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Halo |OT16| Oh Bungie, Where Art Thou?

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Trying to say Gandhi to get a NeoGAF account.

I agree with his views most of the time and I would say he also shares the same thoughts like the most of us on GAF

Gandhi read the article vid

He and others (Beyond crew) are doing fine discussion about how to make it competive and discussing the next Throwdown settings and everything.

Reading that there was a more traditional Halo at the start but got scrapped must feel like a slap in the face for people who now try to create competive and traditional gametypes.

As much as a turd this dude's been since the H1 XBC glory days, I can't help but agree with him. If only Halo 1 had XBL..

;'[
 

CyReN

Member
What Gandhi did say about Kevin Fraklin is true, I remember him with Nexy, DMAQ, Bravo, etc going out with him William Archbell of 343. They loved Will but Franklin wasn't understanding the "concepts" of Halo or what was behind the past games. He's a nice guy but with the direction Halo 4 took it isn't good for fans.

With the hiring of Quinn I always thought it was a slow process of phasing out Franklin, which I would LOVE to see. Guy gets Halo and communicates with the community which is big for a lot of the hardcore fans (not talking MLG, talking the people who stick around).

ps: First Strike Live Show Ep. 3 [Status Quo/Tourneys/v4]
 
I"m sure ghandi is old enough to know how fucking stupid it is to continue the use of "raped" in the moronic gamerspeak that demeans and devalues the horror of actual rape.

But maybe he's developmentally challenged or something and doesn't understand a word that equates to forcible sexual assault with a lifetime of physical and psychological consequences for the victim and not some throwaway shit that happens in a videogame.
 

Booshka

Member
Maybe they'll remake Halo CE and finally give it proper online play, I mean what reason would they have not to?
Stinkles said:
Having worked on every single Halo game since Halo 2, I can tell you that with every release, a significant swathe of people decided it had died. Halo2sucks.com was a real, energetic thing. Gameplay tastes can be really specific, to the granular level, and you will shake out a strata of taste with every iteration.

A common complaint in Halo 2, for example, is that the pistol is nerfed, because a three-shot-kill pistol from anywhere on the map was going to be problematic online, in a way that it wasn't when you were playing in a LAN. And so you had huge amounts of people who quit for that reason alone.

Also, making Halo 4 was TOUGH, but "hell" is relative. There will be other devs reading that article and scoffing at our version of "hell" because they went through way worse.

One of the many reasons that Halo CE online is somehow impossible.
 
I wonder what Holmes really meant by traditional Halo. Like, what is his vision of traditional Halo?

This is actually a great question and one that I would like answered. When they say "traditional Halo" what do they mean? I want to know what 343 defines as "traditional Halo."

I hate to play the devil's advocate, but traditional halo is pretty self explanatory.

You're 16/17, what do you know about traditional Halo?
<3 hate to play devil's advocate to your devil's advocate lol
 
GG's Wahrer, Hydra, Tawpgun, and I can't remember who else was playing :p

Last game of CTF was hilarious.

I got sniped by a railgun as I attempted to join the Warthog parade.

iGDViqeqoWaPz.jpg

iih76WjrInYbj.jpg

Hydra and I using turrets on the Warthog for superior firepower.


This Warthog got nailed with the incineration cannon and it went flying.


That 3-0 quick lead enabled these shenanigans lol.
 
Skimmed through the last few pages. So 343 gave us Halo, took it back to maximize profit, and now they're giving us half-assed fixes to try and bring it back again?

smh.gif


Fastest Selling my ass. The only reason it sold so fast was because people expected HALO to be back! It didn't outsell Halo 3 or Reach's week end sells because they realized that couldn't be further from the truth AFTER DAY 2! With that, it's also the fasted population drop and the fastest reselling. Halo 4's nearly had an exodus when Black Ops II came out. That consumer base they mutilated Halo to attract was gone right after, and now 343 has very low credibility going forward.

I'm done.
 

Pop

Member
Skimmed through the last few pages. So 343 gave us Halo, took it back to maximize profit, and now they're giving us half-assed fixes to try and bring it back again?

smh.gif


Fastest Selling my ass. The only reason it sold so fast was because people expected HALO to be back! It didn't outsell Halo 3 or Reach's week end sells because they realized that couldn't be further from the truth. With that, it's also the fasted population drop and the fastest reselling.

I'm done.

Bingo.
 
GG's Wahrer, Hydra, Tawpgun, and I can't remember who else was playing :p

Last game of CTF was hilarious.

I got sniped by a railgun as I attempted to join the Warthog parade.



Hydra and I using turrets on the Warthog for superior firepower.



Hydra nailed this Warthog with the incineration cannon and it went flying.



That 3-0 quick lead enabled these shenanigans lol.

That wasn't me with the Incinerator Cannon. I just saw it go flying pretty far, pretty fast.
 

Overdoziz

Banned
I"m sure ghandi is old enough to know how fucking stupid it is to continue the use of "raped" in the moronic gamerspeak that demeans and devalues the horror of actual rape.

But maybe he's developmentally challenged or something and doesn't understand a word that equates to forcible sexual assault with a lifetime of physical and psychological consequences for the victim and not some throwaway shit that happens in a videogame.
Wape Culture
 

DeadNames

Banned
This is actually a great question and one that I would like answered. When they say "traditional Halo" what do they mean? I want to know what 343 defines as "traditional Halo."



You're 16/17, what do you know about traditional Halo?
<3 hate to play devil's advocate to your devil's advocate lol

Hey man, I might be a babby, but this perk/AA crap ain't doing it for me :p.

I liked Halo because it was unique; it wasn't like CoD. It was a game that promoted teamwork and overall awareness. Halo has lost that aspect (for the most part), and is now about being lucky.

Hell, it wasn't like any game at the time. Now it's the monstrous child of a Halo/CoD/Battlefield menage a trois.
 

BigShow36

Member
One of the many reasons that Halo CE online is somehow impossible.

And possibly the most idiotic one too, and one that, to me, has always indicated the crux of Halo's problems since then. If there's one thing that best respresents the fundamental misunderstanding by Halo developers, its that line of thinking.
 

J10

Banned
I wonder if those same people they said were asking for a gameplay impacting progression system in Halo are the same people who asked for Sarah Palmer's backstory.
 
Read fyrewulff's tweets. Read Plywood's post about 343 fucked up original halo. And that "We Scrapped It" - 343i part...

This isn't real. I must be loosing it.. Yeah that's it.
Channing-Tatum-laughing-21-jump-street.gif
 
This is the final nail in the coffin of whatever goodwill 343 had in the halo community. The "trust us, it feels like halo" is a straight up lie and they had to have known it.

Take everyone involved with the process of throwing out that traditional halo and installing cod-lite functions onto the deformity that halo became and fire them.

And possibly the most idiotic one too, and one that, to me, has always indicated the crux of Halo's problems since then. If there's one thing that best respresents the fundamental misunderstanding by Halo developers, its that line of thinking.
Agreed. CS has always had and will always have guns that can one shot kill your across the whole map if you can aim well enough with them and every version of that game continues to be some of the most played PC games all the time. The mindset of "people might be too good at this game so we'll take away that ability" is ass backwards.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
Take everyone involved with the process of throwing out that traditional halo and installing cod-lite functions onto the deformity that halo became and fire them.

Nice.

I assume you mean Microsoft then. Bungie fired Microsoft. But hey, I'm all for throwing people out on the street.
 
Nice.

I assume you mean Microsoft then. Bungie fired Microsoft. But hey, I'm all for throwing people out on the street.
When you do a bad job and make a bad product there are usually consequences. Richard Williamson, the guy who released the terrible, buggy Apple Maps was fired for it.

The people who made those decisions should not be included in any further decisions regarding the halo franchise.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
When you do a bad job and make a bad product there are usually consequences. Richard Williamson, the guy who released the terrible, buggy Apple Maps was fired for it.

The people who made those decisions should not be included in any further decisions regarding the halo franchise.

I get what you're saying, my question is where the overall direction of Halo 4 came from. That's the behind the scenes I want. Did MS barge in and see the "classic" build 343 had and say "it needs to be new, and more like CoD?"

If it was a group of people at 343 then they need to take a hard look in the mirror. For some reason I have an inkling that MS had something to do with it. Thus why Bungie wanted out as well.

Halo 2 anniversary will save HaloGAF

Believe

I would play this ALL THE TIME TASHI.
 

lol. So let's evolve Halo by copying CoD.

Jennifer-Lawrence-ok-thumbs-up.gif


I get what you're saying, my question is where the overall direction of Halo 4 came from. That's the behind the scenes I want. Did MS barge in and see the "classic" build 343 had and say "it needs to be new, and more like CoD?"

If it was a group of people at 343 then they need to take a hard look in the mirror. For some reason I have an inkling that MS had something to do with it. Thus why Bungie wanted out as well.

I doubt Microsoft decided to exclude a Sprint toggle, classic flag settings, decent small competitive maps, and a launch ranking system. Microsoft may have instructed them to chase after that crowd, but they weren't the ones inputting code.
 
Whenever new leadership takes over a company or product, a lot of people are worried. The workers might be wary of what kind of new boss they get, the fans might worry about what kind of new product they will receive and this is something that the new power in control needs to be self aware of. Ultimately you only go scrapping and overhauling in large quantities when the company or product you are taking over is failing and in the same vein you don;t scoop water out of a sinking ship. However Halo was no sinking ship. So why so much change? If you made a list of Halo "features" in some spredsheet program you would realize most of the checkmarks are in Reach and Halo 4, because those two games have added the most "stuff" As Bungie's swan song Halo Reach had every right to try new things and be the most different Halo. As 343's first full Halo game (Lets not count CEA really) lets realize that they probably needed to be a bit more moderate when changing the formula that has worked so well for so many years. You know possibly test the water first. The "more traditional Halo" that they mentioned they scrapped was probably the thing they should have stuck with while increasing features and the features powers they had within Halo. Which if you notice Halo 4 has less technical features than Reach and Halo 3. For example things that come right to mind are Halo 4 scrapped campaign scoring, skull effects, campaign timing for speedrunners, campaign theater, and a visible ranking system which every Halo with XBL has had.

As another person already mentioned if you look at the games MP population you notice the sharp decline of players. Some decline is expected but you now have the game peaking at 30K. Many times if you are on at night its very very low. Last night while I was playing it hit 6K. This effects my experience through playlist search times and quality of the matchup I receive. As a knowledgeable semi-skilled Halo player the chance of me and my friends getting a quality game is very very low. We usually are just trying to see at that point how much we can beat the enemy team by, not IF we can. This leads to some very non-challenging games without a true ranking system. Alright stealth brag over. The reason is because this game has introduced elements of CoD, and this cannot be denied. Instant Respawn, More one-shot overpowered weapons to reduce the importance of Halo's Shield/Health player dynamic, Personal and Global Ordnance to introduce more randomness and take the focus off map control as traditional Halos have always rewarded map control. These things are inherent beauty spots of the game that have been removed to pander to the masses to get CoD sales. That may have worked looking at the sales figures and I will never mention Halo 4 was a failure as a product, not even as a game. It was a good game, just not a good Halo!

Now lets talk about change. Change is inevitable, in life there are factors that you cannot control. Death, the rising taxes, your gut getting larger with every night gaming session you know should be spent on the elliptical. However the gaming world is different, its a magical world where programmers can control every little knob and lever of the world we play in. You technically could release Halo 2 and just cross out the title and put Halo 3 and re-release it. While Madden adds new features, the core game is still football a game that hasn't changed in forever besides a small number of rule changes. So every year a new one releases and every year players buy the game for the new player changes, the graphical enhancements, and possibly a new feature or two. Or you have CoD, a game that's stayed sort of true to its core gameplay besides the CoD4 to MW shift, and even Blops tries to alleviate that gap. Halo has done nothing to alleviate the changes it makes, they try and shoehorn a classic mode in Reach and Halo 4 and always fall sort of flat. Mainly because the core is so warped and changed you cant set options to make it feel like the past Halo's.

They constantly talk about how to make Halo more accessible to players and new players. This ends up catering to the masses of casual players who will play Halo for awhile. They will play through the campaign maybe once or twice, play through it with friends maybe once or twice, and maybe play through it a year or two later before the next game comes out so they can remember more about the game. They will step into MP for an average of 24.5 games* (*this number is completely made up) and then they will stop after winning 20% of their games and never care to notice the intricacies of everything they've just played. Then they will say oh yea "that game was fun". Meanwhile you have hardcore players playing a game that wasnt designed with their needs in mind, and these players now probably make up a much higher percentage of the people who are still on your game night after night. The CoD players left the week after Halo 4 was released when Blops II came out, you can even see the sharp decline of players right after Blops release on the Halo population charts. You can see the Christmas spike that lasted a week and you can see other small bumps that are mostly weekend and DLC bumps, but besides these bumps its been a game of pure decline.

Another note now that players can choose loadouts with perks, AA's, and everything that is locked behind unlocks. You actually have to grind to level up and unlock gameplay altering abilities. This means a kid at SR-130 the highest experience ranking has every ability unlocked in multiple loadouts. You can switch loadouts throughout a game. So this person essentially has more things available to him in game than a player who just started does. Gameplay altering abilities should never be in Halo. The only thing keeping a player from beating another player is his knowledge and skill. If a kid comes home and gets to play eight hours of Halo 4 all week and I have to be at work come home make dinner and put the kids in bed and then I finally get two hours to sit down at night and play I shouldn't be penalized before I even pick up that controller. Unlocking of items needs to be purely aesthetic.

Also maps, because of the fact players can have two mobile AA's at once. Sprint is now default and then you can have say jetpack, you now have much more mobility and abilities all at once. This is too much. It makes larger maps feel smaller so Halo now has to have all these large maps, and what small maps are there Haven and Abandon? Then they released the first DLC which was once again all large maps!? Really!? Give us some arena maps like Halo has always had! Halo has always been about sort of knowing what your enemy can do and predicting and analysing what hes going to do based on that essential assumption. You no longer can do that though because there are so many abilities and variables players can have and you never know if they just got some random ordnance drop that gave them a sniper that can one shot even if they hit your body? Really!?, you are more playing rock paper scissors guessing what he has against what you chose at spawn. Nobody wants their gameplay that close to a gamble.

So lets stop catering to the casuals who leave because you've removed all depth and skill gap so they could play, let people learn the game figure out what works what doesnt let them evolve their skill and feel great about it, let them rank up to 50 and let them say "I am now good at Halo!" and feel proud of their accomplishment. Lets create a game with competitive players in mind. Lets release a game with a ton of smaller maps and maybe 2-3 large maps. Then your first DLC can be 2 small and 1 more large and continue in that fashion. Lets focus less on having the players fix your map problem by using Forge World and subsequently getting less than par maps into MM that effects everyone's experience when they play and more on releasing good pre-made maps from the get-go. Lets bring back campaign theater and scoring for communities like High Speed Halo. Lets get this game back into MLG so people can watch tournaments and play Halo professionally again. Lets have a HaloTV feature where when we dont want to play we can stop in and watch preloaded files of good games recently played, lets be able to chat about it too, lets be able to stream to JTV or Youtube from within the game. Let us remember that you can keep a game true to its roots and have great sales like Madden. Halo 2014, The next great Halo, HALO game, not CoD. Halo.

Also Hiring that Juices would be a great idea.
 
I get what you're saying, my question is where the overall direction of Halo 4 came from. That's the behind the scenes I want. Did MS barge in and see the "classic" build 343 had and say "it needs to be new, and more like CoD?"

If it was a group of people at 343 then they need to take a hard look in the mirror. For some reason I have an inkling that MS had something to do with it. Thus why Bungie wanted out as well.
I agree, it makes more sense that it was a MS choice, but still I can't believe that so many people who love what Halo was would allow it to be transformed into what it is now.
 
Nice.

I assume you mean Microsoft then. Bungie fired Microsoft. But hey, I'm all for throwing people out on the street.

It's a natural part of life. If they're talented, they can find work elsewhere. If not, maybe it's time for a career change or focus on their strengths.

You're making it seem like because people want them to be fired (perhaps fired is too strong of a word?) that they also want them to go starving for the rest of their lives. No. These people should not be in charge of making high level decisions for Halo's direction.

The mindset of "people might be too good at this game so we'll take away that ability" is ass backwards.

This has seriously been the mindset of Halo devs since Halo 2's development and 10 years later little has changed.

Halo 1 was a game for both babbies and pros.

I doubt Microsoft decided to exclude a Sprint toggle, classic flag settings, decent small competitive maps, and a launch ranking system. Microsoft may have instructed them to chase after that crowd, but they weren't the ones inputting code.

I must say, that's a good point. Microsoft wasn't telling 343 to not include an option to drop the flag for Custom Games lol
 
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