@343: A look back, makes for a bright future.

Games Other Halo
1

That’s it, point and case. I was reading Wiki articles of the three main games this morning (don’t laugh about the Wiki part: I didn’t have a whole lot of spare time but it was just a wonderfully nostalgic morning). I read the reception section of each game, which included cited sources from a wide array of gaming sites, designers, etc. about the ups and downs of each game.

You can guess which game got hit the hardest with negative criticism: Reach.

Now while I think Reach is a great game in its own respect, I feel what brought it down for myself as well as many other Halo gamers is the complexity. Halo one, two, and even three were all renowned for keeping their core gameplay and feel between games while improving upon the initial formula. Halo is a simple FPS. It’s not meant to be the likes of CoD, Battlefield, or any of those other FPS games. Things like armor abilities were interesting to entertain, but they have no true place in Halo. They were better off as power-ups, akin to Halo 3.

I’m incredibly hopeful and interested in what you have to bring for us, 343i. I’ve always loved your attentiveness to the Halo Universe and its lore, especially where others began to falter and get lazy with keeping true to the lore. I already trust you’ll do something wonderful for bringing back the campaign aspect of Halo, despite the lack of an immediate Covenant armada at our throats.

It’s the multiplayer, the gameplay itself, that I’m anticipating with some level of nervousness. Halo 3 was highly acclaimed for an incredible map lineup. Halo 2 brought in new features like hijacking and dual-wielding without over-complicating the game. I’m not meaning to pick out Reach and say it’s a terrible game, but quite simply it didn’t have as much of the “feel” you can get from the previous trilogy.


Now, to make this topic a bit more open for discussion: What does the community feel 343i should do with gameplay and multiplayer that succeeded in previous games, as opposed to what failed? To give you an example, I'll make my own list below:

WHAT WORKED
-Simple gameplay mechanics (I.E. don't overcomplicate with swordblocks, bloom, AA's)

-A fast-moving character that doesn't take forever between Point A and Point B

-Appropriately portioned maps (I.E. Hemorrhage on Reach is a pain to go through on foot)

-Original Maps. Remakes are famous in the Halo line-up, but as seen with H2 and H3, the remakes only work their magic if the new, original maps have a lot of thought put into them.

-Guns that fit their roles (I.E. a sniper should not be the go-to weapon for slaying a tank.)

-Spread out releases! Annual releases bring a game series down. I love little side-games like ODST and CE:A, but you need time to build hype and truly make the game sparkle. Halo to Halo 2 was a three year wait; Halo 2 to Halo 3 was a three year wait. Truly, map packs and possibly campaign DLC will suffice just fine inbetween.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

-Bloom. I'm not a griefer like so many others, but in Halo you're skilled because your bullets hit exactly where you placed your reticule. It's much more challenging to get consistent sniper kills that way, for instance.

-AA's. While I personally supported the idea for a long time, even after release, I've come to realize they complicate gameplay too much and hurt level design. I don't mind if some variant of sprint remains, but the pick-ups introduced in Halo 3 are preferable to the AA's introduced in Reach.

-Annual releases. While in theory this hasn't failed, we've seen it gradually begin to kill other series. I won't name names, but you all can guess what major series are suffering from constant releases in the long run. I'll love having Halo 4, but I can wait at least 2 to 3 years for Halo 5. It'll rebuild the magic, the luster, the allure of playing a Halo game.

-A lack of competative ranking. I really didn't mind credit ranking for awhile, but once you hit General+, it gets boring and repetative. The community has no incentive to do well. Competative and Social Playlists are both necesarry to make the multiplayer aspect succeed. Otherwise you end up with playlists rife with betrayals and other annoyances.

I don't post on the 343 forums too often, so hopefully I wasn't too wordy in getting my point across! This is just my personal food for thought on the situation, and why I hope 343i's been looking back at the successes and failures of previous games!
2

> Now while I think Reach is a great game in its own respect, I feel what brought it down for myself as well as many other Halo gamers is the complexity. Halo one, two, and even three were all renowned for keeping their core gameplay and feel between games while improving upon the initial formula.

The reason that the first three games retained a “core gameplay” throughout is that they were part of a trilogy, following the same character and the same storyline. Reach is not part of that trilogy, and so its gameplay does not need to reflect that of the trilogy. More to the point, the addition of dual wielding in Halo 2 and equipment in Halo 3 did alter the core gameplay; people seem to forget this fact.

> I’ve always loved your attentiveness to the Halo Universe and its lore, especially where others began to falter and get lazy with keeping true to the lore.

I could hardly believe my eyes whilst reading this sentence; I felt sure you were talking about Bungie and not 343 Industries. 343’s handling of the lore is… suspect, to say the least.

3

> I’ve always loved your attentiveness to the Halo Universe and its lore, especially where others began to falter and get lazy with keeping true to the lore.

I could hardly believe my eyes whilst reading this sentence; I felt sure you were talking about Bungie and not 343 Industries. 343’s handling of the lore is… suspect, to say the least.
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Say what you will about 343i, everything they’ve done thus far has been working on bungie’s games, therefore thou shouldn’t judge until we are given a major game, i.e halo 4.

4

> > Now while I think Reach is a great game in its own respect, I feel what brought it down for myself as well as many other Halo gamers is the complexity. Halo one, two, and even three were all renowned for keeping their core gameplay and feel between games while improving upon the initial formula.
>
> The reason that the first three games retained a “core gameplay” throughout is that they were part of a trilogy, following the same character and the same storyline. Reach is not part of that trilogy, and so its gameplay does not need to reflect that of the trilogy. More to the point, the addition of dual wielding in Halo 2 and equipment in Halo 3 did alter the core gameplay; people seem to forget this fact.
>
>
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> > I’ve always loved your attentiveness to the Halo Universe and its lore, especially where others began to falter and get lazy with keeping true to the lore.
>
> I could hardly believe my eyes whilst reading this sentence; I felt sure you were talking about Bungie and not 343 Industries. 343’s handling of the lore is… suspect, to say the least.

I’ll reply in kind.

On the topic of Core gameplay:
-Yes, they innovated on those aspects. However, it should be noted that they didn’t do too much. Dual-Wielding and Hijacking in Halo 2, for instance. They were innovations on the core gameplay that were game-changing, but nonetheless successful. They did a lot without doing too much. They were new things you could do, without entire maps being constructed around them.

With Halo Reach, a problem I’ve personally encountered was that maps were built around AA’s, or generally built without the thought of how AA’s could make certain portions of a map moot. The addition of bloom, moreover, was a core mechanic. Hijacking and dual-wielding aren’t core mechanics… they’re new abilities that you’ve been handed with and given the option to use. Bloom was simply too large to fit the bill of previous Halo experiences.

Honestly, I don’t regret the things they did in Reach. If anything, it taught players more of what we do or don’t want in the Halo games. It’s true that it wasn’t of the main trilogy, and that it was a venture in the gameplay mechanics added or changed. But it’s become apparant to a vast cast of Halo players that these new features did not quite fit.

On the topic of Halo Lore:
Please, feel free to tell me what they’ve smacked in the face in the existing lore? 343i’s been handling parts of the lore for a few years now, starting with most of the latest books (I believe the first was Halo Evolutions?).

Moreover, their recent “Data-Drops” that they’ve been doing on-site went to lengths to explain the inconcistencies in Reach the game and the established canon in the book Fall of Reach. I’m fairly critical of Halo lore, and I’ve seen very few examples of 343i hurting it as compared to the final graces Bungie left the game with.

Not to say I don’t love Bungie, because I do. :3 They just simply kinda started to lose track of certain aspects in the universe and campaign itself with their last game.

5

A lot of people forget what always made Halo great. One word should sum it up nicely.

Innovation.

Halo CE- The start of it all, set new bars for campaign standard’s and multi-player alike (believable AI enemies, 2 weapon system.)

Halo 2 - further refined multi-player, one of the first games to pull Xbox live off right. Multiplayer was fun, engaging and competitive. as-well as a superb map lineup and new game types.

Halo 3 - Forge, Theater, File sharing etc. This game innovated the social aspect of online gaming. allowing viewing of clips and constructing your own maps. also Infection was a great new custom to play for hours. Map lineup was also very solid.

Halo Reach - For good things Invasion. Invasion has a lot of potential but was not executed right. More customization options, in both custom games and the armory. but other then that the innovation ends there.

Why did Reach flop? because we have played Halo’s 1-3 for years now, its time to break new ground with the series again.

6

> Moreover, their recent “Data-Drops” that they’ve been doing on-site went to lengths to explain the inconcistencies in Reach the game and the established canon in the book Fall of Reach.

Reach did not change the canon; it established it. That might seem like a bizarre claim, especially given the fact that The Fall of Reach chronologically preceded the game, but there is a simple truth when it comes to lore in any franchise: the original medium in which the lore is presented supersedes all other media whenever a conflict is present. Even when there is no obvious conflict, extended universe material represents a sort of “second tier” source of canon. For example, the Star Wars books should never be given the same canonical clout that the movies are given, while the Harry Potter movies should always be subordinate to the books. In Halo, the games represent the first and ultimate tier of canon, while the books simply work around the canon. And the simple reason for this is that the books (with the exception of Contact Harvest) were not written by people who had a hand in the creation of the franchise.

> Please, feel free to tell me what they’ve smacked in the face in the existing lore?

I can provide a relatively simply list, albeit one studded with spoilers. Over the last decade, Bungie established a number of elements that were not only important but central to Halo’s mythology. For example:

  1. The Forerunner were the most technologically advanced species in the known galaxy, and had bequeathed a sort of legacy on humanity. They were defined not only by their nonpareil intelligence and vision, but particular by the mystery surrounding both their lives and their deaths.

  2. The Flood were so utterly alien in nature that the only scrap of information concerning their origin that we were privy to was that they had come from beyond the galactic rim. As H. P. Lovecraft once pointed out, there is no fear greater than the fear of the unknown, and Bungie recognised this.

  3. There were seven Halo installations; a number chosen in no small part due to the particular resonance of the number seven within the Halo universe (and Bungie’s other universes, no doubt).

  4. 343 Guilty Spark represented the first Forerunner AI ever encountered by humans, and his mannerisms and attitudes were perfectly in line with what he was supposed to be: an artificial intelligence–a computer programme.

  5. Humanity’s history in the Halo universe paralleled that of its real-world history; to wit, we evolved from primitive mammals to become the dominant species on the planet.

That was what Bungie did, and they did it well. Here is what 343 Industries has done in the span of a few short months:

  1. The Forerunner have been demoted from their position of prime importance by a species that has nothing new to offer and is in fact a simple clone of the Forerunner. Wanting to explore the Forerunner in more detail (an error in itself), 343 Industries realised that the Forerunner themselves would now need a mysterious, technologically advanced benefactor to justify certain narrative alterations, and thus we have the Precursors. The Forerunner have been robbed of their majesty, their mystery, and their centrality in the Halo mythology.

  2. The Flood, now no longer an unknowable entity from beyond the galaxy, are now probably synonymous with the Precursors, and–worse still–exist as some sort of galactic examination that the Precursors could use to determine the merit of humanity and other species, leaving aside the fact that said examination engenders the death of countless innocent people.

  3. There were now twelve Halo installations, most likely because Greg Bear wanted to play around with and destroy a few of them. The number is entirely arbitrary and the alteration utterly superfluous.

  4. 343 Guilty Spark, far from being an artificial intelligence, as was always implied, is now the remnant of a human. Furthermore, the terminals in Halo: Anniversary have established (to take one example of many) that he was aware of the humans prior to their landing on Installation 04, and therefore prior to his comments on “The Library” and “The Maw” intimating that he was unfamiliar with our species (“Human history, is it? Fascinating. Oh, how I will enjoy every moment of it’s categorization”). Oh, and apparently all the other monitors are simply fragments of Guilty Spark; they have given him added importance simply because he was present in the first games and is now familiar to players. Had humanity landed on Installation 02 instead, no doubt every other monitor would be a fragment of the monitor found on that ring.

  5. Modern humanity now represents the second iteration of a prehistoric species that was somehow, inexplicably, “de-evolved” by another species. This isn’t a detail that conflicts with any of the existing canon; it’s simply a horrendously risible retcon that was totally unnecessary.

I’m sorry it was so long. And I do hope you won’t view any of this as an attack on your opinion; it’s the lore that I’m attempting to assail, not you. Cheers.

7

Uber facepalm

I just typed out a pretty lengthy response, and it somehow disappeared. Sorry, I’ll hopefully get back to you again in more detail later, but I just lost the willpower to retype everything I just lost. :stuck_out_tongue:

That said, I actually thank you for your kindness and I see this only as a civil discussion concerning the canon, not a personal attack.

What I will say again on the matter is that I meant 343i hasn’t blatantly broken pre-existing canon much at all. The new canon is equally important to carry with respect to the previous, but it hasn’t been broken all that much.

Also, concerning modern humanity and the Precursors: Both were hinted at or explicitly mentioned (In the Precursor’s case) prior to 343i. We’ve known Precursors -existed-, they weren’t spawned by 343i. Modern humanity was also hinted during Halo 3’s terminals and the comic “Origin” (if that’s the correct name) to not have come from Earth. Neither of those were big reveals or changes on part of 343.

And as I tried to say in the post that got eaten: Can you explain to me what you mean by 343 himself being a fragment of a human, as well as the others being inferior to him? I have not seen any such claim before and I’m incredibly curious.

Again, sorry for the vague responses/answers, but when I get the inspiration again I’ll be sure to reply to your points in full. Cheers!

8

> I just typed out a pretty lengthy response, and it somehow disappeared. Sorry, I’ll hopefully get back to you again in more detail later, but I just lost the willpower to retype everything I just lost. :stuck_out_tongue:

Feel free to PM me whenever you like; I always enjoy debates about lore.

> What I will say again on the matter is that I meant 343i hasn’t blatantly broken pre-existing canon much at all. The new canon is equally important to carry with respect to the previous, but it hasn’t been broken all that much.

You’re right; the canon hasn’t been broken, but I would argue that it has been bent pretty drastically. And while the canon might not have been broken, much of the lore now is in my eyes.

> Also, concerning modern humanity and the Precursors: Both were hinted at or explicitly mentioned (In the Precursor’s case) prior to 343i. We’ve known Precursors -existed-, they weren’t spawned by 343i. Modern humanity was also hinted during Halo 3’s terminals and the comic “Origin” (if that’s the correct name) to not have come from Earth. Neither of those were big reveals or changes on part of 343.

The only pre-343 allusion to the Precursors that I’m aware of was the mention of “Them” in the Halo 3 terminals, and I don’t believe that to be synonymous with the Precursors as they exist today; Bungie may have intended that to refer to something entirely different, or to a better version of the Precursors than what 343 Industries are offering us. And even so, the fact that the Precursors were previously alluded to doesn’t make them a good inclusion; if the fault is to be laid at Bungie’s door and not 343’s, then so be it.

As for hints at prehistoric humanity: I can’t recall a single one. If the “Origin” comic you’re referring to is the one associated with Halo 3, in which a man in Africa is watching the construction of the portal leading to the Ark, then it doesn’t have any allusions to a space-faring human civilisation.

> And as I tried to say in the post that got eaten: Can you explain to me what you mean by 343 himself being a fragment of a human, as well as the others being inferior to him? I have not seen any such claim before and I’m incredibly curious.

You’ll have to forgive me for being so vague; as you can probably imagine, I’m not a fan of the Forerunner Saga, and I haven’t read (and won’t read) the books. Perhaps someone who has read them can clarify this, but I seem to recall other people mentioning that all the monitors were created from different aspects of the prehistoric human, Chakas, whose mind served as the basis for 343 Guilty Spark. Again, I’m not clear on the details (and don’t really want to be).

9

Well, I haven’t read the second Bear novel, so that -might- be where the Chakas connection could exist. I’m a bit dubious myself, but I intend to read that novel eventually. Otherwise I have yet to see it.

What I meant with humanity wasn’t so much that we existed before as a space-faring civilization, but that we didn’t originate on Earth. I was moreso getting at that even Bungie didn’t intend for us to have evolved on Earth naturally. Albeit the space-faring addition is entirely on 343i’s shoulders.

I will gladly PM you on this sometime. I try to keep up with the Halo universe as it’s one of my favorites personally. I have some different insights on some of the things you find distasteful concerning Forerunner lore as well as things I agree with you on, so I think we may find ourselves in interesting discussions :stuck_out_tongue: