Bungie Weekly Update – 06/20/2014

http://www.bungie.net/7_Bungie-Weekly-Update—06202014/en/News/News?aid=11589

by DeeJ

Celebration is very atypical at our studio. Successful milestones fly by without the pomp and circumstance you might expect out of a group of ultra-passionate game creators with an unlimited supply of Red Bull. More often than not, our collective enthusiasm is tempered by a fiery criticism that would make even the most e-battle hardened YouTube commenters wince away from the screen, eyes watering.

But this week at Bungie, we danced… and so did some of you.

Putting our Alpha out there lit a new kind of fire here at Bungie. It feels like we’ve been reborn. Putting alpha code out in the wild is always a risk; that build is ancient by our standards, riddled with content and bugs we’d never allow through to ship. In many cases, the really rough and jagged edges had been hammered smooth long ago, making it all the more difficult to see them discovered, but in just as many others, there’s still work to do, and the only way to get it done is to let you touch down in our world to tear the place wide open.

Here’s the Post Game Carnage Report a small, intimate group of players were able to rack up in the First Look Alpha in just a few days’ time:

• 149,522,313 Primary Weapon Kills

• 21,782,610 Secondary Weapon Kills

• 4,002,737 Heavy Weapon Kills

• 21,687,298 Super Ability Kills

• 2,819,211 Orbs of Light Gathered

• 6,850,773 Control Points Captured in the Crucible

• 1,195 Deathless Medals awarded in the Crucible

• 4,356 Splatters with the Sparrow

• 667,966 Public Events Joined

• 60,491,944 Fallen Dregs Dispatched with Extreme Prejudice

• Too many to count: Guardians served in Dance Parties

6,461,871 Player Games Played!

If you had a chance to play our First Look Alpha, thank you for paving the way for what we hope is so many more players. There are a lot of gamers who didn’t get the chance to fight in this round. That’s going to change very soon. If you did play, you’ve helped ensure that everyone who jumps into our Beta in July will have a better experience for it.

A lot of our friends asked us if this was a real Alpha. It was. We’ve gathered a mountain of data and feedback. We’re learning and reacting and Destiny is going to be better because of it. You’ll see the fruits of that labor as early as next month, assuming we’re lucky enough to have you in our Public Beta.

Hope to see you there.

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That T-Shirt Came From the Bungie Store!

So, Alpha is behind us. Done and dusted. The icon sits idly in our home screen, taunting us every time we fire up our consoles to play or watch something that isn’t Destiny.

Something is missing – a commemoration of the brief, but beautiful time we spent together.

Behold!

Commemorative Destiny Alpha T-Shirt

Immortalize your first experience in Destiny with this totally wizard t-shirt! You played. You danced. You helped make the entire Destiny experiencebetter for every last one of us.

Profits from the sale of this item will be donated to charity through the Bungie Foundation. Like the Alpha it celebrates, this is a limited edition run. See the Bungie Storefor details.

Thanks for playing!

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Those selfies came from the Alpha!

As the Alpha was being played, we implored you to share your favorite moments. A call to action on Twitterproduced an epic parade worthy of heroes. Of the hundreds that were shared, we grabbed twenty five of them, and submitted them for judgment on Facebook.

Perhaps #bungiefaves was the wrong hashtag. These screenshots were taken by you, and judged by you. These are community faves. Check your direct messages on Twitter if your work is on display below. We will find you. And, we will gift you with sweet loot from the Bungie Store. Here are the top ten.

This one just missed the cut, but I dig it the most so we’ll include it as an honorable. My favorite moments in the Alpha were just me and my sparrow, lost in the wild and looking for trouble.

If you’re missing the world of Destiny, enjoy the endless scroll of moments that have been forever preserved behind the #bungiefaves hashtag on Twitter. And, start thinking about how you’ll frame your Beta adventures. We’ll do this again real soon.