The lead story writer was shat on by the Bungie Board of Directors so he quit. The lead music director was shat on by the Bungie Board of Directors then he was fired. They reboot just over 1 [u]YEAR[/u] before their release date and content slated for vanilla Destiny wasn't included because they shattered the work in progress and had to stitch the pieces together to make a "finished" product. Bungie knew the story wouldn't be well received. O'Donnell and Staten are NOT replaceable. Even the writer who breathed some life into this new expansion, that everyone tells me is way ahead of the incoherent narrative from the base game, has left the company. Much of the old talent is gone. This is not the same Bungie that made Halo. This broken gutless developer betrayed my trust by pushing their broken game hard, making me pay for content originally made for the first $60 purchase, and covering up the true nature behind the departure of it's core members that used to be affectionately dubbed "grizzled ancients". Yet, people still defend this corrupted desperate company? When I compare the value of a $60 purchase I look to the Witcher 3. When I compare the value of a $40 expansion I look to the Shivering Isles. My money has not been well spent. My friends are broken up now and I need another game to bring the half of us who have left back together.

I got a completely different impression from that article. I don't see some master plan of cutting content in order to milk the consumers by making them pay for previously completed content in DLCs. What I see is an overwhelmed game company who realized late in development that their story sucked and didn't meet the intended vision of the game. The entire story was blown up and stitched back together against a hard deadline in which previously complete content was sitting on the cutting room floor, effectively unusable because none of it made sense in the current story line. Instead of being able to generate new content, bungie was now stuck revising old content that they couldn't make fit in time. Not saying I sympathize with them. Sounds like mismanagement. That said, it makes them seem far less nefarious as the evil empire sitting back in lounge chairs smoking cigars laughing at stupid consumers buying up DLCs they've had sitting on the shelf since 2013 like many on these forums seem to think. In fact, their experience sounds an awful like the experience of many product or project driven companies in the corporate world. Anyone who has held a job in a project driven field has experienced something similar. Looming deadlines, last minute issues, strategic changes mid course, blah, blah. I found the article very informative and feels like the first true glimpse to date of the actual events. And I'm fine with it....as long as bungie learns and continues to improve.

Dude move on. Lol. Who cares. All mmos are like this.

I wouldnt trust shitaku

So, yes, we all know Destiny wasn't what it was supposed to be... but you do know that developers cut content all the time? Even pearls like The Last of Us have content cut in development. At the beginning of the development cycle most designers know no boundaries and then reality in form of time and money issues sets in. Then concepts are cut to size, stuff gets streamlined. Nowadays there are so many diaries and blogs from game-designers and it happens to every single one. It's normal, you juggle ideas around and you have to adjust when bringing them to life. Before DLC and expansions where a thing, that content never resurfaced, maybe sometimes in the sequel. Kind of like alternative endings/cut scenes in movies. Since DLC became a thing, desginers often use content that didn't made it into the final game. The filthy part is cutting content that is already done! Day 1 DLC is the prime example of shit like this. And I don't think that was the case with Destiny. Kotaku makes it pretty clear that Bungie had bitten off more than they could chew, so it's more a problem of incompetence/inexperience than greed.

During years of development issues arise, whether it's hardware limitations, time limitations, loss of employees, lack of resources, the nature of spaghetti coding,the list keeps going. Not to mention hard deadlines and having pressure to hit that date no matter what it takes. Sometimes things are left behind on the cutting room floor. We used to have to wait for a sequel to get this content, but now with technology where it's at, we can have it added to a seemingly finished product. This seems like a win for everyone, but there will always be those people who feel that they deserved more. If this is your stance then my advice to you is to wait on purchasing a game from now on. They will always be adding things through DLC and if you wait you can get the entire experience for one price. Being an early adopter will always have this same outcome. So the question is: Do you want to a part of an evolving series, or just wait until it's been fleshed out completely and enjoy it then? There is no right or wrong answer. The choice is yours, and yours alone, but stamping your feet around like you know everything about the process that brought the game to light is just plain silly. I hope you find something you enjoy rather than hanging out in a community for a game you seem not enjoy.

Remember how 1/2 of halo 2 was cut from the game?

It's sad that so many people liked this post. First off, to anyone reading this, they didn't actually cut content. At all, really. I read most of the article, and I actually have more respect for Bungie now. Even though one of the employees said the story was terrible, it actually sounded pretty good, if a bit convoluted. But it wasn't goodenough. They could've released it as it was, and sure it would've been successful, and prolly would've gotten better reviews. But guess what, we prolly wouldn't still be playing it a year later. That's the thing about linear stories, you're done once you reach the end of the line. Instead, they completely redid the story with a limited timeframe, using bits and pieces of the original(which is NOT cutting content, by the way) and giving us what we have now. And you know something? I prefer what we have. Destiny's story is a mystery. There is a ton we still don't know about the universe and many of the characters in it. Yeas, this may all be sold to us as DLC, but I'd rather have a story unfold slowly and mysteriously than be told to us in 100 cutscenes. And guess what else? When the payoff comes and we finally know everything about the story, it'll be WAY more satisfying. Just wait. Mark my words.

Nothing to see here, op doesn't understand that if a carpenter does 2 weeks of work and you only pay him for 1, you don't get week 2 for free even though the work was already done

I think you're suffering from confirmation bias. I didn't get that out of the kotaku article at all. Certainly some assets were reused, but TTK story arc was clearly never part of the original story (though the location was included). I don't know how I'd feel about Destiny without the Director and the open world patrol zones, etc... These were (apparently) not included in the original either. I'd like to believe that the execs saw this as an opportunity to increase the longevity of the game per their 10 yr commitment. Imagine a single linear story line spanning that long and still holding players attention from day 1. Lastly, microtransactions were negotiated to replace future DLC costs. You don't have to buy any emotes, but you'll still get the next "DLC's" for free. Sounds like a good thing to me.

I walked away from the article with more respect for what was pulled off and the smart decision to pull the story until it could be reworked into something better. The constraints in both technology and the man power needed make breaking the content more reasonable. It's how the game has survived instead of everyone blowing through it I hear one before more could be created. Seems like most got a thorough rework too.

Cut concepts =/= Cut content. I think you missed the gist of what the article said. The game was still in development when the decision was made to abandon the concepts brought by Staten and his team. They reincorporated ideas into DLC's. They even threw TDB together in 9 weeks apparently. For it to be truly cut content, the game would have had to be complete and then sections removed for later. It was not exactly that way according to the article. It was revamped and thrown together on a very short schedule.

>kotaku >confirming Choose one

If anyone except bungie says it it's not a [u]comfirmation[/u]

I'd rather have what we got and build on it rather than have a linear game with a solid story tbh, I can get behind the decision they made. Besides I doubt they'll have another major issue like that with the second game, but either way if I'm still having fun I'll still be playing destiny.

Just read the entire article. What I'm taking from that isn't "lol we cut all our content and sold it to you later" at all. That article paints a picture of an initial story which was controversially good at best. Some at the studio liked it, and some (including senior management) hated it. As a result, it was re-built and at least put to a level where it played/felt good, even with a lack of content. The things that were cut and added later weren't fully finished, fleshed out areas. These were places that were partially finished, or only had concept art. The entire dreadnaught area wasn't sitting ready to go with all its current story this time last year. That stuff was talked about, but not done. It would be similar to somebody doing a home improvement and saying "yeah, we'll paint this room blue and paint the closet gray" and then not painting the closet until much later. Yeah, it was mentioned, but that doesn't mean the work had been done. On a similar note, leaving room for expansions doesn't mean that content has been cut either. It's called "scalability." You don't leave no easy way to expand a map of you know in the future you intend to add another path/room somewhere. It would just make more work for you and make things take more time you don't have. It doesn't mean content is already done and has been cut; it just means that hooks are left to add things in later because expansions are planned and work is being done. It sounds like a lot changed as a result of a potentially sub-par linear story and we ended up receiving a sub par open ended story that left lots of room for expansion. At the very least, a great foundation had been set for Destiny and it has resulted in some great architecture being built on top of it. I can only hope that more is to come, and that the team has the time and resources to do it. Also, to those who think changes are so easily made/patched into this game, please read this article. I saw somebody post how a "hit box with collision would be easy to add to Vertigo instead of removing it"... Well, if it takes 10 hours to potentially load a single map and make a quick change like that, and that's not even including test time, maybe that's why some changes take a while. Even despite those technological setbacks, Bungie has [i]still[/i] maintained a steady stream of patches and balances that have helped many. It seems like they've done a lot with some serious hardships in their way so I definitely applaud that. The game isn't perfect, but, for the obstacles they faced, they made something pretty spectacular and I hope they all feel it's been worth it. As a pretty dedicated player, I certainly feel their efforts have been.