Callouts directly affect gameplay for other players. My teammates using their kinnect doesn't affect me at all. Try again.
What I'm saying, though, is that there's a difference between industry-manufactured changes in the gameplay environment (such as Sprint or ADS) and an evolution of social mechanics pertaining to and brought on by the consumers themselves - in this case, a substantial decrease in players actively using mics with players they're matched up with. Player chat has been on the downfall ever since party chats were introduced, and never really recovered. There were already sound reasons players had not to use their mics, from not being able to afford / get one at the time, to opting out because of sex or nationality because of how many manbabies frequented matchmaking and would go "wait, a girl?!" or "wait, you're black?!" at the drop of a hat, or even something as simple as not wanted to disturb parents / significant others / children in the later hours of the night. The last time I really even used mics in public matchmaking was early on in Halo 3's lifespan. For one, not every player is going to see a mic as a valid form of competitive communication - 9 times out of 10, I've been matched with people shitting on the enemy team and shouting racial slurs or whatever rather than making callouts or providing useful information. You can say "well that just means you're part of the problem" all you want, but the fact of the matter is players just aren't using their mics the way they were in Halo 2. Introducing an element like artifical, game-engineered callouts is an example of a developer actually introducing a gameplay element
due to changes in the player-consumer environment, rather than "innovating" by boostrapping homogenized mechanics to an unrelated game the way ADS is being handled. Players absolutely have a say in the landscape of game design, and the decrease in mic usage is direct evidence of that. The difference compared to something like Sprint or slide-punching is that HaloGAF is, like, twelve people on an internet forum bitching about games they play once every 6 months and then spend the rest of their time hating each other. The mic usage thing is actually an example of players making a difference
ingame, and at an extremely large scale.
Even if you don't like the idea of in-game pre-engineered callouts, it acknowledges 343 is directly trying to improve accessibility in mechanics such as map control or power weapon spawns in a way that hasn't really been done before without players directly communicating. Obviously, yeah, stuff like "let's send them back to basic" or "clean kill" is superfluous, or not - audio triggers may still be contextual, with (speculation) "clean kill" representing a frag that was done without taking health damage, or "nice headshot" informing you it was actually a snipe, rather than two bodyshots - but bottom line is they're still trying to relay information and invoke tactical play in a way that doesn't actively detriment other players the way gameplay-altering mechanics like Personal Ordnance or extremely obstructive UI elements do. You can say it's handicapping Halo and it's overly hand-holdy all you want, but this is a
direct example of player population having an influence on a game's mechanical design. If you want to make waves in their emergent design,
quit acting like you're interested in the damn game they're making. You're still here, aren't you?
