False Hope for Halo 5?
False Hope for Halo 5?
This was posted by Saucey on the beyond forums. It's encouraging, but at the same time a takeaway from a promotional event. Thought it might be of interest though.
Saucey:
So fast forward to the Halo 4 Global championships and to the main thing I wanted to say with this thread. I know everyone has had a pretty negative attitude towards 343i and Halo 4. Trust me, I get it 100 percent, I know. This whole event we (Myself, Cryen & aPK) spoke with so many staff members and got to meet some really cool people who work on different areas of the halo game development, and it really blew my hair back to hear what they had to say about Halo. They get it. They know what the game needs. We are in very good hands moving forward to the next title in my opinion - the whole 343i / Waypoint staff really impressed me the entire event (the sunday production was seriously amazing). It was an incredible experience that I will never forget.
I'm presuming he was musing about competitive Halo. That's all fine and dandy but it's still the smaller part of what makes up Halo. I hope the next Halo multiplayer includes all that is required to make competitive gaming possible in ways the greater community will accept. If anyone thinks 343i was hinting at the end of Jetpacks, Active Camo, Mechs and whacky weapons, I recommend you think again. After all, the Global Championship still included Sprint, AA and Ordnance with waypoint markers.
So you mean that there is no correlation between the competitive popularity of a game and the number of people that play the game online?
Now, the competitive nature of the game may have no impact on your enjoyment, but Halo has been getting it's ass kicked by COD since the end of H3. Partly due to the rise in quality of the COD games, but also due to competitve Halo having lost it's way.
Healthy online populations need a solid competitive following. Sure 10s of thousands is good and I'm sure many games would love to have Halo's population, but this is compared to the 100s of thousands for COD.
Anyway...
I still have very little faith in 343 to make the tough changes like remove Sprint and AAs. All of this "we know what Halo needs" is just more of the "trust us" we heard pre-H4. However, I want them to prove me wrong.
I hope they prove me wrong.
As with Halo 4, I have ZERO expectations for Halo 5, I find it helps me enjoy the games more and judge them without bias.
In any scenario it will be a well-made game from an entertainment standpoint. I still don't think it's going to be the competitive savior everyone seems to be aching for.
Nah. Just before release of Halo 4, they were actively courting the compeititve community, with some older players seeing through the bullshit immediately, and some taking more time to see before leaving or losing interest.
I'd love to think that they get it, and that they can bridge an impossible gap. Hell, they can just fix the multiplayer experience, and then they have the problem of maps to contend with. Anything CA touches turns to shit, and they're pretty much wedded to them at this point. I'm really just hoping that Destiny crushes it or Titanfall can be interesting, because that's a more comforting thought than having the corpse of the Halo franchise being irreversably humped to stale mediocrity.
They said nearly the exact same thing when Halo 4 was announced..gif "119")
I think Halo5 is going to be good. Halo4 is good, if Halo 4 released the game it is now a lot of people would of stuck around. We act sometimes as if Halo is horrible, but it's one of the best shooters you can get. I'm willing to give 343 a pass on Halo 4 release, but that can't happen again.
After Halo 4 didn't live up to the hype, and how it's still so broken it matches me up in a playlist with several thousand with pros when I'm gaming with casuals, and after all the things 343 said (like Darth said, they had me at "trust us" and they lost me when they broke that trust - - never should have said that!)... I will NEVER get excited for a game again. Fool me once...
That being said, I'm interested to check out Destiny and who knows what the future may bring.
There's supposed to be an interview with Frank O'Connor about Halo 5 coming out on gamespot soon. It'll be interesting to hear what he has to say.
He'll say a lot of nothing, just like with Halo 4. Let's see if we can take a guess at some of his quotes:
"We know what the fans want and are listening."
"We've made some mistakes with H4 and learned some valuable lessons."
"We are 100% committed to making the best Halo game ever. Rest assued, Halo is in good hands."
"We are removing Sprint and Armor Abilities. No more loadouts that include Jetpacks and Active Camo. We are going back to the roots of Halo. LOL, just kidding noobs"
"Waypoint is getting a complete overhaul, making it more user friendly and helping you quickly find the stats that interest you most. Again, just kidding."
"Trust us."
On the other hand, they've been improving Halo 4 and I think population trends since Reach are a dose of reality. I'm cautiously optimistic the game mechanics will go in the right direction.
I'm a little less optimistic about the map design. They've yet to make a map I really like.
Outside of Haven, and possibly Monolith or Skyline, there hasn't been a developer-made map worth playing since Halo 3.
I think they improved H4 a lot since launch - after jumping in for the first time a couple weeks ago since May, it seemed better in a lot of ways just with maps and gametypes. However, they still need options for "classic" halo - basically Halo 2/3 settings, or Halo 1 w/out fall damage. That means no sprint, no AA loadouts - pickup on the field instead, timed.
I don't get why they can't just make a few round arenas with multi levels and an open center, like Haven, that ship with the game. They're not that complex and they fit competitive style play.
You don't play Matchmaking.
Bah. Your opinion and your old man diapers have a lot in common.
So do you think Halo is good as-is then?
Want to point out that the Halo 4 community is a niche community. Halo 4 didn't appeal to the masses if you go by player population. If you do like Halo 4 as-is, you're in the 5-10% minority based on the initial population. I'm pretty much making the same argument as you - Halo should cater to the broader audience.
A big downside of leaving arena maps up to the community is they aren't available at launch. That's one of the reasons I stopped playing when Reach came out and again when Halo 4 came out. You have to wait a year or so until the community has those maps out and they hit the playlists. By that time the game's already lost momentum and its player base.
If I'm around tonight I'll try to get into the customs and discipline you a little for your comments =)
Have fun. Deep has been great for the community here on the site, but he'll try to give you qualified opinions about matchmaking that he has no business making because he doesn't like it, doesn't play it, and sees no need for it. That's a little ironic, because in Halo 2 and 3, most of the good action was happening in custom games until matchmaking starting giving out an outlet for such things. Now since every community is butthurt to some degree, matchmaking is much less solace these days.
Deep's a little upset over Halo 4, but he doesn't see the need or value in complaining about things or even offering constructive criticism. With all that being said, though, he's down to get shot in the face a lot on Thursday nights, so there's that.
Maps typically are terrible because since Halo 3 the theme, style, and skybox has become more important than the geometry and how it actually plays. When the maps begin to reverse that trend I'll take a look back at Halo, but right now it just isn't even on my radar for next year or the year after.
It's kind of odd to think about how Halo actually has become somewhat of a niche franchise. I mean, it used to be the flagship title for the mainstream Xbox gamer. Now that honor probably goes to Call of Duty or Battlefield. There's still a dedicated Halo fan base for sure, but it's not how it used to be.
I am curious what's going to happen with Halo 5.
No, that's for damned sure. I suppose that's what you get when you are unopposed for so long, and then get lapped by the competition.
I think so. It was Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 1 that had the new game engine, the fixed killstreaks and all, that started the turning of the tide. It wasn't until two years later where Modern Warfare 2 came out that that franchise became uncatchable. Someone will say that Battlefield is also light years better in the past 5 or so years, and I guess that's a fair point. I wouldn't know, though. Brink was supposed to be great, but ended up like dogshit, Crysis could have been an interesting blend of Call Of Duty and Halo, but the connections were so borked, there was no consistency. Left 4 Dead had an interesting co-op niche.
Titanfall is the next big competitive thing, not Halo 5.