- Your MOM is MC
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- Noble Legendary Member
The name's Ian, Game Designer at Whisper Game Studios, very off-and-on Bungie.net visitor and avid Bungie fan overall. Message me if you wish.
Bungie needed fans. Well they had a lot but they needed more. Multiplayer for Halo 2 and 3 got them those fans they needed. Back when Halo 1 came out, LAN parties and split-screen sessions were the only way you could do multiplayer in Halo CE. So for the most part, people were "forced" to focus on the campaign portion of the game. Well that attracted a lot of people's attention if they seriously got into the game.
Those people who were well attracted to the campaign of the CE probably felt pretty comfortable with plot and campaign play of Halo 2. With a wonderful story and a slightly enhanced way of play, fans of the original felt pretty happy with what they got. Halo 3, the IRIS campaign hyped Halo 3 up for the fans of the plot to "Answer everyone's questions". That obviously didn't do that. You know why? Because Bungie had to attend to their newly found GINORMOUS audience of fans of the wonderful world of Xbox Live Halo 2 multiplayer. These fans seemed to be the new majority in means of the Halo series. That's all anyone wanted to play. They wanted to play against their friends, they wanted to be able to kill their friends and get away with it. They felt satisfaction in ruining other people's fun by creating their own in a way. Halo 3's Multiplayer beta happened because Bungie wanted to see the community's reaction to the new engine, the new graphics, the new gameplay, and the new network. They just wanted to see if they could step up their multiplayer development and still have the fans of Halo 2's multiplayer be able to fall in love with Halo 3's Multiplayer system.
With that, A LOT, and when I say A LOT, I mean A LOT of attention was drawn away from campaign and the plot. Now honestly, if this was Halo 2, and they "messed up" like this in Halo 2, fans would be courteous and let Bungie know that the plot needs to step it up a notch for the next game. Well fans thought there really wouldn't be a next game past Halo 3. They were severely upset that the original questions asked throughout the Halo plot line were not all answered in Halo 3. They were also upset that Bungie didn't treat their original fan base with the love and respect they did with the Multiplayer fan base. Then again, Bungie HAD to treat the Multiplayer fan based better than the multiplayer fans because let's face it. How many real "Gamers" are out there? How many real gamers that care about campaign and plot line in a video game are there out there? Barely any. Multiplayer, millions. Multiplayer is easier. You can jump in and out within a few minutes and already have your fix of a few games finished for the day. Campaign, people don't wanna sit down for hours on end playing the same old maps and enemies over and over again. Some of us actually do.
Bungie understood that they could potentially have a Multiplayer only game series on their hands and not a series with a plot any longer. They know that campaign is important, so don't think they left you out because they don't think campaign matters any more, they know, they'll tell you themselves, they just needed to give more attention to the bigger audience. Well, with this game, they're bringing back, pretty much, the old game that most of the fans of CE will recognize. They'll be comfortable with playing it because you're back in the old Chief's shoes again. One weapon in one hand, health packs and barely any shielding! They know we're still out there and they love all their fans so that's why they're making this. This is the true campaign of Halo 3. This is the campaign that was missing within the game. The experience that couldn't be finished in time. Honestly, I'm glad they're doing it now and not then. And now that I think of it, they're taking the 2k approach to things now. They're taking it a step at a time. They'll have the beginning of the development process (like 2k has another studio working on multiplayer entirely to the side) focused on the largest audience then when the time is right, they'll go back to what the lesser end of their community would like to have. So for all you who feel left out and feel that Halo 3's campaign wasn't what it should've been, this is going to be Halo 3's missing campaign, this is going to be the experience we wanted. This is it, time to go back to Old Skewl, just better hold onto your pants, cause it's gonna be a bumpy ride ;)
P.S. You multiplayer lovers out there complaining there's no Matcmaking, shut up and go play some right now. You had you're turn, I think we would like Mommy's attention now thnx.
[Edited on 07.08.2009 11:20 PM PDT]