The OWL Sector Returns – SIVA Sim ARG

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First we had The OWL Sector ARG hit the Destiny community a week or so before Rise of Iron launched.  A strange “Virus” was infecting the guardians, and once ROI hit it all seemed to go back to normal.  Now about a week after the launch of Rise of Iron, something new with the mysterious ARG has risen and has the community rushing to figure out it’s secrets.

This new ARG that everyone thought was over hit just the other day as fans noticed a new microsite on Bungie’s website which the OwlSector ARG site was updated and pointed fans to a new page with a very curious puzzle.

When this mysterious new link is clicked, it takes you to a page that shows a couple of lines of text, and a command prompt of sorts.  When you hit enter the page begins to scroll and ASCII art of the SIVA logo appears.  When just glancing at the codes that scroll across the screen it looks like a bowl of mush, but it didn’t take the Destiny community long to realize that different users were getting different codes and sequences, based on signing into their profiles on Bungie.net. .

This has the community jumping and hard at work to try and solve this new found mystery, which looks like a lot of the main work is being headed up by the Destiny subreddit.  As one Redditor put it, “So, to be clear, I’m pretty sure the ARG is ‘solved’. We just lack coordination/data. This is like raid-tier ARG.” Speaking of raids, this outside-the-game mystery is on top of players trying to discover all the mysteries of the new Wrath of the Machine raid. It appears that all the pieces of this ARG puzzle, being called “SIM,” are out there, and only need to be put together in the right way.

Rom what i’m hearing the majority of this puzzle has been solved and basically you have to decode the shapes, numbers, and sequences from the users who have logged into the ARG, there is a high level of coordination and matching of the data.  It’s a giant puzzle piece and each piece of code the users have has to be fit together in the correct order to figure out the puzzle.

All those who have been hard at work cracking this ARG code discovered some vital information as in directions of the code, and shapes that were being left out when people were copy and pasting information.  That being said the Destiny community guru’s figuring this information out created a Google Doc form which allows all those guardians to keep track of the information accurately.

The theory to this mystery is that all of the codes being deciphered will help unlock the final monitor in the Wrath of the Machine raid, which looks to be tied to the hidden raid chest and “Surprise” a quest for an exotic weapon.

I am excited to see where this mystery takes the Destiny community and what all the secrets reveal.

Until next time

Destiny: Rise of Iron – How We Advanced

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Today is happy Destiny day for all of us Guardians out there….yes it’s Rise of Iron release day and I’m sure most of you have already been grinding away to see all the new stuff.

Here’s a quick run down on some of the important things we are getting.

  • Felwinters Peak, the new Social Space with new vendors, a new Cryptarch, and it comes with wolves!
  • 5 main campaign Story ARC Missions, plus other Missions and Quests
  • The Plaguelands, which is the new open patrol area of the revamped snow covered Cosmodrome.
  • SIVA infected Fallen called Devil Splicers are here now
  • The Archon’s Forge, a new arena much like Prison / Challenge of Elders
  • We’ve got new STRIKES!!!
  • Wrath of the Machine, the new Raid, available September 23rd!
  • Yes we have a new PvP mode as well called Supremacy!
  • Iron Banner has been re-worked
  • 4 new Crucible maps
  • New artifacts that were created from scratch!
  • New Max Light Level
  • New Armor, Weapons, and a ton of new Rewards
  • You can now put Ornaments on exotic weapons, and armor, a skin that changes the look of the weapon

Big Light Level Jump

Bungie told us we would be getting a big light level jump but no one really knew what that meant.  Well here is what we got!

Rise of Iron Launch Light Level Increase to: 385

Once the hard mode of the RAID releases the light level will cap at 400

We have a new Record Book

Rise of Iron has a new free Record Book which tracks all activity in Rise of Iron account-wide. As you complete missions, quests, and other activities from the new expansion, you will gain percentage points of completion, and as with past Record Books will receive rewards at set intervals.

These rewards include:

  • Full Iron Lord armor for all Character Classes
  • Multiple new Emblems
  • New Shaders
  • The new Iron Song Ghost Shell
  • And More

Engram Boost

We’ve all been asking those questions of what will our engrams do when we decript them after ROI drops.  Well, Uncommon and Rare (Green and Blue) gear will drop at higher light levels (potentially up to 350 for Rare items). Most of mine were dropping and coming out around 330 for blues and 200 for greens.  Higher for Legendary / Exotics.

Strike Exclusive Gear and Skeleton Keys

Nightfalls and Strike Playlists are getting a new inventory item added to their Loot systems: The Skeleton Key, these keys, which will drop randomly at the end of missions, can be used in Strikes featuring exclusive items to get a guaranteed drop of one of those Exclusive by opening the “Strike Hoard” – a new chest that will be appearing upon completion of Strikes, even outside of the Weekly Playlists.

Weapons, & Armor

From new Iron Banner weapons reintroduced Year 1 guns, Rise of Iron is giving us a lot of new options.

  • Exotics
    • Year 1 weapons returning –
    • We already knew the Gjallarhorn was coming back! If you pre-ordered well then you got it in (Black) and it’s sexy!
    • We also have another Year 1 that was very popular but brought a lot of pain among the Guardians…. The THORN is coming back!  It will have it’s own Exotic quest so get ready.
    • For those of us already sporting Year 1 models, it’s not clear if the updated version will be immediately available through the kiosk or if we’ll have to work for it the same as everyone else.
    • A whole list of new weapons, but I’m saving that for you all to discover
    • One very familiar weapon that every Guardian has used is coming back.  The Khvostov 7G-0X which is the exotic version of this weapon.  This weapon will be the reward from an exotic weapon quest, but this one is different.  This weapon won’t have a single exotic perk that makes it stand out.  Instead, Bungie has added something brand new, a set of perk columns that allows us to turn this primary weapon into a custom killing machine.

New Armor Concept Drawings

The armor just speaks for itself as it’s amazing looking!!! We want it all!!!

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The game has a whole host of new features to discover and this is just a base list of some new items that have come in, so get out there Guardians and go become an Iron Lord

Destiny – Rise of Iron: The OWL Sector ARG

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Strange things are stirring in the Destiny realm as players began noticing a very odd colored swarm surrounding their heads a few nights ago.  What is this mystery, and where did it come from?

Clearly it has something to do with Destiny’s newest upcoming expansion, Rise of Iron, but is this thing harmful, helpful, what is really going on.  One very popular Twitch streamer, SayNoToRage, looks to be Patient Zero who was infected with this strange Destiny virus which has begun to spread through the player-base of Destiny by simply interacting with someone who already has one of the viruses. A number of ways have been confirmed so far, and players have reported a boost to reputation and experience once they have been infected. But what could these Owl Sector infections mean?

These viruses – Brilliance 3.2, Glory 2.1, Splendor 2.6, Magnificence 2.0, and Fortitude 3.1 – seem to be unlocking additional details to the lore of Destiny.  Owl Sector appeared as a subpage on Bungie’s website a couple nights ago shortly after SayNoToRage noticed he had contracted the virus.

You can checkout Bungie’s Owl Sector website which shows a world map with multiple colored nodes on it. Each of these nodes seem to represent a player’s location whose character has been infected by one of the viruses. These different colors correspond to the five different viruses previously mentioned. Ever since the initial outbreak with SayNoToRage, the website looks to have a real-time update and feed showing each infection across the globe.  This has also led to more information getting released through chat logs of the in game NPC’s, like Cayde-6, Ikora Rey, and Zavala who seem to be studying these viruses to determine for themselves what they are.

From what can be gathered from some parts of the chat logs, it looks like the viruses, along with SIVA, were developed on Mars in the Dust Palace by the exoscience group, Clovis Bray.  With Rise of Iron right around the corner and considering how this looks to be a very technologically advanced element of Destiny’s lore, it’s hard to think the SIVA tech wouldn’t be involved somehow.

Guardians look to have quite the adventure ahead of them as Rise of Iron plots a story about the lost SIVA plague, so these viruses we are seeing now could be a precursor to our next journey and potential dangers that are just around the corner.

As for the Owl Sector, it appears that they’re a reconnaissance group responsible for looking over these types of outbreaks. This would tie into the Owl Sector Twitch account’s message that was in SayNoToRage’s Twitch stream when he first contracted the virus. The message read “We’ve detected an unidentified foreign intrusion into your systems, Guardian. Stay calm, we will investigate.”

One question does come up and that is will we see these “Viruses” once the Rise of Iron content releases next week?  At least we won’t have to wait long to find out what is in store for the Destiny realm, and it’s Guardian protectors.

Be safe Guardians and I’ll see you next time.

Destiny Lore – Fundament: A World Changed

FundamentLong long ago, a rocky planet inhabited by the proto-Hive collided into a gas giant named Fundament and shattered.  All of the rocky planet shards that were left scattered across the Fundament ocean, within one of of it’s many layers, and became “continents” in which the proto-Hive took refuge and lived out their existence.  This vast world was filled with five hundred and eleven other intelligent species who also inhabited Fundament’s sea through seemingly similar circumstances.  Surrounding Fundament and within it’s great orbit were fifty-two moons inhabited by a race called the Ammonites.  The Ammonites were bony, six-armed cephalopods who evolved on an icy moon of Fundament. At some point, the Traveler arrived at the planet and became a patron of this race, who helped them build an advanced space travelling civilization with paracausal technology that spanned all of Fundament’s fifty-two moons.  Deep beneath the Fundament ocean dwelled a massive creature called the Leviathan, a great disciple of the Traveler, and one who plays a larger part in this races existence, as it’s a gatekeeper for the darkness being imprisoned in the depths of Fundament.

Life was quick and harsh for the proto-Hive. Their natural lifespan rarely exceeded ten Fundament-years, though proto-Hive who ate “mother jelly” became able to spawn and live longer.  Fundaments environment was harsh and relentless, as the ocean was toxic, the storms constantly raged through the skies, the rain was poisonous and corrosive, and living clouds called Stormjoys would prey upon the populations causing mass conflict amongst the proto-Hive.

The+Alien+Base-Sung+Choi_1920This world was filled with torment and a great fear of a catastrophic event called the “Syzygy” an artificially induced alignment of Fundament’s moons that would create a devastating global tidal wave, the “God-Wave” as the Ammonites called it. One kingdom of the Fundament Ocean was the Osmium Court, ruled by the Osmium King. When the King went mad out of fear of the “Syzygy”, Taox, the teacher of the King’s three daughters, invited the rival Helium Drinkers of the Helium Court to invade and install her on the Osmium Throne. The Helium Drinkers did so, but failed to kill the King’s three daughters: Aurash, Sathona, and Xi Ro. The sisters escaped on a ship, swearing an oath to avenge their father by overthrowing the Helium Drinkers and bringing revenge to their family by hunting down Taox.

Through plotting and planning their revenge the sisters eventually salvaged and reactivated “the needle”, a high-tech ship which had been neglected over the years, but was designed to explore Fundament’s darkest depths. Deep below the sea, the sisters encountered the great Leviathan, who warned them away, and tried to convince them of the darkness the planet had imprisoned, but they continued on and encountered the Worms and made a pact with them to gain immortality and power, taking on the Worms’ parasitic larvae and spreading them among the other proto-Hive; thus the first true Hive were created, and so the sisters were transformed into their new creations as Xi Ro became Xivu Arath, Sathona became Savathun, and Aurash became Auryx.

tumblr_ny4d5t9Q7u1u7keg4o1_1280In just a few short years after the sisters transformed they took the Hive and conquered a large portion of Fundament’s surface population, reclaiming the Osmium Court and harrying Taox off-world. After building their first starships, the Hive followed Taox and encountered the Ammonite civilization that lived among the moons, as well as the Traveler. The Ammonites were far more advanced than anything on Fundament’s surface and were initially able to drive back the Hive’s attacks, especially as Auryx held the Hive back in the hope of achieving a peaceful resolution to the conflict.  Savathun denounced her brothers weakness and killed her brother for his futile efforts of peace.  The great Worms hidden in Fundaments depths then vested Auryx and his sisters with the power to defy death so long as they continued their conquest and fed their worms. Auryx returned to life and together he and his sisters defeated the Ammonites, killed the Leviathan, and forced the Traveler to flee.

The three leaders of the Hive transformed Fundament’s fifty-two moons into great colonies for the Hive and set out to conquer the universe in the name of the Darkness and find Taox, who still eluded them. Fundament’s fate afterwards is unknown, though the Syzygy had already taken place before the Hive had begun to war against the Ammonites. It’s likely the “God-Wave” wiped out the remaining of Fundaments surface population. However, the ultimate cause of the Syzygy is unclear. The Worms claimed that the alignment of the moons was caused by the Traveler to prevent the surface civilizations from contacting them, while the Leviathan claimed that the Worms were behind the event in its final plea to the Hive.

We may never know the truth about what causes the Syzygy, or who causes the Syzygy, but one thing is clear, the Hive are still out there and we will see more of them very soon.

Until the next episode Guardians

Holy Patch Day for Destiny

bungie-destiny-s-april-update-will-not-revamp-vault-of-glass-crota-s-end-502042-2Destiny’s April 12th patch 2.2.0 update is an oh my goodness moment as I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited for a patch to hit a game.  When I first played Destiny it was not a pleasant experience during the first closed beta….see my review from a couple years ago.

Needless to say I picked the game up a month-ish ago and have enjoyed absolutely every single second of game play!  Other then the awe struck moments I get in The Division, this is by far my favorite console game!

So here’s what to expect once we get to boot back up in Destiny.

This patch will take Destiny to version 2.2.0, and it’s by far the largest update since The Taken King last September.  There’s so much to look forward to, including mass amounts of loot and activities to keep you quite busy, along with a new end-game activity, five brand new sets of armour, the return of year-one exotics and much more.

This is a fairly large download as it looks like the Xbox One and PS4 is around 1700 MB but for everything we are getting I can’t complain as we are getting a ton!

oaingrkvbw6wst3ocmg5.pngI’m super excited about the Challenge of the Elders – This is the section of GOLD for all us level 40’s who want to reach the new light cap of 335 as Bungie has reworked the Prison of Elders to give us something brand new, which is two new levels of difficulty, levels 41 & 42 which I’m sure are bonkers insane hard.  Four new bosses, yes, FOUR new bosses and new modifiers will be added. Level 41 includes match-making, and has a recommended Light level of 260 and apparently will drop gear up to light level 320.

I’m currently at a light level 294 and haven’t been able to run the King’s Fall Raid yet, as I literally just hit that a week ago.  Level 42 will be called Challenge of the Elders, it has no match-making, is recommended to be a light level 320 and this is where you can win the 335 armour and weapons.  Challenge of the Elders is fought over three rounds, much like the old Prison of Elders and each round with it’s own unique boss.  The scoring is interesting as your teams points will be tracked on a card called the Elder’s Sigil, and this is used for both the high score and cumulative score. If you and your team hit a high score of 30k during the run, then it’s a guaranteed win of a 335 weapon,  If you all hit 90k cumulative score each week, players will be guaranteed the 335 armour pieces, but the Challenge of Elders will reset each week, wiping the cumulative score….which honestly will be a nice little challenge for that new gear!

Here is what I’ve seen for the new run’s/strikes.

Challenge of the Elders will be a total of 16 encounters with variations of bosses and game modifiers.

Blighted Chalice – A brand new quest line and strike comes with this update.  Apparently the Taken are after Oryx’s crown again in this one….guess they will never learn that us Guardians just won’t let that happen.

Winters Run strike – Update to this strike is it’s being added back to the Heroic strike list and it will be Taken this time you battle, and has a chance to drop some nice loot.

Everything is going to increase in difficulty across the board and new rewards will be added to, The Court of Oryx, Heroic Strikes, Nightfalls, and The Kings Fall Raid.  Apparently Kings Fall Raid’s normal mode will now drop loot up to level 320, and the hard mode getting a boost up to the level 335 mark.

Malok_destinyLike I was saying previously I haven’t hit the previous light level cap of 320, and today’s update brings us the new light level of 335, hence all the gear boosts to 335 and I’m super pumped to see what they all look like, especially the Taken gear!  Included with the new armour sets is, three revamped faction sets….one for Future War Cult, Dead Orbit, and New Monarchy.  The other two sets of armour are brand new, one being the Desolate set which is the Taken armour I’m so anxious to get, and the other is Spektar armour which will have some color customization to it outside of shaders.

The way we infuse our weapons is also changing as it will now be a 1 for 1 level meaning you get the full light now and not just a percentage jump.  If you infuse a 320 item into a 310, you will now get a 320 light item! Super pumped about this, as I’ve got some goodies just waiting for my Warlock!

This isn’t even half of the updates we are getting but these were the major ones I found, and the exciting ones…but weapons, class updates etc are also coming.

Enjoy Guardians, and I will see you next time!

scr.ee tags:

#destiny #patch #consolegaming #mmo #xbox #gaming

Destined for Destiny

Destiny, Schmestiny…. what’s all this hype about anyways?

I was one of the lucky 4.8 million gamer’s that were able to play the Destiny beta. I felt special…as I don’t usually get to participate in beta testing cause I miss the mark.  Gamers alike though were able to wonder across Old Russia, tackled hoards of bad guys and even Devil Walkers, we fought other Guardians in the Crucible, and had a glimpse of weaponry and armor at the Tower. Still, there are some things that brought questions and uncertainty to my mind.  Exploration was buggy at times, their were enemies that just laughed at all the bullets I shot towards them; multiplayer pacing seemed a little of as well. This all stemmed the ultimate question……what will the full game actually be like?

Destiny-s-Enemies-Are-Way-More-Varied-Than-Halo-s-Covenant-2Level Balancing and Enemy OP’d?

One of the things I noticed while battling the higher level enemies is they took clip after clip to take down.  From what I played, the stronger the enemies get, the more ammo I needed to carry as they just soaked it up.  The best example of this that I experienced and I’m sure most everyone else as well, was the Devil’s Lair Strike Mission, which is recommended for Guardians level 6 or higher. You begin by fighting through rooms full of enemies, some of which have ranks well above the beta’s level 8 cap. You then come across a wide field with a Devil Walker spider tank in it.  The name should tell you just how hard it is to kill.  Of course, there are weaker enemies, but the tank is the main focus. It wields a rocket launcher and what appears to be a rail gun that will rock your face off.  Oh, and if that wasn’t enough it was armored like you wouldn’t believe.

Even when I was hitting its weak spot, the Devil Walker required hundreds of bullets, and that was with a teammate of mine hitting this thing as well.  So either it’s just crazy OP’d or we were just awful at the game.  I’m shooting for the overpowered statement.

Devil-WalkerThe Devil Walker barely moves. It slides a few feet side to side, but that’s it. For the most part, it sits in one place and shoots the Guardians that are attacking it. And it takes a very long time to make a dent in its armor.  Myself and a teammate unloaded on it with heavy weapons, special weapons, special abilities, and countless clips of regular ammo, and it still took about 10-15 minutes to kill. What I wonder, then, is if the full game will rely on simply increasing the health of enemies. Hopefully, as you increase in rank, there will be more and different creatures to fight, all with different fighting styles. In the beta, you can see some differences between the individualized, shoot-and-take-cover Fallen and the group-minded Hive who rush into battle. But the full game needs to show that increasing rank won’t just mean running across more bullet sponges, but rather that the creatures’ behavior will also evolve with the Guardian’s increasing strength.

500px-Destiny_Crucible_Trailer_-_Gamescom_2014The Crucible

Destiny looks like it’s heavily focused on cooperative modes. The majority of the game revolves around the story and strike missions, but there is still competitive multiplayer.  It’s a Bungie game ya’ll, it felt and played a lot like Halo, especially with the vehicles and map design.  Guardians don’t look like Spartans, nor do they play the same, they can’t sprint, but the Guardians have an impressive double and even triple jump that can be traited. Though the jumping is much less super human like and the movement is slower you come across enemies less frequently.  The pacing of the game felt off to me, as it seemed to take forever to get around the maps. I think with only having a 12 player cap on the matches it really felt off from other games.  Their were only a couple of maps that you could play as well, and the maps were quite large and seemed to have a lot of unused area.  I’m curious to see what the other maps will play like and see if you can achieve the pace expected from a shooter like this game.

Will Destiny be able to pull out an epic story line like Halo did? Destiny, is huge….Each world is open to exploration….There are story missions, explore missions, Strike missions, and the Crucible.  Will the story portion of this game feel disconnected?   So far, it seems like Bungie has the foundation to potentially pull this story off. The struggle between the Traveler and the Darkness, the rise of Guardians gifted with the Traveler’s powers, and the fight to protect Earth are all great points to a story that could be extremely epic…but will it flow well?

destinyguardiansMMO classes or not?

Well, Bungie did say that the Guardian classes aren’t related to the MMO genre classes one may be used to.  Their isn’t a healer class, or a tank class, but the Guardians are still meant to be specific and have differences between them.  The Titan class was a brute basically, he wields big armor and has some impressive special abilities that dealt big damage.  The Hunter specialized in stealth and accuracy with the sniper based weapons.  The Warlock was a mix as it dealt big damage, but it also had magic powers it wielded.  All the classes to me played very similar with minor differences, and the weapons and armor seem to be very close with some minor differences and cosmetic looks.   It looks like the classes only differ by stat advantages in certain areas so that begs the question….Will the actual release of the game show us these classes have meaningfully differences?