Bungie: 'Destiny has to keep evolving'

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Destiny. A month after launch, Destiny is a mix of high-highs and divisive lows. It's an enormously successful new intellectual property for publisher Activision, with sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars. According to developer Bungie, the game averages 3.2 million players daily, who spend an average of close to 3 hours in-game.

The game's servers have held up well against the flood of guardians playing the game daily, something we noted as part of our State of Service review. But we were curious, how long had the servers been down since launch?

"Somewhere around four hours total over the month," said Zach Russell, director of online services and technology at Bungie. "When you let millions of players through the front door of the game you've been building for years, it's a nervous time. Have we thought of everything?"

He continued, "Through a lot of hard work by a lot of talented people we had a solid launch on our servers with very limited downtime. We have had some complex network connectivity problems, such as some university networks having trouble connecting to our servers, that we are constantly working to solve, but still have a ways to go."

Bungie has also been highly responsive to feedback, swiftly correcting elements that were becoming all-consuming in player discussions of Destiny, like the Loot Cave and The Cryptarch's almost maniacal glee in devaluing engram hand-ins.

"We had already discussed our old friend, [The Cryptarch], yeah. We play a lot of Destiny, and we use our own feedback as a barometer to measure what's great, what needs some attention, and what plain sucks," said Russell. "In some cases, that can give us an early heads up. That said, a lot of us are going out of our way to play and make friends with total strangers to see what people are really saying and doing in the world, first hand. We're also reading and listening to forums and social stuff, too."

Destiny's first expansion is currently planned for December, with leaks providing a glimpse at what's to come, but Bungie insists the details aren't final. With criticism of Destiny across the spectrum, we wanted to know whether the past month has shifted or solidified the design of the game going forward?

"It means Destiny has to keep evolving," expressed Russell. "Prior to day one, we had already identified some areas that were going to get some tweaks and upgrades, but we knew that launch would represent a new focus for us. We wanted to stay flexible, and planned to tackle feedback as it bubbled up. We're doing that. It's challenging, and we're learning some lessons, but it's also a great way to stay on our game."



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Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2014/10/14/bungie-destiny-has-to-keep-evolving/

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"Bungie: 'Destiny has to keep evolving'" :: Login/Create an Account :: 36 comments

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HTTKPosted:

I don't see anything special about it

AgesPosted:

To be honest I don't even like Destiny! So I don't care about it evolving!

BeetPosted:

NUTHURST
CokaCola I think destiny would be even better if they came out with DLC's and have secret missions to earn secret stuff, It would be a terrific game if they would add more stuff to make the game better.


Thats kinda what they are doing


Destiny is arguably the most over hyped game this year. Day one DLC is horrible. Most DLC is horrible and should have been in the game on day 1.

Honestly this year has sucked when it comes to the gaming industry.

HippieSabotagePosted:

Good game but where are the DLC..

JRMHPosted:

This game's beta was crap and the game now is probably crap.
Bungie fanboys, have at it, but I expect this game dying down in 3-4 months

LatencyPosted:

I haven't played the game in a week because it just gets boring.

DidactPosted:

More and more content is needed to support the longevity of this game. I agree with some users comments which state that more missions, strikes, planets, weapons etc are needed.

AqplePosted:

Destiny has got to a lot of changing to do before they can redeem themselves for the game that they use to be.

DerangedPosted:

Ive lost all interest in playing now.. they nerfed my vex gun... **** PvP you ruined my PvE now i have nothing to look forward to or be proud of achieving you slimy bastards

SakiPosted:

XkojakX
Evo8 They must release more missions, other planets, more weapons, and a non useless loot system.


obviously the two planned expansions are increasing the missions. one even in the rift. i would like to see more planets maybe even a new set of enemy. or include the cabal more in other places. it always seems like im killing the fallen or vex. hive comes right behind them and the cabal very rarely


I'm glad, those shield ones are extremely annoying to deal with.