They actually are slowly feeding in more empathy for the Cabal and Fallen within the grimiore. Both are just races that had the Traveler and the Traveler's a wuss and ran away and let them fall apart and nearly go extinct. I definitely see there being some sort of fragile alliance with both races down the line. Very different from "YOU ARE EVIL! FEEL BAD!" but not too far apart.
The Hive and Vex are pretty clearly just megalomaniac monster races.
Hive origin story is actually super sad, but they're so evil it doesn't matter.
Out of curiosity, can you say what games you have worked on?
Nope. NDA'd up the wazoo. I get the logic of it, but I do personally wish the industry could be more open. It's kinda hard, though... I mean, look at how one dev saying, two years ago, "we won't do microtransactions" resulted in a gigantic fan hissy fit. This despite the fact that A) he doesn't work at the company that made this decision, and B) this was about two years after they were originally going to cut support. Plans change in two years, but the fans seem to think anything stated is an eternal promise that must never be broken, and if things change, well, they're owed something.
But I have worked on games you'd recognize.
My freelance writing stuff I can talk about, though. My work frequently gets shared by various devs amongst their staff, so I've heard. Happy to link that if you wanna PM me.
Is there a way to turn off aim assist? During the alpha, I found the gunplay to be average because of that.
I think so, yeah.
Shit... This sounds awesome. What an utter disappointment we didn't get any of this.
I think you're misunderstanding the story here. The plot wasn't that the Traveller was 'the bad guy', as a twist. The plot was that the Traveller was a Ying/Yang - it had the good in it, but you didn't get the good without the bad. And the involved alien races were trying to mess this balance up for their own gains.
But even if the Traveller was the ubiquitous bad guy, IMO your analysis is only right if this was a late-plot twist.
It wasn't. The whole 'the Traveller is linked with the bad guys' thing sounded like an early narrative development. I think you're being too elitist about the 'good guy is actually the bad guy' twist. It's a fine development when it happens early in a story, because it means there's still an entire narrative to follow, examining the fallout of this revelation and how it impacts the whole universe. Rather than just 'you were betrayed! Haha! The end.' Which is what you're suggesting.
For instance, this stuff:
- sounds absolutely fantastic, and is 100% dependant on finding out the Traveller is 'bad' early on. Giving all the aliens unique motives and later plot developments as a consequence of the Traveller being a bad/problematic thing is great. It's not like 'the Traveller was bad all along - now kill it! Woo, you did it, game over!' It's like 'the Traveller was bad all along - shit, we better start waging a war against it. You go to a place and fight some aliens - oh, it turns out they were actually against it too. You go and fight some evil robots - oh, it turns out they were trying to save everyone. You go and fight some other aliens - ah, these guys really are the bad guys and they're way worse than the Traveller.'
PS if you're right and the twist came at the end of the game like 'omg the Traveller is evil' - then yes that is shit, high-school tier writing
I don't think it came super clearly that I was addressing the entire concept of the Traveler being evil, not just that one specific potential story interpretation. Part of this is just it being a stupid late night for me.
I'm just saying that any plot where the game's like SURPRISE THE TRAVELER'S NOT GOOD is going to result in player disappointment or resentment. I mean, yeah, different motives for the alien species is good, but if they're "well, that thing you like is also kinda bad, so killing these guys isn't a good thing," you rob the shooter of a lot of its fun. Kinda like how killing elites in Halo is robbed of its joy when the elites are like "oh sorry we're on your side now."
We still get into a lot of "humans are bad ok" tripe if it happens early on in the narrative.
See, while Destiny has great, solid gunplay, I still think it doesn't hold a candle to FEAR, Max Payne 2 or Killzone 2, and I would 100% rather play those games with their intelligent level and encounter design than Destiny again. I haven't played Destiny in almost a year since I finished the 'story', but I've played those games consistently for more than a decade.
I was with you until you got to Killzone 2. Destiny's got the same grenade/punch/shoot rhythm of Halo, coupled with some of the tightest individual encounters I've ever played. Sure, FEAR's better, because FEAR is the best, but Destiny is greatness.
Have you read the book of sorrows yet? In it Bungie basically confirms the traveler is a true good guy. Totally agree with your posts btw. Making the traveler a bad guy would be totally weird for the game. Would make no sense.
I have read the Book of Sorrows, which was written after Staten left iirc, and the plot was changed. Good stuff, though.
Totally agree with all of the above.
You can see Dreadnaught footage/geometry in the
2013 Video
Yo, that's hive geometry, and you can see some of it in Crota's End. Like, hey, that round post thing? Consider the bridge/totem encounter in CE. It's there. Actually looks more like that prop than the giant chained-up round thing from your Founts picture.