In the past, we’ve seen some pretty underhanded moves by big-name developers and publishers concerning how DLC is handled, namely at the hands of infamous industry figures as Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA), Ubisoft (EPA: UBI) and of course Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI)

These tactics, which have pervaded the industry with unfair practices that ultimately push gamers to buying more and more content, have become commonplace occurrences.

Whole portions of games have been cut out and set aside, locked behind DLC paywalls, rather than being included in the actual game.

This practice manifests itself in the dreaded Season Pass setup, which not only milks gamer’s wallets but also promises discounts or in-game exclusives and other incentives when pre-ordering–and when gamers actually get access, they find watered down content.

The Dark Below is the first of Destiny’s expansions, and we may see similar disconcerting trends continue in the upcoming House of Wolves DLC.

A lot of the time these exploitative practices aren’t obvious and don’t really push too hard, but given time, gamers are pretty much coerced into buying extra content if they want to continue playing a game. And ultimately, non-DLC owners are locked out of a significant portion of the game altogether.

Now we’re seeing this trend quite blatantly exercised with Destiny, Bungie’s popular MMO-esque online shooter.

Since the game’s new The Dark Below DLC pack launched in December, gamers have been pushed by both Bungie and Activision more and more to buy the $20 add-on.

To ensure gamers buy their DLC content, Bungie and Activision have periodically taken away access to a big portion of Destiny‘s end-game activities, and they’ll likely continue to do so until everyone either quits playing or buys The Dark Below.

Interestingly enough, Destiny’s new DLC is actually already in the game’s files; users are just buying the right to access the content.

DLC Paywall Phase 1: End-Game Activities

The first instance of the “DLC push” took place on the week of The Dark Below‘s actual launch, when it was revealed that non-DLC owners were locked out of that week’s Weekly Heroic and Nightfall Strikes.

Guardians who didn’t own The Dark Below couldn’t jump into some of Destiny‘s few endgame content, and they were effectively locked out behind a paywall. If you wanted in you had to cough up $20, or buy the Season Pass to “save money” and get access to another DLC pack later on.

To understand why this is such a big deal, we have to take a look at how Destiny is set up. The game is essentially a MMO-style gear-grind where random RNG drops are rewarded after completion of certain missions and activities.

After you beat the game’s story there’s only a few things you can actually do to progress, and most of them involve collecting and upgrading gear.

When the Dark Below DLC launched, it locked out all non-DLC players from participating in Weekly Nightfall or Heroic Strikes, denying access to a big portion of the game’s endgame content.

Every week Bungie rotates new Weeklies, including Heroic/Nightfall Strikes and resetting rewards on Raid progression.

Apart from the Raid, the rotating weekly Nightfall and Heroic Strikes remain one of the most important parts of continual player progression. After completing these activities, players earn special currency called Strange Coins which can then be exchanged to Xur, a merchant who shows up at the end of every week with an inventory of random exotic goods.

Weekly Nightfalls are much more special; they can award players with some of the most powerful Exotics in the game.

If you make it so players can’t complete Weekly Nightfall or Heroic Strikes, they can’t earn the bounty of Strange Coins to trade to Xur to get new gear. And they miss out on a potential Hawkmoon drop, too.

Furthermore, a lot of dedicated players have three Guardians they use to complete these activities to rack up serious Strange Coins, and maximize drop chances. If you beat Nightfall with three characters, that’s three chances of something good dropping, not to mention a total of 27 Strange Coins per week.

If you didn’t own The Dark Below DLC, you were locked out of all of this. You were cut out of a significant portion of the game, simply because you didn’t opt to buy the new add-on.

Bungie has once again rotated non-DLC owners out of Weekly Heroic and Nightfall Strikes for the week of Dec. 30 – Jan. 6, proving that until you buy the add-on you might be temporarily unable to participate.

Now Bungie has done it again. Destiny players who don’t own the DLC are once again locked out of both Heroic and Nightfall Strikes for this week (Dec. 30 – Jan. 6), adding further insult to injury as well as a very noticeable shove to buy the $20 add-on.

But as Activision said, these activities will periodically be rotated out in favor of expansion content, and we can expect this kind of thing to continue.

“All existing strikes and maps are still accessible. Specific activities like nightfall will periodically feature expansion 1 content on the week the newest content is live.”

And this time they’ve one-upped the coercive push. They’ve actually locked non-DLC owners out of one of the last vestiges they had besides the Raid: buying new Exotic items from Xur.

If you haven’t bought the new DLC, then Xur won’t be accepting your Strange Coins this week: all of his purchasable Exotics are exclusive to DLC owners, but you can still upgrade gear.

DLC Paywall Phase 2: Xur

When Xur, Agent of the Nine showed off his Exotic goods for Week 17 (Jan. 2 – 4), I was particularly surprised. His entire inventory was full of gear emblazoned with “The Dark Below”.

Odd. So did this mean that players of the original game sans DLC couldn’t buy any new gear from Xur? Or did Xur have a separate list of items for non-DLC players? Surely Bungie wouldn’t deny players access simply because they didn’t want to fork over $20.

Puzzled, I took to Reddit to find some answers. The truth was startling, but then again it wasn’t surprising. I’ve come to expect this kind of thing from Destiny; things like creating the illusion of progress through clever subterfuge.

According to multiple users who don’t have Destiny‘s first expansion pack (including a few of my PSN friends) Xur didn’t have a separate list available for them.

They simply weren’t able to buy anything from Xur with their Strange Coins.

If you don’t have the DLC you can’t buy any of his four available Exotics because they’re all specific to The Dark Below.

It’s interesting to note that if you don’t have The Dark Below you can in fact find expansion items out in the wild. You just can’t ever buy them from Xur, and this becomes a major problem with the weekly merchant is only selling DLC gear.

This didn’t come as a surprise to me. As someone who pays close attention to what Xur, Agent of the Nine has up for grabs every week, I noticed an interesting trend: the number of DLC-required Exotics had increased steadily on a week-by-week basis.

On Week 14, The Dark Below‘s launch week, Xur had approximately one DLC-specific item: the Ruin Wings Titan gauntlets. For Week 15 Xur had increased his DLC-required gear count two items: the Ruin Wings returned along with the Claws of Ahamkara.

In Week 16 there were only two expansion items, the Claws of Ahamkara and the interesting primary sniper rifle No Land Beyond. Keep in mind every added DLC item takes away an item slot from non-expansion players to buy, so for this week non-DLC players could only buy two items.

Week 17, however, jumped all the way up to four DLC exotics. Oddly enough Xur usually has five items up for grabs, but the Exotic gauntlet engram appears to have taken up an item slot.

So not only will players randomly be locked out of easily earning Strange Coins, they won’t even be able to spend the ones they already have.

Longtime Guardians know that apart from the Raid, Xur and Weeklies are basically all you have to do in the game.

With this Bungie has found a way to segregate its players into two groups, temporarily shutting off access to high-level content to gamers who opted not to buy the DLC.

This segregation is a lot like Destiny‘s platform exclusives, which awarded bonus content like Strikes and in-game gear to PlayStation gamers.

So on one hand we have a form of isolation that’s global, then another oppressive stance that locks content out for gamers on the Xbox platform. The DLC continued this awkward trend by incorporating an extra Strike mission for PlayStation owners.

Non-expansion Guardians will never know when they’re locked out. It’ll happen randomly, on rotation. You’ll never know when you’ll be discarded behind a paywall, spurned and pushed out simply because you didn’t want to shell out even more money on an overhyped, thinly veiled online experiment.

These means of exploitation, segregation and coercion are part of a pathetic scheme that only perverts the nature of money-grubbing in this industry of ours, and both Bungie and Activision need to be made aware that this isn’t acceptable.

By rotating an entire portion of players out of specific content, Bungie is clearly manipulating gamers into buying the expansion; a trend that will likely carry on as new DLC’s are released.

DLC Should be Optional, Not Obligatory

In one fell swoop Bungie has pretty much punished a portion of its own audience simply to push a $20 add-on. This is the kind of thing that needs to stop. It’s an abysmal practice, and honestly I can see many players simply giving up.

By doing this, Bungie and Activision have both made a clear point: that they care more about peddling their wares than they do about creating a long-lasting community.

Sure they do, they’re companies; this is an industry, of course. But the actual magic of gaming is being eroded by these practices, and if left unchecked, it’ll be these kinds of trends that ultimately ruin it altogether.

So what’s next? Where does it end?

Will the House of Wolves DLC do the same thing and rotate gamers out of the loop once again unless they buy the expansion? This sets a very grim tone for the future of Destiny, and if it continues, gamers are apt to wonder why they’re wasting their time.

So far Bungie has handled Destiny’s DLC in a rather exploitative manner, putting profits first and gamers second.

There’s a simple fix: give DLC and non-DLC owners separate playlists and separate Xur inventories. When Bungie released Halo maps back in the day, they had separate playlists for gamers who didn’t have the maps.

Those people could still play and participate in the same playlists even if they didn’t have the new content.

That’s the way DLC should be. It should be optional, not obligatory. It should be the player’s choice, made freely, without any coercion, pressure or manipulation. Are those days over? Have big-name companies finally stopped respecting the gamers who have built this billion-dollar industry?

Serious, dedicated Guardians have spent hundreds of hours of time grinding and trying to find the ultimate gear for their respective Hunters, Warlocks and Titans. Will their dedication wane and ultimately break under this kind of pressure? How much longer until Bungie pisses off the entirety of its constituency by doing things like this?

You don’t take away or lock people out of content to get them to buy DLC. You show them legitimate reasons why they should spend their money; $20 is, after all, a third of Destiny‘s original asking price which we all paid at the beginning.

Dedicated players like this high-level Warlock are actually quite common, as gamers have invested quite a bit of time into Destiny. But will this change as a result of unfair DLC practices?

Don’t manipulate us, and treat us like walking wallets: treat us with respect, make us want to buy it out of excitement rather than frustration to keep or participate in activities that are part of the original game to begin with.

It’s this reason (among many, many others) that Destiny is starting to feel less like a game, and more like a giant experiment to see what Activision/Bungie can and can’t get away with. And it’s shocking to see that they’re able to get away with this, considering just about everyone owns the DLC.

If we let this kind of thing go, we’ll likely see Season Passes pervade gaming even more than they already do.

Rather than being a way to introduce new interactive content to games, they’re being used instead to simply milk more money out of gamers’ wallets, while offering stale, watered-down content that actually draws away from the power of the game itself.

We’ve seen it with Destiny, and we’ll likely see it with more and more games. But if we, as gamers, stand up to these practices, it’ll be much harder for big companies to sucker us in.

In this state, DLC is a mockery of gamers as well as the industry, and is a clear example of something that needs to be completely overhauled.

The post Destiny's DLC Paywalls Are A Mockery, And They Need To Stop appeared first on VR World.

Bungie has released a new hotfix update for Destiny that improves all raid gear found in the Dark Below DLC.

Tuesdays are always big days for Destiny players: it’s the day when everything is reset and they can jump back into the cycle of item farming in the raids and weekly Nightfalls and Heroic Strikes.

To start things off Bungie has passed a new hotfix that specifically addresses gear earned in the new Dark Below raid, updating Destiny to v 1.1.0.2 in the process.

So far dedicated Guardians have complained about the efficacy of Crota’s End raid gear, saying that their previous level 30 gear is actually better in many ways. It appears when you previously equipped a piece of raid gear your level would drop below 30 until you built it up–which of course takes time, leaving you weakened and vulnerable in the meantime.

The raid is easier the higher level you are, as the more Light you have the stronger you are. So when users would equip raid gear they found fresh out of the Crota’s End battle, they’d drop down, which frustrated many users.

Bungie has remedied this by ensuring all items dropped in the raid will no longer drop players below level 30. “Both existing and future Raid gear obtained in Crota’s End now begins at Level 30 with an upgrade path to reach Level 32,” Bungie wrote in the patch notes.

The new class-specific raid helmet will also being to drop in Crota’s End on normal difficulty. Before now this coveted item could only be attained in the new raid’s hard mode, which hasn’t been unlocked yet.

As a result the helmet will also drop at higher frequency in hard mode when it’s unlocked next month.

Despite the arduous process of upgrading gear and the absence of a raid helmet, a Guardian has already hit level 32 since the new expansion passed. The user goes by the handle EnormousTrash, and has accumulated the count of 63 Radiant Shards to master a set of  Warlock-centric Deathsinger’s raid gear to hit max level.

Additionally the new hotfix allows Guardians to replay the Dark Below‘s Fist of Crota mission, and we should see it added to the  Daily Heroic Story playlist. Below we have a full copy of the patch notes:

Destiny Hotfix v 1.1.0.2 Patch Notes:

The post New Destiny Hotfix Buffs Raid Gear, Changes Drop Rates appeared first on VR World.

Xur, Agent of the Nine has been spotted at the Tower with a wealth of new exotic-class items, and we have a breakdown of what the shadowy merchant has up for sale for Week 14 from Dec. 12 – 14.

But this time he has something new: in wake of Destiny‘s recently released Dark Below DLC, Xur can now upgrade exotic weapons and armors to do more damage and pack more defense. Twelve items can be upgraded in this way, and we have a breakdown of those too, along with their changed stats.

This comes at a cost, though, as any item turned into Xur will be completely reset. That means a fully maxed item will go back to square one, but it’ll have more base defense or attack to balance things out.

This week Xur can be found be found down the stairs right outside of the Vanguard handlers, settled next to the Crucible Quartermaster. We’ve seen Xur here before, and he isn’t anywhere too cryptic this time around.

In the Garden grows a tree of silver wings. The leaves are ruin, the bark disaster. of the seeds we do not speak.

Ruin Wings (Gauntlets) - 13 Strange Coins (Dark Below Item)

• Class: Titan
• Upgrade Mats: Helium Filaments, Exotic Shard (last tier)
• Min Level: 20
• Light: 30/36
• Strength: 99/106
• Type: Gauntlets
• Defense: 333/366
• Mod 1: Heavy Ammo drops more often, and contines more ammo in each drop.
• Mod 2: Causing damage with a melee reduces your grenade cooldown.
• Mod 3: Increased Reload speed with Heavy Weapons.

“They told me it would eat my thoughts and leave me full of Light.”

Achlyophage Symbiote (Helmet) - 13 Strange Coins

• Class: Hunter
• Upgrade Mats: Relic Iron, Exotic Shard (last tier)
• Min Level: 20
• Light: 30/36
• Discipline: 94/101
• Type: Helmet
• Defense: 333/366
• Mod 1: Increases Grenade Throw distance
• Mod 2: Replenish Super Energy when you kill an enemy with a grenade
• Mod 3: Golden Gun gains one additional shot per use

“YOU WILL DREAM OF TEETH AND NOTHING ELSE” — scratched behind a buckle.

Voidfang Vestments (Chestpiece) – 13 Strange Coins

• Class: Warlock (Specialized for Voidwalker)
• Upgrade Mats: Helium Filaments, Exotic shard (last tier)
• Min Level: 20
• Light: +30/36
• Strength: 130/139
• Type: Chestpiece
• Defense: 444/488
• Mod 1: Enhanced Axion Bolt. Spawn with grenade energy
• Mod 2: Carry more ammo for Hand Cannon
• Mod 3: Carry more ammo for Special Weapons

Exotic Shard – 7 Strange Coins

Helmet Exotic Engram – 23 Motes of Light

“Truth…is where you seek it” -Lomar

Truth (Rocket Launcher) – 13 Strange Coins

• Class: Any
• Upgrade Mats: Spirit Bloom, Exotic shard (last tier)
• Min Level: 20
• Attack: 302 / 331 (Void elemental)
• Magazine: 2
• Type: Rocket Launcher
• Mod 1:  Rockets from this weapon will detonate early based on proximity to targets.
• Mod 2: Rounds fired from this weapon seek their target aggressively.
• Mod 3: Increases warhead velocity.

Exotic Upgrades

Below we have a listing of the Exotic upgrades Xur offers along with the respective upgraded stats, including the enhanced defense, Light, stats and damage incurred from each item. The merchant has six armors and six weapons for this wave, and we’ll likely see more in the next coming weeks.

Every upgrade costs an Exotic Shard as well as varying Glimmer costs, and to get the upgrades you’ll have to have the item in question. Trading it in to Xur cleans out all advancements on any given item, so be forewarned before you opt in.

Armor

Mask of the Third Man (Helm)

• Glimmer Cost: 7207 G
• Class: Hunter
• Light: 30/36
• Intellect: 85/92
• Defense: 407/447

Young Ahamkara’s Spine (Gauntlets)

• Glimmer Cost: 7127 G
• Class: Hunter
• Light: 30/36
• Discipline: 102/109
• Defense: 333/366

The Armamentarium (Chestpiece)

• Glimmer Cost: 7649 G
• Class: Titan
• Light: 30/36
• Discipline: 156/167
• Defense: 444/488

No Backup Plans (Gauntlets)

• Glimmer Cost: 7759 G
• Class: Titan
• Light: 30/36
• Strength: 104/111
• Defense: 333/366

Light Beyond Nemesis (Helmet)

• Glimmer Cost: 7159 G
• Class: Warlock
• Light: 30/36
• Strength: 96/103
• Defense: 407/447

Sunbreakers (Gauntlets)

• Glimmer Cost: 7549 G
• Class: Warlock
• Light: 30/36
• Intellect: 81/87
• Defense: 333/366

Weapons

Suros Regime (Auto Rifle)

• Glimmer Cost: 7789 G
• Attack: 302/331
• Magazine: 33

Red Death (Pulse Rifle)

• Glimmer Cost: 7307 G
• Attack: 302/331
• Magazine: 27

The Last Word (Handcannon)

• Glimmer Cost: 7559 G
• Attack: 302/331
• Magazine: 8

Thorn (Handcannon)

• Glimmer Cost: 7673 G
• Attack: 302/331
• Magazine: 9

Ice Breaker (Sniper Rifle)

• Glimmer Cost: 7477 G
• Attack: 302/331 (Solar elemental damage)
• Magazine: 6

Thunderlord (Machine Gun)

• Glimmer Cost: 7681 G
• Attack: 302/331 (Arc elemental damage)
• Magazine: 38

That’s it for Xur’s wares and the new DLC item upgrades. Essentially the damage enhancements on Exotic weapons seems to be capped at 331 Attack, with chestpieces racking up 488 defense, gauntlets capped at 366 defense, and helmets at 447.

Whether or not you’re willing to reset your gear is up to you, but since the bounty slots have been raised to 10 and you can now buy materials like Spinmetal and Relic Iron, Bungie has sped up the process some. It’ll still take a bit, but with any luck you’ll have a maxed out Thorn or Ice Breaker soon.

Also it’s worth mentioning that you might be able to get a new DLC exotic from Xur’s exotic engram. I was able to pick up the new Glasshouse Titan helm, which buffs both Weapons and Blessings of Light for the Defender class. While it’s not as strategically effective as the Saint-14 helm, it is interesting and I for one will try it out in the field.

The post Destiny: Xur's Location And Exotic Wares For 12/12 appeared first on VR World.

Although Destiny‘s new The Dark Below DLC just released today, the raid has already been conquered.

Hardcore gaming team Invigorate Gaming originally made history when they became the first team of Guardians to beat Destiny‘s Vault of Glass Raid on hard. Now history repeats itself as they’ve become the first six-man squad to complete the new Crota’s End raid, and it only took them six hours to do it.

Bungie revealed the news earlier today in a Retweet that showed Invigorate Gaming member LtJohn adorned with a specific raid emblem, which can only be attained by beating the challenge itself.

Shortly after Bungie posted up a post-game carnage report that officially confirmed the team had indeed finished the raid in its entirety. The fireteam was made up of 3 Titans, 2 Hunters and 2 Warlocks, making it quite a diverse culmination of skills and gear.

Also it’s worth mentioning that one player had to drop out, so that’s why there’s seven players total.

Kill Confirmed: Crota has met his end. RT @LtJohn5: World first repeat? @Bungie @InvigorateINV pic.twitter.com/Mmt1i97RfM

— Bungie (@Bungie) December 9, 2014

Crota was defeated by 7 players in 6 hours. We’ve reached out to @InvigorateINV for comments. Stand by… pic.twitter.com/ZesgGYZoUv

— Bungie (@Bungie) December 9, 2014

Destiny raids have traditionally been cryptic puzzles that are peppered with mini-boss fights and one challenging end-level boss–Crota, in this case. The Guardians at Invigorate Gaming were able to decipher the enigmatic lanterns featured in The Dark Below‘s raid and ultimately duel the revered Hive god in a battle to the death.

The group totaled over 6,000 kills in their six-hour playthrough. and they picked up some snazzy raid gear in the process: a new Legendary ship entitled Light in the Abyss as well as a Fusion Rifle with the same name. For more The Dark Below DLC raid gear be sure to check out our past coverage here.

Per request @destinynews_net #PS4share pic.twitter.com/y7VIGcytjr — iNV_LtJohn5 (@LtJohn5) December 9, 2014

Light of the abyss @destnynews_net #PS4sharepic.twitter.com/FyaKd1kB8J

— iNV_LtJohn5 (@LtJohn5) December 9, 2014

Below we’ve also included a sizable 400-minute+ playthrough guide for the new Crota’s End raid, should you be brave enough to venture into the hallowed shadows of the Moon and seek the Hive lord out.

Thanks, Inquistr.

The post Destiny's New Crota's End Raid Beaten In Six Hours appeared first on VR World.