Link – DestinyPlanetView
Motivation – Social
This sites motivation is social because of the game it is based on. Destiny is an active open world instanced multiplayer game. The game revolves around 3 planets (Earth, Mars, Venus) and the moon. This site lets you explore and see these planets with a Google Maps-style design. The site is made by Google Technologies so it makes sense there are some similarities. I find it being so close to Google Maps as a plus. So many people use Google Maps and this being like it sells the fantasy sci-fi world more. At different points in each world, you will find clickable targets, which give you more information and the option to share across other social media.
Communication Style – Entertainment
Destinyplanetview.com falls under entertainment because none of the planets and its inhabitants is heavily based on actual facts. It is also again based off a video game, which is mainly considered to be for entertainment purposes. The site also takes a cinematic tone. The voice over leading you through the worlds with the combination of the FX’s added more to this fact.
Medium – Web/Interactive
The hierarchy is based off the planets and the moon. Only 3 of these sources are viewable on this site due to Earth not being the one from the game but the Earth we live on now. When you first arrive on the site it actually finds your location through Google Maps and zooms you out into the games universe. The voiceover explains that this is our universe in the distant future. To maintain the realism of this you cannot move around Earth since it would just be Google Maps. The planets are based on proximity, size, and distance.
The scale is fairly large. With the voiceover and all the animations, it can chug on allot of machines and connections that can’t handle it. On some of the school computers, it wasn’t able to maintain a constant frame rate due to this. On a solid connection and decent machine, it should work fine.
I personally found this site to be really cool. As a fan of the game, being able to move through the areas I have been through with my friends in game is nice. The voice over and animations are very well done and the execution is flawless. The game itself will have updates and expansions that will grow out the overall universe. If destinyplanetview.com also grows with these updates and expansions I would find that very impressive and interesting.
DarksterMedia 