Destiny and Gaming
Before kicking off for NaNoWriMo, it had been a minute since I wrote anything, and longer since I’d blogged. Couldn’t even tell you how long it’s been since I posted anything that had to do with my interests. Honestly, I have a lot of catching up to do in that sense. While I wasn’t writing, I was watching a lot of TV, caught some great movies, read better books, and played…
Well, actually I really haven’t played that much. Sure, I upgraded our PC (because the old one died, and boy is that a story all by itself), but most of what I played on PC was pretty standard stuff I’d already done before. Got back into Skyrim for a bit, started into the Mass Effect series so I could have a Commander Shephard on PC, and spent a ton during the Steam Summer Sale. I’ve enjoyed PC gaming.
But it doesn’t have Destiny, and that has been the majority of my gaming the past few months.
Can’t tell you how surprised I am by that.
I was one of the ones who played the demo way back whenever the hell the beta first kicked off. I remember thinking it was a great FPS, but it would be even better if I didn’t have to deal with all the MMO crap. The last MMO I played was Guild Wars, and that was only because I had a dedicated group of friends who played. I played SWOTOR too but didn’t make it too far in, and never played with anyone else. Great story, but again, MMO crap.
My issue with MMOs is the incessant repetitiveness and emphasis on the eternal grind. That and I don’t have a huge list of friends to play with, who own the same console, or who have the same family/writing/work commitments. Everyone’s busy.
So when I first played the Destiny demo, I figured that was a fun weekend and that would be it. Then The Taken King came out…and there was a sale…and well, it was the Penny Arcade comics they did for the new sub-classes that cinched it for me. Saw the Stormcaller and felt my curiosity hit its peak, just had to check it out.
I’ve now put days into Destiny, like all together. My Warlock is at 291, and a complete badass in his stag helmet, with Apple of Discord in one hand, lightning coming out of the other. He looks way better in game, but I don’t know how to screen capture from the PS3.
What really surprised me, besides the fact that the actual gameplay has held my attention so well, is my interest in the lore behind Destiny. Not the story per se, just Google that and you can see the issues there, but the worldbuilding and backstory. I am very, very interested in the alien species, much more than when I went through the demo. The semi-sorcerous Hive with their worm-minds and dimensional gateways, the Vex who float backward and forward in time, fueled by organic liquid, even the Fallen who seem to be a race who fell (ha!) on hard times and have grown into something terrible.
Then there are the Cabal, not near as interesting but also kind of amusing since it seems like they had been carving a straight line through the galaxy, conquering world after world until they showed up in the Milky Way in the middle of a clusterfuck between these aforementioned races and humanity, and like group of drunken frat boy who stumble into sorority party, was more than eager to stick around and play.
I really hope the story improves and we continue to get an idea of what all is going on. Just Google some of the theories. I’m partial to not trusting the Traveler myself, and absolutely love the idea of Rasputin crippling the spherical bastard to keep it from leaving. There is a lot of potential in the story, though it also seems like we’re seeing elements of a story that was scrapped.
We’ll see.
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