Chats and Clans_
Lets go back to a time before the 360. When Xbox Live may have been nothing special to some of us. Halo:CE was fun and we all remember that for sure, and i’ll get more to Halo:CE in a bit. Yet lets go to Halo 2, for some of us (including me) Halo 2 was the reason you got Xbox Live. For me setting up Live and having my first match on Halo 2 (Ivory Tower, Team Slayer, yea I remember it all this time after) was one memory I’ll have for years.
Now when I played Halo 2 I had the crappy Xbox Live mic, probably had more then 10 of them in my entire Halo 2 career. Yet it was worth it because to me it seemed more people were talking, nobody was in “Private Chats” or anything private. It was easy to meet up with a group of kids and play customs because everyone was open to talk to EVERYONE ELSE.
Now the 360 came and nearly ruined that. The idea of Private Chats is pretty cool, in fact like many ideas it’s great as a concept but nearly does the opposite of good. Private Chats block of the very aspect of a fun social game enviorment. It locks people into little “rooms”.
The orignal system was like going into a Bar and being able to talk to anyone. Sometimes people could be rude and/or be annoyed by you but it was open and finding people would be easy. This new system is like having a glass wall around people, you can see them, but you can’t hear them or interact. A bar, club, or any social place like that would have failed very quickly.
I don’t think Private chat should leave or be removed. However I think there should be a good amount of games that ban it. For example lets say they have “Ranked BTB” and “Social BTB” one of those would allow parties (private chats) and one would not. Also COOP and Firefight it would be open (smaller groups anyway).
TL;DR: Private Chats ruin the idea of getting into easy customs and meeting new friends over live. It’s ok at times but there should be more “OPEN” party playlists.
Now lets go into Clans. Because this one I’m sure everyone will agree on. That clans were a great idea and if improved on as much as Firefight and Forge were then it would be perfect in Halo4. Clans were literally like having a second friendslist with some organization and brotherhood. Wether it was a huge clan with 100 players and a system or a few people starting something small Clans were a fun and big part of Halo 2.
Why was this awesome? Because think of this. Lets say you have a full friendslist, 100 players, on average lets say 10 friends are online. Ok cool. Now lets say with your clan you now have 100 more and 10 of those people are online. Now you have 20 friends who could possibly join you. AWESOME.
I say Halo 4 needs to be as open as Halo 2 when it comes to the social concept. Let players meet others and start custom games as they did back then.
I promise if Clans and more open playlists come into Halo 4 the game will be much more fun and popular.
The system in Reach where you can choose to party up with people with mics is a step in the right direction… it just needs to be finetuned so that If I want to search with people with Mics, I ONLY get people with Mics, outside of Private or Party Chat