I found an interesting article on The Halo Council Forums: “Competitive vs Casual: Developers Don’t Care!” Do you think there is any legitimacy to his arguments?
To Summarize:
“What 343, in my humble opinion, hopes to achieve with Halo 4 will be to incorporate all those gratifying, player-dictated, and customizable features you’ve seen in games like CoD with the mythology of the Halo universe.”
I honestly can’t tell if he’s calling what 343 is doing a good thing or a bad thing.
Does raise some interesting points, though.
My take on the article is that he is basing his arguments off of a caricature of pro gamers and MLG fans and missing the real reasons why they want a 1-50 ranking system. However, the core of his argument about 343 changing the Halo formula to draw in more players and keep them playing is spot on.
"What 343, in my humble opinion, hopes to achieve with Halo 4 will be to incorporate all those gratifying, player-dictated, and customizable features you’ve seen in games like CoD with the mythology of the Halo universe.
Compare that to the MLG mantra being repeated on the interwebs, “Make Halo 4 so we, the MLG Pros, can dominate new players and collect our cash after an MLG televised event. Thank you and Blam! You!”
Haha, I lol’d ^^
Well, I got to say, that was a good read and some good arguments too. I think everyone should do themselves a favour and read all the arguments and conclusions, since they’re closer to the truth then some might want to admit. I think he hit it spot on, 343i are incorporating new stuff to add instant rewards, make you feel god and the “need” to play to “keep” your rank higher then your friends.
It works, well not in Reach since ranking and commendations are painfully slow, but for Gears 3 it does. When ever I kill a drone or something, I get a popup that I’ve killed more then my friends, or (horror) less, if I’ve killed less I’ll focus on killing more drones to take the lead. Simple as that, it works, but only as long as the game is good enough to keep me playing, Reach failed in that aspect ^^
Eerily similar to my old thread, but of course it couldn’t possibly be inspiration because it says his was Mr. Wong :<
Of course there’s truth in those arguments. There’s also a lot of bias, discrimination and lies. What it all boils down to is the fact that making video games is a business, and in that sense major developers don’t care about any fictional war between casual and competitive players. Whatever has been proven to sell well is what they’ll do. That’s not to say individuals within the group don’t care, as I’m sure each and every one of them has a stance on this subject, but they’ll still do what has collectively been decided to be the most “profitable”. If the majority of the development team feel strongly towards competitive play they’ll do what they can within the boundaries, but they’re not going to break them.
There is definitely some truth in the arguments posted, but some glaring oversights as well. Instead of disagreeing, I am just going to pose a few questions.
First: If the skinner box is so obviously the best model for multiplayer gameplay then how do you explain the overwhelming success of halo 2, halo 3, and Starcraft 2, (included because it is currently MLG’s flagship game, and also a blizzard game, which the author of the article cited for employing skinner models in their other games like WoW) none of which included any form of the skinner box. In fact they are all much more tailored to the E-Sports model as opposed to the individualistic skinner box.
Second: Why does the author assume that halo is not and cannot be an e-sport as opposed to an e-game. To claim the “sports” are not popular and cater only to professional players seems to be an incorrect assumption. Basketball is clearly a sport, yet clearly NBA all-stars are not the only ones who like playing. I love playing pick up basketball with my friends, why couldn’t non-mlg-pro people love playing a pick up e-sport? (aka halo 2, 3, and hopefulley 4!)
Third: Why did the author not address the inherent difference in the way skinner box rewards are implemented as opposed to a 1-50 “Skill” reward. It seems like a crucial point to mention that skinner box rewards are purely individual rewards. You get the reward from doing things within the game as an individual. The 1-50 ranking system on the surface is not anything special, but what made it successful for a long time was the fact that is was based on “winning”, as opposed to individual tasks. Winning encouraged “team competitiveness”. The skinner box is not as un-competitive as the author attempted to portray it, rather its just more focused on the individual (alone!). The focus on the group found within the 1-50 ranking system created a social environment of collaboration that simply is not found in other games like call of duty because it just doesn’t really matter wether or not you win the game.
Fourth: Why did the author not mention that the level of implementation of the skinner box varies on a spectrum. The game cited as an example, WoW, has such a ridiculousley massive amount more rewards than Call of Duty. Call of duty also has a ridiculously massive amount more possible “skinner box” rewards than halo 4 will (with so many less guns/load-outs). Whose to say that the skinner box will still be so addictive when it exists on such a smaller scale (meaning there are so many less rewards relative the other successful “skinner” games he cited). In fact whose to say that the rewards only even seem that valuable, and therefore addictive, to the player because of the massive total amount of rewards, and thus the relative rarity of each individual reward.
My Opinion: I am absolutley no halo pro. And i love playing casually with my friends. I can say for certain that i loved halo 3 so much because the 1-50 system pushed me and my friends to actually think together while playing. Not any super-competitive MLG type way, just in a way that was causal fun strategy, because 1-50 rewarded TEAM PLAY and winning. I actually don’t mind the crazy armor abilities/load-outs planned for halo 4. In fact i think they could work. But i just beg that 343 realizes that there is inherent enjoyment found within working together with your friends in a game and that there needs to be some corner of halo 4 that rewards that over everything else. I don’t care if its 1-50 or something that looks totally different, but the difference between me buying and playing halo 4 or not will be 100% based on wether that system (of group team rewards) exists somewhere. I just find that to be so much more fulfilling and causes me to come back to the game so much more than the skinner box type of rewards that dull for me very quickly (i tried to play WoW and every Call of duty game since 4, but found them to simply be boring and mindless after not too long)
Hope this maybe explains why some people do like a the concepts of the old halos a little better than reach/cod games. Its not only the weird super-pros who liked it, the team-play reward aspect is FUN at all levels and cannot be overlooked.
> I found an interesting article on The Halo Council Forums: “Competitive vs Casual: Developers Don’t Care!” Do you think there is any legitimacy to his arguments?
>
> Home - TSF - Competitive vs Casual: Developers Don't Care!
>
> To Summarize:
>
> “What 343, in my humble opinion, hopes to achieve with Halo 4 will be to incorporate all those gratifying, player-dictated, and customizable features you’ve seen in games like CoD with the mythology of the Halo universe.”
The article (yet again) makes the elementary mistake of talking about Casual X Competitive.
It’s Hardcore X Casual and Competitive is a subset of Hardcore player base.
It’s just MLG players thinking themselves too important cause they’ve got their own show.