I am reminded of an old article from 2013 when Pete Parsons was talking about Bungie and their goals for Destiny and the universe.

He said the following:

"We like to tell big stories and we want people to put the Destiny universe on the same shelf they put Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Star Wars".

Compare this with Naughty Dog, whose most recent games are already being compared favorably over other non video game works. Notice how Destiny largely has not succeed here.

Destiny's success I think has largely been in the 'gamey' circle. It's managed to capture people who like to play PvP, or play activities for the best guns and gear. I don't think it has branched out from this and created any sort of lasting cultural impact beyond that.

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.

It's a combination of investment driven game mechanics, and a failure of visual storytelling that has placed Destiny where it is. Now, I don't know if they are okay with that or not. I don't think there's anything wrong with being revered in terms of the 'gamey' aspects of your game. In that regard, I'd say that they did succeed. But their success does not seem to be the type of success highlighted in this article.

I wonder if their aims have changed. I think that might actually be a good move. It's almost better to bank on the game aspects because Bungie has a very good track record there. But to continue to pursue this goal might be not only misguided, but fundamentally incompatible with the type of game systems they have made.

If the Rise of Iron reveal is heavily story focused, that's almost a bad sign to me unless the game mechanics are completely overhauled.

He said the following:

"We like to tell big stories and we want people to put the Destiny universe on the same shelf they put Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Star Wars".

That's your problem right there.

Destiny started with no fucking story and even teased us as players in the game about it.

no time to explain
I could tell you of the stories
fuck dinklebot

The 3 mentioned above have very clear story lines and all have a beginning story.

Destiny was meant to be the beginning story and they fucked this up. Destiny will never be considered in the same light as the above 3 because no matter what story comes out now, the beginning is still fucked.

I should start finding excuses to repeat myself and link to old content too...

I should start finding excuses to repeat myself and link to old content too...

Yes, because Naughty Dog's new game and its success where Bungie failed or Rise of Iron has been mentioned before in the context of Bungie's story goals. NOT.

Destiny, for whatever the reasons, clearly misstepped in terms of story. In terms of a lot of things. But the universe is is solid, is a lot of fun, and, to me at least, is both a great place to tell stories and a place where great stories have already been told. And I think there are more great stories to come.

Specifically, I can't wait to see the continuation of the Exo Stranger's story. I can't want to see Rasputin come out of his shell and become the crazy Marathon-esq AI he is. I can't wait to see who The Nine are and, of course, it will be nice for The Darkness to come into true focus someday.

Yeah, a lot of the above isn't really in the game. But I'm also hopeful that they will have learned from the mistakes and fixed the processes and we'll get something increasingly awesome going forward. I don't expect Bungie to turn into a Naughty Dog or DONTNOD or anyone else. But they have best in class gameplay and some great writers. If they can just merge the two a little bit better next time I think we'll all be impressed.

I should start finding excuses to repeat myself and link to old content too...

Yes, because Naughty Dog's new game and its success where Bungie failed or Rise of Iron has been mentioned before in the context of Bungie's story goals. NOT.

Are Destiny's narrative deficiencies going to require repetition each time another studio publishes a successful game with a good story?

Maybe just write a shell script to do it, I don't know.

I should start finding excuses to repeat myself and link to old content too...

Yes, because Naughty Dog's new game and its success where Bungie failed or Rise of Iron has been mentioned before in the context of Bungie's story goals. NOT.

Are Destiny's narrative deficiencies going to require repetition each time another studio publishes a successful game with a good story?

Maybe just write a shell script to do it, I don't know.

Possibly. In 2013 it had never been done. Now it has and we can see the decisions and design that led to it. We have an actual case study which surpassed even what I thought was possible. I think to compare is valuable.

I'm sure we could goad him into whipping something up. ;p

(I kid, Cody. I mostly appreciate the discussions you bring up.)

I should start finding excuses to repeat myself and link to old content too...

Yes, because Naughty Dog's new game and its success where Bungie failed or Rise of Iron has been mentioned before in the context of Bungie's story goals. NOT.

Are Destiny's narrative deficiencies going to require repetition each time another studio publishes a successful game with a good story?

Maybe just write a shell script to do it, I don't know.

Possibly. In 2013 it had never been done. Now it has and we can see the decisions and design that led to it. We have an actual case study which surpassed even what I thought was possible. I think to compare is valuable.

... in 2013 what had never been done? Nobody had made a game with a better story than Destiny?

Destiny is not some watershed moment in the history of games development where it has to be remarked upon whenever a game with a better story gets released afterwards, but not before.

To compare in a close reading might be useful, except I think the narratives are too dissimilar to make a close reading valuable. In any case, a valuable comparison would be more than just, "well, there's another successful game with a story better than Destiny's."

- No text -

- No text -

My feelings regarding the Destiny story are this:

- They have a universe that is interesting and full of lore.

- They have a tremendous backstory.

- Neither of those things are in the actual story of the game.

The story of the game of Destiny is that you wake up with no idea what's going on and are given a gun. You shoot some things, and then you go to a place where people talk to you. They could tell you the story, but they won't. Then you shoot some more things. You're given breadcrumbs to go meet someone who might tell you what's going on, but they don't have time to explain why they don't have time to explain. They do point you towards some other things you have to shoot, though, so you shoot those things, too. The end. Oh, wait, there's also this Vault of Glass thing that was mentioned once and I guess you should go in there and shoot things too, though why this happens is never explained in game at all. Not even once. And none of the things you do in any of the game appear to make any difference whatsoever in the game world, which leaves the player with a "why did I even bother" feeling at the end.

The story of Crota's End is a little better, but not much. Still no explanation is in the game. We still don't know who we are or why we were chosen. But we know who Eris Morn is - she was part of a fireteam that went to the moon to stop Crota, leader of the invading army. Cool. She came back and is all messed up both physically and psychologically, and she warns us that Crota is coming back. Weirdly, no one else believes her or seems to care about what she says at all, even when her predictions turn out to be true. Which is pretty crappy writing imo, but let's move on. She tells us to shoot some things because those things are trying to bring back Crota. We totally shoot those things. We shoot the hell out of them. I know from the grimoire that we stop crota from entering our world, but in the context of the game and explanations given in it, that doesn't appear to be the case. This is a HUGE disconnect between "what's actually going on" in the context of the grimoire card lore and "what appears to be going on" in the context of just the information given to us in the game itself. Because the game never explains throne worlds, it seems as if the player has failed to stop Crota's return in the game, when in fact you totally succeeded. The motivations afterwards are equally confused: The player either chooses to invade Crota's throne world and end him once and for all, or the player must take the fight to Crota before he grows to strong to stop. Very, very different motivations - Do we kill him because we can or do we kill him because we have to? And the answers tell us very different things about our character's role in Destiny, as well as the general attitudes of the guardians. The fact that these incredibly different outcomes can be realized is due to really shitty writing in the actual game, and the failure to include the grimoire in the actual game as well. Of note, explaining CE took me like six times as long as explaining Vanilla Destiny. That's how much better the still super bad storytelling of CE is.

HoW's story is more linear and makes more sense as well, right up until it doesn't. Here's a good example of storytelling not matching gameplay. In game, all we know is the reef is now open to us. There is no in-game explanation for Skolas having once been a prisoner of the reef and then being given to the Nine and then escaping. In fact, where CE had good backstory explanation for the premise of the missions, HoW has none whatsoever. But hey, missions are missions right? In fact, we get our first missions that are not expressly to shoot things. Our mission is to track down Skolas. Shooting things is required in the process, but our goal is not to kill anything, specifically, and if we could somehow track down Skolas without shooting, it seems that would be totally acceptable. This is a watershed moment for the game's writing and is the first time that our goal is not directly to murder things. All of the missions are then a linear progression of our efforts to track down Skolas. We make some wrong turns, get ambushed by assassins, and even discover that Skolas is trying to steal vex technology for his own. This makes our efforts to track him down more urgent - vex tech in fallen hands would be disastrous (as the game actually tells us!). We eventually are able to catch up to him and capture him before he can use the tech too much, and crisis is averted. An actually compelling plot thus far, and fairly well written (minus the lack of backstory). At this point, however, it falls apart. We went through all of that to capture skolas, and the very next thing we're supposed to do is go into his prison and kill him. It's completely fucking stupid. There's no plot reason given at all. It's literally "thanks for capturing him, now kill him." I've heard that the lore reason is Skolas somehow started staging a rebellion from inside the prison or something, but I haven't read that in the grimoire (I may just be missing the ghosts needed, or not have read them yet - I just picked up like 6 I was missing this past weekend)... But that doesn't matter. There should be a damn cutscene or something explaining all of this. Whatever, let's move on:

TTK was really well done. Well written, good cutscenes, kinda weird that Oryx speaks English, but I'm willing to forgive that given that everything else makes a lot of sense. Oryx comes to avenge his son's death. The Queen tries to stop him but fails, though she does ensure his dreadnaught stays in Saturn's orbit rather than progressing further. Oryx uses previously unseen powers to "take" enemies and make them his as well as give them more powers. We first investigate this and then realize shits going downhill quickly. We have to get on board the dreadnaught, so we find a cloaking device and manage to (just barely) get aboard. Then we plant some beacons and disable the super weapon, allowing more guardians on board. Eventually we figure out that to bring the fight to Oryx (with the throne world actually kind of explained in-game!) we have to become ascendent hive. Which we can do by stealing Crota's essence from his tomb. We also learn that Eris has some dark power we didn't know she had previously. We open the portal to Oryx's throne world, enter it, kill all of his minions, and eventually blast the bastard into space. it's pretty great.

There's an additional story element here that takes place after each expansion, and is - I think - why it feels like Destiny falls short. The endgame story of Destiny is boring as fuck. It's literally meaningless with no plot or purpose. After the initial missions, and the missions of each expansion of the game, there is nothing to do. The endgame is booooring. Not a single new plot element shows up until TTK, which had some very cool stuff in The Sleeper Simulant, The Fate of All Fools, and a few other very high level "quests" such as getting Touch of Malice or the Beltane shader. Before TTK, every endgame activity was unguided collection of RNG-based loot drops, the use of which was purely to help you get more RNG-based loot drops. Boring, boring, boring. It's about as not-epic as an endgame could be.

I, for one, do not get why nearly every game "ends" its story right around the same time the player hits max level (or, in the case of vanilla Destiny, before then). Why have levels at all if they're just placeholders that match your progression through the story? Why have a story that ends just as the player is becoming truly powerful? Why not give endgame players something to do that furthers the plot? It's all a wasted opportunity and a disappointing fact: Destiny is a game about loot, not about epic storytelling.

That's why it will never live up to the worlds it purports to emulate. The focus is repetition, which requires plot stagnation, and not epic storytelling, which requires plot progression.

I, for one, do not get why nearly every game "ends" its story right around the same time the player hits max level (or, in the case of vanilla Destiny, before then). Why have levels at all if they're just placeholders that match your progression through the story? Why have a story that ends just as the player is becoming truly powerful? Why not give endgame players something to do that furthers the plot? It's all a wasted opportunity and a disappointing fact: Destiny is a game about loot, not about epic storytelling.

DIdn't TTK kind of do this? When you complete Regicide, you are not very powerful. You continue to gain levels in the subsequent quests leading up to the raid which are story based. I get what you are saying though, because story progression stops when you start to level up to tackle the hard raid. I guess if you just played the game and beat the raid once on normal, that would approximate the experience you are after.

But what you are asking goes against the broken design of the game. You're asking for a path to max level with no repetition or grinding. That's not going to happen.

- No text -

World ending. Horrible monstrous threat. You are our only hope of surviving. I think that's what you were looking for.

/QuestionCorrecting

I should start finding excuses to repeat myself and link to old content too...

Yes, because Naughty Dog's new game and its success where Bungie failed or Rise of Iron has been mentioned before in the context of Bungie's story goals. NOT.

Are Destiny's narrative deficiencies going to require repetition each time another studio publishes a successful game with a good story?

Maybe just write a shell script to do it, I don't know.

Possibly. In 2013 it had never been done. Now it has and we can see the decisions and design that led to it. We have an actual case study which surpassed even what I thought was possible. I think to compare is valuable.

... in 2013 what had never been done? Nobody had made a game with a better story than Destiny?

No, I think Cody's referring to comparisons being made between Naughty Dog's latest game and non-gaming story works.

I should start finding excuses to repeat myself and link to old content too...

Yes, because Naughty Dog's new game and its success where Bungie failed or Rise of Iron has been mentioned before in the context of Bungie's story goals. NOT.

Are Destiny's narrative deficiencies going to require repetition each time another studio publishes a successful game with a good story?

Maybe just write a shell script to do it, I don't know.

Possibly. In 2013 it had never been done. Now it has and we can see the decisions and design that led to it. We have an actual case study which surpassed even what I thought was possible. I think to compare is valuable.

... in 2013 what had never been done? Nobody had made a game with a better story than Destiny?

No, I think Cody's referring to comparisons being made between Naughty Dog's latest game and non-gaming story works.

Correct. Nobody had made a game that could live up to the goals Bungie stated in the portion I quoted.

Cody, sometimes I'm sorry that I don't have (or choose to have) more time to respond to some of your argument inducing posts. But here I am, so let's go :)

I am reminded of an old article from 2013 when Pete Parsons was talking about Bungie and their goals for Destiny and the universe.

He said the following:

"We like to tell big stories and we want people to put the Destiny universe on the same shelf they put Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Star Wars".

Okay, so for stupid reasons I've never read Harry Potter or seen any of the movies, so I'm going to shelve that and completely ignore it as a target when making my reply.

My first though upon reading that is "That's a great thing to shoot for, but shooting for it doesn't mean you can archive it". Many books and movies have tried to be the next Star Wars and TLOTR and they failed not for lack of effort, they failed because those stories are right place, right time, right author. BUT, that doesn't mean they aren't worth shooting for, and I don't believe anyone who shoots for them has failed per-say just because their works don't end up in a tie for best trilogy.

Compare this with Naughty Dog, whose most recent games are already being compared favorably over other non video game works. Notice how Destiny largely has not succeed here.

Huh, interesting. I've never heard of Naughty Dog. Perhaps I'm running in the wrong literacy circles? I know that will be interpreted as sarcastic, but it's not and I mean what I say. Game reviews and cutting edge games are not what I spend my time following. But until one of my non-gaming friends tells me about a story that takes place in a game, I'll be loathe to believe anything has come close to TLOTR, despite what some 20 something game reviewer says.

Destiny's success I think has largely been in the 'gamey' circle. It's managed to capture people who like to play PvP, or play activities for the best guns and gear. I don't think it has branched out from this and created any sort of lasting cultural impact beyond that.

Here is the thing about cultural impact, it's really hard to tell it's been impacted until years later. Take Tolkien again as the example, in a lot of ways he defined what a dwarf and elf were. BUT, so many of those "definitions" didn't really see wide spread acceptance until decades after the books were published. I grew up playing a little known game called "Realmz" that introduced me to the caricatures of Tolkien races, and it wasn't until years afterwards that I put two and two together and realized Tolkien was the one that placed those ideas in popular culture (if not also invented).

I'd also argue that Tolkein's influence was largely in the literature circle, and that it took decades for it to influence film and game, at least from a "pop culture" standpoint.

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.

GIven that description, which may or may not match yours, Destiny has REALLY succeeded! The 9? Missing Guardians of great power? The Traveler? The Darkness? The Awoken? What's the goal of the other races? Destiny has so much mystery and wonder that I actually think it fits right in with TLOTRs and other great universe creating works like Dune. So many players, so much agenda, and little of it is known to the viewer as of yet. Bungie (in my mind) has indeed created the kind of world that we WANT stories to be told in because it's an amazing universe. The shame of it all is (and no one disagrees here) that there just isn't enough plot and story within the universe yet. It can be bland or predictable. It can have simple characters, BUT the story needs to thread us through this universe and introduce us to the players a little bit better. We need to bump into The Nine even if it gives us no one than what Tom Bombadil gave us. THAT is what is missing from Destiny IMHO, and not the universe creating wonder that Tolkien, Lucas and Herbert gave us.

It's a combination of investment driven game mechanics, and a failure of visual storytelling that has placed Destiny where it is.

Interesting, as neither of those attributes are what made Star Wars or Middle Earth the universes that they are.

Now, I don't know if they are okay with that or not. I don't think there's anything wrong with being revered in terms of the 'gamey' aspects of your game. In that regard, I'd say that they did succeed. But their success does not seem to be the type of success highlighted in this article.

They succeeded where they needed too. Tolkien could have created the most brilliant universe to have ever existed, and yet if he didn't have a half way decent grasp of writing we'd never known it. A game's ability to be fun and immersive (in an interactive way) are the equivalent. I can play Destiny and forget I'm using a controller. There are many games I've played that, despite the story, failed that, and failing that they ruin the story. A game has to be a game first, and with that Bungie nailed it. I'd also argue that they nailed the universe building, and my evidence for that is how much people want Bungie to tell a story. No one wants another National Treasure movie made, they want another Star Wars movie made. They don't want another star wars movie made because they want to know what happened to the characters, they want more stories in that universe.

I wonder if their aims have changed. I think that might actually be a good move. It's almost better to bank on the game aspects because Bungie has a very good track record there. But to continue to pursue this goal might be not only misguided, but fundamentally incompatible with the type of game systems they have made.

I've of the opinion that the type of game system has exactly zero to do with the ability of the designer to tell a good story. I've been engrossed in stories in just about ever genre under the sun (except for racing, those suck).

In closing, I submit the above as evidence that it doesn't matter how good a universe *I* create, my writing style and ability will render it un-explorable. Which is to say I'm not proof reading this, I have to leave :)

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 :)

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 :)

And I appreciate you :)

I suppose I should clarify a tiny bit about the story. I do believe you need characters to care about, but I think the way TLOTR portrayed characters was a little bit as pawns in a bigger story, which I believe was a good thing. Let me explain. In TLOTR the thing we did not want to happen was for evil to get the ring. This isn't even like a lot of modern grey scale stories, where it's us vs the "enemy. In the case of TLOTR, the Dark Lord is pure evil, period. The point of armies dying, and the reason a character like Gandalf would give his life is because that was so important. What made the protagonist endearing was that he really wasn't all that special (like you and me). He was small, no magic, no real skills besides being undetectable, and generally had a strong anti-evil persona that helped him deal with the ring. We rooted for Hobbits because they were like us. But Frodo? Exactly what makes us want him to live otherwise? His family? His kids? He had a job or mission back home that wasn't complete? He's a boring guy from a boring village! He doesn't have so much as a picture of a girl-back-home to point to. I'd argue that the point of the character was to be simple and boring (again, not unlike the average reader) and yet still able to take on a grand adventure and conquer evil.

So I suppose what I mean when I say the characters are simple and straight forward is not to say they are unimportant. Gandalf is important, if only because he is mysterious and powerful. He's like a father figure that, if he dies you feel lost and the world feels even bigger and more terrifying than before, yet that choice adds a lot of weight to the job of destroying the ring. Hobbits are by their nature supposed to be us, and that is an important part of their role and character.

It works for Destiny too. We are simple nobodies raised from the dead. Why us? We don't know. We know Guardians can be great, and there are in fact amazing guardians that came before us. Guardians can't (or have a hard time) dying. So what would make the mythical amazing guardians risk and sometimes acquire death? What was their mission, their idea, their knowledge? Are they even dead?

I think, and I hope, that what Bungie has intentionally done is set themselves up for a sort of Simarillion story. The universe is there, all we need are the epic stories to fill in some (but not all!) of the history, complete some of the mysteries. Our own character never has to be amazing, never has to have a family to go home to. I don't need to survive so that I can go back to "what once was", instead I need to defeat evil, and for that, I will give my life.

I should start finding excuses to repeat myself and link to old content too...

Yes, because Naughty Dog's new game and its success where Bungie failed or Rise of Iron has been mentioned before in the context of Bungie's story goals. NOT.

Are Destiny's narrative deficiencies going to require repetition each time another studio publishes a successful game with a good story?

Maybe just write a shell script to do it, I don't know.

Possibly. In 2013 it had never been done. Now it has and we can see the decisions and design that led to it. We have an actual case study which surpassed even what I thought was possible. I think to compare is valuable.

... in 2013 what had never been done? Nobody had made a game with a better story than Destiny?

No, I think Cody's referring to comparisons being made between Naughty Dog's latest game and non-gaming story works.

Correct. Nobody had made a game that could live up to the goals Bungie stated in the portion I quoted.

Does that make it an unworthy goal?

Does shooting for that goal and not achieving it make the entire cause a failure?

Does shooting for that goal and not achieving it make the entire cause a failure?

Only if you do not learn why you failed.

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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).

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.

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.

Oh yeah, I think the 3, 5 and 10 year plan is still in place and functioning. I just think they kinda screwed up on the baseline.

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.

My thoughts when I finished vanilla Destiny: "Ok, so Bungie didn't tell me a great story, but they really set up an intriguing universe. That felt more like reading a prolog than the ending of the first book in a series."

I wanted to feel like I reached the ending of the first book, instead I got the setup for some great stories in the future. I'm not complaining here. Think of it like this, I knew I was getting desert, I was hoping to be served cheesecake, however they served ice cream. Both are enjoyable, cheesecake is better, but ice cream is still a good experience.

After throwing out the book, Bungie was still able to rescue the universe and introduce us to it. I feel like that was a pretty decent accomplishment on Bungie's part (but gosh darn it, I still wanted the book ;-) ).

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I, for one, do not get why nearly every game "ends" its story right around the same time the player hits max level (or, in the case of vanilla Destiny, before then). Why have levels at all if they're just placeholders that match your progression through the story? Why have a story that ends just as the player is becoming truly powerful? Why not give endgame players something to do that furthers the plot? It's all a wasted opportunity and a disappointing fact: Destiny is a game about loot, not about epic storytelling.

DIdn't TTK kind of do this? When you complete Regicide, you are not very powerful. You continue to gain levels in the subsequent quests leading up to the raid which are story based. I get what you are saying though, because story progression stops when you start to level up to tackle the hard raid. I guess if you just played the game and beat the raid once on normal, that would approximate the experience you are after.

But what you are asking goes against the broken design of the game. You're asking for a path to max level with no repetition or grinding. That's not going to happen.

TTK did do it to a small degree, I'm pretty sure i mentioned that, speaking of Touch of Malice, Beltrane, Sleeper Simulant, the swords, and No Time to Explain (which I called Fate of All Fools), all of which were great but none of which furthered the plot of the game.

That being said, it's totally easy to make max level happen without repetition or grinding. You just gate the experience such that you're done leveling up well before you're done with the story missions. In WoW when you hit max level suddenly a whole bunch of additional quests appear and dungeons unlock. There is no reason not to have the plot continue after you hit max level.

I believe vanilla Destiny would have been much better if it had been a linear mission start to finish focused only on the black garden, upon completion of which unlocked all of the other mission chains. It would have been a slightly more satisfying ending and then an excellent opening of the game world and revisiting of places you'd already explored.

Back to the subject: I feel like the leveling up process is sort of a stand-in for a tutorial. You're acquiring and learning new skills. The only reason to keep the "levels" going once all of the skills are acquired is because players like to see that glowy "ding" of leveling up - it's purely for the dopamine, which means it serves no real gameplay purpose at that point (and thus falls into what I consider to be the "abusive" category of game elements).

Or look at it in terms of gear. Levels in Destiny are literally only tied to the quality of gear you can equip and difficulty of enemies you face. They are are meaningless in all other regards. The gear grind is so long in this game that reaching max level instantly would not negatively affect most gameplay, other than letting you use your preferred weapons immediately rather than only after using some crappy green of a type you don't like for a few hours. Similarly, the level disparities between the player and enemy minions are handled in such a way that you never out-level an enemy. In fact, character level is so meaningless that they had to add light levels to the game to give you some indication of player power - and it's based on gear, not experience. All of which begs the question: Why even have levels in the game? They really serve very little purpose.

Heck, there's a third metric I use to evaluate guardians - grimoire score. Again, way more indicative of player power and skill than the character's level. I don't know why the biggest number is the most useless, but I know it is.

The similarities are so striking that I have to think someone high up and Bungie or Activision played Warframe and then commanded Destiny to "be like that."

I should start finding excuses to repeat myself and link to old content too...

Yes, because Naughty Dog's new game and its success where Bungie failed or Rise of Iron has been mentioned before in the context of Bungie's story goals. NOT.

Are Destiny's narrative deficiencies going to require repetition each time another studio publishes a successful game with a good story?

Maybe just write a shell script to do it, I don't know.

Possibly. In 2013 it had never been done. Now it has and we can see the decisions and design that led to it. We have an actual case study which surpassed even what I thought was possible. I think to compare is valuable.

... in 2013 what had never been done? Nobody had made a game with a better story than Destiny?

No, I think Cody's referring to comparisons being made between Naughty Dog's latest game and non-gaming story works.

Correct. Nobody had made a game that could live up to the goals Bungie stated in the portion I quoted.

Oh man, I don't know. Final Fantasy 7 and 8 had incredible stories. Chrono Trigger was amazing. The world and lore of the Witcher and Witcher 2 (both out before Destiny) is literally the stuff of legends though I'm unsure if that counts since they are based on literature and not the other way around. How do we feel about fully integrated worlds, like Full Metal Alchemist, which was conceived as a TV series and toy series and video game all at once? Silent Hill 2 still haunts me in ways that Destiny never will. Resident Evil was at the forefront of the resurgence in zombie pop-culture popularity.

And, let us not forget the 800 lb gorilla: World of Warcraft. Novels after novels, and now a movie.

There are games that have created worlds so compelling they spawned entire genres. I remember when FPS shooters were for PC only. The concept of a "console shooter" was a laughingstock. And then Halo came out. It was vast, fun, epic, and had so much depth and mystery that it, too, got the novel treatment and several films (if not a major theatrical release... Yet).

I believe that there are games that lived up to the goals Bungie stated. I believe Bungie has created some of those. Which is why Destiny missing the mark is so bewildering to me. The pedigree was there. The execution was not.

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.

My thoughts when I finished vanilla Destiny: "Ok, so Bungie didn't tell me a great story, but they really set up an intriguing universe. That felt more like reading a prolog than the ending of the first book in a series."

I wanted to feel like I reached the ending of the first book, instead I got the setup for some great stories in the future. I'm not complaining here. Think of it like this, I knew I was getting desert, I was hoping to be served cheesecake, however they served ice cream. Both are enjoyable, cheesecake is better, but ice cream is still a good experience.

After throwing out the book, Bungie was still able to rescue the universe and introduce us to it. I feel like that was a pretty decent accomplishment on Bungie's part (but gosh darn it, I still wanted the book ;-) ).

See, I felt like the ads said "there's a crapload of amazing cheesecake here" and then when I got there I got a pretty restaurant (gorgeous, in fact) with only cream of wheat to eat, all served by a robot staff. The silverware is expensive and refined. The place setting immaculate. Heck, the smells from the kitchen are beyond mouth-watering, but the actual food is kind of boring, bland, and not at all what I was expecting. But because it's a prix-fix menu, I keep sitting down and hoping the chef will send out a filet, or maybe - just maybe - that damn cheesecake.

I believe vanilla Destiny would have been much better if it had been a linear mission start to finish focused only on the black garden, upon completion of which unlocked all of the other mission chains. It would have been a slightly more satisfying ending and then an excellent opening of the game world and revisiting of places you'd already explored.

So much this. Especially now that the expansions have been worked into vanilla destiny. For example, when playing through Destiny w/ my Bro-in-law we played the Sword of Crota mission, suddenly a Dark Below quest-line was opened up to us. It was quite confusing to find out we were on an expansion quest line when we hadn't even yet finished vanilla destiny. I did not like it, nor did he. I think we ended up doing one of the warmind missions accidentally too. The IDEA of a non-linear story presentation sounds good, but in practice I think it's just confusing and makes any plot/story even harder to understand.

The similarities are so striking that I have to think someone high up and Bungie or Activision played Warframe and then commanded Destiny to "be like that."

The folks at DE confirmed that some folks at Bungie are Warframe players, and have complemented them about the game.

But yeah, remember the early comparison that I made to the way the tutorial plays out in Warframe?

You are awakened by an AI as enemies close in on your position. You don't know who you are or what's happening, but it turns out that you are a warrior from an older era, where a Golden Age was brought down by a massive-yet-vague conflict. The AI that helps you is a product of this era. You have to fight through enemies, collecting weapons before you find an old ship that you have to steal to fly out. Once free, you learn that you are not alone. There are many other re-awoken warriors like you, and you must take the fight to the forces that have taken over the Solar System so that you might reclaim the glory of what was before...

The similarities don't end there, with possibly-rampant AI allies, beyond-system motherships, An enemy faction made up of "Taken" enemies from all other factions, a large, white, broken sphere that is the source of the Warframes' power, and so on...

The only difference is that the latest story content moved Warframe players to tears because of the surprising impact and new content, while Destiny players were moved to tears because of the surprising lack of new content. :P

Although Cody can't possibly analyze and compare the plots and game quality, since Warframe has microtransactions. :P

Although Cody can't possibly analyze and compare the plots and game quality, since Warframe has microtransactions. :P

Nope. I'd never ever play that game for fun.

The only way I'd ever play it is for research for some sort of academic piece of writing. Thankfully I don't think I'll ever have to write about it.

I believe vanilla Destiny would have been much better if it had been a linear mission start to finish focused only on the black garden, upon completion of which unlocked all of the other mission chains. It would have been a slightly more satisfying ending and then an excellent opening of the game world and revisiting of places you'd already explored.

So much this. Especially now that the expansions have been worked into vanilla destiny. For example, when playing through Destiny w/ my Bro-in-law we played the Sword of Crota mission, suddenly a Dark Below quest-line was opened up to us. It was quite confusing to find out we were on an expansion quest line when we hadn't even yet finished vanilla destiny. I did not like it, nor did he. I think we ended up doing one of the warmind missions accidentally too. The IDEA of a non-linear story presentation sounds good, but in practice I think it's just confusing and makes any plot/story even harder to understand.

Yeah. Non-linear storytelling isn't, pretty much by definition, storytelling. I had actually beaten Vanilla Destiny before I ever realized that stars with laurels were "main story missions" and stars by themselves were "side story missions." The storytelling made so little sense that it didn't even occur to me that there was a main story or side stories. It was just "well, this unlocked so I guess it's next."

Caveat: Parallel storytelling is GREAT and can work really really well if done properly. Take a gander at StarCraft 2's "optional" missions where you decide if you do mission X or mission Y and get different results going into mission Z afterwards (but you can't do both until you've beaten the whole game or start over from an old save).

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It's actually very linear. You can't go back in time to beat the boss before you're supposed to beat the boss until after you've already beaten the boss once, for example. Including time loops in your gameplay story is fine when those loops can only really be performed after a specific sequence of events has already unfolded.

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