I've given my feedback before regarding my issues with Destiny. Now, I'm doing it again. And I do so because I already know the game has plenty of potential because of how on top of it I was during its development. The fact remains, as the video explains, the story is lackluster and an overall failure. This is an old video, and lean more towards the older videos because, now that we're almost a full year in, we now know things to be fact and when we review these old vids, we can more accurately judge them with our own experiences. The story was obviously changed and butchered, with the base game cut away and large portions of the content recycled and reused for the Dark Below and House of Wolves, both of which we paid around a total of $40 when they SHOULD have been free for everyone that bought the vanilla game. The same is true for The Taken King. The moon of Mars, Phobos, was already there. Earth had more locations to explore originally. Players could Trade, as well as "Gamble", with each other. As always, my feedback is as such. Its disappointing to see a game with so much potential, with so much funding for it, could end up like this. The Dark Below and House of Wolves SHOULD have been free, for all players. Period. This is the core of the problem. People don't want to pay $40 for TTK when they have already spent $40. There is no reason to punish the community for whatever possessed the company to drastically change up the storyline. The vast majority of people in this community are adults, intelligent adults who can sense when they are being taken advantage. Regardless of whether or not people could or couldn't afford said $40 for TTK, it doesn't excuse the actual fact that we're getting shafted. I don't mean to dredge up the Luke Smith interview, but in regards to the whole throwing money at the screen? Here is an honest reaction to those words. If you give people a high quality product that they trust, from a company with a good track record and its something that they really want? Then yes, in most cases people will happily throw money at the screen. I myself will always make it a point to purchase anything that Bioware puts out for those very same reasons. However, you need to seriously have a reality check. The value of your content does not equal the price associated with it. Graphics? Destiny isn't the only high production value game out there. Especially not anymore. Of course, if you have everything ELSE in higher order like the overall game content itself, you'll find people will care less about how Photo Realistic the game is and be all the more interested in the actual meat itself. Lets avoid a repeat of "The Order" shall we? Story? What story? Destiny is obviously not an RPG. Having a level system does not make it an RPG. Having NPC Vendors does not make it an RPG. Having a pseudo 'open world' does not make it an RPG. This game does not compete in the least with ACTUAL RPG titles such as "The Witcher", "Dragon Age", "Elder Scrolls", "Fallout", "Mass Effect" or "Diablo". And its certainly not anything resembling an MMORPG like some randoms enjoy arguing in a vain attempt to defend their purchase of this game. Destiny is not "TERA Online". Its not "Mabinogi". Its obviously not "EverQuest". And the "Elder Scrolls Online" already laid claim to the best MMORPG for consoles regardless, you can't honestly expect Destiny to have any chance of competing with THAT beast, can you? Replay Value? Grinding does not count. You can't design your game around the gear in it. You can't make a player's sole purpose for playing the same activity over and over again and investing hundreds of hours JUST to get weapons and armor. Because for what reason are we doing that? I asked this question back before following the launch of the Dark Below and so many people looking to defend this game and Bungie jumped down my throat about it, telling me that you spend all your time grinding so that you can essentially use all that gear to go out and grind even MORE to get "new gear" to replace your old stuff. That's just -blam!-ing ridiculous. Now I've seen a number of those people magically agreeing with me about it, now that its been months later and the hype FINALLY -blam!-ing wore off for them. Now you have people wanting to reclaim that old gear that they dismantled because they simply just want it. Gameplay? Lets break this down, shall we? -Patrols have zero enjoyment because THERE IS NOTHING TO ACTUALLY EXPLORE! Your game is NOT an RPG, quite -blam!-ing obviously, so its not like we can go into the area where the House of Kings are and inspect old computer terminals to uncover lore for the game. There's no crafting system for Destiny so its ultimately pointless to go around checking every area for raw materials to harvest since they are only used for upgrading weapons which goes hand in hand with the god damn grinding hamster wheel designed to keep us playing the game longer before we eventually realize how ludicrous it is that we wasted so much of our time doing something that was ultimately pointless in the long run. There is ZERO INTERACTION WITH THE ENVIRONMENT. There are no areas that need to be unlocked via the open world aspect of your game. -Strikes don't change. Ever, at all. There should have been a bare minimum of 50 starting out with way more diversity to them. Every Strike consists of the exact same mechanic. You go through the level and encounter one "Horde Mode" instance after another. With bosses at the end that basically enlarged versions of regular enemies. They grow old in a hurry, the bosses don't drop any actual loot and glimmer awarded from killing them is next to nothing. Its not rewarding at all. The ONLY exception to these is actually the Mars Strike, not the Dust Palace one, where you go through and can use the Cabal vehicles to fight those waves of enemies and the tank that comes last. The inclusion of vehicles at least makes it less droll than all the others. (This is honest feedback, which means I point out the good with the bad when appropriate) -Nightfall Strikes. I was able to solo a few of them. What does that tell you? Its easy when you understand that each Strike is just a constant repeat of Horde Mode challenges. You find a safe place to bunker down, and then just kill the enemies one by one. Its not rocket science, all you need is patience. The ONLY thing that is different is how annoying the extra damage boost is that the enemies have which prolongs your playtime. I hate that, I want something to be challenging because it forces me to actually think. Not go in, shoot for a few seconds then duck back behind cover, rinse and repeat over and over again. At which point it just becomes a chore, I actually took a pause during the action to use the bathroom. Came back like 10 minutes afterwards with something to eat and resumed the repetitive tactic because any other strategy isn't even feasible. -Raids are probably the ONLY WORTHWHILE THING TO DO IN DESTINY. Vault of Glass, though amazingly easy as shit now, is still enjoyable to play because it actually requires teamwork and consists of more than just random Horde Mode moments. Raids are probably the only thing that Destiny can actually boast for itself, and yet its shitty that we didn't get one for House of Wolves like we were all lead to believe. Instead, we got... -Prison of Elders, which is essentially 5 rounds of epic level Horde Modes with random objectives tossed in to force players to leave their bunkers periodically for a little bit until they race back to them because that is the nature of a Horde Mode instance. Its still the same thing that you're doing in every other aspect of the game, just to a larger degree and without all travel time you have to deal with during Strikes to get from Point A to Point B. POE, under no circumstances, is a viable replacement for a Raid in this game. -Bounties are just more reasons to grind, or rather an incentive tossed in to go along with the grinding you are already expected to do. -Trials of Osiris should have been in the game at launch. -The Crucible is probably 70% of what players are doing in the game. And yet, for those of us who were actually paying attention prior to the game's launch, I was really looking forward to "Faction Wars" because in general, the Crucible is just your typical Multiplayer Versus action. Yesterday, for my "Bungie Day" instead of playing Destiny, I chose to celebrate the old days with some Halo. The Crucible has next to nothing by comparison. I mean, what would be considered standard at this point for game modes is just non-existent and its taken until the release of TTK for a Capture the Flag type to be added. CTF is a staple for shooters, and considering it was in the Halo games, it just blows my mind how it failed to be in the game at launch. And then you have these random game modes that keep being cycled out! WHY!? You have like Salvage in there for a bit, and then remove it for something else. Why not just LEAVE it in there? Does Destiny not generate that much PvP Activity that you can't have more than 7-8 game modes constantly available? (Damn, post got cut off. Continue reading in my next post which I'll periodically bump to keep it close to the top of the list)