So I was just in MW3 to check how many players it had and it was over 200,000 just like usual. I went to HALO: Reach and it had about 80,000 players. And I always wonder: Why does COD always get more players??! Why? Is there a good reason? HALO is a great game! Or at least Reach was pretty good until 343 took over, and I am not a fan of them, but all hates against 343 aside, why do people keep coming back to COD? IT SUCKS!!! I have some different opinions and a lot (too many) things to say, so I want to know what you guys think; will HALO 4 get a lot of players? Maybe for campaign, maybe for multiplayer matchmaking. Will HALO fans support HALO 4? Will there be any new fans?
CoD is easier and appeals more to all of the 12 year olds that run XBL and PSN (not so much PC, because their parents don’t want to spend that much money on them).
Well since you ask there are two main reasons one the brand name and two the bandwagon. People will play all cod games and halo simply because of the brand call of duty and halo. people also play because other people are playing.
Because Halo 4 is being made by 343 the brand name won’t have as much effect because people know the manufacturer has changed however it still has the same name so people will play it. Band wagon also relies on the first so the impact will be proportional.
Next the replayability matters. If a game is not replayable people will not replay it and thus it ends after the first play through. Halo 3 solved this problem through terminals and the skulls giving reasons to go back and do it again and again. Terminals are in but skulls may not be collectible as they were in reach. However it does have spartan ops which could potentially encourage replayability through extended campaign.
Lastly something that applies too all multiplayer games, the skill and practice factor. In Halo 3 the weapons were relatively balanced with the BR taking a bit of an advantage due to the easiness too mater but someone who has worked with a different play style say a needler or an smg can still beat them. Cod tends to lack in this way but with effort you can balance the weapons and overcome the current fad keeping players in the game. They also allow you to upgrade your weapons forcing you to continue playing. Halo reach the maps almost entirely favor medium to long range weapons or force melee. This cuts out the effectiveness of most weapons leaving the advantage to the pistol and dmr users. Essentially reach limits the play style and reduces hope for other weapons. 343 has the ability to rebalance with Halo 4 especially with the new introductions. On the upgrade factor for reach you could easily go through the ranks and collect your armor by spaming a playlist which limits the replayability and discourages continuation. It also as you approached the higher ranks became limited increasing the time in between effort and reward discouraging continuation essentially after claiming the security helmet you saw that Haunted was far beyond your reach an admitted defeat.
In conclusion I predict that halo 4 will have between 140,000 players and 70,000 players at a time. This prediction allows for both poor replayability and being an all around good game. If it exceeds expectations you can expect something that rivals halo 2 and 3 for the sequels.
Call of Duty is the new Madden of shooters.
Everyone who doesn’t consider themselves a gamer plays it. Most gamers realize its just going to be the same -Yoink- every year, just like Madden.
It got very popular around MW2, losing a good part of its normal fanbase, and the community was taken over by people who don’t deserve to own the game. I guess they just like the idea of shooting and killing regular people (in game), not Spartans and it’s more quick action. It’s better for just picking up and playing for like 10 minutes. Then it grew to the point where everyone just got it because everyone else had it.
It can’t last forever, though, and it has to lose steam sometime. It may be beating Halo 4 in sales but Halo 4 is widely expected to be a better game. People just by COD because it has the words “Call of Duty” in front of the title.
It’s hard to answer this question without sounding like a shallow, annoying hipster coolguy. So bear in mind that I’m not trying to be.
Call of Duty is a mix of various elements that make it appeal to a very wide audience. It’s modern warfare and historical warfare so far, and those are things that people more readily access. It’s a game with quick kill times, so people feel rewarded that much quicker. It’s a first-person shooter that uses a leveling system, which can entice people that play level-up focused games, plus level-up gives people more reason to keep playing even if they’re not having a delightful time (they want to level up). At this point, the franchise’s popularity is a factor too – so many people play it that it’s easy to play with one’s friends.
That said, I wouldn’t compare or trust the numbers the games put up for how many people are playing; it’s been said by a Bungie employee in the past that Halo 3 and Reach counted differently, and Reach literally counts people in games and not in the matchmaking search process or menus. We don’t know what Modern Warfare’s metric is for what counts as playing the game.
A significant number of replies in this thread mention that CoD is easier to play, yet this community dislikes the competitive Halo crowd and would resist any change which would widen the skill gap. Why the hypocrisy?
Much like the golden triangle of guns, grenades, and melee Reach fell into the triangle of despair with a community set in it’s ways, bad map design, and little to no replay value in the campaign.
The competitive community from 3 couldn’t handle the sudden squad based AAs and some of their brethren after years of 2 and 3 could and made them pay for it, let alone the the audacity of noobs who suddenly were out gunning, running, and armor locking them to kd hell due to host or whatever else soothes the ego.
Thanks to poor map design and how many exploited the AAs and Bungies inability to make a choice on the matter cost Reach as well, in example Bungie provide jet packs, yet you can’t go there. Look, but don’t touch… because it will dominate the map. Well either you’re going with AAs or not, make a choice rather than dumping frustration on both parties who want AAs and those who don’t. You could feel the schitzo thought process of “what we know” and “what we are trying to do new” in how the maps were laid out.
Lastly with Firefight and Campaign. Firefight was repetitive and dull. I know I played it to death. What you had was what should have been a cooperative experience rather than a competitive race and the fast track it became with all the tiers to armor and ranks.
Which in retrospect rank should never been there in the first place. Armor yes. Ranks no when it came to cR and it’s true nature of time spent in a game rather than actual ability in Multiplayer. This grated on the sensibilities of the competitive and they all let us know it.
Then there’s Campaign. You just had to play it once and really that was it. Yet we’re forced weekly to endure a lack luster and quite depressing narrative in various degrees of difficulty. Some found it easy to difficult, while others found it boring, but it never really could live up to the epic scale of CE,2, and 3. Even ODST could be contrasted against Reach where you liked the characters, rather than Noble six where you only liked Jorge. And then it all gets dumped into 343’s lap while they work to bring us a new chapter and a new Halo game. Whether you like Halo 4 right now or not at least someone is trying to keep Halo going and that’s worth some slack.
So that’s why I think Reach is somewhat lacking for a Halo game next to newer titles competing against it it for population. I play it occasionally while I await Halo 4 and try and occasionally find some fun in it.
Only 200k though? Black Ops definitely had more population. And Halo: Reach is twice as old as MW3. CoD is just more popular, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. People play it because everyone plays it and because it’s easy.