LukeSmith said:



I'm Luke, and I'm one of the lead designers on Destiny.



First, Destiny is structured into Activities.



We've attempted to build a suite of activities that can suit a variety of moods (I want something challenging! I want to chill out with my friends! I want to see where the story goes next! I want to shoot other players!, I want the game to be a cruel dominatrix! et cetera)



These activities come in a bunch of flavors:

Story missions - soloable activities (you can still play them in groups of up to 3!), often with ties to the main story arc of Destiny (the campaign). These activities appear at various Levels (numerical, relative to the player) and choosing a higher level (relative to you) means you're opting in for some additional challenge.

- soloable activities (you can still play them in groups of up to 3!), often with ties to the main story arc of Destiny (the campaign). These activities appear at various Levels (numerical, relative to the player) and choosing a higher level (relative to you) means you're opting in for some additional challenge. Strikes - 3 player activities, with bosses and loot at the end. Their goal is a highly replayable activity that will - at higher levels - lead you into the loot game.

- 3 player activities, with bosses and loot at the end. Their goal is a highly replayable activity that will - at higher levels - lead you into the loot game. Explore - cruise around the surface of a planet in Fireteams of up to 3, taking odd jobs and tasks for the City. You can find minerals and resources out in the world that you'll have some use for as you find weapons in Destiny that you want to stick with. This is a lower intensity activity

- cruise around the surface of a planet in Fireteams of up to 3, taking odd jobs and tasks for the City. You can find minerals and resources out in the world that you'll have some use for as you find weapons in Destiny that you want to stick with. This is a lower intensity activity Raids - 6 player, cooperative required, communication required gameplay. High challenge. We haven't talked much about this yet and I'm not going start that conversation here on NeoGAF

- 6 player, cooperative required, communication required gameplay. High challenge. We haven't talked much about this yet and I'm not going start that conversation here on NeoGAF Multiplayer This is for the "shoot other players" mood.

Now, the second part is how the world has been built.



We've structured Destiny's world to have places where you will probably intersect with other players, and places where you won't. We're not going to have players drop into the climax of a mission, but the common landing zones for a given planet? That seems like a great place to see other players running amok in the world.



EDIT: Regardless of what activity you're playing (PVP aside), you'll see players on their own activities, i.e., players beginning a Strike might see a guy collecting Relic Iron on Mars, and a Public Event begins and suddenly everyone is distracted to take down a key Cabal target for a chance at powerful gear and materials to upgrade your best weapons and armor.



A bunch of folks are playing the Alpha now and we're already seeing all kinds of opportunities for places to improve Destiny. I have no doubt that in the Public Beta, we will learn even more from your feedback and experiences.



I'm not going to get into any of the recurring activities or gearing or class stuff today, but I imagine we'll start to try and explain stuff more soon. There's a lot of confusion here, and we haven't done the best job ever of explaining the game or its structure.I'm Luke, and I'm one of the lead designers on Destiny.First, Destiny is structured into Activities.We've attempted to build a suite of activities that can suit a variety of moods (I want something challenging! I want to chill out with my friends! I want to see where the story goes next! I want to shoot other players!, I want the game to be a cruel dominatrix! et cetera)These activities come in a bunch of flavors:Now, the second part is how the world has been built.We've structured Destiny's world to have places where you will probably intersect with other players, and places where you won't. We're not going to have players drop into the climax of a mission, but the common landing zones for a given planet? That seems like a great place to see other players running amok in the world.EDIT: Regardless of what activity you're playing (PVP aside), you'll see players on their own activities, i.e., players beginning a Strike might see a guy collecting Relic Iron on Mars, and a Public Event begins and suddenly everyone is distracted to take down a key Cabal target for a chance at powerful gear and materials to upgrade your best weapons and armor.A bunch of folks are playing the Alpha now and we're already seeing all kinds of opportunities for places to improve Destiny. I have no doubt that in the Public Beta, we will learn even more from your feedback and experiences.I'm not going to get into any of the recurring activities or gearing or class stuff today, but I imagine we'll start to try and explain stuff more soon. Click to expand...

Finally some uninterrupted and unscripted gameplay.May as well make this a megapost. Will keep it updated so feel free to correct something I missed:Observations/Personal Impressions up to Video 3:-The player appears to be playing a free roaming "Patrol" mode on [once again] Old Russia. Honestly, the name is becoming a parody of itself.-The HUD seems clean and simple, only displaying what's necessary at any given moment*. Health bar disappears when not taking damage; Motion Sensor disappears when the player aims down their sights, etc.-3 enemies seen in first encounter:, and one named ". Might be the "Hive Wizard" mentioned in the beginning.-Damage numbers with different colors pop up near enemies. White for normal hits and yellow for critical hits I'm assuming (hopefully there are good weakspots. Not a fan of bullet sponges).-The player gets "poisoned" by the bigger HIve, causing his health to degenerate in increments.-Health meter is hidden until the player takes damage. It takes ~5 seconds to full recharge.-The yellow bar is the Super and its recharge is reaches just barely passed the halfway point after 120 seconds. Going to assume a 3-5 minute normal recharge.-Peter Dinklage voicing the Ghost. Sounds a bit bored, which doesn't help the "emptiness" of the encounters. Wish they would have gone with a voice as dynamic as Cortana's again, though perhaps there's more to him than we've heard thus far.-*Menu UI looks simple and slick (albeit maybe too "metro"). I don't really doubt Bungie's in-game UI though.-The drumline in the beginning is literally the same as a track from Halo Reach with a new guitar riff over it. The rest of the music are more ambient and haunting versions of the main Destiny theme. I expect Marty's legacy to live on.-I'm going to assume it's a lower difficulty because the Fallen hardly posed a threat to the player. They didn't seem to make many attempts at engaging him. The Hive are quick but also don't appear to do much damage on their own.-Movement looks super fast (a good sign). There appears to be a good helping of motion blur along with it though.-Can't get a sense of the graphics from this video, especially of an alpha, but I like how the game is looking as far as design goes. Aesthetically, Old Russia continues to be uninteresting personally, although the snow portions break up some of the brown.-Sound design seems mostly well mixed at this stage, although weapons lack punch. However, we also can't properly gauge this from this kind of video.-RPG elements look simple enough to follow (a major plus from me. Some games turn me away with needlessly complex menus). The menu could pop up a bit faster though.-The Fallen enemies so far appear to be a. They also appear to be firing Plasma Rifle bolts that home in on the player... like a Needler, lol. Hello, 4-armed Elites (not that it's athing...)-Down in a building again, he encounters two new enemies:. I think they're both also Hive.-The (Novabomb?) blast radius is-The time of day changes between when he enters and exist the building (sky glows oranger)-The character sceen lets a player customize the stats of their weapons, equipment and super as well as their helmet, gauntlet, chest and leg armor, and cloak. The locked option could be for the heavy weapon.-The player kills a Fallen enemy in cloaking. Not sure if it's because of the camo or it having no health, but a health meter doesn't show above it during the engagement.