Quick question

[BaconShelf]

Can I just ask, why do people use population of a game to (seemingly) judge how good it is?

 

Surely if you can get a game you're fine, you can't get 20,000 people in one game?

 

 

And I always get quick games on 4, but wait for over half an hour for any games on 3. That's when people should worry, but does it really matter if you're enjoying the game?

[LiQuid BioniX]

Not really, at least I don't think so. I think the people who are worrying about population are people who are worrying about the Halo franchise going downhill. I don't agree with them all the time, but I think that's the ultimate concern and I respect that opinion because I love Halo as well. 

 

That being said, all of the "Halo 4 sucks" and "Why Halo is awful" posts are getting out of hand. This forum breeds discussion, and ultimately, criticism. My only request is that if people are going to post negative criticisms about the game, the forum, or the franchise, please do your best to do so tastefully and with tact, as it often breeds for better, more thought-provoking discussion. 

 

I love Halo 4, and I love this forum. 

Edited June 28, 2013 by LiQuid BioniX

[RedStarRocket91]

The popularity argument is a bit of a strange one to deal with.

 

It's often very tempting to dismiss it outright by pointing out that there are an awful lot of popular things which are also regarded pretty poorly: Justin Bieber is the prime example, as while he has more fans than God, a lot of people would say that his music is very poor and that his attitudes toward other people can be very unpleasant. Similarly, the Call of Duty series is a very popular target when people want to hurl criticism at gaming, and yet that breaks new sales records every year. It's also often tempting to point out that there are a lot of very good things which either aren't massively popular or are basically unknown to the mainstream: this is particularly true in music, but games like the Condemned series, while being very good, just don't get the recognition they deserve.

 

Ultimately though, population is just a very good way of showing not what is necessarily good, but what people like. Big difference.

 

Is the food at the restaurant where I used to work better than the one at the nearest McDonalds? Of course it is. But that McDonalds probably gets five to ten thousand customers over the course of a day, while that restaurant is lucky to hit two hundred. That's because, while McDonalds' food isn't very good, people like it.

 

So the 'not many people play Halo anymore' argument kind of stands up even though it doesn't. As an argument about the quality of the game, it's completely rubbish. But at the same time, you can't sell games as costly as modern AAA titles without there being plenty of people who want to buy them, and so how many people play it might go a long way to giving you a good estimation of how much you'll enjoy it, even if it doesn't tell you how good it actually is.

[BaconShelf]

Glad to se some other proples opinions, surely the quality of a game would be decided on if YOU like it, not everyone else?

[LiQuid BioniX]

Glad to se some other proples opinions, surely the quality of a game would be decided on if YOU like it, not everyone else?

 

Pretty much, yeah. 

 

Game reviewers tend to try to be unbiased (at least most of them), but if they were all unbiased, they would all have the exact same reviews and scores for a game. Everyone is different, and even though graphics might be bad or you might not like the gameplay, that doesn't mean you have to hate the game. Everyone has a game that they love but everyone else hates. I'd say that how "good" a game is, is based on what you define as "good", which means the game is good to you specifically. 

 

To put it simply, there's a reason that review websites use a numerical (1-10 or 1-5) system to rate games, instead of writing a review and saying that "this game was a lot of fun and very good", because "fun" and "good" are subjective terms, meaning that they come from the scope of one's experiences and personal tastes, contrasted to the number system which is objective. 

 

It's all about how you, the player, define "good", "fun", things like that.

[Delpen9]

As a halo veteran halo 4 plays competitively just as well as halo 2 did. Forge is splendid and the only problems with customs is the lack of customization. The majority of kids criticizing halo 4 are little babies going with the bandwagon as some sort of way to get recognition of something. The population doesnt speak for anything mainly because it is impacted by multiple other factors besidesthe games quality. no the game wasnt incomplete when it first came out! ... it had a nice playlist that had no problems so everyone out there who sais it wasnt finished is stupid. The campaign was much harder than and more refreshing than the previous halos especially 3 at the price of a slightly shorter campaign if even that. i personally believe people originally ranted on the game because it was made by 343 instead of bungie. yes 343 did make a spectacular game and have promotion skills but that isnt buffed by the stature of bungies 10 year old fan base. this led microsoft to daddy 343 to support the game eventually leading to a slightly rushed release of halo 4 with like 5 bugs in total and unnoticeable unbalanced weapons(people exaggerate weapon balance when raging over losing a gunfight because they suck or lag.) people say that halo 4 black screens too much but so did halo 3 and reach to worse extent. When we get those dedicated servers in halo "5" and 60 fps that will be no problem.