Very true (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Wednesday, February 17, 2016, 15:52 (3205 days ago) @ Kermit

Of the several responses here, this is the one that is the most true from my experience, but I've also been in the room with the writers when levels were cut and the results were still better than the mishmash Destiny got.

The fact is that, if you look at the writing purely on a one mission at a time basis, you'll find that it's still crap. Almost no information is conveyed to the player, and the information that is conveyed is almost totally without context (and often just about how you have to open more doors). Then consider that a bunch of the script is actually really poor jokes that don't land, and it's even more disappointing. My most fun script moments from year one were all making fun of Peter Dinklage's lines. When you open the Prison of Elders and he says something like "remember, this was your idea"... No it wasn't! Not even a little bit.

Then the information between missions is downright contradictory. There are loads of moments where you're told you'll find out later and don't, or told you'll come back when you're ready and come back on the very next mission without anything changing for you, or told we don't know anything about the enemy forces only to be immediately told to kill a specific person because he's the leader of that enemy.

As with the tools design, the bugs, the balance in pvp, the poor level design, and the many other issues in the game, the lack of quality writing tells me that there was a major leadership and organizational problem at Bungie when vanilla Destiny was made. TTK was great until the endgame, so I'm hopeful those issues have been ironed out (though communication is still pretty poor), but those original issues are all still in the game (even after re-recording the ghost dialogue, which is pretty much unprecedented, they didn't re-write the nonsensical parts... whaaaaat) and have never, near as I can tell, been publically addressed.

For a studio whose writing I have loved over the years, Destiny really, really underdelivered, and for a game that got the most advertising hype of any game I can remember, it belly flopped. And I still play it. Damn all the problems, that core gunplay and movement is sooooo good. Seeing the potential the game has and how it failed to live up to that makes me upset (clearly). :(

I won't defend Destiny's Y1 story either, but I'll add that the Grimoire gave me a ton of hope. Destiny did indeed have a rich and deep universe. I know you've praised the cards so again I'm not disagreeing with you. I remember Xenos telling me that he read every Grimoire card as they unlocked, and that gave him a completely different experience compared to what he heard about from other players. Wish I had done that. I'll definitely do that for Destiny 2.

I wish I'd done that too. I didn't read any cards until I had 20 or so unlocked and then I was like, "Why isn't this in the game??? The game would be SO MUCH BETTER! Arrrgghh!"

Let's hope Destiny 2 incorporates the lore and story in a better way that doesn't require you to put down the controller in order to enjoy it.