Essential reading (Destiny)
http://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731
Finally a behind the scenes look at what happened. It basically went down like we thought; Staten's story didn't fly with management, he left because they were scrapping his story and wasn't happy about it. They totally rewrote everything on the fly and had to cobble together something that was baseline releasable by the ship date. Massive content cuts and things shunted over to the DLCs.
It's a long article but it is absolutely worth the read. The most interesting part to me is how cripplingly bad the tools are for making the game, especially considering the hype about Grognok early on. Also, FWIW, I think the cut story content sounds awesome and I have no idea why they decided to scrap all that work and start over. Just a bizarre decision.
Here's some quotes I pulled for those who don't want to read the whole thing or want a quick look at what I think are important points.
Senior management overruling Staten: "The decision was made against Staten’s wishes, sources say. Destiny project lead Jason Jones and the rest of senior leadership were unhappy with the writing team’s supercut, and their reaction was to scrap it all."
On Staten leaving: "Joe Staten left the company during the mid-summer reboot, although Bungie didn’t announce his departure until September, 2013. Two sources say the parting was not amicable"
Quote about extending the release date: ”The extension actually made it so we could get things to the base level of acceptability, and that’s what we shipped.”
On the Dark Below: They rebooted the first DLC pack, December 2014’s The Dark Below, scant months before it was due to ship, according to two sources. (One person familiar with development says Bungie sequestered a team and had them crunch out Dark Below in just nine weeks, which may explain how insubstantial it was.)
Confirmation that there was originally going to be more than 4 planets in vanilla Destiny (correction: 4 locations): Two sources say the original plan was to release this major expansion at $60 and include a brand new planet, Europa, as well as a new area on Earth called the European Dead Zone (which itself had been pushed back from vanilla Destiny).
How microtransactions came into the picture: What if, instead of releasing two more DLC packs after The Taken King, they tried something new? What if they sold cosmetic items in the Tower? And then put out a dripfeed of free content to keep people playing in the months before “Destiny 2”—or whatever they wind up calling it—in the fall of 2016? ... “There was a bet that was, ‘Hey if we did microtransactions, I bet you we could generate enough revenue to make up for the loss of DLCs,’”
Essential reading
by dogcow 
, Hiding from Bob, in the vent core., Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 14:23 (3561 days ago) @ Fuertisimo
Senior management overruling Staten: "The decision was made against Staten’s wishes, sources say. Destiny project lead Jason Jones and the rest of senior leadership were unhappy with the writing team’s supercut, and their reaction was to scrap it all."
On Staten leaving: "Joe Staten left the company during the mid-summer reboot, although Bungie didn’t announce his departure until September, 2013. Two sources say the parting was not amicable"
What I want to know is how is it that senior management wasn't aware of the development of the story as it was happening. How did they let it get to the point where they felt like they had to kill it, delay the game, and put the lives of their employees through chrunch hell? The plot/story should have been known to upper management as it was being developed. If they didn't like what Joe had come up with this late in the game then it's their fault, not Joe's, unless he was pulling some sort of ivory tower "you can't see what I'm working on", which is ridiculous because there was already missions developed around this story!
Management Fail IMHO.
Essential reading
It seems like there's a lot of fails really. Their expectation of a 90 on metacritic is remarkable, considering that they admit that they only cobbled together the most bare bones version of a game they could sell. Why would they expect a 90 average for that? Just lots of odd stuff all around.
Essential reading
by MacAddictXIV , Seattle WA, Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 14:27 (3561 days ago) @ Fuertisimo
It seems like there's a lot of fails really. Their expectation of a 90 on metacritic is remarkable, considering that they admit that they only cobbled together the most bare bones version of a game they could sell. Why would they expect a 90 average for that? Just lots of odd stuff all around.
The Engineering team expecting a 90 average. Because they busted their asses off to make a quality game mechanic experience. And in my opinion the Game mechanics deserved a 90 or higher. It's just everything else that was lacking :-)
Essential reading
Yes the mechanics are on point, that is true. Really the graphics and the mechanics were the parts that felt polished and complete.
The part that confuses me is they played the game right? So they must have known that it was going to get ripped for the story among other things.
Essential reading
by MacAddictXIV , Seattle WA, Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 14:34 (3561 days ago) @ Fuertisimo
Yes the mechanics are on point, that is true. Really the graphics and the mechanics were the parts that felt polished and complete.
The part that confuses me is they played the game right? So they must have known that it was going to get ripped for the story among other things.
A lot of people at Bungie never got a chance to play the game until after release actually. And when I say "play" I mean, in it's entirety.
Essential reading
i'm with you there. If you've ever played an MMO, ever, you knew how awful that loot system was, as well as the degrees to which players would go to maximize loot rolls (I distinctly recall Bungie being "surprised" by the players who make 3 characters of the same class, for example). Lots of this stuff should never have even been considered from a design perspective, let alone implemented.
Essential reading
i'm with you there. If you've ever played an MMO, ever, you knew how awful that loot system was, as well as the degrees to which players would go to maximize loot rolls (I distinctly recall Bungie being "surprised" by the players who make 3 characters of the same class, for example). Lots of this stuff should never have even been considered from a design perspective, let alone implemented.
heh, I still have 3 warlocks. I had a hunter once, and deleted it back in Dec.
On Borderlands 1, i only played as mordecai, BL2 as Axton, and the Presequel as Athena.
Sounds like they didn't learn from Halo 2
What I want to know is how is it that senior management wasn't aware of the development of the story as it was happening. How did they let it get to the point where they felt like they had to kill it, delay the game, and put the lives of their employees through chrunch hell? The plot/story should have been known to upper management as it was being developed. If they didn't like what Joe had come up with this late in the game then it's their fault, not Joe's, unless he was pulling some sort of ivory tower "you can't see what I'm working on", which is ridiculous because there was already missions developed around this story!
Management Fail IMHO.
who wants to bet that Marty doubled down after the Staten fallout?
Sounds like they didn't learn from Halo 2
by dogcow , Hiding from Bob, in the vent core., Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 14:46 (3561 days ago) @ Schedonnardus
What I want to know is how is it that senior management wasn't aware of the development of the story as it was happening. How did they let it get to the point where they felt like they had to kill it, delay the game, and put the lives of their employees through chrunch hell? The plot/story should have been known to upper management as it was being developed. If they didn't like what Joe had come up with this late in the game then it's their fault, not Joe's, unless he was pulling some sort of ivory tower "you can't see what I'm working on", which is ridiculous because there was already missions developed around this story!
Management Fail IMHO.
who wants to bet that Marty doubled down after the Staten fallout?
I too would bet Marty doubled down. There's a difference between musical score & plot. Both can absolutely make (or even break) a game, but they're quite different. Throwing out the musical score just screws over one department; throwing plot-storyline out has huge ramifications for the entire studio.
Halo 2 was different
Halo 2 was cutting features left and right, if you recall the "burning plane" chalkboard up at Bungie HQ.
Destiny sounds like they were too focused on the tools, art and game mechanics and the story didn't mature till late in development. I suspect this is why they ditched the "story chapter" mechanic where each mission was represented as a chapter in your character's story. That was one of the things I was most curious about, how they would tie your mission performance into a growing narrative about your character.
That mechanic would probably require a strongly linear game to support, otherwise you have too much variation to make all the chapters fit.
Given Staten's experience, the initial story was probably highly linear, like the Halo series. Without a chance to see what was planned we really can't make a judgement about it. Pre and post game intros and outtros would be interesting, but given the goal of replayabilty it would be a net negative. Just look at how the two missions with cut scenes were hated just for that.
So the dramatic rework meant that we are essentially without story, and the dev tools are still too immature for quick turnarounds. Bungie needs better tools so they can implement better content and iterate out of this mess.
From a historical perspective, this same story change happened on Marathon back in the day, and is the source for lots of the more interesting backstory in the terminals. For example one of the discarded story lines was that you were an immortal fighting other immortals in an arena...Hmmmmm.
Halo 2 was different
Halo 2 was cutting features left and right, if you recall the "burning plane" chalkboard up at Bungie HQ.
Destiny sounds like they were too focused on the tools, art and game mechanics and the story didn't mature till late in development. I suspect this is why they ditched the "story chapter" mechanic where each mission was represented as a chapter in your character's story. That was one of the things I was most curious about, how they would tie your mission performance into a growing narrative about your character.
Actually it sounds like they gave the tools a miss altogether, which is why every other change they wanted to make was incredibly time consuming and cumbersome to perform.
That mechanic would probably require a strongly linear game to support, otherwise you have too much variation to make all the chapters fit.Given Staten's experience, the initial story was probably highly linear, like the Halo series. Without a chance to see what was planned we really can't make a judgement about it. Pre and post game intros and outtros would be interesting, but given the goal of replayabilty it would be a net negative. Just look at how the two missions with cut scenes were hated just for that.
So the dramatic rework meant that we are essentially without story, and the dev tools are still too immature for quick turnarounds. Bungie needs better tools so they can implement better content and iterate out of this mess.
Yes.
From a historical perspective, this same story change happened on Marathon back in the day, and is the source for lots of the more interesting backstory in the terminals. For example one of the discarded story lines was that you were an immortal fighting other immortals in an arena...Hmmmmm.
Halo 2 was different
halo 2 had the entire engine scrapped and re-written. Remember the announcement trailer that was "in-engine?"
Also, large parts of the story were re-written/scrapped. Miranda strapping a bomb to the chief and shoving him down a hole. Finale at the ark. Forerunner tank.
Also, how is the story that we ended up with not "linear?" sure, you can do the strikes, and some of the missions in any order, but the actual mandatory story missions are very linear.
Halo 2 was different
Yeah I don't get the whole make it more open ended how you approach the missions. I felt like with the way the game gated where you could go and the level requirements as well it was basically linear, so if their goal was to make it more open ended in terms of how you approached the game a la Skyrim, they failed completely.
Yes, it is not skyrim
From a non-linear story line, Destiny can't hold a candle to Skyrim. It is clear that the major rewrite created its own set of problems that got compounded by the lack of efficient tools.
Halo 2 was different
That's weird, the cutscene missions were the only ones I liked because they were the only ones approaching any kind of interesting storytelling. To each their own I suppose.
+1
by dogcow , Hiding from Bob, in the vent core., Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 16:51 (3561 days ago) @ Fuertisimo
- No text -
We'll never be able to know which version of Destiny would have been better. However, disregard the actual story specifics altogether, and I think it's clear that the original presentation would have been better. A linear story progression and presentation, with the side missions and extra quests and strikes, etc opening up afterward. That's exactly what we got with The Taken King, and it's been universally praised for it.
Imagine if vanilla Destiny had been like that. Play through the actual main story missions until the end of the story, then all the strikes and sidequests would have opened up. Hell, you could have had a few side missions and strikes open up along the way, but reserve a lot of them for after story completion. That change alone would have made Destiny feel much bigger than it actually was.
Halo 2 was different
I agree, though I find it hard to imagine that the story that Staten had written up could possibly have been worse than what vanilla Destiny got. It's mind boggling to think how bad it must have been if that were the case, and I sincerely doubt that it was going to be worse.
I agree, though I find it hard to imagine that the story that Staten had written up could possibly have been worse than what vanilla Destiny got. It's mind boggling to think how bad it must have been if that were the case, and I sincerely doubt that it was going to be worse.
I don't think that's relevant to their decision, though. It wasn't a story they liked. Maybe what we got now isn't one they liked either, but perhaps they made the right call. Story decisions made early in something like Destiny's ten year plan are hard to go back on . . .
Halo 2 was different
by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 21:47 (3561 days ago) @ Fuertisimo
I agree, though I find it hard to imagine that the story that Staten had written up could possibly have been worse than what vanilla Destiny got. It's mind boggling to think how bad it must have been if that were the case, and I sincerely doubt that it was going to be worse.
It sounded like it was more of a problem of the story not being written in such a way to accommodate non linear missions. Which baffles me because you'd think the first thing would be to clarify that in your pitch.
Halo 2 was different
It sounded like it was more of a problem of the story not being written in such a way to accommodate non linear missions. Which baffles me because you'd think the first thing would be to clarify that in your pitch.
but is is linear.
- get a ship
- meet the speaker
- go to the moon
- meet the stranger
- go to the reef
- slay a gate lord
- go to the black garden
- ??
- Profit
The only thing that is non-linear is that you can do the non-story missions/strikes when they become available, or later, or never. everything in destiny is "go here, do this." Heck, if you get lost, they eventually stick a waypoint up for you. But all of that is a mission layout issue, that really has nothing to do with the cinematic team, unless they were dictating to the design team.
I doubt we'll ever know for sure what happened. Destiny turned out to be a solid game, and they are making steady progress on the story-side.
Halo 2 was different
by narcogen 
, Andover, Massachusetts, Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 12:13 (3560 days ago) @ Schedonnardus
It sounded like it was more of a problem of the story not being written in such a way to accommodate non linear missions. Which baffles me because you'd think the first thing would be to clarify that in your pitch.
but is is linear.
- get a ship
- meet the speaker
- go to the moon
- meet the stranger
- go to the reef
- slay a gate lord
- go to the black garden
- ??
- Profit
The only thing that is non-linear is that you can do the non-story missions/strikes when they become available, or later, or never. everything in destiny is "go here, do this." Heck, if you get lost, they eventually stick a waypoint up for you. But all of that is a mission layout issue, that really has nothing to do with the cinematic team, unless they were dictating to the design team.I doubt we'll ever know for sure what happened. Destiny turned out to be a solid game, and they are making steady progress on the story-side.
Yup. Sounds to me more like Marathon Infinity than Halo 2.
They may have rejected the supercut's story in part because they wanted a nonlinear approach, but then they didn't actually implement that approach. The story, such as it is, still largely unlocks in a linear manner, one destination at a time, with only a few places where you can choose to do missions in a slightly different order that does not affect anything whatsoever.
Halo 2 was different
by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 12:15 (3560 days ago) @ Cody Miller
I agree, though I find it hard to imagine that the story that Staten had written up could possibly have been worse than what vanilla Destiny got. It's mind boggling to think how bad it must have been if that were the case, and I sincerely doubt that it was going to be worse.
It sounded like it was more of a problem of the story not being written in such a way to accommodate non linear missions. Which baffles me because you'd think the first thing would be to clarify that in your pitch.
Yup. If the rejection came from JJ, where was that rejection when Staten was working on the story?
It's possible that we're just not getting quite as much detail as we need on what was rejected and why, and which bits have been kept and recycled, and what thrown out (if anything).
The state of the tools sounds horrific, though.
Halo 2 was different
by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 13:08 (3560 days ago) @ narcogen
The state of the tools sounds horrific, though.
Yeah. Sounds like forge in Destiny is a complete impossibility at this point.
Halo 2 was different
by uberfoop , Seattle-ish, Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 17:34 (3560 days ago) @ Cody Miller
Yeah. Sounds like forge in Destiny is a complete impossibility at this point.
The issues described in the article deal with modifying baked content. Forge involves moving dynamic objects around, and should be a different matter.
Although eight hours is extreme, it's historically been fairly normal for it to take a while to import source level geometry. Chris Butcher gave a talk called "The Technology of Halo 2" which said it took 10-30 minutes for an artist to load that data.
...Not that I'd be holding my breath for Forge. Having lots of interactive dynamic objects isn't exactly a pillar of Destiny, and MP featureset is sparse to begin with.
...Not that I'd be holding my breath for Forge. Having lots of interactive dynamic objects isn't exactly a pillar of Destiny, and MP featureset is sparse to begin with.
I just don't even really think Forge makes sense in Destiny, as the game is currently. I guess you could argue that it would bring some sorely needed variety, but I just don't think it fits with what Bungie has designed Destiny to be. It very much seems like they want players out there consuming content, rather than creating it.
I find this plausible, but I won't buy it until the sources are named. I trust journalists to do their duty and get backup sources and ensure they were talking to the right guy, but I do NOT trust Kotaku.
I'm perfectly happy to wait for an interview in 10 years to be sure what happened.
I'd trust it.
by electricpirate , Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 23:46 (3561 days ago) @ Funkmon
Schrier is legit, probably the best (only?) investigative video games journalist.
Given Kotaku's gamergate performance, no trust.
I mean, they went all in on the "gamers are dead/getting paid for good reviews is great journalism" angle, so I treat all their articles as supermarket tabloids.
Given Kotaku's gamergate performance, no trust.
Ok I give up. You're probably right, his sources were probably the bellhop and a homeless guy who sets up shop in the alley behind the studio. There's no merit to the report at all.
Given Kotaku's gamergate performance, no trust.
by Funkmon , Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 10:16 (3560 days ago) @ Fuertisimo
Ok I give up. You're probably right, his sources were probably Jason Jones and the PvE lead. There's no reason to be skeptical of the report at all.
Given Kotaku's gamergate performance, no trust.
by cheapLEY , Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 11:30 (3560 days ago) @ Fuertisimo
Ok I give up. You're probably right, his sources were probably the bellhop and a homeless guy who sets up shop in the alley behind the studio. There's no merit to the report at all.
Yeah, because it in no way could have been folks that cut ties with the studio under bad terms and wants to throw shit around . . .
I'm not saying that it's NOT true; it very well could be. It certainly fits with what most assumed had happened. I'm saying that I'm not just going to take it as gospel, given their record in the past, and the type of bullshit they normally post. To call them "journalists" is almost an insult to the profession (which can be said at damn near every gaming "news" site).