JonCole

At this point, PvP is largely segregated to a different part of the game aside from the "Killer" trolling behaviors that can be exhibited in the hub zone and lack of cooperation in raids. It's easy to have this be a game that is only about your story and playing with specific friends that only you want to play with. I suppose it's possible for PvP to further leak out, but what I perceive to be the goal of this game is something like Guild Wars 2 where people can largely only help you in a mechanical fashion unless you dive into the PvP-specific mode, rather than MMOs with direct PvP-in-world experiences like EQ.

I don't have much experience with the whole Bartle types concept, but it rings fairly true to me and would make sense in terms of the design of MMOs. That said, I'm still not particularly sure what would make this game offputting to co-op players. Lack of sufficient communication? Isn't the potential for "only dicks playing it" in any cooperative game? There are plenty of people who blow stealth on Payday 2, for instance, and make it temporarily shitty but there's still a fairly pervasive attitude of people wanting to contribute positively to the co-op effort because it's the best way to get things done.

Chairs made to look and feel like human flesh - Fucking horrifying.

Yeah, it's an interesting mental exercise. I never say it out loud to them, but I try to think of how I could possibly tell a woman on the street how attracted I am to them rather than just "ugh you're so hotttttt *caveman face + jack off gesture*". I hope that it disciplines my mind to think of a random woman as a human rather than an object, even if I never end up saying a single word to them.

If the final version of the game has a hub with no features that make apparent use of having many people in the same instanced space, I'll be happy to pile on with that criticism. Granted Bungie's history of good UI design, I personally can't imagine that this is a complete picture of what the purpose of that space is. Maybe it's a topic for another thread, but I wouldn't buy a game that I am convinced is shit just to play with friends. Why play bad games with friends when there are plenty of good games to play with friends or alone? Maybe it's just not clear to me as I'm an introvert. I'm glad to have a game like this with an infrastructure that supports matchmaking co-op play/MMO-style parties and raids, as I was never able to get into a game of Borderlands 1 or 2 with friends near my same level. I only played a few hours of one with my then girlfriend, who ended up quitting because the weird variation in guns (which I spoke to earlier) was unappealing to her.

If those kinds of things bother you, I don't really know why you would bother even trying an MMO in the first place.

Ah, unfortunately no. And I kinda doubt there will be more, considering we're pretty close to release.

They actually just opened the beta so anyone can play it. It's available for the rest of the weekend on 360, Xbox One, PS3 and PS4.

I need to listen to the podcast, I suppose, so I can get a full idea of what his view is. That said, I personally haven't faced a single normal enemy in Destiny that took more than a single clip to dispose of unless there was a large level disparity between us (enemy is level 8-9, I'm level 3-4). That also doesn't apply to special enemies with a yellow health bar, which often take a couple clips or a grenade + a clip to dispatch. I prefer this game to Borderlands because there aren't nearly so many damage variables - just a single value for damage, and bars for stability/accuracy/etc that you'd normally expect in a shooter that don't seem to be on a 1-100 scale and instead a 1-10 scale (that's hidden, so large gradations). Honestly, just having the messaging being "here is a bar" vs "here is a value" is less stressful by itself and reflects the intent of their design. I have an anxiety when I play Borderlands because there are just so many variables in addition to there being like 4-5 different types of guns that all fire somewhat differently but not massively differently. That's not really the case here - there are three kinds of sniper rifles, for instance, that each have variations so that one has high fire rate, one has low recoil, and one has a large clip. It's easy to tell them apart. Also, the damage types seem to be more like ammo in Mass Effect. Ammo doesn't do different types of damage (poison vs explosion vs fire) as in Borderlands, where the type means that damage persists after the original hit or damage stacks based on how long you attack. Instead, Destiny only has damage bonuses against different types of enemies (Disruptor good against shields, Incendiary good against Armor, etc) in a Pokemon/rock-paper-scissors kind of simplified style.

Ah, that's a good point. There is weapon damage types and enemy damage weaknesses in Destiny, but I haven't noticed them to be particularly worth acknowledging that early in the game. Would not be surprised if there are enemies immune/highly resistant to Fusion and Ballistic damage, for instance.

Yeah, I bought my Vita as well as many electronics like my camera from AWD and have always had a pleasant experience. Plus if anything is not in the condition described they have a generous return policy, at least in the US.

I wish people could be a little more detailed about how this compares poorly to Halo. I feel this beta is almost exactly like the first 1-2 hours of a Halo game - largely linear, about half corridors and half larger arenas with a couple routes through them, a handful of enemy types that behave distinctly different, a story that is not particularly compelling to begin with, not a ton of weapon function overlap, some pretty skyboxes... To me, the first compelling mission in Halo: CE was Silent Cartographer which I think is four missions into that game. That's when you actually got into what Halo was about. The Destiny Beta feels like the Halo and Truth and Reconciliation missions before Silent Cartographer - getting to know Cortana, understanding the setting, introducing the Covenant and how they work mechanically, but not really getting into the meat of the story. I'm really hoping Destiny is about to get better considering the upcoming story mission is on the Moon and presumably begins to get into the Fallen's place in that universe. Thus far, Destiny has only barely set the stage - you know where you are, what the stakes are, and the names of the opposing teams. With so little on the table, I don't know how it really could feel much better than bland at this point. The addition of enemy health bars just seems like a necessary change as this is an MMO. I guess what they could do is remove the health bars if you're the only person in your fireteam and you're playing story or explore missions. For anything cooperative, the purpose of the health bars is to see what your buddies are doing and coordinate your attacks.

That's what, two story missions? I don't really know if that could possibly be a representative sample of the game. I liked it from the beginning, so I can't provide much insight.

Added the clan link and aggregated forum users handles to the OP.

Guys, I've recently become obsessed with these: If you like pretzels and/or spicy snacks and/or hot wings, they're simply the best thing ever. I almost literally cannot stop thinking of them which is why I needed to revive this thread to rave about them.

Well, it's approaching non-random thoughts. That said, I don't particularly mind it here and I'm more likely to see it here than in a separate thread.

I'm just saying that if Cheat Engine is something that can get you VAC banned for using it in some ways (which you don't use them for), using it at all is kinda asking for the VAC ban. I don't profess this to be a particularly fair opinion, it's just that using something potentially dangerous even with the best intentions can still get you in trouble.

If the tag is being used already, the chances it actually becomes a real tag if we all start using it is probably greater. As much as I ironically appreciate baby games, there is almost zero chance that will catch on.

Now that it's revived, my opinion has revised to think that if you use Cheat Engine you should prepare yourself to be VAC banned because you're kinda asking for it.

Since tags are now user-defined, we could just select one, all start using it, and hope that it catches on. "Non-violent"?

Now that's some bespoke content.

I don't know, it's easy enough to join someone's fireteam and tag along with what they're doing even if you're only online for a half hour. Plus, I feel like this'll be a game where I'll want to try out a couple/few characters so there's probably a chance you'll have friends with a character at/near your level at any given time. Thus far, I feel like Destiny is still fun to play alone. The story missions feel like Halo missions with a similar pace/progression. They can be played co-op, but it's not necessary. The Strike mission was longer than most story missions, so I imagine you'd only be playing them when you had a larger chunk of time and could team up with a buddy or two. The loot drops in Strike seem to be better than any other mode, so I imagine even a higher-level player could be interested in running one of those with you.

Well, the final game with have the different sub-classes so there might be room for greater variation there.

The Kickstarter got suspended and now they're soliciting funding on their own site. I imagine it was cancelled by Kickstarter because of the scam allegations and potentially devious donations behind the scenes.

The Destiny Beta is back a day early (today) for PS4/PS3.