- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
I for one loved playing the Arbiter. I think he is an amazing character, and I was literally jumping up and down when I realised that I actually got to play him. Don't get me wrong - I love the Chief and that he is still All That Is Halo to me, but the Arbiter was a welcome new PC perspective, in my view.
It is unfortunately a matter of personal taste, and while in an ideal world, Bungie would have made playing the Arbiter optional, that's a lot of optional coding, story writing, mapping, QA, and general work. Work = time = money, so I can see why they did what they did.
My husband is a team lead in the gaming industry (totally different company - I know nothing of what goes on at Bungie), so I have heard the reactions to fan demands from the development side, through him in regards to his work, while games are in the development stages. There was a huge push from the (RPG) fan community for variety, about the same time that Halo 2 was in development. Players were largely bored with being forced into an inflexible story line, with an inflexible character, from the beginning of the game until the end. Fans wanted alternative endings, alternative roles, choices, choices, choices. Now, I have no idea if the introduction of the Aribiter as a perspective character had anything to do with this, but that was my best guess at the time. Sadly, from the looks of this type of fall out, those folks pushing for variety weren't Halo fans... or at least they didn't want that variety in Halo.
Sorry folks, but these guys made a choice, and while it may have upset a lot of fans, that's life. The best you can do is speak up CONSTRUCTIVELY and hope that the dev team will listen this time.