Destiny 2 Seasonal Lootboxes are purchase only and contain gameplay affecting items

[Headdrivehardscrew]

The game could dispense cocaine and chocolate milkshakes, and it still wouldn't be worth the price.

Quite spot-on, sweet enemy mine.

Because of this one reason, and all the other reasons Bungie provided earlier, I have decided to stop playing Destiny (2) altogether. Leading up to this position, I have deleted my Titan last week and had another go at the story/grind up to level 20/25 and max light power level.

It was a wee bit emotional, but mostly just managed to annoy me... a lot. Bungie never bothered to understand why we kept playing an overrated, prettied-up anemic shell of a game. They didn't understand why we put up with the always crappy PVP lag and horrible net code. They saw us sherpa the shit out of sad and desperate noobs and loners, creating spontaneous clans every weekend to share the joy of "getting over it", doing the raid(s), making it to the lighthouse, putting Skolas in his place... whatever it was, we could justify spending way too much time on a game we all professed to dislike.

With Destiny 2, Bungie killed... everything. They effectively patched out all our workarounds. They have yet to implement the vast majority of improvements Destiny saw when it was being kept alive and perpetually resurrected by the "live team", who - looking back - were so much more in touch with the player base than whoever is messing with us now.

Bungie killed Bungie for me. It's not just a misunderstanding, a cultural issue, a language barrier. It's that I've come to hate their guts. I loathe them. I don't get how they could make the decisions they made. With all the stats they gathered, how could they so severely misinterpret everything?

With no hope left and the decision set to uninstall Destiny 2 the very moment we've seen the last DLC we paid for in advance, we went on to grind to get Sagira's Shell and Saint-14's shotgun. That is one sweet shotgun. Too bad we no longer enjoy the game.

They also took our Sparrow horns. That's just... I don't know. It's just sad. I must go now. The Tower is filthy. My broom is calling for me. We are all janitors now. The war is over. No one won. No one lost. ETA on The Darkness is late 2018 or early 2019. We won't be around to witness it.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

Honestly, you have to almost admire the sheer chutzpah of Bungie to keep doing this kind of thing. That they keep doing it must mean that it's working, though. If it was actually hurting their bottom line, you can bet they would change course swiftly. Of course it remains to be seen how long the player base will hang around for these sorts of shenanigans, and I can't help but think that Bungie are doing long term harm to themselves for the sake of short term gains. After this debacle, who is going to go back again for Destiny 3?

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

So, Ummm...today i found, after returning from leaving my PS4 on while doing some cooking, that Destiny 2 (which I do not own) had auto-downloaded a start app thing on the main dashboard list of recently played/downloaded games, taking the spot of whatever is currently the preferred entertainment that someone like me returns to, I guess it being the latest download (that I hadn't asked for or implied ever wanting).

What kind of fresh bullshit is this?? That's a bit presumptuous and forward for an advertisement. How much did it cost to get Sony to pull that then, one has to wonder...

I

Don't

Want

Your

Fucking

Shitty

Grindfest

Lootbox

Manipulation

Tool

Fucking

Fuck

Off

ActiBlizzard

And

Never

Pull

That

Crap

Again!*


[small]*The marketing industry is kind of a personal bugbear, admittedly.[/small]

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

So, Ummm...today i found, after returning from leaving my PS4 on while doing some cooking, that Destiny 2 (which I do not own) had auto-downloaded a start app thing on the main dashboard list of recently played/downloaded games, taking the spot of whatever is currently the preferred entertainment that someone like me returns to, I guess it being the latest download (that I hadn't asked for or implied ever wanting).

What kind of fresh bullshit is this?? That's a bit presumptuous and forward for an advertisement. How much did it cost to get Sony to pull that then, one has to wonder...

Not new. This feature was slid in with Firmware 1.75 and if you have not turned it off, it will continue to bring you the latest and greatest marketing pesos can buy. Most folk I know encountered this when Destiny 1's "The Taken King" expansion suddenly materialized on their PS4 menu without them ever touching anything Destiny

You can turn it off here: Settings > System > Automatic Downloads > Featured Content

Big quote from back when:
"Sony Community Manager Chris Owen said at the time that feature was intended to automatically download "items such as demos/timed trials," free content players might want to try. That seems fundamentally different from these unbidden "Taken King" icons, which instead are pushing a game players may like to buy.

Sony hasn't exactly been hiding this auto-download plan from users. Back in February 2013, months before the PS4 came out, Sony was touting the system's ability to "automatically download content that it knows you'll like" and "download games for you before you even think about it." Even now, Sony's PS4 Features page promotes the system's ability to deliver "personalized, curated content" by "learn[ing] your likes and dislikes, allowing you to discover content preloaded and ready to go on your console in your favorite game genres or by your favorite creators."

Still, despite covering the system closely for years now, we weren't aware that the PS4 could add games onto the home menu screen like this without a direct request from the user. A lot of other PS4 users seemed pretty surprised too, judging by online reaction."

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Not new. This feature was slid in with Firmware 1.75 and if you have not turned it off, it will continue to bring you the latest and greatest marketing pesos can buy. Most folk I know encountered this when Destiny 1's "The Taken King" expansion suddenly materialized on their PS4 menu without them ever touching anything Destiny

You can turn it off here: Settings > System > Automatic Downloads > Featured Content

Big quote from back when:
"Sony Community Manager Chris Owen said at the time that feature was intended to automatically download "items such as demos/timed trials," free content players might want to try. That seems fundamentally different from these unbidden "Taken King" icons, which instead are pushing a game players may like to buy.

Sony hasn't exactly been hiding this auto-download plan from users. Back in February 2013, months before the PS4 came out, Sony was touting the system's ability to "automatically download content that it knows you'll like" and "download games for you before you even think about it." Even now, Sony's PS4 Features page promotes the system's ability to deliver "personalized, curated content" by "learn[ing] your likes and dislikes, allowing you to discover content preloaded and ready to go on your console in your favorite game genres or by your favorite creators."

Still, despite covering the system closely for years now, we weren't aware that the PS4 could add games onto the home menu screen like this without a direct request from the user. A lot of other PS4 users seemed pretty surprised too, judging by online reaction."

Ahah! Cheers, that's now been turned off. It's the first it's happened to me in the years I've owned the console, but there is a vague feeling of dejavu, so perhaps I briefly read something about it the first time it hit people, then promptly got distracted by life.
That is serious PR twatwaffle there though; "Knows what I like"? It thinks everybody only ever likes Destiny then? Conveniently from the publisher known for their overzealous marketing budgets? A bit of a weird software quirk if it's solely picking the one game series for all users, Sony, perhaps worth looking into that there. Wouldn't want to think it's just another cynical avenue of advertising income like the emoji movie, disguised weakly as a "it's all for youuuu...the user! Not us. We just want to snuggle and help, it's not about the money, nonononooo. We...care."

Wouldn't want to think that at all.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Ahah! Cheers, that's now been turned off. It's the first it's happened to me in the years I've owned the console, but there is a vague feeling of dejavu, so perhaps I briefly read something about it the first time it hit people, then promptly got distracted by life.

Yeah, I really wouldn't remember any other occurrences than Destiny/Bungie/Activision actually having done it. Then again, I turned it off the very moment I saw its functionality vaguely described in the patch notes.

Always remember, though:
INFORMATION IS THE CURRENCY OF THE ONLINE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

We see similar functionality baked into Windows 10 by Microsoft. We have so-called "social" functionality spreading like cancer throughout all activities, pastimes, "Apps". If a service provider chooses to provide a service "for free", they'll almost always collect more data than the average user would suspect... or even want to believe, really.

All those fun and convenient little "thumbs up!" or "share!" buttons? All this zip zap zippedidoo quick linking functionality magic to easily "connect" to your "social" accounts? They're invitations to make you more transparent, make the bundle of data you are more rich and juicy with every click you dare to make.

That is serious PR twatwaffle there though; "Knows what I like"? It thinks everybody only ever likes Destiny then? Conveniently from the publisher known for their overzealous marketing budgets? A bit of a weird software quirk if it's solely picking the one game series for all users, Sony, perhaps worth looking into that there. Wouldn't want to think it's just another cynical avenue of advertising income like the emoji movie, disguised weakly as a "it's all for youuuu...the user! Not us. We just want to snuggle and help, it's not about the money, nonononooo. We...care."

Wouldn't want to think that at all.

While I would agree, I also have reason to believe that this phenomenon reaches beyond the trending marketing strategies rulebook; it's just too convenient for other entities interested in analyzing our habits and having the option of control and potential direction/exploitation over and of them. If you want to be inside people's heads, if you want to summon up a storm, right now, we've got field-tested tools to do just that - if you have people simple enough to actively believe in this sort of "freedom".

No, I don't think it's about everybody liking Destiny. It's about Bungie putting a much larger-than-average percentage of their allocated funds in shiny things, such as pre-rendered FMV sequences by Blur (can't be cheap), extreme ad campaign blitzkrieg instances and, yes, putting it right on the frontpage of your system of choice. Ah - almost forgot: It's also in the Blizzard launcher for PC. A lot of people must have worked for this to get through. Many hungry hungry lawyers sat together and summoned up contracts from below. And everybody wants to get paid one way or another.

I want Sony, the Japanese tech company and all its subsidiaries, to survive, make a killing, be the top dog. I have absolutely no sympathies for Sony @ Hollywood whoring out beloved IPs to intellectually dishonest ignorant schmucks who gleefully ruin everything they fondle with their shite reverse Midas touch. I have not seen the Emoji movie; I see it as a declaration of war.

Sadly, we live in times where ideological warfare is rampant and no-one and nothing is safe. Don't you feel happy, citizen?

In that context: Having an unwanted Destiny 2 icon pop up on your screen and being able/allowed to make it go away and not happen again with three-or-so clicks isn't that big a deal, methinks.

I am more worried about the corruptive power of all the Alexas, Cortanas, Echos, Siris and Google Voices that claim to make our lives oh so much easier when all they do is... well, slightly more complex and potentially devious an issue.

Don't spread yourself thin. Don't always be yourself. Yesterday, I was schizophrenic. Today, we feel much better. I am only myself in meatspace. Online, we are many. It seems to be the only way to deal with the indecent information grabbing going on.