seems like maybe they gave up on that since then. I'd love a video game company sell special editions to fund the development of documentaries about the game development.

Wow, actually no. I remember people being outraged that the demo wasn't in the final game, but I thought the demo itself looked a little cool. Felt very "team advancing through a city under seige".