Destiny Livestream: The Exciting New Things We Learned About The Taken King

Bungie is making some big changes to the way we play Destiny, showing off new quest structures, currency, exotic gear, vendor abilities, menu systems and more with the first in a series of livestreams leading up to the Sept. 15 launch of The Taken King.

The best thing about yesterday's Destiny livestream is that it made one very important fact clear: The folks at Bungie are listening to player feedback and responding with actual changes to the game.

Destiny was an ambitious game right out of the gate, bolting a smooth first-person shooter onto a light MMO structure made to keep players chasing numerous reward loops while easily teaming up to play with or against one another. It was something of an entirely new beast, and so of course there have been some growing pains along the way.

Many of those issues from the first year of the game are being addressed with the upcoming Taken King DLC. It speaks volumes for the game that yesterday's livestream got such a huge response from the fans, as nothing from the campaign, new raids or multiplayer modes were on display. Instead, folks got an hour-long tour of the rebooted Tower, as well as some much-needed adjustments to Destiny's various systems.

It would be tricky to touch on everything shown off during yesterday's presentation, but we'll touch on some of the big changes here.

Right off the bat Community Manager Deej and Co. showed off some of Destiny's new customization options, where players can choose which of their three weapons their Guardian now has on display. The new leveling system was also given a tour, as players will now be able to go from one to 40 by simply playing the game. In other words, no more hunting down very specific armor and upgrading it simply to level up. You'll still want that sweet gear, though, as your Light Level is now an average of the attack and defense stats from your weapons and guns. Put simply, the higher the number, the higher your damage output and absorption.

As Bungie has hinted at in the past, you'll now be able to take on a bunch of in-game quests, and your Bounty count has been doubled. That's super important because additional vendors now offer their own Bounties, opening up rewards no matter what activities you prefer to pour your time into. Want to play the crucible? There are now a whole bunch of new Bounties specifically for competitive play that will grant access to higher level gear.

And where will you keep that gear? Well, your equipment and firearm Vault space has now been doubled, meaning you should have less trouble holding onto all of that sweet gear you simply can't part with. Even better is the fact that Shaders and Emblems can now be removed from your Vault and cataloged at their own new terminal in the Tower. You'll never have to worry about losing a favorite Shader again, as the terminal stores info on every such item you come across. In the future, you can add any of those Shaders back into your collection again simply by visiting the terminal.

A similar system is in play for Exotic gear. Terminals are set up that will let you know what Exotic gear you've managed to collect and, in case you accidentally scrapped them in the past, you can buy a new copy of the same gun/gear with in-game currency. If you're missing any Exotic gear, some helpful hints will actually point you in the right direction.

That's just scratching the surface, really. You'll want to watch the full video for full details, including info on the new Gunsmith systems, Quest tracking and the like.

More than new multiplayer maps and campaign missions, it looks like The Taken King is aiming to make Destiny a better game, through and through.