Honestly I think that 343industries as a company only started to get enough staff to work on a full game by its-self during the final year of Halo 4’s development cycle.
Hopefull their next game will be better but I highly doubt it, I mean I already hate Halo 4’s direction.
As far as Bungie are concerned I think they were tired of the franchise and would rather work on something else.
> That really explains why I don’t like the armors, they’re liquid compared to how halo 3 or reach’s looked, as they should
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> And maybe why mark V wasn’t in there
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> Also the forge maps felt like they weren’t made by 343I, the space maps idk just hinted that someone with better experience perhaps created them
If you read that link, the liquid development folks only rendered the armor for use in-game. The designs you hate were made my 343, they gave them the blueprints and they handed them off to be developed by someone else. Also, Bungie used the same people to make some of their maps that made the forge maps in Halo 4.
It’s quite common for pre-rendered CGI to be outsourced. Blur did the Halo Wars cutscenes for example.
As for the rest, they were smart enough to know that they couldn’t form a studio and release a full AAA game in such a short time frame. Hell, the studio was still forming late into development and Microsoft being Microsoft is always unwilling to compromise on a release date. So 343 did all the story and campaign stuff but looked to more experienced studios such as Certain Affinity for help. All this highlights is that MS needs to pull their head out and do what’s right in the long term rather than what might give immediate profits.
Bungie left Halo for a reason. Although I can a hardcore halo fan and bungie fan, I have to say 343 has done a fine job. There is still a lot of things to fix, but its progressing with the title updates.
P.S: I look forward to Bungie’s new game. Google it. Trailer looks amazing.
Yeah, I’m wondering was 343i actually did all the time? Learning that stupid and totally outdated container based engine Bungie used since Halo 1 (which was a reason why Bungie never could implement new Armor via DLC without patching EVERYTHING, what they never did)? Well, at least 343i managed to actually fix that problem with that system now…but who cares. Seems like a waste of time.
-Yoink-, I hope Halo 5 will use a brand engine. The amount of outsourcing in Halo 4 is actually pretty ridicolous.
> Bungie left Halo for a reason. Although I can a hardcore halo fan and bungie fan, I have to say 343 has done a fine job. There is still a lot of things to fix, but its progressing with the title updates.
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> P.S: I look forward to Bungie’s new game. Google it. Trailer looks amazing.
When your really think about it this is a big part of the reason why multiplayer is poor in H4 with all sorts of balance issues.
When 343 outsourced all their ideas were on paper. It has already been said that they arn’t particularly good players - bungie were halo gods and routinely demolished the best clans online. They played the games to death and know how they should work, how map exploits work, understand map movement - what motivates it and how controlling power positions should work.
343 arn’t particularly good at the game - how could we expect them to understand the issues with maps created for them by an outside company working to a deadline? Does the subcontracted outfit who make the maps play test them? Do they care or are they just working to a spec (which dosn’t include the map playing well), can they even play well themselves and understand the fluidity and dynamics of the play experience?
This is where the whole “dev’s are like coaches not athletes” arguement falls down - truth is they need to be good with their tools.
I bet people will moan that the music is outsourced too… oh wait it’s always been like that.
Deadlines have to be met and targets have to be hit, outsourcing is the most effective way 343 can keep its job while being under -Yoink!-. Now they’re taking account for what they have and making ammends to the problems, the thing lacking is communication.
The other issue with the devs not playing the game themselves alot is that they end up becoming too dependant on the vocal community to tell them what needs adjusting and things that don’t need changing end up getting nerfed or overpowered just to satisfy the vocal minority much to the horror of people happily playing the game.
I’m not referencing the DMR, Boltshot, stickies - these 100% need addressing but we may see a point where the game gets 99% balanced and then in a later update goes out of whack because 343 who isn’t that good at the game take it on the word of a few vocal people that other things like frag grenades (recent example) need to be nerfed - the community should be able to make suggestions that the devs take away and investigate with their best in-house play testers and then give feedback to the community - at the moment this 2 way street does not seem to exist with 343.
Trailer looks amazing.