Let me ask you both a question (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, July 21, 2014, 08:25 (3796 days ago) @ Revenant1988

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.

Ahhh this isn't exactly what I'm asking about. I'm not asking why these cards are better than the terminals- its not why one piece of content is better than the other per say (even though I agree with most of your points on that); that's apples and oranges.

It's the method in which they are accessed. You should not have to leave the game in order to consume this in-game content.

From every dead ghost I found that I could revive, I would see the title of what I unlocked and want to read about it in that moment. I couldn't. I also gather these were important supplements to the plot, "The darkness", "Golden Age", "Traveler1,2,3" come to mind, as well as some of the other species ones I found.

Yeah, you can pull em up on your phone (well, I can't because my phone is ancient) or the website, but you should be able to pull them up in your inventory and read them too.

Especially if you are going to argue the plausibility of them in the real world (i.e. they are card) than what possible strain can they be for my titan to carry when in my inventory I have numerous pieces of armor, weapons, materials, and a pocket rocket bike?

Sorry man, I'm not buying it.

I should't need to be asked to leave my TV to go fill in story gaps for the game I am playing, even if it is just as close to me on my phone or whatever. It was dumb when 343 did it, and it's not any less dumb to me here, if that is the way it's going to work.

If you want to drive traffic to your site or increase your app downloads though...

(Again, maybe this will change by the time it's out)

343 did it because they dropped the ball and couldn't get it in the game in time. This is substantially different, and is much more akin to extra-game content like Halsey's Journal, or the manual that came with the Special Edition of Halo 2. There is no advantage to consuming it in-game, and you could consider it a feature that you can get little hits of Destiny during your downtime away from your console.