Bungie: Halo's 2 ending "intentional" (not rushed)

GhaleonEB

Member
WarierRelic asks,

Hey Frankie I'm a diehard Halo fan, and after I beat Halo 2 I was left with a sense of incompletion. Now I'm not complaining, Halo 2 is excellent especially multiplayer, but I just need to know something. What was the reasoning behind the ending, did you guys intend on the cliffhanger initially or did you guys just run out of time. I'm just so frustrated, I wish you guys would just use the current engine and make the second half of this story. I just cant wait 3 years to get to the REAL battle.


Halo 2's ending is a cliffhanger. Intentionally.

Hmm....

Part of this week's what's update.

Finally, a reader asked if I could explain what I meant by Katamari Noguchi. Well, his disgusting desk is fast becoming one. As this new Mister Chief sorta illustrates.

katamarinoguchism.jpg


Best Mister Chief ever.

http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=whatsupdatedec03
 
Man the shit ain't rushed,nothing about this game says rushed.Why can't a game leave you hanging if a sequel is guranteed?

But whatever,people would have found something to bitch about if the game didn't end there anyways.
 
Littleberu said:
So you really thought they would have said : "Of course we rushed it! And we hate you and your mom too!" ?

No, I actually expected them not to address it at all.

And for the record, I'm okay with the ending. But many folks are not.
 
Another week passes by and they continue to ignore the outcry for a method of joining public custom games.

Nice evasion Bungie.
 
Ramirez said:
Man the shit ain't rushed,nothing about this game says rushed.Why can't a game leave you hanging if a sequel is guranteed?
After a year and a half into development and all there is to show is a "throw away" demo (referring to E3 2k3)? If you watch the making of video that came with the CE version, they even admitted that they had NO game at all after E3 2k3. What we got was a game that essentially took 1.5 years to make. The 1st 1.5 years was probably spent on tech and old design (that probably got redone multiple times). The single player experience is not representative of 3 years of development and you can tell by the modular level designs that they cut corners in order to maximize mileage. That's my take and I'm sticking to it. About 2 years ago, a Bungie employee (don't know if he's still there), interviewed with the company I worked for (then) and he "enlightened" us about some of the goings on at Bungie at the time. I won't go into details but he didn't paint a pretty picture.
 
Man the shit ain't rushed,nothing about this game says rushed
Don't make me bring out the pic of the magazine spread that showed four completely different warthogs... including a snowmobile warthog.
 
What dev doesn't want more time though?The game seems complete enough to me,but just because they chose a non traditional ending everyone thinks they ran out of time or some shit.

Don't make me bring out the pic of the magazine spread that showed four completely different warthogs... including a snowmobile warthog.

Stuff gets dropped,I think they showed to much personally before they were even sure it would work.Stuff like the ATV,Snowmobile Warthog,etc. what purpose would it really serve in the game?
 
Ramirez said:
Stuff gets dropped,I think they showed to much personally before they were even sure it would work.Stuff like the ATV,Snowmobile Warthog,etc. what purpose would it really serve in the game?

Earth levels?
 
The ending was fine, if it frustrates people so much they can release aggression on Live.

+ Infinite Junk for use of Katamari!

If only a Katamari mode could become as ubiquitous in every game as the Big Head code once was. Halo 2, GTA:SA, MGS 3 ALL could benefit by allowing me to just run around and stick all the crap in the level together. FUN!
 
The ending was unexpected and horrible. Worst mistake Bungie made with an otherwise incredible game.
 
LittleBeru,why the fuck do you post in these threads?Honestly,we all know you wouldn't play the game if we gave you a XBox and a copy Halo 2 free,so please,spare us with the posts like you care about the game.
 
Ramirez said:
Stuff gets dropped,I think they showed to much personally before they were even sure it would work.Stuff like the ATV,Snowmobile Warthog,etc. what purpose would it really serve in the game?

True, stuff does get dropped, but Halo2 looks like it dropped everything except the dual-wielding.
 
Azih said:
Don't make me bring out the pic of the magazine spread that showed four completely different warthogs... including a snowmobile warthog.


You mean the ONLY pic of ANY warthog variations? The one that's over 2 years old? The one that shows variations of the warthog using the halo ONE engine? That one?
 
Ramirez said:
LittleBeru,why the fuck do you post in these threads?Honestly,we all know you wouldn't play the game if we gave you a XBox and a copy Halo 2 free,so please,spare us with the posts like you care about the game.

Earth. Levels.
 
Has videogame cliffhangers been done before? I mean, of the tip of my brain all I can think of is ZoE 1. But this was something extreme.
 
i don't know how the fact that things were cut has been inflated into the idea that there's a phantom third act we didn't get. the ending does make it feel like there's a level missing, though.

and of course it was never intended that the entire game or the bulk of the game would take place on earth. even early on we heard about levels on another halo, on a covenant homeworld, above a gas giant, levels on the moon that never materialized.
 
Sean said:
Uh, Earth levels are in the game (Outskirts and Metropolis).

And that's it. For a game that was supposed to be on Earth, there isn't a lot of Earth levels.

"That wasn't supposed to be on Earth, loloololol"

Yes it was, from the beginning it was anyway. Where is this invasion we see in the teaser? In Halo 3? Tsc.

Oh and guys, shut up about : :"He doesn't have an Xbox, so he's ignorant!!!" You know, there's this thing, outside of the forums and the interweb, that are called FRIENDS. You know. With 2.5 millions copies on the first day, don't you think one of my friends bought the game? I mean, really.
 
Where were the people who bitched about Halo 2's ending when the first one came out? The first Halo's ending sucked way more.
 
Littleberu said:
Earth levels?


which they had, then they cut because they realized they "weren't fun."

And I agree, what developer doesn't want more time to finish a game? That's a general problem in the industry as a whole, and in reality in software in general. Hell, I'm a business software consultant and 95% of the time I find myself wishing I had a larger budget so I could spend more time developing exactly what the customer wants, but it's not reasonable. So you find a balance and you do what is best.
 
Drexon said:
Has videogame cliffhangers been done before? I mean, of the tip of my brain all I can think of is ZoE 1. But this was something extreme.

04.png


not cliffhanger, but I remember the classic NES endings. 1 screen :lol
 
Nerevar said:
which they had, then they cut because they realized they "weren't fun."

Yeah, just cut what isn't fun! DON'T FIX IT! Just cut it. What the fuck, did Bungie hypnotize you or something?
 
Littleberu said:
Yeah, just cut what isn't fun! DON'T FIX IT! Just cut it. What the fuck, did Bungie hypnotize you or something?

They made the mistake of revealing too many "features" too early. When games are created, a whole lot of the generated content never actually gets used in the final product. This happens with almost every game release...

The difference is that we generally don't ever KNOW about the things that are cut. I think people were hungry for info and Bungie felt that it was OK to talk about features, as it didn't really spoil anything. They really made a HUGE mistake by doing that, though...

It's often shocking when you see how much stuff is cut from most games. Prince of Persia - Sands of Time had a whole bunch of areas, several bosses, and other content that was cut for various reasons. Who knows what else they DIDN'T talk about. Most devs never even give us ANY info regarding content that was cut.

In the case of the Earth levels, I highly doubt they "cut" them at all. They seemed so intent of saving various suprises for us that they essentially fooled the consumers into expecting something that was never a part of the plan. If you read early interviews, the final game actually lines up perfectly with their game plan. They always had intended to fight on another Halo as well as the Covenant homeworld. The game was not intended to revolve around the earth invasion. They simply created that campaign to suprise people. They should have realized that it is a VERY BAD idea to do that, though. I enjoy those types of suprises, but if MGS2 is anything to go by, a lot of people do not.

I hope you aren't sore about that E3 level missing from the final game, though. That was a short segment that was designed to show off many features. Things like The Brutes would not have even been a part of that scenario. Not only that, they did exactly what YOU wanted them to do; they fixed it! They said that E3 level was not fun. So they FIXED IT!
 
you know, playing the game, it never even occured to me that people would want more earth levels. i thought the best parts of the game were on delta halo. the ad campaign is misleading, but i enjoyed the way the game put the taglines in a new context. "there are those who said this day would never come..." etc.

i see shorthand criticisms emerging, though. "well, at least the multiplayer is good." that one strikes me as false - the single player is better still. certainly it isn't one of those games like mario kart that really only exist for multiplayer. "where are the earth levels" i just find perplexing.
 
Kuroyume said:
Where were the people who bitched about Halo 2's ending when the first one came out? The first Halo's ending sucked way more.
It's a known fact that majority of video game ending are crap. At least in Halo 1 you can tell the "end" was near due to the game ramping up to the climactic final level driving out of the exploding level. With Halo 2, there was no "ramping" and sure as hell no "climax". The game flatlined at a steady pace and then abruptly stops literally.

It's fine to have a cliffhanger to whet the apetite for the eventual sequel but Halo 2 got cut off mid-sentence. No exciting last level or climactic battle with some kind of boss.
 
deadlifter said:
The ending was unexpected and horrible. Worst mistake Bungie made with an otherwise incredible game.

They left out the online and system link co-op too not to mention feature any innovative gameplay. Big deductions in my book.
 
Littleberu said:
Yeah, just cut what isn't fun! DON'T FIX IT! Just cut it. What the fuck, did Bungie hypnotize you or something?

No. That's how good dev companies work. Read up on Valve, they do the same shit. Develop stuff. If it isn't fun, get rid of it and do something else. Trying to fix something that is fundamentally broken and "isn't fun" is why we have so much shit on the market nowadays. Nice trolling, though.
 
Littleberu said:
And that's it. For a game that was supposed to be on Earth, there isn't a lot of Earth levels.

"That wasn't supposed to be on Earth, loloololol"

Yes it was, from the beginning it was anyway. Where is this invasion we see in the teaser? In Halo 3? Tsc.
The invasion in the teaser they clearly changed. They modified that entire scene. But they've been saying FOR YEARS now that the game would not all be on Earth. Specifically, they said there would be a new Halo (which I think everybody just assumed would happen anyway even if they didn't say anything about it), which you had to know would take up a large percentage of the game, and they also confirmed the gas giant back then too. They also said you would fight on Covenant territory. All of these are things they said YEARS ago and have, in fact, made it into the final game.

Of course, I also seem to remember them talking about jungle, desert, and snow levels on Earth (and how you would have different Warthogs adapted to those environments) waaaaay back when they first unveilled the game in EGM or whatever magazine it was. But I guess you can't have everything. :D
 
It's often shocking when you see how much stuff is cut from most games. Prince of Persia - Sands of Time had a whole bunch of areas, several bosses, and other content that was cut for various reasons. Who knows what else they DIDN'T talk about. Most devs never even give us ANY info regarding content that was cut.

But PoP things were cut because they didn't have TIME. Now, don't tell me they didn't have enough time with Halo 2.
 
Littleberu said:
But PoP things were cut because they didn't have TIME. Now, don't tell me they didn't have enough time with Halo 2.

Read my update, they basically DID fix it by completely redesigning it.

As noted in Nerevar's post, Valve does the same thing. Remember Half-Life? Yeah, they designed an entire game only to realize that it wasn't fun. They ended up scrapping basically everything and remaking it all. NONE of the early HL screenshots represented the final product. It's the same thing here...
 
If you think about it in a way, if Halo 2 had been willed with only Earth levels, wouldn't there be a lot of urban combat. With this urban combat, it would feel like every other terrorist hunt on the consoles, except you use alien technology to kill the evil doers. Quite frankly, I think taking the Cheif off of Earth, introducing Delta Halo, the Arc, and Gravemind would take quite a while. If they tore the earth levels out, do you really think they could have included these polished areas in so quickly? I was dissapointed in the ending, but the more I think of it, the more I like it. It leaves so many possibillities open. I can just sit here and think of what the first level of Halo 3 will be like, and who knows, we may get another set of books.
 
Littleberu said:
And that's it. For a game that was supposed to be on Earth, there isn't a lot of Earth levels.

"That wasn't supposed to be on Earth, loloololol"

Yes it was, from the beginning it was anyway.

Wrong, it was known as far back as 2003 that the game would take place on another halo and a space station hovering above a gas giant, as well as on earth. Bungie never said earth would be the focus of the game, people just drew that conclustion because that's all bungie could SHOW without spoiling the rest of it.
 
Ironclad_Ninja said:
If you think about it in a way, if Halo 2 had been willed with only Earth levels, wouldn't there be a lot of urban combat. With this urban combat, it would feel like every other terrorist hunt on the consoles, except you use alien technology to kill the evil doers. Quite frankly, I think taking the Cheif off of Earth, introducing Delta Halo, the Arc, and Gravemind would take quite a while. If they tore the earth levels out, do you really think they could have included these polished areas in so quickly? I was dissapointed in the ending, but the more I think of it, the more I like it. It leaves so many possibillities open. I can just sit here and think of what the first level of Halo 3 will be like, and who knows, we may get another set of books.

I agree. However, the XBOX crowd seems to have been raised in the ways of Tom Clancy. They want their military stuff, damn it! I'm so SICK of these "war games". Thankfully, Halo 2's earth levels managed to avoid falling into the pit o' generic war game...
 
dark10x said:
Read my update, they basically DID fix it by completely redesigning it.

As noted in Nerevar's post, Valve does the same thing. Remember Half-Life? Yeah, they designed an entire game only to realize that it wasn't fun. They ended up scrapping basically everything and remaking it all. NONE of the early HL screenshots represented the final product. It's the same thing here...

Yeah, and I didn't say it was right to do so. False advertising sucks. Yeah, I like it when a game can surprise me, but not when it completely change the story, and force you to play another character. Seriously, Halo 2 shouldn't even feature Masterchief. The story was forced with Masterchief, it didn't seem to go anywhere until the Arbiter.

Oh and I still believe it wouldn't have been that hard to keep the Earth Levels. Like you all said, they talked about another Halo, and everything, but they also talked a lot about Earth and how it would change terrain and such.

Bungie never said earth would be the focus of the game, people just drew that conclustion because that's all bungie could SHOW without spoiling the rest of it.

Ok, so Bungie are genius because they hid everything, lost precious developpement time for a false E3 level to demonstrate things that could've been shown in a true level and made you believe that the game would be set on earth? Wow. I didn't know lying made you a genius.
 
I have wanted Halo 2 since it was announced and followed most Halo 2 news and yet I had no idea that it was supposed to take place all on earth when I purchased it. Am I the only one who didn't care and who thought those first few earth levels sucked anyway?
 
Cerrius said:
Another week passes by and they continue to ignore the outcry for a method of joining public custom games.

Nice evasion Bungie.

Actually they haven't ignored it, they pretty much said they didn't think people would give their system a chance if they offered a typical server selection system, and that their system provides enough benefits to make it worthwhile. I'll try to dig up the exact quote.

iOwned suggests: Bungie, what about doing this. Say I made a game, and theres people looking for a unranked game. Why not toss them in my custom game?



There are two primary reasons why we don’t toss them in your custom game. First, this is simply not the way our matchmaking system was designed. We do not have a way to search for or advertise custom games, and adding one would not be an easy feat. This might not seem very credible because other games implement game browsers, but it really is the case. Halo 2 does an extraordinary number of things for you automatically behind the scenes, everything from judging connection quality to choosing hosts. It was engineered from the ground up to support the existing playlist matchmaking system and all its incredible complexity. Designing and engineering custom game browser functionality that played nicely with the existing matchmaking and that handled the large number of Halo 2 players gracefully would be a big job.


The second reason we don’t advertise your custom games to the public is because we like our matchmaking system and we want it to be successful. That’s why we focused our development resources on it. Success is directly affected by how many people are using it. The larger your pool of potential opponents the better quality games we can find for you. Better hosts, better connectivity, more similar skill levels, and so on. Technical issues aside, if we were to give you a custom game browser a large number of people would use it simply because its comfortable and familiar, thus reducing the pool of potential matches.


All that said, as time goes on we will be providing you with more options in the form of new playlists, as well as tuning the games in the existing playlists to better suit the most common preferences. In fact, you can expect the first playlist update very soon, and it’s going to be a good one.
 
dark10x said:
It's often shocking when you see how much stuff is cut from most games. Prince of Persia - Sands of Time had a whole bunch of areas, several bosses, and other content that was cut for various reasons. Who knows what else they DIDN'T talk about. Most devs never even give us ANY info regarding content that was cut.
Cutting content out of a game is par for the course but rarely is it the ending. Halo 2 ending just feels like Bungie ran out of time and had to wrap it up in order to make Xmas 2004. I've seen it before with Baldur's Gate: DA and a close friend of mine admitted to me that they essentially cut the game in half with a "to be continued..." by order of Interplay. I think the same occured between Bungie and MS because the ending feels like the EXACT same formula.
 
Littleberu said:
Yeah, and I didn't say it was right to do so. False advertising sucks. Yeah, I like it when a game can surprise me, but not when it completely change the story, and force you to play another character. Seriously, Halo 2 shouldn't even feature Masterchief. The story was forced with Masterchief, it didn't seem to go anywhere until the Arbiter.

Oh and I still believe it wouldn't have been that hard to keep the Earth Levels. Like you all said, they talked about another Halo, and everything, but they also talked a lot about Earth and how it would change terrain and such.

There weren't any Earth levels to KEEP!!!! That E3 demo was f*cking it! They didn't make some massive Earth campaign here. They followed their original design pretty closely.

If you don't like the character swapping, that's fine, but I happened to love it (and so did many others). I enjoyed it with MGS2 and I enjoyed it here.
 
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