"We have a lot to learn. We made a lot of mistakes. We can do better. And we know this, and we will. But I don’t want to spend the first moments of the year thinking about the negatives, because frankly, I am incredibly proud of both the team and the game that team created.
And for a first effort, it wasn’t half bad."
So, did anyone else read this as “Yeah, we know we screwed up Halo, but we’ll getcha next time!”
Idk. The entire statement from him seemed like something of a smack in the face. Any acknowledgement of the obvious short-comings was immediately followed by something that seems like an excuse, or a way of saying that we should just deal, and buy Halo 5.
Maybe this thread will be locked, even though its relevant and breaking no ToS, but I just feel that this is something noteworthy.
“We’ve made some mistakes, but we aren’t going to be specific and actually admit to the ones we made. We have a Title Update coming up, but we aren’t going to give details. Enjoy these new playlists. Fileshare is being worked on. Man, we sure did great with this game despite our *limitations.”
*Having helped Bungie in the past and being funded entirely by microsoft, what a blatant lie.
What the community got from his post:
OMG THEY DO LISTEN TO US, THEY CAME OUT AND ADMITTED TO EVERYTHING THEY DID WRONG, LOVE 343 FOREVER.
The impression I got is what he said: they screwed up and know they have to do better, but despite the flaws, Halo 4 is still a good game with a lot of potential. They plan on doing what they can to remedy those flaws and allow that potential to be realized.
Having tried and failed to build multiple game engines, I can say that any pride that 343i feels at having released a finished AAA game is justified, even with the rocky start that the game has had.
> What I got from his post:
>
> “We’ve made some mistakes, but we aren’t going to be specific and actually admit to the ones we made. We have a Title Update coming up, but we aren’t going to give details. Enjoy these new playlists. Fileshare is being worked on. Man, we sure did great with this game despite our *limitations.”
>
> *Having helped Bungie in the past and being funded entirely by microsoft, what a blatant lie.
>
> What the community got from his post:
>
> OMG THEY DO LISTEN TO US, THEY CAME OUT AND ADMITTED TO EVERYTHING THEY DID WRONG, LOVE 343 FOREVER.
Word, man.
I think that the message would have been a lot stronger and nicer if they openly actually admitted their mistakes and embraced that fact. Frankie could have said something like, “For our first game, we didn’t do that bad. We know a lot of people don’t like the changes we made to Halo, but there are still a lot of people out there who do. However, we know that we could have done better and we will try our best to improve each and everyday”. If Frankie said something like that, I think he would have gained a lot of people’s trust for Halo 5. Instead, he was all like, “This is our first game so we made a couple of mistakes but look at how many people bought our game. We did 343 times the stuff right than what we did wrong. A lot of people bought our game so you should like it and you’re crazy if you don’t. We’re even adding in Fileshare for you guys and you’re all so unthankful -_-”.
“Everyone shut up, we hate you all, we don’t care what you think about this game, however, to get you to shut up, we are going to release a Title Update on [date] for sure and you ungrateful -Yoinks!- will see that [problem], [problem], and [problem] are all fixed/added/removed. Hope you’re happy -Yoinks!-.”
I would honestly be thrilled if they came out and said that instead of faking an apology that they don’t mean. I love when massive, high profile organizations can be honest like that.
Im not buying Halo 5. And Im sure thousands upon thousands more wont like me.
The decisions that were made are proof 343i as a company are incapable to make a decent game true to the title ‘Halo’. Why should I and many others be falsely led in to buying another hyped up Call of Duty game?
I didnt buy Halo 4 to start with, what makes you think a few words from 343i community manager is going to make me drastically rethink my decision? When all I’ve seen post release are decision which fit the bill of-
> Im not buying Halo 5. And Im sure thousands upon thousands more wont like me.
>
> The decisions that were made are proof 343i as a company are incapable to make a decent game true to the title ‘Halo’. Why should I and many others be falsely led in to buying another hyped up Call of Duty game?
>
> I didnt buy Halo 4 to start with, what makes you think a few words from 343i community manager is going to make me drastically rethink my decision? When all I’ve seen post release are decision which fit the bill of-
>
> “Rookie design team”
> > ungrateful
>
> Okay bro. Okay…
>
> Whatever you say…
>
>
>
> > Im not buying Halo 5. And Im sure thousands upon thousands more wont like me.
>
> You’re apparently the “Vocal Minority” even though there is no statistical evidence to prove that haters are the minority.
So those hundreds and thousands of lower average population is just a myth? Ok then.
> > Im not buying Halo 5. And Im sure thousands upon thousands more wont like me.
> >
> > The decisions that were made are proof 343i as a company are incapable to make a decent game true to the title ‘Halo’. Why should I and many others be falsely led in to buying another hyped up Call of Duty game?
> >
> > I didnt buy Halo 4 to start with, what makes you think a few words from 343i community manager is going to make me drastically rethink my decision? When all I’ve seen post release are decision which fit the bill of-
> >
> > “Rookie design team”
>
> Your gonna buy it.
Halo has become like CoD. Halo is going to be yearly updated and you’ll be like, “I won’t buy a Halo title this year!” but buy Halo 5 anyway.
> > Im not buying Halo 5. And Im sure thousands upon thousands more wont like me.
> >
> > The decisions that were made are proof 343i as a company are incapable to make a decent game true to the title ‘Halo’. Why should I and many others be falsely led in to buying another hyped up Call of Duty game?
> >
> > I didnt buy Halo 4 to start with, what makes you think a few words from 343i community manager is going to make me drastically rethink my decision? When all I’ve seen post release are decision which fit the bill of-
> >
> > “Rookie design team”
>
> Your gonna buy it.
Baha. I didnt buy Halo 4. And Ive been playing Halo since the CE days.
> > > ungrateful
> >
> > Okay bro. Okay…
> >
> > Whatever you say…
>
>
>
> > Im not buying Halo 5. And Im sure thousands upon thousands more wont like me.
>
>
>
> > You’re apparently the “Vocal Minority” even though there is no statistical evidence to prove that haters are the minority.
>
> So those hundreds and thousands of lower average population is just a myth? Ok then.
According to the people who defend this game it is.
The sad thing about it, I got the impression that when he said that 343 “screwed up” he was referring more to the DLC issues, glitches, etc., rather than the questionable new direction of the gameplay for the series…
Honestly that little bulletin made my decision not to buy halo 5 right away if at all seem more sound. All i got from it was w/e we dont care all that matters are the sales figures. We will continue to leave our mark on halo to distinguish our selves from bungie.
I do not want a remake of halo 3 but i want a halo that has the same mechanics as it not a cod/halo/classed based hybrid that is terrible.
> What the community got from his post:
>
> OMG THEY DO LISTEN TO US, THEY CAME OUT AND ADMITTED TO EVERYTHING THEY DID WRONG, LOVE 343 FOREVER.
Don’t know what community you’re a part of but all I’ve seen here since that post is hate. No more or no less, the same level of unbridled noob rage and general -Yoink–hattery.
> The sad thing about it, I got the impression that when he said that 343 “screwed up” he was referring more to the DLC issues, glitches, etc., rather than the questionable new direction of the gameplay for the series…
He was referring more to that.
“There are a ton of things we wish we’d done better: Features that didn’t make it into the final game. Glitches that emerged. Missteps made. DLC fiascos. Communication breakdowns. But there were things that went astonishingly well – the creation of a genuinely competitive AAA studio chief among them. . . *more about praising his own team and game”
> Im not buying Halo 5. And Im sure thousands upon thousands more wont like me.
>
> The decisions that were made are proof 343i as a company are incapable to make a decent game true to the title ‘Halo’. Why should I and many others be falsely led in to buying another hyped up Call of Duty game?
>
> I didnt buy Halo 4 to start with, what makes you think a few words from 343i community manager is going to make me drastically rethink my decision? When all I’ve seen post release are decision which fit the bill of-
>
> “Rookie design team”
> Honestly that little bulletin made my decision not to buy halo 5 right away if at all seem more sound.
And this is why we can’t have nice things.
They don’t comment on problems before solutions are ready? “Oh, well, then they’re a terrible company full of terrible people, because they don’t communicate.”
They don’t comment on their mistakes? “Oh, well, then they’re an arrogant company full of arrogant people.”
They do comment on their mistakes, but without completely and totally bashing themselves? “Oh, well, then they only care about the game’s sales, so I’m not buying the next one.”
The ridiculous part I found was. That they was making jokes and jabs at everything. Even stuff being said in the forums. Obviously they are reading the forums just not posting a reply. But I do agree. They could have been more out right saying they made quite a few mistakes and they are working on fixing them. To hopefully win back their fan base. But no, they just made jokes about crap. GG’s 343i Only time I’ll be playing Halo 4 is when I’m drinking.
> The impression I got is what he said: they screwed up and know they have to do better, but despite the flaws, Halo 4 is still a good game with a lot of potential. They plan on doing what they can to remedy those flaws and allow that potential to be realized.
>
> Having tried and failed to build multiple game engines, I can say that any pride that 343i feels at having released a finished AAA game is justified, even with the rocky start that the game has had.
More or less. Now, 343 must manage expectations and resist the urge to ride madly off in all directions.
To my mind, the statement reads more like an internal email rather than a customer communication and would have benefited from some merciless editing to improve its tone and sharpen its message. Perhaps that’s part of the learning process as well.