Heresy you say? How can I say that I am glad Bungie does not have control over the Halo universe anymore? Well it all comes down to three main points. 343i is not bored with Halo, they are thinking long term and they have respect for the cannon. I have been around since Halo:CE and I loved Bungie all the way through. But recent events have made it abundantly clear that 343i (the subsection of Microsoft now tasked with all things Halo) is better committed to guarantee our Halo.
It seems as though from the way Bungie employees talked about Halo:Reach that they were all looking forward to getting to do different universes. While it is understandable to be working on something for over 10 years you can get a little sick of it, this is not the best thing for Halo. We, as fans, need an owner that is excited every day with working in the Halo universe. You wouldn’t want the owner of a sports franchise to be bored with the sport would you?
Adding on to the first point is the idea that 343i is thinking in long term strategies and this is much better that when Bungie was in control. Since 343i is set up exclusively for Halo, it is in 343i’s employees self interest to thing long term goals for Halo. I think this works in Halo fans favour as we can be assured that as long as 343i is in control of the franchise they are always going to have future plans for Halo.
The most important point for why Halo is in better hands with 343i than Bungie is respect for cannon. Halo:Reach messed up the cannon of the universe very badly. It seems as though Bungie went out of their way to make sure that there was no way the storyline from reach could fit in with Eric Nylund’s book “The Fall of Reach.” I recently reread this novel and there are many unexplored areas of the assault on reach that the events of noble team could have revolved around. Bungie’s complete lack of respect for the cannon of the universe is not something that Halo fans need going forward. 343i on the other hand has already shown in the 2nd batch of DLC for Halo:Reach that they remember the full cannon by placing maps in places that follow perfectly with already told events. Their inclusion of terminals that help the story in Halo:CEA is just another example of the commitment to cannon that 343i has displayed so far.
In conclusion, Bungie has been a great studio to have ferried Halo this far, but it is time to accept that they are no longer what is best for the franchise. 343i is better because they are not sick of working on Halo, they want to make Halo last in the long term and they have respect for the universe that has already been created.
But I really can’t find any solid point of incoherence between The Fall of Reach and Halo: Reach’s canon. There’s even a 40 window in the book and some hints in it going forward the Autumn landing on Reach (as an evac operation, as said by Keyes in the book, but apparently secretly to get Cortana’s part) when the 10th mission happened. Bungie didn’t break canon, but stretched it too much, and that’s unfair for us fans.
To start: wrong forum, and these types of topic are not what these forums are for.
That said, you need to understands a few things about what Reach meant for Bungie.
Halo Reach was the culmination of a decade of work on Halo and almost 20 years of game design. Bungie poured it’s heart and soul into this game. You claim it breaks canon, when infact, it does not. The only point at which canon is changed it during the final level, with the Autumn having landed on Reach after retrieving the Master Chief and Linda.
Bungie paid close attention to the canon, and worked around it to tell a new story during the fall of Reach. Look up Nihilus Shadow’s Reach timeline in the Fiction forums, and you’ll see (I won’t post it because it’s very long).
Bungie loves Halo, and if you really paid attention to their final ViDoc, they expressed sadness in regards to saying good bye to it. Again, they poured themselves into Reach, and crafted what they believed to be the definitive Halo experience should be. They took almost a decade’s worth of fan criticism and suggestions, combined it with nearly 2 decades of game design experience, and crafted a game they are proud of.
Some people didn’t like this, granted, but that’s bound to happen. Considering, though, that Halo Reach outsold any previous title and still has an active online user-base (despite it’s heavy competition) shows the game is of high quality, something that Bungie enjoyed making and that the majority of fans continue to enjoy playing.
I’m getting sick of Bungie bashing. They made 4 awesome games and 1 so so game and everyone is tearing them a new whole. Seriously? So you didn’t like Reach, GET OVER IT! I used all caps so hopefully someone listens. Without Bungie there would be no Halo Universe at all. Period. Reach may not have met the expectations everyone was hoping for but that doesn’t warrant anti-Bungie behavior. Nobody is perfect, no game is perfect. Just chill the F out and wait for Halo 4. In the meantime please keep your flaming mouths shut. Thank you.
I’m with the OP. I like the directions 343 is taking the fiction much better than ODST or Reach. If the games are gonna be as awesome as Bungie’s, we’ll have to wait and see.
> I’m getting sick of Bungie bashing. They made 4 awesome games and 1 so so game and everyone is tearing them a new whole. Seriously? So you didn’t like Reach, GET OVER IT! I used all caps so hopefully someone listens. Without Bungie there would be no Halo Universe at all. Period. Reach may not have met the expectations everyone was hoping for but that doesn’t warrant anti-Bungie behavior. Nobody is perfect, no game is perfect. Just chill the F out and wait for Halo 4. In the meantime please keep your flaming mouths shut. Thank you.
I don’t think the guy was Bungie bashing he is just expressing that it is good that Bungie has passed on the torch and he did show a lot of respect for them and I don’t think he ever said he hated Reach it just didn’t stick to 117’s experience of Reach’s fall.
> I don’t think the guy was Bungie bashing he is just expressing that it is good that Bungie has passed on the torch and he did show a lot of respect for them and I don’t think he ever said he hated Reach it just didn’t stick to 117’s experience of Reach’s fall.
My rant for the most part was aimed at all the anti-bungie posts I’ve seen lately and not entirely at this one in particular.
> Halo:Reach messed up the cannon of the universe very badly. It seems as though Bungie went out of their way to make sure that there was no way the storyline from reach could fit in with Eric Nylund’s book “The Fall of Reach.” I recently reread this novel and there are many unexplored areas of the assault on reach that the events of noble team could have revolved around. Bungie’s complete lack of respect for the cannon of the universe is not something that Halo fans need going forward.
I do have to say though that this right here is a complete load. There have been numerous discussions on here about the connectivity issues with Reach and The Fall of Reach but several of us have proven that the game and book can indeed coexist. In fact he specifically mentioned that Bungie didn’t care about Nylund’s book, yet it was Nylund who authored Dr. Halsey’s Journal which did indeed bridge the events of the game and book. If Bungie truly didn’t care they wouldn’t have hired the novel’s writer to assist in connecting the game to it.
It seems to me the amount of cheaters and boosters has skyrocketed in match making. I don’t think 343i has done anything in the way of having a “ban hammer” in MM yet. Given the amount of targeted lag it also seems the amount of people utilizing network manipulation in game has gone up as well.
Frankly, it seems like a near cheating free for all in multi-player. I hope they implement whatever it is they’re going to call their whack the cheaters thing soon. Especially with CEA coming out, I don’t want to have to endure playing with some of what is being done with what seems to be impunity.
> Some people didn’t like this, granted, but that’s bound to happen. Considering, though, that Halo Reach outsold any previous title and still has an active online user-base (despite it’s heavy competition) shows the game is of high quality, something that Bungie enjoyed making and that the majority of fans continue to enjoy playing.
Reach being number 4 on Xbox LIVE says otherwise. Reach failed to keep its majority content with the game. Halo 3 beat back MW, MW2, Gears of War 1 and 2, and Battlefield: Bad Company 1 and 2, and reigned supreme for almost 3 years. Reach never had the top charts, and was already losing to two CoD games out of the game (even MW2, lol), and now GoW3, and when MW3 hits…
I love how Reach supporters forget that Halo 3 had heavy competition, too.
P.S.: Having an “active” user-base doesn’t mean it “pleased the majority”. 800,000 people played at at time when Reach was released. Now it’s usually maxed around 150,000 at a time, and never goes to 200,000 (or at least rarely). Something to think about.
> I completely agree with the OP. Bungie destroyed the canon with Halo: Reach to the point where many fans, including me simply ignore it.
And even if it fits, I choose to ignore it. Because it was just a bland, boring, awful campaign (especially compared to its predecessors and it’s current competition), and I know Bungie could have done better… and didn’t.
> > I completely agree with the OP. Bungie destroyed the canon with Halo: Reach to the point where many fans, including me simply ignore it.
>
> And even if it fits, I choose to ignore it. Because it was just a bland, boring, awful campaign (especially compared to its predecessors and it’s current competition), and I know Bungie could have done better… and didn’t.
To me, it seemed as though the writers of Halo: Reach didn’t even bother to read any of the books. And it felt like they cut a lot of corners with it.
> > I completely agree with the OP. Bungie destroyed the canon with Halo: Reach to the point where many fans, including me simply ignore it.
>
> And even if it fits, I choose to ignore it. Because it was just a bland, boring, awful campaign (especially compared to its predecessors and it’s current competition), and I know Bungie could have done better… and didn’t.
> > Some people didn’t like this, granted, but that’s bound to happen. Considering, though, that Halo Reach outsold any previous title and still has an active online user-base (despite it’s heavy competition) shows the game is of high quality, something that Bungie enjoyed making and that the majority of fans continue to enjoy playing.
>
> Reach being number 4 on Xbox LIVE says otherwise. Reach failed to keep its majority content with the game. Halo 3 beat back MW, MW2, Gears of War 1 and 2, and Battlefield: Bad Company 1 and 2, and reigned supreme for almost 3 years. Reach never had the top charts, and was already losing to two CoD games out of the game (even MW2, lol), and now GoW3, and when MW3 hits…
>
> I love how Reach supporters forget that Halo 3 had heavy competition, too.
>
> P.S.: Having an “active” user-base doesn’t mean it “pleased the majority”. 800,000 people played at at time when Reach was released. Now it’s usually maxed around 150,000 at a time, and never goes to 200,000 (or at least rarely). Something to think about.
Halo 3 had a lot of hype, with a huge advertising campaign. This greatly increased sales, and gave Halo 3 a large online population. Halo: Reach, which has the best multiplayer, did not get the same results because of the hype that CoD: Black Ops gained.
Halo: Reach’s smaller online population is not a fault of it’s own, but rather a lack of hype.
> > Some people didn’t like this, granted, but that’s bound to happen. Considering, though, that Halo Reach outsold any previous title and still has an active online user-base (despite it’s heavy competition) shows the game is of high quality, something that Bungie enjoyed making and that the majority of fans continue to enjoy playing.
>
> Reach being number 4 on Xbox LIVE says otherwise. Reach failed to keep its majority content with the game. Halo 3 beat back MW, MW2, Gears of War 1 and 2, and Battlefield: Bad Company 1 and 2, and reigned supreme for almost 3 years. Reach never had the top charts, and was already losing to two CoD games out of the game (even MW2, lol), and now GoW3, and when MW3 hits…
>
> I love how Reach supporters forget that Halo 3 had heavy competition, too.
>
> P.S.: Having an “active” user-base doesn’t mean it “pleased the majority”. 800,000 people played at at time when Reach was released. Now it’s usually maxed around 150,000 at a time, and never goes to 200,000 (or at least rarely). Something to think about.
Halo 3 sometimes beat MW1, and at other time was behind it. When MW2 came out, Halo 3 immediately fell to number 2. Infact, MW2 was 3’s only real competition. Gears 1 and 2 were good, but not that great. If you’ve played Gears 3, you’ll know what I mean. In addition, Gears 3 only just released. Games with multiplayer, especially a popular multiplayer like Gears, Halo, COD, or Battlefield, always do really well initially. Reach’s current population drop comes as no surprise.
And no, Halo 3 and its predecessors never had the competition Halo Reach does.
Halo 2 had Gears 1 (which was hardly competition).
Halo 3 had COD4 (at times), MW2 (which officially knocked Halo 3 out of the #1 slot), and Gears 2
Halo Reach has MW2, Black-Ops, Gears 3, soon to come Battlefield 3 and MW3, and a plethora of titles recently released or yet to come.
I’ve done the research. I’ve looked through archives of XBL activity as far back as it’s been recorded. Halo Reach has a lot more to compete with that any Halo title before it.
I tought that this forum was only ocupied by 343 fanboys, but I see now, based on the repsonse in this post, that those rocking this forum is halo fans, who playes the games, and dont cry about canon flaws, armor lock etc. Think Im gonna stay here Xd
And on to the topic, Bungie did not mess up canon. They have created the entire universe, I am sure they kneew what they where doing. And Op, have you seen the halo bible? I think not, so please sut your ignorant mouth and go play somewhere else
> And on to the topic, Bungie did not mess up canon. They have created the entire universe, I am sure they kneew what they where doing. And Op, have you seen the halo bible? I think not, so please sut your ignorant mouth and go play somewhere else
Why are people still obsessed with population figures…halo 3 had the shooter market to itself for a long time. Things are different now, cod is a juggernaught of a franchise and yet halo is still pulling six figures playercount, thats fine by me. Also OP, its canon with one n. Short for canonical e.g. canonical series of events. I get a slight rageface everytime i read about halo cannonz.