In the Beta the other players' ships wouldn't be visible unless they had the same, or similar, ships as me. I had bought a different ship skin because I had too much glimmer.

Raids will be made easier to beat in several sessions by the ability to store your insertion points each week - meaning your group can break off and rejoin at a later time.

Progress and loot eligibility is then reset every seven days - meaning you can only gain rewards from an encounter once per week.

From the article I linked to in this post — Eurogamer.

Edit: Post title for clarity.

Blizzard solved this by breaking the matchmade version of each raid into smaller chunks, each lasting 30-45 minutes. You would then queue for that section of the raid, assuming you had unlocked it by already completing the previous chunk. That's a no brainer to me, plus it's far more time-friendly to those who can't commit to a solid 2 hours of gaming without interruption (how many people can, anyway?) - I've been able to experience the developing storyline of the past two WoW expansions without committing to endgame raiding thanks to this.

These are difficult challenges when designing a game like Destiny, but they're also solved problems if you look at the state of the art elsewhere. Maybe there are some other reasons they felt they couldn't do things this way that will only become apparent once you play a raid, but it seems like that might not happen soon for a lot of players.

To be fair, I don't think we know that it doesn't work that way yet. Something one of the devs said in an interview or vidoc recently made me think the Raid(s) were broken up into chunks which could be done progressively. I wish I could remember exactly who and where this was - I didn't know at the time that I'd need to reference it later. And I'm, uh... not really in a position to watch gaming-related videos right this moment. :)

kind of a shame that jumping through hoops to demonstrate you're not an asshat is even needed though, eh?

I dunno, every time I go into any kind of matchmaking, I almost immediately wish for asshat hoops. ;)

I ended up being surprised by the earlier content on a later visit with a full fire team.

Cody; you're the last person to start preaching about who does or doesn't ‘get’ a game. Come back when you've actually played some of these games you're so disparaging about. You literally don't understand them. You don't understand investment systems or why other players would enjoy them, so again: come back when you ‘get’ those.

I play every game I criticize. Except in cases like Morning Star where I know it is bad because it embraces broken game design ideas. I feel like I understand the fundamentals of investment systems better than any journalist and most theorists writing about games, and certainly more than the developers themselves from a creative perspective (they have of course mastered the business perspective).

Why?

Could Bungie in any way incentivise players to join a Strike that was already underway

I joined Strikes mid-way through several times during the Beta. The capability is already there.

That's great news! I wonder how / when it decides to drop replacements into a Strike in progress, then? It must have been a good 10 minutes we were down to 2 guardians on the above-mentioned run.

What they've always been pretty good at is figuring out WHAT WORKS FOR THEIR NEEDS - and if existing tech doesn't solve the problem at hand, they build their own tools. That's not not-invented-here syndrome - that's "we're not going to shoehorn our ideas into someone else's solution" syndrome.

They're not mutually exclusive. I wasn't actually saying that they are succumbing to not-invented-here syndrome, just stating that it is bad. We agree on that at least, don't we?

Yep. We probably agree that murder is bad, too, but it's no more relevant to this discussion than your comment.

[...] join a Strike that was already underway [...]

I joined Strikes mid-way through several times during the Beta. The capability is already there.

What they've always been pretty good at is figuring out WHAT WORKS FOR THEIR NEEDS - and if existing tech doesn't solve the problem at hand, they build their own tools. That's not not-invented-here syndrome - that's "we're not going to shoehorn our ideas into someone else's solution" syndrome.

They're not mutually exclusive. I wasn't actually saying that they are succumbing to not-invented-here syndrome, just stating that it is bad. We agree on that at least, don't we?

That barrier to entry - the requirement that you get a group of people together and venture into something that is going to challenge your ability to work together (first) and your thumbs (second) - is a barrier I was willing to erect to preserve the activity goals.

Article here.

Either way, I'm Impressed he's directly stamping his own name on that decision personally.

The raid system has been hung on Luke's shoulders for as long as we've known about it. It's his baby.

We'll see. The B in DBO stands for Bungie, not Blizzard, and I say vive la différence!

Not-invented-here syndrome is genuinely not a good thing. Learn from others’ lessons if you can!

Not what Kermit said, or even implied. Bungie has incorporated plenty of 3rd party tech over the years - when it works for them. (They replaced their own physics system with Havok in Halo 2 or 3, and never looked back. Havok is still in use in Destiny.)

What they've always been pretty good at is figuring out WHAT WORKS FOR THEIR NEEDS - and if existing tech doesn't solve the problem at hand, they build their own tools. That's not not-invented-here syndrome - that's "we're not going to shoehorn our ideas into someone else's solution" syndrome.

I understand the fundamentals of investment systems better than any journalist

…

There are very few game journalists who are intelligent and can properly analyze a video game.

…

I'm just going to leave these two here on their own; I think your arrogance speaks for itself.

Cody; you're the last person to start preaching about who does or doesn't ‘get’ a game. Come back when you've actually played some of these games you're so disparaging about. You literally don't understand them. You don't understand investment systems or why other players would enjoy them, so again: come back when you ‘get’ those.

I play every game I criticize. Except in cases like Morning Star where I know it is bad because it embraces broken game design ideas. I feel like I understand the fundamentals of investment systems better than any journalist and most theorists writing about games, and certainly more than the developers themselves from a creative perspective (they have of course mastered the business perspective).

You're acting as if comparing it to MMOs is a crazy, out there idea. Funny then, that that's what most of the big games news sites are doing too:

http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/28/5661202/destiny-halo-bungie-friends-list
http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/19/5730492/destiny-bungie-multiplayer-trailer
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-07-21-five-talking-points-from-the-weekends-destiny-beta
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-21-destiny-how-to-save-online-worlds
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/11/e3-2013-destiny-gameplay-revealed
http://www.ign.com/blogs/rsg2033/2014/07/24/how-bungies-destiny-beta-compares-to-halo-and-world-of-warcraft

There are very few game journalists who are intelligent and can properly analyze a video game. None of the ones you linked are. Destiny appears to be an MMO with strong FPS elements. Those FPS elements are the key, and completely change the nature of the game. Just like Deus Ex is an RPG with Strong FPS elements, but it doesn't feel or play like any other RPG, does it? In fact, if Destiny did not have these strong FPS elements, but either had weak ones or none at all, then I would not even be interested in it.

Don't happen to have a good special weapon that does Void damage? Then you'd better go farm for hours to get one, or wait for one to pop up at the cryptarch! Given your aversion to grinding, I'm sure you can see the problem there.

This is 100% a problem. One of many.

If you don't believe there's both a skill and gear component in both of these games then that's just another statement of ignorance.

Never said that, learn to read. I'l make it clear for you: gear in WoW is a bigger factor than gear in Destiny, and skill in Destiny is a bigger factor than skill in WoW.

This seems like a pretty reasonable choice. Have you guys considered the effects of quitters on a hypothetical Matchmaking raid?

It's a very good point — I did one Strike where one guy left quite early on, and then during the seemingly endless slog against the Devil Walker my companion gave up and left. Eventually I got bored (I wasn't very well geared, so it seemed like the Devil Walker was barely budging in health) and left too.

It immediately got me thinking: what exactly are you supposed to do when this happens? Quit and queue again? Could Bungie in any way incentivise players to join a Strike that was already underway (perhaps some bonus glimmer or a chance at a nice item)?

In WoW this problem can be particularly bad if the player that leaves is one of the two essential roles for dungeons and raids: healers and tanks. In a dungeon you only have one of each, so if either leaves you usually can't continue until they're replaced. Blizzard chooses to prioritise re-filling groups missing a key role over starting a new dungeon, although you're not explicitly rewarded for that. They do incentivise queuing for any role that's in short supply, by offering a chance at cosmetic rewards (rare mount drops) for those that sign up.

Luckily Destiny doesn't make any class mandatory in that way, so that's less of a concern. Still, it'd be great if Bungie were able to prevent Strikes from falling apart once somebody leaves with something similar.

It seems to me, experiencing the raid fully can only be done going in with a known group of people. With matchmaking, an even bigger minority of customers would not get the full experience.

Did you mean to say majority?

Based on what he is saying, your analysis of the decision is completely backwards.

So you think there's no risk involved in the decision? Why are people being vocal about it, then? Note that risk is not the same as oh god, they've completely fucked it up! — time will tell exactly how it plays out (and even then, I still guessed 80/20 that it'll work out well).