Activision and Bungle split

Jordan UK wrote:Couldn’t agree more. Having played destiny 1 years 1 and 2, and Destiny 2 up to this point, I’m far more interested and invested in the game than I have ever been. Forsaken is brilliant.

A lot of people do NOT like Destiny though, that's why Bungie were allowed to leave early with the IP. Personally, I can't get into either game at all.

I played a decent amount of the first one before the DLC started , then I played a little of the second. I am just not that into stuff where you always know there is more DLC around the corner waiting to raid your wallet.

Well yes, Photek, you could argue that the majority of the Earth's population don't like Destiny. Even more if we take into account other species who don't even play it.

It has a strong, fairly loyal fanbase. This fanbase can be quite sizeable at times too - it did well to recover from the trough that happened post-Destiny.

It's probably not the license to print money that Activision want - they don't seem massively interested in an sort of organic growth or sales and just want it to spaff money at them 24/7. By all accounts, Destiny was profitable (wasn't there a news story saying Forsaken was bringing in more consumer spending than anything else on PSN for a certain month - so that includes stuff like Fortnite too).

I think there was also a news article saying that Activision were disappointed that Forsaken didn't fully re-engage the.playerbase. I have a feeling that this was an unrealistic publisher expectation - like the kind Square Enix had for the Tomb Raider games - in that an expansion to a sequel was never going to bring in peak numbers. But what Forsaken did do was reignite a lot of love for the franchise that had lapsed.

Of course, not everyone is going to like it - it's not a typical FPS despite what red dog says - and it's never going to be a phenomenon like Fortnite that spans outside of gaming and into human consciousness for a bright, burning moment. It's quite a hard sell at times. It's not as immediately accessible as other FPS games. It's quite time-intensive. It's best features require othe players and teamwork. It's best levels can require hours and hours of playtime. It's quite a tricky game to market, and they've struggled when trying to appeal to all aspects of their fanbase at once. Forsaken did pretty much nail it though, and if they can use this as a base than that loyal fanbase will keep supporting them.

I think Halo 5 is easily better than Destiny 2 and before you all lol, nicks fave barometer 'Metacritic' has them 1% away from each other and Halo 5 has added tons of mp stuff for free since the launch reviews.

I don't know what Destiny actually is, I played lots of Destiny 1, is it an MMO or an online only FPS?

Photek wrote:I think Halo 5 is easily better than Destiny 2 and before you all lol, nicks fave barometer 'Metacritic' has them 1% away from each other and Halo 5 has added tons of mp stuff for free since the launch reviews.

I don't know what Destiny actually is, I played lots of Destiny 1, is it an MMO or an online only FPS?

I mean...

I do understand the confusion. Destiny was an attempt at something completely new. And it didn't quite work. The progress made by the first game's expansion was undone by a terrible launch for the second game.

However these themselves have been erased, and the game is going great these days. I have no idea why you've brought Halo into this Photek (lol, of course I do) but by its own merits Destiny 2: Forsaken is a great game that was well received.

To answer Taf a little, I compare Destiny to Warframe. I only recently started Warframe and it's immediately obvious how much better it is, as a free to play game with a good microtransaction system. Yes it took a long time to get to that stage, but Bungie are charging £40 every other year now plus season passes etc, for basically the same experience, although personally I feel it is underbaked in comparison.

The whole space marine thing now is as generic as a WW2 shooter during the 6th gen console era.

Dont get me wrong, the basic gun play mechanics are absolutely superb, but the lore, story and setting is as generic as it gets and I really don't see it being a big money spinner for Bungie with each further release. Is Destiny 3 really going to generate much excitement outside of the core group who seem to enjoy it?

I'd rather Bungie left it behind and moved to a new IP that people can get excited about, where we have the genuine excitement we all had before the release of Destiny 1 and the absolute mess from then out.

As a consumer, the Destiny IP feels soiled to me. I paid good money for Destiny 1 and the state it was in on release was absolutely unforgivable. Whether that was Bungie or Activision's fault, I don't see myself buying another game in this series.

I got Destiny 2 for free on PSN and yes it was a step up and a step in the right direction, but honestly, for what I would have to pay to get the full package Bungie are taking the piss. So I guess really if they want to do a Destiny 3, they now really have their work cut out to realise that original vision and promise, to get people invested again. To me, that would require a complete package from Day 1, absolutely no microtransactions as a sign of good faith and a pretty comprehensive retconning and reboot of the lore and story.

Tafdolphin wrote:

Photek wrote:I think Halo 5 is easily better than Destiny 2 and before you all lol, nicks fave barometer 'Metacritic' has them 1% away from each other and Halo 5 has added tons of mp stuff for free since the launch reviews.

I don't know what Destiny actually is, I played lots of Destiny 1, is it an MMO or an online only FPS?

I mean...

I do understand the confusion. Destiny was an attempt at something completely new. And it didn't quite work. The progress made by the first game's expansion was undone by a terrible launch for the second game.

However these themselves have been erased, and the game is going great these days. I have no idea why you've brought Halo into this Photek (lol, of course I do) but by its own merits Destiny 2: Forsaken is a great game that was well received.

Mentioning Bungies only other massive IP that's also an FPS shouldn't be mentioned then? And this from you of all people, a person who trolls the internet for info and videos that he can circle jerk to then post them into game threads he hates.

Incredible.

Halo is not a Bungie IP. Bungie had nothing to do with Halo 5.

EDIT: To head off the obvious response, it literally isn't. It's a Microsoft IP created by Bungie, on which Bungie has not worked for 8 years. Halo 5 had zero input from Bungie. It's relevance is really, really limited here.

But, you know. Photeks gonna Photek.

Saint of Killers wrote:

Sandy wrote:Blizzard are a sub of Activision where as Bungie were just in a publishing deal which they've exited slightly early with IP rights for their game. Blizzard are stuck.

Yeah, I know. It was just a silly skit in my mind's eye is all / wishful thinking.

They could always buy themselves back but I doubt Activision could handle loosing their biggest monthly I come. To be fair to Activision they haven't really changed their day to day operations that much since they took over. I'd imagine there are still daily meetings about growth growth growth though.

Story wise it's unfortunate it had nothing to do with it tbh.

The matchmaking system (and lack of for some things) in Destiny is ass backwards as far as I can tell, the vs mp in Destiny was pretty decent, but they had it in as an after thought, plus the constant DLC for money was ridiculous, the direct comparison is the vs mp and free dlc in the latest game in their former IP, it's not out of the ordinary to compare the two.

Microsoft should buy them.

Make Halo great again!

If you think Destiny is a generic space marine game then you really don't know what you're talking about

As Parksey said, it's a curious game that's hard to market possibly. The time sink nature of it just put me off, after a couple of weeks I literally had no idea what people were talking about in the Destiny 1 thread and that just got more confusing in Destiny 2.

Wasn’t the budget for the entire series something like $500m? It probably made Activision a decent sum of money, but nowhere near as much as the COD series would make. As that’s really where they wanted to be Destiny. I don’t think it ever got that popularity consistently. Yeah at launch there would be high numbers, but the userbase would then go play other games.

It’s best for both. Activision can use their money to put into other games and Bungie get full control of the series. I highly doubt Activision would let publishing rights go if it was making big numbers or the player base was huge.

captain red dog wrote:To answer Taf a little, I compare Destiny to Warframe. I only recently started Warframe and it's immediately obvious how much better it is, as a free to play game with a good microtransaction system. Yes it took a long time to get to that stage, but Bungie are charging £40 every other year now plus season passes etc, for basically the same experience, although personally I feel it is underbaked in comparison.

Warframe is a much better comparison than Halo 5. I've played both, and love both, but both are very different. Warframe is a huge, sprawling opera of a game where there's as much that doesn't work as stuff that does, a game that followed a development schedule unlike any other this generation and whose evolution is a thing of wonder. It also perfected the Free to Play model. However, the moment to moment gameplay is way behind something like Destiny. The missions are still diverting, but they don't compare to Destiny's 30 seconds of fun, especially when you get to the endgame (something Warframe still hasn't figured out.)

It's also important to clear up the money issue: Yes Destiny is a full price game. Yes, the expansions were overpriced. They seemed to have learned this lesson however as you can now pick-up the base game plus expansions for around £40. The season pass is a new model that...I'll be honest I haven't bought into yet. The Black Armoury had a slow start but is apparently pretty good, and the season pass is £30 for a full year of ongoing content (it's often compared to a cheap MMO subscription).

The whole space marine thing now is as generic as a WW2 shooter during the 6th gen console era.

Dont get me wrong, the basic gun play mechanics are absolutely superb, but the lore, story and setting is as generic as it gets and I really don't see it being a big money spinner for Bungie with each further release. Is Destiny 3 really going to generate much excitement outside of the core group who seem to enjoy it?

The impression of the series for those who have seen only the television adverts and some screenshots is exactly as you describe: generic. 3 dudes in armour with guns. But this has always been the dual personality of Destiny formed from the partnership of Bungie and Activision. The former needed a game that would appeal to all to bring in the largest amount of income. The latter wanted to create an original universe unlike most space shooters. What we got was something that was the first on the outside, and the second just below the surface.

The second face of Destiny has slowly begun to show its head recently but it's always been there. I'm going to go into spoilers for the endgame content of Forsaken here so tl;dr: Forsaken goes to some strawberry floating batshit places, aesthetically and thematically:

As a consumer, the Destiny IP feels soiled to me. I paid good money for Destiny 1 and the state it was in on release was absolutely unforgivable. Whether that was Bungie or Activision's fault, I don't see myself buying another game in this series.

I got Destiny 2 for free on PSN and yes it was a step up and a step in the right direction, but honestly, for what I would have to pay to get the full package Bungie are taking the piss. So I guess really if they want to do a Destiny 3, they now really have their work cut out to realise that original vision and promise, to get people invested again. To me, that would require a complete package from Day 1, absolutely no microtransactions as a sign of good faith and a pretty comprehensive retconning and reboot of the lore and story.

As discussed, it actually wasn't and I can definitely see why you bounced off it. And I understand why you wouldn't go back. I certainly wouldn't have had I not gotten the D2 for free and convinced myself to buy Forsaken in a sale. But I'm glad I did because the game is great now. Bungie strawberry floated up the release of not just one game, but two in this series and still managed to turn it around.

Will there be enthusiasm for Destiny 3? I'm not sure. But with Activision gone, I can't wait to find out

From the little I played of Destiny and subsequently saw being played, I got no impression that the setting and plot was anything other than generic, and the same for the visual design.

The last city is literally called "The Last City" and that really sets the level for the game world's glossary of terms. The antagonistic force being referred to as "The Darkness" is enough to make me put any book back on the shelf it came from, and when there is a race of aliens literally called "The Hive" who live in subterranean colonies on the Moon then I'm going to groan loudly and go read The First Men in the Moon which did the exact same thing but better in 1901.

Again, you're not wrong as that's the way the game was marketed. But that's not all that's there. Hopefully with Activision's influence gone, the actual heart of the game will start to come more to the fore.

Saying that, it is quite funny seeing Bungie desperately try and come up with a decent explanation for the Darkness. According to leaked documents, it was originally another version of The Covenant, a collection of races hurrying to defeat the Traveller who was secretly evil, but the first game nixxed that and instead presented it as some vague all-encompassing threat and they've struggled to figure it out ever since.

On the contrary I am totally on board and interested in something described as "shapeshifting wish dragons, corrupt worm gods, pocket dimensions, Mad Max style apocalypses and medieval knights with swords and ray guns".

How much of that is presented in game and how much of it is buried in audio logs or the wiki?

Is it similar to The Elder Scrolls, where there is some really cool and interesting lore that has been progressively hidden deeper away in favour of a generic high fantasy setting to appeal to the mass market?

OrangeRKN wrote:From the little I played of Destiny and subsequently saw being played, I got no impression that the setting and plot was anything other than generic, and the same for the visual design.

The last city is literally called "The Last City" and that really sets the level for the game world's glossary of terms. The antagonistic force being referred to as "The Darkness" is enough to make me put any book back on the shelf it came from, and when there is a race of aliens literally called "The Hive" who live in subterranean colonies on the Moon then I'm going to groan loudly and go read The First Men in the Moon which did the exact same thing but better in 1901.

Yeah you have no idea what you're talking about.

The "lore" in Destiny is strawberry floating bonkers.

(The big bad in the Taken King expansion was a alien princess, who worshiped one of the 7 worm gods of the deep, took the mantle of power, became a transexual with the ability to corrupt. Also she (now he) gets his power from the a pyramid scheme of sacrfice that also helps makes a pocket reality (which he turned inside out into the body of a dead wish granting dragon) which makes him functionally immortal

[quote="OrangeRKN"]How much of that is presented in game and how much of it is buried in audio logs or the wiki?
/quote]

A chunk "in game" cutscenes (or just to absorb via enemy character names, titles, actions)

A much bigger chuck in "lore" of item descriptions, or "lore cards" that unlock as you play game (which are quick/easy to read into collections of stories, or can be ignored if you just want to shoot the man)



I think the story in Destiny is quite terribly told, but it's certainly not generic