Those fiendishly addictive ranked playlists consistently had lower populations than the exact same playlists without ranks.
Your rose tinted look back pretty much ignores the rise of COD and a host of changing habbits from players. So many external factors have shaped, defined and changed the industry since then.
Don't get me wrong, I want Halo 3.5 as much as the next person here, but biased nostalgia won't help you get over it's absence.
Of course they had lower populations. One list allowed guests, one list didn't. It doesn't make it any less "fiendishly addictive."
And I feel like I need to bring this up again. I might be the only one arguing it, but seriously, this whole "the industry changed" and "gamers desires changed due to COD" has got to stop. I posted this a few OT's back, but it needs to be said again.
vvvvvvvv
People always make a big deal of how "Halo simply MUST change now that the gaming landscape has changed" - the argument is that with the rise of games like the Call of Duty franchise and the explosion in popularity then Halo MUST go down that path to compete. And I am sick and tired of this line of reasoning.
The last time that Halo was king of the hill
was when the were
decisively different than all other first person shooters on the market. It's possible that the gaming market has changed, for better or worse, but it's also possible that Halo has lost all of this market share, and longevity, simply because it changed the Halo formula to become
more like the other games.
If we look at the history of Xbox Live and the first person shooter multiplayer genre in general the simplest explanation is that Halo changed - it is much more complex to think that millions upon millions of players simultaneously decided that they wanted unlocking perks, weapons, attachments, kill streaks, etc., and that's why they moved away from the Halo franchise. And when you follow this convoluted and erroneous line of reasoning you end up with Halo 4. A game that at the core does actually "feel like Halo," but has so many poor gameplay decisions layered on top of it that you can't ever get down to that "feel" unless you arrange some custom games and/or play with modded/hacked game files.
The hook of the Halo series (most notably in 2 and 3) was an irresistible siren call to gaming. Due to the ranking systems in place you actually cared about winning or losing (and if you didn't care it didn't really matter - you would soon be separated from those that did care and wouldn't ever match with them again). With the "grind-it-out-experience-bar-of-neverending-dangling-carrots" system in place, winning means almost nothing compared to playing selfishly and ignoring both teammates and objectives. While ranking systems may have led to griefing, deranking, or boosting and selling accounts the current experience system leads to selfish, boring, gameplay with no incentive to play the game other than to work on your chosen weapon commendation, unlock a new visor color, etc., most of which does not promote winning or team play.
The numbers don't lie. The last time Halo was the unequivocally most played game in the Xbox world was when it was an arena shooter.
