TWAB

Deadline for completion of Age of Triumph book for rewards for Destiny 2 is August 1st, 2017. Emblems in Destiny 2 are different than the rectangular icons in Destiny 1. In Destiny 2, the area above your guardian in the character screen reflects the design of your equipped emblem. Regular emblems like in Destiny 1 are still visible in orbit. We will have up to 7 emblems given to legacy guardians based on specific completions. Laurel Triumphant is given to you if you completed a Moment of Triumph during Destiny’s first year.

Laurea Primea II is given to you if you completed all 10 Moments of Triumph during Destiny’s first year, Slayer of Oryx is given to you if you completed a Moment of Triumph during year 2, Heard the Call is given to you if you completed all 8 Moments of Triumph in year 2, Young Wolf is given to you if you completed if you reach rank 2 in the Age of Triumph record book. Saladin’s Pride is given to you if you completed if you reached Rank 7 in the Age of Triumph record book. And Lore Scholar is given to you if you achieved a grimoire score of 5,000 in Destiny 1.

As confirmed by Bungie, we have until August 1st, 2017 to reach rank 7 in the Age of Triumph book to unlock the discount to claim the Age of Triumph book. August 1st will be the last Destiny 1 Iron Banner and August 11th will be the last Destiny 1 Trials of Osiris.

Previous PlayStation exclusive items will finally transfer over to the Xbox on October of 2017. This includes Xbox 360 as the exclusive PlayStation items for “The Taken King” will finally be available on that platform 2 years after release. Tuesday June 27th at 7AM PT, 10AM ET, 2PM UK to 4PM PT, 7PM ET, 11 PM UK, Destiny servers will be taken offline for maintenance in preparation of Destiny 2’s beta.

The dreaded queue from Rise of Iron’s launch will be returning for Destiny 2’s beta and launch in case there are times of high activity or maintenance periods. Prepare your Tapirs! And last, but certainly not least, GuardianCon pre-charity event is in full effect with official streams on www.twitch.tv/GuardianCon. Watch and donate as your favorite streamers push forward to the 1 million dollar goal for St. Jude’s.

Lost Sectors

A recent post on Reddit sparked an interesting conversation. Recently we find out that Lost Sectors are self-contained, one-time, non-repeating activities that are given as part of quests or missions from NPCs. They are to be considered as one time extensions of the story and lore of the campaign, world, and/or characters. Per Steve Cotton, Destiny 2’s world director, “In addition to patrols, we’ve added Adventures, 10-15 minute long missions with narrative and dialogue and take you to new places and they do new things – new mechanics.

Then there’s Lost Sectors, which are like dungeons where, occasionally, as you’re wandering around the world, you see a symbol etched on some wall and you know you’re close to an entrance of some kind. Then you get to go – no matter what activity you’re on – you can just go into this Lost Sector and go find a boss, kill it, and get some sweet treasure.” Given that Lost Sectors are one time dungeons almost like Cauldrons from Horizon: Zero Dawn, are you upset that the activity is not repeatable? What are you hopes for the activity?

Destiny 1 Items Not Porting Over To Destiny 2

Polygon writer, Daniel Friedman, recently resurrected a topic from earlier that I wanted to go over as discussion. We knew that items from Destiny 1 will not be porting over to Destiny 2. We know games like Call of Duty or other console games rarely, if ever, bring items forward with each new iteration. He argues that as we spent, on average, hundreds of dollars on top of the game itself, many of us will lose out on these items and if we have remaining silver on the account, it won’t carry over to Destiny 2’s form of in game currency for real world money.

The writer used the example of League of Legends where runes you previously had are changing, but you are able to utilize them in the new system. He also used the example of World of Warcraft, a game that has been running for 13 years and contains hundreds of mounts, pets, toys, and collector’s items that can still be used today. Other games like Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2 allow you to preserve your collections of cosmetics over the life of the game and its updates.

While we will be getting emblems that show our experience in Destiny 1, is it fair that items we have paid for, such as Eververse related items and armor won’t move on with us as trophies that can be transmogged when many other games do? Does a game being on PC vs console for this example make a difference, especially now since we have harddrives, cloud save, and server side saves in effect?

“I Don’t Think We Always Knew Exactly What We Were Doing”

Per Luke Smith in a Games Radar article, “people had to devote serious amounts of time to get anywhere – it became a game that became an obligation”. “With Destiny 2, we’ve built a game that we want to call you and your friends back to it, but does it in a way that is compatible with your real life. In Destiny 1, if I said you only had two hours to spend, you’d have to go to Reddit. In Destiny 2, you’re not going to go to Reddit. You’re going to press one button on the controller and the game’s going to tell you what to do.” People have speculated that this button is going to be a way to guide people through missions and activities.

Will this, coupled with a new death penalty, and no different versions of heroic levels of difficulty available like we had in Vanilla Destiny (as confirmed by deej on Fireteam Chat Podcast) mean we are going to have an easier time through the content? With so many games going in the direction of not making games easy, is this a potential missed opportunity? Also does this response concern you when it comes to the game design or do you chalk it up to Destiny being such a complex game?

Also, with the comments mentioned and the recent interview Luke Smith had with Jason Schrier on Kotaku Splitscreen about “I don’t think we always knew exactly what we were doing” or knowing what the darkness is about inspire confidence in Bungie knowing the story wasn’t right or fear that the story is going to be butchered?

PC’s Differences

While we know the story for Destiny 2 will be the same between console and PC, Bungie is really treating this game as a separate entity and “not a port” with regards to PC. In an article on finder.com.au by Nathan Lawrence, Nathan asks Mark Noseworthy a question about the PC version and balance:

“Do you find that you’re having to balance the PC version differently, especially in terms of difficulty? If elite PC players are just able to crack off headshots every time, then the highest difficulty might not be the same challenge as something that’s on console.”

“Yeah, we’ve thought about that quite a bit. Ultimately, we have one design for the game. And so, if you’re playing the Raid on PC or you’re playing it on PlayStation [4], it’s the same Raid. It’s the same experience. And we’re going to try and keep them as similar as possible, because hopefully we want this to be the best experience. We may look in a few places where weapons need to be handled differently, and we’ll treat them slightly differently. For instance, there’s no recoil on guns on PC because recoil on the controller feels really good. ‘I’m firing, I’m firing, I’m firing, oh, I’m losing control of my gun a little bit.’ That feels great, especially with magnetism and all the magic in the controller that makes you feel it. With a mouse and keyboard, you don’t want the mouse moving without you moving it, so recoil doesn’t feel good, so there is no recoil on PC.”

After fans raised their concerns, Noseworthy took to Twitter to clarify his comments. The developer told a fan that Destiny 2 PC recoil is “still there” but it is “heavily modified” in comparison to the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game. Noseworthy also added that if Destiny 2 PC players use a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard, the game “plays like the console version.”

We’ve heard from many people that the PC version “feels” like Destiny yet very different, and we’ve also heard about other minor changes, such as the placement of the reticle, that may seem minor, but drastically change how the game is played. Do these changes make you more intrigued about how different Destiny will feel on PC while playing the same content? How excited are you for the PC version?

Messages From The Reef Chris Parker:

From what has been announced about Destiny 2 to this point, what do you think is most likely to see a significant change via DLC or update post launch?

Hosts

Jorge Veguilla

Born in the 80's, given a NES and Gameboy at a young age, Jorge grew up in gaming and experienced gaming in many cultures due to moving around the world. Now in New Jersey, an older Jorge continues his journey in gaming. Adobo included.

David Schnoes

Been gaming since birth and he\'s not gonna stop now. Call of Duty was the first shooter that pulled him in and his love for shooters has developed into a love of Destiny. He\'s now a Guardian, proud to protect the traveler and slay my foes in Crucible.

Jordan Kahlenberg

A former professional cyclist, gaming has always been Jordan\\\'s preferred method of stress-relief. Traditionally an action RPG\\\'er, he has recently been ensnared in the modern MMO/RPG/FPS genre, and talks about it as a host of In Orbit.

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