In the MMO shooter Destiny, the new PvE activity Prison of Elders will be revealed today, May 6th, at 8:00 PM in a live stream on Twitch. We will accompany this with a live ticker in English.
Last week was all about PvP. Everything that was going to change in the Crucible with House of Wolves was discussed then. Not everyone was a fan of it. This week is supposed to focus on PvE. A live stream on Twitch will kick off tonight at 8:00 PM, introducing the new activity “Prison of Elders” and possibly the new Strike.
Here is the link to the live stream:
We at mein MMO will accompany the stream in English with a hopefully informative and entertaining live ticker.
19:05: The last few weeks have been noticeably quieter on Wednesdays with Destiny. Today, however, there has been a lot going on all day. Time to take a breather. Here is yesterday’s teaser trailer; and we also have an article on what we already know about the Prison of Elders. You can get up to date before 8:00 PM.
19:10: The traffic from our short patch article is going up like crazy. That likely means the patch is now live and players are being kicked from the game. Tomorrow, I’ll have to read through angry letters saying we only write about Destiny, and the boss will give me that disapproving look again.
19:25: The community representative tonight is Professor Broman, a very likable live streamer. Here you can see how he earns his Gjallarhorn on the Xbox One. Hard work, top-tier skill.
http://youtu.be/CGnTbPGuPwQ
19:30: Half an hour left – Some might say Bungie is patching to boost stream viewership, but thankfully we don’t have such people.
http://t.co/LMmWoBi2E0 30 minutes! pic.twitter.com/rJCnwlSwg9
— Bungie (@Bungie) May 6, 2015
19:45: The exciting questions today will surely revolve around the instance process. We don’t actually know much about that yet. Will there be matchmaking? How is the difficulty level, will it be easy to get through, or will you really have to train? What about the loot? How do they manage to make the Prison of Elders different every week? Are there modifiers like in Nightfall? Do the enemies have boss mechanics, or do you just rush through? How long does this thing take? Basically, everyone wants to know almost everything.
19:57: Don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t start at 8:00 PM sharp, last time there was also a longer lead-in.
20:02: Yep, there’s a lead-in. It should start around 8:05 PM.
20:05: As expected, due to the server downtime, the viewership is extremely high. 130k at the start, never before has the last stream seen that, and the one before that barely reached peak viewership at the end. Oh, DeeJ has found someone who is smaller than him.
4 different difficulty levels, the easiest of which has matchmaking, the rest without
20:07: 3-player activity with matchmaking is active. Not like in Raid or Nightfall, but like in Strike or Weekly. It has modifiers and is supposed to be replayable. This applies only to the 28 version. There will be 3 hard modes, which are ONLY for pre-made teams – for level 32, 34, and 35. The two lower challenges (32 and 34) will rotate, with different ones becoming active each week. There are 5 to choose from for the two slots. The large, 35 version remains the same, essentially the “end boss” of the entire expansion. Players can tackle the 3 challenges within a week – they reset weekly. The normal match-made arena can be played multiple times during the week. So it’s not ONE activity, but rather 4 summarized here.
According to IGN, later: The 35 version is always the same; the 34 and 32 Strike versions will feature a rotation of 5 variants: the 34 from week 1 will be the 32 of week 2, and a different one will take its place at 34.
20:10: 160,000 viewers, pretty crazy. Oh, there are new modifiers for the individual waves as well. They are currently trying out the “34 version” system. DeeJ is making fun of Dinklebot. On the left, you can see the “1 of 3 waves completed” icon that Destiny players know well.
20:15: This looks pretty chaotic. As expected, the enemies seem to come in waves. Variks is the announcer. The 34 they are currently playing appears to be a Hive challenge and looks accordingly.
Modifiers, side quests, variety
20:20: The three players are making plenty of use of the “revive” feature. There are reportedly about 20 different modifiers that will likely ensure that each run feels a bit different.
20:24: Once the 3 waves are beaten, the next part of the challenge starts, the next round, with new enemies and new modifiers. This time, primary weapon damage is increased. Broman and DeeJ exchanged lovestruck glances a moment ago because Broman understood DeeJ’s reference to the Star Wars trash compactor scene. You can understand why Broman is so popular, it’s just fun to watch him panic and scream. The Servitor is, by the way, “on our side,” through which Variks speaks to the Guardians.
20:28: With disarming the mines, a sort of “Capture-the-Flag” mechanic is being introduced into PvE.
20:30: Ah, the mystery of this special rocket launcher is solved. These are “special weapons” that you can pick up. Similar to a relic – also with a white circle. By the way, the rocket launcher works like a fusion rifle, has to be charged, it looked like this in the concept art:
In-game it looks like this:
20:32: When wiped, the wing starts over with the first round. The developer is asked how tricky the 35 challenge is on a scale from 1 to 10. His answer: a pretty dirty laugh: Really tricky!
20:35: The developer’s favorite modifier is Brawler: More melee damage for everyone. Broman’s comment: I like to box things.
20:37: DeeJ will have to hear a lot from the gamers again, they are wiped for the 2nd time.
20:40: Does the Mythoclast count as a primary weapon and benefit from the bonus here? Designer Matt Sammons doesn’t know either: I designed it, but I don’t have all the weapons. DeeJ jumps in: There are many experts at work, one does this, another does that. Not everyone knows everything.
20:44: For the 3rd round now new modifier: The shields of Guardians are reinforced, but do not regenerate. Also, the old Nightfall modifiers can be active in the Prison of Elders. However, Sammons doesn’t know if this is the case in this specific 34 Hard Mode. After Hive and Cabal, again Cabal.
20:52: In this round, players must grab and kill a VIP before it reaches all the checkpoints. This happens twice – and is probably relatively difficult.
3 waves per round, 5 rounds per activity, all enemy races are included, but not every time
20:55: Bungie has revealed via Twitter: 3 waves per round. 5 rounds per activity. All 4 races are included and each has a tailored environment. When you consider that there are essentially 4 difficulty levels… quite significant.
20:56: By the way, Destiny is supposed to go back up at 9:00 PM.
21:00: Wow, the Vestian Destiny seems to have been spotted. A new legendary item. A “rapid-fire pistol” in the special slot. Arc-Burn is active in the fourth round. In the cluttered image, the 347 Vesta Dynasty was once an exotic scout rifle. It might have become this thing over the months since then:
21:03: This special part of the Prison is Hive/Cabal. Others might be Fallen/Vex for example.
21:06: With the changing modifiers and special tasks, the activity definitely seems quite varied. It should favor Guardians who brought plenty of weapons and can choose freely. So for all those crazies who had to collect every good legendary weapon with all possible modifiers and also gathered corresponding exotic armors for their class: You were right all along. You aren’t crazy hoarders with completionist mania, but you were visionary and wise. That’s what you wanted to hear, right?
21:10: So DeeJ… I think everyone of the 164,000 viewers saw that it was a bad idea and would end badly.
Trickier than good for the 3 streamers
21:12: The experts from reddit are of course watching this too, their assessment: Looks really good and is definitely at raid level in terms of difficulty. Others seem to be annoyed about Professor Broman’s somewhat shrill and loud style. He is apparently not exactly “mainstream-friendly.”
21:13: It’s now taking significantly longer than expected; in the previous weeks it was wrapping up around 8:45, 8:50. Bungie is already threatening to pull DeeJ off stage if this goes on much longer.
21:18: I believe DeeJ is thinking for the last 30 minutes that it would have been better if they had played the 32 version.
21:21: The Destiny servers are back up by the way, since 9:15 PM.
21:25: By the way, there are changes to the Nightfall/Weekly Strikes. Destiny told IGN exclusively that they will no longer be identical with House of Wolves. Every week there will be a Nightfall and a different Weekly Strike.
21:26: The three are slowly making their way to the end. This should be the last attempt.
No Raid for House of Wolves, but Bungie is working on some
21:28: By the way, it has been confirmed again to IGN: House of Wolves will not have a raid. Bungie is working on raids (multiple, in fact), but not for House of Wolves. Rather, these will be in separate DLCs that will also need to be purchased separately.
21:31: According to IGN, there are 8 modifiers for the Prison of Elders. At the end of a round, you get a “key,” opening a new part of the Prison, and there are rewards to be had. They reportedly received legendary weapons. Allegedly, there will also be chances for exotic items. The bosses are like in Strikes, big, tough versions of regular mobs, and can take quite a beating.
21:33: We probably won’t hear more about the rewards in the normal stream.
21:35: Yep, the stream is over. DeeJ says they had press and Youtubers present, and players can now look around to see if their corner of the internet is also discussing Destiny.
21:36: We will still polish the live ticker and see what news has come out parallel to the stream. Thank you for being our guest. If you are looking for information about Destiny or other MMOs, you know where to find us. Have a nice evening.
