Not really, I'm choosing to avoid looking at the negatives, and look at the positives. Like more people playing.
At least they gave us some supportful information about the game and not a bunch of bullshit commentary about what goes on in 343 industries and how their working together to build up the halo universe. We just want game footage :l
I have seen this so many times on the Waypoint Forums... You're right, I haven't played it yet. No, I don't need to play to know that I don't want unlocks of any kind sans aesthetics in my Halo multiplayer. I think the complaints are justified. As the standard counter-argument of Waypoint goes, that reasoning defended Reach's AAs and whatnot until release, and, well, Reach turned out to be what the naysayers expected for the most part. Unfortunate, but true. I do agree that customs may not be as good as we hope, and the "customs will save us" mentality won't really go too far. Yet it seems like it will be far superior to MM from what I've seen so far, and with dwindling populations in good Reach playlists (MLG, the now extinct Squad Slayer, etc.) and Halo 3, it seems to be the best option for Halo with friends with as little crap as possible, unfortunately. I see it as the lesser of many evils. Now, that being said, I still haven't played, but I think I have reason to be concerned. The unlock system alone justifies a predisposed reluctance to participate in standard MM in my eyes. It might be alright, but from what I've seen so far it doesn't look promising. Hence, the concern. In other news, Forward Unto Dawn looks like it will be interesting, and I'm really (anxiously) wondering what kind of effects specializations will have. As in, how many players can have, can each player have all of them, what exactly sets each one apart from another, exactly what they do, and so on. Any ideas?
What's the point of advertising campaigns made by video games if people are ignorant, silly, and unjustified to judge a game by the way that it looks like it will play? Once again, most people were outraged by half of the **** that Halo Reach did wrong when they first heard about it... I don't know what is getting more generic: hearing "awww ****, I'm definitely not going to play this now that I've heard about this aspect of the game" disregarding the last 500 times that they said it before or the people getting on everyone's case (by stamping the same fanboy-sheep argument) for being able to derive their own opinion on something based on a logical prediction of how something will play out.
Before I get into the quote wall, just like to preference what I'm about to say with this. Perspective, perspective, perspective. There is a difference in not wanting something and whether that something is designed well and is fun. The difference is one is based on what you would have preferred and could be determined at any time, past, present, or future. The other is driven off of the actual mechanics of the game and a judgement that can only be made once the game comes out. While you could be near positive your opinion on the matter won't change, there is still that distinct possibility that a feature you didn't want is one you enjoy (again, you might find it highly improbable but that doesn't mean it isn't there). Does the possibility exist that when you do try it out it turns out to be every bit as bad as you prophesied from the beginning? Sure. That's a great argument toward probability of events happening, not a good reason to conclusively decide something. Also this viewpoint assumes AA's were a failure, hated, a bad decision, etc. While there have been plenty of topics and discussions regarding it all ready, I won't take sides on the issue but will point out a sizable group liked Reach's gameplay over the first three Halo's, AA's et all. While the first three game's mechanics might seem sacrosanct to people on this forum, the people who liked Reach's better should not be ignored. Fair enough, though I just dislike when anyone has a "predisposed" anything. Never a good outlook to have. Having a predisposition to something either positive or negative will impact the thought process when the product releases. Either you were over-excited and the end result could not possibly live up to expectation, or you are pessimistic and nothing from the end product would make you happy even if there was good in it. Even various degrees of that spectrum subtly influence an overall opinion of a product. I do acknowledge it is hard not to hold preconceptions of something, (I mean that is the whole purpose of hype and ad campaigns to build preconceptions of greatness), but I find physical discovery and exploration of a product much more satisfying. It allows me to find the good or bad in a product on my own terms without others telling me their opinions based on their own preconceptions. If the mechanic is fun and put together well with few to no bugs, I find it a good mechanic. If the opposite is true then it is a bad mechanic and I move on to another feature and when I've done it all then I'll lay into a company for doing a poor or ill conceived job (within reason and I try to keep perspective while doing so). ...again with this "most". *Myself and many others within the competitive and casual Halo community.
I'd say that the 100s of thousands of people that dropped out of the Halo franchise by the time Reach hit due to those new concepts, slower gameplay, etc... along with the people that linger on because there is nothing better can represent the majority. Just because the fraction of the 100k players left on Reach that is dissatisfied represents a vocal minority doesn't mean that the 400k of Halo fans that don't even bother anymore because they quit out on week 2 of Reach's lifespan don't count for anything. I think it's safe to say that the bitching that went on around here, Bungie.net, etc... when Reach was in its alpha stage had some justified insight to it and models what a lot of us are doing now.
"You'd say"...I'd love to see some hard numbers to back that up...you know like sales data for the first month of Reach. But for the sake of argument, let's do the math. Here's a good gamasutra article talking about various NPD numbers including Halo Reach unit sales for the month of September 2010. According to that article, 3.3 million halo games sold during the month. Now, if "100s of thousands" of people "dropped out of the franchise", before Reach was released and thus didn't buy it, that is (and I'll be generous, let's say 600,000 not so high as to basically be a million but is "100s of thousands", the magical number pulled from thine ass). That is 18% of the first month's total units sold. So even your bogus number isn't "most". It's barely some in relative perspective. According to MLG's leaderboard, here, assuming every single MLG player didn't buy Halo Reach (which is absurd) or even returned it within a week of buying it, that is only around 278,000 people. That's .08% of the total units sold during September. But, all of this is off topic to halo 4, the point is don't say "most" because it's not. Never was, stop using it like its a mandate to get what you want. My correction "Myself and many others within the competitive and casual Halo community." to what you said didn't change the meaning of what you were saying but was much more accurate to reality. You see, "many" works because it is true, if a thousand people think the same thing, that is "many". Far from most.
Can we just get a seperate thread for Halo 4 bashing, because I'd really like to occasionally find some news on this page rather than the same few arguments over and over.
Okay, cool, you can pull sales statistics up, which is completely irrelevant to an activity log of the game. And my point is that Reach made record sales, and dwindled shortly after by the vast groups of people that, "quit out on week 2 of Reach's lifespan," backing up that all of the bitching that was done beforehand had good reason and the faith (...or lack of faith in Reach's case) was well spent. Can you seriously tell me with a straight face that Reach sustained a record breaking population size over a long period of time? I think saying that most of those people is a safe bet; they had little faith, got bitched at by blind fanboys, got the game to give it one last chance themselves, were right about their original opinions, left/sold the game. So please, tell me how 3.3 million and #1 on the Xbox Most Played Leaderboards (or even just whatever numbers Halo 3 had left before Sept 14, 2010 and #1-2) was reduced to #7 and a few 100,000 shortly after. Sales alone show absolutely nothing about quality and replay-ability of a game. It just goes to show in part how much a game can be hyped up by all of the fanboys spouting "shut up, asshole, and wait until you buy it, like a good wittle sheep, before you actually develop an opinion that I don't agree with." First off, I haven't been saying, "gimme gimme gimme 343, it's not your game, it's mine," stop interpreting every negative opinion in this thread as an egocentric child whining and stamping their feet to have a game tailored to their wants; it's criticism and nothing more, deal with it. Second, if you disagree with someone's entire logical structure, cool, argue it; disagreeing with the wording on a singular-word level or resurfacing the same argument with people multiple times is beyond overkill. Is that just what you do for fun? Prey on people in this thread over one single word that you disagree with like a hawk that kills its food by nagging the hell out of it in china-wall-paragraph form and causing the thread to explode? It sure as hell seems as if not a single ounce of negativity can get by without it being deemed selfish and stupid. It's even worse that the arguments almost ALWAYS revert back to the same argument that has been said by just about every single person on every single thread on every single forum in Halo's existence. I'm actually surprised that you haven't just started throwing "adapt" at people when they don't like a concept yet... If you have a problem with this, pm me before the forum needs to be redesigned in novel format.
Maybe if both players were standing still and the player shooting didn't move his reticle it would be proof of poor poor netcode and/or hitbox detection. If you actually watch, this screencap is taken a full second after blue shoots red in the leg, which is why red's shield is flaring. Halo 4 343 Industries Exclusive Interview - YouTube
So 3,300,000 divided by 278,000 equals 0.08%? I'm pretty sure it is 8% ________________________________________________________________________________ On another note Wraparound Heatmap: Warlock Heatmap:
I don't think the issue is the shields, it's why the reticle still shows red as if there's a valid target behind it. However, there are a ton of caveats on that: one, we don't know why it's happening in the video in the first place - is it netcode, is it just bad reticle response time, etc? And two, whatever it is, it's probably easily correctable. Getting the reticle to be red only when it's directly over a target can be done on the local box and is relatively simplistic to code. Whatever caused it to be wrong here, it can (and may) be fixed. So this kind of thing alone is hardly cause for great alarm, IMO. Some of the game design stuff is far more concerning to me than a reticle red in the wrong place, in a promo video coming out months before the game does. [br][/br]Edited by merge: You're correct - however: 1. It's largely unavoidable. If you have played previous Halo games extensively as we all have, how can you hear details about changes (or constants) in the new game without forming at least a mild opinion about them? 2. These games cost, at minimum, $60. This isn't "my sandwich was bad but oh well it only cost $4, I'll just never buy it again" money. For most Halo players, who are predominantly high school and college-aged and buying games with their own limited resources, $60 means something. So to an extent it is necessary to try to form some kind of opinion on which to base a decision whether or not to even buy the game in the first place. It's probably an automatic purchase for you and me both, but not for everyone here; certainly not for a lot of people who generally disliked Reach and maybe aren't even playing it now, despite posting here. I know there are guys on this forum who still are active here but inactive in Reach, having long since moved on to Battlefield or Trials or what have you. Those guys are trying to figure out now if Halo 4 will be another waste of 60 dollars for them. And they have that right.
I completely missed that in the picture the reticle is still red despite being in empty space. The guy guy is swiping from side to side so erratically that even a 10ms delay could account for it still being red. The kind of person who would actually believe the hit detection box is as monstrously huge as those pictures would indicate is clearly jumping to conclusions out of prejudice instead of evaluating in acumen.
Yeah, I know facts are hard to look at. I too like just sayin stuff that feels right. I take it you didn't actually read the sourced article. The 3.3 million was the amount of physical copies of Reach sold over the month of September. Not sales revenue for the first day or even first week. I can also pull up the charts showing total units sold through November and that Reach was the top selling game through December but hey, who needs silly numbers. I like the subtle change by the way. Realize you're talkin mighty **** so now it's "vast groups of people" instead of most. While the term "vast" is pretty subjective again my second source pointed out that if every single MLG player, all 277 thousand or so of them, decided to stop playing at once, that is still a sliver of the total halo population. If you want I can pull up Bungie's infographic where they show more hours spent in Reach MM then Halo 3. But I'm sure you'd say amount of hours played doesn't translate to how many people are playing them. You would be right but them the metric you're looking for is unprovable. Just the way you like it I'm sure. Again with the vague language. How long do you define "a long period". Obviously it sustained its population well enough to produce more MM hours spent then Halo 3. It remained the top selling game through December and was among the top selling through most of the following year. If you're asking for a specific number comparison of like Halo 3 2 years into its life and Halo Reach almost 2 years into its life then that is a really poor question that has so many extraneous variables. Such as what other games came out during that time, the fact that the older game has been around a lot longer. No game holds its gaming population for that long a period and I bet you if I showed you data depicting Halo 3's population in its first few months of release vs 2 years into release it would be significantly lower. But hind sight bias gets us all sometimes I suppose. Do you have any idea how numbers work. "Most" would be several million people of the total population. I'm sure at some specific point of time you could point out a time when a lot less people were on Reach for the day (correlation does not prove causation. Just because they weren't playing at that specific time doesn't mean they all decided to hate the game and not play ever again.). I'll even give you the benifit of the doubt in abscence of data and agree that after let's say a year, Reach's specific millions of players from day to day might have been less then Halo 3's at the same time. Again, that doesn't mean "most" of any quantity. When everyone you associate with and play with thinks the same way as you do (which is probably why you associate and play with them) then its easy to just assume everyone, even people you don't associate with, think as you do. I just want to state that I'm not saying Reach is a better game. My point is simply by saying "most" you're falsly attributing beliefs on people that they didn't have as evident from the numbers of people playing the game. You're right, sales alone are no indication of quality. Returns number would depict the "replay-ability" of a game in some sense and I'd bet if I found those numbers they wouldn't be nearly as high as you think they would be, but that is just a hunch. I also didnt justify my argument completely on sales figures. Lol, I like how "fanboy" is now used like some derogatory statement regarding a rational and logic driven view. Yes all us "fanboys" like to try a product before our pms hits us and we're prone to make death threats against developers and list all the reasons why games should be played in our imaginations. First, I'm not. I'm saying stop thinking your point of view is the only point of view that even 51% of the halo playing community thinks ad you do (which still wouldn't be "most" but still a majority.). Feel free to express your opinion, no matter how ignorant or fact deprived, as long as it doesn't include people that you cannot speak for. I can assume every single person I know thinks as I do but then I'd be pretty ignorant. Second, you don't have to respond in kind. The "why are you arguing" is so tired a statement. It's a two way street, if you continue to say bullshit expect to get criticism back. I pick the one word because not just you keeps saying it regardless of facts like you have some proven mandate to get what you want and hate the developer for not caving to what "most" people want. My correction of what you said still expressed your opinion but didn't assume things you can't assume. Why you decided to argue in defense for that poorly decided word choice is the better question. Do you just not like being told you're wrong regardless of how small? Christ, own up to a mistake and move on. Oh golly gee, the bad man made me read. I hate doin dat. Why can't eveything follow Twitter rules.
I doubt it's about the hit detection, that seems like the least-likely scenario to me. However I will say this - I've done a brief head-to-head comparison of the H4 combat video and Reach, and the reticle response time is noticeably better in Reach even just looking at it in real time. But again, I would tend to think that whatever this is, it's fixable. Making a reticle that reacts with no delay to its target should be pretty easy to write, and if something is wrong there it should be fairly easy to resolve. If this really is a hitbox size issue though, God help 'em.
I think it might be similar to the theater hitbox lag problem in COD. If that is the case it is no biggie from a technical POV, but it makes saved films kinda annoying.
Concept: Weapon Skin ideas for Halo 4. - YouTube What are your thoughts on 343i dishing out the same customization other, modern video games are putting in? Like COD and GoW. Personally, I'll never mind things like weapon skins, armor permutations, etc, even if most games have them too.
I like a few of those concepts, mainly the more beleiveable ones, not the strange things like the full pink. As for the customization, I like it. I have always created things, and tis should be a nice little aesthetic change. As for the fact everyone else is doing the same- it doesnt bother me in the slightest.
I'm good with it. I like customizing myself and it won't really bother me if other players do weird stuff to their armor or guns.