I know what you're thinking, "Two podcasts in a week?! Have they gone crazy?!" Well, maybe, but that's beside the point…

Special guest CruelLEGACEY (Nevin Douglas) joins Xenos, Claude, Leviathan, and me to talk about this week's Destiny news from Gamescom and the Game Informer article.

*** SPOILER WARNING ***
In this episode, we talk in-depth about the Game Informer article, including PvE and PvP material that some may consider to be spoilers. If you want to approach The Taken King knowing as little as possible, you won't want to listen to this episode. HOWEVER, at 1:20:20 we mention a giveaway that you may want to hear about. That section of the discussion is spoiler-free.

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Had a bout of insomnia tonight and this podcast helped get me through it. Some great discussion, thanks guys! Well done!

Amusing! I have nighttime podcasts, too. I listen to Mysterious Universe, a paranormal podcast, hopefully to give me interesting dreams. It never works. Last night I dreamt about Mike Birbiglia.

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Were you guys even wearing pants?

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Were you guys even wearing pants?

Well, I was recording in my bathroom...

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Too funny :)

Thanks again for inviting me on the show. I had a blast!

So, this was a great episode for me :p

-Disciple

More good stuff, keep em coming. This was a great listen for my 2 hour drive to go tubing today. I'm enjoying having the DBO guests. I vote for Funkmon next. And Probably Last. And a live stream of some sock eating. :)

I had a couple hour car trip to see family today, so this was absolutely perfect for the drive.

I am really digging the community guests; I hope you can keep it going!

The gag is, and now we can't use it, is that we record the podcast like this.

"Hey this is Tim and with me this week is Dave."
"Hola."
Then I talk for 35 minutes, Dave says nothing.
"And all that remains is for me to thank my guest, Dave."
"Thank you."

End podcast.

I also had this great idea for a college radio show nobody would do with me where we take relationship advice call ins and play pop music from the nineties, but the joke is, we never get around to taking the calls or playing the music, just talking about stuff and insulting people.

I just wanted to get the listener complaints and deal with the college radio station program director. I fully envisioned the fight to classify my program as music and not talk, and I wanted to play it straight, giving out the number and stuff.

The problem with me on the DBO podcast is that I talk a lot and stuff, but I have nothing to really add to the community right now. My life's gotten pretty awful this year, so if I were a guest, it would be "funkmon from the DBO forums! Reach him at his email address because he quit Twitter, Facebook, his website, and, honestly, trying at life in general. Today he's here to assist us in talking about his particular specialty, sniper rifle ammo perks." What a show.

But, if you want to hear me on a podcast, there is an episode of The Pen Addict I was on in the past year or two as my online alias.

Was it like h2?

Did they just run out of time and had to ship what they had?

People in the podcast are just so happy that they are getting even the scraps of a story. There is stuff in the next expansion that they expected to see in the release and it is pretty minimal stuff like: there are 'real' characters, and they interact with each other, and there is a story, and maybe some stuff will be explained a little.

When Joe left did he take the story with him? (is that possible?) Did he tell the other guys that he HAD a story but then it turned out he didn't and he had to go?

Was the story dropped on Luke just before dialogue was recorded? When I heard that 104 question interview I immediately heard Luke's voice in that line of Stranger dialogue, "I don't have time to explain why I don't have time to explain". Maybe Luke was writing that the night before the voice actor was scheduled to say whatever lines Luke had managed to write by that time.

Did the voice actor turn up and ask, "where are my lines?" and was told, "Luke's typing them for you"?

What is the order?

Joe was writing the story -> Joe left -> Destiny had no story

or

Joe was supposed to be writing the story -> Joe had no story -> Joe had to leave

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The story was planned? or Not including it in game was planned?

Is the second option the default position for most people? If anyone takes this position: how certain are you that it is the case? 51/49? 60/40?

The Grimstuff feels like story notes, background world building. I think that the in-game story would be a separate thing that would be coloured by the world background. They could be developed in parallel. You might want to wait until you had sorted out the world for a while before you start the game story. Either way you could have grimstuff without a story and you don't need a PLAN for that to happen - it's just what you would expect to happen naturally. The expectation being that you would get round to the story well before launch.

If Joe leaves then you have a hole to fill. Luke is a story-guy but he is busy on the Raids. Nevertheless he could get the story dumped on him. So he has two vital, full time, jobs and limited time to do both. In those circumstances I could understand, I haven't got the time to explain why I haven't got the time...

Those words could be seen as unedited stream of consciousness. And I think that luke does tend to say what he is thinking without major edits or restrictions.

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This and I'm hilariously uninteresting and socially awkward. Funk and I would be awful guests.

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The best "explanation" I've heard is that Many Very Large Things were changed in the last year or so of development, including the story. How large? Change Halo 2 from just The Chief to Chief + Arbiter. Not as big as RTS to FPS. Too bad I don't remember where I heard that idea.

(Explanation is in quotes because it's all rampant speculation.)

Separately, there's the problem that any author has when editing and reviewing his own work. I know that when I write something, I know what I meant, what I want the words to mean, and the background for the words on the page; but my audience doesn't. The Bungie story people may have known about all this cool story that wasn't in the game we saw, and so the story they did put in the game seemed much better to them because of all the context and history. We don't see any of that, so it's ... empty.

I'm not excusing the end result. But I do like to understand, so I tried to figure out how the studio (if not the people) who made ODST and Reach could have so much detail and history in the world (as seen in Grimoire), but not tell a story that is compelling.

I don't think I understand the question...

Well and also understand that (for me at least) I wasn't so much disappointed in the story itself (which because I read every Grimoire as I got it I thought was okay), but in the fact that we really only get maybe 2 good cutscenes. My main excitement about The Taken King's improved story is it appears to have really good cutscenes! We see clips from at least 2, and hear hints of at least a 3rd. Anything else I say about the story being disappointing has been a reaction to realizing that most people that played the game have NO idea what happened in the main story, and that they don't want to read the Grimoire just to understand it (which is perfectly acceptable and valid concern).

Even if I thought the story in Destiny was great though, the emphasis on good cutscenes and characters conversing with you and other characters more is still a good step.

It's actually really exciting to have these so frequently. I don't listen to many podcasts, but this is definitely one I look forward to.

It made sense to me obviously because it was in my head already.

The gag is, and now we can't use it, is that we record the podcast like this.

"Hey this is Tim and with me this week is Dave."
"Hola."
Then I talk for 35 minutes, Dave says nothing.
"And all that remains is for me to thank my guest, Dave."
"Thank you."

End podcast.

I also had this great idea for a college radio show nobody would do with me where we take relationship advice call ins and play pop music from the nineties, but the joke is, we never get around to taking the calls or playing the music, just talking about stuff and insulting people.

I just wanted to get the listener complaints and deal with the college radio station program director. I fully envisioned the fight to classify my program as music and not talk, and I wanted to play it straight, giving out the number and stuff.

The problem with me on the DBO podcast is that I talk a lot and stuff, but I have nothing to really add to the community right now. My life's gotten pretty awful this year, so if I were a guest, it would be "funkmon from the DBO forums! Reach him at his email address because he quit Twitter, Facebook, his website, and, honestly, trying at life in general. Today he's here to assist us in talking about his particular specialty, sniper rifle ammo perks." What a show.

But, if you want to hear me on a podcast, there is an episode of The Pen Addict I was on in the past year or two as my online alias.

I dunno Funk, I enjoy chatting with you whenever we've played. Plus you are an Astronomer and I'd assume most people here are also interested in things you are knowledgeable about. I'd recommend you be a part of a segment called "Ask Funkmon". Questions would be aimed at space topics with maybe 1 random thrown in. These questions would come from our DBO community on the forum. Your segment would only be 15 minutes, that way you don't talk too much :)

Also I wouldn't worry about the trying at life thing. I suck at life, or at least life as an adult. I'd love it if someone could show me how I could live like I was a carefree teen and make money at the same time. DBO to me is where I can get away from life anyway. I put on my red robber avatar, become a legend, and post my ass off. So forget about Tim, be Funkmon for while and explain supermassive hyperactive black holes on the podcast.

The gag is, and now we can't use it, is that we record the podcast like this.

"Hey this is Tim and with me this week is Dave."
"Hola."
Then I talk for 35 minutes, Dave says nothing.
"And all that remains is for me to thank my guest, Dave."
"Thank you."

End podcast.

I also had this great idea for a college radio show nobody would do with me where we take relationship advice call ins and play pop music from the nineties, but the joke is, we never get around to taking the calls or playing the music, just talking about stuff and insulting people.

I just wanted to get the listener complaints and deal with the college radio station program director. I fully envisioned the fight to classify my program as music and not talk, and I wanted to play it straight, giving out the number and stuff.

The problem with me on the DBO podcast is that I talk a lot and stuff, but I have nothing to really add to the community right now. My life's gotten pretty awful this year, so if I were a guest, it would be "funkmon from the DBO forums! Reach him at his email address because he quit Twitter, Facebook, his website, and, honestly, trying at life in general. Today he's here to assist us in talking about his particular specialty, sniper rifle ammo perks." What a show.

But, if you want to hear me on a podcast, there is an episode of The Pen Addict I was on in the past year or two as my online alias.

I dunno Funk, I enjoy chatting with you whenever we've played. Plus you are an Astronomer and I'd assume most people here are also interested in things you are knowledgeable about. I'd recommend you be a part of a segment called "Ask Funkmon". Questions would be aimed at space topics with maybe 1 random thrown in. These questions would come from our DBO community on the forum. Your segment would only be 15 minutes, that way you don't talk too much :)

Also I wouldn't worry about the trying at life thing. I suck at life, or at least life as an adult. I'd love it if someone could show me how I could live like I was a carefree teen and make money at the same time. DBO to me is where I can get away from life anyway. I put on my red robber avatar, become a legend, and post my ass off. So forget about Tim, be Funkmon for while and explain supermassive hyperactive black holes on the podcast.

I would love an ask Funkmon segment. Any excuse to go off half cocked on something is great.

But, I'm not an astronomer. Being paid to work with telescopes is only being an astronomer in the broadest possible sense. :P Besides, I think Claude was a physics guy. He knows what's up with that stuff. There's a pretty broad cross section of male nerddom on the podcast.

That said, here are the things that I know stuff about:
Avril Lavigne
Space and shit
Cameras and shit
Pens and shit
The rudiments of linguistics
Luxembourg
Michigan
Funny place names
Paranormal stuff and why it's not true.

I would also like to do one Hollywood Squares style and make up answers if I don't know them.

I have a carefree teen and still make money solution for you: deal drugs. Also, if you live cheaply enough, welfare. Oh, or get hit by a car, win a lawsuit, invest your money and live off of interest.

Just an idea, and I am probably beating a dead horse here, but is there a way to have video of you guys? I am sure its alot of work.

Just an idea, and I am probably beating a dead horse here, but is there a way to have video of you guys? I am sure its alot of work.

Yeah, but then we would all be distracted by Beorn's pretty Canadian face and we couldn't focus on what people were saying.

I know what you're thinking, "Two podcasts in a week?! Have they gone crazy?!" Well, maybe, but that's beside the point…

Special guest CruelLEGACEY (Nevin Douglas) joins Xenos, Claude, Leviathan, and me to talk about this week's Destiny news from Gamescom and the Game Informer article.

*** SPOILER WARNING ***
In this episode, we talk in-depth about the Game Informer article, including PvE and PvP material that some may consider to be spoilers. If you want to approach The Taken King knowing as little as possible, you won't want to listen to this episode. HOWEVER, at 1:20:20 we mention a giveaway that you may want to hear about. That section of the discussion is spoiler-free.

Great podcast--wasn't too spoilerific.

Already have the posters, so don't give them to me.

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Just an idea, and I am probably beating a dead horse here, but is there a way to have video of you guys? I am sure its alot of work.

Yeah, but then we would all be distracted by Beorn's pretty Canadian face and we couldn't focus on what people were saying.

My Canadian face wouldn't help things at all...

I know what you're thinking, "Two podcasts in a week?! Have they gone crazy?!" Well, maybe, but that's beside the point…

Special guest CruelLEGACEY (Nevin Douglas) joins Xenos, Claude, Leviathan, and me to talk about this week's Destiny news from Gamescom and the Game Informer article.

*** SPOILER WARNING ***
In this episode, we talk in-depth about the Game Informer article, including PvE and PvP material that some may consider to be spoilers. If you want to approach The Taken King knowing as little as possible, you won't want to listen to this episode. HOWEVER, at 1:20:20 we mention a giveaway that you may want to hear about. That section of the discussion is spoiler-free.

Great podcast--wasn't too spoilerific.

Already have the posters, so don't give them to me.

Yes. Give them to me instead.

Another good podcast too, chaps.

Great podcast--wasn't too spoilerific.

Already have the posters, so don't give them to me.

Same. I have the Insight Editions posters - but not Levi's prints, and since I really want those, pick me as the winner and then you can pick another winner for the poster book. It's really a win-win situation. Especially for Levi, since this will allow him to get Claude to pay for two separate $400 "handling" invoices! ;-)

It made sense to me obviously because it was in my head already.

8x10 sized prints, probably this one for sure:

I could also print one of the news sketches at the size they were drawn at.

People in the podcast are just so happy that they are getting even the scraps of a story. There is stuff in the next expansion that they expected to see in the release and it is pretty minimal stuff like: there are 'real' characters, and they interact with each other, and there is a story, and maybe some stuff will be explained a little.

I often catch myself thinking the same thing. Can you imagine walking up to a gamer who is not a Destiny fan and saying "Isn't this great news?! Characters will actually say something to each other now!"?

On the one hand, it is a bit silly that we get so excited by features that are generally considered the absolute bare minimum in other games... but I think it is natural and understandable. If nothing else, it looks like The Taken King will be making many steps in the right direction. Even if many feel that some elements of Destiny are currently at an unusually low bar, what we're hearing and seeing of TTK shows a genuine and substantial effort to improve those weak points. I think that is what many of us are truly excited about.

Seriously guys, high quality stuff here! I was thinking of doing a "level headed" destiny podcast but I think ya'll have it covered!

I'm pretty sure you do need to have a Hope for the Future sing-a-long at the end of the next episode. lol

Just an idea, and I am probably beating a dead horse here, but is there a way to have video of you guys? I am sure its alot of work.

Biggest difficulty would be that very few of us live anywhere near each other, so it'd require 3-5 separate videos, which I'm not sure we'd want to deal with (especially because it would delay each episode coming out). Plus, I'd have to actually make sure I don't look like I got out of bed 15 minutes before we started recording :)

Just an idea, and I am probably beating a dead horse here, but is there a way to have video of you guys? I am sure its alot of work.

Biggest difficulty would be that very few of us live anywhere near each other, so it'd require 3-5 separate videos, which I'm not sure we'd want to deal with (especially because it would delay each episode coming out). Plus, I'd have to actually make sure I don't look like I got out of bed 15 minutes before we started recording :)

Can't we just hire a child-labor animation studio from Asia to put our voices on cute Exo-babies or something? Sounds easier than putting on pants.

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A good chunk of Bungie's story telling is in the cinematics.

And if Luke was given story duties on top of Raid designing... He might just not have had the time to explain why he didn't have the time.

It's definitely a good step. I was wondering if Luke was 'press ganged' into doing story duty as well as Raid design.

Watch the 104 questions interview and then ask yourself: who in Bungie would write, "I haven't got the time...". It sounds like a Lukeism to me.

It looks like they are trying harder now. The original game attempts seemed desultory. But it's not just the story.

There wasn't a lot of thought put into non-shooting aspects of gameplay or into the, non-grimoire, world building.

We had characters in the Tower who were not characters (which is storyish).

But the Tower itself was half hearted in other ways.

• the armourer was mostly just there - he didn't have much purpose
  
• you buy shaders from a woman who lives next to a puddle at the end of a blind corridor
  
• everything is very anachronistic - WOW is legitimately medieval but Destiny is set in the future - have these people never heard of: websites, Amazon, email?

The vault was an obvious thief of time and effort drain.

The patrol missions undermined the attempt to build a hopeful world. Or maybe Bungie wants to show that something is rotten in Denmark - that we are fucked up psychos who would spoon out your eyes as soon as look at you. Guardian society and technology runs on harvested body parts. I don't know how Guardians would manage without a steady stream of organ donors.

Bungie needs to spend a lot of time improving the non-story parts of the Destiny world.

Destiny's mediaeval ways of doing things is just a lazy copy of WOW. It feels like things are done just because that's how everyone else does them.

Bungie aren't the only people who do this. Bioware is just as guilty in ME in forgetting that we can send emails and order stuff online. I understand that online ordering loses the human touch but our Tower 'shopkeepers' already lack that.

By the end of the tens years you might have spent hundreds of hours of your life running around the tower, turning yourself into the world's slowest cursor just do get trivial things managed in the world. Look at the tower interface on bnet. It is a top down view of the tower. See the cursor? That's you running from pillar to post.

If I was a bounty hunter I wouldn't want to have to travel into town and run up to a guy to pick up a bounty. I would rather go to https://psychomurder.com and see what was on offer.

I had hoped that Bungie would rethink all these MMOesque staples, streamline it, bin the dross and give us something well thought out, intelligent, and pleasurable to experience. They didn't do that but what's done is done. They now need to do the work to make the Destiny world make sense and be a place that you want to hang out in.

An example of the world making sense: we are told that the people of the city appreciate us. Yet we have to run around the Tower in our precious off-duty time performing maintenance (housework). I think I keep my stuff in my ship. Why do I have to run to the post office? Why can't it be delivered to my ship? talking of which: don't we have teleporters? They have tech that should be better than Amazon.

I know the idea is that we are happy to get surprises at the post office and from the cryptarch, But over ten years you will have had (hundreds?) of thousands of these surprises. Most of these surprises involve a session of junk sharding (if memory serves). When does the grind of picking them up outweigh the pleasure of receiving them?

It would be nice to see the City's appreciation translate into actual services for Guardians. Can't a non-combatant wash my laundry for me while I am off on some dangerous world fighting for the City's survival?

You should invite the winner to be a guest on the next podcast maybe.

The gag is, and now we can't use it, is that we record the podcast like this.

"Hey this is Tim and with me this week is Dave."
"Hola."
Then I talk for 35 minutes, Dave says nothing.
"And all that remains is for me to thank my guest, Dave."
"Thank you."

End podcast.

I also had this great idea for a college radio show nobody would do with me where we take relationship advice call ins and play pop music from the nineties, but the joke is, we never get around to taking the calls or playing the music, just talking about stuff and insulting people.

I just wanted to get the listener complaints and deal with the college radio station program director. I fully envisioned the fight to classify my program as music and not talk, and I wanted to play it straight, giving out the number and stuff.

The problem with me on the DBO podcast is that I talk a lot and stuff, but I have nothing to really add to the community right now. My life's gotten pretty awful this year, so if I were a guest, it would be "funkmon from the DBO forums! Reach him at his email address because he quit Twitter, Facebook, his website, and, honestly, trying at life in general. Today he's here to assist us in talking about his particular specialty, sniper rifle ammo perks." What a show.

But, if you want to hear me on a podcast, there is an episode of The Pen Addict I was on in the past year or two as my online alias.

I dunno Funk, I enjoy chatting with you whenever we've played. Plus you are an Astronomer and I'd assume most people here are also interested in things you are knowledgeable about. I'd recommend you be a part of a segment called "Ask Funkmon". Questions would be aimed at space topics with maybe 1 random thrown in. These questions would come from our DBO community on the forum. Your segment would only be 15 minutes, that way you don't talk too much :)

Also I wouldn't worry about the trying at life thing. I suck at life, or at least life as an adult. I'd love it if someone could show me how I could live like I was a carefree teen and make money at the same time. DBO to me is where I can get away from life anyway. I put on my red robber avatar, become a legend, and post my ass off. So forget about Tim, be Funkmon for while and explain supermassive hyperactive black holes on the podcast.

I would love an ask Funkmon segment. Any excuse to go off half cocked on something is great.

But, I'm not an astronomer. Being paid to work with telescopes is only being an astronomer in the broadest possible sense. :P Besides, I think Claude was a physics guy. He knows what's up with that stuff. There's a pretty broad cross section of male nerddom on the podcast.

That said, here are the things that I know stuff about:
Avril Lavigne
Space and shit
Cameras and shit
Pens and shit
The rudiments of linguistics
Luxembourg
Michigan
Funny place names
Paranormal stuff and why it's not true.

I would also like to do one Hollywood Squares style and make up answers if I don't know them.

I have a carefree teen and still make money solution for you: deal drugs. Also, if you live cheaply enough, welfare. Oh, or get hit by a car, win a lawsuit, invest your money and live off of interest.

Maybe the segment should be called Get Horrible Advice from Funkmon.

I should have a similar segment myself: How to Play Destiny Horribly.

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