Mechanations

J.C. can take my slot, inasmuch as its mine to give. I have noon-time non-Destiny commitments.

Yeah, the raid was a blast. Thanks everyone for setting aside your Saturday for it. This coming weekend will be tricky for me. Sunday is better, but I couldn't start until like 3 p.m. ET (7 p.m. GMT). I doubt we'll need as much time as we did this past weekend, but that would still be a pretty late start. If a group can get organized around an earlier time, go on without me.

Whoops. Didn't see that. OK, J.C., time to drop your Saturday plans.

I think we have enough. Professor Video Games Vasari Vasari's friend Vulpes Absurda CussedCayuse Mechanations Not that I'm opposed to J.C. rearranging his life to play Destiny.

Super. Hopefully that works for Professor Video Games, too. 4 p.m. GMT, 12 p.m. ET, 10 a.m. MT, 9 a.m. PT. Talk to you all then.

OK. That's 4 p.m. GMT. Vasari, would that work for you and your friend?

To be clear, early afternoon GMT would be early morning for people on the west coast. 1 p.m. GMT = 9 a.m. ET = 6 a.m. PT. CussedCayuse and Vulpes Absurda, would you be able to swing that?

I can do Saturday, assuming now-Hurricane Matthew doesn't do too much damage to my part of the North American east coast. My friend is out, though, so if there's someone here who wants to take that sixth slot, go for it. Iron Banner is this week, which might help people add a few points of Light before the big day.

I have a few hours of softball tomorrow morning, so I likely wouldn't be available for raiding until 2 p.m. ET (11 a.m. PT, 6 p.m. GMT) or so. But if you all have the numbers and the time, please don't worry about going on without me. I'm more interested in doing the raid at all (I never finished King's Fall) than doing it blind. (The friend I volunteered to be our sixth is definitely out for tomorrow. I don't think he's broken 340.)

Luke Smith being at least partially in charge of Destiny 2 is reason for optimism, I think. He was creative director of Taken King, and that turned out pretty well. But those late-in-development story reboots are such a Bungie thing. I guess none of us are really here for that lore, though. In addition to the Bungie-side Crota Today clan, there's a Crota Today PSN community. I don't know how easy that is to join, but it conveniently tells you when other people in that community are on and playing the game.

Some speculation and dot-connecting regarding Destiny 2: http://kotaku.com/sources-destiny-2-coming-to-pc-aims-to-feel-like-a-to-1787153460 Emphasis mine. Boy, does that sound familiar.

I hit 348 with my Titan last night, and I can probably get to 350 by Saturday. I'm up for an exploratory run if we can get the people. I doubt my friend will be ready to go, though; he apparently doesn't spend all his free time grinding for engrams.

We're not planning to try the raid this weekend, are we? The Light recommendation is 360, which would be difficult for me to hit unless I, like, skipped work and played all day tomorrow. But maybe everyone else has made more efficient use of their past 48 hours. That took me most of an hour last night. Even with agility cranked up, some of the jumps are super tricky.

I have a level-40 character of each class, so I can focus on whatever would be most useful. My friend plays a Titan.

Faction rep packages, including from the Gunsmith, are good for getting up to 330. You'll generally get stuff that's a little higher Light than you are. Works alright for those of us who tend to play solo, though it does take some time. I would definitely be down for a blind raid, and I could likely recruit my IRL Destiny buddy to join in, if we need people.

Same thing I was stuck on. If you do get fed up with it, I think I could nudge you in the right direction without giving anything away.

What are you stuck on? I'm also a few hours in (10, maybe?) and really enjoying it. I got super stuck on one thing and finally sought out a hint. I hate doing that, but I was so far off the mark on that particular thing that I doubt I would have figured it out on my own.

I think the "point" of post-April Destiny is to get to 335 Light. The people I know who play regularly run Challenge of Elders, King's Fall HM, Trials, and Iron Banner. All of those can be sources of 335 gear. You can also get 335 stuff from exotic engrams, so farming those via the old methods is a valid (but slow) means of progression. I mostly play solo, so that's what I've been doing. Faction care packages can get you gear up to 330 Light. Court of Oryx can drop high-Light artifacts. Challenge of Elders (the timed, score-based variant of PoE) can give you good stuff. Progression is faster than it used to be, especially if you can put together a three-person fireteam. Related: Our the100 group still exists. Would be useful for scheduling some of this stuff.

I'm with you on this. I liked the story quite a bit, but the dialog often detracted from the mood, rather than complimenting it. Similar to other games with branching dialog systems, there was some disconnect between what I felt like I was trying to say and the way the game interpreted it. Y'know those little conversations in Mass Effect(s) that didn't feel important but ended up shaping your relationship with someone? Had a few like that in Oxenfree.

I've never finished King's Fall, so I selfishly want people to come back to Destiny. With that disclosed: I think TTK is worth £20/$30. There's quite a bit of campaign-ish stuff in there, and if collecting gear is compelling for you, there are a few extended quests that'll take you some time. The subclasses it introduced are pretty interesting, too. Sparrow racing is ending tomorrow, so don't buy TTK for that (though it's possible it'll come back eventually). But aprettycooldude is correct that there's new bits fairly frequently. And I think there are enough of us still playing that you could get three people together for a Nightfall or Trials pretty easily. I'm on every night, for better or worse.

I don't have a problem with for-pay level boosters, but I think this is a good point. What's the market for these? People just starting out, or established players starting new characters? If the latter, fine; Bungie's allowing people to expedite things if time is more precious than money. If the former, a simple boost to 25 won't allow them to do King's Fall or Trials with the friend who sent them a referral code or whatever. A simple level boost also puts you in a place where you need planetary materials and faction rep to get or upgrade gear, but because you skipped the low-level grind, you don't have any of that stuff. If $25 got you a comprehensive package of Light level, subclass perks, gear, materials, and currencies, such that you could go do the new raid and participate in the game's economy, it would be a much more attractive purchase for new players.

How do we feel about Sparrow racing? I've sunk a few hours (and some silver) into it, and I still can't decide if I actually like it. Pros: Racing game on top of shooter engine. I'm surprised it works as well as it does. Pretty frequent 300+ helmet and class item drops Narrowing boost gates are pretty clever Winning a race is nice Cons: Sparrow physics are heck of capriciousOops I hit a chunk of invisible geometry and came to a complete halt and everyone passed me Oops I hit a thing at like just the wrong angle and got popped up in the air and everyone passed me Oops I went into a ridiculous prolonged tumble and everyone passed me Oops someone rode me away from a gate and now I'm going like 60kph and everyone passed me Winning doesn't happen very often (for me). I'm up to 108 races (54 on each track) and have won 23 times.

I think for some of us, Destiny has become a game in which you collect things. Exotic weapons and armor, shaders, emblems, complete raid gear sets, emotes, ships and sparrows to a lesser extent. Sleeper Simulant doesn't really help you do anything better, but it's fun to have it on your trophy wall. So to have some stuff behind the RAF wall, even if the wall isn't that high and the stuff isn't at all important, is a bit irksome. I would like to have the RAF emblem, not because I think it would replace any of the ones I use, but because I'm sorta trying to complete my collection. I don't think it's super gross garbage. I doubt there's any reward Bungie could offer potential sherpas that the rest of us wouldn't get at least a little miffed over. (Switching topics to Iron Banner: I didn't start until Sunday, and managed to hit rank 5 by completing a few bounties and staying up a little too late Monday night. Got some good high-290s/low-300s stuff for my nascent hunter. Related: I don't recommend playing IB with a 260 character. I'm always a little reluctant to do Crucible stuff, 'cause it stresses me out, but JonCole's totally right that the reward-to-time-invested rate is very high.)

Yeah, I still haven't completed King's Fall, and I'd like to do the Black Spindle thing next time it comes up. There's about a billion things on my backlog, thanks to A Year of Living in Destiny, but I'll still do stuff we post to the100, schedule permitting.

I will be once I kill a Taken Minotaur.