What makes a competitive gamer? What makes an MLG player? While we’re at it, what makes a casual gamer? More importantly then those questions is where is the respect which should be in this franchise? Some of you may be thinking how this is a message about the kinds of players out there, but you will see by the end of this letter that the message here transcends that. Some of you will get it… others will not. Some will shrug their shoulders, some will say its impossible, which is why it will be. But this letter is not designed for people to understand or even like it, its designed that we can find the common ground where a previous decade of gamers failed at.
As you read, I hope you can understand where I am coming from, but the honest truth is I don’t expect half of you to appreciate what I am saying. Whether by character flaw or difference in personality, someone won’t agree with what is written here, but I’m still willing to give benefit of the doubt that you will understand how better this franchise can be and finally be able to say that what is written here can help people acknowledge that what I have to say could help this Halo community as someone who has seen this franchise become a great one in just eleven years of my life.
Many think a competitive gamer is a gamer willing to do their best and try to attain a win in any match they go into. Many think an MLG player is a win-at-all-cost player who will utilize any advantage they can get to have an upper hand against others. Many think casuals are players who don’t have a single competitive bone in their bodies, that it’s just about being a super human cyborg with a gun and no thumbs for shooting. These definitions are not incorrect, but they are far, as many of you who are laughing, smiling, or shrugging right now realize, from being anything noteworthy of the full player base within the Halo community.
Sure, MLG gamers see losing as a complete failure, SOMETIMES. Sure, competitive gamers are willing to rack their brains and try their best to find the way to win, SOMETIMES. And sure, casual gamers like having fun over winning, SOMETIMES. It’s needless to say the exceptions to these definitions are the people who find themselves finding attributes of many or all the groups above. That if they lose, it’s just a game. If they win, they played competitively better than the other team. If they work hard, day and night possibly, to make it to a LAN tournament and finish in X place, that they earned that with all the work they put in over everyone else who didn’t make it as far or may have put in more/less hard work to be good.
The real question now is, where is the middle ground where all gamers, regardless of stance or nature, can actually agree to find a level of respect and acknowledgement for each other to the point we aren’t asking ourselves if this can work, but instead asking ourselves why it was so difficult to ever achieve such a status.
Fact is the youthful people of the Halo community have always indicated positive attributes which point at the traits we can see in each other and earn that self-respect. Desire. Passion. Creativity. Willingness to learn. Discipline. Dedication. Loyalty, among others. Every one of us see’s Halo as something different and unique with the number of reasons ranging in the uncountable regions and as competitive… casual… MLG… children, young adults, and adults alike, we can find the common ground both in our differences AND our similarities.
Not to get too over-the-top or give you guys a possible misunderstanding, but as it stands right now, we are the molders in this experience just as much as the next person and the one after that. It isn’t our pride that should drive us, though it should be important, it’s about acknowledgement that each has something they bring to the table others do not. From a great forger, to the unbeatable MLG champion, there is a place each player can say they like and acknowledge as a home of sorts within this community. It is in those differences players should be able to say, “I don’t have to like you, or the way you play, or the kind of people you are friends with… but I will still respect you because someone else in this franchise likes you, because you bring them something I can’t and that person is made better because you are who you are.” The day you can honestly accept that is the day you will know a little about what I’ve learned over the past eleven years as a former MLG turned competitive casual, but also as a walker in the middle for all sides of the courtyard.
The divide that is present today between the Halo player communities is manageable, it’s ok right now. However, if you fail at understanding each other, you’re doomed to make the mistakes which have already been made and I for one, want to avoid that. I’d rather see the Halo community acknowledge the potential it has had since it first became recognized as Game of the Year in 2001, and became the franchise we all know.
Maybe not one, two, or three particular Halo games, heck, maybe there’s not a single Halo game where you enjoyed everything about it, but there was that one feature you can see in Halo 4, that one or few elements which bring a smile to your face because they are still the same as they were back then and if you can’t see those, if you can’t find anything you like about the previous decade or in Halo 4, then I implore you to not leave, to not pick up another game, but to actually sit down and ask yourself what you can possibly like about this new game and find the loyalty to back everything else in it that you can’t stand.
I say this because I, as well as others, don’t want to see anyone honestly leave the franchise. The fact is, when you think that way, when you say, “get lost” to someone else, your killing part of the experience someone else who is still a Halo player would have enjoyed because they had that person on their team, because, for lack of a better phrase, that person made anothers experience meaningful. Looking back now, more than ever before, this franchise needs to find that bottom level and build upon it. It’s the start of a new trilogy, a new decade, and a new series where each of us plays a part somewhere. It may be in forge. It may be in customs. It may be being the best MLG player in the history of this decade or just possibly enjoying something about the Halo games to come. Whatever the case, this franchise has only existed because we are still around.
From Reach to CE, that fact has never changed: players caring about the experience we forge for ourselves. We have a new trilogy, a new experience and while it’s a safe bet to say one post by an unknown Halo player is a long shot through a dark tunnel, which may or may not change people’s mind or look at this post through tinted glass, it’ll always be worth it to someone who loves this franchise and wants only the best for it, which is the same love I can say I see in 343 and Bungie before them. Not because of the things they say or do, but because they created and now continued the torch for a franchise we are all part of.
In short, acknowledge your abilities, the fact you do impact someone else in these games, and more than that, that whether it’s getting a sniper overkill, competing in LAN tournaments, forging a masterpiece, or flipping a chain warthog four times and still managing to get that kill somehow, there is a place in Halo for everyone.