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Halo |OT15| Beta-tested, GAF approved

Yeah. I connected with the simplicity of Bungie's story arc. Ancient humans (Forerunner) commited an act of galactic suicide to stop the Flood, while simultaniously seeding the galaxy with life to grow in the aftermath. A galactic reset button. Humans grow and develop, and eventually return to exploring the galaxy and "reclaim" what was lost - only to unwittingly unleash their ancient enemy - who still remembers the original conflict. And the Covenant in the mix, trying to erase humans/forerunner to preserve their own power hierachy, only to schism in the fight.

There was a self contained elegance to it, even if Bungie's story telling was hit or miss (with a lot of the latter). Where 343 first lost me was in their discarding of this story, rather than building upon it with a new chapter.

Agree all the way.

This is what I always believed... That Ancient Humans were Forerunners and that humans are their descendents. It's why humanity was always so strong and why the Covenant was so vehemently opposed to us joining, because the prophets knew humans were descendents of their supposed gods. It's why things like the Artifact were on Earth.

Almost a Fortress of Solitude, Jor-El/Kal-El scenario. That one day, humans would rightfully RECLAIM what was theirs.

Hence the term Reclaimer.
 

Omni

Member
Should I bother reading the forerunner books? I read the first one and havent read the rest. Are they good?

I know some found Primordium somewhat boring, but I rather enjoyed it. Silentium comes out next Tuesday, so if you start now you could finish the second one and move onto the third one when it's released (of course depending on if you're like me and get so invested into the atmosphere that you read books in one to two sittings... haha)
 

Dongs Macabre

aka Daedalos42
I know some found Primordium somewhat boring, but I rather enjoyed it. Silentium comes out next Tuesday, so if you start now you could finish the second one and move onto the third one when it's released (of course depending on if you're like me and get so invested into the atmosphere that you read books in one to two sittings... haha)
I though Primordium was really good. I didn't find it boring at all.

Also, I'm the same way. If it's a good book, I almost always finish it in one sitting.
 

ZeNy

Neo Member
So, if that story about human/forerunner in Halo is true, that's one thing Destiny have in common, in a certain way :

You are a Guardian of the last safe city on Earth, able to wield incredible power. Defend the City. Defeat our enemies. Reclaim all that we have lost. Fail and the last light of civilization will go out.

Be brave.
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
Yeah. I connected with the simplicity of Bungie's story arc. Ancient humans (Forerunner) commited an act of galactic suicide to stop the Flood, while simultaniously seeding the galaxy with life to grow in the aftermath. A galactic reset button. Humans grow and develop, and eventually return to exploring the galaxy and "reclaim" what was lost - only to unwittingly unleash their ancient enemy - who still remembers the original conflict. And the Covenant in the mix, trying to erase humans/forerunner to preserve their own power hierachy, only to schism in the fight.

There was a self contained elegance to it, even if Bungie's story telling was hit or miss (with a lot of the latter). Where 343 first lost me was in their discarding of this story, rather than building upon it with a new chapter.
I would say it was way more built up on than discarded.. they're just building up to the flood threat again in the new arc. There's so much that ties back to the ancient Forerunner/Human stuff that's always been alluded to, and I don't see any logical direction to go unless you want to place Chief in a different universe entirely afterwards to start anew with unresolved conflicts in the present universe.

How else would you "build" upon the closure of Halo 3? With the way Bungie left their story, I kinda find it hard to think of better ways to start where they left off.

I think that what people wanted more from 343s story is the mystery, but when they get the same empty holes Bungie left in their arc (though Bungie's writing was a little less flavourful and more direct when they explained stuff), they're seen as a lacking. This is something that only becomes apparent when you play the campaign 2 or 3 times, but by then once you can get past the aforementioned weaker delivery, there really are a ton of parallels IMO. Most people don't get that far though, I understand.
 

Booties

Banned
I don't know what the Halo story is outside the campaign (which is what it should be IMO), but who cares what 343 did because we already know they don't know how to tell a story. The campaign was boring, disjointed, and had supplemental stuff (that was really necessary for the story to make sense) which was exceedingly difficult to find. Speaking of telling a story, their campaign and hype train was garbagio as well. Marketing is a story too, that should have been your first clue that this story was going to be really dumb.
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
Despite all the shit I give Halo 4, I will admit that I like its story for the most part.

Yeah I know it's hardly Oscar worthy, but I really like what they did with Cortana (albeit with a few nitpicks I have). Lasky and Del Rio were average though.

Chief talking a lot was nice as well.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Halo 4 campaign was very good story-wise, if you knew about the expanded universe, the terminals in Halo 3 and so on.
Well, other than trying to humanize the Chief.
That and what was done to the Chief. Just immunity to the Composer? How?
 
Halo 5 will be great. Trust us, it feels like Halo!

I mean I guess this is funny. Jumping the gun a little bit and doesn't really fit in with the flow of conversation but I guess you need the attention.

ouch...
VRmvA.gif
 

Booties

Banned
theres so much money put into these games I dont know why they cant find a half decent writer. its mindboggling.

$10 million of FUD. Could have spent that so much better and reached a much wider audience instead of the bookworms. BTW, how does any of that FUD shit matter to the current game besides "Oh, Laskey, yeah I heard that name before somewhere"?

Despite all the shit I give Halo 4, I will admit that I like its story for the most part.

Yeah I know it's hardly Oscar worthy, but I really like what they did with Cortana (albeit there are a few nitpicks I have). Lasky and Del Rio were average though.

Cortana has to be NSFW tagged in other threads btw. I dunno, stop drawing tits and start writing better character arcs? There's a start.
 

kylej

Banned
$10 million of FUD. Could have spent that so much better and reached a much wider audience instead of the bookworms. BTW, how does any of that FUD shit matter to the current game besides "Oh, Laskey, yeah I heard that name before somewhere"?

yeah I mean $10m on a youtube video that got 1/10th the number of views as people lighting their nuts on fire. spend $1m of that and get Paul Schrader or something. Hell for $5m you can probably reanimate the corpse of david foster wallace and have him write it. dumb.
 

Booties

Banned
yeah I mean $10m on a youtube video that got 1/10th the number of views as people lighting their nuts on fire. spend $1m of that and get Paul Schrader or something. Hell for $5m you can probably reanimate the corpse of david foster wallace and have him write it. dumb.

You could dress up my cat in master chief armor and get more hits than FUD did.
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
Yeah. I connected with the simplicity of Bungie's story arc. Ancient humans (Forerunner) commited an act of galactic suicide to stop the Flood, while simultaniously seeding the galaxy with life to grow in the aftermath. A galactic reset button. Humans grow and develop, and eventually return to exploring the galaxy and "reclaim" what was lost - only to unwittingly unleash their ancient enemy - who still remembers the original conflict. And the Covenant in the mix, trying to erase humans/forerunner to preserve their own power hierachy, only to schism in the fight.

There was a self contained elegance to it, even if Bungie's story telling was hit or miss (with a lot of the latter). Where 343 first lost me was in their discarding of this story, rather than building upon it with a new chapter.

Personally I didn't find Bungie's miss at all but that's all opinion. However I do agree. That's the thing that I think put me off the most about halo 4. It became all oh here is the movie villain you must defeat because he don't want you to become stronger then him. Then you point out that he ignores all reason and even though it's clear humanity wasn't trying to wipe them out he still wants them dead anyway. He's just a classic movie like bad guy that's not interesting at all.

That actually comes back into another huge complaint. Only one new character was interesting. That's Laskey. Everyone else is annoying as hell. Even established characters lost some of their charm and started to become somewhat annoying by the end of it.
 
theres so much money put into these games I dont know why they cant find a half decent writer. its mindboggling.

I think it's as much of video game designers not being able to decide on an effective way to present/integrate a narrative in their game as it is an issue with actual having decent writers for the script.

Hell, Frank himself said that their narrative strategy is essentially give the player enough information to the player to have an antagonist worth trying to kill and you'd have to dig out terminals and read books if you wanted to have characters that weren't one-dimensional and actually had valid, understandable reasons for their actions. That's paraphrasing/simplifying what he said, but that's the gist that I took from it.

I guess not everyone can be Ken Levine.
 

TCKaos

Member
theres so much money put into these games I dont know why they cant find a half decent writer. its mindboggling.

It's because they aren't concerned with writing. It's not a 343 thing, it's an industry thing. No one gives a shit about writing in games and it's a travesty because the interaction adds so much literary potential that goes completely unexplored.
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
theres so much money put into these games I dont know why they cant find a half decent writer. its mindboggling.
Most AAA studios want to hire expensive writers that are expensive and reknown in other mediums instead of having or cultivating good writers for games. Valve is one of the few to do it right with Portal 2.

This is why you have people like Kojima and "cinematic" games today that forget that it's a game at the end of the day.
 

Pop

Member

Internet, where tough guys are born.

And speaking about the X thing, that should have been there since day 1 with skill ranks but whatever that ship is taking way too long to sail in. Get teased about a feature instead of coming out and communicating with their community seems so childish. Why is everything a secret to 343i? Hell those X's most likely if at all will be here at the end of April, if they don't find a reason to push back that back with ranks. Bottom line is 343i is fucking slow and is dragging every little feature out. Hurry the hell up already.
 

Blissful

Neo Member
I mean I guess this is funny. Jumping the gun a little bit and doesn't really fit in with the flow of conversation but I guess you need the attention.

Was also funnier when Juices said it.

Just making an obvious point and I'm not surprised it's been said before. But thanks for the attention anyway, chump.
 
I can't do it, man.

I just see posts like that and I'm like "someone is wrong on the internet and I have to show them why their opinions are bad"

Learn to leave it. Just agree with the stupid.
Its really gets me when I see XBLGold hate circlejerk threads but the better option is to not post.
 
Just making an obvious point...chump.

oaWHhZi.gif


I didn't see you make any points. Pretty sure your dumb ass just made a random post with a joke that's been said hundreds of times through multiple OTs and then act like you had no clue that was the case. Of course you weren't surprised; anyone with a passing glance at these threads since release has seen this joke.

This is all on top of the fact that it had literally no bearing on discussion at hand, or really discussion at all. This isn't Twitter, bro.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
I would say it was way more built up on than discarded.. they're just building up to the flood threat again in the new arc. There's so much that ties back to the ancient Forerunner/Human stuff that's always been alluded to, and I don't see any logical direction to go unless you want to place Chief in a different universe entirely afterwards to start anew with unresolved conflicts in the present universe.

How else would you "build" upon the closure of Halo 3? With the way Bungie left their story, I kinda find it hard to think of better ways to start where they left off.

I think that what people wanted more from 343s story is the mystery, but when they get the same empty holes Bungie left in their arc (though Bungie's writing was a little less flavourful and more direct when they explained stuff), they're seen as a lacking. This is something that only becomes apparent when you play the campaign 2 or 3 times, but by then once you can get past the aforementioned weaker delivery, there really are a ton of parallels IMO. Most people don't get that far though, I understand.

I'm not super passionate about it or anything, but I disagree with the bolded. The entire arc I described goes out the window once you say Forerunner are this mutating race of humanoids at war with ancient humans. That's not what Bungie's story was about. Dunno, I just found Bungie's story to be something tragic and sweeping, with some nice symmetry to it, while 343's is just convoluted. Some of this might be my residual distaste from the first two Forerunner trilogy books I read, as much as from the game itself.

I agree Bungie didn't leave 343 a lot of places to take the Chief's story. They did a decent job wrapping up the human-Covenant war and the fight with the Flood. Though they kind of threw 343 a bone with the Legendary ending. I think there are some interesting directions that could have gone without revisiting/revising the history of the Forerunner, though.

I'm also probably one of the people you're describing who didn't get that deep into the campaign story. I was one and done with it, and have yet to see any of the terminals. With Bungie's story and game design, I enjoyed discovering all the details on repeated play throughs. With Halo 4 I disliked what I experienced so much I just kind of walked away. I realize that means I have a more superficial understanding of the story they told, so my ability to really engage on story discussions is limited. I was just turned off by the direction it went, and disliked the gameplay greatly.
 

Blissful

Neo Member
oaWHhZi.gif


I didn't see you make any points. Pretty sure your dumb ass just made a random post with a joke that's been said hundreds of times through multiple OTs and then act like you had no clue that was the case. Of course you weren't surprised; anyone with a passing glance at these threads since release has seen this joke.

This is all on top of the fact that it had literally no bearing on discussion at hand, or really discussion at all. This isn't Twitter, bro.

Sorry, I don't spend my social life on this forum, so I really don't know how many times its been said. Pretty retarded how you can't figure out the point I'm making. Maybe you should get off the forums and go take some courses, bro.
 
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