Destiny has been a game that honestly changed my life. A year before Destiny (vanilla) dropped I was diagnosed with a chronic illness that made it harder for me to go out and keep up a social life. So, like many others, I turned to online gaming in order to socialize with other people. That didn’t work out well in the beginning, mainly a lot of people who feel that an online persona means you can do and say whatever you want, but when Destin arrived, I found my clan. Destiny brought me an amazing group of supportive friends that I have proudly fought beside and explored the world of Destiny with. All of my memories are made with these people that I love and care about. They mean the world to me. [u]A sense of tremendous achievement[/u] Every time we complete a raid for the first time, I feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I still remember the high of beating the hard mode of Crota on day two (day one we got to Crota, but scrubbed out for a bit at Crota). The raid that has given the greatest feeling of achievement was King’s Fall, when we finally got to Oryx and watched him float off in the distance I’m pretty sure all of us were yelling and jumping off platforms because we didn’t know how we were able to get past those challenges and finally complete the raid. [u]A sense of belonging[/u] I spend 6 hours grinding faction rally tokens with my clanmate and friend. It wasn’t because the event was fun (grinding as much as we did for tokens was a bit on the ridiculous end), but because the entire time we were talking about nothing and everything. It was the two of us jumping back and forth on the Titan lost sectors and getting the timing right to grab public events as we just shot the breeze. That guy can read my silences now because the two of us spent so much time doing menial tasks and talking about our lives. It felt like I was back at camp having a 2 am chat session with my best friend. [u]Devastated or heartbroken[/u] Luckily, we haven’t had anything too bad happen to our group. I have had some rough times that Destiny got me through: deaths in the family, my frequent hospitalizations, and I’m coming up on a surgery that my clanmates are keeping me sane for. [u]Utter Domination[/u] I forget which Iron Banner it was, but 6 of us grouped up to get the full set during D1. While we were matchmaking I was kicked from the party and quickly jumped back in as fast as I could…expect I was placed on the other team because apparently one of their members had been kicked and rejoined as well. It was the most fun game of my life! At first, I didn’t take it seriously, because these were my friends and we were on a loss streak which meant that we needed to get coins turned in since cap was coming up. Then I started to have fun with it and killed my friends. I stabbed people in the back, killed my warlock friend twice when he chose to self rez in front of me, and by the end I was top of the leaderboard and my team won. I have a video saved from the end of the fight and it is almost entirely me laughing and very sarcastically apologizing for killing my friends. After that match my fellow clanmates started telling tales of my domination and I was known as a murderer. I think I also was accused of running a league of hawk assassins? Not sure why, but I was also rumored to dual wield Hawkmoons. [u]A human connection[/u] I’ve made so many friends through Destiny. The community is full of people looking to make a human connection and find others who want to enjoy and play this game. I don’t think that this game would be the same without the friends I’ve made. I know that I would not have the great memories I do without those connections. [u]Like laughing until you cried[/u] My username is actually a long running joke from D1. I was a big fan of the Hawkmoon, so when I had the chance, I would use it. One of my clanmates had every exotic in the game except for the Hawkmoon, so when I played the game with him, I would equip the Hawkmoon and more often then not I would also receive it as a drop. We ended up with a fun rivalry because of this, and things escalated to the point that I changed my username almost everywhere to include Hawkmoon in it and was only using the Hawkmoon (which was great because I got very good at using the gun I loved). He did get a Hawkmoon eventually, but every time we were playing the game together the two of us would end up laughing so hard, we were crying because we had so much fun with out fake gun rivalry. [u]The moment you know you loved this game![/u] It was waaaay too early in the morning after staying up for 48 hours. I was delirious and playing through the Forsaken campaign with two other clanmates who were also college students and had not slept so that we could enjoy the game day 1. We just opened the shore and talked to spider for the quest to complete bounties, so we weren’t very high power yet. Thinking nothing of it we went the lost sector right next door to the jukebox to see what it was and maybe get some bounties done. Upon entering hope for the future started to play. I freaked out, because that song is not great, and then we panicked and ran around as the bouncer one shot all three of us. It was the most fun I had had in what felt like forever. I love the nostalgia that hearing a song we’ve made fun of constantly brought as well as the panic and laughter that came with three delirious people forgetting what the symbol next to the name meant to warn you the enemy will be immune to your weak self. There are plenty of other moments that remind me why I love this game or when I knew, but that one always stands out to me.