Vampire, you and I have talked about this before. I think you've got that last sentence backwards. Everything I see in this game smells of PvP. Whatever "story" they concocted felt like it was added at the last minute - it didn't make sense, had some big holes in it, and pretty much was over in short time. Everything which was added to the game, "enhancements," were largely weighted towards PvP. And now with HoW, it's become very clear that Destiny was never intended to be the large, open world presented. I used to get really burnt up about this - the blatant bait-and-switch which duped me in to buying this game. But I still logged in an obscene number of hours playing the game. I had fun playing it. I joined up with a clan and had even more fun. I got better at the raids. And I even now will willingly enter a Crucible match rather than being drug in to it. I still suck at PvP, but the more I play it the better I've become. Slightly. What does burn me with HoW is how lopsided the entire rewards are. I've looked at the gear from both sides (PvE versus PvP). There's little case you can make that the PvE gear is anywhere near as good as that in PvP. And that tells me where Bungie's heart lies. I think bungie's issue is their instance on continuing to try and provide any honest story to this game to support the PvE side. Quite frankly I don't think the creative pool runs that deep with either money or brains needed to effectively pull it off. PvP is cheap to produce, and takes little to no imagination to pull off. It's the virtual equivalent of the hometown's FEC laser-tag. And if that's what players like doing, that's great. I'm not faulting PvP one bit. But the chances of me sticking with this game to get that good gear diminish on a daily basis. You mentioned the carrot/stick approach ... I feel more like I've been beaten by the stick, and the carrot is that purple engram which used to turn magically in to something green.