dreamcastmaster
Banned
Indie games are awesome in concept and they way they have the no rules game ideas and settings just like the old home computer games in the early 80's.
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Halo 4 dropped stasis gun to make the game less sci-fi
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Indie games are awesome in concept and they way they have the no rules game ideas and settings just like the old home computer games in the early 80's.
Night_Trekker
Member
Agreed.
This is seriously an image they used in their presentation:
WOW!
This is seriously an image they used in their presentation:
To be fair, Josh Holmes later explained that it was meant to reference ease of accessibility (the icon on most PCs is, in fact, the 'wheelchair' symbol) and not 'handicapping Halo' as people assumed.
The imagery is bad, but it's the bullet points that should inspire the most rage.
Edit: "Contextualize our universe" is such bullshit marketing lingo it actually makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
Ghost_Protocol
Member
The ONLY thing they need to do to make 5 and 6 more accessible is not make the extraordinarily simple story needlessly complex by hiding critical information in optional videos. Who thought that was a good idea?
I chalk it up as a freudian slip.
The bottom of the "contextualizing" rabbit hole is literally turning the plasma rifle into a purple AK-47.
Bungie is full of guys who knows how to use focus testing positively. They still stick to some sort of creative vision. This development tells me that 343 is full of the type of Yes men who make generic FPSs and chase the COD dragon.
HAHAHAHAHA, I thought it was Shacknews's joke.
King Beyond the wall
Member
Come on guys, they gotta make the game more accessible and to broaden its appeal!
They should bring in some halo fans for the focus testing of halo 5, but I fear if they did that they would have to scrap pretty much everything they did in halo 4.
There is no step back now, they'll have to keep moving towards broadening the appeal of the games, and that means they'll keep moving towards COD, the most appealing game on the market.
They should bring in some halo fans for the focus testing of halo 5, but I fear if they did that they would have to scrap pretty much everything they did in halo 4.
There is no step back now, they'll have to keep moving towards broadening the appeal of the games, and that means they'll keep moving towards COD, the most appealing game on the market.
The Crimson Kid
what are you waiting for
If you, as a developer, are making a game you know will get a 17+ rating, don't make up your focus groups purely out of 8 year olds. Is it so much to ask that a game rated Mature actually assumes that the player has the intelligence of a 17-year old?!?
That is quite a post you have there.
While I had originally thought that your imagined Halo 4 was far too expansive to pull off, after I thought about it a bit, I realized that wouldn't have been the case in this situation.
343 had several years to make this game and a blank check from Microsoft (this was MS's most expensive game ever made), who largely didn't care what was in the final product aside from retaining the classic Halo controls and having some form of versus MP. It's a situation that most developers only see in their wildest dreams.
343 had the time, money, and directorial freedom to vastly reinvent Halo in most any way they could have wanted to. If 343's ambitions and abilities were up to it, they could've made the game you proposed and then some.
That is quite a post you have there.
While I had originally thought that your imagined Halo 4 was far too expansive to pull off, after I thought about it a bit, I realized that wouldn't have been the case in this situation.
343 had several years to make this game and a blank check from Microsoft (this was MS's most expensive game ever made), who largely didn't care what was in the final product aside from retaining the classic Halo controls and having some form of versus MP. It's a situation that most developers only see in their wildest dreams.
343 had the time, money, and directorial freedom to vastly reinvent Halo in most any way they could have wanted to. If 343's ambitions and abilities were up to it, they could've made the game you proposed and then some.
That time has come and gone IMO. If Halo 2 would have had a more engaging campaign and then that Halo movie would have gotten off the ground, then it would be right up there with any franchise today. I remember how popular Halo was when Halo 2 came out, it was insane. Then we had to wait to "Finish the Fight" and it was all downhill from there.
You're not wrong on either count.
I can't imagine them reviewing their post mortem powerpoint slides and not one person raising their hand and saying "You know, that picture of Master Chief in a wheelchair could be wildly misinterpreted." I just don't see how that couldn't happen unless A). it was one guy putting it together with no oversight or B). the attitude at 343 is so strong as to silence dissent. I can't see either of those happening, so it just... defies belief.
As for the purple AK-47... I miss games going out of their way to avoid a familiar context. I pick up a Halo game to play with futuristic technology on alien planets. That's stuff I don't get to do in real life, so let's skip things I can relate to/am familiar with and get back to embracing the setting with crazy alien doodads.
SpartanN92
Banned
Even though Halo 3 was the highest selling of the Halos.
Yeah, clearly a popularity dip.
Reach was the one responsible for that.
This was Josh's reply:This is seriously an image they used in their presentation:
Posted over at HaloGAF:
It was referenced to this thread, not sure if it was posted here:
To 343i, Hi. My name is Geoff. I tell you my given name so that you realize I am a real person, to humanize myself. A person that has thoughts, feelings, goals, ambitions, desires and is also disabled. Got your full attention now, do I? Hopefully I do.
I posted some thoughts over in another thread about the GDC Conference. I will reiterate some of them here and add in others as I see fit so that you understand the image of a spartan in a wheelchair paired with Josh Holmes tweets and his comments at GDC, are exceptionally offensive.
I play games to escape my daily life. So I can think and focus on something, anything, other than the constant pain I am in and things I can no longer do. I do not need to have a company, that took over one of my favorite franchises in gaming, remind me none to subtly of the fact I am disabled. What I expect from you is a high quality product that provides me entertainment and value for my money. Not some off the cuff tweets and a graphic that is obnoxious.
That you found it "acceptable" to compare, or whatever label you want to slap on it, things being accessible for those with disabilities to accessibility in a game is appalling. What's more, one of your employees goes on to tweet "Lighten Up" in reference to that same image that I found so offensive. You have effectively belittled people with disabilities with this comparison and reduced the hardships and suffering we endure on a daily basis to a "joke". I can tell you I am NOT laughing and I am sure others like me are not as well. Honestly, I thought as a society we had moved past this level of insensitivity and disregard.
Whether or not you choose to apologize or acknowledge this incredible blunder will determine how myself, and others, view your integrity and character as individuals and as a company. For my part, I am deeply disappointed, disgusted and upset. I hope that you, and your employees, can understand why.
- To my fellow Community Members: It is my hope and wish that you help to make 343i aware of exactly how offensive this actually is, and perhaps, respond to it. Many thanks.
I've never considered it too far-fetched because they basically pulled that narrative structure / world design off in ODST. Large hub world with missions that branch off from it at specific points. The only real difference is that instead of flashbacks, you're just entering a more linear structure for the duration of your specific mission. That, and in place of a city you'd be getting back to the open environments that made Halo stand out so much in the first place. I dare any Halo fan to tell me with a straight face they wouldn't love to tear through a huge, open environment on a warthog, scouting out forerunner structures and downed UNSC wreckage, completing objectives while avoiding a huge army of enemies with all of the advantages in their favor.
Halo 3's launch was a maelstrom of excitement like rarely gets seen these days, so I'll have to echo the sentiment already posted that pushing 3 as the stumble doesn't match up with reality. They definitely went off the boil big time on the trudge to Reach though.
Anticitizen One
Banned
I always love when this stuff gets out and fans are understandably upset all of a sudden a "community manager" will come out and make some remarks and instead of apologizing and vowing to forward fan complaints to the team, they double down on the idiotic decisions to try and save the studios face.
Ninja Moomin
Banned
GoddyofAus
Banned
Well, I guess it's official then; 343 are as much of a Microsoft lap dog as the Modern Rare are.
Or people run wild with rage.
Hip Hop
Member
You'd be surprised. A big part of the COD community is just like that, all the way to the button placement.
Sapphire Dreams
Member
I don't get it, why focus test the game? it's freaking HALO ! one of the strongest IPs in the industry today it doesn't need to be "more appealing".
Focus groups have been around for a long, long time. They're not inherently bad, everyone's favorite dev Valve use them extensively, but the huge, huge thing is knowing how to read that data properly. When it comes to games and movies that's sometimes hard to do. That's also the reason why Bungie doesn't just do a few focus tests. They run them constantly. They ran them summer for Destiny, and that game is still a long way off. Blizzard has long ass betas for their games, closed and open, and they still tweak post release.Focus groups have a lot to answer for
The real problem is the people paying the bills often don't understand focus testing at all. They think you take the game, sit it in front of a group, make the changes based on that group, bring in a different group to test it one more time, and adjust before release. That almost always leads to terrible decisions in movies and games.
"I'm clicking in the stick why am I not sprinting"
More reason to want CoD to crash. The sooner they have to scramble to find something else exciting and relevant the better.
Yeah, you could just use focus testing to see what people don't like, WHY they don't like it, and if necessary change it, not to mention iron out bullshit tough spots. In this case it seems to me that to PROPERLY use focus testing you'd figure out how to convince these players that the new guns are awesome and to use them, not to ignore them for what's safe.
Anticitizen One
Banned
Man fuck those people
I am salivating for the day when people get sick of call of duty and all these casuals move onto something else just like what happened with the wii
That could kill the industry outright as Nintendo seems to just suffer for sales period. Then again if the future of the industry with the CoD crowd is heavily homogenized game design then it's probably better to burn it all down, it'll grow back from the efforts of indies and medium sized companies that didn't depend as much on the AAA model.
TheUnsunghero26
Member
Yeah, whenever I play Halo split screen with friends there's always the one guy who throws a grenade because they tried to aim down the sights.
What really frustrated me there was that Halo 3 had what I thought was a fantastic button layout, a big leap over Halo 2!
Then CoD hit it big and effectively said that the left counterpart to the shoot button was to be the down-the-sights button, and so that promptly got left behind. At least Bioshock Infinite laughed at that and made down-the-sights R3.
dragonelite
Member
I would have loved it. Open world Requiem or Crysis 1 like.
Think it is save to say a lot of studios are miss using focus groups.
Would not be surprised if BF4 had killstreak rewards like uaf and shit.
I think they used the last two halo titles as a way to test some Destiny design choices.
Rickenslacker
Banned
ODST was about as classic Halo as it got since CE.
SpartanN92
Banned
It's got touches here and there but you're right that it didn't take off until Reach.
It might've been the fact it focused a bit more on a group of elite soldiers, but that's more vague and I'd argue did it more interestingly than CoD generally did anyway.
Someone here described Halo 4 as a Sonic 06 drop off...holy shit.
I think Halo 4 is a lot of fun, but I will say that it didn't keep me around the same way the previous Halo titles did. The way 343 implemented playlists was lethargic to the point that it sent many early adopters back to CoD.
I think Halo 4 is a lot of fun, but I will say that it didn't keep me around the same way the previous Halo titles did. The way 343 implemented playlists was lethargic to the point that it sent many early adopters back to CoD.
Anticitizen One
Banned
I enjoyed halo 4 for what is was but it could have been so much more if it didn't play it safe. It could have achieved greatness
King Beyond the wall
Member
ODST - definitly not
Reach - kind of, but it was still unmistakably Halo
The same cannot be said of Halo 4
I can't stand Halo for this very reason! The game simply challenges my sensibilities way too much. Next generation I'd love to see modern weaponry and more approachable gameplay. I only have a few hours a week to game, don't make me learn some crazy new mechanics just because you want your game to be "different".
Estocolmo
Member
You know I've never seen anyone asking for these features in a Halo game. Certainly not a stasis gun or a harpoon gun to the arsenal.
I can't tell if you're serious.
Come onnnnn, be CONSTRUCTIVE. 343 will totally listen to reason and realize that Call of Duty sells well because its CALL OF DUTY and not because its a strange hodgepodge of poorly executed Call of Duty-esque parts.
I can't take games seriously at all anymore
Pristine_Condition
Member
So the guys in charge of Halo, one of the industry's bigger IPs, basically made some of the same boneheaded moves Insomniac made with Resistance 2...
SMH
SMH
Probably a bad idea for a 343 staffer to go and do a presentation saying it was cut due to focus testing then.
Seriously, that presentation was a train wreck. Who in 343 thought giving it was a good idea?
EDIT: That doesn't mean don't give presentations. That shouldn't need pointing out, but it increasingly feels like it might. It means give presentations that have been read by other people to make sure they're not a) factually wrong and b) contain obviously breathtakingly offensive things like the wheelchair slide.