I think I recall Aztecross claiming that Marathon would have 100k concurrent players for at least a month after its release. This was already funny when he said it considering even then the game's success was doubtful, but it's even funnier in hindsight when you see how low the player count is now.
Edit: Found the clip. He actually said it would be 100k players for six months lol. But he does it with this 'I'm sort of joking, but sort of not' attitude so who knows how serious he was. He's been a big ball-washer for Marathon so it wouldn't really surprise me.
That’s way more embarrassing than dickriding Marathon. At least with this game you could have had the excuse of being blinded by fanboyism and an astroturfed “engoodening” ad campaign, but Highguard had a consensus of being declared shit the femtosecond it was revealed and no bonafides to make anyone (but a few retarded/lying journalists) think otherwise. At that point your judgement is so evidently poor that it’s a waste of time to even entertain your perspective.
Based on the existing tattoo, it also looks like he got it tattooed sideways for some reason. And if that blue square is meant to be a screen that is some shoddy work; the guy doing it can't even tattoo a square consistently.
"Destiny 2 is a microtransaction hell" was a huge video. He can shill whatever he wants after that one. Thorough, well put, everything laid bare. I'd rather take one video like that in five years than 100 tired Synthetic Man-type "critiques" with a perfect gamer rage timing
I saw that, inspired me to do the same (game holds up so well by the way, fucking great game that D1), but I can only assume he did that because he has been the one spearheading this “Destiny Remastered” copium the last few weeks.
I always thought that Destiny 2 was nothing but a cash-grab. Just like Overwatch 2, it was unnecessary. These games-as-a-service require a lot of work over time to build a loyal customer following, and a sequel like this that devalues player investment is akin to a suicide.
Like there's no Warframe 2, there shouldn't be Destiny 2. They should've committed to it, but instead you have this.
this sort of rubs into the problem with an RPG-esque online game that's a shooter, there's only so many ways to make a gun that's actually usable/good, its not like swords and magic and shit, where the moveset can be varied, the ranges of the swings, ect.. with a gun it shoots, faster or slower, bigger or smaller damage, with ranges, you can only go so far and the longer the game goes on, the more true it is.
The perk system does let them vary what guns can do a lot more than what you're describing, especially on exotics, although I would agree that the available design space does get consumed as new content keeps releasing.
New Tassi video (and Aztecross reacting). Seems like the two biggest ball lickers are now shilling for D1, which I don’t blame them for, the game is still great and I play it every so often. But it feels like they know the writings on the wall.
I always thought that Destiny 2 was nothing but a cash-grab. Just like Overwatch 2, it was unnecessary. These games-as-a-service require a lot of work over time to build a loyal customer following, and a sequel like this that devalues player investment is akin to a suicide.
Like there's no Warframe 2, there shouldn't be Destiny 2. They should've committed to it, but instead you have this.
The reason Destiny is like that is because of Bungie's initial contract with Activision. The terms of their arrangement were that Bungie would deliver a brand new game every two years, with a major "Comet" expansion for the current game in the off-years and additional DLC support in the interim. You can see how that would have played out in the very early roadmap for D1 (recreation of a leaked slide from way back when):
And indeed, it did play out like that for the first year or so. Destiny released, then two minor expansions (The Dark Below and House of Wolves), followed by a major expansion (The Taken King). If they'd continued along that track, we would have seen another two minor expansions following TTK, then D2 the next year.
But that proved to be a lot more than Bungie was capable of delivering, especially with the development issues they had in the lead up to the original game. Not only could they not ship the minor expansions, they wouldn't hit the deadline for D2 either, needing a whole extra year to finish that game up. But they were still bound by their contract to deliver something, so they negotiated with Activision to do another "Comet" for D1. While most of the studio worked on finishing D2, the live team knocked out Rise of Iron in under a year.
It seems like they were initially attempting to return to the original model with the start of D2, with the base game release followed by two minor expansions (Curse of Osiris and Warmind), then the major expansion of Forsaken the next year and presumably D3 following afterward. However, after cutting ties with Activision and no longer being under contract to deliver brand new games on a timetable, they decided against another sequel and chose to keep building on D2 forever.
That's proven to be a mixed blessing, though. In hindsight, it seems clear that Destiny 2 (and probably D1 as well) was not designed with an indefinite lifespan, and was probably only meant to be worked on for a couple years at most. That shift from developing a game with a short lifespan to a long one has had consequences. In order to keep overall file size down, content has had to be removed that players already paid for, which has left a permanent stain on the game's reputation. Those removals have also ended up leaving the new player experience entirely disjointed, and it's difficult to get anyone new to stick around when it's such a confusing mess. And although it's nice to keep all our stuff and not have to start from scratch again, more and more players are of the opinion that they would take that tradeoff if it meant D2 could be a complete and consistent experience like D1 still is. Hell, half the top posts on the sub these days are people praising D1 in comparison to the current state of D2.
I think if they were smart about it, they could have developed a single complete game that was gradually built on for years to come. But they figured that Destiny was going to play out like Halo with a new game everyone would migrate to every couple of years, not really wanting to commit to the idea of it being more like an MMO than a regular shooter. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.
Today, it seems to me, they took the first steps towards this no longer being an extraction shooter.
Starting this afternoon they are allowing players to do raids with 'deluxe sponsor kits', these are Green quality gear kits that will be free of charge and in unlimited quantity. Previously these deluxe kits were in limited supply and about 2,000 creds a pop. Players who choose to play with these kits will be raiding with other players who have chosen to do the same. Like the free kit raids previously seen, but now with decent gear.
Today, it seems to me, they took the first steps towards this no longer being an extraction shooter.
Starting this afternoon they are allowing players to do raids with 'deluxe sponsor kits', these are Green quality gear kits that will be free of charge and in unlimited quantity. Previously these deluxe kits were in limited supply and about 2,000 creds a pop. Players who choose to play with these kits will be raiding with other players who have chosen to do the same. Like the free kit raids previously seen, but now with decent gear.
Seems like they're fighting a losing battle at this point, trying to get some of the casual players they lost back into the game. The problem is I feel like casuals are already moving on to other games since Marathon is inherently unappealing to casual gamers, so this will probably only have limited returns.
