REACH, ODST, and Destiny

I know it's been said before, but I was thinking about how Reach, and some of ODST as well, are seeming more and more like Bungie's practice space for Destiny. Not that the games themselves weren't good (I thoroughly enjoyed them both) but a lot of elements make one think, "Hmmmm, I wonder if they were testing that out for Destiny." Things like:

*In engine character specific cutscenes
*Glimmer, though much different and much cooler than them, reminds me of the armor abilities
*Character customization
*The public play spaces in Destiny make me think of Reach multiplayer maps being play spaces pulled from the campaign.
*Character progression system
*Public events = the new Firefight? Or are they more similiar to campaign events like taking down a scarab?
*The (small) open world-ness of ODST and the constant existence of enemies in that play space

Those are just off the top of my head. What else can you guys/gals think of? Things that we may yet see that have been done in Reach and ODST, and earlier Halo titles:

*Space flight, or spaceship combat
*New multiplayer modes
*Different Visors/HUDs
*More animal life (seems like a minor thing, but it could be cool. THE BIRDS!)
*Forge and theater modes

EDIT: Also, check out what INSANEdrive has to say about all this here. His post inspired mine and I pretty much copied it, heh

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I get the impression that Reach was gearing toward some co-op breakthroughs that didn't quite make it.

I always thought it would appropriate to the Fall of Reach to have Campaign missions where you could have 8 spartans against impossible odds.

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http://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=9594

*Whistling* >_>

(On the upside - I'm glad I'm not the only one)

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http://destiny.bungie.org/forum/index.php?id=9594

*Whistling* >_>

(On the upside - I'm glad I'm not the only one)

Wow, I saw that post, but I didn't realize until now how much I copied it. Sorry dude! And thanks for bringing it up before me, you inspired me to post this thread!

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I definitely agree that these two games seem to be emptying out into Destiny the most, but for some reason, I don't see ODST as a purposeful practice for Destiny - more like a "Halo-experiment".

Now, Reach, yeah definitely. Huge swaths of thinking ahead it seems. Why would you build such an awesome space-combat engine for half of one level? :)

(Man, Long Night of Solace was an amazing level.)

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*The (small) open world-ness of ODST and the constant existence of enemies in that play space

This is actually something I look forward to Destiny improving. In ODST, you had all these buildings, but you couldn't go inside many, and the ones you could go inside limited you to the first few floors. The entire city, everything you saw, should have been explorable. A bit much for a game the size of ODST, but for Destiny? I'd like to see that.

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*The (small) open world-ness of ODST and the constant existence of enemies in that play space

This is actually something I look forward to Destiny improving. In ODST, you had all these buildings, but you couldn't go inside many, and the ones you could go inside limited you to the first few floors. The entire city, everything you saw, should have been explorable. A bit much for a game the size of ODST, but for Destiny? I'd like to see that.

This is something I definitely hope for. I am sick of supposedly open world games that you can't go inside even a decent percentage of the buildings. I know the limitations of hardware, so I'm hoping with the next gen it is possible, and that developers take advantage of it.

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This is actually something I look forward to Destiny improving. In ODST, you had all these buildings, but you couldn't go inside many, and the ones you could go inside limited you to the first few floors. The entire city, everything you saw, should have been explorable. A bit much for a game the size of ODST, but for Destiny? I'd like to see that.

A uniquely "urban" approach to futuristic open world game is kinda what I expected with ODST. When most of New Mombasa spreads far into the sky, rather than sprawling across southeastern Kenya, exploring through wildly different interiors and fighting within these spaces would have been a blast. I don't blame Bungie for not including this, they didn't have the resources, time, or people to bring such a vision to life.

Including such experiences in Destiny would be a real treat and I don't see it as something Bungie is going to let through their fingers.

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I hate to say it but I think you'll be disappointed there. I'd love to see it, but I'm not holding my breath. The last game to try something like that was Mass Effect and its 'repetitive' squares of planets that could be explored. Unless Bungie are going to design the interior of every single building, it will work out too cookie-cutter for the general public.

I reckon, anyway.

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I hate to say it but I think you'll be disappointed there. I'd love to see it, but I'm not holding my breath. The last game to try something like that was Mass Effect and its 'repetitive' squares of planets that could be explored. Unless Bungie are going to design the interior of every single building, it will work out too cookie-cutter for the general public.

I reckon, anyway.

Just to say so - I loved that mechanic in Mass Effect 1. Exploring is fun.

Building on that Bioware played around with a much faster and more mobile vehicle (the Hammerhead) in Mass Effect 2. While this was never given large "world" play spaces to fully gallop like the Mako had - when you did have a place to sprint it was fun.

That is probably why we all have (as I heard it recently be called unofficially) a Sparrow. ( I guess old naming conventions die hard )

Further more since Bungie is using (TECH TALK ALERT!) Umbra's Middleware solution for managing their world (called Occlusion culling if you would like to look it up), it is much more possible to do something like Cody expressed now, then it was when Mass Effect 1 came out in 2007.

*The (small) open world-ness of ODST and the constant existence of enemies in that play space

This is actually something I look forward to Destiny improving. In ODST, you had all these buildings, but you couldn't go inside many, and the ones you could go inside limited you to the first few floors. The entire city, everything you saw, should have been explorable. A bit much for a game the size of ODST, but for Destiny? I'd like to see that.

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Just to say so - I loved that mechanic in Mass Effect 1. Exploring is fun.

Building on that Bioware played around with a much faster and more mobile vehicle (the Hammerhead) in Mass Effect 2. While this was never given large "world" play spaces to fully gallop like the Mako had - when you did have a place to sprint it was fun.

Exploring was fun, yeah, but most planets had cookie cutter missions and the Mako, despite its hilarity, was terrible at navigating the harsh mountainous landscapes we always needed to traverse. Unless you're a completionist it had no logical investment. A few scavenged weapons, armors, mods, and credits just isn't worth that. While still being main side quests, the select few that did add to the universe were gems.

I'm not worried that Bungie will fall into such complacency. If that "thirty seconds of fun" mentality still rings true with Bungie, then every side-quest will be as salivating and enriching as whatever comprises the main game.

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Exploring was fun, yeah, but most planets had cookie cutter missions and the Mako, despite its hilarity, was terrible at navigating the harsh mountainous landscapes we always needed to traverse. Unless you're a completionist it had no logical investment. A few scavenged weapons, armors, mods, and credits just isn't worth that. While still being main side quests, the select few that did add to the universe were gems.

Mako Mountain Climbing Club forever!

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Exploring was fun, yeah, but most planets had cookie cutter missions and the Mako, despite its hilarity, was terrible at navigating the harsh mountainous landscapes we always needed to traverse. Unless you're a completionist it had no logical investment. A few scavenged weapons, armors, mods, and credits just isn't worth that. While still being main side quests, the select few that did add to the universe were gems.

Mako Mountain Climbing Club forever!

haha shooting the Mako off cliff faces with maneuvering thrusters was a blast. I did get unsuspectingly swallowed by a Thresher Maw once doing that. Sneaky asshole.

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Exploring was fun, yeah, but most planets had cookie cutter missions and the Mako, despite its hilarity, was terrible at navigating the harsh mountainous landscapes we always needed to traverse. Unless you're a completionist it had no logical investment. A few scavenged weapons, armors, mods, and credits just isn't worth that. While still being main side quests, the select few that did add to the universe were gems.

Mako Mountain Climbing Club forever!

haha shooting the Mako off cliff faces with maneuvering thrusters was a blast. I did get unsuspectingly swallowed by a Thresher Maw once doing that. Sneaky asshole.

Did you ever notice that after blasting yourself off a mountain, the front right tire was always the only thing damaged? It was weird.

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Did you ever notice that after blasting yourself off a mountain, the front right tire was always the only thing damaged? It was weird.

Those tires were strange beings, yeah. Sustaining heavy rifle and rocket fire are issues which could always be Omni-Gel'd, but that tire continued on as such a little bitch.

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Did you ever notice that after blasting yourself off a mountain, the front right tire was always the only thing damaged? It was weird.

Those tires were strange beings, yeah. Sustaining heavy rifle and rocket fire are issues which could always be Omni-Gel'd, but that tire continued on as such a little bitch.

Obligatory: I LIKE THIS HUMAN. SHE UNDERSTANDS OUR WAYS.

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Exploring was fun, yeah, but most planets had cookie cutter missions and the Mako, despite its hilarity, was terrible at navigating the harsh mountainous landscapes we always needed to traverse. Unless you're a completionist it had no logical investment. A few scavenged weapons, armors, mods, and credits just isn't worth that. While still being main side quests, the select few that did add to the universe were gems.

It could have been improved, but the Mako and exploration was my favorite part of Mass Effect, and I was so sad to see those ideas all but gone in the sequels.

I just want to land my spaceship, roll out in my Hog, and drive up mountains for a few hours until I find some space cows I can steal some money from. I don't think that's much of a request...

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Further more since Bungie is using (TECH TALK ALERT!) Umbra's Middleware solution for managing their world (called Occlusion culling if you would like to look it up), it is much more possible to do something like Cody expressed now, then it was when Mass Effect 1 came out in 2007.

Well, sort of. Occlusion culling has been around forever. Most games with large, winding environments probably use simple implementations of it at the very least, because you'd be insane not to. Even Halo 1 has some cheap manually-placed occlusion culling portals; nothing fancy, but it's good enough that you can render five hallway joints instead of thirty, or two sections of an AotCR chasm instead of an entire chasm and a big underground area. You can see where the occlusion cull portals are if you break out of a map and walk around in the rafters. It's really interesting to watch level sections draw in and out in coop.

The Umbra stuff should make management of occlusion culling around lots of complicated geometry much easier to develop efficient results for, though.

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*The (small) open world-ness of ODST and the constant existence of enemies in that play space

This is actually something I look forward to Destiny improving. In ODST, you had all these buildings, but you couldn't go inside many, and the ones you could go inside limited you to the first few floors. The entire city, everything you saw, should have been explorable. A bit much for a game the size of ODST, but for Destiny? I'd like to see that.

That's one of those "Be careful what you wish for" scenarios. What do you get out of a bunch of empty space? If you have all this space, how do you fill it? As a player, you then get the compulsion to "Check everywhere for possible loot/ammo/cash" even though you have this maze of space.

IMO, I'd rather resources be spent on denser content, and I'll accept a mess of locked doors to get that.

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*The (small) open world-ness of ODST and the constant existence of enemies in that play space

This is actually something I look forward to Destiny improving. In ODST, you had all these buildings, but you couldn't go inside many, and the ones you could go inside limited you to the first few floors. The entire city, everything you saw, should have been explorable. A bit much for a game the size of ODST, but for Destiny? I'd like to see that.

That's one of those "Be careful what you wish for" scenarios. What do you get out of a bunch of empty space?

Uh, you put enemies or NPCs there. Don't make it empty.

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Yeah, just throw in a few ODST-like spawns and they'll never be empty.

And the loot, oh god, the loot.

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That's one of those "Be careful what you wish for" scenarios. What do you get out of a bunch of empty space?

Uh, you put enemies or NPCs there. Don't make it empty.

Also while not all of it should be empty, it would be cool to occasionally find a relatively good sized area full of empty structures to sell the idea of how devoid of human life it has become. As long as places like that aren't the rule but the exception I think it could add to the immersion.

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That's one of those "Be careful what you wish for" scenarios. What do you get out of a bunch of empty space?

Uh, you put enemies or NPCs there. Don't make it empty.

Also while not all of it should be empty, it would be cool to occasionally find a relatively good sized area full of empty structures to sell the idea of how devoid of human life it has become. As long as places like that aren't the rule but the exception I think it could add to the immersion.

Building on that, we should keep in mind the the world of Destiny is of its self a "character". Point to the horizon and no doubt it will not matter where you look, there will be something of variance see.

"Second star to the right and straight on till morning!" :D

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Another thing I am curious about in Destiny is the day/night cycles. How long will they be? If I get on every day at 5:30 when I get home from work am I going to experience the same time of day, or will they make like 12 hour or 4 hour day/night cycles?

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REACH, ODST, and Destiny