That's even worse, damn. I'm all for having a great website with all the lore, but in game prompts to visit a website are ridiculous.
Destiny Lore & Spoilers: Shakespeare it ain't
- Thread starter Bizazedo
- Start date
That's even worse, damn. I'm all for having a great website with all the lore, but in game prompts to visit a website are ridiculous.
CreateNowSleepLater
Member
You get woken up after being dead. You don't ask any questions and even when meeting the speaker he tells you he can tell you of things but he doesn't. So what do you do? You ask how you can help not knowing what you are or what the hell is going on.
and who exactly is the villain in this story?
and who exactly is the villain in this story?
petethepanda
Member
I've always had a weird anticipation for Bungie stories since my first experience with the studio was reading the at-least-interesting-at-the-time Marathon lore online (before ever playing the games) and I've been let down every time, though Destiny does probably take the #1 spot. It's just such an afterthought.
I think that what bungie tried to do was build a frame-work, or a foundation for a lot of other stories under an umbrella goal of "saving the traveler."
Missions like the temple of oryx where the ghost says "they were communicating with something that is still out there!" Basically confirms to me that bungie never wanted to write an epic story in the first place and they just wanted a vehicle to deliver other smaller stories.
the problem being that it's all just little bits and pieces of other larger stories. The lore of the seperate races is a good example of this. Everyone has goals, backstory, potential future conflicts. And each one fits discretely into their own niche. So if you look at the expansions already announced, it pretty much confirms that destiny is just a huge wide net of establishing exposition. Hopefully the expansions allow them to focus on closer on the interesting aspects of each alien race.
Missions like the temple of oryx where the ghost says "they were communicating with something that is still out there!" Basically confirms to me that bungie never wanted to write an epic story in the first place and they just wanted a vehicle to deliver other smaller stories.
the problem being that it's all just little bits and pieces of other larger stories. The lore of the seperate races is a good example of this. Everyone has goals, backstory, potential future conflicts. And each one fits discretely into their own niche. So if you look at the expansions already announced, it pretty much confirms that destiny is just a huge wide net of establishing exposition. Hopefully the expansions allow them to focus on closer on the interesting aspects of each alien race.
Poodlestrike
Banned
And puts interesting faces on them. I feel like that's important; Halo CE Covenant were an interesting, but ultimately disposable generic alien menace. Halo 2 brought in the Arbiter, the Prophets, and generally gave them some more personality.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
To me this is probably the worst part of the story execution. You wake up to a world where you are outright told everything has changed and you won't understand it. It's the perfect excuse for lots of questions to be asked. They could have offered much exposition without it seeming unnatural. ("Why are they saying all this stuff the player character should already know?")
Instead it feels as if somebody was thoughtlessly invoking the Master Chief out of force of habit. Almost silent super soldier hero, marches forward and gets the job done without asking questions. Makes a handful of quips along the way.
Plus there is the issue that player character is apparently a random person who died of hunger/boredom in a traffic jam. You wake up, are given a shiny soldier suit, and suddenly you are a god damn Spartan. The entire thing could have been dealt with using a simple line such as: "Ghosts are always searching for lost soldiers from the past, to continue the fight."
If it was specified you are a resurrected soldier who died in the original collapse, fighting the initial invasion of the solar system, there'd also be a lot more justification for falling back into line and going off to battle.
I'm actually not one to pick stories apart. But there are some glaring internal consistency issues here, that do pull you out of the game at a few key points.
Poodlestrike
Banned
So, on a slightly more positive note, I stumbled across a really cool tidbit earlier looking at the description of one of my Titan Marks (class item).
It describes how there's a legend of 4 Titan Orders holding 6 fronts in one of the first major battles around the Last City. The Titan symbol is a hexagon split into four parts.
Thought it was kind of cool.
It describes how there's a legend of 4 Titan Orders holding 6 fronts in one of the first major battles around the Last City. The Titan symbol is a hexagon split into four parts.
Thought it was kind of cool.
Vinterbird
Member
This more then anything.
It feels unfinished, a draft and like there was gigantic struggles internally.
It's very visible in a few of the cutscenes, the first cutscenes with the player, Ghost and The Queen shows banter, companionship and genuine character between the player and Ghost. Then immediately after that it's gone again, and doesn't surface into a few cutscenes later.
Every so often it feels like the actual intended cutscene, the ones with personality, surface and the rest is just placeholder stuff. It feels like that at some point the game had an story and the characters had personality that was present in the cutscenes, but a lot of it was removed. It feels disjointed and incoherent.
IAmRandom31
Banned
The point of Destiny one story wise was to awaken the Traveller and get it healed.
The expansions and future titles will be about the war that has been raging for so long. You have the Awoken and their Queen who already has you under her thumb it looks like. You have the Cabal on Mars. The Vex are not destroyed, just the Heart that was keeping the Traveller asleep somehow.
The Fallen are still out there. There is mentioning of the ancient Hive guy Crota who is slumbering. I'm sure that fight is coming.
Will a interesting to see how this all irons out. This was just the start of it all. Part 1 of 10 if they plan on a new title every year with expansions in between or whatever. A bunch of the more may seem disjointed now but perhaps will get ironed out as the main story develops
The expansions and future titles will be about the war that has been raging for so long. You have the Awoken and their Queen who already has you under her thumb it looks like. You have the Cabal on Mars. The Vex are not destroyed, just the Heart that was keeping the Traveller asleep somehow.
The Fallen are still out there. There is mentioning of the ancient Hive guy Crota who is slumbering. I'm sure that fight is coming.
Will a interesting to see how this all irons out. This was just the start of it all. Part 1 of 10 if they plan on a new title every year with expansions in between or whatever. A bunch of the more may seem disjointed now but perhaps will get ironed out as the main story develops
It's actually a new title every 3 years. And I doubt they could have had a more incoherent start to a story if they tried.
Vinterbird
Member
Contract specifies a sequel every other year with expansions on the off years
jellies_two
Member
I want to know why Detroit managed to sell cars to Venusians.
In old russia the rusty freeway had a pleasing TLOU panic about it. But why put the same wrecking yard on Venus.
Also Venus has an average temp of 460c, does the traveller terraform planets for future humans ? that would explain the atmosphere on the moon - but not the earth gravity apparently operating there.
Sci fi is a delicate thing, good sci fi has science in it. Bad sci fi is just pulp.
In old russia the rusty freeway had a pleasing TLOU panic about it. But why put the same wrecking yard on Venus.
Also Venus has an average temp of 460c, does the traveller terraform planets for future humans ? that would explain the atmosphere on the moon - but not the earth gravity apparently operating there.
Sci fi is a delicate thing, good sci fi has science in it. Bad sci fi is just pulp.
NemesisPrime
Banned
Yeah the Lore and story are all over the place. Full of holes and bad SF IMHO.
A sign of the times when companies have 500$m budgets and cannot even manage to get a good writer for a good, coherent story.
I think they should have read "Manifold Space" before starting to write.
A sign of the times when companies have 500$m budgets and cannot even manage to get a good writer for a good, coherent story.
I think they should have read "Manifold Space" before starting to write.
I posted this before but it feels relevant here. A scanning mechanic would enhance both gameplay and lore. ...... Do it in-game like this:
Now this here would dramaticaly enhance the in game story/lore experience. This right here.
The Ghost is just there... Maybe it is because there are so many Ghosts for so many Guardians that The Traveler said - "Welp, fuck it - I'mma give dem Ghosts ability to solve encryptions, talk some nonsense and be done with it".
Also this is what I am thinking Traveler must think when I am doing stupid shit for fun - as jumping from tower, playing footbal, flying above fan, grinding with wanted deaths...
"I revived him for this?!"
I need my answers...
ed: Really interesting theories brought together by Kotaku.
I joked about us being the bad guys in beta, but the more I think about it, the more possible it can be...
on my way to r/Destiny
The problem with the story isn't whether or not you're the bad guys in the fight between darkness and light but how bare bones it is and how any backstory at all is filled in with reading a codex that seems like an afterthought.
This game is like Final Fantasy XII with its Falcee and Lacee technobabble just replaced with the Light and Darkness. And again to make any sort of inroads to the story you have to read walls of text in its version of all grimoire.
The core story behind the game isn't horrible. In fact, it's as generic and campy as 90% of sci-fi out there. Where Bungie botched it was in it's presentation and delivery.
Destiny's story delivery feels like narrating Middle Earth through a series of milk cartons.
Anton Sugar
Member
Even if Kotaku/theories are right, withholding information because of some "twist" is still bad storytelling.
The story is nowhere near as bad as everyone is saying it is. I went in a bite late expecting it to be trash since that was popular opinion, but I ended up kind of enjoying it. Yeah, it's pretty sparse, and yeah I forgot exactly what the purpose of some of the events were during the last few Mars missions, but I thought it served as a pretty good prelude for what's to come (whatever that is).
And if they really *really* needed that twist, then they probably still could have done the setup much better. Leaving some stuff unexplained, e.g. the exact nature of the Traveler's "light", is okay but Destiny doesn't even cover the basics of anything that happened between the Collapse and now.
Anton Sugar
Member
Yup, exactly. Basic motivations and backgrounds are glossed over or never even approached.
If you're a tool in a dark army, the "scales" over your eyes are just "you're a guardian, fight The Darkness".
Poodlestrike
Banned
Yeah. Plus, since they lean so heavily on telling, rather than showing, us anything, if the Traveler does turn out to be evil it won't exactly be a shock, since the only word we have that the Traveler is good is some exposition and Grimoire cards explicitly saying so.
So it was the voxel thing? That was the god? We killed it by killing the statues? I thought that thing was a shard of the Traveler... or something.
I'M SO CONFUSED
It was apparently what was stopping the traveler from healing. How it was doing that, and why it suddenly exploded, or why the speaker felt the need to make a speech over your accomplishment of making goo self-destruct, I have no idea.
Byron Bluth
Banned
Main things that could have helped the story:
1. Dialogue trees with all NPCs in the tower (those walking around, vendors, etc.)
2. Grimoire in game
3. Better set pieces - there just wasn't any "hop on the scarab" type moments in the game.
1. Dialogue trees with all NPCs in the tower (those walking around, vendors, etc.)
2. Grimoire in game
3. Better set pieces - there just wasn't any "hop on the scarab" type moments in the game.
The City NPCs should be the story equivalent to the team members on the Normandy.
I have never played a Halo game, but i keep seeing the Scarab reference.
Can someone give me the rundown on that?
I thought the sword mission was pretty awesome.
Yeah, especially with all the voice talent behind most of the vendors!
Poodlestrike
Banned
Scarabs in Halo are these giant 4-legged walkers (like, 4-6 times the height of the player). To kill them, you need to figure out how to board them, then destroy the core shield, then pound down the core. This is complicated by the hordes of enemies that are around them, but you generally have a bunch of AI buddies of your own, so the whole thing plays out like a giant battle around this enormous war machine. Very, very fun.
I was pretty disappointed with the lack of any vehicle battles during the story... For Bungie, it seems like a huge waste of potential. Shit, Reach had some really awesome variety... even a spaceship section. I mean, why not turn the loading screen into a Starfox-esque minigame or something? Kind of crappy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkETqI-M7LY at around 4:20 minutes onward. Halo 3 and reach had some really memorable set pieces.
Yeah, introducing vehicles took up entire sections of the Halo campaigns, and were definitely an awesome change of pace. "Tank beats EVERYTHING!"
Compsiox
Banned
Does anyone want to talk about the speaker and traveler being evil?
http://kotaku.com/a-wild-theory-about-destinys-story-1635090330
Poodlestrike
Banned
The idea's been kicked around, yeah. The problem is, that sort of twist only really works if you set up a reasonable expectation that we're not evil. Right now, the only thing we have to go on is the direct assurance that we're the good guys. If they set up a thing where we're saving civilians from the big, bad aliens, sure, but right now? Eh. Too much telling, too little showing for it to have any impact.
Compsiox
Banned
A person who tested an early build (reddit verified) of Destiny said there was a cut scene where the queens brother kidnaps you and explains why the ghost can't be with you and why the Traveler is bad.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Yeah, but he's an asshole. Still needs to *show* us something.
Why would they cut cutscenes like that when there are so few already?
Thematically the tone of the story seems to evoke pre-civilization man to me. No one knows where man or its enemies and allies came from, but there are legends and rumors, and shamanistic visions are interpreted as truth. The Traveler is given the same reverence that early man gave the sun - even crediting it with essentially providing life. Everything and everyone is given a basic, elemental title, and aside from the guardians appear unique and valuable to the whole. You're in the single place left, The City, and everything outside of it is dangerous, darkness. It's like they wanted to create a world where man is starting over as if civilization had never existed, but with technology that would be beyond their means unless some mysterious, benevolent being granted them it.
While this is nice and a novel starting point to build on, some of the writing and dialog has been cringe worthy. If the narrative is continued in earnest in the expansions, and I find myself playing them, I'd first like them to focus on introducing who all these people in The Tower are.
While this is nice and a novel starting point to build on, some of the writing and dialog has been cringe worthy. If the narrative is continued in earnest in the expansions, and I find myself playing them, I'd first like them to focus on introducing who all these people in The Tower are.
Chaos2Frozen
Member
The more I think about it, the more it seems Destiny is trying to use the Souls series' approach to lore, only they don't leave enough lying around.
At the same time, I'm watching "cosmos: a spacetime odyssey", and I'm definitely sensing what Bungie was trying to go for... Heck it hit me like a brick when the show used the term "Ghost Light".
At the same time, I'm watching "cosmos: a spacetime odyssey", and I'm definitely sensing what Bungie was trying to go for... Heck it hit me like a brick when the show used the term "Ghost Light".
Anton Sugar
Member
See, this is the kind of stuff I'd LOVE to hear NPCs/characters talk about, see murals on walls where I can scan for more info, etc.
If they're legends, make them feel like legends.
show me your skeleton
Member
i just really want an art book, i think that'll be the best thing to come out of this game.
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