[quote][b]This autumn we want to have a moment of convergence where players like you and me who are engaged with Destiny can match up with people who are just joining in, who didn't pick the game up last year for one reason or another. If you played during The Dark Below, you were playing when there were Swordbearers everywhere. That's now gone and you can't recapture that now. Some things are being left behind as we move forward. It's the same with House of Wolves, right now, with the Fallen showing up all over the solar system. Those things are going to be less relevant as we move forward and the Taken are everywhere. We don't have a way to go back in time and experience those things again. So the players who were there can say 'I was here when...' and 'I did it when it was new'. I wish I had a way of better telling players that I was there back then. That I had a better way of embracing the legacy of my time with the game. This is something that we on the development team talk about all the time. It's really important that we figure out ways to embrace the legacy that players created in the first year... I'm not going to talk about how we're going to do that but it is right in the forefront of our brains. It's missing right now in Destiny. -Luke Smith[/b][/quote] So in the last 2 days, one of the topics that has come up in comments of my threads has been the removal of event content like the Blades as well as DeeJ's cryptic remarks that they don't want our weapons to last 10 years. Above is Luke talking to Eurogamer, but by this point everyone was flipping out about the "throwing money at your screen" comment and this all kinda got lost. DeeJ from the Polygon E3 interview: [quote]Polygon: Is the taken king going to introduce any kind of ascension system like we got in House of Wolves to make the gear that we got in year one viable with the new content? [b]DeeJ: Well with the experience that we’re having at E3 right now, we’re revealing the taken king and talking to you about the essential adventure and the essential opportunities to make your guardian more powerful over time. It’s obviously a huge part of Destiny is that your guardian does become more powerful. In terms of the progression system and all of the nuances and complexities of that… That’s a story that I want to get PERFECTLY, so we’re going to devote a lot more time perhaps later on this summer as we get closer to launch; to make sure that everyone knows everything they need to know to come into the taken king and understand what that means to their character.[/b] Polygon: I guess in simpler terms, you’ve talked about this before about how your experiences in Destiny, it’s important for Bungie that, that experience carries over into whatever is next and I feel like the more I play [Destiny] the more concerned I get that… The more worried I get that this stuff that I fought for and you know grinded for to get is just one day going to disappear when Destiny 2 or whatever comes out. Is that fear something I should not be so worried about? [b]DeeJ: Well like I said, we’ll unpack all that stuff, we’ll have that conversation before the adventure in the taken king begins on September 15th But what I can tell you is that the essential dream of playing Destiny is that you’re always becoming more powerful, you’re always being given something new to master. Um, you know, a ten year relationship with one weapon would be a pretty boring game in our opinion. So our goal is to compel you and to inspire you to see new and more powerful things that you need to embrace, you need to learn, you need to upgrade and you need to master so that you’re always pursuing that next way in which your Guardian is more powerful. Be it a new ability, a new way to channel the powers of the traveler as a weapon towards your enemies or just the weapons [themselves].[/b][/quote] The reason I'm bringing up both these interviews is that they both tie together to paint a picture of Bungie's dream for the future of this game and it's not one that I'm sure a lot of players would agree with. Guardian @Dragonassbabe brought up Blades: [quote][b]@Dragonassbabe:[/b] i am just frustrated with looking at all the dead space on patrol and they took the blades out. why? There is plenty of space to keep it all and they are programmers, when patrol starts to run out of space for new dlc events, make more! Newcomers are searching for the husk of the pit (i personally read and answered questions on) and can’t get it to drop. We had the mission AND patrol to get one. [b]@Lost Sols[/b]: Such a great point. What's to keep them from letting the Blades invade a few times a day at least? It doesn't have to be the every five minutes it was before. [b]@Dragonassbabe:[/b] me personally, it will be great to explain my fully leveled gun from vanilla game, others want and are less likely to have because I was here. 5 years down the road there should be EVERY gun created available to level up to current stats. The older the more rare, obtainable still. The diversity of this game could be grand, yet they don't want to. They dangled this carrot in front of our noses and then inform us all it would be boring. [b]@Lost Sols:[/b] So much this. New player 3 years from now... Holy shit where can I get that Shadow Price?? Vet 3 years from now... You can't ;) I got it year one.[/quote] And a conversation with @QuackFever about weapons: [quote][b]@QuackFever:[/b] Customization needs to be bumped up to a whole new level. Sell more shaders, as suggested, or even let us make our own. Let us re-roll armor in addition to our weapons. Or mayhap let us build our armor and weapon(s) from the ground up. Continue to allow us to ascend gear, but instead of adding yet another material or currency (lookin' at you, Etheric Light), just let us apply Motes of Light to our armor or weapons. Guaranteed progression, don't have to pray for a drop, and you're rewarded consistently for the time and effort you put into the game. And it would absolutely solve the "I wanna take this weapon, but it's gotta stay in my vault" problem that we're looking at thus far, while giving a more reliable method than "I hope Etheric Light drops for me this time". [b]@Lost Sols:[/b] I always thought it would be cool to have base versions of everything to start and unlocking upgrades, shaders, body styles etc. For instance there are all the different scopes and everyone has one they prefer, but the odds of a weapon being perfect for you- scope, perks, stats is pretty slim. Why not be able to unlock and customize my scope and the color sight as well? How awesome would Destiny be if our weapons progressed with us? We could purchase base weapons like that and name them. The names could even grow with each upgrade like the Too Human weapons. Deathbringer Fallen Bane and sh*t like that. Maybe an expansion could add a plasma rounds upgrade or Arc Rounds, etc. Or year 2 add another perk slot. Completing raids or IB type events could grant blueprints to upgrade any weapon to exotic status granting bonus damage vs various enemy types, but if you modded your weapon after making it exotic, it would drop it back to Legendary. And if we wanted a different weapon, we could just purchase another base and build a new one. [b]@QuackFever:[/b] They absolutely should be. I've always had an affinity for weapons. My favorite firearm (that I own) has been personalized, with parts that I made myself. It's uniquely mine, and I love that. I have yet to see a game that does that. Every hero needs their sword. And the sword means so much more if they design it themselves.[/quote] The scary thing about what DeeJ and Luke are insinuating is that Bungie's vision of Destiny isn't really about us and enjoying our characters, it's this: http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-point-destiny-the-hardcore-gamers-slot-machine/2300-6425852/ http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/18/8803071/destiny-taken-king-impressions-hands-on-e3-2015 After re-watching DeeJ's interview with Polygon, this is just plain frightening. I don't want to spend 10 years just leveling new weapons to kill the same old content; I want new content to kill with my favorite weapons. I'm by no means saying that there shouldn't be new weapons, but I've spent so much time finding, grinding for glimmer, reforging and crafting a perfect weapon for how I like to play... I sure as hell want that weapon to be viable for more than the few months between expansions. My question is, do they not want us to use a weapon indefinitely because it's boring or because they want us to have to purchase the new expansions to have viable gear? I think we all probably know the answer to that. They don't need us to be pigeons to want to visit their game and purchase their expansions if the worlds are interesting enough to draw us in and the content itself begs to be replayed. I played the original Halo pretty much every day for 2 years. Not for shiny baubles, but because the world itself was endlessly fun to revisit. [quote]I wish I had a way of better telling players that I was there back then. That I had a better way of embracing the legacy of my time with the game. This is something that we on the development team talk about all the time. It's really important that we figure out ways to embrace the legacy that players created in the first year...[/quote] Well Luke, it's right in front of your faces. Our weapons. Our gear. They show our accomplishments and no one who comes in later will have those badges to say they were there.