[quote][b]3) A Brief Intermission and Apology[/b][/quote]Before we get to the business of discussing our main topic at hand, I feel that it's important to take a moment and note some of the more recent developments which have impacted and influenced my understanding of how exotic abilities might shape up in the final game. I've been meaning to write this thread ever since I read that GameInformer article way back in December, but between trying to complete my final year of college, trying to find the right words to describe the ideas in my head, and the various other side-projects that I've been involved with on Bungie.net, I've unfortunately haven't had the time to finish my thread in a cohesive and satisfactory way. That's the problem with waiting half a year to write these speculative topics, new information can come out which can often either invalidate or alternatively steal the thunder of many of the ideas you've been trying to develop and explain for the past couple of months. Most notably, we recently had a Destiny Alpha which has given us a very comprehensive feel for Destiny's core gameplay and mechanics, which pulled the rug out from underneath many of my original talking points for this thread. For example, one of the ideas I had originally planned to propose was that it would be interesting if some of the more mundane mechanics and abilities that I had described in that draft were to be placed on sub-exotic weapons and armor in order to increase the variety and depth of lower-level equipment. Lo and behold, in the Alpha we got a chance to see many examples of common, uncommon, rare, and legendary tier equipment, some of which possessed many of the abilities that I had planned to speculate about. Thankfully there were no visible examples of exotic tier equipment or abilities, but by first examining the sub-exotic abilities present in the Alpha, we may be able to better shape our expectations of what exotic abilities might look like in the final game or perhaps even the Beta should Bungie choose to include exotics in that particular build. However, the time I have to write this thread without it becoming completely outdated is running out. You see, IGN plans to reveal a ton of really interesting information about Destiny and the Beta on [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGFvpxXqudU]Bungie Day 2014[/url], and one of the topics they are planning on covering is exotic gear. I do not know how deep or broad their coverage will be, but the fact of the matter is that I've sat on this topic for far too long and it's time to unite the threads of thought and get this thing out the door. I apologize for taking so long to write this topic, and I apologize if the thoughts in the following sections seem clumsy, incomplete, or disorderly. The topic I've chosen to tackle is rather broad and intricate, and it is foolish of me to expect a cohesive and comprehensive narrative of its every aspect. Despite my overly critical approach to my work, I'll give it my best shot going forward with the rest of the thread. Please feel free to ask any questions if there's anything I can explain better. With regard to equipment abilities in the Alpha, typically weapons possessed one special ability starting at rare and two special abilities starting at legendary, whereas the armor pieces possessed one special ability at uncommon and one to two special abilities starting at rare. There seemed to be just enough room in the UI to represent at most three special abilities on any particular item, so it may very well be that exotic tier equipment possesses three special abilities apiece, though that assumption could very easily be wrong or change before release. I spent a portion of my final day with the Destiny Alpha trying to write down as many special abilities as I could find between various uncommon, rare, and legendary weapons and armor that were being sold by various Vendors in the tower. In addition, I was lucky enough to be around when the Cryptarch was selling Decoherent Engrams, which are a special type of Engram which generate rare tier equipment when decrypted. I instantly decrypted as many random rare primary weapons as I could afford with what little glimmer I had saved up over the Alpha, and as a result of my investment, I discovered a few abilities that weren't present on any of the other vendor's weapons and armor. Lucky me! We'll immediately dive into those abilities in the next section. I'd love to fit it all in a single post, but unfortunately Bungie.net has an accursed 10,000 character limit on posts that I have to dance around :) [b]Destiny Speculation: Exotic Abilities continues on the next post. [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/65973163]Please click this Hyperlink to continue reading![/url][/b] [spoiler][b]Table of Contents 1) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/65973135/0/0]Introduction[/url] 2) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/65973146]Closing Time: a Case Study[/url] 3) >> A Brief Intermission and Apology << 4) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/65973163]25 Sub-Exotic Abilities from the Alpha[/url] 5) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/65973166]Exotic Abilities[/url] 6) [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/65973172]Epilogue[/url][/b][/spoiler]