Narrative (no spoilers) (Destiny)

by Avateur , Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 11:24 (3526 days ago) @ car15

Destiny violates the "show, don't tell" rule of storytelling. The Speaker goes on and on about how dire circumstances are and how important it is to protect the Light, but we never really understand why it's such a big deal because we don't see why. The Hive are performing a ritual and it's bad news for the Light... but why, exactly? We never find out.

I disagree. Earth is a wasteland, and you see that right at the start of the game. You do have to take it on word alone that there was a Golden Age and that the Darkness showed up and ruined it. Outside of the Tower, aliens be running around all over the place like they own the planet. Then we go to the Moon and there's all sorts of screwed up stuff going on. At just this point in the game, they've done more showing and almost no telling for how things got so bad. The Speaker even goes on at one point to say something like (paraphrased and spiced up by me), "Oh my goodness I could go on and on about the things I've seen and the badness that went down yo, but screw backstory!"

If anything they need to do MORE telling in some places, at least as far as the past is concerned.

As for the ritual and us never finding out, well, we don't find out because we stop them. At one point they do directly say that their ritual is draining the Traveler of its light. I suppose if we don't stop them, you'll get to find out that the last city has fallen and that humanity is probably dead. :P

I understand that this is a 10 year story and the first chapter of a larger tale, and I don't expect all of the answers right now, but we need some sense of danger or else it's just another weekend time-waster.

I do agree with the lack of danger. There's really no urgency to anything I'm doing. I tried to be like Steve Irwin and sneak right up on those ritualistic Hive, but they saw me and weren't having anything to do with that. I'm not taking their big galaxy-ending-doom-threats seriously. :P