Shedding Some Light On The Franchise...

[Twinreaper]

Hi there folks, Twinreaper here. I highlighted this part, because it's the most important part. This is hands down the most in-depth and longest post I have ever made here. It is long, and soem of it may be a repeat of things you all may know. it is my hope that after reading this (please actually read it) you may have a better understanding of the franchise, and why we get what we do, when a game launches, adn what we can expect.

 

　

 

It's been some time since I first really delved into the development of a Halo title, and tried to come up with a rhym or reason as to what we got. Traditionally, we as a community get a series of VidOC's that explain some of the process and trials that occured during a games development. But what about the really behind-the-scenes crap that went on? What about the details they altered or cut from official words to the community? Well my friends, that what I have embarked on this past few weeks. To try to give everyone a perspective and straight out logical look at the Halo franchise.

 

To start this off right, we need to revisit the entire franchise and it's beginning...Halo 1.

 

Halo 1 was released on

November 15, 2001. Development for Halo 1 started back a little before 1998 as an RTS (Real Time Strategy) It wasn't until June 19th 2000, that Microsoft officially announced they stepped in and saved Bungie from bankruptcy by buying the rights to Halo. Keep in mind, that the process likely took several months of negotiating before the deal was sealed. Shortly after the official deal, Microsoft gave Bungie a strict dealine of 5 months to overhaul the engine and get it ready for the xbox platform as a 1st person game and not the origianl 3rd person.. This was a big problem as Halo was only meant to be made for PC and Mac, as announced On July 1999. In fact, during one of the early weeks of Halo development, we hear "That was Microsoft...you got like 5 months to make your game". You can view the video here...

 

 

Go to time index 3:00 to 3:20 for the comment about microsoft

 

 

Needless to say, Halo from the beginning with Microsoft, was nothing but short of half releases to start with. Halo 1 saw the cutting of weapons like the SMG, Anti-Air Rocket, particle draws that double or triple trumped what we got. And also real time reflection. Little known fact to add, Engineers were actually coded into halo 1. Engineer bitmaps and models are still in both the Xbox and PC versions. This was all done of coarse, because Microsoft needed that much hyped title to launch the Xbox console on November 15th, 2001

 

So, let's flash forward now to Halo 2. Halo 2 released on

November 9, 2004, and the development timeline roughly spanned from January 2001 to September of 2004. A little over 3.5 years. It was E3 in 2003 that we saw our first glimpse of Halo 2. What we saw was awesome. Boarding vehicles, Brutes on Earth, realtime reflection rendering and crisp looking stencil style shaders. This was the demo that took the world by storm and literally made Halo 2 the must have game. But sadly, what E3 gave us was not what we ended up with. Truth be told, it was entirely different beast altogether. The team after E3 was being strained by having the team split to work on side projects, and the team that was left struggled to find ways to impliment the E3 content into the entirety of the game itself. Little known fact, Halo 2 E3 Demo contained mostly pre-rendered materials to ensure a smooth framerate.

 

So now it's time to get it done. The team can't figure out how to make the game itself look anything like they promised. 15 months till launch and they still didn't have anything besdies a kick-*** demo. Flash forward and the team managed to get the game shipped. Looking back though, they cut 50% of all content they had originally intended to go into the game. Things like the Mongoose, the Flood Juggernaut, gametypes like Headhunter and Race, powerups like Full-Spectrum Vision and Double Speed. Campaign missions were now a total of playable 9 instead of 15(yeas 15 playable was the target planned). Engineers yet again got cut, but code remained in the game as a selectable "faction" to assign a team to for campaign development. Needless to say, a lot of content still left over from Halo1, again failed to make it's way into the next title. Yet again, an unrelenting Microsoft forced the release date and gave the Bungie team no room to improve or tweak further the title to make it truly polished. Many times during the end of this VidOC, we hear the team say they needed more time, and know they couldn't ask for more time.

 

 

Go to time index 39:34 - 40:20

 

Now, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars and Halo: Reach at this point were not rushed the same way Halo 2 or Halo 1 were. Bungie at this point knew the choices they had, knew the technology, and had an expereinced team. Not to say that the team did not face trouble during their development, but it was worlds apart from the dev expereince with the first two titles. For this reason alone, those titles don't need much explination to them. The only thing to note of interest here, is that the engineers finally made there way from Halo 1 into ODST.

 

Halo 4 is announced on June 6th, 2011. Halo 4 officially was stated as being in development since Halo Reach, and in fact, many of the 343i team worked alongside Bungie as part of the learning experience to take over the franchise. That is roughly 4 some-odd years of development and research. E3 came and went, and what we saw...we loved! Halo was back, and masterchief was driving there. Stated over and over, was that Halo at it's core roots, was coming back and giving the community what it wanted. They learned from Reach's bad gameplay decisions and stated they were returning it to where it needed to be. But yet again, what we saw and read up to launch, was not what we got in return for our trust and faith.

 

Fact is, what we got was a shell of what Halo 4 was supposed to be. it was rushed the same way Halo 2 was in all aspects. The graphical layer was short of amazing compared to what we saw in trailers and hands on demos. They appeared clear and crisp in hi-res, but in-game on release, the shaders, textures and LOD was poor and washy at close or mid ranges. A far cry from the texture style and lighting we saw with Reach. The gamemodes lacked faithfull classics that became staples. game modes like grifball, Big team, Juggernaut, Racing and Infection. Instead, we got only a half assed Infection in which they changed it to anything but the recognizable classic we remember from Halo 2 and 3. The guns and armor abilities were roughly the same, but restricted in use to give players a more un-reliance on them, and more emphasis on teamwork and strategy. Theatre was abscent from Campaign, and Forge while increased in palette, lacked in expansive open environments to achive yesterdays Forge creations. Firefight, one of the reach favs, was gone, and replaced with a wanna be called Spartan Ops. Now what we did get as a compensation bonus, was the promise of open ended engine coding, that would allow the 343i team to incorporate the missing features of what we would all agree would typically be "a polished game". So far they have kept their word somewhat. We are just now beginning to see the re-emergence of our fav gametypes, they are fixing game breaking bugs, and promising more content and support to come, like giving us Campaign Theatre and a new ForgeWorld. But as a result of this short crafted game, we have been through the mill with all the issues that resulted. Laggy server connections, Live debacles, achievment woes, etc. On a side note, it was nice to see Fiull-Spectrum vision from Halo 2 finally make it's way into what they call Promethian vision.

 

Now the team really did put in a lot of effort. Inf act, the content and quality of that content by far when viewed in the VidOC's on halo 4, are a millenium more advanced than Reach was. Fact is, I think Halo 4 by sheer design was grander and visually more stunning than anything Bungie ever created. But here in lies the problem.... it looks like 4 years backwards in terms of development.

 

Now at this point you are probably thinking, why do I care? Why are you picking on the franchise...I thought it was a great game. Well, it was a great game, from a story telling standpoint. The reason you should care, is because of the history of Halo, and what my review says about it. Halo from the beginning failed development wise. It wasn't until the team got their feet wet that the 3rd, 4th and 5th title took off and gave us everything we ever wanted. The same is the process of 343i. This is their Halo 1. They need time to craft the team into a polished asset that can and will produce what we want. But, there is a catch.

 

Looking back at Halo 2, we also know that the Xbox 1 was nearing it's EOL(end of life). So why publish and force Halo 2 on a 1st gen console, instead of launching it with the 360? Money. Microsoft knew that it could squeeze **** ton of sales of Xbox 1 units for Halo 2, and make a killing later by making the 360 backwards compatable to allow Halo 2 to be played. And also, they knew that after buying into Xbox 1 after EOL, people would be killing one another to get Halo 3 and buy another console. In my opinion looking at the facts and VidOC's, it is clear that Halo 2 from the start was by all means originally slated to be developed with the Xbox 360 and not the Xbox 1. nothing else can explain why we don't see half the polish in assets in halo 2, compared to their PC generated counterparts during development.

 

And yes, this is where Halo 4 comes in. Halo 4, also looking at all the facts, points to one solid conclusion...Halo 4 was being developed with the new Xbox SDk in mind, and not the 360's. What we saw in pre-rendered assets in trailers is nothing at all the definition or detail of what we see on the 360. In my opinion, Microsoft yet again, pulled a Halo 2 style sales scheme and had the team dumb down the game to conform to the 360 architecture. Knowing full well, that the fan base would more than likely be forgiving as we wwre the first time around...they were right. many of us, in fact more than 75% of us, actually love Halo 4, and can't wait to see what Halo 5 will bring us. Did MS and 343i succeed? yes they did. But...they did piss us off. Halo Rach could have extened it's life up to Xbox launch. Halo 4 would have been wanted more than it was, if it was promised to be on a new console, and have had given the team mroe time to work on it. In this case, this is where the developer and publisher greatly misread and underestimate the communities desires and patience.

 

So what does this all mean? It means that given the track record, and seeign as how history sort of seems to be repeating itself, I have no doubt that Halo 5 will be to us, what Halo 2 once was. Many community members come in, or sign up just to post crap like "Halo is dying". Halo is not dying, it is simply evolving into the next generation. Much like how Halo 1 transformed into what Halo 3 was, and so on. A new era of gameplay and love for Halo is just now being created and we just have to ride out the bumps along the way to get their. Is this guaranteed? No. Halo has much competition now, more so than it ever had. Fact is, no other title that released with Halo's, brought the same wow factor as 2 and 3. Reach was a hard one to gauge based soley on that the game was more for Bungie, than the gamers. But I stand firm in believing, looking over the facts, that Halo is about to explode again. TL;DR....yeah, I can do that!

[Tommy]

None is true.

 

All Halo is bad.

 

Except for the Halo franchise, that one was good. (:

 

I honestly didn't take Halo 4 to be that bad. It was really good graphics and the gameplay was new but still had the Halo feel.

 

I really like the game overall!

[lilsilmarillion]

I liked Halo 4 but wish they evened out the weapons more, but good graphica and ok gameplay

[Sikslik7]

Bravo! I have noticed that many "True Halo Fans" always came in and complain that Halo has decayed since Halo 2or CE, but I believe Halo has evolved over time.Icthink Halo 4 is a good game, but only time will show what it will be remembered as. I personally like Halo 3 the best, but whatever, that is my opinion. I look forward to seeing what is in the future of Halo!

[Caboose The Ace]

twinreaper this is what im saying but alot longer well done that halo is evolving and needs to evoleve to stay frest to makes sure it dosent die

[Azaxx]

Good post Twin, I gave you my input in the shoutbox, so I won't carry on here.

However....those tags

[SykoWolf]

Thank you Twin, even though we have had our light hearted arguments, i completely agree with what you say here.

Which is pretty rare for me, since your Psycho babble is usually VERY hard to understand

[MCPO Mayh3m]

This is what I have been thinking for so long... Just didnt have the full grasp of it like you do. Very well said and I completely agree.

[D-38 Boss]

Very in depth, but it seems very negative....

[Twinreaper]

Some parts are negative, but I wanted to properly show the comparison of what we have from 343i versus what we got from Bungie with the same situation in mind. Unfortunatly, it was a post originally slated towards all the haters, to try to give them a more open world view of how Halo is evolving and what can be naturally expected. I may decide to post a few more tid bits here and there to clarify some things, but that is for another day.

[rrhuntington]

You sir, Speak my mind. You form the words that i cannot, and speak The most truth ive ever seen from anyone on these forums. Your words have excited me for Halo's Future once again. TY. I give you a standing Ovation of one. ... Brilliant

[SuperIntendant]

Some parts are negative, but I wanted to properly show the comparison of what we have from 343i versus what we got from Bungie with the same situation in mind.

Criticism is fine, if there is a part of the game that isn't up to $60 quality we shouldn't gloss over it, we should point it out so something can be done about it in the future.