Halo Developer Bungie Reveals Destiny and Its Vision of MMO Gaming

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."

Comments

Once free of microsoft

[i kan reed]

Bungie seems to have immediately taken to making interesting new ideas once free of Microsoft. Who could have expected that?

Re:Once free of microsoft

[The Moof]

Bungie made two more Halo games after breaking away from Microsoft (back in 2007), so I wouldn't say they immediately jumped on new ideas.

Re:Once free of microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[tlhIngan]

Bungie seems to have immediately taken to making interesting new ideas once free of Microsoft. Who could have expected that?

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:Once free of microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

That's a great theory except that Blizzard is a separate and autonomous division with its own corporate leadership. It is not run by Activision. Oh and the fact that Blizzard was nickle-and-diming long before the merger.

Re:Once free of microsoft

[i kan reed]

Look at the screenshots. This isn't fallout. Come on.

Re:Once free of microsoft

[Desler]

Activision doesn't publish Blizzard's games. It is its own publisher just as it was before their merger. It is also run on its own separate from the parent corp. Bobby Kotick doesn't run Blizzard. That was part of their merger deal. Get some facts before spewing shit.

Re:Once free of microsoft

[Synerg1y]

In addition, no subscription fee sounds like in-game features market. And they do all say that, it's the implementation that matters... also being bug-free helps, bugs have doomed more than one mmo. If they make the game fun, there will be a following, even if it's the same shit as yesterday, we need our graphics updated and some new characters/items to work with every once in a while right?

Re:Once free of microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Except they'd already signed contracts with MS and started development prior to the split. So that was just them finishing their outstanding contracts off.

Re:Once free of microsoft

[Andy Dodd]

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.

Re:Once free of microsoft

[xhrit]

Look at the video trailer. There are in-game screen shots that you can clearly see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwOUi4JDC4o

reminds me of rifts

[ArsonSmith]

From http://palladiumbooks.com/

Played that game from when it first came out all through the 90s. Always loved the art and would almost think the art on this link would fit seamlessly in with it.

Standard marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

being "aimed at being unlike any gaming experience we've seen" is what everyone one of them claimed.

Not coming to PC

[Anonymous Coward]

An MMO that is controller only.

An MMO that isn't coming to PC, because no one likes to use keyboards and mice anymore.

The shark, it has been jumped.

Re:Not coming to PC

[Seumas]

This isn't what you're thinking of your typical MMO. It's basically a shooter MMO. And not really even MMO. It's more, as I understand it, like Journey. That is, you encounter other people in certain circumstances. Anyway, I see no problem with attempting this on a console. I think it's fantastic. I'm just disappointed that it's on the current generation which, by the time the game launches, will be the last generation of hardware. I just don't see this 2005 console hardware and scaffolding holding up to something this supposedly massive and complex.

Re:Not coming to PC

[drinkypoo]

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:Not coming to PC

[FyRE666]

"And not really even MMO. It's more, as I understand it, like Journey. That is, you encounter other people in certain circumstances."

So it's like SWTOR then?

Re:Not coming to PC

[h4rr4r]

I like console FPS actually. I loved GoldenEye. Halo sucks, it is an FPS dumbed down for the fratboy set.

Re:Not coming to PC

[Tarlus]

Halo had its good points, like the beautiful outdoor settings and its use of vehicles. The multiplayer modes were passable but paled in comparison to the likes of Unreal Tournament and Quake 3. The storyline is decent if unmemorable and the ring worlds are a neat idea.

The single player campaign, though... it was like a cheap toy. The outdoor levels were fun at first but after an entire game of playing the same limited, uninspired handful of enemies using the same limited, uninspired weapons, it was a chore. The repetitive and palette-swapped levels were a cop-out and the lack of boss fights made it feel incomplete. I didn't have much fun with the latter half of the game and I forced myself to complete it because I was determined to find out what made it so popular.

Halo is certainly polished and well-presented, but aside from its status as the kegger's go-to party game, it's overrated.

Yawn...

[rodrigoandrade]

... aimed at being unlike any gaming experience we've seen.

Like GW2, SWTOR, TSW.

I'll wait and see, but I'm not holding my breath.

Books?

[Extremus]

So they plan to release books with a storyline that is subsumed by the activities of the players in the game? That sounds very nice. It is a like a glorified log file of some sort.

Re:Books?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, 24 chapters of XxXBung1eFan420XxX teabagging opponents.

Bring back Myth!

[asylumx]

They did a great job with the game Myth: The Fallen Lords several years ago. It was a great game with a decent story and very interesting multiplayer. I'd love to see it come back!

Re:Linux Steam

[Narishma]

It'll be console-only from what I understand.

Re:Linux Steam

[RedHackTea]

echo 'Awesome!'
man destiny
sudo chmod a+x /usr/bin/destiny
destiny
j h k l o kill stuff :w

Re:It's incredible...

[h4rr4r]

I view that as a positive.