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Free to Play Halo Online (Saber, H3 eng) announced, only for Russia [First Info]

@Bolded
What does that mean? Do Russians play FPS games differently?

You never heard of russian style Quake? :P

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IIRC it's about purchasing habits. Even with reduced prices, there's a pretty large segment of the Russian market that's hesitant to pay for games up front but fairly receptive to F2P monetization strategies. Catering to that demographic is a non-trivial part of what made Warface and World of Tanks successful there.

Yea, I remember refereeing a Q3A match for Clanbase back in the day, and one of the competing teams were Russian. Took us ages to find a suitable server as every Punkbuster enabled server would immediately boot all of them for not having a valid cd-key. Some of these guys had travelled and won money playing Quake 3, and yet not one apparently had decided to actually purchase a copy.
 
So this is what 343 has been doing instead of fixing mcc.


Have they added ranks back into the game yet? Its only been 6 months
 
The reactions here. So terrible.

It's an experimental side-project launched in a country known for the precise target audience this project was conceived in mind of. It's not a fuck you to non-Russian PC gamers. It's not a fuck you console owners. It's an experiment that is currently not for you, which is ok, believe it or not. Stop raging you don't get it. Stop raging it's not what you want, because it's not supposed to be.
 
Why only in Russia?

Halo is not popular in Russia. We had special offer during New Year eve like "buy xone get two games free" and almost noone took Halo MCC. It was never very popular in Russia to begin with and Playstation brand was here since 90s while Xbox came in Russia only with release of 360. It is an attempt to capture big amount of young gamers who never played anything AAA-like. It's so sad knowing just HOW MANY gamers in Russia play two games - World Of Tanks and WarFace. and if 1st one might be good - WarFace is one of the most bland craps I've even seen. But it's F2p.

(i'm from Russia and I work in vidya retail so I know some info)
 
The reactions here. So terrible.

It's an experimental side-project launched in a country known for the precise target audience this project was conceived in mind of. It's not a fuck you to non-Russian PC gamers. It's not a fuck you console owners. It's an experiment that is currently not for you, which is ok, believe it or not. Stop raging you don't get it. Stop raging it's not what you want, because it's not supposed to be.

Pardon people for being concerned if they were Halo fans from Day 1 only to find themselves suddenly no longer the target audience.

Anyway, been hearing from Russian gamers on Facepunch that Innova is one of the worst Pay2Win exploiters in the realm of F2P games. Prepare yourselves for this to be filled to the brim with the worst of P2W cliches. Word being that in order for an Innova game to be localized for non-Russian audiences, it needs to be gutted and rebuilt to fit modern western conceptions of what a quality F2P game is.
 
I concede the point.

Microsoft are ruining this series.

Just like Call of Duty online ruined Call of Duty?

Microsoft has been running the show since Halo 1. It's the reason Halo never went to Mac, its the reason no Halo after 2 made it to PC until now (not counting Spartan Assault obviously). And now, it's not even for you. If it does terrible you won't know or care because you will never had tried it.
 
Pardon people for being concerned if they were Halo fans from Day 1 only to find themselves suddenly no longer the target audience.

Anyway, been hearing from Russian gamers on Facepunch that Innova is one of the worst Pay2Win exploiters in the realm of F2P games. Prepare yourselves for this to be filled to the brim with the worst of P2W cliches. Word being that in order for an Innova game to be localized for non-Russian audiences, it needs to be gutted and rebuilt to fit modern western conceptions of what a quality F2P game is.

lol you have no idea what you're saying with the bolded.

Just because they put out a game designed for a different audience doesnt mean they're no longer targeting us at all. Halo 5, MCC, etc.

It's not like CoD players whined when CoDOnline came out to cater to a specific audience either... It's the same situation.

I'm a day 1 Halo player. This doesn't affect me in the slightest. We still get Halo 5 in the future. Highly doubt this beast would even interest my tastes anyways, as stated, it's designed for Russian PC gaming.
 
Pardon people for being concerned if they were Halo fans from Day 1 only to find themselves suddenly no longer the target audience.

Was this the concern when Halo Wars was announced?

This is a F2P title for a market that is more into the F2P scene than anything else. Why would "Day 1" Halo fans be the target audience for this project?
 
Anyway, been hearing from Russian gamers on Facepunch that Innova is one of the worst Pay2Win exploiters in the realm of F2P games. .

omg this is so true. these guys make their games just like for Korea. total rip-offs with some of the worst p2w stuff. I bet they made something like 2 dota-like games in last two years just for Russian market. and Oh boy these are bad...

As I said before - it's an attempt to offer Russian scholars something besides World of Tanks and Warface.
 
Was this the concern when Halo Wars was announced?

This is a F2P title for a market that is more into the F2P scene than anything else. Why would "Day 1" Halo fans be the target audience for this project?

Halo 5 is still coming as well, and its pretty good, imo so far.
 
That's a surprise. I mean, it makes sense and this does feed into the comments from Spencer about supporting the PC.

He never said PC would be receiving MCC after all...
 
Oh, this one F2P game in Russia is ruining the franchise. Nothing else.

The fucking hate in this thread is unreal.

It's yet another disaster to add on top of Halo 4, The MCC, Spartan Assault, Nightfall and all the other shit they've been responsible for. You think series integrity is immune to things like this?

Just like Call of Duty online ruined Call of Duty?

Microsoft has been running the show since Halo 1. It's the reason Halo never went to Mac, its the reason no Halo after 2 made it to PC until now (not counting Spartan Assault obviously). And now, it's not even for you. If it does terrible you won't know or care because you will never had tried it.

Bungie were running the show, to claim otherwise is quite ignorant.
 
Hands-on from event (in russian)

http://gamemag.ru/news/halo-online-nashi-pervie-vpechatleniya-ot-igri-105088

Someone may translate it in details, but in short they seem somewhat positive.

i'm too lazy to translate. everything written here looks like a paid pormotion to me. everything is positive and not a word about some bad things from developers who never worked on this style of project before to things like the fact that they use modified Halo 3 engine (a game from 2008 wat).
 
It's yet another disaster to add on top of Halo 4, The MCC, Spartan Assault, Nightfall and all the other shit they've been responsible for. You think series integrity is immune to things like this?

Halo 4 multi and MCC, sure, but how does Spartan Assault and Nightfall (and supposedly others) "ruin" the franchise, or are in any way a "disaster"?

What, they aren't FPS's? One's a TV show you might not like? Those aren't disasters.
 
Any f2p game with its f2p based around weapons and not just cosmetics is never good. Just look at what happened with Tribes Ascend, that game died after it went out of beta and the devs added all the terrible OP weapons behind a paywall. The game was perfect before the terrible f2p shit. No idea why anyone would want this.
 
Publishers often test-run game models/formats in limited releases. The idea of a F2P action game isn't offensive unless there's a specific issue with pricing/handicaps. Unless we've been given signs that the quality of the game is in question, this series has a strong pedigree. The developer has done competent work in the past.

I'm curious, and without a comparable modern PC release for Halo games, this could be interesting for those (obviously outside of the Russian market) who've expressed interest in the newer Halo games on their platform of choice. This model is very hit-or-miss though.

I'm surprised by some posts here. The bizarre fervor even the most innocuous event around this series brings with it is unfortunate.
 
Halo 4 multi and MCC, sure, but how does Spartan Assault and Nightfall (and supposedly others) "ruin" the franchise, or are in any way a "disaster"?

What, they aren't FPS's? One's a TV show you might not like? Those aren't disasters.

Two examples aren't enough for a series which prior had an impeccable record?

Even the non first person shooters/games still represent the series. It's all about quality. 343i have yet to make a better game than Ensemble so I don't get why this new one is getting a free pass.
 
Just like Call of Duty online ruined Call of Duty?

Microsoft has been running the show since Halo 1. It's the reason Halo never went to Mac, its the reason no Halo after 2 made it to PC until now (not counting Spartan Assault obviously). And now, it's not even for you. If it does terrible you won't know or care because you will never had tried it.

To be fair Halo 1 did get a super late Mac port. But yeah considering it was initially a Mac game MS only begrudgingly released it much later.
 
Pardon people for being concerned if they were Halo fans from Day 1 only to find themselves suddenly no longer the target audience.

Anyway, been hearing from Russian gamers on Facepunch that Innova is one of the worst Pay2Win exploiters in the realm of F2P games. Prepare yourselves for this to be filled to the brim with the worst of P2W cliches. Word being that in order for an Innova game to be localized for non-Russian audiences, it needs to be gutted and rebuilt to fit modern western conceptions of what a quality F2P game is.

As someone who was a fan of Halo since "day 1", i see little reason to rage about a FTP PC Halo title that is releasing in Russia when a mainline Halo game is right around the corner.

You think reading is going to get in the way of shitting on 343?

Good point....
 
Two examples aren't enough for a series which prior had an impeccable record?

Even the non first person shooters/games still represent the series. It's all about quality. 343i have yet to make a better game than Ensemble so I don't get why this new one is getting a free pass.

Actually, you didn't give any examples as to how SA and Nightfall ruined the franchise.

Spartan Assault still represents the franchise, as does Nightfall.

And the bold is an opinion :)
 
Why should I buy a xbone now?
 
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