Let me ask you both a question (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Sunday, July 20, 2014, 09:35 (3797 days ago) @ Revenant1988
edited by Kermit, Sunday, July 20, 2014, 09:45

I'll answer. I explained this a long time ago, but I'll apply my thinking to this new context. These are cards, which implies a degree of portability. The object could exist in the game and in real life, much like Halsey's Journal actually does appear in the game and in real life. The cards' existence inside the game is believable.

What makes 343's so-called terminals "retarded" is that they are episodic cutscenes masquerading as found objects in the game world. Who in the game world made them? Why would they exist in the game world? To quote myself, "They’re easter eggs that break immersion while trying to deepen it. They’re terminals found in the game world, but they take you out of it."

Why would you open a terminal except to view it in the moment? And why would a terminal in the game world present an omniscient perspective? Conversely, it seems more realistic to me that a character in a game might read Grimoire cards in a moment of leisure and not in a hostile environment. That's why I think I agree with Xenos and TTL Demog0gue. Reading the cards you get to, in a sense, inhabit your character outside the game world, and get a flavor of the world without playing the game. When you return to the game world, you have a richer understanding of it. At no point are the objects' integrity as found objects undermined.

343's "terminals" would be fine if they weren't called terminals and they didn't use the game's mechanic of "accessing terminals" to unlock them.