So, in this series, I’m attempting to explore the difficulties that I’ve found with playing Destiny 2. This time I’m going to talk about the Farm. Now I understand the purpose of it. It’s a way to shake things up a bit for those of us that played Destiny 1. The Tower is in ruins, there is a war on with the Cabal in the Last City, and the players have to have a fallback position. All I can say is that it was going through my mind that everything would be back to normal. I’d be back in the Tower where *Sings the theme from Cheers.* “You want to be where you can see. The troubles are all the same. You want to be where everybody knows your name.” Nope. You’ve just about bought the farm, and you’re going to be there for a spell.

A Whole New World

I frankly don’t know where the Last City is on planet Earth in Destiny, and for that matter where the Farm is. The maps that you run around in on Earth in Destiny 2 are in the European Dead Zone (EDZ). A throwback to one or two of the player versus player maps from Destiny 1. Now I don’t know about you, but the idea of wandering around a dead zone in Europe should mean something like the Exclusion Zone around the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant disaster. Every step I take in the EDZ should be ticking days off my life. “But Strike, you’re wearing protective space armor. That and if you realize that you’re actually dead, to begin with, and your Ghost will bring you back to life if you get killed. Stop your damned bitching, and play the game!” That would be true if you weren’t running into the representative of the EDZ, Devrim Kay, that isn’t wearing a protective suit of armor. Hell, I don’t think that guy even has a Ghost.

A Part of the Whole

From the Farm you can see way off in the distance I piece of the Traveler or shard as it’s called. This wasn’t mentioned in the first Destiny game. Sure, when you look at the Traveler in both games, there is a section missing of the bottom. For the longest time, I thought that the people of the Last City were sneaking up there and picking pieces off it to build their homes. It never occurred to me that in it’s travel to where it ended up, that it might have flown too close to a mountain or something, and bottomed out, leaving pieces of itself on the ground. Not only pieces but pieces that are still active. You travel there and the Shard of the Traveler gives your Guardian back his/her magic powers through your revived Ghost.

Down on the Farm

Interviewer: “So, you beat the Red War story mission. What are you going to do now?” Me: “I’m going home. Back to the Tower where I belong.” Interviewer: “Nope.” Let’s face it. I never go back to the Farm unless I have to. It’s not like I can just tour the EDZ, hop a fence, and I’m at the Farm. You have to fly there from the EDZ. Why waste my time doing that? It’s the same flight time to the Wall base. Once you finish the story mission, all the Vanguard reps move to the Wall base anyway. There isn’t but a handful of missions that require you to go back to the Farm. My favorite is the Outbreak Perfected quest. You end up back on the Farm, where you head down into a basement you didn’t notice before, and talk to Mithrax a Fallen Captain. “Umm? Defenders of the Farm. There is a Fallen Captain, the sworn enemy of humankind, inside the perimeter of your closely guarded base.” Not only that but he has a portal inside the ruins of the Tower from the Farm. Bungie, you are really stretching believability when you created this mission.

My Final Thoughts

When I was playing Destiny 1, new players and veterans like myself could meet at the Tower and socialize. I would most likely get an invite to help a new player with their missions. The Tower was a neutral gathering social space. In order for me to do what I enjoy the most about playing Destiny, which is helping others with the game. I’m not going to hang around the Farm like a creepy Destiny pervert waiting for new players to approach me asking for help with the game. Waiting for them to complete the Red Wars story doesn’t help either. By the time they reach the Wall base at the end of the first story mission the new players really don’t need your help. There’s a big disconnect with the social aspects of Destiny 2 versus Destiny 1. Even adding the Vestian Outpost in the Reef and the Iron Temple on Felwinter Peak as social spaces had a purpose. If you wanted to do activities like Prison of Elders and Trials of the Nine, you had to travel to the Reef to do them. There is nothing to do at the Farm that is exclusive to just it like you have on the Tangle Shore, the Dreaming City, and Sanctuary on the Moon. Perhaps moving Suraya Hawthorne back to the Farm and have her offer EDZ exclusive bounties and missions might give us a reason to go back there. It would be even better to have her be the go-to person if they reopened the Comodrome!!

Thank you all for reading my post. If there is some aspect of Destiny 2 that confuses you. Let me know in the comments. Share this post if you know of anyone that might find it diverting.