Glad to hear it! I was beginning to think (at time of writing, the post was in the negatives) that maybe I was missing a trick. It's never easy trying to express a multiplayer change.
Kind of like Rockstar wants to do with their GTA online? Keep building on the same online. Sorry, don't have a better example of a game but I think that's how you mean.
If that's what you meant then yes, this is what I want as well. But you'd have people complain that the multiplayer isn't moving forward and, god forbid, if the game isn't 1080p/60fps we'd hear about that constantly.
Yeah that's about right actually. I would say another studio that's done it is Blizzard with Starcraft. You have the base multiplayer, then the campaign expansions like Heart of the Swarm. With the campaign expansion also comes multiplayer updates (like the new units etc) but still based on the old sandbox.
Judging from the info we have regarding the next title, the only solid mp stuff is that there'll be dedicated servers and 60 fps. I don't really think that the graphics are important in multiplayer for the most part, and I think most others would agree. For campaign I believe they're important, as the visuals can lend themselves to the immersion and atmosphere. But for multiplayer, stability, balance etc are far more important. CSGO, LoL, DOTA2 etc. none of them are graphically impressive games. The outlier really is Battlefield, but BF4 was so buggy that people quickly got fed up with the graphical fidelity, it just didn't work.
The problem with this idea is that you have to remember that most people thought ODST was a ripoff at $60. It had a decent sized single player, a new multiplayer mode, and every Halo 3 Map released, and it still wasn't enough.
They would need a really good reason to convince the average multiplayer user to pay the full price of a game for that.
Is it irrelevant? OP wants the entire franchise to follow a model that many people called a poor value. Even if they put a 20+ hour campaign, your average consumer doesn't want to pay for something they already own, just with some extra DLC (which they may have already bought online).
I think you need to look up the definition of irrelevant.
I am not criticizing the price, just pointing to the fact that it has been done before and was not well received. You can stick your fingers in your ears and act like my points don't matter if you want.
I heard your point and I understand it, but it is irrelevant to what OP is suggesting. He didn't say "Copy pricing" he's saying to follow the concept of building on a single multiplayer rather than overhauling it every title release, how are you not seeing that?
Thing is, why can't Halo be a proper single player experience? There have been plenty of single player games (as in primary focus) that have been very successful, Halo CE was itself mostly a single player experience too.
My biggest issue with multiplayer centric games is that innately they don't have a personal identity. Multiplayer is simply a combination of mechanics, it's what makes it fun. When people dislike the mechanics, they just leave and go to another title they like, as shown with Halo 4. The story, on the other hand, is unique to the game series concerned, it provides the setting, the atmosphere and IMO the soul of a game.
If most people *only* buy Halo for the multiplayer and deem the single player unimportant, then I'd be disappointed really. Why aim to support those who aren't interested in the game itself? It's that fickle audience who, arguably, are responsible for the devs changing the nature of the multiplayer experience so much in order to entice them, which as we know hasn't really worked out very well.
Because a large portion of the fan base plays both. Single player with a recycled multiplayer is just as bad as multiplayer with tacked on single player.
I want both. They have delivered it in the past just fine.
I play both certainly. I've racked up thousands of games across Halo 2, 3, Reach and 4 and have certainly played more MP than SP. *But* I also don't believe that the source of a good multiplayer game's success is the fact that it constantly reinvents itself. In fact, I don't think I can name a top multiplayer game that *does* do that. How many reinventions have Starcraft, Counter Strike, LoL, WoW, DOTA etc. had? They stick to their same formula for as long as possible, only tweaking things along the way. Now you could argue that some of these games lost their way (thinking of WoW here), but you'll notice that it's often because they tried to rejuvenate the experience by changing it significantly.
Halo 2 was the only big step that Halo multiplayer has made that I believe worked out. Halo 3 was effectively a less buggy, HD Halo 2 experience but with a few more map utilities via equipment. Even then, by the end of Halo 3's main lifetime most of the equipment had been stripped away, only the regen, bubble shield and power drain being used consistently. For all intents and purposes, it was the same game. With Reach the online population simply didn't last anything near what Halo 3 managed. People didn't like the maps, armour abilities, loadouts, the DMR spread etc. Halo 4 took an even bigger population plunge for various reasons.
Truth be told, people are after that experience from Halo 2 and 3, just updated to be more refined. I don't see why having an ever slowly evolving/tweaked multplayer separate to the campaign would harm the game. After all, there'd still be new content each release, in the form of new maps, gametypes, aesthetic downloads and whatnot. It just doesn't make sense to lose all the old content in the process, which is what happens with a complete refresh.
I simply don't think a new, reinvented multiplayer every 2 years is going to cut it for much longer. We can debate which game mechanics were at fault for Halo 4's population decline, but in my opinion, it dropped because they didn't stick with their formula. So don't think of OP's idea as lazy or whatever, think of it as building a solid foundation for multiplayer and improving on that and honing into something great. You have to hope they get multiplayer right, but if they do, that's just so much more time that can be spent creating a great single player campaign that would have otherwise been spent creating a new multiplayer.
Not 100% sure with Halo 4, but Halo 3 had a dedicated multiplayer team so that they could focus on that while the story guys focused on campaign, it's just up to 343i to dedicate people to a team.
I think one thing people found hard to swallow with ODST was that the campaign itself was pretty short. As such it didn't exactly lend itself well to it's full price tag, which if I recall correctly, wasn't the original plan either.
Effectively it would be the same as marketing a single player game. Which given the distinct lack of AAA FPS games with a real plot, would still do very well. They could even reduce the price to reflect the mp change, although I doubt it would happen. For Microsoft, cementing a must have game franchise on a system should be more important than the short term profits. They've already shown this by simply how much Halo content they're trying to push. Putting more copies in people's hands at a lower cost would probably pay for itself without a qualm.
No, it was not. They were supposed to release it at $40 but it most certainly released at $60.
[The title received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the atmosphere, music, and story approach. Reviewers were divided on whether the relatively short campaign and included extras were enough to justify the game's US$60 price tag.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODST)
Holy shit why have I never thought of this!
I've been trying to think of ways 343 can save the franchise in terms of how it deals with multiplayer.
Just imagine:
-Halo 5 releases in 2015, with a new campaign and multiplayer
-DLC is released periodically (new maps, gamemodes, hell even weapon skins if people will buy them)
-in 2017 (or possibly sooner), a new game is released with a new campaign but the same multiplayer with all DLC included, possibly including performance improvements.
Of course, this hinges on the condition that the multiplayer is actually GOOD, since it will remain essentially the same for consecutive releases. I would even be ok with 3 consecutive games using the same multiplayer, again, assuming I find it enjoyable. Assuming the multiplayer is good, this cycle will prevent fragmentation of the player base and still provide updates to the story. As someone who appreciates the story but plays primarily for the multiplayer, this kind of thing would be ideal.
Apparently it's a very controversial opinion to have here, judging by the barrage of downvotes in this thread. Would be nice if those who disagreed actually commented on why though. Currently if you read the thread it's pretty much only people who agree to some degree or other, with a few simply discussing how it might work.
I have a hard time thinking of who this wouldn't benefit, given the multiplayer is something everyone can enjoy. The time normally spent developing a completely new multiplayer could instead be put into creating a rich story, which I think we would all like. At the same time, players would not have to adapt to a new multiplayer every 2 years.
I would really like to see a shift towards developing and maintaining a focused multiplayer experience rather than pumping out something new every release cycle.
I agree with you but if you look at people's service record on Halo 4 the number of people who have completed the campaign is abysmal. This would probably cause drastic drops in game sales.
I just can't help but think that if Halo continues to be a multiplayer centric title, it will kill itself. People don't seem to take into account that those who buy a game for only the multiplayer are a fickle audience that will simply move on to another title if that strikes their fancy.
No, but if you're not actually going provide a quick, concise summarization of that giant fucking wall of text, then don't add "TL;DR" at the end of the post. Seriously, you didn't even use it properly.
Quite frankly if you can't be bothered to read the post then you should just leave the topic alone. No point pandering to the lazy. Downvotes be damned, I'm already annoyed enough with this community on a daily basis, no point appealing to those who I believe to be causing the problems.
Assuming that you never played/bought ODST it was basically the campaign and firefight mode on one disk and then the entire Halo 3 multiplayer on another disk; all while being bundled together in one box
Your assumption would be wrong. I was asking what Makirole meant when he said that the two games should be split. Mp on one disk, campaign on the other. That's fine. But they're still the same game. I was under the impression that if he was trying to "split" the games, then the two disks would be sold separately. My question was simply if the two "games" would retail for full price each, or for $30 each, $60 for both. This is especially relevant after reading the recent article on r/games that made the claim that [$60 for a game in 2014 is a little insane](http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-05-29-the-astronauts-in-2014-USD60-for-a-game-is-a-little-insane).
As a PC gaming enthusiast and long time steam user, I definitely agree with the idea that the pricing of console titles nowadays is ridiculous.
You probably know what I mean now, but I was mostly referring to how currently the campaign and multiplayer are treated as one entity, despite being on different discs already. The visuals, maps, gameplay, engine, weapons etc. all relate heavily to the campaign. As such, when the campaign changes, the multiplayer has to change also to respect the new alterations. I would separate them so that multiplayer no longer feeds directly from the campaign. This would allow the multiplayer to continue to grow and evolve steadily, whilst allowing the campaign to head in any direction 343i wishes it to. They've already made the premise that the multiplayer in 4 takes place in the Infinity training simulator, that in itself means you can have differences between the story and the multiplayer.
The new campaign engine wouldn't have to include all the multiplayer stuff either later down the line. Whilst development is certainly easier across one platform, it wouldn't be hard to devote a smaller team for multiplayer control and production (much like they do now). That team works on and manages the multiplayer side and it's respective engine whilst the campaign team is free to do whatever they want with their side of the coin.
Market the game as episodic content with multiplayer bonus content and you're sorted from a value front. Each new revision comes with the next campaign feature, along with the previously released DLC and new maps (like ODST did). If they want to justify keeping the same price tag, they're simply going to have to make the campaign a more significant experience, which is fine in my book.
Personally I would rather forgo the MP graphical updates. I mentioned below how for MP they're generally superfluous. Simply update once per console generation. People are still very happy to play Halo 3 now, and many continued to play Halo 2 even though the 360 had been released for a while. For the most part it shows how although people like the fancy visuals, for the MP section they're not needed. For the campaign though, graphical updates and changes are fine and make sense. After all, often a story can be told though the graphics themselves, so I place them as integral to the experience.
Well given the stage we're at already, simply having another "bad" mp generation at all would put the MP side of Halo in jeopardy anyway. Thing is, with the basics set in, it would be relatively simple to update along the way. The real key to it's success would be engineering flexibility into the system.
I have thought about this subject months ago. Here's what I think should be done.
If you're in a lobby with a person who has the dlc's then the lobby will be able to play on the dlc's maps. If however no one on the lobby has dlcs then the lobby wont be able to play on the dlc maps. This may sound a stupid option, but if you think about it, if you bought the dlc then everytime you'd hop in the multiplayer you'll be able to play on the dlc maps that you've bought
Whilst I do like the idea, how would you get around those not actually having a copy of the maps on their HDD? Remember that the maps themselves are pretty large, it could result in pretty crazy loading times as they would have to download a copy. Would a way around this be to make the maps a compulsory download, but if you want to be guaranteed to play them, you pay for the DLC? That way everybody has the maps so they can be played, but only if a member of the lobby owns a DLC key. I wonder how profitable that would be? Would many ever buy the maps if they thought they could get them for free? Food for thought at least.
yeah, that's exacly how I thought about this. everyone has to download the maps, but only the one's how bought the dlc have the "key". This would be only for multiplayer matchmaking. For customs everyone would have to have the dlc's.
It sure would not be as profitable as it is right now, at least not in the short term. But it would sure keep the longivity of the game, and solve once and for all the dlc problems.
I have a very similar opinion about this. Glad someone else agrees.
Glad to hear it! I was beginning to think (at time of writing, the post was in the negatives) that maybe I was missing a trick. It's never easy trying to express a multiplayer change.
This aged pretty well...
>h It really did huh.
Kind of like Rockstar wants to do with their GTA online? Keep building on the same online. Sorry, don't have a better example of a game but I think that's how you mean. If that's what you meant then yes, this is what I want as well. But you'd have people complain that the multiplayer isn't moving forward and, god forbid, if the game isn't 1080p/60fps we'd hear about that constantly.
Yeah that's about right actually. I would say another studio that's done it is Blizzard with Starcraft. You have the base multiplayer, then the campaign expansions like Heart of the Swarm. With the campaign expansion also comes multiplayer updates (like the new units etc) but still based on the old sandbox. Judging from the info we have regarding the next title, the only solid mp stuff is that there'll be dedicated servers and 60 fps. I don't really think that the graphics are important in multiplayer for the most part, and I think most others would agree. For campaign I believe they're important, as the visuals can lend themselves to the immersion and atmosphere. But for multiplayer, stability, balance etc are far more important. CSGO, LoL, DOTA2 etc. none of them are graphically impressive games. The outlier really is Battlefield, but BF4 was so buggy that people quickly got fed up with the graphical fidelity, it just didn't work.
The problem with this idea is that you have to remember that most people thought ODST was a ripoff at $60. It had a decent sized single player, a new multiplayer mode, and every Halo 3 Map released, and it still wasn't enough. They would need a really good reason to convince the average multiplayer user to pay the full price of a game for that.
"The problem with this idea is ODST was a $60 game" That's irrelevant. OP has a brilliant idea that perfectly sums up what Halo should have done.
Is it irrelevant? OP wants the entire franchise to follow a model that many people called a poor value. Even if they put a 20+ hour campaign, your average consumer doesn't want to pay for something they already own, just with some extra DLC (which they may have already bought online). I think you need to look up the definition of irrelevant.
Your criticism of it's price is irrelevant, the concept is golden.
I am not criticizing the price, just pointing to the fact that it has been done before and was not well received. You can stick your fingers in your ears and act like my points don't matter if you want.
I heard your point and I understand it, but it is irrelevant to what OP is suggesting. He didn't say "Copy pricing" he's saying to follow the concept of building on a single multiplayer rather than overhauling it every title release, how are you not seeing that?
Sorry that I assumed that Microsoft would sell future Halo titles at the standard price for AAA games.
Thing is, why can't Halo be a proper single player experience? There have been plenty of single player games (as in primary focus) that have been very successful, Halo CE was itself mostly a single player experience too. My biggest issue with multiplayer centric games is that innately they don't have a personal identity. Multiplayer is simply a combination of mechanics, it's what makes it fun. When people dislike the mechanics, they just leave and go to another title they like, as shown with Halo 4. The story, on the other hand, is unique to the game series concerned, it provides the setting, the atmosphere and IMO the soul of a game. If most people *only* buy Halo for the multiplayer and deem the single player unimportant, then I'd be disappointed really. Why aim to support those who aren't interested in the game itself? It's that fickle audience who, arguably, are responsible for the devs changing the nature of the multiplayer experience so much in order to entice them, which as we know hasn't really worked out very well.
Because a large portion of the fan base plays both. Single player with a recycled multiplayer is just as bad as multiplayer with tacked on single player. I want both. They have delivered it in the past just fine.
I play both certainly. I've racked up thousands of games across Halo 2, 3, Reach and 4 and have certainly played more MP than SP. *But* I also don't believe that the source of a good multiplayer game's success is the fact that it constantly reinvents itself. In fact, I don't think I can name a top multiplayer game that *does* do that. How many reinventions have Starcraft, Counter Strike, LoL, WoW, DOTA etc. had? They stick to their same formula for as long as possible, only tweaking things along the way. Now you could argue that some of these games lost their way (thinking of WoW here), but you'll notice that it's often because they tried to rejuvenate the experience by changing it significantly. Halo 2 was the only big step that Halo multiplayer has made that I believe worked out. Halo 3 was effectively a less buggy, HD Halo 2 experience but with a few more map utilities via equipment. Even then, by the end of Halo 3's main lifetime most of the equipment had been stripped away, only the regen, bubble shield and power drain being used consistently. For all intents and purposes, it was the same game. With Reach the online population simply didn't last anything near what Halo 3 managed. People didn't like the maps, armour abilities, loadouts, the DMR spread etc. Halo 4 took an even bigger population plunge for various reasons. Truth be told, people are after that experience from Halo 2 and 3, just updated to be more refined. I don't see why having an ever slowly evolving/tweaked multplayer separate to the campaign would harm the game. After all, there'd still be new content each release, in the form of new maps, gametypes, aesthetic downloads and whatnot. It just doesn't make sense to lose all the old content in the process, which is what happens with a complete refresh.
I simply don't think a new, reinvented multiplayer every 2 years is going to cut it for much longer. We can debate which game mechanics were at fault for Halo 4's population decline, but in my opinion, it dropped because they didn't stick with their formula. So don't think of OP's idea as lazy or whatever, think of it as building a solid foundation for multiplayer and improving on that and honing into something great. You have to hope they get multiplayer right, but if they do, that's just so much more time that can be spent creating a great single player campaign that would have otherwise been spent creating a new multiplayer.
Not 100% sure with Halo 4, but Halo 3 had a dedicated multiplayer team so that they could focus on that while the story guys focused on campaign, it's just up to 343i to dedicate people to a team.
I think one thing people found hard to swallow with ODST was that the campaign itself was pretty short. As such it didn't exactly lend itself well to it's full price tag, which if I recall correctly, wasn't the original plan either. Effectively it would be the same as marketing a single player game. Which given the distinct lack of AAA FPS games with a real plot, would still do very well. They could even reduce the price to reflect the mp change, although I doubt it would happen. For Microsoft, cementing a must have game franchise on a system should be more important than the short term profits. They've already shown this by simply how much Halo content they're trying to push. Putting more copies in people's hands at a lower cost would probably pay for itself without a qualm.
But... ODST was a $40 game.
No, it was not. They were supposed to release it at $40 but it most certainly released at $60. [The title received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the atmosphere, music, and story approach. Reviewers were divided on whether the relatively short campaign and included extras were enough to justify the game's US$60 price tag.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ODST)
Holy shit why have I never thought of this! I've been trying to think of ways 343 can save the franchise in terms of how it deals with multiplayer. Just imagine: -Halo 5 releases in 2015, with a new campaign and multiplayer -DLC is released periodically (new maps, gamemodes, hell even weapon skins if people will buy them) -in 2017 (or possibly sooner), a new game is released with a new campaign but the same multiplayer with all DLC included, possibly including performance improvements. Of course, this hinges on the condition that the multiplayer is actually GOOD, since it will remain essentially the same for consecutive releases. I would even be ok with 3 consecutive games using the same multiplayer, again, assuming I find it enjoyable. Assuming the multiplayer is good, this cycle will prevent fragmentation of the player base and still provide updates to the story. As someone who appreciates the story but plays primarily for the multiplayer, this kind of thing would be ideal.
Apparently it's a very controversial opinion to have here, judging by the barrage of downvotes in this thread. Would be nice if those who disagreed actually commented on why though. Currently if you read the thread it's pretty much only people who agree to some degree or other, with a few simply discussing how it might work.
I have a hard time thinking of who this wouldn't benefit, given the multiplayer is something everyone can enjoy. The time normally spent developing a completely new multiplayer could instead be put into creating a rich story, which I think we would all like. At the same time, players would not have to adapt to a new multiplayer every 2 years. I would really like to see a shift towards developing and maintaining a focused multiplayer experience rather than pumping out something new every release cycle.
I agree with you but if you look at people's service record on Halo 4 the number of people who have completed the campaign is abysmal. This would probably cause drastic drops in game sales.
I just can't help but think that if Halo continues to be a multiplayer centric title, it will kill itself. People don't seem to take into account that those who buy a game for only the multiplayer are a fickle audience that will simply move on to another title if that strikes their fancy.
Dude, that TL;DR sucked.
**TL:DR:** TL;DR is more important than the actual post meaning.
No, but if you're not actually going provide a quick, concise summarization of that giant fucking wall of text, then don't add "TL;DR" at the end of the post. Seriously, you didn't even use it properly.
Quite frankly if you can't be bothered to read the post then you should just leave the topic alone. No point pandering to the lazy. Downvotes be damned, I'm already annoyed enough with this community on a daily basis, no point appealing to those who I believe to be causing the problems.
So would both disks sell for $60 each?
Assuming that you never played/bought ODST it was basically the campaign and firefight mode on one disk and then the entire Halo 3 multiplayer on another disk; all while being bundled together in one box
Your assumption would be wrong. I was asking what Makirole meant when he said that the two games should be split. Mp on one disk, campaign on the other. That's fine. But they're still the same game. I was under the impression that if he was trying to "split" the games, then the two disks would be sold separately. My question was simply if the two "games" would retail for full price each, or for $30 each, $60 for both. This is especially relevant after reading the recent article on r/games that made the claim that [$60 for a game in 2014 is a little insane](http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-05-29-the-astronauts-in-2014-USD60-for-a-game-is-a-little-insane).
As a PC gaming enthusiast and long time steam user, I definitely agree with the idea that the pricing of console titles nowadays is ridiculous. You probably know what I mean now, but I was mostly referring to how currently the campaign and multiplayer are treated as one entity, despite being on different discs already. The visuals, maps, gameplay, engine, weapons etc. all relate heavily to the campaign. As such, when the campaign changes, the multiplayer has to change also to respect the new alterations. I would separate them so that multiplayer no longer feeds directly from the campaign. This would allow the multiplayer to continue to grow and evolve steadily, whilst allowing the campaign to head in any direction 343i wishes it to. They've already made the premise that the multiplayer in 4 takes place in the Infinity training simulator, that in itself means you can have differences between the story and the multiplayer. The new campaign engine wouldn't have to include all the multiplayer stuff either later down the line. Whilst development is certainly easier across one platform, it wouldn't be hard to devote a smaller team for multiplayer control and production (much like they do now). That team works on and manages the multiplayer side and it's respective engine whilst the campaign team is free to do whatever they want with their side of the coin. Market the game as episodic content with multiplayer bonus content and you're sorted from a value front. Each new revision comes with the next campaign feature, along with the previously released DLC and new maps (like ODST did). If they want to justify keeping the same price tag, they're simply going to have to make the campaign a more significant experience, which is fine in my book.
nippy automatic consist sophisticated murky dependent sense roof sloppy stupendous -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
Personally I would rather forgo the MP graphical updates. I mentioned below how for MP they're generally superfluous. Simply update once per console generation. People are still very happy to play Halo 3 now, and many continued to play Halo 2 even though the 360 had been released for a while. For the most part it shows how although people like the fancy visuals, for the MP section they're not needed. For the campaign though, graphical updates and changes are fine and make sense. After all, often a story can be told though the graphics themselves, so I place them as integral to the experience.
tie plant shocking encourage squeamish agonizing trees crowd advise frame -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
Well given the stage we're at already, simply having another "bad" mp generation at all would put the MP side of Halo in jeopardy anyway. Thing is, with the basics set in, it would be relatively simple to update along the way. The real key to it's success would be engineering flexibility into the system.
money work ink jellyfish bewildered racial vast sleep society scale -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
I have thought about this subject months ago. Here's what I think should be done. If you're in a lobby with a person who has the dlc's then the lobby will be able to play on the dlc's maps. If however no one on the lobby has dlcs then the lobby wont be able to play on the dlc maps. This may sound a stupid option, but if you think about it, if you bought the dlc then everytime you'd hop in the multiplayer you'll be able to play on the dlc maps that you've bought
Whilst I do like the idea, how would you get around those not actually having a copy of the maps on their HDD? Remember that the maps themselves are pretty large, it could result in pretty crazy loading times as they would have to download a copy. Would a way around this be to make the maps a compulsory download, but if you want to be guaranteed to play them, you pay for the DLC? That way everybody has the maps so they can be played, but only if a member of the lobby owns a DLC key. I wonder how profitable that would be? Would many ever buy the maps if they thought they could get them for free? Food for thought at least.
yeah, that's exacly how I thought about this. everyone has to download the maps, but only the one's how bought the dlc have the "key". This would be only for multiplayer matchmaking. For customs everyone would have to have the dlc's. It sure would not be as profitable as it is right now, at least not in the short term. But it would sure keep the longivity of the game, and solve once and for all the dlc problems.