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[Kotaku] The Messy, True Story Behind The Making Of Destiny
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I hope they don't take the Blizzard route. Right now, in WoW, it's been what...2 months since the last patch release? And realistically it's going to be another 6-8 months before the next expansion? (If they decide to release it march or august, maybe even february). Destiny doesn't have the plethora of things to do in WoW in downtime unfortunately..
By this same logic, any footage that we've seen from early revs of games should also ship in the game. Halo 2 E3 demo, etc. It's clearly early footage from something that was changed greatly in the final product - gameplay =/= final build. Luke and company have been up front about talking about how long TTK was in development, and the Kotaku article talks about how it changed over the course of the last year. It's not like they sat on it for a year - TTK wrapped shortly before it was released.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
True enough, i rescinded my statement later on saying it's been changed, polished, worked on, it may have existed previously in one way or another, but it's radically different now compared to how it was then, and that stuff does require work.
Kor of Memory
Member
I'm aware of the situation of titles that come into play in specific relegions regarding father/son.
You mention coincidence, but I don't understand how. We have a situation where we have a character, and several lines of his dialogue. Most where he speaks directly to us, some where he speaks to the general public.
At no point does he call us son or daughter. The ONLY time we ever see him call someone son, is Saint-14. That's it.
I don't see why it's so hard for you to understand that this could be a situation of him actually being his father. We've never seen him call anyone else his son. We've never seen anyone else call him father.
Edit: it looks like the Grimoire Card: Allies>Osiris is written from the perspective of the Speaker as well. Again, no mention of sons/daughters.
most worrisome part about that article for me is the part about their tools being "shit", hard to work with and taking painstakingly long to enable minor alterations.
if true, it does not bode well for the future of the game/franchise unless an engine revamp is the cards for the near future but that'd likely be costly time and financially wise.
if true, it does not bode well for the future of the game/franchise unless an engine revamp is the cards for the near future but that'd likely be costly time and financially wise.
KrM DeLorean
Member
.. and promoted as part of the vanilla experience in gameplay trailers.
Krappadizzle
Member
I remember playing Halo 2 thinking that the awesome E3 level was coming up. It looked so damn great. I kept waiting and waiting and wai.....Fin.
And probably why Destiny 2 won't be 60fps. I think Bungie prefers IQ over FPS
Twilight Gap
Member
Their messy code is probably why their games play so well.
Eh?
Sorry, I replied before reading on. At this point I think it's clear that Bungie's ambitions for Destiny far outstripped their ability to build content. I remember from one of the ride alongs they did (Earth, IIRC) that the designer said they wanted the destination to be 5x as large as it was; they really had to scale back as development went on.
On that note, I really hope they drop last gen for the next big expansion / Destiny 2. Focusing on two platforms and not having those systems dictate the size of the spaces they can build would do good things for the game.
Actually in the grimiore it says the traveler left then returned to fight for humanity. That it chooses to fight. The Rasputin theory is out there but there are cards that refute it. Rasputin was preparing to stop the traveler but I don't think that happened. Let me see if I can find quotes for what I'm talking about I will link them here.
It's broken down very well here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/3ovmqf/spoiler_the_traveler_and_rasputin_during_the/
As for Saint 14 it's revealed that some or all exos were once human. Cayde is was for sure once human as the collectors edition book from TTK describes his death and young life.
Edit2: so I Saint 14 is the speakers son the speaker is almost guaranteed to be an exo of some kind.
Twilight Gap
Member
meaning, they have their own way of doing things that works for them.
until it doesn't. Destiny would have been fine if they didn't reboot it right before it came out.
I do remember how Gabe from Penny-Arcade said that what he played of Destiny before it was rebooted was really really bad.
Twilight Gap
Member
management shouldn't have been slacking off. you don't let a game go bad for 3 years and then realize less than a year before shipping.
Krappadizzle
Member
Wasn't it the rebooted version that he played when he said this?
Fully agreed, it was a huge mismanagement.
It's like if Gordon Ramsey let his cooks do all the food and then just as it is put on the plates to go out he finally taste tests it just to shout "THIS IS TERRIBLE DO IT AGAIN!"
In the interest of not hijacking this thread to discuss Destiny lore, I'll agree. They *could* literally be father and son. Its just unlikely.
Given that our Guardian does not have a strong, established relationship with the Speaker, let alone a spiritual one, it's fitting (and also easier to record lines) that he instead refers to us by the title Guardian. "Father" and "son" are titles that denote a spiritual relationship that the player character doesn't necessarily have.
The implication is that Saint-14, however, was very pious. It's even in his name. Saint.
We also know that "Speaker" is an anonymous position, and can infer that the priest who takes on the title would probably take that anonymity very seriously, just as any religious figure of the highest office would.
Given that:
- there are potentially billions of dead people Guardians can be made from by their Ghosts, across both time and geography
- as an added layer of abstraction, Exo are even further removed from who they once were as mortals
- between the two of them, their memory ranges from non-existant to hazy and unreliable, *at best*
- one of the two characters we are talking about has taken a serious vow of anonymity
- both characters are defined by their spiritual titles
... it seems overwhelmingly likely there is no biological connection shared between them, and you are misunderstanding what was supposed to be subtle characterization of their relationship.
The only reason I bothered typing out the above response is in an effort to curb misinterpretation of the story, given so much of what we know involves reading between the lines and inferring from Grimoire entries and tid bits of lore. It helps to have everyone on the same page.
If Saint-14 is biologically related to the Speaker, both of them would have been alive pre-collapse and Saint-14 would have had his consciousness seeded into an Exo frame. Doesn't specifically mean the Speaker is an Exo.
RadicalVelocity
Member
No, it was the story they scrapped in favor of vanilla. He singled out that what we ended up with was better than what they had, Bungie made the right decision to axe it.
Sometimes you fall in love with your own creation even when it's bad.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/09/15/destiny
You might be right, it says
That's like 5 months before release.
Twilight Gap
Member
that's why you surround yourself with people around you that you can trust to tell you it's shit.
it's one thing for the chips to fall into place late, but the way this looks it's as if joe and the cinematics team did the whole story by themselves and then filled the rest of bungie in.
But that's kind of what happened and staten left over it. I realize you're saying it should have happened sooner I get that.
Zoba, I make 4 times your salary, you ain't telling me SHIT
That's how I imagine things work in a big corporation
But Destiny has neither 60fps nor a great image quality. It has a cool visual style though.
And sometimes you even release it.
Twilight Gap
Member
that kind of attitude is how shit gets made.
That's not what happened. What should have happened is Joe and Jason going back and forth while Joe writes the script BEFORE it even touches cinematics.
What happened was everything was done and then they changed their minds.
Kor of Memory
Member
I'm not seeing anything about the Traveler leaving and then coming back in your link. I may have missed it, though. There was a lot there.
Also, Saint-14 being an exo has nothing to do with the Speaker being an exo. If the Speaker had a son a lot time ago, and then that son underwent the process to become an exo, then you have a human father with an exo child.
I don't even understand how they could get SO FAR.
This is like a movie studio shooting an entire movie, doing a prescreening and they just go "this is all shit".
Someone MUST have known.
Yeah I can say Destiny vanilla could be considered bad. For me personally it was great. It was the first title to have awesome shooter co-op since resistance 2. Everyone panned that game but I loved it for its sweet co-op. Destiny is like that but so much more. It keeps the game fresh for me and others. But yeah I could see someone else hating it.
What you're describing happens all the time though. Jupiter Ascending, 7th son, RIPD, Pluto Nash just off the top of my head were all like that.
Twilight Gap
Member
i mean, you don't even need cinematics to see holes in a story. If it was bad, it shouldn't even have made previz.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Yeah, I think it was the reboot-
he first played Destiny April 25th. I doubt the internal story and build was just that, internal. It gives credence to senior management seeing how story heavy the game was and saying 'Nah'. Maybe..
...
All those movies were basically done and then scrapped and remade? Really?
.... what?
In that same post they mention the build they played was very different than the one that launched. Its highly unlikely its the same build.
I think the game was terrible on many many levels. Still do for the most part. But it's also a blast to play (although I think I've had enough for awhile). Mostly due to co-op play.
Perfect Cha0s
Member
It is really funny reading that they thought the story was originally too campy and corny, given what replaced it. For me, 90% of the dialogue in TTK might as well be "YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET DEMO. YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET DEMO. YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET DEMO." It's mainly the amount of humor, and how much of that humor falls flat that makes me feel that way, though.
Which isn't to say that it wouldn't have been that way had Staten and his team's version of Destiny came to fruition, but it's typically easier to swallow corniness when the story it's delivering feels fun and inspired.
Which isn't to say that it wouldn't have been that way had Staten and his team's version of Destiny came to fruition, but it's typically easier to swallow corniness when the story it's delivering feels fun and inspired.
That's why I went with "Pragmatic Idealist" later. I think that's a better description. Also, the Leviathan works for the Traveler, and it's stated, I believe, that the Traveler trapped them there.
1) I think the people who bring up Killzone 2 are wrong, so just because it gets brought up means nothing to me. Like... how people who love the N64 controller bring it up as a great controller. Sorry, no, I just can't agree with that. I'd love to have a lengthy, spirited debate on KZ2, but for me to get really specific, I'd have to get it again.
I will say that it sucks at weight. Lag isn't weight. Animation and sfx create weight, and other games handle the concept of weighty, responsive play better (Gears of War is the best at this for a bunch of reasons).
2) That comes to what you value in a game. Me, I personally prefer solo, story-driven play, but there are times I just want to zone out, and no game is better than Destiny for just hopping in somewhere and shooting things in the face. It's a game you learn to feel, which means you hit this really weird zen space that no other game has ever provided me, and I love it.
I keep seeing/hearing this sort of thing, and I don't understand it. Have people never heard of movies getting edited? There's a five hour assembly cut of Apocalypse Now, but it actively ruins the enjoyment of the film. Apocalypse Now is better with some of that material left on the cutting room floor.
Just because something exists doesn't mean it was good. Sometimes, stuff has to be recut. Sometimes, that stuff gets remade and shows up later. You can plan for something in the original game and realize it's not going to end up there. I planned this really cool mission for the game I've been working on, but I've realized I can't do it anywhere near release. I'm not cutting some fully realized thing and saving it for later, I'm prioritizing stuff I know I can complete.
They were recut and delayed yes.
Twilight Gap
Member
Maybe i just have a more idealized version of development. i've been working on a project for 6 years (almost entirely by myself) and refuse to put pen to paper until i'm 99% sure what i'm writing will be good.
Most developers don't have that kind of time luxury...but they have teams of people in giant meeting rooms with white boards and money to fund different concepts, etc.
I just don't get it. It's one thing for a small team to make something bad, but for a bunch of talented people in the industry with so many resources available to them, i have a hard time sympathizing with mediocrity. What's the excuse?
Most developers don't have that kind of time luxury...but they have teams of people in giant meeting rooms with white boards and money to fund different concepts, etc.
I just don't get it. It's one thing for a small team to make something bad, but for a bunch of talented people in the industry with so many resources available to them, i have a hard time sympathizing with mediocrity. What's the excuse?
Kor of Memory
Member
It's just people unfamiliar with the development cycle.
They see a picture of something, they assume if it exists enough to take a picture of it, it must be done or very near completion.
I've seriously argued with people on this very board that concept art is not a promise to the final product. I think we were talking about Old Chicago.
Basically, the biggest mystery for any video game is the coding, and very few people understand that part. They can understand art. Because anyone can watch a video of a painter or sculptor and just image them doing that on a computer, and then it's done.
They don't realize the amount of work that goes into animation, AI, scripting, triggers, ambience, etc... Because the average person doesn't know how to quantify that.
The closest thing a lot of people get to relating to "coding" is when they see mods come out for certain games on PC, and maybe going through the effort of setting some of those up. Which is obviously no where near as difficult as actually coding/programming a game.
I think you've forgetting the human element of the equation. It's a lot easier to grade an anonymous script than it is to grade a script from a close personal friend that you've worked with for 15ish years.
Zabant
Member
What's most shocking about this entire debacle is that it's about Bungie
The entire thing reads like a newly formed studio learning some harsh lessons that they will take to heart going forward. Not the people responsible for bringing us fucking HALO.
What the hell happened? Bungie made the engines and tools for their previous games and i've not heard of anything as ridiculous as:
Did all the people with their shit together move to 343 or something?
Also, having the 'Senior Staff' who's job isn't even storytelling chastise the entire writing team including veteran Joe Staten's work because they 'don't like camp' is crazy.
Who cares what they think? they could argue that the Transformers movies were great stories for all we know, it doesn't make them the right people in deciding to scrap the entire story, ESPECIALLY if what it's replaced with is the horse shit we actually got.
All of this combined with them firing their legendary composer Marty O'Donnell makes me lose almost all respect for them.
The entire thing reads like a newly formed studio learning some harsh lessons that they will take to heart going forward. Not the people responsible for bringing us fucking HALO.
What the hell happened? Bungie made the engines and tools for their previous games and i've not heard of anything as ridiculous as:
Did all the people with their shit together move to 343 or something?
Also, having the 'Senior Staff' who's job isn't even storytelling chastise the entire writing team including veteran Joe Staten's work because they 'don't like camp' is crazy.
Who cares what they think? they could argue that the Transformers movies were great stories for all we know, it doesn't make them the right people in deciding to scrap the entire story, ESPECIALLY if what it's replaced with is the horse shit we actually got.
All of this combined with them firing their legendary composer Marty O'Donnell makes me lose almost all respect for them.
Monocle
Member
Yeah, I bet I would have loved it. I suspect Staten had a lot to do with Halo's awesome quirky tone. I could have used that in vanilla Destiny. I also could have used a proper campaign, and proper characters, and a new Staten-penned story, and all of the goddamn content they cut. (Several full zones? Seriously? I mean really?)
So sad to see Bungie decline this badly. They had some of the industry's best people, and a truly unique team ethos that left an unmistakable imprint on the classic Halo games. There was something special about Halo:CE - ODST, and now that something is gone.
Thanks a lot, Bungie execs. Next time let the specialists do their jobs.
SkoomaSuckinSwit
Member
I'm certain I would have enjoyed Staten's campaign, I'll bet it was well-crafted and deep.
I wasn't prepared for the disappointment of a confusing piecemeal fragmented story presentation that we now know Bungie higher-ups threw together.
This lack of a real story I really believe is what caused me to stop playing the game after 150hrs a year ago. I know the game is supposedly improved in many ways, but I've moved on and am not giving the game a second chance.
I wasn't prepared for the disappointment of a confusing piecemeal fragmented story presentation that we now know Bungie higher-ups threw together.
This lack of a real story I really believe is what caused me to stop playing the game after 150hrs a year ago. I know the game is supposedly improved in many ways, but I've moved on and am not giving the game a second chance.
But people who saw the story not just Bungie said it was bad. And Bungie cuts stuff from games all the time. They are well known for dreaming big and then hacking stuff off last minute.
SkoomaSuckinSwit
Member
SOME people disliked it.
Others said it was great, iir that Kotaku article.
At least it WAS a story. What shipped with Destiny made ZERO sense.
Monocle
Member
The impressions weren't all bad, and besides, I like Staten's brand of esoteric fluff. That stuff kept me locked into Halo for years. The deep lore was endlessly intriguing, because it was actually supported in-game in subtle ways. There was so much for the really dedicated fans to unpack and pore over. I miss that feeling.
Even if Destiny's story was complete crap garbage (doubtful), I would have greatly preferred that as the price for a traditional linear campaign with more content. The base gameplay is solid despite the colossal mess it had to support. It would have felt even better in the context of an actual story, where at least the player had some sense of where they were going and why. And where each mission was reasonably cohesive and furthered a clear goal.
No damn way am I paying Bungie for all the content they cut. They've lost me as a customer, barring insane Black Friday deals or something. And they can stick their microtransactions. Proposing that nonsense to make up for their inability to deliver substantial content, I can't even.
Orthogonal
Member
Glad to see this info come out. It helps the playerbase understand what happened and come to terms with the games flaws while still being able to appreciate what it is now and how we got here.
Lots of the details come off as fairly standard in game dev cycles, but I will say that I am very surprised at how poor their dev tools are for this game.
This is a problem that so many devs and Pubs have battled which is why so many efforts have been made to optimize engines and dev tools for efficiency over the last decade. Sounds like Bungie is at a loss how to fix things now. The current state of the tools does not bode well for mass content production in the future. I dont see how we get a proper Destiny 2 next year if it took them this long to just come out with what Destiny year 1+ Comet took to produce.
Lots of the details come off as fairly standard in game dev cycles, but I will say that I am very surprised at how poor their dev tools are for this game.
This is a problem that so many devs and Pubs have battled which is why so many efforts have been made to optimize engines and dev tools for efficiency over the last decade. Sounds like Bungie is at a loss how to fix things now. The current state of the tools does not bode well for mass content production in the future. I dont see how we get a proper Destiny 2 next year if it took them this long to just come out with what Destiny year 1+ Comet took to produce.
Sounds like some people at Bungie liked it.
I loved the original Halo trilogy's lore and fiction, so this probably would have been fun. Certainly infinitely better than the trash "story" and failed lore integration that retail Destiny had.