Speculation Update Time!

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Thursday, March 28, 2013, 23:03 (4256 days ago) @ rliebherr

Having just finished the GDC panel video I think it's time for a Speculation Update.*

1. Not just Humans anymore!

I'd been approaching all my Destiny speculation from the perspective that all the players would be Human. Different classes with different armor, abilities, and guns, sure, but Humans none the less. That's all the available data supported, until now. But now things are very different. And exciting!

- These three races apparently coexist in The Last City… at least well enough for all three to serve as Guardians. I'd guess they were all Human once, but the events of Destiny's past, and perhaps The Traveler, changed all that… Except… Robots? And not just mindless automatons! Judging from the Exo's "postcard" concept art, of it slumped against a wall after a battle, they feel. Are they self aware? Are they alive? Or is Bungie giving us the chance to play a race that is neither? Wouldn't that be interesting?! :) The Awakened I'm more guessing that they've been either affected by whatever war knocked Humanity down, or that they're Traveler Infused++. Either way I'm guessing they're "human", just different. Of course they may literally be space elves. Who knows?! :)

2. Concept Art = Concept Reality.

One of the most impressive things I saw during the talk was Grognok. I'm no game developer. Maybe all games are developed like this. But by the way it was talked about, I don't think so. What impressed the most though, apart from fiddling with the time of day slider, was the apparent ease of going from the concept art to the working, lit, almost playable looking, finished product. Maybe the moon base was nothing to write home about (I think it was pretty cool, but whatevers) but now take a step back and look at all the concept art we've seen so far. If all of that can be turned into gameplay quality environments as easily as the moon base was… then WOW!! We're going to have something awesome on our hands!

3. Mythic Scifi.

The concept, as shown so far, looks amazing. I always though of fantasy as science fiction with magic replacing the technology, or scifi as fantasy with technology in place of magic. Why not have both? This should lead to some pretty interesting abilities and play style choices. This could get very interesting.

*Pronounce with reverb when at all possible, thanks.