I’m not sure whether many people have seen this interview yet, Gamespot picked up on it briefly. I originally posted this as a response but was encouraged to make it as a separate topic. It holds some important insight into Bungie's consideration for it's players both TTK and non-TTK alike and is the first time we have heard them speak about the lockout.
Bungie don’t really seem to care about the game they shipped out. Luke Smith in an interview with Kotaku admitted that they knew Destiny was flawed on release: [i]“When that went out the door, we were not thrilled with it.”[/i] He claims they were already overhauling the levelling system in Oct 2014, knowing they messed up. Of course Luke Smith's past controversy gave him a free pass to not answer the ‘if you knew that, then why did players have to pay $140 to get to this point?' question, typical!
[i]“Our hope this year is with The Taken King we’ve shed a little light on the potential of a game in the Destiny universe.”[/i] So after a year, he hopes that a DLC will show the 'potential'? Potential?! Hello!?! You've already got the game in that universe aren't you a bit beyond just showing the potential?! Kind of expensive potential too…
He also addressed the lockout, saying they knew users would be angry and it sounds like they most likely knew explaining beforehand would cause trouble so they didn’t:
[i]“The reactions to that stuff, the frustrations are not surprising to us, I think we didn’t do a good job of explaining that ahead of time...We also haven’t done a great job of explaining what is content that players own and what’s programmed content—things that are subject to change.”[/i]
But of course he offered no elaboration, so TTK players should be wary, as they are most likely to see content disappear under the guise of this excuse in the future without notice!
He explained that 'two different endgames is beyond what could be expected of them' - but no one is asking for this. I think what's apparent from the interview is that they skew what the community says to benefit them, they claim we expect this which is untrue, what is apparent from this forum is that players would like returned what they removed.
More interesting was the fact that he seemed to lie about what was still available, [i]“If players don’t buy TTK they have a bunch of year one endgame content that they can do but the programming and stuff is going to change and the programme is going to move forward.”[/i] So where are the heroic modifiers on story missions and the rest of the strike playlists? Those are year one endgame content which have been removed. There is currently no endgame content except for level 40 players.
On the feedback side, there is no excuse for this in the first place, they knew there was an issue yet it still occurred. BUT for the sake of those still playing, they [b]deserve to know what is subject to change.[/b]
If you want to listen to the interview it is here (lockout section starts 37:15): http://kotaku.com/we-talk-to-the-director-of-destiny-the-taken-king-1733054833