> You can definitely lay some blame on 343, but Microsoft rushing them to release it before Black Ops can be attributed to a few of those things, and some things you mention are just being way too nit picky. Does leveling up and getting XP really even matter in this game? Not really, it’s not like it’s Ranked.
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> The playlists seem pretty permanent to me. Not that it makes them any good, but there are the same permanent ones since release, with rotation each week, and the addition of SWAT looks to be permanent too. They executed that just like they said they would. They will probably continue to rotate 1 playlist each week at least until they possibly TU and add in Ranked Playlists. It’s also quite possible they will continue to rotate 1 playlist each week afterward. It’s one playlist, all the others seem pretty permanent.
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> The Pre-Order bonus, that’s just marketing 101, and there’s no reason for them not to do it. Retailers really couldn’t mark it down a whole lot upon release to persuade gamers to buy it from them, so they added in the pre-order bonus’s for different retailers so they would have so marketing to entice customers to buy from them. It’s like the FOTUS armor, it looks like Yoink!, but people love it and will pay for it, if only 100 people bought consoles just for that Armor(which it wouldn’t surprise me if it was more, considering the prices on ebay for the Armor) but just 100 buying a console instead of just the game, and it’s absolutely worth it to them to do it that way, instead of letting everyone have it. Microsoft will make money off Halo 4 regardless, but they still have a lot of money to recoup to make a profit. All the costs related to marketing, development, and everything all added up is a hefty number, and I don’t blame them for doing whatever they have to to make a profit, because let’s face it, they’re not doing for it their health, they are doing it for the money, and if they don’t make money, then there wont be future games.
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> The Armor doesn’t even have an affect on the game other than making it a little harder to hide and of course if you have all that extra stuff on it can take hits. I go with the slimmest and smallest helmet and armor possible just because I want to be as untouchable as possible. I could careless what it actually looks like.
To start, I’m being less nit picky then I think you realize. I’m not really talking about anything outside of having the game function at full capacity.
As an added note - Ranking up adds a goal to every session. It is a very carrot-on-a-stick method and yes that is a really cheap goal, but a goal all the same. You can increase a players enjoyment if you make them work and earn something every sitdown. Why do you think CoD hit it off so well? They even convince their players to start over when they max out.
The Playlists aren’t done. We are missing a few and it is clear 343i isn’t 100% yet on which should be permanent and which should be rotating. SWAT was originally a rotating playlist but now it seems we are being allowed to keep it since it was in such high demand. We are missing Extraction and Grifball entirely, which where supposed to be permanent playlists since they are both in the Stats pages.
Having a pre-order bonus or two is one thing. They lobbed a good chunk of their customization out and handed it out to different stores. This is not particularly consumer friendly. It is the most minor complaint I mentioned, but does go with the theme of my post. Where a lot of the issue with the game have to do with a trip up in the way something was handled.
The specialization system particularly. So many players stuck at the cap, punished if they play the game now. They can’t risk finishing commendation or anything since all that XP goes down the drain forever. 343i clearly didn’t consider so many people hitting 70 so fast.