That's definitely one of the bad effects of it, Scorch. Even when a decent number of people are playing Reach, it's easy to get the impression that the game is dead because there are only 250 people in your favorite playlist. (Until they did this super slayer jackpot weekend, that playlist was consistently populated by more tumbleweeds than players - hopefully the jackpot will have an after-effect of making that playlist a little more healthy, because I sort of suspect that a lot of people who don't keep up with all Halo news had no idea what it even was.) And it also has this effect too of keeping people segregated into their own little corners of matchmaking.
Thing is, this idea of capturing the casual market is a bit of a fallacy, at least to my mind. The makeup of the Halo fan base has definitely changed, but I don't think Bungie have ever specifically catered to the competitive mindset in the way I'm talking about with franchises like Quake, CS etc. CE was, in many respects (primarily the Pistol), the biggest fortunate accident seen in competitive gaming. In terms of subsequent titles, it was pretty clear that Bungie wasn't as focused on pleasing the specifically competitive players as ID and Valve were with the above titles. This wasn't the PC shooter world, and if you actually look back, MLG gamers in specific terms have never had the developer mentality support that some people seem to claim now and reason must have been lost somewhere along the way (generally coinciding with where they thought the series got bad). The shift in developer mentality isn't from MLG to casual by any means, it's from old school casual Halo fan to the modern casual gamer in general terms. EDIT: Also, I found this on Reddit, it's a graphical timeline running from the origins of the Precursors to the current timeline, though the whole Precursor section is incredibly brief.
Just a thought but given the RVB story line concerning the freelancers and how the main characters of the series are simulation soldiers for the freelancers to practice on the whole thing with the Infinity and multiplayer in halo 4 being a simulation, seems to tie in really nicely.
Kind of off topic, but what is wrong with Frank O'Conners voice? It bothers me in every video he's in.
Could be a sign. Or an implanted easter egg that the architect implemented to convey his true feelings for the way their taking the series. Clever girl...
This really doesn't bother me, because it modifies your loadout to suit your playstyle without making massive changes to the game. What I am more annoyed at is the armor abilities returning. I can live with sprint default. I can live with the vision thing. I don't like Jet Pack, and I really preferred Camo as a pick-up without the adverse effects of moving too fast and ruining everyones tracker. If they were going to do these loadout things, I really wish they'd just let us make 1-3 custom loadouts that we could choose from at the start of the game that carry over to all multiplayer modes. It wouldn't hurt at all, and it'd suit every playstyle naturally. For example: My loadout would be like... BR AR Extra clip Extra grenade while someone elses would be like... DMR Magnum Faster health regen Extra clip and another's would be like... AR Magnum Extra grenade Faster sprint recharge* (made up for sake of showing options that don't hurt) THAT wouldn't hurt anything, it'd feel nice to customize for ****, we'd all have equal opportunity and choice, wouldn't have to have 50 different gametypes of Slayer, everyone could sprint, no one could fly, invisibility was a reward to the risky, etc. If you disagree, fine, but it's still a hell of a lot better than the reach loadouts.
Me too. I don't imagine it will affect the game all that much except on high competitive levels, which I don't participate in, so... shrug. On the other hand, no matter how subtle this stuff is intended to be, some people will figure out ways to exploit it (like just from what he mentioned, having 3 nades when everyone else has 2 is not inconsequential), and I'm further irritated by yet another attempt (though this time it's not by 343) to pretend these changes aren't CoD-inspired. There's a serious lack of calling-a-spade-a-spade going on lately.
Faster health regeneration..? I can barely make out several 13 year olds squealing with joy. That sounds like it would get annoying fast. Also: It's difficult to see what crowd they're catering to.. With Reach they made Forge pretty difficult to use... what with all the gametype specfic objectives/spawns, etc. Seemed much easier to me in H3. I'll be curious to see if they make H4 forge more complicated or what.. Overall, it seems like they're trying to go a "route nobody's gone before," but for me it's easy to see them just trying to get kids to buy their games solely for profit. If that's the case, then they're sellouts and the old Halo's over. I hope there's more to them than that.. However, I maintain my position to wait for more info. I'd really like to see how it all plays out in a game
I imagine these bonuses will help, but not drastically and thus not change the game too much. I am also sure it can all be balanced so we all have equal starts. Really, this news does not bother me in the least.
Can we stop with this all ready? Let's just ignore the average gamer age, largest demographic Halo itself sells to, or the fact that if anything there are more "12-15" year olds on average who frequent this and other forums. We get it, you think "casual" gamers are all squeakers who wouldn't know a good gameplay mechanic from their own feces, ha ha ha, good one. ...They're catering to what any and all game developers cater to. The consumer base. Completely disagree with "with Reach they made Forge pretty difficult". The sheer number of forge maps completely nulls that argument. Making a "quality" map might be more difficult but there are many millions of maps and more are created every second. Geomerging in Halo 3 was frustrating and resulted in the best of situations an all right looking map. Halo 3 forge maps were more about the mechanics then how they looked but that doesn't make them any easier to construct or Reach's any harder. For the billionth time...you know what, I'll put this in large letters, DEVELOPERS DEVELOP TO MAKE MONEY. Game development is not a charity, and the sheer entitlement in statements that demand developers to give "fans" more for less pisses me off. There are plenty of freeware games for people to play but if you want something with much more depth and on a proprietary platform (a console) you must pay for it. Now, that doesn't mean developers develop solely for the money. They put their time and effort into the project because they like games, no game designer will tell you they dislike games and they like to play their games. Sequels to well received games always have the same issues. If all decisions were made by people on the internet there would never be a second of anything. All content would end with the first iteration and anything that is remotely close to that content would be banned under pretense of "ripoff". So, because the internet does not run the world, how as a developer do you balance keeping what was liked in the original to what is to be expected in a new iteration of something. Sequels on sequels are even further complicated. Features that were well received from the sequel that were greater departures from the first iteration might be taken and added upon for a third iteration but then you start creating that rift of people who didn't like the feature and who preferred the first iteration. You can't satisfy both parties so you satisfy the larger one because the final factor is money. The larger group will enjoy the changes and as a developer you are satisfied you brought joy to the consumer from your product. In a perfect world, sure satisfy everyone, but the world isn't perfect and just getting close to satisfying everyone is damn impressive. Weren't maintaining it very well. Why don't you apply this logic before making judgements on game developers.
I was more venting when I said that, immediate reactions are irrational I guess. My bad, but yeah, didn't realize someone would take it so seriously :/ I added that last part at the end after like 3 minutes of "reviewing" lol.
I can see that extra grenade thing absolutely ruining games on small maps. Other than that, meh. I play big team most of the time. These changes, though unwelcome, don't affect me very much.