I am a Light level 34 hunter... or at least I would be if I were wearing my usual gear. At the moment I'm outfitted in all greens, and have subsequently been locked out of Nightfall, the Heroic Weekly, and several story missions. I am currently wielding a Cydonia AR-3 auto-rifle, and will equip comparable greens or blues in my special and heavy slots once I find them. I pulled the old S-10V out of the garage (remember that pre-order Sparrow?) and equipped my favorite shader, Thunderdevil, because it matches a white cape that has nothing to do with reputation gains. At the moment my under-geared hero is sitting in a snowy corner of the Mothyards watching the clouds float over the Cosmodrome, while I consider my first year in Destiny and convey these thoughts to you. While I wait to take him to the Forgotten Shore to figure out what those dastardly Fallen are trying to steal, it occurs to me that Destiny has actually fulfilled what I was expecting from it. Does it have the massive, explorable world we were vaguely promised in some ancient vidoc? No, sadly, but we did get beautiful slices of Earth, Luna, Venus, and Mars to wander around. Somehow, despite the invisible ceilings and kill barriers, I continue to find areas of these maps I haven't visited before. There is rarely anything to do when I find them, but it's nice to know the map designers fleshed out a world with places to visit just because they are there. Back when I first heard of Destiny, I had just finished enjoying the crap out of Skyrim. I remember thinking to myself, "I want more Skyrim, but as a multiplayer FPS". The Farcry series are great FPS's, but are lacking in multiplayer; Borderlands and the sequel are excellent games that I've enjoyed the hell out of, but even they came up a bit short. Then I saw images of a solar system where humanity had had it's teeth kicked in by some ancient, space-faring enemy. Then I saw game-play. I thought, "Hell, if they can pull off half of that game, it'll be great." And they did. For all it's faults, Destiny is and continues to be ambitious and fun. The fact that we care enough to come to the forums and give it equal praise and hate is testament to that. We fawn over the (yet uncovered?) mysteries of the Vault of Glass, as well as the less impressive flaws of a still-buggy Crota's End. We love the story, or at least the parts of it we've been shown. We spend hours grinding the Prison of Elders, the Vanguard Strike playlists, and the Crucible for a chance at earning a weapon we so desperately want... only to rage (or laugh, as some of us did) when Xur sells it for the second time in a year. We trolled the loot cave until it was replaced with a charred pile of Hive chitin and a ghostly message about a cryptarch. We were surprised the first time a Blade of Crota charged us in the wild, and equally surprised when we realized they no longer came out to play. We raced out of and back into zones in a wild stampede, trying to hit an Ether chest multiple times. We know that, very soon, the Wolves will fall back into their hidden caves, and hunting them will be replaced with different adventures. I remember the way my brother talked about World of Warcraft, the fun he had playing it. I remember when I started playing it with him only to realize that, while fun in it's way, it wasn't what I was looking for. I wanted my World of Warcraft, the game I could lose myself in and be passionate about. Destiny is my World of Warcraft. For better or worse, we have sunk hours and hours and HOURS into this game that we love/hate. Some of us do it because we are completionists, chasing every trophy or grimoire card because we can't NOT chase it; some of us do it because we are competitive; some of us do it because we enjoy shooting aliens in the face; and some of us do it because we just love the experience. This is the eve of year two, guardians. Destiny has become - and is becoming - a better game because we continue to play it and be vocal about it. Soon, Oryx will sail his Dreadnaught into the solar system. With him will come a new generation of guardians that won't care about some under-powered exotic launcher or old Vex and Hive raids. They will ask questions and some of us will step up to be the mentors they will need. Be kind to this new breed of legends. We were all there once, wearing a bunch of green crap and standing in awe of those that had gone before. Year one is near the end; year two is before us. Eyes up, guardians.