I decided to write this post after being inspired by another Feedback Forum post called: [url=http://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/72206672/0/0]Honest Feedback on: Scrapping ships[/url] In essence the author of that post surmised that his 9 Rare Ships serve no purpose in the game because when he dismantles them he gets nothing and the two NPC who should be begging him for them (Shipwright/always sending us out for spare parts & Dead Orbit/needs more ships to get out of the solar system) look at him like a confused dog for thinking he might be able to do business with them for his unwanted ship salvage. This highlights the biggest problem for most PvE players and a huge issue for Destiny in general. Bungie forgot the RPG. Now I am an old man and as such existed in the world long before the original Everquest came along and wreaked havoc on the concept of the pen and paper role playing game. However, at its core good RPG adventures still share some very basic common elements. [b]Setting[/b] Bungie has defined or rather ill-defined a world that is far into the future of our own planet. The Golden Age has come and gone via the Traveler and the darkness, the Traveler's arch-enemy was fought back, but is coming again. There is only one city left on earth, protected by the Traveler tho we don't know how as apparently the Traveler used the last of it's energy to send the ghosts forth to...raise the dead, to raise the Guardians. There are four factions of bad out there though we really don't have any concept of their motivations. Are they the minions of the Darkness or are they travelling inwards in the Sol System to avoid it as well? Oh and there are the Awoken and Exos. The Awoken apparently feld to escape the first fall, ran into the darkness and were "changed" and then decided to build a housing development in an asteroid belt. Exos are... robots? [b]Story[/b] I think we have all said enough about the lack of story. You wake up with outside the wall to the Cosmodrome, which is also the wall the the last city? (or is there another wall that the Titans built?) and you listen to your new buddy Dinklebot because who doesn't trust floating bits from Tron with the power of full speech and necromancy? You want to find a spaceship...so you can fly to a city on the same planet? Oh but then Dinklebot realizes something basically one of a kind, a warp core, is in the EXACT spot you just left and you have to go back. Fighting through the Fallen is no big deal. Tribalistic scavenger race picking what's left of earth clean and OH MY GOD why is that lady floating in the air shooting plasma balls at me wreathed in a flame shield? Apparently she and her Knights hate the Fallen too so WHY DID BOTH SIDES STOP SHOOTING EACH OTHER TO SHOOT AT ME? Okay Dinklebot, explain what the hell is going on? The Hive you say, and they own the Moon? Why are they here? They want Earth, a planet of scrap metal ruins just as bad as the Fallen. Okay got it. Yeah you're right, we should go see, whats his name again, The Speaker? Apparently the Speaker didn;t have time to tell me what going on. He had a line of no body at his door but I bet it takes a lot of time to get those robes pressed. Wait what, off to the Moon, right. Ok Temple of... whoa who was that robot girl? You see the point. The story is disjointed and fails at the core element of any RPG story from a player perspective,[i] it has no hook[/i]. There is no reason for you to blindly follow the path that the Ghost sets before you and trust it. Compare Halo to Destiny. In the first 15 minutes of Halo you determine you are an important soldier who has been in cryo-sleep but was awakened when his ship was attacked. Fight to the bridge, save your shipmates and WHOA what is that ring. <- Thats a Hook. [b]Create Interesting Characters[/b] There are three factions whose purpose appears to be to sell you different variants of the same type of legendary armor based on how well you do in the Crucible, the Guardian vs Guardian training ground. Dead orbit wants to get out of dodge before the darkness returns. New Monarchy wants to reestablish order and government via the last city and Future War Cult thinks that the cycle of war will never end and so is always preparing. However NONE of that is in the game. You have to read the Grimoire to get a sense of it. The three factions all only take the currency of the Crucible Proving Ground, they apparently are not interested in the core currency of the Last City, glimmer. Nor do they care much about what you actually do to fight back the against the four factions of enemies tho they are constantly offering you patrol mission bounties which award you with...Glimmer. Hmm wonder where their mountain of it is when they don't want any of mine for that helmet they are selling. Arach Peter Stormare is always telling me how resources are low in his beacon messages, so does Glimmer not buy food around here? Moving beyond the factions I have to go ask Nathan Fillion what to do because he is the Hunter Vanguard Liason and... whats that, he really has very little information about anything, including the Vanguard, and is also only selling me Legendary Gear but for a different currency? Okay well I can at least go talk to the shipwright, she can break down some of these ships I have to let me improve the ship I actually fly or my sparrow which saves my butt constantly but takes a beating. Wait, she doesn't want your spare ships becuase she is too busy recording a beacon for a Venus patrol mission for... ship part scrap. Okay. I know I just woke up yesterday but apparently the darkness drained common sense from these people. Okay well I am sure that Cryptarch fellow can explain some things, His order are supposedly very knowledgeable. Oh apparently he is only interested in the effects of punching me in my gut over and over and over to see if the purple bruises will turn blue as some kind of joke. Banshee, the lady who sells the same shaders, the postal robot, the bartender in the hangar who sells no drinks and has no name. No flavor to any of the characters. The notable exception is Xur and the Queen. Both are shrouded in darkness and mystery and I want to know SO much more about them. [b]Creating Challenges[/b] Man, did you hear, the Queen of the Reef sent an Emmisary to the Tower (but for some reason is still letting the Bountybot hand out her orders). This will be awesome, she has answers and if I work my way into her favor I can learn somethi..... seriously, we did all of this stuff last week and she is asking us to do it again. Well the reward will be goo... no? She has decreed that the dismantling of any equipment bearing the symbol of the Reef will mean instant expulsion from her court? Well that stinks because I could seriously use some of the materials she gave me for taking down Phogoth to improve my rebreather on my helmet. To hell with this. She has no answers, and her cape is ugly. Hey Nathan Fillion let me get ths straight, people are starving down there in the city and we are fighting a war but we had the spare ship fuel to keep that guy's Iron Banner wreathed in flame for a week like its a grave at Arlington Cemetery from Earth of Old? Okay okay I'll go check it out. Wow, this feels just like the Crucible proving grounds.... because it is. Okay, so Dinklebot you remember when we were in the Archive and you told me about this... Vault of Glass? Yeah well lets go find that because At this point I have been onto Drakisis' Ketch 9 times since Monday and at least it will be something new for us to do. (9 Hours later) Okay lets never do that again. You know what, I bet we could get more of our Guardian brethren to join us in the fight against Atheon if they could improve their gear from the materials the Queen gave us last week, but yeah, I forgot, she is a bitch. Super hot, but in the end she is probably sleeping with her brother. You'd be the expert on that right Dinklebot? [b]Finishing Touches[/b] Any good RPG gets polish before being presented. Destiny feels like it had the opposite done. It feels like paint stripper was poured on the world and the descernable bits that were left in the drain pan were splashed on the Grimoire wall at Bungie.net The PvE vs PvP argument is another thing entirely. I was putting up 2.5-3.4 K/D in Iron Banner last night, but I hate PvP. A good RPG presents you with that choice. You can elect to engage in PvP but you don't have to in order to reach your goals. Destiny as it stands in an MMOFPS that took the idea of RPG elements and thought that Two Worlds was a good example of where to begin. This was intended to be serious in spots and funny in spots and I hope Bungie gives it a read. I've been playing RPGs in some form for the last 25 years and have designed my own game worlds numerous times as well as the adventures that go with them. If you want to revive the RPG side of things Bungie, hire a good GM from the Pen and Paper world and let him write a story.