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Bungie aims to fix parts of Destiny's economy in House of Wolves
Bungie made some mistakes with the first bit of Destiny DLC. That's not editorializing; that's a takeaway from a post that designer Luke Smith made regarding mistakes that will not be repeated for the game's second bit of downloaded content, House of Wolves. Smith explains the shard economy essentially functioned as a barrier to prevent people from actually equipping their shiny new pieces of kit, thus invalidating and minimizing the effort put forth by players. Ultimately the goal is to make reaching level 32 with gear easier while giving players more incentive to keep tweaking their setup via new upgrades and better traits on items. Smith also states that the economy is not going to be adjusted this tier simply to ensure that the people who have already put this much work in will not find themselves invalidated again. It's a change to be made moving forward, one that will hopefully improve everyone's experience in the game once the second DLC update drops.
Destiny dev: DLC mistakes won't be repeated
Destiny designer Luke Smith recently addressed concerns over Bungie's future updates for the game. Namely, Smith said "the mistakes [Bungie] made with the DLC1 reward economy will not be repeated," in a NeoGAF thread, admitting the developer's previous attempts at expanding the first-person shooter with add-on content resulted in a few problems for players. Smith claims the developer will avoid mistakes such as "vendor gear invalidating the effort of [Vault of Glass] Raiders" and exotic gear upgrades resulting in a talent reset. "Our philosophy about rewards/loot continue to evolve as we see how players play and react," Smith wrote. He noted that item drop rates appear to be "much improved" in the Crota's End DLC compared to Vault of Glass, and that Bungie plans to "improve acquisition stories and frequency" as well as "lessen the grind and get players to the fun parts of their arsenal faster." It issued a hot fix for Destiny in December to boost the drop rates for the Crota's End raid mission. [Image: Activision]
Destiny endgame raids will have six players, no matchmaking
Bungie's Destiny is not an MMO (or is it? We're somewhat split on the issue) but it nonetheless uses some terms very familiar to MMO players to describe some of its gameplay. Case in point: raids. In an MMO, raids could typically be described as massive dungeon crawls that can take several hours to complete, where 20-plus players band together to take down otherwise-impossible foes. Destiny, however, will be scaling things down quite a bit. In an interview with IGN, Bungie writer Luke Smith says that raids will be six-player missions that open up at level 20; they lack waypoints to tell you where to go and what to do. According to IGN, they're also friends-only, no matchmaking. Smith also promises monsters and situations that "demand of you things you've never even really been asked to do in a shooter before." Think Halo 3: ODST's Firefight mode meets World of Warcraft's Ulduar (or Naxxramas, or Icecrown Citadel, or <insert your favorite raid here>). "I think the E3 experience video had the narrator talking about the hardest thing we've ever built and we showed a jumping puzzle," Smith told IGN. "Like, the hardest thing we've ever built is a jumping puzzle? The jumping puzzle is just one part but it's this interesting representation of the philosophy behind a bunch of the raiding which is taking something simple, something that you've done, you understand, and then asking six of you to do it together. In a nutshell, that's some of the philosophy that was driving raid design as we were building the first raid in Destiny." You heard the man: call up your friends and tell them you've got jumping puzzles to solve and monsters to shoot on September 9. After all, you don't want to face your Destiny alone. [Image: Activision]
TGS 08: Bungie details Halo 3: Recon
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/xbox/TGS_08_Bungie_details_Halo_3_Recon'; After several months of unplanned silence ("This was the project we originally were intending to announce at E3," they say), Bungie finally revealed Halo 3: Recon at TGS. We had an opportunity to talk with Luke Smith and Brian Jerrard during a group meeting in Tokyo this morning and Jerrard briefly addressed some of the more obvious questions we were bound to have: "It will be a standalone disc sold in stores in boxes next Fall. It's also going to include some multiplayer maps." "It is a first-person shooter still ... It's not a squad-based shooter." "As an ODST, compared to playing as in invulnerable Spartan, you are going to have to sort of pick and choose your encounters a little bit differently." "It is going to very much feel like Halo. Full feature parity." That out of the way, Jerrard explained that Recon isn't the only thing Bungie's been up to since jumping off the Microsoft Express this time last year: "This is one of a few projects that we're currently working on. This is the first time at Bungie we've actually had multiple things happening at once and not just, every three years, doing the massive game release." In order to develop Recon, Bungie used a "small agile team" made up of a "bunch of elders" who started the Halo: Combat Evolved franchise some seven years ago (that doesn't sound like ex-GRAWer Christian Allen to us). Who better than to deliver a "bit of a departure" from the last three titles? %Gallery-34046%
E308: Bungie responds to 'hoax' speculation
Bungie.net has been updated. No, nothing was announced. That was canceled, but the update has come in the form of a quick-n-dirty Q&A regarding the situation. Responding specifically to internet claims that Bungie was masterminding a plot to trick fans only to later reveal an 'OMG-megaton,' Bungie's Luke Smith posted an update today -- and please, really listen. "As much as fans wanted to believe otherwise, this is in fact, the truth and not a cruel hoax or prank. E3 is winding down and there are no plans to make a surprise announcement later this week," Smith wrote. Smith does assure fans that everyone at Bungie is aware of their disappointment and even share in it as "a metric ton" of work was done to create and showcase something special at 7:07am this morning. Smith also does well by the community by answering some of the more controversial questions later last night. Smith revealed that Bungie learned of the postponement near 7pm and for the sake of tradition timed the release that that time. The splash image was not removed for people who were not online during the situation and went to Bungie the next morning looking for details. Finally, Luke Smith assured fans that former tester Harold Ryan is the current president of Bungie LLC.
RSS this!
Every week PSP Fanboy brings you a great new podcast that you can use your PSP's RSS feature to subscribe to. We like to call it RSS this! This week's spotlight is one that many gamers probably already subscribe to, but that doesn't make it any less worthy of praise. 1up Yours is 1up.com 's premiere weekly podcast. A typical episode can consist of developer interviews, rumors, news, community features and general conversation about games. The cast usually consists of John Davison, Garnett Lee, Luke Smith and Shane Bettenhausen. One of the most listened to and respected video game podcast around, 1up Yours is a passionate, informative and humorous journey into what makes gaming great and what it needs to do better. When the podcasters aren't attacking their separate viewpoints on gaming, they mock their sexuality. The best part though is since everyone is so honest, you get to know them and even if you don't agree with them, they stay endearing. If you haven't yet heard 1up Yours and you want to add it to your PSP's RSS, just bring up this site with your PSP through our mobile version at m.pspfanboy.com and click on this link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/1up/podcast. Then you can exit your web browser and the show should be in your RSS channels. From there you can set a timer for auto-download of episodes or stream them so you don't take up memory stick space. Got something you have RSS'd and would like us to feature it? Just let us know in the comments, or let other readers know what you think of 1up Yours.
