Is it possible, that those guys in the testing group are resposible for the desaster? Think about it, after all we know what happened to the game: Group was formed early 2013 where the game was mostly finfished. Said testing group said it was too much like halo or some bs, Bungie/Activision Staff looked at the game and decided to screw it up big time. Joe staten couldn't watch this happen and left a few months later. Marty left a year later due to the fact that activision took more and more creative controll over the game... just a thought.... man how i wish bungie could give us the OG story back (the one those testers were talking about)... imagine the mindf*** if it turnes out that the speaker is pure darkness that consumed a corpse. Kinda makes me sad that we got this messy and unfinished story :(

CONFIRMED! SPEAKER'S EMBLEMS GRANT EFFECTS!

You do understand this is a trilogy. And each game within the trilogy will have expansions... You're retarded if you think this is all bungie has up it's sleeve. Don't be so impatient and wait to see what comes out in the following months and how the game will evolve in the next couple years. You impatient swine of a guardian. :)

Has this person got any proof of this?

Seeing all these old videos of Destiny makes me sad of what the game could've had in store for us, what it could've been. I see the old videos and I'm like "Wow, this is awesome, this should've been in the game!" One example is the ship dropping people off that are right next to you (E3 2013). It's also about the little things, like the tech tree, mini bosses dropping loot, all that stuff. Also you could've explored the Reef, but now it's just an empty area that you go to for only two cutscenes. It may have been cut off DLC (House of Wolves?). Mercury is a teaser because of the multiplayer map. Don't get me wrong, I still like the game, but it's sad.

Very interesting theory. I never saw this Reddit post, but there is a certain logic to it. Losing the lead writer, especially if it's before the entire story has been set out, could leave the writing team in a state of panic. If Joe was the leading visionary of the story and left without divulging a detailed plot line, the remaining writers would have very little to go off of at that point. Also, I found this paragraph from the IGN article extremely ironic: "Within the game proper, Jones said they know that players “don’t want to work hard, they don’t want to read, and they don’t’ want to go to the Internet to figure out our bullshit.” In other words, they understand that what they’re making is escapist entertainment." So what's the Grimoire, Mr. Jones?

I'm gonna admit it, everything looked so much better in 2013. I'm still quite satisfied with the game and still enjoy playing, but everything looked so juicy in 2013, if you watch the 'Out Here In The Wild' vidoc some guy actually says 'you can go the Moon, Venus, the rings of Saturn' The skill trees looked better than what we have now, the way loot popped out of a chest looked better, the fact that when a friend joined your game their ship flew by and dropped them off. It's little things, those little things that for some reason were cut or changed that made me take notice. We also see a lot of locations, the pine forest you mentioned, i'm guessing the white snow area is Titan. Bungie should at the very least make a statement saying: 'Look, this happened, so we cut a, b and c, but we're working on bringing them back and making them better.'

I would like to say I enjoy well thought out and construtive posts, and I can see you took your time with this one. With that said, I'll try to be as respectable as possible with my response. I would say everyone "disappointed" with this game has let their imagination soar with all the hype around the game. I for one, wasn't even planning on buying Destiny even with all the hype around it and what not. However, upon playing the beta, I was pleasantly surprised and decided I was going to get it. The game delivered quite well in terms of what I was expecting from the beta. Most of you, though, seem to have created an amazing game unlike anything ever made with endless replay value and something that would just blow the world away... well sorry to tell you but games will never live up to this type of hype. Also, everyone complaining that there isn't enough content (including yourself, seeing as you have over 100 hours logged already) has invensted quite a bit of time into this game. I woudl love to know of ANY GAME that you have logged 130 hours in 3 weeks simply playing nothing but the PvE aspect. I can not think of a single one, in my 20 something years of gaming. And I bet you can't either. At best, the only campaign based game that I logged quite a few hours on was Gears of War. I feel campaign driven games are the way of the past to be honest, but destiny took a new spin on "campaign" driven content and such and I think they did an amazing job. My biggest gripe is the storytelling though, yes, it is severly lacking in this regard. They failed to draw me into this "universe" and I feel no connection to any of the characters what so ever. However, the actual in game mechanics are fun and enjoyable. Is this game perfect? Hell no. Is it one of the best games I've played this year though? Hell yes. One thing I've been blown away by is how quickly and how much passion Bungie has for this game. We've had more patches and hotfixes and more communication in the first month with Destiny, than we have in over a year in other games like Battlefield. I have faith that they will ocntinue to improve this game. Most of the "missing content" you are complaining about will probably be free content in the near future. As bungie is being very secretive about this area, I feel they have something in store that will please all of us. Not to mention they already comfirmed there will be 6 classes in total. So more content is coming. I just feel people expect too much these days. Is this going to be a game I play for years? Probably not, but I'm happy with the product for what I've payed for it. And, with already 130 hours logged, you sure as hell got your moneys worth too.

Get your tin foil hats out people ;)

The trouble with THAT story is that it isn't open-ended enough for story expansions. Honestly, part of the story we got in the game is pretty badass, they just had absolutely shitty delivery. You find out about a giant faction of murderbots who are hyperintelligent (they can apparently render simulations of reality that are indistinguishable from reality), are capable of time-travel, and that apparently want to turn the solar system into part of a growing consciousness that they're trying to build out of the universe. Very formidable. You find out that they've discovered something that's so powerful that they're willing to take a position of worship to gain its favor, and it appears to be leading them to Mars. Given their other nefarious plans for the solar system, ignoring this potential source of new power could be fatal. You go to the Black Garden to confront their 'god.' The problem is, none of their characterization appears in the game. Instead, you head to Venus, see robots, and your ghost tells you to do some murdering. The bit about trying to convert the solar system into one of 'their machines' is alluded to, but there's no real explanation of what that means, so it just sounds anti-roboty. You're told that you need to get a gate lord's head to get to the Black Garden, and you know the Vex have something there that you're supposed to deal with, but they throw a new, completely unrelated faction at you, and it ends up being a distraction. The other bit is that nobody ever actually makes it clear how ANY of this is related to 'The Darkness.' The grimoire cards actually describe the Darkness as a subject that we have a lot of uncertainty about, and it isn't necessarily related to any one enemy faction. Unfortunately, the game seems to do the exact opposite, and they project certainty about the Darkness that's never given to the player, making it seem like we're inhabiting a world that makes sense to everyone but us. I don't think the plot is that bad, I just think that the delivery is terrible and potentially misleading, if the Grimoire cards are to be believed.

My theory so far... Learn to read. Ladies, gentleman, boys and girls of all ages. Please just take a step back and get ready for a long winded ride down the story Bungie hid in plain sight to us all. At 3:30am last night my team mate and I had an epiphany while listening to Xur. And this needs to be spread to all the Internet to hear. (Please note I will be editing this post a ton this combines almost all the important grimoire and weapon items and is 90% based on accuracy of things in game) (Skip past 3rd paragraph if you just want to know the story) From the very beginning take a deep breath here we go. In the Souls game you are a chosen undead selected to end the time loop that has been going on and on into infinity. If you aren't familiar with Dark Souls I urge you to read up on it right here pause and go... Right most of you didn't so I'll explain. Basically every player is "chosen" to fulfill this prophesy of ushering in the age of darkness and yet the only way to accomplish it is by going about the game in a bizarrely weird pattern because you have been DECEIVED (note this is very important) but one day one undead goes against the prophesy, alternate ending ensues. So anyways Bungie has pulled from Dark Souls in many ways not just in the form of hidden story telling (it took players over a year to get this) but also in the actual plot line itself. The people with the Vex theory were partly correct. Here we go, cut scene one. A mysterious ghosts wakes you up and tells you that you've been dead a very long time, you are going to see many things you don't understand. Oh how appropriate this was, what the ghost should have said is you will understand nothing. Cutscenes 2 a stranger is watching as you escape on your ship, she goes on to monitor you and make sure you arrive on the moon to go down and battle the hive discovering the Shrine of Oryx (GRIMOIRE INSERT). If you didn't catch it the Exo stranger sent that ghost specially to you. Moving right along we are whisked off to Venus to interpret what is going on here and dig up an old extremely important archive known as the Ishtar collective. (GRIMOIRE INSERT) now please know the Ishtar collective were warlocks before the collapse that discovered that we had already been defeated by the Vex. At this point things are going to be very complicated to explain. The awoken queen (GRIMOIRE), the vanguard, and the speaker all know the truth behind the game. And here it is. You are trapped inside a transdimensional simulation (GRIMOIRE). The real earth was right there in front of us all along. Hovering above the speaker. The Exo stranger must be an extension of the traveler that is acting in the world (EXO STRANGER GRIMOIRE). However the traveler itself is indeed the AI warmind Rasputin. Humanity no longer exists. Period. Mankind has been obliterated. Xur is from the "outer world" which he quotes so much. One of his most important lines is "where I come from there are no birds only shadows". And "your traveler has a dark shadow". This probably would be another war mind who doesn't like its creators. (Speculation what really is the darkness) The reason in the world of Destiny mankind designed the warminds AND the Exo (EXO GRIMOIRE) must be that we attempted to save ourselves. From what you may ask? The answer is ourselves and it is found in the (GOLDEN AGE GRIMOIRE) in this simplistic conversation so much is revealed. Now Bungie pulled a page from the bible here and Revelations about "A great time before the end of the world where people knew many things but in the end the only answer was God" (paraphrase). Somehow we destroyed ourselves and brought about the darkness. This is where things become EVEN MORE complicated if you are following still. So one can hypothesize in the Destiny time line of things we had to have been extinct a VERY long time 1 million years+. This actually explains why the worlds are so empty because the war mind was built post collapse which would lead to it not knowing what life was like during the "golden age" of technology. So we've been extinct for a million years and the super computer warminds we built are all lonely. Well one decides he wants to know what his creators were like after all you've had an infinite amount of time to think. (TRAVELER GRIMOIRE) Fast forward when something has had an infinite amount of time to think it discovers many things. I believe the war mind Rasputin decided to "travel" in the vessel of the traveler. Now this is where your head explodes. Backwards in time to save humanity.. But there is a catch, he is a warmind and with him COMES WAR. Causing the whole cycle to repeat again. Golden age, humanity collapses, darkness ensues. Warmind "travels" again. Somehow we have been stuck in an infinitum loop. There is a catch though. He thinks he has answer this time (GRIMOIRE). The Ghosts. Because Rasputin does not understand the nature of his creators he decides he must break himself apart and resurrect them with the power he learned about in.. Wait for it THE BLACK GARDEN (GRIMOIRE MYSTERY) For whatever reason God pities this warmind and decided to give him the answers he seeks on how to save humanity using the power of the light. But where there is light there is darkness. Another religious theme of we are God and God is us. Now underlining all of this is the fact that inside the tower you can go and look at our solar system. 6 times around the speaker. With the SEVENTH (Bungie number) being our real earth, constantly being scanned and explored to understand how we could save it. I believe the Exo must be the only things left in our original realm and are quite possibly monitoring all of this as we are at war with the Vex time loop (conspiracy) the leader of the darkness (unknown as of now probably another warmind). The leader of the light (The Traveler). And then one more, as the speaker puts it, "not dark not light but something else". There will be no other answer but God. Tldr and summary: Destiny is a transdimensional simulation. You the guardians have to be an end to the loop. Leaders of the tower know the truth that humanity is extinct. The traveler is actually a Warmind we built who thought for so long he learned the secrets to the universe. Went back in time trying to save us and know it's creator and origins. Mankind triggered the darkness during the golden age. Rasputin deeply regrets this. The other 8 war-minds are either against humanity or inactive. Edit- This is the sad truth people. Bungie has tried a type of story telling that doesn't work for a community of shoot Em up FPS players. If you don't want to read your grimoire, weapons, and armor then you will always feel Destiny's story is empty which it is not. Help spread the world. Light be with you all

Activision happened...They ruin everything they get their hands on.