• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Bungie hired David Cross (Tobias, Arrested Dev) to write jokes for Destiny, used none

G

Goodacre0081

Member
PedroLumpy said:
Ghost doesn't speak at all in the first raid. Maybe that was intended to be wall to wall David Cross one-liners.
Click to expand...

he was probably done with his lines months, if not years before they started working on that raid. they should introduce a different Ghost with a new voice actor that doesn't cost a fortune to hire.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Gonna point out that David Cross has been involved with Bungie since Halo 2, and most of his lines there were as a marine doing witty one-liners.

It's almost like characters can be changed during game development!
 
S

see5harp

Member
devilsadvocat said:
Activision will, Bungie won't, but I guess we still need to learn the difference between developers and the publishers that work out these deals when all the contracts are signed.
Click to expand...

Even if Bungie had absolutely no say in the matter, which is ridiculous to assume, there is plenty of other bullshit in the game that we can point our fingers and laugh at Bungie quite easily.
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
He ad libbed a bunch of his character lines in Halo 3.


Btw The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is the most underrated show ever.
 
S

shark sandwich

tenuously links anime, pedophile and incels
xNN93Tf.gif


Well hey. Bungie created a story on par with Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. All that humor would've ruined the tone.
 
K

Kinyou

Member
From the sounds of it, Destiny could have been a much funnier game. That's because comedians David Cross and Brian Posehn apparently spent "a couple of days" writing witty one-lines for Ghost.

...

"Brian Posehn and I got asked and jumped at the chance," he explained. "We were flown up to Bellevue, Washington to do a punch-up on the Ghost character in Destiny about a year ago. We were both very excited about it. They did not use a single, solitary thing that we wrote, which is a shame because we wrote some stuff that – you know, we’re gamers, and they… – I would imagine somebody somewhere said, 'We can’t inject this levity or humour into it.'

"But it’s a shame because I’ve played Destiny quite a bit. I haven’t played since I’ve been over here and working on Bob and David, but you know when it came out I was way into it and way excited about it, and when you’re at an hour 20 of that thing, it’s like the Ghost is kind of monotone saying this thing, 'We must get over the ridge. That’s the cabal – we’ve got to defeat him.' Whatever, it’s boring as sh*t, and I speak for myself and Brian, and I know thousands if not millions of other gamers would be like 'It would be nice to have a joke or something in there.' You think we’re going to f*ck with the tone? But it was very exciting to go up there and get paid to play a video game a year before it came out."

As for the approach that they took to the dialogue, Cross said "Some of it was self-reverential. And it was just stuff that was making us laugh. We were in a room, we’d play a lot, and some of it was winking to gamers. I truly don’t remember any of it. They were just sort of riffy one-liners that Brian and I were coming up with... And a lot of them – we were there for a couple of days so we offered a bunch of stuff up."
Click to expand...
objection_by_phoenix_y5o2p.png


How does he know none of his lines were used if he can't remember them?
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Kieth David recorded Arbiter lines for Halo 2 that weren't used until Halo 3. Namely, the entire scene where Arby kills Truth.

Just because voice acting or lines may be recorded or written for a game, does not mean they all make it to the final game, or even pop up later as things change.

I'm only pointing this out because it's like, 100% standard to every Bungie game, and isn't even a special note for Destiny. Before, people went "ah, some behind the scenes stuff! Neat!". Now everybody is cynical and shit and it's "zomg proof of canspiracy!!11" when it's standard game development.
 
V

Vinterbird

Member
Seems more and more like a ton of content was cut or the game drastically changed direction at some point in time.

I really hope one day someone gets the needed access to do a big tell-all story on the development of Destiny. Seems like something went terribly wrong during the many years of development.
 
P

Princess Carl

Member
There is a huge swath of content that was cut guys. Why do you think Joe Staten left?

Maybe someday well be able to see the complete story that was originally crafted for this game; Bungie is hiding some serious cut content in there. I want answers dammit.

My money is on it was already completed too.
 
P

Princess Carl

Member
Elginer said:
This becomes more and more apparent as time goes on. So much amazing voice talent and for nothin. What the fuck happened to this game man.
Click to expand...

People who probably didn't care about the game itself told developers to fuck off and change the game to what they wanted to see: a cash grab grinding machine disguised as an "epic story", that could be milked for 10 years.
 
Elginer

Elginer

Member
Princess Carl said:
People who probably didn't care about the game itself told developers to fuck off and change the game to what they wanted to see: a cash grab grinding machine disguised as an "epic story", that could be milked for 10 years.
Click to expand...

That sad as hell. I keep playing Destiny because the shooting is so great and tons of fun but at every corner I'm smacked in the face with the potential that this game could have been. So much lore in cards and every bit of DLC so far references things like the crow and the Queen's brother and so many other things we know were originally in the game.

Bungie just went to town and dismantled this game bare to sell back in pieces. It's a damn tragedy.
 
R

RadicalVelocity

Member
That reddit rumor basically painted the original story as another space-marine opera.

Creating a blank slate is better than being stuck with another one of those for a decade. As much as I like Joe Staten, that would have been the worst possible direction.

The shit we got (not much) wasn't any good.

But it leaves room for something decent.

Btw, part of what went wrong was rearchitecting the engine. Chris Butcher gave a talk on it a few months ago.

And whoever was responsible for getting uber-high-costing talent made a terrible mistake. All that money for people you can't afford to do new stuff, and you're paying additional fees for their looks and unusable talents. Shoulda stuck with some solid VAs.
 
R

Reebot

Member
Seems Bungie prematurely shot their wad on what was supposed to be a humorous run and now has a bit of a dry game on their hands.
 
S

squidyj

Member
honestly what the fuck happened with the development of this game? all the voice talent for all those tower NPCs that have nothing to do with anything. What in the actual fuck was bungie thinking?
 
K

Kinsella

Banned
devilsadvocat said:
Activision will, Bungie won't, but I guess we still need to learn the difference between developers and the publishers that work out these deals when all the contracts are signed.
Click to expand...

Yeah, good luck selling this line of nonsense after Luke Smith's moronic interviews during E3.
 
D

Deku Tree

Member
Darksol said:
Yeah, maybe the professional comedians with 2+ decades in sketch comedy, multiple TV shows, and who routinely are hired to punch up shitty scripts made nothing but unfunny jokes.
Click to expand...

So you've never heard an established comedian be just not funny sometime?

FyreWulff said:
Kieth David recorded Arbiter lines for Halo 2 that weren't used until Halo 3. Namely, the entire scene where Arby kills Truth.

Just because voice acting or lines may be recorded or written for a game, does not mean they all make it to the final game, or even pop up later as things change.

I'm only pointing this out because it's like, 100% standard to every Bungie game, and isn't even a special note for Destiny. Before, people went "ah, some behind the scenes stuff! Neat!". Now everybody is cynical and shit and it's "zomg proof of canspiracy!!11" when it's standard game development.
Click to expand...

Yeah and this too. Agree 100%. Stuff gets cut during game development all the time.
 
Fbh

Fbh

Member
I don't know much about how game development works.
But the more I hear about Destiny the more it sounds like a lot of money was wasted on unnecesary stuff. Money that could have been spent in other areas that need it more or simply saved.

Like Peter Dinklage, why? I'd understand it if he gave an amazing performance but he didn't. If that's the level of performance they felt was good enough they could have hired any number of cheaper Voice actors that would have done an equal or better job.

And Paul Mccartney? Why? For that one song that plays at one point during the whole game? Did we really need Paul Paul Mccartney for that?.
I was still working in retail when Destiny launched and never did I hear someone say "Oh boy, that's the game with the Paul Mccartney song!!!, I need it!!".

And now this. Yet more feamous people to do stuff they didn't even use in this case
 
A

Apoleptica

Banned
Maybe their jokes sucked? The comedy these guys try to make isn't really relevant anymore and quite terrible, bungie probably made the right decision.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
squidyj said:
honestly what the fuck happened with the development of this game? all the voice talent for all those tower NPCs that have nothing to do with anything. What in the actual fuck was bungie thinking?
Click to expand...

You do know there was a bunch of celebs that were only cannon fodder marines in H2/3/Reach...
 
D

Deku Tree

Member
Fbh said:
I don't know much about how game development works.
But the more I hear about Destiny the more it sounds like a lot of money was wasted on unnecesary stuff. Money that could have been spent in other areas that need it more or simply saved.

Like Peter Dinklage, why? I'd understand it if he gave an amazing performance but he didn't. If that's the level of performance they felt was good enough they could have hired any number of cheaper Voice actors that would have done an equal or better job.

And Paul Mccartney? Why? For that one song that plays at one point during the whole game? Did we really need Paul Paul Mccartney for that?.
I was still working in retail when Destiny launched and never did I hear someone say "Oh boy, that's the game with the Paul Mccartney song!!!, I need it!!".

And now this. Yet more feamous people to do stuff they didn't even use in this case
Click to expand...

Bungie has said that Paul McCartney wasn't paid anything at all for any of the work he did on Destiny.

Edit: why was this double posted?
 
D

Deku Tree

Member
Fbh said:
I don't know much about how game development works.
But the more I hear about Destiny the more it sounds like a lot of money was wasted on unnecesary stuff. Money that could have been spent in other areas that need it more or simply saved.

Like Peter Dinklage, why? I'd understand it if he gave an amazing performance but he didn't. If that's the level of performance they felt was good enough they could have hired any number of cheaper Voice actors that would have done an equal or better job.

And Paul Mccartney? Why? For that one song that plays at one point during the whole game? Did we really need Paul Paul Mccartney for that?.
I was still working in retail when Destiny launched and never did I hear someone say "Oh boy, that's the game with the Paul Mccartney song!!!, I need it!!".

And now this. Yet more feamous people to do stuff they didn't even use in this case
Click to expand...

Bungie has said that Paul McCartney wasn't paid anything at all for any of the work he did on Destiny. He was a volunteer.

Peter Dinklage probably got paid, and his lines were horrible. Keep in mind Destiny was profitable on Day 1 and stayed on th charts for a long time.
 
L

Lunar15

Member
As someone who's never actually played the game, I have to say that watching this from the outside has been the absolute weirdest experience.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

I'm very disappointed in some of the decisions made by Bungie
2
69
4K
Gobjuduck replied
Xbox sparks dev revolt with new AI writing partnership: 'Lots of people are going to get fired, games will get worse, and C-suite will get millions'
News Drama Game Dev 2 3 4 5
211
13K
nikolino840 replied
Starfield Devs Q&A Session
37
3K
Hendrick's replied
How the Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster devs Nightdive Studios enhanced the classic FPS
Game Dev
14
1K
Alexios replied
Lara Croft Crowned Most Iconic Video Games Character of All Time, According to BAFTA Poll
2 3 4 5
208
9K
ResurrectedContrarian replied
Top Bottom