In a highly anticipated and bold action, the Game Director of Destiny 2, Joe Blackburn, fulfilled his promise last week and explored the universe of the loot shooter in Season 22 live on Twitch with the community. MeinMMO reveals what happened, what interesting details were shared, and how the community reacted.
This promise has been kept by Bungie: On August 15, Destiny 2 Game Director Joe Blackburn personally addressed the players via Twitter/X.
The reason: Guardians and content creators have become increasingly dissatisfied with the current state and overall direction of the game. His step was therefore a signal that they want to engage more with the players.
- Blackburn talked about what to expect from the next DLC “The Final Form”.
- He spoke about the state of PVP and that Bungie’s decisions there have not always been the right ones, but they want to change that.
- He addressed the criticism that there are increasingly more new paid armor ornaments for the Eververse, but hardly any free armor sets for the playlists.
- Additionally, Bungie’s current communication strategy was a topic, which became more anonymous and impersonal as hate and threats against Bungie employees increased.
As the responsible Game Director, Joe Blackburn also made the promise in August: “When Season 22 begins, I will be in the game a lot. […] and you can come and talk to me […]“
He has now fulfilled this promise during his first livestream on Twitch. We at MeinMMO summarize the reactions and discussions surrounding his first Twitch stream.
A stream and a secret that surprised many
This is how the livestream went: Via Twitter/X, Bungie announced the first livestream in Season 22 by Joe Blackburn.
This immediately piqued the curiosity of many players who saw an opportunity to personally interact with the Game Director and present the existing problems of the game firsthand.
However, the focus was on playing together.
Joe Blackburn was also not alone in Destiny 2. He was supported by Andy, a social media employee from Bungie, who kept an eye on the comments and also joined the Game Director’s fireteam for activities.
- First, the Game Director clicked through his three characters in the Joegoroth account, so viewers could admire the look of all his 1825 characters.
- Then he entered the seasonal playlist “Altars of Summoning” with player search using his Titan, before heading into the strike playlist with the Hunter.
- It finally became challenging when they tackled and successfully completed the current weekly pinnacle, “Heist: Moon.” However, it became clear that the Game Director was somewhat carried by his team during this run.
- The Guardian from the community selected by Bungie for the pinnacle run also did not cover himself in glory. He was caught by the Game Director cheesing the boss.
- The funniest moment came later when an Overload Minotaur champion showed Joe Blackburn in the Solo Lost Sector “Bunker E15” that he is not so easily stopped and does not get impressed by Bungie executives.
This 1-on-1 duel with the Vex Overload Champion can be watched here in the YouTube video by Lucky10P:
Some players, like ttambm, were therefore not impressed and commented: “[…] I thought that was exaggerated, but that was… harsh. It is not strictly necessary for employees to be good at the game, but damn, I didn’t know he was that bad.“
Many don’t even mind that a Game Director has the same problems in the game as they themselves do.
In addition, Joe “Joever” Blackburn spilled some secrets, so he wasn’t always fully focused on the game and revealed many interesting facts. One of those was something many Guardians did not know yet.
- Bungie is currently considering the introduction of master content and so-called “PEDs”, which are player-chosen difficulty levels.
- The “Deck of Whispers” from Season 22 will receive new developments in upcoming seasons.
- There will be no new aspects for Stasis in the near future.
- The Titan’s Banner of War will not be affected by a nerf. Bungie thinks it is fine as it is, and there are better support supers than that healing could “dominate the scene.”
- The new user interface of Destiny 2 in the upcoming DLC “The Final Form” was also discussed.
- The Game Director revealed that armor and encounter buffs will be displayed on different sides of the screen, which will be quite confusing at first. Players will need some time to adjust to it.
- Regarding PvP, he stated that they want to further optimize the game mode “Checkmate.” What they are currently learning will be used to optimize normal PvP without ruining the current PvP sandbox. Additionally, they want to expand Checkmate to other PvP areas.
- Players were also curious about private matters, like where the 80s mustache went, to which Blackburn grinned and replied: “The wife did not agree.”
However, the most exciting and for some surprising secret sparked a large discussion: Bungie developers can play with any player account in Destiny 2.
This means developers can access player accounts at any time, for example, that of the well-known Destiny 2 streamer Datto, and even play with him if necessary or if they want to reproduce bugs.
As such, the Guardian Rikiaz commented via Reddit:
This is truly impressive. If a single player encounters a strange bug that seemingly only affects them, they can literally access your account and conduct investigations from there.
writes the player Rikiaz via Destiny Reddit
Additionally, there was discussion about whether Bungie could also track the messages typed by a player in chat and take action against misconduct based on that.
The Destiny 2 community is still discussing intensely on Reddit, Twitter/X, and in the forums about the actions and livestream of the Game Director.
- FunkyFloridaJam writes: “He is a kinder person than I am. Personally, I get unnecessarily angry when I don’t reach the top orb [in the Heist: “Moon”] and have to run to one side.“
- iconoci thinks: “That was a great livestream. He didn’t answer every pressing question, but just seeing him play the same game we play is pretty nice.“
- Others find the matter less spectacular, like clonekek: “Well, he played the game while we talked about it. That doesn’t mean he actually plays it for fun in his free time.“
You can watch the full original stream recorded by Lucky10PP on YouTube.
What is your opinion on the Game Director’s decision to play more often with the Destiny community from now on? And how did you find the first stream where smaller secrets were revealed? Is this a good way to communicate more directly with Guardians? Then feel free to leave us a comment with your opinion on this.
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