Hey Cozmo, glad you made a thread about this. I'd like to leave my feedback regarding the story. First off, let me just get this off my chest, FINALLY you guys are starting to relearn how to tell a tale. Okay, now with that off my chest...I loved the cut-scenes, the interaction between characters, the way the TTK story started off. Talk about atmosphere. Never have I felt so much emotion in a Destiny campaign mission than I did with the exploration of Phobos. The build up in that first mission was amazing and flawlessly executed. Also loved the espionage mission of obtaining Crota's essence, super creative and original to the Destiny universe. Extra thumbs up there. Edit: As fellow Guardian Rimuraz mentioned and reminded me, I too adored the Metroid Prime-esque scannable objects to introduce more lore into the game. Hopefully this concept continues and is a way to import Grimoire into the game itself. Of course there are some things that still need improvement on. I'd like to take the time and address some of those areas that could use some work. - While the opening scene with the Queen taking on Oryx's army looked awesome and was full of action, it felt a little out of place. I remember asking myself, "What is she doing? This is kind of out of character for her to be doing something so rash." Although we got to see a small portion of her overall strength, the way it was done was relatively confusing and felt a bit out of place especially since it was never really revisited in greater depth. Instead we got a vague and cryptic message about her "Hidden friend." It would have made more sense if she teamed up with the City for the assault and the entire scene was moved to the part where we enter onto the Dreadnaught for the first time. I believe that would have played better for the audience. Can you say Tension? Imagine being the only one on the Dreadnaught knowing that all your friends are outside fighting off this ship, dying. Knowing every moment you waste is another chance for that mega-ton cannon to fire and kill more of your friends. Energy Pillar that controls Cannon: "Good, good. I can feel your anger. Use that, strike me down, and become more powerful than the both of us." - While this may seem a small detail, it is often times the small details that can take a story from good to great, but I couldn't get over the fact that the Cabal on Phobos still aggressively assaulted us, Guardians. Now I'd understand it a bit better if the Cabal were an ignorant and indigenous species, unable to tell the difference between a solar eclipse and the wrath of a deity, but we are talking about a fully militaristic race with the knowledge to build things like Imperial Land Tanks. These creatures knew full well who was attacking them and could see that we were in the same situation as they were. Why poke the "demon" who slayed a god and reduce your chances of survival any further when you are already trying to survive the one nightmare your entire species has been running from? - This next one is probably the biggest grievance I have with the Taken King story because it almost single handedly tore down all the hard work you guys put into making this story a good one. Never ever ever interrupt a story just to go to the Tower to get the next step in a quest that accompanies said story UNLESS by going to the Tower you are received with a cut-scene that will further give context to the tale. Oh sure, when you got the next step in the Tower, the characters had some dialog to accompany it but it felt like it was more of a pause button on the story rather than a seamless thing that enhanced the tale. To give an example, remember that time in Halo Combat Evolved when escaping the Pillar of Autumn and fleeing to the mystical ring you had to first go to the Tower and pick up the next part of the story line quest from Captain Keys?........Exactly. Imagine what that would have done to the Halo story? Towards the end it was getting really bad. Do a mission here, go back to the Tower, do a mission there, go back to the Tower. I was beginning to get frustrated as it started to feel like I was having to put down a book I was reading every other page to take care of some mediocre task. - Another thing that should be worked on is the inclusion of us in the cut-scenes where multiple characters are interacting. We seem like pretty well known groups of Guardians since we, you know, only killed Crota, the Black Garden's Heart, and Atheon...you would think that if the Vanguard are planning to save the City they'd want the protégé of Guardians there to give feedback as well. This lack of inclusion of our character interacting with the rest prohibits a sense of connectivity and loyalty between us and the rest of the characters. - Beware of suspense/tension falloff. There were two distinct instances where the story's intensity fell off the mark and became flat. The first instance is micro and took place when trying to collect Crota's Soul for the first time and Oryx sent that Taken Ogre. My reaction to this was, "A CHASE SCENE!? HELL YEAH!" Halo Combat Evolved final mission anyone? As a silly little robot in a green dog suit once said, "YAAAAAY! WE'RE DOOMED!" But this feeling was quickly extinguished when I realized the Ogre actually wasn't chasing me at all. Immediately all the tension and mood of the scene was defused. It went from the coolest thing ever to "oh, just another average mission." The second instance is much more macro and took place more gradually. The way the opening cut-scene and first mission unfolded paved the way for this super suspenseful, "keep me on the edge of my seat" tale...but what wound up happening was this slow and steady decay of suspense as the missions continued. The main problem here was that once again the Vanguard and the people of the City seemed generally uninterested in the fact that life as we knew it was about to end. The Queen gave her life to protect us, the Cabal ran an entire fleet into the side of Oryx's ship, and for all the concern and terror Zavala, Cayde-6, and Ikora had for the "safety and well-being of the city", where were they? Cayde should have went with us to get his secret stash. Zavala should have taken the City's fleet to assist the Queen. And Ikora...well she's the least developed of the trio, so I don't know what she'd do. There should have been several instance where Zavala talks to you over comms and you hear combat in the background, signifying that he's out in the field trying just as hard as we were. Heck, if he couldn't go to save Earth and neighboring planets from the threat, send in Shaxx or Saladin. You think they'd put up with a Taken invasion? You think they'd care? Nothing defuses tension faster than the main supporting character doing basically nothing against a grave threat. "If they aren't invested in this invasion why should I be?" is the thought that can generally occur with the audience. And my God, where was Rasputin in all this? Was not this type of threat the reason for his existence and yet we had to steal from him? Him? He should have been coming to us, telling us how to stop this creature. All space-doom defenses should have been online, ready to fire. Oryx should have been dead before we even got there. But, you get the point. When telling a tale you have to make sure your priorities are motivation, context, continuity, conveyance, and tone which can often get lost. Definitely a pretty good story and the best Destiny tale so far, I enjoyed it. Which is something I couldn't honestly say about the vanilla story. Still has a lot of room for improvement, but I can see there was a huge attempt to make a story for your fans and I appreciate that greatly. Especially since that's the main reason I play games in the first place. I hope my feedback will help assist you for greater story telling opportunities in Destiny's future.