Umm... it isn't. As a low-bandwidth host, I can absolutely tell you that modern Bungie coop code cannot cope with it. I've got a ping of 250ms and upstream bandwidth of about 1Mbps... and Halo 3 coop is an unplayable slideshow on XBL.

Heh, I know that feeling. However, even though that is not a very good ping, with that upstream, you probably weren't host.

Ah, I had not realized the old model was well suited to low-bandwidth hosts. I always just assumed they had either failed to invest in their model sufficiently or had some bizarre ideas about which latency artifacts were the lesser evils.

Umm... it isn't. As a low-bandwidth host, I can absolutely tell you that modern Bungie coop code cannot cope with it. I've got a ping of 250ms and upstream bandwidth of about 1Mbps... and Halo 3 coop is an unplayable slideshow on XBL.

I suppose it all depends on what one considers "low bandwidth". It was designed for a "server" to be, from a CPU power and bandwidth perspective, no different from any other client. Not an actual peer to peer network architecturally, but not the way PC gaming servers are built, either.

MS didn't used to let outside developers host their own game servers. Don't know if they've changed that. If not, then Destiny will run the way Halo does-- one of the client consoles will act as a server.

I read your subject line, and said to myself, "no, that's AT&T" as I clicked the link.

This deserves a response. If you've ever seen or played on pirate MMO servers, the quality is not nearly up to par with official servers, since they have to reverse engineer content that lives on the developer / publisher's servers. This is why piracy for MMO games is of little concern - the pirate servers are always worse than the real thing. It's no solution.

To be fair, it is a solution. It's just not a great one.

I'm not sure if the context of this discussion is clear to everyone, so I'll posit something, and please correct me if I'm wrong in this paragraph - I think the core of what you're concerned about here is for things we've all come to love doing in Halo games (skipping parts of levels, getting out of maps, bringing vehicles into places they weren't intended to be, and so on). These things are typically not of much concern to a developer in a single player game because, whatevs right? It's not affecting anyone. Whereas in an always-connected multiplayer-ish game, it may be a concern because it could put players who know how to do it ahead of players who don't. I hadn't really thought about this potential aspect of Destiny before, but now that I have I do share your concern.

There is some cause for hope, though. Take Spartan Ops in Halo 4 for example. I have yet to see 343i take any action to prevent any exploits in maps there. We managed to get some tanks where they weren't supposed to go fairly easily during co-op night last week and I don't think anyone's getting banned. I also doubt they'll bother fixing the map to prevent it, because it's not really affecting anyone outside of our group - we didn't grief other players, and I PROMISE you it didn't get us through the level faster (lol) to farm XP or anything. These sorts of things probably will depend on the context of the exploit, and whether they have potential to ruin someone else's experience. Borderlands 2 is another example - as far as I am aware, no one's been banned for duplicating items. Because although it is an exploit, the nature of BL2 means you having a particular item isn't really causing problems for other players (I just want to note, I don't participate in duping).

I think you're right that there are likely to be rules. The nature of an always-connected online game makes it very likely that Bungie will have to enforce certain things to prevent some players from ruining the game for other players. I also think ZackDark is right in that, in theory, it could be possible to design a game where even if exploits are found they don't cause problems for players who aren't doing the exploits, and thus no intervention is necessary. Whether that will happen remains to be seen - Bungie's good, but there's always another exploit waiting to be found, and we can't predict what might happen there.

However, until it is known specifically what the rules are, it's not possible to know whether Destiny offers more or less freedom than any other game. So let's see what happens.

The "Go Get a REAL Job" DLC was the worst for me, especially when Bungie rejected my offer. I mean what kind of game makes it that hard to get your dream job?

I'm pretty sure the later stages were designed by an old JRPG-maker, hence all the ridiculous amount of braindead level-grinding required before you can move on to something actually fun to play.

Have to freeze frame and be in HD to see it though.

Yup.

From that I'm sure we can logically infer the existence of the No Pants Guild.

I don't really agree with this viewpoint, it's an open world, just because you have to be connected to the Internet does not mean that you have to play it in a specific way.

Yes it does. Bungie's world is the only world you can play in. If you do something or want to play in a way that disrupts that world, then you will be banned or reprimanded. You have no other way to play 'off the grid' and do what you want.

Want to play using bxr? Go for it over a LAN. But if matchmaking were the only way to play Halo 2, you'd be out of luck.

Players were banned in wow for leading monsters into other areas of the map to make them easier to kill. Things like this will happen, and you will have no recourse.

It's sort of amazing that you start with a high road concept like "play the game the way you want to" but when it comes down to examples of how Bungie is really just trying to crush the life out of all independent thinking gamers everywhere, what you come up with is an exploit. A cheat.

I hardly think that was what was under discussion.

I think what was meant was comparing something like Halo, which is linear both in its story and its gameplay, to something like GTA, RDR or Mass Effect, where there is a main story and a sandbox, and at certain times, you're set loose on the environment to set your own priorities and play the way you want to-- as well as to determine what kind of gameplay techniques you'll use to handle gameplay challenges (brute force, stealth, magic-- up close and personal, or from a safe distance.

The vision of "be free to play using BXR on a LAN if you want to" is about the most hollow and empty goal I can think of.

Have Gearbox make it. They can call it Animation Interrupt: The Game.

The only game that truly lets me make my own rules is called "Levi's Brain". It's good, you should check it out sometime. :)

Damn, did your Brain avoid the 'Shortcut Patch'? That one was a bitch for me. Suddenly Jilly's Brain was all about ignoring gorillas and probability fallacies.

And I wish I'd never downloaded that Puberty DLC.

From my view, my original response already covered showed how your theory isn't airtight. Hack the game, create your own server, play how you want.

This deserves a response. If you've ever seen or played on pirate MMO servers, the quality is not nearly up to par with official servers, since they have to reverse engineer content that lives on the developer / publisher's servers. This is why piracy for MMO games is of little concern - the pirate servers are always worse than the real thing. It's no solution.

You're currently complaining to a butcher about the lack of vegetarian offers, and you're not even through the front door yet!

What I'm saying should be absolutely positively uncontroversial. If you can only play on official servers, and if those official servers have rules (which they will), then it necessarily follows that you are more limited in how you can play versus a game that also lets you play in a place where you can make your own rules. Disprove this. You can't, because it's airtight.

The only game that truly lets me make my own rules is called "Levi's Brain". It's good, you should check it out sometime. :)

From my view, my original response already covered showed how your theory isn't airtight. Hack the game, create your own server, play how you want.

Think of the flipside:

You could say Halo CE was limited to how I could play, since it didn't have an online mode. I wanted one. I used XBox Connect to trick my XBox into thinking it was playing a LAN.

To me, this is equivalent to glitching an offline mode to do something Bungie didn't intend, because Bungie didn't intend for me to play online in Halo CE either. It would also be equivalent to forging your own server for a hacked Destiny game. If you want to glitch, trick, or cheat in any game, you just have to make it happen different ways. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard.

Who cares how much or how little Bungie's rules clash with how you personally want to play? The point is, that it's necessarily and by its very nature limiting players into only playing in ways that Bungie officially endorses.

Without modding or glitching, I've never been able to play a game any way I wanted (besides resorting to purely my imagination). I'm always limited by something, even in the freest games I've played. I can't get past the map border in Age of Empires, I can't fly in Sonic without Chaos Emeralds, I can't play off the board in chess, I can't play offline in Destiny. That doesn't mean, like chess, that what Destiny does offer isn't a ridiculous multitude of freedoms. If executed brilliantly, perhaps more freedoms than all the ways you could have glitched in an offline mode.

Destiny is an online game. It isn't a sequel that did away with a campaign - it isn't going back on its word yet. Is it what it is, and we know only a small percentage of what means. Hell, there could be a server-world where rules are enforced and one where anything goes! Why not try optimism for a change?

You're currently complaining to a butcher about the lack of vegetarian offers, and you're not even through the front door yet!

I seriously think it is possible to create a game in which the only limitations that need to be imposed are already covered by the game's engine (stuff like being invincible, unlimited ammo, noclip, kill other players, steal loot from other players, etc). As such, there wouldn't be any need for rules or bans.

Of course, there will always be the limitations already imposed by XBL and PSN, such as playing with hacked consoles or insulting everyone and their mothers (most times overlooked, by the way) or selling gamertags (dunno the name on the PSN).

I can't stress that last point enough.

I would seriously like for you to come up with something that you judge necessary to rule out of Destiny, given what we know already.