343 Industries, congratulations on Monitor’s Bounty. It is good to see you guys as a studio stay committed to offering Halo 5 content updates. Ske7ch deserves props for being a good community manager so far. I was impressed when you addressed the issue of black undersuits, a small thing but even acknowledging that is impressive and he further offered sympathy and seemed to expressed disbelief that this was even something forgotten about in the first place by the team. The communication and transparency on the multiplayer side of Halo 5 looks to be on a decent track.
However, there is one community that has yet to have their thoughts and concerns addressed in a thoughtful or constructive way: the story community. It’s probably no secret that Halo 5’a campaign is by and large a controversial subject. It has its fans and if they love them more power to them. But if you go to any Halo site you will find a lot of uncertainty. What has not allocated any concerns is the year long silence you studio has allowed to happen about anything campaign related. When you have said anything it has been, at best, vague statements saying that feedback from Halo 5 is being considered and, at worst, seemingly criticizing the fans as was the case in Frank O’Connor’s interview with TIME Magazine where he said in reference to people thinking Cortana was evil, "“But my hopes for the future of the universe are that we can tell a realistic story. I saw a complaint online, somebody had been reading spoilers, they hadn’t played the game, and they said ‘Why is this character evil?’ And my question back to them is, ‘What makes you say they’re evil?’ Certainly a lot of our younger players are going to struggle with that subtlety, that nuance, because they’re expecting Darth Vader.”
Isn’t assuming that it’s young fans (whatever that statement actually means) who struggle with subtlety and nuance (of which there really isn’t and given just how and why Cortana is the way she is has yet to be consistently resolved by you guys yet) condescending? It’s also odd to suddenly care about ancharacers actions not being seen as so black and white when you had no problem allowing Dr. Halsey to be compared to -Yoink!- and called a monster outright. Yet that is where we find ourselves at. Even that joke Halo 6 script in the recent Canon Fodder, while funny, can be interpreted as a jab at the community with its “Entirely written by” authorship clearly being a reference to the folks who blamed Brian Reed as Lead Writer for all of the stories problems. No doubt such criticism was wrong and illogical, but that wasn’t even a majority of the criticism people have had. Yet a year later that gets joked about while actual concerns have been left unaddressed.
I can’t imagine much is going to change, but if anyone at 343 is listening, I’ll give you a rundown on what bugs people.
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The Marketing. The marketing for Halo 5 did not reflect what the game wasn’t really about. What happened to the ideaological differences Locke and Chief were supposed to exhibit as made evident in their two respective trailers where one confronts the other? What about the Bullet trailer that has all of the identities of Chief and what those may mean for his future? Why was Hunt the Truth essentially disconnected from the events of the game? I also have to bring up the dishonest displayed in interviews you guys have for the game. Why say Blue Team has more lines of dialogue in the game than in all of their past appearances combined when that doesn’t seem the case? Why say Cortana is dead all the way until the day before the game is released yet wax about her sacrifice was going to Ben essential to Chief’s development? Let’s not forget how you had to cover for Mike Colter when he said Locke was the hero of Halo 5 and you said a Chief still was despite only having three missions. Why couldn’t you guys just sell the game you actually made?
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The Narrative. Why is it that Halo 5 connects so poorly to the rest of the series? Spartan Ops left players with the Absolute Record and Janus Key only to be dumped in a comic book and poofed out of the setting. Why is this never mentioned in Halo 5 outside of one comment in a piece of Intel later in the game? Why is Blue Team given such a shallow role in the game to the point people have a hard time connecting to them because they don’t know who they are? Honestly, Haruspis sums up the narrative problems in a way more comprehensive manner.
In short, we just want to know what happened. You guys haven’t been afraid of explaining you problems before. You were honest about still building your team while Halo 4 was being made. You guys admitted how disappointed Microsoft’s corporate people who saw your early builds felt because they, “Looked like Halo.” You even addressed how people felt lost because they didn’t know the background lore for the Didact in Halo 4 at GDC.
We just want to understand what happened and to not be in the dark.
Well I don’t think the fake script was meant to poke fun at anyone for starters. I don’t think they’d want to talk about their bad campaign and really openly discuss it. If I made a bad product, I wouldn’t want to have a big group of people asking me/telling me why it was bad. If they do, then more power to them.
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> Well I don’t think the fake script was meant to poke fun at anyone for starters. I don’t think they’d want to talk about their bad campaign and really openly discuss it. If I made a bad product, I wouldn’t want to have a big group of people asking me/telling me why it was bad. If they do, then more power to them.
They’ve done so before and Bungie before them became open about Halo 2’s hardships in particular. Saying nothing won’t win anybody’s confidence. The fake script thing isn’t that serious, of course, it’s still pretty clear what it’s referencing with that entirely written by line. It’s still funny, but at the same time people are still hoping for something to actually come along in terms of seriously addressing lingering campaign issues.
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> > Well I don’t think the fake script was meant to poke fun at anyone for starters. I don’t think they’d want to talk about their bad campaign and really openly discuss it. If I made a bad product, I wouldn’t want to have a big group of people asking me/telling me why it was bad. If they do, then more power to them.
>
> They’ve done so before and Bungie before them became open about Halo 2’s hardships in particular. Saying nothing won’t win anybody’s confidence.
When? Was it before halo 3? Plus, I’m not sure if Microsoft really wants anyone to know about their involvement. Yes, LNG leaked it, but I don’t think they want it confirmed.
Yeah, what he said.
Something a bit beyond a “We hear you” would be nice. Like a “We agree”, or “We don’t agree”, or best case scenario “Here’s what we’re doing about it”. We already know you’ve done something, and that was to promote Brian Reed. Which, to the people who have concerns with the story direction in Halo 5, was probably a bit of a shock, and not the good kind.
Maybe you (343i) are saving such news for after Halo 6’s official announcement; maybe you’ll address it in some ViDoc. But we really, really would like something earlier, a bit of reassurance, or an explanation; something. From what I’ve heard about “Tales from Slipspace”, it doesn’t do much to address the concerns of Halo 5’s story; in fact, one story in particular just exacerbates my concerns. I really hope you guys aren’t committed to continuing down the rabbit hole you’ve started; you know it’s always possible to start digging in another direction, or even climb out.
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> > > Well I don’t think the fake script was meant to poke fun at anyone for starters. I don’t think they’d want to talk about their bad campaign and really openly discuss it. If I made a bad product, I wouldn’t want to have a big group of people asking me/telling me why it was bad. If they do, then more power to them.
> >
> > They’ve done so before and Bungie before them became open about Halo 2’s hardships in particular. Saying nothing won’t win anybody’s confidence.
>
> When? Was it before halo 3? Plus, I’m not sure if Microsoft really wants anyone to know about their involvement. Yes, LNG leaked it, but I don’t think they want it confirmed.
I believe Halo 2’s Legendary Edition came with a DVD that showed all of their hardships and naturally there have been statements made ever since. Now, I can understand not wanting to make Microsoft mad, but they can do better than blaming “young fans” among other non-responses.
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> > > > 2535455681930574;2:
> > > > Well I don’t think the fake script was meant to poke fun at anyone for starters. I don’t think they’d want to talk about their bad campaign and really openly discuss it. If I made a bad product, I wouldn’t want to have a big group of people asking me/telling me why it was bad. If they do, then more power to them.
> > >
> > > They’ve done so before and Bungie before them became open about Halo 2’s hardships in particular. Saying nothing won’t win anybody’s confidence.
> >
> > When? Was it before halo 3? Plus, I’m not sure if Microsoft really wants anyone to know about their involvement. Yes, LNG leaked it, but I don’t think they want it confirmed.
>
> I believe Halo 2’s Legendary Edition came with a DVD that showed all of their hardships and naturally there have been statements made ever since. Now, I can understand not wanting to make Microsoft mad, but they can do better than blaming “young fans” among other non-responses.
So do you still want like a full on discussion or just something like a “we’ve heard the story complaints, so we will insure that halo 6 has one of the greatest halo campaigns to date,” kind of thing?
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> > > Yes, LNG leaked it, but I don’t think they want it confirmed.
Ugh, not that again. Those speculations are still unconfirmed by everyone except LNG. I mean, LNG even said more info would be coming and that he would try to get other youtubers to report on the same thing, but that was 5 months ago. I think that what he published in that video was speculation that just happened to fit a narrative people were able to agree with and seemed logical. People love the idea of corporate fat cats mucking things up because it’s easy to rally behind.
Look, if a reputable news source publishes a story based on an anonymous tip and only an anonymous tip, no one would take it seriously. The same should follow for LNG. He can say he wants to protect the identity of the source, but without something else to corroborate that story, it’s little more than an excuse to try and get people to believe him without hard evidence.
Don’t want to be the skeptic, but we will never know what happened or get a campaign update. Wishfully, I would love to have a campaign addon or remake, but no. And Cortana is evil, because her actions are evil. We do not get any explanations for this or her 180 on her character reversal. Yes, I watched the campaign on youtube and this is what i got. Her logic is, “I am right, you are wrong”, end story. Also, the gameplay is get from point A to point be while shooting filler enemies which in my opinion have no purpose in the game. That is not vary fun. Anyways, either they have been working on a campaign expansion for the past year and come out with a surprise or we wait this Halo 6. Oh, and personally, do not like Cortana anymore, which ruins not only Halo 5 but both the future and past of Halo lore.
PS, how awesome would it be to get gameplay in the campaign with all those REQ weapons and vehicle varieties. Truly, we can get some major open-space battles vs enemies, instead of those corridor shooters.
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> > > > > 2535455681930574;2:
> > > > > Well I don’t think the fake script was meant to poke fun at anyone for starters. I don’t think they’d want to talk about their bad campaign and really openly discuss it. If I made a bad product, I wouldn’t want to have a big group of people asking me/telling me why it was bad. If they do, then more power to them.
> > > >
> > > > They’ve done so before and Bungie before them became open about Halo 2’s hardships in particular. Saying nothing won’t win anybody’s confidence.
> > >
> > > When? Was it before halo 3? Plus, I’m not sure if Microsoft really wants anyone to know about their involvement. Yes, LNG leaked it, but I don’t think they want it confirmed.
> >
> > I believe Halo 2’s Legendary Edition came with a DVD that showed all of their hardships and naturally there have been statements made ever since. Now, I can understand not wanting to make Microsoft mad, but they can do better than blaming “young fans” among other non-responses.
>
> So do you still want like a full on discussion or just something like a “we’ve heard the story complaints, so we will insure that halo 6 has one of the greatest halo campaigns to date,” kind of thing?
The former. The latter statement is all fluff that doesn’t mean anything. The roundtable format they used in the Halo 5 pre-release videos detailing aspects of the game would be ideal.
I really do hope this gets more light shed on it, there’s some things you have to acknowledge with mistakes yet so far it seems the halo 5 campaign is getting swept under the same rug as mcc
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> > > > Yes, LNG leaked it, but I don’t think they want it confirmed.
>
> Ugh, not that again. Those speculations are still unconfirmed by everyone except LNG. I mean, LNG even said more info would be coming and that he would try to get other youtubers to report on the same thing, but that was 5 months ago. I think that what he published in that video was speculation that just happened to fit a narrative people were able to agree with and seemed logical. People love the idea of corporate fat cats mucking things up because it’s easy to rally behind.
> Look, if a reputable news source publishes a story based on an anonymous tip and only an anonymous tip, no one would take it seriously. The same should follow for LNG. He can say he wants to protect the identity of the source, but without something else to corroborate that story, it’s little more than an excuse to try and get people to believe him without hard evidence.
But everything adds up perfectly. Also he never said that he would release more info. All the evidence points to his claims. Also, if he was lying, why would 343 ever want to have him on the 15 years of halo thing? No one would want a guy who’s just spreading lies about them.
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> > > > > > Well I don’t think the fake script was meant to poke fun at anyone for starters. I don’t think they’d want to talk about their bad campaign and really openly discuss it. If I made a bad product, I wouldn’t want to have a big group of people asking me/telling me why it was bad. If they do, then more power to them.
> > > > >
> > > > > They’ve done so before and Bungie before them became open about Halo 2’s hardships in particular. Saying nothing won’t win anybody’s confidence.
> > > >
> > > > When? Was it before halo 3? Plus, I’m not sure if Microsoft really wants anyone to know about their involvement. Yes, LNG leaked it, but I don’t think they want it confirmed.
> > >
> > > I believe Halo 2’s Legendary Edition came with a DVD that showed all of their hardships and naturally there have been statements made ever since. Now, I can understand not wanting to make Microsoft mad, but they can do better than blaming “young fans” among other non-responses.
> >
> > So do you still want like a full on discussion or just something like a “we’ve heard the story complaints, so we will insure that halo 6 has one of the greatest halo campaigns to date,” kind of thing?
>
> The former. The latter statement is all fluff that doesn’t mean anything. The roundtable format they used in the Halo 5 pre-release videos detailing aspects of the game would be ideal.
But I’ve already said why there’s almost definitely not going to be a big discussion…
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> > > > > Yes, LNG leaked it, but I don’t think they want it confirmed.
> >
> > Ugh, not that again. Those speculations are still unconfirmed by everyone except LNG. I mean, LNG even said more info would be coming and that he would try to get other youtubers to report on the same thing, but that was 5 months ago. I think that what he published in that video was speculation that just happened to fit a narrative people were able to agree with and seemed logical. People love the idea of corporate fat cats mucking things up because it’s easy to rally behind.
> > Look, if a reputable news source publishes a story based on an anonymous tip and only an anonymous tip, no one would take it seriously. The same should follow for LNG. He can say he wants to protect the identity of the source, but without something else to corroborate that story, it’s little more than an excuse to try and get people to believe him without hard evidence.
>
> But everything adds up perfectly. Also he never said that he would release more info. All the evidence points to his claims. Also, if he was lying, why would 343 ever want to have him on the 15 years of halo thing? No one would want a guy who’s just spreading lies about them.
In the comments of that famous video, he made comments that other youtubers knew and that end wasn’t the end of him uncovering the “truth” about Halo 5. That was 5 months ago. There haven’t been any updates from him regarding that story.
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> > > > > > > Well I don’t think the fake script was meant to poke fun at anyone for starters. I don’t think they’d want to talk about their bad campaign and really openly discuss it. If I made a bad product, I wouldn’t want to have a big group of people asking me/telling me why it was bad. If they do, then more power to them.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > They’ve done so before and Bungie before them became open about Halo 2’s hardships in particular. Saying nothing won’t win anybody’s confidence.
> > > > >
> > > > > When? Was it before halo 3? Plus, I’m not sure if Microsoft really wants anyone to know about their involvement. Yes, LNG leaked it, but I don’t think they want it confirmed.
> > > >
> > > > I believe Halo 2’s Legendary Edition came with a DVD that showed all of their hardships and naturally there have been statements made ever since. Now, I can understand not wanting to make Microsoft mad, but they can do better than blaming “young fans” among other non-responses.
> > >
> > > So do you still want like a full on discussion or just something like a “we’ve heard the story complaints, so we will insure that halo 6 has one of the greatest halo campaigns to date,” kind of thing?
> >
> > The former. The latter statement is all fluff that doesn’t mean anything. The roundtable format they used in the Halo 5 pre-release videos detailing aspects of the game would be ideal.
>
> But I’ve already said why there’s almost definitely not going to be a big discussion…
We will see. I can’t say I hope for a big discussion, it would be ideal but that doesn’t mean likely. Addressing some concerns in a community update would work just as fine. I just can’t accept they couldn’t say anything. There is plenty they can remark on, notably the disconnect from the larger story.
With the amount of transparency that has been offered for the multiplayer side of the game I would really like to see the same done for the campaign, you have to give the team props, the game had major issues with the multiplayer at launch and they have both acknowledged and attempted to rectify those issues. That said it seems pretty obvious that 343 isn’t going to put in the effort to make additions to the campaign in an “extended cut” style to rectify the poor handling of the story, so one would think they would make up for that by being very transparent in an attempt to win back fans who were sorely disappointed when they didn’t receive what 343 advertised. It’s going to be tough for people to believe you when you say Halo 6 is going to be the best thing ever when the same was said about the MCC and Halo 5 and both of those made a bunch of money and then were swept under the rug. In my opinion 343 coming out and having this discussion isn’t as much about covering their -Yoinks!- on why they BLAM’d Halo 5, but more of an absolute necessity in order to try and convince people who want to love Halo that as a company they are capable of delivering what is expected from a Halo game, as well as not using shady marketing schemes to trick the people who pay them to make games for a living into thinking their product is something it isn’t.
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> With the amount of transparency that has been offered for the multiplayer side of the game I would really like to see the same done for the campaign, you have to give the team props, the game had major issues with the multiplayer at launch and they have both acknowledged and attempted to rectify those issues. That said it seems pretty obvious that 343 isn’t going to put in the effort to make additions to the campaign in an “extended cut” style to rectify the poor handling of the story, so one would think they would make up for that by being very transparent in an attempt to win back fans who were sorely disappointed when they didn’t receive what 343 advertised. It’s going to be tough for people to believe you when you say Halo 6 is going to be the best thing ever when the same was said about the MCC and Halo 5 and both of those made a bunch of money and then were swept under the rug. In my opinion 343 coming out and having this discussion isn’t as much about covering their -Yoinks!- on why they BLAM’d Halo 5, but more of an absolute necessity in order to try and convince people who want to love Halo that as a company they are capable of delivering what is expected from a Halo game, as well as not using shady marketing schemes to trick the people who pay them to make games for a living into thinking their product is something it isn’t.
I don’t even think many people are expecting an extended cut, but some answers are necessary as you said. We know for a fact that Halo 5 was more or less designed as a standalone experience. That was said The Sprint and its Halo 5 post-mortem (which didn’t exactly give new information). That seems like a bizarre choice for the fifth game in the main story, why make that choice? I think there was talk of broadening the appeal and allowing it to be a good first introduction for new fans, but that didn’t work.
I honestly remember when my friend and I were switchin off from locke and cheif we injoy ed the campaign (except jul, I have video prof of my immediate dissatisfaction).
After a few weeks we discussed what we thought, and we both loved the gameplay, but I accidentally made him hate the story by giveing to meny points against it… opps lol
My point being, I think halo 5 needs to be played with a friend sitting next to you, it helps kinda deal with hard parts of the story or even bugs, and gives you a second opinion to what is going on.
Now as for the main post, it should have been the story in the comics where blue team goes to the 3rd Halo, and then they go rouge for some reason. Locke’s team is sent out to investigate what’s going on, warden shows up and says cheif is granted access, making locke think he’s in cahoots with didact.
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> > With the amount of transparency that has been offered for the multiplayer side of the game I would really like to see the same done for the campaign, you have to give the team props, the game had major issues with the multiplayer at launch and they have both acknowledged and attempted to rectify those issues. That said it seems pretty obvious that 343 isn’t going to put in the effort to make additions to the campaign in an “extended cut” style to rectify the poor handling of the story, so one would think they would make up for that by being very transparent in an attempt to win back fans who were sorely disappointed when they didn’t receive what 343 advertised. It’s going to be tough for people to believe you when you say Halo 6 is going to be the best thing ever when the same was said about the MCC and Halo 5 and both of those made a bunch of money and then were swept under the rug. In my opinion 343 coming out and having this discussion isn’t as much about covering their -Yoinks!- on why they BLAM’d Halo 5, but more of an absolute necessity in order to try and convince people who want to love Halo that as a company they are capable of delivering what is expected from a Halo game, as well as not using shady marketing schemes to trick the people who pay them to make games for a living into thinking their product is something it isn’t.
>
> I don’t even think many people are expecting an extended cut, but some answers are necessary as you said. We know for a fact that Halo 5 was more or less designed as a standalone experience. That was said The Sprint and its Halo 5 post-mortem (which didn’t exactly give new information). That seems like a bizarre choice for the fifth game in the main story, why make that choice? I think there was talk of broadening the appeal and allowing it to be a good first introduction for new fans, but that didn’t work.
So Halo 6 should be called just Halo 5, I am fine with that. Just say Halo 5 Guardians never happened as is non-Canon.
Well said but dont expect anything to come of this.
Official reviewers, press, and the like of the industry noted that h5 suffered the same flaws of h4 and then some in regards to the story. 343 knows this.
I personally kept up to date as best i could with the expanded universe post h4 because I figured id need to know what was going on just to understand the story. H5 proved me right. I dont expect H6 to be a self contained story. That does not mean dumbing the story down or making the plot so thin a blind man could see through. H2 had a complex plot. H2 explained its settings why the bad guys where bad and had character development. H1 and H3 the same could be saidto a lesser extent but this still holds true. H4 simply lacked explanation for the antagonist. H4’s story would have been better recived had the question of “why are we fighting x” been answered.
I need to know what is at stake to give the battles meaning. In the past it was to save humanity and all life in the galaxy. Why am i fighting now? This trilogy was suppose to be something along the lines of “forgive but dont forget?” Im not seeing it. So far its been ancient evil telling us to get off his lawn and cortana coming back from the dead somehow to become the evil overlord of all life for no in game hinted or given reason.
It doesnt matter how many planets you blow up if i cant relate to the characters, their story, the story will lack any meaning. Why are the bad guys bad? Dont answer this in another story answer this in the current story being told. Develop the characters lets not leave them all hollow shells please. If they have importance to the plot outside of a minor or background character develop them. Who are Osiris? Blue team? Arbiter? Dont answer that in a book/outside media, this is important to the setting and story answer this in the story being told.
Fully flesh everything out. Settings, characters, plot, ect. Scale back by refining the story. Characters move the plot not theother way around. Halo3 ODST had a short campaign, it fleshed out 6 characters, and fulfilled answering all the questions needed to understand the story. They didnt have to say why the covies were bad, it showed why. ODST was given 1 year, meaning the story was given less time to refine itself.