Halo Developer Bungie Reveals Destiny and Its Vision of MMO Gaming 147
MojoKid writes "Bungie, the company that brought forth Halo, is embarking on development of a new MMO title called Destiny that is aimed at being unlike any gaming experience we've seen. There are few hard details available, such as a launch date or pricing, but Bungie gave a preview that teases the game and showed off concept art. It's a large-scale MMO set in a post-apocalyptic world, but the gameplay and social interaction is supposed to be far more natural and fluid than previous generation MMOs. There will apparently not be a subscription model, so gamers won't have monthly fees to deal with, either. Bungie plans to develop a complex storyline with Destiny over the course of the next decade. There will be 10 books, complete with a story arc, so it follows that the world will evolve in a manner of speaking even as people participate in activities to change things within it."
Yawn... (Score:3, Interesting)
Like GW2, SWTOR, TSW.
I'll wait and see, but I'm not holding my breath.
Re:Once free of microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
Bungie seems to have immediately taken to making interesting new ideas once free of Microsoft. Who could have expected that?
Yeah cause a MMO and the post apocalyitic setting is so unique and fresh isnt it?
Not to mention they claim it will be unlike any experince we have seen. Well, thats what every developer has said for the past deacade about their game. Every game that comes out pushes graphics to their limits, they all are unique experinces unlike anything we have seen before, they are all emotional experinces, all have complex stories and so on. THEY ALL SAY THAT.
Not to mention bungie is owned by activision. How exactly is that making them free? Bungie basically just transfered from one jail to another. You do know that activision is incredibly static and unimmmaginative right? They care more about games that they can exploit every year right? If it doesnt have franchise appeal they dont want it.
Re:Once free of microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean, making a game that would be monetized to all hell and back? That's an interesting new idea.
Look at the publisher behind them - and look at what they did to Blizzard. Everything freaking thing is monetized, and Activision is also known for their nickle and diming of people.
Plus, Bungie was spun off from Microsoft sround 2008 or so - they continued with Halo because Microsoft kept paying big bucks to keep the lights on (I think Microsoft guaranteed that - though Microsoft was not exclusively using Bungie).
This game will probably be like what happened to Blizzard - you'll need a new combined battle.net/bungie.net account to play single player, you'll be asked for a name that will also permanently link you to that account (without warning you so they can ding you $10 because you used your real name). And yeah, you can play the campaign, but they'd also offer ways to upgrade yourself or buy more save slots.
Etc. etc. I bought Starcraft 2. Wanted Diablo 3, but my poor SC2 experience meant I skipped D3 and will not buy the upcoming "expansion".
Oh yeah, MMO - this will be like WoW as well. And yet another good studio circles the drain, driven that way by executive greed.
Re:Not coming to PC (Score:4, Interesting)
I really wanted to hate all console FPSes and then I played Halo. I am well known as a Microsoft antagonist so you know I am not just being a fanboy. Halo is different from other console FPSes. I don't know why, what it is, I don't claim to know, I'm not a game designer and frankly I'm not a hardcore gamer and never really have been, though I have spent possibly entirely too many hours gaming anyway.
I still think the best multiplayer FPS experience was LMCTF on Quake, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate something a little less twitchy.
Re:Once free of microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup. That's the thing that kills nearly every MMO that has attempted to compete with WoW - bugs and launch performance issues.
If you have performance issues on launch, you are doomed to fail if there is any viable competition out there, the initial experience will poison people's minds. If you DO have launch problems - you HAVE to resolve them before that first free month is up. If you don't - A ton of people are going to leave and not give you a second chance.
As I understand it, WoW had some initial launch problems, but:
1) Were resolved within the first month
2) Didn't have much viable competition out there - now everyone has to compete with well established competitors.
Aion had potential - but it had LOTS of initial problems that weren't solved until after much of their playerbase quit. They refused to provision additional servers with the end result being 2-3 hour queue times... Their reasoning was they didn't want to do a merge down the line. Yes, that's right, they PLANNED TO FAIL.
Same with Warhammer Online - It had potential, but the lag and game balance issues weren't resolved in the first month. End result: dead game.