Last night, Bungie’s Community Manager Deej, Creative Director Christopher Barrett and community member Gothalion took to Twitch in the first of their pre-announced livestreams to reveal just what Destiny’s House of Wolves DLC means for Destiny’s fans and the game itself. Long term players of the game will be glad to see that they’ve learnt from their previous mistakes, and you can view the archived stream below or on Twitch itself.
A new social space in The Reef will be opened up for all to enjoy, in a nice move that’s inclusive of both those who own the DLC and those who do not. Within this area, a whole host of new vendors and important people will exist to sell you new gear and give you new missions.
Petra Venj, for example, is the main source of new story missions and quests, while Variks, a Fallen from the House of Judgement presides over the Prison of Elders and sells new gear related to that new game mode. Brother Vance, meanwhile, looks after the Trials of Osiris, which is a weekly competitive even that runs from Friday through to the weekly reset on Tuesday.
There’s plenty more on all of this to come, but Bungie were keen to clear the air with regard to weapon and gear upgrades. There will, of course, be a whole host of new guns and armour to earn and buy, with the new level cap set to 34 and weapon damage able to reach 365, but any existing legendary or exotic weapon or armour that you own will be upgradeable to this level. Skip to around the 35 or 40 minute mark of the stream to see it in action.
Gear will require different materials in order to do so, but a lot of the time it will involve existing materials, rather than resorting to anything new – the Speaker now acts as a trader between energy and shards. There is one new material called Etheric Light, obtained through both new and existing end game content, which might be needed, but the much prized Vex Mythoclast and Gjallarhorn can be upgraded with an exotic shard at any time, without needing to rely on Xur or resetting its existing upgrades. And again, these kinds of upgrades are available to both DLC owners and those without, but will simply take longer to achieve without the ability to play the new content.
All in all, it sounds like Bungie have learnt a lesson or two from the mistakes made with The Dark Below, with new content for all and a progression system that rewards rather than punishes.
Source: Twitch, press release
Tony Cawley
You know I was kinda considering not bothering with the HoW DLC but I watched this stream last night and it got me really interested, I’m looking forward to it now.
Matthijs
The part that worries me is that the reef and all the upgrades are available to “non dlc” users as well. So I’m really hoping the dlc has some real added value!
Tuffcub
The reef is open to non DLC users, but not the new weapons or missions.
Nocure-fd
Non dlc users will also be able to get the upgrade material needed to push gear to 365attack/lvl34 light. But only from Nightfall and Iron banner (that they mentioned). So it’ll take longer because they wont have as many opportunities for it to drop.
Stefan L
The Reef is just a tower-like hub, while the actual game modes and missions are locked to the DLC. Really, it’s a nice way of teasing those without while making sure you don’t have those awkward moments where 2 out of 6 in a fire team can’t go to The Reef before heading off to do a Vault of Glass run or something.
Upgrading’s similar, so the playing field is level for everyone. Your Fatebringer will have the same max damage whether you’ve got the DLC or not, but those cool new weapons unlocked from the Prison of Elders? You’ll need the DLC for those.
Forrest_01
Slightly disappointed that the Trials of Osiris are a weekly PVP event tbh – Was hoping for deep & winding bounty-esque missions that would need completing (that may or may not have required a full fireteam).
I like the PVP in Destiny, I just haven’t felt the urge to play it for a while now, so that’s a bit disappointing.