Halo: The Master Chief Collection Discussion

[Snipe Three]

2 hours ago, Arlong said:

343 sometimes works like indie developers. This is greater proven when with the its ready when it’s ready theme. Now idk about you but that tells me the workers aren’t or don’t have to put as much “effort” because they don’t have a specific deadline. Now in halo infinite’s case they clearly do. But it’s ready when it’s ready bullshit is something indie devs say who don’t get paid for their work(in some cases like the halo installation 04 developers that are making a fan made halo game).

You cant praise Blizzard and turn around and say that about the "when its ready" line. Lol they've said that for decades

[Arlong]

5 hours ago, Snipe Three said:

You cant praise Blizzard and turn around and say that about the "when its ready" line. Lol they've said that for decades

Really? I mean I don’t follow up with them too much, it’s just that all their games work, and don’t suck.  
 

Let’s not even talk about mcc, it’s a hard game to make I’m sure, 4 games into one UI? Can’t even name anyone who’s done that before. Sure collections have happened, but a lot of times not everything that game had goes into that collection.

h5. Content, game breaking bugs(aiming), really really bad servers/net code. 

[Snipe Three]

43 minutes ago, Arlong said:

Really? I mean I don’t follow up with them too much, it’s just that all their games work, and don’t suck.  
 

Let’s not even talk about mcc, it’s a hard game to make I’m sure, 4 games into one UI? Can’t even name anyone who’s done that before. Sure collections have happened, but a lot of times not everything that game had goes into that collection.

h5. Content, game breaking bugs(aiming), really really bad servers/net code. 

Yeah they said that a lot particularly around WoW and other games they released post 2004

[TheIcePrincess]

13 hours ago, Nokt said:

I don't really think anyone is preaching that the original trilogy is a masterpiece of writing that should be worshiped as the greatest story of all time. Its just a story that at a base level is easy to understand, at the time no additional information was out there so you had to take it at a base level. 

CE begins with you being blindsided by an alien race that you've never encountered before. You crash land on a foreign structure with your main means of transportation gone. I would think the rational thing to do would be to find survivors (mission Halo, truth and reconciliation) and finding strongholds to fight the Covenant back (Silent Cartographer). Then everything else just unfolds, you find out that the Covenant view Halo as a religious artifact, you accidentally release the flood, and put plans in motion to not let the flood leave Halo by blowing up the PoA. 

War doesn't always have a reason and people don't always understand why they are fighting a war. The PoA is being attacked by the Covenant, you can't just sit by and do nothing because you aren't sure why the human race is an affront to their gods. 

Except it's not easy to understand if you actually need external media to understand why things even began in the first place. I should understand why specifically the antagonist is opposing me when I meet them, especially with CE's context that the Halo isn't the true "why", even if I GET that immediate conflict, however well or poorly it's written. 

And to your second/third point, it'd be rational in the real world to not fully understand an attacker's motive. When you're telling a story, you can and need to dedicate time to actually explaining stuff out. You can't just wing it and say "we don't always understand things" and treat it like it's the real world when you have specific exposition dumps that would only work in a story, AND the ability to outright portray the antagonist's viewpoint. Likewise, the PoA didn't need to be the beginning of the game to explain things. Halo 2 had "two" specific cutscenes before gameplay even started to explain their antagonist. You don't need to cram this info where it doesn't belong. They even had ODST do a Star Wars-esque text scroll. So if they had no time or resources for cutscenes, they could've just redone the game's credits on a loop of the game's menu and just explained things, lol.

[Arlong]

You know it’s funny looking at the covenant war. Because they believe humans are a front to their gods, they’ve can feel good about destroying planets and eradicate the species. It shows humanity’s biggest weakness, the desire to be good. Most humans feel a desire to do good, or the right thing, and YET, that is easily manipulated. People always ask how’d hitler or Stalin convince their people what they’re doing at the time is “just”. It’s because humans aren’t natural evil, if you can convince people what they’re doing isn’t bad it makes it easier for them to do. You don’t feel guilty about helping someone, but you may feel guilty for stealing, why? Because you know you did wrong. That desire to be good, also corresponds to destroying evil, and if you convince people they’re killing evil people it makes it so much easier. If someone blew up a school of children the world be in a panic, but if they blew up a prison everyone would have mixed feelings. Why? Because they know the children were innocent and the prisoners weren’t even if majority weren’t even in there for a violent crime.

[Mr Grim]

Because it's all...part of the plan...

[Arlong]

2 hours ago, Mr Grim said:

Because it's all...part of the plan...

I see what you did there 

check this out. 343 did something RIGHT! They added party restrictions to social 4v4s. Now if only BTB could get that.

[Nokt]

6 hours ago, TheIcePrincess said:

Except it's not easy to understand if you actually need external media to understand why things even began in the first place. I should understand why specifically the antagonist is opposing me when I meet them, especially with CE's context that the Halo isn't the true "why", even if I GET that immediate conflict, however well or poorly it's written. 

And to your second/third point, it'd be rational in the real world to not fully understand an attacker's motive. When you're telling a story, you can and need to dedicate time to actually explaining stuff out. You can't just wing it and say "we don't always understand things" and treat it like it's the real world when you have specific exposition dumps that would only work in a story, AND the ability to outright portray the antagonist's viewpoint. Likewise, the PoA didn't need to be the beginning of the game to explain things. Halo 2 had "two" specific cutscenes before gameplay even started to explain their antagonist. You don't need to cram this info where it doesn't belong. They even had ODST do a Star Wars-esque text scroll. So if they had no time or resources for cutscenes, they could've just redone the game's credits on a loop of the game's menu and just explained things, lol.

What exactly does knowing the reason behind the covenants attack on humanity change to the plot of CE?

Nothing. Its just extra insight into developing the universe around you. The context isn't needed to understand the plot of CE. You are being attacked and they are the enemy, there is nothing else that needs to portrayed there in order for you to understand what is happening. I'm being attacked, we're marooned on this ring, covenant view this as sacred, we accidentally released the flood that could end the galaxy, I'm going to blow up the PoA to stop it from spreading.

You absolutely can use real world motives to tell a story. There is nothing preventing you from doing so and nothing inherently makes this a bad tactic to tell a story. I understand this is a space opera sci-fi shooter game, but not everything has to have a fully fleshed out lore to tell a good story.

[Mr Grim]

I'd like to play devil's advocate and point out that CE is somewhat dated in it's approach to storytelling for an fps. I say that even as a fan of its story. In 2001 it was probably top tier for an fps but nowadays we have games Wolfenstein: The New Order (not the second one though fuck that game) that tell really interesting and complex stories with well written characters and conflicts. The quality of these things today is generally higher than it was 20 years ago.

[Cursed Lemon]

CE is the first game in a long series. It's not supposed to have some infinitely elaborate, exquisitely manicured plot. It's supposed to establish the basics and tell you what you should care about. It does that.

[Apoll0]

The only company i believe when they say "It will come out when its ready" is CDPR.

 

 

[Mr Grim]

Shoutout to us all agreeing that halo 5 had a shit story tho

[HeX Reapers]

Halo 4's campaign is fanfiction.

[Cursed Lemon]

56 minutes ago, Mr Grim said:

Shoutout to us all agreeing that halo 5 had a shit story tho

It had a story?

[Larry Sizemore]

7 hours ago, Mr Grim said:

I'd like to play devil's advocate and point out that CE is somewhat dated in it's approach to storytelling for an fps. I say that even as a fan of its story. In 2001 it was probably top tier for an fps but nowadays we have games Wolfenstein: The New Order (not the second one though fuck that game) that tell really interesting and complex stories with well written characters and conflicts. The quality of these things today is generally higher than it was 20 years ago.

Who gives a rat's ass? It's a game, not a movie. This is like going to a pizzeria and complaining about the color of their booths. What exactly are you there for?

You guys ever hear of this thing called Netflix? They have three lifetimes worth of glossy, self-indulgent sci-fi bullshit on there, available for the great low price of $9 a month. Go nuts.

[Cursed Lemon]

Yeah okay I'm not playing a single game more of the beta until the aiming is fixed.

[Basu]

Where are Fixtheaiming343 and Fixaimsorry when we need them? 

[Boyo]

1 hour ago, Larry Sizemore said:

Netflix

Ozark 

[TheIcePrincess]

14 hours ago, Nokt said:

What exactly does knowing the reason behind the covenants attack on humanity change to the plot of CE?

Nothing. Its just extra insight into developing the universe around you. The context isn't needed to understand the plot of CE. You are being attacked and they are the enemy, there is nothing else that needs to portrayed there in order for you to understand what is happening. I'm being attacked, we're marooned on this ring, covenant view this as sacred, we accidentally released the flood that could end the galaxy, I'm going to blow up the PoA to stop it from spreading.

You absolutely can use real world motives to tell a story. There is nothing preventing you from doing so and nothing inherently makes this a bad tactic to tell a story. I understand this is a space opera sci-fi shooter game, but not everything has to have a fully fleshed out lore to tell a good story.

I didn't say it needed to have fully fleshed out lore. That's the least I'd expect from a game that is the first in a non-series (at its time). I'm just saying a basic motivation goes a long-ass way in telling a basic story. Again, you're focusing on the fight for the Halo, not the context well before it that is a part of the game, and what we enter on. It isn't a side note thing I'm bitching about. It's literally the first lines of dialogue, a conversation, and the whole circumstance leading into the Chief's awakening that opens up these never-elaborated on points. And it isn't just extra insight. It's literally pertaining to why things are happening. Like why aliens are hauling ass after us with so much fervor after an attack we know nothing on beforehand. Something crucial when you have no build up and you're launched into the middle of a fight for the first time in a new universe.

To simplify, the Covenant worshipping the Forerunners, and fighting for the Halo has nothing to do with the fact they were merking you for years beforehand. So the entire first level has no actual context behind it. Nor does every other Covenant-instigated fight during the game. 

However, I would agree. We don't need to have an insane lore-base to have a fine story. Things can be simple and great. BUT. We need to have the basic story work. And there are things that are left out of the story that result in CE being a lot of "nothing" because you don't have basic context. Which is important. Again, don't forget the big twist for CE comes in AFTER the Library. That being the basic backbone of why we're even fighting for it.

There are a few things I enjoy that do this right. The 2014 Godzilla is one of them. It wasn't meant to have a sequel, and was developed as a film in the same vein as CE was. It was simple, self-contained, and didn't have a gigantic-ass (hahaa) universe behind it, while dropping you past a bunch of significant events. So they tell a pretty self-contained story which includes how and why the fuck giant monsters exist, how they mingle with the past/current world, and what the plan of action should be with their reemergence in the present day. So you have context about the past, explaining why things are even going ON, which impacts the present and leads to a cohesive basic narrative. CE truly does lack the why, and even it's self-contained Halo weapon "why" isn't explained until about 4 levels in. There's basic, and then there's nothing. I don't like minimalism.

6 hours ago, Cursed Lemon said:

CE is the first game in a long series. It's not supposed to have some infinitely elaborate, exquisitely manicured plot. It's supposed to establish the basics and tell you what you should care about. It does that.

It isn't supposed to, or expected to have an insane plot. It's expected to fill you in on your antagonist's actual motives when they're your antagonist. CE doesn't do this with the questions and dialogue it raises and uses. So I consider it a failure.

1 hour ago, Larry Sizemore said:

Who gives a rat's ass? It's a game, not a movie. This is like going to a pizzeria and complaining about the color of their booths. What exactly are you there for?

A game can be entertaining from a gameplay standpoint and have a well-written narrative to engage me with. There isn't one or the other, and it's so far from binary it's insane. Which the joy of the medium. We can have both, and we shouldn't settle for less because of perceived variations in importance. We should ideally strive for both even if we don't care for them. There's no downside to a good focus on both and it strengthens potential franchises. There's a tangible downside to one entry lacking basic storytelling skills and suddenly having sequels built on it.

[Cursed Lemon]

Just now, TheIcePrincess said:

It isn't supposed to, or expected to have an insane plot. It's expected to fill you in on your antagonist's actual motives when they're your antagonist. CE doesn't do this with the questions and dialogue it raises and uses. So I consider it a failure.

The primary antagonist of the game was Guilty Spark.

Because the game was called "Halo".

[TheIcePrincess]

1 minute ago, Cursed Lemon said:

The primary antagonist of the game was Guilty Spark.

Because the game was called "Halo".

That isn't how this works, lol.

[Cursed Lemon]

8 minutes ago, TheIcePrincess said:

That isn't how this works, lol.

It's almost like in a game with three antagonists, it makes sense to have...three games about them.

[S0UL FLAME]

On 11/4/2019 at 1:44 PM, HeX Reapers said:

Yeah that's cool and all, but what if we had a utility weapon that shot straight and actually hit people?

 

[TheIcePrincess]

6 minutes ago, Cursed Lemon said:

It's almost like in a game with three antagonists, it makes sense to have...three games about them.

Okay, but that isn't my point. My point is that despite the Covenant being the largest focus in CE, they don't do anything to explain anything about them, or why they're actually attacking us outside of the Halo.

[Cursed Lemon]

10 minutes ago, TheIcePrincess said:

Okay, but that isn't my point. My point is that despite the Covenant being the largest focus in CE, they don't do anything to explain anything about them, or why they're actually attacking us outside of the Halo.

Really interesting seeing as how you haven't made a peep about the Flood.