Hi there. Welcome to the other side of time... well, those of you who persevered. Turns out, this too was a Marathon, not a sprint... just not always in the ways it should have been. Thus, as a result... so many names... long silent. ...Forgive me, lost in a reminiscence too eagerly indulged.

But, perhaps, in this eve, I can bring forth some <<ghosts>> without the compassionate chains of a selfish glutton, or indeed, aims of the sky.

Before we turn that page, I would be grateful for some writ notes of this journey which we called Destiny. I am inviting all of us DBO'ers who played this game for any appreciable amount of time to speak of the experiences in-between. Good and Ill. Plus... what are you hoping to find, be it directly or indirectly, in the conclusion of the Light & Dark Saga?

Since things grow so easily ill, here... some food for thought. (I limited myself to 4 videos. >_< ... I have SO MANY!!!)

Bungie that ending is DOPE AF.

Captured: 5th of September 2019.

...BIG BOOM! BIG BOOM! BIG BOOM! YAY!

Captured: 6th of June, 2020

It Purdy.

Captured: 6th of June, 2020

Captured: 9th of November, 2020

Destiny turned into a game I don’t like all that much.

But man, it also provided some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing video games. The early days of raiding we’re really special, and running lots of Skolas to get people that Triumph, to some of the latter dungeons that were the only thing in the game I truly enjoyed before I finally quit. Destiny remains a pretty special game, I think, even though I got to where I didn’t enjoy the day to day of it.

My Memorable Destiny Moments:
Playing D1 Rumble
Co-op nights w/ Kermit
First VoG
First blind raid w/ DBO, Crota
First Lighthouse run with Funkmon & Zero
Trying to get Thorn as a Hunter main in Y1
Wreaking havoc with Pocket Infinity in Crucible
Getting stuck on the gate after the tombshops in the Oryx blind run
Running Kings Fall with 4 of my IRL friends and General Vagueness
Getting invited to the Wednesday night raid group
Finally getting Zero Nanopheonix while he was dead
Staying up till 4am running two lighthouse cards back to back with Speed and Korny
Exploring the Leviathan underbelly for the first time
Falling 80 points short of getting Redrix Claymore after helping 3 other people get it
2 month Last Wish blind run (beating Vault out of no where, making it through one cycle of Riven legit)
Exploring the Dreaming City
6 hours of the first encounter of Garden, especially the first time we made it to the final run and totally failed
Doing "With both hands" challenge with the Wednesday crew in Crown
Clutching a flawless Crown run
Farming Anarchy with a huge DBO group
Deep Stone Crypt blind, space!
Getting up to top 1% in Trials for a bit there running Gemini Jesters Nightstalker. Just some really incredible plays over the months.
7 straight hours of the first encounter of Vow after we decided the actual solution to shooting the symbols was wrong and continued to come up with ever more elaborate things to try
Figuring out planets with Insane in Root
Meeting Chappy
Meeting Kermit

Before we turn that page, I would be grateful for some writ notes of this journey which we called Destiny. I am inviting all of us DBO'ers who played this game for any appreciable amount of time to speak of the experiences in-between. Good and Ill. Plus... what are you hoping to find, be it directly or indirectly, in the conclusion of the Light & Dark Saga?

I recall being filled with a sense of awe. Wonder. What was this new game like? What was the universe like? I wanted to know its secrets. This persisted in full through the alpha and the beta. I didn't know what I was doing or how to play the game really. Everything was new - an experiment in experience. A fire of burning curiosity. I would wander the cosmodrome, just to wonder what would be there when the game came out? I explored every meter of the map eager to immerse myself in this unfamiliar desert.

After the game came out, the flames began to flicker. The universe was still there… but what was revealed gave me doubt. It was the fear that had always lingered… Bungie didn't know what they were doing. It burned strong again in the Vault of Glass, and my blind run was perhaps one of the best experiences I've had ever in a video game. Certainly near the top.

The game kept getting in its own way. I had to work for my fun. I knew I was being played.I was the perfect mark. I tried to leave but didn't. Taken King and The Red War revitalized my curiosity. However, it was but a jolt to a heart that was slowly losing the will to beat. It was only a matter of time.

The world lost its sense of wonder. Only a sense of obligation remained. I left the tangled shores and never returned.

I wish to lay this game to rest. It is done. Someone else can give the eulogy. It simply took too much from me.

For such a frustrating encounter, I sure had a lot of fun in that room. It's where my bromance with ChristheCrappy became a thing. We found a way to work together to manage our little corner of the map. I can't imagine doing that raid without him. Just one memory of many. I'll share more when I've had more sleep.

Good and Ill.

This is harder to answer than I anticipated. A Decade of Memories... but these are far more fuzzy. Halo? Pretty clear for what is now 21 (UGH!), where Destiny in turn has a fair bit more scratches on the record for me. Lots more noise and gaps.

(Plus... on an unelaborated personal note, considering where I was when Destiny 1 was first announced, I can't help but bluntly think about "me". If I knew where I was going to be a decade ago, I would probably presume I failed. I didn't, and despite how it feels among optics, might even turn out to have been the best thing among the choices. I'll just have to make it.)

My frustrations, both past and present, are well-if-oft-bluntly or ramblingly documented. Something something like a madman something. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So I'll defer away from that, and instead speak what I've too often left un-writ.

Instead of a list I'm going to round this up to one thing. But first, if you're still here, and seen the decade of posts I have (for better or ill) you are already aware at some capacity that I'm an unorthodox, free thinking, and ever artsy bastard of a madman. Frustratingly so, I know, I'm me, I know I know the know I know, ya know.

...omg what is this language... (Sorry ZackDark.)

So please, dear DBO, even though I omit the social aspects, I have appreciated the nods and moments of the decade. Raids, invites, calls of action, all that jazz. I have been happy to help when I could, and appreciated and noted the gesture in turn. But, for this artists heart Destiny was its best in its Unique Moments. Its Art.

Things like... the Kings Fall or the Crown of Sorrow Raid endings. Crown of which being my personal favorite thus in D2, hence presented in the Op above. My goodness that transition is so clean. And some of the attempts they made at "a living world", again, much like I show in the Op. Despite the grievances I had about the timings and getting in to see the show (as I recall), which is probably why it hasn't occurred again in some time... dude. It's so cool.

And there is more than that but AHHH, no time.

Other little things:

• Europa, the joy I felt in them just NAIL-ing the concept art of that.
  
• The returned Mars "temporal rifts".
  
• Titan. (If you know, you know.)
  
• 7 years a secret Arcstrider main on the side. *Shhh* but don't tell anyone. ;D
  • 7 years, and it still hits me like it does in the beta. That super is has always been fun for me, and I'm not sure totally why, but I'm not sure I care either.

And that's all I have time for to write of this before the expansion drops.

Plus... what are you hoping to find, be it directly or indirectly, in the conclusion of the Light & Dark Saga?

As long as I don't feel insulted or frustrated by what the game asks of me, presents to me, I'll take it as a win. It's a pretty downer answer I admit, and I hate... really though, do not like at all... how much of a pessimist answer it is. It's totally uncharacteristic, but after Lightfail? Er, -fall? After what they did to CALUS, and ALL that build up ... resisting the urge to rant here... that boss fight and that stage they had put it on? Brother and Sister alive, all they have to do is not suck. Be fun, not frustrating. Be interesting, not insulting.

For example, I recall the ending of...

... Mass Effect made me feel like "I was in a Movie". It was Cinematic. It was Big. Filled with moments of Guile and Whit and Camaraderie. An Escape, while also being Real.

...or...

... Halo made me hold my breath, both in the Awe and the Ride. Yo! End of Halo 3, in that snow and choir. *Chef Kiss* That Ride with everything falling apart, dodging left and right...

...It's been a pleasure working with you John... *Tear* *Chef Kiss*

My ticket to Destiny 2 expires with the 2nd... what do we call them now? ... EPISODES! That's it. To more or less quote myself, "once we drop the baddie I'm done", but Echoes came with Admission, so, shit, I'll poke the Epilogue. After a decade and money down, might as well have that mulligan. But once #2 of 3, "Revenant" drops, that's it. The rest is a post for later.

My entire Destiny life has been in a haze of confusion. Never understanding the story, never knowing what to do or how to do it and always being too weak to play anything of value. These aren't complaints, just...how it's been.

Memories.

The details of this one are foggy. It wasn't as significant event for me as it was for everyone else. A group of regular raiders here needed a sixth to finish a final encounter. I had never played the raid, they basically just needed me to stand there. One of players had done the raid maaaany times in search for a certain weapon. At the end of the raid, I got said weapon and they didn't. Everyone laughed except for me and that person. He was pissed and I didn't know better.

The creation of Team Rabid Pets. Myself, DeadlyBunny, CougRon and MechaTanuki hopped into some Trials of Osiris. It was the first time for all of us. Not only did we lose every game, we lost every round....except for 1. And we celebrated like we won the Super Bowl.

An 8 hour Oryx fail. I had never beaten Kingsfall. A guy I worked with lead me, MechaTanuki, and a few DBOers hopped on just for the laughs. Our guide was like "yeah we can knock this our in a couple hours" We got to that Ogre battle where the challenge mode required everyone to hold an orb or something and we spent 6 hours trying to beat it. Except, I didn't realize he was trying to lead us through the challenge mode. UPon learning this, I yelled "wtf are we wasting all this time, I just want to beat this damn thing!" We made it to Oryx and everyone was too tired to continue.

That weekend everyone had that trace rifle in crucible. Aka, the only time the community, en masse, actually had fun in crucible.

Within the last year, my son got into Destiny and started teaching me how build my character and weapons. He's 10.

Destiny has been a great game, warts and all. Buuuutt...I'm definitely fatigued and ready to end it. I'm really hoping, at this point, they focus on making Marathon fun. No more deep lore. No more deep tuning/crafting. Just make it fun.

How did I forget joining the Crota Flawless run at the last second and ruining it, only to join a follow up attempt and succeed on the first try!

I would be grateful for some writ notes of this journey which we called Destiny. I am inviting all of us DBO'ers who played this game for any appreciable amount of time to speak of the experiences in-between. Good and Ill. Plus... what are you hoping to find, be it directly or indirectly, in the conclusion of the Light & Dark Saga?

I'm not even kidding. The world of Destiny, its story etc has been... fine. There's been some really cool moments, and some god-awful moments. I'm excited to see this play out in the next few days.

That being said, before Destiny, I was a lurker on these forums. I had my "real" friends and I also played games. What changed? The Raid. This is what forced me to ask some kind-hearted strangers on the internet for help. Once the magic of working together in an FPS with some really cool narrative beats came, I was hooked. From there, well, I've had some of the best times with friends playing a game I've ever experienced. In no particular order:

UpNorth65 and I bonded over taking down Crota as a two-person effort. He lived in someone's shed at the time and network issues prevented us from talking half the time. Rellekh and I now consider him to be one of our best friends.

There was a night when Rellekh and I were in the middle of moving and we set the consoles up in an empty living room to conquer Oryx on Hard Mode for a Moment of Triumph. ZeroPointFox led us through the raid with the patience of a saint.

Blind-Raiding the Leviathan with Kermit's crew was the first time I played with a group that had an equal number of men and women. It was worth it just for that experience.

Getting to meet Claude and his wife, and Nico on a couple excursions to Seattle was an absolute joy.

CruelLegacy helping Rellekh and me absolutely melt Dul Incaru during the first week of the Shattered Throne was amazing.

ChaosSociety was doing a nightfall solo and Rellekh and I dropped in when Valus Ta'aurc was down to 3% health. Rellekh got Gjallarhorn. Choas got the blues.

Crucible with IconicBannana when we forced a match between DBOers.

Pestering Insane to help with various tasks that were too hard to do solo, but would have been too easy in a group of three.

Lately, I've enjoyed being a casual raider with the occasional stint on the Wednesday Night crew. Y'all are fun to hang out with.

Anyways, I really wish Bungie had kept up the thing they did when D2 dropped where they showed your D1 accomplishments and the crew you ran them with. You can still view it and maybe you all should do that before jumping into the final shape.

-Robot