I’ve just finished watching the Halo Comic Con Panel, overall the panel was fun to watch and i enjoyed the Q&A except for one question that was asked by a fan and the answer that followed. The question basically asked why Forge was missing precision forging among other things and Frankie’s response to this was essentially saying that due to development time constraints some features with Halo 4 we’re missing such as theater in campaign and forge missing features.
After hearing this response i am now concerned for the future of Halo. Halo Xbox One has pretty much been confirmed to have a 2 year development cycle over the normal. I’m not saying that work on Halo Xbox One has not begun whilst Halo 4 was getting ready to be shipped but even with that in mind i worry for the amount of features and assets that Halo Xbox One might lack due to this new constraint.
Does anybody have some sources from Connor saying that they we’re working on Xbox One alongside Halo 4 development? i’m getting truly concerned for what the future brings…
They have a bigger team working on halo 5 so they will be able to get a lot more done so hopefully those features will return with some nice new ones =]
> They have a bigger team working on halo 5 so they will be able to get a lot more done so hopefully those features will return with some nice new ones =]
Agreed. 343i are a bigger team than Bungie, and started Halo 5 work in August 2012 (possibly earlier, but we had confirmations at this date). By release, that will be 2.5 years of development, the standard for Bungie was 3 years, but they were a smaller team and were learning as they built their games, 343i have a ton of industry veterans like Corrine Yu, Frank O’Connor and more.
Time won’t be the issue, it’s how they use that time. We need a beta IMO for this MP to succeed.
> Does anybody have some sources from Connor saying that they we’re working on Xbox One alongside Halo 4 development? i’m getting truly concerned for what the future brings…
Well, don’t be. It’s pretty silly to start fretting about cut content when A. the content cut was pretty minor on balance (compare to Halo 2 shipping without a real ending) and B) 343 does have the fine excuse of it being their very first game, and at the AAA level too.
Surely you should expect some inefficiency and some losses here and there compared to the veteran operation Bungie had going because even though each individual team member at 343 might have years of experience the organization had never before been tested in a practical fashion. Now that they have you can bet they’re going to get more and better work done just as Halo 3 shipped in a much more completed state than Halo 2 simply because Bungie, back then, had a more experience as a studio organizing teams and planning content.
343 has over 300 employees, giving them 2 years seems to long really, I know they have side projects like Spartan Assault and stuff but still they got a lot guys working on it and I’m pretty sure they started development mid-2012, well before halo 4 released, but I may be wrong about that
> Agreed. 343i are a bigger team than Bungie, and started Halo 5 work in August 2012 (possibly earlier, but we had confirmations at this date). By release, that will be 2.5 years of development, the standard for Bungie was 3 years, but they were a smaller team and were learning as they built their games, 343i have a ton of industry veterans like Corrine Yu, Frank O’Connor and more.
>
> Time won’t be the issue, it’s how they use that time. We need a beta IMO for this MP to succeed.
Ever heard of too many cooks?
August 2012 - November 2014 = 27 months = 2.25 Years.
Bungie was an experienced team, they knew what it took to make a Halo game and although they had a smaller team they were fairly unanimous in their decisions.
343i have experience in the industry, but have limited experience with Halo. Halo 4 was their first attempt, and it was not a good one. Not to mention how there was conflict between the devs, which is why Halo 4 is such a mess.
Edit: Hate to be a downer, but I’ve been betrayed too many times to believe hype for games. I look at the facts, and the facts do not stack well for 343i at the moment.
> > Agreed. 343i are a bigger team than Bungie, and started Halo 5 work in August 2012 (possibly earlier, but we had confirmations at this date). By release, that will be 2.5 years of development, the standard for Bungie was 3 years, but they were a smaller team and were learning as they built their games, 343i have a ton of industry veterans like Corrine Yu, Frank O’Connor and more.
> >
> > Time won’t be the issue, it’s how they use that time. We need a beta IMO for this MP to succeed.
>
> 1. Ever heard of too many cooks?
> 2. August 2012 - November 2014 = 27 months = 2.25 Years.
> 3. Bungie was an experienced team, they knew what it took to make a Halo game and although they had a smaller team they were fairly unanimous in their decisions.
> 343i have experience in the industry, but have limited experience with Halo. Halo 4 was their first attempt, and it was not a good one. Not to mention how there was conflict between the devs, which is why Halo 4 is such a mess.
>
> Edit: Hate to be a downer, but I’ve been betrayed too many times to believe hype for games. I look at the facts, and the facts do not stack well for 343i at the moment.
> Well, don’t be. It’s pretty silly to start fretting about cut content when A. the content cut was pretty minor on balance (compare to Halo 2 shipping without a real ending) and B) 343 does have the fine excuse of it being their very first game, and at the AAA level too.
Are you honestly saying that while halo 2 being one of the longest halo campaigns if not the longest is unacceptable because they left it on a cliff hanger? Halo 4 has less custom game options than halo 3, theater has been cut down to shreds, no scoring, party details is shell of its former self and so much more. Also being their first game isn’t an excuse, they aren’t new to making games, they didn’t have lack of resources, hell they even hired multi-able companies to do large portions of the game for them.
> Surely you should expect some inefficiency and some losses here and there compared to the veteran operation Bungie had going because even though each individual team member at 343 might have years of experience the organization had never before been tested in a practical fashion. Now that they have you can bet they’re going to get more and better work done just as Halo 3 shipped in a much more completed state than Halo 2 simply because Bungie, back then, had a more experience as a studio organizing teams and planning content.
Halo 3 didn’t ship more complete for that reason at all. Bungie was forced to show the game 2.5 years before release with halo 2 rather than 1.5 like every other halo game, they had to put a large amount of resources into just making the demo, they said they lost 7 months worth of development time due to that. Not to mention halo 3’s campaign is nothing in size compared to halo 2’s campaign.
It was linked on these forums a few months ago but unfortunately I do not have the link as I can’t find it and don’t want to go through months worth of my history.
Essentially an ex-343i dev said that people were not agreeing on what to put into the game. If I remember correctly he used part of the campaign as an example.
It’s natural for people to have differing ideas, but the way the article was written suggested that there was a rift between developers. Not many people were seeing eye to eye on things.
My biggest concern is that they will stick to dead lines and profit rather than making a great Halo game with a ton of features, it needs to come out swinging to succeed, this was not the case with Halo 4.
> My biggest concern is that they will stick to dead lines and profit rather than making a great Halo game with a ton of features, it needs to come out swinging to succeed, this was not the case with Halo 4.
If Halo Xbox One needed to be delayed so that they could make it better, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it at all.
> > My biggest concern is that they will stick to dead lines and profit rather than making a great Halo game with a ton of features, it needs to come out swinging to succeed, this was not the case with Halo 4.
>
> If Halo Xbox One needed to be delayed so that they could make it better, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it at all.
Same. I’m fine waiting 2, 3 years for a new Halo, just as long as they keep supporting the old one.
Sadly I probably won’t even have the chance to play any future Halo games as I’m switching to PS4 come launch.
I suppose if things get better for the X1 down the line I’ll buy it but right now…meh. As for this news, it sucks but expected I guess. They didn’t exactly have a massive team for Halo 4.
Maybe the next Halo will be better but I won’t be spending large quantities of money like I did with H4 to find out.
> Sadly I probably won’t even have the chance to play any future Halo games as I’m switching to PS4 come launch.
>
> I suppose if things get better for the X1 down the line I’ll buy it but right now…meh. As for this news, it sucks but expected I guess. They didn’t exactly have a massive team for Halo 4.
>
> Maybe the next Halo will be better but I won’t be spending large quantities of money like I did with H4 to find out.
How have things not gotten better? The DRM policies are gone.
OT: There’s only so much we can get from one answer to one question. Whether they were cutting cost, cutting production time, poor judgement, inexperience, or all of the above, we’ll never know fully why 4 was such a cluster.
Halo 4’s dev restraints were the result of never having a complete team, with a complete vision, during its dev cycle. Halo 5 is the first game 343i have worked on as a complete, unified team. And they have at least a 2 and a half year cycle. They’ve been working on it since before Halo 4 was released.
> > What was this conflict?
>
> It was linked on these forums a few months ago but unfortunately I do not have the link as I can’t find it and don’t want to go through months worth of my history.
>
> Essentially an ex-343i dev said that people were not agreeing on what to put into the game. If I remember correctly he used part of the campaign as an example.
> It’s natural for people to have differing ideas, but the way the article was written suggested that there was a rift between developers. Not many people were seeing eye to eye on things.
Which is to be expected for a development team hiring on the go. As I said, 343i had yet to establish a unified vision for Halo, and at the time they were deving Halo 4 while hiring more people. People first coming in will have their own unique dreams for any given project, but in time the studio will develop a sense of identity with a singular goal. 343i didn’t have that luxury during Halo 4, not as Bungie did with Halo 3. But now that they’ve established their team, they can start a new game with a more well defined goal from the outset.
