Mega bump. While Ttk was a step in the right direction the still very flawed base game drags it down. With not revamping the story in anyway with the given opportunity they took a step back. Not being able to ascend old legendary weapons and armors a step back. Having seprate exotics like year 1 and year 2 versions is a step back. Legendary weapons and armor same price as exotics armor step back. Increasing the grind step back. Forcing PvP yet again step back. New narrative story is a step forward, but still plenty of questions unanswered because base game was bland and told me nothing about my guardian, who I am, why I'm significant, what's so great about all these vanguard people even though half the time they sit at the tower and have you do things they should be doing. You kill a god where the hell are they? Sitting at the tower with a thumb up their a[i]s[/i]s. So the whole step forward is kind of negated with all of those negatives. The being able to earn exotics is good as well, but as I said forced PvP is unattractive and unnecessary. Some people like PvE some like PvP. Court of Oryx is rehashed content. Along with it being PoE 2.0 the light level 300 boss is mini crota. Dlc is not worth $40 or in others case almost $69 because they don't know how currency works in foreign countries still.

It's extremely sad how many of you are out there that are Oh bungie locked people out..... Ok just pay them for it no biggie It's completely fine Sad to see the gaming industry going this way and that so many people are total ok with letting it continue on this path Next thing you know a couple years down the road it's going to be $1-$5 per mission Oh you want the new reskinned g horn that'll be $1.50 Want to be able to get on the game at all it'll cost ya $40 for 1-4 months If you think this is not where it's headed your kidding yourself and t won't just be activision/bungie doing it either I bet if this allowed to continue for another 2-4 yrs next thing you know EA and Microsoft studios will pick up similar business practices. Cause heck if bungie/activision does it to their players why shouldn't they??

You make some very very good points! If Bungie were a smart company ( LOL) they'd take heed and answer those questions in the next expansion in ACTUAL gameplay not some stupid grimoire cards that I have to read on another device! Ah who the hell am I kidding, this is Bungie were talking about.....

These are very valid points and a super well written post! Please do not ever work for Bungie, take your writing to a decent company (haha, no seriously!) They deserve no free passes, and certainly not after what I have heard today given what they thought about Destiny before they even released it! If you've seen today's interview with Luke Smith, you'll know that even they don't care as he's just admitted that they knew Destiny was flawed on release: [i]“When that went out the door, we were not thrilled with it.”[/i] Of course Luke Smith's past controversy gave him a free pass to not answer the 'If Bungie knew that, then why did players have to pay $140 to get there?' question! [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?! He also addressed the lockout briefly, basically saying they knew people would be angry when they did it and most likely knew telling people about it 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 are most likely to see content disappear under the guise of this excuse in the future without notice! More interesting was the fact that he lied through his teeth 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. The interview is here (lockout section starts 37:15): http://kotaku.com/we-talk-to-the-director-of-destiny-the-taken-king-1733054833

Don't forget, who is the Stranger? She has completely disappeared with never an answer to who she is and what group she represents. I had zero intention of buying TTK. My daughter bought it as a thank you for looking after her pets while she and her fiancé were away on holiday. I've enjoyed much of it although there are some things that are painful in this content as well. (Things like trying to find enough people in the rocket yard to find and take down the lieutenants to get the mini boss to spawn). What I don't understand is why, when I turned in Petra's bounties I receive a year one weapon which is of no value? Why is POE dead? It seems it would have been a fairly simple thing to change the weapons to a year two value so that content is still worth doing. The same is true for VOG and Crota. Up the enemy level and give us a new level gun so that content is still playable. This is now the second time I've had to turf all the gear we fought to get. I understand why the re-roll gear needed to be done away with, as it would be the best gear in the game as we all had perfect roll guns from that. I still think a reforge option is fun, but limit the number of times you can reforge any weapon. You likely wouldn't get a perfect roll, but if you got one good perk, would you stop? I don't like that Xur has been messed with. I don't understand why they continue to mess with heavy ammo? He used to sell 5 heavy in a pack, now it's 3. No more motes of light to buy engrams! Now you can ONLY buy materials for Legendary Marks?!?!?! Who's freaking idea was that? As long as whenever you change from one weapon in any class to another in the same class, you lose most of your ammo, then this is always going to be an issue in this game! I load up on fusion rifle ammo for a solar burn, oh wait, that enemy has void shields! Switch to a void fusion rifle and whoops, out of ammo in 5 shots. I don't understand why full ammo is full ammo, regardless of which weapon I equip! How hard is it to go, you have 3/4 or half a clip, so if you switch guns, you get an appropriate amount of ammo in that gun too? Yes math can get a bit more challenging for some things, but round up and it's better than this system now! I LIKED running 3 Nightfalls and weekly Heroics every week. Now there's no point and consequently, there's nothing to do to take their place. The new strikes are too long to do and it seems most of my friends, just can't be bothered. I had a brain aneurism and find PVP unplayable, so I don't. I, and many others have always said, there needs to be an alternative way to earn gear OTHER THAN just PVP! They had that with guns like Pocket Infinity. You could find the quest in a chest on Mars, or as an exotic bounty. The methods to completing them were different and we're both a challenge! I'd like the chance to earn an exotic sword too, but as it is ONLY obtainable by doing PVP, it will be another item I won't have. Not a huge deal, but excluding people, or forcing them to play PVP is an issue which I believe needs to be addressed. Overall, I'm enjoying much of TTK, (aside from the ghost voice which may actually be worse than Dinklebot) and will continue to play until there is nothing left to do, and then I guess I will move on again.

Destiny is a behaviourally engineered skinner box and the desticles are the monkeys inside of it. Its not really a secret that Bungie has employed John Hopson who wrote a thesis on behavioural game design. For instance, have any of you wondered why raids and nightfalls reset at the beginning of the week, while Trials and Xur come at the end of the week? Its called a fixed interval schedule. Or how about the RNG slot machines in this game? Variable ratio contingencies. Everything in destiny is designed to get you hooked and play on the dopamine receptors in your brain. This game is designed to make you into an addict. What happens when you insult an addicts addiction? They lash out.

Some really good points in your post. Myself, I took the alternate route. I stopped playing and deleted Destiny from my hard drive. I only bother coming back here to try and help keep the issue alive because I want Bungie to get a clear message from the angered player base. It's not cool to play mind games and manipulate your customers... My sincere hope is that other developers do not follow suit with the way Bungie went about things. They designed in all accounts what could have been a brilliant game that could have been so much more. The game looks and sounds fantastic, and the gun play is very fun. The problems started to arise with the lack of content, behavioral game design skewered towards addictive behavior rather than just enjoyment, and cheap infrastructure investment (no dedicated servers) in order to maximize profit with very little cost. Then, they pull the expansion paywall trick to get the revenue stream of a subscription game without the stigma of a subscription game. I just can't figure out who is to blame? Bungie, or Activision? Probably a mixture of certain people making decisions at both companies. They obviously have talented employees there doing all the real grunt work.

[quote]So I've seen a trend going on lately. The Taken King. People are getting it and there are those enjoying it. Now, the trend in question that I've been seeing is that, a lot of these people were previously outspoken against Bungie/Activision for various business practices and decisions made for the game previously. But now that they have been playing the new expansion, all of that just seems to be a far distant memory. So is that really the trend that I'm seeing? TTK comes out and so everything that is still wrong about Year 1 no longer matters or is worth fighting for? I'm sorry, Bungie. But I've tried your new expansion and it doesn't warrant a free pass. Someone still needs to answer for $100 Beta that we all got screwed over with. Year 1 Destiny seems to have just been swept under the rug, just as I suspected was the intention all along. And let me tell you something. It really -blam!-ing sucks that you did that. It REALLY does. Allow me to share a conversation with everyone. [b]SHADA_ST:[/b] [quote]But I'm curious, what are the top 3 things Destiny needs to do in your eyes to come into your good graces.[/quote] [b]Me:[/b] [quote]1: Overhaul the Year 1 Content. (Without the player needing to spend more money to experience it) Do for that story like they did with TTK. Like I just explained to Miley... But what you aren't seeing is that I'm judging it on the entire game, not JUST the new expansion. They had a prime opportunity to redeem all the flaws of Year 1 with this. But they didn't. Vanilla Destiny, Dark Below and House of Wolves all still play the exact same. And they serve as the foundation for everything that follows. The Queen and her brother apparently died. [b]Who cares?[/b] Cayde-6 is awesome. [b]But who the hell is he?[/b] Oryx is seeking revenge for Crota. [b]Why was Crota and the Hive even present in the story to begin with?[/b] The Taken are everywhere. [b]So why am I not scrambling with the other Guardians and Vanguard to protect the city which has yet to come under attack?[/b] The Traveler is sleeping. [b]Why, what happened to it?[/b] Eris keeps saying a lot of things. [b]Why don't I care more about what she is saying?[/b] Praedyth. [b]Who is that and why should I care?[/b] The Vex allowed me to enter the Vault of Glass. [b]Why?[/b] All the alien races seem to be at odds with each other. [b]Why?[/b] My Guardian has apparently saved the solar system multiple times. [b]And yet doesn't say next to anything at all, ever?[/b] The Factions. [b]What are they all about and why do they even exist in the first place?[/b] You've been dead for a very long time. [b]How long? (To be answered in Expansion 23 after spending $2,000?)[/b] Cayde-6 had a secret stash in the Cosmodrome. [b]Why is that seriously the only place of any importance on Earth and why the hell would he even have that there in the first place? (Deus Ex Machina, of course. How silly of me.)[/b] Want the answers to all these questions? Spend hours of your life exploring areas you have already spammed the hell out of just to find Dead Ghosts so you can leave the game, log into Bungie.net and then spend more hours of your life reading through page after page of the Grimoire that has a much more compelling story than what is actually in the game itself. 2: Give actual value to grinding. Literally, the vast majority of time you spend in this game is geared towards grinding. There isn't anything inherently wrong with that, however its made totally pointless when after each year none of what you did in the previous year will actually cross over with you. There is no difference between a Year 1 and a Year 2 player, outside of the fact that the Year 1 guys got screwed over more overall. That's actually all it would take. I'm a writer, so I can't personally forgive the horrible plot holes I'm seeing in TTK or the fact that there was next to no actual story for Year 1 which essentially ruins the overall experience. But as far as gameplay goes? Like I said in the review, I was actually quite happy with TTK in this regard. But I refuse to do anymore grinding in this game as a result of their design model for handling player progression from one year to the next.[/quote] [b]SHADA_ST:[/b] [quote]I'm not surprised you're a writer, your posts have always been incredibly clean and well rounded. Personally, I'm not sure how they could implement the Grimoire smoothly into the game, I have seen suggestions of a kiosk but that's not very fluid. The problem is that they're so dense and expansive they don't really fit into a cutscene, and it would be awkward have an NPC read them to you continuously. I've actually learned quite a bit about the taken from the Grimoire (They started as species living within a gigantic gaseous planet, doomed to 10 year lives. Oryx started as the lowest rung of their society but became their God. They have fought the traveler before, and destroyed on of his civilizations) but I have no idea how those cards would have been put into the story in seamless manner. Any ideas?[/quote] [b]Me:[/b] [quote]Well you don't need to fully implement the whole thing. External Material is used to enrich the lore. The Grimoire Cards can stay as they are for people who are just out and about or who want something to read that is Destiny related the chance to do so on their phone, tablet or computer. Meanwhile, they can also add those cards to the game in the form of a Codex that you can access whenever. Find a Dead Ghost? Take a moment to press start and tab over to "Codex" and find the new entry you just found. They can also add more quality to this by having these cards voice acted so someone is reading to you. Which makes sense because the info is from Dead Ghosts, so you figure they recorded that data from their Guardian. But that is all just in response to the Grimoire Cards themselves. The main issue stems from the lack of depth for the game's story itself. There's a number of things they can do to fix this but it would definitely require going back and redoing a good chunk of the Year 1 Content. (Which we already know wasn't Bungie's fault but rather Activision for meddling with the development. The first year of Destiny was an incomplete product because of this, with the original narrative having been butchered) Example. After the first initial "mission" in the game after you get the ship and fly out of Russia heading to the City? THAT is where they can seriously expand upon things. As it is? You show up and hop out right on top of the Tower. No questions asked, no one stops you or is reacting to the fact that you're a new face who just came in outta nowhere. So instead, they could rework it like this... [b]Scene:[/b] Approach. As your ship nears the dense cloud bank, transmission from the Tower comes in as the robotic voice asks for identification. Your Ghost provides this for you and you're granted permission to dock. (Most likely avoiding getting shot down by the obvious outer defenses positioned around the city's walls) Instead of warping out onto the Tower, you actually stay in your ship and pull into the dock, exiting your ship from there where you're greeted by that mechanic lady, which introduces her character early on. Not long after a conversation with her, you're greeted by a representative from the Vanguard who requires you to follow them to see the Council. This is when you get introduced to Ikora, Zavala and Nathan Fillion (I mean..Cayde-6 XD ) They give you a rundown of what's up, and your character is given actual LINES where the Guardian is asking a few questions. Nothing real major yet, but you get a skinny of what the Tower is and the importance of the Vanguard to the city and your new role. As for WHY your Guardian would be willing to even join the Tower, Cayde-6 could be the one to tell ya that if you aren't going to help out then there's no reason for them to help you in exchange, either. So this right away establishes a reason for your character to actually continue fighting and get involved in things. The Council then directs you to see the Speaker who would be better off answering the rest of your questions, saving that discussion for later. But the Speaker isn't available right now so in the meantime, Cayde-6 gives you a mission to get a Warp Drive, leading into the Restoration Mission on Earth. After you get back, the mechanic delivers a message that the Speaker is waiting for you and that she'll get right to work installing the Warp Drive. The Speaker scene for Year 1 was by far the WORST part of it all. This whole thing needs the most attention. Instead of how it is now, they could change it to where when the Guardian asks what happened to the Traveler, the Speaker actually gives you an actual idea of what took place. The Speaker also informs you more about the Golden Age and the Collapse. The cliff notes, of course. All the fine details and extensive information can be saved for the Codex which still gives you a reason to go out and explore to find Dead Ghosts. More importantly, the Speaker also explains to you how long its been since the Collapse and gives you an idea of what the Guardians are and why they can use powers. This is VERY important because its creating a backstory for YOU, the Guardian. So yeah, that's one example of what they could do to improve the game's story. And if they did that, a LOT of what is happening in TTK would actually be 10x better because its all leading up to The Taken King content at that point.[/quote] So what is the point Malphisto is trying to make? [b]NEVER FORGET. NEVER FORGIVE.[/b][/quote]

I still didn't get TTK. People are so into it and like you said, left year one players locked out and $100 held at random for an additional $40.

This is how it went: *Bungie, Sony, Microsoft sitting all in a table, discussing Destiny (Pre-2013)* Bungie: We've did it! It took many years, but bygone, we've made the best, MMORPGFPS-whatever the hell on the market! Xbox: Then will you make us another Halo? c: Bungie: No. Xbox: B-B-But...Bungiepai...343i can't give as much you do... Bungie: I said no! *Bungie backhands Xbox across the face, Xbox cowers in corner* *Sony snickering* Bungie: As I was saying, Destiny will be the most content filled game on the mar- *Activision kicks down door* Activision: IM2MLG4YOUSKRUBS. *activision pulls out DLC Scissors* Bungie: NO! NOT LIKE COD! WE CAN MAKE A GREAT GAME! WE DONT NEED TO MILK THE WALLETS! *Activision pushes Bungie to floor and starts cutting up Destiny into DLCs* *Bungie crying on floor, Xbox reaches over but is kicked away by Sony* *Sony gets on Bungie* Sony: *into Bungie's ear* Now listen here, you're going to be my bitch from now on.....yes...you're going to be my prize bitch. All the exclusives for us... *Sony licks Bungie's ear while Bungie cries* *Xbox is huddled in corner, terrified while Activision cuts up Destiny*

go play something else wahh

Bungie actually utilized a similar strategy when they released DLC for Halo 3. I remember not wanting to blow money on the new map packs, and when I went to play matchmaking there would only be 2 or 3 generic playlists available for me to enter, the rest of them [b]required[/b] the DLC. This is merely an extension of these prior policies. If they can make you sign a EULA, and only after you sign do you realize you are locked out of the near entirety of the game, then you have already lost.

Forgive and forget. You're not fighting a multinational corporation trumping the rights of a nation with slave wages and poison. This is a video game company. Your little recreation of Occupy Wall Street is coming to a close.

I've said this before and it's never really been noticed before but I'll put it here since we're on the topic. Maybe there should be specific grimoire cards with codes for exotic or legendary quality things (anything really, doesn't matter to me what the product is). Maybe that would get people to care more about reading the grimoire?