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fetterdave

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Destiny: the final straw

When I played the Alpha, I thought DESTINY was going to be an amazing game.

When I played the Beta, I was sure I was going to love it.

When I started playing DESTINY after it was released, I had a blast. Whenever possible I teamed up with a couple of friends and had even more fun in the game. I loved the feel of the shooting, the movement, and especially the melee attacks. I thought the art design was outstanding and couldn't wait for every new environment I encountered. All too quickly, I finished the story missions and reached level 20 with my Hunter.

I began the post-20 grind, and even then still found myself playing a fair amount of the game. A quick note about me: I'm a 42-year old husband and father, so I really only get to play an hour or two at night after the rest of the family has gone to bed. So that's part of the reason why I've never been able to devote "serious" amounts of time to leveling up in DESTINY. At any rate, my in-game time continued to decline but I figured I jump back in with both feet when the expansions hit.

What I wasn't counting on, obviously, was how end-game focused first Crota and now House of Wolves are. How Bungie has, in a very MMO-like fashion, created content aimed specifically at those willing and able to go through the incredibly complicated process of reaching the level cap and acquiring the top of the line gear. So, a little disappointed, I resigned myself to only enjoying that content on a very limited basis. And up until this weekend, when I tackled the first House of Wolves bounty, I never really had a moment that made me consider stopping altogether.

So there I am, zooming along towards the Forgotten Shores as a level 29 Hunter, assuming that I would just spend some time exploring the area before my target showed up. Sure enough, after a few minutes I noticed two max-level players with the Objective icon over their names, so I popped over to see them killing waves of Fallen from drop ships that appeared every so often. Eventually, the Baroness descended, and the three of us chased her into a cave. I was doing barely any damage, but hung in there until she was dead. I happily saw the bounty completion notice, and then saw "Ether key 1:30" pop up and begin counting down. And that, my friends, is when I broke up with DESTINY.

That moment was the perfect illustration of how Bungie let me down with this game. Once again, the game introduced something for me to do/acquire without any context, instruction, or guidance. In a better game I would be told more or less what an Ether key is, what it's for, and where I'd need to use it. Yet, just like with so many things about DESTINY, Bungie seems to expect me to go figure it out via extra-game methods. I guess I shouldn't be surprised; this is a company that couldn't even be bothered to put the game's lore inside of the damn game itself!

I'm now at that place where so many other DESTINY players already reached: realizing that I don't have the time or inclination to go scour web sites and social media in order to understand the game. And I suppose there's a silver lining: I won't have another game competing for my attention when THE WITCHER 3 is released tomorrow.

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