: Almost seven(!) years ago I wrote an extensive treatise on what I think would
: make the ultimate Halo game. I gave it a huge overhaul in the spring of
: 2012, then again in the summer of 2013. And now I've finished my third
: major edit to the article.

: Mostly it incorporates some ideas from Halo 5 (I mention the game by name 43
: times in the article). Even though there's a lot I don't like about the
: most recent Halo game, it does have a few interesting ideas that deserve
: further attention. I've also retooled some other sections, changing or
: discarding old ideas I had that I no longer think are all that great. I
: made a ton of edits overall, and hardly any subsections was left
: completely untouched. Nearly everything from controls to weapons to Forge
: to multiplayer to enemies has been edited.

: If you're interested, go skim through it here .

: And if you're interested in seeing how much has changed since I first
: published the article, HBO still has a mirrored version of the original
: version .

We agree on lots, disagree on lots. It's very interesting to read your original piece; it seems like several of your wishes came to fruition with Halo 5 in terms of the motion tracker, visible health, movement speed, and reduced lunging. Definitely agree with you on enemy/ally stuff (although who doesn't) and really hope for a game in the future where "more damage/more health" isn't the distinction with difficulty modes.

I heavily disagree about Forge's future, just in terms of the fact that increasing complexity empowers a % of the player base, but also reduces accessibility of the feature as well. I look to Blizzard's editors. StarCraft's editor was robust but straightforward; triggers were basic IF/AND/WHILE kind of functions, terrain was isometric. With WarCraft III, the game was 3D and cinematics became an in-game function; the result was that the editor was much more of a tool oriented towards programmers. With StarCraft II the functionality increased even further, but by that point I was lost. Unless I had an eye towards game development the complexity of the tools actively impeded my efforts for creating a map (such as the increasing number of stuff you had to do just to get a basic map *working* for a custom match) and made me discouraged to learn more.

At its core, Forge is very much a "build stuff with LEGO" editor, and I've always posited that's its *strength* rather than a real weakness.