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| A Lesson for the Misguided and Ignorant | |
| Posted By: An anonymous game developer <nope@not.com> | Date: 6/25/05 12:11 p.m. |
In Response To: Halo 3: My Musings on my Blog (Diss3nt) A forewarning for the faint of heart - my response is as long and vitriolic as it is necessary. "Okay, just so people realize I know what I'm talking about, let me give some information regarding how long I have been a Bungie fan, and how long I've been a Halo fan.
Halo 3
I'm glad you've prefaced this with a quick summary of your vacuous experience in game marketing, design, and development. Even without the warning, it's abundantly clear that you've has never read a decent book, or left your parents' basement for that matter, let alone worked on a project in the software or entertainment industry. That's forgivable - you're thirteen, this is your first blog, and you may as well make the first post an inflammatory one. Maybe my expectations are too high, but I had hoped for a run of the mill fan list of feature hopes. Your post starts off on a foot so ignorant, so completely baseless, that I couldn't let it make front page news without righting these wrongs. Let's take it point by point, shall we? 1. Less Promotion. "It's not always about how many units you sell." No, it's about making the best game possible, and giving a wide audience the chance to appreciate it. A big budget console game like Halo 2 is not an island. It's a system mover. If the game were to languish as some unappreciated cult classic, there would be no sequel, no big budget voice talent, and no epic future for your favorite game world. "I also think that making the series too mainstream will lead to several bad things."
It would be nice to have the game as our private pleasure, but somebody needs to cover the astronomical costs of designing, promoting, and manufacturing the hardware and software needed to power experiences like Halo 2. Without Slurpee cups and TV ads, the rest of the public would be grabbing copies of Batman: Dark Tomorrow and Shrek Super Party while Jason Jones sleeps in a cardboard box, wondering if it's too late to make a game based on "Shark Tale". 2. Announcement What the hell are you trying to convey with all of these emphatic 'allegedly's everywhere? Yes, the game is in development, and yes, it'll come out the day before the PS3 does. Why are your panties in a bunch? 3. Focus on the Campaign No, the focus didn't shift from campaign to multiplayer late in development. You've never been to E3. The first E3 was a demo of campaign, and the second was a demo of multiplay. Bungie had a bad E3 with Halo 1, because they tried to do too much - both multiplayer and solo - and the dual focus cut quality and divided attention. "Halo 1 Has A Deeper Story"
Also, you didn't hear any more of Halo 1's story when the game was announced than you did of Halo 2 at its announcement. There was no list of enhanced Live features until years after the announcement trailer came out. "People are going to cheat online, no matter what Bungie does."
"I play Halo for the story, not the online component."
3. Physics "Physics. They can add so much to a game." Whoooooo-boy. Since you obviously haven't noticed, physics have been an integral part of gaming for the past five years, and it's no shock to anyone (except you, it seems) that we'll have hardware acceleration soon. It took five years between the release of the first FPS games (Wolfenstein, Doom) and the release of decent hardware acceleration (3dfx's Voodoo1). Another thing you seem to have missed is that Halo 2 _does_ push the limits on console physics simulations, using a much lauded engine called Havoc. Half Life 2 has more detailed interactions than were implemented in Halo 2 simply because of hardware disparities in your home gaming rig over the garden variety xbox. 4. "Nevertheless, I think this should be the last Halo game." For you, I think Halo 2 should be the last Halo game. If you quit now, we won't have to suffer through more of your ignorance. For everyone else, there's so much story left to be told. ------
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