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Interesting interview with Luke Smith, The Taken King's creative director trying (unsuccessfully?) to defended Bungie's decisions on the price - but also said that the developer would continue to listen to fan feedback.

IMO he comes off very poorly in the interview but has left the 'door open' in regards to price and content packaging. They need a package that includes everything: emotes, exotic class items, year 1 emblem, shaders etc etc without buying the base game again or paying $120 for both.

What do you think?

Bungie has defended the full-fat £40 price tag of Destiny's upcoming major expansion The Taken King, as well as the fact that fans will have to rebuy the base game and its existing two add-ons to access exclusive content in The Taken King's Collector's Edition.

jpg

The Taken King expansion will launch in three different packages when it arrives this 15th September. It will be available as a £39.99 digital download for players who own the game and existing DLC already or as a disc-based £54.99 Legendary Edition which also contains the base Destiny game and existing DLC so new players can get all of the game's content in one package.

It's not cheap, but then Destiny has an incredibly engaged playerbase who still log on for more than three hours every single day, on average. Which is a lot of hours of play from the content released so far.

But then there's also The Taken King: Collector's Edition, which costs £79.99. This contains a number of physical collectibles and several pieces of exclusive in-game content, including three class-specific emotes and exotic weapons with XP boosts.

It's odd to see something like emotes - which only hardcore fans will really care about - being held back for a version of the game that also requires the purchase (or re-purchase) of the base game and its two add-ons.

Fans reacted in anger that content aimed at their wallets would be exclusive to a version of The Taken King that required they spend money on content they had already paid around £75 for - £40 for the base game and £35 for its DLC expansion pass.

Fans also criticised the fact that The Taken King costs as much as the full Destiny game did upon launch, and the fact that the Legendary Edition catch-up option for new players costs £54.99, meaning that newcomers get all existing content for just £15 when you factor in The Taken King's solo £40 price-tag.

In a wide-ranging discussion on the pricing of Destiny content last week at E3, The Taken King's creative director Luke Smith largely defended Bungie's decisions on the financial outlay required from fans - but also said that the developer would continue to listen to fan feedback.


Eurogamer: So it may seem like a small thing but you're adding exclusive content to the game - three new dance emotes - that players can't get unless they rebuy the main game and the two existing DLCs. Is that right?

Luke Smith: There is no way right now for you to get the new dance emotes without doing that. Those are Collector's Edition exclusive. We've set some stuff aside for that edition specifically to really make it appeal to fans who have engaged with the game already and also to people that will enter the game this autumn.

Eurogamer: Can you see that some fans are confused that you're asking them to buy stuff they already own?

Luke Smith: Yeah, I can totally empathise with those people. But the Collector's Edition is a pretty cool package for people who want to pursue that stuff. Otherwise, surely what you're saying is that you would want to buy them separately, right?

Eurogamer: Well, yeah. I would rather do that - pay a few pounds or dollars or whatever - than spend money on things I already own.

Luke Smith: [Laughs] Well, we have nothing more to talk about regarding your opportunity to spend extra money in Destiny, other than The Taken King and the three versions we've announced.

Eurogamer: Is Bungie considering selling customisation items such as this separately? Or is that against the studio's philosophy for the game?

Luke Smith: Rather than comment on the Bungie philosophy, here's what I'll tell you. If someone made a golf clap emote, I would spend money on that. Like when someone falls in the Vault of Glass. At the moment I bow when I'm trying to mess with them. So... I empathise with some of the things you're saying.

Eurogamer: I feel like you should put some of these things that you are empathising with into practice.

Luke Smith: We have nothing to announce today. We're reading the forums and the reactions to this week's announcements. We will continue to discuss player feedback with respect to the the game and Collector's Edition content.
Eurogamer: Taken King costs £39.99, which is almost same as base game. Does its content justify that?

Luke Smith: I'm going to use American dollars, because British pounds are just foreign to me...

Eurogamer: Literally foreign.

Luke Smith: Indeed, an ocean away. So, purchasers get a big, rich campaign. Fully voiced cinematics and the story of what happens when an angry alien god wages war on a solar system, all with a satisfying conclusion. You also have a new subclass to pursue and unlock. We also have a bunch of new strikes - we're not yet talking about how many - and a new raid. We're showing two new PVP modes and four PVP maps this week, and it's a fairly safe bet we're not done yet showing things off. So I'm fairly excited about the value proposition. We're calling this a major expansion because it is. We're giving people a whole new place to go, that new destination...

Eurogamer: I get that it is big but it is also the same price as the base game. That had four areas rather than one and more missions than the Taken King. Why is it the same price?

Luke Smith: All I can do is answer that with the same thing I just gave you... We're really comfortable with the value we're giving to players this autumn. I believe that once we begin to share more, players will be even more excited. And for existing players it also comes with the Founder's pack with a new Sparrow, shader and emblem.

jpg

Oryx, father of Crota. He isn't too pleased with you.

Eurogamer: Just not the emotes.

Luke Smith: It doesn't because they come with the Collector's Edition.

Eurogamer: Final question on prices -

Luke Smith: Is it also the final question on the emotes?

Eurogamer: I'm not going to mention them again. I can't get them.

Luke Smith: But you can if you buy the Collector's Edition.

Eurogamer: I'm not going to buy the game and the two DLCs all over again.

Luke Smith: Okay, but first I want to poke at you on this a little bit.

Eurogamer: Poke at me?

Luke Smith: You're feeling anxious because you want this exclusive content but you don't know yet how much you want it. The notion of spending this money is making you anxious, I can see it -

Eurogamer: I do want them. I would buy them -

Luke Smith: If I fired up a video right now and showed you the emotes you would throw money at the screen.

Eurogamer: What I'm saying is that fan frustration is not because they don't understand the proposition. It comes regardless of how cool the exclusive content is. The frustration - and mine as a fan - is that the method of acquiring it requires me to re-buy content I bought a year ago.

Luke Smith: [Long pause] It's about value. The player's assessment of the value of the content.

Eurogamer: Final question on prices - The Taken King and everything released so far comes at a significant price reduction for people who want to jump in to Destiny this September. All games do Game of the Year editions now - I understand that, that's not really an issue. But when you look at the reduction involved - it's barely any more than just buying The Taken King solo.

Luke Smith: This autumn we want to have a moment of convergence where players like you and me who are engaged with Destiny can match up with people who are just joining in, who didn't pick the game up last year for one reason or another.

It's also important to remember the temporal valuation of content. If you played during The Dark Below, you were playing when there were Swordbearers everywhere. That's now gone and you can't recapture that now. Some things are being left behind as we move forward. It's the same with House of Wolves, right now, with the Fallen showing up all over the solar system. Those things are going to be less relevant as we move forward and the Taken are everywhere.

We don't have a way to go back in time and experience those things again. So the players who were there can say 'I was here when...' and 'I did it when it was new'.

I wish I had a way of better telling players that I was there back then. That I had a better way of embracing the legacy of my time with the game. This is something that we on the development team talk about all the time. It's really important that we figure out ways to embrace the legacy that players created in the first year... I'm not going to talk about how we're going to do that but it is right in the forefront of our brains. It's missing right now in Destiny.


As for The Taken King itself, Eurogamer got to go hands-on with the expansion at E3 and came away impressed. Look for our hands-on impressions and details of significant improvements to Destiny later this week.
 
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Interesting interview with Luke Smith, The Taken King's creative director trying (unsuccessfully?) to defended Bungie's decisions on the price - but also said that the developer would continue to listen to fan feedback.

IMO he comes off very poorly in the interview but has left the 'door open' in regards to price and content packaging. They need a package that includes everything: emotes, exotic class items, year 1 emblem, shaders etc etc without buying the base game again or paying $120 for both.

What do you think?

Bungie has defended the full-fat £40 price tag of Destiny's upcoming major expansion The Taken King, as well as the fact that fans will have to rebuy the base game and its existing two add-ons to access exclusive content in The Taken King's Collector's Edition.

jpg

The Taken King expansion will launch in three different packages when it arrives this 15th September. It will be available as a £39.99 digital download for players who own the game and existing DLC already or as a disc-based £54.99 Legendary Edition which also contains the base Destiny game and existing DLC so new players can get all of the game's content in one package.

It's not cheap, but then Destiny has an incredibly engaged playerbase who still log on for more than three hours every single day, on average. Which is a lot of hours of play from the content released so far.

But then there's also The Taken King: Collector's Edition, which costs £79.99. This contains a number of physical collectibles and several pieces of exclusive in-game content, including three class-specific emotes and exotic weapons with XP boosts.

It's odd to see something like emotes - which only hardcore fans will really care about - being held back for a version of the game that also requires the purchase (or re-purchase) of the base game and its two add-ons.

Fans reacted in anger that content aimed at their wallets would be exclusive to a version of The Taken King that required they spend money on content they had already paid around £75 for - £40 for the base game and £35 for its DLC expansion pass.

Fans also criticised the fact that The Taken King costs as much as the full Destiny game did upon launch, and the fact that the Legendary Edition catch-up option for new players costs £54.99, meaning that newcomers get all existing content for just £15 when you factor in The Taken King's solo £40 price-tag.

In a wide-ranging discussion on the pricing of Destiny content last week at E3, The Taken King's creative director Luke Smith largely defended Bungie's decisions on the financial outlay required from fans - but also said that the developer would continue to listen to fan feedback.


Eurogamer: So it may seem like a small thing but you're adding exclusive content to the game - three new dance emotes - that players can't get unless they rebuy the main game and the two existing DLCs. Is that right?

Luke Smith: There is no way right now for you to get the new dance emotes without doing that. Those are Collector's Edition exclusive. We've set some stuff aside for that edition specifically to really make it appeal to fans who have engaged with the game already and also to people that will enter the game this autumn.

Eurogamer: Can you see that some fans are confused that you're asking them to buy stuff they already own?

Luke Smith: Yeah, I can totally empathise with those people. But the Collector's Edition is a pretty cool package for people who want to pursue that stuff. Otherwise, surely what you're saying is that you would want to buy them separately, right?

Eurogamer: Well, yeah. I would rather do that - pay a few pounds or dollars or whatever - than spend money on things I already own.

Luke Smith: [Laughs] Well, we have nothing more to talk about regarding your opportunity to spend extra money in Destiny, other than The Taken King and the three versions we've announced.

Eurogamer: Is Bungie considering selling customisation items such as this separately? Or is that against the studio's philosophy for the game?

Luke Smith: Rather than comment on the Bungie philosophy, here's what I'll tell you. If someone made a golf clap emote, I would spend money on that. Like when someone falls in the Vault of Glass. At the moment I bow when I'm trying to mess with them. So... I empathise with some of the things you're saying.

Eurogamer: I feel like you should put some of these things that you are empathising with into practice.

Luke Smith: We have nothing to announce today. We're reading the forums and the reactions to this week's announcements. We will continue to discuss player feedback with respect to the the game and Collector's Edition content.
Eurogamer: Taken King costs £39.99, which is almost same as base game. Does its content justify that?

Luke Smith: I'm going to use American dollars, because British pounds are just foreign to me...

Eurogamer: Literally foreign.

Luke Smith: Indeed, an ocean away. So, purchasers get a big, rich campaign. Fully voiced cinematics and the story of what happens when an angry alien god wages war on a solar system, all with a satisfying conclusion. You also have a new subclass to pursue and unlock. We also have a bunch of new strikes - we're not yet talking about how many - and a new raid. We're showing two new PVP modes and four PVP maps this week, and it's a fairly safe bet we're not done yet showing things off. So I'm fairly excited about the value proposition. We're calling this a major expansion because it is. We're giving people a whole new place to go, that new destination...

Eurogamer: I get that it is big but it is also the same price as the base game. That had four areas rather than one and more missions than the Taken King. Why is it the same price?

Luke Smith: All I can do is answer that with the same thing I just gave you... We're really comfortable with the value we're giving to players this autumn. I believe that once we begin to share more, players will be even more excited. And for existing players it also comes with the Founder's pack with a new Sparrow, shader and emblem.

jpg

Oryx, father of Crota. He isn't too pleased with you.

Eurogamer: Just not the emotes.

Luke Smith: It doesn't because they come with the Collector's Edition.

Eurogamer: Final question on prices -

Luke Smith: Is it also the final question on the emotes?

Eurogamer: I'm not going to mention them again. I can't get them.

Luke Smith: But you can if you buy the Collector's Edition.

Eurogamer: I'm not going to buy the game and the two DLCs all over again.

Luke Smith: Okay, but first I want to poke at you on this a little bit.

Eurogamer: Poke at me?

Luke Smith: You're feeling anxious because you want this exclusive content but you don't know yet how much you want it. The notion of spending this money is making you anxious, I can see it -

Eurogamer: I do want them. I would buy them -

Luke Smith: If I fired up a video right now and showed you the emotes you would throw money at the screen.

Eurogamer: What I'm saying is that fan frustration is not because they don't understand the proposition. It comes regardless of how cool the exclusive content is. The frustration - and mine as a fan - is that the method of acquiring it requires me to re-buy content I bought a year ago.

Luke Smith: [Long pause] It's about value. The player's assessment of the value of the content.

Eurogamer: Final question on prices - The Taken King and everything released so far comes at a significant price reduction for people who want to jump in to Destiny this September. All games do Game of the Year editions now - I understand that, that's not really an issue. But when you look at the reduction involved - it's barely any more than just buying The Taken King solo.

Luke Smith: This autumn we want to have a moment of convergence where players like you and me who are engaged with Destiny can match up with people who are just joining in, who didn't pick the game up last year for one reason or another.

It's also important to remember the temporal valuation of content. If you played during The Dark Below, you were playing when there were Swordbearers everywhere. That's now gone and you can't recapture that now. Some things are being left behind as we move forward. It's the same with House of Wolves, right now, with the Fallen showing up all over the solar system. Those things are going to be less relevant as we move forward and the Taken are everywhere.

We don't have a way to go back in time and experience those things again. So the players who were there can say 'I was here when...' and 'I did it when it was new'.

I wish I had a way of better telling players that I was there back then. That I had a better way of embracing the legacy of my time with the game. This is something that we on the development team talk about all the time. It's really important that we figure out ways to embrace the legacy that players created in the first year... I'm not going to talk about how we're going to do that but it is right in the forefront of our brains. It's missing right now in Destiny.


As for The Taken King itself, Eurogamer got to go hands-on with the expansion at E3 and came away impressed. Look for our hands-on impressions and details of significant improvements to Destiny later this week.


I urge everyone to read the comments section of this interview and listen to the rational people in the comments. I am disgusted at the way this man acted in this interview. He comes off as nothing more than a money hungry buffoon.
 
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I see people have started a petition to give year 1 players the same perks. It has nearly 20k signatures so far and growing fast. Will you sign it? (I did).

https://www.change.org/p/bungie-activision-give-year-1-players-the-same-perks


EDIT: Bungie are removing all the Luke Smith related threads from their forum....lol.

This weeks weekly update could be rather interesting?

EDIT 2: From the people who are running the petition:

"So, earlier, in a forum post, DeeJ commented that "Year 1 Players will not be receiving the same perks as people who buy a Collector's Edition. They'll get something better. Stay tuned for the Weekly Update."

So looks like we're getting some kind of response to all of our voices, guys. We'll see with the update, but this is all because of you guys!"
 
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Wow, it just hit me that they're charging the same price the base game is right now for TTK and TTK has less than half the content of the base game! And Luke is justifying that by saying that it's OUR assessment of the value of the content. By my standards, this **** is not worth $40 if it's only two new locations, a new raid, 4 strikes, some PvP maps, and an unspecified number of new gear.

I would buy this if it were $20. But then some would say, "If you can't come up with $40 from now until September, you should rethink your finances.". Yeah, I can afford this with no problem, but I think this is more of a morality thing where if you buy this, then you support Bungie and other companies to make content like this. The thing that irritates me about TTK is that some of this stuff was concept art and ideas before the game came out. So you're essentially going to buy concepts that Bungie couldn't fit into Destiny's deadline and you're going to pay more than you should for it.
 
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...terview-could-have-ramifications-for-destiny/
This is a link to Forbes take on the taken king and references Luke smiths bomb of an interview. As a day one player things are not looking up for me when I hear bungie basically putting dollar signs on all of our heads. We shall see their response as I really expect one by the end of the week. This interview went to bad without the "PR" response from Bungie.
 
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...terview-could-have-ramifications-for-destiny/
This is a link to Forbes take on the taken king and references Luke smiths bomb of an interview. As a day one player things are not looking up for me when I hear bungie basically putting dollar signs on all of our heads. We shall see their response as I really expect one by the end of the week. This interview went to bad without the "PR" response from Bungie.
He just sounds like someone that doesn't even care anymore. I'm sure he is getting his *** chewed out for that interview and I doubt he'll be giving anymore interviews anytime soon.
 
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any one know if i buy dlc from us store will it work for uk game? any help will be grateful thanks
 
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Does anyone know when I will be able to preorder the Taken King for the Xbox 360? The Destiny website says "coming soon" when I try to preorder it yet it's already available for every other console.
 
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What is the lock emblem (bottom right) under the class item going to be?
Sorry I meant to answer you earlier. Someone posted over on reddit that is the spot for artifacts.
Yj4meIs.jpg


What they do exactly wasn't posted and in all honesty after that was initially posted I havn't seen much on them.
 
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I am quite interested in this. I am sure people spend $60 every few days on **** like junk food. Why not pay $60 on something that will last longer than a few days?
 
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I am quite interested in this. I am sure people spend $60 every few days on **** like junk food. Why not pay $60 on something that will last longer than a few days?
Yeah I agree. I wound up putting money down on the collectors edition. I figured I blow more money on other junk every week, I may as well put it towards something I have put some time into. after the comments from Luke Smith, I was a little annoyed but then I remembered I have better things to worry about.
 
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So the year one players are upset that some of the newer players are getting exclusive in-game items that the year one players can't get unless they buy the game again plus more. Then here comes this Luke Smith guy who works for Bungie and he pretty much insults the year one players and says they'll buy it anyways. Now the fanbase is in an uproar about it.
This is getting very interesting...
I'm not bothered by the newer players getting exclusive items nor am I going to defend Bungie, I'm just observing and watching as the events unfold.
 
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Apparently certain cans of Red Bull will have an extra quest and a bonus XP consumable.
 
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Honestly year 1 players (so long as they played within the first 3 months) should receive the same items that the ones who buy the collectors edition receive.
 
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Honestly year 1 players (so long as they played within the first 3 months) should receive the same items that the ones who buy the collectors edition receive.

Plus the year one emblem, kinda simple really isn't it Bungie?
 
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For all xBox One players, Bungie has announced:

"Extra Destiny content for all platforms when Sony timed-exclusives launch on Xbox".

As a X1 player I say it's about time!

SOURCE

Bungie has told Eurogamer that it will release a little extra something for all Destiny players, regardless of platform, when the game's initial round of timed-exclusive Sony content launches on Xbox this autumn.

jpg

The Undying Mind strike will soon be on Xbox for the first time.

Destiny's community is currently waiting to hear more on how Bungie will reward existing players in its upcoming expansion The Taken King after controversy surrounding its pricing- and the developer has promised to provide answers tomorrow in its weekly blog update.

But ahead of that - and back at E3 - creative director Luke Smith was able to tell us how Bungie will ensure that the whole Destiny community gets new content when Xbox players finally catch up on those previously Sony-exclusive bits and bobs.

PlayStation players currently have access to a couple of extra strike missions (Dust Palace, The Undying Mind), exotic weapons (Hawkmoon, The Fourth Horsemen) and PVP maps (Exodus Blue, The Timekeeper). This September will see Xbox players gain access to all of those for the first time.

"The previously Sony-exclusive strikes will be available this autumn on Xbox," Smith said. "But we're not just re-issuing them. We're [also] refreshing them completely with the Taken.

"We want you to experience The Undying Mind completely as it was with the Vex, and also in a Taken-ified version. We wanted to make it feel like more than last year's model."

PlayStation fans will have the option of new, tougher versions of the previously-exclusive strikes, while Xbox fans will get to play the old model and the new model.

Only the previously-exclusive strikes are being rejigged in this way, Smith added, but it will bring players on both PlayStation and Microsoft systems together as they try to work out strategies for the new versions.

"So [Xbox players] can play last year's model and, as a community, Destiny fans can play through the new versions together and figure them out," he concluded.

The Taken is an army of warped enemies commanded by Oryx, the actual Taken King. They feature powered up abilities and new gameplay mechanics.

For example, the Taken Psion - a small Cabal unit with a devastating shockwave - can now split itself into two. Leave just one somewhere on the battlefield and it will continue to split, spawning new versions of itself.

Eurogamer went hands-on with the opening of The Taken King last week at E3 - look for our impressions soon. And we'll also have more from Bungie tomorrow when the developer details more of The Taken King, and when it addresses how it will look after fans who have played the game during its first year.
 
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For example, the Taken Psion - a small Cabal unit with a devastating shockwave - can now split itself into two. Leave just one somewhere on the battlefield and it will continue to split, spawning new versions of itself.
As if I didn't dislike the Psions enough already... Ugh.
 
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Well, good news on the availability of the CE content as a standalone.

But wow, $20. Soooo generous of Bungie.
 
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