-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Reddit: The gutting of Destiny's story
- Thread starter Imru al-Qays
- Start date
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell... The game would sell no matter what. You had Bungie. You had this fabulous world and tight mechanics. You had an unlimited marketing budget. People were hyped. People loved the beta. Destiny would have sold with a rich story as sure as it is selling now, without one.
gamechanger87
Member
Where there is smoke there is fire. A lot more stuff lines up with his account including the ViDoc than assuming what we see today was their original vision.
How else do you explain the factions as anything other than glorified vendors and all the commentary around the Crow etc???????
Yeah uh... no. I mean, in all honesty yeah this could be completely bogus. However, if you're expecting to get a "verified" account as to what went down at Bungie over the last 9 to 12 months, I think the Activision legal department would like to have a word with you...
Thanks!
Dead forests probably explains why the Black Garden looks like it belongs more on Venus then it does on Mars.
Gah.
Interficium
Banned
I simply think people are willing to completely throw away any grains of salt they should be throwing over their shoulder because this aligns to what they want to hear.
Absoludacrous
Member
I understand that the people who really like Destiny have this sort of persecution complex against people that don't, but you don't actually have to go to war every time something pops up.
Clearly something happened to this game. I think even its staunchest defenders would have trouble claiming the game they got and enjoy is the game Bungie set out to make from the start.
John Rabbit
Banned
on the latest episode of Rebel FM, both Arthur Gies (yeah I know) and Adam Sessler strongly hint at being at least partially privy to some serious shake-ups behind the scenes at Bungie. they go so far as to refrain from saying anything out of concern for being sued. again, totally anecdotal and super insider-baseball type stuff, but I think it's clear something of import happened at Bungie with Joe Staten that directly affected the outcome of Destiny.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I would love if Jschrier did a piece on this..I've absolutely loved the pieces he's done before.
MightyHedgehog
Member
Eh, people are looking for reasons as to why the game came to be the worst Bungie has ever released despite it coming with all of the assurances of greatness due to having oodles more money being thrown at it, years of development longer than any previous project, and, on the surface, coming across as the most ambitious title they've ever embarked upon. Nothing wrong with speculating when there's so little to go on in the first place, but especially when there are conspicuous threads of evidence pointing to a dramatic change of direction late in its development.
Here's everything 404Architect posted over on Reddit:
I can confirm that there were sudden and abrupt changes in the development of Destiny less than a year ago. There was tension between higher ups the entire time we were developing the title due to a lack of cohesion about the vision for the game. One side wanted this huge space epic, like an MMO Mass Effect and the other side was not convinced that would sell and wanted to pare things back to more "easily accessible" standards. They were afraid too much story elements and cut scenes would drive players off.
Then Joe left and everything just fell apart. By the time we were 7 months out to release, word came down that we were making massive revisions to the game's story. Huge portions of dialogue were excised and I think several recordings were redone to support the new narrative. Entire areas that would have been in the final game were removed, but some of the context wasn't, which explains weird reactions from NPCs and strange, unexplained motivations. We had a guy come in to write the grimoire cards who was given access to the original script with notations on what was cut and what needed to be revised in order to make this zombie of a game seem plausible.
All of the Last City factions had their storylines and dialogue cut, the Guardian's initial introduction to the Tower and the Last City was cut, and ALL the origins were homogenized down to the one originally used for Exo characters.
Most of what was cut was planned to be re-polished into DLC, but it's all there on the disc. Not all of it is live on the servers, but it's all there on the disc. Some last minute art assets needed to be remade, which is what you'll be downloading.
It's an embarrassing disaster and not the game I thought would be published.
HumanCatnip: Will we be seeing these tidbits of dialogue or are they lost to the Darkness forever?
404Architect: I don't know the answer to that. Some of it I doubt will ever see the light of day because it contradicts the story as presented now. Some of it could be repolished and turned into DLC. That is what is happening with some of the locations on Earth and Mars.
The_Prince_of_Wishes: Was Jupiter, Saturn, Europa etc. cut content or still in development?
404Architect: They were still in development.
Fasterthanapigeon: How come the fallen can climb and there are trip wire mines in the intro... But never again?
404Architect: The introduction you know is closest to the original content, which had more robust and cinematic level design. It was originally designed for the Exo introduction but was generalized to represent all guardians closer to launch. The trip mines make a brief appearance again in the published game in the strike where you face Sepkis Prime, whatever that is called now. There were plans to include more dynamic enemy AI, but there was not sufficient time to develop that.
hardshocker: I have no way to know if you are telling the truth but I'll ask anyway. Is there a way for you, or someone else who is willing to tell the tales from inside bungie, to give a real view of the original story to me. I don't care about getting it out or exposing anyone, I just want to know the real story that was planned. This was the one game I was excited to get in a long time and it hurts me personally that I didn't get a chance to see the true vision. There must be way for me to know.
404Architect: The closest you will ever get is the ViDoc from 2013, unless someone risks their job and jail time to get design documents out. I hope no one is that reckless.
GoCallYourMommy: From where you sit, do you feel the long term expectation is lots of DLC/patches that will be improving the game as the standard moving forward? I have just been coming to this subreddit for the last day because I am abysmally bored with the constant grinding/repeat missions and was looking to see if there was something else I have missed to keep the game interesting. I can only guess the long term strategy was to get people hooked, then pay for a better experience as time goes by to justify the costs of development/release. Seems to be the standard now in gaming regardless.
Thanks for even posting in here. I didn't realize so many people were into the behind the scenes drama, and hope you don't get attacked by too many folks.
404Architect: There is an ongoing plan to release regular DLC flow, provided the game continues to be profitable/projects to be profitable in the future. If the end-user experience thus-far is any indication, it may not be enough content. The game is considerably more barren than what was intended to ship.
I'll add a little more. Part of the reason why so much was cut and held back was to buy time. When Joe and others left it was a blow to development cycle. What was cut was cut in order to take the place of newly developed content so we could "catch up."
Larima: Were the 'higher ups' on the publishing side or the development side?
404Architect: I can't say that with any authority, but there was pressure from Activision to meet our deadline.
Larima: Will we be seeing the cut storyline content?
404Architect: In some form or another. The Reef story mission is cannibalized from the Awoken character arc.
Larima: I see. Will the coming content expand the story to be, uh, more complete at least?
404Architect: I don't know, unfortunately. Whatever shape it will be taking will not be the original direction the game was designed in.
That said, I do think what is developed in the future will attempt to "right" the sinking ship. There are still many talented and devoted people there.
Larima: So, the story of Destiny in the future has yet to be written basically?
404Architect: In a fashion, yes.
But if some things stay aligned to the original outline, the past has yet to be written too.
Larima: Do you think the, uh, let's say 'vague' story is making the development of a more complete one easier at all?
404Architect: I will say it is making more work.
Larima: Ah. Are there any plans to do anything with the tower factions? I would like to back Dead Orbit in some other way than being fashionable with their cloak.
404Architect: Everything for the factions was cut. I do not know if there is plans to expand on them as was intended in upcoming DLC. Possibly? That's uncertain at present.
Larima: That's a shame. Was there plans for a faction war system? Who was new Monarchy's 'Monarch'. What's the deal with the FWC? Dead Orbit's deal was to just leave the solar system, right?
404Architect: All of those points were detailed in the original plan for the game. Each faction had a distinct story. Voice acting was recorded (beyond the ambient voice work you hear while walking around). Some of this content may make its way back into the game in the form of DLC or patch updates. I do not know what kind of schedule or plan is on that, however.
There are whole factions that were cut as well, some directly tied to the original story and will need to be extensively re-tooled for the new storyline.
Kizdeangix: Thanks for posting this. The beginning sequence being tied to exo characters makes a lot of sense. I wish we could have gotten the human/awoken ones. Having an organic being whose been dead a really long time suddenly materialize with no context ws a terrible way to start the game. The story is nonexistent. My first play through I was always asking my friend what was going on because none of it made any sense. I feel bad for the "little guys" who worked so hard on this project, only to see the whole thing get bastardized into what we have now. The only reason I play at all is because of the fluid mechanics, musical scores, and wonderful artwork that the "little guys" made so well.
404Architect: All characters began as deceased, just not in the same location. The context was originally there, but some portions of the game were both stripped down and also not finished in time and needed to be removed. What was cobbled together after the fact removed any sense of agency or identity.
Larima: Is there more of a story as to why Joe Staten left?
404Architect: That isn't for me to say, I won't put words in Joe's mouth.
404Architect: There's still a lot to be proud of with how Destiny turned out, but it isn't the game we set out to make yet.
truemeliorist: First, thanks for responding. Please do everything you can to keep your identity safe - there are a lot of customers who want blood I think.
To your knowledge, was there ever any plan to allow inter-player interaction? I know this was one of the biggest bits of feedback from testing, and have heard that activision put its foot down and basically said "no, we think all of our players are annoying 12 year olds so no communication." No word on whether or not the last bit is true.
I know the new dev notes mention that it should be coming in a pared down format, but it still doesn't make up for the fact that those of us who don't have friends who play are more or less stuck spamming invites to people. Any non-Destiny players I try to show the game to all react the same - they love the idea that you can play with other people, but when you mention that you don't have a way to ask them if they're working on the same thing as you, they're just incredulous that that was considered a "good" thing.
404Architect: There was voice chat and player trading a year ago as well as other player/player interactive elements, as well as a more player-driven economy. The decision to cut voice chat and trading at release was a part of the new "vision" for Destiy.
The_Prince_Of_Wishes: Their vision was as logical as the speaker, it seems...
404Architect: Funny enough, the Speaker was much different in the original version of the game. There is a reason that Bill Nighy was chosen to be his voice actor, and much of his recorded dialogue is not in the shipped game. I am not certain if that storyline will ever be seriously pursued now that so many changes have been made.
truemeliorist: If you are able to say, is the feedback from the community about these things missing swaying that vision at all? Or is it more of a "you'll get what we want to give you" sort of vision?
404Architect: All feedback is heard, even if you do not see a response. It is all taken to heart.
TheFiremind88: It's a simple yes or no question. If people were to organize and protest so much content being cut, is there any way it could motivate Action/Bungie to put any more of that content out closer to what was intended? It us a good game, but I think a GREAT game was advertised and intended. I personally bought a 400 dollar gaming system for THIS game. I know I'm not alone either. Despite you guys making a good game, can't help but feel cheated.
404Architect: Your wallet speaks more than any words do to some extent, but even with that said flagging sales will not inspire a change back to the original paradigm. If Destiny stops bringing in money it will stop having new content developed. Voicing your concerns, opinions, and comments is critical to informing the development team as to what direction to continue going in, however. Everyone knows the reaction to the storyline, but I don't know what will come of that recognition.
TheFiremind88: So, say there was something done, like, Boycott DLC in response to feeling let down, are you saying that's more likely to just motivate them to pull the plug as opposed to giving the people what they expected? Even if we're not moving onto the original intended design, honestly just a reasonably cohesive story, and some additional content would certainly help quell the masses.
404Architect: I can't say with any authority what Activision would do, but waning sales usually means no money to continue support and lack of incentive to continue support.
oldknave: Are people/the higher ups at Bungie aware of how nonsensical and poor/short people have perceived the story as being, and how repetitive the content seems to be, or is there kind of an attitude of "we think everything we made is great."
404Architect: Everyone is acutely aware of reaction to the story. How much that will change the "vision" for Destiny is unclear to me.
DLC sales figures will be closely watched.
RagnarokSam: Did the original vision include more planets/locations? It seems the grimore cards mention Mercury and Saturn in some context, but perhaps that's just supplemental lore rather than anything that was intended to be player interactive.
404Architect: Yes. Several more were planned.
StaticSilence: Is/was Jason Jones aware and supportive of this lobotomy to the story? Or is activision forcing their will upon bungie. Are the employees at bungie already regretting signing a ten year deal with activision?
Any answer you give can't be verified so I take what u say with many grains of salt.
404Architect: I won't speak to his motivations, that isn't my place to say. Activision isn't solely at fault for the way Destiny turned out. Many choices were made, not all of them reflective of the original spirit of the game.
GoCallYourMommy: I hope you guys get the opportunity to see your vision come to life then. I think the graphics are great, the gameplay is fun. As a 40 year old gamer who has to hide my hobby from my peers (Ha) and own every major system/platform in history I hope that comes with some satisfaction to hear. But your situation doesn't seem to be unusual for 2014 developers really. I hope the cash pours in and you guys can tell the bean counters to fuck off eventually.
404Architect: 500+ million in the first week. Destiny made back its development cost in 7 days.
GoCallYourMommy: Jesus Christ. That's some Call of Duty numbers. I had no idea. Fuckers better reinvest or they are missing out on the long term gravy train!!
404Architect: Admittedly its less than that in real dollars, but $500 million in units were shipped to stores. That's, largely, how publishers inflate sales figures using the term "sell in." But that's how COD likely gets its numbers as well, so its a fair comparison.
404Architect: Thank you for the kind words, Bungie has a lot of hard-working people at it who perform exceptionally under great pressure and tight deadlines. With that, I'm closing up my participation in the AMA, I think I've said enough. Thank you to everyone who reached out and kept things so civil.
See you starside.
I can confirm that there were sudden and abrupt changes in the development of Destiny less than a year ago. There was tension between higher ups the entire time we were developing the title due to a lack of cohesion about the vision for the game. One side wanted this huge space epic, like an MMO Mass Effect and the other side was not convinced that would sell and wanted to pare things back to more "easily accessible" standards. They were afraid too much story elements and cut scenes would drive players off.
Then Joe left and everything just fell apart. By the time we were 7 months out to release, word came down that we were making massive revisions to the game's story. Huge portions of dialogue were excised and I think several recordings were redone to support the new narrative. Entire areas that would have been in the final game were removed, but some of the context wasn't, which explains weird reactions from NPCs and strange, unexplained motivations. We had a guy come in to write the grimoire cards who was given access to the original script with notations on what was cut and what needed to be revised in order to make this zombie of a game seem plausible.
All of the Last City factions had their storylines and dialogue cut, the Guardian's initial introduction to the Tower and the Last City was cut, and ALL the origins were homogenized down to the one originally used for Exo characters.
Most of what was cut was planned to be re-polished into DLC, but it's all there on the disc. Not all of it is live on the servers, but it's all there on the disc. Some last minute art assets needed to be remade, which is what you'll be downloading.
It's an embarrassing disaster and not the game I thought would be published.
HumanCatnip: Will we be seeing these tidbits of dialogue or are they lost to the Darkness forever?
404Architect: I don't know the answer to that. Some of it I doubt will ever see the light of day because it contradicts the story as presented now. Some of it could be repolished and turned into DLC. That is what is happening with some of the locations on Earth and Mars.
The_Prince_of_Wishes: Was Jupiter, Saturn, Europa etc. cut content or still in development?
404Architect: They were still in development.
Fasterthanapigeon: How come the fallen can climb and there are trip wire mines in the intro... But never again?
404Architect: The introduction you know is closest to the original content, which had more robust and cinematic level design. It was originally designed for the Exo introduction but was generalized to represent all guardians closer to launch. The trip mines make a brief appearance again in the published game in the strike where you face Sepkis Prime, whatever that is called now. There were plans to include more dynamic enemy AI, but there was not sufficient time to develop that.
hardshocker: I have no way to know if you are telling the truth but I'll ask anyway. Is there a way for you, or someone else who is willing to tell the tales from inside bungie, to give a real view of the original story to me. I don't care about getting it out or exposing anyone, I just want to know the real story that was planned. This was the one game I was excited to get in a long time and it hurts me personally that I didn't get a chance to see the true vision. There must be way for me to know.
404Architect: The closest you will ever get is the ViDoc from 2013, unless someone risks their job and jail time to get design documents out. I hope no one is that reckless.
GoCallYourMommy: From where you sit, do you feel the long term expectation is lots of DLC/patches that will be improving the game as the standard moving forward? I have just been coming to this subreddit for the last day because I am abysmally bored with the constant grinding/repeat missions and was looking to see if there was something else I have missed to keep the game interesting. I can only guess the long term strategy was to get people hooked, then pay for a better experience as time goes by to justify the costs of development/release. Seems to be the standard now in gaming regardless.
Thanks for even posting in here. I didn't realize so many people were into the behind the scenes drama, and hope you don't get attacked by too many folks.
404Architect: There is an ongoing plan to release regular DLC flow, provided the game continues to be profitable/projects to be profitable in the future. If the end-user experience thus-far is any indication, it may not be enough content. The game is considerably more barren than what was intended to ship.
I'll add a little more. Part of the reason why so much was cut and held back was to buy time. When Joe and others left it was a blow to development cycle. What was cut was cut in order to take the place of newly developed content so we could "catch up."
Larima: Were the 'higher ups' on the publishing side or the development side?
404Architect: I can't say that with any authority, but there was pressure from Activision to meet our deadline.
Larima: Will we be seeing the cut storyline content?
404Architect: In some form or another. The Reef story mission is cannibalized from the Awoken character arc.
Larima: I see. Will the coming content expand the story to be, uh, more complete at least?
404Architect: I don't know, unfortunately. Whatever shape it will be taking will not be the original direction the game was designed in.
That said, I do think what is developed in the future will attempt to "right" the sinking ship. There are still many talented and devoted people there.
Larima: So, the story of Destiny in the future has yet to be written basically?
404Architect: In a fashion, yes.
But if some things stay aligned to the original outline, the past has yet to be written too.
Larima: Do you think the, uh, let's say 'vague' story is making the development of a more complete one easier at all?
404Architect: I will say it is making more work.
Larima: Ah. Are there any plans to do anything with the tower factions? I would like to back Dead Orbit in some other way than being fashionable with their cloak.
404Architect: Everything for the factions was cut. I do not know if there is plans to expand on them as was intended in upcoming DLC. Possibly? That's uncertain at present.
Larima: That's a shame. Was there plans for a faction war system? Who was new Monarchy's 'Monarch'. What's the deal with the FWC? Dead Orbit's deal was to just leave the solar system, right?
404Architect: All of those points were detailed in the original plan for the game. Each faction had a distinct story. Voice acting was recorded (beyond the ambient voice work you hear while walking around). Some of this content may make its way back into the game in the form of DLC or patch updates. I do not know what kind of schedule or plan is on that, however.
There are whole factions that were cut as well, some directly tied to the original story and will need to be extensively re-tooled for the new storyline.
Kizdeangix: Thanks for posting this. The beginning sequence being tied to exo characters makes a lot of sense. I wish we could have gotten the human/awoken ones. Having an organic being whose been dead a really long time suddenly materialize with no context ws a terrible way to start the game. The story is nonexistent. My first play through I was always asking my friend what was going on because none of it made any sense. I feel bad for the "little guys" who worked so hard on this project, only to see the whole thing get bastardized into what we have now. The only reason I play at all is because of the fluid mechanics, musical scores, and wonderful artwork that the "little guys" made so well.
404Architect: All characters began as deceased, just not in the same location. The context was originally there, but some portions of the game were both stripped down and also not finished in time and needed to be removed. What was cobbled together after the fact removed any sense of agency or identity.
Larima: Is there more of a story as to why Joe Staten left?
404Architect: That isn't for me to say, I won't put words in Joe's mouth.
404Architect: There's still a lot to be proud of with how Destiny turned out, but it isn't the game we set out to make yet.
truemeliorist: First, thanks for responding. Please do everything you can to keep your identity safe - there are a lot of customers who want blood I think.
To your knowledge, was there ever any plan to allow inter-player interaction? I know this was one of the biggest bits of feedback from testing, and have heard that activision put its foot down and basically said "no, we think all of our players are annoying 12 year olds so no communication." No word on whether or not the last bit is true.
I know the new dev notes mention that it should be coming in a pared down format, but it still doesn't make up for the fact that those of us who don't have friends who play are more or less stuck spamming invites to people. Any non-Destiny players I try to show the game to all react the same - they love the idea that you can play with other people, but when you mention that you don't have a way to ask them if they're working on the same thing as you, they're just incredulous that that was considered a "good" thing.
404Architect: There was voice chat and player trading a year ago as well as other player/player interactive elements, as well as a more player-driven economy. The decision to cut voice chat and trading at release was a part of the new "vision" for Destiy.
The_Prince_Of_Wishes: Their vision was as logical as the speaker, it seems...
404Architect: Funny enough, the Speaker was much different in the original version of the game. There is a reason that Bill Nighy was chosen to be his voice actor, and much of his recorded dialogue is not in the shipped game. I am not certain if that storyline will ever be seriously pursued now that so many changes have been made.
truemeliorist: If you are able to say, is the feedback from the community about these things missing swaying that vision at all? Or is it more of a "you'll get what we want to give you" sort of vision?
404Architect: All feedback is heard, even if you do not see a response. It is all taken to heart.
TheFiremind88: It's a simple yes or no question. If people were to organize and protest so much content being cut, is there any way it could motivate Action/Bungie to put any more of that content out closer to what was intended? It us a good game, but I think a GREAT game was advertised and intended. I personally bought a 400 dollar gaming system for THIS game. I know I'm not alone either. Despite you guys making a good game, can't help but feel cheated.
404Architect: Your wallet speaks more than any words do to some extent, but even with that said flagging sales will not inspire a change back to the original paradigm. If Destiny stops bringing in money it will stop having new content developed. Voicing your concerns, opinions, and comments is critical to informing the development team as to what direction to continue going in, however. Everyone knows the reaction to the storyline, but I don't know what will come of that recognition.
TheFiremind88: So, say there was something done, like, Boycott DLC in response to feeling let down, are you saying that's more likely to just motivate them to pull the plug as opposed to giving the people what they expected? Even if we're not moving onto the original intended design, honestly just a reasonably cohesive story, and some additional content would certainly help quell the masses.
404Architect: I can't say with any authority what Activision would do, but waning sales usually means no money to continue support and lack of incentive to continue support.
oldknave: Are people/the higher ups at Bungie aware of how nonsensical and poor/short people have perceived the story as being, and how repetitive the content seems to be, or is there kind of an attitude of "we think everything we made is great."
404Architect: Everyone is acutely aware of reaction to the story. How much that will change the "vision" for Destiny is unclear to me.
DLC sales figures will be closely watched.
RagnarokSam: Did the original vision include more planets/locations? It seems the grimore cards mention Mercury and Saturn in some context, but perhaps that's just supplemental lore rather than anything that was intended to be player interactive.
404Architect: Yes. Several more were planned.
StaticSilence: Is/was Jason Jones aware and supportive of this lobotomy to the story? Or is activision forcing their will upon bungie. Are the employees at bungie already regretting signing a ten year deal with activision?
Any answer you give can't be verified so I take what u say with many grains of salt.
404Architect: I won't speak to his motivations, that isn't my place to say. Activision isn't solely at fault for the way Destiny turned out. Many choices were made, not all of them reflective of the original spirit of the game.
GoCallYourMommy: I hope you guys get the opportunity to see your vision come to life then. I think the graphics are great, the gameplay is fun. As a 40 year old gamer who has to hide my hobby from my peers (Ha) and own every major system/platform in history I hope that comes with some satisfaction to hear. But your situation doesn't seem to be unusual for 2014 developers really. I hope the cash pours in and you guys can tell the bean counters to fuck off eventually.
404Architect: 500+ million in the first week. Destiny made back its development cost in 7 days.
GoCallYourMommy: Jesus Christ. That's some Call of Duty numbers. I had no idea. Fuckers better reinvest or they are missing out on the long term gravy train!!
404Architect: Admittedly its less than that in real dollars, but $500 million in units were shipped to stores. That's, largely, how publishers inflate sales figures using the term "sell in." But that's how COD likely gets its numbers as well, so its a fair comparison.
404Architect: Thank you for the kind words, Bungie has a lot of hard-working people at it who perform exceptionally under great pressure and tight deadlines. With that, I'm closing up my participation in the AMA, I think I've said enough. Thank you to everyone who reached out and kept things so civil.
See you starside.
PepperedHam
Member
Oh man, all of that 404Architect stuff totally knocks the wind out my desire to even play the game anymore. If what he says is true then this game got railed hard.
Souldestroyer Reborn
Banned
I personally believe the Reddit post and various other musings on here. There is simply too many coincidences that join the dots together to at least be in the right ballpark at a minimum.
I don't think anyone can deny that the Destiny we recieved is not the Destiny that Bungie had planned for us.
Bungie are no idiots. They know how to make games, they arguably created one of the most iconic videogame series of all time in Halo.
I wish we had got their proper vision, i wish they had been given an extra year to give us something special. Something that could have destroyed all gaming records. That would have been an amazing start to a new IP with a bright life ahead of it.
But alas, Bungie/Activision wanted money in the short term, thus potentially destroying long term ambitions.
I want the old Destiny.
I don't think anyone can deny that the Destiny we recieved is not the Destiny that Bungie had planned for us.
Bungie are no idiots. They know how to make games, they arguably created one of the most iconic videogame series of all time in Halo.
I wish we had got their proper vision, i wish they had been given an extra year to give us something special. Something that could have destroyed all gaming records. That would have been an amazing start to a new IP with a bright life ahead of it.
But alas, Bungie/Activision wanted money in the short term, thus potentially destroying long term ambitions.
I want the old Destiny.
Jest Chillin
Member
It's completely feasible that there were disagreements with Bungie's top brass on the direction of the game.
However, people need to keep in mind that just because the story was gutted doesn't mean that the what was gutted was actually good. As it is, the dialogue that IS in the game has been lambasted by quite a few people so it's entirely possible the original story was just the same in larger amounts.
However, people need to keep in mind that just because the story was gutted doesn't mean that the what was gutted was actually good. As it is, the dialogue that IS in the game has been lambasted by quite a few people so it's entirely possible the original story was just the same in larger amounts.
Twilight Gap
Member
a bad story is better than no story
Jest Chillin
Member
I completely disagree. There are plenty of games that are great fun with little to no story at all. Games with bad story though tend to taint the gameplay.
JetBlackPanda
Member
Yes but if they are trying to buy themselves time out of the original story because of a decision from the top they really have no choice.
alternatively, the decision to axe the story for the most part in 2013 was made because the person(s) in authority thought the game would be better for it. After that, the head writer would kind of have to leave because a game like Destiny doesn't really need full time writers.
I don't see any evidence of crunch or rushing, it's seems very well put together and very deliberate.
So im guessing that leaked alpha footage was supposed to be the complete game without all this dlc crap. Thats fucked up. Should have delayed the game then. My stupid ass payed 90 bucks for the hucklebuck.
Believe it or not, I'm looking into it AS WE SPEAK. Of course, if anyone reading this knows what happened and wants to chat confidentially, hit me up.
Man, what happened to this narrative...?
I'm enjoying the game but I watched the 2013 e3 video and it made me sad to see so much chopped.
Something as simple as the scene with all the cars outside of the cosmodrome, with the fallen jumping on cars, etc. would have helped fill things out.
Hopefully with the exposure of what could have been, they use the bajillion dollars they made to support this game and reintroduce some of these concepts.
I'm enjoying the game but I watched the 2013 e3 video and it made me sad to see so much chopped.
Something as simple as the scene with all the cars outside of the cosmodrome, with the fallen jumping on cars, etc. would have helped fill things out.
Hopefully with the exposure of what could have been, they use the bajillion dollars they made to support this game and reintroduce some of these concepts.
Jack Scofield
Member
I just wanted my flying pyramid ships, Bungie. I mean, you even show them during the game installation!
GuitarAtomik
Member
Man. I would have really liked race specific intros. It's a tiny thing, but it makes your characters feel more distinct.
JetBlackPanda
Member
Here is Deej's response to wanting to know what is going on with content etc.
I think we know what happened. Everything we have heard so far seems true. They cut the story, hobbled together a campaign and rushed it out the door and they are trying to fix it with the DLC.
I think we know what happened. Everything we have heard so far seems true. They cut the story, hobbled together a campaign and rushed it out the door and they are trying to fix it with the DLC.
Chezzymann
Member
Yeah, Super Mario 3D world basically has no story and its great. Now if it attempted to have a bunch of story but just kept on saying "we could tell you about the great King Koopa's lost land" and then never showed it or let you even battle bowser but instead showed you a teaser for a set of worlds that you can buy later in an expansion pack then it would be pretty annoying.
Man the story of Destiny's development is way more interesting that anything else Bungie has been involved with.
.
Great! I've enjoyed your past pieces on stuff like this.
Jk, it's still fascinating though
Great! I've enjoyed your past pieces on stuff like this.
Bueno.
JetBlackPanda
Member
Alert: this is my opinion
No its narrative does. The gameplay loop is one of the best I have ever played.
I can partially confirm that, as I applied for that specific job with Bungie. Thank god I didn't get it.
Jest Chillin
Member
I've had more fun playing Destiny than any other game on the new systems.
I'd love to know if the ships in the game were ever supposed to be anything more than a loading screen.
And the change from older Bungie titles with no aim down sights to Destiny, and why that change was necessary.
Video actually makes me mad. They sold it as this meaty, rich world, and what it really is a "Shoot everything: repeat" game in an empty world with next to no story. It's not even remotely the same game anymore. Welp, they made boatloads of money, so at least we know there will be a sequel.
Boom.gif
I honestly can't wait to see how this all turns out, because the things Bungie was showing and talking about in 2013 were not only exciting, but aren't anywhere to be seen in the final game. See: Concept art, Bungie.net teasing with shirts/avatars/etc, early ViDocs and gameplay, etc.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
I don't even know how they planned to tell any decent story with the way the missions are constructed to begin with.. so hearing it was a cluster-fuck a year ago isn't surprising. They had no compelling way to tell a story around how brain-dead stupid the mission structures in the game are constructed.
Also, really shows how poor talking to a flying rubik's cube is compared to actual NPC's works to progress narrative. There's no heart in any of it. I mean for fucks sake even dying seems pointless with the way they make resurrecting feel. Do they realize how making a respawn restricted zone takes a player out of the overall feeling of playing? Again, Destiny does such a poor job of hiding its systems to the player. From walking to a point, turning around and knowing the mobs respanwed, to press SQUARE to progress, to RESPAWN RESTRICTED to knowing you are finishing a mission soon.
Also, really shows how poor talking to a flying rubik's cube is compared to actual NPC's works to progress narrative. There's no heart in any of it. I mean for fucks sake even dying seems pointless with the way they make resurrecting feel. Do they realize how making a respawn restricted zone takes a player out of the overall feeling of playing? Again, Destiny does such a poor job of hiding its systems to the player. From walking to a point, turning around and knowing the mobs respanwed, to press SQUARE to progress, to RESPAWN RESTRICTED to knowing you are finishing a mission soon.
Man, if that's for real the people running things at Bungie are the biggest fucking clowns out there. Makes me kind of wonder actually if Destiny 2 will be always online, because at this point it seems unnecessary and even antagonistic to the player, rather than a necessary concession for a more social game (which this game quite rapidly can not really claim to be such anymore, not in a meaningful or revolutionary sense anyway.)
EDIT: Although the story bits are also reminding me that sometimes there's a good reason stuff gets cut. It'd be interesting if the Traveler and the Darkness had a more interesting, intertwined dualistic relationship or something or that the Traveler had end goals that may've not been the most altruistic, but if it's simply "it's bad and is the Darkness!" then it does sound a bit too trite, or it could be salvaged but the execution was lame. Still, it feels like even at best the original direction wasn't working out, and the current one isn't either.
Souldestroyer Reborn
Banned
Is it just me or is the story about the story on how Destiny ruined the games story more interesting than the actual story we get to play at present time?
There are people are having a great deal of fun with the game, and you're saying they should stop viewing it as a good game if it scratches that right itch for them? In my particular case, I find Destiny underwhelming but have a bit of fun in pvp. I do think that the core game play loop sucks, but that's my opinion. If someone loves the gameplay loop, good for them.
Lots of us like the game, despite its issues. Telling people what they should like is never a good idea.
Maybe that was the plan all along, the upcoming documentary will make them another $500 million in 7 days.
Good question. I googled "I hate videogame stories" and found this gamasutra article: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshForeman/20100729/87774/Why_I_Hate_Stories_in_Video_Games.php
Will read. Go team go!
Imru al-Qays;132097364 said:
I kinda belive in this theory. It's backed up by the fact that the fallen calls the guardians "the darkness".
What's more apparent to me is how little we know about anything in the game, especially about the traveller and the speaker. Also it's weird that we have to defend a city that is in huge danger yet,
A, we never see one single enemy that would come even just close to the city
B, we never get to actually go down to the city, it's just there
The bottom line is, that we can build as many theories about the game's story as we can, and they might actually end up to be true, it won't change the fact that the game's narrative is literally non-existent.
Hoho for breakfast
Member
It'd be fantastic if this happens. I think a lot of people would be fascinated to read pretty much anything about what happened with this game.
Similar threads
- Locked