Right off the bat I just want it to be known that this article is strictly opinionated…duh…the majority of which will be based on conversations and experiences I’ve had playing with and talking to other people. Destiny isn’t the worst game by any stretch of the imagination, but there are those people who don’t like it.
I personally have nothing against Destiny as a game. I always had high hopes of it succeeding and doing well because Bungie just happens to be another one of my favorite companies. I’ve been following them since the first Halo and I can’t say that I’ve ever been disappointed by any of their work. More than likely this is all due to the fact that I’m one of those rare breeds of gamer’s who actually enjoys the grind. You know, going off on an adventure to fulfill some nonsense NPC’s hit list or grocery list, only to come back and be rewarded with either a piece of new gear or money. I don’t know what makes me this way, I just love the idea of MMORPG’s and making a Sci-Fi First Person Shooter out of the MMO genre really kind of intrigued me.
Now I’ve had my moments of boredom with the game. I will admit that first and foremost, just simply because I thought I had fulfilled my obligations to the game. I got to the top level, I got some good gear that I thought was so badass, I had experienced all the strikes and I felt as though that was enough. I never experienced the Vault of Glass (not until later), I didn’t really dive into the lore of Destiny through the Grimoire, and just like everyone else I didn’t really understand the story.
After the first bits of DLC had dropped (The House of Wolves and The Dark Below) I had already fallen behind because at the time I didn’t really have the money to shell out. It all became apparent around the release of The Taken King that I had to invest a little bit more time and effort into the game to really get a grasp at how deep and intricate this game really was, not just on the gameplay aspect but the story as well. Granted when the game first released, there really wasn’t much to go on in terms of understanding any of the characters. It was very bland, but complex at the same time and it was left up to the players to figure out just what the hell was going on. I admire Bungie for taking this approach to story telling, however they also need to remember that the majority of gamers aren’t as perceptive (like yours truly) as the die hard fans are. So most people came away from the game ultimately confused and drawn away from the game, panning it as boring and uneventful.
When The Taken King arrived I dropped the money necessary to get back into the game and for a moment I was happy to be back. There were new branches of the story to be discovered, a new area to explore and a whole slew of quests, bounties, strikes and bosses to finish. Keep in mind at this point in time I hadn’t even touched The House of Wolves or Dark Below expansions yet so I had quite the job ahead of me. Getting back into the game at this point definitely felt like it was a new experience and I was once again having fun. The light level was increased, new gear was introduced and I had to have it all.
This time around I was able to get to the top, I finally got to experience a raid for the first time (VoG and King’s Fall) and I loved my character the way that he was. I spent the time to level up two more characters to kind of fill the time and that was cool at first, but then I once again, after a while, started to feel bored of the game because I felt like I did enough. I mostly ran strikes, played Crucible a bit, did a few bounties here and there, got a new ship, did some quests, but for some reason, I had fallen off of the game yet again.
After leaving that second time I started to feel bad, not because I felt as though I wasted my money, but because I felt as though I just wasn’t giving myself the experience that I knew I could have. It wasn’t until recently, when I started playing again (thanks to my best friend) that I felt as though I was finally giving myself that experience. I got back into the game, finding that I had a ton of unfinished quests to do, I had new sets of gear that I have yet to unlock (at the moment I’m working on getting the exotic sword) and activities that have been there for months that I haven’t even tried out until now. And of course, just like any multiplayer game, it’s a lot more fun this time around because I have my friends to play with.
So…why am I telling you all of this? Well for one if you’ve been paying attention you’ll notice that I, on numerous occasions, have gotten bored with this great game but somehow always kept coming back. A very World of Warcraft mentality in my particular case because I keep doing it with that game as well. Two, numerous amounts of people have come up to me over the lifespan of this game to tell me how bored they are with Destiny and how there isn’t much to do. I think if Destiny had stayed the way it was when it was released I would tend to agree with them. But these people are also victims to the “on again, off again” mentality that I suffer from. They’ll go on and on about how there’s never enough to do, yet they always come back to play it. And three, I’d like to put to rest, the stigma that Destiny has accrued over the years of being a boring game.
At this moment in time, Destiny is absolutely filled with tons to do and has enough content being added to it on a regular basis (Rise of Iron coming soon) that would keep any gamer happy. The ONLY people complaining that there isn’t enough to do are the people who literally ONLY play Destiny and have literally done everything, from collecting Grimoire pages to doing every single quest and bounty. In that particular case then yes, there isn’t enough for YOU to do because that’s all you play. But for someone like me, someone who bounces from game to game and has a healthy amount of them to play, the content that exists in Destiny is more than enough for me to be happy. I am sorry that for those of you who only play Destiny are unhappy with it’s amount of content, but that doesn’t mean you can just slap a “Boring” label on it and call it a day.
Destiny may not be your typical, traditional “MMO”, but in it’s own right the game is fantastic and if it’s a game that can keep someone like me coming back, time and time again, I call that a win for Bungie in my book and I can’t wait for Destiny 2.
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