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

And you guys didn't believe Phil Spencer when he confirmed their committal to the PC space!

What a weird thing this is.

Man, how could we doubt him ? I mean it's not like MS have the habbit of promising first-class support to the PC platform then doing precisely nothing. Oh no, not at all.
 
Halo 3 had very healthy numbers. Halo 4.... was horrid. I don't think COD had much to do with it. Consumers know what a good Halo game is and Halo 3 performed well, and was the last Halo game made in the Master Chief series, hence its success and not COD. I agree with the other posters. Halo 5's massive changes in trying to be Halo but in a Call of Duty skin is just going to dilute the series, as fans will not recognize it, and further weaken the series just like something like this will.

How many times do people have to point out how silly it is to compare Halo 3 to Halo 4 considering the FPS landscape?

Are we going to complain if Halo 5 gets knocked out of the the top 5 or top once COD/Division/R6/Battlefront all drops?
 
Halo 3 had very healthy numbers. Halo 4.... was horrid. I don't think COD had much to do with it. Consumers know what a good Halo game is and Halo 3 performed well, and was the last Halo game made in the Master Chief series, hence its success and not COD. I agree with the other posters. Halo 5's massive changes in trying to be Halo but in a Call of Duty skin is just going to dilute the series, as fans will not recognize it, and further weaken the series just like something like this will.

Halo 3 didn't have the competition that any other FPS has had since then. It was pretty one-sided as far as FPS's go and big titles at the time. Anyone that bothers to try and retell the story without acknowledging that point is purposely ignoring the reality. CoD was just starting to come out of it's shell when Halo 3 dropped; there is no way in hell Halo 3 in 2012 would've faired as well at all against Black Ops 2 and Battlefield 3; not to mention Mass Effect 3, Far Cry 3, TWD, Dishonored, Crysis 3 etc etc. Compare the releases around Halo 3 and then the massive amount of great games that came out near 2012, it's a barely comparable situation.
 
Halo 3 had very healthy numbers. Halo 4.... was horrid. I don't think COD had much to do with it. Consumers know what a good Halo game is and Halo 3 performed well, and was the last Halo game made in the Master Chief series, hence its success and not COD. I agree with the other posters. Halo 5's massive changes in trying to be Halo but in a Call of Duty skin is just going to dilute the series, as fans will not recognize it, and further weaken the series just like something like this will.
If Halo 5 is ttrying to be COD, where are the loadouts; perks, weapon drops etc. You know all the things that COD is known for.
 
Weapon attachments that change weapon characteristics.

Armor attachments that change base player traits.

FOUR armor abilities at once

Loadouts, with even being able to spawn with a mauler.


Lmao Id be happier if this stayed in Russia forever. Bring on Halo 5
 
Weapon attachments that change weapon characteristics.

Armor attachments that change base player traits.

FOUR armor abilities at once

Loadouts, with even being able to spawn with a mauler.


Lmao Id be happier if this stayed in Russia forever. Bring on Halo 5
people keep looking at this like its supposed to play and be like the more halo games and its not. THis is a completely different game that is meant to be played completely different it is a spin off more in the vain of Halo wars and Spartan assault

Its likely being balanced in a completely different way then Halo 2 or halo 5 and plays in a different way then the halo arena style

People keep thinking this is supposed to be played and seen as a continuation of the core halo franchise and that way of think is just wrong.
 
The maps look damn fine

they look great mostly because they're full of color and appear to have less busy textures. too bad Saber isn't doing Halo 5's multiplayer.

Are these points unreasonable though?

depends on who you ask. the competitive halo community would largely agree with that.

The Halo series is a good example of quality > quantity right now. The franchise is everywhere but it's really gone nowhere but downhill in terms of brand prestige.
 
I saw some misunderstanding about devs here. Let me clear this out:

Saber Interactive is a russian devs based in St. Petersburg. They were also responsible for single player parts of Halo 1&2 Anniversary.

Innova will be co-publisher for the game in Russia with Microsoft itself. This is reasonable, becouse they have experience in f2p. And that's it.
 
*sigh* Fine. I was hoping that you'd be able to look over your own post and realise why people aren't giving you serious responses... but seeing as you wrote that post in the first place, that was obviously pretty optimistic of me. So, let's take a quick look at each point:



You're not making solid points here. You're projecting your personal feelings as if they're facts.

Finally your comparison with Sonic is ridiculous. Sonic didn't gain its perception because people didn't like Sonic X, or Sonic Spinball etc. The Sonic games went from the end of the Genesis all the way to the late days of the frickin Wii before seeing a mainline entry even remotely comparable to the original games. This includes a mainline generation debut entry that's considered of the worst games ever released. I think you need to get some perspective.

Will address this tomorrow as I've only got phone access tonight so I can't make a long post.

Fun preview counter point:

"Comparing Halo 4's critical reception to an expansion pack, an RTS spin off and another series entirely, and then ignoring Halo 1-3 = LOL."

Good luck for tomorrow!
 
Weapon attachments that change weapon characteristics.

Armor attachments that change base player traits.

FOUR armor abilities at once

Loadouts, with even being able to spawn with a mauler.


Lmao Id be happier if this stayed in Russia forever. Bring on Halo 5

Okay nevermind, definitely not upset this is Russia only.
 
Will address this tomorrow as I've only got phone access tonight so I can't make a long post.

Fun preview counter point:

"Comparing Halo 4's critical reception to an expansion pack, an RTS spin off and another series entirely, and then ignoring Halo 1-3 = LOL."

Good luck for tomorrow!

Looking forward to it. Hopefully the full show is better than the preview though. ODST isn't exactly an expansion pack, considering it was sold as a standalone product and doesn't require Halo 3 (and can't be bought as a Halo 3 addon). The other two games were chosen especially for you actually. One was a game you yourself quantified as a "really good game" whilst attempting to hold Bungie up on a pedestal. So Halo 4 scoring a full 11 points higher as a metacritic rating, should logically not be something you hold as some critical failing. Lastly Halo Wars was selected because you previously made the claim that 343i have "yet to make a game better than Ensemble"... and as I said before you'd probably struggle to find metrics that agree with you here. Metacritic is just one that doesn't.

I'm not ignoring Halo 1 through 3. I just didn't feel they needed to be mentioned here. If that's the sort of decline you're referring to, then 343i is hardly the catalyst (and the Halo series is hardly an outlier). Halo 2 scored lower than CE. Halo 3 scored lower than Halo 2. Halo Reach scored lower than Halo 3. The first few Halo's had almost nothing in terms of worthy competition, which simply isn't the case today within that genre, so it stands out far less. Which is why a pack of all previous Halo games (including Halo 1-3) still manages to score lower than Halo 4 alone did. And before you mention it, the reviews for MCC don't account for any online issues post launch.
 
How the heck did they decide Russia was a good place to associate a new Halo brand with exclusively?
 
How the heck did they decide Russia was a good place to associate a new Halo brand with exclusively?

Its the perfect market for this type of game with a large untapped group of people who dont own or much know about box and halo.

Russia is a large demographic with mostly PC's and a large amount of those play F2P
 
Critical reception for Halo 4 was pretty positive actually. It sits at 87 metacritic, which is slightly higher than ODST (which I personally think has the best Halo campaign) and Ensemble's Halo Wars... and significantly higher than the "really good game" Destiny.

You're comparing the critical reception of Halo 4 to the exansion "Halo 3:ODST". Note the quite clear 'Halo 3' in the title. Halo 3:ODST is considered widely to have the best campaign in the series, yet released to drastically lower scorers than the original trilogy. Why is this? Microsoft priced an expansion to Halo 3, which didn't feature new multiplayer, which featured a small campaign and an auxillary mode, full price right on the doorstep of the release of the mammoth that was MW2. It is quite obvious that ODST suffered critically as a value proposition, and thus comparing Halo 4 favourably to it is disingenous.

Lastly Halo Wars was selected because you previously made the claim that 343i have "yet to make a game better than Ensemble"... and as I said before you'd probably struggle to find metrics that agree with you here. Metacritic is just one that doesn't.

Halo Wars is absolutely better than Halo 4 and this masterful post of my lurking days summarises why.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=949327

I'm not ignoring Halo 1 through 3. I just didn't feel they needed to be mentioned here.

Yes you are? Why on earth did you feel the defining core instalments of the Halo series were not comparable to Halo 4, yet an RTS, an expansion pack and fucking Destiny of all things were?

If that's the sort of decline you're referring to, then 343i is hardly the catalyst (and the Halo series is hardly an outlier). Halo 2 scored lower than CE. Halo 3 scored lower than Halo 2. Halo Reach scored lower than Halo 3

All scored 90+, core installments were within a few points of eachother. Distinct quality drop.

- Overall decline in commercial reception as seen through Halo 4
Demonstrably untrue.

In the U.S. MIcrosoft haven't given worldwide sales numbers of Halo 4, and we know for a fact that it failed to outsell Halo 3 in it's second strongest territory.

http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/h...halo_4_fails_to_outsell_reach_and_halo_3.html

With no worldwide figures being released, there is no reason to believe that Halo 4 has outsold Halo 3. Despite launching to a significantly larger installbase.

- Poor adaptations of material: Nightfall/FuD/Spartan Assault

These are harmless spinoffs. Nightfall and FuD are no more detrimental to mainline Halo than any other cross media ventures... and amongst such projects these two are actually rather competent. Spartan Assault is a simple mobile game, that you have the option of playing with a pad. It's unlikely to even have the sort of exposure required to register against the series as a whole.
There is no such thing as a harmless spin off in my opinion, they all represent the series. These projects were poorly made and have left a sour taste amongst

- Pay £50 extra to understand the story, narrative systems.
I'm not going to lie... I don't even know what it is you're referring to here. Care to elaborate?

This is reference to the Greg Bear books, which were necessary to understand the narrative. They launched in the U.K at roughly £15, this is unacceptable.

The MCC being broken for six months.
This is the only one of your points that has any real merit. Even then it's quite far removed from the overall point you're trying to make. 343i successfully launched Halo 4 with no real issues to a far larger userbase than MCC, and ran a very solid beta for Halo 5. MCC was a pretty unique project handled by numerous studios (generally not 343i), that combines multiple different engines and network implementations into a single product. It having significant issues doesn't really reflect future Halo iterations. Even if the next Halo was to have a similarly complex arrangement, MCC's existence would prevent it the same things from being a surprise the next time around

I think you have this wrong. You don't deserve a pat on the back for launching a functional title, that is what people are paying money for. You're not seeing the bigger picture here, the fact that they allowed their flagship IP had a title on their new console that launched in a broken state for six months is unacceptable. It is also indicative of the overall lack of care shown for their series. Do you see Mario, Zelda, Metal Gear Solid launching in such a way? It shouldn't have launched in such a state, and has done nothing but damage the series' reputation. I'm actually shocked that you're defending it.
 
Weapon attachments that change weapon characteristics.

Armor attachments that change base player traits.

FOUR armor abilities at once

Loadouts, with even being able to spawn with a mauler.


Lmao Id be happier if this stayed in Russia forever. Bring on Halo 5
So exactly what part of this game is Halo? MS can keep this in Russia!

I fear that a lot of these "features" will find their way into the mainline Halo games :(
 
Game got leaked and you can force load into maps.Currently on turf :) If anyone needs help just ask.

http://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/30guqq/the_chopper_is_looking_sexy/

Look for this post:

Edit 4: New Link (don't know if dolphin porn but looks legit): https://mega.co.nz/#!tUR11Dib!k68rgN0MGQyuSgPJ9Q2jcGvMd1IGHSeX7RhKC0PoyEw
Edit 5: The link above is legit I cannot get the game to run on windows 8.1 atm I will make another edit once I get it working
Edit 6: Ok to run it you need to make a .bat file (Google it) inside the halo folder then paste eldorado.exe --account 123 --sign-in-code 123 into the bat. Make sure that you make the .bat in the folder with eldorado.exe
You can use the freeloader (https://github.com/emoose/HaloFreeLoader) to load into a map
 
Halo 3 didn't have the competition that any other FPS has had since then. It was pretty one-sided as far as FPS's go and big titles at the time. Anyone that bothers to try and retell the story without acknowledging that point is purposely ignoring the reality. CoD was just starting to come out of it's shell when Halo 3 dropped; there is no way in hell Halo 3 in 2012 would've faired as well at all against Black Ops 2 and Battlefield 3; not to mention Mass Effect 3, Far Cry 3, TWD, Dishonored, Crysis 3 etc etc. Compare the releases around Halo 3 and then the massive amount of great games that came out near 2012, it's a barely comparable situation.

I don't even know what you're trying to say. Off the top of my head, other releases in 2007 included Mass Effect, Bioshock, Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Super Mario Galaxy, Crysis, Metroid Prime 3, The Orange Box and, of course, COD4. It was a classic and enormously important year in modern gaming.
 
Could MS and 343 be any more of a joke lately?

What did Halo fans ever do to deserve this kind of treatment? Anyway, back to Destiny I guess...
 
People have figured out a way to download and play it right now. Many clips on Youtube. Ill investigate and let u guys know.
 
What treatment? It doesn't really effect anyone. You don't have to buy and play it... it's free.

I was referring to taking Halo 2 offline prematurely, releasing a broken MCC, Halo 5 bro'd out to hell, and then developing this potentially awesome product that may finally give us the Halo online experience we've needed for years but is only available in Russia.
 
I'd only be interested in the game at this state if we could get some online or LAN games working with the leaked version.

It'd be pretty fun.
 
I'd only be interested in the game at this state if we could get some online or LAN games working with the leaked version.

It'd be pretty fun.

Memories of the Halo CE leaked demo allowing peer to peer using line commands, was so cool to discover that and have weeks of fun.
 
Memories of the Halo CE leaked demo allowing peer to peer using line commands, was so cool to discover that and have weeks of fun.

When there's a download link for the game back up, I'll start datamining it to see if I can find anything interesting.

here's hoping there's some form of peer to peer multiplayer remnants.
 
Salt in the wounds of 343 remaking Relic instead of Turf. Map looks good though, wouldn't mind giving the game a shot if it ever shows up here.
 
When there's a download link for the game back up, I'll start datamining it to see if I can find anything interesting.

here's hoping there's some form of peer to peer multiplayer remnants.

the game.xml file references splitscreen, but doesn't do anything. other options in there do. like hide watermark for example.
 
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