Mild language in the linked video. This happens to be my first post on the forums, and quite frankly I've never spent much time of the Bungie forums at all until recently. However, thanks to the Destiny companion app I have been keeping up with the news posts and giving an ear to the community's discussions. I've never felt compelled to start a forum thread in the past, but this post [url]http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/76914760/0/0/1[/url] struck a chord with me. I was surprised by my fellow community member's respectful and civilized appeal to our friendly neighborhood CM Deej, and I found myself genuinely interested in the outcome of if & how Deej would respond. Now that Deej has responded, I wanted to respond in turn, and hopefully offer something along the lines of constructive feedback. As a consumer I am quite satisfied with my purchase of Destiny. It has provided me with hours of entertainment and I feel like I got my money’s worth. However, as a gamer my reaction was mixed. I feel justified in calling Destiny a good game, but a serous critique I have is that my game play experience was filled with disappointment. Now based on the malcontent that’s prevalent throughout the forums, I’m sure there are many people who would disagree with my assertion that Destiny is in fact a good game. That topic aside, I believe it’s clear that the community as a whole wants to know that our voices are heard and taken seriously, and we are wishful that Bungie will be willing to make changes to Destiny. [b]The biggest complaint I have with Destiny is that I have no idea what it is supposed to be.[/b] There are many varying opinions among the community as to what Destiny should have been and how Bungie got it wrong or right, and so everybody rages on the forums either against Bungie or one another. At the end of the day though the only group whose opinion is inherently valuable is Bungie’s. We as a community can argue or complain until our keyboards break, but anything we say is no more significant than a fart in the wind unless Bungie is also unsatisfied with Destiny as it is now. I’ll be thrilled if we can work as friends and establish a professional understanding between the almighty Bungie overlords, their friendly emissary Deej and the community of master race gamers. I’m writing this post in an attempt to meet Deej halfway and provide the right kind of feedback that asks for open conversation instead of demanding change. I want to be a friend, and be a proactive member in improving Destiny. [b][u]So keeping all that in mind, what is Bungie’s official stance on the current state of the game; how do they feel about it as a project, and what do they want Destiny to be/become?[/u][/b] I feel these are important questions the community needs answered in order to work with Deej on the forums. A definite statement from Bungie would serve as the dividing line between valid and asinine complaints, and would define what the gamer community should reasonably expect along the lines of potential changes to Destiny. [u]So Deej, I hope you can provide such an answer in a response to this post.[/u] Finally here is my personal feedback as a gamer/Bungie Fan: Was the game supposed to be like this, and if not then what happened? I expected the final project to be completely different than the Destiny that was actually released. I’d like to understand if we as the community had misplaced or unrealistic expectations, or if hiccups along the way of development caused the project to deviate from the original conception. The released game seemed like “rough draft” product with plot and the depth of gameplay leaving a lot to be desired based on what I was expecting. The Story: I’ve been told that the grimoire cards provide a large amount of back story for giving context and world building in the Destiny universe, but I personally haven’t paid much attention to the cards so it might be unfair for me to criticize this aspect. That being said even if the grimoire cards provide a wealth of information about the game world and are the most engaging and captivating thing since Game of Thrones, it doesn’t negate the fact that the actual in game plot feels about as intricate & developed as the “adventures” included on the back of Fruit Loop’s cereal boxes. Hyperbole aside for a moment, Destiny’s motto is to “Become a Legend” but the in game story has done little to create an environment that fosters immersion and reflects the significance of a character’s actions. I believe this is a major weak area for the game which let a significant number of players down in part because we have come to expect excellence from Bungie’s storytelling based on our experience with their work on the Halo franchise. I would like to make the distinction though that my criticism is not that Destiny has a bad/confusing story plot – I feel like such a judgment would ultimately be subjective to each individuals personal opinions and preferences – Rather it seems to have simply forgotten to replace the rough draft sketch notes with the fully developed one. Here’s one example: The intro – Why is the ghost looking for our character? Why is our character out in the cosmodrome area? How did we die, and how did the ghost revive us? What was the guardian, our character, doing before he died? What all has changed between the time of the guardians death and when the ghost revives him? The ghost’s aka “Dinklebot” first words to us are “You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for you… you’ve been dead a long time so you’re going to see a lot of things you won’t understand.” This was great, honestly it got me so excited and invested in the mystery behind my character right from the beginning; I had so many question and I couldn’t wait to play through the story to find answers. Yet the answers never came, and the mystery of our origin and our mission is NEVER explained or even addressed again in the rest of the game. Edit 1: Fixed a few typos (will probably find more).