Genshin does dabble with this issue as well. It has events every patch that come and go, and do not (as of now) rerun. They have story, characters are involved and can have development, you might learn new information about the world that foreshadows what is to come. If you weren't playing at the time, you don't get to experience that content. That means everyone does these events together and experiences them as fixed points in time, but that also means a bunch of novel content is lost to time.

It's only tangentially relevant, but Genshin benefits in this regard by being free. It doesn't ask for $100 a year to see all the content, so it's not quite the same kick in the teeth when the events go away.

That doesn't mean its perfect. I really love Genshin, but I haven't played since 4.0 because it's just another thing to keep up with, and being free doesn't really solve that. Missing some of the bigger story events still hurts and is a real killer of my motivation to continue playing.

Understandable and I don't blame you. I don't think the event stories are necessary to the enjoyment of the permanent content but it is a shame to miss any of it as it is usually very good content.

That said, boy, the Fontaine AQ was the best story the game has put out yet. Much in the way that Halo ARGs and the overall story unfolded in the olden days, the experience of Genshin's unfolding mystery is something that (even if perfectly preserved in the future) can not be properly experienced without having been there; this isn't a defense of any of their content development decisions, but part of the reason why I am so attached to continuing to play it. It's the kind of experience I love and that very few things have ever managed to successfully offer.

Genshin does dabble with this issue as well. It has events every patch that come and go, and do not (as of now) rerun. They have story, characters are involved and can have development, you might learn new information about the world that foreshadows what is to come. If you weren't playing at the time, you don't get to experience that content. That means everyone does these events together and experiences them as fixed points in time, but that also means a bunch of novel content is lost to time.

It's only tangentially relevant, but Genshin benefits in this regard by being free. It doesn't ask for $100 a year to see all the content, so it's not quite the same kick in the teeth when the events go away.

That doesn't mean its perfect. I really love Genshin, but I haven't played since 4.0 because it's just another thing to keep up with, and being free doesn't really solve that. Missing some of the bigger story events still hurts and is a real killer of my motivation to continue playing.

Game preservation would obviously not be possible...

I wouldn't bet on that. Look at Insignia (OG Xbox Live brought back online by fans) or Sunrise (Halo 3 server replacement). Even Destiny 1 was recently reverse-engineered.

Point being, even online titles are being preserved these days.

As hopeful as I am, event scripts aren't client side anymore, so it'd have to be manually reconstructed. Possible, but not perfect.

Game preservation would obviously not be possible...

I wouldn't bet on that. Look at Insignia (OG Xbox Live brought back online by fans) or Sunrise (Halo 3 server replacement). Even Destiny 1 was recently reverse-engineered.

Point being, even online titles are being preserved these days.

There's no good solution to emulating a shared experience that involves the passage of time without being willing to accept that the content, like the passing of time itself, must be transient.

That can only really be implemented in free-to-play games. Remember when Mercury, Mars and the Tangled Shore got vaulted? They were paid content. Specific DLC people could only access if bought. And they're gone. There's a very good reason for people to hate this, even if there was a lore reason for them to be gone.

This sour taste directly clashes with the vision of a "shared, evolving world". As long as Destiny ties destinations and activities to paid DLC, it will never be totally free to evolve the world. Either that or they'll piss off a lot of people REALLY fast (again).

Hmmm. So hypothetically, if you had a game that was free to play, and all activities were freely accessible (and attainable, not locked behind technically-possible-but-only-reasonable-if-you-buy-a-booster grinds), and the things that you actually paid for were permanent, then you could actually do an evolving game with changing narrative stakes and situations?

(Pictured: Everyone else in the world except me)

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a totally fair offering. Game preservation would obviously not be possible, and that may not be a worthwhile trade for some people (I know you're one such person), but I would argue that it's a fair proposition to make "actually free" content limited. That's every limited event in Genshin. Free story, free new minigames, gives you free currency and materials, sometimes free limited weapons or gifts a character for playing it, and the only thing stopping you is sometimes you need to be caught up with (at least some of) the story. Free content with rewards for consuming it, but it's all temporary.

Now, of course, this can create a sense of FOMO, and that has its own issues, but that is the nature of anything that evolves/changes over time. If you want an experience that emulates that nature, it will inherently involve FOMO.

There's no good solution to emulating a shared experience that involves the passage of time without being willing to accept that the content, like the passing of time itself, must be transient.

That can only really be implemented in free-to-play games. Remember when Mercury, Mars and the Tangled Shore got vaulted? They were paid content. Specific DLC people could only access if bought. And they're gone. There's a very good reason for people to hate this, even if there was a lore reason for them to be gone.

This sour taste directly clashes with the vision of a "shared, evolving world". As long as Destiny ties destinations and activities to paid DLC, it will never be totally free to evolve the world. Either that or they'll piss off a lot of people REALLY fast (again).

Hmmm. So hypothetically, if you had a game that was free to play, and all activities were freely accessible (and attainable, not locked behind technically-possible-but-only-reasonable-if-you-buy-a-booster grinds), and the things that you actually paid for were permanent, then you could actually do an evolving game with changing narrative stakes and situations?

(Pictured: Everyone else in the world except me)

There's no good solution to emulating a shared experience that involves the passage of time without being willing to accept that the content, like the passing of time itself, must be transient.

That can only really be implemented in free-to-play games. Remember when Mercury, Mars and the Tangled Shore got vaulted? They were paid content. Specific DLC people could only access if bought. And they're gone. There's a very good reason for people to hate this, even if there was a lore reason for them to be gone.

This sour taste directly clashes with the vision of a "shared, evolving world". As long as Destiny ties destinations and activities to paid DLC, it will never be totally free to evolve the world. Either that or they'll piss off a lot of people REALLY fast (again).

Jeebus, someone give that dude a valium.

That's what makes this so interesting actually. Usually, Datto is more or less the "voice of reason" community YouTuber. For him to get so heated is, well... it's a first I've seen.

The complexity is the liability of a long history. It’s almost as if telling a continuous story for 10 years on 2 engines may be a bad decision.

The irony is, that there was more / better story in 9 years of Halo as traditional game releases, than 10 years of Destiny as live service.

I've got a whole diatribe I've been thinking about for a while now.

If you want to tell a long form story, the world of that story needs to change. Actions end up feeling meaningless if the world is static.

Traditional games like Halo never let you go back to places unless there was a narrative reason for it and when that happened, the environment changed to reflect the story. Halo CE is perfect at delivering this sense of narrative impact and environmental story-telling. RPGs often include different environment states depending on where you are in the story.

Always-on mmos? You can only change the state of the environment with a great amount of work. If you do, it's likely that old content is unplayable and you've cut off a portion of your fan-base who can't play the stuff the paid for. Everybody loved sunsetting right? Unfortunately, that is the only way for those environments to experience change when they come back. Thus, the narrative feels like you're resetting the stage every few months and none of the threats are real. Every emergency feels contrived. In Halo, the threat of the Covenant wiping out all life was a real potential option. The threat of the Red Legion? Nah, yet they still stalk the European Dead Zone.

Now let's also consider that the game-clock of Destiny's experienced timeline is tied to our own world's passage of time. This is a narrative shackle that robs story-tellers of the ability to jump forward to allow for significant context changes. Imagine if we wrapped up Destiny 1 having defeated the Taken King and put things right in the system for several years. How much more disruptive would the Red War have felt if that plot-line of the Cabal fleeing the Hive took a while to come to fruition as they stormed our system? As it stands, everything is on fire all the time and the pacing just feels off.

With the pairing of this time-line shackle and the inability to easily change the world easily, it is incredibly difficult to tell a story that has any stakes or costs.

Destiny could have been a 10-year story if every installment changed or had a realistic impact on previous game-spaces. Lately, they've been getting a little more clever in how they reference the past which is a good thing. They are still doing it with one arm tied behind their back though.

Another example case along this line of thought is Genshin Impact. Genshin is a single player game, for all intents and purposes, so it doesn't have the problem Destiny and other MMOs have; I bring it up, however, as it is a regularly evolving game and does involve some form of these kinds of changes. They add new sections to the map, quests in these areas can permanently add or remove content in the world. Some quests do even more than that (change a bunch of in-game item text and dialogue to reflect a change in history). The game does have co-op, however, and any of those world changes would be reflected when people visit your instance.

So, like a classically styled single player game, the world can evolve and change as the narrative progresses without being hindered by other players' progress, while still being a "live service" that adds new content and story on a regular basis.

But as for the dream of having games that are shared spaces but that also evolve and change, you run into the idea of whether game content should be transient. This wouldn't be an issue if time you spend away is the same as time spent not participating in whatever conflict is on-going, and when you return you are brought up to speed. A cool concept, but at the same time, that means a bunch of content is inaccessible forever, and there's an argument that this isn't worth the experience it provides.

Genshin does dabble with this issue as well. It has events every patch that come and go, and do not (as of now) rerun. They have story, characters are involved and can have development, you might learn new information about the world that foreshadows what is to come. If you weren't playing at the time, you don't get to experience that content. That means everyone does these events together and experiences them as fixed points in time, but that also means a bunch of novel content is lost to time.

There's no good solution to emulating a shared experience that involves the passage of time without being willing to accept that the content, like the passing of time itself, must be transient.

Eh, this just feels a bit like manufactured outrage over something that has existed for the entirety of Destiny.

Huh. Remind me when expansions from the first year locked you out of old exotics. I can't seem to recall that.

Snark only works if it fits the situation. I think you may be too far removed from the game to be able to parse my words. Admittedly, this is not your fault because there are tons of systems in the game and there’s been a lot of history. It’s easy to get lost in it.

Someone explained it to me… and I still don't get it. So you're right.

But that itself is also a problem in terms of sheer complexity.

The complexity is the liability of a long history. It’s almost as if telling a continuous story for 10 years on 2 engines may be a bad decision.

The irony is, that there was more / better story in 9 years of Halo as traditional game releases, than 10 years of Destiny as live service.

But... you don't know what the story has been for god knows how many years?

5 years to the day on December 23rd. Thank you for asking.

The complexity is the liability of a long history. It’s almost as if telling a continuous story for 10 years on 2 engines may be a bad decision.

The irony is, that there was more / better story in 9 years of Halo as traditional game releases, than 10 years of Destiny as live service.

I've got a whole diatribe I've been thinking about for a while now.

If you want to tell a long form story, the world of that story needs to change. Actions end up feeling meaningless if the world is static.

Traditional games like Halo never let you go back to places unless there was a narrative reason for it and when that happened, the environment changed to reflect the story. Halo CE is perfect at delivering this sense of narrative impact and environmental story-telling. RPGs often include different environment states depending on where you are in the story.

Always-on mmos? You can only change the state of the environment with a great amount of work. If you do, it's likely that old content is unplayable and you've cut off a portion of your fan-base who can't play the stuff the paid for. Everybody loved sunsetting right? Unfortunately, that is the only way for those environments to experience change when they come back. Thus, the narrative feels like you're resetting the stage every few months and none of the threats are real. Every emergency feels contrived. In Halo, the threat of the Covenant wiping out all life was a real potential option. The threat of the Red Legion? Nah, yet they still stalk the European Dead Zone.

Now let's also consider that the game-clock of Destiny's experienced timeline is tied to our own world's passage of time. This is a narrative shackle that robs story-tellers of the ability to jump forward to allow for significant context changes. Imagine if we wrapped up Destiny 1 having defeated the Taken King and put things right in the system for several years. How much more disruptive would the Red War have felt if that plot-line of the Cabal fleeing the Hive took a while to come to fruition as they stormed our system? As it stands, everything is on fire all the time and the pacing just feels off.

With the pairing of this time-line shackle and the inability to easily change the world easily, it is incredibly difficult to tell a story that has any stakes or costs.

Destiny could have been a 10-year story if every installment changed or had a realistic impact on previous game-spaces. Lately, they've been getting a little more clever in how they reference the past which is a good thing. They are still doing it with one arm tied behind their back though.

Eh, this just feels a bit like manufactured outrage over something that has existed for the entirety of Destiny.

Huh. Remind me when expansions from the first year locked you out of old exotics. I can't seem to recall that.

Snark only works if it fits the situation. I think you may be too far removed from the game to be able to parse my words. Admittedly, this is not your fault because there are tons of systems in the game and there’s been a lot of history. It’s easy to get lost in it.

Someone explained it to me… and I still don't get it. So you're right.

But that itself is also a problem in terms of sheer complexity.

The complexity is the liability of a long history. It’s almost as if telling a continuous story for 10 years on 2 engines may be a bad decision.

The irony is, that there was more / better story in 9 years of Halo as traditional game releases, than 10 years of Destiny as live service.

But... you don't know what the story has been for god knows how many years?

Eh, this just feels a bit like manufactured outrage over something that has existed for the entirety of Destiny.

Huh. Remind me when expansions from the first year locked you out of old exotics. I can't seem to recall that.

Snark only works if it fits the situation. I think you may be too far removed from the game to be able to parse my words. Admittedly, this is not your fault because there are tons of systems in the game and there’s been a lot of history. It’s easy to get lost in it.

Someone explained it to me… and I still don't get it. So you're right.

But that itself is also a problem in terms of sheer complexity.

The complexity is the liability of a long history. It’s almost as if telling a continuous story for 10 years on 2 engines may be a bad decision.

The irony is, that there was more / better story in 9 years of Halo as traditional game releases, than 10 years of Destiny as live service.

I thought they had always been doing that with reissued weapons. I can't recall another set of weapons that has been reissued twice, so this might be a new scenario. But they've always updated the perk pools with reissued weapons, I thought. Would you want an Arc gun that couldn't roll Voltshot, for instance (assuming that's even still as good as it was initially)?

D2Foundry doesn't seem to have the original Dreaming City guns in its database, so I can't see what those perks were.

I think the greyed-out perks on the S13 version are the original perks. So the first one shows what it replaced, the second one doesn't need to do that.

(And yes... I was all excited when I got voltshot on a Song of Ir Yut machine gun, until I realized that 1) you have to reload after the kill to proc it, which is rarely convenient on a machine gun, and 2) reload on that gun is just over 4.8 seconds, and voltshot requires a reload within 5.3 seconds of a kill to proc, so you've got less than half a second to make the decision. :)

Eh, this just feels a bit like manufactured outrage over something that has existed for the entirety of Destiny.

Huh. Remind me when expansions from the first year locked you out of old exotics. I can't seem to recall that.

Snark only works if it fits the situation. I think you may be too far removed from the game to be able to parse my words. Admittedly, this is not your fault because there are tons of systems in the game and there’s been a lot of history. It’s easy to get lost in it.

Someone explained it to me… and I still don't get it. So you're right.

But that itself is also a problem in terms of sheer complexity.

The complexity is the liability of a long history. It’s almost as if telling a continuous story for 10 years on 2 engines may be a bad decision.

Eh, this just feels a bit like manufactured outrage over something that has existed for the entirety of Destiny.

Huh. Remind me when expansions from the first year locked you out of old exotics. I can't seem to recall that.

Snark only works if it fits the situation. I think you may be too far removed from the game to be able to parse my words. Admittedly, this is not your fault because there are tons of systems in the game and there’s been a lot of history. It’s easy to get lost in it.

Someone explained it to me… and I still don't get it. So you're right.

But that itself is also a problem in terms of sheer complexity.

You're fundamentally right. It's just really bad timing because of the optics.

That’s fair. I just think it’s weird people who should know better (ie not new people) are clutching their pearls, and therefore outraged by this. It’s more about clicks than legitimate surprise for this story. This game lets you pay to boost levels on the seasonal track ffs. I’m not saying that’s a good thing. It’s just what the game is, and has been for a long time.

If someone wants to do a deep dive into how these systems work together to cheapen an experience, I’d be all for it. On its own, this article is just bad play-acting by someone doing their best attempt at what an offended person might sound like.

Eh, this just feels a bit like manufactured outrage over something that has existed for the entirety of Destiny.

Huh. Remind me when expansions from the first year locked you out of old exotics. I can't seem to recall that.

Snark only works if it fits the situation. I think you may be too far removed from the game and its systems to be able to parse my words well. This is not your fault because there are tons of systems in the game and there’s been a lot of history. It’s easy to get lost in it.