Episode Thirteen: The Architect And Narrative Storytelling

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode
of the Ink and Bytes podcast.
I know last episode was a bonusepisode and I was really just
talking about Destiny and sayingthank you to the studio for
making such an amazingexperience and basically
charting my dream job careercourse.
And this episode is a littlebit more special.
It is about Destiny again, sothat's awesome.

(00:23):
I love talking about the gameand I have a good friend with me
here who is also a author andwe're both narrative nerds and
we like to talk about the storyof the game and the twists and
turns it's taken, and I'm surewe're going to have a very
intense discussion acrossvarious points, but as normal
normal, I will let themintroduce themselves hi, I am

(00:48):
the real shin malphur, not thefake one.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Uh, the fake one, liquid shin, is very real and he
is coming for you.
Um, so if you see him outsidethe studio door, if you see him
outside the window, uh, knowthat it already is too late.
That's at least the name I goby in Destiny anyway, I figured,
since it's kind of theDestiny-sode, that I'd give you

(01:12):
that one.
I like it.
Plus, I'm gonna talk a bunch ofbig game about me playing raids
.
So if anybody wants to raid,report me, they can absolutely
do that.
And you can just use the realshitmail for spaces, not all one
word, they're not prepared.
Report me, they can absolutelydo that.
Um, and you can just use thereal shit mouth or, uh, spaces,
not all one word, they're notprepared.
They're not prepared for yourraid report like I mean, if they
wanted to, I mean if they wantto be oh oh, this guy's talking

(01:35):
out of his ass then I could belike I mean, I've got the stats
to back it up.
I'm not gonna lie aboutanything here.
There's no point.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
So yeah and uh, I also to the audience out there.
This is the first podcast thatI'm doing very late at night,
slash in the morning because ofmy night job, so get ready for a
little bit more delirium, butthat's fine.
It feeds in perfectly to whatwe're talking about, because
about 21 delirium 87% Don Way.

(02:04):
Exactly.
But yeah, and you're a writertoo, right?
You can talk about that alittle bit, if you want.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
I got my edits back on my most recent short story
this week.
My editor found my revision tobe quite effective.
We're going to be working onsome more in-depth sort of
stylistic sentence revisions, uh, at this point, but I'm very
happy with where that's landed.

(02:32):
Um, I'm also working on a novelthat's it is also under
revision, but I've I'm makingsome big changes and, frankly,
I'm in a funny spot with wherethat's at right now.
So, um, kind of just takingthis opportunity to really get

(02:53):
the process down with somethingthat's smaller.
Um, so, yeah, um awesome.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, so we're.
We both love narrative andstuff like that, so perfect two
people to be talking about this.
I'm just gonna get right intoit because I need structure this
late in the morning I love itwhen you talk to the in the
invisible third party.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's not here you talk about you talk about us
like I'm not sitting right hereacross from you hey, hey, I'm
tired.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, bear with me.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
It's liquid, it's uh who are we who wait where?

Speaker 1 (03:27):
it's too late.
He's already in the walls Ihope it got.
I hope it got that but I'mgonna just throw out.
I know you said you have abunch of notes, so I'm curious
to see what you want to talkabout what you have written down
seven pages of notes, which iswild it made me feel.
It made me feel superunderprepared when you had seven
pages you showed.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
You made the mistake of showing me the outline.
So I was like, okay, I'll justdo what I do.
I'm a writer, I'll do what I do.
So I mean I guess it's probablyfair, uh, for me to talk about
what my experience with the gameis, because I mean, you might
be wondering who's this schlub?
Why?
Why do I care what he has tosay?
Why don't, why do?
Why do I want to listen?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
So exactly, that is the first question.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Uh, something, something quite interesting that
not a lot of people are areready to hear is that I was a
destiny hater.
Uh, for D one, I was like thisgame stupid.
Uh, this is a terrible concept.
Why would you ever?
You know any any chance thatthat I had to really sink my
claws into the game anddisparage it for any reason?
I would take it.

(04:31):
I was a warframe fanboy duringthat period, so I mean, they
were kind of in directcompetition.
Warframe is the only destinykiller that's still around.
So I, I figure you know ithasn't quite killed the
franchise or anything bungee'sdoing a brilliant job of that
themselves.
But as for Warframe, I meanit's still sticking.

(04:51):
But I got Destiny 2 for free,actually as a digital attendee
of BlizzCon in 2018.
And at that time I was goingthrough some stuff.
I mean I was falling out oflove with Warframe and I was
going through a bit of mean.
I was I was falling out of lovewith warframe and I was going
through a bit of a writer'srenaissance and I was just kind
of looking for something new totake my attention.

(05:14):
I tend to play these mmo typegames and just bounce from one
to the other like I.
I guess I guess, um, beforedestiny I was an overwatch
player and I don't want to talkabout From one to the other.
I guess Before Destiny I was anOverwatch player and I don't
want to talk about my Overwatchcareer Because that's Not worth
talking about.
But I was falling out of lovewith Warframe, I was falling out

(05:37):
of love with Overwatch and Ijust needed something new To put
thousands of hours into.
And I came into the game at thelaunch of Forsaken and I didn't
play D1, I didn't play Vanillaand I was lucky enough and it's
funny that I have to say this Iwas lucky enough to play the Red
War.
I did not have to suffer themodern New Light experience.

(05:59):
And Forsaken I mean it's one ofthose touchstone moments of the
franchise, like Taken King andWitch Queen and Final Shape.
These are all big-dealexpansions and I did play from
the beginning.
I played all of the content inorder, I didn't jump around.
So I mean it took me a secondto get to where we were in

(06:23):
Forsaken, but by the time that Ihad completed the campaign I
was like, okay, when do we getto the raids?
I want to do the raids becausethat's Destiny's thing.
I mean for those of you, Ifigure, if you're watching this
you probably play Destiny, sothere's no point.
But the last time I checked,only something like 18% of the

(06:43):
player base has ever cleared araid.
Watching this, you probablyplay destiny, so there's no
point.
But the last time I checked, uh, only something like 18 of the
player base has ever cleared araid.
So if you've never cleared araid uh, if you've never cleared
a raid, dude the, the point ofdestiny is the raids.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
That is the point I didn't know that stat was so low
.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
I thought it was higher than that, yeah, yeah, no
, it used to be lower.
It used to be lower.
And then, uh, pantheon came outand people started doing
pantheon and they were like, wow, this is you know, they might
do uh, atrax and uh oryx.
And they were like, oh, this issuper easy.
And they're like, well, so theregular raids are even easier
than this.

(07:21):
And then we started to see thatclear number go up as well.
Uh, after root of nightmareswas released, that really that's
a lot of people's first raid, Ithink.
Now my first raid was last wish, because I'm hardcore like that
.
Um, but um, ron is so easy, Imean it is.

(07:44):
If you haven't cleared Ron andyou're curious about doing a
raid, that is the one to startwith.
It looks intimidating.
Third encounter can be astickler, especially in LFG when
your team's kind of a crapshoot.
You don't have to bleep that.
By the way, craps is a realgame.

(08:07):
Don't worry, I wasn't have tobleep that, by the way craps is
a real game, um, so don't worry,I wasn't going to anyway the
the point is that if you're, ifyou're curious about a raid and
all you have to rely on is lfg,do root of nightmares, because
that's the one that reallystarted to bump those player
numbers up in the first place.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
We went from eight percent of the player base to
about 12 after ron came out, andthen up to 18 or so, um, by the
time that pantheon dropped,because there was just more
exposure on these encounters,you know yeah, that makes me
feel significantly better aboutthe fact I don't rate as much as
I used to, because I was like,yeah, I'm sure at least half the
community is clear, right, but18 is like no, it's, it's a tiny

(08:43):
number.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
It's a tiny, tiny number.
You'd be surprised I wasfloored.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
No, that's interesting, you can actually
tell um.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
You can actually tell .
Let's see here.
Well, actually, I guess youused to be able to tell um.
There was a way.
Oh, how do I do it?
Basically, if you go to yourdestiny achievements and you
look at I think it's calledwishing for the best, yeah, this
one for clear the last wishraid.
It's the only.
It's the only um one, that it'sthe only raid that gives you an

(09:16):
achievement.
And if I look at it, it stillsays 7.1.
So only 7.1 of the globalplayer base, because the game
isn't available on Battlenetanymore, it's only available on
Steam.
I guess that's the global PCplayer base, because it's only
on Steam and then console.
So I guess this number isprobably attenuated a little bit
for console.
I'm a PC player, so all of myfigures and stuff are tailored

(09:39):
to the PC crowd.
But 7.1% of players on PC havecleared Last Wish.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
That's nothing, that's none that makes me feel
even better about the threetimes I actually did do it.
That's, that's funny.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, you and you haven't played with me, so I
haven't forced you to play witha ribbon legit, yet Best
encounter in the game.
I love it so much.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
I um, maybe next time it's on rotation I've need to
do more of uh um salvation'sedge.
But before we get down tomorrow, wish me luck.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Oh yeah, good luck I know that's gonna be a gruel
yeah but, um, before we get toofar into our raids already.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
But we will talk about raids because I want to
talk about so so, so I've got.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
I've got more.
Um, I have to rep my clanbecause I love my clan.
Um, but my last, this is mylast point on my notes for this
topic.
I joined sample text shout outto sample text, love sample text
so that I could take the gamemore seriously.
We've cleared literallyhundreds of raids Wallace raids,
low man raids.
Our clan has cleared every dayone raid that has come out since

(10:39):
deep stone crypt and I'veparticipated in four of those
clears personally awesome,that's pretty sweet.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
I tried one day one, then I realized I'm not doing
and I've participated in four ofthose clears personally.
Awesome, that's pretty sweet.
I tried one day one and then Irealized I'm not doing it again.
But then again I did also haveMobius Quiver with Primary Ammo
Finder.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
You have to be a special kind of insane to do a
day one.
I've participated in fourclears.
We usually field between two orthree teams, and so sometimes I
was on the team that cleared,sometimes I wasn't, but I've
participated in every one sinceDeep Stone, except for Crota

(11:15):
because I was busy with school,and all of them have been
endeavors.
I mean, we were in Vow for 32hours and my team didn't clear
that, and we were in Salvation'sEdge for 38.
That's intense.
I did have to bail onSalvation's Edge, which I feel

(11:36):
bad about, but there was kind ofsome important family stuff
that was going on literally thenext day and I couldn't miss it.
I had to go.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
And sleep is important, so I needed to.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
I needed to kind of make oh, I didn't sleep, don't,
don't get me wrong, I didn'tsleep, but I did need to make a
judgment call and, unfortunately, if you weigh real life and
video games, real life has tocome first.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
So oh yeah, totally I was edged um salvation's edge.
Is edge of salvation orsalvation's edge?
I keep Edge um Salvation's Edge.
Is it Edge of Salvation orSalvation's Edge?

Speaker 2 (12:04):
I keep Wait, Never mind Um.
It is Salvation's Edge.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Salvation's Edge.
Okay, I keep reversing thatname.
It's great.
Nobody is edging here.
No one's edging, everyone'sedging in the raid.
Though I was in that raid.
I haven't been in a raid forlonger than five hours, probably
since Destiny 1, like wrath ofthe machine.
Yeah, wrath of the machine.
So the fact that I was in myfirst uh salvation clear for

(12:28):
like eight hours was like, didyou?

Speaker 2 (12:31):
did you participate day one or?
Oh god no was this after youwere in an eight hour raid after
yeah, it was a sherpa runeveryone.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
Honestly, I'm not surprised my team.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Uh, when I got back I was gone for two days and then
we started the um, we startedthe sherpa runs right after that
um, we took routinely more thansix hours to get even one
person over the finish line.
I mean, my team, we're, ourphilosophy is probably, you know

(13:04):
, it gets in the way of thatclear timer a little bit.
You know, in our mind it's ifwe're sherping somebody, they
need to do the mechanic.
You know we're not going to putthem on ad clear and just let
them go.
And salvation's edge at least,uh, everyone's always doing
something three of thoseencounters.
Yeah, everybody's doingsomething.

(13:25):
No, four, there's five.
Right, yeah, there's five.
Yeah, so every encounter, butfirst you can have somebody
doing something, because verityis random.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
So verity is oh god, but um, that your, your, um
introduction into destiny iskind of similar to mine, but
instead, instead of Destiny 2,destiny 1.
You already know mine so I'mgoing to keep this short.
But just so everyone else knows, I came into Destiny during the
Taken King era.
I also was a Warframe nerd.

(13:55):
I played Warframe beforeDestiny because it was a poor
man's destiny to me, because Iwas younger, I had to beg to get
games and I came in and I didthe same thing.
I played destiny.
One vanilla campaign couldn'treally tell you how I felt about
it.
I mean, it existed, couldn'ttell you the story that much I
can tell you now.
But at the time I was like I'mjust shooting aliens.

(14:16):
And then I played through thetwo expansions, um, then played
through taken king, and takenking was such a big influence on
me.
I remember being really excitedto get home off the bus to do
the chaperone original exoticquest, which is significantly
better than destiny 2 chaperonequest.
It actually didn't have any pvpsteps, it had strike steps,

(14:37):
which is kind of funny imagineusing the chaperone and pve yeah
literally, you'd be laughed at.
The fire team bro it wasn't thatbad in d1, but now it is, and
the the original quest didn'thave any pvp steps.
It was all like like it hadspecial missions and I can't
even I can't even conceptualizethe chaperone as a pve weapon.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
That's just fundamentally incompatible in my
head no, it was crazy.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Destiny one was just a wild, wildly different
ecosystem, but um played throughthat and then wrath or um, what
was it?
Rise of iron came out, and Ialways have a hot take.
I always tell every destinyperson about this.
I personally think rise of ironwas the best destiny one
expansion.
I will die on that hill.
I played that raid likehundreds of times.

(15:24):
And then Destiny 2 came along.
I got peer pressure to buy iton PC.
Everyone who peer pressured meto buy it ditched the game
clearly, which is which isunderstandable, because Destiny
is an acquired type of game andDestiny 2 vanilla, was very.
And here we are thousands ofhours later.
I definitely have a lot lessraid experience in D2 than you

(15:44):
do, but we?
What's your total play time?
I'm curious.
Here we are thousands of hourslater.
I definitely have a lot lessrate experience in D2 than you
do, but we what's your totalplay time?

Speaker 2 (15:47):
I'm curious what does steam say you have?

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Uh, almost two K, I think.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
I'm at 2,809 and a half and I know for sure that I
had a couple hundred on battlenet, so I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Oh battle net time didn't transfer, right yeah so
I'm pretty sure, oh, battlenettime didn't transfer, right?

Speaker 2 (16:03):
yeah, no, it didn't so we probably have more than it
shows.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
But I'm at least 3k, at least because I played the
shit out of Curse of Osiris,because there was Curse of
Osiris.
I promise we'll get to thenarrative, but Curse of Osiris
introduced the first exoticghost and you had to do an
unhealthy.
I did it I did it.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Oh yeah, I got the secure shell legit.
I also got the telesto catalystlegit, which involved doing all
the prophecies.
Yeah, it's painful, raw sodoing the prophecies.
Fun fact doing the propheciesin a post-forsaken sandbox, uh,
where you had guns that hadmultiple perks per column and

(16:47):
had three perks.
Um yeah, those prophecy weaponsdidn't.
They were static rolls withless perks than world drops.
So no matter what you weregetting something that was
useless.
Um and, and I did them all justso I could get Telesto Catalyst

(17:08):
.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
That is some true commitment to the craft.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, it was bad.
You get Sigura's.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Shell as a side effect from that quest?
I believe as well.
Yeah, it's a good shell.
I also should note beforehandthat a lot of the conversation
is probably going to be relatedto the recent expansion.
The Final Shape, if anyone islistening, is a Destiny player
and hasn't played it by now.
Run away and play it Fullspoilers.
Full spoilers.
The first question is literallyjust going to be talking about

(17:40):
the end.
So full spoilers.
And if you're new to Destinyand don't know much about the
lore, this might be a littleconfusing, but you're welcome to
stick around.
The game has a great story, uh,hidden under crappy business
decisions.
But um we're.
We're gonna jump right into thefirst actual question related
to narrative.
Now that everyone knows we'rekind of nerds for this game and

(18:01):
its story.
What is your overall takeawayand feelings of the final shape?
First off, non-narrative.
I guess I jinxed it.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
We're doing non-narrative I got you well.
The gameplay felt good.
Uh, that's.
That's the thing destiny doesbest.
Destiny is great at two things,even when the story is bad.
Because the story has been bad,light fall existed.
I'm so glad we're not talkingabout light fall.
You would not be able torelease that episode, that's
where I got you.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
This episode's actually all about light fall
I'm kidding, um, anyway, uh.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
So yeah, gameplay feels good.
Destiny's got the juice.
There's something about justthe flow that feels good.
Uh, not a lot of games can getthat down.
I mean even warframe.
The thing with warframe is thatit doesn't feel as skillful
you're not.
You're going around nukingeverything as fast as you can.

(18:59):
It's not about precision.
There's no strategy.
It's less mechanicallyintensive because your abilities
kind of take away 90 percent ofthe worth that you would get
from aiming, whereas destiny iskind of more about the gunplay.
But uh, campaign felt good, uh,even if the legendary
difficulty definitely felt likeit had been scaled back from

(19:21):
witch queen and lightfall.
I didn't mind that they scaledback the patrol zone difficulty,
but it just highlights howweird of a decision that is to
make.
The Neomuna patrol adds likemaster light level, which is
super weird.
If anything, I actually wouldhave expected that to be here on
the Pale Heart.
It would be like this is thewitnesses, this is his elites,

(19:44):
this is the guys that werestrong enough that you haven't
killed them yet.
Like, these guys are high levelbusiness and so I mean I kind
of would have expected it tobring to bring the tooth here.
I think that there were threefights that I had to sit up for,
um, the first was the one inthe cave where you had to run to

(20:04):
both sides and collect thespikes that were always witness
and big ship, and you have tothen kill the tormentor in the
middle and there's yeah, there'slike splinter mines and stuff.
That one I had to sit up for onall three classes.
And then the um one with thebig mind in the ice.
That one on titan was so hardthat titan I'll get to.

(20:28):
I'll get to my feelings ontitan.
Um, yeah, I, I breezed throughin a warlock, I sat up for
hunter and then I was taken.
It took me like two or threetries to get through on titan.
Um, as for the last one, thatlast witness fight that's, that
fight is so good.
Like they're I, I generallyraise an eyebrow at boss fights

(20:50):
that don't involve fighting theboss, but I also didn't really
ever expect that we were goingto be able to shoot the witness
and hurting him, hurt him in anymeaningful way.
So I think that was fine.
Um, destroy us has become alittle bit of a meme around my
clan.
I liked to see the integrationof mechanics, but they.

(21:11):
I don't think they went farenough.
Um, this is my first hot take.
I think that it was a goodstart, but I would have
preferred more on this frontthan just clocks and ron nodes.
Uh, like, the stuff that's inDual Destiny is really good.
Like you can play Dual Destinywith somebody who isn't super
good at, or experienced at,raiding.

(21:31):
They don't know a lot ofmechanics and you can get that
done under the time limit.
It's fine.
Or maybe something involvingthe Spherical Pyramid and
Hexahedral Resonance that's inthe raid.
Just anything that involvedthose mechanics would have been
nice.
Um, it's unfortunate that themechanics that we got were ron

(21:52):
spikes and clocks, but it's astart.
If anything.
It makes me wonder if we'regoing to see an increased
mechanical sort of emphasis infuture content, which, honestly,
is going to need every edgethat it can get.
I think Prismatic is great foreveryone but Titan.
This is the part where I talkabout Titan.
Everything on Titan standsalone, and the thing with

(22:15):
Prismatic Titan is that it'sfine but it's not great.
You can get powerful abilitieson Prismatic titan.
It has all the right supers.
It has all the right grenades.
It's transcendence grenadeisn't super great, I don't think

(22:36):
, because it bounces.
But that's just me.
I'm sure that that's less of anissue for people who are
experienced with playing withthe grenades that bounce, but I
don't, so same for me.
That kind of that kind of addsa little bit of randomness to
the, the ability that I don'tlike.
Um, you, you can build thetriple consecration fire slam

(22:56):
build, which is great,especially if you run it with
pyrogale, and that can be good.
But it's not like on hunter.
You have nighthawk golden gunand still hunt, which is 33
nerfed as of the recording ofthis video.
But you could do when stillhunt, uh, nighthawk first came

(23:16):
out, you could do eight milliondamage to the witness with it,
which is, for those of you whoare playing along at home,
insane, actually crazy.
It is almost, it was almost amillion damage, a trigger pull
like it was crazy, and you couldproc that three or four times

(23:37):
during a damage phase.
So I mean, that was nuts.
And the thing is the trade-offthat with that, if you're using
it on Prismatic, which I don'tthink necessarily is the play,
but if you're doing it onPrismatic, which youcan the
trade-off is survivability.
So you can have yourmix-and-match abilities and your
DPS, but you lose out on beingable to keep yourself alive.

(24:02):
But you also, on Hunter, havethe liar's handshake punch a guy
and get a dozen buffs build,which, if you haven't tried, is
very silly.
Um, if you run the one thatgives you uh god, what does it
do?
It like gives you frost armorfor punching somebody with who's
got a darkness debuff orsomething, and then you run the

(24:22):
one that gives you radiant, youcan get frost armor and radiant
and heal yourself with knockout.
And if you kill them becauseit's because it's combination
blow or not knockout combinationblow is what it's called.
If you use combination blow,now you're healing and you're
amplified, so you're amplifiedradiant and you have frost armor
at the same time, which iscrazy, and not to mention that

(24:43):
your punch does like 80,000damage.
So you're punching harder thana Titan, which is sad, and you
have all of the builds that youwant, whereas on Warlock, on
Warlock you get Devour, healNade and Phoenix Dive and
everything that was good aboutStrandlock without being
Strandlock.
The number one thing that holdsStrandlock back is the fact
that it's strand lock.
So you get needle storm.

(25:04):
You get the throw outthreadlings when you use your
class ability which you can useon phoenix dive, by the way and
it's really fast, um, and youget the threadling grenade as
well, which, if you use thatcombo with euphony, goes insane,
uh.
So, yeah, I mean prismatic foreverybody, but tit Titan is
great.
The Raid ooh, this is no, it'snot.

(25:26):
The Raid goes crazy.
I actually didn't think Bungiecould cook that hard.
I was pretty pessimistic aboutthe game going into this
expansion.
I was feeling pretty rough.
I was feeling pretty down.
You know, our expectation wasthat we were going to get a
Nothing Burger Raid and webreezed through the campaign.

(25:47):
We were like, well, is that it?
Where'd the last two years go?
And then we got into the raidand I was like, hey, I think we
found where those two years went.
Um, so, and the thing that makesme think this is verity.
We actually actually don't, orat least I certainly didn't
think that the engine was evencapable of giving us verity.

(26:11):
I've never seen anything likeit.
That just completely defieseverything about previous styles
of mechanics, about what Ithought was possible to do in a
raid, and throws it away.
Whoever on sony's crisis teamis responsible for this, because
I'm not 100 convinced.

(26:31):
That bungee thought of that.
Uh, I don't know if I want tokiss you or throw you down the
stairs, so I mean, whoever youare out there, my hat's off to
you.
You made me feel strongly.
I dreamed about verity for twoor three days, uh, during the
period where we were sherpingand we would just get stuck for

(26:53):
hours in verity.
And I mean now I can kind ofyou know, they've got the
calculator, I know how insideworks.
Like you know, I could doverity, no problem now, but like
when that came out, oh, my god,I remember when we were in day
one we got up to verity and theonly teams that we were aware of

(27:13):
who were ahead of us were theguys who had cleared salta
greppo, all the players and dato.
So like we were basically fifthglobally and that's crazy but I
don't think I don't think wewould ever, because of because
of what was going on with thestreamers hiding their screens
from each other, which I have atotally opposite take from you

(27:35):
on this so I'm not gonna getinto it.
um, it's okay, I'm not gonna getinto that, but uh, I think that
we probably weren't going toclear that encounter, at least
until somebody who had done itlike actually posted a video of
the footage.
You know, given if we hadplayed the full 48, I think we

(27:58):
could have gotten a challengeclear, but I don't think that we
would have gotten a day oneclear, not at all.
There's nothing in the game.
Yeah, there's nothing in thegame.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yeah, there's nothing in the game that remotely
resembles very day.
Like they never experimentedwith anything close to that.
Like the closest thing is likevault and last wish, but like
the fact that is easy, like I'mnot scared of volt anymore, like
the uh, the dissecting mechanicand the shapes and all of that
stuff also.
It's really funny because Iknow that encounter as the LFG

(28:29):
killer, because you're askingpeople to really communicate and
deal with shapes when most LFGsI've ever been in someone's
high.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
I'm usually high when I raid.
I mean it's you know, if youcan't do the raid while you're
high, you're not really doingthe raid it depends on the
person, right, you know?

Speaker 1 (28:49):
yeah, no, I mean doing that encounter high is a
totally different experiencelike Rock Lee taking his
training weights off when I playsober like you need to be high
to get through.
It's insane.
Did you have any other thoughtson the uh uh final shape?

Speaker 2 (29:07):
non-narrative I mean this as far as gameplay goes.
I the the episodes systemfrustrates me, but um, that I
think is a topic, so I'm notgonna, I'm not gonna spoil that
oh yeah, we'll get to that yeah,but otherwise I mean the
episode system feels like I wasgaslit, so I mean we'll get to

(29:31):
that.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, I really I don't have too much to add, I
have exactly the same.
That's what's gonna happen.
You're gonna give a really goodexplanation.
Be like yeah, I feel the samebecause we pretty much feel the
same on 90 of this game, whichis good.
Um, I think I was a little lesspessimist.
I'm really easy to get hyped up, like it is a flaw, like I seen
to my bent, like to my credit,the first trailer.

(29:54):
They released the final shape.
I was like, oh, that's cool.
But the v-doc where theyreleased prismatic and the dread
and all the other stuff, I waslike sold right.
When I seen that trailer, I'mlike they cooked.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
So, going into the final shape, I was very excited
I remember everyone in my clanposting the picture where it's
all the dread on the on theridge line and I think everyone
who posted it said they cooked,they did it like they actually
did it, the mad men yeah no,it's the entire community

(30:26):
sentiment I never.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
I've been through pretty much every up and down
from taking king onwards andlightfall was quite literally, I
think the worst I've ever feltin terms of community sentiment.
So I'm glad that they cooked,but I did go into final shape
really excited for it.
Um, like I said, I feel prettymuch the same about the campaign
.
The only boss I really had toset up for myself was the um,

(30:53):
the second to last mission thatthe giant abomination um.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Oh, yeah, yeah, fight right before the witness.
That one actually took me likean hour of swords was under the
thing.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, that one actually took me like an hour
when the Five of Swords wasunder the thing.
Yeah, that one was rough justbecause I got killed by bullshit
multiple times.
But I feel exactly the same.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
That's got a lot going on.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
I mean it does.
I died actually running away,like at the very end of the
mission and I was gripping mydesk.
I'm like you better have acheckpoint.
That's so sad.
Did it have a checkpoint?
I mean, or have a checkpoint sosad?
Did it have a checkpoint I mean?
Don't leave me.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Oh yeah it, did it have it had a checkpoint and I
died from a classic bungeemoment.
If you had to do it again afterdoing the encounter
successfully and then you justdie to it like a straight
projectile, that would be whereI just I'd be like, okay, I'm
gonna pick this up tomorrow ohyeah, like I'm, I'm, I'm not
gonna do that again, and itwasn't even even my fault.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
I never stopped holding the shield block, the
sword block.
It literally was like itdropped it for no reason.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, you probably ran out of energy.
Yeah, I bet you weren't squareon the crack.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
I wasn't square, I was circle, yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Wait, I was trying.
You can't do this to me, youcan't send me back.
You can never escape.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
verity, it's, all verity, it's all verity, yeah,
so I guess, um, we'll move on tothe next one.
This is kind of the meat ofpotatoes for us.
Personally, I have a lot moreto talk about on this, but what
is your overall feelings of thefinal shape and, narratively
speaking, I think the story ismy second favorite behind witch
queen.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Um, witch queen had more oh shit moments, like there
were p.
There were times during witchqueen and and in the vow of the
disciple raid where I was justlike thrown like.
When the hive had the light Iwas like, oh duh, no wonder
they're better.
They're, they're betterguardians than we are because

(32:45):
their shape is mutable, liketheir bodies can change to
better channel the light.
They, they, are objectivelybetter than we are.
And that never clicked as anidea to me before.
I mean, even when they revealedHive Lightbearers as a concept

(33:08):
in the marketing material forWitch Queen, that idea didn't
sink in for a while.
And then when the Travelerwarped into the Throne world, I
was like it's a no-brainer, theTraveler is selfish, it's out
for its self-preservation.
Note that this was beforeseason of the seraph.

(33:28):
Um, so the cut scene where itgoes up, uh and and almost gets
blown up by the warsats, thathadn't happened yet.
So we hadn't actually seen thetraveler take a stand before.
And at the time I was like, well, this is duh, if I was the
traveler and I could hide in ademiplane, no brainer, yeah, I'm

(33:50):
gonna do that.
So I mean, that was that.
And then zeta finding out thatthe hiver manufactured, uh, that
all of the zizigi story was alie and that Rolk tricked
everybody, learning who thewitness was for the first time,
was up there with like thesecond dream which I hold as my.

(34:13):
That's the number one gameplayreveal that I've ever like.
That's my favorite, that's thebest.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
What's the second dream Remind me?
I completely.
I don't recall so the seconddream was Warframe's.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
I don't so the second dream was warframes first story
quest oh, yes, uh, a handful ofyears into the game's lifetime,
and so by then I was alreadyplaying for years, and what
warframes were was an openquestion.
And there's this momentspoilers, warframe, uh, for a I
don't know 12 year old quest.
Now, but this you came uponthis pod that was like in a

(34:50):
beautiful reservoir of water,with these waterfalls that are
coming down, and this big podapproaches you and it opens up
and this guy, this, this fullysuited person, humanoid, just
falls out of the pod and two orthree seconds later, your screen
glitches and your Warframecollapses to the ground.
And I remember jumping out ofmy seat and shouting it's me,

(35:15):
like that's me, I recall thatnow yeah.
My brother burst into my roomand he's like, what are you
yelling about?
And I'm like it's me In the pod.
It's me in the pod, it's me,that's me, that's the real me,
that's the real shin malphur.
And and so that that reveal iswas so good.

(35:37):
And what makes that reveal sogood is it was so many years in
the making that one.
You know you'll be really hardfor another game to top that.
But the witness reveal wasanother good one, because we had
so many questions about who wasthe winnower, who, who is
control, who's in control of thedarkness, who commands the
pyramid.
Ships like these were alldisparate questions that we

(35:58):
thought all led back to oneanswer.
Um, now I will say the, the ohshit moments that we've gotten
in final shape have been good.
Those have been quite effective.
Uh, my favorite uh of thesebeing the confirmation that the
winnower is a separate entitycompletely from the witness and
that the witness says he's thefirst knife, but he might not

(36:22):
even be that.
Um, it's in the lore tab for aship I don't remember.
Uh, off the top of my head.
Let me go to lightgg reallyquick um bungee, casually
dropping the biggest lore in thegame in a ship lore tab yeah,
no, they did, and I think, Ithink that this was the
collector's edition ship, soit's like not even everybody got
this uh, new collectible,probably right?

(36:43):
No, yes, but I don't rememberwhat it's called, so it's
pointless.
I remember what it looks likethough, anyway the the point is
that that ship's lore tab is aconversation with the winnower,
who we now know is separate andis still out there and still
yapping, which is horrifying, bythe way, which is horrifying.

(37:05):
And also, if you compare thewriting in the ship's lore tab
to, uh, in spiral, one of theone of the entries in in spiral,
I think it's number nine, andthe um writing of the book of
sorrow, where oryx communes withdarkness and unveiling.

(37:27):
That is the same style.
So we know the winnower wroteunveiling, the winnower wrote
entry nine, I think of in spiral, and the winnower talked to
oryx, not the witness.
That is a big deal.
That's a huge deal.
Not only.
I think that means, you know,not only was Oryx, who was

(37:49):
communing with the winner, weredirectly more of an equal to the
witness, as in you know, interms of things that the winner
were was creating to go againstthe gardener, but also that
means that you can no longerpower scale the witness and oryx

(38:09):
next to each other because thewitness isn't his, his.
You know he's not actuallyabove him in the hierarchy.
Um, I think that to the peoplewho think that forsaken was
better, um, you don't rememberForsaken.
That was six years ago.
There was primary ammo on theground.

(38:29):
You don't remember Forsaken.
I feel that I'll say Forsakenwas when Bungie looked at the
camera, did the Kubrick stareand said we're serious, which is
great, that's awesome.
I didn't get the intention thatany of the story before
forsaken was anything more thanschlock, which is fine.
It's okay to be entertaining.

(38:51):
It's okay to not really want tohave that deep of a story again
.
I mean, I wasn't here for d1,so red war, curse of osiris, war
, mind, that was all the contextI had at the time.
But I could definitely tellForsaken was building up to
something and I just don't thinkthat the highs were as high as

(39:11):
some of these have been, youknow, and the lows are certainly
lower.
I watched, I mean, when we werefirst planning this I mean I
know that we've rescheduled thispodcast like three times and so
when I had, when I had firstplanned for this, I watched a
bunch of videos from like dattoand all them who were going into

(39:34):
forsaken and then coming out offorsaken, so that I could
specifically know and havespecific examples to cite.
But I don't remember.
Uh, the point is, go watch someof those videos if you're at
all curious what forsaken wasreally like, because there's big
differences oh, yeah, and Imean like to your point of the
highs, weren't as high, I mean,if you compare them.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
I mean k dying is a big oh shit, because it's like
the first time, if you don'tread lore tabs that you know
ghosts can be killed yeahbecause usually like that, you
die and you always get res.
Then no one ever thinks to shootthe ghost, and maybe before
then, the only guy who did thatwas uh dredgen yor yeah,
literally that guy that I killedand, relatively speaking,

(40:18):
that's relatively deep if youwant to learn about it unless
you watch which who made anamazing like animated type lore
video on that.
It's amazing.
But the other like big oh shitis for that expansion is oh my
god, wish dragons actuallyrendered in the game instead of
just being talked about foreverand the the curse cycle.
I'm probably missing some minorones, but those are like really

(40:38):
the last oh shits or like thebiggest ones for me in that
expansion.
And then you go to like witchqueen I mean um final shape.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
Didn't oldren get rezzed at the end?

Speaker 1 (40:48):
oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
Yeah, that was weird, that was, it didn't happen
directly at the time of launch,though it was like a season
later read the lore, uh, and youkept up on the lore books.
You would have been followingthe story of pulled pork.
So here's what the vanguarddoesn't want you to know.
Glint isn't his name, it'spulled pork pulled pork is his

(41:12):
name.
That is his real name, that isthe name that he was given.
Uh, and I mean somebody's gonnaget mad at me for dead naming
pulled pork.
I don't care, it's pulled porkI have a question for you.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
What's that?
Do you think they changed it toglint because they didn't
realize they were gonna?
Make it a big, big deal,because I don't think they would
seriously say pulled pork ingame I think they just didn't
want to say pulled pork in gameyeah I think that when that was
a lore tab, um, somebody wasjust having fun and you know, I

(41:46):
think the lore has always beenbetter than the story.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Like just, I mean, year over year I think that the
lore has always slapped thehardest.
But somebody was having fun.
There was something I thinkthey're allowed to get away with
more in the lore versus in thepresentation of the game itself.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
That has to be a little bit more.
You can't see the lock-in thatI'm doing.
Do you think they offload thatto contractors?
That's why they don't really.
Yeah, like writing lore books.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
No, I don't think so.
There's one guy I don'tremember what his name is.
Oh, somebody, somebody,somebody.
There was a guy who was likethe creative director of the
game.
Don't remember his name.
If you find it in post, let meknow.
But whenever there was layoffsor restructuring in destiny in

(42:46):
that team, like people moving onto marathon people who were
getting let go for whateverreason he always was still there
.
I think the lore has alwaysbeen directed by that guy.
I don't think he's.
He wrote them all, but kind oflike how Joseph Staten was the
guiding force for halo's story.

(43:07):
I think that, whoever that waswhether it was luke smith or, um
, uh, joe joe blackburn, or ifit was that other guy who I
swear I can picture in my headon it from a Vidoc, but I can't
think of his name Uh.
I'm pretty sure it was one ofthem, and it's always been one

(43:28):
of them in charge of thatproject, but I think that's
always been bungee internalbecause the lore has been very
consistent, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, the um final shape narrative was just over.
I like the uh, oh shit momentsyou were talking about.
I Final shape narrative wasjust over.
I like the oh shit moments youwere talking about.
I didn't mean to sidetrack usthere, but you were continuing
down that path.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
I think that the worst thing about the story, at
least in terms of itspresentation, wasn't its fault.
The server issues made thestory very hard to understand
and related glitches actually uh, prevented me from really fully

(44:10):
getting the story.
There was always a cut scenethat I was missing in the middle
, but I only got on my thirdplaythrough.
So when I was going through mytitan I was like I've never seen
this before.
So something was still goingwrong in the actual cut scenes
themselves that were kind ofscrewy, that made it difficult

(44:30):
to piece everything together.
But, beyond that.
I think that a good way tosummarize my feelings on Final
Shape as a whole is thateverything great casts a shadow,
like it.
The story felt personal foreverybody but us.

(44:51):
Um, we are him, we have alwaysbeen him, we will always be him,
and yet we don't really have adog in the fight.
I mean not, yeah, like we'rehim.
So it's our destiny to go dealwith the witness and the ending

(45:12):
after excision.
You know that feels personal.
That is good.
That sticks the landing withthe rest of the story just
doesn't feel like it's about usand I think that's fine.
But in a game, like in a in abook, you understand that you

(45:33):
are experiencing the story ofsomeone else explicitly.
It is up to you to be attachedor not to those characters.
Ask me my opinions about fourthwing, but not here on podcast.
That's another one you won't beable to release.
Whereas in a game I thinkthere's a little bit of an
expectation that the player willbe directly involved somehow I

(45:58):
mean with the progression of thenarrative, other than like
shooting the guy, which isreally what our participation in
final shapes narrative boilsdown to go here, shoot a guy.
I mean that's all of destiny.
Um, crow was handled very well.
I actually think that crow ismodern bungie's biggest

(46:18):
narrative achievement.
My clan Clan will burn me alivefor saying this, but I think
it's true because we as acommunity echoed his arc and
that was that when he was firstbrought back, we were on the
whole and I'm speaking generallybecause again, I know a lot of
people who still don't like Crowthey're like Crow sucks, get

(46:41):
him out of here.
But I think generally thecommunity at large was really
against Oldren coming back.
They're like crow sucks, gethim out of here.
Uh.
But I think generally thecommunity at large was really
against crow.
Uh, oldren coming back andseeing that echoed in the lore
where other guardians would justslay out against him over and
over for something that hedidn't remember, and then, as he

(47:02):
slowly started to coalescearound this new identity and
learn to forgive himself andkind of step into that role that
cade filled within the rest ofthe cast, I think that's amazing
.
I mean, I'm not too.
I wasn't too hot on the stillhunt mission as a gameplay piece
.
I don't think that wasparticularly fun, uh, but the

(47:25):
story was good.
I think that Crow has beenhandled fantastically.
Yeah, he's good stuff.
Ikora sort of meh.
I mean, it seems strange to methat she was so at odds with
Zavala but that's got more to dowith Zavala than it does with
her and I'll get to him in asecond but I suppose it stands

(47:45):
to reason that her issues werethe ones that we kind of just
fixed by fixing everything else,because she didn't really seem
like she had a particularlyoutstanding thing that needed to
happen.
She remained pretty static.
Zavala, however, I thought, wascompletely fumbled.
Vala, however, I thought, wascompletely fumbled.

(48:06):
I feel like I need to go backand re-watch everything that
happened in Season of theHaunted, because I'm pretty sure
that his internal conflictvis-a-vis Sophia and his son was
already resolved.
I thought that was dealt with.
I thought he banished hisnightmares and that was the
indication that he has moved,you know, indication that he has
moved on.

(48:26):
And, yeah, he healed.
We had season of the therapyand so I have a spin foil about
this.
Um, my spin foil is zavala'sarc wasn't there until after the
writing team got excised, postlight fall and they went back
and they were like okay, we needto do something personal, we

(48:49):
need to do something emotional,we need a, we need a through
line.
So they used details aboutzavala that were probably in a
character bible that weren'tupdated for what happened in the
expansion cycle before that.
So I'm thinking that there mighthave been an accidental retcon
that happened with Zavala.

(49:09):
Now I could be totally wrong,like I said.
I mean this is the downsidewith Destiny's seasonal model is
that once it's gone, it's gone,it's gone forever.
All of that is poof dust in thewind.
Like I cannot, without findingan external resource which I
didn't take the time to go lookfor, I can't actually go back

(49:30):
and verify that.
So I mean, if somebody comesback and posts on your video, oh
Zavala actually didn't get overanything and you're totally
wrong.
Maybe I'm wrong, in fact tellme if they do because that would
remove.
That would actually fix.
My biggest complaint about thisstory is zavala's, just two
steps back like I don'tunderstand.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
I remember with a pretty clear picture season the
haunted, because I I enjoyedthat season and everything that
happened with the zavala wasexactly what you said and the
like, literally the final cutscene of the season, the final
cut scene of the season.
He literally talked with thehealed version of sophia, with

(50:11):
kytle, with I forgot, uh withcrow.
They were all there togetherand they all like had their
peace with their, their, theirnightmares, before they vanished
, after callous became adisciple, like literally.
And and kytle hugged zavala,like zavala was like like she's
built like a steakhouse godion,but she handles like a bistro

(50:37):
exactly that was the start oftheir relationship but, like
that season closed the narrativeloop on his torment, I would
say less his son.
I feel like, if anything, theyshould have pulled if they
wanted to do the story with himbeing tormented.
They should have pulled on hisson a little bit more, because
Ophia was soft.
He put that to rest, but nothis son.

(50:59):
His son could have been abetter through line.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
And I will say that it is interesting to screw up
the dynamic the way they did.
Whenever you have charactersthat are fulfilling certain
roles for extended periods oftime, it can be refreshing to
change it up and forcecharacters to behave in

(51:24):
different ways than theyotherwise would, because it's
you know, it's it's fresh and itit causes them to have to act
in ways that wouldn't normallybe parcel to their nature, like
Cade, for example, having to bethe rock, which was what Zavala
did in forsaken they had a totalrole reversal, and I mean ikora

(51:49):
unfortunately just sits thereand continues.
Ikora never existed.
She is ikora.
That's what yeah, she's in hercharacter, in her character
notes.
Uh, there's two sentencesbetter than better at crucible
than shacks and ikora.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
That's just a one, a one word sentence her best
moments have always been inseasons, never in main
narratives, like she's justnever there.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Her, her best, uh, her best thing comes from a lore
tab, uh, where she beats shacksat crucible.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Oh my God, that's fantastic.
I think I remember I don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
I don't know what gun it is, but it's one of them.
It's a shotgun, I think.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
I hope we get more from Ikora.
She definitely needs something.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Ikora's always needed more, I think, and I mean with
Osiris being reduced tocurmudgeon status.
You know we definitely needsome more Ikora going on.
I think otherwise, like where'sEris Morn?
Where is our resident god like?

Speaker 1 (52:50):
what is she up to?
Literally the most powerfulcharacter in the entire universe
for well, not over, you know,the primordial forces or the
witness, but like literally themost powerful hive that ever
existed, for like six secondsyeah, and then there were no
consequences to that at all andthey started like doing a

(53:11):
relationship with the drifter.
They started building that upand it was getting really cute
and which is good like that'sgood like that's.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
That's very well done .
I love it when the two outcastscome together like that's.
That's always fun.
It's not a lot of romancetropes that I like, but that's
one of them.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah, there's not that many romances in general in
Destiny other than Saint andOsiris.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Kytle and Zavala isn't technically confirmed
either.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
They're skating the lines.
They don't know if they want togive the Rule 34 artist the
ammo for that one.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Well, it doesn't matter, they'll make their own.
Uh, otherwise, I mean, my onlyother complaint regarding
character was where did micah 10come from?
Like what?
Huh ha ha.
Yeah, like last time we heardfrom micah abram, I'm pretty
sure they were dead, which islike of all of the things that
you could say about Micah as acharacter.

(54:07):
What did they?
In which order did the?
Did the guardianing and theexoing happen?

Speaker 1 (54:19):
because I'm pretty sure they were dead on Europa
yeah, I finished up Bife's well,not all of it, most of Bife's
video on Mega 10.
I mean, I know we had the Cloakand Destiny one that talked
about her a little bit and wehad the six coyotes.
Yeah, we've got the six coyotes, but she kind of lived or sorry
, yeah, she lived in the back, Iforgot she trans character.

(54:42):
She lived in the back, I forgotshe trans character.
She lived in the background ofthe lore for a while and she's
been kicking around.
Yeah, but not that much, Likemaybe five tabs or something and
they added some crazyforeshadowing.
Yeah, at least the vocally, sothe community knows, because the
people who aren't like us andbe like, who the hell is?

Speaker 2 (55:03):
this Because apparently I was like who the
hell is this?

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Exactly so vague the hell is this?
Because apparently I was likewho the hell?

Speaker 2 (55:07):
is this exactly so vague?
Wait a minute, wait a minute,wait a minute, wait a minute.
This is.
This is the person from theeuropa lore books, and I didn't
even think to look back earlierthan that because I just didn't
remember.
Thankfully, everything elserelated.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
That character is so old like shinobu, like nobody
talks about shinobu or shiro 4or any of those guys anymore I
have opinions about getting somelove.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
Praedis is getting some love.
Uh, I've heard I haven't playedthe newest episode stuff, but I
heard that there wasconfirmation that asher, mir and
praedith are still alive, whichis awesome, because praedith is
awesome praedith.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
I have to, I have to see the asher stuff because I
haven't seen that yet.
But but like and with the finalshape, lore, just in general,
when we're talking aboutcharacters just drawing, this is
a bigger oh shit.
Moment that I think peopleactually kind of realized
because again it's buried in thebooks Is the fact that Cade,
like his son that he's talkedabout for a long time, might

(56:01):
actually be Micah 10post-transition.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
Because that's what everyone's theorizing thatah 10
might be like kate's son.
Wow, maybe I mean we.
I can't speak to that, but I doascribe to the theory that ace
doesn't really exist.
Yeah, uh, there is no ace as aperson.
There is ace that is a gestaltof something that kade thinks is
a person, because, I mean, Ithink that it was suggested that
he's been rebooted more thansix times.

(56:32):
There's just that's just theonly six times he could remember
, I believe so I don't remember100, where that is either, but I
wish I had more sources, but Idon't.
But I do think that was a thing.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
If you had to give the final shapes narrative a
rating, what would you give it?

Speaker 2 (56:51):
I don't like ratings out of 10.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Do you consider it the best expansion they ever
made game of the year contenderthat it was or do you think it's
like there's something elsestill above it that they've made
?
I think think it's like there'ssomething else still above it
that they've made?

Speaker 2 (57:10):
I think it's a loaded question um, it exists.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
It was good, they cooked, I think.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
I wouldn't call it game of the year.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
I mean it's also hard to say an expansion.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Yeah, it's kind of funny to call an expansion game
of the year, but I mean like itwas close the ratings the
important stuff was theredefeating the witness involved
more than shooting him with agun, but we still got to shoot
him with a gun, which is nice.
The raid went insane.
Prismatic is good, the dreadexists, the guns are fine, the

(57:48):
exotics are good, with theexception of the hunter one, and
my favorite part of the storyis that it had consequences.
Bungie is afraid ofconsequences.
They are so afraid ofconsequences, except for key
moments like Cade's death.
Stuff like Hive God Eris andNezcafe Nezarek speaking to us

(58:10):
after his death these are alldropped plot threads.
They're just gone.
Bungy just either wrote him offor never picked him up again.
Aphelions like I really want toknow what that is like.
I'll get to that later, but, um, there's stuff that's lurking
around the edges of the lore,that are open questions that

(58:33):
bunchy has just never got ingone into.
That all stem from big, majorevents and this story add
consequences.
This story spurred the episodeswhich I don't think are very
good.
We'll get to that.
Um, but the the that is such abig thing is we did something

(58:59):
that actually affected the stateof the world.
It didn't just go back to thestatus quo between seasons.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
Yeah, If we killed the witness and it was like all
right, go farm your weeklyengrams, I think everyone would
have quit.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
I mean, I definitely still feel like the game wants
me to go farm your weeklyengrams.
I think everyone would havequit.
I mean, I definitely still feellike the game was go farm my
weekly engrams but yeah, ask meabout how many gms I haven't
done yeah, no, I'm right therewith you.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
I think, overall, the final shape is what we needed
to like.
Give the game the longevitythat it needed to go into 2025.
Because I think if this turnedout to be another lifefall, sony
would have decapitated Bungieand made them walk on Marathon,
I was always going to stick forFinal Shape, like I mean, I just
sunk Class Fallacy.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
I was already in so deep.
Yeah, you have to see how thatends.
It doesn't matter if it was bad, I may as well see the end.
But I'm still not sold thatfrontiers is gonna be super good
.
I mean the cool part.
Um, I was gonna save this forlater.
Um, judging by the outline, butif you want me to get into it

(01:00:12):
now, there is something coolthat I think does give me hope
and maybe the community needs tohear it sooner.
What do you think?

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
If you want to dive into it, you can.
I'm definitely going to bementioning Torabano at the end.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
The cool part If you've never worked on a really
big narrative project like thisthat's had a lot of hands on it,
that kind of passes down fromperson to person and team to
team, then you might not beaware that so much gets thought
of and used and reworked andleft behind that if it had the

(01:00:49):
original people in charge mighthave gone totally differently.
Every time you get a new set ofhands on a large-scale
narrative project like this, itchanges and that change is
immutable.
It is inevitable.
It will always happen.
You can't hedge against it, nomatter how many notes you think
you leave behind.

(01:01:09):
You could write a whole DestinySilmarillion and it wouldn't
matter, because someone willcome in with new ideas and say
no, we're not doing that, we'redoing this.
And one of those things that Ican point to, as I'm pretty sure
that this is a newer idea, isthe witness himself.
That is a new idea.
I do not think that the witnessexisted during early iteration

(01:01:33):
on destiny as a story.
I think that they oh, this israindrop prelude.
I love chopin, um.
I think that they were in needof a big bad guy and they didn't
have one.
There was no clear uh contender, and then somebody with a cool
idea came in and said hey, we'regoing to do this, and it ended

(01:01:57):
up being what I thought was verycool.
I like the witness a lot as acharacter, but the point is,
everything from here on is purevision.
This is destiny, unfettered bythe trappings of what came
before.
Once we're done with theepisodes, I have a feeling that

(01:02:19):
they're going to tie up all ofthose loose ends with a neat
little bow and say, okay, we'renot touching these anymore
Because you know Bungie andconsequences, right.
So they're going to take thoseand put them in a box and
they're going to slide it overthere and they're not going to
think about it anymore.
And then everything from hereon is you know, sky's the limit.
So that'll be interesting tosee at the very least, even if

(01:02:43):
it falls flat.
I'm just, I'm really curiousabout what they're going to give
us.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Unbound Destiny is Unshackled at this point it no
longer has to be what it thoughtit was so and I, for the first
time since we knew that we werein this saga called the light
and dark saga.
In like going, if we go rewindtime and think about destiny one
and arguably until forsaken, Idon't, unless they said it

(01:03:13):
specifically before.
I don't think we ever reallyknew we were in a saga.
It just felt like things werehappening in a universe.
Maybe you could argue in takenking, because then you got this
weird thing talking from thedarkness, but I personally never
really felt like we were in asaga until they said light and
dark saga, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
I mean what?
What defines a saga like I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
yeah, I don't.
It didn't feel like it wasdefined until we had the villain
of it fully clarified in ourvision.
So like we're going into thisera where everything's going to
be new and they said they wantedto start a new saga, but like
what is it going to be?
For a little bit, we're goingto kind of be testing the
boundaries and finding out whatit is.
Because gonna name it rightaway when project frontiers gets

(01:04:03):
a name also everyone's sayingit's destiny three and it pisses
me off.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
No, destiny three will be destiny three.
Yeah, like I'm sure that'sgonna happen eventually.
Yeah, totally.
You know games take years todevelop, like years and years.
And I know for sure bungie'snot throwing their all behind
this because they're stillworking on marathon so, and they
said they want to keepsupporting this game for a while
yeah, yeah.
So I mean destiny 2 is going tokick around for, I'd say, three
to five more years at least,before destiny 3 even gets

(01:04:26):
teased, but I do think it'scoming yeah, eventually it has
to because people are going towant it, um, but I'm excited to
see what frontiers is.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Did you have?

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
fantasy, I mean final fantasy.
I've been playing a lot of thatrecently and I mean I'm I'm
over 100 hours in and I'm noteven out of the first expansion
yet nice.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
I've been meaning to play it.
I just can't handle thesubscription right now.
I uh, we will definitely becoming back to project frontiers
, because that's the last bulletpoint, because I really want to
talk about, like toro battleand the vex homeworld, so on and
so forth.
But, um, I'm again, I'm rightthere with you.
I feel the same way about thenarrative.
I think it's what we needed toconclude, um, but this is
another big question.

(01:05:05):
Do you think the light?
Talking about sagas, do youthink the light and dark saga
concluded in a satisfying way?
Do you think it ended well?

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
that's hard to say.
Um for one, satisfying endingsare complex things.
Um, I'm gonna turn my show pandown really quick here, because
this is a.
This is important writing asatisfying ending is really hard
.
Um, there are famous writers,very famous writers, writers
you've heard of, who are notgood at writing satisfying

(01:05:36):
endings, and the one that popsinto my head is Stephen King.
Stephen King is really good atthe beginning, he's really good
at the middle, he's really goodat keeping you engaged, but I
just don't think his endings areparticularly strong, and I
think that that's a function ofa lot of things, but really,

(01:06:00):
when it comes to what makes anending satisfying Wow, somebody
just got lit up on the next.
Oh, wow, that's five, six,seven, eight shots.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
Something is going on on the next street over.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
Anyway, I don't feel whollydissatisfied with this ending,
but I don't feel a sense oftruly genuine closure, and part
of this is that it's a liveservice game If we get closure,
the game ends, yeah, and part ofthis is that there are still

(01:06:37):
some open questions, but nothingsurrounding those questions
feels tangibly different.
It's, you know, we, we are moreaware, but that doesn't
manifest in any meaningful way.
And, as I said, what makes anending satisfying is different
for everyone and there are a lotof ways to achieve it.

(01:06:59):
And and I've listed out acouple of these versions, but I
mean, this is like, literallyparagraphs and I don't know if
you want to hear it, but you canlike.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
I'm into this conversation so.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
So let me spoil a bunch of stuff for you.
So halo reach story spoilersfor halo reach.
Halo reach, I think, has thebest ending in video games.
Um, the whole story is aboutsacrifice, it is about bravery,
it is about the human cost ofvalor.
You get to watch your entireteam be hunted and killed one by

(01:07:35):
one as you operate on reach,with the exception of carter uh
who crashes his pelican and sothat you can get past a scarab
and one of the best scenes inthe entire game.
But the point is that everyinch, every victory that you get
in that game requires sacrifice, and there is a growing sense

(01:07:56):
of certainty that, as you keeplosing party members, that
you're going to be required tomake that sacrifice as well.
And you die on reach andthere's no other way the game
could have ended.
I don't think it is the mostsatisfying ending in gaming.

(01:08:18):
I think and the whole workbuilds to this moment.
It is thematically and tonallyconsistent.
Like halo, reach is haunting ifyou think about it like have
you played it?

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
um no, but I've watched clips and I, yeah, I've
watched it is one of the fewgames that I've uh I.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
it's the only halo game I beat lazo, so legendary
all schools on the only one thatI beat uh lazo, and it's the
only.
It's one of the few games thatI got 100% achievement
completion on on Xbox, so Iplayed a little bit of Reach,
just a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Just a little, just a few hours, just a little.
I only ever played OST.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
ODST is good too.
Odst I don't have this podcastthoughts about ODST, but ODST is
also a very good story Otherthan that.
I mean the number one ending, Ithink, is I call it.
It couldn't have ended anyother way, and that's because
the way it ended is the ending.

(01:09:30):
When you play D&D and you'reacting as the dungeon master,
you need to make decisions thatfeel like they make sense for
those characters, becauseotherwise your hand is revealed
in contriving a situation or thebehavior of npcs.
The conclusion to everythingthat happens in a D and D game

(01:09:56):
is only satisfying because it isthe.
It is the thing that happened.
It is the only thing that couldhave happened Like that is.
It is a culmination ofeverything that came before.
Now there are other ways thatyou can make an ending
satisfying.
You can have a major revelationor a or a big subversion.
Uh, one of my favorite books,joe Abercrombie's last argument

(01:10:18):
of Kings, spoilers.
Last argument of that.
You can make an endingsatisfying.
You can have a major revelationor a big subversion.
One of my favorite books, joeAbercrombie's Last Argument of
Kings, spoilers.
Last Argument of Kings.
We get to see that the Gandalffigure, lord Baez, is actually
the villain.
He uses a magical artifact thatthey go questing for throughout
the whole second book to turnhimself into a magic nuke that

(01:10:39):
levels the whole district.
It levels the entire palacedistrict of the capital city,
killing hundreds, to stop anarmy of sorcerers.
He kills literally hundreds ofcivilians and then the uh, the
king that he elevates into theposition because they are a, uh
like representative monarchy, sothey elect their kings, uh, he

(01:11:03):
puppeted his, his choice, intobeing kingly and when that king
uh turned and spoke out to him,he beat the living crap out of
him with his magic.
And that type of revelationonly works if you have a big
question that you're hintingtowards throughout the entire
work.
Now there's two other ways thatI think you can really reach

(01:11:25):
for a satisfying ending whereyou have a character focused
story where that character isstruggling and struggling and
trying and failing to achievesomething.
A bonus points If it's a reallysentimental something, that's
really like emotionallyimportant, uh, but they never
quite get it and then theyfinally do something to earn it.

(01:11:48):
That can be very satisfying aswell.
Uh, destiny doesn't really havethat.
And then, of course you know,bottom of the list I would say
is pure spectacle, course youknow, bottom of the list, I
would say, is pure spectacle.
You know where you just havecool stuff happening like that.
That can work and that can beawesome in and of itself.
But you know there's that's oneof those where you're, you're

(01:12:09):
getting something out of thefridge later and you kind of
realize there wasn't a lot ofsubstance to it.
I don't think that the finalshape really hits any of those
other than you know.
It's kind of the only way thatit could have ended, ripping the
witness out of the darkness.
We were never going to kill thewitness any other way and I'm
really glad that they followedthrough on that promise of

(01:12:30):
making it not just a um, notjust another.
Shoot him with a gun fight andI'm probably a little bit jaded,
so I'm a little probably unfairto bungie in my analysis.
Um, bungie girl althoughalthough, although um so did,
you see the reveal trailer foruh for final shape, where the

(01:12:55):
like he finalizes those guys andlike apple falls.
So the finalization of earthapparently really happened.
That was a canon event thatreally happened.
That's for like for like 10seconds.
The witness one and I thinkthat would have been really
really powerful if we would haveseen it in game, but the fact

(01:13:15):
that that was just in thetrailer I think that's a big
disservice to the story as awhole, because the witness did
win for about 10 seconds untilthe traveler reversed it that's
wild that I some things come tomind, like again the
consequences thing, like are weever going to hear like, sure it
got fixed, but the entire worldbeing finalized, or even 10
seconds would have consequencessomewheres.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
And also imagine if, instead of loading into the Pale
Heart, like you're walkingthrough the Purple Tunnel, you
instead, like I don't know,spawn in the tower and you're
going to your ship, because Ilike to imagine Guardians walk
to their ships instead ofconstantly transmitting, but
like you're just going somethingto launch, maybe you're in the

(01:13:57):
helm and then you, as the playerin the moment, are actually
finalized in game, kind of likein um like when you're in verity
.
Yeah, like that would have beenso impactful because then that
would have been cool.
It would have made the firstlike going through the portal a
lot more impactful.
Because you're listening tomara soft, like basically when
does she break character everlike she was choking and

(01:14:19):
borderline crying.
That would have made all ofthat feel like better so let me
tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
Let me tell you about the ending to a game that I
didn't like.
Um, the base campaign for finalfantasy 14, a rom reborn.
Uh, this is the one or the 2.0expansion for the game.
It's the first thing that youplay through.
The ending to that spoilersFinal Fantasy XIV.
You fight this mech suit thateats gods and at least three

(01:14:52):
times it casts a spell that's sopowerful.
You yourself cannot do anythingto prevent yourself from dying.
It is a guaranteed death, butluckily God shows up to save you
.
Literally, god shows up to saveyou, and that makes me angry.

(01:15:22):
The ending of final shape didnot make me angry.
Uh, actually, it makes me alittle bit angry because for
some reason, the orbit musicwill not go back to normal.
It's always that other song nowit's always that song.
I liked it.
When it was other songs, Iliked the shuffle like bring the
shuffle back.
Does nobody else care aboutthis?
I've not seen this brought upby anyone else in the community
completely.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
Like I've gotten so used to it I don't even hear it,
like I have music loud but Idon't even notice it anymore.
But now that you mentioned ittoo, I'm also angry about that,
because the shuffle was nice.
Sometimes you get really goodmusic.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
Yeah, you get deep stone, deep stone lullabies in
there like um.
So another thing, speaking ofendings that make us mad, have
you seen the statin cut?

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
um, that's the other ending they wanted to use for
that.
Yeah, yeah, where you basicallydo the animation from the
beginning yeah yeah so you knowwhat's really funny about that
what

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
so let me get this straight really quick before I
talk a bunch of stuff aboutjoseph staten on the internet.
He still works at bungee, right, or is he not?
Does he work at 343 now?
Yeah, okay, so it's notactually statins cut, then it's
somebody else's.
Well, that kind of makes thismoot, I guess.

(01:16:39):
But something else that's kindof silly is um, the ending for
this game and the ending forhalo were also changed at the
last second.
Like both of these were shiftedat the last moment, the
original ending for Halo 2 wouldhave set the entire franchise

(01:17:00):
on a different trajectory.
If you're not familiar, theoriginal ending for Halo 2 was
going to feature 343, guiltySpark and the Arbiter finding a
Forerunner ruin on Earth.
And Guilty Spark opens likestasis coffin thing and he's
like, hey, you really need tosee this.

(01:17:20):
And arbiter comes over and ahuman skeleton is in there and
then it would have cut tocredits.
So we would have gotten theexplicit confirmation that in
the original canon for halo,humans always were forerunners.
There was no separation.
Everything that came after,with the forerunners and the

(01:17:42):
humans both being client speciesof the precursors, the stuff
that uh came up in the greg bearnovels, which are all fantastic
, by the way.
Um, that all was a creation of343.
That essentially retcons, um,what amounted to only being one
line because they uh, microsoftwanted the cliffhanger.
They wanted that, you know,really powerful hook that I'm

(01:18:06):
finishing this fight.
That was explicitly like.
Microsoft was like no, you needto end it this way.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
Classic Microsoft.
Do you think Not to cut you off?
I didn't know if you have anymore thoughts on that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
No, let's.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
I've seen that and it makes me think, originally,
that this kind of leads intoanother question.
So I think we'll do a littlebit of hopscotch.
We'll probably go to the Cadequestion and then the Witness
question.
I, the fact that the originalending wasn't Cade giving us his
light to save the ghost and itwas us doing the transcendent

(01:18:43):
thing, makes me feel like theywanted Cade to stay, because
even the seasonal artifacts it'sa hunter's notebook with, like
Cade, memorabilia on it.
So there's a part of me thathopes and wishes that originally
they wanted Cade to stay.
I think that would have made theending a lot worse, to be
honest.
Because let me tell you, everytime I play Excision and I just
help my friend through it and heexperienced the ending cutscene

(01:19:05):
for the first time I cry like awimp.
I don't just cry, I sob and I'mcompletely fine until the music
plays when you're holding yourghost, when it's like that, I
don't, I don't original destinymusic it's.
It's definitely an old track,that's why I lose it.
But I feel like if they wentwith that other ending it would
have hurt how it felt and thatkade might be alive.

(01:19:27):
I think so.
Do you think kade wasoriginally planned to be alive
and they scrapped that?
Or do you think he was alwaysgoing to die again, but we just
didn't see it in that?

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
it's hard to say.
I mean, I'm not gonna speculatetoo much on the rev revisive
iterations that they wentthrough when they were bringing
this to production.
I mean, given that we can seethat rendered cut scene and kade
doesn't die, I have to imagineyeah, you know, but that

(01:19:57):
actually was what I was afraidof.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):
And I think everybody was we.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
We would get Cade back and then he would be great
in the campaign, and then he'djust become a vendor and just
stand there for years not doinganything.
So should Cade have stayed?
Not at all, I don't think so.
When Cade died, bungie threw agauntlet down.

(01:20:22):
They said we can make bettercharacters than this, we can do
better than this, and I thinkthat that was really where
Destiny as a franchise had atonal shift, going from this is
a space opera to this is apersonal story, and I think that
bringing Cade back wouldcheapen that a little bit.

(01:20:44):
What's the point of permanentlykilling a character if it is so
easily reversed, especially in aproperty where resurrection
from death is not only possiblebut commonplace?
I think final deaths shouldalways be impactful.
We should never, ever, get aguardian back from a final death

(01:21:06):
.
Yeah, I think that Cade, interms of bungees writing, was a
bit of a crutch character, likehe's the one that everybody
liked.
I mean, you could have cadethere doing anything and people
would automatically probablylike it and bringing cade back
was impactful for the resolutionof crow's arc.
I think he could have actualizedin a version of the story that

(01:21:30):
didn't have cade in it, where heis not explicitly forgiven for
his actions as an Uldren, and itwould have been fine.
But this way we have fullclosure on the Crow-Uldren
dichotomy.
He is completely absolved nowand he can move forward into his

(01:21:51):
position as the Hunter Vanguardwith no baggage.
He is unfettered and that isimportant because if they
wouldn't have done that, thencrow would have been stuck in
the past still and that wouldn'tnearly be as compelling as a
crow that has fully come throughan arc and now completed it.

(01:22:14):
Because finishing an arc isstill part of an arc.
You still have to, you know,actually do something and show
that you have progressed,because otherwise, if you're on
an arc that never ends, is itreally an arc or have you just
plateaued, or are you justfreaking out and doing random

(01:22:38):
things that seem like they havea through line but don't really,
because it never ends.
Endings give things meaning inour context, although I do have
an interesting, um, aninteresting thought, and I think
that it's implied and again, myexperience with the cut scenes
was kind of funky, but I thinkit's implied that the only

(01:23:01):
reason kade is back is becauseuh crow wished for it is that
true?
that's correct, he came back,yeah because I was wondering,
like, if he's like a reflectionof a dead guardian, where's the
rest of them?
Where's reed?
Where's joxer?
Where's andal brask?
Where's the iron lords?
Where's ariana three?
Like there are so many reallyinteresting characters that
could have been here, that arethese big, tall names that we've

(01:23:25):
never seen and that could havebeen really cool to explore who
some of these characters were,and I don't know that that could
have been very interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
But if it's the case where it's just the, the wish
that brought him back, I guessthat makes sense and it's also
pretty, um, that that's pivotalfor crow's character, because
him wishing for kate back and II like what you said before,
where crow is like arepresentation of us as a
community kind of or however youphrase that because everybody
hated him forever and I know alot of people still do, but now

(01:24:00):
he's a pretty strong character.
But, um, yeah, I'm once againmillions time.
I agree, there's a part of methat wishes cade stayed because,
to your point, everybody lovescade.
He's basically destiny dadother than shacks, so it'd be
nice to have him around becausehis dialogue and hearing him

(01:24:20):
talk again is so refreshing andwhile I didn't necessarily like
the gameplay elements, like youdid, of the um, still hot,
exotic west, just the, thenarrative and the dialogue and
the banter is it's and the yeah,that was all really good yeah,
like that was, like that waspeak, cade moments it was, it
was really there is.

Speaker 2 (01:24:40):
There is something that I didn't like about that.
Now that I think about it,there is something about that
that, uh, offended me a littlebit.
Um repulse I'm just kidding, no,no, the fact that it had x
hours later breaks, that was sodumb oh yeah, that was just like
cut your screen to black and itwas like eight hours later and

(01:25:01):
I'm like, bro, just make itanother quest, or just why does
it all?
Why does it have to happenlater?
What?
What is it adding by happeninglater?
Just make it happen now, likewhat, what's the?

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
what's the point I think they were trying to to key
into, like this campfire typefeeling.
That didn't really work.
It was weird, like why am Iresting in this tent?
Why am I reflecting on myactions?
I did that enough with a coreyears ago.
Yeah, right, but yeah, no, Iagree.
Okay, but yeah, no, I agree.
Cade, definitely good that he'snot back.

(01:25:36):
It would have took away hispainful death and his meaning.
All right, let's go back to theother question that I skipped
over.
I know you briefly mentionedyou like the Witness as a
character.
Do you have anything?
more to say on that, because hereally realistically had what
two and a half years to grow.

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):
Conceptually.
I've never seen anything likethe witness outside of my own
fiction.
Um, at risk of violating somenda stuff, I did create a
character that is fundamentallysimilar to the witness.
It's different in in key waysthat make things artistically
inspired and not stolen.

(01:26:13):
Um, this character is a gestaltof selves.
They are all himself.
It is not distinct, uh,individuals in the way that the
witness is, but that's reallycool.
Aggregate beings is notsomething that I've seen very
commonly executed before and youknow, as an idea he is very

(01:26:36):
distinct against the othervillains that we have in destiny
.
His design is instantlyrecognizable.
You see that big mr hourglassand the smoke column head.
Like that's the witness that is.
You know, you'd know him insilhouette.
Like you know him right away.
And from my work, uh, on a webcomic that I can't talk about.

(01:26:58):
Um, I know from what I've I'veworked with the artist that
distinct character designsreally matter.
Recognizability is huge.
Like you don't want to ever getconfused with another character
, because if that character ismore well known than yours, then
people are just going to thinkthat you're ripping off, whereas

(01:27:22):
this way there is only onething that can be, I think, the
biggest flaw with the witnessesand as a character is just that
they didn't think of him earlier, or at least I can't see any
evidence that they did.
I mean, I talked about this alittle bit earlier.
When you have these vestiges ofpast ideas and things that
earlier, uh, people who were incharge of the narrative had laid

(01:27:46):
down and you're kind ofbuilding on that as the plane is
flying, so to speak, you knowyou're, you're cooking as you're
cooking as you're cooking asyou're cooking, and they did
great, I think.
But if he was a force that weknew about earlier, I think that
that would have made everythingthat happened in final shape

(01:28:07):
and maybe even light fall landso much more squarely.
Getting a villain to work rightis really really hard and a lot
goes into building andpresenting the perfect villain
for your work.
Um, I think that part ofshowing off a good villain and
getting your reader because Imean books is what I know best,

(01:28:30):
so I mean getting your reader toreally key on the villain and
how important they are andreally sell them as a character
is to show the villain early.
And if you don't, if you can'tshow the villain early, at least
show signs of them, show whatthey do to people.
Show how things look when theyleave.

(01:28:52):
Think about how crazy it wouldhave been.
Um, actually, we do kind ofhave an example of this.
Do you remember what happenedto mars?

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
in which plane do you remember?
Oh yeah, when I was takenimagine if that mattered.

Speaker 2 (01:29:07):
Imagine if we had to walk through a golden age city
stuck in flux and think aboutwhat the witness did to everyone
who lived there.
Imagine if we had to livethrough the stuff from the
missing black armory papers,which, if you haven't read, is

(01:29:27):
nuts uh, I don't remember itspecifically, but bife.
Bife has a video all about theit's.
I think it's called like thewitness hates us.
Yeah, um that, yeah, I mean.
Imagine if we actually got tosee that.
Like that would have been nutslike it's horrifying that would
have sold me so much earlier.
But the witness does hit threethings that are really important

(01:29:50):
when you're talking aboutstrong villains.
So so I brought this questionup to my clan leader.
I said, mr Clan Leader, sir, doyou think the Witness is a good
villain?
He said emphatically no.
He says to him that a villainis only good or well.
What makes a good villain Iwon't say only, because that

(01:30:12):
wasn't the word he used whatmakes a good villain to him is a
motive that you yourself canget behind, and he thinks that
the witness's motive is whatkilled the witness as a villain
for him.
But I think that there's more tothat.
I think that there are kind ofthree things that I'm really
looking for, and that is that,you know, they need to be a

(01:30:34):
complex character, which theWitness is.
The fact that there aredissenters within the Witness at
all, even though in Entelechy,which is the collector's edition
lore book, we're told thatother factions in Precursor
society were dealt with Airquotes, air quotes, air quotes.
We don't know what that means.

(01:30:54):
We are led to think that theywere exterminated, but we don't
really know.
And so that means that theconsciousness is within the
witness either there weredissenters that didn't speak up
within the uh I forget what theycalled themselves within the
faction that became the witnessand uh pessimist or whatever is

(01:31:17):
something like that, somethinglike that.
Uh, and and um, the nihilists, Ithink.
I don't remember.
Uh, I'm not going to use, I'mnot going to use a title that I
don't know, but, uh, eithereither there were dissenters
within them that didn't speak up, or the consciousnesses within

(01:31:38):
the witness are still individualenough that they were able to
change their mind, which is abig deal when you have that.
That rounds out that charactera little bit.
And the other thing is that heis a necessary opponent.
I've talked to you about thisbefore, uh, when we were talking
about writing, and that wasthat the best villains are the

(01:32:03):
ones that belong to your heroes,the ones that are the only one
that they can, can defeat, likeall uh one for all, or uh all
for one and uh all might, and uhuh uh.
Shigaraki and deku in my heroacademia.

(01:32:26):
I actually think that the thatshigaraki and deku are the best
example that I can think ofright now of the necessary
opponent, because they, theyliterally have parallel arcs.
Like it's beautiful If you, ifyou zoom out at my hero academia
, it's, it's a beautiful story.
But, um, so he's?
You know everything that we arenot.

(01:32:47):
He is a personified oppositionto our deal, to our ideals, and
the third thing is that he is achampion to an alternate way of
thinking.
He ideals.
And the third thing is that heis a champion to an alternate
way of thinking.
He is the edge of the firstknife, he is the tip of the
sword.
Logic, he is a singular entity.
That is one thing.
He is a monofilament edge,whereas we, in excision, if you,

(01:33:09):
if you noticed, beat him as 12,we beat him as many, we came
together and defeated him usingthe opposite concept, which is
huge.
Like that's I never thoughtabout consistency.
That's super tasty, that's agood point, and you never
thought about it like that so Imean that's that is a lot of

(01:33:33):
really good um.
So I mean that is a lot ofreally good ingredients that I
think go towards making thewitness interesting versus.
You know, yeah, I can sort ofsee when you have a character
that's not sure of its ownmotivations, it kind of takes
the teeth out of its actions alittle bit because it's like,
well, maybe it could just stopat any time, which I think might

(01:33:55):
be the impetus behind my clanleader's argument, is it's like
that kind of takes some of thethreat away as well.
I mean, he could wake uptomorrow and change his mind,
but I don't think he will.
There's a certain tyranny ofmajority in the witness's
actions.
That I think is kind ofinteresting.
It's like he's a society inminiature, and the most

(01:34:15):
important thing about him, ofcourse, is the fact that we
couldn't defeat him the way thatwe normally defeat things.
Bullets weren't gonna, uh,bullets weren't gonna do
anything to him, um, although,that being said, I do wish that
there was more mechanically tothe excision process than just

(01:34:36):
shooting him with a laser likethat.
I mean all of that and it comesdown to shooting him with a
laser that you can't miss, likethat's kind of.
But I mean, you know, this is.
This is where the elitistversus casual mentality comes
out, where it's like well, ifyou wanted a fail condition, you
got that in the raid.
You, you had that.

(01:34:57):
You had your opportunity tohave it your way.
And and really dividing thewitnesses, downfall into the
raid and excision to satisfyboth camps, I think was a smart
move I one million, so thateverybody, everybody kind of
gets what they want but,

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
nobody really gets their way and they both felt
like when they talked about it,like originally, where they said
we can't kill the witness inthe story, we have to kill him
like you have to deal with himin the raid.
I was really afraid thatexcision essentially would be
the raid.

Speaker 2 (01:35:25):
So the fact that, as mr raids, I would have been fine
with that I know you would havetrust me.

Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
I totally get it.
I mean, I cleared it once, so Iwould be fine with it too,
because at least I got to see it, even though it took me three
weeks to get to it yeah, whatthe uh, what, what was that
statistic?
82 percent of people oh yeah, inthe player base might not might
not get to experience it likeyeah, that would have been a
riot, but like the fact thatboth endings like felt impactful
because in order to haveexcision you needed the raid.

(01:35:51):
So the people who did the raidbasically allowed excision to
happen.
You cut the witness off in thelight and then everyone can
experience his actual downfallbecause technically he loses
twice.
So you, you know it was good.
I was afraid that it was goingto be like you kill him in the
raid and then everyone just getsa cut scene.
So it was definitely the bestway they could have ended that

(01:36:11):
or handled that.
Yeah, because right now there issuch a pull, there is such I'm
I'm a lot more.
You know, I used to argue aboutthis especially heavily during
ron.
I'm a lot more chill about itnow because I a lot of I can see
the issues that casual playerskind of emit around them.
Like you, you seen how mad Iwas about the cooperative focus

(01:36:32):
stuff.
Like I get the aggravation nowand I'm a lot more chill about
the hardcore casual audience.
So you know, my train ofthought kind of fell apart there
.
I'm really tired, um, but youknow, definitely the the best
way they could have ended thewitness and that.

(01:36:52):
So we got the episodesconversation.
My um, I need to get mad, yeah.
So like I'll just quickly summy side up because I know you're
gonna have more coherentthoughts on this.
You've already read it in myoutline, but I'll just
regurgitate it here.
I feel like the episode modelhas allowed for bigger narrative

(01:37:14):
ideas Because I feel like wenever got in something as
impactful as, like, theconductor and the Vex basically
changing and these bigger storymoments Other than Eris becoming
a god for a few seconds.
That was pretty insane, but itjust feels bigger and it's
giving it more time to brew.

(01:37:34):
But the delivery method of thatnarrative is kind of shitty.
Nobody likes it and it, likeyou said originally at the start
, it feels like we were gaslitbecause they said they would
change it.
Thankfully they will be goingforward and we'll see if they do
it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:47):
But we'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
I'm not optimistic, yeah but how do you feel about?
The episodes and the lens andnarrative.

Speaker 2 (01:37:55):
So.
So this is the part where weget into a fight because bigger,
no flat, no better, maybe.
Uh, I'm behind.
So, I mean, I haven't done the,I haven't done the.
Uh, I haven't done the act twostuff, uh, yet I just haven't.
Like I said, not superinterested in the game right now
, I do this.

(01:38:16):
I did this when Helldivers cameout.
It's just because I'm playingsomething new.
By the time that I get tiredwith Final Fantasy, I'll go back
.
I always go back.

Speaker 1 (01:38:24):
Can't escape.

Speaker 2 (01:38:25):
But why isn't it bigger?
Because Bungie needs to resetthe tension.
If they don't, you know, nobodywill believe them.
Nothing will ever be biggerthan the threat the witness
posed.
He was going to end themultiverse, he was going to end
possibility, like literallyeverything that could ever be

(01:38:51):
calcified into a single moment.
Forever.
Nothing, literally nothing topsthat not frieza.
Like nothing.
Panoptes, who could havecontrol a, deleted the entire
universe if he got out of theinfinite forest.
No, not even panoptes wasbigger than this.

(01:39:12):
Not even riven, who could haveliterally cast wish and
destroyed us the moment that weset foot in the dreaming city.
Like nothing, nothing, nothing,nothing.
So there's nowhere to go.
They hit the ceiling.
You can't break through it,otherwise you get the dragon
ball z effect where, oh well,this guy's uh, 15 times stronger

(01:39:32):
than the last guy and it's likeoh well, my infinity plus one,
oh, my infinity plus two.
Oh well, this guy over here hasgot infinity plus five.
Oh, we're going to need to gotrain Like that's?
No, I don't believe you.
And bigger than any otherseason?
I don't think so either.
Arrivals, seraph Witch and WishAll of them had higher stakes

(01:39:55):
and a wider scope.
Even worthy had us building upfor the pyramids arrival.
They gave us a countdown.
You could go watch it if youwant, there was literally a
countdown in the serif bunkers.

Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
That was terrifying that was that was.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
And then arrivals when the pyramid ships actually
showed up like crazy, crazy,crazy, crazy, which, where eris
became a capital, g god wish,bringing, riven back, bringing
back the aham kara.
That's massive.
That's one of those things thata bungee throws in a box and

(01:40:31):
forgets about.
I'm gonna be mad, like I'mgonna be really mad about that,
if they, if they forget we savedher eggs.

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
We better be getting more dragons.
Oh yeah, god yeah, and that'snot a consequence.
You can forget.

Speaker 2 (01:40:44):
Like seraph, I think it was a little bit tighter of a
scope, but the stakes werestill there.
I mean, zivu irath was on herway and if we didn't get
rasputin ready to counter her,well, I cast black terrorists.
Your planet no longer exists,like you know that.

(01:41:05):
Uh, that was a big deal.
So I don't really think thatechoes is bigger and I don't
think it needs to be.
As for this story, it reallykind of strikes me as one that
we don't even really need to getinvolved with if we don't want
to.
Like the Vex are weird.
Okay, great, the Vex are alwaysweird.

(01:41:27):
Nothing the Vex do is normal.
Point to the Vex and tell methat thing is normal because
it's not.
It's a time bot made of milk.
That is a society in miniaturelike that.
Nothing about that is okay, butlike this is a vex civil war

(01:41:48):
that doesn't actually threatenus, which is a really
fascinating concept, but withouta strong hook there's no
impetus.
If it wasn't for Failsafesaying hey, captain, you haven't
come to Nessus in like fouryears and I really miss you, we
probably wouldn't have evergotten involved.

(01:42:09):
We just would have been likeyep, those are Vex.

Speaker 1 (01:42:12):
Do you think?
A unified Vex out of thesub-mines and completely
collected into one cohesive unitwould be a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:42:23):
So that's the thing, the Vex, from what I can tell,
only actually have threesubtypes.
There's the I forgot already.
There's the soul divisive, theones in the garden, the soul
inherent, the ones that are theum, uh, the uh, the ones in the

(01:42:54):
raid in garden of salvation.
But there's a third one, uh,the one that's just regular vex.
They have a name, they have aspecial name.

Speaker 1 (01:43:03):
Oh gosh, I know there's precursors or something
well, those are.

Speaker 2 (01:43:08):
Those are the soul collective oh yeah, that's it
yeah the soul collective, Iguess, okay, there's.
There's a couple more like thesoul progeny, who are the ones
in the black garden, those threeminotaurs, the soul primeval,
that are the old ones, the soleimminent or the descendant Virgo
prohibition, okay, so yeah, Iguess there's more Vex than I
thought.
But really I mean, when we'retalking about the Vex, you know,

(01:43:32):
all these other ones arespecial, like the Hezen
productive and corrective onlyexist on Venus.
You know, they're only in theVault of Glass.
The sole divisive are only inthe Black Garden.
The sole inherent're only inthe vault of glass, the soul
divisive are only in the blackgarden, the soul inherent are
only in the raid and the soulcollective are everybody else.
So there was a unified vex.

(01:43:53):
It's just we didn't think aboutit that way because of how the
vex are organized, and that'skind of the interesting thing.
Um, I won't parrot a lot ofwhat Bife said, but really the
thing that the Vex do is thatthey've only ever done one thing
.
They've only ever gone back intime now to now, to ensure some

(01:44:17):
nebulous victory in the future.
They are Roko's basilisk givenform.
If there is ever a Vex, therewill always be Vex.
The Vex are basically perfect.
They have automated victory andthat doesn't really give a lot
of room for variation or nuanceor strong characters, which I

(01:44:40):
think is one of the biggestproblems with the vex as a
faction.
They're so alien to us.
Like I said, there is nothingnormal about the vex.
They literally enslaved a star.
They have enslaved a star andthey tortured an entire

(01:45:01):
civilization in nestedsimulations just because, like I
mean, I don't think they gainedanything out of that, they just
wanted to because they're vex.
So like I mean, that's, that'scrazy yeah, the vexer they're.
They are the most interestingfaction, because we just don't

(01:45:25):
really know that much about themI mean, other than query a
blade, transform, uh, who kindof gets a little bit of a pass
because they were taken or itwas taken, um, and so it could
kind of act outside of theprogramming of the collective.
We didn't really have any vexcharacters.
The conductor is the only one,and so that's fresh.

(01:45:50):
I mean automatically, that'sfresh.
It remains to be seen whothat's going to be, but I'm
pretty sure it's going to be myass under ash, and if they die
at the end of the episode, I'mgoing to be really disappointed
because I mean, if the vex justgo back to being the vex, then
I'm really going to questionwhat the whole point of the
episode was.
Yeah, um, as far as, do I likewhat I'm seeing?

(01:46:11):
Do I like what I'm playing?
Is it, is it better than theseasons that have come before?
It's just too early to call it.
I don't really like to passjudgment on works that I know
are incomplete.
Um, the season, the fact thatthe episode, that the episodic
model, is literally the exactsame thing as the seasonal model
, where it's get on, do amission, do a seasonal activity,

(01:46:32):
come back, watch somecharacters talk, then listen to
a radio transmission and thenwait for a week.
The fact that it's literallythat same thing again, but with
extra time gates, is crazy.
That is actually bonkers.
You can't point at that ideaand say that it's any good at
all.
But I do think that there's adefinite regression on the

(01:46:53):
gameplay front.
Every seasonal activity runthat I've done anyway is the
same week over week.
Deep dive, if you remember deepdive, there was those like
there's a couple of differentthings that you could get, like
different encounters betweendifferent tiers, and you could
get those like boons.
Even Riven's lair and the coilfelt better than this activity

(01:47:14):
does.
This activity is always thesame.
It is not different week overweek, which is very strange.

Speaker 1 (01:47:20):
It is quite boring.

Speaker 2 (01:47:21):
I agree.
I don't really know what's upwith that.
And the secret mission is coolbut it doesn't feel rewarding
for how long it takes.
And also, if you run icarusdash or heat rises and you go
into the man cannon, you dieinstantly and I don't know why
that happens.
I have no idea what's up withthat.
So don't run icarus dash orheat rises if you don't run

(01:47:42):
Icarus Dash or Heat Rises if youdon't want to die instantly
Otherwise.
I mean, I've kind of noticed afunny trend among the members of
my clan where when a new seasoncomes out, everybody's hyped.
We all love it, but by the timethat week three rolls around,
we're all tired of it.
That's how quickly we burn outon this, even when it's new.

(01:48:04):
And I think that there isnothing more important than
fixing up, or nothing moreimportant to the future of
episodes as a concept, thanfixing up this content delivery
method, because it's likesaint's internal conflict is
interesting.
The role reversal of saint andosiris in terms of who is
vulnerable and who is not isalso very interesting and we

(01:48:26):
don't really know where that'sgoing to go yet.
But like you need a lot ofthings to happen by 30% of the
way through a book, you know youneed to initiate the reader
into the world.
They need to be literate in theconflict, they need to be aware
of the stakes and the villainand they need to get the
emotional hook.
And if you're writing a hero'sjourney, they're over the

(01:48:49):
threshold.
If you're writing with the savethe cat structure, they need to
have been given their catalyst.
Or if it's a rising actionstructure, there needs to be
some intensifying conflict.
And I wrote these uh talkingpoints kind of at the end of
episode one.
Like I said, I haven't donethere at the end of act one and
I haven't done the act two stuffyet.
But I mean that just goes toshow that it took more than a

(01:49:11):
third of the way through theepisode to get all of these
things.
So I mean they're behind as faras the three-act structure is
concerned yeah, no, that makessense.

Speaker 1 (01:49:25):
Yeah, the um.
Now that you phrased it likethat, I think I might have been
going under.

Speaker 2 (01:49:32):
I don't know, drink the kool-aid.

Speaker 1 (01:49:36):
Yeah, I drank a little bit of kool-aid because,
like it felt, because, like formaybe I'm a little bit weird,
but the way it felt playingthrough it just felt different.
Maybe it's because Ness isquote-unquote in giant quotation
marks, because it doesn'tactually change in the patrol
space.
There's change in the landscapeand for some reason I just

(01:49:56):
thought the story felt bigger.
But the way that you phrased itthere makes a lot of sense.
No, I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:50:01):
And I don't mean to bleed like bleed your enthusiasm
dry here.
But I'll also say it's okay tolike something that other people
don't like.
I think that in my circles atleast, liking Destiny is kind of
cringe which is funnyconsidering how much destiny we

(01:50:24):
play.
But like, it's okay to like thegame and it's okay to like the
content even though it's flawed,and it's okay to enjoy yourself
playing it.
I like all of those things arefine.

Speaker 1 (01:50:36):
I like how mad people get when I say that I genuinely
enjoy ron.

Speaker 2 (01:50:39):
It's the one raid that I enjoyed because I can
play it do you have any idea howhyped I was when Nezarek showed
up?
I was like this guy's from thedeepest lore.
Like this is the guy it's him,it's the guy.
I'll admit, he went down easy.
Even on contest mode he wentdown easy.

Speaker 1 (01:50:58):
But like I mean, that's him, there he is, he's
right there it's cool to seethose deep lore characters get
brought forth into the actuallimelight, especially even
though we don't really know thatmuch about Micah 10.
It was, unless you read or goback in time, it was nice to see
them, even though they weren'trendered in game like you would

(01:51:19):
think, they were just a hologram, which is also kind of silly
where are?

Speaker 2 (01:51:23):
they like.
What are they doing?
Why do they need to show up ashologram?
Why can't they just be in there?
Yeah, like she's doing maybethey only rendered the top half
like at 10.
That's my spin foil I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:51:38):
That's great.
They only have the resourcesfor the top half.
No, I'm yeah yeah, we'll see.
I'm cute.
Like to your point, we can'treally say how episodes are
going to feel until we have oneunder the belt, but currently,
right now, the the sentiment isthat it's very meh.
It's not really.
People still say seasonsinstead of episodes.
I think next season, once wehave so you just did it right

(01:51:59):
there oh yeah, exactly damn it.
Next episode, when we have, um,the time gates lifted and it's
only they released the actsfully when they come out, I I
mean we're gonna have the people.
I'm gonna be one of them,because I I know how I play
destiny.
I'll probably end up doing theentire act in like a day, and
then have nothing to complainabout not having.
Oh, I don't come, I'm trust me,I don't complain, like I like

(01:52:21):
when I do the campaigns in afull a day or two days.
I know I'm doing a bulk of thecontent quickly.
I know that going into, I'veseen people complaining on
twitter that they maxed out thebattle pass in like an hour, but
they also were like speedrushing in.
They were adding bungeeliterally.

Speaker 2 (01:52:37):
I literally maxed out my level the moment I logged in
.
Yeah, I just had bankedbounties and then they they
turned in all my bounties and Iwas like oh, there it is that I
will parrot a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:52:49):
I'll quote um bife on this.
The end data to, to a certainextent, the argument between not
having anything to do becauseyou do it in 10 seconds, or what
was the other half of that?
Um, I don't remember either,but is it's um?
It's a debate that's neverreally gonna end and there's no
good way to really solve it.
It's a lose-lose situation.

(01:53:10):
You can either releaseeverything all at once and have
if someone like us and you do itin like 10 seconds, or you can
time gate it and have people bemad that they can't do all of it
.

Speaker 2 (01:53:20):
You can't really I personally, I would rather do it
all and me too, be done yeahbecause then I can go play
something else yeah, you're notwaiting.

Speaker 1 (01:53:28):
I, after going through years of seasons and
episodes now and I'm curious tosee how it's going to feel when
they release an act by act, I'malso kind of just tired of,
because then it's like you'rejust being held on a fish line,
right, like you just want tokind of experience it all at
once and then go play finalfantasy or whatever.
Yeah, but we'll see.
We'll see how episodes progress.
Let's see how this one goes.

(01:53:48):
I also feel like the thisepisode came out with the
expansion, and this alwayshappened with seasons as well.
The first season alwaysseason's always bad, yeah
because I mean like, how, liketo your point.

Speaker 2 (01:53:58):
How can you top the story that we just experienced
in the final shape like my clanleader was like I even liked
undying better than this, and Iwas like, bro, that's not that's
.

Speaker 1 (01:54:06):
That's straight up a lie.
That's illegal.
Three of a lie undying was badthat's.
I'm pretty sure that's anillegal opinion undyne like oh
my god, I don't even I.
The only thing good aboutundying was the weapons and the
enemy density.
That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:54:23):
Uh, I liked it when Ikora opened a portal into the
weasel dimension.

Speaker 1 (01:54:31):
Yeah, it was.
My highlight of the week waslogging on to see the portal
have one more piece of metalattached to it.

Speaker 2 (01:54:37):
Yeah, that's.
That's not really.
That's not really a highlightof the season, though, but you
know the fact that she turned iton and crashed the frickin
servers.
It's just.
That's just really a highlightof the season, though, but you
know the fact that she turned iton and crashed the freaking
servers.

Speaker 1 (01:54:46):
Yeah, it's just, that's just kind of silly icora
shows up, in the main, thevanilla campaign to shoot one
nova bomb disappears, comes backfor undying, open up a weasel
portal game.
But, um, like, we have one morequestion here and that is we
kind of been discussing itpassively over the course of our
conversation.
But what do you think is nextfor Destiny?
How would they even be able totell another saga?

(01:55:08):
What threads are left to pull?
And I put in all caps, like Iwant to go to Torbottle, I want
to see these things that wereteased in the lore.
And if it's codenamed Frontier,I'm assuming we're leaving Sol,
but are we going to eventuallybe fighting the Winnower?
I don leaving soul, but are wegoing to eventually be fighting
the winnower?
I don't think so, not at leastfor a while, because it's a
prime, it's a no, it's aprimordial force.

Speaker 2 (01:55:29):
He's fundamental.
Yeah to the universe.

Speaker 1 (01:55:31):
Nothing we can do about the winnower yeah, exactly
, and to the uh forgot his name,but the scholars um, light and
dark has to exist in coalescencein order for things to kind of
like exist like yeah, so like Idon't think, I think the the
winnower is gonna be annoying,but I think it knows we can't
really fight it I want him toshow up like rafael in balder's

(01:55:53):
game.
Oh, my god, I think that'd befunny because they have the same
energy like they really do whatwould the widow whatow of War
even look like?
I wonder Like.
Does it even have a form or isit just a voice?

Speaker 2 (01:56:05):
It's a face where a person should be.

Speaker 1 (01:56:07):
Literally.

Speaker 2 (01:56:08):
Just a silhouette, just a model with a Vantablack
texture.

Speaker 1 (01:56:14):
That'd be.
Yeah, he is super black.
The super black texture orshader, yeah, but what do you
think Like?
What do you think Frontiers isgoing to be?

Speaker 2 (01:56:25):
Rhys and Torabottle are the easy answers, and that's
because we have existing debtsto pay back on our alliances.
We told Kydle we would getTorabottle back, so we're going
no matter what.
I think that's definite.
But the last place we sawAramis was on a ship leaving at

(01:56:46):
sublight speed towards Rhys.
That was what became of Aramisafter Season of the Seraph.
So I think that it wouldn't beout of the question to help
Mithrax restore Rhys and if wego at light speed, we'll beat
Aramis there, reese and if we goat light speed, we'll beat

(01:57:07):
Aramis there.
And then Aramis could show upat the end of the of the story
to a fully restored Reese.
And I think that would be areally interesting character
moment for her, because all thatshe's done, everything that's
been like, every decision thatshe's made, has been in the name
of restoring that memory.
Like all of the reese rebornstuff on europa that was made

(01:57:30):
and then never like expanded on,all of that was her attempt to
rebuild the society that thefallen lost, and I think that
that's a really powerfulnarrative and I think that
that's definitely somethingpowerful narrative and I think
that that's definitely somethingthat, if bungee's paying any
attention, they're going to wantto pull on, but I think there's
more than that.
I mean, of course, savathun is alow-hanging fruit.

(01:57:52):
She's always up to something,that's what she does, that she's
the god of being up tosomething.
But there's also the precursor,exile, who is explicitly
confirmed to be alive perintelliki.
So they're out there.
There is a living precursor outthere somewhere and we don't
know what's what they're doingor what's up with them.
And then I would really like tokill zivu irath in a raid.

(01:58:15):
So I know for sure that there'sanother rain on the horizon.
I don't know what it's going tobe, but I hope that it's zivu a
wrath, because zivu a wrathdoes not deserve to be
constrained to being a campaignboss like I was hoping.
I was hoping we'd get a raid forsabathun.
That wasn't the case.
But zivu, a wrath for sure,needs a raid.

(01:58:36):
She's the god of war, she's thegod of getting in a fight like
yeah honestly, sabathun is notcompletely out of the picture
either.

Speaker 1 (01:58:43):
I mean she has, true, I guess, yeah she's also, like
you said, the the gotta fuckaround and find out and up to
something.

Speaker 2 (01:58:50):
So, yeah, we just we just haven't found out yet.
Yeah, um, other than that, Imean, give me pantheon too,
please.
I I would like pantheon toreturn for every moments of
triumph with new stuff added.
I loved pantheon.
Such a good idea.
That was literally so cool.
Honestly, I did all of it.
I loved it.

Speaker 1 (01:59:09):
I would play Pantheon if it was permanent, you know,
because like I think it shouldhave been permanent.

Speaker 2 (01:59:21):
It's also Pantheon five was the only thing in the
game that scaled you to contestlight, so it was the only way to
actually test builds forcontest mode.
Interesting, yeah, that's theonly thing, unless you keep zero
light gear, which, if youdidn't do when you had zero
light gear, you can't do anymorebecause of light flooring.
That was the only way to tankyour light level far enough.
Other than that, we're going toneed some new names, and I

(01:59:45):
think that reaching back intothe Books of Sorrow and the deep
lore to get some moreinspiration is a good idea.
We could see Taox from theOsmium Dynasty or the other
Wormgots like Iyer and Yulthey're still out there and then
the return of the Ahamkara wetalked about that.

(02:00:12):
If that goes in the Bgee hatesconsequences bucket, I'm I quit,
I will eat my hat.
Um, come back.
You know the nine, that'sthat's.
That wasn't even on my list,but I mean.
I mean the nine.
Now that the darkness andthey're in the witness isn't
eating their planets anymore,that they need to think.
They need those, that is, theirbrain cells.
Um, like they can show up andstart doing stuff again speaking
of just fucking weird.

Speaker 1 (02:00:28):
I dropped the first f-bomb.
I'm just, I'm cool like that,see I made it through the whole
podcast I I just because this isthe weirdest thing in destiny
to me, it's just the nine thatwe had zero since destiny.
One vanilla, just weirdtentacle, something weirder for
you, and I've got somethingweird, it's on my list.

Speaker 2 (02:00:48):
So so next on my list is nezarec, because I know,
because coming back is whatnezarec does.
Right, there are four tombs ofnezarec that we know of, which
means that this is at least hisfifth resurrection.
So nezarec's thing is comingback, he'll be back, he's gonna
be back, but an a's going to beback, but an Ophelion.
Do you know what an Ophelion is?
Um, no, I'm not surprised.

(02:01:09):
They are mentioned in exactlythree places.
There's a location in theDreaming City called Ophelion's
Rest.
Oh, that's a lot of secondary.
And then there are yes, andthen there are two lore books
that talk about characters thatget attacked by an Ophelion.
The only thing that they areaware of is a bright blue light,

(02:01:35):
and then nothing.
They are vaporized completely.

Speaker 1 (02:01:45):
Something some amorphous thing destroys them.
Liquid ship that is terrifying.

Speaker 2 (02:01:48):
I I maybe, I don't know.
If I see any blue lights, I'llstart writing.
I'll become an environmentalstorytelling skeleton and I'll
start like writing a halffinished message let me get
those lore books for you.

Speaker 1 (02:02:05):
Yeah, as you're doing that, though like the nine, to
just like they, we had Zer donothing besides give you stuff.
And then we had the Driftercome in and then Star Horse and
a game show and giant lady thattalked to Drifter.
I mean, we have some good loreabout them, but I'm really
curious.
We don't know if they're goodor bad, they've just been
observing.

Speaker 2 (02:02:25):
So there's.
There are four mentions, uh,five mentions of a Phileons, one
of which is unconfirmed.
Uh, the star reader scales loretab mentions an Eliksni pilot
ship malfunctioning, and then hesees the flash of blue
particles, uh, but he doesn'tdie.
And and then he sees the flashof blue particles, but he

(02:02:46):
doesn't die.
And then the Dreaming City,bambergia.
Lore book talks about the RSSAmestris being destroyed and
only Shuraido survived,marasenna, impotent.
One talks about paladin pavelnolg's ship, uh, being destroyed

(02:03:08):
by an aphelion before executinga light speed jump.
Uh, aphelion's rest is a lostsector.
God, I hope it doesn't hang outthere.
And then in the chronicon,scribe, shagak refers to the,
the Aphelion, as a predator withthe power to devastate worlds
in the blink of an eye, and thatapparently the Cabal keep an

(02:03:31):
Aphelion on their Athenaeumworld.
Oh, that's good.
So we have no idea what thisthing is.
This is one of those.
They were cooking withsomething and then the rest of
the team forgot, or it was anidea that they never, they never
, um, uh, they never latchedonto.

(02:03:55):
But like this, this quote firstit shimmered, then it crawled
and then it screamed.
Like that's.
That's terrifying.
That is actually Lovecraftstuff, like I want this.
Where is this?
Put this in the game, please.

Speaker 1 (02:04:13):
This is terrifying yeah, that makes me feel like I
felt while reading the BlackArmory pages.

Speaker 2 (02:04:19):
Man and then otherwise I mean the stuff that
I've heard about d3.
I kind of don't really credit.
But I've heard that it's goingto be any race, no classes, all
abilities on the table, so youcould be a hunter air quotes,

(02:04:41):
that runs burning mall for, forexample, like there are no
classes anymore, and you couldbe a fallen or a cabal or a hive
, yeah, and so it's like I thinkthat's cool on paper but I
don't think that that's enoughto get me to play it.
I've spent 3000 hours in thisgame and I'm already good at it.
I have all of my best in slotgear, with the exception of some

(02:05:03):
like raid, god roles and stuffwhen I hear how easy it would be
, you know, to get me to playthat.

Speaker 1 (02:05:09):
Just allow me to play a fallen, that's all you would
need to do, like, give me, like,let me play a fallen that has
some, like some unique passive,having passive abilities on
races, would be cool.
And if they did like an allrace, all classes thing, like
what if you had some specialpassives as a fallen, maybe you
run faster, or something I thinkif I, if I had to guess,
knowing destiny players, theywould just pick the race with

(02:05:32):
the best passives and then theywould do that.

Speaker 2 (02:05:34):
Yeah, that's fair, that's they would just optimize
like that's.
That's the end game isoptimization.
So you're not running a fallenbuild, get out of here yeah, you
get out of the fire team, bro,actually trolling you know
there's a lot of things left topull those.

Speaker 1 (02:05:50):
Those sound really creepy though that is.
I hope we get to see that andif we go to tour bottle then
maybe maybe and I'm new.
Um, let's think who else isthat, that I'm telling you, man,
that they, they, just they madethat story warm again with the,
the quest and final shape ohyeah, they expect because you do

(02:06:12):
the strike again for one of theghosts um, like a 10 quests,
like when you're preparing forthe the raid I don't think of.

Speaker 2 (02:06:20):
Or if I did that one, I was just speed running so
fast that I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (02:06:24):
There's new dialogue at the end of the strike,
because you know how, when youdo it, normally the ghost is
like who's Otsat, what'swhatever?
Like there's logs have been.

Speaker 2 (02:06:33):
Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I definitely haven't done that
yet.

Speaker 1 (02:06:35):
Yeah, then can I tell you, or do you want to, because
it's for Micah 10.
You can, oh, oh you can hit meokay.
Yeah, when you do the mega 10version of that strike for her
quest, there's new dialoguesaying that new logs were um
accessed by atsat, and I don'tremember what the rest of quote
was, but they made that entirethread very warm again, so I'm
sure that's on the horizon also.

Speaker 2 (02:06:57):
The nine uh all uh.
Atsat was one of theconspirators.
He was one of the conspirators,he was one of the guys in the
Midnight Coup, so I mean he's abig deal.

Speaker 1 (02:07:05):
Totally, I'm excited to see that.
And, um, I forgot my brain'stoo tired for what I was going
to say originally.
Oh yeah, the Niners aresuggested.
I can't confirm or deny this,but the Niners are suggested to
play a part in Episode 3, Ibelieve it's either two or three
.
That's supposed to be Episodethree is the one we know little

(02:07:27):
to nothing about, other thanthat we're going back to the
dreadnought, which is a yes,please.

Speaker 2 (02:07:31):
Yeah, and we get to drive the dreadnought.

Speaker 1 (02:07:34):
They.
They said something interestingthat I don't know.
I've pointed it out.
I don't think too many peopleare thinking about it, but they
said that in episode threethere's going to be a new
malevolent.
I can't pronounce this wordmalevolent.
Yeah, malevolent.

Speaker 2 (02:07:53):
Eldritch force that appears that has never been seen
before.
Hey, I I have one.
I have a malevolent eldritchforce for you, bungie.
They're called aphelions.

Speaker 1 (02:08:01):
Please, they scare me so good I'll I'll make sure to
to add bungie when I post thison twitter do it yeah at bungie
on twitter at bungie help.
I'll tag the help page bungiehelp, help us add these into the
game now.
That'd be cool, though we needmore scary things.
I think the scorn are like theonly thing that would add it.

Speaker 2 (02:08:22):
That were scary originally no, I don't think
screams man.
I look at screams and I go I doscreams and like I don't, my
brain ceases to function whenscreams are around.
I'm like that's peak, that'sthat's peak.
Evolution right there, that isthe end state of evolution is

(02:08:48):
Screebs.
It all comes down to Screebs.

Speaker 1 (02:08:52):
Screebs is Bungie representation of what Destiny
players are in canon.
That's what we look like tothem.

Speaker 2 (02:08:59):
Give me the unstoppable overload barrier
Screeb.
That's what I want.

Speaker 1 (02:09:05):
That's traumatizing.
It just chases you forever.
That was all the questions Ihad.
I'm curious are you going to besticking around for Project
Frontiers, because I know sinceFinal Shape I'm sure a lot of
veterans are going to beretiring.
I haven't really checked.
Do you think you're stayingaround, are you?

Speaker 2 (02:09:23):
going to be a more casual observer?
Really checked, but do youthink you're staying around or
are you going to be a morecasual observer?
If there's a raid?
I might.
It depends on what my team does.
I mean, really, I just rightnow I don't feel really super
compelled to play the game butum you know, if it comes to be
that there's a new raid on thehorizon which I've heard that
it's scourge is the.

(02:09:45):
Is the reprised raid, um,scourge oh um yeah, scourge of
the past.
So I'll die on that hill.
I have.
I have heard that that's thereprised raid that's coming back
.
I think that there's someachievements in the API that are
related to scourge, someachievements in the API that are
related to Scourge.
I'll definitely try it.

Speaker 1 (02:10:05):
I actually haven't even got to clear that rate.
That's the one rate I nevereven did at all.

Speaker 2 (02:10:10):
I think that if my team were to do that, that would
be one that we might not evenneed to train for it.
I got the flawless of that wayback.
I got my always on time legit.
You used to have to um, do achest puzzle and hit buttons
while a blazed glory was chasingyou during the sparrow race,

(02:10:33):
and then you had to get up thepipe and into a side passage
where you were still vulnerableand get the sparrow from a chest
and then get out before ablazed glory killed you.
That was the original way toget always on time.

Speaker 1 (02:10:47):
Jeez.

Speaker 2 (02:10:48):
And I got mine legit, so I mean I'm ready.

Speaker 1 (02:10:51):
I am.
I will die on the hill, I knowmy CAPs.
I will die on the hill that Ireally want.
Wrath of the machine.

Speaker 2 (02:10:59):
Everybody I know who played D.
One wants wrath.

Speaker 1 (02:11:02):
I don't know what is in the engine, I don't know.
Literally it's so good, I mean.

Speaker 2 (02:11:07):
Okay, I don't believe them.

Speaker 1 (02:11:10):
I don't know what's in the engine when they stick to
its technical limitations.
They made Verity yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:11:16):
If they made Verity, they can do it Like it's
possible.
That just means they don't knowhow to do it.

Speaker 1 (02:11:22):
Yeah, they either don't.
They don't know how to do it orthey don't want to add anything
related to SIVA textures backinto the game.

Speaker 2 (02:11:28):
Which I mean they hate SIVA.
I know for sure that one ofthem came out and said we're
never going to do SIVA again.

Speaker 1 (02:11:34):
I don't know why they SIVA kind of hit, though man
SIVA fucking hit.

Speaker 2 (02:11:39):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:11:40):
I'm sad about that, but anyway, yeah, I uh Destiny.
It's been a 10 year ride.
I'm probably going to stickaround because I mean, destiny
made me want to be a writer.
But I'm curious to see what therest of these episodes are
going to play out.

Speaker 2 (02:12:08):
So I mean the only game in the science fantasy
space like other than Warframe,which it's 1999 update looks
really good, but I kind ofwarframe mishandled its story as
well.
This isn't a warframe podcast,but they also did things that
made me really mad and I juststopped playing after that yeah
so I mean it's possible that itcould go either way.
You know, warframe could comeback, bungee could offend me so
bad that I stopped playing.

(02:12:29):
Like you never know, we justdon't know.
Yet we're not there we don'tknow.

Speaker 1 (02:12:33):
Yeah, the future as for right now.

Speaker 2 (02:12:35):
I mean, I think it's pretty safe to assume that it's
going to be, you know, statusquo.
You know, if you liked lastyear, you're probably going to
like this year exactly yeah towhat you said before.

Speaker 1 (02:12:44):
This is a bungee, untethered.
We're going into something wehaven't seen since basically
destiny vanilla.
So we'll ultimately time willtell.
So is there anything else thatyou wanted to ask, anything you
wanted to bring up before yourun it out?
Also, congratulations for beingthe longest episode I've ever

(02:13:05):
had I want to put you on thespot.

Speaker 2 (02:13:08):
How am I gonna do that?
Yeah, I want to put you on thespot yeah, it's gonna be a good
question how do I do that?
how do I do that?
What do you think is the mostimpactful thing that destiny
could do to elevate itsexperience to the next level?

(02:13:29):
And I mean that in any regard.
You could answer narratively,you could answer in terms of
gameplay, but what do you thinkit'll take for bungie, for
Destiny as a property, to reallytake the next step in its own
evolution?
What does that look like to you?
That?

Speaker 1 (02:13:49):
is a fantastic question.
That is a really good question.
Honestly, my gut tells me gofull RPG.
I would love to see Destinyembrace the MMO title instead of
like what I say in MMO Lite.
I would love to see it have theclasses, have traits, just like

(02:14:13):
go full MMO, like go into it,lean into that shit.
I think that would be somethingto change the game for me and
elevate it.
It would have to be like acomplete and utter.
We would have to redefine whatDestiny is in our minds to have
that.
But in the perfect world,seeing a full mmo destiny like
elder scrolls, online world ofwarcraft, oh yeah, 100, I would

(02:14:36):
love it I think that would be.

Speaker 2 (02:14:37):
That would be very interesting as well.
I mean, I think, more on therpg side, where it's more
character progression focusedand you can really kind of make
your guardian, your own versusexisting, in these archetypal
spaces that have been carved outfor you.
I think that would be somethingthat's really interesting.
So do you want to hear thesaddest news that I've ever

(02:14:58):
heard about related to Destiny?
Sure, all of the multimediaprojects are canceled.
Oh, no, really, that yes.
So so what happened was sonywas so angry that they took all
of their people back in terms ofthe ones that they had assigned

(02:15:20):
for franchise adaptation intolike animation and movies and
all that.
All those people are gone now.
So that sucks.
The multimedia push is dead,which sucks because, like I said
, like this is this universe isone of the few mainstream
products that I've ever seenthat really embraces the science

(02:15:41):
fantasy mantle in all of itslike enormity, where you have
science fiction that matters andyou have fantastical elements
that feel like they're cohesiveand not out of place.
You know, usually when you havesomething that straddles genres
in this way, it kind of itdoesn't fit it, it's discordant

(02:16:06):
with its own internalconsistency, whereas destiny is
not.
Destiny fits together reallynice and I think that some it
might be worth their time.
If they're not going to expandinto multimedia, if we'll, if
we're never going to see thearcane equivalent you know for

(02:16:27):
this universe, if we got a gamethat was smaller scale, that was
, you know, single player, whereyou could really live up that
power fantasy but also playsomebody totally new, where
you're not the guardian butyou're actually playing a
character.
One of my favorite games, um, inrecent memory was jedi fallen

(02:16:50):
order, because july jedi fallenorder not only felt great to
play, um, it was everything thatI liked about the jedi academy
games and dark souls, I guessSekiro really, but I hadn't
played Sekiro then so I didn'tknow.
But it's Jedi Academy meetsSekiro and it's really, really

(02:17:11):
fun.
But also the story is sopersonal and thematic and it
touches on a lot of these ideasthat we'd never seen in
mainstream Star Wars mediareally before.
And so I think that thisuniverse could really do with a

(02:17:33):
game like that, where we justdig into a character or a group
of characters and experiencefully a story that is contained
and tight and different but,most importantly, emotionally
resonant, because that, I thinkis what Destiny as a franchise

(02:17:57):
is missing the most Is that itdoesn't feel like emotionally
powerful.

Speaker 1 (02:18:05):
Yeah, totally agree.
I think of movies, even TVshows would have like a destiny
equivalent to the bad batch StarWars animated.

Speaker 2 (02:18:12):
I think that's crazy, dude, we're crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no,that's like arcane is so good.
I thought of playing league andthen I, and then I very quickly
thought better, arcane was sogood.
I thought of playing League andthen I very quickly thought
better.

Speaker 1 (02:18:26):
Arcane was so good it literally stopped me from
giving up being a writer becauseI was about to.

Speaker 2 (02:18:33):
Arcane is great.
You want to know somethingfunny about Jedi, fallen Order
and Arcane, by the way, thatrelate to Destiny.
So Lakshmi, too, plays the ohyes in Arcane to destiny, uh.
So lakshmi, too, plays the ohyes in arcane and savathun.
It plays your mentor in uh jedifallen order, that's, she plays

(02:18:54):
uh the, the fallen jedi masterthat you learn from all of a
sudden, I forget what her nameis.

Speaker 1 (02:18:59):
Yeah, that's that's savathun crosses game.
She appears in that be like,haha, I was actually this person
.
Well, that's, that's sabbathooncrosses game.
She appears in that be like,haha, I was actually this person
well, that's, that's where shewas when she was uh possessing
osiris oh, that's so true that'swhere the rest of her power was
.

Speaker 2 (02:19:12):
She was, she was canonically in jedi fallen order
.

Speaker 1 (02:19:16):
That's awesome well, thank you for having this.
Uh, thanks for coming on withme, thanks for having this.
Thanks for coming on with me,thanks for having this
conversation with me, great time.

Speaker 2 (02:19:26):
Sorry if any of my takes or inaccuracies get you
hate mail on the Internet.
It's OK If anybody if anybodycares to find me to get hate
mail, just so you know, if Idon't at least share one mutual
friend or a server with you, Iblock you immediately because I
assume you're a spam bot.
So good luck getting to me.

Speaker 1 (02:19:51):
Ha ha, ha, ha, ha, ha , ha, ha ha ha.
I love it.
My hot takes all the way home.
Yeah, you gotta stand by thosehot takes I do.
Uh, I let you know this aheadof time because I wanted to see
if you can think of somethingunique.
But this to everyone listeningthis person, this man over here,
the, the real, the real shin,can do the best Drifter
impression I've ever heard in mylife, and Borderline could just
be like a stunt double orsomething for Drifter if they

(02:20:13):
ever needed it.
So I want to end this episodewith a Drifter voice line from
you.

Speaker 2 (02:20:19):
Oh brother, you're really going to put me on the
spot like that, come on man.
Gotta warn a guy Just ain'tright what you're doing.
Don't tell me that you've nothad problems when you're trying
to perform on the spot.
Friend, I know you have.

(02:20:40):
You can't hide from old drifter.

Speaker 1 (02:20:46):
Perfect.
That's amazing.
That was good.
That was good.
Hit him with a Transmat Firingand we'll close it out with a
Transmat Firing you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode Thirteen: The Architect And Narrative Storytelling

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

All Episodes

Episode Thirteen: The Architect And Narrative Storytelling

Dateline NBC