I'm not trying to sound too negative here, but Bungie has always stated that Destiny is a game that just HAS to be always connected. From what I've played in the Alpha / Beta, I just don't see it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Destiny just doesn't feel like that connected of a world. You can play the story missions and explore by yourself, and when you DO play with others it's only with two other people. The only thing really NEW is the public events with tons of people, but that is nice, yet hardly revolutionary.

I see absolutely no reason why the story mode cannot be done offline, and all the stuff that requires online isn;t really that game changing or mind blowing.

I guess I'm not that disappointed, since I was't hoping for a massively connected experience anyway.

The live updating of stats and loadouts via Bungie.net and the companion app is pretty neat. It felt pretty cool to say in a chat, "Hey check out this neat gun I just got" and have my friends be able to look me up and ooh and awe. That said, the online requirement hit me for a few minutes after a lightning strike knocked out my power just long enough to cycle the cable modem... With Halo I'd just have restated. With Destiny I had to hope the internet was ok...

Trade offs, I guess...

It felt pretty cool to say in a chat, "Hey check out this neat gun I just got" and have my friends be able to look me up and ooh and awe.

Except when one of them kept seeing old gear. Silly Beorn.

Anyway, I kind of agree with Cody. While I think Destiny is a tad too visually busy on old-gen to allow for split-screen, I think Destiny absolutely requires nothing more than some form of co-op, if only to make the Respawn Disabled zones less frustrating for casual players.

I immediately got thrown into a Public Event and danced away with 4 other guardians.

I was just wandering around in explore mode and did a public event by myself and DAMN is the game that much more amazing with the magic of guardians coming over the hill.

I don't think it'd be Destiny if it was missing that magic.

If I'm by myself too long, I get the willies. I definitely feel more comfortable inside buildings with some company. I'm a scaredy-cat, though.

I immediately got thrown into a Public Event and danced away with 4 other guardians.

I was just wandering around in explore mode and did a public event by myself and DAMN is the game that much more amazing with the magic of guardians coming over the hill.

I don't think it'd be Destiny if it was missing that magic.

I completely agree. That Devil Walker event at the Cosmodrome really showed me how much Destiny relies on cooperative play and how much better this game is because of it. When I first encountered it, I was totally alone and going up against that tank and a dozen infantry. That isn't fun when you're only a level two Hunter without any heavy ammo. The next day, I was with my friend and her and I had been chilling in that one area with the Devil Walker for an hour just having a ton of fun killing the same enemies over and over again. When that Devil Walker showed up, her and I were in a better position to kill it with our abilities, but so were the two other Guardians who came running over the hills to join us.

You can't get that feeling in a solo campaign game. NPC allies can only help you out so much. Playing from the start with fellow Guardians in accomplishing daunting tasks is so fulfilling. Being pinned down with only your Ghost to keep you company makes you feel isolated from the world. Seeing a bunch of Guardians rush into the battlefield on their Sparrows to help you advance in on the enemy lets you know that you will never be in this game alone.

During the 360 early access, there were people coming and going in the evenings, but the population dropped off late at night. I went back to the Tower a few times with nobody else there and it felt weird and empty, like walking around Walmart at 3am.

I immediately got thrown into a Public Event and danced away with 4 other guardians.

I was just wandering around in explore mode and did a public event by myself and DAMN is the game that much more amazing with the magic of guardians coming over the hill.

I don't think it'd be Destiny if it was missing that magic.

I had my own magic moment just having Nomis drop in while I was in the middle defending that last objecting during the Skywatch mission.

I was soloing it, and while things started off alright, they were rapidly deteriorating. I had the wrong weapon equipped, so I had to do a fast swap, and then I had to find ammo, and oh, hey, now you're getting overwhelmed.

In the middle of all that chaos, I see "Nomis78 has signed in" Great. Then I see "Nomis78 has started playing Destiny Beta" Awesome, we'll have to play later. Then, right as I'm about to meet my doom at the hands of a Fallen Captain because I'm right in the middle of a reload, he drops dead. I spin around, and there's Nomis, running off to kill something else.

I completely missed any message saying he'd joined my Fireteam. Rarely have I ever been that happy to see backup.

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Being able to walk up and salute him after the fight while I scrambled for a headset was the perfect cap off. In the beginning I thought emotes were just silly, but more and more I've catching myself waving, bowing, or saluting to guardians after they give me an assist, or we successfully finish a Public Event.

I'm similarly feeling like the "always connected" aspects aren't that much of an improvement compared to what we get in a vanilla FPS.

Phoenix_9286 talks about how magic it is to have your friends just drop straight into your fireteam. That could already be done in a vanilla FPS (don't know why they typically want people to be in the lobby for new members to join). I see this as nice "polish", but after the novelty wears off, it's going to be a minor thing.

Grizzlei talks about camping an area for an hour, killing random mobs between Public Events. I'm happy you found this fun, but this is what sours Exploration mode and Public events for me... they happen about every 30 minutes, and the rest of the time I'm just killing time waiting for the next one. The more traditional Story and Strike missions I find much more entertaining, because they at least set up interesting set-pieces to fight my way through. (And I'm finding those less interesting than other FPS games, but hoping it gets better...)

I think before trying the Alpha and Beta, I was hoping that Exploration mode would be more fun in terms of random sandbox fooling around (GTA is probably the best-of-breed for that), and that the random missions would be more interesting. The random missions are boooooring. For some reason I can't put my finger on, I do find myself drawn to completing the Bounty challenges.

But back to the "always connected" shared world. Before the Alpha and Beta, I was probably thinking of Fallout 3 / New Vegas as approximately what Exploration in Destiny would be like. A large world with a sparse population, lots of hidden things to discover and interact with, and enough of a simulation of NPCs with different behaviors and agendas to make it feel like a living world. Instead, Destiny Exploration feels liks a sub-par mission with mobs kind of clinging to their spawn area.

But back to the "always connected" shared world. Before the Alpha and Beta, I was probably thinking of Fallout 3 / New Vegas as approximately what Exploration in Destiny would be like. A large world with a sparse population, lots of hidden things to discover and interact with, and enough of a simulation of NPCs with different behaviors and agendas to make it feel like a living world. Instead, Destiny Exploration feels liks a sub-par mission with mobs kind of clinging to their spawn area.

Yeah. I feel as if Bungie had made Destiny like Deus ex in terms of story, character progression, side quests, and secrets, then added their matchmaking and public event system, then the game would be significantly stronger, to the point where it would be considered the best FPS ever made.

I don't think it'd be Destiny if it was missing that magic.

This would be one hell of a boring single-player game. It's the co-op aspects that sells it, for me.

I immediately got thrown into a Public Event and danced away with 4 other guardians.

I was just wandering around in explore mode and did a public event by myself and DAMN is the game that much more amazing with the magic of guardians coming over the hill.

I don't think it'd be Destiny if it was missing that magic.

Totally with you on this.

Was doing a Warsat public event by myself, definitely underpowered for the Knights and Wizards that were showing up to take it away from me. Thought I was a goner (and so was the Warsat) when two Guardians showed up and saved my bacon. For something so seemingly trivial when I talk about it, that sort of thing is AWESOME.

Was doing a Warsat public event by myself, definitely underpowered for the Knights and Wizards that were showing up to take it away from me. Thought I was a goner (and so was the Warsat) when two Guardians showed up and saved my bacon. For something so seemingly trivial when I talk about it, that sort of thing is AWESOME.

That exact same thing happened to me on a Warsat event. I was doing pretty good until the Fallen and Hive started dropping in advanced troops. I wasn't getting killed, but my health was always down and I kept on having to waste my heavy ammo. Thankfully some angelic soul came in and saved me. In the end we were both killed and spawned after the event ended, failing it, but that feeling of camaraderie is so remarkable even between complete strangers.

As an aside, I lost internet connection last night (for the first time in months, honestly), and got kicked out of the Beta. Now sure, it's a Beta and pretty much would have needed online regardless. The fact is, though, that if this had occurred in the actual game, I would have been screwed out of any story mode progress or anything else I was doing. And I agree, stats and public events are cool, but for something that is so minor in this game (referring to public events), it's really not worth making this game required to be connected at all times.

As an aside, I lost internet connection last night (for the first time in months, honestly), and got kicked out of the Beta. Now sure, it's a Beta and pretty much would have needed online regardless. The fact is, though, that if this had occurred in the actual game, I would have been screwed out of any story mode progress or anything else I was doing. And I agree, stats and public events are cool, but for something that is so minor in this game (referring to public events), it's really not worth making this game required to be connected at all times.

I got disconnected during a story mission in the Beta. When I reconnected and selected that story mission again, it loaded the checkpoint where I was right before I got disconnected. I lost very little progress, and absolutely didn't have to restart the whole mission.

Well that's good news. I wonder if there's a time limit on that, like what if you're out of power for hours, have to go to bed, go to work the next day, try to pick back up. Time will tell. Either way, thanks for letting me know that. That's definitely one worry thrown out.

Regardless, if you didn't have to always be connected, you could at least keep playing or doing something. Instead, boom, you're kicked out completely. I wonder if that will affect any theater mode or whatever they have. Will all functionality just cease?

Regardless, if you didn't have to always be connected, you could at least keep playing or doing something. Instead, boom, you're kicked out completely. I wonder if that will affect any theater mode or whatever they have. Will all functionality just cease?

I'm guessing there isn't going to be one. The replay capabilities that Bungie built into Marathon, Myth, and then Halo I think depend on the game world being absolutely predictable in all relevant aspects, so when you take the game's initial state and add the inputs, you get the same result.

Halo's coop, for instance, for me is nigh unplayable because of how strictly in sync it wants to stay, and it stutters when one side can't catch up.

Online coop and theater mode both were added in Halo 3, and Bungie said at the time they were related technically.

Destiny's coop is smooth as butter on my connection compared to Halo 3, and I have a suspicion that it's because stuff that does not affect outcomes is being allowed to go out of sync; but this might mean that things that don't affect progression don't have precise values, which may mean that the complete predictability that films rely on no longer exists.

Possibly the only recourse is the kind of built-in video clip sharing features that the new consoles have. A pity, I suppose.

Destiny's coop is smooth as butter on my connection compared to Halo 3, and I have a suspicion that it's because stuff that does not affect outcomes is being allowed to go out of sync; but this might mean that things that don't affect progression don't have precise values, which may mean that the complete predictability that films rely on no longer exists.

Either that, or Bungie built Destiny from the ground up optimized with online co-op in mind, rather than adding it to an existing code base.

Still, even if you are correct, wouldn't that just result in films slightly different for each player on your fireteam? Surely what you see on your screen, with the values your game is receiving would be unaffected.

Phoenix_9286 talks about how magic it is to have your friends just drop straight into your fireteam. That could already be done in a vanilla FPS (don't know why they typically want people to be in the lobby for new members to join). I see this as nice "polish", but after the novelty wears off, it's going to be a minor thing.

Wait what? That's definitely not something you get in a Vanilla FPS. It may be crudely implemented in a few others where this one is really slickly implemented.

Also the running around in a massive environment and running randomly into other players has never been done in an FPS that is this mechanically rich.

But if it wasn't always connected, how would you wait for your weapons/armor to load from the servers every time you open your menu?

Destiny's coop is smooth as butter on my connection compared to Halo 3, and I have a suspicion that it's because stuff that does not affect outcomes is being allowed to go out of sync; but this might mean that things that don't affect progression don't have precise values, which may mean that the complete predictability that films rely on no longer exists.

Either that, or Bungie built Destiny from the ground up optimized with online co-op in mind, rather than adding it to an existing code base.

Still, even if you are correct, wouldn't that just result in films slightly different for each player on your fireteam? Surely what you see on your screen, with the values your game is receiving would be unaffected.

Yes. See also: Halo multiplayer films.

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The 360 version is bad about this. I've had no issue with the XB1 or PS4. Not sure about PS3.

- CC

The 360 version is bad about this. I've had no issue with the XB1 or PS4. Not sure about PS3.

- CC

PS3 has consistently seen a significant delay between opening the menu and actually displaying all the gear for me.

~m

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Wait what? That's definitely not something you get in a Vanilla FPS. It may be crudely implemented in a few others where this one is really slickly implemented.

Right, but I'm not getting this "shared world" part of the shared world shooter. It's the shooting that's shared, and that's nothing really revolutionary.