Mechanations

Waypoint clan thread. Most recent post was almost a month ago. There were at least five Waypoint clans back in October. I'm not sure about the state of any of them these days, but I know FATT and PALS aren't generating many clan engrams. Which one you want to join will depend somewhat on what platform you're playing on and more on which have capacity. It would probably be possible to do sort of a Sad Voltron and make one active clan out of the five mostly dead ones, but I don't know if anyone's thinking in that direction. FWIW, the Waypoint Discord Destiny channel just recently got rolled into the general shooter channel. If you're in that Discord, there are still ways to scrape together a group, but interest will likely pick up more when the next expansion is released.

rtings does Wirecutter-like recs for several different TV use cases (movies, sports, HDR gaming, etc.) and other axes. Might be helpful for people shopping for new TVs.

Sorta depends on how much you know going in. It's challenging in that it requires more coordination than any other PvE stuff in the game, and is more about execution than how good you can shoot. Once you know what to do, it's not particularly difficult. D1 had hard-mode raids, and D2 is doing a similar thing with "prestige"-level stuff. Same encounters, but with tweaks that make them more difficult. Probably also stricter limits on dying and reviving. I don't know if time spent is a good measurement of how challenging a thing is, but here are some numbers I know: I once spent four hours on one encounter in the Leviathan raid; yesterday we finished the whole thing in less than that. And the first group to finish the prestige raid did it even less time than that.

Clans can help with organizing activities, but their only real in-game value is getting you loot when other people complete certain activities. If you want to raid with Thumbs, you can post here or in the Destiny channel on Slack. No particular clan affiliation required.

I'm in. My hunter is right at 265. Either day would work for me, though the sooner we settle on something the better.

The AI/Ghost banter in Inverted Spire is weird, at least. I hope it'll be less grating when we have more context around it. Taken King seemed like where D1 really started down that "we can be funny AND super serious" path, and I wonder if the high regard people generally have for TTK has encouraged Bungie to maintain that tone. That half-and-half trailer a few months ago was clumsy, though, and I don't know if that line is one they can walk for a whole game. I sorta liked the tone of Vanilla Destiny, with its unimagined planes and blessings of the ancients. There was a self-serious attempt at world-building there that worked for me. But that stuff gets stale in a game structured like Destiny, so I understand why they went more toward wackiness with Hotline Bling dances and Nolan North ghosts and Cayde quips. Curious to see where D2 falls on that spectrum.

I'm sticking with PS4 because that's where most of my Destiny-playing friends are. But I've switched/added platforms before in search of people to play with, so I'm open to doing it again (even though starting over sucks real bad). Regarding the beta: I had questions about it that I didn't get answers to until I played it a little last night. In case other people have similar questions... (no spoilers) The beta forces you into the opening story mission on launch. You pick your class, but you can't play around with the character creator or anything. You play that story mission solo, in that you can't invite other people to your game or join anyone else's. There might be a way to replay that story mission after you finish it, but it wasn't obvious from my couple minutes of poking around.

Back from the dead like a Fallen machine god. Right? Remember that one? I'm in. Can't do Tuesday and am scheduled to run stuff with a couple people Wednesday, but otherwise I should be on every night (ET) during the beta. If I'm on and you need someone to round out a fireteam, send me an invitation.

More Destiny 2 details announced today. Preorders are up, and they include access to a beta. Sounds like there will still be some PS4-exclusive stuff. I switched from Xbox One to PS4 in the middle of Destiny 1 because I knew more people playing regularly on PS4. I'm curious how many Thumbs Destiny players will jump to PC this time around.

I would like to hop on for a bit at least to check out the AoT record book, and if anyone is dying to run the updated raids, I'd be interested. But I've got a nice Saterienne Rapier, and Breath of the Wild, and an impending move, so my motivation to jump back into Destiny is fairly low.

Yeah, that should work for me, too. Edit: Well, maybe not. That's Super Bowl Sunday, and my household will be hosting a thing. I'll need to help get ready for that.

I've got a fourth person who's interested in joining us. So we're still looking to fill two slots. I can post something to the Crota Today PSN community board this evening, though I don't know how much attention that thing gets.

I'm fairly flexible, though I should block off a couple hours in the evening* for making and eating dinner. We've aimed for noon* or so before, so that it's not too late or early for anyone. If no one from the UK or Europe joins up, that might simplify things a bit. *Eastern Time

Yeah, I can probably swing a raid. An old one would be fine with me.

Sunday would work best for me, too.