I’ve been a huge fan since Halo CE released. I went out and got it the day it released back in November, 2001. When I got home, I booted up campaign and I was instantly addicted to the game. It was the best shooter I had ever laid eyes on. Everything was visually stunning and the gameplay just flowed like water.
After enjoying Halo CE for a while, Halo 2 was on the rise and I was super pumped for it to come out. On it’s release, I went out and got it with a few friends and we all went back to my place for a LAN. I still remember that night. We played all night and constantly played Lockout over and over because of how awesome it was. Online, I loved playing Halo 2 each and every single day, especially after the big update. I played quite literally every day I could and for as long as a could. I loved Halo 2 to death. It changed who I was. Granted, I was only a middle schooler going on to high school at the time. My friends all followed me and played Halo every day as well. We became a tight knight group that loved competition and having a good time together online.
Halo 3 started to come out while I was a sophomore in high school. My group of Halo friends was just as excited as I was and we all LAN’d at one of the houses of another friend on it’s release day. We followed the tradition and beat campaign as well as playing quite a bit of multiplayer all night, this time on Guardian. Halo 3 was interesting for me. I didn’t like it as much as Halo 2 because it didn’t have the button glitches (I’ll admit, I got addicted to those) and it felt slower paced. The BR was a bit iffy since the bullets didn’t always count (I was on wireless at the time, which was a huge pain) but nevertheless, I still LOVED that game to death. I didn’t love it as much as Halo 2, but it was still amazing. I got on everyday for Halo 3 and continued that tradition of play with my friends.
Then Reach comes out, and all of my friends were pumped. I had read the news about loadouts, reticle bloom, lower jumping, etc. but I didn’t think much of it because I wanted to see for myself. So we all get together on the day of release and put it in to continue our tradition of beating campaign and playing multiplayer all night. We beat the campaign and that was fairly awesome considering we didn’t get to play as Master Chief but I still felt close to Noble 6. But the multiplayer, was another story. Bloom ruined the competitiveness between my friends and I because who won each DMR battle was decided almost randomly. Loadouts completely shot down the competitveness that we had as well since you never knew what the guy you were closing in on had as a perk. He could have armor lock and use it just before you melee, he could have jetpack and ascend to the level above you (giving him height advantage), he could have active camo and crouch in a corner so that you may not instantly find him before he sees you first. These implementations were completely against what Halo was defined to be. Halo was defined to be equal, fair, balanced. Everyone has the same chance at getting power weapons, everyone has the same chance at winning a fight. The only thing that mattered was skill. Skill you’ve obtained from spending hours invested in the game because you love it. Now, in Reach, you’ve got people who have barely even touched the game and they have a decent chance of beating someone who has played the game heavily when you have bloom that gives you a random factor of missing/hitting. Enough with the rant though, my friends and I didn’t play Reach. None of us did out of 9 people. We got tired of it after the first week or two and moved on to PC gaming and going back to Halo 3 occasionally.
Now Halo 4 is on the rise. I’ve gotten in touch with everyone of the old Halo group and we were all extremely excited. I mean we were ecstatic about hearing how Frankie understands traditional Halo and he knows what the players want. We all assumed he knew that we wanted to go back to traditional Halo and continue on what is really Halo. The Halo back when all other shooters would advertise saying they were the next “Halo Killer”. That term isn’t used anymore. It isn’t used because Halo killed itself with Reach. I thought Frankie understood that we wanted to get back to the times where people were loyal to the series. Now that I’ve seen this news, I can already say that we are all disappointed. Every one of my friends has basically come out and apologized to me saying that they most likely won’t be getting the game. I’m not even sure what to think anymore. Halo was more than just a game to us. Halo was our lifestyle. We spent every free hour of time we had enjoying Halo together and now we’re done with that. My friends are moving on and I guess I will be too if this is all true and we don’t have options to move around these features. I HATE being shunned into 4-5 playlists called “Classic” playlists. The term Classic shouldn’t even be used because we are not Classic Halo players. We are HALO PLAYERS that enjoy HALO. Stop calling it Classic Halo. Make 4-5 playlists that contain all of these terrible perks and Call of Duty ripoffs that aren’t balanced and put them into “New Age Halo” playlists. Leave the rest of the playlists alone and keep that crap out of it. Reach doesn’t look so bad anymore to my group compared to whatever this is going to be.
343i, if you want Halo to go back to the throne of console shooters, you need to understand what made it great. STOP catering to these casuals because they aren’t going to keep your game alive. Reach pretty much died shortly after release and people moved on. That’s how these games work. When you make a game that isn’t balanced and supports unfair play, it’s going to have a short lifespan. People will become so frustrated that their skill is almost meaningless and they’ll just stop caring. Make a Halo game like we all used to know and love. Make a Halo game that is balanced and has a community that thrives because of how awesome the gameplay is. Each game was a test of skill and gamers love testing their skill. They love facing off with other people and trying to prove who is better. It’s human nature to want to be something better. Stop ruining that.
You’re a business and I understand you’re in it for the money at this point. But honestly, are you going to take money over a loving community that cares for your games and will support you to the end? We used to do that with Bungie. We’d support them no matter what changes they made or what activities they engaged in because Bungie could do no harm. Then, shockingly, they did harm and people left. We lost faith in them and hoped that you could renew that faith. It’s looking grim now though. Do you guys not see how many of us were in disbelief just now regarding the leaks? That shows how horrible this news is. Hell, one of the lead multiplayer designers at Epic thought it was all a joke. THAT really says something. Your competition is laughing at the changes you’ve made and thought you were joking.
If you read this, I just want to say I’m disappointed. I’ve been let down and I’m honestly very sad right now. I’m hoping that you guys will correct this considering all of the outrage among this forum right now. Mass Effect 3 had a terrible ending and now they’re making it right so I’m hoping something similar can happen with Halo 4 multiplayer if we all speak out and you guys at 343 listen with your ears and not your wallets.