Why do you still play Destiny?
It's no surprise that Destiny has not lived up to even half of the potential that it could be. I could tell you of the laundry list of problems that shake this game to its core. Instead I decided to write about what could be in store for Destiny.
The gaming industry as a whole has shifted to the idea that we as the consumer need to throw down our hard earned money before even seeing the title screen of the finished product. I believe Destiny has highlighted many of the problems that arise from that arrangement. Now we wait for Destiny to release highly anticipated free content and DLC that very well could help restore faith (and money) in their product or spell doom for future releases in the franchise.
This is our chance to take back what is ours fellow gamers: Our Voice. Right now we should be up in arms over what went wrong with Destiny. Instead the community seems split into two with group A saying screw it I lost my investment so I'll just move on with my life and group B saying screw it the game is playable therefore I love this game and want nothing else.
Another game comes to mind for this given situation- Mass effect 3. I'm sure you've heard of the outcry over the ending in the series. However Bioware took a strong stand after realizing their mistakes and went above and beyond to restore faith in their community.
Bungie and Activision have done very little thus far to either take responsibility for the clearly unfinished release of Destiny or to restore faith in the future of the Destiny franchise. Instead of splitting the community down the middle we should be united giving constructive criticism and positive reinforcement to a game that IMHO already has one foot in the grave.
The following are my own ideas for Destiny and how to improve the game.
1. Identity. Destiny doesn't have it. There's no story. There's no motivation. There's nothing unique about it. It makes no difference what race you are. I'm killing Zerg wannabes , aliens out of that old Area 51 arcade game, and even fat space turtles from the intro to The Fifth Element. Why? What makes Destiny special?
2. Gamer's identity. Destiny's community doesn't have it. Are we playing an MMO? (3-6 players IS NOT massive) Is this an RPG? All the classes are too similar. Is this meant to be the next PVP version of Halo? There's no leaderboards. No method to the rewarding. No incentive to even play aside from moving the throttle so you don't get an afk boot. It's ok to have elements of several game genre's in one game. It's not ok to have nothing special about your own brand though. Bungie needs to sit down and write a mission statement about Destiny and FOLLOW IT. It's a little sad I have to say that after launch considering that should be the first thing you do in the brainstorming stages of any product.
3. No more excuses. Bungie talking about loot- "We want you to earn 'em. You should be able to tell a badass story for every sweet jewel in your arsenal." Thats all fine but when 6 members of a clan that just went through the VoG raid together can't trade items but anyone can buy 4 exotics from tentacle face your trade system is no longer holding true to your reasoning. If trading wasn't ready at time of launch then say so. If you didn't want to worry about item dupping thats fine. Stop bs'ing your customers after you sold them a -blam!-ing Big Mac and claimed it was a 16 oz porterhouse.
4. Free content vs. Dlc. At the moment I've been unable to find much in the way of data for number of online players in Destiny. That said I would bet my next paycheck on two things. 1. The numbers are dropping.... rapidly. I have no doubt that the number of unique players in the Destiny universe is plummeting. Whether they were upset at launch week over the lack of story, got bored a couple weeks in with multiplayer that offers nothing that hasn't been seen already, or they played the game just as much as I have and are just out of end game content aside from 4 hours of repetitive strikes and raids every Tuesday the players are leaving. 2. The players aren't gone for good..... yet. I believe that Destiny has the potential to pull back many of the lost community by listening to the community and what it wants, establishing an identity and achieving its goals, and finally by not killing the golden goose, again. At this point in time I'm hanging up the controller for Destiny indefinitely. If the next release is money grubbing DLC there's a very good chance you won't see my face in that universe again. I know I'm not the only one who has the same point of view. If you still enjoy the game more power to you. But for a large majority the game is lackluster in nearly all elements and if you believe that paying 20 bucks for DLC that has the potential to be on par with what you paid 60 bucks for then be my guest and continue grinding endlessly for materials in a game that has no other aspects of adventure and remains 99 percent combat based. Continue going on 10 kill streaks and watch as the guy who was afk for half the match gets rewarded with exotics. Continue unlocking story cards that you will never read.
My point is the ball is in Bungie's court but the Destiny community doesn't have to sit idly and watch it die. Bungie needs to be held accountable for its game, not let off the hook by gamers that are moving on after a bad purchase or by the gamers that still play and willingly embrace a poor product excusing its mediocrity when only responsibility will give them the outcome they deserve.
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I just hop on to do bounties for the day, but then again I could have done it on a free to play game too...