Does Destiny need a "campaign"?

I was listening to this episode of Waypoint Radio a few days ago, and Patrick Klepeck brings up an interesting thought. He starts by saying that Destiny 2's campaign is far better than Destiny 1's campaign, but with the admission that that really isn't saying much (personally, I agree on both accounts). The general thought expressed over the conversation is more or less that Destiny 2 has a fun campaign with some great, memorable set pieces, and a functional plot, but that the story really doesn't deliver on any of the points that it hints towards (issues surrounding the nature of "the light", Guardians faced with actual mortality and the nature of sacrifice, etc). They then go on to discuss how, in their opinion, the best storytelling in Destiny 2 happens in some of the adventures and side quests, and also in the voice-over dialog during strike missions. They point specifically to the way Bungie has built a certain amount of character development into the strikes, by way of having different dialog play during repeat playthroughs.

Patrick suggests a thought at one point that perhaps the reason Bungie's campaign stories have been less than stellar as of late is that perhaps their (Bungie's) heart isn't in it the way it was during the Halo days? That Destiny is so much more than its campaign, and so much time and energy needs to go into the "end-game", and that is where the most exciting content tends to be... could it be that including a traditional, linear campaign is perhaps not necessary in future installments?

I'm not sure where I land on this thought, but they do make some fantastic points in the podcast. One thing that they mention is how powerful the experience becomes in those brief moments during the campaign where you find yourself matched in with other players, and how it seems like a shame that this only happens twice during the campaign. But as Patrick says, the nature of a linear campaign makes it difficult for Bungie to lean on that kind of experience, because the vast majority of players will go through the campaign over the first couple weeks, and then never touch it again. So for the few players who do play the campaign later, they won't be able to find anyone to get matched with when they reach those sections. This is contrasted against the moments where Strikes overlap with public Patrol encounters, and how that is a more consistently reliable occurrence over time because that content is more repeated by players.

It's an interesting topic, and I do think there is something to the idea. I absolutely love a traditional single-player campaign. But across all of D1 and these early days of D2, the campaign has never been Destiny's strong suit (I know that is a matter of personal opinion, but I feel it's a fairly solid claim to make). I find it fascinating to imagine a Destiny game without a traditional campaign. What would that look like? I do think it is possible. I could see a version of Destiny where the Strikes become the major, tent-pole story events (where you'd experience all the unique locations and bombastic set-piece moments), while the rest of the storytelling is handled through a mix of patrol/adventure/side-quest activities that take place across the various open worlds. This would keep the patrol areas more highly populated and bustling with activity, while providing more opportunities for players who are on their own "paths" to intersect and work together, or not.

Side tangent: I've noticed over the past week or two that it has already become shockingly rare to see other players while out on patrol. I complete almost all of my Flashpoint Milestones solo, without seeing another player at all. And now that we can fast travel, I hardly ever get to see a fireteam of Guardians drive by on their sparrows. Anyone else having this experience?

Anyway, thoughts?

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What I think needs to be done is some segregation.

The campaign should be more traditional, and have exclusive locations and challenges, and upon beating it you could then open up into the current endgame with patrols and adventures and the like. This way you get a nice, satisfying story campaign with which to set the world, and then the end game to explore it further.

Removing it altogether would be a problem. I know Des2ny tried and it was better, but because it tried to do it all at once you get sidetracked. Titan is kind of just a pit stop for nothing really and feels out of place. But if the campaign were tighter, you could have forgone Titan and had that be part of exploring the larger universe once you finished a great story campaign.

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What I think needs to be done is some segregation.

No where in the history of Humanity has this ever been a good idea. It still isn't for Destiny.

The campaign should be more traditional, and have exclusive locations and challenges, and upon beating it you could then open up into the current endgame with patrols and adventures and the like. This way you get a nice, satisfying story campaign with which to set the world, and then the end game to explore it further.

I honestly think they did a good job of integration. The biggest problem Bungie has with Campaign vs Open World is not that they are considered two different things in gaming culture, it's that campaign is considered a "you and up to two other guardians are going to save the world" when we know that there is an entire legion of guardians doing that. And every other activity is made for all those legions of guardians. What we need is some way for guardians to "team up" for a campaign mission like they do in public events. That is the only way we can actually get it to not be segregated. But that's really hard to do. It worked in parts of the campaign but not others.

What would have been amazing is at the end of the campaign when you fight Ghaul, you had a mob of 16 or so Guardians giving their all to take him down. That would have made a whole lot more sense than 1-3.

I mean, when D1 came out my first thought, that excited me about the game, was how we have a single city full of guardians to fight back the darkness. I was expecting a ton of badasses guardians fighting for their lives to push back the darkness. Then I got a campaign that was only 1-3 of us. This is why public events and raids and the open world part feels much better. It's also why the little bits in D2 where randos came to fight with you felt so awesome.

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the last city should've been a open-ish world (like the tower was in the first mission). Can you imagine dozens of guardians on launch day plowing through the city together? Canonically, just your fireteam makes it to the final encounter (b/c you are the chosen ones or whatever), but having just an all out war in the city would've been awesome.

maybe after you go thru cayde's teleporter, they say that it broke right as you went through (or gets smashed by a drop pod), so the other guardians won't be joining you.

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the last city should've been a open-ish world (like the tower was in the first mission). Can you imagine dozens of guardians on launch day plowing through the city together? Canonically, just your fireteam makes it to the final encounter (b/c you are the chosen ones or whatever), but having just an all out war in the city would've been awesome.

maybe after you go thru cayde's teleporter, they say that it broke right as you went through (or gets smashed by a drop pod), so the other guardians won't be joining you.

Yeah, I needed something other than basically "you're the chosen one(s)"! Because that's way to cliche at this point. Even if it was a fight to the end.

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the last city should've been a open-ish world (like the tower was in the first mission). Can you imagine dozens of guardians on launch day plowing through the city together? Canonically, just your fireteam makes it to the final encounter (b/c you are the chosen ones or whatever), but having just an all out war in the city would've been awesome.

maybe after you go thru cayde's teleporter, they say that it broke right as you went through (or gets smashed by a drop pod), so the other guardians won't be joining you.

Yeah, I needed something other than basically "you're the chosen one(s)"! Because that's way to cliche at this point. Even if it was a fight to the end.

It's also obviously not the case, because there are scores of other guardians who wield light and who are completely ignored by the main story. Bungie wrote a single player story for the campaign when they should have written something more general. Give us a different NPC as the main character and have us be one of that character's soldiers in a full on war. Some missions would be "I need you and a small team to do X" and others would be "rally to the general! Fight en masse against the enemy!" and take place in more open space with whole patrols able to join in etc..

I'll even mention that Hawthorne was primed to be the protagonist here. She could have been the lightless human who risked it all to save the guardians, and then was willing to give her only life at the end to fight Gaul, at which point Ikora transfers her light into Hawthorne, Ikora dies for real, and Hawthorne is reborn a guardian. It's a crying shame that they didn't kill anyone after taking their light. They didn't even fake it by killing them and then having them come back to life after the Traveler is freed.

You know the old saying, if you show a gun in Act 1, it better go off in Act 3? Bungie didn't pull the trigger on many of the plot threads they began, and the whole thing whimpered as a result.

Even so, it exists, so it's far better than D1. It ain't shit compared to the Last of Us or Horizon Zero Dawn though.

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It ain't shit compared to the Last of Us or Horizon Zero Dawn though.

Did you honestly expect or even hope it would be? Halo ain’t shit compared to either of those games either, in terms of story.

That doesn’t mean it’s not worth discussing, of course. The building blocks for a good story are there, but they didn’t have a payoff for anything, and just like with D2, it almost feels like they just ran out of time and threw something together, they just threw it together and made it actually coherent this time. I honestly can’t figure out why they even bothered to take our light if they didn’t actually do anything with the concept either thematically or literally. I can’t figure out why they even bothered bringing up mortality and sacrifice when they didn’t even hint at making a point about those concepts.

The campaign was a fun ride, but it wasn’t good storytelling.

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What I think needs to be done is some segregation.

The campaign should be more traditional, and have exclusive locations and challenges, and upon beating it you could then open up into the current endgame with patrols and adventures and the like. This way you get a nice, satisfying story campaign with which to set the world, and then the end game to explore it further.

Removing it altogether would be a problem. I know Des2ny tried and it was better, but because it tried to do it all at once you get sidetracked. Titan is kind of just a pit stop for nothing really and feels out of place. But if the campaign were tighter, you could have forgone Titan and had that be part of exploring the larger universe once you finished a great story campaign.

If it were up to me, I'd probably want to take the exact opposite approach. Bring 95% of the story content into the public spaces, with other players running around and participating in the combat with you, and then have the sections of isolation periodically dotted throughout the campaign. It could lead to some great tension; after spending the majority of the campaign fighting along side other guardians, finding yourself alone against a particularly nasty boss would be thrilling.

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Yeah, that seems fun. One of the best missions in D2 was the adventure that had you shooting all the Vex cubes that kept spawning in around that circular area on Nessus. It was terrific because that section gets crazy and it's in the open world! Later, after completing it myself, I found myself playing that section again as I tried to keep a random Guardian alive against the enemies and giant Minotaur boss. It was a blast.

And really, several Destiny 2 Adventures did that. It was pretty awesome, even if not every set piece was quite as dramatic as pairing up in The City. All in all, I really enjoy Patrol because there's always something interesting happening or someone to help out. Heck, even the routine Patrol Mission are pretty decent with a fairly wide range of humorous dialogue that often throws back to how silly they were in D1.

Asher: "You don't seem to be doing anything important! Why don't you go stand in one spot for a while!"

I loved it! :)

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What I think needs to be done is some segregation.

The campaign should be more traditional, and have exclusive locations and challenges, and upon beating it you could then open up into the current endgame with patrols and adventures and the like. This way you get a nice, satisfying story campaign with which to set the world, and then the end game to explore it further.

Removing it altogether would be a problem. I know Des2ny tried and it was better, but because it tried to do it all at once you get sidetracked. Titan is kind of just a pit stop for nothing really and feels out of place. But if the campaign were tighter, you could have forgone Titan and had that be part of exploring the larger universe once you finished a great story campaign.

Titan is one of my favorite locations, but it feels so small. My hope is that the maps on each planet are extended out in the DLC over time. I agree, though, that it doesn't feel like D2's version of Hoth. It felt like way more of a "well crap, Hive/Fallen have mucked this place up too, guess we're gonna bounce in 5". Fast travel also contributes to this.

If it were up to me, I'd probably want to take the exact opposite approach. Bring 95% of the story content into the public spaces, with other players running around and participating in the combat with you, and then have the sections of isolation periodically dotted throughout the campaign. It could lead to some great tension; after spending the majority of the campaign fighting along side other guardians, finding yourself alone against a particularly nasty boss would be thrilling.

I think I see what you're after here, and I think playing with that dynamic specifically would be pretty intriguing; but I don't agree about the general aspect of incorporating more players into the story experience on the whole.

I did enjoy segments in the campaign that incorporated other players, and I think set pieces can be constructed to make even better use of larger groups of the player population to drive the action (in fact I'd argue that Destiny needs this), but I think if the entire campaign is that way, a lot of it would feel like a traffic jam that retreads the same ground over and over.

I value the moments I can feel immersed , and I'll be the first to admit Destiny has fewer of those than I'd like. There's definitely a lot of potential in the idea, and I think it's certainly possible to do it in a way that becomes more than the sum of its parts, but it's a really delicate balance that needs to be struck.

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What I think needs to be done is some segregation.

The campaign should be more traditional, and have exclusive locations and challenges, and upon beating it you could then open up into the current endgame with patrols and adventures and the like. This way you get a nice, satisfying story campaign with which to set the world, and then the end game to explore it further.

Removing it altogether would be a problem. I know Des2ny tried and it was better, but because it tried to do it all at once you get sidetracked. Titan is kind of just a pit stop for nothing really and feels out of place. But if the campaign were tighter, you could have forgone Titan and had that be part of exploring the larger universe once you finished a great story campaign.

If it were up to me, I'd probably want to take the exact opposite approach. Bring 95% of the story content into the public spaces, with other players running around and participating in the combat with you, and then have the sections of isolation periodically dotted throughout the campaign. It could lead to some great tension; after spending the majority of the campaign fighting along side other guardians, finding yourself alone against a particularly nasty boss would be thrilling.

But this gives you the problem that public spaces face when it comes to level design. Story areas in the public spaces make the game feel 'small', plus the area has to be designed like a funnel to make sure players get together.

Bungie already kinda did this with the numerous spaces in the game that are campaign only. And I remember those the most.

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I wish I could access the missions again through the director, or through the waypoints in the patrol areas. Then have Ikora offer nightfall level missions as her weekly event. If they were easier to access I think you would see more players playing them.

Right now the problem is with public events being the fastest payout for tokens and high level gear. That leads to people just fast traveling from public ever to public event. Maybe offering more than just Ikora tokens would get more participation.

I liked the campaign, and I would like to play though it again just for fun, but there's not an easy way to do that except by deleting a character.

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Side tangent: I've noticed over the past week or two that it has already become shockingly rare to see other players while out on patrol. I complete almost all of my Flashpoint Milestones solo, without seeing another player at all. And now that we can fast travel, I hardly ever get to see a fireteam of Guardians drive by on their sparrows. Anyone else having this experience?

No, I haven't had this experience at all. It is very rare for me to complete a public event by myself. The flashpoint planet of the week always seems more crowded, which is to be expected, but on the weekends I have been finishing up the Adventures and I consistently run across players in public spaces on non-flashpoint destinations.

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FWIW, it HAS happened to me, mostly in the last week or so. But not nearly as often as Cruel was describing. I mean, it's definitely been a minority of the events for me. It was a little frustrating a couple of times, because I was so used to always trying to trigger heroic events that I just went ahead and did it without checking whether others were present (because in the past, they always were). But it turns out that some of those are hard by yourself! So I check now. :)

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In a lot of ways, Destiny 2’s campaign pretty much is “just” a short series of adventures set one after the other. I guess I’m a bit confused as what would really change. Already, some of the story mission like the one with the tank had us travel through the open world to launch. More of that? Or more elaborate events in the open world that bring us from plot point to plot point?

Also, as far as D2’s story content, how much of its not delving into the bigger issues of death, sacrifice, etc might have to do with it being T for Teen?

Side tangent: I've noticed over the past week or two that it has already become shockingly rare to see other players while out on patrol. I complete almost all of my Flashpoint Milestones solo, without seeing another player at all. And now that we can fast travel, I hardly ever get to see a fireteam of Guardians drive by on their sparrows. Anyone else having this experience?

Nope. I just did the Flashpoints over the past two days and all my public events were fully populated. There are some times where it seems like no one is around but I just chalk it up to time of day or possibly people playing Crucible for challenges or other versions of Powerful Gear. Maybe reset your connection as well? Anything that prevents your game from talking to others, even just for a few seconds, could short circuit the bubble to bubble matchmaking process.

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In a lot of ways, Destiny 2’s campaign pretty much is “just” a short series of adventures set one after the other. I guess I’m a bit confused as what would really change. Already, some of the story mission like the one with the tank had us travel through the open world to launch. More of that? Or more elaborate events in the open world that bring us from plot point to plot point?

(emphasis mine)

Yeah, more stuff like that is what I had in mind. Destiny has all these different systems in place (strikes, patrols, adventures, public events) and some of the most exciting and unpredictable moments happen when those systems crash into each other and overlap. I think having more instances of that, and more different combinations, is a good direction for Destiny to lean, as it is really the thing that makes Destiny unique. And a good way to achieve that is to keep as many players engaged with public instances as possible, including the "story" focused missions.

Also, as far as D2’s story content, how much of its not delving into the bigger issues of death, sacrifice, etc might have to do with it being T for Teen?

I doubt it. That is more a case of what sorts of graphic violence can be shown. They could easily have had certain main characters die, or resolved things in such a way that not every guardian gets their light back... something, anything, other than a clean and tidy return to the status quo.

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In a lot of ways, Destiny 2’s campaign pretty much is “just” a short series of adventures set one after the other. I guess I’m a bit confused as what would really change. Already, some of the story mission like the one with the tank had us travel through the open world to launch. More of that? Or more elaborate events in the open world that bring us from plot point to plot point?

(emphasis mine)

Wanna bet? :P

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In a lot of ways, Destiny 2’s campaign pretty much is “just” a short series of adventures set one after the other. I guess I’m a bit confused as what would really change. Already, some of the story mission like the one with the tank had us travel through the open world to launch. More of that? Or more elaborate events in the open world that bring us from plot point to plot point?

(emphasis mine)

Yeah, more stuff like that is what I had in mind. Destiny has all these different systems in place (strikes, patrols, adventures, public events) and some of the most exciting and unpredictable moments happen when those systems crash into each other and overlap. I think having more instances of that, and more different combinations, is a good direction for Destiny to lean, as it is really the thing that makes Destiny unique. And a good way to achieve that is to keep as many players engaged with public instances as possible, including the "story" focused missions.

But now you have to put back in the grind in order to keep people playing and the spaces filled. It doesn't work dude. You have to stretch things out and make a grind for people to spend the time required in the world for this to work. It's one of those things that sounds good, but isn't practical. it has to be a grind, because you can't make content as fast as people play it. It's the biggest reason why MMOs do not work as games and have low fun per second.

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In a lot of ways, Destiny 2’s campaign pretty much is “just” a short series of adventures set one after the other. I guess I’m a bit confused as what would really change. Already, some of the story mission like the one with the tank had us travel through the open world to launch. More of that? Or more elaborate events in the open world that bring us from plot point to plot point?

(emphasis mine)

Yeah, more stuff like that is what I had in mind. Destiny has all these different systems in place (strikes, patrols, adventures, public events) and some of the most exciting and unpredictable moments happen when those systems crash into each other and overlap. I think having more instances of that, and more different combinations, is a good direction for Destiny to lean, as it is really the thing that makes Destiny unique. And a good way to achieve that is to keep as many players engaged with public instances as possible, including the "story" focused missions.

But now you have to put back in the grind in order to keep people playing and the spaces filled. It doesn't work dude. You have to stretch things out and make a grind for people to spend the time required in the world for this to work. It's one of those things that sounds good, but isn't practically. It's the biggest reason why MMOs do not work as games and have low fun per second.

That’s one possibility, but not the only one. If activities are fun, people will replay them (not to the crazy amount that people replayed content in D1, but that’s not necessary). Plus there’s the question of the number of activities that overlap with each other. Right now we have 1 or 2 points where strikes overlap with adventures and patrol zones all in the same place at the same time. If story missions were also part of that mix, and public events, and other world events, and there were more places where these overlaps happened, then the experience of playing Destiny would become more exciting and unpredictable for however long a player wants to keep playing.

Any time a game is able to create fun and diverse systems and mechanics that overlap in interesting and logical yet unpredictable ways, it leads to awesomeness. Just look at Shadow of Mordor, Horizon Zero Dawn, Titanfall 2, Breath of the Wild, etc. Destiny dipped its toe into this sort of thing, Destiny 2 has maybe 1 leg in. I want to see what happens when the game jumps into the deep end :)

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In a lot of ways, Destiny 2’s campaign pretty much is “just” a short series of adventures set one after the other. I guess I’m a bit confused as what would really change. Already, some of the story mission like the one with the tank had us travel through the open world to launch. More of that? Or more elaborate events in the open world that bring us from plot point to plot point?

(emphasis mine)

Yeah, more stuff like that is what I had in mind. Destiny has all these different systems in place (strikes, patrols, adventures, public events) and some of the most exciting and unpredictable moments happen when those systems crash into each other and overlap. I think having more instances of that, and more different combinations, is a good direction for Destiny to lean, as it is really the thing that makes Destiny unique. And a good way to achieve that is to keep as many players engaged with public instances as possible, including the "story" focused missions.

But now you have to put back in the grind in order to keep people playing and the spaces filled. It doesn't work dude. You have to stretch things out and make a grind for people to spend the time required in the world for this to work. It's one of those things that sounds good, but isn't practical. it has to be a grind, because you can't make content as fast as people play it. It's the biggest reason why MMOs do not work as games and have low fun per second.

Some of that could be solved with dynamic difficulty scaling. Think of the way Destiny 1 Warsat public events wouldn't drop off new enemies until the previous batch was cleared and how later waves of enemies were way more powerful than the early waves. It was a pretty neat way to have those encounters automatically scale to the number of Guardians participating.

Putting friendly AI back in the mix could help as well. They don't have to be anywhere near as effective as the player as long as they segment the enemy groups enough that the single or few players don't all get smothered by enemy gunfire.

With any luck, a few changes could make levels and encounters fun whether other human players were around or not, and things could crank up in difficulty and craziness when the next event or expansion bring a flood of players returning for a week or two.

At the end of the day, maybe games like Destiny just need to make sure they are fun to play with and without randoms. Because every game will suffer from reduced player counts eventually. Even better if they could weave in some plot points as to why there are fewer players around during off times.

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In a lot of ways, Destiny 2’s campaign pretty much is “just” a short series of adventures set one after the other. I guess I’m a bit confused as what would really change. Already, some of the story mission like the one with the tank had us travel through the open world to launch. More of that? Or more elaborate events in the open world that bring us from plot point to plot point?

(emphasis mine)

Yeah, more stuff like that is what I had in mind. Destiny has all these different systems in place (strikes, patrols, adventures, public events) and some of the most exciting and unpredictable moments happen when those systems crash into each other and overlap. I think having more instances of that, and more different combinations, is a good direction for Destiny to lean, as it is really the thing that makes Destiny unique. And a good way to achieve that is to keep as many players engaged with public instances as possible, including the "story" focused missions.

But now you have to put back in the grind in order to keep people playing and the spaces filled. It doesn't work dude. You have to stretch things out and make a grind for people to spend the time required in the world for this to work. It's one of those things that sounds good, but isn't practical. it has to be a grind, because you can't make content as fast as people play it. It's the biggest reason why MMOs do not work as games and have low fun per second.

Wrong. It doesn't have to be a grind, it can be challenge.
Warframe does a great job of this with stuff like:

Alerts that have guaranteed drops,
Nightmare modifiers with guaranteed exclusive loot,
Sorties that put specific restrictions on you against high level missions/enemies,
Vault runs that require your team to apply different debuffs.
Different factions that can come after your teammates at any time (many with exclusive loot).
Limited time Tactical Alerts that throw a wrench into the game worlds (such as unique enemies that you have to find using only clues and communication with the community),
And periodic events that require you to use uncommon mechanics or tools in your arsenal.

Destiny could implement any one of these things into the game in order to keep people coming back without resorting to grinding. Stuff like the Nightfall and the "End the Arms Dealer" mission are great examples of something that you can replay because of challenge (and that starts you off in a public area, and requires you to travel via sparrow to even begin).

There's tons of ways that you can give people incentive to hop back on without simply resorting to RNG grind (unless "replaying content at all = grinding" to you).

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Wrong. It doesn't have to be a grind, it can be challenge.
Warframe does a great job of this with stuff like:

Alerts that have guaranteed drops,

Nightmare modifiers with guaranteed exclusive loot,

Sorties that put specific restrictions on you against high level missions/enemies,

Vault runs that require your team to apply different debuffs.

Different factions that can come after your teammates at any time (many with exclusive loot).

Limited time Tactical Alerts that throw a wrench into the game worlds (such as unique enemies that you have to find using only clues and communication with the community),

And periodic events that require you to use uncommon mechanics or tools in your arsenal.
Destiny could implement any one of these things into the game in order to keep people coming back without resorting to grinding. Stuff like the Nightfall and the "End the Arms Dealer" mission are great examples of something that you can replay because of challenge (and that starts you off in a public area, and requires you to travel via sparrow to even begin).

There's tons of ways that you can give people incentive to hop back on without simply resorting to RNG grind (unless "replaying content at all = grinding" to you).

LOL Warframe.

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I'm not sure where I land on this thought, but they do make some fantastic points in the podcast. One thing that they mention is how powerful the experience becomes in those brief moments during the campaign where you find yourself matched in with other players, and how it seems like a shame that this only happens twice during the campaign. But as Patrick says, the nature of a linear campaign makes it difficult for Bungie to lean on that kind of experience, because the vast majority of players will go through the campaign over the first couple weeks, and then never touch it again. So for the few players who do play the campaign later, they won't be able to find anyone to get matched with when they reach those sections. This is contrasted against the moments where Strikes overlap with public Patrol encounters, and how that is a more consistently reliable occurrence over time because that content is more repeated by players.

I think Bungie has partially solved this problem with Meditations - since you can earn gear from Ikora for doing them, people do them. When the city streets level came up a couple of weeks ago, I found the area filled with Guardians, as it was when I ran it the first time. I think that'll continue to be true as time goes on. (Doesn't mean I don't wish there were more of those moments - just that I think the fear of deserted streets is an empty one.)

Side tangent: I've noticed over the past week or two that it has already become shockingly rare to see other players while out on patrol. I complete almost all of my Flashpoint Milestones solo, without seeing another player at all. And now that we can fast travel, I hardly ever get to see a fireteam of Guardians drive by on their sparrows. Anyone else having this experience?

Nope - as a couple of other people have mentioned, my patrol experiences this week (and pretty much all weeks) include plenty of other players.

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I'm not sure where I land on this thought, but they do make some fantastic points in the podcast. One thing that they mention is how powerful the experience becomes in those brief moments during the campaign where you find yourself matched in with other players, and how it seems like a shame that this only happens twice during the campaign. But as Patrick says, the nature of a linear campaign makes it difficult for Bungie to lean on that kind of experience, because the vast majority of players will go through the campaign over the first couple weeks, and then never touch it again. So for the few players who do play the campaign later, they won't be able to find anyone to get matched with when they reach those sections. This is contrasted against the moments where Strikes overlap with public Patrol encounters, and how that is a more consistently reliable occurrence over time because that content is more repeated by players.

I think Bungie has partially solved this problem with Meditations - since you can earn gear from Ikora for doing them, people do them. When the city streets level came up a couple of weeks ago, I found the area filled with Guardians, as it was when I ran it the first time. I think that'll continue to be true as time goes on. (Doesn't mean I don't wish there were more of those moments - just that I think the fear of deserted streets is an empty one.)

But what about all of the people who play through when it's not a Meditation?
I think if Meditations were at least randomized for each player, there really wouldn't be so much of an issue of empty streets, since people would be more inclined to replay the missions as a group (that would mean nine potential story missions per fireteam, with the odds of one of them having the final mission being fairly solid).

Side tangent: I've noticed over the past week or two that it has already become shockingly rare to see other players while out on patrol. I complete almost all of my Flashpoint Milestones solo, without seeing another player at all. And now that we can fast travel, I hardly ever get to see a fireteam of Guardians drive by on their sparrows. Anyone else having this experience?

Nope - as a couple of other people have mentioned, my patrol experiences this week (and pretty much all weeks) include plenty of other players.

As did mine, but I did notice that last week there were indeed far less people in general than there have been during other Flashpoints. Maybe because Nessus is just really big, with multiple events going on at once...

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I think Bungie has partially solved this problem with Meditations - since you can earn gear from Ikora for doing them, people do them. When the city streets level came up a couple of weeks ago, I found the area filled with Guardians, as it was when I ran it the first time. I think that'll continue to be true as time goes on. (Doesn't mean I don't wish there were more of those moments - just that I think the fear of deserted streets is an empty one.)

Wait, on the final mission, you had other guardians in it? When i played it, i was by myself and thought it would be better if there were other guardians around.

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I think Bungie has partially solved this problem with Meditations - since you can earn gear from Ikora for doing them, people do them. When the city streets level came up a couple of weeks ago, I found the area filled with Guardians, as it was when I ran it the first time. I think that'll continue to be true as time goes on. (Doesn't mean I don't wish there were more of those moments - just that I think the fear of deserted streets is an empty one.)

Wait, on the final mission, you had other guardians in it? When i played it, i was by myself and thought it would be better if there were other guardians around.

And I only did it this past week. Each of the moments that you're waiting for Hawthorne to take down the Cabal walls appears to be designed to temporarily slow down fireteams such that they run into each other. When it happens it gives the feeling of Guardians overwhelming the city in a continuance of the cutscene.

It's a real shame you didn't have that on your run through, I strongly encourage you to take it up when that meditation is in the rotation.

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Patrick suggests a thought at one point that perhaps the reason Bungie's campaign stories have been less than stellar as of late is that perhaps their (Bungie's) heart isn't in it the way it was during the Halo days? That Destiny is so much more than its campaign, and so much time and energy needs to go into the "end-game", and that is where the most exciting content tends to be... could it be that including a traditional, linear campaign is perhaps not necessary in future installments?

Yes and no. I don't think we need another Rise of Iron campaign, but maybe a Taken King will work. We definitely need a robust campaign in Destiny 3, though.

Rise of Iron was very much a side story, but if Bungie hadn't tacked on a "the world will end" angle to it, it would have simply been filler, because no characters get fleshed out (Saladin tends to simply come off as whiny throughout most of it), there's very little interplay between the people and the missions, and ultimately it's just a handful of events that end up not having any kind of permanent effect on the game world, and which don't really bring any consequence to the characters themselves. Besides Tyra and Saladin, what happened to any of the other characters that we met? What is the current state of the Plaguelands? SIVA isn't replicating anymore simply because we blew up an underground chamber? Then what happened to the samples carried offworld?

Nobody knows, nobody really cares because nothing has changed, and we don't see any evidence that RoI meant anything.

Then you look at Taken King, which had consequences that persist to this day. The Dreadnaught is still there, the Taken are not only still on the loose, but Oryx's sisters have taken control. Ghost has been reading up on the Books of Sorrow (which is more than he did for the Vex), and the Taken even have a small part in the Destiny 2 campaign (once again scaring away the Cabal that would have posed a bigger threat on Io).
Taken King's campaign feels essential, much in the same way that Destiny 2 has.

Campaign missions can really add to the experience, but their unique nature and/or setpieces don't mean a whole lot if you can't replay them or expand on them (alternate dialogue helps, especially if it depends on your character's knowledge of events, such as the kind you get from being a veteran player).
I dunno. Playing through Horizon Zero Dawn, I really appreciate how essential so many of the quests feel in terms of fleshing out characters and regions, and how doing sidequests does have an effect on dialogue and/or understanding of said regions, the people that you meet, events that happened before you showed up, and even the technology (both for you and Aloy). Little things such as Nil talking about a prison that he did a stint in, to simply playing through the story long enough for Aloy to learn what a GAIA core is all have an impact on things later on in the story.

Nothing in Destiny 2 really has this effect, despite there being Adventures and such that could easily impact the campaign or dialogue (such as the EDZ Adventures that have to do with boosting and clearing coms, all of which could have tied into the single story mission that had to do with setting up a radio network. And stuff like the Drakes or the bowels of the Archology never come into play again.

I'm not sure where I land on this thought, but they do make some fantastic points in the podcast. One thing that they mention is how powerful the experience becomes in those brief moments during the campaign where you find yourself matched in with other players, and how it seems like a shame that this only happens twice during the campaign. But as Patrick says, the nature of a linear campaign makes it difficult for Bungie to lean on that kind of experience, because the vast majority of players will go through the campaign over the first couple weeks, and then never touch it again. So for the few players who do play the campaign later, they won't be able to find anyone to get matched with when they reach those sections. This is contrasted against the moments where Strikes overlap with public Patrol encounters, and how that is a more consistently reliable occurrence over time because that content is more repeated by players.

Indeed. The first time that Sammy and I ran that mission, there were a fair handful of other Guardians also fighting for the City (Where'd they get their Light back? Who knows!). After that, we never ran into more than one or two people, which is a shame (if only there was a Meditation where you could play as a civilian or no-light Guardian fighting for the city...).

It's an interesting topic, and I do think there is something to the idea. I absolutely love a traditional single-player campaign. But across all of D1 and these early days of D2, the campaign has never been Destiny's strong suit (I know that is a matter of personal opinion, but I feel it's a fairly solid claim to make). I find it fascinating to imagine a Destiny game without a traditional campaign. What would that look like? I do think it is possible. I could see a version of Destiny where the Strikes become the major, tent-pole story events (where you'd experience all the unique locations and bombastic set-piece moments), while the rest of the storytelling is handled through a mix of patrol/adventure/side-quest activities that take place across the various open worlds. This would keep the patrol areas more highly populated and bustling with activity, while providing more opportunities for players who are on their own "paths" to intersect and work together, or not.

I mean, that's what I hope for in lieu of another Rise of Iron, or anything that introduces new patrol areas that will only further divide the player-base (It didn't take long for Mars to become a ghost town in D1). I hope they expand on the existing areas, and flesh out the current regions with more activities or encounters (Flashpoints should have been something distinct, not "generic Public event with a single bonus enemy plus one more wandering around between event").

I don't want more endgame stuff, I would just like more stuff to be able to do. Variety is good. Give us a questline that ends with unlocking a Horde mode, or a Bounty list like The Dark Below gave us (remember the Hand/Eyes/Heart of Crota that would ultimately unlock the Will of Crota strike?). Give us more exotic quests with unique missions like rebuilding our Gjallarhorn did.
I never did give up on the hope that we could have something like missions to clear out future SRL maps on foot (or in vehicles). Little stuff like that that would make us have an impact on the map's own existence (especially if we were the ones to, say, park the Forklift on Haakon's Precipice).

Side tangent: I've noticed over the past week or two that it has already become shockingly rare to see other players while out on patrol. I complete almost all of my Flashpoint Milestones solo, without seeing another player at all. And now that we can fast travel, I hardly ever get to see a fireteam of Guardians drive by on their sparrows. Anyone else having this experience?

Like Blue said, part of this is because you can't play through Story Missions freely anymore, there's not much incentive to play the random ones that Ikora offers, and very few missions and strikes take you through public areas. Combine that with the ability to fast travel to and fro, and it's not really surprising that we don't see too many strangers whizzing by.

The Adventures and Quests do help offset that quite a bit, but even those tend to be fairly quick, and you don't really get anything out of helping others do them, so the unique enemies and encounters are a rare sight as well. So yeah, it's not that Destiny has so many resources devoted to a campaign that's the problem, it's how Bungie fails to tie them into the greater world of the game that makes them feel like missed opportunities, the fact that we aren't able to really replay more than a small handful of the missions per week, and the fact that they aren't expanded upon once we've played through them.

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You’re hitting on a few good points there. I do think Bungie has a problem with their current approach to storytelling in general at the moment (beyond the obvious shortcomings of Vanilla D1). Every thread they introduce seems to either a) not go anywhere meaningful, or b) end in a cliffhanger that never gets resolved.

TTK starts with 1 cliffhanger (where is Mara?) and ends with another (WTF is Eris up to?). We’ve had 2 major Destiny releases since then, and neither of those threads have been mentioned in any meaningful way. And the more time goes by, the less likely it is that Bungie will ever return to those threads (because with every release, there is this pull to tell a “complete, contained story”). What about The Stranger? Dr Shinn? The alliance between humans and the awoken? Etc.

The only real exception to this trend Crota. He was introduced in D1, we fought him in TDB, and dealt with the reprocussions of his death in TTK. But even that was partially messed up when Bungie restructured the D1 story progression and made it so that the TTK missions begin before you’ve even fought Crota.

All this to say, I have a tough time caring about anything story related in Destiny, because Bungie hasn’t yet found a way to make the story matter. We’re into the 4th year now, and I still feel like I’m waiting for the story to start.

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You’re hitting on a few good points there. I do think Bungie has a problem with their current approach to storytelling in general at the moment (beyond the obvious shortcomings of Vanilla D1). Every thread they introduce seems to either a) not go anywhere meaningful, or b) end in a cliffhanger that never gets resolved.

I was pretty disappointed not to see or hear any mention of Mara Sov or the Awoken at launch. And unless the first expansion for D2 has a bunch of things included that we haven't heard about yet, I'm not holding my breath.

TTK starts with 1 cliffhanger (where is Mara?) and ends with another (WTF is Eris up to?). We’ve had 2 major Destiny releases since then, and neither of those threads have been mentioned in any meaningful way. And the more time goes by, the less likely it is that Bungie will ever return to those threads (because with every release, there is this pull to tell a “complete, contained story”). What about The Stranger? Dr Shinn? The alliance between humans and the awoken? Etc.

Korny's point about what made TTK matter and ROI not were really spot on. DLC should change the game world in both story and presentation where possible. And while ROI did expand the playable area in Russia, there's no mention or manifestation of SIVA thereafter, and that part of Earth isn't even accessible to us now in D2. I think there's definitely such a thing as overpopulating the mythos, and it seems we may be getting close to that, assuming we aren't going to soon see a winnowing down of things in the overall arc of Destiny very soon.

Although the Trials lore makes me wonder about that.

The only real exception to this trend Crota. He was introduced in D1, we fought him in TDB, and dealt with the reprocussions of his death in TTK. But even that was partially messed up when Bungie restructured the D1 story progression and made it so that the TTK missions begin before you’ve even fought Crota.

Whoops.

All this to say, I have a tough time caring about anything story related in Destiny, because Bungie hasn’t yet found a way to make the story matter. We’re into the 4th year now, and I still feel like I’m waiting for the story to start.

I feel the same way. TTK was well executed, and brought me the closest to feeling like there was an order of events that mattered. The D2 campaign, even with the sun-snuffing threat of the Almighty, didn't. Ghaul came and wrecked shop, but ultimately perished, though we don't really even know why; and everything is largely the same but for the fact we've had the fear put into us. Now what?

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All this to say, I have a tough time caring about anything story related in Destiny, because Bungie hasn’t yet found a way to make the story matter. We’re into the 4th year now, and I still feel like I’m waiting for the story to start.

I feel the same way. TTK was well executed, and brought me the closest to feeling like there was an order of events that mattered. The D2 campaign, even with the sun-snuffing threat of the Almighty, didn't. Ghaul came and wrecked shop, but ultimately perished, though we don't really even know why; and everything is largely the same but for the fact we've had the fear put into us. Now what?

~M

So Des2ny ends with a significant in-universe event, with the re-awakening of the Traveler. Or at least, it should be significant. But for that to happen, we need to see reprocussions right away. Like, the very first DLC needs to touch on this in some way. Otherwise it’s just another plot device that ends up being left by the side of the road.

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All this to say, I have a tough time caring about anything story related in Destiny, because Bungie hasn’t yet found a way to make the story matter. We’re into the 4th year now, and I still feel like I’m waiting for the story to start.

I feel the same way. TTK was well executed, and brought me the closest to feeling like there was an order of events that mattered. The D2 campaign, even with the sun-snuffing threat of the Almighty, didn't. Ghaul came and wrecked shop, but ultimately perished, though we don't really even know why; and everything is largely the same but for the fact we've had the fear put into us. Now what?

~M

So Des2ny ends with a significant in-universe event, with the re-awakening of the Traveler. Or at least, it should be significant. But for that to happen, we need to see reprocussions right away. Like, the very first DLC needs to touch on this in some way. Otherwise it’s just another plot device that ends up being left by the side of the road.

I'm optimistic that the repercussions we seek will begin to be paid off right away.

Luke said recently (in the December 2017 EDGE article) that there are big hints in that post-credit scene -- specifically that although the payoff of the black pyramids being awakened won't be paid off for years, the fact that Mercury was the first area to be shown as being impacted by the Traveler's light expansion was a very intentional setup of the first expansion. Mercury = Osiris, and very likely includes more about the Exo Stranger, Mara Sov and/or Prince Uldren.

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Luke said recently (in the December 2017 EDGE article) that there are big hints in that post-credit scene -- specifically that although the payoff of the black pyramids being awakened won't be paid off for years, the fact that Mercury was the first area to be shown as being impacted by the Traveler's light expansion was a very intentional setup of the first expansion. Mercury = Osiris, and very likely includes more about the Exo Stranger, Mara Sov and/or Prince Uldren.

Please, pretty pretty please Bungie, let this be true.

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Zavala literally calls out the dawn of a new Golden Age. Will we see that? I sure hope so.

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You’re hitting on a few good points there. I do think Bungie has a problem with their current approach to storytelling in general at the moment (beyond the obvious shortcomings of Vanilla D1). Every thread they introduce seems to either a) not go anywhere meaningful, or b) end in a cliffhanger that never gets resolved.

TTK starts with 1 cliffhanger (where is Mara?) and ends with another (WTF is Eris up to?). We’ve had 2 major Destiny releases since then, and neither of those threads have been mentioned in any meaningful way. And the more time goes by, the less likely it is that Bungie will ever return to those threads (because with every release, there is this pull to tell a “complete, contained story”). What about The Stranger? Dr Shinn? The alliance between humans and the awoken? Etc.

And to add insult to injury, the way Luke responds when asked about The Stranger is so incredibly aggravating. "Oh, what? We're done w/ her & that story." It certainly doesn't bode well for these other major threads that have just been dropped. I feel like Bungie is trying to distancing itself from whatever parts of the original story (original being before the last-hour rewrite) that they couldn't get away from (because they still needed to ship a game in under a year).

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I didn't particularly like that answer from Luke, but at the same time the idea that Bungie has dropped all its other story thread doesn't ring true to me. Destiny 2 includes a ton of hints and continuations to all sorts of plot threads. Really, I can't think of any character or thread that didn't get a mention in Destiny 2.

Now sure, our Ghost wondering if the Exo Stranger is alright isn't exactly the same as having an entire DLC based around Oryx coming to avenge Crota's death, but I was actually impressed at how little was truly left behind.

If I could find a transcript of all the dialogue attached to the in world scanable objects I'd make a pretty neat post talking about what they are all referencing. Just one random reference, there's a bank of monitors or some such thing you can scan on Titan to which your Ghost comments:

Shipping manifestos. Hm. Looks like they traded frequently with a settlement… wow. Way out there. It's called… Hyperion. Huh.

Seems like a bit of mostly useless information, right? Except, that in Ghost Fragment: Vex 5, Maya Sundaresh was voicing a message to her wife Chioma Esi. Maya was in Tibet working on one of those strange machines that the Future War Cult uses to give visions to its followers and Chioma? Well, Maya says in her message:

I missed you. We hadn’t been apart for more than a year since we met. I’m not a very good wife, am I? You write me every week, even with all Hyperion’s work and all Hyperion’s distance keeping you from me. And I act like it’s not enough.

Just with one word, one location name, the universe branches back out and expands again, and I love that! :)

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I didn't particularly like that answer from Luke, but at the same time the idea that Bungie has dropped all its other story thread doesn't ring true to me. Destiny 2 includes a ton of hints and continuations to all sorts of plot threads. Really, I can't think of any character or thread that didn't get a mention in Destiny 2.

Part of me thinks/hopes that was just Luke being Luke. Being a little bit of a jerk/troll/tease/sarcastic. Jerk/troll isn't exactly the right phrase, but I hope you get what I'm trying to say.

If I could find a transcript of all the dialogue attached to the in world scanable objects I'd make a pretty neat post talking about what they are all referencing. Just one random reference, there's a bank of monitors or some such thing you can scan on Titan to which your Ghost comments:

I love all of the lore/throwbacks found in the scannable objects. This is what I had hoped for in TTK.

I wonder if someone is gathering a list of those scannable objects & the dialog attached to them... Hmm, maybe that's a good end-game activity that I could get into. ;)

Anyway, I hope we can find transcripts for those, it'd be great source material for some lore threads.

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If I could find a transcript of all the dialogue attached to the in world scanable objects I'd make a pretty neat post talking about what they are all referencing. Just one random reference, there's a bank of monitors or some such thing you can scan on Titan to which your Ghost comments:

I genuinely wonder how many of those objects are in the game, and how many I missed. It’s almost like there could have been some way to track them . . . a Grimoire or something . . . ;-P

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I didn't particularly like that answer from Luke, but at the same time the idea that Bungie has dropped all its other story thread doesn't ring true to me. Destiny 2 includes a ton of hints and continuations to all sorts of plot threads. Really, I can't think of any character or thread that didn't get a mention in Destiny 2.

Now sure, our Ghost wondering if the Exo Stranger is alright isn't exactly the same as having an entire DLC based around Oryx coming to avenge Crota's death, but I was actually impressed at how little was truly left behind.

If I could find a transcript of all the dialogue attached to the in world scanable objects I'd make a pretty neat post talking about what they are all referencing. Just one random reference, there's a bank of monitors or some such thing you can scan on Titan to which your Ghost comments:

Shipping manifestos. Hm. Looks like they traded frequently with a settlement… wow. Way out there. It's called… Hyperion. Huh.

Seems like a bit of mostly useless information, right? Except, that in Ghost Fragment: Vex 5, Maya Sundaresh was voicing a message to her wife Chioma Esi. Maya was in Tibet working on one of those strange machines that the Future War Cult uses to give visions to its followers and Chioma? Well, Maya says in her message:

I missed you. We hadn’t been apart for more than a year since we met. I’m not a very good wife, am I? You write me every week, even with all Hyperion’s work and all Hyperion’s distance keeping you from me. And I act like it’s not enough.

Just with one word, one location name, the universe branches back out and expands again, and I love that! :)

I think, to clarify my point, it’s important to draw a distinction between “narrative” and “lore”. Destiny 2 makes plenty of lore references, as you point out. But that is never a replacement for narrative. I think lore is a wonderful tool when it comes to augmenting a great narrative. It helps add scope and scale to a created world, adds a sense of history and context to the events of the plot. But lore on its own cannot provide the meaning or impact of a central narrative. And all too often, Destiny’s “storytelling” is actually just lore dumps dressed up as a narrative. There are characters and places and events that are referenced from time to time, but none of it means anything. None of it drives or motivates our guardian, or us, for that matter (short of curiosity... we want to know more just for the sake of knowing more, as is human nature).

Now, the Grimoire in D1 blurred the lines between narrative and lore. They sometimes crossed over into something resembling folk tales or legends, in that they contained bareboned approximations of actual stories. But even at their best, they don’t provide anything close to the kind of deep, meaningful narrative we would hope for from a game like Destiny. They merely suggest the possibility of one, and rely on our imaginations to fill in the gaps. And for their intended purpose, that’s plenty. But I think D1 is proof that the best written lore is no replacement for a good primary narrative.

So no, I can’t agree with your assessment that a single-line mention counts as the continuation of a plot thread. An off-the-cuff mention is no replacement for following the actions and conflicts of living, breathing characters, and the events surrounding them. And sometimes, that’s fine. I’d be ok with some threads being left hanging. But not ALL of them, and that is precisely the pattern that Bungie has developed with Destiny so far (with the exception of Crota/Oryx, as I already mentioned).

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I’d be ok with some threads being left hanging. But not ALL of them...

Hold up. The main campaign of Destiny 2 is the continuation of a Destiny 1 plot thread we last saw in the mission Outbound Signal. The last of the Cabal forces in our solar system sent a bunch of info to the rest of the Cabal and requested reinforcements. Those reinforcements came and they came with information on how to neutralize the unkillable Guardians who had easily slapped their previous force around. So the idea that Bungie left all threads hanging is immediately false.

More than that, I think it is only natural to put some plot threads on hold while others are focused on. The Cabal got very little focus in Destiny 1. Much less than the Hive and Fallen, at least. Now, with Destiny 2, Bungie swung back and put the spotlight on the Cabal. The first DLC, Curse of Osiris, is heavily rumored to focus on Mercury and the Vex, another group that hadn’t been in the spotlight yet. The DLC after that is rumored to focus on Rasputin who got some minor screen time but who’s actions and motives have still only been on the edges. Soon, Rasputin too might get his time in the spotlight.

I admit, I’m playing the part of Angel’s Advocate here (Angel’s Advocate being the positive, optimistic version of Devil’s Advocate :p) but is it fair to say threads are being left hanging? Especially if each new DLC picks up one of those threads and makes it a focus? Just how many threads should Bungie be trying to force into one campaign or one DLC package, anyway? At some point, asking them for feature length campaigns for every race and every plot thread is obviously asking too much. So pull that back to reasonableness. Where is a fair expectation?

Coming back to the idea that thread were left hanging, I think there are two other instances in D2 where Bungie did move forward in a substantial way:

- We see the Fallen’s situation advanced in Destiny 2. Their system of individual houses seems to have collapsed and they have all fallen back and re-emerged as the House of Dusk. And there are some other hints along the way, most notably that they’ve taken to using House of Kings and Awoken encryption in their communications, that points to a continuation of Prince Uldren taking over leadership of all the Fallen via getting the House of Kings to bow before him, as per the final round of Grimoire cards that came with the Age of Trimuph.

- We also saw some movement in the Taken’s thread with very strong hints that Savathûn and perhaps Xivu Arath have at least taken over leadership of the Taken, or maybe Savathûn has figured out Oryx’s power to Take, which would be a major shakeup in therms of who holds power within the Hive. The idea that the Hive in our system are attempting to summon Savathûn is also somewhat present.

True, neither of these are narrative. But if they are the precurosr to future DLCs with Red War or even Rise of Iron size focuses on the Fallen or Hive later on next year or the year after.... well, then what? I’ll note that this is certainly not outside the real of possibility. The voice actor for Prince Uldren walked the red carpet at the Destiny 2 launch event and hung out with Bungie at their big Destiny 2 launch party. I’d almost guarantee we’ll hear from Prince Uldren again at some point down the line, and if we do it will almost certainly be in regards for the search for Queen Mara Sov and his obtaining control of the House of Kings.

In the end, sure, I’d love more in-depth campaigns. More in-game stories. More tragedy, and emotion, and dynamic characters, and dramatic moments. But... I’m not sure we’ll ever get that out of Destiny. Bungie seems more interested in building out their universe just enough to support a fun shooter and doesn’t seem super interested in pushing as hard into full on stories as other developers. I’m certainly not mistaking those kinds of in-depth stories for two sentence scannable in D2. I do think, however, there’s a bit more going on in Destiny 2 than you’re giving it credit for at the moment.

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The first DLC, Curse of Osiris, is heavily rumored to focus on Mercury and the Vex, another group that hadn’t been in the spotlight yet.

Osiris, yes. but the vex was heavily featured in Vanilla destiny.

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The main campaign of Destiny 2 is the continuation of a Destiny 1 plot thread we last saw in the mission Outbound Signal.

Honestly, I think this fact has flown under the radar of many people. Especially since there has been quite a bit of content released after The Taken King that did basically nothing to continue the foreshadow of an impending doom, at the hands of the Cabal.

The first DLC, Curse of Osiris, is heavily rumored to focus on Mercury and the Vex, another group that hadn’t been in the spotlight yet. The DLC after that is rumored to focus on Rasputin who got some minor screen time but who’s actions and motives have still only been on the edges. Soon, Rasputin too might get his time in the spotlight.

Is there any new info for these DLC's besides just the expansion pass promotional icons, which were simply an "Eye of Osiris" image and the Warmind/"Rasputin symbol"? Are the rumors growing and embellishing as time goes on, like "the telephone game"?

We also saw some movement in the Taken’s thread with very strong hints that Savathûn and perhaps Xivu Arath have at least taken over leadership of the Taken, or maybe Savathûn has figured out Oryx’s power to Take, which would be a major shakeup in therms of who holds power within the Hive. The idea that the Hive in our system are attempting to summon Savathûn is also somewhat present.

I don't remember any specific hints about Xivu Arath at all, much less taking over leadership of the Taken.
I'll be glad to replay a mission if possible, or re-visit an adventure or two.

The voice actor for Prince Uldren walked the red carpet at the Destiny 2 launch event and hung out with Bungie at their big Destiny 2 launch party. I’d almost guarantee we’ll hear from Prince Uldren again at some point down the line, and if we do it will almost certainly be in regards for the search for Queen Mara Sov and his obtaining control of the House of Kings.

I hadn't heard about this, and I don't think that this info is widely known. Do you have any additional notes for this?

I do think, however, there’s a bit more going on in Destiny 2 than you’re giving it credit for at the moment.

Rhetorical Question:
If you don’t know something is implemented, then just how good can it be?

Every coin has two sides - Unnecessary gif:
[image]

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The main campaign of Destiny 2 is the continuation of a Destiny 1 plot thread we last saw in the mission Outbound Signal.

Honestly, I think this fact has flown under the radar of many people. Especially since there has been quite a bit of content released after The Taken King that did basically nothing to continue the foreshadow of an impending doom, at the hands of the Cabal.

The first DLC, Curse of Osiris, is heavily rumored to focus on Mercury and the Vex, another group that hadn’t been in the spotlight yet. The DLC after that is rumored to focus on Rasputin who got some minor screen time but who’s actions and motives have still only been on the edges. Soon, Rasputin too might get his time in the spotlight.

Is there any new info for these DLC's besides just the expansion pass promotional icons, which were simply an "Eye of Osiris" image and the Warmind/"Rasputin symbol"? Are the rumors growing and embellishing as time goes on, like "the telephone game"?

There are several hints throughout Destiny 1’s Grimoire and Destiny 2’s Strikes and Adventures that Osiris is highly linked to the Vex. Specifically:

- Osiris which mentions the Vex quite a bit. I just now noticed that it also mentions that the Vex can’t simulate Guardians. That’s an idea I though came with Destiny 2, but nope, it was introduced in House of Wolves. Cool!
- In the Pyramidion Strike, Ikora sometimes mentions that she thinks she heard Osiris.
- In one of the final Adventures on Nessus, the one where you try and link your Ghost to the Vex network, you find that Osiris was also in the network. I don’t remember the exact words at the moment, but he even sent your Ghost a nice friendly little message.
- The Trials of Osiris Cult had their Lighthouse based on Mercury, a fully Vexified planet.
- I don’t have an exact quote yet (because print magazines and or time travel shenanigans) but Luke said recently (in the December 2017 EDGE article) that there are big hints in that post-credit scene -- specifically that although the payoff of the black pyramids being awakened won't be paid off for years, the fact that Mercury was the first area to be shown as being impacted by the Traveler's light expansion was a very intentional setup of the first expansion.
- Then there’s the official listing for Curse of Osiris that reads:

Destiny 2 Expansion I: Curse of Osiris continues your Guardian’s journey with all-new story missions and adventures set in a new destination, Mercury. Journey through time and space to learn the secrets of Osiris, avert a dark future, and rebuild the ties between the legendary Warlock and his greatest student - Ikora.

I don’t do telephone games. :)

We also saw some movement in the Taken’s thread with very strong hints that Savathûn and perhaps Xivu Arath have at least taken over leadership of the Taken, or maybe Savathûn has figured out Oryx’s power to Take, which would be a major shakeup in therms of who holds power within the Hive. The idea that the Hive in our system are attempting to summon Savathûn is also somewhat present.

I don't remember any specific hints about Xivu Arath at all, much less taking over leadership of the Taken.
I'll be glad to replay a mission if possible, or re-visit an adventure or two.

I’d need to go back through all the missions. Obviously is mentioned. Her name is all over the place. But I seem to recall a more minor reference to Oryx’s other sister... Sorry I can’t be more specific.

The voice actor for Prince Uldren walked the red carpet at the Destiny 2 launch event and hung out with Bungie at their big Destiny 2 launch party. I’d almost guarantee we’ll hear from Prince Uldren again at some point down the line, and if we do it will almost certainly be in regards for the search for Queen Mara Sov and his obtaining control of the House of Kings.

I hadn't heard about this, and I don't think that this info is widely known. Do you have any additional notes for this?

Not a ton. I looked up each of the voice actors on social media right as Destiny 2 launched. Mara Sov and Prince Uldren’s were very excited. Prince Uldren’s had photos of him on the D2 red carpet and at the Bungie D2 launch party. A little earlier he also noted that he did some motion capture for Zavala’s cutscene on Titan.

Worst case, Bungie included new material about Prince Uldren taking control of the House of Kings in the Age of Triumph then followed that up with sly references to that happening in D2 but only brought the voice actor to do motion capture for... a different character?

Realistically, it’s likely he reprised his role as Prince Uldren, we just haven’t seen it yet.

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The main campaign of Destiny 2 is the continuation of a Destiny 1 plot thread we last saw in the mission Outbound Signal.

Honestly, I think this fact has flown under the radar of many people. Especially since there has been quite a bit of content released after The Taken King that did basically nothing to continue the foreshadow of an impending doom, at the hands of the Cabal.

The first DLC, Curse of Osiris, is heavily rumored to focus on Mercury and the Vex, another group that hadn’t been in the spotlight yet. The DLC after that is rumored to focus on Rasputin who got some minor screen time but who’s actions and motives have still only been on the edges. Soon, Rasputin too might get his time in the spotlight.

Is there any new info for these DLC's besides just the expansion pass promotional icons, which were simply an "Eye of Osiris" image and the Warmind/"Rasputin symbol"? Are the rumors growing and embellishing as time goes on, like "the telephone game"?

There are several hints throughout Destiny 1’s Grimoire and Destiny 2’s Strikes and Adventures that Osiris is highly linked to the Vex. Specifically:

- Osiris which mentions the Vex quite a bit. I just now noticed that it also mentions that the Vex can’t simulate Guardians. That’s an idea I though came with Destiny 2, but nope, it was introduced in House of Wolves. Cool!
- In the Pyramidion Strike, Ikora sometimes mentions that she thinks she heard Osiris.
- In one of the final Adventures on Nessus, the one where you try and link your Ghost to the Vex network, you find that Osiris was also in the network. I don’t remember the exact words at the moment, but he even sent your Ghost a nice friendly little message.
- The Trials of Osiris Cult had their Lighthouse based on Mercury, a fully Vexified planet.
- I don’t have an exact quote yet (because print magazines and or time travel shenanigans) but Luke said recently (in the December 2017 EDGE article) that there are big hints in that post-credit scene -- specifically that although the payoff of the black pyramids being awakened won't be paid off for years[. And] the fact that Mercury was the first area to be shown as being impacted by the Traveler's light expansion was a very intentional setup of the first expansion.

Yes Osiris's link to the Vex and Mercury, these are facts.
Just because Osiris has seeming relationships with a particular race or setting does not necessarily mean that those HAVE to be the focus of the DLC. It is reasonable to think that is where the story is heading though.
I quit following print media years ago. You've inspired me to check out this EDGE article. Even though it is a print article and you are jet lagged from your time traveling(lol), your summation of what Luke said at the very end of the article is accurate.

- Then there’s the official listing for Curse of Osiris that reads:

Destiny 2 Expansion I: Curse of Osiris continues your Guardian’s journey with all-new story missions and adventures set in a new destination, Mercury. Journey through time and space to learn the secrets of Osiris, avert a dark future, and rebuild the ties between the legendary Warlock and his greatest student - Ikora.

[snip]

Oh wow, now that I have not seen yet: the marketplace listings for the first DLC. Even though it is not "official" (if this was on Bungie.net or DestinyTheGame.com I'd call it official), it is about as close to official as we may get since this info is sent to 3rd party marketing or promotional likely directly from Bungie/Activision. Thanks for that link, As I have not seen/read that before.

We also saw some movement in the Taken’s thread with very strong hints that Savathûn and perhaps Xivu Arath have at least taken over leadership of the Taken, or maybe Savathûn has figured out Oryx’s power to Take, which would be a major shakeup in therms of who holds power within the Hive. The idea that the Hive in our system are attempting to summon Savathûn is also somewhat present.

I don't remember any specific hints about Xivu Arath at all, much less taking over leadership of the Taken.
I'll be glad to replay a mission if possible, or re-visit an adventure or two.

I’d need to go back through all the missions. Obviously is mentioned. Her name is all over the place. But I seem to recall a more minor reference to Oryx’s other sister... Sorry I can’t be more specific.

Xivu Arath? Not obviously. Not obviously at all. Not mentioned all over the place.

The voice actor for Prince Uldren walked the red carpet at the Destiny 2 launch event and hung out with Bungie at their big Destiny 2 launch party. I’d almost guarantee we’ll hear from Prince Uldren again at some point down the line, and if we do it will almost certainly be in regards for the search for Queen Mara Sov and his obtaining control of the House of Kings.

I hadn't heard about this, and I don't think that this info is widely known. Do you have any additional notes for this?

Not a ton. I looked up each of the voice actors on social media right as Destiny 2 launched. Mara Sov and Prince Uldren’s were very excited. Prince Uldren’s had photos of him on the D2 red carpet and at the Bungie D2 launch party. A little earlier he also noted that he did some motion capture for Zavala’s cutscene on Titan.

Worst case, Bungie included new material about Prince Uldren taking control of the House of Kings in the Age of Triumph then followed that up with sly references to that happening in D2 but only brought the voice actor to do motion capture for... a different character?

Realistically, it’s likely he reprised his role as Prince Uldren, we just haven’t seen it yet.

So I decided to look up the info you have so casually mentioned
Well...let's provide links...rather than generate inferences or talk about it like it is general information...
Let's mention his name and give the artist some credit for his work.

Brandon O'Neill
https://twitter.com/brandonactor
https://www.instagram.com/brandononeillactor/

From July 26th - SDCC '17 Exclusive video
https://twitter.com/brandonactor/status/890110522011656193
https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=VGBDed9GkNE
Never seen this before. This might be a fun video watch in a non shaky-cam format

September 3 - Destiny 2 Red Carpet Paramount Theater Seattle
https://twitter.com/brandonactor/status/904410247057383424

Video/gif of Brandon doing a Red Carpet 'snow angel'
https://twitter.com/brandonactor/status/904599484637732864
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYnCE3MntT4/

Picture of Brandon holding 'a brick of Glimmer' down on the party floor
https://twitter.com/brandonactor/status/904736657580187649
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYoAcxlH7bu/

Picture of Brandon and his wife? From a higher balcony above the party floor
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYrrQtGn43i/

Setember 6 - Destiny 2 Release day
Brandon wishes everyone a Happy Destiny 2 Release Day with a photo from 3 of the behind the scenes mo-cap artists. Brandon O'Neill, Richard Nguyen Sloniker, Allyson Kulavis
https://twitter.com/brandonactor/status/905622929785937920
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYuTepiHth-/
"Happy #destiny2 Drop Day from your Cinematics (Vangaurd) Fireteam. Between the 3 of us we've done Motion Capture and expression work for Cayde6, Zavala, Ikora, Dominous Ghaul, Lord Saladin, The Stranger, Amanda Holliday, The Player, Efrideet, Uldren Sov & Hawthorne plus other bit players throughout. (No not sweeper bot) I know I speak for all of us when I say we feel so lucky to be a part of the @bungie @destinythegame community and are stoked to finally share Destiny 2 with the world." Hashtag mess under spoiler - not pleasing to look at"#BeBrave #zavala #cayde6 #ikora #destinythegame #videogames #motioncapture #performancematters #performancecapture #lordsaladin #uldrensov #uldren #awoken #hawthorne #efrideet #amandaholliday #fireteam #vangaurd #thetraveler #warlock #hunter #titan #activision #playstation #xboxone #seattleactor #richardsloniker #allysonkulavis #brandononeill"

I don't know if I've ever seen these before:
September 4 2014
Brandon posted some cool shots of an underground subway with Destiny Advertisements adorning it (New York? Part of the huge above ground Times Square decorations?)
https://twitter.com/brandonactor/status/507745216657625088
https://twitter.com/brandonactor/status/507744979503304704

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- Then there’s the official listing for Curse of Osiris that reads:

Destiny 2 Expansion I: Curse of Osiris continues your Guardian’s journey with all-new story missions and adventures set in a new destination, Mercury. Journey through time and space to learn the secrets of Osiris, avert a dark future, and rebuild the ties between the legendary Warlock and his greatest student - Ikora.

[snip]

Oh wow, now that I have not seen yet: the marketplace listings for the first DLC. Even though it is not "official" (if this was on Bungie.net or DestinyTheGame.com I'd call it official), it is about as close to official as we may get since this info is sent to 3rd party marketing or promotional likely directly from Bungie/Activision. Thanks for that link, As I have not seen/read that before.

Just chiming in to point out that it can indeed be considered "official"... Urk tweeted this on the day that link went live:

Curse of Osiris is not a leak. It's real! :)

A lot of the Destiny "influencers" were spreading that entry around as a potential leak, and Urk posted that tweet to confirm that it was authentic and not erroneously made public.

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Xivu Arath? Not obviously. Not obviously at all. Not mentioned all over the place.

Oops. I had must have edited that sentence later on. It originally said "Savathûn is obviously mentioned. Her name is all over the place."

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We also saw some movement in the Taken’s thread with very strong hints that Savathûn and perhaps Xivu Arath have at least taken over leadership of the Taken, or maybe Savathûn has figured out Oryx’s power to Take, which would be a major shakeup in therms of who holds power within the Hive. The idea that the Hive in our system are attempting to summon Savathûn is also somewhat present.

I don't remember any specific hints about Xivu Arath at all, much less taking over leadership of the Taken.
I'll be glad to replay a mission if possible, or re-visit an adventure or two.

It's in the Lake of Shadows strike. There was a thread about the implications/references. Whether it's just Savathûn or both sisters is up in the air, but I'm pretty sure that unless Bungie wants to shake things up, we'll only be dealing with them one at a time, and Xivu Arath has far less mentions in the game so far (sure would be neat to have her revealed as the bigger fish if we have a DLC revolving around Savathûn, though, or an orchestrator of events).

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We also saw some movement in the Taken’s thread with very strong hints that Savathûn and perhaps Xivu Arath have at least taken over leadership of the Taken, or maybe Savathûn has figured out Oryx’s power to Take, which would be a major shakeup in therms of who holds power within the Hive. The idea that the Hive in our system are attempting to summon Savathûn is also somewhat present.

I don't remember any specific hints about Xivu Arath at all, much less taking over leadership of the Taken.
I'll be glad to replay a mission if possible, or re-visit an adventure or two.

It's in the Lake of Shadows strike. There was a thread about the implications/references. Whether it's just Savathûn or both sisters is up in the air, but I'm pretty sure that unless Bungie wants to shake things up, we'll only be dealing with them one at a time, and Xivu Arath has far less mentions in the game so far (sure would be neat to have her revealed as the bigger fish if we have a DLC revolving around Savathûn, though, or an orchestrator of events).

Thanks for the assist. I was hoping for a specific level name or something along those lines

I don't think I've played that Strike. I haven't played many of them I don't think because they are "randomly selected" (plus matchmaking) and they don't seem to rotate equally.
I'd love to be able to select that Strike specifically and check it out, but that's not possible. I'd also love to be able to be able to play it specifically from the very beginning and at a pace that is slower than 2 x Random Player's Ludicrous Speed. You know the whole, run as fast as you possibly can to 'The Boss' and do not Pass Go or collect 200 dollars, thing.

Just watched a video of that Strike. Turns out I have actually played it.
There was just a generic mention of Oryx's sisters. Nothing specific towards Xivu Arath. Of course, there has been a number/multiple mentions of Savathûn throughout Destiny 2 so far, however I can't remember any of Xivu Arath.

You are right, He/She (Xivu Arath) could potentially make for an interesting plot twist since the narrative and many theories surround Savathûn and discount the third Sister. He/She might make for a good dark horse if you will. Or could the Sisters relationship be used as a plot device? Possibly where Savathûn is able to capture, achieve, and assert dominance by making Xivu a subordinate or tricking him/her into executing the war or "running the army" while Savathûn takes extra tribute and handles the higher level administration or strategy? Could the Sisters potentially have learned something from Oryx's Daughters - they seemed to have a bond that let them do things that other Hive/Taken have not been able?

And then we have that odd mention of Nokris from Left Field to either ignore or account for. I had an interesting thought the other day. Could Nokris be Nezarec? In the same way that Aurash -> Auryx -> Oryx could Nokris -> Nezarec? Could Oryx's Sin give us any insight about Nezarec's Sin. Oryx: "They were coterminous and allied, his ship and his sin." Or could it just be a coincidence or poor choice of language.

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It's in the Lake of Shadows strike. There was a thread about the implications/references. Whether it's just Savathûn or both sisters is up in the air, but I'm pretty sure that unless Bungie wants to shake things up, we'll only be dealing with them one at a time, and Xivu Arath has far less mentions in the game so far (sure would be neat to have her revealed as the bigger fish if we have a DLC revolving around Savathûn, though, or an orchestrator of events).

One of the missions on Io has you fighting a taken that is directly labeled as Savathûn's. I think it's safe to say we will be dealing with her in the future.

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I agree with pretty much everything you’re saying. And I also think you may be right that Bungie isn’t interested in the kind of narrative I’m talking about. I just happen to believe that will be to Destiny’s detriment, if true.

And I do consider all those extra threads you're pointing out to be little more than lore, at least as they currently stand. That could change. There’s room for the Prince and the Fallen to become something more. But at the moment, the Prince is so inconsiquential to the motivations of our guardian that he barely exists in the minds of most players. He was mean to us during a couple cutscenes in D1, and his ship got shot down in TTK. I bet most Destiny players didn’t even realize that was the same guy.

The Cabal setup in TTK was precisely that: a setup. There main Cabal plot in TTK was resolved. Their arc in the story was complete. Bungie through in a tiny (and missable) hint that another force was on its way.

All of these connections you’re mentioning are nice touches, I agree. But again, there’s a difference between all of this and the kind of thing I’m looking for. I don’t like plot devices that are disguised as characters. It’s a common trope in bad fiction, and Destiny is full of them. Let’s look at The Stranger, for example. During her appearances in D1, we learn enough to believe that she is a genuine character, with motivations and goals that are driving her actions. Both the Guardian and the player are left wondering what she’s up to; that’s suspense, and that’s cool! But suspense is a dangerous storytelling tool to play with. It takes the form of a contract with the audience. There’d better be a payoff.

So when Luke Smith comes along and says that as far as he’s concerned, the Stranger’s story is done... that she got us where we needed to go in D1 and gave us a sweet weapon and that’s the end of her... that’s a blow for a couple of reasons. First of all, it eliminates the possibility of the Stranger being anything more than a plot device, practically speaking. And that’s just bad storytelling. And it also shows that Bungie has no problem breaking the “suspense contract” with the player. And that’s the bigger problem, in my eyes. Because that effects the player’s willingness to become invested in Bungie’s stories now and moving forward. And looking at Destiny’s story up to this point, Bungie has made this mistake far too many times. You can only watch characters behave mysteriously and think “I wonder what they’re up to” so many times without those questions actually going somewhere. The Stranger was meaningless, they hinted to the player that Mara was up to something in D1 (through her willingness to work with us) but that went nowhere in terms of the immediate narrative, Eris was introduced as an actual character with real motivations, then revealed to have some sort of hidden agenda, and that thread has been dropped for 2 years now.

So we’ll see how things go from here. There are narrative threads left hanging in Destiny 2, and hopefully Bungie has specific plans to carry those threads forward in the immediate future, rather than telling another “monster of the week” story that introduces new threads that don’t go anywhere.

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On the Exo Stranger, multiple people have suggested Luke wasn't being serious. He noted that there was a ton of interest in the Exo Stranger but then said her ending where she gives you a gun and vanishes was a good ending... We both agree that is not a good ending, and Luke doesn’t strike me as stupid. So, while I won’t straight up endorse the “He was only joking” theory, I’ll happily cling to it.

I’ll also note that the Exo Stranger (Maya Sundaresh) and Chioma Esi (Maya’s wife) both have gotten new mentions and lore references in Destiny 2. For a character whose story is “done” they sure bring her up a lot. Now yes, it’s possible she never re-emerges from the fog of lore. Maybe they couldn’t get her voice actor again or they continue her story through Osiris. I’ll be happy if we get an actual conclusion to her story, lore based or not. But, what if she did come back as an in-game character? And gave a good explanation. How many of those complaints about her would vanish?

Take my feelings about the Exo Stranger and expand them to any hanging plot thread. How much will be quickly forgiven if a thread goes from hanging in a holding pattern to a spotlight thread?

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I’ll also note that the Exo Stranger (Maya Sundaresh) and Chioma Esi (Maya’s wife) both have gotten new mentions and lore references in Destiny 2. For a character whose story is “done” they sure bring her up a lot. Now yes, it’s possible she never re-emerges from the fog of lore. Maybe they couldn’t get her voice actor again or they continue her story through Osiris. I’ll be happy if we get an actual conclusion to her story, lore based or not. But, what if she did come back as an in-game character? And gave a good explanation. How many of those complaints about her would vanish?

Take my feelings about the Exo Stranger and expand them to any hanging plot thread. How much will be quickly forgiven if a thread goes from hanging in a holding pattern to a spotlight thread?

I think that’s an important question, and ultimately it comes down to execution. “Bringing characters back” means more to me than just giving them another few lines in a cutscene. If the Prince makes another appearance, says a couple more mean things to our Guardian, then vanishes again... well that’s little more than fan service. And fan service is like lore; it’s good to have, but it doesn’t replace a compelling narrative with actual character development. I will say that there is great opportunity with the Prince, Mara, Eris, and The Stranger, among others. Their absence from the current plot leaves room to reintroduce them, reveal a course that they are on, have that course intersect with earth/the city/our guardian in an interesting way, and then deal with the fallout of that collision. I’d love to see Destiny’s expansions used to tell those kinds of stories. Smaller, character driven stories that don’t boil down to “OMG we gotta save the entire universe from yet another God/Emporor/Whatever”. Rise of Iron dipped a toe towards this approach, by bringing in the Iron Lords. Unfortunately, the story ended up being less about the ILs, and more about another “threat of the week”.

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The Cabal setup in TTK was precisely that: a setup. There main Cabal plot in TTK was resolved. Their arc in the story was complete. Bungie through in a tiny (and missable) hint that another force was on its way.

We disagree on how tiny and missable a hint it was, and that's okay. ;) I'm not sure they could have broadcast it to the audience more clearly without being obnoxious.

All of these connections you’re mentioning are nice touches, I agree. But again, there’s a difference between all of this and the kind of thing I’m looking for. I don’t like plot devices that are disguised as characters. It’s a common trope in bad fiction, and Destiny is full of them. Let’s look at The Stranger, for example. During her appearances in D1, we learn enough to believe that she is a genuine character, with motivations and goals that are driving her actions. Both the Guardian and the player are left wondering what she’s up to; that’s suspense, and that’s cool! But suspense is a dangerous storytelling tool to play with. It takes the form of a contract with the audience. There’d better be a payoff.

So when Luke Smith comes along and says that as far as he’s concerned, the Stranger’s story is done... that she got us where we needed to go in D1 and gave us a sweet weapon and that’s the end of her... that’s a blow for a couple of reasons. First of all, it eliminates the possibility of the Stranger being anything more than a plot device, practically speaking. And that’s just bad storytelling. And it also shows that Bungie has no problem breaking the “suspense contract” with the player. And that’s the bigger problem, in my eyes. Because that effects the player’s willingness to become invested in Bungie’s stories now and moving forward. And looking at Destiny’s story up to this point, Bungie has made this mistake far too many times. You can only watch characters behave mysteriously and think “I wonder what they’re up to” so many times without those questions actually going somewhere. The Stranger was meaningless, they hinted to the player that Mara was up to something in D1 (through her willingness to work with us) but that went nowhere in terms of the immediate narrative, Eris was introduced as an actual character with real motivations, then revealed to have some sort of hidden agenda, and that thread has been dropped for 2 years now.

So we’ll see how things go from here. There are narrative threads left hanging in Destiny 2, and hopefully Bungie has specific plans to carry those threads forward in the immediate future, rather than telling another “monster of the week” story that introduces new threads that don’t go anywhere.

This is the biggest problem with Destiny. As an IP, the concept of rediscovering strange forgotten futures sits at its core; and that hinges on sustaining a sense of mystery. But teasing a thread and then dropping it or "resolving" it without any satisfying payoff absolutely murders player investment in the mythos. Likewise being mysterious for mystery's sake.

When we learn the fate of Praedyth, although not a particularly flashy finish, I felt a sense of satisfaction that rivalled most of the rest of my experiences in TTK. Deft touches are all it takes. If the powers at be at Bungie want to can a certain character or storyline, there are ways to do it that don't require a fully fleshed-out DLC treatment. So I don't think the expectation that everything be addressed in time is unreasonable. But making things seem urgent, as in literally "no time to explain" and then leaving that thread alone for years is...not good.

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Campaign missions can really add to the experience, but their unique nature and/or setpieces don't mean a whole lot if you can't replay them or expand on them (alternate dialogue helps, especially if it depends on your character's knowledge of events, such as the kind you get from being a veteran player).
I dunno. Playing through Horizon Zero Dawn, I really appreciate how essential so many of the quests feel in terms of fleshing out characters and regions, and how doing sidequests does have an effect on dialogue and/or understanding of said regions, the people that you meet, events that happened before you showed up, and even the technology (both for you and Aloy). Little things such as Nil talking about a prison that he did a stint in, to simply playing through the story long enough for Aloy to learn what a GAIA core is all have an impact on things later on in the story.

This is why you segregate them. If you can visit the same patrol spaces before and after you finish the campaign… it feels like nothing changed. So, you have the patrol spaces come later, where they reflect the world post campaign. You get to feel like you did something in the main story, and you also get the open world aspect.

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Campaign missions can really add to the experience, but their unique nature and/or setpieces don't mean a whole lot if you can't replay them or expand on them (alternate dialogue helps, especially if it depends on your character's knowledge of events, such as the kind you get from being a veteran player).
I dunno. Playing through Horizon Zero Dawn, I really appreciate how essential so many of the quests feel in terms of fleshing out characters and regions, and how doing sidequests does have an effect on dialogue and/or understanding of said regions, the people that you meet, events that happened before you showed up, and even the technology (both for you and Aloy). Little things such as Nil talking about a prison that he did a stint in, to simply playing through the story long enough for Aloy to learn what a GAIA core is all have an impact on things later on in the story.

This is why you segregate them. If you can visit the same patrol spaces before and after you finish the campaign… it feels like nothing changed. So, you have the patrol spaces come later, where they reflect the world post campaign. You get to feel like you did something in the main story, and you also get the open world aspect.

I'm a big fan of having the patrol space have multiple versions that you visit throughout the campaign and into endgame. Maybe there's version 1, where it's just you and no one else. Then in version 2, maybe the game will match up to 2 other players with you or you can bring a squad, and also the zone is built up a little. Have a big event in version 1 that changes the landscape in version 2.

And then in version 3 you're nearing the endgame. The zone looks a lot like it's final form will, but it's not fully populated and you've got one more epic mission where you're blasting through the zone blowing shit up and defending humans who are building defensive structures. Oh crap, the Cabal have landed a firebase here!

Maybe an NPC guardian you team up with dies here. When you come back after beating the campaign, you can find her dead ghost at the spot where she died and there's a little moment of reflection.

And then you beat the game and get version 4, the truly public space you see now.

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This is why you segregate them. If you can visit the same patrol spaces before and after you finish the campaign… it feels like nothing changed. So, you have the patrol spaces come later, where they reflect the world post campaign. You get to feel like you did something in the main story, and you also get the open world aspect.

phased instancing is something WoW has implemented to a certain degree of success - but I dont think it requires completely segregating the two experiences. I like the idea of communicating that the player's actions have an effect on the world. Even public events acknowledge the repetition of their scripted events via the dialogue ("The Fallen are at it AGAIN? Will they ever learn?)

It would have been nice if more of the main (read: linear) storyline could have been folded into the campaign via strikes and adventures - sort of as a way to tease out the experience a little longer, and because both allow different ways to tell stories. As they exist now, having adventures and strikes layer on new stories or add tangents to existing story arcs is great, but imagine a strike where you and two other random players had to take back certain sectors of the city before you could mount an offensive against Gaul? It would require acknowledging that other Guardians obtained their light too, but I don't think that would kill the story necessarily.

I do think that D2 has set up a great way to tell new stories via adventures though. If they wanted to, they could release whole new sets of adventures in a sector or on a planet that really took players through entire side campaigns or flushed out some of the lore they've yet to really address.

But isn't that the pattern with Destiny to begin with? a game with great bones and ultimately unrealized potential? Maybe why the community has filled in the gaps as much as they have.

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This is why you segregate them. If you can visit the same patrol spaces before and after you finish the campaign… it feels like nothing changed. So, you have the patrol spaces come later, where they reflect the world post campaign. You get to feel like you did something in the main story, and you also get the open world aspect.

phased instancing is something WoW has implemented to a certain degree of success - but I dont think it requires completely segregating the two experiences. I like the idea of communicating that the player's actions have an effect on the world.

The Farm does this, though subtly.

At first, it's just you, Hawthorne, and a handful of other people.
Then Tess, Shaxx, and more refugees show up.
Then the area is heavily populated by refugees (thanks to the comms mission).
Then the Vanguard is there with everyone else.
And once you beat the story, the Farm is practically empty again, except for Tyra and random refugees.

There are plenty of instances in the campaign where you run into a Public area on your own, and where you could have had an effect on the game world (you use the Drake to permanently strand the Cabal ship on the ground, so that's something)...

But yeah, I've always been a fan of seeing the effects of your presence. Hence the stuff about the forklift (a lot of people can look to Megaton in Fallout 3 as an example of this kind of thing done right).

Even public events acknowledge the repetition of their scripted events via the dialogue ("The Fallen are at it AGAIN? Will they ever learn?)

I've spoken to someone about missed opportunities like this, such as the part where Failsafe says "When you kill a Servitor, it stays dead!". A great bit for veteran players would have been for Ghost to reply "Well, not always."

It's little continuity stuff like that that makes all the difference to me.

It would have been nice if more of the main (read: linear) storyline could have been folded into the campaign via strikes and adventures - sort of as a way to tease out the experience a little longer, and because both allow different ways to tell stories. As they exist now, having adventures and strikes layer on new stories or add tangents to existing story arcs is great, but imagine a strike where you and two other random players had to take back certain sectors of the city before you could mount an offensive against Gaul? It would require acknowledging that other Guardians obtained their light too, but I don't think that would kill the story necessarily.

I think Destiny was missing that, but I think they skipped it because of complaints that people had in the first game about how long it took to unlock new planets. Now, it was two story missions per planet, and for the most part, once you left a planet, you never came back to it in the story. I understand why they chose to do it like this, but it was still really disappointing.

I do think that D2 has set up a great way to tell new stories via adventures though. If they wanted to, they could release whole new sets of adventures in a sector or on a planet that really took players through entire side campaigns or flushed out some of the lore they've yet to really address.

Definitely. I really don't think that D2's content releases will be like Destiny 1's, especially not with multiple studios working on the content. The lack of Festival of the Lost is surprising, but considering how much of a downgrade the last one was, I'm happier with them taking their time to develop the content.

But isn't that the pattern with Destiny to begin with? a game with great bones and ultimately unrealized potential? Maybe why the community has filled in the gaps as much as they have.

Yeah. Destiny 2 is a far better Foundation release than Destiny 1 was (and with far more support and focus), and look how that game looked at the end of its life. I'm pretty confident that there'll be good Adventures down the road.

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