#this game is a cult and I am a cultist. <-Im extremely proud of this line

[warderfromtheborder]

I spent three hours today helping a renewed acquaintance get back into destiny. He played through D1 to just before Shadowkeep (his fit was all leviathan gear and I was super jelly), and I had to figure out what I actually needed to figure out to explain to him to catch him up to be able to play.

Anyway; three hours. Half that time was in missions actually playing, and half that time was me helping him navigate menus and popups.

I get now (better understand, at least) why some folks are so comfortable shitting on Bungie the company over this game. There is so much poorly designed UI and confounding quest structure and information that appears only in HUD obscuring popups that disappear never to be retrieved.

And, I'm not willing to entertain that the UI and UX problems are a matter of 'they're doing their best' BECAUSE

There are places where it is crystal clear to see that the UI points the player in a Specific Direction to a Specific Place with a SPECIFIC GOAL IN MIND (you only get one guess but if you're a lifer like me you know the answer in your heart already) and it is clear that the UI can in fact function perfectly well but is Not Allowed To, in service of that Specific Goal

This game is a cult. This game is a cult and I am a cultist. Its non-euclidian pathways are second nature to me, and the omnipresent Silver Light of the eververse is my accustomed daylight. Why would I question it? I already live here. I already love it here.

I love this game. I love the people who make the actual game I play. I hate the people who constantly try to make an extra 10-20-70 bucks off those who aren't going to be long-term players. These greedy fucking cash-scraping funnels they've constructed around the player onboarding experience have turned the game into a venus fly-trap.

(pictured: bungie C-suite trying to get big publisher investment without letting go of the most offensive monetization on the market)

I don't want to sound like Tassi or SkillUp too much right now, but I get the part of them that says 'dont give bungie credit for reversing a decision they knew was a bad one in the first place. Don't give this company extra grace for not tightening their fist as much as they could have. Don't let them act like the greedy part of the game's design isn't greedy, and couldn't be done better.'

The two needs are in direct tension with each other. The game can be easy to play, and a paid subscription game, or it can be what we have now: free and greedy and unnecessarily labyrinthine to teach. They don't coexist.

I love it here already.