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So Bungie has "fixed" Destiny once again. This time they've addressed issues with the greatest challenge currently in the game: the Vault of Glass Raid. Specifically the fight with Atheon, which I admit I was only ever able to beat by pushing him off the edge... But what's really put me off lately is the attitude which Bungie has taken. They're quickly becoming the Apple of the video game industry, and I mean that in the worst way possible. They expect to dictate to their paying customers how they should play the game. It's not enough to shell out $60 or more and expect to enjoy the game at your leisure, you've got to do things their way too. That wouldn't be so bad, if their way didn't kinda suck. When asked about the largely unpopular changes to the Atheon fight, Bungie repeatedly insists that the challenge was meant to be difficult. As if it wasn't already. Even getting to Atheon is a real feat, and even cheap ways of beating him like pushing him off the edge take a lot of team work, coordination, effort, and luck to pull off effectively. I've long maintained that challenges like the Vault of Glass are supposed to be about strategy, finding strategies that work, not just putting more bullets into a boss. A difficult challenge is one thing, but all too often Bungie relies on artificial difficulty. Rather than create a unique challenge, "difficult" in Destiny just means a boss with a lot of health and one-shot-kill attacks. They're difficult because they require consistent perfection in executing the one Bungie-approved strategy to not be set back over and over again, not because they're well designed. This pursuit of difficulty is getting out of control, and quite frankly ruining the game for a large number of players. First of all, the Vault of Glass to start with is impossible without at least 6 people of level 26 or higher. If you don't know 6 people who have hours to blow on this game, don't expect to even see the inside of this sacred place. That counts out a large portion of players already, and for a long time, I was one of them. But now, Bungie has announced that that's not good enough. They simply can't have experienced raiders "carrying" less experienced or lower-leveled ones through raid. Again, with the raid the way it was before the patch, there was no carrying involved. Obviously there will be players of different skill levels on any team, but you're not getting very far in any without participation from everyone. There's no dead weight in the Vault of Glass. Period. But again, for some reason Bungie seems to insist that this challenge shouldn't be enjoyed by the many, but only a select few, so for players of the appropriate level who maybe aren't as good as some others, they've thrown another penalty in for you and anyone you venture into the Vault with. As if the number of people who could run the raid in the first place wasn't small enough, they're determined to put the challenge out of reach of even more players. Now let's talk about those bumpers. I know what a lot of you are thinking: pushing Atheon off the edge is kind of cheating, so that's fair, right? Well, is it? I'm not so sure. When is Bungie going to put bumpers on levels so I don't fall off the edge during fights? I've died that way at least a few times. If I'm careless enough to back off the edge of a platform, that's on me, right? That black and white diamond with the skull in it comes up and it's back to square one. But when it happens to an enemy, that gets blamed on the players playing the game wrong. I know it might seem like a cheap way to win, but let's face it, this game is full of cheap shots taken by the enemies against players. If you ask me, Destiny shouldn't have it both ways. If combat in this game is meant to be a real tooth and nail gun fight, that's fine, but at least make it balanced. If you're going to eliminate those kinds of strategies for players to succeed, then I feel the enemies shouldn’t be able to cheese players either. But if one well placed shot can doom a player (often resulting in a wipe, where Atheon is concerned), then is it really so bad for the boss to have a weakness that can be exploited? Call me crazy, but a boss having a weakness strikes me somewhat realistic. Certainly both more realistic and more enjoyable than simply being a massive bullet sponge that you have to shoot at for 10 minutes straight. If you're a super hardcore player, you're welcome to not try and push a boss off of the map, you can play however you want. But I really take issue with these fixes that do little more than shut more and more players off from a highly touted piece of the game. Perhaps what's most infuriating is that while Bungie is quick to address issues that make a broken game more bearable, so many other problems just go unfixed. I know I've said it before, but if they fixed the underlying problems in the game, the repetitive nature of it, the fact that 90% of the activities in the game offer little to no reward, and the fact that there are so many obstacles for non-elite players who want to participate all parts of the game, raids included, then there would be no need for all of these so-called "exploits." Instead, they're engaged in a game of whack-a-mole, trying to patch away every possible way to play the game that isn't what Bungie intended.

Thanks for your time. 

The problem is not the Loot Cave, the problem is a broken game. The cave may be gone, but the broken state of Destiny remains, and I'm beginning to lose hope that Bungie will be able to deliver a decent fix after what I've seen so far.

So Destiny has been out for more than a week now, and I will admit that I've spent most of that week playing it. So I'd like to take this opportunity to share my insights into the game. Now I know the game has received mixed reviews thus far, with a lot of disappointment and criticism leveled at the game. I will admit, it is all fair and justified. Everything they're saying is true and I think a lot of people who paid $60 (or sometimes upwards of $100) for the game have reasonable gripes. But there's a lot to love too, and it's just as easy for others to be satisfied and then some. Destiny has a bit of an identity crisis. It's one part RPG, one part shooter, and one part MMO. The first thing you do in the game is create your character, and Destiny offers a surprising level of customization. This is a little misleading though, because there's relatively little customization or interaction with other characters throughout the game. I won't spend a lot of time on the plot, because frankly neither does the game. It's hollow and forgettable at best. There's a lot of technobabble and dramatic sounding names, but there's not a lot of substance so it just sounds a little cheesy. The game itself is a lot of fun for the first couple of hours, but after that you begin to realize that every mission is essentially the same. Trek across a planet to a checkpoint, fight waves of baddies, fight a boss (which is always just a jumbo version of a regular enemy, made artificially more difficult by having about 1000 times the health). Rinse and repeat until the mission is done. Rinse and repeat throughout the whole story. While the story can be finished in a couple of days, it feels like forever because it's such a grind. The repetitive nature of the gameplay only makes that worse. And while it's easy to feel bored, the game also remains fun, if that makes any sense at all. Boring, repetitive, but fun. Addictive even. While it's a grind, I always find myself close to some small goal or milestone, and finding loot it always such a thrill, you just want to keep going in anticipation that the next enemy you kill may just drop an epic item. That feeling has kept me playing literally for hours after deciding that I'd quit soon, or after one more drop, etc. One thing I will give Bungie credit for is getting multiplayer right. When exploring a planet, you often run across other players. Sometimes your interests align and you end up helping each other out, other times you merely cross paths and continue on your way. The planets never feel too crowded, nor dead empty. The player vs player aspect of the game was nothing special. I will give Destiny a lot of credit for striking the right balance between Call of Duty (where a few stray bullets from a broken overpowered weapon can kill you in an instant) and Halo (where you slowly walk towards another player, emptying a clip into them, until eventually getting close enough for a punch out). It's a pretty average experience without any of the frustrating aspects of other modern shooters. People tell me that the game doesn't really begin until you reach level 20. I don't know how true that is, but the game does change significantly at that point. By then you should be done with the story, so all that's left to do is repeat those repetitive missions. Tempting, right? But level 20 is the point when all the best gear becomes available to you, and becomes necessary to advance. At that point, the grind to level and the endless quest for loot becomes the game. Again, it's hard to decide whether that's good or bad because they're both the must frustrating and most addicting parts of the game. If you played the game on day one, it would be easy to say that there was no innovation in Destiny. While it combines elements from various different game genres, it was all pretty basic stuff for a shooter. But fast forward a week, and a new shopkeep has already made an appearance, and new missions have shown up. Every couple of days, there has indeed been new content, and that's a very promising sign, especially considering that it just shows up in the game. No DLC to buy or download. If Bungie keeps that up, they've succeeded in creating a living world and a living game. For all of Destiny's other flaws, that's huge. One thing I've heard a lot is that the best is yet to come. While that's very exciting, given what we've seen so far, it does beg the question why Bungie is keeping such great content under wraps while the game debuted to tepid first impressions. It makes it seem as if Destiny was released as an unfinished game by choice. While thus far it probably sounds like I've totally panned this game, I really love Destiny. I suppose the key takeaway from the game is the strange duality of it. While I constantly roll my eyes and think "here we go again" as I engage in the same repetitive missions, somehow it keeps me coming back for more. It's the kind of game I can see myself playing long term, even though all that's left to do is repeat what's already been done. I really enjoy it, and the hours I've wasted away on it are proof of that. It can't be that bad if I can't put it down. The game both disappoints and lives up to the hype at the same time. I think we could be getting into Destiny-style sci-fi territory with this description, but that's part of what makes it so fascinating. So with that in mind, I wholeheartedly recommend the game, albeit with tempered expectations. For anyone thinking of getting it or who does have it, feel free to give me a shout if you have any questions or anything I can clarify about the game. I can be reached here on Tumblr, Twitter, Google Plus, and by email if you can find my address. It's complicated and difficult to explain, so I sympathize with anybody on the fence about the game. Happy Gaming!

[Your name here]  

So having said all that, I ask my fellow internet users to keep the spirit of net neutrality in mind and not blindly oppose any and all change. In the communities that I'm a part of, we have a reputation for being able to raise our voices in a powerful way, but also for being difficult and stubborn even as new information and proposals are brought forward. Just as this issue is more important most others we've rallied behind, it is equally important that we don't screw it up ourselves by being unreasonable. 

The topic on everyone's minds lately seems to be the debate over who 'won' E3. So for those who are interested, I offer my take on the three console-makers' press conferences. Despite the consensus, I say that there was no clear winner, and here's why. Xbox/Microsoft The pressure was on Microsoft to deliver after a rather disastrous rollout of the Xbox One at last year's E3. What they delivered was a lot of games. That's it. Games, games, and more games. Don't get me wrong, the games looked great. Microsoft's presentation really got me wanting Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, Assasin's Creed Unity, the upcoming Halo games, and more, but I can't help but be a little disappointment. The main selling point of the Xbox One has always been that it aspires to be more than simply a games machine. It was always so ambitious, and that's what made it exciting, and differentiated it from the PS4. I know gamers have long been clamoring for more games than other features, but I feel like it was a bad move to ignore everything else at this year's E3. After all, without all the extras, Microsoft's console is a bit less powerful than the same-priced PS4. But hey, definitely a solid showing from Microsoft and the Xbox team none the less. Gotta give them some points for not screwing up. Sony For the past year, Sony has had the edge on Microsoft, so going into E3, the could essentially win by default. Unfortunately, I think they missed the mark with their press conference. While Microsoft stuck to the games, Sony oddly enough, spent a lot of time on apps and TV features. But while the Xbox One was built for that, they all seem like more of an afterthought on the PS4. It really felt like a "me too!" type of thing, that almost validates Microsoft's efforts. Another low point of Sony's event, while a man on stage was touting "free to play" games on PS4, on the bottom of the screen behind him was some gigantic fine print stating "some features available for a fee." Sorry Sony, but that's not "free to play". Gamers will gladly pay $60 for a decent game, but if there's one thing they hate, it's being told something is free, then being nickeled and dimed for half of the content. And the final disappointment, two of Sony's biggest announcements were remakes of games, specifically The Last of Us and Grand Theft Auto V. Two games that are less than a year old, and Sony wants users to shell out another $60 to play games they already own on their shiny new console. $120 in under a year for a single game. Sorry, but as great as both games are, neither one is worth that. A bright point in Sony's presentation, and the only game that I'm really lusting for, was No Man's Sky. I can't wait for that one. Nintendo This one is just bitter sweet. Most of the internet has declared Nintendo the 'winner' of E3, and it's not hard to see why. I've often criticized them for relying on Nostalgia to sell underpowered hardware and unoriginal games. Well the Nostalgia was out in full force at E3, and I'll admit, it even got me lusting for the newest Zelda and Yoshi games. My favorite Zelda games of the 16 bit generation came to mind as a Nintendo representative described, before a stunningly beautiful scenery, that the puzzles of the next Zelda installment would not come in the form of a mini-game, but how you reach your destination in this new massive open world setting. Brilliant. On another nostalgic note, Yoshi's Woolly World is the spitting image of another favorite game of mine, the original Yoshi's Island. Other games in Nintendo's lineup looked great as well. That's what made Nintendo's presentation so painful. Damn, I want some of those games bad, but I'm still not paying several hundred dollars for their underpowered and gimmick-laden console with inferior graphics and online play, just to be able to play a handful of games. It still feels like Nintendo's strategy is to hold gamers' childhood memories ransom in order to sell hardware that is inferior to the competition. It's hard to explain, but it kind of makes me angry. This is why Nintendo is losing money for the first time in their existence, why they're in serious danger of becoming irrelevant, why the very future of the company is currently so uncertain. If Nintendo sold their games on other systems, they would print money. If Nintendo actually produced a standard console on par with the competition at a reasonable price and without all the gimmicks that drive away gamers and developers alike, they could be a contender in this generation. Hell, if they even produced a budget console that lacked the horsepower of the competition, but at a lower price and without all the gimmicks, people like me could be persuaded to pay a couple hundred bucks to be able to enjoy our favorite Nintendo franchises. But instead, we get the Wii U, and that's a damn shame. Nintendo deserved all the oohs and aahs they got at E3 this year, but at the end of the day, they're a businesses that needs to turn a profit to continue doing what they do, not just impress at a trade show. All the obstacles that have hindered Wii U sales remain. A few desireable games aren't going to improve the system's graphics, or its poor online play, or make developers want to waste their time on that dud of a console. And even great first party games can't reach their full sales potential on a console that so few people own. Sorry for the rant, but let's all be honest. As much as the Nintendo E3 presentation was universally loved, for most people it was little more than a showcase of great games that they're never going to end up playing because they're on the Wii U. It's hard to call this a win for Nintendo when the Xbox One and PS4 are still much better buys.

Since Posterous is going to be shut down, I guess this will be my new blog. Not a huge tumblr fan, but it'll have to do.