This is my own rant, and I take credit for everything I say, however, I also think that much of this lore community and my clan have many of these same feelings. This is related to the recent PC Gamer interview with Luke Smith. Link is below: http://www.pcgamer.com/destiny-2s-luke-smith-on-pc-features-pvp-new-subclasses-and-more/2/ Bungie, I've played your game since the beginning, from Day One, and I still play it quite often today. Yes, there have been times I've criticized it albeit for whatever reason. I have also defended it countless times over to people who gave up on it early and turned an eye. What did they hate about Destiny? It's story. But time and time again I told them that there was more. I told them that hidden away in the grimoire cards they collected, existed a beautifully complex, engaging, cliffhanging, and immersive story. Most of us here know it simply as Destiny's lore. When you're someone such as myself who immerses themselves in the lore, you begin to see that theirs more than meets the eye to Destiny's characters and overall story. You begin to develop unique feelings about each one, understand many of the plot arcs that may come to fruition, and most importantly, understand the deeper meaning to the story and all of its characters. In my opinion, this section of the community is truly special, because to us Destiny is more than just a game, it's a universe full of unique characters, a progressive story, and compelling history. It's also in my opinion the section most passionate about Destiny, because we take the time and effort to learn and understand all we can about this game's story. I'm really not sure if people like Luke Smith completely understand what we do, so I'll try my best to put it in a reasonable perspective. A lot of us here, most perhaps, spend hours upon hours, [b]days upon days[/b] reading and studying each of the game's many grimoire cards. We write posts about them, form theories, have debates which can often morph into arguments. We share amongst each other our ideas and opinions about the lore. Others of us take their knowledge to YouTube, like Myelin and Byf who dedicate practically their entire channel and much of their time to creating quality lore videos for all of us. Some of us even make art or write fanfic about pieces of lore. This doesn't even count all the theories and speculations we think about in our heads, the various things that never make it into the forum posts but that our time is still often dedicated to. So when someone such as Luke Smith confidently states that they, [i]"Exited the Exo Stranger effectively,"[/i] a character who we don't know why is fighting a war with the Vex, know who she's talking to over the comms, seems to link very well to Maya Sundaresh, and that we overall really know nothing about, by having her give us a gun and then head off somewhere in time? Additionally by comparing Mara Sov, queen of one of the three main races in Destiny and undoubtedly one of the most important as well as mysterious character in the game, to cosplay? Even the Darkness, what we've been lead to believe is the main antagonist and highly important to Destiny, suddenly just decided to throw it away?[b]It really is a big slap in the face to the lore community[/b]. I get you're trying to clean up the mess of the original story and bring to us in D2 a new and exciting one about the Cabal. But far from everything in the original story, as we lore people understand, is worthless and worth being tossed. For all that that story was, I thought it all meant something, that every character and every plot arc introduced no matter how seemingly insignificant had some role, some purpose for existing. [b]Tell me, tell us, Bungie. Were we wrong?[/b] I won't lie when I say the recent statements by Luke Smith not only about the two above characters but about the lore of Destiny itself concern me some for the future of lore in this game. Already you're removing grimoire cards which means I'm not sure how amazing stories like that of Thorn/Last Word will happen. But the fact that you've decided to just toss a potentially important character and that could do it to any Destiny character or plot arch worries me. How do we know now if we'll ever see Savathûn and Xivu Arath? Saint-14? Hell, even The Nine? Do we spend all this time solving the mysteries of these characters, simply so you can throw them out whenever you feel like? That makes our time feel wasted, that all we do here in the lore community is pointless, and will simply culminate in it all just being swept away. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but things like this start small but can get bigger. It can make us question, [i]"Why are we even doing this?"[/i] and [i]"Why should we continue to make our lore theories, posts, and videos into D2 and beyond if this is what will happen?"[/i] No, I don't really think we will stop, but I have no doubt these questions and others are going through many of our heads right now. But once again, it's a slap in the face to the lore community. Perhaps Bungie, your most immersed fans. This has been a long rant, and typically I don't do things like this, but lore is a passion of mine so I felt it to be necessary. I'm hopeful. Hopeful that things like the Reef characters and perhaps even the Exo Stranger could be introduced in the DLC for D2. Im hopeful that the decisions Bungie has decided to make regarding lore in D2 will prove to be good ones. I hope that lore will be twice as good in D2 as it was in Destiny. Most importantly however, I hope that the lore community remains as strong and productive as it is now, perhaps even more so in the future. So as I wrap this up, I say to you Bungie, enhance the lore experience for Destiny, inside and out of the game. But please, don't screw it over and more importantly, screw us in the process. A little bit of advice as well: Don't start something you're not going to finish. [b]Variks[/b] [b]Bump this[/b] please if you like/agree.