[quote][b]2) Analogues, Exclusivity, and the Exotic Experience[/b][/quote]Whenever you speculate about a partially revealed feature, it can be useful to look at games with similar mechanics to gain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. With regards to exotic exclusivity, I first looked at a number of games with strong analogues to Destiny's exotics and I found that many of them really didn't seem to strive to preserve exclusivity with their design. For example, even though they have been somewhat bastardized as the series has progressed, at their core Pokemon's legendaries embody many of the qualities that Destiny's exotics aspire to. They're one-of-a-kind, they possess powers that normal Pokemon do not, they are steeped in lore and fiction... and yet it's really not too difficult for the average gamer to find and eventually catch most of them. While some people might attribute Pokemon's lack of exclusivity to some notion that it's catered to casuals, even a more hardcore game like Dark Souls doesn't place a heavy emphasis on exclusivity with their sandbox. While some of the really powerful and unique items are hidden very well, locked away as Covenant rewards, or obtained only by forging a new item with a boss soul, it's still not terribly difficult to obtain most of them if you keep your eyes open while you explore. A notable aspect of both games seems to be that no one really cares about the lack of exclusivity, whether it's the fact that everyone and their second cousin has a Zapdos, or that everyone and their mom has a Dragonslayer Spear. I figure that if these games can get away with a lack of exclusivity, then why couldn't Destiny? What does Destiny serve to gain by refocusing its design? For one, developers like Game Freak and From Software realize that in some sense true exclusivity is somewhat of an unrealistic expectation in this modern era of gaming. When you have millions of people around the world playing and talking about your game daily, players will find ways to eventually beat the odds and obtain the items that they seek. The only viable way to create true exclusivity is to implement heavy-handed mechanics that put a hard cap on the total number of rewards that can be handed out to players for completing a certain objective. This is naturally somewhat counterproductive. I feel that games should be designed in a way so that they can be enjoyed by everyone, reserving specific gameplay elements for use only by the most elite players seems ill-advised at best and irresponsible at worst. If ever there was a reason to make an item difficult to obtain, it should be to encourage players to try new experiences, transcend their limitations, and travel deeper down the path to personal investment in Destiny's universe. With that notion in mind, I'm not sure that there is a reward more compelling in Destiny's sandbox than the weapons and the armor belonging to the exotic tier. They are very attractive to a wide variety of players for many different reasons, but from a mechanics standpoint, what makes the exotics special are the unique powers and abillities that bring their fantasy to life. An important aspect of these powers and abillities seem to be that they are not unlocked by default when you first acquire a new exotic, inviting players to invest in their new toy to bring out its true potential. In my mind, the best rewards in Destiny will be the ones that are capable of inspiring new adventures, so in that regard, exotics will become a core component of the grand engine that will power Destiny's experience. The quest to obtain an exotic is merely the beginning. To transform your exotic from its initial vanilla form into an item worthy of the legends written about it, you'll need to take it along with you on many more adventures. These encounters will in turn inspire their own stories and rewards that can later become the starting points of a new journey. Even after you've completely upgraded your exotic, the struggle to get it to that point will have no doubt generated a backlog of activities and opportunities that require your attention, and so you set off, armed with a new and powerful tool to continue your epic adventure. An endless cyclical adventure of discovery and self-reinvention wrapped around a core of strong gameplay, meant to be enjoyed with friends... this is what I envision Destiny's experience to be. Naturally, this will only work out well if we can find a way to emulate exclusivity in a way that encourages players to improve themselves. As you can imagine, this can easily become somewhat of a tricky task. What sort of things do we need to consider while designing the exotic acquisition experience? [b]Destiny's Design: Exotic Exclusivity continues on the next post. [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post?id=64293438&path=1]Please click this Hyperlink to continue reading![/url][/b] [spoiler][b]Table of Contents 1) [url=http://www.bungie.net/7_Destiny39s-Design-Exotic-Exclusivity/en/Forum/Post?id=64293430]Introduction / Original Post[/url] 2) >> Analogues, Exclusivity, and the Exotic Experience << 3) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post?id=64293438&path=1]Exotic Acquisition[/url] 4) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post?id=64293434&path=1]Epilogue[/url][/b][/spoiler]