Yeah, you're totally right, but I'm assuming Halo 5 being a good Halo game is a given. I'd rather that the ultimate goal for 2015/16 Halo isn't to bring the series up to scratch with 2007, as believe it or not, Halo 4's goal was to recalibrate the series in respect to Reach. So whilst we got a title that was closer to Halo 3 in terms of 'Haloness', we gained absolutely nothing else which would move the IP forward except Spartan Op's, which turned out to be a complete fucking disaster. Meanwhile CoD continues to boast a wealth of new features, despite having kept its core gameplay pretty much the same. If we go into Halo 5 with the exclusive hope that it'll play like a Halo game again, and not that it'll feature anything that could genuinely improve Halo across the board (server browser), the state of the series will grow even worse.
Firstly, you can't expect the bolded, you just can't. 343 have done little to assuage the sense that the franchise isn't in stable hands, so assuming Halo 5 is going to be
killer is a little over optimistic from where I'm sitting.
Secondly, as I said in the previous post, it's about walking before you can run. 343 didn't get the matchmaking experience right this time, it needs hefty work, both in the UI, the way it matches players and demonstrates why it's putting said players together, and the way in which it groups players; as Wahrer has posted on this page, a distinction between War Games and Ranked playlists would work wonders. War Games could be a social environment that focusses on the individual, and Ranked could be a competitive environment that focusses on leveraging teamwork with a common goal, that goal being an overall, unified ranking system.
I agree that Spartan Ops fell flat on its face, and I'd concur that it was the only feature introduced in Halo 4 that even threatened to shift a paradigm. However, in terms of pushing the envelope for Halo 5, I don't think a server browser is popular enough within Halo players and console gamers in general to generate the buzz you're talking about, and renovating that sense of Halo being a driving force of originality within the genre.
What I'd rather they focussed on, alongside a sublime matchmaking system on a par with Starcraft, or DOTA 2, or League of Legends, is to push the envelope with Theatre, and Forge in a genuinely exciting way. Terrain deformation, video editing capabilities, push to Youtube, etc. I believe that those features should take priority over a server browser because a wider portion of the community will feel their effects, and take advantage of them.
What I'm talking about is adding new features to the franchise, what you're talking about is making it easier to accumulate a group of players to join customs.
How will it not? If you get destroyed, you leave and join a noob server. That's how server browsing has worked for the last 20 years, and it has worked.
An understandable suggestion, but a naive one, too.
Believe it or not, players don't like accepting that they're shit. They don't relish sitting in a baby seat, or strapping on a bib to eat. If dropping into games and getting destroyed almost immediately doesn't frustrate them to the point of abandoning the game altogether, asking them to play in a server titled '
Shit Players Only' will push them over the edge.
The progressive loss of customisation in this series is a very big deal. The original trilogy thrived on it.
But the original trilogy didn't have a server browser either, so why's it suddenly imperative (which is how you're suggesting it) to build one?
This is a stupid argument. Halo should have a server browser. Whether it's a priority or not depends on your viewpoint. You'll have to agree to disagree.
Nobody disagrees that in a perfect world it should, we're debating our reasons for why it should be prioritised either higher, or lower.
If Halo 4 taught us anything it's that 343 are a limited resource, they can't create and polish everything, they struggled massively with Halo 4. I'm arguing that demanding a server browser perhaps isn't the wisest move in terms of putting the franchise back on track.