That's one of those "Be careful what you wish for" scenarios. What do you get out of a bunch of empty space?

Uh, you put enemies or NPCs there. Don't make it empty.

Also while not all of it should be empty, it would be cool to occasionally find a relatively good sized area full of empty structures to sell the idea of how devoid of human life it has become. As long as places like that aren't the rule but the exception I think it could add to the immersion.

Building on that, we should keep in mind the the world of Destiny is of its self a "character". Point to the horizon and no doubt it will not matter where you look, there will be something of variance see.

"Second star to the right and straight on till morning!" :D

That's one of those "Be careful what you wish for" scenarios. What do you get out of a bunch of empty space?

Uh, you put enemies or NPCs there. Don't make it empty.

Also while not all of it should be empty, it would be cool to occasionally find a relatively good sized area full of empty structures to sell the idea of how devoid of human life it has become. As long as places like that aren't the rule but the exception I think it could add to the immersion.

And the loot, oh god, the loot.

*The (small) open world-ness of ODST and the constant existence of enemies in that play space

This is actually something I look forward to Destiny improving. In ODST, you had all these buildings, but you couldn't go inside many, and the ones you could go inside limited you to the first few floors. The entire city, everything you saw, should have been explorable. A bit much for a game the size of ODST, but for Destiny? I'd like to see that.

That's one of those "Be careful what you wish for" scenarios. What do you get out of a bunch of empty space?

Uh, you put enemies or NPCs there. Don't make it empty.

*The (small) open world-ness of ODST and the constant existence of enemies in that play space

This is actually something I look forward to Destiny improving. In ODST, you had all these buildings, but you couldn't go inside many, and the ones you could go inside limited you to the first few floors. The entire city, everything you saw, should have been explorable. A bit much for a game the size of ODST, but for Destiny? I'd like to see that.

That's one of those "Be careful what you wish for" scenarios. What do you get out of a bunch of empty space? If you have all this space, how do you fill it? As a player, you then get the compulsion to "Check everywhere for possible loot/ammo/cash" even though you have this maze of space.

IMO, I'd rather resources be spent on denser content, and I'll accept a mess of locked doors to get that.

Exploring was fun, yeah, but most planets had cookie cutter missions and the Mako, despite its hilarity, was terrible at navigating the harsh mountainous landscapes we always needed to traverse. Unless you're a completionist it had no logical investment. A few scavenged weapons, armors, mods, and credits just isn't worth that. While still being main side quests, the select few that did add to the universe were gems.

It could have been improved, but the Mako and exploration was my favorite part of Mass Effect, and I was so sad to see those ideas all but gone in the sequels.

I just want to land my spaceship, roll out in my Hog, and drive up mountains for a few hours until I find some space cows I can steal some money from. I don't think that's much of a request...

Did you ever notice that after blasting yourself off a mountain, the front right tire was always the only thing damaged? It was weird.

Those tires were strange beings, yeah. Sustaining heavy rifle and rocket fire are issues which could always be Omni-Gel'd, but that tire continued on as such a little bitch.

Obligatory: I LIKE THIS HUMAN. SHE UNDERSTANDS OUR WAYS.

Did you ever notice that after blasting yourself off a mountain, the front right tire was always the only thing damaged? It was weird.

Those tires were strange beings, yeah. Sustaining heavy rifle and rocket fire are issues which could always be Omni-Gel'd, but that tire continued on as such a little bitch.

Exploring was fun, yeah, but most planets had cookie cutter missions and the Mako, despite its hilarity, was terrible at navigating the harsh mountainous landscapes we always needed to traverse. Unless you're a completionist it had no logical investment. A few scavenged weapons, armors, mods, and credits just isn't worth that. While still being main side quests, the select few that did add to the universe were gems.

Mako Mountain Climbing Club forever!

haha shooting the Mako off cliff faces with maneuvering thrusters was a blast. I did get unsuspectingly swallowed by a Thresher Maw once doing that. Sneaky asshole.

Did you ever notice that after blasting yourself off a mountain, the front right tire was always the only thing damaged? It was weird.

Exploring was fun, yeah, but most planets had cookie cutter missions and the Mako, despite its hilarity, was terrible at navigating the harsh mountainous landscapes we always needed to traverse. Unless you're a completionist it had no logical investment. A few scavenged weapons, armors, mods, and credits just isn't worth that. While still being main side quests, the select few that did add to the universe were gems.

Mako Mountain Climbing Club forever!

haha shooting the Mako off cliff faces with maneuvering thrusters was a blast. I did get unsuspectingly swallowed by a Thresher Maw once doing that. Sneaky asshole.

Exploring was fun, yeah, but most planets had cookie cutter missions and the Mako, despite its hilarity, was terrible at navigating the harsh mountainous landscapes we always needed to traverse. Unless you're a completionist it had no logical investment. A few scavenged weapons, armors, mods, and credits just isn't worth that. While still being main side quests, the select few that did add to the universe were gems.

Mako Mountain Climbing Club forever!

Further more since Bungie is using (TECH TALK ALERT!) Umbra's Middleware solution for managing their world (called Occlusion culling if you would like to look it up), it is much more possible to do something like Cody expressed now, then it was when Mass Effect 1 came out in 2007.

Well, sort of. Occlusion culling has been around forever. Most games with large, winding environments probably use simple implementations of it at the very least, because you'd be insane not to. Even Halo 1 has some cheap manually-placed occlusion culling portals; nothing fancy, but it's good enough that you can render five hallway joints instead of thirty, or two sections of an AotCR chasm instead of an entire chasm and a big underground area. You can see where the occlusion cull portals are if you break out of a map and walk around in the rafters. It's really interesting to watch level sections draw in and out in coop.

The Umbra stuff should make management of occlusion culling around lots of complicated geometry much easier to develop efficient results for, though.

Just to say so - I loved that mechanic in Mass Effect 1. Exploring is fun.

Building on that Bioware played around with a much faster and more mobile vehicle (the Hammerhead) in Mass Effect 2. While this was never given large "world" play spaces to fully gallop like the Mako had - when you did have a place to sprint it was fun.

Exploring was fun, yeah, but most planets had cookie cutter missions and the Mako, despite its hilarity, was terrible at navigating the harsh mountainous landscapes we always needed to traverse. Unless you're a completionist it had no logical investment. A few scavenged weapons, armors, mods, and credits just isn't worth that. While still being main side quests, the select few that did add to the universe were gems.

I'm not worried that Bungie will fall into such complacency. If that "thirty seconds of fun" mentality still rings true with Bungie, then every side-quest will be as salivating and enriching as whatever comprises the main game.

I hate to say it but I think you'll be disappointed there. I'd love to see it, but I'm not holding my breath. The last game to try something like that was Mass Effect and its 'repetitive' squares of planets that could be explored. Unless Bungie are going to design the interior of every single building, it will work out too cookie-cutter for the general public.

I reckon, anyway.

Just to say so - I loved that mechanic in Mass Effect 1. Exploring is fun.

Building on that Bioware played around with a much faster and more mobile vehicle (the Hammerhead) in Mass Effect 2. While this was never given large "world" play spaces to fully gallop like the Mako had - when you did have a place to sprint it was fun.

That is probably why we all have (as I heard it recently be called unofficially) a Sparrow. ( I guess old naming conventions die hard )

Further more since Bungie is using (TECH TALK ALERT!) Umbra's Middleware solution for managing their world (called Occlusion culling if you would like to look it up), it is much more possible to do something like Cody expressed now, then it was when Mass Effect 1 came out in 2007.

*The (small) open world-ness of ODST and the constant existence of enemies in that play space

This is actually something I look forward to Destiny improving. In ODST, you had all these buildings, but you couldn't go inside many, and the ones you could go inside limited you to the first few floors. The entire city, everything you saw, should have been explorable. A bit much for a game the size of ODST, but for Destiny? I'd like to see that.

I reckon, anyway.