Gotta say, the momentum of this story is really hampered by the constant threat of network errors. I may just come back tomorrow…

Anyone having better luck?

How's it end?

How's it end?

Current Error: Ending Not Found. Click here for Cutscene.

Gotta say, the momentum of this story is really hampered by the constant threat of network errors. I may just come back tomorrow…

Anyone having better luck?

JIC.

https://mastodon.social/@bungiehelp

Once I was in a mission, I was able to complete it but it took a lot of attempts to load into anything.

Artistically, it's the most beautiful Destiny has ever looked. The distant environments/skyboxes, the up close detail, chef's kiss.

My grumpy old man tendencies can't be bothered with Prismatic. I don't have the patience to fiddle with another special power.

Some interesting story concepts were presented in the first mission that have me intrigued. There are so many questions and things I want to discuss, but it's not yet time.

I was watching a stream of the campaign and couldn't help but laugh my ass off when the "Contacting Destiny servers" message flashed across the screen repeatedly just as the Vanguard made their narrow escape from the wrath of the Witness.

From everything I've seen, the narrative looks pretty decent. I wouldn't say they're tapping into the rarefied air last glimpsed in The Witch Queen by any means, but it's about as good as I expected it to be. Gameplay is the real selling point here -- as it has been for most of Destiny's life.

How's it end?

The Witness is Lord Business from the Lego Movie.

- No text -

Gotta say, the momentum of this story is really hampered by the constant threat of network errors.

I heard it's good though. Like, actual character shit is happening.

Gotta say, the momentum of this story is really hampered by the constant threat of network errors.

I heard it's good though. Like, actual character shit is happening.

It’s… fine.

They could have used a lot more of that “show, don’t tell” axiom.

For example, they try to build these deep connections with ghosts that should be really low hanging fruit, but they just need to show it rather than belaboring the point with words that have not been earned.

Zavala’s character has a crisis of faith that would make sense if the rest of the game wasn’t constantly proving that it isn’t warranted. Thus we have a character behaving out of character with a new voice actor that just kind of takes you out of it. I think they could have pulled off the the whole crisis with some better writing, but it just feels off.

Cayde and Crow talking is wonderful. They aren’t overwritten and there’s some poignant stuff in there.

I can talk more later, but those are my initial thoughts.

Cayde plays a harmonica. Somehow. Hes a robit.

Space Magic.

Exactly. He’s known to enjoy spicy ramen as well.

Okay, the post-campaign missions/general exploration is much better at giving context to the stuff referenced in the campaign. Caitle and Zavala have some genuinely good moments.

After watching it all:

You guys did alright at the end there. Nice.

We decide our future. Will ours cross? That’s up to you. Don’t let business ruin a good thing.

See ya starside.

Okay. They stumbled at the 3/4 mark for me with the story. But MAN did they stick the ending. It’s beautiful.

Okay. They stumbled at the 3/4 mark for me with the story. But MAN did they stick the ending. It’s beautiful.

And what’s the last thing you hear?

Music of the Spheres.

Okay. They stumbled at the 3/4 mark for me with the story. But MAN did they stick the ending. It’s beautiful.

And what’s the last thing you hear?

Music of the Spheres.

Yeah, that made me very happy. The triumphant part we never got in d1 was finally played.

Throughout the pale heart, the music has been great. There’s one medley that incorporates themes from about 6 expansions I could count. In addition to Lance, there’s a bitter-sweetness to the other people who contributed to this that are no longer at Bungie. I’m hoping they all landed in a place where they can still feel proud of their work on this.

Okay. They stumbled at the 3/4 mark for me with the story. But MAN did they stick the ending. It’s beautiful.

And what’s the last thing you hear?

Music of the Spheres.

Yeah, that made me very happy. The triumphant part we never got in d1 was finally played.

Throughout the pale heart, the music has been great. There’s one medley that incorporates themes from about 6 expansions I could count. In addition to Lance, there’s a bitter-sweetness to the other people who contributed to this that are no longer at Bungie. I’m hoping they all landed in a place where they can still feel proud of their work on this.

I was very happy that the first piece of Destiny music ever released, Eighth, resurfaced just as they were releasing the lanterns. It remains one of my favorites, and was my wake-up alarm for many months.

The only distraction for me throughout has been Keith David through no fault of his own. He sounds like Keith David, who will always be the Arbiter to me. As I said to you the other day, I thought they could've found a talented voice actor who could reasonably mimic Lance Reddick. When I said that I was working under the impression that Nolan North was still doing Cayde, and I thought he really nailed it this time, but then I found out that Fillion was back! That said, I thought that Ikora (Mara Junot) sounded more like Gina Torres than she had before. So much so that I double-checked to if she had come back, too.

Back to Keith David, in the not-too-distant future Bungie will just use AI for such sad situations (with the family's permission).

Kerm

I do wonder how difficult it is to find good impersonators. The best I've seen it done was the Telltale Back To The Future game, where they found a young guy who could do a really good Michael J Fox voice.

When I hear Troy Baker doing the voice of Indy in the trailers for that new game, it just sounds like bland Troy Baker to me. Seems like they didn't put much effort in.

I do wonder how difficult it is to find good impersonators. The best I've seen it done was the Telltale Back To The Future game, where they found a young guy who could do a really good Michael J Fox voice.

When I hear Troy Baker doing the voice of Indy in the trailers for that new game, it just sounds like bland Troy Baker to me. Seems like they didn't put much effort in.

Yeah, not everyone can do everyone, but Troy Baker can sound very different. Nolan North, too. I suspect that Keith David can sound like only himself. I've known some talented mimics. It's like a super power.

We've discussed this, Robot, but I'll put some comments here. Destiny's writing has been plagued by what I'll call Chicken Little-ism for quite a while. Everything tiny thing you do is hyped as high stakes, so that not much feels like high stakes. The Final Shape feels more personal. In the face of (finally) legitimate high stakes, everybody started wearing their hearts on their sleeves, which makes some sense, but they don't stop, and as you put it, they don't trust their audience by showing instead of telling. Boy, do they tell, and then they tell again, and again, sometimes in the same speech, as if we couldn't understand the pretty straightforward statement you just made 10 seconds ago. It becomes less space opera, and more soap opera. I got it the first time, ghost, our relationship has been special, yada, yada, yada. Makes you appreciate the simple, understated "It's been a honor serving with you, John." The script would've been more effective if cut in half. Less is more. I'll stop else I'll be belaboring all the belaboring.

The final few scenes were good. Didn't get choked up like Paul Tassi (who could barely talk about it), but I get the acclaim. You never know with these things. It might yank my heart out during some future viewing. For me, it wasn't the ending of Halo 4, which made me cry almost every time I saw it. The wistfulness I feel comes from the fragility of things outside the game, like relationships here, the memories made with you all, and how at some point Destiny 2 will inevitably become a lonely experience, much like D1 is now, or, dare I say it, HBO is now. Regrets, I'd had a few, but I've had some very good times, too, for which I'm grateful.

P.S. The gameplay is stellar. The best it's ever been.

I do wonder how difficult it is to find good impersonators. The best I've seen it done was the Telltale Back To The Future game, where they found a young guy who could do a really good Michael J Fox voice.

AI!!!!. Just feed all of Lance Reddick's lines into a model, record the new lines with an actor, and have the AI change the voice.

Or is that not cool?

I want a Lance Reddick performance, not an algorithmic approximation of a Lance Reddick performance. Sadly, he's dead, so we can't have that anymore, but acceptance of death is an important part of life.

Let him go.

I want a Lance Reddick performance, not an algorithmic approximation of a Lance Reddick performance. Sadly, he's dead, so we can't have that anymore, but acceptance of death is an important part of life.

Let him go.

Cody may not have read my post that Cyber was replying to, but I definitely could see this happening simply because it's totally doable now. As I mentioned, though, the family would have to agree, and ideally so would Reddick. I can easily see there being a clause covering such scenarios in contracts at some point, and I don't know, but Lance seemed to like the role, and might have approved it. It's very sad that as an actor and a player, he didn't get to particlpate in this chapter.

I do believe there are voice actors out there who could have mimicked Reddick well enough. Keith David was a distraction for me, but Bungie had a relationship, and he was probably the easiest choice.

Human mimicry is quite different from the automated variety because you're still filtering the performance through the lens of an honest-to-God human actor. For example, when Nolan North had to fill in for Nathan Fillion as Cayde-6 in Forsaken, it's true that he was doing an impression, but it's also true that he was putting his own spin on the lines. He had to make hundreds of small, yet important decisions on things like inflection, cadence, and emotion in order to maximize the impact of his performance, and those decisions were made by an artistic intuitive human mind.

AI cannot replicate that.

I do have some general concerns about AI technology, but I'm certainly not against it categorically. I don't want to be that Luddite who stands in the way of progress because he's afraid of the ways that things might change. I'm just very against this seemingly-popular notion that it is desirable to use AI as a tool to resurrect the dead or recapture the past. To invoke a specific example for illustrative purposes, I feel like general audiences were very favorable toward the Mark Hamill deepfake in The Mandalorian, but to me, it rang hollow. I felt like I was watching a sort of inhuman zombie version of Mark Hamill. Listen, the guy was 32 years old when Return of the Jedi was released. That person no longer exists. The passage of time has changed him. He's 40 years older now and you cannot turn back the clock and manifest this lifeless avatar of his younger self without running headlong into the uncanny valley. The cameo would have been much more effective if they had simply recast the part because, at the very least, we would been watching an actual human being with his own interpretation of the role.

Mmm...

To put it succinctly, when I watched Cayde-6's death scene in Forsaken for the very first time, I thought to myself, "This is a damn good performance by Nolan North, who is doing a damn good impression of Nathan Fillion." When I watched Luke Skywalker take Grogu away for his Jedi training at the end of The Mandalorian Season 2, I thought to myself, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIS FACE?!"

Lance Reddick is gone. May he rest in peace.

... May he?

Good points.

Number one, I think it's creepy, and I'm very pro-human.

Number two, you can train an AI to sound like you today, and there are legitimate uses for that. It's helping people who are losing their voice, for instance.

Number three, I'm against doing anything without people's permission. I think it's Bruce Willis's prerogative to sell digital rights to his likeness, but I don't love the idea of a digital Bruce taking roles away from living actors forever, if that's what happens. On the other hand, had we known Reddick was leaving us, Bungie could gone Make-A-Wish with him, bring him in, explain their plans, and maybe worked out a plan using AI, and it could have been good. It would probably involve a human reading/acting the lines, and then the magic would happen. Just as it does with motion capture for video. There are ethical issues to be sure, but in certain cases, I'd be okay with it. Maybe Reddick would have trusted Bungie, and would've wanted Zavala to keep his iconic voice.