I'm completely out-of-control stoked for Destiny. I really am. Every inch of the gameplay and experience has me itching to play the Beta, just to feel the controller in my hand and watch my Guardian get created - edit his features, his face, give him a helmet, send him on adventures, fight hordes of Fallen, Vex, Hive, and Cabal on the endless frontiers of the Solar System, join forces with Awoken and Exo in the mysterious depths of space and in the dark caverns of our moon. But there are a few things I so desperately don't want to see in Destiny.
This isn't a post about proper gaming controls or enemy AI movements or plot points. This is entirely about the community surrounding the video game and how we choose to approach Bungie's great revolution.
Bungie's Legacy Title[]
Halo: Combat Evolved was released on November 15, 2001 for the Xbox classic. At the time, Bungie was a Microsoft-owned company, and therefore the Halo franchise was exclusive on the Xbox console. Still, the game was incredible, a new frontier in video gaming that blew the socks off of gamers everywhere. The release of Halo 2 was so successful that it was named Game of the Console for the original Xbox at its release in 2004. After years of suspense from gamers, Halo 3 finally seemingly ended the saga and provided an incredible close.
I reluctantly admit that this is when I first played the series. I can still remember going to my friend's house and getting my butt handed to me when we fought in Campaign mode (we hadn't discovered Muliplayer). It was a large Halo world, and I enjoyed the game very much. My brother and I played it on and off, but we could never get far due to our limited FPS gaming skills, and the game ended up collecting dust in the closet.
I never had a second thought until the release of Halo: Reach in 2010. A few months prior, I was sitting in the house with a different friend, and we were both bored. We had gone through nearly all of my video games, and so, in desperation, entered that closet looking for entertainment. He got really excited when he saw I owned Halo. I shrugged and agreed to give it a try, but as soon as I picked up the controller, I couldn't put it down. We beat the Campaign through and through, and then did it again on Legendary mode. That was enough to satisfy me, and he went home happy as well.
The franchise didn't come up again in my life until January 2011, when my friend called me and excitedly told me he'd bought Reach. He instantly began rambling out every plot point, right down to Noble Six's death in the end, and I had no comment except for the occasional "Cool, man."
But he kept at it. Eventually, I was forced to buy the game, just to keep up with him. I quickly became addicted - I edited my armor, played the Campaign, and even discovered Multiplayer more than four years after I first played Halo 3. Reach became the main focus of my life, and I worked hard to get my rank past Warrant Officer, and Captain, and Commander, ect., ect., on and on. Unfortunately, due to a glitch my 360, every time I made it to the rank of Commander, my character reset, meaning I was forced to play it through again. Without knowing it, I was training myself to become one of the best Halo players among my friends, but I was too fixed on making it to the same rank as them to care about skill-sets.
At the transition to Halo 4, I was a mythic player, killing Covenant like a day job, and Spartans by night. I am now a higher rank than all of my friends, and I'm proud of the work that brought it there.
But then, I get into my problem.
Problem 1: The Prejudice[]
In mid-2013, I began to notice something about all of the Halo games: clans. I'll first get it out of the way that I have nothing against clans, but they are part of the problem. Many of my friends were joining clans, and suddenly I was being pulled into this huge system of "player power." I ended up fighting single-person wars against some clans because they believed they were better than others. I could kill twenty clan members before one managed to get me from behind and they would declare themselves better.
This prejudice wasn't only clan-centered, either. In simple free servers I would come across groups that would fight for no reason, and declare themselves better at this skill or that. They would corner me and ask how good I was at slamming Gravity Hammers or firing Battle Rifles or sticking Plama Grenades. This continued for almost as long as I continued to play Halo, and recently I even encountered a clan group that considered me a "Halo noob" simply because I wasn't affiliated with a clan.
My question to you, Destiny players, is: do you want to feel that way?
Many of you have already made clans (I've noticed a website has already come up for them), and you probably have plans for open warfare, or "orientation tests" or bringing your entire Halo experience with you to Destiny. What I'm asking is: please don't be haters. I've noticed some noob Halo players get their hearts beat out by clan leaders because they think they're 100 times better for being older, and I'm asking, PLEASE don't.
Be friends. Be cool. If you meet a noob, don't hate them for being first-timers - introduce them to the universe! Let them explore! That's one of the reasons I've decided not to join a clan - my descision is to help new players find a home in the Destiny universe.
Problem 2: Abuse of Nature[]
This is a little bit less of a huge problem, and more of a bit of advice. Those clans I've seen also seemed to take Halo for granted. As if Halo has been their birthright, and that they have more rights to it than others.
What I'm saying is, enjoy it like it's not going to last. Because it won't.
Before you know it, there will be a Destiny 2, and Destiny 3, and Destiny: Origins, and Destiny: Secret Planet, or whatever, and the franchise will burn out just as Halo has. (Halo 5: Guardians? Seriously?) I want you to enjoy it like it's going to die soon, and also like you're not the only one playing. Appriciate other players (as I advised in section one) and appriciate the game, and don't rush through it and burn through every last power-up and loot and fellow player before you've left the City drier than it was before the Collapse. We're a team here, Guardians. Our job is to protect the city, and we're not pirates looting for treasure. That game was back last December. This game's about heroes.
So be a hero.
So thank you[]
Those are my two words of advice.
1. Respect other players, and if they're new help them adjust, don't push them out farther.
2. Don't raid our City like a Fallen Vandal. Enjoy the Destiny franchise while it lasts.
Please follow this advice, and I really hope everyone recieves this blog post well. Remember: we're a team, and no Guardian gets left behind like Spartans in Halo were. We're a new franchise, and this is a new chance.
Thank you
-b1littlehero, the Warlock