What are your initial reactions to HoW?

My initial reaction, Bungie is following the same pattern as they did with The Dark Below. Only this time, they wizened up and are giving themselves wiggle room with the raid in case of any issues that may cause a delay.

1.1.2 does drop today. Bungie just tweeted that the update is deploying sometime this morning (Pacific time).

Honestly, I am not upset about HoW not having a new raid. I have yet to complete one VoG on hard and am still looking for my first Crota kill as a sword carrier, so I still have plenty of raiding to do to get better before the new one drops later this year.

Plus I am excited about having a horde/firefight mode finally, something different to do in this game. I will be all over Trials of Osiris, even though I suck in PVP.

So overall I am looking forward to the expansion.

I'm really diapointed in no raid. That's mostly all I do in the game anymore is run it. Ran it 4 times last week, twice on Friday night with my hunter on sword duty. Going to check out the new arena mode though.

I had myself prepped for a new Raid, so I was a little shocked and concerned about all the flak Bungie is going to get. Stuff like that turns forums into shit shows.

The horde mode potential sounds exciting.

I think (guessing) Bungie may have learned that more people are missing out on doing Raids than they expected. I hope they can break the Raids down into bite size chunks that are more accessable to 1-3 players. Full Raids for 6 can reward the more dedicated players with better loot.

I like the PvP currently offered but the most fun for me is PvE.

Trials of Osiris may be like Iron Banner. That wouldn't excite me too much since getting loot there is less likely for me.

Overall I'm happy. I can't say it isn't what was promised when I bought the season pass because Bungie never revealed much about it.

I'm holding off judgment until more info is revealed but there are some potential likes/dislikes with the news:

Likes:

Arena Mode - Has potential to be an interesting gametype and fresh perspective on what we already have.

Trials of Osiris - PvP needs something new other than the same old lists we already have.  Inferno was a failure IMO, nothing but a shotgun fest.  Control/Clash get repetitive after a while while the smaller lists only allow 3 person teams.

Upgrade of Current Gear - Keeping them relevant is a good thing, depending on how it is handled.  If we have to regrind all of the gear we already have plus new gear, along with adding new materials like the Exotic Shards, then this will quickly go into the dislikes.  The exotic reset from TDB was annoying.  If it is simply a matter of adding one extra node with a single upgrade material to grind it's not so bad.

Dislikes:

3 person limit on Arena Mode - Really hoping for some expansion on this limit as it just creates too many splintered groups when you have a full friends list.

Reef Social Space - I've always felt the Tower was a waste of space that could have been handled in a menu format (like they started to do with the app).  The last thing I want is to have to sit through more load screens to go to multiple "Social" areas to run around to do things that I could do in a menu.

Friends who have been primarily PvE players have pretty much burnt out on the raids and NF and weekly strikes because they have become repetitive an the players have picked up basically all the goodies they want or need.  Not the case with me because of my later start, but now I am finding it hard to find raid and strike buddies because a lot of peeps have burned out and are now playing Neverwinter.  My sense from them is that new story and new strikes may peak interest for awhile but the raid was the thing.  Larger groups and much more teamwork involved.  Not having that may turn a number of them away from the game.  Looks like some of us will have to be part of team reorganizations.

Every dog needs a bone.

I've basically stepped away from Destiny and the break has been good. I just go so tired of doing the same stuff over and over to basically end up with the same stuff as every other player. 

To be honest, I'm surprised so many people are still playing this game. However, it could be due to the lack of any really good "next gen" games - especially for XB1. 

I did not get the expansion pass, so HoW is not an automatic purchase for me. I'll wait and see what it's all about before I make any decisions. So far though, I haven't been too impressed with the initial reports. 

I took a bit of a Destiny break, but have started dipping my toes back in.  I have a Warlock and Titan both at 31, each with only 1 piece of raid armor.  Also a 30 Hunter that can be upgraded a little more (no raid armor though).  I have FF Type-0 that I am enjoying, but trying to finish out quickly.  I am excited to get full in on Desity w/HoW and want to get back into raiding and definately the new co-op mode.

My opinion is that Bluestar is dumb.

That's why he is holding off judgement.

Lack of a raid is a cock up.  Somebody missed something somewhere and it's being pulled to cover a mistake in the development cycle.

The knock on the game from jump has been the relatively shallow content.  The storyline took a beating, TDB got blasted for the number amd length of missions and the things they are touting now as features of the release (specifically trials of osiris) should have been smaller between dlc tweaks to crucible.

The fact that they can pull together raids at all with as many moving parts as the game has is an acheivement, but Bungie clearly lacks the resources to do it in an accurate and timely fashion.

I have to think that when they can stop developing for four consoles this will improve, but after a solid 9 months of watching them fumble around for reasons why they miss deadlines, rush incomplete content out for the genpop to Beta test it for them and then just flat out ignoring the signature, end-content, feature of a major expansion it seems obvious to me that what they hired Deej for was to throw him into the monkey shit show when things go tits up. 

Can anybody fill me in on the Trials of Osiris?  It's a crucible mode like Iron Banner?

I believe it's a Strike.