Videos: It’s where evil space wizards come from. Somebody should investigate, huh? A too-cool-to-miss event during the Destiny beta had been teased all week by developer Bungie and players finally got to sample it today. The special Dark Beyond mission that took players to the foreboding, enemy-enveloped moon was unlocked for only a few hours today. Maybe you didn’t get to play it or see it yet so here’s what it looked like.
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59 responses to “Today’s Special Destiny Mission Took Players To The Moon”
So is this already finished? Cool thing to end a beta on, bit slack to pencil it into such a small time frame on a weekend.
Especially if it was open early morning for us. I’ planning to load up in a few minutes and have a look to see if it’s still available
Well let me know
Nope, locked. Bugger
Expected as much, super disappointed
Eh, not too long to wait till the game is out. It’s a bit of a bugger but I suppose it’s more to discover when the full game is released…
Really? What platform were you playing on?
I was on till around 11:30pm last night on 360, moon mission was still active but I didn’t realise it was ‘special’ so didn’t play it…
PS4, it was still locked at about 14:50 or so when I checked. Might have been opened at different times on different platforms, that’d make sense if they were testing it on multiple servers since as far as I know there’s no cross platform play with anything, I don’t remember seeing mention of XB1/360 or PS3/4 playing together for example so it’d make sense they’d need separate servers per platform and individual stress tests for each
Yeah, good point. Annoyed I didn’t play it now.
It was open at 5am WST in Aus, I got up to play it, it was really enjoyable, and after the one and only mission me and friend just went exploring looks like a cool Strike is set up on there!
Looking forward to September!
There was a reason for that. They were trying to get as many people on at the same time for stress testing.
I understand the concept it’s the timing I find poor
eh, timezones.
Still a Saturday night in the US
Just a sunday morning for us, what are u doing on sunday morning?
Having a family and a life?
Haha, cant believe people downvoted you for that.
You should know by now that a significant reduction in leisure spent playing videogames – whether it’s because you’ve started a family or that you’ve just got other hobbies these days – means you’re simply gonna miss out on things like this from time to time.
Most people can’t realistically spend their whole life attending midnight launches and conventions 😛 it’s just how it is.
@Fruitlewp – I just want my cake and be able to eat it too, is that so much to ask! Lol
Lol not living dat nerd lyf
For the Americans, the day the Moon mission graced the Destiny servers was the most important day of their life. For the Australians, it was Sunday morning.
What you’re paraphrasing is my favourite line from the Street Fighter movie. I still try to inject it into regular conversations to this day.
Few hours worth would have been nice
“Insert obligatory Wizard/Moon joke here”
“What do you call it when a wizard bends over in front of you and flips up his robe?”
I only went through it once before going back to bed but it was pretty cool. If you missed it there wasn’t anything particularly special about it mechanically compared to the Russia content. Fun to explore but just another zone. We didn’t get to play with ultra rocket launching jet packs or anything.
The thing I found kind of disappointing was that there didn’t seem to be lower gravity on the moon, jumping felt the same as usual. Other than that it was enjoyable though.
I went exploring and found a giant kinda dungeon thing that kept going down and down and down with tons of zealots and a few ogres etc. Was pretty cool.
I found that too. Figured it was missing some big kewl boss at the bottom. There was just a big chain in the middle of the room to stare at for 10 seconds…and back I go.
Perhaps it’ll be involved in some manner of quest further down the line?
Sure, that’s a valid point. I had just hoped after traipsing all the way down there might’ve been something more than just a chain. Anyhoo…..
Yeah it will be for sursies, also suposibly a lot of doors are closed in the beta zones.
Does the moon have the same gravity as Earth? Seems like a waste of time having stuff on different planets and moons if the only difference is the colour palette.
Yeah, it seems to have the same gravity, think it might be due to the colonization, who knows.
Yeah. The gravity seems to be the same everywhere. The lore would almost certainly explain it since it’s all happening after mankind had a huge boom in space technology. Sort of like how with Warhammer 40,000 you can just assume at some point one of the empires terraformed any given planet.
Yeah suposibley the traveler normalized gravity or something.
Apart from the spelling typo, I have no idea why someone would downvote that.
Tbh that spelling should be immortalized…..even if I did shake my head and ask ‘are u F&@$ing serious?’
But it’s above as well…so yes :S
I was actually kind of disappointed that the gravity seemed identical to earth…
I wanted to moon jump damnit!
I was really not interested in this, but since the Beta went public I decided to try it. I downloaded the PS3 version, mostly because all versions are 30fps and the PS3 version is much smaller than the PS4 version (5gb vs 15gb)
It’s great so far. I think I may get this after all.
Everybody look at the moon!
Missed it by 5 minutes this morning. Bit disappointed, been having a lot of fun running about. I’m rubbish at console FPS but enjoying myself and hopefully not pissing off squadmates too badly…
I enjoyed waking up early to join in, I found a soccer ball in The Tower and we played with it in the spawning courtyard when the time ticked over. People in game are lovely (so far!).
I generally agree. However, typically, I did come across a few people running the Strike mission that weren’t interested in anything but getting through the instance just for the loot. They’d camp and provide zero support if you needed a revive, particularly if you were tanking. Nothing too hard. Anyway, minor gripe. Better to go in with friends I guess.
I enjoyed the beta but my major gripe was the 3 people only fire teams. Pretty much didn’t play any games with my friends as they had already jumped into fire teams so most of my games were played solo (weird MMO since it felt very very empty)
Played the moon mission, fun but still not much different to what the earth missions were, go here to check this then go kill a big boss and just in a grey pallet (compared to the brown pallet of the rest of the game).
I will enjoyed the game but not 100% sold on the final product. Don’t get me wrong it was crazy pretty but it didn’t really feel like it would be a very long game, Bungie have said the beta was 10% of the full game and that’s what scares me.
10% ??????? Holy fuck, why is no one reporting on that.
Because they’re too busy trying to be hype? Besides, my impressions from the beta were that PVE’s really only about 25% of their focus, and the REAL game that everyone will be talking about and posting about is the PVP. CRUCIBLE PEOPLE WHY ARE YOU PLAYING A CONSOLE SHOOTER IF NOT FOR HARDCORE COMPETITIVE MULTI WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU DO YOU EVEN COD BRO? etc, etc. Get on board the PVP train, that’s where the end-game is, choo choo.
There’s also a lot of items behind the PvP wall. Like some epic armour that you need X wins in PvP to buy, etc.
If beta was 10% of release then either bungies 10 year plan is very short sighted, or expect an absolute shit ton to be drip fed from release
I fear for what this game will do to my download limit but it will not dampen my hype.
Oh, Strongbad. Take it easy on the soy sauce, bud.
I’m still torn whether it’s worth getting the digital or physical PS4 versions! Digital = convenience but Physical = dat box
I was extremely excited about this game. Was gonna be the game I upgraded to next gen for. But after playing the beta for a few hours I’m no longer that excited. Every mission seems to be exactly the same: go to the waypoint so ghost can hack something while you defeat waves of enemies.
Bungie were hyping this as the next big thing but in reality it seems like a cross between halo and borderlands without any of the elements rah make those two games great. Little enemy or weapon variety, no big set pieces. Every strike takes place in identical looking rooms that seem to be copied and pasted. I really hope the final product is better than this.
Yeah, I was pretty hype and thinking this would be a system-seller for me, but now I’m less certain. What I saw didn’t have much to recommend it. Solid shooting mechanics (for a gamepad), and some moderately pretty scenery (PS3 – I’m sure PS4 is nicer).
Lacklustre lobby, deadpan Dinklage, nothing particularly rewarding or interesting or exciting about exploring (seriously, the grimoire doesn’t even make an appearance in-game, you have to go access a separate internet site for your lore fix), crap-shoot loot gambling, very poor communication options (to be expected on a console), bland character progression, a story without any characters.
Most disturbing was that 75% of the bounties were PVP-only, with three times as many vendors and goodies for PVP. …Which I have ZERO interest in. Maybe that was a stress-test thing because the matches are typically shorter and it would stress the matchmaking server more, but I’m pretty concerned about the possibility that after deciding they can’t please the PVE content-locusts, they’ll rely on PVP to sustain the end-game and try to esportsify it to the point that it makes up the core of their social focus, blog-coverage, advertising, and new content/updates.
Yup. And no official place (Kotaku included) is reporting this truth. You can’t deny that is the case. They gotta be getting payment from that sweet $500M budget.
Maybe they just want to believe. The desire to believe is powerful.
But me… I had this conversation with my brother:
Me: “OMG Destiny beta this weekend!”
Brother: “Fuckyes! So hype!”
“Hey, you’re heading home early today, right? Get that shit downloading for me son!”
“DONE. OK, I’m heading out til Sunday, show me all the cool shit when I get back!”
DAYS PASS
“So, how’s Destiny?”
“OK, so… Destiny. It’s alright. I will show you the things.”
“Hm.”
TIME PASSES
“Sooo, you wanna create a character and have a go? Or use one of mine?”
*brother goes to PC and loads up Warframe* “Neeeah. I can wait.”
“No you can’t. The beta’s only open a few more hours.”
“I’ll wait til you buy it.”
“Well… that might not be for months. It doesn’t come out for a few months and I’m not sure I’ll actually get it on launch.”
“I can still wait. I have better things to be doing. Better games to be playing.”
“You have literally HUNDREDS of hours clocked in Warframe, what are you doing?”
“Something fun? Destiny is… Maybe it’ll be better when it’s out.”
“Sooooo, we aren’t getting a 2nd TV and 2nd PS4 for this?”
“Yeah. Probably not.”
🙁 But… but… Destinybros…
You can’t really make any accurate judgement about the final product from the beta, in regards to your final paragraph. I don’t remember bounties being skewed towards PvP at all, every day was 3 pvp 3 pve bounties. Vendors can be dropped in at any point and there is a good chance they were left out for spoiler reasons (other “races” we haven’t met, other factions important to the story etc), where PvP factions dont really matter for story. Personally I hope there is no PvE vendors, all gear from gameplay is much better, as token driven gear, i feel, was a huge part of what made WoW end game stale in long run.
This is true. But yeah, the only time I checked vendors there was 3x crucible, 3x vanguard, 6x iron banner (different type of PVP).
And like I said, I hope it’s that they were pushing toward PVP for the sake of beta stress-testing and, like you mentioned, keeping the thing mildly spoiler free. I’ve seen it said that the PVE in beta represented ‘10% of the total’ a bit, which I hope is a gross exaggeration.
I’m not sure about dislike of the token-driven gear, though.
Because the alternatives are: a wish-and-a-prayer lottery like Defiance at the not-so-tender mercies of the RNG, meaning you can conceivably – and some people DO – end up with NO reward for your hard grinding. Have you tried grinding for upgrades in Defiance? It’s a long, pointless slog through a tunnel with no light at the end of it, no measure of how far along or if you’ll get lucky now… or ever. It’s not fun. It’s not directed. You get fatalistic and give up on ever seeing an upgrade, picking up purple and orange things, then scooting excitedly to your inventory with your hopes up, only to sigh and pitch it in the bin. Over. And over. And over. With no assurance that it will ever end. For the gods of the RNG are cruel. Except to your friend who got an upgrade the minute he was able to use it. Fuck him. You are no longer friends.
I guess there’s always camping/grinding the specific mission/dungeon you need ad nauseum – that’s always fun. Eg: yaaaaay, just hit 60, let’s go back to Stratholme Baron run over and over and over and over AND OVER for those FUCKING PANTS. 45 times. Forty-goddamn-five times. Back when the run used to take over an hour, when the 45min goal was a ‘tight thing’ only available to people who already had their dungeon set and were looking to upgrade to Tier .5. Or: “Hay guise, how come nobody wants to run [x dungeon]? Pleeeeeease, I need to run it!” “NO. We’ve all run it a billion times to get our pants, we don’t want to do it anymore. It’s your fault for being slow and not levelling at the same time as everyone else.”
And god knows, it’s worse when it’s just the one mob/event who drops what you want. Eg: Nothing but titans. As far as the eye can see. Standing around dancing, occasionally annihilating within milliseconds any of the nearby spawns, just for something – ANYTHING – to alleviate the boredom of waiting for the rare spawn who drops that chest-piece. And then it’s on! And then it’s over. Blink and you missed it. Did you get your thingey? No? Guess I’ll see you here in three hours.
Those aren’t great alternatives. Although I guess there is always guaranteed BiS quest reward goodies, where everyone is special! …so no-one is special. Especially since Destiny doesn’t seem to have a wardrobe system.
You could do a lot worse than having some token to work toward, by undertaking activities of your choosing which you prefer, confident that you’re making progress. I think the staleness is just inevitable when you play for as long as they make you play to get the grind done.
You have to remember though that it’s not a super stat centric game, you only have 4 stats with some slight perks to weapons. I think the grind will be more about the appearance and just finding the right perk for your weapons, which isn’t a painful grind, I’d much rather grind for appearance than to be able to function in the end game. Plus you’re not looking at shared loot or stuff like that so you can’t really apply the mmo theory of loot, as I’ve said before it looks like it will function more like borderlands in that regard.
I’ve read the 10% thing, they haven’t confirmed that and it was a pre-alpha comment, possibly they planned to show more in the beta and got hampered by changes required from the alpha etc etc
That’s my impression too. Picking the game up so I can play with friends I suppose, but Beta isn’t making me go “omgomgomg!!!”.
Bummed I didn’t come across any Hallowed Ogres like this chap!
Loved the moon environment, my friend and i played the mission twice to get the full experience. we got crazy lost exploring the caverns and it took us pretty much the entire time trying to find a way out.