Long and hard have I searched for the bane of my existence, the source of all of my woes within Destiny. Surely there had to be a reason, a rationale for my mis-fortune and a reason for the hours of fruitless grind. I looked high and low, burning every favor and reaching out to every contact I have within the industry and this morning I am pleased to announce I have found him! I have located “the man” who is keeping us down, holding the one exotic or that last piece of raid gear dangling out of reach. In finding the man, however, I also learned his story and I wish to tell that to you now.
Many months ago the head developers for Destiny realized they had built a fantastic vehicle for profit mongering and dream dashing in the form of a video game. They knew that their hype machine would bring people to this chamber of tortured souls, but they were missing a piece. They’d designed an engine which delivered predictable results, reasonable returns and a generally positive ROI. The lords of Bungie looked at the team who designed the loot system and banned them forever from the servers, instead tasking them with writing lines for the NPCs who would inhabit the tower. The designers knew they had the right tool already within the confines of their tortuous chambers at Bungie HQ and now was the time to use him.
A call was made to the bullpen and a young executive designer was summoned to the board room. This young man, a Mr Raphael Gutierrez, known to his colleagues as Nurse (the bad luck of having initials RN in college) was overcome with excitement as he stepped off the elevators. This was his chance, his opportunity and he wouldn’t let it go to waste. You see Nurse had grown up a gamer and always felt the games were too predictable. Finishing levels gave you clear screens, killing bosses gave you designated rewards. For years he’d dreamt of a game which was far less predictable, much more random. He knew he could build a system which would cause an endless cycle of repetition and monotony but still keep enough interest, a large enough carrot on the end of the stick if you will, to hook the audience and keep them wanting more. Nurse cracked his knuckles as he sat as his keyboard, this would be his masterpiece.
Fast forwarding to September of 2014 and Nurse’s work was done, he had created loot tables for strikes which were unforgiving and stingy, a reward system for PVP which was inexplicable in its randomness and redemption process which would drive Ghandi insane. His crowing achievement was the ultimate random vendor who, once a week, would offer the promise of the ultimate weapons and gear for those who didn’t want to earn them through other methods, but then only provide the most generic and feeble of the lot. Nurse had done it, he was sure that he’d created the most frustratingly addictive grind in the history of gaming, “take that Blizzard” he thought.
Today we sit hunched in our bonus rooms, basements, RVs and bedrooms toiling in the fields of battle for that elusive piece of armor, that last gun which will make our collection complete. As we do so, Nurse sits back and watches our streams, reads our forum posts and is delighted for he has won. He has brought a community to their knees and his evil plan was at fruition.
Now surely, as we are aware of this man and his dastardly plot, we must take action as a community! We must send armed police to his house to disrupt him and his family’s night. We must crash his e-mail and wreak havoc with every aspect of his personal life. Clearly he was doing his job and designing as he was told, but its his evil plan and we should hold him directly accountable! Let us rise up against this evil my brothers, the darkness has a name and it is R.N.G!
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I actually like the idea of random rewards. Gives you the sense to retry a strike or raid in hopes of a better reward.