Have you seen Winter Soldier yet? It was quite good, I thought that it would be good but it was better than I expected. I'm looking forward to xmen and spider man but I'm not sure about guardians of the galaxy.

All of which can be decisions you can be asked to make without the need for an escort mission :-p Instead of worrying about an NPC dying, you worry about YOU and your team dying, which is generally far more interesting, since that is entirely under your control.

Sure, all of which can be gameplay choices you employ if it's just you and your fireteam pulling aggro on creeps in the middle of nowhere. But perhaps some folks would enjoy missions, or even a Public Event, structured that way. Little more spice, if you will.

Regarding what one can and can't control, and sticking within the example of an escort mission; why not simply spawn a huge, lumbering vehicle (like the Elephant) that can be player controlled, and have that be the moving objective?

Again, lots of ways to play with the variables. It doesn't always have to be so cut and dried.

~m

The idea that you had these missions, that you and your buddies could do and it revealed more of the plot was cool. However it really ruined it when it became a race to see how fast you could push the buttons and shoot down all the knights and elites.

I thought Skyrim's quest generator was a little better, because sometimes you would be in the middle of nowhere and this woman would run up to you and shout "help, i've been bitten by a vampire!" or "I just escaped from bandits and I'm lost", and suddenly, fetch or escort quest. It made it feel like there were things happening in the world outside your latest quest lines. (You could totally blow off the people too, with sometimes hilarious results.)

I'm hoping Bungie will fill the world with these more emergent type quests, rather then a field of exclamation points at the area landing zones.

Also, killing mobs for a 1% drop rate item AKA farming, I hate it. Nothing ruins fun like having to kill 1000 firbolgs so you get that critical class item. Watching them all respawn and wander aimlessly around, waiting for you to kill them all again just really breaks the immersion, even more then having to kill 6 rats every time you go to a new area.

What route do you take? Do you get a choice? Hoof it over open ground or stick to canyons/forests for cover? Do you stage your Hunter at strategic points to act as overwatch to whittle down your opposition through his/her sniper scope? Do you set up your Titan at a choke point to ambush the baddies chasing you? Do you steal some vehicles to leverage heavier firepower and corral the enemy forces?

All of which can be decisions you can be asked to make without the need for an escort mission :-p Instead of worrying about an NPC dying, you worry about YOU and your team dying, which is generally far more interesting, since that is entirely under your control.

IN MY OPINION.

But, I was thinking also of things like...this, and all they'd entail:

But regarding Cody's earlier comment about 'Defend' and 'Protect' missions, I have to wholeheartedly disagree. The method in which they're implemented makes absolutely all the difference. Personally, I look forward to things like long-distance escort missions. Mind you, not heavily scripted events laden with exposition necessarily (though again, if implemented the right way they can be nice moments for fluff...giggity), but think about the kinds of strategies you'd need to employ as a fireteam.

What route do you take? Do you get a choice? Hoof it over open ground or stick to canyons/forests for cover? Do you stage your Hunter at strategic points to act as overwatch to whittle down your opposition through his/her sniper scope? Do you set up your Titan at a choke point to ambush the baddies chasing you? Do you steal some vehicles to leverage heavier firepower and corral the enemy forces?

There are lots of ways to play with the variables for just about any objective to make them engaging. I will agree on the point about boss vulnerability, though. Let me perform an action to make the giant glowing red weak spot appear. Don't make that particular aspect a matter of waiting through some long animation.

Gotta say though, I do love being dismissed out-of-hand because I'm not hardcore enough.

~m

PPPS - Arkham Asylum gave me a repetitive strain injury on that tendon in your wrist that raises the thumb (all those ventilator grill openings...). Arkham City and Origins hurt the last knuckle on my right index finger (glide attacks?). I wonder what part of my hands will be arthritisized by Arkham Knight.

Dude, such violence, much pain.

Run up to a door and open it? No. Run up to it. Stop. Open it.

Run up to one of Penguin's jammers and break it? No. Run up to it, flail at the action button to no effect, die under a hail of bullets.

PS - I hope that driving the BatMobile in Arkham Knight will really rock. Color me excited. :-)

PPS - finally worked out what: aerial attack off a stunned enemy is good for: preserving Riddler informants whilst taking out everyone else around him. He's my launch pad. And keeping him stunned helps keep him out of mischief.

PPPS - Arkham Asylum gave me a repetitive strain injury on that tendon in your wrist that raises the thumb (all those ventilator grill openings...). Arkham City and Origins hurt the last knuckle on my right index finger (glide attacks?). I wonder what part of my hands will be arthritisized by Arkham Knight.

I support having timed events. Waiting may not be fun, but being there when something special happens is very fun.

I like this idea of a random Vex attack.

Also, think back to the very first Destiny vidoc--something along the lines of "Venus looks awesome tonight." What makes tonight special? Why Venus? I think these timed events will happen.

It could also easily be supported by the whole world, universe, and fiction of Destiny as well--what if things started happening in-game on Venus when real-life Venus is closer to earth/more easily seen in the sky/etc (I Am Not An Astronomer.)

At the very least some or all the planets are supposed to have day / night cycles with beautiful sunsets and sunrises. I could see some events only taking place at day or night which would mean some waiting for the planet you're on to rotate to or away from the sun.

I like this idea of a random Vex attack.

Also, think back to the very first Destiny vidoc--something along the lines of "Venus looks awesome tonight." What makes tonight special? Why Venus? I think these timed events will happen.

It could also easily be supported by the whole world, universe, and fiction of Destiny as well--what if things started happening in-game on Venus when real-life Venus is closer to earth/more easily seen in the sky/etc (I Am Not An Astronomer.)

If you combine the puzzle philosophy of discovery without handholding that anti-chanmber has, with the production values, narrative and mechanical flexibility of the original Portal, and ratchet up the difficulty to all the puzzles, then you'd have a game that will be a timeless classic and possibly the best puzzle game ever.

Someone needs to join forces.

1. Specifically timed events. The example that leaps to mind is Skorm's Bow in Fable. You had to complete some task, I think toss money in a well, or execute an innocent or something, at the stroke of midnight in a specific place. The reward was the best bow in the game. Basically circumstances in the world have to be right for some secrets to reveal themselves.

2. Rare, "roaming" encounters. A la Doom Gaze from Final Fantasy III (VI). Also, I think there was a ghost ship of some kind in LoZ:Windwaker. Kind of another case where the circumstances have to be right. I think cases like these provide some of the most pervasive and persistent lore-related encounters in a virtual world. If it's rare enough (and the payoff valuable enough), word will spread within the community like wildfire.

I think this is stupid. Players should never have to WAIT for something to happen. Waiting is stupid and not fun. Things should happen entirely on account of player actions. In other words, you shouldn't wait for an opportunity, but rather MAKE ONE.

This means:

1. No waiting for the right moment for a boss to become vulnerable. Make the vulnerability come about because the player does something to break their guard.
2. No timed events. Events should be activated through player action, not time. Because waiting is stupid.
3. No trigger gates. Door opens after you kill a few waves of oncoming enemies? Stupid. Whenever 'defend' or 'protect' comes up I vomit.

You get the idea. That ghost ship should appear not randomly, but because the player did something sweet.

I'm totally with you on this - I'd love to see stuff that can be missed if you're not paying attention (because then NOT missing it is worth more).

This.

The biggest problem I see (and I have no clue how Bungie - or any other company, for that matter - is actually handling it) is that there's a conflict between wanting to give the player cool options like this and being able to justify to whoever's paying for development the work involved in putting in content that might not be seen by a significant fraction of the playerbase. (I know where YOU come down on that conflict, Cody - but it ain't your money, at least not during the development phase. ;) )

Also, this.

Ten years ago cheat codes were trivial to find on the internet and even the most complex, hard to reproduce easter eggs (like the Halo 2 IWBYD skull) were being shared by the people who had capture cards or were willing to point a camera at a TV screen. Now, with everybody's computers and video game consoles recording video of their actions all the time, the expenses of making a how to video have also vanished and with any vaguely interesting thing spreading over Twitter and Youtube how does the calculus of a feature not being seen even compute anymore?

There are a couple ways to deal with this, which I sincerely hope Bungle will employ in Destiny:

1. Specifically timed events. The example that leaps to mind is Skorm's Bow in Fable. You had to complete some task, I think toss money in a well, or execute an innocent or something, at the stroke of midnight in a specific place. The reward was the best bow in the game. Basically circumstances in the world have to be right for some secrets to reveal themselves.

2. Rare, "roaming" encounters. A la Doom Gaze from Final Fantasy III (VI). Also, I think there was a ghost ship of some kind in LoZ:Windwaker. Kind of another case where the circumstances have to be right. I think cases like these provide some of the most pervasive and persistent lore-related encounters in a virtual world. If it's rare enough (and the payoff valuable enough), word will spread within the community like wildfire. However, (and maybe this is just the sadist in me talking) specific measures could be taken to thwart farmers, to ensure that the rarity of the encounter (and potency of the legend) remains just that.

It strikes me that all that really needs done in this regard is to have faith in the community. The samurai helmet in H3 was a great little gem, unfortunately ruined by the folks that chose to delve into the game data. Much like a masterful author, Bungie simply needs to trust their audience. After all, they didn't gain such a passionate following by pulling punches and pre-masticating puzzles.

No hand-holding, I think, is really Cody's wish here. And I wholeheartedly agree. To preserve the mystery, to reward exploration and investigation as much as possible, and to demand better from what's becoming a generation of lazy-minded gamers (and coddling developers), I think as little direction as possible would be the best approach in many cases.

~m

When you're working in a realistic style, the artists seem to want to keep everything feeling realistic by ensuring that characters animate fairly realistically in their world all the time. Ladders get hit really hard, because seemingly the only way to keep things both realistic and sane for the design teams is to make some kind of system where a character slowly locks to a ladder, is allowed to climb, and then slowly dismounts.

This is going to sound weird, but I just picked up Dark Souls, and I have one major annoyance with it. No, it has nothing to do with when I did a stupid and lost about 7000 souls in the early part of the Undead Burg. It's the ladders. Even with the ability to slide down them, and even with the game generally having a lot of sluggish weight to actions, the ladder-mounting is just plain obnoxious.

I find it really sad that the first time I hit a ladder in Lightning Returns felt like a breath of fresh air (speaking of which, I need to get back to playing that). I see a ladder, I run at it, I prepare for the worst, and... the unrealistically nimble player character just sort of swoops up it. YES!

The core problem seems to be that, because of how games are controlled in a very coarse-grained way, there's a tradeoff between experiential smoothness and perfectly realistic animation. See also: Halo 4 and non-telekinetic button presses.