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I can't believe how far they've fallen. Take a look at the brilliance of the first Halo to the clusterfuck that is Destiny - I have such vivid memories of the p

I can't believe how far they've fallen. Take a look at the brilliance of the first Halo to the clusterfuck that is Destiny - I have such vivid memories of the pacing, art style, music that is Halo. All abandoned for a game completely lacking any story (or backstory!) designed as a MMO money grab grind. Excited to see what's next.

stuxnet79 8y ago
While I can't comment on the conditions under which the original Halo trilogy was developed in, reading Blood, Sweat and Pixels [1] really gave a great glimpse into the shit-show that was happening behind the scenes during Destiny's development and why the end result was so ... disappointing. Matter of fact that entire book was a greatest hits collection of dysfunctional work environments, it really gave me perspective on what life is like as a dev in other domains (game industry). [1] https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062651235/blood-sweat-and-pixels/ https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062651235/blood-sweat-and-...
- ethbro 8y ago
  For curiosity's sake, do any professional game developers have stories of working at a place that wasn't a shit show? Is that just the industry? Or are we just hearing about the worst cases?
  - nikdaheratik 8y ago
    Been reading through the full book of this guy who designed alot of the dungeons in World of Warcraft. He's realistic about alot of the challenges they faced but overall had a good experience with the project. Site: https://whenitsready.com/wowdiary/ https://whenitsready.com/wowdiary/
    - plorkyeran 8y ago
      His description of Blizzard makes it sound like a nightmarish hellhole to me. I get being so passionate about what you're working on that you love your job in spite of all the problems, but he seems to view the problems as being somehow necessary for the parts he loves.
      - PakG1 8y ago
        People in abusive relationships tend to justify the people who abuse them.
  - sergiotapia 8y ago
    How Dead Space's Scariest Scene Almost Killed the Game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ3iqq49Ew8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ3iqq49Ew8 Disregard the clickbait title. Cofounder Glen Schofield talks about how they resolved all bad bugs 2 weeks ahead of schedule and came out with one of the most innovative titles in the past 20 years.
  - mattnewport 8y ago
    You tend to hear the worst cases. For all the bad rep EA gets, like any big company a lot depends on your team and manager. I worked two separate 3-4 year stints on central tech teams and never had forced overtime (although there was some pressure / expectation at times) and things were reasonably sane. My time at Relic was also fairly positive with some long hours but mostly self imposed. Game development is generally complex and has some special challenges but given those constraints isn't always worse than many typical software projects.
    - maximilianburke 8y ago
      I can vouch for this. (Hi, Matt!) I spent 17 years at EA among a number of teams and found the most challenging parts were the BigCo related issues; things like cultural mismatches between groups that have been ordered together, or politics. The working hours were standard for the most part, occasionally there would be a fire to put out but all the management I had was fair about compensating for any extra hours.
      - vvanders 8y ago
        Working under a studio published by EA was very much the opposite experience. It was crunch till you drop, don't dare put the studio logo in the game or you'll be fired, shit-show rodeo from beginning to end. Coworkers I had from other parts(Nascar, NFS/EA Seattle, etc) all had similar stories and of course there's the infamous easpouse.
        thirdsun 8y ago
        In case anyone else needs to lookup the term easpouse, I assume it relates to this post: https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
        jungler 8y ago
        My direct experience is that the third parties doing work-for-hire gigs tend to get the worst of it, because they're disposable. When the publisher owns the studio there's some fiefdom management that takes place that allows the bosses to protect their employees in a sort of empire-building strategy. When it's a contract, oftentimes the studio management is suckered into taking a deal they can't deliver on. The publisher subsequently squeezes them dry, then buys up the remains of the dead husk to ship something for cheap and perhaps scoop up the best employees. A successful third-party more or less has to play hardball from the get-go and find a way to block this strategy. The publishers have a weaker hand to play today, since it's easy to go to market with minimal marketing and distribution spend, but that has the side effect of making it more common to see tiny studios that run a sweatshop churning out bad products.
  - usefulcat 8y ago
    I worked for EA many years ago (on a game, not tech/tools) and while I wouldn't call it a shit show (I liked the people for the most part, for example), that experience is definitely the reason why I have never even considered working for another game company. Absolutely ridiculous hours, every year. Everyone else just seemed to act like it was normal, even people who had young kids. At the time it seemed crazy. With many years of hindsight, it still seems crazy.
    - gameswithgo 8y ago
      Hunting for jobs in the Austin area or remote this year I got 4 offers, one was from EA, which was 20% less than the top 2 offers, 15% less than the 3rd best offer. So you get a bit less pay for your trouble too :D Unless you make your OWN game and it is a big hit, but that is VERY hard right now.
      - usefulcat 8y ago
        Yes, that was my experience as well. In my case I think it was a minor pay increase compared to my previous job, but a significant portion of that total compensation came in the form of an annual bonus (so from my perspective it was as though they were basically withholding a big chunk of my income each year).
        ethbro 8y ago
        That does seem to be a feature in the game industry -- a lot riding on bonuses (and often the contract terms defining their payout). And when you have compensation terms without being empowered to influence them... burnout. Capricious bonus terms with a large public company always felt slimy to me. It seems a pretty large conflict of interest. In contrast to: 'We agree on what my work is worth, if I don't do the work as expected then you fire me.'
  - gambiting 8y ago
    I'm working in the industry at one of the largest publishers on AAA title and I have pretty much just positive things to say. Both about the working environment and the projects we work on. I think it's definitely the case that the worst cases are the most publicised and not many people write about the good ones.
    - dijit 8y ago
      Ohai gambiting. I know we work for the same company and I generally agree that our company is one of the better ones. Which is not to say that there's no shit being flung around. But our company is not known for being loved by gamers. I wonder if terrible working conditions is somehow related to creating better games. Horrible thought though.
      - gambiting 8y ago
        Hi dijit :-) I know what you mean....on one hand, it's great that the conditions here are pretty good(I pretty much never work more than 40 hours/week, overtime is extremely rare, at least for us programmers), but on the other hand.....I don't know. I don't want to say that working more would lead to better games - I honestly don't believe that the problems with our games could be solved if we suddenly started doing 80 hour weeks and work all weekends. I think at least some of them stem from how we approach building games in terms of design and production planning(at least for the AAA titles) instead of the fact that people here generally have good work-life balance. And yes, of course there is some shit being flung around like you said, but (at least for me) nothing approaching the horror stories I hear from other places. Maybe we're just lucky - our company has loads of studios all over the globe, after all.
        ethbro 8y ago
        It does seem like good games are won and lost in pre-production. Which is unfortunate, given so much of the team gets staffed after those decisions are made (as I understand it).
  - s3cur3 8y ago
    I work on the very small team that develops the X-Plane flight simulator. We’re kind of on the periphery of game dev, but I can assure you, work is not crazy for us. I was responsible for rewriting the UI more or less from scratch for the most recent major version, and at the height of “crunch time” leading up to the release, I worked maybe 50 hours a week... and most of that was voluntary, because, though I had the option to cut features to make the deadline, I really wanted to get stuff in.
- phaus 8y ago
  I just finished this book. It wasn't a bad book, but after Masters of Doom it seemed pretty mediocre. Every story was about something interesting, but they were all pretty shallow. At the end, regardless of the actual outcome, they pretended it was a massive victory where the devs pulled off the impossible. In some cases it was accurate, in other cases the companies were financially successful, but didn't quite capture the magic of previous games.
javagram 8y ago
> All abandoned for a game completely lacking any story (or backstory!) Destiny actually has a rich backstory comparable to or greater than their previous titles like Marathon. I’ve got the first volume of printed lore they’ve done here and there’s lots more available through online sources. As for what’s next - more Destiny. There’s a reason they’re holding onto the IP rather than selling it to Activision. The studio is hugely passionate about the game and about continuing it to the finish as far as I can tell.
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  It has a story: they just never told it. Extra Credits used Destiny as a prime example of how NOT to write story dialogue.
  - caconym_ 8y ago
    I've always thought it would be hilarious to make a youtube supercut video of every time the phrase "some kind of" appears in the dialogue in Destiny. That said, the backstory is a lot of fun although they've done a consistently horrible job of presenting it.
  - lloeki 8y ago
    The English dub was bad, but the French one was awesome. Lots of tension and good delivery. e.g "little light" was dull AF yet "petite lumière" was thrown in with a delicious amount of mockery. "That wizard came from the moon"'s French version comes with a hint of panic. Lots of implicit tension when meeting the Awoken queen. Same, item descriptions are incredibly fun, and full of irony and puns in French yet just fall flat in English. As for the lore, I had the legendary edition and the lore was incredible. I loved how the lore was delivered in bite sized chunks and little details all over the place and not thrown out to you in a digestible way like basically any other FPS game. To me it all went downhill after the first DLC, turning it into a quite generic, palatable game. Over the top cosmetic items and armor design felt out of place and broke suspension of disbelief for me, as I was not here to play some WoW-like game. Destiny 1 sans DLC has a very special place in my heart.
- 8y ago
__david__ 8y ago
I don't know, I've enjoyed my time with Destiny 2 quite a bit. I never even finished Halo3…
kylek 8y ago
>>>I can't believe how far they've fallen. Take a look at the brilliance of the first Marathon to the clusterfuck that is Halo - I have such vivid memories of the pacing, art style, music that is Marathon. Sorry. Flashbacks. Visit http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ for an unbelievable rabbit hole
- danaris 8y ago
  Ah, good, there is someone else around who remembers Bungie before they were acquired by Microsoft! I recall being so disappointed when Halo turned from a Mac-first game to an XBox exclusive... I hope a more-independent Bungie can recapture some of their magic from those early days.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    I too remember. I still play Myth II at lan parties, and I'm just as terrible at it now as I was when I was a MoG. The day when Microsoft bought Bungie was a dark one indeed.
    - abakker 8y ago
      Myth!!!!! I spent so much time posting as "Gothmog" on myth.bungie.org. to me, it is still the quintessential game.
    - voltagex_ 8y ago
      What do you think of Microsoft's purchase of Ninja Theory? Do you think they've changed?
  - cwyers 8y ago
    I doubt it. I'm sure Bungie had reasons for wanting to leave Activision, but Destiny was the project they pitched to Activision, not the other way around, and a lot of the problems I still have with Destiny after all the work they've sunk into it are still inherent in the concept.* I think as the size of teams keeps getting bigger, you keep getting forced to chase the lowest common denominator in the market -- it's a shooter, it's RPG, it's multiplayer, it's open world. A Bungie that was looking to recapture the early days would have to lay off almost everybody and start doing indie games, and I don't see that route earning back the money it must have cost to buy out Activision. * The shooting is still as good as it was in the Halo days, but the need to constantly grind for gear to progress really kills the way you would acquire new weapons in Halo and learn how to use them in concert. There's so many more weapons in Destiny, but it doesn't feel like you have the same sort of choices you had in Halo.
devmunchies 8y ago
Halo 2 was peak halo. Its simplicity was why it was so good. Its like pickup game of basketball, just get a few guys together and be the first team to 50 kills. No special equipment, no special abilities, very little complexity. That's why it was the perfect MLG game. Every shooter these days is more and more complex.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  Agreed 100% - although I didn't like the normalization of a bug (BxR) not getting patched out.
- phaus 8y ago
  You don't call teleporting across the map for free melee kills with the stupid sword thing a special ability? The introduction of that one item almost ruined the entire genre for about 10 years.
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    Sword lunges were pretty easy to dodge if you knew how.
  - msie 8y ago
    The sword was fun! On Lockout it was especially good!
  - hombre_fatal 8y ago
    No worse than the rocket launcher or sniper rifle or having the higher ground or any other advantage you need to strategically fight over in a game. The fight for asymmetry is what makes the game fun.
- rangibaby 8y ago
  > That's why it was the perfect MLG game. Every shooter these days is more and more complex. OTOH there is Counter-Strike which turns 20 this year and is the third most popular game on Steam right now. Most of the changes to the core game since ~2001 have been about balance as opposed to adding new mechanics. Someone who played the game over a decade ago could pick it up today and still play on mostly the same game on mostly the same maps: de_cache 2011 de_dust2: 2001 de_inferno: 1999 de_mirage: 2004 de_nuke: 1999 de_overpass: 2013 de_train: 1999
walrus01 8y ago
For anyone who was disappointed by the initial reviews for Destiny 2 (sans expansions), I would recommend taking another look at it. There's a bundle for sale now which is destiny 2 + expansion 1 + expansion 2 + Forsaken, for around $35 USD. The "Forsaken" expansion is a significant overhaul of the entire game, is at least as long as the original campaign, and introduced a great deal of story detail.
me551ah 8y ago
I absolutely loved all the games in the Halo Series and had been a fan of the series right from Halo 1. While I have purchased both Destiny 1 and 2, they are no match for the brilliant story that Halo had. Destiny just feels like grinding for long periods of time where your weapons become shinier and the colors change in the worlds around you. It lacks the awe factor that Halo had. Facing the flood in Halo 1 is one of the most memorable moments that I have ever had in a video game.
- sirclueless 8y ago
  Yeah, for sure. The flood is one of my most vivid memories in gaming (and I didn't even play the game until years after it had come out, around Halo 3 days I think). Many games since (including Destiny) have tried to recreate that feeling of an oppressive enemy that you can't defeat, only push back or cut a temporary swathe through. But no one comes close to Halo.
  - notSupplied 8y ago
    I think being an RPG really subverts the sense of terror delivered in Halo. You know every enemy will become a pushover when you come back to this content later when you're over-levelled.
qplex 8y ago
While I agree that Halo had great music and graphics, and was overall a good game, the controls on the PC were actually somewhat sluggish compared to other FPS titles. Bungie was originally developing it for Macintosh but they sold out to Microsoft and Halo became the main launch title for the Xbox, so the PC version was sadly dumbed down and released later.
- ravenstine 8y ago
  What do you mean by "dumbed down"? I played Halo CE mostly on PC and don't remember it being dumbed down graphically speaking(if you had the graphics card for it), though there were a few minor differences like all the jackal shields being teal. In fact, Halo PC had more and bigger multiplayer maps than on Xbox.
  - qplex 8y ago
    The controls and the gameplay. Graphics were arguably better on the PC; higher resolution and better frame rate, but it was not well optimized. So the PC version was definetly a port of a console FPS and it showed. Mouse aiming was awful (too slow without acceleration, and inaccurate with it). Weapon switching was very akward as well (tab? and only 2 guns?!?). If you had just played Half-Life shooting headcrabs off the poor scientists, or let alone something like Deus Ex, it just felt very dumbed down
    - leetcrew 8y ago
      > Mouse aiming was awful (too slow without acceleration, and inaccurate with it). what do you mean by this? do they not let you adjust the mouse sensitivity or are you talking about input lag?
      - qplex 8y ago
        Yes, as far as I can remember there was no option to adjust the sensitivity. However there seems to be a third party hack that fixes the issue: https://github.com/AWilliams17/Halo-CE-Mouse-Tool/releases https://github.com/AWilliams17/Halo-CE-Mouse-Tool/releases
anonytrary 8y ago
How old were you when you first played Halo? I have vivid memories of Halo's music, art and story, probably because I played it all the time when I was 11 years old. I'm sure there's a hint of truth to what you're saying, but I can't help but think there's a tiny bit of bias here.
- heimidal 8y ago
  Nostalgia is powerful, certainly. I’m sure it’s in play whenever I hear arguments like this.
guidedlight 8y ago
Original Halo was great. But it pivoted from a Strategy RPG on Macintosh to an FPS on Xbox. I’m not aware of a game that pivoted so much during development.
beefsack 8y ago
Reminds me of the fall of Rare. They were absolutely untouchable in the N64 era, nearly everything they made was gold. I believe Rare's decline happened after an acquisition (Microsoft?) but I may be misremembering.
- dageshi 8y ago
  Anytime there's an acquisition you have to assume that someone, perhaps much of the main talent that made the company what it was wants to cash out and move on. People always blame EA for killing a bunch of companies with previous stellar reputations but I tend to think those companies were probably about to die anyway because key people wanted out.
  - stordoff 8y ago
    For me, it's not so much that they kill the studio, but that they kill the IPs as well. It's one thing for an IP to just die off, but to see C&C stumble along in various forms, then get turned into a mobile game, is disheartening.

stuxnet79 8y ago

While I can't comment on the conditions under which the original Halo trilogy was developed in, reading Blood, Sweat and Pixels [1] really gave a great glimpse into the shit-show that was happening behind the scenes during Destiny's development and why the end result was so ... disappointing. Matter of fact that entire book was a greatest hits collection of dysfunctional work environments, it really gave me perspective on what life is like as a dev in other domains (game industry). [1] https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062651235/blood-sweat-and-pixels/ https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062651235/blood-sweat-and-...

ethbro 8y ago
For curiosity's sake, do any professional game developers have stories of working at a place that wasn't a shit show? Is that just the industry? Or are we just hearing about the worst cases?
- nikdaheratik 8y ago
  Been reading through the full book of this guy who designed alot of the dungeons in World of Warcraft. He's realistic about alot of the challenges they faced but overall had a good experience with the project. Site: https://whenitsready.com/wowdiary/ https://whenitsready.com/wowdiary/
  - plorkyeran 8y ago
    His description of Blizzard makes it sound like a nightmarish hellhole to me. I get being so passionate about what you're working on that you love your job in spite of all the problems, but he seems to view the problems as being somehow necessary for the parts he loves.
    - PakG1 8y ago
      People in abusive relationships tend to justify the people who abuse them.
- sergiotapia 8y ago
  How Dead Space's Scariest Scene Almost Killed the Game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ3iqq49Ew8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ3iqq49Ew8 Disregard the clickbait title. Cofounder Glen Schofield talks about how they resolved all bad bugs 2 weeks ahead of schedule and came out with one of the most innovative titles in the past 20 years.
- mattnewport 8y ago
  You tend to hear the worst cases. For all the bad rep EA gets, like any big company a lot depends on your team and manager. I worked two separate 3-4 year stints on central tech teams and never had forced overtime (although there was some pressure / expectation at times) and things were reasonably sane. My time at Relic was also fairly positive with some long hours but mostly self imposed. Game development is generally complex and has some special challenges but given those constraints isn't always worse than many typical software projects.
  - maximilianburke 8y ago
    I can vouch for this. (Hi, Matt!) I spent 17 years at EA among a number of teams and found the most challenging parts were the BigCo related issues; things like cultural mismatches between groups that have been ordered together, or politics. The working hours were standard for the most part, occasionally there would be a fire to put out but all the management I had was fair about compensating for any extra hours.
    - vvanders 8y ago
      Working under a studio published by EA was very much the opposite experience. It was crunch till you drop, don't dare put the studio logo in the game or you'll be fired, shit-show rodeo from beginning to end. Coworkers I had from other parts(Nascar, NFS/EA Seattle, etc) all had similar stories and of course there's the infamous easpouse.
      - thirdsun 8y ago
        In case anyone else needs to lookup the term easpouse, I assume it relates to this post: https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
      - jungler 8y ago
        My direct experience is that the third parties doing work-for-hire gigs tend to get the worst of it, because they're disposable. When the publisher owns the studio there's some fiefdom management that takes place that allows the bosses to protect their employees in a sort of empire-building strategy. When it's a contract, oftentimes the studio management is suckered into taking a deal they can't deliver on. The publisher subsequently squeezes them dry, then buys up the remains of the dead husk to ship something for cheap and perhaps scoop up the best employees. A successful third-party more or less has to play hardball from the get-go and find a way to block this strategy. The publishers have a weaker hand to play today, since it's easy to go to market with minimal marketing and distribution spend, but that has the side effect of making it more common to see tiny studios that run a sweatshop churning out bad products.
- usefulcat 8y ago
  I worked for EA many years ago (on a game, not tech/tools) and while I wouldn't call it a shit show (I liked the people for the most part, for example), that experience is definitely the reason why I have never even considered working for another game company. Absolutely ridiculous hours, every year. Everyone else just seemed to act like it was normal, even people who had young kids. At the time it seemed crazy. With many years of hindsight, it still seems crazy.
  - gameswithgo 8y ago
    Hunting for jobs in the Austin area or remote this year I got 4 offers, one was from EA, which was 20% less than the top 2 offers, 15% less than the 3rd best offer. So you get a bit less pay for your trouble too :D Unless you make your OWN game and it is a big hit, but that is VERY hard right now.
    - usefulcat 8y ago
      Yes, that was my experience as well. In my case I think it was a minor pay increase compared to my previous job, but a significant portion of that total compensation came in the form of an annual bonus (so from my perspective it was as though they were basically withholding a big chunk of my income each year).
      - ethbro 8y ago
        That does seem to be a feature in the game industry -- a lot riding on bonuses (and often the contract terms defining their payout). And when you have compensation terms without being empowered to influence them... burnout. Capricious bonus terms with a large public company always felt slimy to me. It seems a pretty large conflict of interest. In contrast to: 'We agree on what my work is worth, if I don't do the work as expected then you fire me.'
- gambiting 8y ago
  I'm working in the industry at one of the largest publishers on AAA title and I have pretty much just positive things to say. Both about the working environment and the projects we work on. I think it's definitely the case that the worst cases are the most publicised and not many people write about the good ones.
  - dijit 8y ago
    Ohai gambiting. I know we work for the same company and I generally agree that our company is one of the better ones. Which is not to say that there's no shit being flung around. But our company is not known for being loved by gamers. I wonder if terrible working conditions is somehow related to creating better games. Horrible thought though.
    - gambiting 8y ago
      Hi dijit :-) I know what you mean....on one hand, it's great that the conditions here are pretty good(I pretty much never work more than 40 hours/week, overtime is extremely rare, at least for us programmers), but on the other hand.....I don't know. I don't want to say that working more would lead to better games - I honestly don't believe that the problems with our games could be solved if we suddenly started doing 80 hour weeks and work all weekends. I think at least some of them stem from how we approach building games in terms of design and production planning(at least for the AAA titles) instead of the fact that people here generally have good work-life balance. And yes, of course there is some shit being flung around like you said, but (at least for me) nothing approaching the horror stories I hear from other places. Maybe we're just lucky - our company has loads of studios all over the globe, after all.
      - ethbro 8y ago
        It does seem like good games are won and lost in pre-production. Which is unfortunate, given so much of the team gets staffed after those decisions are made (as I understand it).
- s3cur3 8y ago
  I work on the very small team that develops the X-Plane flight simulator. We’re kind of on the periphery of game dev, but I can assure you, work is not crazy for us. I was responsible for rewriting the UI more or less from scratch for the most recent major version, and at the height of “crunch time” leading up to the release, I worked maybe 50 hours a week... and most of that was voluntary, because, though I had the option to cut features to make the deadline, I really wanted to get stuff in.
phaus 8y ago
I just finished this book. It wasn't a bad book, but after Masters of Doom it seemed pretty mediocre. Every story was about something interesting, but they were all pretty shallow. At the end, regardless of the actual outcome, they pretended it was a massive victory where the devs pulled off the impossible. In some cases it was accurate, in other cases the companies were financially successful, but didn't quite capture the magic of previous games.

javagram 8y ago

> All abandoned for a game completely lacking any story (or backstory!) Destiny actually has a rich backstory comparable to or greater than their previous titles like Marathon. I’ve got the first volume of printed lore they’ve done here and there’s lots more available through online sources. As for what’s next - more Destiny. There’s a reason they’re holding onto the IP rather than selling it to Activision. The studio is hugely passionate about the game and about continuing it to the finish as far as I can tell.

hannasanarion 8y ago
It has a story: they just never told it. Extra Credits used Destiny as a prime example of how NOT to write story dialogue.
- caconym_ 8y ago
  I've always thought it would be hilarious to make a youtube supercut video of every time the phrase "some kind of" appears in the dialogue in Destiny. That said, the backstory is a lot of fun although they've done a consistently horrible job of presenting it.
- lloeki 8y ago
  The English dub was bad, but the French one was awesome. Lots of tension and good delivery. e.g "little light" was dull AF yet "petite lumière" was thrown in with a delicious amount of mockery. "That wizard came from the moon"'s French version comes with a hint of panic. Lots of implicit tension when meeting the Awoken queen. Same, item descriptions are incredibly fun, and full of irony and puns in French yet just fall flat in English. As for the lore, I had the legendary edition and the lore was incredible. I loved how the lore was delivered in bite sized chunks and little details all over the place and not thrown out to you in a digestible way like basically any other FPS game. To me it all went downhill after the first DLC, turning it into a quite generic, palatable game. Over the top cosmetic items and armor design felt out of place and broke suspension of disbelief for me, as I was not here to play some WoW-like game. Destiny 1 sans DLC has a very special place in my heart.
8y ago

__david__ 8y ago

I don't know, I've enjoyed my time with Destiny 2 quite a bit. I never even finished Halo3…

kylek 8y ago

>>>I can't believe how far they've fallen. Take a look at the brilliance of the first Marathon to the clusterfuck that is Halo - I have such vivid memories of the pacing, art style, music that is Marathon. Sorry. Flashbacks. Visit http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ for an unbelievable rabbit hole

danaris 8y ago
Ah, good, there is someone else around who remembers Bungie before they were acquired by Microsoft! I recall being so disappointed when Halo turned from a Mac-first game to an XBox exclusive... I hope a more-independent Bungie can recapture some of their magic from those early days.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  I too remember. I still play Myth II at lan parties, and I'm just as terrible at it now as I was when I was a MoG. The day when Microsoft bought Bungie was a dark one indeed.
  - abakker 8y ago
    Myth!!!!! I spent so much time posting as "Gothmog" on myth.bungie.org. to me, it is still the quintessential game.
  - voltagex_ 8y ago
    What do you think of Microsoft's purchase of Ninja Theory? Do you think they've changed?
- cwyers 8y ago
  I doubt it. I'm sure Bungie had reasons for wanting to leave Activision, but Destiny was the project they pitched to Activision, not the other way around, and a lot of the problems I still have with Destiny after all the work they've sunk into it are still inherent in the concept.* I think as the size of teams keeps getting bigger, you keep getting forced to chase the lowest common denominator in the market -- it's a shooter, it's RPG, it's multiplayer, it's open world. A Bungie that was looking to recapture the early days would have to lay off almost everybody and start doing indie games, and I don't see that route earning back the money it must have cost to buy out Activision. * The shooting is still as good as it was in the Halo days, but the need to constantly grind for gear to progress really kills the way you would acquire new weapons in Halo and learn how to use them in concert. There's so many more weapons in Destiny, but it doesn't feel like you have the same sort of choices you had in Halo.

devmunchies 8y ago

Halo 2 was peak halo. Its simplicity was why it was so good. Its like pickup game of basketball, just get a few guys together and be the first team to 50 kills. No special equipment, no special abilities, very little complexity. That's why it was the perfect MLG game. Every shooter these days is more and more complex.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago
Agreed 100% - although I didn't like the normalization of a bug (BxR) not getting patched out.
phaus 8y ago
You don't call teleporting across the map for free melee kills with the stupid sword thing a special ability? The introduction of that one item almost ruined the entire genre for about 10 years.
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  Sword lunges were pretty easy to dodge if you knew how.
- msie 8y ago
  The sword was fun! On Lockout it was especially good!
- hombre_fatal 8y ago
  No worse than the rocket launcher or sniper rifle or having the higher ground or any other advantage you need to strategically fight over in a game. The fight for asymmetry is what makes the game fun.
rangibaby 8y ago
> That's why it was the perfect MLG game. Every shooter these days is more and more complex. OTOH there is Counter-Strike which turns 20 this year and is the third most popular game on Steam right now. Most of the changes to the core game since ~2001 have been about balance as opposed to adding new mechanics. Someone who played the game over a decade ago could pick it up today and still play on mostly the same game on mostly the same maps: de_cache 2011 de_dust2: 2001 de_inferno: 1999 de_mirage: 2004 de_nuke: 1999 de_overpass: 2013 de_train: 1999

walrus01 8y ago

For anyone who was disappointed by the initial reviews for Destiny 2 (sans expansions), I would recommend taking another look at it. There's a bundle for sale now which is destiny 2 + expansion 1 + expansion 2 + Forsaken, for around $35 USD. The "Forsaken" expansion is a significant overhaul of the entire game, is at least as long as the original campaign, and introduced a great deal of story detail.

me551ah 8y ago

I absolutely loved all the games in the Halo Series and had been a fan of the series right from Halo 1. While I have purchased both Destiny 1 and 2, they are no match for the brilliant story that Halo had. Destiny just feels like grinding for long periods of time where your weapons become shinier and the colors change in the worlds around you. It lacks the awe factor that Halo had. Facing the flood in Halo 1 is one of the most memorable moments that I have ever had in a video game.

sirclueless 8y ago
Yeah, for sure. The flood is one of my most vivid memories in gaming (and I didn't even play the game until years after it had come out, around Halo 3 days I think). Many games since (including Destiny) have tried to recreate that feeling of an oppressive enemy that you can't defeat, only push back or cut a temporary swathe through. But no one comes close to Halo.
- notSupplied 8y ago
  I think being an RPG really subverts the sense of terror delivered in Halo. You know every enemy will become a pushover when you come back to this content later when you're over-levelled.

qplex 8y ago

While I agree that Halo had great music and graphics, and was overall a good game, the controls on the PC were actually somewhat sluggish compared to other FPS titles. Bungie was originally developing it for Macintosh but they sold out to Microsoft and Halo became the main launch title for the Xbox, so the PC version was sadly dumbed down and released later.

ravenstine 8y ago
What do you mean by "dumbed down"? I played Halo CE mostly on PC and don't remember it being dumbed down graphically speaking(if you had the graphics card for it), though there were a few minor differences like all the jackal shields being teal. In fact, Halo PC had more and bigger multiplayer maps than on Xbox.
- qplex 8y ago
  The controls and the gameplay. Graphics were arguably better on the PC; higher resolution and better frame rate, but it was not well optimized. So the PC version was definetly a port of a console FPS and it showed. Mouse aiming was awful (too slow without acceleration, and inaccurate with it). Weapon switching was very akward as well (tab? and only 2 guns?!?). If you had just played Half-Life shooting headcrabs off the poor scientists, or let alone something like Deus Ex, it just felt very dumbed down
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    > Mouse aiming was awful (too slow without acceleration, and inaccurate with it). what do you mean by this? do they not let you adjust the mouse sensitivity or are you talking about input lag?
    - qplex 8y ago
      Yes, as far as I can remember there was no option to adjust the sensitivity. However there seems to be a third party hack that fixes the issue: https://github.com/AWilliams17/Halo-CE-Mouse-Tool/releases https://github.com/AWilliams17/Halo-CE-Mouse-Tool/releases

anonytrary 8y ago

How old were you when you first played Halo? I have vivid memories of Halo's music, art and story, probably because I played it all the time when I was 11 years old. I'm sure there's a hint of truth to what you're saying, but I can't help but think there's a tiny bit of bias here.

heimidal 8y ago
Nostalgia is powerful, certainly. I’m sure it’s in play whenever I hear arguments like this.

guidedlight 8y ago

Original Halo was great. But it pivoted from a Strategy RPG on Macintosh to an FPS on Xbox. I’m not aware of a game that pivoted so much during development.

beefsack 8y ago

Reminds me of the fall of Rare. They were absolutely untouchable in the N64 era, nearly everything they made was gold. I believe Rare's decline happened after an acquisition (Microsoft?) but I may be misremembering.

dageshi 8y ago
Anytime there's an acquisition you have to assume that someone, perhaps much of the main talent that made the company what it was wants to cash out and move on. People always blame EA for killing a bunch of companies with previous stellar reputations but I tend to think those companies were probably about to die anyway because key people wanted out.
- stordoff 8y ago
  For me, it's not so much that they kill the studio, but that they kill the IPs as well. It's one thing for an IP to just die off, but to see C&C stumble along in various forms, then get turned into a mobile game, is disheartening.