Travel
Space flight will be a HUGE part of the Destiny game. While space combat and other features are debatable, space flight is the keystone element of the exploration Destiny is said to foster. I hold Bungie to the highest possible standard, therefore I expect a lot in this aspect. Here are a few things I am expecting regarding space flight.
Freedom to fly anywhere. The massive gaps between planets can be used as load zones, as our ships fly at a (faster-than) light speed, but the space all around the planets are free to explore. This could be filled with things like space-stations, satellites (natural + man-made), and other space junk for cover and exploration. Places to dock and get out, maybe you can bail on your ship at any time and jetpack around, sweet.
Similar to above, Destiny needs fully rendered planets to explore. It is obviously a lot to ask. But it's 2013, and with the new consoles on the horizon we should keep open minds. Landmarks can be clearly marked for quick access, and treasure hunting will be intensely broad. We have seen what the new mapmaking software is capable of, there is no reason the 'unused' areas of the planet can't be monotonous wasteland, or enemey space that is a no-fly zone to Guardians. I want the feelingof burning through the atmosphere and landforms taking shape beneath you, tiny dots turning into mountains. (If you havent seen that whole video, it's here, with notable parts at 4:00, 5:45) (Similar engine) Since these videos are years old, and Bungie is utilizing solftware that excludes loading what isn't seen by the player, it makes sense that this could be possible.
Lastly, if free rotation on all axes is allowed (which it obviously should), an auto-orient button that can be toggled is a must. Experience from other space/flight games makes this crucial.
Thoughts? Do you think this is possible?
Travel
Considering its planning on launching on current gen consoles also, I don't think something of that scope is possible, unfortunately.
I think all of that would be extremely awesome, but I'm going to be pessimistic and maybe a bit more realistic.
How I think travel will happen: We'll go to our ships in the spaceport, get in, and then be given a list of options to travel to. One may be orbit above the planet we're on. We'll then have a takeoff cutscene like in Reach, which acts to cover the loading zone. We'll then find ourselves flying in orbit or above the city or zone we selected. Sometimes we'll find coordinates of abandoned ships in space that we can chose as destinations.
I have a feeling that we'll get to do a fair amount of flying, but I just think that it will be limited to certain areas. Of course I hope I'm wrong and you're right because your idea is more fun.
I'm thinking this is most likely the case, and it's probably a good thing, too. It's easy to underestimate the amount of empty space up there, and it would be horrendously boring to try and 'explore' that.
The whole time was reading your post, I was thinking "Hah! I'll respond and link Infinity!" Found it a year or two ago, and my goodness it makes me excited.
There have been some pretty significant advances in procedural generation of terrain; given that Infinity's built by some dude in his spare time, and is also several years old, I'd say a company like Bungie could probably wrangle something similar out of the 360 and PS3. It would be awesome, there's no debating that. The question, though, is: would it be worth it from Bungie's perspective? What does it add to gameplay that couldn't be achieved through less resource-intensive methods?
It would add a lot to the game's atmosphere and help to reinforce some of the themes they've suggested with their art and discussion about the game. The ability to simply wander off into the Martian wasteland would be pretty incredible, and since most of the game is instanced, there's no concern that large landscapes would cause problems with lag. It would give them some pretty awesome methods for hiding easter eggs, special items, and unique quests. It would give them ready-made environments into which they could deposit new content without any big hubub: instead of "oh, sweet, there's a new tab on the spaceport destination menu," you have "I just got a message saying that there have been reports of raiders out in the Martian wasteland, and there are rough coordinates included. Let's go!"