Being a game developer with access to social media and a plethora of fans hanging on each post can be difficult. Although having a platform to pitch gameplay changes or expansion ideas to fans prior to committing to them is a valuable tool for a studio, it can be a double-edged sword. Things can change throughout development that might invalidate what someone has said, or a key team member publicly associated with the IP might suddenly leave. What might seem small and innocuous in a Destiny weekly update could come back to haunt you.
There's no doubt that Bungie has given Guardians a lot to look forward to with the coming release of Destiny: The Taken King, and the Bungie Weekly Update has been useful in delivering the plethora of information. Unfortunately, however, a previous post has now become the subject of fan ire.
A recent post by reddit user JeminTimes999 highlighted a Bungie Weekly Update from last December, and in particular focused on a paragraph from Bungie community manager Deej. The most important part of the statement comes in the form of a discussion on how older gear might be handled by Bungie in future expansions, which at the time was House of Wolves:
"The last thing we wanted was for you to look at your favorite gun or helmet and decide that it had become obsolete...the time you invested in your stuff should be respected."
This sentiment was initially quite popular with users, and made the search for Gjallahorn that much more important for those players who hadn't acquired the exotic weapon yet. However, almost 9 months later, Bungie has announced that Year One gear would not upgrade in Year Two, and fans felt that their hard-earned weapons and gear had been devalued too harshly. Realizing this, Bungie responded by showing off the new exotic blueprint system in Destiny: The Taken King, which allows players to upgrade Year One exotic weapons to 2.0 versions, but not all exotics will support the feature. In this week's update, Bungie confirmed that Gjallahorn would not be getting an upgrade.
The essentials of this constant back-and-forth are this: Bungie is, in fact, going to render all legendary gear, as well as some exotics, obsolete with their release of Destiny: The Taken King. This obviously goes against what Deej had said earlier, but that post was from December last year and a lot has probably changed in the development of Destiny's expansion. While some players are understandably upset by the news, Bungie's statements have been somewhat unclear. It's possible that some Year One weapons simply won't be available for upgrade for the first few months after The Taken King launches, so that newer weapons get their time in the spotlight. We'll have to wait until next month to know for sure.
Do you think the post from 8 months ago constitutes a promise from Bungie? Are you tired of talking about the Exotic upgrade systems and just want to play? Let us know in the comments.
Destiny: The Taken King releases for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on September 15.