In the MMO shooter Destiny , the developers at Bungie show their cards and even admit mistakes. The loot caves, camp spots, were unforeseen. They were due to bugs in the first loot system.
In an interview with the US site mmorpg.com, Community Manager Erik “Urk” Osborne opens up. He is mainly asked about the loot caves. There has been a sort of tussle between players and developers over them, as Bungie has closed them multiple times, prompting players to discover new ones.
Players act unpredictably – even in Destiny
Osborne describes the loot caves as a form of “emergent behavior”, a form of player behavior that arises from the ongoing events in Destiny and which cannot possibly be predicted. No matter how much effort one puts in and what predictions one makes, ultimately, player behavior is simply unpredictable. And after the release, Bungie then sat down and just watched the players. Players act like a kind of dowsing rod, bringing the developers to where the attention must be.
The camp spots, the treasure caves, were entertaining, and they even took themselves lightly. But the most important thing was that they learned from these loot caves what worked and what didn’t in terms of how loot was distributed.
Spaceship battle? Sparrow racing? Why not?
Later in the conversation, the interviewer tries to coax future insights out of Osborne, but he does not reveal much. Ideas like “ship combat” between the players’ jump ships or a sparrow race are things that they think about and have discussed in the office. Both are fun ideas, but he cannot say more about it.
In the upcoming expansions, they want to highlight an alien race each time. For “The Dark Below”, the Hive will be the focus. Additionally, they plan to bring more of everything, so there will soon be further opportunities to improve the Guardian; they also have some ideas for the Crucible and the mobile app.
More about the MMO shooter Destiny can be found on our topic page.
