Built in armor perks are gone, in favor of a completely mod/socket based system.

Looks like a cool upgrade path with high level perks being able to be unlocked. They showed an "Eye of a Gate Lord" artifact screen with a bunch of icons on it.

Showed a special ammo hand cannon that seems like a small sniper rifle.

I really like that change.

And a heavy bow! I love it!

Should note that these were weapons that they were still developing. No promise that they'll actually make it into the game. Pretty cool to get a peek behind the curtain, though.

-Disciple

"When you get to this last tier, each of these perks gets relatively close to what an exotic might feel like."

This was easily the most exciting thing to see...for me, at least.

Seriously, fuck that guy. He's already annoying and he's only been talking for eight and a half seconds.

I'm not a fan of his, but overall I think he actually did a decent job today. He hit on some of the biggest "must ask" questions that the hardcore community would want to ask, and he walked a good line between being being blunt while also being fairly measured and respectful.

Yeah, "Hey, is Eris evil?" is just the sort of high quality content I am totally here for.

In all seriousness, he did alright. I still hate him as a streamer and wish he'd find some other game to ruin, though. I just resent the fact that Bungie feels the need to include him in official streams.

Don't get me wrong, I'm with you. I've had a bone to pick with the mainstream games media (Gamespot, IGN, etc) for a very long time, but streamer culture almost makes me miss the oldschool press, lol.

I just wanted to say that all things considered, I think it went fine. Considering some of the streamers they've brought into the studio for past events, it could have gone much worse.

Crossplay would the pinnacle here, yeah, but crossdata means I can just pop over to whatever platform people want me to play with them on that night, or even multiple in one night.

The only thing about Crossplay is that I don't ever see it coming to PC. It's a different game on the PC. Between Consoles sure. I mean I guess with Stadia it's going to be even more interesting... I just feel like certain places (PvP) there is going to be a lot of backlash of hardware superiority. Maybe not. Hopefully it does come out and you can just have a check box to choose if you want to crossplay with PC/non-console devices. They already said they are working to redo the matchmaking and PvP playlists.

The rumors I saw were pretty careful to say that PS4 was unknown, not excluded. They also said Nintendo Switch, though. can I assume if Bungie was supporting Switch you would have mentioned it specifically?

There were rumors that specifically said PS4 was excluded, but nothing really concrete, obviously.

Yeah. I was trying to say that I saw only ambiguity without implying that there were no sites that you saw that said otherwise. I was trying to convey that I didn't know there was reason to be pacifistic beyond Sony's general history. I tried to edit to make that clearer, but I worry I still failed. Sorry.

No, you're fine. You're absolutely correct. I didn't see any major stories saying that PS4 was definitely out, but it was going around on twitter quite a bit.

I wasn't posting that story as proof that you were wrong, just as an interesting tidbit that was related to what we were talking about.

The way it has been presented seemed more like the Silver stays with the Platform regardless of your gear.

Here's to hoping for cross-play, too, at some point.

Because this is still a problem. If people are playing on a platform I don't have, I still can't play with them. I'm not likely to ever have a gaming PC. I'd like to, it's just not a priority for me.

This is not possible.

The PC version is a different game with different balance. The two console versions may be the same though.

If the content is à la carte, that means it is not substantial and not tightly integrated into the game. A free game with optional paid content either has shit paid content, or the paid content is not really that optional.

Can you imagine a free to watch movie or free to listen to song? You can’t take anything out because ever single bit is important to the overall experience!

But the new Eververse betrays that sentiment, at least a little. There's sentiment, and then there's the reality of supporting a game like Destiny.

Can you explain the new eververse to me? What's different?

Bright Engrams for the new seasonal stuff are gone. They are now engrams that only have Year 1 Eververse stuff. The new stuff is only available for silver, and it's expensive.

Some of that stuff rotates out weekly to be available for Bright Dust (which also got more expensive).

They market it as more player-friendly, because now you can just buy what you want directly.

Remember when you'd spend $10 on an album? Now you spend $10 a month and get infinity albums. Do you think the person paying 10 dollars for spotify listens to one album per month? Do you think this has changed the perceived 'value' of music? Has the worth of the album actually changed? Does music recording no longer make much money? What do you make of this chart?

Why is that chart missing digital sales?

(I still buy music, rather than rent it. Maybe I'm the only one left doing that - but I can't see that changing, because I don't want music I fall in love with to stop being available if I stop paying, or if the company offering it to me goes out of business. And no, before you try and make the equivalence, that's NOT how I think of gaming. For all the reasons given to you by a number of people yesterday.)

Then again, I believe that when capitalism is functioning properly money is a fair representation of the value you get when you spend it.

There are issues with this idea. The first is that everyone values money differently. I might have no problem paying $60 for a game, but for someone else that's a full day's wage after taxes. I'll happily pay $18 to go to a movie but to some it's madness. The idea of money representing value is false because money does not itself have a set value.

Of course. I wasn't talking about everyone at once, I was talking about the people who choose to spend money. And if the "functioning properly" part is true, they choose to spend primarily because they view it as a fair exchange of value. And the value of their money is always affected by how much money they have.

Likewise people value different things differently. So paying for a movie ticket to see a comedy might be a better 'value' than paying to see an action movie. The tickets could cost the same, but maybe the comedy is 85 minutes and the action movie is 120. Even though you get 'less' by seeing the comedy, you may value that more.

Yes. Judging a movie's value solely by length is dumb, but really, isn't this paragraph basically expressing the same idea as your first?

Remember when you'd spend $10 on an album? Now you spend $10 a month and get infinity albums. Do you think the person paying 10 dollars for spotify listens to one album per month?

This is complicated, because I don't think people listen to albums start to finish (purposely sitting down in a room) like they used to. I suspect that for most people, listening to music is a more fragmented and secondary activity than it used to be. It is for me.

Do you think this has changed the perceived 'value' of music?

No, the cost of access has changed because of technology. That has reduced the worth of the physical item (for some people).

Has the worth of the album actually changed?

Not necessarily, but I do think the number of artists who view and create albums as a cohesive artistic unit is lower, so fewer albums are created to be listened to based on, for example, there being two sides (as in a LP). Music is conceived now to be "stickier" on the song level. There are now computer models that measure this. A while back I remember reading an article about this, and at that time "Hey Ya!" was the "stickiest" yet tested.

Does music recording no longer make much money? >

Not as much, and not for as many (there is less support structure).

What do you make of this chart?

I worked in the industry for a big chunk of that time, man.

Do you think shifting to the service model is going to make people value games less, versus paying a large lump sum?

Depends on what individuals want. Most may no longer want what I want.

Do you think this is going to impact the ability to make cool games, when everything about making cool games these days is costing more and more?

Cool as defined by me, maybe, but again, I might be in the minority. The question about increased expense and increased expectation is something I've been worried about for a while. I don't have the answer.

Do you think games should actually cost more than they do now?

Maybe if the BS gets too deep and people want to pay not to have it.

I tend to buy deluxe versions if I trust the studio, so I guess I have to say yes. The perceived value has to be there, though. For a few studios, it is for me. So far Bungie has delivered for me (not that the contents of collector's editions and so on have been worth it in themselves), but even though I've spent extra money, the value of fun I've gotten in return has been a more than fair exchange.

Do you think the games industry is shooting itself and the foot and not knowing it?

Perhaps. I'm not trying to be a wet blanket on Urk's focus on creative vision--that's what's most important to me, too. I've always been particularly impressed when something is an artistic and a financial success. And whatever disruptions and constraints exist in these creative industries, somebody always seems able to surprise us with an unlikely hit that's creative and not like anything else, and the money men come running after. Here's hoping Bungie can be that special. I don't think anyone has an idea what the new hotness in gaming will be five years from now. I might not like it, but fortunately there is much more to life than video games.

As a reality check, though: they can't afford not to think about a commercial model or have a business plan. That has to be part of the equation.

Absolutely, and it seems like they've found a way to maintain a viable financial model for Destiny going forward. I would imagine that cutting Activision out of the revenue stream will help substantially with that.

I certainly hope so!

And my experience in life is that you get what you pay for. I pay, for instance, for the privilege of never watching TV commercials.

I'm with you 100%. I pre-ordered the Shadowkeep Collector's Edition from the Bungie Store yesterday. I'm on board. ;-) I have happily supported Bungie for many years, and I have rarely been disappointed with my 'investment.'

Me too! [secret handshake]

And my experience of "free-to-play" is that those games become tacky (if they're not born that way), and the need to insert adverts that generate revenue distract from the way I like to experience games.

I haven't played many free-to-play games (see previous point above), but those I have played (Apex Legends!) have seemed to walk the line appropriately. I have zero issue with the "new" Eververse setup. I've been saying since the store launched in D1 that I'd pay extra for the ability to get the things I want, rather than roll the dice. I think this is the right approach.

I admit that I'm speaking from limited experience, because I haven't played many free games for long. Perhaps this free-to-play hype will be good for Bungie, but personally I'm hoping it's more what someone here called free-to-try.

It's interesting to see all of the little changes that are happening now that Bungie owns the pipeline.

Indeed!

When I got to this point of the product description:

Luna Journal: A 160-page journal featuring additional story content that is bound with the mysterious charms and talismans of Eris Morn.

I grabbed the nearest shutupandtakemymoney.jpg then found my wallet. We’ll see how it compares to the Halsey Journal, but I’m hopeful it’ll be good.

Honestly, from your description you could probably just lag behind a little on most of the content and have a lot of things available. Lagging behind so you can be immediately power boosted. The Dreaming city is hours of content you can do on your own which doesn’t demand more than an hour or two a week. While you probably wouldn’t care about Season of the Drifter, there are currently 3 other Escalation Protocol style activities (with matchmaking, but no longer in public zones) that don’t have any relationship with Gambit.

The gear related stuff this season wouldn’t make you happy, but Gear will be very different come Shadowkeep. So it is hard to tell. A lot of it is simply individual preference. But a lot of things are probably gonna wind up on sale for past content anyway. So getting one’s money worth gets easier.

I'm really interested to see what's next.

Is Destiny now just the model for Bungie going forward? I hope not.

I'd love to see a world where Destiny is their huge thing for the next decade (or longer) that makes tons of money that they then use to fund the next ODST or whatever cool, small experiment they might have brewing.

New Bungie IP please.

You mean the one NETEASE invested in? LOL.

Tough call on that one. If it’s what you’ve described in the past, ew. I hope they have something cool on the spear. Also, while not a new IP and also it’s probably an unreasonable expectation, but I’m kinda hoping that we get Marathon something or other after all that hinting years ago that they may do a thing.