Current Events > Halo has really just disappeared, hasn't it?

(+) Yeah! (+)

IMO no PC FPS really made FPS MP popular because PC gaming didnt really proliferate the mainstream consumer market. Like we can talk about all these Pc FPSs but the fact is the lack of convenience at the time really undermined that market. Having a PC LAN party to play multiplayer was a huge pain in the ass compared to only needing one TV, one console, and four controllers to play MP on N64 and XBOX. A large part of the growth of popularity in FPS MP was because of this convenience.
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josifrees posted...

IMO no PC FPS really made FPS MP popular because PC gaming didnt really proliferate the mainstream consumer market. Like we can talk about all these Pc FPSs but the fact is the lack of convenience at the time really undermined that market. Having a PC LAN party to play multiplayer was a huge pain in the ass compared to only needing one TV, one console, and four controllers to play MP on N64 and XBOX. A large part of the growth of popularity in FPS MP was because of this convenience.

Console FPS being popular is what killed the genre

"Remember how the Library in halo was everyone's least favorite level because it shrunk the large open levels of most of the game and put it into small room to room fighting that all looked similar."
"Yeah"
"Let's make it so that the whole game of halo 5 is like that and make every character a flanderized version of the older games."
"cool have my money."
"wait why isn't this selling?"
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The first three Halos were definitely the peak of the series until they decided to do spin-offs instead of 4. (Reach is one of the best in the series though.)

Eventually Bungie left to work on Destiny and nobody bothered with Halo 4 or 5.
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I just never got the appeal. It was a competent shooter, but I dunno. I'd been a Doom fan for years by that point, and for me there was nothing Halo did that Doom didn't do better or as competently.
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Goats posted...

"Remember how the Library in halo was everyone's least favorite level because it shrunk the large open levels of most of the game and put it into small room to room fighting that all looked similar."
"Yeah"
"Let's make it so that the whole game of halo 5 is like that and make every character a flanderized version of the older games."
"cool have my money."
"wait why isn't this selling?"

I don't quite get this point. Halo 5's campaign missions are actually quite good design-wise. I also prefer more open levels such as the ones in CE, but the linear ones can be good too. It's the story that's trash and the squad mechanic that hurts the gameplay (in my opinion).

Unless you mean multiplayer. The multiplayer maps are awful for sure. Halo 5 has phenomenal multiplayer, but it's in large part due to Forge maps that the community made.
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Meganekko posted...

josifrees posted...

IMO no PC FPS really made FPS MP popular because PC gaming didnt really proliferate the mainstream consumer market. Like we can talk about all these Pc FPSs but the fact is the lack of convenience at the time really undermined that market. Having a PC LAN party to play multiplayer was a huge pain in the ass compared to only needing one TV, one console, and four controllers to play MP on N64 and XBOX. A large part of the growth of popularity in FPS MP was because of this convenience.

Console FPS being popular is what killed the genre

Nah, EA hegemony and ineptitude killed the genre.
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josifrees posted...

IMO no PC FPS really made FPS MP popular because PC gaming didnt really proliferate the mainstream consumer market. Like we can talk about all these Pc FPSs but the fact is the lack of convenience at the time really undermined that market. Having a PC LAN party to play multiplayer was a huge pain in the ass compared to only needing one TV, one console, and four controllers to play MP on N64 and XBOX. A large part of the growth of popularity in FPS MP was because of this convenience.

This is a mindset ignoring the larger picture.

Gaming itself was pretty niche overall in those days.

Like WC3 broke records selling barely even 1 million copies.

It was around the xbox, ps2 days thay gaming in general really began to have these huge numbers.

Fyi, when Halo was supposedly popularizing FPS, how many players did WoW have?

The truth is, whatever good FPS existed in those days were gonna be popular.
I mean, Goldeneye came before Halo. People wanted FPS on next gen console to rival it.
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Halo's target demographic have all grown up at this point. All the hardcore Halo players now have families and shit can't devote time to video games anymore. Let alone online FPSs.

Yes I'm talking about myself. God I miss the good old days of playing Halo 3 online for hours at end.
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Meganekko posted...

Halo was responsible for stunting the growth of the FPS genre. Fuck that series

Halo was actually responsible for a massive boom and the genre is overall better off for its inclusion.

josifrees posted...

IMO no PC FPS really made FPS MP popular because PC gaming didnt really proliferate the mainstream consumer market. Like we can talk about all these Pc FPSs but the fact is the lack of convenience at the time really undermined that market. Having a PC LAN party to play multiplayer was a huge pain in the ass compared to only needing one TV, one console, and four controllers to play MP on N64 and XBOX. A large part of the growth of popularity in FPS MP was because of this convenience.

Console was more convenient and this more popular, but PC multiplayer was still a huge thing, especially from Quake onward where online play was super simple.

EvalAngell posted...

Halo's target demographic have all grown up at this point. All the hardcore Halo players now have families and shit can't devote time to video games anymore. Let alone online FPSs.

Yes I'm talking about myself. God I miss the good old days of playing Halo 3 online for hours at end.

True. I know a guy who was super into Halo.
It was like what he breathed.
He now has a wife and kid and don't care about it that much.
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darkphoenix181 posted...

St0rmFury posted...

Wasn't it Quake II which made FPS MP popular?

Quake, counterstrike, unreal, goldeneye 64, and on and on

But the halo generation insists Halo was this amazing revolutionary game.

It is more or less Halo just happened to come around when it was ripe for FPS to be on console.

Halo didn't even invent the things people credit it for.

Starsiege tribes had 2 weapon limit before Halo fyi

Tribes also had vehicles much like Halo had.
Infact, thinking on it, Halo heavily copied tribes in alot of ways.

It's not so much that Halo revolutionized everything but Halo haters really like to downplay its impact on the genre which is equally stupid. It's fine if you dont like the game but the sales alone tell the tale, plus the influx of FPS and games with FPS elements after it came out back it up even further.
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WaterLink posted...

It's not so much that Halo revolutionized everything but Halo haters really like to downplay its impact on the genre which is equally stupid.

I'll give it that it made multiplayer far more convenient than anything that came before it. As much as I love Doom, actually getting multiplayer going up until, like, 2001 or whenever Halo came out was an absolute nightmare.

So I absolutely give kudos to Bungie, Microsoft, etc. for making FPS games much easier to play with one another.
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EverDownward posted...

WaterLink posted...

It's not so much that Halo revolutionized everything but Halo haters really like to downplay its impact on the genre which is equally stupid.

I'll give it that it made multiplayer far more convenient than anything that came before it. As much as I love Doom, actually getting multiplayer going up until, like, 2001 or whenever Halo came out was an absolute nightmare.

So I absolutely give kudos to Bungie, Microsoft, etc. for making FPS games much easier to play with one another.

Getting multiplayer going was made easy in Quake, and got easier from there.

Like, Quake was insanely revolutionary just in how much work they put into its graphics and multiplayer engine, which were roughly 95% of the development time for it. They had to cut more than half the planned content for the game because of the work put into those, lol

It doesn't matter if you're first. What matters is if your success is so damn big the entire industry changes because of it. Which is what happened when Halo came out.

It made Xbox relevant by developing a shooter that wasn't even possible on PS2 hardware. There is no 'other shooter' in that scenario.
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WaterLink posted...

Meganekko posted...

Halo was responsible for stunting the growth of the FPS genre. Fuck that series

What? Halo put FPS on the map what do you mean?

"Halo put FPS on the map"

wut
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OctilIery posted...

Halo was actually responsible for a massive boom and the genre is overall better off for its inclusion.

A boom that killed the genre thanks to casualization

Hexenherz posted...

WaterLink posted...

Meganekko posted...

Halo was responsible for stunting the growth of the FPS genre. Fuck that series

What? Halo put FPS on the map what do you mean?

"Halo put FPS on the map"

wut

Ikr, wtf is he smoking when he made that post. The audacity, the ignorance, the naivety.
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You guys keep harping on that post. Do you guys think I think it was the first FPS? Or the first popular one? Because that's not what I'm saying. Look at what happened to the industry after Halo came out. There were waves of FPS games coming out, and FPS-like games.

Did Goldeneye or Quake do that? I liked both of those games and both games were pretty popular. But they didnt change the industry. Halo's success brought about a paradigm shift in gaming.

You guys are stating reasons you don't like the game, and saying there were other FPS before it. Congrats, that does nothing to refute what I said.
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Meganekko posted...

OctilIery posted...

Halo was actually responsible for a massive boom and the genre is overall better off for its inclusion.

A boom that killed the genre thanks to casualization

People no longer buying arena shooters 'killed the genre'
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkG_3NdBhM8" data-time="
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WaterLink posted...

You guys keep harping on that post. Do you guys think I think it was the first FPS? Or the first popular one? Because that's not what I'm saying. Look at what happened to the industry after Halo came out. There were waves of FPS games coming out, and FPS-like games.

Did Goldeneye or Quake do that? I liked both of those games and both games were pretty popular. But they didnt change the industry. Halo's success brought about a paradigm shift in gaming.

You guys are stating reasons you don't like the game, and saying there were other FPS before it. Congrats, that does nothing to refute what I said.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first-person_shooters

sort by date

before halo there was:

Unreal Tournament Epic Games DC, LIN, MAC, OSX, PS2, WIN
Quake III Arena id Software BSD (IRIX), DC, iPhone, LIN, MAC, PS2, WIN, XBLA 1999-12-02
Mortyr (20931944) Mirage Media S. C. WIN9X 1999-12-30
Laser Arena Trainwreck Studios WIN 200009
Pencil Whipped ChiselBrain WIN 2000
Resident Evil Survivor Capcom PS1, WIN 2000-01-27
Soldier of Fortune Raven Software DC, PS2, LIN, WIN 2000-03-27
Flying Heroes Pterodon
Illusion Softworks WIN 2000-04-30
Perfect Dark Rare N64 2000-05-22
Daikatana Ion Storm N64, WIN 2000-05-24
Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child Third Law Interactive DC, WIN 2000-07-18
Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Acclaim Studios Austin N64 2000-08-30
Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force Raven Software PS2, MAC, LIN (Multiplayer-only), WIN 2000-09-20
Catechumen N'Lightning Software Development WIN 2000-09-27
Alien: Resurrection Argonaut Games PS1 2000-10-10
Medal of Honor: Underground DreamWorks Interactive PS1, GBA 2000-10-23
TimeSplitters Free Radical Design PS2 2000-10-23
Spec Ops II: Omega Squad Runecraft DC 2000-10-24
The World Is Not Enough Eurocom N64 2000-11-01
Counter-Strike Valve Corporation LIN, WIN 2000-11-08
The World Is Not Enough Black Ops Entertainment PS1 2000-11-08
The Operative: No One Lives Forever Monolith Productions OSX, PS2, WIN 2000-11-09
Gunman Chronicles Rewolf Software WIN 2000-11-20
Delta Force: Land Warrior NovaLogic WIN 2000-12-01
Project I.G.I. Innerloop Studios WIN 2000-12-15
Quake III: Team Arena id Software WIN 2000-12-18
Ecks vs. Sever Crawfish Interactive GBA 2001
Under Ash Dar al-Fikr WIN 2001
Clive Barker's Undying DreamWorks Interactive OSX, WIN 2001-02-07
Serious Sam: The First Encounter Croteam LIN, WIN, XBLA, Xbox 2001-03-21
Tribes 2 Dynamix LIN, WIN 2001-03-21
Red Faction Volition MAC, MOBI, NGE, PS2, WIN 2001-05-22
Half-Life: Blue Shift Gearbox Software LIN, MAC, WIN 2001-06-12
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Take-Down Missions in Korea Ubisoft WIN 2001-06-20
Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis Bohemia Interactive Studio WIN, Xbox 2001-06-22
Legends of Might and Magic New World Computing WIN 2001-06-30
Project Eden Core Design PS2, WIN 2001-10-08
Ominous Horizons: A Paladin's Calling N'Lightning Software Development WIN 2001-10-15
Aliens versus Predator 2 Monolith Productions OSX, WIN 2001-10-30
Deadly Dozen nFusion Interactive WIN 2001-10-30
Resident Evil Survivor 2 Code: Veronica Capcom Arcade, PS2 2001-11-08
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Red Storm Entertainment GCN, MAC, PS2, WIN, Xbox 2001-11-14

not to mention all the games that released after Halo before it had a chance to influence.

Fact is, the ps2 era was FPS time to shine. It had nothing to do with Halo. But it did allow Halo to suceed as the time was ripe for FPS.
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btw, never said I didn't like Halo

in HS I had a computer class and we lan partied on the pcs Halo, Tribes and Quake

I bought a 360 just to play Halo 3 with some buddies

The reason I dispel this myth is that I been playing FPS games since Wolfenstein 3D on DOS

If people grew up right when Halo was getting big, maybe they are ignorant about the history of FPS games. That is fine.
But there is no reason to remain ignorant.
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I would argue that the level design and gameplay in every single one of those FPS games weren't really the same as Halo. They were very much PC FPS games.

Halo was streamlined and yet also had a big scope that was rare back in 2001. Stepping out of that drop pod in Halo was a huge woah moment.
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WaterLink posted...

You guys keep harping on that post. Do you guys think I think it was the first FPS? Or the first popular one? Because that's not what I'm saying. Look at what happened to the industry after Halo came out. There were waves of FPS games coming out, and FPS-like games.

Did Goldeneye or Quake do that? I liked both of those games and both games were pretty popular. But they didnt change the industry. Halo's success brought about a paradigm shift in gaming.

You guys are stating reasons you don't like the game, and saying there were other FPS before it. Congrats, that does nothing to refute what I said.

People have been flinging themselves at that straw man for decades and its really weird. Ive slowly learned to kind of tune out people who bitch about halo. I admit that comparing it to tribes like someone did earlier in the thread was pretty funny though. Comparing Halo to Tribes is like comparing Dark Messiah to Ricochet

Anyway, blame 343 studios. They really put a damper on the series with Halo 4 and 5. Halo 4 was very uninspired and Halo 5 felt like an attempt to sacrifice what made Halo Halo.
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Darmik posted...

I would argue that the level design and gameplay in every single one of those FPS games weren't really the same as Halo. They were very much PC FPS games.

Halo was streamlined and yet also had a big scope that was rare back in 2001. Stepping out of that drop pod in Halo was a huge woah moment.

Against arena shooters perhaps. But this is selective memory since Half-Life, Red Faction, System Shock and others existed like that.

Half-Life in particular was something of an awe for FPS. You start with an intro that is almost rpg like that sucks you into the world, and it came out 3 years before Halo.
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darkphoenix181 posted...

Darmik posted...

I would argue that the level design and gameplay in every single one of those FPS games weren't really the same as Halo. They were very much PC FPS games.

Halo was streamlined and yet also had a big scope that was rare back in 2001. Stepping out of that drop pod in Halo was a huge woah moment.

Against arena shooters perhaps. But this is selective memory since Half-Life, Red Faction, System Shock and others existed like that.

Half-Life in particular was something of an awe for FPS. You start with an intro that is almost rpg like that sucks you into the world, and it came out 3 years before Halo.

Infact, from wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_(video_game)

Several reviewers cited the level of immersion and interactivity as revolutionary.[88] AllGame said, "It isn't everyday that you come across a game that totally revolutionizes an entire genre, but Half-Life has done just that."[88] Hot Games commented on the realism, and how the environment "all adds up to a totally immersive gaming experience that makes everything else look quite shoddy in comparison."[94] Gamers Depot found the game engaging, stating that they have "yet to play a more immersive game period."[95] The Electric Playground said that Half-Life was an "immersive and engaging entertainment experience," but noted that this only lasted for the first half of the game, explaining that the game "peaked too soon."[96]

But what Half-Life did not have was a whole system to back it up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo:_Combat_Evolved

While Halo was not an instant success on release, it had a long tail sales rate and a very high attach rate for the Xbox.[32] By April 2002, roughly five months after its release, one million units had been sold: this pace was faster than that of any previous sixth-generation console game.[70] During the two months following Halo's release, the game sold alongside more than fifty percent of Xbox consoles.[71] By July 14, 2003, the game had sold three million copies worldwide,[72] and by January 28, 2004, it had reached four million copies.[73] As of November 9, 2005, Halo has sold over five million copies worldwide.[8] By July 2006, its Xbox version had sold 4.2 million copies and earned $170 million in the United States alone. Next Generation ranked it as the second highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in that country.[74] Its computer version sold 670,000 copies and earned $22.2 million in the United States by August 2006.[75]

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The series should've ended after 3 IMO. I didn't care much for 4 and 5. because I thought they were just milking the series at that point
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Half-Life was a major stepping stone but it still wasn't really what I mean.

It still has that corridor mazey FPS design that was the popular thing back then. There was nothing like The Silent Cartographer or Assault on the Control Room with all sorts of NPC's on different sides and vehicles (that you don't even have to ride unlike others from the time) that gave you the feeling of being in a war in some huge location that you can explore.

Nothing is new individually in Halo. But how it combined them all was. Then you've got stuff like Jackass Warthog videos and Red vs Blue because of how much of a sandbox that game was for the time.
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Meganekko posted...

OctilIery posted...

Halo was actually responsible for a massive boom and the genre is overall better off for its inclusion.

A boom that killed the genre thanks to casualization

Ahahaha no

Microsoft's shitty management of the brand is what killed Halo. Franchises can easily last for generations if you manage them well. People still love Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Minecraft, etc. Microsoft abandoned its quest for exclusives this generation. Unless you flat out hate Playstation or Sony, I can't imagine why you'd want an Xbox One over a PS4. They gave up even semi-regular Halo releases. Nothing is pushing the console.

And what about the tie-products? Instead of partnering with Lego, Microsoft gave the licsense to a no-name company. I bought several of the kits for relatives and nearly lost an eye when an assembled toy flew apart randomly. The books started off great, but then Microsoft started handing out assignments to questionable writers. The Halo animated shorts were good (well, some of them anyway). Everything else was bad. And then they used Cortana to brand the Windows assistant that turned out to be a severe nuisance nobody wanted and that nobody uses.

tl;dr the problem is Microsoft, not Halo.

Even if Microsoft had handled the Xbox One better, time is the main thing that "killed" Halo. Those other franchises listed offer something unique that Halo does not in comparison to other games in its genre. And its main audience grew up.

343 also mishandled all of its games in one way or another. Halo 4 had its awful multiplayer. MCC launched as a disaster. Halo 5 had its terrible story with a misleading advertising campaign for it. Ultimately they're good games, but the general population doesn't necessarily realize that.
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343i knows they fucked up with Halo 5, at least when it came to the singleplayer. That's why they're taking so much time to develop Halo Infinite (6). I believe they want to bring back split-screen co-op and have the story focus more on MC again. I thought they did a pretty good job with the multiplayer though so I think they just need to continue building upon that without any major changes.

What is the point though? Again Halo's primary fanbase during the height of the Xbox and Xbox 360 is guys who are in their mid 30s now. Today's gamers don't give a shit about Halo. They play Fortnite and COD and other battle royale shooters. Halo is dead and Halo Infinite will flop.
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EvalAngell posted...

What is the point though? Again Halo's primary fanbase during the height of the Xbox and Xbox 360 is guys who are in their mid 30s now. Today's gamers don't give a shit about Halo. They play Fortnite and COD and other battle royale shooters. Halo is dead and Halo Infinite will flop.

Infinite is not going to flop. There will be a renewed interest in Halo primarily because it will be available for PC. The series as a whole just won't be as popular as it once was.
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NYmasajista posted...

SSJKirby posted...

USB-C posted...

Literally invented the dual stick controls that are used in every FPS today.

objectively not true

Yeah the first dual stick FPS I saw was a Medal of Honor on the PS1 or 2.

Guru Larry would like to have a word with both of you, methinks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2T1t05WLPs" data-time="&start=671
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