It's been a week! It has been a week. (It's been two weeks). The latest TWID is up as we round the corner to August 22nd. Here's what you can read about in our archive.
Guardians for Maui - Support for Hawaii.
A little Showcase teaser, as a treat.
Twitch Drop it like it's hot on August 22.
Epic Moments trailer goodness and an added Season 22 surprise.
A reminder of everything we've shared about Season 22 thus far.
Sorry last week's TWAB didn't get posted. Nothing major happened last week though....right? Anyway. This Week's TWAB At Bungie is up. The rundown is as follows.
Ghosts of the Deep recap.
Dungeon-themed items in the Bungie Store.
Pride@Bungie announcement.
M:START
Prime Gaming update.
The weekly update from the Player Support Team.
Weekly Art of the Week and Movie of the week picks.
This Week's TWABAt Bungie is pretty much all about Season 21. There's a wee little teaser to watch, some exotic ornaments to see, an underwater environment to dip your toe into, plus more! Oh, and Titans are destroying in Guardian Games....not that I'm bitter about it or anything. Give it a read in our archive!
iPads for Kids. Earthquake Relief in Nepal. Austraila's Fires. And more. Bungie makes great games, sure, but over the last several years they've also focused us Guardians on problems beyond the fictional Darkness. And they're at it again in partnership with Direct Relief to help provide medical workers with the supplies they need to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
A $20 donation gets you a pretty cool emblem, and helps those who are risking their lives every day to provide care to others. Go check out Bungie's news post, and consider donating if you are able.
Big update this week, with a lot of new info! Read the update to find out how Exotic Masterworks are going to work, exotic weapon updates coming for Tractor Cannon, Hard Light, and Borealis, all the details on the new Crucible ranking systems, and even more! Read it over on Bungie.net or locally!
It's a new year, which means the Game Developers Conference is right around the corner! (Well, nearly - it takes place in mid-March.) Sessions are now online, and five of them feature Bungie employees this year:
A couple of years ago, we mentioned a GDC talk given by Bungie's Justin Truman about the network architecture in Destiny, and how it tied together the spatial structure of the game. The GDC Vault has now posted that talk for public viewing - if reading the PDF didn't do it for you then, you can watch Justin give it in video form now! Thanks, INSANEdrive.
After a short, bug-induced absence, Trials of Osiris returns to Destiny! Bungie will be monitoring the matchmaking performance, and assuming that all goes well, Iron Banner may also make a return on Tuesday (June 28th, 10AM PST), so keep your fingers crossed!
For a full rundown of the Trials and Iron Banner info, check out the article over on Bnet.
In the latest content from Game Informer, Bungie discusses how Year 1 of Destiny is shaping the future of Destiny. An interesting video with what they were thinking while developing the game as well as what is influencing them for the future of the game. Thanks to Cyber for pointing it out on the forum.
Bungie released a Hot Fix today, mainly to fix the Husk of the Pit not dropping during the Fist of Crota mission. They did put in a few small changes as well though, see the patch notes over at Bungie.net or read them below:
Weapons
Fixed an issue where “Packing Heat†achievement/trophy could not be unlocked by newly acquired Exotic weapons
Fixed an issue where Husk of the Pit drops were disabled
Drop rates for the Husk of the Pit from Blades of Crota have been increased by 150%
PvP
Updated the House of Wolves Control playlist to include the following maps with a lower weight in the rotation:
Rusted Lands
Shores of Time
Pantheon
Exodus Blue (Sony)
Updated the House of Wolves Clash playlist to include the following maps with a lower weight in the rotation:
Firebase Delphi
Twilight Gap
Blind Watch
Exodus Blue (Sony)
Inferno and Doubles playlists now have different tuning values for ammo crates
Special Ammo initial spawn time and respawn intervals have been changed to 180 seconds
Max of three Special Ammo crates will now be placed at one time
Heavy Ammo crates now spawn only once per match at 300 seconds
Tower
Tess Everis is temporarily leaving the Tower
A Kiosk terminal can be found near Eva Levante in North Tower that contains Tess' old inventory of special order items
The Nepal Aid shader and emblem have been added to the game
Redemption codes will soon be sent to the email used to place orders in the Bungie Store
These items will be found at the kiosk mentioned above
Technical
Fixed a potential crash when closing the vendor screen
Fixed a very rare case where an account could blocked by a WEASEL error on sign on
Fixed issues with suspend/resume handling on Xbox One
Planning on going to DBO this year? Or just want an awesome shirt? Kanbo has designed a shirt for you to show where your allegiance lies! The shirt comes in two different qualities along with several color combinations to choose from! Go read his post for all the details!
Bungie released another patch this morning, and they are adding to their streak of knocking it out of the park. Go read the patch notes to see the changes they made (or see them below)!
Key Highlights
The first Wanted Fallen Bounty completed each week is now guaranteed to drop a Treasure Key
Greatly increased the drop rate of Treasure Keys from the small chests at the end of the Prison of Elders
Increased the drop rate of Treasure Keys from Ether Chests
Prison of Elders
Greatly increased the drop rate of Treasure Keys from the small chests
Class Items will now drop from Level 32, Level 34, and Level 35
Fixed a bug in which the Ship (Hildian Seeker) did not drop under certain circumstances
Fixed a bug in which the ‘Elder Cipher’ Bounty could not be acquired if your Bounty inventory was full
You will need to defeat Skolas again to receive the ‘Elder Cipher’ Bounty
Damage caused by Qodron’s Gaze is reduced by 25%
Damage multiplier for the Jailbreaker buff increased by 100%
Trials of Osiris
Fixed an issue in which Trials of Osiris emblems were not sent to the Postmaster if your Emblem inventory was full
Passage Coins can now be dismantled
Weekly Heroics
Fixed an issue where the Weekly Heroic strikes did not award engrams (Note: Tooltip will not display them as rewards)
World
Increased the drop rate of Treasure Keys from Ether Chests
Ether Chests may only be looted once per spawn
Ether Chests will no longer grant ammo consumables when opened
Ether Chests will now grant a small amount of Queen's Wrath reputation when opened
Ether Chests now have a chance to drop Tokens of Flight, Identity, and Judgment
Quests
Petra will no longer display a quest waypoint for players who have not purchased House of Wolves
Fixed a bug in which players abandoning the ‘Gone to Ground’ quest were still being directed to the Venus Patrol
Bounties
The first Wanted Fallen Bounty completed each week is now guaranteed to drop a Treasure Key
Weapons
Fixed a bug in which the 1.2.0.1 hotfix mistakenly did not contain the 1.1.1 Fusion Rifle balance changes. As a result, players were playing with its pre-1.1.1 weapon balance state. The original fix has been re-applied.
Items
Tokens of Flight, Identity, and Judgment can now be dismantled to gain +10 House of Judgement reputation each
The GDC Vault, an archive of GDC presentations, has released 7 (!) Bungie presentations from this year's conference - go peruse them for some insight into the building of Destiny:
The last one is a video of a panel discussion, but the rest are all Powerpoint presentations (and text transcripts). Thanks to INSANEdrive for pointing these out!
It's been an eventful year for DBO, from the exciting ramp up to the launch, with DBO TV, podcasts, conventions and conferences, and good ol' rampant speculation - to the actual release of the game this site is dedicated to!
Whether you've been delving into chests under Martian sands or Titan-smashing enemy teams into crumbling particles, we hope you've had a good one. And if it was so-so or crappy, well, there's another year right around the corner to start fresh!
Been waiting to upgrade to an Xbox One? Microsoft just made the jump a little more enticing! Starting next week at select retailers when you buy an Xbox One you can get any new Xbox One retail game for free! In my unbiased opinion you should probably just pick up Destiny. Thanks Lekku for pointing it out!
Looks like Microsoft is going to allow pre-loading on the Xbox One after all! Looking on the Xbox One store you can see the game is now available for digital preorder as well as new text that says:
"Xbox One Game expected to release on 9/9/2014. You may download the game from Xbox Live before then, but it will not be playable until 12:01 AM PDT/3:01 AM EDT on the release date."
Update: Microsoft clarified the preloading and preordering for Destiny: "We're thrilled to make Destiny available for pre-order and pre-download for Xbox One owners around the world. This option was available for a short period of time before the official pre-order window opened. We'll have more details to share soon about the pre-order and pre-download window for Destiny."
Sony's Press Conference video stream had a rough start, so I missed this, but Polygon is reporting that Sony has a PS4 hardware bundle ready for Destiny's launch on September 9th. The "glacier white" console will come with a 500 GB hard drive, a matching controller, a copy of Destiny, and a 30-day PSN+ subscription.
Destiny is big news at the Sony E3 Press Conference, and the hits keep coming with the announcement that the Destiny Public Beta will launch on Thursday, July 17th for PlayStation consoles. We'll keep you posted about the official start date for the Xbox Beta when we have something to report.
Sony has announced that a 4-day Destiny First Look Alpha will be available for PS4 owners starting this Thursday, June 12th! If you have a PS4, you'll need to sign up at the PS4 GreatnessAwaits site by June 11th, so be sure to register!
Update: This article previously stated that the Alpha would last three days, but it appears to be four (June 12-15).
Sony kicked off their E3 2014 Press Conference with a Destiny trailer that sheds a little more light on the story behind our Guardians and the world we'll be exploring, and Bungie posted it to their YouTube page almost immediately. What are you waiting for? Go check it out!
A couple of weeks ago, we summarized all of the Bungie-related GDC talks coming up in March at this year's Game Developer Conference. Looks like we missed one! Senior FX Art Lead Steve Scott will participate in a panel entitled 'Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer: Part 1 - Advice from Industry Artists'. He will be joined by 343's Nicolas 'Sparth' Bouvier - Halo and Destiny artists sharing their experience! Thanks, Kermit.
BUNGIE™, DESTINY™, MARATHON® and the Bungie, Destiny and Marathon logos are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Bungie, Inc., used with permission.
In the latest content from Game Informer, Bungie discusses how Year 1 of Destiny is shaping the future of Destiny. An interesting video with what they were thinking while developing the game as well as what is influencing them for the future of the game. Thanks to Cyber for pointing it out on the forum.
Bungie released another patch this morning, and they are adding to their streak of knocking it out of the park. Go read the patch notes to see the changes they made (or see them below)!
The GDC Vault, an archive of GDC presentations, has released 7 (!) Bungie presentations from this year's conference - go peruse them for some insight into the building of Destiny: 
Been waiting to upgrade to an Xbox One? Microsoft just made the jump a little more enticing! Starting next week at select retailers when you buy an Xbox One you can get any new Xbox One retail game for free! In my unbiased opinion you should probably just pick up Destiny. Thanks Lekku for pointing it out!
Looks like Microsoft is going to allow pre-loading on the Xbox One after all! Looking on the Xbox One store you can see the game is now available for digital preorder as well as new text that says:
Sony's Press Conference video stream had a rough start, so I missed this, but Polygon is reporting that Sony has a PS4 hardware bundle ready for Destiny's launch on September 9th. The "glacier white" console will come with a 500 GB hard drive, a matching controller, a copy of Destiny, and a 30-day PSN+ subscription.
Destiny is big news at the Sony E3 Press Conference, and the hits keep coming with the announcement that the Destiny Public Beta will launch on Thursday, July 17th for PlayStation consoles. We'll keep you posted about the official start date for the Xbox Beta when we have something to report.
Sony has announced that a 4-day Destiny First Look Alpha will be available for PS4 owners starting this Thursday, June 12th! If you have a PS4, you'll need to sign up at the PS4 GreatnessAwaits site by June 11th, so be sure to register!
A couple of weeks ago, we summarized all of the Bungie-related GDC talks coming up in March at this year's Game Developer Conference. Looks like we missed one! Senior FX Art Lead Steve Scott will participate in a panel entitled 'Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer: Part 1 - Advice from Industry Artists'. He will be joined by 343's Nicolas 'Sparth' Bouvier - Halo and Destiny artists sharing their experience! Thanks, Kermit.