DONT LET YEAR 1 IRRELEVANCY DISSUADE YOU FROM PURCHASING TTK

Before you skim through and tear me a new one in the comments, hear me out. I recently acquired G-Horn from Xur (another reason to hate me I suppose) and to see it go away in relevancy within the next month really hurts to hear, BUT, this has not dissuaded me from purchasing TTK. Here's why. Now I'm giving BUNGIE a lot of credit here, and you should as well, but they're claiming that finishing the story missions (which are about 6-7 full story missions, not counting quests in between) is just the beginning. We have to point out to ourselves that this is something they advertised for the base game(and we know how that panned out), BUT, the difference here is once you beat the story, a plethora of new quest lines open up to you. For instance, a quest line called "The Taken War", I believe, opens up to further the story after the campaign is finished. This will take place across multiple destinations apparently, one was even hinted at going into VoG to tell delve into some lore about Praedyth. Not only will completing the story start up a quest line for you (which is basically the second half of the story and works its way up to the raid which is the conclusion of the main story), but nearly every vendor is supposedly going to have a quest line for you to complete. These quest-lines are seemingly story like content missions that have multiple steps to complete, and reward desirable loot. Think of a story mission, just without the fancy cut-scenes every time. Some quest-lines involve our current sub-classes, to give us an understanding as to how they fit in the world. One is supposed to be for Eris, and upon completion unlocks a new weapon type (most likely swords, which are confirmed to be in-game). Some quest lines are for the factions we play under. Still others will be exotic weapon bounties that are fleshed out into a fuller quest experience. If we are to believe the data they collected from their last play-test, players were overwhelmed with the amount of content that unlocked upon the main story's completion. You have to understand, even the CRUCIBLE is going to have a quest line, and these are all supposed to payout in worth-while rewards. Now let's be honest. Year 1 was a miserable grind fest and that's not something anyone can argue. There was hardly any endgame content other than the raid, which was also the only way to get end game gear. With TTK, however, they are showcasing more avenues then ever to get to end-game, and get end-game gear. They are streamlining progression to a system I think they can finally stay with and are reworking the way loot works entirely. No more dismantling copies of the same gear several times over, in fact there's even a mechanic to trade power between different gear to bring some of your lower year 2 gear up with you as you progress. Everything that we have learned so far about TTK suggests that Destiny is taking out a LARGE portion of the pointless grind. Literally everything you do now will progress your character and gear, so not only are there more avenues to acquire better gear, but there are more ways to level up that gear. You don't have to sit and run strike playlists all day. And it's not just about story missions and quest lines, there are more bounties that are coming as well. Some will even be weekly bounties that will reward legendary/exotics. They're launching with 7 new multiplayer maps (not including the PS exclusive) and at least three new multiplayer modes. They're adding a wealth of new armor and weapons which are now designed around three different foundries' styles, allowing you to mix up your play-style further. There's going to be actual meaningful content after the story missions are over, and running through everything on three separate characters is going to be quite an investment of time. So what about year one gear? All the time we spent is seemingly going to nothing. Now, I'm not going to defend BUNGIE here, I have nothing to be gained from sticking up for them, but ask yourselves this question. With the imbalance of year 1 gear (some being broken and OP, while others entirely useless....I'm lookin at you HoW) and the massive changes coming in 2.0, how would they have brought up old weapons and armor? They aim to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. Now, again, I'm not going to defend that stance, but you have to admit that this will at the very least improve the game in the long run. Letting go of old gear that has belonged to a soon to be outdated version of the game, almost seems necessary. Does that make it any less of a slap in the face to all of our hard work and time invested in the game year 1? No. Should BUNGIE have done a better job at rewarding year 1 players for their time invested? Well that's up for you to decide, and is really subjective. Remember, they're bringing forward some exotic gear from year 1, and that's more than a lot of MMO's will do from expansion to expansion. The fact that Suros-regime now stands to have a two year life span, is almost absurd when you consider the amount of content updates that have been dropped since day one of vanilla destiny. At the end of the day, our year 2 exotics will more than likely last for at least a year, so the disparity of thinking we'll lose our new exotics come the next content update seems a bit of a stretch for me personally. How will they keep gear in TTK relevant? Well, we'll have to wait and see to find out, so I can understand the skepticism. Finally, I wanted to address the concerns I've seen players have about repeating this same process down the road. Our new exotics will become old and drop out of relevancy, just like they are now, and the time spent acquiring that gear will have seemed pointless. But we as a community have to admit something to ourselves about Destiny. Nearly every persistent game like this has a grind to it. That grind, more often than not, is spent on getting to end-game. And once a new endgame is introduced, content is bound to get left behind. The thing that matters, however, is what you spend your time doing while grinding through the current content. Now If BUNGIE can make the grind for new gear enjoyable (which they seem to be on track to do so), through meaningful content and variety, they may be able to make that grind almost unnoticeable. If that is the case, we will be able to spend a lot more time enjoying the game and the gear we've acquired. We won't have to keep playing with the same gear, doing the same activities, to get that piece of gear one notch higher. So, when the next update comes and some of our gear gets left behind, maybe it won't hurt as bad? Because the gear we've collected will not be solely connected to our characters identity anymore, but rather the spoils we've collected over progressing through the game (which is the way loot SHOULD be). On top of everything I've discussed here, the game is changing from what we've known I year one. There will be far more to be invested with in this game when TTK drops besides getting exotics and grinding them up (I haven't even touched on factions and the way they are getting reworked). Again, everything above that I have talked about has yet to be completely confirmed. We could get TTK and quest lines could be empty and bland. The loot algorithms may not really have changed like they're claiming they will, and maybe the amount of gear they're adding is a thin veil to what they have been advertising. Maybe the story will be cheap and lack-luster, and leave more questions than answers like vanilla Destiny's "story" did. My suggestion? Wait until Year 2 finally arrives and the reviews come out to make your decisions on whether or not to buy TTK. Year 1 has given us every reason to be skeptics, but if you have been keeping up with what they're advertising for TTK, then they're promising a lot of really good and much needed change to the game. Don't allow irrelevancy of gear make you drop out of the game, or at least, don't let that be the sole reason for quitting Destiny. Do some research, see what the "new and improved" Destiny has to offer, and see if it interests you. It is another full priced game, so do make that decision wisely. Destiny has a lot of competition this fall, all of which could be argued as worthy of your hard earned cash. But don't walk away from Destiny just when it's seemingly getting back on track, unless this game has absolutely nothing left to interest you. Don't do it for my sake (not that I would expect anyone, and I would certainly hope no one ever would XD), don't do it for BUNGIE or Destiny's sake, but do it for yourself. For someone who has spent all of year 1 putting up with all of the changes and frustration, you deserve to see where this game is going. You deserve to stand in front of these new Guardians in-bound, and tell them the tales of old, and how you and your friends made this game a better place (well, ok, if it is in fact a better place....if not, well then just sulk in a corner I guess and quietly pursue a refund >_>). TL;DR: my thumbs hurt....