A legit responce (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Tuesday, June 07, 2016, 12:55 (2902 days ago) @ MacAddictXIV

You're making tons of great points and interesting comments... I wish I had time to respond to them all, but I don't at the moment. So I'm just going to address 1 point in particular:

I don't think people are caring about the Destiny universe in the same way that they care about the three universes mentioned in the quote. They haven't really succeeded here. I've written about why I think this is the case. But to say people don't care about the Destiny universe at all is wrong. They clearly do. Just not in the manner they were aiming for.

Here is where I disagree. Strongly. Perhaps it's because I don't know Harry potter, but I have a feeling that I still know what makes Star Wars and TLOTRs great, and it's NOT the main story arc. It's really not. The main story arc is incredibly straight forward if not boring. The character development is bland, and the characters are near forgettable. No, what makes Star Wars and TLOTRs great is the universe that has been created around the story. This is particularly true in TLOTRs, which goes out of its way repeatedly to drop hints or clues as to bigger things, and give you NO conclusion. Tolkien posits way more questions and mystic than he ever bothers to explain to the reader, and THAT'S what makes it an interesting universe and world. To (a much lesser) extent this is what makes Star Wards great too. The FOrce? Wtf is that? Who knows, it just is, and we the viewer don't and can't understand it, which means it's allowed to surprise us. This is in part why the whole "midiclorians" (sp?) pissed so many people off. It'd be like if the Hobbit movie tried to answer the questions of who Tom Bombadil or who Beorn (not our Beorn, the Hobbit one that his name sake comes from) is. It'd be stupid because it would take the mystery out of the universe.

This is I feel completely differently than you do. For me to be remotely invested in the worlds of LotR, Star Wars, or any other fantasy/fiction/sci-fi/whatever, I need to care about the characters. I agree that the plots in many of the most celebrated franchises are nothing remotely special, but it is the characters themselves that pull me in and make me care. Without Gandalf and Aragorn, Han Solo and Darth Vader, these stories mean absolutely nothing to me. And that is where Destiny is truly lacking, IMO. Yes, Vanilla Destiny had a painfully undercooked plot. But for me, that isn't nearly as bad as the fact that I came out of the game not giving a damn about any of the characters. I can read grimoire cards and appreciate them to an extent (I think a lot of fascinating writing went into them), but they don't really help me care about Destiny. Not the way I would if there were a single character to latch on to.

Just my thoughts on it. Appreciate your post :)

I would have to say that some characters need more expanding. I really like where they go, like Holliday (this is where I start butchering names) or really any of the Vendors. I feel like I spend a ton of time with them yet I never get to hear their story. I think that is very important and there has to be a way to tie in more to their story. With the Gunsmith (Banshee?) We learn about him from what he says every so often, that's great, but I need more. In that sense, I completely get you. Need more.

Then there are others like, the most prominent, Eris Morn. We know a lot about her, and it's great. She embodies a tortured soul. She has deep emotion but still has a drive to move forward for revenge. The Exo Stranger is another character that, unlike Eris, has very little history but at the same time, I feel like I know a heck of a lot about her compared to other characters I see on a daily basis.

There is a big difference between characters that I know very little about but I know I shouldn't and characters that I know little about but I feel like I should know more by this point. That is the difference between The Stranger and say, Zavala.

Although maybe that is the plan for some of the expansions, maybe we won't really know until more about them until then. We don't know anything about Saladin, but maybe we will get to know more about him in the next release. Although I would like more information about the characters, I'm also excited to have some characters star in new expansions (like Cayde-6).

I think it's obvious that more story was originally intended to be told in the game (especially in year one), but I really hope all the narrative seeds planted from the start take root and grow into something that blows our minds in year 10.