Twinreaper

I'm just gonna chime in real quick (like quick is ever a word associated with my posts) and give my view on the question. Halo has never been about one particular character. Halo has always and "should" always be about the characters. Throughout the entire franchise there has never been a shortage of characters to develop and in fuller detail, learn to love/hate. The driving force of Halo is one of how the characters interact with one another and how they as a whole drive the story. Now don't get the wrong idea here, story is the most important feature of any game, but without the characters to populate that story, you don't have much. That being said, Chief is Halo, or rather, Spartans are Halo. Lately as of Halo 4, I feel as if they have destroyed the past of John and his commrades. Follow me if you will.... Halo CE: Master Chief is introduced as a "Last of his kind" super soldier with a pretty much blank slate in terms of dialog, feelings and expereince. His character allowed players to inject themselves into his role, and as we did the story unfolded. Because of this blank character we got to experience the story from a unique perspective. Far more unique than what players of this new generation are expereincing. Halo 2: Chief is once again standing against the Covenant as a "last defense" soldier. He has built some character, and has been defined through his past title to be somewhat of a "bad-***". Leaping back into the role of Chief feels natural to us now. We know what is to come, and the story is driven by Chief's growing personality. At this point, Chief even has established a solid reputation in the galaxy as a "Demon". Halo 3: A final culmination of growing through the series. Dialog, personality and even faults are shown on all ends, tying all the characters together and creating some serious drama within a game for the first time (for me anyway) since FF7 where Sephiroth kills Aeris. At the end we feel the lonliness Chief feels as being a last Spartan soldier with no purpose, as he drifts into cryo sleep. This is where everything falls apart. Starting with Halo 4, Chief may have been the main character, but he slowly becomes overshadowed by "new Spartans". That's right......everything you loved about the original trilogy...GONE. Chief isn't special anymore. What is even more puke inducing, is the way they present the Spartans. It marginalizes and diminishes anything Chief is, was and or could be. They look silly, act childish, and are all around just not very "Spartan-ish" Jumping into Halo 4 makes you feel lost. It takes away that feeling of self-injection into the narrative. And to make matters worse, we are told that everything we did in the past, was all by someone else's design and pre-destined to occur. Talk about a slap in the face to the players who actually grew with Chief and invested into the series. Dissapointing story aside, we have a cast of characters who do really nothing to drive the story. The presence of Infinity, Del Reo or even Lasky, don't drive the story forward. Sure you could argue that infinity being there helped move the story forward in allowing Didact to escape. But did he really need Infinity to do that? Logic says no since Didact pulled Chief into the Shield World without even knowing that Infinity was going to come. My point is, the development of the characters were not there. There interactions and story building only stalled the campaign and made it feel unessessarily longer than it needed to be. The only part they got right, was the ending. The final scene between Cortana and Chief felt natural. The acting was truly perfection. teh way they talked to eachother felt as if it really was 2 characters just talking to eachother and expressing an "intangile love" for one another. Halo 5 comes along adn basically puts even more complete craptacular Spartan stuff in our laps. now suddenly Chief and his team look even lamer due to the fact that any old soldier can strap on this aluminum thin wrap suit, and march through a battlefield like a complete bad-***. At this point, they have completely lost any meaning in what a Spartan used to be. Now anyone cna be a Spartan? Where is the character development? Where is the true story telling? Forcing premature characters on us, forcing a story to progress with tons of plot holes and unbelieveable scenarios unfolding? Nathon Fillards acting is the only thing good about Halo 5. Let's be honest about one more thing. No one seems to fear the new Spartans. I haven't heard one dialog bit detailing how frightened or edgy enemies get when encountering the player. In Halo 4, even the Covenant don't call him demon in battle. They are unafraid, as if to say that Spartans have become a bad joke. So in the end, I guess what one could say is that Halo is not Chief, Chief is not Halo. Halo is us.

We can't do anything for you broski, we don't have any affiliation with 343i nor do we have direct links to give you. Highly doubt your account was perma banned because of jerks and trolls. If you were perma banned it's because YOU did something to deserve it, aka modding, hacking, etc.

damn you Sierra!!!!! Time to break out my leasure suit. That will surely save Halo... Spartan Leasure Suit Armor FTW

^^ I'm wearing boxers. Git Gud and Git on Mah LEVEL BRAH!

This is exactly why 1st party titles don't have the stamina nor the longevity to survive. Before the thoughts of Nintendo start creeping in, remind yourself that games such as Zelda, Mario and Metroid have no counterpart on the other 2 systems. There has never been any game title so similar in design and character creation to match or saturate those titles. Playstation has some alright titles and so does Xbox, but name one franchise that has sold millions of copies EVERY year and quite frankly evolved the fps genre. Halo did it 2 times. CoD continues to do it. The reason why Halo will never again come out kn top is exactly the reason above. Noone wants to buy an Xbox to play a failed franchise. CoD can be played on 3 systems of your choice, one NOT requiring a ridiculous flawed and over advertisement filled gaming service. If Halo really wanted to regain it's former crown, Microsoft should have branched out right after the obvious marketing of MCC and the game failed. It not only failed to instill confidence in the new developer, but it failed the system as well, making it appear that the Xbox was a poorly executed hardware platform. Halo can't recover going forward. The only way to save Halo story wise, would be to draw on the decades of lore preceding the current story. Going back to simpler ideals, wider reaching story lines and varying environments. In a nut shell, invest in old lore characters and give them the in-game character development that ODST/Reach perfected. As for multiplayer, no title has been fun since Reach. Halo CE is STILL played by hundreds/thousands albeit on PC cause of server support. Halo 2 is still played and regaining momentum thanks to Cartographer. Halo 3 is still played by thousands via Tunngle, Xlink, etc. Their populations and enthusiasm put MCC, 4 and 5 to shame. Multiplayer needs to go back to design basics. Great mkx of small, medium and larger maps that are well thought out and draw around a common theme. Bungie did this with every map, referrencing "Hang em High" as their go to for ALL map design. What does 343 have? Forge. Thats it. No thought, no design plan really....just pan, place, repeat. As far as mechanics it is becoming way to involved. The tactical aspect in comparison to the Bungie titles fails in every way. There is simply far too much controller input and other mechanical flair that weighs down the multiplayer experience. Halo 3 had it exactly right with one time use equipments. Simple base weapons, and no silly bazillion variations that impeed the basic core function of each weapon. Halo is a complete mess. I don't foresee it ever becoming the quality title it once was. Which I guess is fine since the Millenials are now the catered and majority of the gaming world. I am quite happy to fade away still playing the gold standard of the Halo franchise in my undies by myself or with a few older guys/girls.

Me!!!

^^ LMFAO

Why do you exist? Forge mode does not qualify as "Halo 5 on PC". As stated above,Windows 10 lacks half of a decent comparability base and is nothing more than Microsoft's attempt at a Vista 2.0 OS lock for gaming. Thanks but no thanks.

Caboose, your being a Caboose again..... He posted in Installation 00, so it's not a Halo 6 question as I pressume you thought it was because you clicked faster than you can read lol

I share your pain/pleasure with Fringe my friend....

Of all time or on air now? All Time: 1. X-Files 2. Fringe 3. Star Trek TNG 4. Smallville 5. Warehouse 13 Airing Now: 1. Supernatural 2. The Americans 3. Arrow 4. Flash 5. DC's Legends of Tomorrow Honorable mentions: 1. Doctor Who 2. Orphan Black 3. Continuuim 4. Eureka 5. Gotham

I completely agree with RSR in the execution of the new story arc, it's planning and tendency to force a dramatic point. However while I am usually content to lay blame soley at 343, we cannot overlook the secondary source of the state of Halo 4 & Halo 5 in regards to story.... The expanded novels such as Cryptum and Glasslands. Part of this "stuck in a hole" is due largely in part to the novels that predated the Halo 4 start. While in most cases an expanded universe or canon is a good thing, this is not the case. Halo 4 started off to pick up where 3 essentially left off but it also had to encompass and account for the events that the fans were inteoduced to in the novels. In my opinion, this was the start of it. Following that in Halo 5, we are forced to look at the secondary sources to piece together what is happening with a large majority of the character pool. As a whole, 343 allowed the novels to dictate and cement a story arc that was doomed to fail game wise before it even started. The real question is whom had the final say in terms of novel content? Did said executive green light multiple novels from authors without grasping of seeing the content in it's finished form? Did this executive or board stop to think about how the content would impair or disbar the already established plans going forward? Which now brings me to the poll. While most newer players may agree with going forward and inteoducing new stories, I disagree and believe that 343 should instead tap the wealth of potential game successors by drawing on the overly rich and detailed novels of pre Reach, and post Halo CE through Halo 3's mid finale. The shear amount of character development and possible campaign ideas are limitless. Which also would serve a good middle ground of introducing the lore to a majority fan base who refuse or are reluctant to read or invest into the lore as a whole.

Actually Fishy, he has a valid point between Spartan II and Spartan IV. A Spartan IV regardless of armor should logically or realistically be anywhere near a match for a Spartan II. A Spartan has augments and decades of training. Wearing the same variant and type of armor that a IV does would only that much more advance and enhance the Spartans own physical abilities. Spartan IV's don't recieve the same training pre or post enlistment and they don't have the benefits of augmentations on the Spartan II level. For example, let's look at Buck. In ODST he was an average skilled combatant. It took 4 hughly experienced ODST's to kill a Brute, and almost lost one in the process. Now all the sudden Buck puts on some fancy new suit and in Halo 5 he is literally sprinting through a battlefield killing everything in his path gunning like he was a 20 year Spartan veteran.....it's a load of BS. The equivilant would be me learning to drive and in 1-4 years all the sudden im driving and performing stunts that blow away Dale Ernhart or Evil Kinevil. The point is, the whole thing is super far fetched, forced and lacks any real build up of drama or cohesive plot/story tie together. Joe Staten could wrote better on the toilet after a meth induced party rager. And let's not talk about how art style has any relivence or direct effect on graphics. In most cases it fails to show proper smoothing on objects and in most cases it lacks the fidelity that Reach/4 had. Those are facts. Other developers have stated it. Other gamers professional level designers have stated it. Aside from the laughable thing you all call eSports, it flopped just as bad Halo 4, except this time they forced a socialist style of map release buy giving you req packs and microtrans. An easy way to make everyone pay for maps, even if you dont want them. It's a complete crap show. You know it, I know it, they know it.

Pointless. Anyone who is really interested in such a question or the results could literally just search this site for maybe about 10 minutes and get easily 1,000 or more opinions of a general theme.

Worst Marvel movie or movies..... The ENTIRE X-Men movie franchise. Nothing is accurate, they decided to reboot the entire X-Men and nothing wass tiched together in any way. Let's not forget the Wolvering movies as well. I love Jackman and how he portays Logan, it's extremely accurate to his comic version. But the way they jump all over and depart from anything inside X-Men and prequel scripts of eachother has left the whole thing nothing but a big turd for me.

You missed my point and at the same time you kinda exampled it. Microsoft is changing and conditioning gamers to care more about flair and silly astetics as to distract players from serious issues in the franchise. At the end of the day it goes without saying that 343/Microsoft is more concerned about teaching people to pay money and buy into the new "flair culture" instead of producing solid games that really redefine the experience and invest the player long term like they had with the previous Bungie titles. Reach was a fantastic game but it became more of a "grind" replay value. It relied on unlocking armor via points which you had to grind for. I can all but assure you that was 343/Microsoft intruding upon Bungie's exit game.

LMFAO yeah keep paying money or grinding for req points all for that silly "no real value" flair that absolutely no one notices in game. Seems legit?

The common problem and quite frankly the BIGGEST problem plaguing this already abysmal and dying franchise is the comment I keep seeing recycled throughout the forum and forums alike. "A new armor system". Who cares? Do you want a dreadfull unfun sequel like H4 and H5 and just "collect" useless uneeded and quite frankly overrated visual flair that literally noone pays attentionto during a match? Or do you want real needed issues addressed and brought to fruition. Things like, oh I don't know..... Original New Mechanics that ARE NOT overused and generations behind, A solid storyline and character development that is true to what Staten started. And maybe, just maybe actual replay value that isn't centered around silly hoop jumping or "throwing money" at the developer. It's been said over and over but you can't deny the logistics or the numbers. Halo 1-3 have the highest play numbers of all the Halo's, and it does so far beyond anything now or future. why? The logical simple conclusion is right in front of you. Halo revolutionized the fps genre and was ORIGINAL. No massive silly flair armors, no ridiculous hunting for far fetched achievments, and an actual working clan system. I predict Halo 6 will fall short of what was expected with Halo 4, Bonnie Ross, Frank O'Connor and Kiki Wolfdieplease will all resign or be fired. Microsoft will delay further Halo development until 2021 when they hand development over to a non Microsoft internal development company and finally become serious about their commitment to Halo and their fans.

Microsoft no longer supports the product and they discontinued the server service. My suggestion is heading over to halo2vista.com and downloading the project cartographer patch. It's a community update that requires no key and it restores Halo 2's online functionality. Your welcome

Continuing to state how long you have been hosting game servers is irrelivant. It's the equivilant of telling of NASCAR driver that you KNOW what you are talking about because you have deiving your pedestrian car longer. Unless you have a networking degree, masters in information systems and Cyber Security or another degree showing an jnderstanding of working real knowledge about the code bases/processes/arrays that power the networking behind multiplayer gaming and servers.....your experience is irrelivant. RCon and any other 3rd party tool IS a huge security risk. Anytime one person or self hosted server has exclusive contained access to any machine id, software license or ip address, it is an issue. Why do you think so many people elect to use a VPN, or rotational Static IP? The point here is, not everyone enjoys having certain information made available, especially if problems arrise that they are not a part of. Now if the ability to boot, ban or blacklist people was made available remotely, as in having the commands executed on the Live servers, then that is a different story. You don't need to personally have local admin rights to boot someone or blacklist them. A feature such as this could be scripted in Megalo, and the information about bans, kicks etc could be simple sql data linked to your gamertag. In conclusion, as you stated, Halo 5 Forge is NOT a dedicated server package. Do you know why? Microsoft does not seriously support pc gaming, nor do they want or forsee the allowing of Halo's files to be exposed to the public. If they had released Halo 5 as a dedicated server install, I can guarantee it would have taken me a week at most to release no less than 10 exploits/mods/installers to fully expose the netcode and allow players to cheat/bypass/cirumvent ANY security measures in use. Since you are so much more experienced than me obviously, you already know that silly things like Phazor, RCon, and the literally dozens of proprietary admin tools are not even 50% perfect and can easily be circumvented to render your attempt at control useless. Here is a pro tip. While you think it is nobel to "protect" and "shelter" people from views and perspectives you hate, it is also human nature and completely normal to disagree or disaprove with others or subject matter. There is a really fine line between performing like a dictator, and acting like a reasonable adult.

This is what we call a "No Win Situation". The Halo Community constantly banters and demands that EVERY whim is answered and that they continuously update the community on everything that happens. At the same time they demand and cry for quality control and dedication to the code/asset/execution of what they are developing. You can't have it both ways. You either want them to produce stable quality and update/support you only when critically nessecary, or you want to accept subpar quality and support and want them to be more engaging in every little petty thing. Pick one a stick with it. Just my 2 cents, but I would much rather them work hard on developing the game instead of being social media clingy. And just an FYI....just because they don't personally respond to every error/bug/glitch, does not mean they haven't seen the post or are not responding to it behind the scenes. Same goes with updates. If and when they have a solid gold milestone update in place, you will be told about it. Have patiende and lay off the kool-aid.

Let's clarify this real quick. You have hosted actual servers for hosting games yet you don't understand why or how the server side code and hosting netcode wasn't given to you? Maybe you are the ones on drugs. Unless you have an actual computer dedicated just for hosting the game clients, you can't play and host. Doing so is called a P2P host in which the actual pc you are playing from is hosting the game from the instance you are running. Yes there are ways around this like with Halo PC and Halo 2 Vista...but this isn't them. I understand what you are asking for, but for something as simple as this, opens up a floodgate of security and privacy questions for clients. I'm sorry, but unless I really feel like using a VPN or spoofed static IP just to play a lobotomized Halo title, I wouldn't be too comfortable giving complete control or access to banning or kicking to a raging millenium.