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[Zeouterlimits]

Halo 5 in 2015 seems reasonable to me.

If the 2014 Halo for Xbox One was an ODST-like expansion, I imagine it would be slightly cheaper, and I don't imagine it would be so big a drain as to derail Halo 5's production.

I... hurm.
It fits as a possibility, a lot more than Halo 2 Anniversary does [sorry Tashi]. Whatever they put it out, it has to be cloak Chief.

I just don't like the idea of them continuing the practically yearly pumping out. I was unhappy with 2014 as it is, having 2 in a row... I do not wish for that.

 

[Fuchsdh]

I... hurm.
It fits as a possibility, a lot more than Halo 2 anniversary does. Whatever they put it out, it has to be cloak Chief.

I just don't like the idea of them continuing the practically yearly pumping out. I was unhappy with 2014 as it is, having 2 in a row... I do not wish for that.

Well, you've registered your concern with the rest of us, and can punch your "I told you so" card if the worst happens

One thing that I do think 343 as a whole has learned is how to work together more effectively and productively, and how to adjust expectations for realism. Both of those are useful skills if you're going to be put into a deadline crunch.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Personally I would prefer Halo 5 or 4's story continuation over a spinoff stopgap game. We have Spartan Asaault already and SPOPS season 2 for Halo 4 never eventuated. I don't want to wait 18 months to continue the story.

When are we going to move to dynamic or episodic campaign/coop full time? I'd rather see 1-3 campaign missions per month for the life of a title. It also could bundle multiplayer DLC with the campaign content to drive required DLC

Also having a main Halo game in the first year of X1 makes more sense than a spinoff to me.

 

[Fracas]

For some reason, I still follow Halo Waypoint on FB. Apparently a TU happened:

The next time you log into Halo 4, you will be prompted to download a title update which addresses several known issues. Here is a breakdown of what is included:
Fixed an issue where player Loadouts would reset back to default
Fixed an issue where players in Forge were unable to see other players while in Monitor mode
Fixed an issue where the Mark V, Prefect, and Ricochet forearm armor would display incorrectly
Fixed an issue where Champions Bundle armor sometimes disappeared in networked War Games matches
Fixed an issue where Champions Bundle armor appeared incorrectly in Theater film clips

https://blogs.halowaypoint.com/post/2013/11/11/Halo-4-TU-Change-List-111113.aspx

 

[aHebrewMenagerie]

For some reason, I still follow Halo Waypoint on FB. Apparently a TU happened:



https://blogs.halowaypoint.com/post/2013/11/11/Halo-4-TU-Change-List-111113.aspx

Another case of better late than never. Oh well.

Spoiler

Better late than never.

 

[Computer]

Didn't they try to fix this more then once now?


Fixed an issue where player Loadouts would reset back to default

 

[FYC]

Fixed an issue where player Loadouts would reset back to default

Hells yeah

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

I wonder if you'll be able to Snap Twitch and watch other streams while playing games. If so, this could benefit competitive players:

Can't wait for some no radar 2v2s.

 

[Homeboyd]

Personally I would prefer Halo 5 or 4's story continuation over a spinoff stopgap game. We have Spartan Asaault already and SPOPS season 2 for Halo 4 never eventuated. I don't want to wait 18 months to continue the story.

When are we going to move to dynamic or episodic campaign/coop full time? I'd rather see 1-3 campaign missions per month for the life of a title. It also could bundle multiplayer DLC with the campaign content to drive required DLC

Also having a main Halo game in the first year of X1 makes more sense than a spinoff to me.

Did you prefer spops over firefight? If so, why?

 

[Syphon Filter]

Why did juices get banned?

 

[Tashi]

Nice to see the loadout reset fixed. I know that one has screwed a lot of people over since day 1. I think it's only hit me once.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Did you prefer spops over firefight? If so, why?

Yes and no, firefight for replayability but SPOPS for episodic CGI and the developer serving up a fresh series of things to play each week. Further having the story of SPOPS continue and progress the campaign story was fantastic e.g. Halsey/Janus Key/Librarian. I always found Reach FF disconnected where ODST FF felt more like a connected experience. I think 343i's SPOPS cadence was too ambitious and the feature set wasn't ready or incompatible for launch e.g. skulls and scoring. The gameplay seemed to suffer from a lack of real backend tools dedicated to customise those experiences, obviously this picked up in S1.5 but it never really encroached into campaign quality. I think if you're going to push SPOPS like it was it needs to be on par with campaign story and gameplay wise.

The ODST setup of waves and the way the maps were built around the coop experience really provided the best experience for me and the mates I played that with. The Reach version of firefight seemed to lose that experience feel and just felt like settings and the credit farming for the most part. I'd like to see a best of breed approach next time e.g. use in game cinematics with your custom character, like Reach, but keep the story flowing weekly/monthly like SPOPS. If they used a story mode as required to play through at least once and then allowed the usual firefight replay/customisation with skulls/scoring it would be a greater success with higher quality IMO.

I mostly prefer ODST firefight over Reach's firefight and it's a shame it never had matchmaking. The matchmaking system of SPOPS is probably my first choice for that feature, it matched me with Aussies quite a lot actually, even better than Reach ever did. Input latency really sucks and I'm curious what game modes I'll spend the most time with next gen and dedis...

Potentially if they moved to continue the campaign/SPOPS as one entity they could clean up the development and cadence to a realistic lifecycle of content delivery. Imagine monthly updates where the CGI is initially once-off bulk campaign on disc, then continued campaign = SPOPS with ONLY in game cinematics and firefight is the later with unlocked replay/customisation after that. A progression system could have merit here for customisation unlocks but could also be a grind waste of time.

If they used some features from Project Spark and combined them into the episodic campaign/spops/firefight/forge experience then some cool things could arise from the community e.g. voice capture, mo-cap and even AI path's/settings with next gen/cloud tweaking or even full blown custom campaigns from the community. They could really keep away from custom browsers, fill that gap between campaign vs. multi all while delivering a matchmaking system that has both developer and community created content. If you throw in toggles for a range of traits or modes things can get very interesting. All on defaults for the noobs and toggles with minimums for the veterans.

I'm wondering what the axe on SPOPS S2 has turned into? Are we thinking new game modes/episodes due to cloud/dedis or are we just going to see more polished SPOPS/Firefight and an abandoning of episodic content in favour of DLC?

To me tying all the systems back together and giving solo, coop and multi-DLC maps as one bundle that is optional for 3 months and then required as free would be a real move forward, both in terms of developers and gamers.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Nice to see the loadout reset fixed. I know that one has screwed a lot of people over since day 1. I think it's only hit me once.

It's been bothersome for me as I've been playing through the campaign with HBOers co-op.

It's irksome, but I realized that I really only use a carbine/boltshot/dexterity load out and a DMR/plasma pistol for BTB games. There's a CQC one with an AR start that's useful in rumble pit or objective to clean up hills and whatnot, but despite the agonizing I put into messing with the load outs in the first place I really just stuck with what I had soon after launch.

(I would love it if we got a bit closer to dexterity speeds on reloading non-power weapons by default in the next Halo.)

I'd like to see a best of breed approach next time e.g. use in game cinematics with your custom character, like Reach, but keep the story flowing weekly/monthly like SPOPS. If they used a story mode as required to play through at least once and then allowed the usual firefight replay/customisation with skulls/scoring it would be a greater success with higher quality IMO.

That sounds like an interesting idea to me, personally. Maybe once you've beaten each successive story mission or set of missions it unlocks a more traditional FF arena ripped from or inspired by that set of missions, akin to how you unlocked the FF arenas in ODST.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

(I would love it if we got a bit closer to dexterity speeds on reloading non-power weapons by default in the next Halo.)

Fuch yeah. I never understood why Bungie made the game slower all around. It felt like an eternity to equip the Gravity Hammer in Halo 3..

Animations need to be much quicker and snappier. Changing weapons, reloads, transition from sprint to shooting, etc.

 

[kittens]

I wonder if you'll be able to Snap Twitch and watch other streams while playing games. If so, this could benefit competitive players:

Holy shit, that's genius.

 

[User 73706]

Holy shit, that's genius.

In theory, could you screen-cheat over live in real time if that were the case?

 

[Poker Face]

I'd like to see firefight with an optional story line. Like you have to play through the "story mode" aka spartan ops and then you unlock all the levels as Firefight maps. From there you can choose to play story mode or just play with custom settings, endless waves, skulls, etc etc.

Best of both worlds tbh.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Fuch yeah. I never understood why Bungie made the game slower all around. It felt like an eternity to equip the Gravity Hammer in Halo 3..

Animations need to be much quicker and snappier. Changing weapons, reloads, transition from sprint to shooting, etc.

I agree with this, this will most likely get some hate (the sprint part below) but I think it likens itself to the ideal of being a Spartan. We should have lightning hands, side step melees/enemies and generally move silky smooth.

1. What happened to side stepping the sword? Spartan reflexes and a great game mechanic that only worked when adjacent to your sword attacker.

2. What happened to slide jumping? The books described this as the effect of having shields making a Spartan able to slide on angled surfaces.

3. What happened to fast weapon switching from Halo 2? You know Spartan hand speed to whip out a sword then slice'n'dice while quickly and easily going in and out of BRrrrrrring.

4. Sprint? It makes sense to me that a Spartan should be able to sprint and switch to shooting quite quickly.

To me having these sorts of Spartan-like base traits are the "right" ways of moving the gameplay forward. I repeat how much I want to see a base game with dexterity+resupply+recharge+shielding+firepower+awareness+explosives+stability+stealth for all players all the time with some fixed loadouts in place of custom ones. Put this on regional dedis with quality multiplayer maps, shiny graphics, in game rank, quality objective and you've got me playing only your game for quite some time.

 

[kittens]

In theory, could you screen-cheat over live in real time if that were the case?

I imagine Twitch or any other streaming service would have a significantly longer delay than XBL would.

 

[Plywood]

Why did juices get banned?

JUGO DE JUGO

NO

POR QUE

POR QUE

 

[Prinz Eugn]

In theory, could you screen-cheat over live in real time if that were the case?

If Halo Cinco: Poncho is slow enough for that to actually be useful, we are really fucked.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

After CE, I imagined Halo getting faster while maintaining that same powerful gameplay.

I agree with this, this will most likely get some hate (the sprint part below) but I think it likens itself to the ideal of being a Spartan. We should have lightning hands, side step melees/enemies and generally move silky smooth.

1. What happened to side stepping the sword? Spartan reflexes and a great game mechanic that only worked when adjacent to your sword attacker.

Thrusters should/could be part of base movement. I'd love a Halo where the gunplay feels like CE with fast kill times and skill-based weapons, balanced further by more movement options with tight ass controls.

People complain about the CE Pistol, but throw in some Thrusters and tighter, more responsive controls? Balance.

2. What happened to slide jumping? The books described this as the effect of having shields making a Spartan able to slide on angled surfaces.

Sounds cool but I don't know how well that would translate in game. I think instead of making it an animation, just bring back the momentum you build from jumping down a slope in earlier games.

3. What happened to fast weapon switching from Halo 2? You know Spartan hand speed to whip out a sword then slice'n'dice while quickly and easily going in and out of BRrrrrrring.

One of the things I liked with Halo 2. Switching weapons felt pretty fast.

In CE I always liked to keep my fingers moving and the Spartan doing things, so I would switch weapons with a melee. Also, that would cancel the equipping sound the weapons made, allowing for sneakiness.

4. Sprint? It makes sense to me that a Spartan should be able to sprint and switch to shooting quite quickly.

I'm all for removing sprint and making base movement faster, but if they keep it then at least make the transitions a lot smoother/quicker.

 

[Akai__]

I imagine Twitch or any other streaming service would have a significantly longer delay than XBL would.

Twitch hasa standard delay of 5-7 seconds, depending to which server the streamer uploads. Mobile Twitch and XBL Twitch have a ~30 seconds delay, at least for me. If people want to streamcheat, it's not very effective/smart to do that with the snap feature. Also, I think you can set a delay for your stream, at least partners can, but I think you can set it up in the streaming software, too.

 

[kittens]

After CE, I imagined Halo getting faster while maintaining that same powerful gameplay.

Thrusters should/could be part of base movement. I'd love a Halo where the gunplay feels like CE with fast kill times and skill-based weapons, balanced further by more movement options with tight ass controls.

People complain about the CE Pistol, but throw in some Thrusters and tighter, more responsive controls? Balance.

YES

PLEASE

343 PLEASE

Twitch hasa standard delay of 5-7 seconds, depending to which server the streamer uploads. Mobile Twitch and XBL Twitch have a ~30 seconds delay, at least for me. If people want to streamcheat, it's not very effective/smart to do that with the snap feature. Also, I think you can set a delay for your stream, at least partners can, but I think you can set it up in the streaming software, too.

Cool, good to know.

 

[Fuchsdh]

I agree with this, this will most likely get some hate (the sprint part below) but I think it likens itself to the ideal of being a Spartan. We should have lightning hands, side step melees/enemies and generally move silky smooth.

1. What happened to side stepping the sword? Spartan reflexes and a great game mechanic that only worked when adjacent to your sword attacker.

2. What happened to slide jumping? The books described this as the effect of having shields making a Spartan able to slide on angled surfaces.

3. What happened to fast weapon switching from Halo 2? You know Spartan hand speed to whip out a sword then slice'n'dice while quickly and easily going in and out of BRrrrrrring.

4. Sprint? It makes sense to me that a Spartan should be able to sprint and switch to shooting quite quickly.

To me having these sorts of Spartan-like base traits are the "right" ways of moving the gameplay forward. I repeat how much I want to see a base game with dexterity+resupply+recharge+shielding+firepower+awareness+explosives+stability+stealth for all players all the time with some fixed loadouts in place of custom ones. Put this on regional dedis with quality multiplayer maps, shiny graphics, in game rank, quality objective and you've got me playing only your game for quite some time.

I'm sure Unknown would start in on the strafe/sprint/base speed arguments we have from time to time here, but while I'm less focused on that as to the elements of Halo I really pick up on, I do think 343 deserves major kudos for their character animation work. Both Reach and Halo 4 try and give the Spartans more heft. In Reach it made us feel weaker (which, to be fair, was a goal); in 4, I feel like something weighty but speedy. A lot of it has to do with the very subtle temporal easing of the final frames of each animation, as well as the slight elastic motion of the HUD elements.

One reason why I and others like sprint so much is besides the tradeoff of speed versus fighting capability, you feel faster in a way that's just not really possible by boosting the movement speeds to Unreal levels. The animation itself really sells the perception in a way that raw numbers can't.

On a positive note, this means that we can appease or compromise players like me and players like Unknown purely by playing with the animations--keeping some of the movement inertia but adjusting the speed of the animations can make it feel and act more responsive without necessarily changing the values.

 

[Orochinagis]

If Halo Cinco: Poncho is slow enough for that to actually be useful, we are really fucked.

Need a Halo themed mezcal or tequila with my LE.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

I'm sure Unknown would start in on the strafe/sprint/base speed arguments we have from time to time here, but while I'm less focused on that as to the elements of Halo I really pick up on, I do think 343 deserves major kudos for their character animation work. Both Reach and Halo 4 try and give the Spartans more heft. In Reach it made us feel weaker (which, to be fair, was a goal); in 4, I feel like something weighty but speedy. A lot of it has to do with the very subtle temporal easing of the final frames of each animation, as well as the slight elastic motion of the HUD elements.

One reason why I and others like sprint so much is besides the tradeoff of speed versus fighting capability, you feel faster in a way that's just not really possible by boosting the movement speeds to Unreal levels. The animation itself really sells the perception in a way that raw numbers can't.

On a positive note, this means that we can appease or compromise players like me and players like Unknown purely by playing with the animations--keeping some of the movement inertia but adjusting the speed of the animations can make it feel and act more responsive without necessarily changing the values.

Agreed across the board. I feel like the current Halo 4 movement is almost spot on. I'm sure there is a fair amount to be tweaked with dedis and hopefully a buff to strafe acceleration and a nerf to aim assist to really hit home that sweet spot movement/aiming wise.

Side note I wouldn't want to see Halo have the base movement of Unreal. I never really played Unreal as I found it "too fast" for my tastes. Given current speed I could deal with 2-5% but I don't think it's needed if the strafe/aim assist is as above.

Also any golden age Halo/XBL/Bungie fan or curiosity for that online era should read the section "Halo effect" in this article by Polygon, linked from this gaming side thread. A perfect look into Allard, Xbox Live & Bungie to deliver what was a brilliant experience for online gaming and Halo specifically.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

I'm sure Unknown would start in on the strafe/sprint/base speed arguments we have from time to time here, but while I'm less focused on that as to the elements of Halo I really pick up on, I do think 343 deserves major kudos for their character animation work. Both Reach and Halo 4 try and give the Spartans more heft. In Reach it made us feel weaker (which, to be fair, was a goal); in 4, I feel like something weighty but speedy. A lot of it has to do with the very subtle temporal easing of the final frames of each animation, as well as the slight elastic motion of the HUD elements.

One reason why I and others like sprint so much is besides the tradeoff of speed versus fighting capability, you feel faster in a way that's just not really possible by boosting the movement speeds to Unreal levels. The animation itself really sells the perception in a way that raw numbers can't.

On a positive note, this means that we can appease or compromise players like me and players like Unknown purely by playing with the animations--keeping some of the movement inertia but adjusting the speed of the animations can make it feel and act more responsive without necessarily changing the values.

Yeah, definitely agree with everything you said. Nice description on the bit about player perception; the little details that really drive the experience further, whether people are conscious of it or not. Take Gears Judgment for example, they removed the COG's vs Locusts and that had a huge impact on what players loved about that franchise. The little details like hearing Locusts run up on you in multiplayer from their distinctive breathing, and vice versa for humans.

Also, one thing that never made sense to me is how people say they made the maps bigger to compensate for sprint. Sure 343 may have said that, but in reality Halo 4's maps are no bigger than maps we've seen in the past. I think every one of the maps they added in Halo PC were bigger than most of Halo 4's maps, no?

And if they were referring to maps like Haven, I really don't see how it couldn't fit into any other Halo game. I feel like people took that from 343 and ran with it as a negative, when in reality that was probably just the PR spin for sprint's inclusion.

 

[Barrow Roll]

Anyone wanna bet that the next Halo will have crouch sliding

 

[blamite]

Also any golden age Halo/XBL/Bungie fan or curiosity for that online era should read the section "Halo effect" in this article by Polygon, linked from this gaming side thread. A perfect look into Allard, Xbox Live & Bungie to deliver what was a brilliant experience for online gaming and Halo specifically.

Yea this is a really good article, read the whole thing though.

Also it has this perfect image:

 

[Fotos]

Anyone wanna bet that the next Halo will have crouch sliding

I read this and chuckled until I realized that I could actually see 343 doing this.

 

[Steelyuhas]

Anyone wanna bet that the next Halo will have crouch sliding

I wouldn't bet against it.

 

[Orochinagis]

Anyone wanna bet that the next Halo will have crouch sliding

New AA confirmed.

 

[feel]

I wonder what happened to Shake Appeal's Halogaf dissertation?

Jetpack didn't get enough of an upgrade in Halo 4.

You'll have to excuse the double post, but here's something that's very cool.

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/28385580/#Comment_28385580

One of the Halo Penny Arcade community members was lucky to have his son. Way back when, he shared a pic of his son sleeping next to a Master Chief action figure:

Here he is nine years later, holding the same action figure with his new little brother:

Wow I think I remember seeing that first photo on Teamxbox or something, how time flies. Very cool seeing him grown up holding the figure and his lil bro.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Anyone wanna bet that the next Halo will have crouch sliding

Don't we already do this on maps like Valhalla or Ragnarok when landing off the mancannon? I do it out of habit maybe I'm wrong it actually affects your momentum...

 

[FyreWulff]

Don't we already do this on maps like Valhalla or Ragnarok when landing off the mancannon? I do it out of habit maybe I'm wrong it actually affects your momentum...

I think he means like Destiny's crouch slide, but the slide jump/skip jump in Halo 2 onwards legitimately makes you go noticeably faster.

Valhalla - off the mancannons can cut time to the hill

Burial Mounds - if defense executes a slidejump from their front window to the ghost, they can reach Defense's beam rifle before the closest defender can even get a prompt to pick it up

ODST Crater - you can slide jump off the side-staircase railing to gain an extra second or two running to the weapons on the back of the map

etc

the way I always execute it is to try and hit the slope at the most obtuse angle I can at the highest speed possible. Crouch right before hitting the ground then let go of the crouch as you hit the ground to "pop" your biped out of the world geometry and keep the momentum.

A similar trick can be done with low ceilings (at least in Halo 2, none of the maps after 2 had an opportunity to do this) where you jump into them crouched, then release the crouch at the apex of the jump so your head goes into the ceiling, which bounces you fast back into ground, so you can kind of ricochet yourself a little faster. You can do this with the bottom of the bridge inside the defense base of Burial Mounds.

 

[Speedy Blue Dude]

Don't we already do this on maps like Valhalla or Ragnarok when landing off the mancannon? I do it out of habit maybe I'm wrong it actually affects your momentum...

It does make you go faster. Best way to grab the laser on Ragnarok is go off the man cannon, and moment you hit the ground jump and jetpack, you go like twice as fast as you should.

Anyways, that isn't crouch sliding.

 

[YourExWife]

In theory, could you screen-cheat over live in real time if that were the case?

Didn't see this answered, but most streaming apps on PC allow for a manual delay. Not sure if this will be a feature for XBONE though.

 

[Mace Griffin]

Halo 5 in 2015 seems reasonable to me.

If the 2014 Halo for Xbox One was an ODST-like expansion, I imagine it would be slightly cheaper, and I don't imagine it would be so big a drain as to derail Halo 5's production.


*Incoming rampant speculations*

Problem with all this guesswork is we don't have a clear idea what 343 is capable of as a studio now. With ODST, a lot of the dev team were the people slated to work on Chronicles. They were "free" resources in a sense that they could throw on the project without adjusting Reach's timeframe, or that of Destiny.

We know that back in 2007-8, 343 Industries was basically a half-dozen people. We know that there were as many as 350 people including contractors who worked on the game;[1][2] I haven't seen a reliable estimate for how large the team is now, however.

We do know that a number of key campaign- and multiplayer-related staff have left, but we haven't seen as much about the hirings, and we can't really judge timetables from that either--for example, Halo 4's writer Chris Schlerf left just recently[3] but he's credited for the upcoming Arby-related comic series so I don't think he would have started on any game work.

So all the guesses about how much time doing a project would take 343, etc., is sort of a fool's errand (but one we all love to play!) without knowing more about how the studio is structured and staffed post-release.

Like many people here, I firmly subscribe to the "a game is late..." mantra, but I don't think we can say much about the studio's capabilities to deliver a quality title going forward since they're so new and maturing. I do hope that in the coming installments they're able to consolidate more of the periphery of the game experience into themselves; while Certain Affinity is awesome and has done some excellent work, Forge clearly suffered by being spun out as a dev chore, and I think that's partially unavoidable.

[1] http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/29/what-went-wrong-with-halo-4s-prometheans/
[2] http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/191234/making_halo_4_a_story_about_.php
[3] http://teambeyond.net/chris-schlerf-leaves-343i/#sthash.b4CdQSUL.dpbs

Halo 4 was primarily not so great due to design decisions rather than outright incompetence or lack of time imo. Yes there were things missing but the main issue is the actual gameplay. If they are of the mindset of following the trend of modern military shooters, everybody must win mentality, shallow gameplay and artificial reward systems we will be getting more of the same regardless of how capable their staff are or how long they have to make the game.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Forward Unto Dawn's latest content is an interview with Forgers Petetheduck and Nillapuddin on the past, present, and future of the Forge map editor. Go read!

 

[The Real Napsta]

I hear a lot about pete the duck, has he made anything I would know of?

 

[Fuchsdh]

I hear a lot about pete the duck, has he made anything I would know of?

Duck Hunt, Speedrun, Onslaught, Warthog Chase, Shrinking Sumo, Tic-Tac-Toe, Rock-Paper-Scissors, Guitar Halo, Breakout, Musical Chairs...

Basically if it can be done in Forge Pete figures out a way to do it.

 

[FyreWulff]

Pretty good writeup on the birth of Xbox Live

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/11/11/4849940/xbox-live-millennium-e

part of the halo 2 section

"There was a lot of controversy around, 'Why didn't we take the Halo code base, give it to some other team if Bungie doesn't want to do it, and let them make it into a Live product that's ready for the Live launch?'"

The response from Bungie: No way. Halo was Bungie's baby. The idea of handing it over to someone else to make a quick port was anathema, and diverting talent from the ambitious Halo 2 project just to port Halo likewise just wasn't going to happen.

Meanwhile, the Halo 2 team struggled to reconcile its ambition with Xbox Live's capabilities. Bungie co-founder Jason Jones, Butcher and the multiplayer design lead, Max Hoberman, sat down to plan out where they wanted Halo multiplayer to go, from Halo 2 and beyond. Their ideas centered on the vision they shared with Allard of the "virtual couch," where players could find, interact with and play against their friends seamlessly, safely and consistently. Hoberman wrote up the proposal and the three men walked it across the parking lot to Millennium E for the kick-off meeting.

"If you go and look at that document, it was essentially a superset of all the multiplayer features for Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Reach and other games yet to be created in the Halo series," says Butcher.

Bungie had bitten off more than it could chew and eventually cut two additional games' worth of multiplayer features from Hoberman's original design just to get the game out the door in time. For Butcher, it was equal parts exhilarating and disappointing. What eventually shipped in Halo 2 was more advanced than anything anyone had ever done on consoles, and arguably PCs as well. But for Bungie it was a fraction of what was possible.

"At Bungie, we always try and do way too much," Butcher says. "We were always trying to shoot for the moon and bite off so many things. We get so excited about these experiences and what it's going to be like when these things all come together. ... We'd have this vision for an amazing, integrated Halo multiplayer community experience. And then we'd try and build it. With Halo 2, maybe we got 50 percent of the way there. With Halo 3, maybe we got 80 percent of the way there. Whatever it is. But there would always be these things that were left on the table."

 

[Elros]

Pretty good writeup on the birth of Xbox Live

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/11/11/4849940/xbox-live-millennium-e

part of the halo 2 section

Really interesting article. I didn't know Bungie played such a big role in the early times of Xbox Lives.

 

[FyreWulff]

Really interesting article. I didn't know Bungie played such a big role in the early times of Xbox Lives.

They pretty much laid the groundwork for the entire 360 UI.

People essentially used Halo 2 as a replacement Xbox Dashboard. Most everyone I knew pretty much loaded Halo 2 by default into their Xbox, and arranged games for other games in Halo 2 lobbies as well. It was the best way to manage messages and so on too.

 

[G17]

New Gameinformer cover unveiled. So I guess the Halo 5/Halo Wars 2 rumour with the Gameinformer December unveil was bs.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=713825

 

[User 73706]

New Gameinformer cover unveiled. So I guess the Halo 5/Halo Wars 2 rumour with the Gameinformer December unveil was bs.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=713825

I don't even remember hearing about the rumor. I feel like we're destined for a January reveal, regardless of what the game itself is.

Crazy to think it's almost been two years since we watched the fourshothaven.gif while To Galaxy plays in the background.

 

[NobleGundam]

New Gameinformer cover unveiled. So I guess the Halo 5/Halo Wars 2 rumour with the Gameinformer December unveil was bs.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=713825

Which rumor is this?

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

Halo 4 was primarily not so great due to design decisions rather than outright incompetence or lack of time imo. Yes there were things missing but the main issue is the actual gameplay. If they are of the mindset of following the trend of modern military shooters, everybody must win mentality, shallow gameplay and artificial reward systems we will be getting more of the same regardless of how capable their staff are or how long they have to make the game.

This is why I think Halo 5 should just release in 2014. Most of Halo 4's problems stemmed from poor design decisions and resource management.

Pretty good writeup on the birth of Xbox Live

http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/11/11/4849940/xbox-live-millennium-e

part of the halo 2 section

So you mean to tell me CE could've been ported to XBL but Bungie didn't want it to be? Is that what I just read?

At the very least, this just shows that Bungie wasn't ready for the explosion in Halo's popularity.

 

[aHebrewMenagerie]

Five for Halo 5

I don't know if you guys picked up on this, but a couple guys (including me) from the BeyondEnt forums have been working on a letter to 343 that basically outlines what we want to see happen with Halo 5's multiplayer.