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343, consider this an open letter, among many others, that I will use to vent my discontent with the path Halo is headed. I do hope that it will reach some important ears, but I’m a realistic person. And keep in mind that this is more than just about how the game plays. It’s also about how you choose to handle it, how you choose to interact with us… and the time it takes to deliver.
Ever since the very first moment we saw the game, some of us were unsure about whether we would be able to like what we had in front of us. But most of us decided to remain silent and trust you guys. Because that’s what you wanted us to do. “It feels like Halo”. And we did it. It was mutual respect and trust. It’s something precious. Even though you decided not to give us the right to an open / public Halo 4 beta (with Microsoft to fund it too), we still trusted you, waited and bought the game.
And we were there. Like Frankie said in the most recent bulletin, Halo 4 broke sales records for the Halo franchise. All thanks to the trust you put in us. However, what about your part of the deal? The part where you have to ship a game worth being called Halo, the greatest Xbox exclusive of all time? More than just a AAA game, one of the bests out there. What happened?
I’m not talking about things that just plain don’t make sense in Halo as a game, such as customizable individual loadouts based on unlocks (featuring items far too powerful to spawn with – which could have been pointed out and prevented with a public beta), in-game power items rewards for doing good, the lack of proper matchmaking… matchups (Reach all over again, despite all the promises) and much much more. No. That’s not even what I’m talking about.
What I’m talking about is how Halo 4 was an unfinished, rushed product. I shouldn’t have to download a Title Update as I boot the game for the first time, not even a month after the game launches. I shouldn’t have to wait for another one ON TOP OF THAT, not even being sure of what it will contain, because there are just so MANY issues in the game. I shouldn’t have to wait “until next week, month, or soon” for my favorite playlist to be released. Because if I dare call it my favorite playlist, it’s because it was there in the past Halo games, and also appreciated by some people. So why is it gone now? And even if it comes back, I’m not even sure it will remain, because of this new “rotational playlist” idea. Is there even a reason for this? I’m sure it will remain unanswered like a lot of things, but you make it sound like it’s a huge… test, or beta or something. Is something bad going to happen if too many playlists are in the game at once? Is the population going to crumble because people have access to their favorite playlist at all times and have fun? Are you guys trying to build the best of the best hopper selection of all time, [not] featuring Team Snipers, also with guest appearance FFA Regicide?
It’s like you guys didn’t want us to play the Halo 4 beta before launch, because that is EXACTLY what we are playing right now. Slight problem is, we PAID the game’s full price for that. In a few days, we get to be part of your “Forge Test” playlist? I mean what is it for? We have to do more testing for you? Testing we didn’t ask to be a part of, and that will end up having little to no effect on how we enjoy the game, versus testing out stuff like if the boltshot is too strong BEFORE the game releases?
I don’t even need to say anything about the File Browser. But I’m going to. You promised us it would come back before the game even was out. Then said it would take a little while before it was up. Then kept saying that for weeks after the release. And again. And it’s still not out. Trust Us™.
The lobbies glitch up all the time too, for no reason whatsoever. In a AAA game! And not a random one! In Halo! I never thought that would be possible. We went from having the sleekest UI in almost any game combined (Halo: Reach) to it being almost rebuilt from scratch – while still using the same engine or so. Now it’s very clunky, sloppy, unresponsive and bugs all the time online… like a lot of stuff. It’s like the game was tested on LAN and under perfect online conditions here and there. We lost A LOT of options, whether it’s custom games or party details. There never was an explanation regarding the reasoning behind it, if it will ever come back, what to expect or not, when…
In fact, there hasn’t been explanations for anything. Just excuses and apologies, like the last bulletin. And that’s the saddening part here. We don’t want excuses, nor apologies. If you really feel bad and want to do something about it, don’t spend 20k characters telling us how much it’s the case, or how Halo 4 isn’t that bad. Improve the game instead. Tell us it’s going to happen. What is going to happen and when.
We keep trusting you and you guys keep procrastinating. It’s about to reach a point of no return though. It has ALREADY begun. The online population thing is no joke. Even Minecraft is ahead of Halo 4 in terms of online activity as it is. Yesterday, my friend told me “League of Legends has more twitch.tv VIEWERS than Halo 4 has online PLAYERS”. I laughed and shrugged it off as a joke. Then I looked for myself and actually felt very bad.
It’s how bad things are. And there’s a grim future ahead of Halo if you, 343, don’t change things and the decisions you make. The PR team won’t be the ones to do it for you. A new DLC won’t solve anything. Telling us “yeah, some stuff is going to happen soon, but we can’t tell you what yet” either.
We understand that the game was rushed to take sales from Treyarch’s new game. It makes a lot of sense from a business perspective, and even more when it comes to breaking records, which Frankie was so proud to remind us in the latest bulletin. But now we are paying the dear price in more than just one way. We know this game has flaws. It’s not perfect. No one is asking for perfection. But there is a lot of change for the sake of change and too little explanations. You don’t have to fill this part of Bungie’s shoes. It’s a good riddance.
Listen to us 343, and please don’t act like we haven’t been vocal, like in the last bulletin. Telling us where to contact you guys? Come on. Check the forums. Things are going downhill, no matter how much you deny it, or want to make it look like it’s not the case. If you actually take time to listen to our pleas and act based on that, this game will grow. We’ll be proud of telling people how awesome it is, and the population will go back up, slow, but it will.
But right now, things are bad. Awful. But it can change. All you have to do, is Trust Us™, the hundreds of thousands of people who bought the game and have been doing so for the past decade and who know what Halo is all about. More than you guys. Listen to our feedback, and act based on that.
Or you can ignore everything and Halo will just die a slow, agonizing death as a AAA franchise, and it will be hard on all of us.