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I miss... this. (Destiny)

by CyberKN ⌂ @, Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Sunday, September 26, 2021, 12:47 (915 days ago)

I don’t know how, but last week I found myself scrolling back through my DBO post history, looking for nothing in particular. I forgot how much of a stats nerd I was; it feels like every third post was part of a debate about the merits of Outlaw vs Spray ’n’ Play, or High Impact vs Low Impact snipers.

Destiny was a game that I cared way too much about, for something that seemed to try and push me away with all it’s pavlovian investment systems and downright terrible narrative content.

There was a thread posted recently about how 7 years have passed since D1 launched, which was a shock;

I remember taking the day off work to go pick up my PS4 Destiny launch bundle, burning through all of Earth, the Moon, and the start of Venus... then lying awake at night wondering if I’d just wasted $500 on a new console, to play a game that seemed to only purportedly be designed from the studio that had created Halo. My disappointment was considerable.

So why did I keep playing? Why did I keep playing Destiny over and over for the period of over three years on a near daily basis?


[image]


Because of all of you.

I can’t thank Claude enough for creating HBO and DBO and thereby giving me a place to find friends (and foes!) for that period of my life. A place to discuss what we love so much about raiding or, as I said before, to argue about the finer points of balance, be it regarding a Titan’s shoulder charge, or whether we should have numbers instead of bars to display gear stats. I can theoretically do that anywhere on the internet, but here it felt like I was doing it with people I knew, not just shouting fruitlessly at the anonymous void. And I knew later that night or the next day I’d be running raids or strikes or crucible with those same people.

And the darn thing is I didn’t really grasp that until I was reading back through those old posts. When I decided to put my foot down and not engage in Destiny’s sequel, I wasn’t just putting a wall between myself and Destiny, I was handicapping my ability to maintain the relationships I’d built up over those two years here on this little corner of the internet.

It was never really about Destiny, it was just about having a common experience to reflect on with the people here.

So yeah, I really miss playing and regularly interacting with DBO folks. And I started thinking about what I could do to fix that… and the only answer that makes sense that I haven’t already tried is playing Destiny 2.

I don’t want to grind, level-up, or bang my head against the crucible for some gun that’ll probably get nerfed inside 6 weeks- I did more than my fair share of that the last time around. From what I’ve heard, Destiny 2 hasn’t improved much in that regard, and I could see it being easy to get caught in that cycle again.

But.

Making new friends and meaningful relationships is hard (for me). It was shortsighted of me to purposefully cut off (hyperbole) the ones I’d made here, it’s already too easy to lose friends because of circumstances that are out of our control.

So last week I messaged Kermit, and asked if he’d be open to running me through D2’s new light experience and help me find my feet.

It was fun to catch up with him, while hastily equipping every new blue or purple item that dropped. (I guess decrypting engrams isn’t a thing anymore? What does Rahool even do all day now?)

Despite Kermit’s patient explanations, I found the sheer number of systems and currencies overwhelming. Though, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering the game’s had a four-year headstart on me. I might make another post at some point about the “onboarding” experience.

Regardless, It’s been too long since I played with many of you, and I’d like to remedy that. If you see me online and are willing to help carry a confused, ~1200 light newbie through unfamiliar strikes or a nightfall, shoot me an invite.


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