[Malankazooie]

I'm not the biggest Destiny fan. In fact I felt Destiny 1 tried to be good at a lot of things but instead was mediocre at most of them. But I seen this new trailer for Destiny 2 and thought it's probably a good time to create a thread dedicated to it. Let the hype and overly hyperbolic discussion commence as we roll towards the Sept 8 release date!


[EDIT] Changed the title of thread - to be inclusive of all Destiny titles.

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 03 April 2019 - 06:49 PM

[Cause]

This trailer is a fail for me. The tone is wrong.

It does nothing to address the criticisms of Destiny 1. Have they fixed the story? How that story is told?

[Malankazooie]

Greetings fellow heroic Guardians. A friendly reminder that game play reveal for Destiny 2 will be live-streamed tomorrow, May 18 beginning @10am PT. I hope to see you at this briefing, as it may reveal our fate as heroic Guardians fighting for the light.

May the long sleep of Gogrodnidorak never be interrupted.

[Cause]

I hope it's good. I really do.

[Cause]

Seems less like a great leap forward than it does just a few tweaks.

Finally they have clan support. They have matchmaking for Raids (Sorta)! These things should always have been around. Gameplay seems the same. Is the story more coherent? No idea! Did Steven Erikson play a big role in writing it in the end? It might explain a lot actually, the first game had a million story threads but no story progress or conlusions.

[Aptorian]

The livestream is over:



Looks pretty good. Looks like more of the same really. I sort of feel like the game would probably had been better presented as Year 4, instead of Destiny 2. But I guess they needed that sense of starting over and welcoming new comers in.

I will definitely be playing it now that it's coming to PC.

I wonder if I could steal my buddies PS4 to play Destiny 1 before 2 comes out...

[Khellendros]

Looks like Destiny 1.5 so far, rather than a full sequel. I mean, the European Dead Zone, the new Earth area, was literally cut from Destiny 1. I wonder if you'll be able to go to the original planets, or are the new ones it?

I really enjoyed playing Destiny - as in, the feel of the gameplay/gunplay was great, even if it was a shallow pond of a game. But they lost me when they cut services which were originally available, but were subsequently shuttered behind The Taken King expansion. So you could only play the things your originally paid for, if you shelled out more money. I know that expansion got a lot of positive feedback, but that particular decision really alienated me on principle.

[Khellendros]

Co-op gameplay from the always-irreverent Outside Xbox and Outside Xtra:

[Silencer]

I need to watch the stream, but Destiny 1.5 sounds about what I expected. Especially with Activision getting all franchise-y about it, why make something genuinely new when you can do a refresh?

So consider me underwhelmed. Though who knows, the gameplay footage may blow me away. Though the teaser trailer looked exactly the same as the base game. *sigh* I want to love this game. I really do.

[Khellendros]

Silencer, on 19 May 2017 - 09:13 AM, said:

I need to watch the stream, but Destiny 1.5 sounds about what I expected. Especially with Activision getting all franchise-y about it, why make something genuinely new when you can do a refresh?

So consider me underwhelmed. Though who knows, the gameplay footage may blow me away. Though the teaser trailer looked exactly the same as the base game. *sigh* I want to love this game. I really do.

To me the gameplay footage looked the same as Destiny 1. They've made some quality-of-life improvements, like not having to go to orbit, being able to matchmake for raids, but fundamentally it looks almost uncannily the same game. Some new powers which are essentially the same as old powers, some new enemies which are like old enemies (the Cabal Gladiators are the Fallen Vandals/Captains). Also, alien dogs.

This post has been edited by Khellendros: 19 May 2017 - 10:03 AM

[Silencer]

OK, so I'm about halfway through the livestream, and so far I have the following thoughts:

Luke Smith should never be allowed on stage ever again.

I find it adorable that they think this whole "welcome new players" thing is some sort of selling point - at least when Luke Smith says it, it sounds appropriately like begging. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Destiny 2 will have more players than Destiny 1, and I'm sure that will be great for the community. But frankly, if they think that this current plot is somehow making it "more accessible" to new players, they are fooling themselves. None of that intro sequence seemed like something that would be meaningful or engaging to anyone who didn't play Destiny 1. None of it.

Has Bungie lost their touch with the cinematics? Aside from the ever-brilliant Cayde-6, there was possibly even less emotion in that opening sequence than what we got in Year 1! I literally gave less of a damn about the City falling as time went on, it was that depressingly acted. If there was one thing Bungie normally did really well in Destiny, it was the cinematics. But whatever magic they tapped for The Taken King onwards, they appear to have lost.

As appealing as Space Captain America sounds in principle, the only new subclass I can be excited about is Arcstrider. Which is unfortunate, because it has such a terrible name. But hey, at least it looks functionally cool, unlike the Dawnblade. RIP Warlocks. (Who am I kidding? I'll end up maining a Space Wizard anyway even if I do just end up playing a Voidwalker again.) Seriously, swords were terrible as a weapon in the game, but to make them your super? Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Grenade Launchers look badass. I want one. Submachine guns confirmed. Cool. As long as they aren't just shorter range assault rifles. >.>

Oh yeah, did I mention Luke Smith needs to stop talking? Like, seriously, dude, you're not funny.

More importantly, this whole thing feels like they completely missed a lot of the point. The community loves loot, sure. But when people wanted "new" subclasses, they really didn't want reskins that were functionally the same. That is literally the opposite of what people wanted. We didn't want *more* exotics. That's again completely missing the complaints on that front. It's not about quantity. It's not about grinding more to get more "unique" items that are also the most common thing you will ever see in the game. That's literally one of the worst parts of Destiny. FFS. I'm also pretty sure that 4v4 only PvP is really not what the Crucible kids were after - as per the stunned and confused silence that came after that announcement, instead of what I assume were the expected frothing-at-the-mouth-cheers. While they talk a good game about the plot being more coherent and engaging, all I'm seeing before me is more of the same, but with more cutscenes. Which, if they were Old Bungie cutscenes, might have been great. As it stands, the ones that I've seen so far are bland. Eh.


OK, world spaces. I shall updated after the next 30 minute segment, hopefully while being less of a Negative Nancy.

[Silencer]

I really didn't think jokes could fall more flat than Luke's, but apparently tough crowd. Poor Steve Cotton. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like there was some Activision employee sitting off-stage with a gun held to these guy's families, telling them to get out there and deliver the damn talking points and sprinkle in some terrible attempts at self-deprecating humour? O.o

"Of course we have a brand new raid." - Oh. A. Singular. One. Guess you guys really put extra effort into this one, huh?

No more orbit. Oh, really, you finally figured out that extra loading screen was idiotic? Congratulations. It only took you four years. I appreciate the applause, because it's a great QoL improvement, but I kinda feel like that should have been met with stony silence, and then one guy just going "took you long enough" down the back.

NPCs in the world + Adventures, Lost Sectors, and Treasure Maps sound good. Hopefully there are literally thousands of them over a huge map...oh, wait, this is Bungie, yeah right. Guarantee these will be recycled in the same vein as missions. OH HEY GUYS, THEY FIGURED OUT AN IN-GAME MAP MIGHT BE A GOOD IDEA. HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
(Side note: I still remember when all this stuff was more or less promised to be in Destiny 1. Good grief.)

FOUR BRAND NEW WORLDS. One of them is Earth. Now, I know, it's a new region. But dude. Come on. XD
Also, are they serious? Four worlds. Apparently in direct exchange for the ones we already had? So no more Cosmodrome, Moon, Venus, or Mars? This does not surprise me, but it does rather undermine the excitement of new places to explore.
Also; tiny maps confirmed - European Dead Zone, "easily the largest space we've ever built, maybe even by a factor of two". So, like, double the size of Mars. Cool. Tiny. With maybe fifty point of interest tops, if you don't count endlessly reoccurring beacons and Public Events. Joy of joys. Really outdoing yourselves here guys.

Also, apparently they completed ignored the feedback on bullet sponge bosses.


Oh, cool, Clans. Again, one of the most basic features of any MMO game, four years late.

Wow. Still trying to justify the idiocy of not having any matchmaking for Raids and other end-game content. Seriously? Aaaaaaaaand your solution is to only allow this through Clans? JUST FUCKING SUCK IT UP AND PUT MATCHMAKING IN THERE. I'm not going to complain that it's in there, but this is such a half-way measure it's almost worse. Almost.

OH FUCKING WAIT. THERE ACTUALLY WAS AN ACTIVISION SUIT STANDING OFF-STAGE THREATENING THEIR FAMILIES. HOLY SHIT. XD

But seriously, it bugs me that the trailer has more emotion than the actual cinematic it is derived from.

Oh hey, looks like more exclusive content coming to PS4....fffffffuuuu~.

Lol. "We believe that it's always better to play together. You've made this one of the most engaged and wonderful communities ever, in no time flat." - But we still don't trust you to play nicely together if we give you normal matchmaking. LOL GET REKT.




OK, I really tried to be more positive for this half of the show, but frankly what I saw was a whole bunch of "we didn't want to change anything much, but here, have some features that should have already been in the original game, also let's see if we can get another three years out of minimal content releases". Utterly disappointed in Bungie right now. They need to stop letting Activision call the shots and actually make a game that their staff can be excited about when they get up on stage.

[Khellendros]

Apparently there will be vehicles to pilot other than sparrows (tank confirmed) - but unclear if they're a collectible, always-available kind of thing, or story/mission-specific.

[Cause]

Watched the strike. Its almost impossible to tell its not just Destiny 1!

For the biggest change is that each class now seems to have a power besides just their grenade and Super. The Titan can throw up a shield wall.

[Silencer]

Khellendros, on 19 May 2017 - 03:18 PM, said:

Apparently there will be vehicles to pilot other than sparrows (tank confirmed) - but unclear if they're a collectible, always-available kind of thing, or story/mission-specific.

At this stage, I would bet a legitimate amount of money that the tank, at least, is mission specific. Quite possibly Raid specific if I actually thought they were giving that away so early. But there's definitely no way you're dropping one of those out on Patrol.
As for the others - it was a long standing rumour in Destiny 1 that we'd be able to get the Pike as a replacement option for Sparrow. That kind of trade off wouldn't surprise me as being an option here.

[Silencer]

Briar King, on 19 May 2017 - 05:49 PM, said:

What were y'all expecting? This game has been linear with all its expansions and y'all knew it was going to go straight into 2. Give it a chance. I don't remember Halo 1-2 changing all that much except for the onscreen meters & new guns like this is showing and they had in game time in between those. Guided Games is a step in the right direction for lone wolfers like me. I'd be happy if they just threw this on D1 right now. I think ships will finally have a tiny amount of customization along with the new rolls I noticed each ship had a different color exhaust kinda like you can do to Sparrow. It's not much and it will get old quick but at least it's something. I still eagerly await the day we get flight control and PvP of ships.

Honestly? This is about what I was expecting. Not because it's what a sequel should be, but because it's what Activision would want their $60, minimum-effort DLC to be.

My problem with it, is that's not a new game. This is an expansion they are charging full price of admission for - and it barely fixes the problems with Destiny. What the actual effects of having shotguns and sniper rifles sharing a slot with rocket launchers and machine guns are will have to be seen - hell, the biggest change is in the way loadouts are managed, though I still think they haven't quite got this right - but ultimately it is unlikely to drastically change weapon balancing. Here's hoping they've figured out how to properly segregate PvE and PvP balance changes, though. The rest of it is just recycled and reskinned stuff.
Or, worse, things that could have, and should have, been patched into the game three years ago/actually included on release. I'm not going to shower them with praise for meeting the minimum standards for game design. (Especially not while they are apparently still unconvinced that they were wrong in the first place.)

So yeah. This is about what I expected. But that's still disappointing from a company that used to make an actual effort to reinvigorate their games between releases, and move the goalposts. Not just repeat what they did before and act like it's some great achievement.




And Halo 2 was actually a large change. Never mind that you had actual campaigns in those games, with proper stories, but we saw the addition of several new weapons, the ability to play as the Arbiter on some missions, the introduction of an entirely new species for the Covenant, multiple new vehicles, and literally every single map was new - and there were like a dozen of them, because each mission had its own map. Never mind the changes that came to multiplayer.
Then Halo 3 came and it was a huge change, with Armor Abilities basically revamping one of the fundamentals of combat, plus again a raft of new weapons and locations. ODST was a freaking' expansion and it was almost an completely different game in its own right, and cost less than Destiny 2 will. And then Reach came around and perfected Halo forever, with reticule bloom and a refinement of the armor abilities from 3, and one of the best damn stories Bungie has ever told. XD

Comparatively, when a new Halo game was announced, I was hyped for the changes. In this, I'm still worried about half the things they aren't changing, because they weren't done right in the first place, and the list of things they are *actually* adding is shorter than some of my Super charge times when I'm rocking Obsidian Mind. >.>

But hey, it's a different game now. Iteration, iteration, iteration. Earn that paycheck, Bungie!

[Cause]

Except Destiny 1 was a mess. So I think I and a lot of people were hoping for big improvements and changes. Don't get me wrong, I think they have added a lot of good things. Guided games is a good thing, but simple matchmaking would be better. I still have never played a single Raid in Destiny despite over 100 hours of game play. I don't know 6 people who have PS4s never mind 6 who own destiny.

So I put over 100 hours in destiny. The game is obviously playable and I enjoyed it. Still there was so much wrong. The Story, not the least of it, by no means the only problem.

We won't really know what the game is like until release but I did hope for more from the reveal. Destiny at the end of the day is meant to be an MMORPG yet has always suffered from poor story, poor background, lack of content and excessive grind. Talk of one new Raid is not promising, it reeks of more Nickel and Diming when in 3 months for an extra 10 dollars we can buy another one.

http://destiny.wikia.com/wiki/Fallen - This is all the knowledge the game has about one of the primary antagonists.

Compare with https://www.halopedia.org/Covenant or http://gearsofwar.wi...ki/Locust_Horde

[Malankazooie]

Greetings fellow heroic Guardians. Some of our heroic comrades have taken reprieve from fighting for the light and have put forth their efforts into examining the recently released briefing on our collective destinies <<<< see what I did there? XD. Anyway, after examining the briefing, they've deduced that the Destiny 2 public beta will go live July 17.

May the claw of Zzzgroglimorak never be found.

[Khellendros]

No Grimoire cards in Destiny 2. No real detail on whether there'll be some sort of codex/encyclopedia within the game itself this time, or if they're basically just dispensing with the background lore all together (they said they're aiming to provide the lore through the story and adventure missions, but considering how well that worked out in Destiny 1, I'm sceptical for now).

[Cause]

Khellendros, on 24 May 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:

No Grimoire cards in Destiny 2. No real detail on whether there'll be some sort of codex/encyclopedia within the game itself this time, or if they're basically just dispensing with the background lore all together (they said they're aiming to provide the lore through the story and adventure missions, but considering how well that worked out in Destiny 1, I'm sceptical for now).

Getting rid of the grimoire cards is a good thing! A very good thing!

That said, yes they better have some lore and sotory that makes sense this time around