Destiny’s House Of Wolves Looks Way Better Than The Dark Below

18 responses to “Destiny’s House Of Wolves Looks Way Better Than The Dark Below”

1. 

   riavan

   May 9, 2015 at 3:10 pm

   Does it though, its still short on story and content.

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   1. 

      letrico

      May 9, 2015 at 3:46 pm

      Probably another 3x 15 minutes mission

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      1. 

         akuma07

         May 10, 2015 at 5:29 pm

         There are 5 story missions. Plus quests which also count as story.

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   2. 

      dogman

      May 9, 2015 at 3:57 pm

      It looks way better I guess, but Destiny has never had any problem looking amazing. As any long term MMO player knows content patches may look incredible but they rarely bring the sort of deep change and restructuring that Destiny needs to make DLC worthwhile.
      Given Bungie’s previous moves I’d say House of Wolves will be fun for a week and a great excuse to play a genuinely great game, but ultimately it’ll have a few rookie MMO developer mistakes that lead to either fast burnout or a feeling of pointlessness. I want it to be as well made as the engine itself but they’re clearly in way over their head.

      Reply
      1. 

         geometrics

         May 9, 2015 at 8:19 pm

         That massive update in Spring (i think?) we keep hearing about will be the real test. I played it again for 30 minutes today after giving up a week into The Dark Below, and as you said, the gameplay is so goddamn tight (easily the best of the generation, even Halo Reach handles like a truck in comparison). It’s just all that superfluous stuff around it that’s not there yet.

         I think it’s fair to give them a year to get it right, given that they are MMO rookies, and the genre they have created has never really been done before. And frankly i’d rather be more understanding with a developer who’s stumbling trying something genuinely new, than mindlessly consume the next yearly iteration from some jaded super publisher because it’s polished to a mirror sheen.

         But yeah, if House of Wolves and that major update later in the year fall flat, I think i’ll be truly done with the game until the sequel. Which is damn good, considering that every other game I buy lasts me a week at most before I’ve “been there, done that”.

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         1. 

            riavan

            May 10, 2015 at 8:34 am

            It’s should not be too hard to look at world of warcraft, especially when you’re publisher is Activision Blizzard.

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            1. 

               geometrics

               May 10, 2015 at 1:33 pm

               Yes but it’s not that simple. The repetition of World of Warcraft is almost dulled by the fact that its actual input and gameplay is comparatively “hands-off”. You click a button on the screen and queue up actions, sure, the tactical side of things is important, but generally, due to movement/targeting on a single plane, auto lock on, etc, you aren’t using as many of the cognitive processes that Destiny demands. You can switch off in a way, and let the repetition play out.

               But because Destiny is so hands on, with full, fast paced three dimensional movement and aiming, you have to mentally engage with what’s happening on the screen so much more. This makes things like repetition and grinding that much more noticeable and unacceptable to the player. If anything, they looked too much at WOW, and thought that they could follow its systems and it would work.

               Yes the game has an objective lack of content, but the developers probably didn’t realise the extent to which the nature of the gameplay would exacerbate the problem.

            2. 

               riavan

               May 11, 2015 at 8:30 am

               Destiny has more repetition due to lack of content than wow does though… The grinding systems are pretty similar, except have weird terrible design choices in some places (which is why I’m saying they should ask blizzard).

               Also I feel it is not objective to say the entire game of destiny and it’s DLC would have less than about 20% of the content of each wow expansion pack solus. (And this is before considering its lackluster story)

            3. 

               geometrics

               May 11, 2015 at 11:41 am

               Also I feel it is not objective to say the entire game of destiny and it’s DLC would have less than about 20% of the content of each wow expansion pack solus. (And this is before considering its lackluster story)

               Do you mean subjective?

               I did say objectively (as in, it’s the truth, not an opinion) that Destiny has a lack of content.

            4. 

               riavan

               May 11, 2015 at 7:26 pm

               Yep, I’m just saying that, it’s not the grindy part of Wow I want them to copy, they already have that downpact, they just don’t have the other systems – like the ones the reward you for time spent, not RNG – setup quite right, it’s like MMO amataur hour at bungie.

         2. 

            oodlemeister

            May 10, 2015 at 10:27 am

            Well said. They’ve already come a long way since launch. Yes, there are still problems, but they’re making and frost to fix them and refine the game.

            Reply
2. 

   brendanaus

   May 9, 2015 at 3:56 pm

   This game has two major issues.

   1. Its still accomadating to old gen consoles. Its definitely restricting its potential. Lack of vault options/size, restricted size of areas (Old Russia was meant to be exponentially larger) and scaled back interface & game design.

   2. Repetitive.

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   1. 

      namiwakiru

      May 9, 2015 at 5:32 pm

      Bungy/Activision are restricting it’s potential, older consoles are just a convenient scape goat.

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      1. 

         shadow

         May 9, 2015 at 7:19 pm

         Why do you think they’re doing that?

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         1. 

            namiwakiru

            May 9, 2015 at 10:27 pm

            Simply put? Returns

            Reply
      2. 

         geometrics

         May 9, 2015 at 8:21 pm

         Yeah, as @shadow said, what possible reason could they have for sabotaging a franchise they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars on in its first iteration?

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         1. 

            namiwakiru

            May 9, 2015 at 10:26 pm

            Sabotaging is a strong word and not one I used.

            Destiny having untapped potential and appearing to be a shell of its original self is an opinion that many gamers and reviewers came to.
            The specifics of why Destiny was gutted is a hotly debated subject and one Bungie/Activision isn’t willing to discuss.

            They want the biggest returns possible for as little effort as practice. Not an unheard of principle in business, but it is the reason that a substantial change isn’t going to happen.

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            1. 

               geometrics

               May 10, 2015 at 2:17 pm

               Yes but that’s a dangerous game to play, especially with a brand new franchise. And who’s to say the “original self” was any more than what we got. We saw a vertical slice announcement which ended up being pretty damn close to what we got on release day.

               I think there were grand notions that a lot of the community cooked up as to what Destiny SHOULD have been, but aside from some flowery marketing language, did Bungie really over promise and under-deliver, or did we fill in the blanks ourselves?

               Let’s look at the announcement trailer, almost all of that footage is either in or coming to the game:
               

               How about the E3 gameplay demo:
               

               Aside from a few UI changes, and the presence of more players in a single space (although that particular area in the final game is sometimes filled with 5-6+ players), it’s really representative of the game we got.

               I vaguely remember promises of going to EVERY planet in the solar system, but maybe even that was me hearing what i wanted to hear, not what they were actually saying. I remember hearing being able to travel between each planet, and I assumed that meant flying my ship myself, not looking at a loading screen of my ship. But then did Bungie ever promise it would be controllable travel through space?

               You have Forbes saying “it’s a lot smaller than we thought”, but in the article, they themselves say in a round about way “we made assumptions that Destiny never explicitly promised”: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/07/28/bungies-destiny-might-be-smaller-than-everyone-thinks/

               So did Bungie really deliver a shell of Destiny’s original self, or did it simply deliver less than what we as players and fans hoped and imagined Destiny was?

               EDIT: I will say though, the story’s execution, or more specifically, the plot, was very weak and did feel gutted. But in terms of setting, I think the game succeeds.

   2. 

      finishedlast

      May 9, 2015 at 10:44 pm

      Why wouldn’t they cater to last gen if (I’m hypothesising, I don’t actually know) that’s where most of their players are? I purchased the collector’s edition on PS3 because I wasn’t going to upgrade for one game AND lose the ability to play with my friends that didn’t also upgrade at the same time. I suspect I’m not the only one in that boat. I’m also not going to repurchase a game I’ve had 150+ hours on just for better graphics, ESPECIALLY if I’m burned by the dev/publisher if they stop supporting where I game most (until Uncharted 4 & Borderlands 3 hit, my PS4 remains a Netflix box). While the people I party with most are on last gen, so I will remain.

      The time for Bungie & Activision to drop last gen is Destiny 2, not before.

      Reply