Well, I didn't see one yet so here we go:

How's everyone liking it so far? I'll probably update my thoughts as I play.

Level 20, 215 light. I like the new weapon categorizing. I find myself switching between them more frequently. The armor and weapon designs have been lackluster, but I'm expecting all the interesting designs to be late game anyway(though still not seeing much variety) New enemies are nice, though there aren't many. I feel like the enemy roster is roughly what was available at the end of D1's expansions. It was weird not having the sparrow at first, and running through the same areas does get tedious. Maybe it's so it feels like a bigger accomplishment this time, think getting your first mount in WoW, though waiting until end game was maybe a bit extreme. Finally, I want to say the mission and level variety has been really good. I feel like half my time is spent platforming and exploring vs. just in combat. The story sprinkles in just enough variety to avoid getting stale, at least in my opinion and the strikes I've done had environmental obsticles too. I'll wait until I've seen all the strikes and raid, but the content count is a little lower than I'd hoped. All in all, it took the right ideas from taken king and has improved in all the ways I would expect. This is what Destiny should have been in 2014, it's nice to see it realized.

Been playing story (just opened the third zone) and doing adventures/public events/lost sectors. Level 13.

Story is still a meh for me. I am actually dreading the need to replay the mission after homecoming on another character cause of how long and boring it was.

Public events are fun on short burst, while the adventures and lost sectors that I've done are nothing to write home about.

Character power progression feels fantastic so far. Any loot dropped has a really high chance to increase your power level, which is nice.

Also, Voidwalker's Devour so OP in PvE.

The lack of new enemy types has made a lot of the missions so far feel like early Destiny but on easy mode, ie. the weapons aren't as interesting as the end game stuff but neither are the enemies any significant challenge. The most interesting change has been the change to how elements and shields interact; I remember when one witch was an intimidating factor but now you can tear through three witches in 20 seconds if you go into the fight with a fire submachine gun equipped. It's a weird feeling. You know how the acolytes behave so there's no adjustment period, it's muscle memory where to aim your sights when they're behind cover and there's really no dread at all to any of the confrontations so far, even in solo play. I can't imagine how these missions feel in fireteams; if vanilla Destiny was all about being deeply afraid of whatever was around the corner (right down to Dinklage's portrayal of the Ghost) then Destiny 2 is all about power, which is a weird shift in philosophy considering the themes of the story. North's Ghost is oddly obsessed with bombs and general deviancy, it seems.

The game seems a lot more interested in story and exposition, but it's still pretty easy to tune out. I'm still worried all the interesting stuff will be in the history of the world. There seems to be more mystery out there in the world, though; there are these marked items in particular all over Titan that I keep shooting and knocking over because they take damage, but they also respawn so I can't tell if they're red herrings or not. Sometimes there are little worms around them that take damage as well, and during one mission there was an item I could scan that caused Dinklage to say something about it potentially being the spawning place for some kind of Hive worm...

The public events are fun though right now (level 10, just unlocked second subclass) the zones seem to cycle between just two so there hasn't been a lot of variety, though it was fun to see the heroic version of an event I'd already done three times (I had to do a few PEs to unlock the mission for my second sub) pop for the first time. I didn't play the last expansion at all but for me there are a ton of new iron sights that are fun; I really like this submachine gun I have where any enemies in its sights glow red.

The soundtrack seems far more generic than the first game's, a lot of clashing sounds and scores that, to me, don't honestly feel all that Destiny like.

I think they did a clever job of opening the game, though since I only completed one raid one time with total strangers I didn't get that same nostalgic feeling Jeff and Brad did during the pre-game info dump. I wished there'd been more to it, something for PVE solo players like me.

I like that they hit you with an exotic quick and early (I won't say what mission for the sake of whatever minute spoilers that could posibly be, but I was level 8 when I got mine and they're graded for level 4), makes me excited for where the loot progression could go from here.

The past five hours have blazed by; at this point I'm a 28 year old man considering keeping this going as an all-nighter since I have work at 10:30 and its already 4AM and I don't feel any exhaustion, but I'll likely log out soon. Like I said earlier, I skipped the final expansion, or bought it and didn't let its teeth sink into me, one of the two, so it's been over a year since I last pulled the trigger in Destiny. Still feels real, realgood.

Haha, join the club. I was like "I'm gonna play till 2 am, oh crap it's 5am already"

Haven't played yet but this seems like a waste of an exotic to me? Exotics are supposed to be awesome unique end-game gear, and with a limited number of them in the game I'd be pretty bummed to have one of them be level 4 gear that is useless to me once I get to 20.

Basically, I don't want to get an exotic that I end up replacing with a blue an hour later...

One thing I'd add to my original post is that for all their talk about matchmaking tools for the fireteam-based stuff, it's still a bummer that you're clearly entering a mission surrounded by one or two other people but they get dropped out of your game as soon as you enter the zone. I get that we're technically in separate instances of the same universe but I wish they'd figured out a way for three solo players or one solo and a double walking into the same room to remain walking into that room. Especially now that the public events routinely have six players converging on them.

Correct me if I'm wrong, because this wasn't a mechanic when I played, but can't you level up any piece of armor as high as you want it to go these days? I seem to recall that becoming the case during Destiny 1 at some point down the line.

You keep your exotics, you can infuse them to a higher power level

I have just over 2 solo hours on the clock and I've already fallen pretty hard and pretty deeply for Destiny 2. Can't wait to join up with my wife and friends as a team and experience the game in the way it was designed to be experienced.

@galerian: @nodima: Ah I see, not really familiar with the infusing mechanic. Do they just take the power level of whatever you infuse them with but keep all their unique perks and so on?

@bollard: Yes, keep the perks but increases power level. But another post in another thread did mention that it might not be infused to the same power level as the material use for the infusion (if anything like the old infusion system ~80% of power level if not mistaken).

@galerian: Gotcha, thanks!

This thread is kind of a bummer so far. Sounds like the game is sinking its hooks into players in exactly the same ways as the first while failing to addressing the parts that were sorely lacking.

The comments on the recent Bombast were disappointing to hear but when you consider what they added to vanilla Destiny it's still early days? I don't know why I was expecting something beyond simply more Destiny.

Seems okay but I'm worried about how much grind BS will be awaiting me - I fell for it the first time. Plus, paying for engrams that give a gameplay advantage looks real slimy

@dgtlty: If you get that impression from my post, lemme give you my standing on Destiny.

I am not playing Destiny for the story. I am in a minority, I believe, that find the amount of story in D1 and it's expansions were fine. Cause to me, that mode is just a stepping stone towards the endgame, which was PvP.

If you are looking from a story point of view, try have a look here, a lot of previews to form a better opinion about the state of story mode in D2.

Played through to the second area last night and there's two things that really stood out to me. Firstly, the choice of silent protagonist comes off as super weird with their new attempt at a better story. There's literally moments where people are having a conversation with you and the camera pans to you and you're just staring back at them and then it goes back and they keep carrying on as if you actually replied something. It's just strange.

Secondly, the fact that you're still going to orbit every time you travel, even though you never ever have to actually go to orbit, comes off as really sloppy. It's like it's some vestige of their code from Destiny 1 and they weren't able to remove that layer for some reason. In some ways it's very indicative of what the game seems to be, Destiny 1 with new content. Sure, there's some minor changes here and there, but overall there seems to be no real effort made to actually overhaul and improve on the core design of the game. It's just superficial polish that only already invested players will care about.

I played about 6 hours now on PS4. It's my first Destiny game and overall a first multiplayer game when I'm part of a clan/community (Thanks Cerberus Wolves Giant Bomb!). I absolutely love it. The art direction, the music, the vistas are all incredible. The gameplay feels great too. There's seems to be a ton of things to do and I'm having a blast.

I've played through 4-5 story missions and did some adventures/public events with buddies from my GB clan and I'm just having pure fun. I have no qualms with this game so far. Well aside from probably never touching the crucible again because I just suck at it.

As a Sci-Fi fan I'm really glad I got this game and I'm super grateful for the warm welcome of the GB community. The multiplayer games I had played in the past I always played solo (ESO, GW2), but with all of you here it's infinitely more fun and gives me access to more activities!

And as a new player, I feel like most things are explained well and are fairly intuitive. I did watch the 1,5 hour video on destiny 1 story by Byf so that helps but other than that it feels very welcoming to new players.

I put in 3 hours last night. So far I'm really enjoying it. I appreciate that I was able to bring in my hunter from the first game and see a small recap of when I accomplished things I'd done in Destiny 1. I feel like that helped me connect with Destiny 2 in a small but meaningful way that emphasized what I'd done rather than what I had.

I like the way areas are put together and feel like I can get in and play the way I want to without wasting a lot of time. The population of the social areas seems appropriate and I'm running into the right number of players in zones in a way that feels natural. For a person who likes to explore on his own but likes seeing activity around me it makes the world feel alive and a lot less lonely than Destiny 1.

The two big environments I've been in so far look great and when I take a moment to stop and look around I appreciate that a lot of work has gone into making things seem big without feeling empty. I hope that continues to be the case and more people take in those details. I also think they're doing a better job "signposting" side areas.

Don't know what to think of the story so far. I did have a few moments where I felt the dialog was a bit over-the-top especially when someones says "Guardian" with a bit too much reverence for my tastes. Ghaul seems decent so far and I appreciate the stakes of what's going on. We'll see but I'm enjoying it so far.

Also I love the stupid soccer field.

I watched the GameSpot livestream and it seems like more Destiny. There is a market for that of course, but it seems disappointing how little this resembles an actual sequel. People that loved the first game will get more of that so they'll be happy, but it seems like Bungie isn't all that interested in changing things up.

Still not for me, but ill give it another few hours. Hopefully my buddy will buy it from me

First impression is "WTF the character creation is the same as D1, no new hair styles or beards". Otherwise still Destiny, which I like.

I'd be enjoying it a lot more if I didn't have to keep restarting the game due to enemies & NPC's not spawning. I assume it's just a server load issue, but it's been super frustrating.

It's Destiny 1 with a story and cut scenes. Almost identical to the first game in my opinion.

Idk, feels like I paid $60 for an expansion, that doesn't have as much content as a true expansion should.

Remember Destiny y'all?!

@theht: Ever wonder why that's such a different sounding Celine Dion song? It's because that song was written by the same guy responsible for Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell albums, Jim Steinman. He also wrote Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

This ends the music trivia portion of this thread. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming of people who bought another Destiny game, only to find out that they bought another Destiny game.

Thankfully, I like Destiny, so more of that is cool with me.

I really want to play a Bungie shooter I enjoy again, but the idea of more Destiny with some light improvements and a more present (but not necessarily better) story is not particularly appealing. Maybe the DLC'll convince me, but yeah, kinda wish Bungie would make something different. Like a new Myth. Maybe. Please.

Destiny 1 was my turn-off-the-brain-and-shoot game. Destiny 2 so far is more of the same. Less loading screens is welcome, hint timer on when the next public event is is neat. Lack of sparrow to start is kind of annoying.

Story-wise...I'm not convinced yet. It brings up a couple potentially interesting points, but we'll see if the game has the guts to actually go through with them. There is a lot more dialogue and cutscenes, but I'm not really impressed by any of it. The opening also has a bit of "slowly limp for a while and listen to our great music" that I hope never comes up again. Also platforming and invisible walls/instant deaths...ugh.

I've also seen some of the legacy bugs and minor issues come up again. "Destiny but without the bullshit" is not a slogan I can endorse yet. We'll see how the gear grind and end game goes, as that was where most of the BS was in 1.

What expansions have you been playing to create this crazy expectation for them, I'm jealous.

@efesell: Mostly looking at it from how much I've been playing WoW. Sure it's not a full blown MMO but for a game that's trying to be a 10yr franchise, they need to bring a lot more to the table

I'm in kind of a unique situation. I've not played Destiny at all, and I'm legally blind. Because of that I don't trust myself to do stuff like raids because I don't want to ruin anyone elses time. However this sounds like a game I could play without someone else around to help me with reading things. Numbers I can probably make out thanks to the PS4s Zoom feature. Is this something I could sink a bunch of hours into solely on single player?

3 hard crashes in a half hour on PS4 Pro. I beat most of the tutorial but fuck it, time to Knack til this gets resolved.

Man, having played through (what I would assume is) most of the story missions at this point I'm absolutely flabbergasted at some of the choices (repeated mistakes) they've made with this game. I dunno how spoilery I can be in this thread, but let's just say that the one thing that every pre-release demo etc indicated they would do better with this game they've actually managed to do even worse.

Also, the writing for Cayde (and crew) is trying WAY too hard.

The only complaint I have with the story missions is that they have a bad habit of chaining them together without my input and sometimes I just want a dang break.

Judging from the quick look it seems they took some steps forward and some steps backward the same time, which may leave them in the same spot as destiny 1 for me. Seems that the main content is a bit more in depth, but a lot less repeatable. I only did the strike in the beta once and was kinda done with it honestly, while the strikes in destiny 1 i did enjoy doing over and over. Story stuff seems improved but i guess you can't re-run missions like destiny 1 to play with friends at a lower level? Seems bad, i liked the different level scaling for missions in destiny 1. The whole shader thing seems really bad, shaders were one of the cool things about destiny that i don't remember people complaining about so why "fix it". Enemies seem all the same for the most part, which is a big shame for a so called sequel. Like someone said, seems like a 60dollar expansion more so than a sequel from what i've seen.

Probably skip this one all together but maybe later impressions will convince me to pick it up on pc.

If by single player you mean story mode, nope. I don't think story mode is longer than ~4 hours.

But if you mean you just want to do stuffs (strikes, patrols, etc) on top of the story mode, yes. I can't help much on the legally blind part, sorry, but as long as you can shoot combatants down, I think you'll be fine.

Are there hidden collectibles in Destiny 2?

I've been poking around the world maps, exploring all the interesting nooks and crannies but at the moment the only things I'm finding are the scannable objects. There doesn't seem to be anything (yet at least) like dead ghosts, siva bits, or calcified fragments.

Having finished the story, some more thoughts:

Like I said earlier, if Destiny 1 was all about the fear of the unknown, Destiny 2 is all about the confidence to tackle anything. You die a lot less through the story missions, you are given a lot of power fantasy moments throughout the game (and more and more frequently), and even in the most dire moments of the campaign there really aren't any dour moments. Death is a specter looming over the lightless Guardians' heads at every turn, but in this universe Death seems like a pretty fun hang.

To that end, the dialogue is pretty inspired in its active distaste for its own universe. Yes, it is ultimately nice to have more chatter going on during these missions if only to remind you of what you're doing, but at the same time that does remove one of the unique charms of the first Destiny - being utterly confused by everything going on, from the story to how the level was going to play out to how the enemies were going to behave and what new types of enemies you were going to encounter. By fleshing out the story, they remove that confusion of the latter, and by relying mostly on old layouts and old enemy types they remove all of the former.

That last part was what bugged me the most throughout the campaign. I can't tell you how many times I went through environments - not just levels, but environments - and immediately had callbacks to specific areas from Destiny 1. Remember the Sparrow section of the Cerberus Vae III Strike (Valus Ta'aurac (sp?) was the boss, but the tank was the most memorable part) where you go through that valley of Vex and then through that winding valley? Pretty sure I walked through that same area on Nessus. Or was it Io? Both planets have very similar features to the design of Venus and layouts quite remincisent of a combination of Mars and Venus. It gave me this weird feeling of having already been there before rather than visiting these amazing new worlds.

I'm not saying it doesn't all look great (though on my 720p 50" screen, the image doesn't appear especially optimized for my experience and still looks sort of PS3-y if you know what I mean), just that it doesn't feel like the leap a "2" implies. I also had this weird feeling of knowing what games Bungie was playing, or taking a hard look at, during the art design of this game - The Last of Us and Uncharted, Mass Effect 2, DOOM. Bungie built a fairly singular world(s) with the first Destiny, but I didn't get that feeling so much from this one.

Lootwise, it seems like there is a lot of repeated armor for the Titan; across any given rarity I can count maybe three distinct sets of armor, and they're all pretty similar looking. That said, the game started handing out Legendarys a little earlier last year whereas I've only seen one gun and one set of gauntlets through the end of the story this time, so I have hopes yet for the "real" armor to be pretty cool. I think all the guns are a lot of fun, though having figured out what works for me in the first Destiny (scout rifles and handguns; I even roll kinetic and energy handgun most of the time) removes some of the fun in trying new guns out. I put most of the other styles of weapon off to the side immediately, and I'm finding myself doing the same with swords vs. other power weapons as well.

The structure of the endgame seems...interesting, but I won't talk about that here since it'd probably be considered spoilers.

Glad I'm not the only one who thought on multiple occasions "Hmm, I'm having mild deja vu here". Like, it happened often enough to where I'm pretty sure they did just re-purpose chunks of levels from Destiny 1.

Destiny 1 is prob the game I have sunk the most hours into ever, and I'm a tiny bit disappointed with D2. All the gameplay changes feel like a major update, but not on the level of a proper numbered sequel. I'm happy that it's more Destiny, but I feel like it's just that...more Destiny, and not a sequel. Having said that, I'll prob lose months of my life to this game again, but fool me twice, shame on me. If they skimp on major changes when D3 comes rolling out, I'll prob call it a day.

Happy with everything so far. I can't help but wonder if someone at Bungie is a fan of the movie The FP what with a territory called Trostland.

It feels like an honest improvement in pretty much every single way over destiny 1. I'm not sure I agree with the "it feels like an update instead of a sequel" crowd. To me it feels like the natural evolution of destiny. It hits the high points of D1 without the lows and has made worthwhile changes to the systems that didn't work.

I do wish their were new enemy types. At least one but that's not such a deal breaker to me since they added a few new enemies to each group and changed how some act.

720p stretched out on a 50' screen is going to look terrible no matter what.

terriible is a hell of an overstatement.

I enjoyed hanging out with my friends. The game seems...ok? Bland? I don't think I'd play too much of it alone.

So I'm pretty much just starting out, just got to the hub area, but Im enjoying the story quite a bit. They've really made significant improvements on that front. There's great moments even within the first few hours that left me saying "Why wasn't destiny 1 like this in the first place?" and the game is treating the enemies as more than just canon fodder, giving them a perspective too.

I'm loving the game so far. After Taken King I really started to enjoy Destiny 1. Although I hit a breaking point with it and stopped like two years ago. Now just a week before D2 came out I bought Rise of Iron and got sucked back into the game real hard. 2 is just a continuation of that for me.

We all know the vanilla story in Destiny was pretty nonexistent, but it had a lot of lore wrapped up in the grimiore cards. Now, the fact that they were on a website instead of in game was bs. I never once had it in me to figure out how to read them. Thankfully there are people out there that did. So through this, I ended up watching some lore videos youtube by this guy named Byf and now I'm kinda invested in the story. If you're all at interested in that stuff I very much recommend this video, which very thoroughly and in an easily understood way, summarizes what's happened in the world of Destiny all the way up to Rise of Iron.

As far as 2's story, I really like the whole light being taken away as a narrative conceit. I don't really have any problems with the dialogue or characters. It is what it is I guess. I do think the fact that there's an actual clear story this time around is an improvement. It's a lot easier to follow than Vanilla Destiny's was, but they were showing signs of getting better with that by the end of Destiny 1's expansions.

Now, the only real problem I've had so far is what they've done with the shader system. It's hot garbage. In D1 you would acquire shaders and apply them to your whole outfit whenever you wanted, and could remove and replace them at will. They would still be in your inventory for later use. Makes sense right? It was a simple vanity system that worked for me, and I would venture to say most people. But for some reason, shaders are now tied to specific armor pieces and once they are removed they are gone. WTF?! It makes no sense at all. Once you get in the end game, vanity is a big component for a lot of people. They've effectively limited the player's options in that respect.

They also changed the weapon slots. It used to be a primary, special, and heavy weapon. It's now a kinetic, energy, and power weapon. They effectively take on the same roles, but the types of guns has been switched around. Shotguns and sniper rifles used to be the secondary special weapons and would be used as part of the core arsenal. Now they are relegated to the tier that also includes Rocket and Grenade launchers. I don't find myself running out of ammo for them too much, but I do kinda miss having a one two punch with a hand cannon or scout rifle to an in your face shotgun blast. It is what it is, although the ammo pickup colors are now a bit confusing, since they're the same colors but in some cases for different weapons now. (Example is the shotgun is no longer green ammo: now it's purple.)

Well, there's my two cents on the game as I've played so far. I recently went through all of the raids in D1 for the first time with some duders in the community here and had a blast, so I can't wait for the new one! It'll be a little while before I'm prepped for it though.

Wait this out a bit. My current loadouts for all three positions:

• Kinetic: Hand Cannon, Sidearm, Scout Rifle x 2, Auto Rifle

• Energy: Scout Rifle x 2, Trace Rifle, Pulse Rifle, Hand Cannon, Grenade Launcher, Submachine Gun, Sidearm

• Power: Grenade Launcher, Sword x 2, Sniper Rifle x 2, Fusion Rifle

My main loadout is usually an Old Fashioned (legendary hand cannon) kinetic and Sunshot (exotic hand cannon) with either sword (I have a heavy and a light) and I keep the others for areas that have a lot of long pathways or I just want to switch things up. I think it's actually a far more clever system than the past game; as you can see, I'm using my favorite style of gun in both the kinetic and energy slots, and with a scout rifle as a close second favorite I could also just roll with two scout rifles. If I loved grenade launchers, I could run with two of those in my lineup as well. I really appreciate the added flexibility, but until you get to Legendary and Exotic gear you aren't going to see as much of it, most of the gear stays pretty standard.

I just completed the first two story parts on the second planet. I like it so far, but I have to join few others in calling this more of a expansion to the first Destiny. The identical menus (with the same stupid oddities, like not having volume sliders for anything else in the audio except general/master volume), pretty much the exact enemies (maybe my biggest disappointment so far) and some other familiarities echoing from the first game. At least the story is there this time, even if it hasn't been anything to write home about yet.

But the basic gameplay still feels great and the areas have been more visually appealing, so it's fun to run around in them, shooting 'n looting stuff. But I think I might skip on double dipping with the pc-version, now that I've played this for several hours.

Yeah I generally agree with this comment. I could list on and on the types of improvements I think the game made over Destiny 1, the issue is most of these improvements are relatively minor. They are very welcome don't get me wrong, but because they are so minor it creates situations where if you didn't put in the hours in Destiny 1, it probably doesn't seem like a change. You mentioning them adding a few new enemies to each faction and changing how they work is pivotal to that. One of the notable early examples is the Wretch, which is a new fallen enemy with a long spear. Vandals as well do way more jumping, and in general enemy AI feels reworked to be far less predictable than it used to be.

I'll say though the little changes that matter to me the most is the ability to drop down on a world now, and just go. Missions auto boot into a cutscene and take you back to the default landing location on said area, and adventures are honestly a huge improvement. It's a small amount of context, but when you combine that with the fact that the open world areas feel less guided than they used to. That was one of my big complaints about Destiny 1, the open world areas they gave you just didn't feel real often. Every area had sparrow paths leading you to the stuff you needed to go to, so exploring just for the sake of exploring wasn't inherently rewarding. D2 messes with altitude way more too, which leads to far more interesting things going on just in world. Lost Sectors are a huge improvement to the open world areas as well. If you haven't been exploring you get a notification when you find one, and loot the bigger cache they have. But they basically reward you for exploring, and give you a named yellow enemy with a big chest at the end. Often these places are a bit hidden, sometimes underneath in caves or tunnels, deeper in buildings.

As for the shaders debate, I suppose I'll weigh in. Remind me again why this is somehow "less" features for the user? There was a post above here saying they somehow limited the shader options in D2 versus D1. I don't understand how that is the case. While you would keep your shader in D1 for your entire character if you no longer were using it, you were absolutely limited into how your character looked. Each shader applied itself it's own way, and you had no control over what pieces where what colors. Now you have MORE options, and grinding shaders isn't hard anyways. But you could make each piece of armor look however you want now, color wise. So how in the world is that somehow "less" options?

10 hours in and enjoying the game. My biggest complaint is the classes. Maybe it's just because Destiny makes it out like you're deciding between a D&D character with how different they are when they just aren't.

The lack of any big new things when it comes to classes is a big let down for me. Three reworks just seems like such a Destiny move. What probably bothers me the most is each sub class being forced into one of two attunements? You actually get less ways to vary your character than the original.

After more than 200 hours of Destiny 1 I really wanted them to do something cool with the classes so this has been a wet blanket over my experience so far.

Now that my whining is done I am enjoying it and am looking forward to putting in some time this weekend.