Halo: The Rise & Fall, a Tragic Tale.

Games Other Halo
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Halo: The Rise & Fall, a Tragic Tale of Unrivaled Success to Unfortunate Downfall.

Halo: CE was the game that really launched Xbox into success. It came out on the same day as the original Xbox. Microsoft was trying to join the cutthroat industry that is gaming, with a good chance at failure with its rivaled competition already having cult followings. If it wasn’t for Halo: CE, it may have very well failed and there might not be a 360 today. Halo was the main reason people went out and purchased Xbox consoles.

Halo 2 was released with online play, which its original counterpart was lacking, as well as bringing in an addicting ranking system that was never seen before. The ranking system and great gameplay made Halo 2 practically the only game played on Xbox LIVE, it had online numbers that no console games had ever reached before. It created innovative features that were later used as a foundation for the Xbox 360’s guide such as the way the friends list, message system, and just the UI in general worked.

Many people still played Halo 2 up until Halo 3 came out and continued to play in large masses for some time after. Halo 3 brought features similar to that of Halo 2, including it’s ranking system. However, it also added equipment, such as power drain and bubble shield. Halo 3’s online population was the largest for it’s time and had more in it’s 3rd year then Reach does currently.

It was the #1 most played game on Xbox LIVE for a long time, and at the time it had more sales and players than Call of Duty. Halo’s gap of 4 years for an actual release (not including ODST/Halo Wars, I’m talking about an actual full Halo game) I believe is the reason Call of Duty was able to jump in and steal the thunder as the top selling/playing Xbox title to date. Perhaps if there had been another decent Halo game released after the second year, things might have turned out very differently.

Then there was Halo Reach. While it was new, it had that new car smell (metaphorically speaking). It was fun in the beginning, but people soon realized that it had poorly implemented foreign features (AA’s), a change of general feel (such as movement, jump, and bloom, and the ranking system). It was a lackluster release in comparison to it’s predecessors and thus the population fell after the first year to something comparable to Halo 3 in it’s third year.

Now, Halo 4 is coming out. It is made by a different developer, but they’ve decided to go down the path of Reach and continue to add features that didn’t work before and won’t work now. These kinds of foreign, game-altering changes go much better with other titles. I foresee the same fate for Halo 4 that Halo Reach suffered, and expect Halo to die off and become a title that most people won’t acknowledge as one of the top games of the industry. This is very unfortunate, seeing as Halo was once the most successful console game ever created and helped make the Xbox and online console gaming what it is today. Online population will once again plummet, and more fans will stop playing. After that, only a niche player base of obscure individuals who enjoy these features will remain.

The release of Halo 5 will either bring back the series, or be the death of it. My fellow brothers and sisters can at the very least be hopeful for the fifth installation that it perhaps may be similar to a time that now seems distant (Halo 1-3) and one day, we may be able to look back at Halo 4 and have a good laugh. It will be make or break time, revive the series back to it’s former glory or kill it before it lays eggs.

Please note that as there are facts within this, there are also a lot of personal opinions and bias that may very well differ from your own opinions, so don’t take it too harshly. I do hope that this puts what Halo is becoming into perspective for some of the new players and the Halo 4 supporters alike. You may support what they are doing, but perhaps you won’t be as ignorant as to why many people on this forum disagree and ‘complain’ so much.

tl;dr read it, now.

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Edited by Moderator - Please refrain from making nonconstructive posts.

*Original post, click at your own discretion.

Lol

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Yup. Sums up a veterans mind on what’s happening.

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Because I know someone is going to say this: Copies sold is irrelevant as people thought they were getting another Halo game, also Microsoft has given away so many copies of Halo Reach in bundles, promotions, and events. I’ve honestly seen a ton of promotions where you got Reach for free. Online population is enough to show this game is a failure regardless of how many copies of the game were sold, if anything Halo 3 is testament to it’s failure, it had a much better online population ratio when the industry was much smaller.

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No OP, I think you’re wrong. I agree that Reach was far from perfect, but not only due to the AAs and “changes”, but due to the lack of support and effort from the devs. Since 343i took over the running of Reach, it’s been a lot better, and if Bungie invested time and effort like they should have prior to release, Reach would have been good. Not perfect, no, but good enough at least.
Halo needs to grow and evolve, Halo can’t dish out the same stuff over and over, that’s why CoD is slowly but surely loosing population. Remember Halo CE, remember what CE stood for?
Completely Equal? Can’t evolve?
No, it stood for Combat Evolved, a revolution and evolution to console gaming, Halo 2 also delivered that. Halo 3 however, did not. Despite being fun and games, it walked down the CoD road and introduced very few news, mostly stuff seen in other games (equipment, remember old school Pc gaming?). Despite that people liked it since the core (Halo 2) was good, but people eventually got fed up.

Halo Reach tried to change, but bad ideas and lack of skill as well as effort made it a bad game. Halo Reach tried to revolutionise gaming instead of evolving, and failed at both. Halo 4 is a new game by new devs, built on the same good old core, with fast and agile spartans, where map control and skill is important, but also add new features and updated gameplay to prevent the flaws of the old games (camping, spawn-killing/trapping, camping power weapons etc).
It’s still Halo, but not a Halo from the early 2000, but a Halo from 2012!
343i ain’t stupid, if other games has evolved the FPS genre (and they have) and added new good features people come to expect, Halo should have them too but in it’s own, Halo like way. Halo copied Horde straight off but Firefight was good (in ODST, sucked din Reach), instead of copying yet again 343i changed it, evolved, and made Spartan Ops.
Same goes for weapon spawns and loadouts.

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~

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Or it could [Will] go this way .

Halo 4 comes out and is a massive sucess .It beats bo2 on the xbox and brings a population like that of Halo 3 .Veteran players are shocked after a year of complaining Halo 4 actually feels like classic Halo but with new aditions wich make it more competitive .Halo 4 is a massive sucess but thousands do not play the game they would have loved because they where “OMG the game is turning into COD” And they miss a game they would have loved .

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tbh, reach want THAT far off from a decent game. better maps/better bloom/better movement speed…those three things would have done wonders.

there are a lot of interesting things that reach almost got right, and some things it got completely wrong.

what I have seen/read from 343 if that they are doing their best to make a damn good halo game.

sure, there will be things that I dont like, but as long as the maps are good, the movement is quick and responsive, the sandbox is balanced, the kill times are fast and the registration is top notch…this game will have me hooked for months.

there are other things that are important to the game being a long-term success, but if those core mechanics are brought to fruition I can almost guarantee that this game wil be great online.

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> Yup. Sums up a veterans mind on what’s happening.

Im a vet Halo player Love what im seeing think people are over reacting over stupid stuff even when positives come out they totally ignore them and then Say they’re lairs which is foolish

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> Because I know someone is going to say this: Copies sold is irrelevant as people thought they were getting another Halo game, also Microsoft has given away so many copies of Halo Reach in bundles, promotions, and events. I’ve honestly seen a ton of promotions where you got Reach for free. Online population is enough to show this game is a failure regardless of how many copies of the game were sold, if anything Halo 3 is testament to it’s failure, it had a much better online population ratio when the industry was much smaller.

Halo 3 has actually sold a few million more copies than reach :stuck_out_tongue: Pretty sad considering you got a 20$ gift card with it pretty much everywhere you bought it upon release. Not to mention the bundles and other promotional deals. It’s 100% undeniable fact that halo reach was a step down from halo 3. The copies sold not only show this, but the online population further backs it up. Then take into the consideration the massive increase in gamers, online play and xbox’s in general and reach was just altogether a failure in comparison to halo 1-3.

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This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

-Yoink-.
im tired of this.

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> Or it could [Will] go this way .
>
> Halo 4 comes out and is a massive sucess .It beats bo2 on the xbox and brings a population like that of Halo 3 .Veteran players are shocked after a year of complaining Halo 4 actually feels like classic Halo but with new aditions wich make it more competitive .Halo 4 is a massive sucess but thousands do not play the game they would have loved because they where “OMG the game is turning into COD” And they miss a game they would have loved .

Imbalance, in-game advantages and game breaking abilities aren’t good for a game that got its fame and fortune because of a balanced, competitive, skill based gameplay. Sorry, Reach proves it.

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> Sorry to rain on your paraded, but Halo 4 is going to sell millions of copy regardless of what you think. Just because 343i is adding to the Halo experience doesn’t mean no one will continue to buy Halo 5 and 6.

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You know… It’s been said before… But I’ll say it again…

Though Halo 4 does include elements from Reach, It’s been stated that these have greatly changed. We’ve already seen that 343 learned from Reach, they removed armor lock, and bloom on most weapons, they made sprint a general ability (something that a LOT of people asked for after reach’s release).

From the sounds of it, They brought back HALO. Everyone who’s played it said that it feels like the old Halo, and even if they’re PAID to say this then that means the developers are trying to get it across. Reach was, yes, probably one of the least popular Halo games. While Reach didn’t FEEL like the original Halos, It still had it’s good parts. Forge was a pretty good improvement, so was the custom games. Reach also gave us a look at the origins of Cortana, and it looks like cortana is going to be a pretty big part of this next trilogy.

Looking back, I had AWESOME times in Halo: CE, then Halo 2 came out, I was a no life at that game, I loved it and played it without end, but it lacked something, something Halo 1 had by design, Halo 1 was just a chill game, not competitive, at least not for me and my friends, we just messed around a lot. Halo 2 lacked that because it was all about the MM. Halo 2 was still an amazing game though. Then Halo 3 came out…oh halo 3… I feel like it was really a mix of Halo 1 and 2, It had a lot of fun offline moments, but still had some of Halo 2’s online feel.

When Reach came out, It was Halo for the first week…Then it died in my heart. At least MM did, that’s the only part of reach that really failed, I felt it had a strong story-line, a much improved Forge and great deal of options for custom games and firefight, but still, it lacked that Halo 2 feel, that feel that we have not gotten in such a long time.

With each Halo game, It’s forum has pretty much always looked the same, You’ve got the OMG SO AWESOME side of the community and then you have the “wow wow wow… Let’s hold on here! Your putting THIS into the game? This is the end!” It’s always been the same, always, even with Halo 2. Infact Halo 2’s before-hand forum was probably worse then this and it turned out to be the best Halo in the opinions of many people. Over the years Halo has been built on, extra layers of what makes Halo…Halo… have been added, and Armor abilities are one of them. Yes, Armor lock was very much overpowered, and many gamers find the jetpack to be very annoying, but the armor lock is getting removed now, and I’m sure they have some tweeks for the Jetpack. They confirmed the jetpack is returning, but showed no gameplay footage to ANYONE with it in. This tells me they’ve done something to it.

Halo 4 will be fine, even with all the negative threads, Just as Halo 2 was fine. Who knows? Maybe Halo 4 will be closer to Halo 2 then any other game. A lot of Bungie employees now work at 343, They’ve seen your feedback, they listened to you, and we can already see that in the VERY SMALL AMOUNT OF INFO RELEASED. Halo 4 promises to have a deep storyline, finally revealing to us the forerunners, for the fans of the Hal books this will be an amazing trilogy, reading about the forerunners has been amazing, now playing a game with them, HELL YES.

Over the next few months, just keep this in mind. Every single Halo game ever released has followed the exact same pattern, that is HATE Vs LOVE and then HOORAY! when the game comes out from both sides. We still don’t know a lot about Halo 4, and the best parts are guaranteed to to be kept a secret until the release. I have the feeling that a lot of goodies from Halo 3 will be returning but we’ll just have to wait and see won’t we? 343 may be new to Halo, BUT the people who work there are most certainty not.

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> Sorry to rain on your paraded, but Halo 4 is going to sell millions of copy regardless of what you think. Just because 343i is adding to the Halo experience doesn’t mean no one will continue to buy Halo 5 and 6.

It will sell millions of copies, I didn’t say it wouldn’t. When you see the online population dwindle like Reach’s you’ll know what I’m saying. Copies sold doesn’t = online population, sure it might succeed in sales numbers but it won’t succeed in keeping people playing which is the real success as it shows how good the game actually was.

> Or it could [Will] go this way .
>
> Halo 4 comes out and is a massive sucess .It beats bo2 on the xbox and brings a population like that of Halo 3 .Veteran players are shocked after a year of complaining Halo 4 actually feels like classic Halo but with new aditions wich make it more competitive .Halo 4 is a massive sucess but thousands do not play the game they would have loved because they where “OMG the game is turning into COD” And they miss a game they would have loved .

You should wake up from that dream you’re having.

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Did I miss the memo where they announced the invention of time machines?

…Can I borrow yours, OP? You seem to know a lot about the future.

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> Did I miss the memo where they announced the invention of time machines?
>
> …Can I borrow yours, OP? You seem to know a lot about the future.

I didn’t say it was going to happen for sure, it’s an educated guess, learn to know what ‘expect’ means. It is the most likely outcome that we can predict from what has been shown so far, it’s following Reach’s not so glamorous road.

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Look, Halo can’t beat COD sales, I hate COD, Have since MW1. Halo is the better game in my opinion…by FAR. But Halo i sold on one platform, and COD is sold on everything. If Halo were sold on the PS3? That would be the end of COD as we know it. I believe the game’s fanbase would come crumbling down, because it’s not a real fanbase, PS3 user just don’t have a lot of variety when it comes to FPS.

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> It will sell millions of copies, I didn’t say it wouldn’t. When you see the online population dwindle like Reach’s you’ll know what I’m saying. Copies sold doesn’t = online population, sure it might succeed in sales numbers but it won’t succeed in keeping people playing which is the real success as it shows how good the game actually was.

That would surely be nice, but that’s not the way it is sadly. Selling games is about making money, and most money is made at the initial sales, hence the companies want games to sell a lot. If the online population is low, server costs and patch-demand is lower, hence they save money. Sure, the DLC might not sell as much, but that’s not even a big source of income.
If they wanted games to be played, they would add bots, map editors, let us host games and even rent servers, and give us players mod-tools so games would never grow old. Somehow, that doesn’t happen…
On the contrary, many devs love to see high initial sales and dead online population within months since it cuts the costs (Brink, Crysis). One can argue that Ms needs Halo to be popular, but the current Reach population is more then enough even to them I’m afraid.
And by the way, sales are the most important factor when it comes to players online. A game that doesn’t sell, can never have a high online population, while all games that do sell well tends to be on top 20, even ones with no MP at all (skyrim).

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> > Did I miss the memo where they announced the invention of time machines?
> >
> > …Can I borrow yours, OP? You seem to know a lot about the future.
>
> I didn’t say it was going to happen for sure, it’s an educated guess, learn to know what ‘expect’ means. It is the most likely outcome that we can predict from what has been shown so far, it’s following Reach’s not so glamorous road.

No… Not really, You should read more of the Halo bulletins where Franky clears some confusion up.