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Free to Play Halo Online (Saber, H3 eng) announced, only for Russia [First Info]

C

Chemical Rampancy

Banned
bishoptl said:
Nobody is taking away your Halo 5, doomsayers

Stop setting your pants on fire
Click to expand...

Halo 5's release is unimportant. The decision to make a title like this, where the Halo series has been converted to a f2p CoD clone non representative of the greatness of the original Halo trilogy, is indicative of the same philosophies which have led to

- Overall decline in critical reception as seen through Halo 4
- Overall decline in commercial reception as seen through Halo 4
- Poor adaptations of material: Nightfall/FuD/Spartan Assault
- Pay £50 extra to understand the story, narrative systems.
- The MCC being broken for six months.

Decisions like this reflect that the Halo series will not heal under Microsoft, and only continues to be set on a downwards spiral over the next decade. I'm expecting the Halo series to draw parallels with the Sonic series in 5-10 years. We are already seeing such comparisons begin to surface now. I think there is an incredibly large probability that Halo 5 will be a disaster, which will only serve to be the next step of this long drawn out process.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
Final Verdict said:
Don't see why some people are so upset about this.
It is primarily meant for countries with big PC markets, will grow the Halo brand, and will not interfere with Halo 5 later this year...

Not seeing how it is a bad thing?
Oh, and it actually looks kinda good...
Click to expand...

The hate comes from two camps...

Camp Jealousy

Camp Hates-everything-halo-regardless
 
V

VinFTW

Member
Chemical Rampancy said:
Halo 5's release is unimportant. The decision to make a title like this, where the Halo series has been converted to a f2p CoD clone non representative of the greatness of the original Halo trilogy, is indicative of the same philosophies which have led to

- Overall decline in critical reception as seen through Halo 4
- Overall decline in commercial reception as seen through Halo 4
- Poor adaptations of material: Nightfall/FuD/Spartan Assault
- Pay £50 extra to understand the story, narrative systems.
- The MCC being broken for six months.

Decisions like this reflect that the Halo series will not heal under Microsoft, and only continues to be set on a downwards spiral over the next decade. I'm expecting the Halo series to draw parallels with the Sonic series in 5-10 years. We are already seeing such comparisons begin to surface now. I think there is an incredibly large probability that Halo 5 will be a disaster, which will only serve to be the next step of this long drawn out process.
Click to expand...

Uhhh, lmao.

Read bold for extra lolz
 
S

Synth

Member
Chemical Rampancy said:
Halo 5's release is unimportant. The decision to make a title like this, where the Halo series has been converted to a f2p CoD clone non representative of the greatness of the original Halo trilogy, is indicative of the same philosophies which have led to

- Overall decline in critical reception as seen through Halo 4
- Overall decline in commercial reception as seen through Halo 4
- Poor adaptations of material: Nightfall/FuD/Spartan Assault
- Pay £50 extra to understand the story, narrative systems.
- The MCC being broken for six months.

Decisions like this reflect that the Halo series will not heal under Microsoft, and only continues to be set on a downwards spiral over the next decade. I'm expecting the Halo series to draw parallels with the Sonic series in 5-10 years. We are already seeing such comparisons begin to surface now. I think there is an incredibly large probability that Halo 5 will be a disaster, which will only serve to be the next step of this long drawn out process.
Click to expand...

lol, stop it
 
R

Raide

Member
Actually looks pretty good. Maybe not the Halo people wanted (Halo5 this year everyone!) but it could certainly be a good plan if they open it up to places like China and the rest of the world. F2P Halo might makes them a load of cash.
 
R

Raide

Member
Chemical Rampancy said:
Halo 5's release is unimportant. The decision to make a title like this, where the Halo series has been converted to a f2p CoD clone non representative of the greatness of the original Halo trilogy, is indicative of the same philosophies which have led to

- Overall decline in critical reception as seen through Halo 4
- Overall decline in commercial reception as seen through Halo 4
- Poor adaptations of material: Nightfall/FuD/Spartan Assault
- Pay £50 extra to understand the story, narrative systems.
- The MCC being broken for six months.

Decisions like this reflect that the Halo series will not heal under Microsoft, and only continues to be set on a downwards spiral over the next decade. I'm expecting the Halo series to draw parallels with the Sonic series in 5-10 years. We are already seeing such comparisons begin to surface now. I think there is an incredibly large probability that Halo 5 will be a disaster, which will only serve to be the next step of this long drawn out process.
Click to expand...

You sound like an expert.
 
M

mcrommert

Banned
Chemical Rampancy said:
Halo 5's release is unimportant. The decision to make a title like this, where the Halo series has been converted to a f2p CoD clone non representative of the greatness of the original Halo trilogy, is indicative of the same philosophies which have led to

- Overall decline in critical reception as seen through Halo 4
- Overall decline in commercial reception as seen through Halo 4
- Poor adaptations of material: Nightfall/FuD/Spartan Assault
- Pay £50 extra to understand the story, narrative systems.
- The MCC being broken for six months.

Decisions like this reflect that the Halo series will not heal under Microsoft, and only continues to be set on a downwards spiral over the next decade. I'm expecting the Halo series to draw parallels with the Sonic series in 5-10 years. We are already seeing such comparisons begin to surface now. I think there is an incredibly large probability that Halo 5 will be a disaster, which will only serve to be the next step of this long drawn out process.
Click to expand...

ROFL

Good lord dude
 
C

Chemical Rampancy

Banned
mcrommert said:
ROFL

Good lord dude
Click to expand...

Are these points unreasonable though? Five replies and not a single person has addressed them directly, which suggests to me that these are hard truths for people. I was a huge fan of this series, but 343i have left my outlook as despondant. The Halo series certainly isn't the industry spearhead which it used to be, and with the Xbox One struggling across the world what reason is there to believe Halo 5 will see growth over even Halo 4? Also consider the talent 343i have lost since Halo 4 released.
 
R

Raide

Member
Chemical Rampancy said:
Are these points unreasonable though? Five replies and not a single person has addressed them directly, which suggests to me that these are hard truths for people. I was a huge fan of this series, but 343i have left my outlook as despondant. The Halo series certainly isn't the industry spearhead which it used to be, and with the Xbox One struggling across the world what reason is there to believe Halo 5 will see growth over even Halo 4? Also consider the talent 343i have lost since Halo 4 released.
Click to expand...

Well, Halo is still popular but like all FPS games that have been out for years, their decline is inevitable. Halo 4 was certainly a misstep but reception for Halo 5 was largely positive. Could be a fresh start to reinvigorate the Halo series.

MCC was a poor launch but it is much better now. Really sad to see it mess up so badly early on though.

I do wish the films/series etc did a better job of the lore etc but I don't play the Halo games for the random videos and movies that come out. Its for the game.
 
M

mcrommert

Banned
Chemical Rampancy said:
Are these points unreasonable though? Five replies and not a single person has addressed them directly, which suggests to me that these are hard truths for people. I was a huge fan of this series, but 343i have left my outlook as despondant. The Halo series certainly isn't the industry spearhead which it used to be, and with the Xbox One struggling across the world what reason is there to believe Halo 5 will see growth over even Halo 4? Also consider the talent 343i have lost since Halo 4 released.
Click to expand...

Chill out

One mixed game does not doom a series (halo 4 was liked critically and i enjoyed almost all of it). Halo's decline happened a lot earlier during the time of reach and had mostly to do with cod's rising dominance. If you look at how many games have done when they have switched developers, it could have easily been a lot worse.

But seriously chill out...halo will never again be the juggernaut that it was...that time is over
 
V

VinFTW

Member
Chemical Rampancy said:
Are these points unreasonable though? Five replies and not a single person has addressed them directly, which suggests to me that these are hard truths for people. I was a huge fan of this series, but 343i have left my outlook as despondant. The Halo series certainly isn't the industry spearhead which it used to be, and with the Xbox One struggling across the world what reason is there to believe Halo 5 will see growth over even Halo 4? Also consider the talent 343i have lost since Halo 4 released.
Click to expand...

I think you can guess why we're not replying.
 
P

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
Tovarisch said:
Halo Online Announce Trailer
Click to expand...
ReFnzEC.gif
 
RSB

RSB

Banned
And of course, the Turf remake I wanted for H2A ends up in a russian F2P game.

Oh 343, you master trolls. What will be next? Shoehorning ADS into Halo? Oh wait...
 
T

TCKaos

Member
Realizing the Russians are getting that for free and that I paid $60 for the Master Chief Collection makes me angry. That game looks fucking awesome and looks like it has all of the maps I wanted in TMCC.

How hard would those be to port to TMCC. They've presumably most of the materials necessary for them...
 
M

mcrommert

Banned
TCKaos said:
Realizing the Russians are getting that for free and that I paid $60 for the Master Chief Collection makes me angry. That game looks fucking awesome and looks like it has all of the maps I wanted in TMCC.

How hard would those be to port to TMCC. They've presumably most of the materials necessary for them...
Click to expand...

You should move to russia
 
Naked Lunch

Naked Lunch

Member
Free to play is huge in Russia. World of Tanks is big time over there - of course that game is developed by Russians so that might have something to do with it. I see Halo Online as an experiment for Halo in this form - and if it works it will be released elsewhere. Russia is probably the best place to test the waters.
 
B

Banjo-Kazooie

Member
Chemical Rampancy said:
Halo 5's release is unimportant. The decision to make a title like this, where the Halo series has been converted to a f2p CoD clone non representative of the greatness of the original Halo trilogy, is indicative of the same philosophies which have led to

- Overall decline in critical reception as seen through Halo 4
- Overall decline in commercial reception as seen through Halo 4
- Poor adaptations of material: Nightfall/FuD/Spartan Assault
- Pay £50 extra to understand the story, narrative systems.
- The MCC being broken for six months.

Decisions like this reflect that the Halo series will not heal under Microsoft, and only continues to be set on a downwards spiral over the next decade. I'm expecting the Halo series to draw parallels with the Sonic series in 5-10 years. We are already seeing such comparisons begin to surface now. I think there is an incredibly large probability that Halo 5 will be a disaster, which will only serve to be the next step of this long drawn out process.
Click to expand...
Would you say Microsoft shot themselves in the foot?
 
S

Synth

Member
Chemical Rampancy said:
Are these points unreasonable though? Five replies and not a single person has addressed them directly, which suggests to me that these are hard truths for people.
Click to expand...

*sigh* Fine. I was hoping that you'd be able to look over your own post and realise why people aren't giving you serious responses... but seeing as you wrote that post in the first place, that was obviously pretty optimistic of me. So, let's take a quick look at each point:

- Overall decline in critical reception as seen through Halo 4
Critical reception for Halo 4 was pretty positive actually. It sits at 87 metacritic, which is slightly higher than ODST (which I personally think has the best Halo campaign) and Ensemble's Halo Wars... and significantly higher than the "really good game" Destiny.

- Overall decline in commercial reception as seen through Halo 4
Demonstrably untrue.

- Poor adaptations of material: Nightfall/FuD/Spartan Assault
These are harmless spinoffs. Nightfall and FuD are no more detrimental to mainline Halo than any other cross media ventures... and amongst such projects these two are actually rather competent. Spartan Assault is a simple mobile game, that you have the option of playing with a pad. It's unlikely to even have the sort of exposure required to register against the series as a whole. The fact that you say Halo 5 is "unimportant", whilst acting like these projects that much of the fanbase will never ever see are going to somehow sink it is hilarious.

- Pay £50 extra to understand the story, narrative systems.
I'm not going to lie... I don't even know what it is you're referring to here. Care to elaborate?

Even without that context though, I'm finding it hard to take such a criticism seriously from someone happy to praise Destiny. I got charged an additional £20 to learn essentially fuck all on that. Should be interesting to see what the grand total is by the time it can count as a complete story.

- The MCC being broken for six months.
This is the only one of your points that has any real merit. Even then it's quite far removed from the overall point you're trying to make. 343i successfully launched Halo 4 with no real issues to a far larger userbase than MCC, and ran a very solid beta for Halo 5. MCC was a pretty unique project handled by numerous studios (generally not 343i), that combines multiple different engines and network implementations into a single product. It having significant issues doesn't really reflect future Halo iterations. Even if the next Halo was to have a similarly complex arrangement, MCC's existence would prevent it the same things from being a surprise the next time around.
Click to expand...

You're not making solid points here. You're projecting your personal feelings as if they're facts.

Finally your comparison with Sonic is ridiculous. Sonic didn't gain its perception because people didn't like Sonic X, or Sonic Spinball etc. The Sonic games went from the end of the Genesis all the way to the late days of the frickin Wii before seeing a mainline entry even remotely comparable to the original games. This includes a mainline generation debut entry that's considered of the worst games ever released. I think you need to get some perspective.
 
S

Septic360

Banned
O5mF32H.jpg


Notice the date on there. Summer last year they had a closed alpha. El Dorado...whatever that is.

But this whole Russia only thing has got my head scratching. I don't get it. Why Russia only? Exclusive deal with Putin?
 
O

Orayn

Member
Septic360 said:
O5mF32H.jpg


Notice the date on there. Summer last year they had a closed alpha. El Dorado...whatever that is.

But this whole Russia only thing has got my head scratching. I don't get it. Why Russia only? Exclusive deal with Putin?
Click to expand...

1) Russia is a big market for F2P action games on PC.
2) Xbox and Halo aren't terribly popular there, so this potentially helps grow the brand.
3) MS stands a fair chance and turning a profit and runs a minimal risk of cannibalizing existing sales. (Since there barely are any.)
 
S

Septic360

Banned
dyGv2OB.jpg
Click to expand...

Some of those maps look brilliant. Spartan armour and the weapon customisations are really good. The Spartan armour variants in Halo 3, for the most part, were completely wank.

I want those maps in Halo: TMCC!
 
D

DownGrader

Member
Septic360 said:
But this whole Russia only thing has got my head scratching. I don't get it. Why Russia only? Exclusive deal with Putin?
Click to expand...

I might assume this is the way to popularize Halo brand here, which has less value than in other countries because:
a) console market was/is dominated by Sony in Russia
b) original Xbox wasn't imported here, and Xbox Live began to work from Russia only in the middle of 360's life.
 
S

Septic360

Banned
DownGrader said:
I might assume this is the way to popularize Halo brand here, which has less value than in other countries because:
a) console market was/is dominated by Sony in Russia
b) original Xbox wasn't imported here, and Xbox Live began to work from Russia only in the middle of 360's life.
Click to expand...

Ah cheers for that. Seems like an awful lot of work though to just get the Russians on board. Unless its a testing ground before this is available worldwide?
 
Leyasu

Leyasu

Banned
Port it to the halo 5 engine, and bring this to the xbone in 2016 please.... Complete with dedicated servers
 
H

Hubble

Member
mcrommert said:
Chill out

One mixed game does not doom a series (halo 4 was liked critically and i enjoyed almost all of it). Halo's decline happened a lot earlier during the time of reach and had mostly to do with cod's rising dominance. If you look at how many games have done when they have switched developers, it could have easily been a lot worse.

But seriously chill out...halo will never again be the juggernaut that it was...that time is over
Click to expand...

Halo 3 had very healthy numbers. Halo 4.... was horrid. I don't think COD had much to do with it. Consumers know what a good Halo game is and Halo 3 performed well, and was the last Halo game made in the Master Chief series, hence its success and not COD. I agree with the other posters. Halo 5's massive changes in trying to be Halo but in a Call of Duty skin is just going to dilute the series, as fans will not recognize it, and further weaken the series just like something like this will.
 
J

jelly

Member
Maybe Microsoft want Xbox on Windows to be mature enough for a worldwide Halo PC game if they don't plan on using Steam.

The MCC with deep customisation, mods, collaboration etc. basically do a lot of what Steam offers and launch on Windows 10. That's a major money maker. The PC approach I want to see. The community would love it if you give them the chance and the tools. Grow Halo an alternative way. Halo will still exist on consoles, best of both worlds and maybe leverage the great ideas of the community. I want to shake Microsoft sometimes.
 
D

DownGrader

Member
Septic360 said:
Ah cheers for that. Seems like an awful lot of work though to just get the Russians on board. Unless its a testing ground before this is available worldwide?
Click to expand...

Well, Russia is a quite big market, but with very unpleasant conditions for Microsoft (and for other companies besides Sony and PC-centric ones).

There is a very strong culture of PC gaming, and Sony was really lucky since the PlayStation brand was already very established here before Sony officially came onto the market with PS2 - thanks to massive amount of modchipped PSones being imported. And with PS2, Sony was the first console manufacturer that was officially and directly represented here - Microsoft came onto the Russian console market only with Xbox 360 in its mid-life, and Nintendo established official division only starting with 3DS and Wii U.
 
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