Damn those comments about Deej are brutal. People need to have more levity about Deej's position. He's the community manager. He's told what to say and what not to say. That's his job. To deliver the message but not necessarily to create the message. I'm just not ok with shooting the messenger and no company would ever openly admit to what happened at Bungie pre release at the time it was happening.
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[Kotaku] The Messy, True Story Behind The Making Of Destiny
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
Damn those comments about Deej are brutal. People need to have more levity about Deej's position. He's the community manager. He's told what to say and what not to say. That's his job. To deliver the message but not necessarily to create the message. I'm just not ok with shooting the messenger and no company would ever openly admit to what happened at Bungie pre release at the time it was happening.
Once again the "argument" that I'm a dummy for supporting a game that I purchased AFTER playing the demo and skipping any and all hype for the game
Also I didn't purchase it to tell them that they made the right decision nor would I purchase something that would promote poor game design
We are also talking about bungie which has almost never shipped a game in its original state or on time
This coupled with the article not sure if you actually read it but bungie pushed to get more time and always did which means they felt it could've been better too
They didn't "just" release it and they didn't intentionally put out a shitty product as, again, was highlighted in that story the crew was proud of their game
Did anyone actually read the whole article or just whatever confirmed their bias?
Kor of Memory
Member
The Book of Sorrows doesn't really confirm the Traveler is a "Good Guy" it just proves that it has a basic predator/prey relationship, and survival instincts. Not to mention we know the Book of Sorrows intentionally has lies planted in it to confuse anyone who might read it.
I wasn't suggesting playable fallen, but while you are right that the fallen are divided, they love being led and told what to do. That was Skolas' whole thing. In a short amount of time he had an alliance between the Wolves, Winter, Kings, and Devils. Basically the most powerful factions we know of.
The only ones he didn't control were Judgement and Exile (that exist in game). We also know that Rain, Scar, and Stone exist/existed at some point.
"Kinda exposing" doesn't really mean anything because no one actually knows where that story was going. The whole idea that the Traveler brought the Darkness with it is still in the game and spawning its enemy does not immediately make it evil. It's a simple mythological trait shared by many benevolent deities.
From the moment they were allowed to publicly discuss the game, Bungie described that world in many feel-good adjectives, chiefly "hopeful." I don't think there is much room for that twist in such a setting.
I don't think the multi-fireteam activities are gone for good -- like a lot of the stuff they'd planned out in the past, MFAs could be moved to next year's Destiny. (I believe we'll see the Mars stuff next year, too. Not sure about EDZ.) The leaked contract did say that D2 will ditch last-gen consoles, so I imagine they can do a lot more there.
I think there are a few important takeaways here. One is that people at Bungie have worked their asses off on this game and that the things we think should be easy fixes (like the heavy ammo bug) might not be so simple for them to just patch away. The other takeaway is that, technological issues aside, there's a lot of optimism that the pivot from "two DLCs and a full retail release every year" to "annual releases w/ microtransactions" will make for a way better game in the long run, even if we get less content between each big release. As a hardcore Destiny player, I'm pretty stoked about where the game's going, and I'm excited to see what they do next.
Also, I don't think the Traveller was actually going to be evil in Staten's version of the story.
I think there are a few important takeaways here. One is that people at Bungie have worked their asses off on this game and that the things we think should be easy fixes (like the heavy ammo bug) might not be so simple for them to just patch away. The other takeaway is that, technological issues aside, there's a lot of optimism that the pivot from "two DLCs and a full retail release every year" to "annual releases w/ microtransactions" will make for a way better game in the long run, even if we get less content between each big release. As a hardcore Destiny player, I'm pretty stoked about where the game's going, and I'm excited to see what they do next.
Also, I don't think the Traveller was actually going to be evil in Staten's version of the story.
It's a Destiny thread on NeoGAF dude, I think we both know what the answer to this is already!
I disagree. If you combine the book of sorrows with new ghosts the traveler is clearly a good guy who believes in lifting life up to golden society. Very much the light while oryx and the worms are definitely the dark.
Now what pushes or controls the traveler is something of debate but the traveler itself is good.
Yes those are the Fallen we know of but there could be more Fallen introduced at any time that were also survivors. I find the Fallen my second favorite race behind the vex. A playable vex reprogrammed by the travelers light would also be amazing but probably not feasible.
That's exciting re the future potential of the multi-fireteam designs and content. Sounded great.
And thanks for the insight - what you're saying here definitely came through in your article (great work btw) but people will read what they want to read.
Twilight Gap
Member
The Speaker was probably using the Traveler for his own personal gain though. His role is too omnious and I have a hard time believing Bungie inteded to make a simple "good" (us) vs "evil (aliens) story. there's no tension in that.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a predictable plot twist since we still didn't know his motivations. And as another poster said, if it was revealed early that the speaker was evil, there would have been time to explore those reasons.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a predictable plot twist since we still didn't know his motivations. And as another poster said, if it was revealed early that the speaker was evil, there would have been time to explore those reasons.
Kor of Memory
Member
See, I see the traveler's motives as purely selfish. It doesn't exist to simply make species better. It makes them better so they can fight off it's natural predator. You can see this in the very beginning of the book of sorrows.
Note that as soon as the Darkness showed up in our system, the Traveler was packing up. The only reason it is still where it stands is due to Rasputin pulling out the "Oh no you fucking don't" and blasting the shit out of it so that it couldn't leave. The Traveler didn't sacrifice itself for us. Rasputin sacrificed it for us.
It's obvious the Speaker has an agenda. The Grimoire where you find out Saint-14 is his son is probably the only insight we have to his character, though.
I haven't read the story yet, just wanted to respond to this --
I'm not sure how they developed the story -- if they actually made it in engine or not, but it sounds like it'd be extremely difficult to make a world and locations to go along with a detailed story/adventures.
If they did make all the content for the scrapped story, the issues with the engine and world design probably made it difficult to transition the story into events. But they still could have used the content for the game.
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
Goddamn that engine is a mess, 8 hours to load something. Fuck that shit.
On the Traveler, pre-TTK Luke Smith did a Q&A with Gameinformer and one of the questions was about the Traveler, and his reaction was very interesting. 5:57 of the video at the bottom of the page
For people who can't watch the video I'll transcribe the conversation.
Whilst I wouldn't expect the Traveler to be some great secret evil which we fight in the end, don't be surprised if the story behind it and it's relationship to the Darkness isn't what the Speaker and Vanguard want you to believe. Guardians in the Grimoire have already been called out for their zealot-like loyalty to a "dead God" which they know nothing about, expect to see that built upon in future games.
On the Traveler, pre-TTK Luke Smith did a Q&A with Gameinformer and one of the questions was about the Traveler, and his reaction was very interesting. 5:57 of the video at the bottom of the page
For people who can't watch the video I'll transcribe the conversation.
Whilst I wouldn't expect the Traveler to be some great secret evil which we fight in the end, don't be surprised if the story behind it and it's relationship to the Darkness isn't what the Speaker and Vanguard want you to believe. Guardians in the Grimoire have already been called out for their zealot-like loyalty to a "dead God" which they know nothing about, expect to see that built upon in future games.
RSB
Banned
Not really, I just played it a couple hours ago (replayed SC and AotCR for the millionth time) The abundant re-use of textures and geometry is as evident as ever, but so is the amazing gameplay and encounter design. Not to mention the fantastic soundtrack, great multiplayer, impressive AI, etc. Still their Masterpiece for sure.
Both I think?
Kor of Memory
Member
You didn't find them in Halo 2 because Bungie had tools to remove unused data in both Halo 2 and 3. But yes, Halo 3 is basically Halo 2's third act they had to chop off. Of course it wasn't DONE (because they would have shipped it), but it was prototyped.
Floodgate and Cortana in Halo 3 were essentially fully modeled in Halo 2.
.. we only know this because Bungie writes postmortems a couple of years later, where they said the level was too big and it was cut into two pieces - the "intro" version in Floodgate and the rest became Cortana.
The reason you can find "future" geometry in Destiny is because Bungie has always made geometry first before any encounters are placed. They had to cut an entire, geometry complete level that never appeared again because they ran out of time to place the encounters in Halo 2. In the current mode of development, it's easier to just leave in-progress content in the build than rip it out.
Heck, a couple of the supposedly 'dlc on disc' locations were thrown out and replaced in the actual patch that let us go to those locations (like the Terminus on Venus).
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Good point... after the story, you are meant to keep grinding the areas and strikes of Destiny... so ALL of the Alien races need to remain "Evil", otherwise how can you justify continuing to murder them all after it is revealed that they are just as "Good" as Humans and the Traveler is the real "Evil" in the game...
I'd LOVE to see the Supercut... but clearly it must have worked against the design goals of the game itself.
Twilight Gap
Member
I have a feeling the supercut was just a self contained story for Destiny 1 and they didn't want all of the story to play out that fast.
Would not surprise me if the whole franchise will be cut content from Vanilla Destiny.
Kor of Memory
Member
This is what I kind of assume. That the supercut and original story of destiny was so dense that they blew all their good plot points in one game.
It's kind of interesting that in TTK when the Cabal are slugging it out with the Taken, Zavala is very quick to discard any notion of actually working with the Cabal.
Saint-14 isn't his son. Saint 14 wasn't using the word father in the filial sense he was using it in the religious sense, "Saint"-14's name kind of gives it away lol. Remember, the whole Traveler and Speaker thing is essentially a form of religion, with the Traveler as God and the Speaker as the Pope to use Catholicism as an example.
Now THAT is something that annoyed me, Zavala's callousness really rubbed me up the wrong way and I remember purposefully leaving alive any and all Cabal I possibly could as a middle finger after he told me to kill them, he really pissed me off. Dude's an ass, but I shouldn't be surprised, only person he ever listens to is the Speaker.
Kor of Memory
Member
Maybe... Will have to wait for another interaction to really tell.
Though I think they throw around the words Father and Son in the dialogue in a different way than a Priest relationship would.
If the speaker ever referred to us as son/daughter, I'd totally believe you. But he never has.
everyday math
Banned
Cabal went on the dreadnought to find a way to stop the guardians from reviving and try to rescue. They don't want peace, they only want to conquer. Remember as stupid as it sounds they destroy planets for fun.
There's a reason they're an empire. The guardians have taken out all higher command now of the Cabal in our system. It only makes sense the next major update will have us deal with the Cabal empire.
There's a reason they're an empire. The guardians have taken out all higher command now of the Cabal in our system. It only makes sense the next major update will have us deal with the Cabal empire.
Its not really a maybe. "Speaker" is a holy position filled by a priest.
The Grimoire said:
Also Saint-14 is an Exo, evidenced by his name, and it is exceedingly unlikely he has a biological connection, nor would the Speaker emphasize it from an anonymous position.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Interesting read.
I enjoyed my time with Destiny through TKK, but I don't see myself coming back to the franchise.
The direction it ended up going just didn't match what I was hoping from. It leans to heavily to the MMO side of things.
I was hoping for something more like Borderlands, but with graphics, setting and an epic story, better gunplay etc. So basically an epic first person shooter/WRPG hybrid, that could be enjoyed solo or with friends.
But too little emphasis is on the story and questing, and too much on just grinding for gear and needing to play with several people MMO style. And that's just not really my cup of tea. I'm not really into these never ending types of games/franchises.
I enjoyed my time with Destiny through TKK, but I don't see myself coming back to the franchise.
The direction it ended up going just didn't match what I was hoping from. It leans to heavily to the MMO side of things.
I was hoping for something more like Borderlands, but with graphics, setting and an epic story, better gunplay etc. So basically an epic first person shooter/WRPG hybrid, that could be enjoyed solo or with friends.
But too little emphasis is on the story and questing, and too much on just grinding for gear and needing to play with several people MMO style. And that's just not really my cup of tea. I'm not really into these never ending types of games/franchises.
KrM DeLorean
Member
Kor of Memory
Member
And yet of all the lines he has in game, he never once calls anyone else a son or daughter:
http://destiny.wikia.com/wiki/The_Speaker/Dialogue
http://destiny.wikia.com/wiki/Restoration
http://destiny.wikia.com/wiki/Chamber_of_Night
http://destiny.wikia.com/wiki/The_Black_Garden
Finally, just because Saint-14 is an exo doesn't mean anything. We know that Cayde-6 was once human, and we also know the Speaker is old as shit and was likely alive during the end of the Golden Age.
I'm not saying you are wrong, just that it could easily go the other way here.
Pretty sure the voice over in this trailer is the voice of Osiris.
Edit: Does anyone recognize the narrator of this video? https://youtu.be/kEjAE7rpICA?t=113
2nd Edit: Nevermind, it's the Speaker.
Hive origin story is actually super sad, but they're so evil it doesn't matter.
Nope. NDA'd up the wazoo. I get the logic of it, but I do personally wish the industry could be more open. It's kinda hard, though... I mean, look at how one dev saying, two years ago, "we won't do microtransactions" resulted in a gigantic fan hissy fit. This despite the fact that A) he doesn't work at the company that made this decision, and B) this was about two years after they were originally going to cut support. Plans change in two years, but the fans seem to think anything stated is an eternal promise that must never be broken, and if things change, well, they're owed something.
But I have worked on games you'd recognize.
My freelance writing stuff I can talk about, though. My work frequently gets shared by various devs amongst their staff, so I've heard. Happy to link that if you wanna PM me.
I think so, yeah.
I don't think it came super clearly that I was addressing the entire concept of the Traveler being evil, not just that one specific potential story interpretation. Part of this is just it being a stupid late night for me.
I'm just saying that any plot where the game's like SURPRISE THE TRAVELER'S NOT GOOD is going to result in player disappointment or resentment. I mean, yeah, different motives for the alien species is good, but if they're "well, that thing you like is also kinda bad, so killing these guys isn't a good thing," you rob the shooter of a lot of its fun. Kinda like how killing elites in Halo is robbed of its joy when the elites are like "oh sorry we're on your side now."
We still get into a lot of "humans are bad ok" tripe if it happens early on in the narrative.
I was with you until you got to Killzone 2. Destiny's got the same grenade/punch/shoot rhythm of Halo, coupled with some of the tightest individual encounters I've ever played. Sure, FEAR's better, because FEAR is the best, but Destiny is greatness.
I have read the Book of Sorrows, which was written after Staten left iirc, and the plot was changed. Good stuff, though.
Yo, that's hive geometry, and you can see some of it in Crota's End. Like, hey, that round post thing? Consider the bridge/totem encounter in CE. It's there. Actually looks more like that prop than the giant chained-up round thing from your Founts picture.
KrM DeLorean
Member
I think I read somewhere last year that Bungie are contractually forced to "keep the experience identical" between all versions of the game. Since only the PS4 version would be able to swipe on the controller, they can't implement anything that uses it.
Nah, I don't think there's any need to treat Destiny players like children, many already expect the Traveler to turn out to NOT be the shining beacon presented by the Speaker and for us to ally with the Fallen and Cabal one day, no one is going to disappointed or resentful if(when?) it happens.
Also, as someone who has read the Book of Sorrows a few times now I am struggling to see how it paints the Traveler as a good guy. It actually paints him as a selfish git who uplifts species knowing damn well that it will lead the Darkness right to them and then it leaves them to die, basically using them as a delaying tactic to buy itself time to get away. I would forgive someone for wanting to call the Traveler evil for that, even though that's not the word I would use, but I certainly wouldn't call it good either.
EDIT:I see Kor already covered this.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I like what Cayde says, that when a Cabal Legion goes to conquer that they get kicked out and not allowed in.
And when I read the traveler stuff-that it unleashed the darkness or whatever, I always saw it as unknowingly. Not that the traveler is evil, but that it has to coexist with the darkness(It brought the darkness towards whatever it gives life to). It wouldn't make sense for the traveler to help a civilization advance whilst killing it. Speaker knowing about it might keep it to himself because it would bring unneeded fear to the people. I dunno, it's just what I read. I never read that the Traveler was evil, just that it helped unleash the darkness.
I dunno, that's how I read that part. I just want a post mortem for the original story, just..leak the original story dammit.
Yeah no that's the dreadnought. I remember that video.
Man...it makes me pissed off that there are people who will defend bungie who say 'no it was never finished or in game! They're not cutting stuff that could've been in the game!' That is...clearly in the game.
I think another way of putting it might be of seeing the Traveler as the ultimate pacifist. Think about the things the Leviathan says--The Traveler elevates people because peace is the hardest way to live, but the best one. The Traveler runs because it's a pacifist, because it wasn't built to fight. Running =/= selfish. There's just nothing it can do but preserve itself and try to elevate something else.
A better way to think of the Traveler would be 'pragmatic idealist.' It has a goal: uplift species, which it tries to carry out, but when it realizes that isn't going to happen, it leaves. It's willing to accept that The Darkness attempts to cancel it out. Better to try to uplift other, more successful species than stay and die with a species that wasn't strong enough. Variks talks with disgust about the Fallen. They're weak. They choose to be lost. He hates that.
"The Travel is Evil And You're Operating Under False Pretenses, Haha" is bad storytelling, not treating the audience like babies.
Humanity's awesome because it shot a nuke up the Traveler's butt and more or less killed it, giving its paracausal powers to humanity. Good job, Rasputin. Thanks for that.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Hm, so reading through, all the race intros were excised to just the Exos origin-I'm guessing that's the starting point? So Exos start at a junkyard...damn, that means that humans/awoken would've possibly had a different intro beat?
I like that the thread has somehow become a lore discussion.
I quite liked Destiny's lore, especially the bits surrounding the warminds, the vex, and the two exotic handcannons, but I was always sad that they were things you were basically not exposed to at all in the game itself. Occasionally through flavor text on weapons or armor maybe. I was happy to hear about the change to the Ghost helping in that regard, but it still feels a bit lacking.
I quite liked Destiny's lore, especially the bits surrounding the warminds, the vex, and the two exotic handcannons, but I was always sad that they were things you were basically not exposed to at all in the game itself. Occasionally through flavor text on weapons or armor maybe. I was happy to hear about the change to the Ghost helping in that regard, but it still feels a bit lacking.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Yeah. Hearing that Thorn was originally supposed to be built with a piece of Charlemagnes vault makes me wonder what it's original lore was...
Yep, there's some cool lore. Unfortunately Bungie were too dumb to put it into the actual game where it belongs. But it's consistent with their decision to dump lots of stuff you'd expect to find within a game outside of it (LFG, swapping gear between characters, the story, important notifications about gear being nerfed etc).
Kor of Memory
Member
I'm pretty sure Luke flat out told us that rumor isn't true. It might have been someone else, though.
Definitely not a Pacifist, considering it was going out of its way to change the orbit of a planet's moons just to drown a species. This was the first time I recognized the Traveler as a regular creature with regular instincts.
The Traveler somehow knew about the worms, and then set out on a plan to drown the entire species and potentially several bystander species.
Yeah, I can get behind what you're saying. I still think the 'your benefactor is the villain' thing can work, but it would need a super-robust narrative behind and beyond it to make it work... And I doubt Destiny would ever have received a super-robust narrative
Hey, Killzone 2 is a very flawed game, but it is frequently brought up in conversations about best-ever AI and gun combat. I've spoken with salaried developers who consider its AI on par with FEAR's, and if you play it on Elite, you see this first-hand. It's an incredible effort. Much worse game overall, though, of course.
Yeah, Destiny's Halo-like shoot/punch/grenade trifecta is fantastic, it's a genuine pleasure to play. And the AI is solid. But beyond that is barely any depth in terms of mechanics. In FEAR and MP2 you had the slow motion mechanic. In Killzone 2 you had the great cover mechanic and the unbelievable, unparalleled realistic sense of weight. Crysis gave you superpowers. Wolfenstein: TNO gave you a great narrative.
Destiny has nothing aside from it's (naturally brilliant) gunplay. The gunplay bleeds dry of all its fun-factor because there are literally no other mechanics in play (incredibly limited vehicles notwithstanding). There is nothing else to do. There is certainly no story to keep you pushing on (unlike Wolfenstein: TNO which is similarly just really good gunplay). And every mission's objective is the same. And you retread them over and over again.
Full disclosure: I only played vanilla Destiny for about 15-20 hours and never reached the Raid. I wasn't going to grind the same boring-as-shit cookie-cutter missions for one hour a night for two weeks to unlock the Raid – and promptly quit the game for good. There were literally tens of better games to play and hundreds of better ways to spend my time. (This is beside the point, though, I guess.)
Agreed.
This is all just making me sad thinking of the neat single-player campaigns we could be getting if this didn't have to be a shared world / MMO shooter =[ there's some cool lore to work with in Destiny.
Either way, you are still paying the same amount of money for content that people have in all likelyhood been crunching away from their families to get to you on time, in a state you'll enjoy - if we had gotten the Dreadnaught with vanilla Destiny people would have had the same complaints they had with that content too. Whether the geometry exists (which means nothing, when you consider the scale of game development) it says absolutely nothing of all of the thousands of hours of manpower that went into the content you are complaining about. It wasn't sitting around waiting to be sold to you.
Cut to make a quick buck down the road is not the same thing as content that was cut and continuously worked on.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I mean, as a rule of thumb I won't believe what a company mouthpiece says regarding things that may hurt their company. And it'd make sense. Apparently Awoken were supposed to start in the Reef, which makes sense, we SAW a guardian walking on the reef before the game came out indicating it was realized in the game someway, but it didn't take until...7-8 months after release for it to come out.
Oh, it definitely was worked on, polished, and changed compared to what it was before, but it definitely existed in one way or another.
Kor of Memory
Member
Not to mention that spot in the trailer doesn't actually look familiar at all. It may have been a small room thrown together just for that trailer, because it doesn't look like any actual place we can get to on the Dreadnaught right now. The closest thing to me is the Warpriest Tribute room, but that still doesn't add up.
Twilight Gap
Member
more like they were trying to squeeze 10 years of Halo into one game, and in the process forget everything they did right with Halo.
I agree, but we'll have to see if Bungie manages to hit the sweet spot. Enough people on the live team to avoid a content drought, and enough developing the expansions/sequels such that it's possible to make them impactful and exciting while adhering to the yearly schedule.
They're in a tough position. You can imagine they have the resources to pull it off, but little else gives me much hope.
It's not easily either way though.
When I call a priest "father", that doesn't make him my actual father. Its a title. Likewise when he calls me "son" its the contextual response. We are not biologically related.
One interpretation is simple, the other requires extreme coincidence.
We also don't know this. It is not stated anywhere.
We do know that Guardians (which the Speaker would be, given his Ghost) have little, if any, memory of their lives before becoming Guardians. Exos seem to be the exception, and even those memories are hazy and unreliable at best.
Twilight Gap
Member
We get it - they're working hard, they appreciate the playerbase playing the game, and they're listening.
But none of that matters when the game constantly implements systems that actively punish its players for playing the damn thing. The comment about battling the developers couldn't be more on point.
If they can stop doing that, maybe its playerbase will be more forgiving of their hurdles.
But none of that matters when the game constantly implements systems that actively punish its players for playing the damn thing. The comment about battling the developers couldn't be more on point.
If they can stop doing that, maybe its playerbase will be more forgiving of their hurdles.