New Destiny expansion in 2016, no Destiny 2

2016 didn't seem too early when the game was released two years prior to the expected release date.

I reckon there has been a significant delay at Bungie, rather than this always being the plan.

Nice to hear we will get some sort of good sized expansion this year - and hopefully D2 comes out early 2017.

Still, have to worry for Destiny/Bungie - they are struggling badly with content, and the game will suffer more and more as a result.

feck it.... PLEASE BE VAULT OF GLASS AND CROTA AT HIGH LIGHT LEVELS WITH UPDATED LEGENDARIES!

It would be cheap but AWESOME for a few weeks.

I just hope it isn't another round of having to grind for X material in order to increase light level. If they keep it etheric light, fair enough, I could live with that.

It would be great if they got away from the light level guff, it was a misstep in my book.

I'm fine with this, given everything thats gone on in the last 18-24 months, this is very much a "steadying the ship" type of action, and TB that's fine.

As long as Destiny 2 is a significant step forward and they have updated their basic programming tools to allow for quicker and easier updates ("no more of this 24 hour turn around to move a resource node 5 feet) it's a smart move.

Annoy people for 6 months to try and ensure a better experience 2017-2019.

Sure people will be annoyed with the delay, but that's cause everyone just wants more content.

Honestly, everyone really seems to forget just how good the Taken King was very quickly.
The only reason the hamsters fell of the treadmill a lot quicker is cause there was soooooo many ways to level up (farming blues in CoO anyone?)

All this rose tinted glasses hyperbole about "Year 1" and VoG and CE and all that is just guff.
The new light level system is the best the games had.

VoG: "No Boots? F**k you so lvl29 scum"
CE: Hard Mode being considerably under levelled and an exploitable raid and Re-Levelling Exotics :mad:
PoE: *Tumbleweed*
KF: "Rabble Rabble Rabble, this is great, but if you don't have another one of these in 6 months Destiny is Dead in the water" :rolleyes:

I'm waxing lyrical here with a pretty bold statement, but in all honesty, I can't remember the last time a game of this size being delayed has had a Negative effect.

I might be in the minority, but I honestly feel satisfied with developers who are willing to delay their product to ensure it's right.

If you look at games that weren't delayed that should have been since they just wanted to make the release date it's a pretty damning inditement of the industry (Fallout 4, Destiny Vanilla, Assassins Creed Unity, Batman Arkham Knight..... the list goes on)

I know i'm the minority but when games like Uncharted 4 and Mass Effect 4 get pushed back, i'm like "thank christ"

To be honest, it's not like we're stuck for games to play. I mean I alone am playing about 5 or 6 at a time (currently Life is Strange, X-Com 2, Starcraft LoV, Borderlands 2)

This roadmap is a good thing so far, hopefully the content will meat our lofty expectations.

But honestly, I doubt you'll get a Raid in Spring, probably just a few strikes, exotics, missions and quests. Possibly something on the scale of PoE.

Maybe in September there will be another expansion on the scale of tTK including a Raid and that'll tide us over until Destiny 2 in say April 2017.

The Destiny bundle with all these on sale is gonna make some kick a$$ value for someone who picks it up in February 2017, pity they'll have to wait till March to play it given the fact they'll need to upgrade their hard drive and download a 400GB patch at that stage :pac:

So overall, I'm satisfied with the road map.
The content will be judged on it's own merit.
Then again I've always been a realist about these things.

Haven't even looked at Reddit yet, I'm willing to bet the grande hyperbole thrown around currently is laughable

Am I the only person not getting pissed off at Bungie?

I think this is great news.
I mean they've designed a game that's kept me addicted to it since Sept 2015. It's great they've announced new content. Its a bit ****ty the internet seems to have gotten into a frenzy about the lack of content.

Although that being said, if they had announced that they were going to continue with the Festival of the Lost / SRL / time based events, I wouldn't be too happy.

Mitch Connor wrote: »

Surely if they are increasing the Light Level then either:

2. They are gonna beef up Oryx or one of the other raids.

We already have a HM Oryx, so I don't think they'd change the light level for Oryx.
So that would allude to another raid, however we fell foul of that logic during the HoW expansion.

They'd only up the light level if they were planning on creating a new raid, or new end game activity, like PoE.

Even if they were planning on updating VoG or CE, they wouldn't need to increase the maximum light level to do that.

I can't see why they're not actively developing raids... Even if they added a new raid to TTK, keep the light levels the same, add new gear. They'd make a fortune. They can't be making any real money on emotes. Also they've designed the game in such a way that its so long and drawn out to get to 320. Having another raid with more drops, more armour, surely it would make sense.

Cormac... wrote: »

It takes about a year or two to develop a Raid (with the current tools and staff).
AFAIK they started developing KF before Vanilla was even released.

That's a staggering amount of time for development, where'd you get that figure?

I would have thought 1/4 of that time... Although if they're doing it with, say, only 2 or 3 staff, then ya - it'll take a year and a half.

Hail 2 Da Chimp wrote: »

We already have a HM Oryx, so I don't think they'd change the light level for Oryx.
So that would allude to another raid, however we fell foul of that logic during the HoW expansion.

They'd only up the light level if they were planning on creating a new raid, or new end game activity, like PoE.

Even if they were planning on updating VoG or CE, they wouldn't need to increase the maximum light level to do that.

I can't see why they're not actively developing raids... Even if they added a new raid to TTK, keep the light levels the same, add new gear. They'd make a fortune. They can't be making any real money on emotes. Also they've designed the game in such a way that its so long and drawn out to get to 320. Having another raid with more drops, more armour, surely it would make sense.

I'm not arguing they would need to update the LL beyond what they have in order to bring VoG and CE up to date - but, iirc, they said the spring update will increase the LL and an update (of some sort) to PVE activities with a large "Expansion" towards the end of the year.

I can't see how/why they would increase the LL without increasing the LL of end game activities to match it. What wuld be the point in overleveling us for Oryx, making that raid easy and pointless.

I would be surprised if we got a new end game activity of any kind in Spring, so my argument is if (as they say) we are getting an increased LL, we will also get current end game activities at higher light levels.

Mitch Connor wrote: »

I'm not arguing they would need to update the LL beyond what they have in order to bring VoG and CE up to date - but, iirc, they said the spring update will increase the LL and an update (of some sort) to PVE activities with a large "Expansion" towards the end of the year.

I can't see how/why they would increase the LL without increasing the LL of end game activities to match it. What wuld be the point in overleveling us for Oryx, making that raid easy and pointless.

I would be surprised if we got a new end game activity of any kind in Spring, so my argument is if (as they say) we are getting an increased LL, we will also get current end game activities at higher light levels.

You would expect if there is a "significant" light level increase as they've said then there has to be some new major end of game content. Whether thats a new raid or 3rd level to kingsfall. Along with some new story missions, just to get you started on 320+

Have light level going to 340/350 (is that significant ???? ) would mean people stomping through KF in its current state.

PetKing wrote: »

I think talking raids is like setting ourselves up for a big fall. I'm not expecting one, and I'll eat my vanilla disk if there is one released in 2016. I wouldnt even bank on the new expansion being PoE-esque in size.

They didn't increase the LL of VoG when TDB released, they didn't increase the LL of CE when HoW released. I don't see (even if I agree to keep it relevant) them increasing the LL of KF.

So every end game activity is going to be under leveled in your opinion?

Just because they didn't change light levels previously doesn't mean they won't now - now they are scrambling to create content and keep player engagement going til a 2017 sequel - they may just have to do a couple of things they haven't done before.

Cormac I didn't know you work for Bungie

Some great insider information there !!!

Cormac... wrote: »

It essentially said, given the way their dev enviorment is, that it can take (something like) 12 hours to move a resource node a couple of inches.

Fron here: http://kotaku.com/the-messy-true-story-behind-the-making-of-destiny-1737556731

Four sources pointed to Destiny’s technology—the tools they use to design levels, render graphics, and create content—as an inhibiting factor in the game’s development.

“Let’s say a designer wants to go in and move a resource node two inches,” said one person familiar with the engine. “They go into the editor. First they have to load their map overnight. It takes eight hours to input their map overnight. They get [into the office] in the morning. If their importer didn’t fail, they open the map. It takes about 20 minutes to open. They go in and they move that node two feet. And then they’d do a 15-20 minute compile. Just to do a half-second change.”

I can understand the complexity of working on large scale projects. But Bungie aren't the first people to work on a large project with poor development tools.

How that change should have went:
The person came into work on a Monday with their map pre-loaded.
Open map - 20 mins.
Move node - 10 mins.
Compile code - 20 mins.

Thats actually less than an hours work. Anything that takes more than an hour happens when they're al at home asleep for the night.
Loading big files overnight doesn't add to the complexity or development time of a project.

Poor management leads to increased development time.

But that being said, that's obviously a simplified look at the problem, there does seem to be a lot of issues under the hood.

Breaking: Destiny 2 may have a story!