It's such a dumb moment in the context of what we've accomplished in the game, but those were the moments that hooked me into the game.

The game could just have put bots out on patrol which look like other players.

I'm sure that would be a perfect solution for plenty of players, but it wouldn't do the trick for me. The Division has plenty of NPCs out in the world, but it's not a replacement.

The best alternative I've seen is the Drivatar system in the Forza Horizon series. The game creates virtual avatars of all your friends that play the game (mimics their vehicle selection, driving skill and style), and then populates the open world with these virtual versions of your friends. It also populates actual races and events with these drivatars, often using actual data from their personal times on those same tracks. It all works beautifully well. Even though I know I'm not *actually* playing with my friends, it creates a sense of playing together as a community while playing offline.

I don't know if or how Destiny could incorporate anything similar.

Compared to the Books of Sorrow (and the new Iron Lord cards, which are great) they're really lacklustre and I feel like they could have dome so much more in terms of describing (if not explaining) SIVA and its effects/impact.

Why not let us SEE it? We see swarms of Siva in the opening cutscene which eludes to it being bad stuff, but never in game or in a cutscene do we see that stuff swarming to take something down, or mutating something or what have you.

We're TOLD how bad it is, but we never experience that ourselves.

The Fallen don't understand SIVA. They're like bad kids that should return SIVA to gamestop because they're embarrassing Rasputin.

While I largely agree, my personal hope would be for Bungie to find more ways to make the "public" aspects of the game more compelling, rather than ditch them. Seeing other players on Patrol rarely leads to cool experiences, but when it does, those are the magical little moments that help make Destiny something special. I want more of that :)

There is a cost to the ability to run into random people on patrol. I don't think the benefits outweigh the costs. The coolest experiences are those that you go in to with your friends (in my view). Bungie should double down on THOSE. If that means ditching the 'public' aspect of the game, then they should do that.

At the very least, allow people you meet to join your fireteam without having to go back to orbit!

I'll totally grant you that running into random people adds little in terms of quantifiable gains... But there's something about it. I don't know if you ever played The Division, but one of my biggest problems with the game is that the open world was a privat instance and you never stumbled across other players out on the streets. There was such a huge disconnect caused by walking into one of the safe houses and seeing it filled with a dozen human players, but as soon as you step out onto the street there's NOBODY. I didn't even want to do anything with the other players, per say. Just knowing that they're there would have been enough for me.

I worry that removing the public nature of Destiny's patrol zones would have a similar effect. It just wouldn't feel right to me.

*side note*

There's something about this topic that goes deeper than it should for me. Destiny's "always connected" nature has actually affected my ability to enjoy games where I'm "alone" anymore. The only way I can enjoy a typical single player game anymore is if it pulls me into the world so completely that I really do forget that I'm the only person there. Games like that are few and far between. It's like I crave the feeling of a crowd, even if I'm just doing my own thing.

While I largely agree, my personal hope would be for Bungie to find more ways to make the "public" aspects of the game more compelling, rather than ditch them. Seeing other players on Patrol rarely leads to cool experiences, but when it does, those are the magical little moments that help make Destiny something special. I want more of that :)

There is a cost to the ability to run into random people on patrol. I don't think the benefits outweigh the costs. The coolest experiences are those that you go in to with your friends (in my view). Bungie should double down on THOSE. If that means ditching the 'public' aspect of the game, then they should do that.

At the very least, allow people you meet to join your fireteam without having to go back to orbit!

I am sure it is technically possible. However, to do that you're creating at least two instances of every zone, and dividing the available public population for those zones.

That means that new players or new characters who begin later in the expansion's lifetime will see less populated areas because of missions they haven't cleared.

I'd seriously question how many people would actually care about that. I certainly wouldn't. I can think of less than a handful of instances where interacting with other random people in patrol added anything fun or interesting to my gameplay. I think Destiny could get rid of that system completely and it'd honestly be a much better game for it. It is neat to see other people zooming around, but that's all it is. I don't personally think it's really worth all the apparent costs of having that system.

While I largely agree, my personal hope would be for Bungie to find more ways to make the "public" aspects of the game more compelling, rather than ditch them. Seeing other players on Patrol rarely leads to cool experiences, but when it does, those are the magical little moments that help make Destiny something special. I want more of that :)

You said they are (in the present tense) making things up as they go, and that they did not (in the present tense) have a plan, and that was reflected in what we are currently seeing. In the same post you say you don't know if things have changed, but that didn't stop you from saying how things ARE. As usual, it's your grand broad-brush pronouncements that grate.

I understand this, and you are right.

But I mean, technically they ARE making it up as they go along with Destiny 2 aren't they? It's still in development! :-p

Sure. We both know it's not really pejorative in that any game development requires a degree of "making it up as you go." In regards to a plan, I think Bungie had a plan for Destiny a long time ago, one that involved eventually going to other solar systems. (Remember the slip up at Staten and Barrett's talk years ago?) I'm sure things have changed--they always do, as Zavala would say.

Compared to the Books of Sorrow (and the new Iron Lord cards, which are great) they're really lacklustre and I feel like they could have dome so much more in terms of describing (if not explaining) SIVA and its effects/impact.

Why not let us SEE it? We see swarms of Siva in the opening cutscene which eludes to it being bad stuff, but never in game or in a cutscene do we see that stuff swarming to take something down, or mutating something or what have you.

We're TOLD how bad it is, but we never experience that ourselves.

You said they are (in the present tense) making things up as they go, and that they did not (in the present tense) have a plan, and that was reflected in what we are currently seeing. In the same post you say you don't know if things have changed, but that didn't stop you from saying how things ARE. As usual, it's your grand broad-brush pronouncements that grate.

I understand this, and you are right.

But I mean, technically they ARE making it up as they go along with Destiny 2 aren't they? It's still in development! :-p

My Response: But what about this multipart short story written and paid for by Bungie before Destiny first came out that shows Bungie knew of the origin of the Exo Stranger.

Consider that you have no idea of the timeframe the grimoire was written. What if it wasn't in game because it was being worked on after the game shipped to cert? Not saying that's true, but you don't know that's NOT true. You are guessing as much as you think I am.

If you're going to say that only what Bungie knew about the story at certification is what counts (and not what was in the Grimoire at launch), then yeah, you might be right about the particulars regarding the Exo Stranger. I think Battuta has mentioned here how very late the Grimoire cards were written.

Also, it's not unusual for game stories to change and morph based on how the game development goes. There are many factors to juggle and flexibility and creativity are a must, which is why I could see how a statement from an ex-Bungie employee alluding to this flexibility could be spun negatively.

As for myself, I wouldn't have been bothered at all if you had qualified your statements. Had you said something like, "based on what we've heard about the development of vanilla Destiny and how late the Grimoire were written, it's pretty clear that to some extent they made up the in-game story as they went along," I'd probably agree with that. That's not what you said, though. You said they are (in the present tense) making things up as they go, and that they did not (in the present tense) have a plan, and that was reflected in what we are currently seeing. In the same post you say you don't know if things have changed, but that didn't stop you from saying how things ARE. As usual, it's your grand broad-brush pronouncements that grate. Acting like you were paraphrasing some authority just made it worse.

[Last post on this thread (I hope!)]

One interesting question is raised by Ghost Fragment: Old Russia 4. This would appear to be the AI of a colony ship being ordered by Rasputin to take SIVA somewhere far away... Presumably this is after the Golden Age and the Collapse or else why wouldn't the ship be carrying people and supplies. So... what was Rasputin's plan there? Being ordered 9 billion miles away would mean that Rasputin really did send this ship out of our solar system... and to the stars?

(For reference Voyager 2 is roughly 9 billion miles away at this point.)

My thoughts were that, crazy risk-taking warmind that he is, Rasputin was willing to do anything to prevent SIVA activation, up to and including doing it himself before the Iron Lords could, in the hope that they'd see what it was and change their mind/try to stop it. Which worked!

Seriously, the Tl;Dr is 10 short cards to say Clovis Bray ignored Shirazi's warnings and made SIVA anyway, 10 cards doing nothing but namedropping secondary Iron Lords, and 10 fragmented cards of Aksis' insane ranting (which is admittedly kind of interesting, but hard to parse and lacking in detail).

Compared to the Books of Sorrow (and the new Iron Lord cards, which are great) they're really lacklustre and I feel like they could have dome so much more in terms of describing (if not explaining) SIVA and its effects/impact.

I am sure it is technically possible. However, to do that you're creating at least two instances of every zone, and dividing the available public population for those zones.

That means that new players or new characters who begin later in the expansion's lifetime will see less populated areas because of missions they haven't cleared.

I'd seriously question how many people would actually care about that. I certainly wouldn't. I can think of less than a handful of instances where interacting with other random people in patrol added anything fun or interesting to my gameplay. I think Destiny could get rid of that system completely and it'd honestly be a much better game for it. It is neat to see other people zooming around, but that's all it is. I don't personally think it's really worth all the apparent costs of having that system.

Of course then you don't get calls

Sounds perfect. Is there any way to block all calls and messages and still be able to dick around on reddit? (:

My Response: But what about this multipart short story written and paid for by Bungie before Destiny first came out that shows Bungie knew of the origin of the Exo Stranger.

Consider that you have no idea of the timeframe the grimoire was written. What if it wasn't in game because it was being worked on after the game shipped to cert? Not saying that's true, but you don't know that's NOT true. You are guessing as much as you think I am.

Cut the crap, Cody. We know for a fact that work on the Grimoire started before June 13, 2014. We also know that writers who worked on the Grimoire were sought out at least as early as 2012. Besides, you're the one that said that just because something isn't in the game doesn't mean it wasn't developed or explored.

You know that no matter what I say to defend my assertion you just won't believe me. I'm not even going to try. Believe what you want. Case closed. Not going to waste my time on you any more. I'm sure this will only make you more confident in your own assumptions, but I don't care what you think anymore.

If you really want someone to believe you it might help if you gave them even the smallest reason to do so. But no, you're the one claiming secret sources and playing "not saying that's true and you don't know that's not true" word games.

Let's move on.

Yes, before you dig that hole of yours any deeper... :)