: In the opening cutscene to "Two Betrayals", Cortana has to convince
: the Chief that firing Halo is in nobody's best interests. When 343 Guilty
: Spark asked him to turn over Cortana, he made the decision to fight his
: way out.
: So no. He's not an automaton that does whatever Cortana or a nearby officer
: tells him to. You guys aren't breaking new ground.

That reminds me of people who make the claim that prior to The Wrath of Khan - Kirk never experienced death or loss and that he just lived in a little bubble untouched by tragedy.

In other words - people who never paid attention to Star Trek or who have the attention span of goldfish.

: The Dome-like Inverted World:
: -Just a matter of opinion, but I think that the Inception scene worked
: because the walls of the folded city were close enough to see the vendors
: and the cars on the street. The inner surface of Requiem was just a
: skybox, and a fairly contradictory one at that.

We stood on a floating island with the inner surface of Requiem above our heads like a very distant ceiling. It didn't feel like being in a hollow world and was a missed opportunity.

: The Didact:
: -"We wanted to introduce an antagonist ... that could really threaten
: the Master Chief for the very first time."
: Wow. You guys didn't even get within artillery range of that goal. You'd need
: radio astronomy equipment to even see it.

Threat level red shifted into the microwave background and hence only observable as easily corrected comms static. Cortana took care of that threat so we wouldn't have to.

: -"But there were players that felt that his motivations were not clear.
: And we were, like, surprised by this because we thought that his
: motivations in the game were pretty simple. He's a badass alien who
: reawakened and he wants to obliterate humanity."

Face palm.

: Nope. That last sentence contains intent and introduction, but no motivation
: whatsoever. "Badass alien", neither of which describe the
: Didact, is not a character type.

According to Silentium: the Flood turned him into a Dick - shades of Indoctrination. So now we know, X months after the game came out. We fought the Dick Didact.

: -No consistency is needed between campaign and multiplayer. Forget it.

I would argue for the opposite: accentuate the differences. They are world apart balance wise. Multiplayer is a conflict amongst equals. Campaign is: every hand against you. You are outnumbered in almost every encounter and there are many instances where you are the only person being shot at. Campaign has a difference balance than multiplayer.

So make vehicles that you drive more effective:

• less EMP against you
• stop light arms fire pushing the Hog around
• remove concussion rifle/brute shot vehicle carnage
• stop making the vehicle a giant hit box for you
• un-nerf the Hog's weapon
• have NPC gunners switch target as soon as the current one is visibly dead

: -Sigh... Will you guys quite saying that they "Form into place" and
: "Transform"? They don't. They honestly don't.

Yeh.

: Infinity Multiplayer:
: -And we're back to this chestnut. You say that you wanted to change
: multiplayer, add story. I ask why. What does it improve? What does it add
: to the universe?

: Oh. Wow. I, uh... didn't expect that question to be answered.

: OK, so I'm listening, and it's not really making sense. Assuming that I'm a
: representative specimen of some of the campaign-only players, my refusal
: to jump into matchmaking is not a function of my lack of skills. It is a
: function of me not having a competitive bone in my body, not wanting to
: deal with the unwashed masses of Xbox Live, and being a misanthrope in
: general.

I hate losing more than I like winning. Tinkering with the story wont change that.

Merging MP into the campaign story space only means that 343 has made it impossible to avoid having mp balance decisions spoil campaign game play.

: -"And we wanted to use story as a way of contextualizing our
: universe."

Was happy with them being separate storyverses. Was even happy with mp having no story.

: -"And one of the things that was surprising for us to learn was what,
: you know, the number of players who played this solo. We didn't expect
: that."

: See 'raging misanthrope,' above.

: And then that's followed up with multiplayer-canon integration ruining things
: for everybody. Fun.

My pre-release requests for more distance between mp and campaign fell on deaf ears. Maybe 343 will reconsider.