: First let me say I am not the type of Halo fan that enjoys bitching about
: personal preferences they have changed with the franchise that I do not
: like. Most times that I have come here in the past year or two (in my
: opinion) people have some kind of problem with story, or the direction
: that the mechanics are going with Halo. I have always just internalized my
: issues as I figured whatever came next would still be fun.

: I can honestly say that the failure of this patch to improve matchmaking has
: honestly made me question if I will continue to seek out Halo in the
: future.

: It truly saddens me because Halo has been an enormous part of my life since
: college. Some of my best friends that I have I met through Halo. In
: addition to that, I am a fairly avid collector of Halo. (I have all the
: Halo Xboxes, All the print media, the new A40 Headset, and I even have the
: damn snowboard hanging on the wall behind me)

: I have always directly equated Halo with fun. Now that is quickly becoming
: not the case... All the collecting I have done has been an extension of
: the fun I equated with the experience of playing the games. With out that
: It feels very hollow now.

I too don't think that there's any one specific thing that makes Halo what it is. As the games progressed, the combat evolved, the universe grew, and the story's direction changed. And I was okay with that. It's odd to look back on it now and think of the days when people's minds were blown that Bungie wasn't staying faithful to the characterizations from Halo 2, or years later when the biggest crisis was that Reach wasn't being faithful to The Fall of Reach... The gameplay was still solid fun, and for the most part, the universe was cohesive in the sense that we wanted a sphere, but it was developing growths and edges while still retaining a round shape. And yet, it was still recognizable. It was still fun...

And when Halo 4 came out, I stood by 343's decision to appeal to the Call of Duty market by updating the gameplay, changing the abilities, adding loadouts and killstreaks, and was even okay with the introduction of generic "Forerunner" weaponry, because I found the gameplay to be solid and fun, and I had faith that despite some freshman stumbles, 343 no doubt could still pull it off, because after all, they had all of Bungie's assets, right?

But there were clear hitches. The File share didn't work, there was no campaign theater, the forge was gimped, basic things such as Emblems were tied to an annoying unlock system, and not only were the DLC maps weak, but then we had the entire "14 Day Buy and Play" garbage that opened my eyes to a horrible truth: 343 wasn't in charge of Halo, Microsoft was. 343 was merely the figurehead. They were merely the udder to Microsoft's farmer, and the people wanted milk. The features that Bungie had been developing, refining, and enhancing weren't important anymore. They took a back seat to the multiplayer, or more importantly, to ensure that the people kept playing the multiplayer...

This became more evident when the population of Halo 4 dropped greatly once Black Ops 2 was released. Desperate to please MS and retain a significant online population (because the flat-out lazy investment system wasn't cutting it), 343 threw years of playtesting, tuning, and balancing out the window in favor of listening to a crowd that specializes in a limited sandbox; the MLG folks that have a lot of stream followers. Surely having their approval would mean more numbers right? The problem was those are the folks that hop from one game to another, not the crowd that has been there for the universe. Not the crowd that is willing to buy a snowboard just because it has Halo on it. And that's the problem.
When a guy has proven his skill and love for the Halo universe (Leviathan) is passed over in favor of some random guy who has a lot of viewers and skill with precision weapons, or when the fundamentals of a game that they did not make are changed to appease the competitive crowd (Reach), that's when you realize that "fun" isn't as important as "bottom line", and these days, that bottom line is Population. And what the kids want, the kids get, and a huge number of those never played Halo 1. A hge number of those never played Halo 2, and odds are those people don't care too much for the campaign, because that's not where the market is anymore. That's not the "fun" that they're focusing on now.

The fact that MCC is being ripped apart for a non-functional online is evidence of that. Forget the fact that you're getting four campaigns with enhanced features and achievements. Forget the fact that two of those campaigns are getting cosmetic and audio overhauls. Nope. The online multiplayer doesn't work, and that makes this entire collection a massive failure. And 343 is crapping their pants, because they thought it would be easy to wave off a non-functional online mode, because surely the campaigns speak for themselves. After all, the folks who bought an Xbox just for Halo are going to gobble it up, right?

But that can't be it. Surely 343 isn't THAT lazy... But they're not the ones in charge, remember?
Microsoft is losing the console war 5 to 1 against Sony. They need something to push consoles, and a Campaign game isn't going to do it. Offer them Halo 1 multiplayer! Offer them Halo 2 multiplayer! (But make sure you combine all of them into one playlist so they'll play longer to try to find a game in the game they like...). It doesn't matter if it doesn't work at launch, they need to push consoles NOW NOW NOW! And it worked. All of the people stupid enough to buy an Xbox One just to play these games online feel ripped off, but they bought the console, so Microsoft is happy... except they're not. Whatever they were expecting, a trainwreck wasn't on that list, but a trainwreck is what the online has proven to be...

And that's what's important, right? The online. The multiplayer. The player population.

Not the campaign. Not the evolving gameplay. Not the universe. Not the fun.

: I am not going to start screaming "Screw 343" from the roof tops
: because I have no earthly idea what issues are plaguing the game on the
: back end. I am not a video game developer, or a network admin. I am a
: consumer and the only standards I have are: Does it work? (if so) Is it
: fun?

As someone told me, when the game works, it's great... New bugs aside, the games are still a blast, even if my suspicions were proven right in that the gameplay of Halo 2 did not age well at all...

: 1. It may be time to start spinning up ideas on their end of compensation via
: a refund or some other gesture.

Free Avatar flood pet for everyone who bought the game thus far? A custom Mister Chief drawing for whoever waited the longest to find a multiplayer match?

Given 343's track record, and the fact that Microsoft is pulling the strings, the odds of compensation are really low. What could they do? One sneaky thing could be to extend the Halo 5 multiplayer Beta (Wow, you really care about the players)... But that might be too audacious...

: 2. (In my opinion) The Halo brand has taken a fairly substantial hit from all
: this. Especially with the core fan base. What if anything can be done to
: undo the damage?

In a lot of people's eyes, the Halo brand has long been taking fairly substantial hits, whether its the divide over bloom, the disappointing nature of Halo 4, the flat-out lies told by 343, and now this... And that's without even mentioning the mediocre Nightfall and god-awful voice acting, writing, and art direction...

: I just don't know... I mean, I know it is a game. But, this game has been a
: core part of my fun and free time for a decade and more and I feel like
: that time might be gone now.

The Halo universe was my Star Wars. It was my Star Trek. My BSG... My teen years revolved around the universe, and the gameplay, and the friends... 343 doesn't see that. And it's funny, because I remember being a doe-eyed lad picking up his Halo 2 issue of the Official Xbox Magazine, when Frankie worked for them, and being as stoked as the folks at OXM seemed to be about the game, because the game was going to be ambitious. It was going to evolve, and it was going to be fun...

Now, it's all 60 frames this, arena style focus that... The love of Halo is gone...

: I hope I am wrong.

I look at my Halo 3 helmet, at the Reach statue, and the CQB helmet lovingly made for me by a fellow HBOer, and I still love Halo. It has been a fixture in my life, regardless of what my life has been like outside of the escapism, so I have always wanted 343 to succeed. I've always wanted them to GET Halo... But they clearly aren't crafting the world for people like me. I'm not a streamer. I'm not MLG. I'm not someone who is competitive, or who will grind to unlock everything. I'm someone who loves Halo, but not enough to throw my money blindly at them... Not anymore, anyway.

At this point, if 343 were to refund me the two season passes that I paid for Halo 4, I won't feel as ripped off, and I still hope to see where they go with it, to see if I get some fun out of Halo 5, or Halo 6, or one of the extended universe novels... But I'm not giving them another cent, and I'm not so easily manipulated by Microsoft into buying a console just for Halo... Not this time.