GazzaGarratt

The new Season of Dawn is nearly upon us. And as we get closer to the ‘shortest day of the year’ (22nd December if you wondered) some gamers are struggling with the same lack of daylight we are used to, or content in the case of Destiny 2. A beautiful trailer as always by Bungie displayed less content than some Destiny lovers hoped for. Then the Bungie stream felt even more sparse with information as they attempted to go back to allowing players to find new things on the launch day rather than give every single bit of info out to the general public. Where the problems seem to lie now for Bungie is the capability of being able to meet the evolving expectations of some of the Destiny community to deliver what is seen as new enriched endgame content on a regular quarterly cycle – without the help and support from Activision and studios like Vicarious Visions (who made two very good seasons might I add). I think as soon as the words ‘Raid’, ‘Trials’ and ‘Dungeon’ didn’t feature in the latest information the whole season became a huge let-down for the masses. It's not even here until December 10th. I won’t try and explain Game Development and how hard it is as I haven’t been one. However, I do get system development and releases work which isn’t too far away to game development cycles. You can’t just magic up Raids, new gamemodes and Dungeons within 3 months. You need Requirements, Options, Solutions. Then it’s Build, Test, Build, Test, Build, Test, Fault Fix, Test, Get Ready to Release, etc. Maybe because someone thinks they know exactly what everyone wants they can just build and forget testing it because Benny over here knows best. Things take time and you can’t just turn the ship around if they think the next imminent content is not going to land well. Equally, getting more employees isn't an answer that solves problems overnight. However, going towards the Season model of dropping a portion of content each 3 months will automatically change mentality in how gamers will fundamentally play the game. FOMO can immediately kick in so they rush through content as quick as they can. I've felt this big style. No one is a fan of time-gating content, but hey, with ravenous gamers not taking in any of the time and effort spent on well-made content I can see why they do it. That’s not endorsing it though. They’ve set their own expectations by committing to 4 drops rather than 3 in a Season Pass all with less developers and less income streams. There’s no wonder why Eververse has so many thing on sale for Silver only. They have to continually make money somewhere. ‘Who gives a Rat’s-Ass Thursdays’ Well, seemingly not many players. But that is the world we live in. No matter the fact that Bungie have explained very clearly early doors that content will be readjusted and spread across the season because they can’t build things as quick as they could. No matter the fact that Seasons cost generally less than previous ones and cost approx. £6-7 when you have the pass. No matter the fact we don’t know all the content for the next 3 months as they want people to discover it on their own. No matter the actual content that is being delivered is still considerable when you list it down. No matter…oh you get the point. Datto put it very well immediately after the stream. People don’t care how much effort goes into making good stuff. They just want to know when they’ll get it and is it good. Just like they don’t care how long it him to make a YouTube video or you not caring about me writing this essay. They just want the good shit. Well, if you have those expectations, unfortunately you need to ste; back into the real world. Just because what you want isn’t there doesn’t also mean that the content is bad. We have to be more realistic and start reminding ourselves of what skills we learned or experiences we've had and adapt. Like when you we’re at school and we actually listened to people so we could understand how the world works. Or even if you were a D1 Guardian and played hours and hours when there was dramatically less content AND no regular updates. Just strikes, crucible and a few raids. Good to take stock at these points.

Sweat and skill are intrinsically linked. Like peas in a pod. Or Diddums and Kronenbourg. SBMM is a factor that seems to always spark huge controversy but in reality its always down to how the individual player’s mentality. True, we don’t want to always meet 'Mr. 360noscopeskillzproplus' but at the same time everyone is also very happy to meet 'Joe Noob' that has two thumbs but uses his nose to move around the map. The inner nature of 99% gamers is to win. Every game is a competition and its fun to win. But its when you get caught teetering over on the wrong side of the double-edged Sword needing to win - the next controller is going out the window quicker than the annoying cat stabbing your sofa and then becomes a real issue. I personally think the moaning and criticism of SBMM is a minor point - unless it is abundantly clear you are always coming against Pro MLG players. Playing against better players will make you a better player in longer terms. Fact. For this reason its why I’d rather have two playlists, similar to the Overwatch style that pools players of any skill together in a form of Quickplay and then another pool that SBMM rules. But lets be clear, I don’t care what these rules are in the minutia. "Something, something, rank near players, something" Whatever. They are all much of a muchness and to think a game developer will go out their way to match you in SBMM games against full teams of FPS Ultras if your skill level is lower is utter BS. This all resorts back to mentality though. Players need to be more mentality prepared to enjoy games for what they are. That doesn’t mean you can’t expect more but to be the ultimate sweatfest competitor in general won’t help your game, job and life tactics. Games are made for fun. What creates the sweat is people, not SBMM. Try to win, work as a team, get in the zone, but losing isn’t a bad thing. It helps you learn where you went wrong (yeah, you did) and what you can do to put it right next match. But who am I kidding with all this talk of enjoying the game? People want to win at all costs. And they will always want an excuse. I wouldn’t be surprised if gamers follows football trends and the number one driver turns into making money rather than for the love of the game. On that note we leave that story for another day.