I wonder how many people from the Bungie days of Halo are working for 343i on Halo Infinite? ( Like John Howard, Michael Evans or even Steve Abeyta ) Just curious cuz the way Halo Infinite was released gives me the impression there are none. I could be wrong. hummmm 
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From halo 1, i think none.
Theres still franky and 1 other guy from halo 2.
2, i think.
The rest are with bungie.
I may be off by a couple people.
I imagine it would hurt a lot for the OGs that created Halo, be forced to work for another company, watching their creation become mutated and mutilated beyond recognition, until it dies.
I wonder if the OGs feel ashamed for selling out, and letting Halo become what it is today. When companies sell the rights to popular products, the buyer usually has entirely different ideas, and malicious plans, so the end product is always grim. That’s what happens when you take that sweet sweet contract money though.
I’ve seen OGs review speedruns of the classic games. I’d love for someone to interview them for their opinions on Infinite and 343 as a whole, and what those OGs would have done differently, had they still owned the rights to Halo. That type of interview going viral might help steer 343 in the right direction.
I doubt any one of them would do that since, well, you never know…they might have to work on halo again.
I imagine a large portion of people who worked on the game were there for a paycheck, as 343 will be too. Most are probably passionate about making the game as good as they can, at least in their own pocket of their responsibilities. Ultimately most employees will have no say in the direction of the game. Some will like things and have reservation about other aspects.
To think Bungie would make a totally different game is somewhat ignorant to the current gaming market. Companies are just following trends, trying to make as much money as possible. Developers have been doing that for 30 years.
Looking at Destiny and the fact Bungie dropped the game in the first place, it’s hard to say this was a passion project for those making the important decisions. Maybe a different company would.make a different Gamez their goals will usually be the same.
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Hey man, Destiny is gorgeous and loaded with customization and content every update, with very consistent bug fixes and roadmap updates. I get that Bungie went the Sony and Activision route to get more money to make more for the game, but this Bungie is a whole other Bungie from the OG dudes in a basement that made Halo, and they’re still doing leagues better than 343 imo
Bungie is doing better? Apparently you must be unaware of their cash shop that always receives more attention than other parts of the game. The same cash shop that has shown the industry that they can get away with egregious monetization of cosmetics, proven by Infinite having a similarly egregious cash shop.
Or how Bungie has removed content from the game that players paid for. A cycle they have repeated for the Forsaken DLC, while at the time still selling it for full price and with no mention that the DLC would be removed from the game.
Or how each new DLC has costed more than the last and has had less content included with it. How you need to buy the higher priced editions to even get the additional content, with the hope that the seasons won’t be a waste of time and money. And since these season have passes that expire at the end, Bungie has used FOMO to trap those who bought the deluxe editions.
Let’s also talk about how Destiny egregiously monetized customization in the form of the Transmog system. A system that was designed to waste players’ time grinding for cosmetics they had already earned.
Remember Gambit? Well apparently Bungie doesn’t because the mode has not had any improvements made to it and is still pretty much the same way it shipped with the Forsaken seasons. In fact the Gambit prime game modes were cut, which removed the ability to grind for Gambit armor that impacted how you played Gambit.
The list could go on, but I’ll stop it there. Bungie is not doing better than 343, and companies like Bungie have emboldened the industry to try and get away with as much scumminess as they can. Bungie has been a driving force in egregious monetization and anti consumer practices.
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I’d argue the prices of the cosmetics in the Eververse shop more or less fairly reflect the value of what you’re getting, unlike 343 charging $10 for colors. I like personalizing my character with custom emotes, attack animations, and armors. The prices for the items in Infinite do NOT reflect the quality of the items at all.
If you’re talking about sunsetting, that was undone. If you’re talking about cutting Red War through Beyond Light when Witch Queen comes, yeah, that’s realtime LIVE live service, where like events, if you missed it, you missed it. Nobody wants to have 6 TB of data reserved for the entirety of Destiny anyway.
Each DLC has LESS content? Each DLC has more seasons and season campaigns on top of the base campaign and raids than the previous ones. Witch Queen has SIX seasons, bundled with the Bungie 30th anniversary
The transmog system is the best update to customization they ever had. I hated wearing ugly mismatched armor solely for the stats, and asked for a cosmetic infusion system since Destiny 1 dude. Transmog also doesn’t cost ANYTHING. I have 8 pieces of transmog armor per body part, and it was all free. Purchasing synthweave is 100% optional if you’re too lazy to gather the materials yourself by doing a simple quest for ADA-1. Nobody made you pay for it.
I loved Gambit, but it was unpopular for most of the community. I wish they improved it and expanded on the Drifter story arc, since we made a choice to side with light or dark, and that didn’t really affect the game much afterwards. People just seemed to not enjoy Gambit, but Gambit motes elements continued to exist and pass on to raid mechanics, Season of Splicer and Dares of Eternity, which I enjoyed a lot.
Bungie really isn’t that scummy my guy, they’re being pretty realistic. I think you’re just asking for way too much and expecting way too much. 343 is definitely far worse. Idk how you could possibly think otherwise. Destiny 1 and 2 had more content in their launches than Infinite will have until Forge releases.
And I’d argue that Bungie has convinced players that their shop is worth the prices when they simply aren’t. But hey, if you’re okay with enabling Bungie then go ahead.
Sunsetting was undone yes, but after community backlash. That means that Bungie saw no problem in making gear you had earned through grinding, be made useless. The worst part was when they included weapons and armor from Shadowkeep in their sunsetting, despite it having been a recent DLC. Or how to put salt in the wound they began to reissue old weapons and call them new. What’s the point of grinding for good stat rolls if Bungie can arbitrarily decided that gear from a certain point onward will no longer be viable?
As for the PAID DLC, Bungie never once marketed those DLCs as Live Services that would eventually be phased out. So free players went from having a good amount of content to persuade them to hop into D2 to a pitiful amount. And Bungie, as well as other devs, could rectify this issue by learning about a little something called compression instead of being lazy, aka COD devs with their ludicrous file sizes.
And yes, each DLC has less content.
-Shadowkeep at launch was $35 and came with the first season. It’s Digital Deluxe Edition was $60 and came with the 4 seasons as well as some other items.
-Beyond Light’s base edition was priced at $40 and did not come with the first season. The base edition with season 1 was $50. It’s Digital Deluxe Edition was $70 and came with the 4 seasons.
-Witch Queen’s base edition is $40 and does not include the first season. It’s Digital Deluxe Edition is $80 and comes with 4 seasons. (Not sure where you’re getting 6 but ok)
Notice something with the pricing? Each one has progressively become more expensive, with the base editions no longer including the 1st season of the new DLC. But somehow that isn;t less content included with each launch? Ok… You also have the Digital Deluxe Editions also being raised in price, and with Beyond Light the start of no longer including the first season with the DLC.
Shadowkeep and Beyond Light also had the problem of having filler missions/level requirements be a good chunk of the DLC, resulting in story endings that feel abrupt and disconnected from every DLC before it. The seasons do remedy this a bit, but the content in those seasons can vary in quality. That and the fact that every season introduces a new horde mode that is so easily disposed of.
The Transmog at launch was made so that it was an absolute grind to earn anything, as well as having caps on how many times you could transmog. With the solution being to buy your way pass the grind… seems like a certain company took notes from Bungie in that regard.
As for Gambit, glad to have found someone else who enjoyed it. Shame Bungie threw their hands up and gave up on it. If they had improved upon it instead of adding a horde mode each season, they could have possibly had seasonal change within gambit to spice up of the game played.
As for Bungie being scummy, raising the prices of DLCs and offering less to those who buy the base edition is scummy. I don’t like FOMO and it’s apparent that Bungie capitalizes on it when at the end of seasons, you’re given the ability to buy your remaining tiers. The fact that their cash shop will receive updates but they still haven’t made the vendors as interesting as D1 vendors is telling of where their priorities lay.
I am not expecting too much from them, I am expecting them to respect my time and money as a consumer. And for me, they simply haven’t since Forsaken. Bungie has shown the industry what they can and can’t get away with in terms of monetization. Idk how you could possibly think otherwise. Halo Infinite has shown a commitment, albeit shaky, to making prices that consumers view as fair unlike D2’s cash shop.
As far as I know Staten is, but I’m not sure what he was working on. Not that that changes anything…
You got me on those DLCs. I must be misremembering something. I actually don’t know where I got 6 seasons from. I could swear an old preorder banner said 6, but maybe I misread dyslexia of Season 16 or 5 Dungeons. No idea.
That aside, a few points in there do at least suggest Bungie listens to backlash, and they do usually mention feedback each community post.
Since Bungie was bought by Sony for several billions, they should have more money for improving their services. They could turn the whole game into a massive cloud server hosted game, instead having every single thing downloaded, so no content needs to be sunsetted.
I still don’t know why you dislike the D2 shop so much, when they offer Bright Dust for free purchases, and armors and animations take a ton more time than Coatings. Destiny doesn’t charge any money for Emblem Nameplates or Shader Coatings. Destiny has 2 gender models, 3 classes, and tons of armor, with per armor piece Shaders, and NICE Shaders too, not just dull and dirty basic colors
I cannot convince you to like Destiny, because Destiny is a very love/hate relationship type game. Hell, I took a break after Forsaken and didn’t play until Beyond Light. I got severely pissed off from the Eververse loot box system when I never got the Black Skull helmet I wanted, but they listened to feedback, removed it, and put all the old content in the shop instead.
Bungie makes stupid decisions a lot, some realistic, some not so much, but GENERALLY, it’s forgivable, or they take feedback and improve on it. People wanted Black Armory back, so Witch Queen brings even better weapon creation.
If 343 does AT LEAST add cross-core, cross-coatings, fix server desync, and make a good Forge, I’ll let them get away with the rest of their evil deeds. That’s enough to satisfy me.
I at least appreciate your long and well thought out opinions.
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