This game sounds way more fun than I ever imagined it would be.

Keep in mind the simulation is pretty crude in Sim City 2000 (it ran on DOS originally), at least in the sense that when you figure it out is it easy to exploit. I hear that Cities Skylines is what the new Sim City should have been. I've been thinking about getting it, but have no idea if it has all the little touches that made Sim City 2000 great.

When he played Iron Banner the other day, he literally cried and started smashing the controller. I know that feeling, it's why I don't play Iron Banner. He isn't addicted, he's just whiny. I had to tell him that the game is supposed to be fun and to not play if he isn't having fun. Don't think he got it. I think I'll implement playtime restrictions.

An example: I wanted to play every night this week because of Iron Banner. I played Tuesday night. Hasn't worked out otherwise, and that's OKAY. I might not get that chest piece I want for my hunter. I might not get that scout rifle. My Xbox warlock might not get any Iron Banner stuff, and that's OKAY. I play to have fun.

Eh. Sim City 2000 most certainly had an ending. After a while all the powerlines mysteriously break, all the water stops flowing, all the Sims move out and you spiral into loan fueled bankruptcy... Or was that just me? :p

I freaking adore that game. Still have it, too. Also, yeah, that was totally just you! Btw, can I just say how lovely it was to have the little newspaper articles pop up about an Ugly Shark or other random things that happened in the city?

I also thoroughly enjoyed using cheat codes to make military bases that pretty much never appeared as anything but dark green tiles, but in my head it made my city safer from doom. I definitely appreciated getting to actually see the military bases in Sim City 3000.

You could deploy the military to fight floods and fires and stuff, but the coolest thing was that if you let them build a nuke on the base in your city and the alien monster attacked, they would shoot it out of the sky!

Eh. Sim City 2000 most certainly had an ending. After a while all the powerlines mysteriously break, all the water stops flowing, all the Sims move out and you spiral into loan fueled bankruptcy... Or was that just me? :p

I freaking adore that game. Still have it, too. Also, yeah, that was totally just you! Btw, can I just say how lovely it was to have the little newspaper articles pop up about an Ugly Shark or other random things that happened in the city?

I also thoroughly enjoyed using cheat codes to make military bases that pretty much never appeared as anything but dark green tiles, but in my head it made my city safer from doom. I definitely appreciated getting to actually see the military bases in Sim City 3000.

If I play Destiny every day, and "something new to experience" means new content, and new content to me means a level, or an enemy, or a gun, or a quest, or a challenge mode, how the heck is Bungie-- or indeed anybody-- supposed to deliver that?

That claim, like all claims, needs be evaluated according to a reasonable person standard. No reasonable person could expect "something new to experience" to mean "new PVE content every time you play". It's simply not possible.

How abou expecting the amount and frequency of content starting with year one? That's possible and reasonable. We should be at that pace or better but never worse.

You mean that year one content that people endlessly bitched and moaned about being shallow and piecemeal to the point that Taken King was praised as saving the game from irrelevance? You mean the year one content that's probably absorbing more developer hours than expected (as things always do) and thus responsible for the presumed delay in the next full game, which is a contractual milestone?

You mean that Year One content?

Not to mention being the Year One content Cody complained about pretty much non-stop during Year One.

That's one of the things about this whole community-wide "conversation" that confuses me right now. I keep hearing people talk about "the good old days" of year 1 as if half the community was raging and bitching back then, too. I can't say I'm thrilled with what the Live team has produced so far, but I'm not going to complain about free events either. I absolutely do not want more $20 expansions on the level of The Dark Below or House of Wolves (in terms of scope and quality).

I do if this is the alternative. They've already learned not to make boneheaded mistakes. HoW got it mostly right except for the lack of a raid.

If I play Destiny every day, and "something new to experience" means new content, and new content to me means a level, or an enemy, or a gun, or a quest, or a challenge mode, how the heck is Bungie-- or indeed anybody-- supposed to deliver that?

That claim, like all claims, needs be evaluated according to a reasonable person standard. No reasonable person could expect "something new to experience" to mean "new PVE content every time you play". It's simply not possible.

How abou expecting the amount and frequency of content starting with year one? That's possible and reasonable. We should be at that pace or better but never worse.

You mean that year one content that people endlessly bitched and moaned about being shallow and piecemeal to the point that Taken King was praised as saving the game from irrelevance? You mean the year one content that's probably absorbing more developer hours than expected (as things always do) and thus responsible for the presumed delay in the next full game, which is a contractual milestone?

You mean that Year One content?

Not to mention being the Year One content Cody complained about pretty much non-stop during Year One.

That's one of the things about this whole community-wide "conversation" that confuses me right now. I keep hearing people talk about "the good old days" of year 1 as if half the community was raging and bitching back then, too. I can't say I'm thrilled with what the Live team has produced so far, but I'm not going to complain about free events either. I absolutely do not want more $20 expansions on the level of The Dark Below or House of Wolves (in terms of scope and quality).

I also doubt you went back and read every press release Bungie ever made just to prove some guy wrong on the internet. In fact, I know you didn't because:

Here's a news post about the original Queen's Wrath.

Note the starting text:

There should always be something new to experience every time you play Destiny.

That's the message they gave us from pre-launch hype all the way through at least Queen's Wrath and the early Iron Banners. Always something new. Always. Something. New. And it's turned out to be more of that *insinuated* but not *promised* category of double-speak. They don't expressly say that "something new" means "new content." It's intentionally vague to let us guess at its meaning. In court they could argue that a slightly different roll on your loot drops is "something new" and they wouldn't be wrong (though they would be pedantic dicks).

How the heck could it possibly mean new content?

Because they gave us new content and then said that's what they plan on doing in the future, giving us something new.

If I play Destiny every day, and "something new to experience" means new content, and new content to me means a level, or an enemy, or a gun, or a quest, or a challenge mode, how the heck is Bungie-- or indeed anybody-- supposed to deliver that?

That claim, like all claims, needs be evaluated according to a reasonable person standard. No reasonable person could expect "something new to experience" to mean "new PVE content every time you play". It's simply not possible.

Now you're not using the reasonableness claim.

You've gotten the point! No reasonable person could take the claim literally, as "something new to experience" every time one plays could be reasonably interpreted as meaning "every day", EXCEPT that this is impossible.

I didn't say I expected daily new content. I said that they implied there would be regular content updates.

The word "regular" appears nowhere. From the quote you supplied, I can just as easily interpret "daily" as I can "regular". They are both equally reasonable or unreasonable, and both follow as logically from the quotation.

The contract (leaked and now old) states more or less "regular" updates, and the two DLC updates and comet arrived more or less on time. That rate may not be (is probably not) sustainable which is why there's been no solid announcement about whether there will be more DLC or not, and if so, when.

But aside from the initial 1 year delay everything has been on schedule, so what you've got in terms of update is about as "regular" as it was ever going to be, and I expect going forward it may be less so, as I expect the demands of simultaneously producing Destiny 2 while doing two more DLC updates are too high. One of those things, possibly both, is either going to be eliminated or slip.

For PVE at least, Destiny is a godsend compared to Halo, where you could, aside from tricking, be largely done the game with after a few weeks and put it on the shelf for three years until the next game comes out. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the objective here was clearly to be something different, something more engaging over a longer term, which Destiny seems designed to be and is...

Is PvE destiny really better than halo? The AI is worse, the vehicles pale in comparison, the level design is repetitive and uninspired until TTK, and the only reason you probably do any missions at all is for the rewards at the end, not the fun of playing them.

Nope. I like all of the above things, and I play the game to have fun. Rewards are a way to shape my objectives during the time I play, not the reason I choose to play in the first place.

...but having become that, people are behaving like addicts. All the current whining about "lack of content" seems like a junkie insisting that the dealer just must be holding out on him.

Yes, we are, because Bungie specifically filled the game with addiction inducing features in order to hook the players. It's deliberate and it's been successful. So now their addicts want more, and they aren't delivering. Sure you say it's my fault for falling prey to that, but it's akin to saying drug users are to blame and not their dealers. It takes two, and one is clearly abusing the other.

Certain drugs are physiologically addictive. So while it is not the addict's fault afterwards, one can certainly blame them for the initial use, assuming they made an informed choice about using. Many do not. Is that what you are claiming-- that you made an uninformed choice to begin playing Destiny, and that you find it so poorly made that you don't enjoy playing it, but its design is so addictive you are compelled to play it against your will, and that your next biggest complaint is that you're not getting more bad AI, bad vehicles, and repetitive level design fast enough?

That's pretty pathetic, on top of the fact that I'm pretty sure video games are not physiologically addictive. Psychologically addictive, perhaps, but there is a distinction.

If you feel Bungie is abusing you, walk away or you're just a victim. Seriously. For victims of real abuse or real drug addiction, walking away is hard. This is easy. If you're not having fun, stop playing. If and when Bungie makes more stuff you're addicted to, you can come back. They probably won't even give you a black eye for stepping out on them. Lucky you!

If I play Destiny every day, and "something new to experience" means new content, and new content to me means a level, or an enemy, or a gun, or a quest, or a challenge mode, how the heck is Bungie-- or indeed anybody-- supposed to deliver that?

That claim, like all claims, needs be evaluated according to a reasonable person standard. No reasonable person could expect "something new to experience" to mean "new PVE content every time you play". It's simply not possible.

How abou expecting the amount and frequency of content starting with year one? That's possible and reasonable. We should be at that pace or better but never worse.

You mean that year one content that people endlessly bitched and moaned about being shallow and piecemeal to the point that Taken King was praised as saving the game from irrelevance? You mean the year one content that's probably absorbing more developer hours than expected (as things always do) and thus responsible for the presumed delay in the next full game, which is a contractual milestone?

You mean that Year One content?

Not to mention being the Year One content Cody complained about pretty much non-stop during Year One.

If I play Destiny every day, and "something new to experience" means new content, and new content to me means a level, or an enemy, or a gun, or a quest, or a challenge mode, how the heck is Bungie-- or indeed anybody-- supposed to deliver that?

That claim, like all claims, needs be evaluated according to a reasonable person standard. No reasonable person could expect "something new to experience" to mean "new PVE content every time you play". It's simply not possible.

How abou expecting the amount and frequency of content starting with year one? That's possible and reasonable. We should be at that pace or better but never worse.

You mean that year one content that people endlessly bitched and moaned about being shallow and piecemeal to the point that Taken King was praised as saving the game from irrelevance? You mean the year one content that's probably absorbing more developer hours than expected (as things always do) and thus responsible for the presumed delay in the next full game, which is a contractual milestone?

You mean that Year One content?

Eh. Sim City 2000 most certainly had an ending. After a while all the powerlines mysteriously break, all the water stops flowing, all the Sims move out and you spiral into loan fueled bankruptcy... Or was that just me? :p

It was just you.

All my Arcologies would blast off into space to find new worlds, leaving behind bare land with which to build another city…

After I was satisfied with my city, I just loaded up "Streets of Simcity" and demolished the buildings one by one via a lengthy vehicular combat sequence.

I think my favorite was when I made a city that was a low density paradise on a series of islands, all connected via subway. The city had no roads at all. I realized I was funding roads needlessly, since there weren't any. So I cut it to zero. The transportation guy freaked out, and was outraged. Soon there were riots all over the city.

Because I defunded roads that weren't there.

Did the game not charge you for road maintenance on a per-road-tile basis?

I'm trying to remember but I think you'd set taxes which went to pay for things, and then set what proportion goes to which services. So if crime was high and you didn't want to raise taxes, you could put more into police at the expense of the fire department for example. So you could set it to zero for roads, enabling you to lower taxes and still get the same amount of income.

Eh. Sim City 2000 most certainly had an ending. After a while all the powerlines mysteriously break, all the water stops flowing, all the Sims move out and you spiral into loan fueled bankruptcy... Or was that just me? :p

It was just you.

All my Arcologies would blast off into space to find new worlds, leaving behind bare land with which to build another city…

After I was satisfied with my city, I just loaded up "Streets of Simcity" and demolished the buildings one by one via a lengthy vehicular combat sequence.

I think my favorite was when I made a city that was a low density paradise on a series of islands, all connected via subway. The city had no roads at all. I realized I was funding roads needlessly, since there weren't any. So I cut it to zero. The transportation guy freaked out, and was outraged. Soon there were riots all over the city.

Because I defunded roads that weren't there.

Did the game not charge you for road maintenance on a per-road-tile basis?

I also doubt you went back and read every press release Bungie ever made just to prove some guy wrong on the internet. In fact, I know you didn't because:

Here's a news post about the original Queen's Wrath.

Note the starting text:

There should always be something new to experience every time you play Destiny.

That's the message they gave us from pre-launch hype all the way through at least Queen's Wrath and the early Iron Banners. Always something new. Always. Something. New. And it's turned out to be more of that *insinuated* but not *promised* category of double-speak. They don't expressly say that "something new" means "new content." It's intentionally vague to let us guess at its meaning. In court they could argue that a slightly different roll on your loot drops is "something new" and they wouldn't be wrong (though they would be pedantic dicks).

How the heck could it possibly mean new content?

Because they gave us new content and then said that's what they plan on doing in the future, giving us something new.

If I play Destiny every day, and "something new to experience" means new content, and new content to me means a level, or an enemy, or a gun, or a quest, or a challenge mode, how the heck is Bungie-- or indeed anybody-- supposed to deliver that?

That claim, like all claims, needs be evaluated according to a reasonable person standard. No reasonable person could expect "something new to experience" to mean "new PVE content every time you play". It's simply not possible.

Now you're not using the reasonableness claim. I didn't say I expected daily new content. I said that they implied there would be regular content updates.

For PVE at least, Destiny is a godsend compared to Halo, where you could, aside from tricking, be largely done the game with after a few weeks and put it on the shelf for three years until the next game comes out. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the objective here was clearly to be something different, something more engaging over a longer term, which Destiny seems designed to be and is...

Is PvE destiny really better than halo? The AI is worse, the vehicles pale in comparison, the level design is repetitive and uninspired until TTK, and the only reason you probably do any missions at all is for the rewards at the end, not the fun of playing them.

...but having become that, people are behaving like addicts. All the current whining about "lack of content" seems like a junkie insisting that the dealer just must be holding out on him.

Yes, we are, because Bungie specifically filled the game with addiction inducing features in order to hook the players. It's deliberate and it's been successful. So now their addicts want more, and they aren't delivering. Sure you say it's my fault for falling prey to that, but it's akin to saying drug users are to blame and not their dealers. It takes two, and one is clearly abusing the other.

Eh. Sim City 2000 most certainly had an ending. After a while all the powerlines mysteriously break, all the water stops flowing, all the Sims move out and you spiral into loan fueled bankruptcy... Or was that just me? :p

It was just you.

All my Arcologies would blast off into space to find new worlds, leaving behind bare land with which to build another city…

After I was satisfied with my city, I just loaded up "Streets of Simcity" and demolished the buildings one by one via a lengthy vehicular combat sequence.

I think my favorite was when I made a city that was a low density paradise on a series of islands, all connected via subway. The city had no roads at all. I realized I was funding roads needlessly, since there weren't any. So I cut it to zero. The transportation guy freaked out, and was outraged. Soon there were riots all over the city.

Because I defunded roads that weren't there.

Eh. Sim City 2000 most certainly had an ending. After a while all the powerlines mysteriously break, all the water stops flowing, all the Sims move out and you spiral into loan fueled bankruptcy... Or was that just me? :p

It was just you.

All my Arcologies would blast off into space to find new worlds, leaving behind bare land with which to build another city…

After I was satisfied with my city, I just loaded up "Streets of Simcity" and demolished the buildings one by one via a lengthy vehicular combat sequence.

Eh. Sim City 2000 most certainly had an ending. After a while all the powerlines mysteriously break, all the water stops flowing, all the Sims move out and you spiral into loan fueled bankruptcy... Or was that just me? :p

It was just you.

All my Arcologies would blast off into space to find new worlds, leaving behind bare land on which to build another city…

I dont have The Last Word on xbox, maybe he will sell it soon. but I have a really good sniper rifle so i can still do well. I also bought the multitool so im not too bad off, depending on the map