It probably seemed incoherent only after you compiled together. May have looked nice in their individual slices.
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[Kotaku] The Messy, True Story Behind The Making Of Destiny
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
Re: licensing Unreal.
I don't think Unreal ships with advanced silent matchmaking and cross-server entity tracking, amongst many other things.
They would have needed so much custom code you'd pretty much be left with only the renderer. So now you're paying someone else for a renderer you could do yourself and hoping that they'll still be around or supporting your target platform in 10 years. And "UE support" is ... heh.
Halo CE is the dictionary definition of "cut content".. the game didn't even have working AI when Microsoft bought Bungie. The whole game, beginning to end, was made in 5 months. (This isn't secret info.. they've talked about it publically repeatedly)
They did learn from Halo 2. I can't locate the interview at this time but I think Parsons talked about every time they made a game after Halo 2, they think about how a process is going to turn out and go "remember Halo 2?" and try to avoid Halo2ing again.
I don't think Unreal ships with advanced silent matchmaking and cross-server entity tracking, amongst many other things.
They would have needed so much custom code you'd pretty much be left with only the renderer. So now you're paying someone else for a renderer you could do yourself and hoping that they'll still be around or supporting your target platform in 10 years. And "UE support" is ... heh.
As much as I enjoyed the article, I kinda wished that line didn't "need" to be typed
It's bizzare that Bungie didn't really learn from Halo 2 to the point where...I sort of wonder was Halo CE the last game Bungie was 100% invested in making and didn't scrap anything at the last minute (that i'm aware of) as opposed to changes during development (like how it started out as an RTS, then ThirdPersonShooter and so on).
I still enjoy Destiny but after getting to Light 301 or so...my need to play on drops off a cliff.
Halo CE is the dictionary definition of "cut content".. the game didn't even have working AI when Microsoft bought Bungie. The whole game, beginning to end, was made in 5 months. (This isn't secret info.. they've talked about it publically repeatedly)
They did learn from Halo 2. I can't locate the interview at this time but I think Parsons talked about every time they made a game after Halo 2, they think about how a process is going to turn out and go "remember Halo 2?" and try to avoid Halo2ing again.
Bolivar687
Banned
The part about them asking Activision to put out a trickle of Co tent instead of DLC packs is interesting, especially since someone posted about that on GAF not too long ago. I hope they get it because with High Moon being assigned to assist their already 500-deep studio, and only having a year until Destiny 2, it sounds like they could be chasing the idea of putting out a good game for the rest of the decade.
Has it been troubled? I'm out of the loop on this (among everything else).
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
I thought destiny was gonna have like a 10 year life span supported by additional content, I guess that changed?
There's no benefit to that.
They also can upgrade and rebuild their client at any time - Taken King basically redownloaded a whole new Destiny client. This isn't 360 era "patches have to fit in 4MB". They can literally ship you a whole new game in-place if they want to. You could wake up tomorrow and Destiny is now Marathon 3: Marathon Harder.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
What a great read, fantastic article. I guess most of those rumors on reddit were true after-all. The evidence of the voice talent and lack of story (or even lines) made it hard to deny something was gutted, especially with the talent that is Bungie and the game feeling flat content/story wise.
"See that mountain, you can go over there!" ,etc..
And people kept blaming "cross gen" for almost everything.
The gameplay/artwork is fantastic, it is Bungie, but man what this could have been. Destiny 2 is probably going to own everything on the market in the shooter genre!
"See that mountain, you can go over there!" ,etc..
And people kept blaming "cross gen" for almost everything.
The gameplay/artwork is fantastic, it is Bungie, but man what this could have been. Destiny 2 is probably going to own everything on the market in the shooter genre!
RSB
Banned
They made their masterpiece in 5 months? Woah. The Bungie from that era is even more amazing than I thought.
thebigmanjosh
Member
I heard a lot of this from a former employee but it's nice to get the whole picture.
The piece I don't see covered here is how the Microsoft lawsuit impacted the development and engine. I was told that Bungie needed to make major changes to the engine in order to prevent a C&D and basically had to start from scratch after picking it apart.
I was told all of this last fall so I can't remember a lot of the specifics
The piece I don't see covered here is how the Microsoft lawsuit impacted the development and engine. I was told that Bungie needed to make major changes to the engine in order to prevent a C&D and basically had to start from scratch after picking it apart.
I was told all of this last fall so I can't remember a lot of the specifics
Destiny 2 will be interesting for sure. Especially with many, many pieces of the original game out of play waiting to be stitched together, the possible drop of last gen, among whatever else is in store, watching this all unravel is going to be fascinating
$$$$
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Oh thats right. The engine to me always seemed similar to like, Halos 3 engine, in terms of graphics/animations. I imagine they had to make hefty changes as to not draw ire from MS.
Not a Jellyfish
but I am a sheep
This story is nuts and makes so much sense. I love Halo, was super excited for Destiny and really only come back to it for its gunplay/combat.
Makes so much sense now that it was the main focus of polish since the story was scrapped.
Makes so much sense now that it was the main focus of polish since the story was scrapped.
I feel like that's hardly a mystery. Konami pulls plug, skeleton staff patches together pieces.
Japanmanx3
Member
So basically everything up to this point was og destiny...dang. I knew it was a pot of mess but man. The Taken King did finally make the game feel like how it was supposed to. But there are still things that are off.
I wonder how Bungie devs feel about this article. I would imagine some of them are relieved that their story of struggles were told. I'm sure upper management is not happy this story was leaked, as it reeks of mid-management that so much time was spent up front that was scrapped.
Regardless, this was some great reporting by Jason and I have been waiting a while to hear about what happened behind the scenes.
Regardless, this was some great reporting by Jason and I have been waiting a while to hear about what happened behind the scenes.
Orochinagis
Member
Warframe is doing it right now, I want to believe Destiny cant due being still restrained from old gen consoles.
And there is artwork featuring the Taken from TTK too.
Rats Off To Ya
Banned
Just wanted to come in here and say thanks to Jason for another outstanding piece of reporting. Truly the best in the business. Never stop being you.
A lot of people bought Destiny because they liked the game. In spite of all the trouble it went through and some of the questionable decisions behind the scenes, it got a lot of things right and managed to resonate with a large audience. (Even moreso now that TTK has improved on nearly everything that was lacking in the original release.)
I just played Halo: CE a couple nights ago and I think people forget how copy and paste that whole game is. In a large part of the game, you go through the same 5 rooms over and over again. For the end, you then backtrack through all of these copy and pasted areas for the second half of the game.
How the heck can 'senior leads' allow the entire foundation of a game go on for multiple years before realizing it wasn't good?
...then think they can make it better within a few months?
Something is missing from this story, cause I can't fathom the incompetence implied here.
...then think they can make it better within a few months?
Something is missing from this story, cause I can't fathom the incompetence implied here.
That only reinforces what I said.
I wonder if Bungie was able to jump into the future and saw that they don't even have the time to explain why they can't explain, and saw all the back lash, would they have kept to the original vision
Because that original vision sounded great.
Granted I'll throw money at my tv all the time for content , that's a given, this generation will be defined by this game series to me........but god damn, Rasputin inhabiting an Exo? Knowing who Rasputin is now, having that knowledge, it just makes knowing what we could have had suck that much more
The more disappointing is the news that even if they decided to drop last gen consoles, it's still going to take 2 hours to move that rock...
I would like the game to be 60 fps, but I don't want the graphics to take a hit and look like halo (no disrespect I just prefer the destiny art style more)
Because that original vision sounded great.
Granted I'll throw money at my tv all the time for content , that's a given, this generation will be defined by this game series to me........but god damn, Rasputin inhabiting an Exo? Knowing who Rasputin is now, having that knowledge, it just makes knowing what we could have had suck that much more
The more disappointing is the news that even if they decided to drop last gen consoles, it's still going to take 2 hours to move that rock...
I would like the game to be 60 fps, but I don't want the graphics to take a hit and look like halo (no disrespect I just prefer the destiny art style more)
Then I'm not sure what you're trying to say. People shouldn't have bought Destiny out of moral protest for events that were only indirectly known about many months after launch? Everyone should draw the line in the same place and not support a game because of certain things no matter how much they like it?
If there were mass boycott and Destiny was a complete flop, things would only be worse because a lot of people would be out of a job after going through hell working on it. Don't really see how that's better.
And Assassin's Creed games have many parts farmed out to other internal studios besides the primary one.
You have never experienced this in your dev projects?
Fucking brilliant. I'm really stunned right now. Senior management had no clue what they were doing. Major influence from Star Wars:
http://i.imgur.com/U2YYsK9.jpg [Mos Eisley from Star Wars]
http://i.imgur.com/Nyd5Vj9.jpg [Citadel from Mass Effect]
http://i.imgur.com/3gePaJS.jpg [Coruscant from Star Wars]
This could have been Mass Effect on steroids. Unbelievable.
They re-shipped the client on last gen too. They even got a rare exception for anyone familiar with devrules from the early 360 and PS3 days and were allowed to automatically delete the old useless "compatibility packs" (2GB each) you had to download on last gen as DLC content items.
They're giving people free USB3 drives if you ran out of space on your 360 due to Taken King.
Vire
Member
Joe Staten was a senior writer at Bungie, he made the Halo story which spun off an entire multi million dollar extended universe. I'm sure they put full faith in Joe and his team based on the work he did with Halo and this is what happened.
Agree with all the bolded. I don't know how Bungie puts together a solid sequel in less time with higher expectations and equally shitty dev tools.
Looking at the game now, the shared world stuff is almost completely vestigial. I can't think of a single time it impacted the game in a meaningful way as I ran through TTK. Sure, you occasionally run into other players when the game forces you to go grind out something on a patrol but it doesn't really result in anything interesting. Hell, I barely even notice the other people in the tower at this point. They could have just made all of them titanfall-style AI running around, pretending to do stuff and that would have been just as good.
Vire
Member
In all honestly, I think this paints Bungie in a more humanizing light. The mistakes of a few (the writing team, top management and engine coders) fucked over everyone else in the entire pipeline and they had to roll with the cards they were dealt.
I wasn't crazy about The Dark Below but to produce that Raid in less than 9 weeks is mindblowing.
I wasn't crazy about The Dark Below but to produce that Raid in less than 9 weeks is mindblowing.
This, MGSV TPP and the feud between Julianna Margulies and Archie Punjabi from The Good Wife are the holy grails of investigative entertainment journalism.
Most software projects these days utilize processes that address these types of blind spots early and frequently; at least in other business domains. Though game development is a different kind of beast I'm sure.
Ive had a very different experience. While I'm not likely to cold-call randoms at the Tower, showing other players in your vicinity gives you a constant reminder that there's always another human player nearby. NPCs alone wouldn't fill that void when the entire end-game is designed around teaming up. I always join in with random groups in areas like the Court of Oryx and public events, and it's an experience I don't get in any other shooter.
I think it's a decision made to affect at the subconscious level rather than the conscious. They really cocked up the story in Destiny, but I thought they nailed the shared world concept (although they could definitely improve in many ways). No other FPS does what Destiny does right now with player communities, which is evident in how engaged their fan base is and how the game is still topping the charts a year after release.
Uh, I'm not saying any of that.
Buy what you want. And Activision/Bungie knew you'd buy what they shipped.
They knew they didn't need Staten's story (or any story really). They knew they didn't need O'Donnell's music. They knew they could release a game with questionable content as long it had solid gunplay and gamers would jump on their treadmill. And lots did and let them know they made the correct choices.
Vasili2K38
Member
Very interesting article, basically confirms the 99% that has been rumored or leaked. I'm amazed that they cut the original plot and then we got.. nothing?
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I'm amazed that this supercut-presumably of in game cutscenes and maybe storyboards-was essentially done and a year before release they were like 'nope keep this and that cut those and them and slap it together.'
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Soooo I take it it's not very wise to purchase Destiny now since it's pretty much confirmed that Destiny 2 will be out at 2016? But even so looking on how Destiny has unfolded from the beginning I am not even sure it is wise to buy Destiny 2 the moment it comes out, hahaha.
Bry0
Member
Yeah probably best to hold off and see what they can put together in such a small timeframe.
This is the part that I don't understand. Do these people just like not talk to each other at all? How could they be writing and developing the campaign for so long without management giving their input and oversight to the project? Something odd goes on in that studio that causes this to keep happening to them.
I would love to see the supercut because all the mythology in the grimoire, written by the old team, is amazing. Although they apparently hired new writers for TTK grimoire and those are the best entries yet so maybe they will actually surprise us with an amazing story in Destiny 2.
This game has sooo much potential which is why people get so worked up about it I think.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
It depends how they handle the transition from Destiny 1 to Destiny 2, whether the stuff you do now, will carry over.
I mean, when the game was first revealed, in their vidocs they made it a point to say that the characters you make will be with you throughout your journey in Destiny. Or whatever flowery language they used.
I will tell you this-Destiny is a fun game. Extremely fun with friends, if you're alone it's still pretty damn decent. There's enough content in the whole current package to justify paying $60 or whatever it's worth right now. Alot of content. Over 50 hours of content(I've spent over 400 hours since release, for comparison.)
I would say go for it.
It seems like Senior management probably just did monthly updates or whatever, being mostly hands off. When they finally showed them the full story package, suddenly it's the worst thing ever and oh my god rewrite everything(Or something.)
There's definitely a fuck up here and there. Ignorant management.
It's finally a solid and content-rich game in its own right as of The Legendary Edition/Taken King and it's a fine time to get into it, IMO, and there's free content on the way through this whole year.
We'll see about Destiny 2. Hopefully they learned their lesson and planned better, improved their tools, and managed to develop it in a less dysfunctional way.