I never played the one in ME2. The one in ME3 was just choosing an area and waiting for the "battle" to finish to increase your readiness.

Sorry, miscommunication; I was referring to the in-game manner of hacking terminals (puzzle-piece matching) and bypassing locks (pair-finding) in ME2, that ME3 handled as "press 'A' and wait until the timer bar runs down". ME2's way let you convince yourself (if you wished) that your Shepard was actually hacking software or setting jumpers; ME3's was another reminder you were playing a game.

-- Steve liked the way Deus Ex: Human Revolution did terminal hacking and how Fallout 3 handled lockpicking for the same reason; F3's hacking was similarly immersive, but was too time consuming for him to enjoy as much as the others already mentioned.

PS: The stand-alone Android/iOS game, Mass Effect: Infiltrator, was the game I was thinking of.

-- Steve still thinks that the hacking minigame in Deus Ex: Human Revolution would make for a respectable stand-alone $1.99 phone game.

But we aren't talking about most modern AAA developers. And why take a guilty until proven innocent approach on a site dedicated to enjoying a particular developers games?

Particularly one who hasn't done anything notably evil towards their fanbase.

how quickly people forget Halo 2 Legendary :)

Pshaw! I can beat Halo 2 on Legendary in my sleep... it's a lot easier when it's a dream.

But we aren't talking about most modern AAA developers. And why take a guilty until proven innocent approach on a site dedicated to enjoying a particular developers games?

Particularly one who hasn't done anything notably evil towards their fanbase.

how quickly people forget Halo 2 Legendary :)

So I'm looking at this thread, and I'm comparing the responses in it to the responses to similar threads in the early days of Halo's development. (By 'similar', I mean in style - threads that are "what if...?" in nature.)

And I'm amazed by the differences I see.

The starting posts are similar, in style; they're extrapolations, based on some tiny observed fact in the meager released content.

It's the responses that are different.

In the early days of Halo, if you read one of these, and it excited you, you jumped in with your own expansions on the original speculation - some of the ideas got pretty wild (and definitely out of the realm of 'feasible'). If it DIDN'T excite you... you passed by the thread.

I actually was just skimming the thread and I was going to go back to the index, but I saw "Sounds awful." and I read a little and I thought and I realized it could in fact be awful, so I started reading the whole thread.

Here, though... here, it seems like the first thing people do is try to find the negative implications in any speculation. And then talk about how the game is going to suck because this speculation can't possibly be done in any reasonable fashion.

I didn't see anyone in this thread saying the game was going to suck, or even saying it would probably suck. I haven't even seen that in the vast majority of threads on here, and I've read all of them up to this one. I've seen it in maybe 8-10 threads, in 10-12 posts by 5 or 6 or 7 people.

I wish people would remember that none of these ideas are actually coming from Bungie - they're coming from the fanbase. It's speculation. If you read something someone suggests, and it doesn't do it for you... feel free to say so, if you have to, but then move on. Condemning the GAME because some random speculation by some fan doesn't do it for you does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING USEFUL for the community as a whole.

I don't remember seeing anyone on here taking a fan idea as an official feature/plot point/whatever.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Bungie makes the Bungie Mobile App a part of the Destiny experience. Granted, as is the case for many others, my wish list for such an experience is sure to exceed the reality. What little chatter I've seen about it tends to all lean in the same direction: People want to have an actual impact to gameplay. Notifications about new content are nice, and messaging between players to organize raids is helpful, but opening up new areas or triggering ingame events through BMA participation are the kinds of things I'm hoping for, and would keep me invested in the world over the long term.

not me, I really hope they don't do that
also anything you can do with the smartphone app, I really hope you can do without a smartphone-- please don't go that route, Bungie

And then talk about how the game is going to suck because this speculation can't possibly be done in any reasonable fashion.

Condemning the GAME because some random speculation by some fan doesn't do it for you does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING USEFUL for the community as a whole.

I had a knee-jerk reaction to how I'd imagined Malagate and then Ragashingo's particular suggestions could take form and... yeah. I messed up regardless, but I didn't mean to say that. Then again I don't know what I meant to say. :/

I long for the days when people weren't so bitter. :(

A lot has happened since then. But yes.

If it makes you feel any better, look at how DBO reacted to my response. A large portion of the hopeful speculative discussion in this thread has somehow still managed to happen on the chain that followed that post. That's taking it in in stride.
Things aren't all that bleak. This is a community that will make something of Destiny.

And right, Claude, the result is Bungie getting blamed for stuff that's probably not even on the drawing table yet, because some idiot's theory snowballs into "fact," when it's probably not even on the drawing board yet.

What results is comments like "wtf I read somewhere that Destiny haz rocket launchers, rocket launchers suck lol I hate the RL in Medal of Special Black OPS IV wtf Destiny is gonna suck."

Go take a look at the archives of the Marathon Story Page, check the level and quality of discourse going on there. Sure, a lot of us were bookworms, but the reason the discourse there was at such a high level was because Hamish specifically set out the rules for posting a theory: you _had_ to present supporting evidence for your theory, otherwise, you may as well been farting in the wind, and telling people you smelled Channel No.5.

The result was that that level of discourse became expected, and in part enforced, by us, the community. Not by an admin deleting unacceptable posts, but by the community either responding to, or ignoring "farting in the wind" comments.

Let's arbitrarily restrict certain game functions to certain additional and completely unnecessary hardware. While we're at it, why don't we require that you plug a Kinect into your phone to use these features, because this stuff just wouldn't feel right if you didn't manage it with Kinect voice commands on a platform that already has sound inputs.

You realise, of course, that this could also apply to voice chat requiring a headset? It's also reminiscent of the objections to designing for HD/widescreen displays when the 360 first came out...

I play Mass Effect 3 a lot; it has an external iOS-platform minigame that influences the console's campaign playthrough, one that I (having no iOS devices) have never played. It sounds like an interesting minigame, but I don't feel particularly left out nor do I feel that players using it get an unfair advantage because of the way it was implemented. These things can be implemented well or poorly and it's the implementation, not the feature, that would concern me.

-- Steve's pretty confident that Bungie can pull this sort of thing off at least as well as Bioware did.

In the early days of Halo, if you read one of these, and it excited you, you jumped in with your own expansions on the original speculation - some of the ideas got pretty wild (and definitely out of the realm of 'feasible'). If it DIDN'T excite you... you passed by the thread.

Here, though... here, it seems like the first thing people do is try to find the negative implications in any speculation. And then talk about how the game is going to suck because this speculation can't possibly be done in any reasonable fashion.

I guess crack has gone out of style.

I definitely like the ideas, so lets take it to the even more infeasible. What if your buddy is playing and is in trouble and the app messages you and tells you. You have a few choices: you can jump in the game and help him, you can send in some supplies, you can try and bombard the enemies, or you can send your ship to pick him up. How cool would that be?

"Now, you too can be a deus ex machina! On the go, anytime, anywhere!" :3

Man. I like the pickup idea. There are some awesome possibilities there, for sure. I think getting the player's ship involved definitely adds an interesting angle. Depending on how you fit it out as far as weaponry, shuttle bays, recon equipment, etc. you could specialize in being the Han Solo mobile-app guy who remotely saves everyone's asses at the last minute.

Yeah, I'm definitely excited to see where they're going with it. I spend so much time on the go these days, I would be all over a mobile app that allows me to participate in the Destiny game world in some kind of meaningful way without dedicating a solid chunk of time to being home, sitting in front of my television. I think there are some really awesome ideas being tossed around.

I don't know if this is feasible, but what if you could use the mobile app to tap into an--upgradable--reconnaissance system on your spaceship (left in orbit around the planet) that allowed you to explore a planet's surface or remotely monitor a friend's real-time in-game position from a sort of fuzzy spy-satellite top-down perspective on your phone?

When activated, you'd get a full map view of the entire location with enemies highlighted. You could help your friends navigate an area, scope out cool shit, drop supplies, hack into enemy installations or--if your spaceship is well equipped--introduce hostile positions to the magic of orbital bombardment. Depending on the quality of your ship's systems, perhaps jamming devices could disrupt the quality of your reception and the full extent of your abilities until your friends eliminate the source of the disturbance on the ground. Eh?

I definitely like the ideas, so lets take it to the even more infeasible. What if your buddy is playing and is in trouble and the app messages you and tells you. You have a few choices: you can jump in the game and help him, you can send in some supplies, you can try and bombard the enemies, or you can send your ship to pick him up. How cool would that be?

I'm sure it won't happen, but hey this is all speculation anyway :-D

Honestly I don't think the ideas are as crazy as people think. With them pushing the mobile integration on day 1 of officially announcing the game I think they are planning to do something major. It could be as simple as if you friend is playing a mission you can point out a supply depot to get ammo/weapons or it could be as major as calling in an airstrike to help out a friend. Either way that is more than any game that I'm aware of has done and it would make me happy.

Yeah, I'm definitely excited to see where they're going with it. I spend so much time on the go these days, I would be all over a mobile app that allows me to participate in the Destiny game world in some kind of meaningful way without dedicating a solid chunk of time to being home, sitting in front of my television. I think there are some really awesome ideas being tossed around.

I don't know if this is feasible, but what if you could use the mobile app to tap into an--upgradable--reconnaissance system on your spaceship (left in orbit around the planet) that allowed you to explore a planet's surface or remotely monitor a friend's real-time in-game position from a sort of fuzzy spy-satellite top-down perspective on your phone?

When activated, you'd get a full map view of the entire location with enemies highlighted. You could help your friends navigate an area, scope out cool shit, drop supplies, hack into enemy installations or--if your spaceship is well equipped--introduce hostile positions to the magic of orbital bombardment. Depending on the quality of your ship's systems, perhaps jamming devices could disrupt the quality of your reception and the full extent of your abilities until your friends eliminate the source of the disturbance on the ground. Eh?

I want the ability to send GrimBrother One a healthpack from my phone just to show that I was thinking about him. ;)

Or what about basic scouting? We don't know how big the playspaces will be? What if there were a way to discover, and then warn your friends that an armor column was approaching from the East?

I think it would be cool if there was something like three or four mini-games, playable from the app. Maybe like a scouting/radar enhancement game, a door/supply crate hacking game, maybe something to do with mobility assistance, ect.

The idea I'm thinking is that player A is on his console shooting things up when all of the sudden player B, who is commuting home from work and playing on his phone, shows up. Player A is then told that they now have access to x drones and are prompted to select what kind of help they would like. Depending on the situation or preferences of player A the choice is made and the drone (player B on their phone) swoops off to the mini-game to help player A achieve their objective.

All the things that the drones can do are not vital to the game, but they could help keep every instance fresh.

I'm no huge fan of mobile gaming, just not my boat-floating cup of tea. But I do think it would be pretty awesome for this type of interaction (or something similar) to be incorporated into Destiny.

My Mom was the person to get me into gaming way back when I was but a little tyke. As time progressed our tastes in virtual worlds split up to the point where we almost never play the same games anymore. How cool would it be for me to be blasting away time-traveling spider pirate zombies from my console, while from states away she could happily be tap-tap-tapping on her beloved phone helping out in my game? All the cool, that's how much. ALL the cool.

Co-op, no matter it's flavor, is one of my favorite aspects of gaming and I personally would love to see a dynamic new way to implement it. And if anyone can do it I trust that Bungie can.