Yeah, if it's too difficult to figure out how to make an account here, odds are you might not be someone who needs to share their thoughts... Generalizing, of course, but come on, all it takes is a tiny bit of reading (although some folks who never should have figured it out pretty easily).

: That's just it, though. Many folks have moved on to other things. The video
: game landscape has changed so much. Halo isn't what it used to be, and
: that's not a dig at 343i; it would be true if Bungie was still in charge.
: Halo is no longer the most popular shooter that is defining the genre.
: This place will never again be like it was in the lead up to Halo 2. It
: just won't happen. I think there's too much going on in gaming for Halo to
: take over like it did before. Too much competition for folks' time.

Yeah. It was a recent point of discussion that 99.9% of anyone with a worthwhile thought has long left this forum (Most folks are on DBO now). There are some great folks that still lurk here, and it's always a joy to see them pop up from time to time (see Ducain's post above), and Gr1m hasn't quite given up on this place (but maybe that's because he has to deal with the Waypoint forums), but for the most part, it's sad that the forum has become a small echo chamber for the "that's offensive" Tumblr crowd and Snipe crying about the good old days. And that bums me out, but it was inevitable once the gaming landscape changed.
The sad thing is that Halo 5 might be the beacon of hope that merits discussion, dissection, and community creativity, but most people that I talk to about it aren't going to get it, and it's sad, because many of those were fantastic community members. Some of it is 343's fault, some of the fault lies in better games coming out, and some of it's just franchise fatigue.
Who knows. Some of us are holding on to hope, though, and this has always been our relevant base of operations. So we'll see.

: I don't see anything wrong with this place, though. It what was always going
: to happen. Things change and fade away; the people that are here are the
: folks that really love Halo and want the best from it.

Yeah, for the most part that's true (of course sometimes we have to deal with trolly retards like Car-15, or someone like Bounce-A-Gon who contributes pretty much nothing but snark and subject-only posts), some of the old guard haven't given up. We love the Universe that Bungie created and built, and we hope to reconcile that as best we can with the dudebro that now owns the deed to the Universe.
343 may have a lousy record with Halo, and they may have added many nails to the coffin (death of LAN, split screen, and probably campaign films), but if the community can create, and the stories begin to be interesting again (they have Staten back, for what that's worth), then Halo may come back to life for many folks. And at this point, what more could one ask for?