Agreed. The best possible narrative for an MMO is one which does not force itself upon players.

Let's not forget that Bungie has taken very special care to avoid stamping Destiny with an "MMO" genre title. As Staten said in the Adam Sessler interview, that terminology carries a lot of baggage and they're trying to do something different.

That's true. They also gave an interview to MMORPG.com

Agreed. The best possible narrative for an MMO is one which does not force itself upon players.

Let's not forget that Bungie has taken very special care to avoid stamping Destiny with an "MMO" genre title. As Staten said in the Adam Sessler interview, that terminology carries a lot of baggage and they're trying to do something different.

Essentially, let us play D&D with spaceships!

Bungie has always made big cinematic story-driven games. And definitely a big part of Destiny is that cinematic linear experience. There’s a story with a beginning, middle and end, and you’re going to plow all the way through and hopefully enjoy it. But there are also other activities that will tempt you to come back to the world and spend more time in it. Unlike other shooters that last for eight hours and then you’re done, Destiny is a “living “world that is always there waiting for you, with new activities that will tempt you to come back and keep on playing.

The bold part is a pretty big "but". I think that's what you're looking for, even if Joe sort of buried it that response. It's important to remember the target audience, too. Someone who reads a site called "Creative Screen Writing" is probably going to be looking for a bit of focus on the story-writing element, which is inherently not something in the purview of a screenwriter's pen. To re-use the quote you pulled:

"The story you and your friend can tell about that night where you went there and did that thing and got that stuff is going to be more way more powerful than any story I can dream up and attempt to type according to some pattern."

Even so, Joe made a point to call out the "non-Campaign" gameplay content in that first quote. I think Critical Path Joe is the same as Creative Screen Writing Joe. The story (pun intended) hasn't changed, just the emphasis based on the target audience.

"The old patters don't fit as well as they used to, linear narrative doesn't fit as well as it used to."

"The story you and your friend can tell about that night where you went there and did that thing and got that stuff is going to be more way more powerful than any story I can dream up and attempt to type according to some pattern."

Now we get to here more about how great Destinies Linear narrative will be again? That idea is disappointing to me, as I think trying to cram a traditional story into Destiny undersells the way a shared world can help build great narratives. We'll see what they do as we get more info, but this part of Destiny sounds sadly familar to what we know.

On a related note, I heard you can play without the game being connected to the Internet (which makes sense if you can play solo and there's a story/campaign thing), has that been confirmed?

It was only confirmed for the current developer builds so far.

Anyone else interested by this? I've noticed a lot of people are worried about the "end-game" factor, so does this help assuage those fears?

I was a little worried, but when they first said you could play solo and there was a story part/version/mode, I wasn't worried. On a related note, I heard you can play without the game being connected to the Internet (which makes sense if you can play solo and there's a story/campaign thing), has that been confirmed?

Bungie has always made big cinematic story-driven games. And definitely a big part of Destiny is that cinematic
linear experience. There’s a story with a beginning, middle and end, and you’re going to plow all the way through
and hopefully enjoy it. But there are also other activities that will tempt you to come back to the world and spend
more time in it. Unlike other shooters that last for eight hours and then you’re done, Destiny is a “living “world
that is always there waiting for you, with new activities that will tempt you to come back and keep on playing.
Some of these will be more story-driven (i.e., beginning, middle and end) while some will be more cyclical to give
you the opportunity to play the things you like again and again. So it’s really a game with a lot of different
activities and a lot of different opportunities to participate in.

Anyone else interested by this? I've noticed a lot of people are worried about the "end-game" factor, so does this help assuage those fears?

Vale,
Perseus

http://creativescreenwriting.com/bungies-new-gaming-world/