Posted by: Raptor 086
I'm almost certain that Reach was rushed, even with it's development time. There's no way Bungie could have looked at the armor abilities after extensive testing and said "Yup. They're good to go". I think armor lock, if not more of them, were implemented really closely to the beta's launch. After seeing how it turned out, Bungie probably wanted to remove it from the game, but because it was already showcased in trailers and in the beta, they couldn't remove it. Then again, why wouldn't they have at least patched it? Maybe the transfer to 343i made them too busy? Or maybe they thought it was perfectly fine because they didn't do enough extensive testing? It would kind of make sense, seeing that they thought Scorpions on Hemorrhage would be ok. Not sure.
If you don't think that armor abilities were rushed, which you have good reason to be skeptical, I think it could be safe to say the maps were. It doesn't make any sense to have a developer, after 10 years of making a game known for it's ultra-original and well designed multiplayer maps, decide to rip environments and designs from the campaign, two of them being remakes. I think it's also safe to say that most people didn't like most of the maps, with most people saying that the designs were awful.
was going to try to cut your post down a few lines ... but couldnt, all so true.
Your 100% right ... bungie made way too many mistakes with reach to be accidental. Ok, it was widely known that the team atmosphere was totally missing, people leaving etc - but even so?!?
No development studio can turn that bad that quickly ... nah bungie wanted to kill off the halo brand. They knew this was their last (and so the tagline "From the beginning, you know the end" was born) ... and they planned to bring out their own title ... why try to compete against a game you still have controll over - kill the brand.