So this happened. I'm surprised this isn't all over the forums. Thoughts?

I was a minute from posting this when I refreshed the forum and saw yours. Any idea if these 'Raid Lairs' mentioned are similar to Prison of Elders? Sounds a little familiar to PoE to me, and they said the second expansion will feature a 'Raid Lair' as well which means no new full Raid until after these next two expansions.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2017/11/15/destiny-2s-curse-of-osiris-will-introduce-a-new-raid-lair-encou...

- MacGyver10

I was a minute from posting this when I refreshed the forum and saw yours. Any idea if these 'Raid Lairs' mentioned are similar to Prison of Elders? Sounds a little familiar to PoE to me, and they said the second expansion will feature a 'Raid Lair' as well which means no new full Raid until after these next two expansions.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2017/11/15/destiny-2s-curse-of-osiris-will-introduce-a-new-raid-lair-encou...

- MacGyver10

Yeah. I like that they're adding to an existing raid area, though I worry that the inside of the Leviathan might wear us out aesthetically over the course of two raid expansions... Though at least it's not Hive themed!

Also, We finally got to hear what Osiris's's' Ghost sounds like, so I'm happy.

Apparently a "Raid Lair" is not a "Raid" though it does allow for 6 players at once, which makes it "Raid Content."

Bungie, please just use real, already existing terms to describe things. Using made-up things as selling points is tantamount to saying your expansion will have 3 Whosamawhatsits! And a Gizmojigger! One Persplunken! Collect 5 sets of Pishposh!

It's meaningless without context. Please explain. Stuff like this is why people overhype products; they don't have enough information to fill in the blanks so their imaginations run wild.

So as someone who didn't watch the stream. A Raid Lair is essentially an expansion to the existing raid?

does that mean baths, guantlets, dogs, are all existing "raid lairs," and they are just adding to it?

Apparently a "Raid Lair" is not a "Raid" though it does allow for 6 players at once, which makes it "Raid Content."

Bungie, please just use real, already existing terms to describe things. Using made-up things as selling points is tantamount to saying your expansion will have 3 Whosamawhatsits! And a Gizmojigger! One Persplunken! Collect 5 sets of Pishposh!

It's meaningless without context. Please explain. Stuff like this is why people overhype products; they don't have enough information to fill in the blanks so their imaginations run wild.

Lost Sectors!
Expectation: Dungeons, like Horizon Zero Dawn's awesome Cauldrons that reward explorers with a challenging experience in a gorgeous hidden environment, and a tougher boss fight with unique rewards!
Reality: A cave. Kind of like in Skyrim, but with a single cache at the end that unlocks after killing the only Yellow bar enemy in the room.

Flashpoints!
Expectation:Warframe's Tactical Alerts that help funnel players to tougher, but more rewarding experiences on each planet, with guaranteed drops at the end, and an incentive to help others get through before time is up!
Reality: Sometimes, an extra yellow bar enemy spawns during a Public event, and he drops one Token...

Clarion Calls!
Expectation: It's just a double XP thing, isn't it?
Reality: It's just a double XP thing.

does that mean baths, guantlets, dogs, are all existing "raid lairs," and they are just adding to it?

Sounds like the new levels are in (or is it inside?) the new feature, and the current ones stay inside (or in?) the current raid.

Lost Sectors!
Expectation: Dungeons, like Horizon Zero Dawn's awesome Cauldrons that reward explorers with a challenging experience in a gorgeous hidden environment, and a tougher boss fight with unique rewards!
Reality: A cave. Kind of like in Skyrim, but with a single cache at the end that unlocks after killing the only Yellow bar enemy in the room.

i haven't played HZD, but i had in mind Tombs from the Tomb Raider reboot. nice little side areas that had various mechanics you had to solve in order to complete them.

EDIT: i also didn't expect for all of them (and the golden chests) to be on the map. Though i rarely use the map (since you can't place custom waypoints), and have done found most of them by dumb luck.

Apparently a "Raid Lair" is not a "Raid" though it does allow for 6 players at once, which makes it "Raid Content."

Reserving judgement but my initial reactions are:

-Nobody wants raid Lairs instead of raids. In addition sure, but not a replacement.
-People like to raid in new places. Why are we not raiding on Mercury given the story?
-You have three studios working on this game, so lack of resources is an unacceptable excuse for a lack of raid.
-We should move forward and not revisit old stuff. We should be done with Calus' ship.

Bungie, please just use real, already existing terms to describe things. Using made-up things as selling points is tantamount to saying your expansion will have 3 Whosamawhatsits! And a Gizmojigger! One Persplunken! Collect 5 sets of Pishposh!

This is par for a company who could not say "MMORPG with FPS Elements" or possibly "Multiplayer RPG with FPS elements". I still don't know if 'shared world shooter' accurately describes Destiny's genre.

New terms and unclear labeling is a sign something is being hidden or smoothed over.

- No text -

Apparently a "Raid Lair" is not a "Raid" though it does allow for 6 players at once, which makes it "Raid Content."

Reserving judgement but my initial reactions are:

-Nobody wants raid Lairs instead of raids. In addition sure, but not a replacement.

I do. And I know for sure that my brother does. I've shown him and have tried raids with him. He hates raids, but loves Horde modes, Nightfalls, platforming, etc.
I want variety. I want extended platforming sections. I don't want more coordination-heavy events or damage window bosses.

I liked Prison of Elders despite its flaws. I want ODST's Firefight in D2. I want them to expand the existing planet's patrol areas (the Lake of Shadows strike even has a large explorable area that is not used at any point in the game, so it looks like Bungie will be doing this in the future).

-You have three studios working on this game, so lack of resources is an unacceptable excuse for a lack of raid.

You act as though having a raid for every expansion should be mandatory. I'm glad that Bungie and their fellow devs know better than to do that.

-We should move forward and not revisit old stuff. We should be done with Calus' ship.

Wrong again, IMO. I want them to continue to refine things that work. I want them to bring back old armors, unique D1 exotics, and eventually I hope that we can revisit the Dreadnaught, Dead Space 2 style.

What they said was basically:

- All new puzzle encounters.
- Based in new sections of the Leviathan
- Ends with a new boss

So, it sounds to me like we're getting a new mini Raid with each of these first two expansions.

Apparently a "Raid Lair" is not a "Raid" though it does allow for 6 players at once, which makes it "Raid Content."

Bungie, please just use real, already existing terms to describe things. Using made-up things as selling points is tantamount to saying your expansion will have 3 Whosamawhatsits! And a Gizmojigger! One Persplunken! Collect 5 sets of Pishposh!

It's meaningless without context. Please explain. Stuff like this is why people overhype products; they don't have enough information to fill in the blanks so their imaginations run wild.

Did you even watch the stream?

Because your hyperbole is unnecessary seeing as they gave a pretty good explanation.

- New puzzle encounters in new sections of the Leviathan that end with a new boss fight.
- Not as big as the full Raid but still very challenging.
- The term "you will die a lot" was repeated a few times.

Honestly, your behavior here is... not good. At the very least you could have asked if there was any context instead of posting whatever that was. :(

They were pretty specific in what a Raid Lair will include. It feels like a lot of people here just weren't listening.

Apparently a "Raid Lair" is not a "Raid" though it does allow for 6 players at once, which makes it "Raid Content."

Bungie, please just use real, already existing terms to describe things. Using made-up things as selling points is tantamount to saying your expansion will have 3 Whosamawhatsits! And a Gizmojigger! One Persplunken! Collect 5 sets of Pishposh!

It's meaningless without context. Please explain. Stuff like this is why people overhype products; they don't have enough information to fill in the blanks so their imaginations run wild.

Did you even watch the stream?

Because, your hyperbole is unnecessary seeing as they gave a pretty good explanation.

I read the linked article in the OP. I guess it didn't include information that was in the stream?

- New puzzle encounters in new sections of the Leviathan that end with a new boss fight.
- Not as big as the full Raid but still very challenging.
- The term "you will die a lot" was repeated a few times.

No, no, the article said all of those things. They're vague. "New puzzle encounters that end in a boss fight." I'm assuming this means there's some levers to pull and a jumping puzzle and then one guy to fight, like a 6-player lost sector. But that's because I'm now a cynic when it comes to Destiny. It could be twenty encounters on par with unlocking that awesome pulse rifle in the SIVA raid followed by a boss fight that is chosen from a possible list of 100 different and fully realized encounters. Unlikely, but my point is that what they told us is too vague to understand what they're trying to sell us will be.

Not as big as the raid tells me the map area is literally smaller, but it could mean that there are 3 total encounters instead of 5, or it could be exactly the same map as the raid, minus the encounter rooms (technically "smaller")... This is more information than the "new encounters and a boss" tidbit, because there's at least a point of comparison, but - again - not enough info. It could also be MUCH smaller, like saying my car is smaller than Earth. I'm hoping that's not the case, and that they used the raid for comparison because it's the closest in size space they can use for comparison, but if the raid lair turns out to be smaller than the tower, I'll be upset, even though Bungie - technically - didn't lie when they said it was smaller than the raid. Need more info!

Dying a lot doesn't make a game fun or good or even challenging. Maybe (hopefully) the raid lair is all of those things. Or there could just be a room where 90% of the time you die, and you have to just keep running through until you live. This is the height of non-information.

Honestly, your behavior here is... not good. At the very least you could have asked if there was any context instead of posting whatever that was. :(

Let's please not make personal attacks our modus operandi again. We were doing so well.

-You have three studios working on this game, so lack of resources is an unacceptable excuse for a lack of raid.

Apparently a "Raid Lair" is not a "Raid" though it does allow for 6 players at once, which makes it "Raid Content."

Reserving judgement but my initial reactions are:

-Nobody wants raid Lairs instead of raids. In addition sure, but not a replacement.

I do. And I know for sure that my brother does. I've shown him and have tried raids with him. He hates raids, but loves Horde modes, Nightfalls, platforming, etc.
I want variety. I want extended platforming sections. I don't want more coordination-heavy events or damage window bosses.

I liked Prison of Elders despite its flaws. I want ODST's Firefight in D2. I want them to expand the existing planet's patrol areas (the Lake of Shadows strike even has a large explorable area that is not used at any point in the game, so it looks like Bungie will be doing this in the future).

I'd like to point out that we have no idea what a "Raid Lair" is. How do you know you want it? It could literally be several coordination-heavy events followed by a damage window boss. That's my concern. By inventing a term they tell us nothing about what to expect.

-You have three studios working on this game, so lack of resources is an unacceptable excuse for a lack of raid.

You act as though having a raid for every expansion should be mandatory. I'm glad that Bungie and their fellow devs know better than to do that.

Completely solid point. I would actually prefer if each xpac was widely varied in the type of content it delivered rather than being a paint-by-numbers deal.

-We should move forward and not revisit old stuff. We should be done with Calus' ship.

Wrong again, IMO. I want them to continue to refine things that work. I want them to bring back old armors, unique D1 exotics, and eventually I hope that we can revisit the Dreadnaught, Dead Space 2 style.

Both of these sound good to me. I like the nostalgia of revisiting an old place and the thrill of exploring a new one. Why not both? I don't think there needs to be a "right" or "wrong" when it comes to what you enjoy in a video game.

Sorry, I never get to do that.

Lost Sectors are almost exactly what I thought they would be, and I told you that you were expecting too much from them by thinking of HZD Cauldrons.

Speaking of which, did the Frozen Wilds not add one? I thought it would, but I didn’t see one.

You act as though having a raid for every expansion should be mandatory. I'm glad that Bungie and their fellow devs know better than to do that.

If they can come up with something as involved, awesome, and team heavy as a raid them sure. For me personally, lack of a raid is a huge negative.

No, we know that a Raid Lair is a 6 player activity with Raid-level challenge occupying a shorter intended timeframe. So, to say we don't know what it is I cannot accept.

I don't think there needs to be a "right" or "wrong" when it comes to what you enjoy in a video game.

Clearly you have not spent enough time at Cody's Video Game Design University.

Need more info!

Here’s my problem with your posts on this issue so far. You say you need more info, but, if I understand you correctly, you did not watch the stream and are getting the entirety of your info from a short, four paragraph article. You didn’t ask for people’s impressions of the steam’s contents. You didn’t ask if the article left anything out. You went straight to “Whosamawhatsits” “Gizmojigger” and “Persplunken”.

I will personally go far out of my way to answer any legitimate question you or anyone else has. If you want quotes, I’ll happily get them for you. If you want general impressions, I’ll do my best to provide a fair analysis of what was said. And if you don’t trust me or you hold contempt for me for things I’ve done in the past, well, I know a few others around here were watching the stream and they would also happily answer your questions and provide you with more details than you may have had time to read / watch / listen to on your own.

Here’s my take on these Raid Lairs:

Each Raid Lair will probably offer decent challenges but may also be pretty short, especially later on once the challenges are mastered. From what the Bungie designers said, I would expect something along the lines of two encounters somewhat less challenging than the main three of the full Raid, and a boss fight on par with that of the Raid. I say this because while they mentioned having challenges that were more puzzle based and challenges that were more sandbox based, they also clearly indicated that the Raid Lairs were, at least in part, meant to be for players who did not always have the time to commit to the full Raid each week. They did not, however, say much of anything to indicate that the boss fight would be of reduced difficulty or challenge.

Personally, if each Raid Lair is two decent challenges and a decently complex boss fight then I will be fine with them. If I am correct, then by the spring, we’ll have seven unique Raid-level challenges and three Raid-level final encounters. All in all, I consider that none too shabby from the 1st half year of Destiny 2. And really, if there’s anywhere where Destiny has been consistent so far, it’s been the Raids. Some don’t like this Raid or that Raid as much, but the Raid content has always been good. Hopefully, these Raid Lairs won’t tarnish that legacy.

Let's please not make personal attacks our modus operandi again. We were doing so well.

I thought long and hard about how to respond to this... I pondered how much you really feel you were being attacked vs how much you think you now have some clever lever to be used against me... I also tried to look at my post in the context of some of our past altercations where I did go to far. My response to you is this:

1. I am entirely comfortable with how I addressed you. We both know you could have stated your concerns about the Raid Lairs with much more tact and much less unnecessary hyperbole. I called you out on that, and I will do so in the future in a similar manner without remorse.

2. For what little it may be worth, even if you really did perceive what I said as a personal attack, that was not my intent. When you actually try, you can make a compelling argument. The recent thread about loot boxes vs addiction comes to mind. I encourage you to reign in the cynicism a little and cut out the hyperbole as much as you can. If you do so, you will find me agreeing with you and supporting your arguments far more often that you might expect.

No, we know that a Raid Lair is a 6 player activity with Raid-level challenge occupying a shorter intended timeframe. So, to say we don't know what it is I cannot accept.

If that's the case (and I have no reason to believe it isn't), why not call it a Raid and just say it's smaller and shorter than the Raid from vanilla D2? I feel like dance around terms like "Raid Content" and "Raid Lair" is some kind of legalese way of saying "we never expressly told you it would be a Raid, per se" and that bothers me.

Sooo, you just hate words then?

Need more info!

Here’s my problem with your posts on this issue so far. You say you need more info, but, if I understand you correctly, you did not watch the stream and are getting the entirety of your info from a short, four paragraph article.

I got my info from the link in the OP. I wasn't aware that the stream actually happened, and thought this was some kind of preview from the news source. Regardless, you broke down exactly what that link said (almost verbatim), and those claims were the very specific things that made me concerned about the dance around which terms to use here, so I felt like it was okay to reply. I am at work and can't watch the whole stream at the moment.

You didn’t ask for people’s impressions of the steam’s contents. You didn’t ask if the article left anything out. You went straight to “Whosamawhatsits” “Gizmojigger” and “Persplunken”.

I will personally go far out of my way to answer any legitimate question you or anyone else has. If you want quotes, I’ll happily get them for you. If you want general impressions, I’ll do my best to provide a fair analysis of what was said. And if you don’t trust me or you hold contempt for me for things I’ve done in the past, well, I know a few others around here were watching the stream and they would also happily answer your questions and provide you with more details than you may have had time to read / watch / listen to on your own.

I'm not asking for you to do any legwork here. Opinions are valid and I trust you.

Here’s my take on these Raid Lairs:

Each Raid Lair will probably offer decent challenges but may also be pretty short, especially later on once the challenges are mastered. From what the Bungie designers said, I would expect something along the lines of two encounters somewhat less challenging than the main three of the full Raid, and a boss fight on par with that of the Raid. I say this because while they mentioned having challenges that were more puzzle based and challenges that were more sandbox based, they also clearly indicated that the Raid Lairs were, at least in part, meant to be for players who did not always have the time to commit to the full Raid each week. They did not, however, say much of anything to indicate that the boss fight would be of reduced difficulty or challenge.

Personally, if each Raid Lair is two decent challenges and a decently complex boss fight then I will be fine with them. If I am correct, then by the spring, we’ll have seven unique Raid-level challenges and three Raid-level final encounters. All in all, I consider that none too shabby from the 1st half year of Destiny 2. And really, if there’s anywhere where Destiny has been consistent so far, it’s been the Raids. Some don’t like this Raid or that Raid as much, but the Raid content has always been good. Hopefully, these Raid Lairs won’t tarnish that legacy.

This all sounds good to me, but I wonder why there's such a dance around the terminology of "Raid Lair" containing "Raid Content" vs. "It's just a smaller Raid than what was in vanilla D2" - that's what concerns me.

Let's please not make personal attacks our modus operandi again. We were doing so well.

I thought long and hard about how to respond to this... I pondered how much you really feel you were being attacked vs how much you think you now have some clever lever to be used against me... I also tried to look at my post in the context of some of our past altercations where I did go to far. My response to you is this:

1. I am entirely comfortable with how I addressed you. We both know you could have stated your concerns about the Raid Lairs with much more tact and much less unnecessary hyperbole. I called you out on that, and I will do so in the future in a similar manner without remorse.

2. For what little it may be worth, even if you really did perceive what I said as a personal attack, that was not my intent. When you actually try, you can make a compelling argument. The recent thread about loot boxes vs addiction comes to mind. I encourage you to reign in the cynicism a little and cut out the hyperbole as much as you can. If you do so, you will find me agreeing with you and supporting your arguments far more often that you might expect.

From my perspective, I don't know why my "behavior" would be "not good." I noticed some legalese-type terminology dancing going on with little substantive explanation of what those terms mean. And this is something Bungie has done in the past. They invent a term, hype it like it's a big deal, and it turns out to just be a double XP weekend. So I'm cautious of their word-dance.

As for my penchant for hyperbole, I will probably never be able to satisfy you in that regard. I like to argue from a place of the most extreme possible example. From what I read in the linked article, what we actually know about raid lairs is they contain more than one puzzle-type challenge (without any example of how complex - is it SIVA raid complex or switches to open the waterfall in the D2 raid simple? Dunno), and a (singular) boss fight. We don't know if it's always the same boss every week or rotating bosses like PoE or what. We also know that the Raid Lair is smaller than the D2 Raid we already have. That's almost a meaningless statement that only tells us it's not as big or bigger, but it could be completely miniscule because they gave us no comparison on the other side. Again, normally I would not be suspicious here, but Bungie's history of overhyping made-up terms makes me so.

I'm getting a bit off topic. If I can make a statement, however absurd, that fits within the logic of the facts I'm presented with, I find that to be a very accurate way of illustrating my concern. So I apologize that this technique doesn't land for you, and I will certainly still use it in the future.

Bungie, by calling these things Raid Lairs, has invented a term and given us next to nothing to associate that term with. It's what leads people to say "It'll be THIS, It'll be THAT" when really no one knows, and it would be super easy for Bungie to squash those rumors, but they know people are prone to confirmation bias and that will likely lead to higher sales if they just let the rumors run wild.

Apparently a "Raid Lair" is not a "Raid" though it does allow for 6 players at once, which makes it "Raid Content."

Reserving judgement but my initial reactions are:

-Nobody wants raid Lairs instead of raids. In addition sure, but not a replacement.
-People like to raid in new places. Why are we not raiding on Mercury given the story?
-You have three studios working on this game, so lack of resources is an unacceptable excuse for a lack of raid.
-We should move forward and not revisit old stuff. We should be done with Calus' ship.

Begging for more content is lliterally the most boring criticism you can level. I know you can do better.

If they called it a Raid and delivered anything less than a full Raid, we'd be back at square one with Bungie over-promising and under-delivering. I'm completely okay with them coming up with new terms to describe new things if it's in the name of reigning in expectations.

You're point about not enough info still stands, I think, but does that really matter right now? The expansion is still a month away, and if you legitimately feel you don't have enough info by the time it releases, it will take all of 24 hours before you can turn to the community to explain what it is so you can make a decision.

I guess some might disagree, but Bungie legitimately has a difficult job when it comes to this sort of thing. Destiny is much better the less the player knows (in my opinion). Discovering things is a huge part of the fun. So saying they're giving us Raid-lites is pretty vague, but I'm not sure that giving more detail than that is necessary.

No, we know that a Raid Lair is a 6 player activity with Raid-level challenge occupying a shorter intended timeframe. So, to say we don't know what it is I cannot accept.

If that's the case (and I have no reason to believe it isn't), why not call it a Raid and just say it's smaller and shorter than the Raid from vanilla D2? I feel like dance around terms like "Raid Content" and "Raid Lair" is some kind of legalese way of saying "we never expressly told you it would be a Raid, per se" and that bothers me.

In the stream, they did a segment on the Mercury Destination, took a break to switch developers in the interview chairs, then DeeJ started the segment on the Raid Lairs by saying something along the lines of “We’ve gotten a lot of questions about what “Raid content” means.” Then they talked about what it means to the extent that we now know:

- They aren’t adding onto the original Raid or swapping out segments for new segments.
- They aren’t intending these Raid Lairs to be of the same length or scope as a full Raid.
- They are promising to provide Raid-level content in terms of difficulty and creativity.

No, they didn’t contrast its length in measurable terms to past Destiny Raids. They didn’t detail the encounters beyond saying some would be more puzzle based and some would be more sandbox based. But they’ve never shown us the encounters in the past either and all the previous Raids turned out more or less all right.

Yes, it was frustrating when they kept saying “raid activities” or “raid content” the past few weeks without even attempting to clarify what that meant, but now they have clarified it. There’s no legalese here. No deception. No one is pretending these Raid Lairs are full Raids.

Why not just call it a Raid? Because that would be worse. Even if these Raid Lairs turn out to be ever so slightly glorified Strikes, at least going forward we will know that when Bungie said Raid they mean Raid and when they say Raid Lair they mean Glorified Strike. Isn’t that better than calling everything a Raid and us having less of an idea about what we’re really getting?

If they had gone right on calling it “raid content” like the did at first you would have a point. There would have still been an unacceptable level of opacity. I didn’t like how they did that either. But now they have provided a not insignificant amount of clarification. It’s time to drop the conspiracy theories. At least until you are proven right all along...

Look. You are arguing from a position of ignorance. End of story. I get that you are busy at the moment and I sympathize. But what you are doing, criticising without even having heard what Bungie had to say, is ridiculous.

And honestly man, not knowing there was even a steam today? The initial title of this thread is:

Curse of Osiris - 1st live stream

The first sentence of the article is:

As part of its first stream detailing the first expansion for Destiny 2 (Curse of Osiris), Bungie answered one of the expansions's biggest questions: What will the new raid content look like?

Come back when you are informed. Because right now you deserve every bit of criticism you are getting and more.

Sooo, you just hate words then?

I see what you did there :P

Okay, so I just watched the stream, and I gotta say that the article did a really good job of summing up what they said about the raid lair, which was not very much (the earlier stuff was really, really cool though - man I want to talk about that, but not in this branch, since it's on the terminology). Seriously I did not need to watch that stream; it carried no additional info about the scope or scale of the Raid Lair, nor did it address why Bungie is suddenly using this new term. As it turns out, the linked article was totally informative when it comes to passing along everything we know about the Raid Lair, and I still stand by my original concerns regarding hyped activities of nebulous terminology.

Past experience has, sadly, taught me that Bungie is capable of misleading through omission, especially when they make up new terms.

Korny summed up some excellent examples from D2 in his post above.

Compare to Rise of Iron, which I felt handled the pre-order hype quite well:

- Pre-order and you'll get a Black Gjallerhorn! Literally that.

- Pre-order and get a Gjallerwing Sparrow (and they then show a video of the sparrow, which was exactly what you got).

That was great. They showed us exactly what we were going to get and fully met the expectations. There was no dance around the words. So having seen what forthright Bungie looks like, and what deceptive by omission Bungie looks like, "Raid Lair" has all of the stink of the latter.

My concerns are about this mode of communication, far more than they are about what was actually shown. The impression of the stream is that this is going to take about half as much time as the Leviathan Raid, which is a pretty good amount of content which will still take experienced players 30 minutes to an hour to complete. I'd be very happy with that. But the use of a new term, dancing around technically not calling it a "raid" per se but insisting it has "raid content" - it's sketchy as hell and I, for one, am greatly tempering my expectations as a result.

On a heartening note, it seems the next stream will reveal a lot more about the raid, so I'm hoping everything is cleared up then.

No, we know that a Raid Lair is a 6 player activity with Raid-level challenge occupying a shorter intended timeframe. So, to say we don't know what it is I cannot accept.

If that's the case (and I have no reason to believe it isn't), why not call it a Raid and just say it's smaller and shorter than the Raid from vanilla D2? I feel like dance around terms like "Raid Content" and "Raid Lair" is some kind of legalese way of saying "we never expressly told you it would be a Raid, per se" and that bothers me.

In the stream, they did a segment on the Mercury Destination, took a break to switch developers in the interview chairs, then DeeJ started the segment on the Raid Lairs by saying something along the lines of “We’ve gotten a lot of questions about what “Raid content” means.” Then they talked about what it means to the extent that we now know:

- They aren’t adding onto the original Raid or swapping out segments for new segments.
- They aren’t intending these Raid Lairs to be of the same length or scope as a full Raid.
- They are promising to provide Raid-level content in terms of difficulty and creativity.

No, they didn’t contrast its length in measurable terms to past Destiny Raids. They didn’t detail the encounters beyond saying some would be more puzzle based and some would be more sandbox based. But they’ve never shown us the encounters in the past either and all the previous Raids turned out more or less all right.

Yes, it was frustrating when they kept saying “raid activities” or “raid content” the past few weeks without even attempting to clarify what that meant, but now they have clarified it. There’s no legalese here. No deception. No one is pretending these Raid Lairs are full Raids.

Why not just call it a Raid? Because that would be worse. Even if these Raid Lairs turn out to be ever so slightly glorified Strikes, at least going forward we will know that when Bungie said Raid they mean Raid and when they say Raid Lair they mean Glorified Strike. Isn’t that better than calling everything a Raid and us having less of an idea about what we’re really getting?

If they had gone right on calling it “raid content” like the did at first you would have a point. There would have still been an unacceptable level of opacity. I didn’t like how they did that either. But now they have provided a not insignificant amount of clarification. It’s time to drop the conspiracy theories. At least until you are proven right all along...

The first half of the stream was awesome, imo. I'm STOKED for the wall of glyphs and the forge they showed. That looks really cool and NEW and very exciting.

As for the rest, I'm viewing "Raid Lair" just as you viewed "Raid Content." It's not enough clarification for me; the term just wasn't imbued with enough meaning during the stream to satisfy my skepticism. I'm happy to reserve final judgement until Bungie has finished their last stream - right now I'm simply stating that the way in which this messaging is couched reeks more of deceptive bungie marketing than of honest bungie marketing (see my post in the branch below for examples of what I mean).

I'm stoked for the Lighthouse and the Infinite Forest. The glyph wall as an in-game-world means of tracking your activities, as well as that being linked to your ability to forge items (unclear which, but they seemed to say the pistol was a forged weapon, so if I had to guess I'd imagine each node would be for a different weapon type). They didn't get into what forging actually means: Do you just get a weapon called "Forged Whatever" that has fixed stats, or do you have some actual control over the perks, mods, base type, etc. of the forged item? I want to know more.

Beyond that, this glyph wall, like the flaming statues in RoI, is a place where your actions in game are having a visible tracker within the context of the game, and I like that. I hope there's more of it.

Okay, the Infinite Forest. When moused over at the Director, it said something to the effect of "Branching Paths" or something (I don't remember exactly what the time was when I saw it so I can't find the exact quote and for that I apologize). Lore-wise, this is the vex simulation of reality that allows them to seek out possible futures and choose the right path to achieve their goals. Gameplay-wise, we'll be exploring a past, present, and future bit of mercury depending on what missions we're on etc... I like the concept a lot.

Also that warlock armor looked cool. I hope the Hunter gear is as good.

There honestly was a lot more being added than I expected, outside of the "Raid Lair" content that I'm skeptical of. Mercury as a playable patrol zone is great (and I was pleased that they discussed how the Almighty had been dismantling the planet for fuel; it annoys me that the final cutscene of the game shows Mercury as a whole world rather than the semi-broken apart world it was just a few cutscenes earlier). Plus there's a new campaign series that unlocked a whole new host of things to do upon completion. Good stuff, and reminds me of TTK's non-raid stuff more than any of the other xpacs we've seen (which, imo, was the best one).

I'm pretty excited for what they showed today. Hoping to get clarity about the Raid Lair next stream.

Sorry, I never get to do that.

Lost Sectors are almost exactly what I thought they would be, and I told you that you were expecting too much from them by thinking of HZD Cauldrons.

I knew better than to expect them to be anywhere like that, though I did hope that they'd be neat, and ultimately didn't feel too let down when we got what we got. I just wish Bungie would stop hyping minor things up so much, because people are feeling betrayed, I'm sure.

Speaking of which, did the Frozen Wilds not add one? I thought it would, but I didn’t see one.

I just finished today, and... well, there needs to be a Frozen Wilds thread ASAP, so get playing!

This is par for a company who could not say "MMORPG with FPS Elements" or possibly "Multiplayer RPG with FPS elements". I still don't know if 'shared world shooter' accurately describes Destiny's genre.

Well, actually, brother, doesn't it cut both ways? I remember them saying explicitly that the reason they didn't use those labels is because they had associations that didn't apply to Destiny. And if that's true, couldn't you say that by not using them, they were trying to be accurate?

No, we know that a Raid Lair is a 6 player activity with Raid-level challenge occupying a shorter intended timeframe. So, to say we don't know what it is I cannot accept.

If that's the case (and I have no reason to believe it isn't), why not call it a Raid and just say it's smaller and shorter than the Raid from vanilla D2? I feel like dance around terms like "Raid Content" and "Raid Lair" is some kind of legalese way of saying "we never expressly told you it would be a Raid, per se" and that bothers me.

In the stream, they did a segment on the Mercury Destination, took a break to switch developers in the interview chairs, then DeeJ started the segment on the Raid Lairs by saying something along the lines of “We’ve gotten a lot of questions about what “Raid content” means.” Then they talked about what it means to the extent that we now know:

- They aren’t adding onto the original Raid or swapping out segments for new segments.
- They aren’t intending these Raid Lairs to be of the same length or scope as a full Raid.
- They are promising to provide Raid-level content in terms of difficulty and creativity.

No, they didn’t contrast its length in measurable terms to past Destiny Raids. They didn’t detail the encounters beyond saying some would be more puzzle based and some would be more sandbox based. But they’ve never shown us the encounters in the past either and all the previous Raids turned out more or less all right.

Yes, it was frustrating when they kept saying “raid activities” or “raid content” the past few weeks without even attempting to clarify what that meant, but now they have clarified it. There’s no legalese here. No deception. No one is pretending these Raid Lairs are full Raids.

Why not just call it a Raid? Because that would be worse. Even if these Raid Lairs turn out to be ever so slightly glorified Strikes, at least going forward we will know that when Bungie said Raid they mean Raid and when they say Raid Lair they mean Glorified Strike. Isn’t that better than calling everything a Raid and us having less of an idea about what we’re really getting?

If they had gone right on calling it “raid content” like the did at first you would have a point. There would have still been an unacceptable level of opacity. I didn’t like how they did that either. But now they have provided a not insignificant amount of clarification. It’s time to drop the conspiracy theories. At least until you are proven right all along...

The first half of the stream was awesome, imo. I'm STOKED for the wall of glyphs and the forge they showed. That looks really cool and NEW and very exciting.

As for the rest, I'm viewing "Raid Lair" just as you viewed "Raid Content." It's not enough clarification for me; the term just wasn't imbued with enough meaning during the stream to satisfy my skepticism. I'm happy to reserve final judgement until Bungie has finished their last stream - right now I'm simply stating that the way in which this messaging is couched reeks more of deceptive bungie marketing than of honest bungie marketing (see my post in the branch below for examples of what I mean).

I feel like you are reading "deceptive Bungie" in reality it's just "tight lipped Bungie"
We all know Bungie always keeps their raids under lock and key. Nothing about a raid gets out. Now, they are trying to get a "raid experience" out to the public and not disappoint people. So for the first time they are telling you things about the raid experience and you think they are trying to deceive you?

Speaking of which, did the Frozen Wilds not add one? I thought it would, but I didn’t see one.

I just finished today, and... well, there needs to be a Frozen Wilds thread ASAP, so get playing!

Maybe I'll play some more tonight.

I got up the part where you have to do two activities to prove your worth in order to challenge some guy. Finished those activities and went to challenge the guy, and I just wasn't in the mood to keep going. Not sure why, I just haven't felt the need to go back to it. Origins has distracted me, I guess, at this point.

I like the visual design of the Vex quite a bit, and Mercury looks awesome.

Infinite Forest sounds cool.

Raid Lairs actually sound like a good compromise. Designing a whole new full sized Raid seems like a ridiculous expectation, but getting smaller Raid like experiences seems like it could satiate that hunger until we get a new full Raid with the next Comet.

Loving the aesthetic! I wonder/hope we get to revisit the Almighty.

I like how the Lighthouse is incorporated into the space and not just a social space.

New weapons and armor! And looks like there are lots of quests to do after the campaign for that sweet loot.

Looks like the destination is going to be pretty small, but thanks to the Infinite Forest it should feel bigger than say, Titan.

Raid Lairs sound awesome. They seem like a nice compromise, and I feel like they've set the expectations fairly. Lairs for DLC's, new Raids for Comet Expansions.

All in all, I'm excited about Season 2!

does that mean baths, guantlets, dogs, are all existing "raid lairs," and they are just adding to it?

Sounds like the new levels are in (or is it inside?) the new feature, and the current ones stay inside (or in?) the current raid.

Pools, Gardens, Gauntlet and Calus are encounters in the Leviathan Raid in the Palace. This is not changing (although it is getting a bump up to LL 300).

The new encounters are going to be in the World Eater Raid Lair. A completely separate activity from the Raid. You still land on the top of the Leviathan ship, but access these encounters through a different door and will visit a different part of the ship. Presumably down where the Leviathan actually processes the worlds it consumes.

I'm pretty sure that the problem with the way it was hyped was people got Lost Sectors confused with Adventures. Thinking the cave mini-dungeons would be the activity with abnormal mechanics when really the Adventures were the more unique experiences.

Bungie is using "this new term" because it is for something new. If Mars, Inc. releases a new flavor of skittles, they are going to give them a qualifier. Is saying "Tropical Skittles" sketchy as hell to describe what are ostensibly just Skittles, but with a different flavor?

The use of Raid Lair is not some double speak. It is straight up so people who overreact to the words as written outside of context don't assume that it is a full brand new Raid. Any confusion regarding this term I would surmise is built by you, and not by Bungie. Pretty sure the new term is to temper expectations, not to lie to the player base.

- No text -

Bungie is using "this new term" because it is for something new. If Mars, Inc. releases a new flavor of skittles, they are going to give them a qualifier. Is saying "Tropical Skittles" sketchy as hell to describe what are ostensibly just Skittles, but with a different flavor?

The use of Raid Lair is not some double speak. It is straight up so people who overreact to the words as written outside of context don't assume that it is a full brand new Raid. Any confusion regarding this term I would surmise is built by you, and not by Bungie. Pretty sure the new term is to temper expectations, not to lie to the player base.

I get that and I have no problem with bungie using a new term to describe something new. Thanks to the discussion here, I've been able to hone my concern to something more accurate: Bungie is hyping a new term without adequately describing it. That's what bugs me. The term is almost meaningless right now, given how little information they've given us, and yet they still insist on using it as a marketing pitch. That opens the door for rampant and unwarranted speculation, which Bungie has historically not denied.

No, we know that a Raid Lair is a 6 player activity with Raid-level challenge occupying a shorter intended timeframe. So, to say we don't know what it is I cannot accept.

If that's the case (and I have no reason to believe it isn't), why not call it a Raid and just say it's smaller and shorter than the Raid from vanilla D2? I feel like dance around terms like "Raid Content" and "Raid Lair" is some kind of legalese way of saying "we never expressly told you it would be a Raid, per se" and that bothers me.

In the stream, they did a segment on the Mercury Destination, took a break to switch developers in the interview chairs, then DeeJ started the segment on the Raid Lairs by saying something along the lines of “We’ve gotten a lot of questions about what “Raid content” means.” Then they talked about what it means to the extent that we now know:

- They aren’t adding onto the original Raid or swapping out segments for new segments.
- They aren’t intending these Raid Lairs to be of the same length or scope as a full Raid.
- They are promising to provide Raid-level content in terms of difficulty and creativity.

No, they didn’t contrast its length in measurable terms to past Destiny Raids. They didn’t detail the encounters beyond saying some would be more puzzle based and some would be more sandbox based. But they’ve never shown us the encounters in the past either and all the previous Raids turned out more or less all right.

Yes, it was frustrating when they kept saying “raid activities” or “raid content” the past few weeks without even attempting to clarify what that meant, but now they have clarified it. There’s no legalese here. No deception. No one is pretending these Raid Lairs are full Raids.

Why not just call it a Raid? Because that would be worse. Even if these Raid Lairs turn out to be ever so slightly glorified Strikes, at least going forward we will know that when Bungie said Raid they mean Raid and when they say Raid Lair they mean Glorified Strike. Isn’t that better than calling everything a Raid and us having less of an idea about what we’re really getting?

If they had gone right on calling it “raid content” like the did at first you would have a point. There would have still been an unacceptable level of opacity. I didn’t like how they did that either. But now they have provided a not insignificant amount of clarification. It’s time to drop the conspiracy theories. At least until you are proven right all along...

The first half of the stream was awesome, imo. I'm STOKED for the wall of glyphs and the forge they showed. That looks really cool and NEW and very exciting.

As for the rest, I'm viewing "Raid Lair" just as you viewed "Raid Content." It's not enough clarification for me; the term just wasn't imbued with enough meaning during the stream to satisfy my skepticism. I'm happy to reserve final judgement until Bungie has finished their last stream - right now I'm simply stating that the way in which this messaging is couched reeks more of deceptive bungie marketing than of honest bungie marketing (see my post in the branch below for examples of what I mean).

I feel like you are reading "deceptive Bungie" in reality it's just "tight lipped Bungie"
We all know Bungie always keeps their raids under lock and key. Nothing about a raid gets out. Now, they are trying to get a "raid experience" out to the public and not disappoint people. So for the first time they are telling you things about the raid experience and you think they are trying to deceive you?

I hope you're right. I'm basing my sense of deception on how they've hyped nebulous terms in the past. "Access the Vanguard Weapons Cache!" "Lost Sectors!" "Clarion Calls!"

Those were all smokescreens.

Bungie has also hyped things in a more transparent fashion:
"Black Gjallerhorn!" "Gjallerwing Sparrow!" "The Coldheart Exotic Weapon!"

When comparing deceptive Bungie marketing and forthright Bungie marketing, and then looking at how "Raid Lair!" is being marketed, it seems to me to fall more in line with the deceptive practices than the open and forthright ones.

Loving the aesthetic! I wonder/hope we get to revisit the Almighty.

I thought we destroyed the Almighty by overloading its main weapon?

I like how the Lighthouse is incorporated into the space and not just a social space.

LOVE the lighthouse space.

New weapons and armor! And looks like there are lots of quests to do after the campaign for that sweet loot.

Agreed, and they look awesome. The wall of glyphs is by far the most interesting part of the reveal to me. I enjoy having in-game, non-menu means of tracking my progress.

Looks like the destination is going to be pretty small, but thanks to the Infinite Forest it should feel bigger than say, Titan.

That's the same sense that I got. Layering past, present, and future versions of the same space may also make it feel thrice as big without adding too much in the way of actual geometry.

Raid Lairs sound awesome. They seem like a nice compromise, and I feel like they've set the expectations fairly. Lairs for DLC's, new Raids for Comet Expansions.

I took away almost nothing from the raid lair discussion. It did sound like they will show us more next stream. I hope they do.

All in all, I'm excited about Season 2!

Loving the aesthetic! I wonder/hope we get to revisit the Almighty.

I thought we destroyed the Almighty by overloading its main weapon?

Nah. We just stopped the weapon. You can actually see it in D2's final cutscene. It's also on the director in CoO (although when DeeJ moved over it nothing happened) and you can see it in Mercury's skybox (but it's very small).

I'm not holding my breath, but it would be really cool if we went back even for one mission or had a strike on it.

I get that and I have no problem with bungie using a new term to describe something new. Thanks to the discussion here, I've been able to hone my concern to something more accurate: Bungie is hyping a new term without adequately describing it. That's what bugs me. The term is almost meaningless right now, given how little information they've given us, and yet they still insist on using it as a marketing pitch. That opens the door for rampant and unwarranted speculation, which Bungie has historically not denied.

I think the problem here though is how could the resolve this? The only way I can think of that would satisfy everyone who agrees with you would be to show you the actual content ahead of time. They said it has new mechanics in a new space ending with a new boss, and that it takes less time to complete than a full raid. What information are you actually looking for? What qualifiers could they use that would satisfy you without actually spoiling the experience?

I get that and I have no problem with bungie using a new term to describe something new. Thanks to the discussion here, I've been able to hone my concern to something more accurate: Bungie is hyping a new term without adequately describing it. That's what bugs me. The term is almost meaningless right now, given how little information they've given us, and yet they still insist on using it as a marketing pitch. That opens the door for rampant and unwarranted speculation, which Bungie has historically not denied.

I think the problem here though is how could the resolve this? The only way I can think of that would satisfy everyone who agrees with you would be to show you the actual content ahead of time. They said it has new mechanics in a new space ending with a new boss, and that it takes less time to complete than a full raid. What information are you actually looking for? What qualifiers could they use that would satisfy you without actually spoiling the experience?

This is the balancing act isn't it?

The trick is to describe the new thing in broad enough terms where you understand it, but not specific enough that there's nothing to discover.

Maybe the best thing they could have said was a 'short raid' or something like that.

Loving the aesthetic! I wonder/hope we get to revisit the Almighty.

I like how the Lighthouse is incorporated into the space and not just a social space.

i always wondered if they had originally planned to do more with the lighthouse in D1. There are some areas that have vex energy wall thingys blocking access. There was one in the main area, and one down a short staircase that i can remember well. I always assumed that there would be more content later that would open those up.

Loving the aesthetic! I wonder/hope we get to revisit the Almighty.

I thought we destroyed the Almighty by overloading its main weapon?

Nah. We just stopped the weapon. You can actually see it in D2's final cutscene. It's also on the director in CoO (although when DeeJ moved over it nothing happened) and you can see it in Mercury's skybox (but it's very small).

I'm not holding my breath, but it would be really cool if we went back even for one mission or had a strike on it.

The weapon blew up, but not the whole ship.

Maybe the best thing they could have said was a 'short raid' or something like that.

They said that in more detail in the presentation, that's why so many of us here are confused. The description I used above: "They said it has new mechanics in a new space ending with a new boss, and that it takes less time to complete than a full raid" is what was described in the presentation, that translates very very easily to 'short raid'. If 'short raid' is acceptable and the presentation somehow wasn't than this is entirely an argument over semantics.

Loving the aesthetic! I wonder/hope we get to revisit the Almighty.

I thought we destroyed the Almighty by overloading its main weapon?

Nah. We just stopped the weapon. You can actually see it in D2's final cutscene. It's also on the director in CoO (although when DeeJ moved over it nothing happened) and you can see it in Mercury's skybox (but it's very small).

I'm not holding my breath, but it would be really cool if we went back even for one mission or had a strike on it.

That makes sense. I didn't notice it in Mercury's skybox - is that in-game in the pvp levels right now? Or did you see it in the stream? Cool touch either way.

It would be cool to go back to the almighty. Having a star-destroying weapon at our disposal could prove useful...

As an aside, that final cutscene has so many problems that I've blocked it out. From the Texas-sized Traveler to Mercury being whole and intact to the velocity of the light pulse speeding up far beyond relativistic limits... I just assumed that the Almighty still existing was another mistake.

That makes sense. I didn't notice it in Mercury's skybox - is that in-game in the pvp levels right now? Or did you see it in the stream? Cool touch either way.

DeeJ briefly looked at it on the stream. Very easy to miss.

It would be cool to go back to the almighty. Having a star-destroying weapon at our disposal could prove useful...

As an aside, that final cutscene has so many problems that I've blocked it out. From the Texas-sized Traveler to Mercury being whole and intact to the velocity of the light pulse speeding up far beyond relativistic limits... I just assumed that the Almighty still existing was another mistake.

lol. yeah, it has some problems.

I don't think any of its problems were mistakes or oversights, though. Deliberate visual communication in a way that will be generally understood is more important in storytelling than having totally accurate relative dimensions.

They said it has new mechanics in a new space ending with a new boss, and that it takes less time to complete than a full raid.

I get that and I have no problem with bungie using a new term to describe something new. Thanks to the discussion here, I've been able to hone my concern to something more accurate: Bungie is hyping a new term without adequately describing it. That's what bugs me. The term is almost meaningless right now, given how little information they've given us, and yet they still insist on using it as a marketing pitch. That opens the door for rampant and unwarranted speculation, which Bungie has historically not denied.

I think the problem here though is how could the resolve this? The only way I can think of that would satisfy everyone who agrees with you would be to show you the actual content ahead of time. They said it has new mechanics in a new space ending with a new boss, and that it takes less time to complete than a full raid. What information are you actually looking for? What qualifiers could they use that would satisfy you without actually spoiling the experience?

These are completely fair questions and I appreciate you asking them.

I think that their descriptions needed more comparison terms. Saying "it's smaller than the raid" gives us an upper bound, but no lower limit. I'd have liked "it's smaller than the raid but bigger than Io" or "It's about the size of the Dark Below raid" or "It's not at all like Prison of Elders, except in terms of how big the playable area is. Or even "It's a little bigger than the new Tower." Hopefully not "It's as big as most Lost Sectors." The information we have now is that size S={0,..., The Current Raid} which isn't enough info to know much about it, imo.

We do know for a fact that this is "Raid Content" and they said that means it is designed for 6 players. So that's concrete, at least.

As for the mechanics, they said it contains a couple of puzzles. That casts a very wide net. There's a "jumping puzzle" in the Vault of Glass that is basically nothing and can be completed in a single jump by most classes. Then there's the exotic weapon puzzle/chain in Rise of Iron which is hugely in-depth, required community support and research, and contained many varied steps. So we can't say what this is. It could be several massive and complicated puzzles, or several tiny and simple "puzzles," or a mix of the two, and we simply don't have enough information to know.

Then, we know that it ends with a boss fight. We don't know if this means there's only 1 encounter and 1 chance at loot per week, or if each puzzle results in a chest and then the boss fight is more loot, or if there are multiple possible bosses but you can only fight one per week (sort of like PoE). We also don't know if this is going to be a simple, strike-style boss fight, or a more complicated fight comparable to the final fight of the Leviathan raid, or something in between. Not enough info.

The last bit of information we have is that this will take less time than the current Raid. Commonly discussed was "I don't have time for the full raid, so let's do the Raid Lair." That concerns me. The full raid can be completed in under 2 hours by most experienced teams, and some nutso guys finished it in 24 minutes.. So this seems to indicate that the raid lair will take about an hour to complete once you know what's going on, and be possible for crazy people to finish in 12.5 minutes? Given that we already have a plethora of activities in the 15-20 minute range (strikes and PvP matches, as well as most adventures and missions), it would make sense to me that that would be too short for a 6 player activity. Again, I'm thinking about an hour is most likely, but - as with the size, we don't know for sure. What we do know is that Time T=(0,..., The Current Raid).

The end result here, though, is that we've been told it'll take less time than the raid and that's all we know.

Look, I get that it's absurd to think that this will be a 1 pixel sized space that takes 4 nanoseconds to complete. And yet, from the information Bungie has provided, that's a (wholly unrealistic) possibility. Which is why I would appreciate more information. Let's get the word from the horse's mouth as to what the size, time commitment, and level of complexity are.

I don't think any of its problems were mistakes or oversights, though. Deliberate visual communication in a way that will be generally understood is more important in storytelling than having totally accurate relative dimensions.

Bruh, do you even sci-fi?

This is exactly the kind of detail we nerds obsess over.

And that most content creators disregard for the sake of storytelling.

The problem is the amount of time it takes to complete will vary by a lot. My regular raid group has finished Leviathan in less than an hour of actual play time, but we've also taken 3+ hours even when we know all the encounters. Sure some guy's group finished it in under 30 minutes, but some people finished Crota's End in under 7 minutes. Time length of activities in video games, especially ones as challenging as the Raid, are almost impossible to give. Just go look at estimated lengths for campaigns. Even the crowd sourced "how long to beat" varies by HUGE amounts for games with hundreds of people entering their times. If you look back Bungie hasn't for a long time given time estimates, and I doubt they'll start with a Raid Lair.

The question of amount of space is even less meaningful to describe anything you'd see in the final game. In Crota's End you run through an encounter space that's really large at the very beginning of the Raid, but you only experience a tiny percentage of it for a very short amount of time.

I honestly don't think that any of the questions you bring up, while important, can be adequately and accurately answered without actually SHOWING the content, something we know for a fact they won't do. It's totally fine to want answers to them, and you can even wait until the content comes out, see what other people think and then decide whether or not to purchase it, but not answering those questions is not in anyway being deceptive.

And that most content creators disregard for the sake of storytelling.

I disagree. I'm a professional editor and also a writer now, and I'm pretty damn meticulous when it comes to consistency within my worlds.

You are part of a niche minority. Additionally, visual communication is highly different from verbal communication, as you have to rely on eyes instead of a brain.

Giving that there are ghosts who are imbued with the light of the traveller, and they repeatedly use this light to bring us back to life, why would you assume that the pulse from the Traveller is constrained by any relativistic limits?

The universe has already gone far beyond/away from scientific limits.

but some people finished Crota's End in under 7 minutes.

Seriously? Holy cow.

Giving that there are ghosts who are imbued with the light of the traveler, and they repeatedly use this light to bring us back to life, why would you assume that the pulse from the Traveller is constrained by any relativistic limits?

The universe has already gone far beyond/away from scientific limits.

I agree. I feel like Light is something not bound by the speed of light. You probably can't visually show that in a convincing way though.

The size the traveler is depicted as in that scene does bother me. If it was artsier, like the opening of the game you could argue its just stylized.

Don't get me wrong, I get why they did it, and I can forgive/forget it, but if we're being nitpicky that's one thing I'd change.

Giving that there are ghosts who are imbued with the light of the traveller, and they repeatedly use this light to bring us back to life, why would you assume that the pulse from the Traveller is constrained by any relativistic limits?

Because we can see it in the cutscene at the end of the game. This necessarily implies sub-luminal speeds. Otherwise, the light it emits would be blue shifted out of our visual range. This would happen at 0.866c actually, assuming the object emits visible light.

The Destiny universe clearly and explicitly does not stick to hard sci-fi’s strict physics. If you’ll recall, the Hive once thought of the Ecumene as “lords of matter and physical law” but after Oryx killed his siblings he was able to defeat the Ecumene through “physically illegal” means. Some of the powers of the Hive, Vex, and the Traveler itself are also referred to as paracausal since they defy the normal rules of reality.

So, yeah, a normal wave of light is limited by speed and wavelength. But this ain’t that.

The Destiny universe clearly and explicitly does not stick to hard sci-fi’s strict physics. If you’ll recall, the Hive once thought of the Ecumene as “lords of matter and physical law” but after Oryx killed his siblings he was able to defeat the Ecumene through “physically illegal” means. Some of the powers of the Hive, Vex, and the Traveler itself are also referred to as paracausal since they defy the normal rules of reality.

So, yeah, a normal wave of light is limited by speed and wavelength. But this ain’t that.

I just find it hard to believe that Bungie intended to alter the Lorentz transform as part of their rules for the universe. I can buy space magic and time travel, but this seems… oddly specific.

If they called it a Raid and delivered anything less than a full Raid, we'd be back at square one with Bungie over-promising and under-delivering. I'm completely okay with them coming up with new terms to describe new things if it's in the name of reigning in expectations.

You're point about not enough info still stands, I think, but does that really matter right now? The expansion is still a month away, and if you legitimately feel you don't have enough info by the time it releases, it will take all of 24 hours before you can turn to the community to explain what it is so you can make a decision.

I guess some might disagree, but Bungie legitimately has a difficult job when it comes to this sort of thing. Destiny is much better the less the player knows (in my opinion). Discovering things is a huge part of the fun. So saying they're giving us Raid-lites is pretty vague, but I'm not sure that giving more detail than that is necessary.

I completely agree with you here. My concern is how they are hyping a term that we don't have enough information to parse. That's it. I don't like seeing "get hyped about (Term)" when I don't have enough information to know what that term really means, and it's a bad habit bungie has had in D2's marketing imo. According to this past stream, the next one will go deeper into detail on the raid lair, so hopefully they get us the info I'm looking for then.

I thought we destroyed the Almighty by overloading its main weapon?

In the first segment of the stream Bungie’s lead writer directly mentioned that it was not destroyed. She also mentioned that the Cabal landing on Mercury during gameplay were survivors from the Almighty. It’s sounding like the Almighty (and it’s surrounding fleet?) will be the way the keep the Cabal in our system post Red War.

No. You’re just being oddly difficult.

Good day, sir.

I just finished the Challenge. Holy crap. That was a really fun segment.

EDIT: Oh, you sly bastard, not answering my question about a new Cauldron.

According to this past stream, the next one will go deeper into detail on the raid lair, so hopefully they get us the info I'm looking for then.

Do you have a timestamp on this? Not that I don't believe it, I just don't remember them saying that.

I just find it hard to believe that Bungie intended to alter the Lorentz transform as part of their rules for the universe. I can buy space magic and time travel, but this seems… oddly specific.

Well, actually, brother,

That's the lovely thing about making up a consistent set of rules for your setting.

You don't have to consciously and intentionally catalogue and explain every facet of the setting's rules, as a whole model. You certainly can, but you don't need to.

All you need to do, is work out the rules that you want, and then portray them consistently with each other. Then, from that, all the little subrules and implications can be filled in by people who care about them. "But isn't that just having your fans make excuses for the work?" It's actually not, because if the system is consistent, then these necessarily little implications are part of the system, even if the authors never thought about them at all.

So, we see that we can see Light, but the we here is the people playing the game. This may be artistic license, as demonstrated by the size of the Traveler, or it may be a thing that people in the universe could have seen.

But it might be that you can see Light, even as it moves faster than light. There are a lot of potential reasons for that. All Bungie would have to do is name one of them, and then things like how that explanation interacts with the Lorentz transform can be deduced simply from the explanation.

The shorter, clearer version:

Destiny is a setting that is, to some extent, like reality, except where noted.

When we see something that's different from reality, we can take that to be true, and then from there work out what it means for all the physics nitty gritty.

Nobody has to explicitly think about all that nitty gritty to do this; they just have to portray the system consistently and completely, which they can do, even if they don't know a certain piece of nitty gritty that's affected by the system, since the system supersedes that nitty gritty.

Does that make sense?

Deliberate visual communication in a way that will be generally understood is more important in storytelling than having totally accurate relative dimensions.

Wrong.

Not that I'm saying it's the other way around, or that they're both equally important, or anything like that.

You just can't construct any equation or inequality here.

To do so requires an absolute truth about quality we don't have, and a context that doesn't exist in a blanket statement.

"But sci-fi fans care about consistency", and "But they're a very small niche" both fail, because they're trying to make a blanket statement that doesn't work.

Now if you want to state a personal preference, or talk about what would best appeal to a particular niche, that's fine, but without supplying that you're just stating an opinion as fact, whether you meant to or not.

I, personally, am a fan of science fiction and a nerd who likes to work things out, but I focus more on systems of causality and physics; I forget if I noticed the Traveler being larger than it should have been, but I know it didn't bother me. I think it was a completely valid instance of artistic license; but I don't know what proportion of the Destiny audience thought as much, versus what portion thought it was bothersome, versus what portion didn't notice it, or how you could best weight them against each other.

But it just feels like this conversation isn't about those considerations, but rather about some arbitrary maxim that it is supposedly correct for a story to follow, and that it is necessarily more important than consistency.

And that rubs me the wrong way?

DeeJ signs off by saying the 2nd stream will look at some of CoO’s activities including the large public event they teased and some of the Infinite Forest. Given that the directly previous topic was basically “anything else we want to tell players about the Raid Lair” with the answer basically being “no, but we can’t wait for them to see it” I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

- No text -

The Destiny universe clearly and explicitly does not stick to hard sci-fi’s strict physics. If you’ll recall, the Hive once thought of the Ecumene as “lords of matter and physical law” but after Oryx killed his siblings he was able to defeat the Ecumene through “physically illegal” means. Some of the powers of the Hive, Vex, and the Traveler itself are also referred to as paracausal since they defy the normal rules of reality.

So, yeah, a normal wave of light is limited by speed and wavelength. But this ain’t that.

I just find it hard to believe that Bungie intended to alter the Lorentz transform as part of their rules for the universe. I can buy space magic and time travel, but this seems… oddly specific.

I'm hesitant to jump into this, but it is possible that we might not be seeing the actual wave as it moves faster than light. It could be that we're seeing the effects of the wave as it interacts with matter while the actual wave is traveling FTL. Wouldn't that negate the need for worry about blue-shifts?

I say this knowing full well that artistic license is probably the answer and I'm satisfied with that.

Well, actually, brother,

- No text -

The Destiny universe clearly and explicitly does not stick to hard sci-fi’s strict physics. If you’ll recall, the Hive once thought of the Ecumene as “lords of matter and physical law” but after Oryx killed his siblings he was able to defeat the Ecumene through “physically illegal” means. Some of the powers of the Hive, Vex, and the Traveler itself are also referred to as paracausal since they defy the normal rules of reality.

So, yeah, a normal wave of light is limited by speed and wavelength. But this ain’t that.

I just find it hard to believe that Bungie intended to alter the Lorentz transform as part of their rules for the universe. I can buy space magic and time travel, but this seems… oddly specific.

I'm hesitant to jump into this, but it is possible that we might not be seeing the actual wave as it moves faster than light. It could be that we're seeing the effects of the wave as it interacts with matter while the actual wave is traveling FTL. Wouldn't that negate the need for worry about blue-shifts?

I say this knowing full well that artistic license is probably the answer and I'm satisfied with that.

It's totally artistic license and I only mention it because taking liberties with the rules of the game universe bugs the hell out of me. :P

But I like what you're thinking. However, were that the case, then what we'd see would be the light from the interaction, which would look less like a pulse that slowly spreads and more like the whole universe turned cloudy and white for a second there. Even more further (even furthermore?), There's still the issue that the camera observing this visible phenomenon is so far away from the Traveler that the actual return of light would have passed the camera a billion years (or very likely several billion years) before the light from that disturbance ever reached the camera (at which point our sun has naturally died anyway etc... ) so seeing the pyramid ships react to that would be a big "meh" for the universe as a LOT can change in a billion+ years.

I thought we destroyed the Almighty by overloading its main weapon?

In the first segment of the stream Bungie’s lead writer directly mentioned that it was not destroyed. She also mentioned that the Cabal landing on Mercury during gameplay were survivors from the Almighty. It’s sounding like the Almighty (and it’s surrounding fleet?) will be the way the keep the Cabal in our system post Red War.

It makes sense. Plus the emperor still wants to eat Nessus, right?

According to this past stream, the next one will go deeper into detail on the raid lair, so hopefully they get us the info I'm looking for then.

Do you have a timestamp on this? Not that I don't believe it, I just don't remember them saying that.

Twitch is giving me a media playback error so I can't find it exactly, but I believe that during the first half talk after the "meet osiris" cutscene they talked about how the lore of osiris was going to affect the raid and that they'd talk more about that in the second stream.

Now, granted what they posted today to the TWAB makes it seem like they *won't* be discussing the raid lair further, so I'm not really sure what to think right now.

It makes sense. Plus the emperor still wants to eat Nessus, right?

That's actually a good point, and something I hadn't considered. Given how the Raid ends, we didn't really solve that problem (if it even is a problem--do we care if he eats Nessus?)

How are we going to be able to differentiate between Mars,Venus,and Present while playing in (or inside)the Infinite Forest? And are the precursors actually going to be in past this time?

(if it even is a problem--do we care if he eats Nessus?)

Of course we do! Failsafe is there. Now, if it were Io, instead...

- No text -

How are we going to be able to differentiate between Mars,Venus,and Present while playing in (or inside)the Infinite Forest? And are the precursors actually going to be in past this time?

They said in the stream it would be Past (lush garden world), present (desert world with little life), and future (Full machine world with no life at all).

How are we going to be able to differentiate between Mars,Venus,and Present while playing in (or inside)the Infinite Forest? And are the precursors actually going to be in past this time?

I never did figure out which one was the past or future. I just knew left/right, mars/venus, red/green.

How are we going to be able to differentiate between Mars,Venus,and Present while playing in (or inside)the Infinite Forest? And are the precursors actually going to be in past this time?

I never did figure out which one was the past or future. I just knew left/right, mars/venus, red/green.

They said in the stream that the past had Mercury (I KNOW) as a lush garden world, and the future had it as a barren landscape completely devoid of life.

I'm not trying to treat it as a comparison or an opinion of details as fact. However, I will stand by the point that if, as a storyteller, you do not communicate to your listener, regardless of how universally accurate your non-communication is, you are not being a good storyteller. This is not to say anything toward the quality of hard or soft sci-fi against each other, that just happens to be context.

Words themselves are imprecise, though. So if that point did come across and you disagree with it or something else then we have a different discussion.

What, terraforming Venus into a lush garden world was fine, but working out one measly 'the Sun is pretty close here' problem is a bridge too far? :P

No the Bridge too Far is the past Mercury is vegetative while the past Venus was barren. This all happened because of a clerical error, ALL the vex gardeners were shipped to Mercury, and it took forever to figure out. Their solution was then to ship them all to Venus and rectify the sandyness but failed to realize that plants need special care and attention which is why present Mercury is sandy. After running many simulations they realized machines are the way of the future, and forgot about the team on Venus, who use tender loving care and miracle-gro to keep it so lush.

...Space Magic.

I don't know how you guys didn't know that. It explains everything.

No the Bridge too Far is the past Mercury is vegetative while the past Venus was barren. This all happened because of a clerical error, ALL the vex gardeners were shipped to Mercury, and it took forever to figure out. Their solution was then to ship them all to Venus and rectify the sandyness but failed to realize that plants need special care and attention which is why present Mercury is sandy. After running many simulations they realized machines are the way of the future, and forgot about the team on Venus, who use tender loving care and miracle-gro to keep it so lush.

I know this is a joke, but Mercury was a lush garden world BEFORE the Vex showed up, then they turned it into a machine world with basically no vegetation. This is in grimoire cards from Destiny 1. (look at Mercury for example)

Right, and at the first one one of the D1 missions, our Ghost even tells us that the Traveler stopped the Vex from finishing converting Venus into one of their machine worlds... and that's pretty much all we've heard about that.

What seems to have happened in order is:

- Traveler arrives in our Solar System and terraforms several planets and moons including Mercury.
- The Ishtar Collective finds Vex ruins on terraformed Venus and begins to study them and one or more captured Vex units. The IC team finds out that they had it backwards and it's more like the Vex were studying them by simulating them several times over! The IC team breaks free of the Vex simulations with the help of a (the?) Warmind.
- This Ishtar Collective team returns to the Vex ruins to unleash their digital copies of themselves into the Vex network. They approach via primitive remote controlled Exo bodies.
- Sometime later the Vex wake up, convert Mercury from a Garden World to a Vex World. Humanity engages the Vex with Frames and Exos since the Vex and their structures have strange and potentially fatal effects on biological humans.
- The Traveler intervenes and somehow ends the Vex uprising which pauses their attempted takeover of Venus until well after the Collapse. We stop that takeover again during the Venus Strike in D1.

There's just very little else to go on so far. Hopefully a good bit of the Golden Age war against the Vex gets filled in... because that sounds cool!

I "finished" it in the sense that I beat the main story of the expansion. I haven't done much of the side stuff yet, but I'll get back in maybe this weekend. I want to drain the facility that one woman was talking about.

I also am curious what CYAN has to say if you revisit her at points in the main story. I played the expansion in my NG+ play through, in which I haven't even visited Meridian yet, so Aloy hasn't encountered much yet. With CYAN saying should would be eager to talk if you revisit her, I wonder if she'll have any revelations about other things that happen in the main story of the base game. I'll find out at some point, as I continue my play through.

Also, this GIF really shows off just how ridiculously amazing the game looks:

What, terraforming Venus into a lush garden world was fine, but working out one measly 'the Sun is pretty close here' problem is a bridge too far? :P

I think you just took this thread to Awesometown. I laughed out loud. Well played!

I'm not trying to treat it as a comparison or an opinion of details as fact. However, I will stand by the point that if, as a storyteller, you do not communicate to your listener, regardless of how universally accurate your non-communication is, you are not being a good storyteller. This is not to say anything toward the quality of hard or soft sci-fi against each other, that just happens to be context.

Words themselves are imprecise, though. So if that point did come across and you disagree with it or something else then we have a different discussion.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the story would have been better if Bungie had said nothing. I know that I, for one, simply wish that they used any of the myriad of storytelling devices available to them that could have expressed the universal return of the Traveler's light without the fairly blatant disregard for even a semblance of realism.

...even a semblance of realism.

Yeah... I think you’ve taken things too far. That wave of space magic? That we’ve seen exactly once in this universe? We don’t know how it works or moves or propagates. You’re imposing rules of realism on something whose rules you have no way of knowing.

We’re talking about a universe where those 500+ years dead are brought back to life, where our Guardians jump three stories in the air and spontaneously manafest the destructive power of a small bomb, where our Jumpships not only break orbit with astonishing ease, they travel across the solar system in what seems to be minutes or hours. None of that fits with the known laws of our universe either. Are you going to start a topic on each of those things next?

The cutscene did it job and it did it in a visually spectacular style. If that wave of Light was left unclear or if it simply didn’t matter, then sure, the cutscene would deserve criticism. But Bungie has now stated that the pyramid ships waking up will be important to the story in a few years and that the Light passing over Mercury plays a part in the Vex’s plans in Curse of Osiris.

At the end of the day, you’re being nitpicky in the extreme about something you have no real justification to be nitpicky about.

...even a semblance of realism.

Yeah... I think you’ve taken things too far. That wave of space magic? That we’ve seen exactly once in this universe? We don’t know how it works or moves or propagates. You’re imposing rules of realism on something whose rules you have no way of knowing.

We’re talking about a universe where those 500+ years dead are brought back to life, where our Guardians jump three stories in the air and spontaneously manafest the destructive power of a small bomb, where our Jumpships not only break orbit with astonishing ease, they travel across the solar system in what seems to be minutes or hours. None of that fits with the known laws of our universe either. Are you going to start a topic on each of those things next?

The cutscene did it job and it did it in a visually spectacular style. If that wave of Light was left unclear or if it simply didn’t matter, then sure, the cutscene would deserve criticism. But Bungie has now stated that the pyramid ships waking up will be important to the story in a few years and that the Light passing over Mercury plays a part in the Vex’s plans in Curse of Osiris.

At the end of the day, you’re being nitpicky in the extreme about something you have no real justification to be nitpicky about.

That's fair.

I feel like they could have achieved the same effect, storytelling-wise, in a more elegant way, is what it really boils down to. Personal preference, I suppose.

I "finished" it in the sense that I beat the main story of the expansion. I haven't done much of the side stuff yet, but I'll get back in maybe this weekend. I want to drain the facility that one woman was talking about.

I really enjoyed the side quests in Frozen Wilds, and made a point to do them all before I beat it. There aren't too many, but they're all worth doing. Almost all of them made me chuckle with the dialogue, and then surprised me with the gameplay.

I also am curious what CYAN has to say if you revisit her at points in the main story. I played the expansion in my NG+ play through, in which I haven't even visited Meridian yet, so Aloy hasn't encountered much yet. With CYAN saying should would be eager to talk if you revisit her, I wonder if she'll have any revelations about other things that happen in the main story of the base game. I'll find out at some point, as I continue my play through.

I was at the final story mission when I started Frozen Wilds, so Aloy is pretty well versed in everything so far, so there were some neat things that she discusses with CYAN. It's sadly not as in-depth and revelatory as I'd hoped, but it makes sense story-wise, since CYAN was put into Standby before Zero Dawn, without ever really knowing what was going on. That said, she does have a unique perspective, all things considered, so I ended up liking her as a character, and I really hope we get more from her down the road, especially given the fact that she's going to become a part of the Banuk culture... the more I think about her potential as a future character, the more excited I am.

Also, this GIF really shows off just how ridiculously amazing the game looks:

I'm on my Ultra Hard runthrough, and I spent well over two hours simply hunting and fishing, since I never bothered to fully upgrade my carrying capacities, and you have to depend on potions quite a bit now (especially since I don't believe in MIDA Shield Weaver armor). Hunting animals helps give you time to appreciate how gorgeous the environments are, since you spend most of your time off of the marked trails, (And the nature of UH requires you to be pretty aware of your environments and alternate routes anyway).

...Space Magic.

I don't know how you guys didn't know that. It explains everything.

/sigh

...Space Magic.

I don't know how you guys didn't know that. It explains everything.

/sigh

I only half jest. I don't know why most of us are assuming this explosion from the traveler is something we could even understand. Why can't people just give in to Destiny and believe in space magic? I mean that's basically what the traveler is to us as Guardians.

This is coming from a software Engineer and a very logical guy. I love things getting explained, but sometimes I feel like you just need to let things go and believe in space magic.

...Space Magic.

I don't know how you guys didn't know that. It explains everything.

/sigh

I only half jest. I don't know why most of us are assuming this explosion from the traveler is something we could even understand. Why can't people just give in to Destiny and believe in space magic? I mean that's basically what the traveler is to us as Guardians.

This is coming from a software Engineer and a very logical guy. I love things getting explained, but sometimes I feel like you just need to let things go and believe in space magic.

The thing that gets me isn't whether or not it's space magic, it's that shot to shot it's not consistent. The internal logic of the game fails, and that irks me. Someone (raga?) argued that the shots might be timewarped to show matching rates of acceleration regardless of the camera's frame, but that's both absurd and there's direct evidence to the contrary since other, non-traveler-light objects are still moving seemingly normally.

I'm not complaining that the light exists or asking for its nature to be explained. I'm fine with the enigmatic and all-powerful Traveler existing in this universe.

What bothers me, from purely a storytelling standpoint, is that Bungie is making the same thing (in this case, traveler's light) behave differently at different times (and I'm being generous; they're doing it shot to shot to shot, all back to back to back in this cutscene). That's just sloppy work. It's minor, but it's annoying.

I would make a similar post if Ikora suddenly and without in-game explanation started speaking in a man's voice, for example.

Nah. My revised, updated, deleted, undeleted, rerevised grand theory is the wave of Light crosses all points in the universe at the same time, we just see it in 5 or whatever views for dramatic effect. :p

Nah. My revised, updated, deleted, undeleted, rerevised grand theory is the wave of Light crosses all points in the universe at the same time, we just see it in 5 or whatever views for dramatic effect. :p

So I've considered this as the most likely scenario and also how I would have wanted to show it, visually, if I were the director here.

One option is to just have the screen flash white and then fade to normal, with a little light residue around each of the guardians and ghosts. Then you show that flash from ever widening views. There'd have to be a discussion about how big the flash is - is the universe flashing, or is the traveler flashing - which would determine whether you were seeing the whole screen flash in each view or seeing only the traveler flash (but very brightly). Without a visible corona of spreading light. Very similar to what we saw, but different enough to not make it seem like the camera is tracking the spread of the light, as it currently seems.

Another option would be to animate the light returning, using the same sort of schematic type animations Destiny has always used. This would make a lot of sense to me, though it would necessitate a narrator (Ghost?) to explain, which means the narrator would also need to at least pretend to understand what had happened.

And yet a third would have been to forego the bright flash outside of the galaxy altogether, and just show a screen with a blinking dot, and then the spaceships waking up and moving. We'd understand they'd sensed it somehow.

Probably a myriad of other options.

Cannon-wise, I'm sure the light traveled instantaneously. It's simply the visual representation of it in game that makes me want to slap my forehead.

All of those sound a bit worse, honestly? (And the one with the dot a lot worse. All the build-up leading to the payoff with the pyramid ships is really important, I think; it wouldn't have the same punch if they weren't such a surprise. It was honestly one of my favorite moments in the game? Granted, I've been on the site for long enough to have seen the GDC panel where the concept art for a fifth race was shown off, so that did a lot of the build-up for me, but still.) It's a personal preference thing, of course, but, they just seem less impressive. I think the visual they went with was really cool, and cinematic, in a way that a flash wouldn't be as much. And an animatic could be interesting, but not as gorgeous, and it I think wouldn't serve the purpose as well.

I don't understand this assumption the the Light clearly traveled instantaneously. In fact, that seems directly contrary to the start of the cutscene with Ghaul?

And the more I watch it, the less the speed seems at all strange?

It's accelerating, spreading 'slowly' over progressively larger and larger distances. We see it hit the ships, and, as far as I can tell, it goes over them pretty much instantly, with an effect lingering for a few moments. Or maybe it finally started slowing down, between expanding out of the Milky Way and reaching the triangles in dark space.

No, the light emitted by the Traveler waking up wouldn't travel as fast as the Light would. Unless it doing so was also part of the whole Light thing, I suppose. Putting that aside, it wouldn't have to? All the pyramid ships would need to detect would be the Light washing over them. And the light produced could be a series of waves created by the Light traveling over matter (as has been proposed by someone I in turn forgot), or maybe the light behaved entirely normally and the Light didn't make any more light. And we were just watching the Light spread, artistically represented as light, because duh. It's not like this was ostensibly a home video camera we were looking through, or anything?

I'm not trying to deny you your right to find it bothersome,

I guess I just find it weird to throw our hands into the air and go 'This doesn't make sense', and then argue about whether or not that's a bad thing, when we can make it make sense?

I'm actually like horrifically bad at judging the relative speeds of the bubble expansions and stuff, so I might be missing something with the speeds, and for whatever reason you find my 'Maybe the camera is showing us different rates for effect' idea absurd, but it just doesn't seem inexplicable to me.

(Although the size of the Traveler is pretty unambiguously, unsalvageably exaggeration, so, there's that. I vaguely remember that basically always being the case, but I can't think of any example.)

To see something, you need to be able to receive light radiation which is either generated by or bounced off of the thing that you're seeing.

For objects moving slower than the speed of light, you would see the light first, and then see the object. For objects moving faster than the speed of light, such as the traveler's pulse as seen in this cutscene, the pulse would hit you first, and then the light would catch up to you, so the actual visual effect would be that it would look like the light was receding away from you as the light from farther and farther away reached you.

Now, if the expansion took place on a plane (we know this one doesn't, but hey - it's kind of represented that way so I'll go with it), you *could* see the light as expanding if your viewpoint was perpendicular to the plane of expansion. BUT in order to see a galaxy-size pulse from far enough away that you could see the entire milky way in your field of view, you're talking hundreds of thousands, if not millions of light years, which means it would take an equal amount of time for the light to reach you.

These two facts make the visual representation weird to me.

Yes, you can always hand wave this and just say "magic" or "artistic license" and those are both valid answers. To me, validity notwithstanding, they are wholly unsatisfying excuses for what appears to be lazy storytelling. To be clear: I don't expect anyone to provide a satisfactory answer here. Even Bungie saying "yeah, we goofed" would not satisfy me, even though it would be confirmation. I'm only pointing out that this was not well done. It looks like a cutscene someone made 10% of the way into the game to illustrate roughly what they wanted to have happen at the end, and then no one bothered to fix it. If that's good enough for everyone else, so be it; I'm in the minority here.

Now, if the expansion took place on a plane (we know this one doesn't, but hey - it's kind of represented that way so I'll go with it), you *could* see the light as expanding if your viewpoint was perpendicular to the plane of expansion. BUT in order to see a galaxy-size pulse from far enough away that you could see the entire milky way in your field of view, you're talking hundreds of thousands, if not millions of light years, which means it would take an equal amount of time for the light to reach you.

The camera is perpendicular to the bubble in the 4th dimension, so you see it expanding AND the viewpoints where you can see the system and galaxy are irrelevant to the time the ships receive the pulse.

I think the cutscene accomplished a few specific things by design:

• It showed that the Light started with and expanded out from the Traveler.
  
• It showed the Light specifically affecting Mercury, the Reef, and perhaps Saturn / Oryx's ship.
  
• It showed the Light touching everything in our galaxy and beyond.
  
• It showed the Pyramid Ships waking up after sensing the light and had them move back towards the Light's origin.

Your three main options each have their strengths but each fails to meet at least one of these criteria.

• A universe wide flash fails to show origin and direction and would still need followups to show specific locations being affected.
  
• Having the Light return to individuals / Ghosts directly could look really cool but would fail to show the Light touching the galaxy and might not have a reason to pass to the Pyramid Ships so you'd lose their awakening / moving towards the origin.
  
• A blinking dot on a screen could be combined with the Pyramid ships wakening up and moving in a direction, but it loses out on pretty much everything else. We wouldn't see Mercury affected or get a good sense that the Light touched the rest of the solar system and galaxy, for instance. Plus, you'd have to design a UI for that radar screen and having the first introduction to an alien race be the crappy alien clip art chosen by the underpaid temp alien programmer doesn't feel right to me. :p

The expanding sphere of Light might not make complete logical sense, but visually, it accomplishes a whole lot in a way that is very easily understood by the viewer. Was the cutscene perfect? No... it did very much leave the question open as to whether the rest of the Guardians got their light back, for one. But to call it lazy or a mistake... nah. I don't buy that at all.

So... in infuriating conclusion... your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries. :)

So... in infuriating conclusion... your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries. :)

Damn you.