This catches my interest quite a bit now I've seen a little more of what Bungie plan on doing.

And as an added bonus it would be great if they stick to making it for both consoles because god forbid you'd actually have to go out and buy a cheap 360/PS3 by now.

So they finished making Unreal ripoffs in order to make a Planetside ripoff? I guess it doesn't matter what they'll make, since many Halo fanboys will buy it on day one.

I really want to see more, because Bungie now has my attention, not that they didn't have it before. I loved Halo, and after watching the video, reading the article, and having seen all I could find on Destiny that leaked before, I'm excited to see where this is going.

So please, Bungie, TELL ME MORE.

_{Well, when you're ready.}

Sounds interesting and although this guy sounds pretentious as fuck, I really hope they pull this off. These guys know their shit and you can expect they'll work their asses off to make this as good as it can be.

However I'm quite concerned about:
- Hardware limitations - Seems most like that the 360 just won't be able to effectively handle all this shit they have planned, unless they make some significant downgrades in certain areas. When's the last time you played a current gen console game with so much stuff going on (great graphics, sandbox world, large no.s of players, seamless online elements all the time...) that ran well? Has anyone even tried something as huge as this on console? (There was PS3's MAG, which looked and played like mud to accomodate more players). Then again perhaps much of the heavier stuff, namely the whole shifting, persistent world style thing and the seamless online integration won't really come into effect until next gen. At this point it just sounds like too much for the Box to handle. However then again Bungie obviously has a lot of experience with what the console can and can't do. Guess we'll just wait and see how they'll handle all this.
- Destiny as an ongoing project - This series is planned to have a number of installments including this gen and the next, so far. While it likely won't be too much of a concern for those that are willing to just dump the old installment for the newly released one, what happens to the players that preferred the old? If content ceases to be added to a game that, from the sound of it, will be heavily based around the inclusion and changing of newly added content (at least thats the vibe I'm getting), how the old game remain fun and interesting when nothing new is being added?
- The 'dumbing down' concern - With the aim of attracting and keeping a very large number of players you can expect that this series will draw heavily on past games that did this and did it well. (There's this one super popular sci-fi FPS series on Xbox in particular I think we all remember...) Catering to a larger audience isn't necessarily bad, but it implies restraint in a lot of areas to make it more accessible. You can bet that the combat will very similar to the whole heavily popular 2-gun, regen health style setup all over the place today, you can expect that the setting/plot won't be too mature or grim or focus on anything too outlandish or unconventional, etc.
- Where the hell is the gameplay? - I don't mean actual gameplay footage, its too early to reasonably expect decent chunks of that. I mean there's very little mention of how exactly the game actually plays as a shooter. What enemies do you fight, how do you fight them, what guns, abilities, vehicles etc do you use? How does the gameplay, not just the setting, become something that players will love and will want to come back to again and again? The fact that there's quite a lot of fluff released about the universe yet so little about the gameplay is troubling. At this point it seems we have no reason to believe that Destiny won't play like Halo in a different setting.

I feel like I'm gonna enjoy it, but then again I fell like a fool for every Halo advertisement and was seldom glad with the end product. However, this days, interactivity with my iPhone usually sells me on any idea :D

rollerfox88:
The problem I have with this is the problem I have with sci-fi in general - the people designing the world are basically not constrained by anything whatsoever, and yet every species ends up being basically bipedal and basically humanoid. Halo did it, Mass Effect did it, Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, XCOM...is it just unimaginativeness? Or that its easy to make a rubber suit for conventions and TV spin-offs?

I agree, although its more to do with time and technical restraints than a lack of imagination. Using a humanoid model allows you to use common pool animations, mocap and various other things that can generally increase the quality of the animation and reduce the amount of time it takes to animate everything. With more outlandish models and rigs, more work is required for basic animations like walk cycles as these have to be made from scratch. It would be nice if there was a programme that could extrapolate animations based on the model, but at the moment that's most likely a pipe dream.

I lost interest as soon as they said constant internet connection, and then completely stopped paying attention when it was revealed it is not for the PC at all. Multiplayer, bleh.

Mcoffey:
The setting looks interesting and Bungie always does good work. It's just a shame that you're going to see most of this universe, that they've put so much time and effort into fleshing out, from down a gun barrel. It seems like such a waste of a potentially good setting. It's so limiting for telling stories.

And, yeah, it's kind of a bummer that there's no PC version.

Their "pillars" practically guarantee that narrative will be the least-important thing here. At best, we might get a Dark-Souls-like (relatively) open world that you crawl through with occasional other players popping in; the narrative might be inferred from the environments, but they seem to be actively avoiding cutscenes and dialogues.

At worst, it's just an MMO-shooter.

They've also revealed two worrying attitudes: "everything is better with other people" and "people don't want to read, think or do anything non-reflexive when gaming". That sounds like gaming's equivalent of a vibrator - it jilts you every now and then without rhyme or reason to provide immediate sensory gratification.

I saw IGN deconstruct the concept art yesterday but I should have figured that once Escapist did coverage it'd be way more in depth and better-presented.
Looking forward to Warlock-ing it up in this scifi setting. I'm typically more into fantasy rather than scifi, medieval over futuristic, but this one definitely interests me, and could end up being my new obsession...

Frieswiththat:

rollerfox88:
The problem I have with this is the problem I have with sci-fi in general - the people designing the world are basically not constrained by anything whatsoever, and yet every species ends up being basically bipedal and basically humanoid. Halo did it, Mass Effect did it, Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, XCOM...is it just unimaginativeness? Or that its easy to make a rubber suit for conventions and TV spin-offs?

I agree, although its more to do with time and technical restraints than a lack of imagination. Using a humanoid model allows you to use common pool animations, mocap and various other things that can generally increase the quality of the animation and reduce the amount of time it takes to animate everything. With more outlandish models and rigs, more work is required for basic animations like walk cycles as these have to be made from scratch. It would be nice if there was a programme that could extrapolate animations based on the model, but at the moment that's most likely a pipe dream.

I guess it may not help that games have never looked so good. Back in the days of Tomb Raider, you could model every animal under the sun because it didn't need to look so good, but now adding a quadruped would mean a lot of extra work...

GodofTheForge:
"need for a constant internet connection"

.......really guys? really? did diablo 3 teach us nothing?

sorry if someone disagrees with me, but I think it's that kind of stuff that's unhealthy to modern gaming

to be fair, this game is basically an mmo (or so it appears from what they have said) so it need to be always online like other mmo for loads of reasons.

anyway ot, the game sounds interesting, but it i do doubt it will be on pc, the attitude at bungie seems to be against it (from what i have read any) which is a shame because its a fps mmo. pc is basically made for that kind of game.

i do have to disagree with the attitude that its going to be some revolution, as it just seems like a standard mmo just with guns, i mean they have basically introduced the rouge, wizard and fighter classes already, just with different names, but i am interested how this social media things going to shape up (badly is my guess)

It looks extremely interesting, but its not PC so I'm not buying it. Otherwise I'd be on the hype train.

In spite of the escapist interview, it's not 100% clear that Destiny is console-only:
"On the possibility of a PC version, Parsons said: 'We would absolutely love to be on the PC. If you talk to the people upstairs, we play it on all platforms. So, stay tuned.'" - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-17-destiny-requires-an-internet-connection-to-work from Eurogamer talking to Bungie COO Pete Parsons.

'We would absolutely love to' is obviously not the same as 'we are actively working on', 'we are in the planning stages of' or even 'we ever actually will make' a PC port for Destiny, but it's a nicer gesture than a flat-out 'no' to be sure.

Still, the insistence on always-online MMO-style socialization a-la Guild Wars and the assertion that gamers don't read doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. Here's hoping there's at least some optional story stuff for those who want it, like the old terminals in Marathon. Sigh. Memories.

Never played Halo games, but this looks great. Hope it comes to PC, not interested in console.

The always-on thing is also a concern...no Internet = no game??

Oh it's not an MMO... except you described the mechanics of an MMO there, severely limited but still the same potato.

Well that video was a waste of four minutes.

- Look, this game does something with an iPhone!
- This game is so "new" and "amazing" and "crazy". Just not in any ways that Bungie care to specify at this time.
- Did you see that iPhone?
- Bungie want me to know how awesome they are.
- iPhone.
- Bungie are doing something awesome. I know this because I am seeing Bungie people talk fluff while hearing Something-Awesome-Is-Happening music.
- What's going on? I haven't seen an iPhone at all in the last thirty seconds.
- Hey, is this a first person shooter? Wow, that really is "new" and "crazy". How on earth will they pull it off? Oh, right, because it's Bungie and Bungie are just THAT awesome that they can just maybe make something as crazy as a new FPS work.

Wow. I'm in awe. Where's the pre-order button?

rollerfox88:
The problem I have with this is the problem I have with sci-fi in general - the people designing the world are basically not constrained by anything whatsoever, and yet every species ends up being basically bipedal and basically humanoid. Halo did it, Mass Effect did it, Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, XCOM...is it just unimaginativeness? Or that its easy to make a rubber suit for conventions and TV spin-offs?

It saves money for mo-cap and its just easier to model.

Anyone else reminded of Vivec?

Giant moon-like thing hanging in the sky. City beneath it. 'Divinity' who was supposed to have saved everyone but gives you the strong feeling he hasn't and may in fact have damned everyone?

Also, not on PC so guess this one will fly by me.

Rainboq:

rollerfox88:
The problem I have with this is the problem I have with sci-fi in general - the people designing the world are basically not constrained by anything whatsoever, and yet every species ends up being basically bipedal and basically humanoid. Halo did it, Mass Effect did it, Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, XCOM...is it just unimaginativeness? Or that its easy to make a rubber suit for conventions and TV spin-offs?

It saves money for mo-cap and its just easier to model.

I get that, but during the current push for photo-realistic graphics, surely a better allocation of effort would be to make something interesting and less-than-perfect-looking, rather than re-coloured humans that look almost true to life?

I was intrigue by the trailer that is until I check on Wiki and there is no pc version of it (maybe a year or so later like they did with Halo?). Also I was under the impression that it was like an MMOFPS sort of game like Borderland/ Planetside 2 due to the emphasis on multiplayer and the different character design of the Guardian.

Also the story still feel Halo related in a way (I'm not against it, I just realise it). The whole the "traveller sacriface themselve to save the human is kind of like the Forerunner sacriface themselves to elimated the flood once and for all and rebooted the other species in a way. Also the whole human race expanded into space until they came across a threat is similar to the very early history of Halo (but in saying so that story concept has been used load of times in games).

Lastly the whole build a city underneath the sphere thing is so going to bite them in the arse. Wheather or not that sphere can remain up there forever but I can easily see a plot twist that the sphere is going to crash into the Earth.

It looks amazing so far. I hope there's going to be open world environments.

All that RPG-worthy story and setting wasted on a console FPS? *walks away in disappointment*

Quellist:
All that RPG-worthy story and setting wasted on a console FPS? *walks away in disappointment*

Exactly, because you could never play an RPG style game with story and such with FPS gameplay...*slowly pushes newest Fallout games under the bed*

While this does look cool, and while I'll probably buy it, Bungie is making a huge mistake. Not the fact that it's always online, not that it might be console only, not even that they are mostly just looking at current-gen consoles, but that they say that it isn't an MMO. It's always online, you will always play with other players, there is a persistent world; Bungie, it is an MMO. The more you deny it, the more people will be mad about the constant online connection need. If it isn't an MMO, people will think that it can be played single-player, and they'll look at you with disgust. However, if you embrace the MMO aspect, most people will embrace the always online aspect also, and thus you will not bring upon the wrath of the gamers. Seriously, everything else seems to be quite well done, it's just that that one statement will be your undoing Bungie.

klaynexas3:

Quellist:
All that RPG-worthy story and setting wasted on a console FPS? *walks away in disappointment*

Exactly, because you could never play an RPG style game with story and such with FPS gameplay...*slowly pushes newest Fallout games under the bed*

While this does look cool, and while I'll probably buy it, Bungie is making a huge mistake. Not the fact that it's always online, not that it might be console only, not even that they are mostly just looking at current-gen consoles, but that they say that it isn't an MMO. It's always online, you will always play with other players, there is a persistent world; Bungie, it is an MMO. The more you deny it, the more people will be mad about the constant online connection need. If it isn't an MMO, people will think that it can be played single-player, and they'll look at you with disgust. However, if you embrace the MMO aspect, most people will embrace the always online aspect also, and thus you will not bring upon the wrath of the gamers. Seriously, everything else seems to be quite well done, it's just that that one statement will be your undoing Bungie.

If it plays anything like Fallout 3 i'll embrace it, i'm worried it will play more like Halo, which is all very well but not enough by far.

Quellist:

If it plays anything like Fallout 3 i'll embrace it, i'm worried it will play more like Halo, which is all very well but not enough by far.

That's fair enough. I'd even be fine with the base gameplay not changing as much, but at least fleshing it out to tell a more in depth story. Halo had the story down, and it was cool, but so much was under the surface that the games barely even touched on what was actually going on. Most things just kind of popped out of nowhere and didn't really mean anything at first because you had no idea what they were talking about. However, they did get better as the game progressed, so it is my hopes that their writers are simply just better all around here.

klaynexas3:

Quellist:

If it plays anything like Fallout 3 i'll embrace it, i'm worried it will play more like Halo, which is all very well but not enough by far.

That's fair enough. I'd even be fine with the base gameplay not changing as much, but at least fleshing it out to tell a more in depth story. Halo had the story down, and it was cool, but so much was under the surface that the games barely even touched on what was actually going on. Most things just kind of popped out of nowhere and didn't really mean anything at first because you had no idea what they were talking about. However, they did get better as the game progressed, so it is my hopes that their writers are simply just better all around here.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. That world looks incredible, fascinating....and i want to have leisure to explore it, to learn its secrets and wonders....not to be sent on linear missions or follow an equally linear plot. I dont want expository dialog and snippets of background hidden away as easter eggs, i want to be able to interact with that world and its inhabitents.

Admittedly if anyone post-bioware can do it its Bungie, but ive seen so many promising games disappoint lately i almost dont dare hope

NLS:

fnartilter:
Did anyone else see that massive orb, and immediately think about how that would negatively affect the Earth's gravity and orbit?

If those were in game shots it's going to be purdy.

My first though was "Really, building a city underneath THAT thing? Isn't it going to be very shadowy, and what if it ever drops to the ground?" Sure you're probably fucked on all grounds once that thing eventually hits the surface, but I'd still not feel safe building a city underneath it.

Well it's probably the only thing protecting them from a ship to ground mulch fest, why else would the enemy simply not "glass" them from space. Maybe it still works and they can't, and/or they want the tech. Why else would the enemy come at them from the ground ? Walls aren't going to do them any good against space or air based combat after all... Not unless it's an entire world of course, which it is not.

klaynexas3:

Quellist:

If it plays anything like Fallout 3 i'll embrace it, i'm worried it will play more like Halo, which is all very well but not enough by far.

That's fair enough. I'd even be fine with the base gameplay not changing as much, but at least fleshing it out to tell a more in depth story. Halo had the story down, and it was cool, but so much was under the surface that the games barely even touched on what was actually going on. Most things just kind of popped out of nowhere and didn't really mean anything at first because you had no idea what they were talking about. However, they did get better as the game progressed, so it is my hopes that their writers are simply just better all around here.

Oh man yes, please bungie please. Huge open halo/skyrim/fallout world with these random player encounters using fps And flushed out game mechanics? HELL YES !!! Shooting range made from a hallway with pretty pictures in the background... no.

BabySinclair:
Hype, hype, hype, wait... no PC? Whelp that ruins the hype for me.

I never quite figured out that mentality:

A game isn't on the [console of choice/computer, therefore I shall never play it.

Makes me think people that say that miss out on some the the best games available.

OT: FPS with what seems to be MMO elements?

also for the 360?

by two of the better companies at making Multiplayer portions of their games? [grudgingly admitted, they both know how to do multiplayer aspects of games]

seamless,drop-in/out coop?

I feel like a need a cigarette, some energy drinks, and to turn off my internet for a few days. because this is the HYPEST OF THE HYPE.

Kalezian:

BabySinclair:
Hype, hype, hype, wait... no PC? Whelp that ruins the hype for me.

I never quite figured out that mentality:

A game isn't on the [console of choice/computer, therefore I shall never play it.

Makes me think people that say that miss out on some the the best games available.

OT: FPS with what seems to be MMO elements?

also for the 360?

by two of the better companies at making Multiplayer portions of their games? [grudgingly admitted, they both know how to do multiplayer aspects of games]

seamless,drop-in/out coop?

I feel like a need a cigarette, some energy drinks, and to turn off my internet for a few days. because this is the HYPEST OF THE HYPE.

Probably because they can't afford more than one system? If its not on their system then they can't and thus won't play it. It's not really that hard to understand.......

And no I am not one of those people, but I do understand them.