How 343 treats halo - General

there's aspects of 343's halo I like, I legitimately love the Forerunner Trilogy novels and Kilo-Five is pretty good. however the butchering of the art design is just incomprehensible to me. bungie halo, especially 3, got the military scifi vibe [I]perfectly.[/I] weird plastic armor and greeble weapons, indefensible redesigns of the covenant races, i just don't get it. i do like the way prometheans look but they don't fit the forerunner aesthetic at all compared to the sentinels or even the constructors from halo 5. the general random floaty bits and blue glow forerunner structures got doesn't majorly bother me, the megastructures look alright but having things like the guardians be composed of a billion floaty bits looks silly as hell. i don't want to get too deep into the human starship redesigns but while i dont like infinity at least it's a new ship model, "updating" the forward unto dawn for no fucking reason to look like something from a different franchise makes no sense.

[QUOTE=Zeos;52726168][img]https://news.microsoft.com/stories/halo5/_media/images/02-history/halo-5-elites.jpg[/img] Like, what the fuck. Not pictured: The fact that the Halo 5 ones are like, double in mass and now walk like gorillas for some reason[/QUOTE] This is the main reason I lost interest in Halo as a series. I loved the covenant, I would always use Covenant weapons, I loved the Covenant vehicles and environments. The Elites were like my favourite part of Halo as a kid- I remember Literally putting down my controller and cheering when I was playing Halo 2 and found out you could play as one. The whole arc they went through, losing their faith and joining forces with humanity was just perfect imo- but now it just looks like they bunglefucked their design and pulled out some lore bullshit in order to make them the faceless baddies again? The plot focus seems to have shifted from under-dog humanity vs sleek alien fanatics uncovering awe inspiring alien constructs steeped in beyond ancient lore- towards bad-ass cod-in-spaaaace humanity with it's boring drama and new horrible weapon/armour design- with the Forerunners no longer being Humans from the distant past and instead just being another bunch of aliens to add to the list of antagonists that only exist so you have something to shoot.

Forerunners haven't been Humans since Halo 3. Contrary to what Guilty Spark says, some choice words from the Halo 3 Terminals refer to Humans as a separate species. Then there's Cradle of Life from the IRIS ARG: [IMG]https://www.halopedia.org/images/4/40/Halo_3_Comic_-1.JPG[/IMG] [IMG]https://www.halopedia.org/images/1/1b/Halo_3_Comic_-2.JPG[/IMG] [IMG]https://www.halopedia.org/images/2/2b/Halo_3_Comic_-3.JPG[/IMG] [IMG]https://www.halopedia.org/images/f/f1/Halo_3_Comic_-4.JPG[/IMG] A surprising amount of the most controversial parts of 343's lore actually came from Bungie, and it's worth noting that Frank O'Connor, who had a large part in writing both the Halo 3 Terminals and the IRIS ARG, was one of 343's first employees. So as much as 343 is a steaming pile of shit that changes everything that doesn't need to be changed, Humans no longer being Forerunners wasn't their fault.

The thing is, it was never established whether Humans were Forerunners or whether Humans were just their chosen descendants. That doesn't mean Humans were a hyper advanced species rivaling the Forerunners.

right around when halo 3 was coming out, i was really into the halo lore and read all the extended universe stuff, terminals, etc. i spent hours just reading the halo wiki. my information might be outdated but at least iirc the humans were never forerunners, but were chosen by the forerunners when humanity was very young as the 'successors' to the forerunners. im pretty sure this was confirmed in ghosts of onyx but im not 100%

[QUOTE=Zeos;52724483]Everything about ancient humans creating the flood and de-evolution and proto-covenant spanning across hundreds of thousands of years is so fucking stupid it's incredible[/QUOTE] When the fuck did that happen? Also yeah, i don't want to write up a 10,000 word essay detailing every facet of their incompetence, but suffice to say that storywise, 343 managed to literally fuck up on [I]every single part[/I] of halo, such to the degree that they literally to the [I]precise and absolute opposite[/I] of how bungie did it, and still come off "looking" like halo. I can't even chalk it up to incompetence anymore, this kind of catastrophic butchery has reached a level where it just has to be deliberate and willful. I genuinely cannot imagine how you could do what they've done any other way

Eldewrito is going to make halo great again. [url]https://www.reddit.com/r/HaloOnline/[/url] I actually recognize some of the people working on this project, back when I first started making custom levels back in halo ce.

[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;52731538]When the fuck did that happen? Also yeah, i don't want to write up a 10,000 word essay detailing every facet of their incompetence, but suffice to say that storywise, 343 managed to literally fuck up on [I]every single part[/I] of halo, such to the degree that they literally to the [I]precise and absolute opposite[/I] of how bungie did it, and still come off "looking" like halo. I can't even chalk it up to incompetence anymore, this kind of catastrophic butchery has reached a level where it just has to be deliberate and willful. I genuinely cannot imagine how you could do what they've done any other way[/QUOTE] He's got the basics right, but it's not accurate. The story of Halo as told by 343 goes something like this: Life in the Milky Way galaxy is seeded by an ancient, godly and mysterious race known as the Precursors, who are advanced enough that their tech is organic and strangely indestructible. At one point they split one of the species resulting from the seeding into two; becoming Humans and Forerunners. The Forerunners are chosen to act as stewards and warriors for the Precursors, and eventually the Precursors decide to hand down the "Mantle of Responsibility", the authority to govern over life, to Humans instead of Forerunners. The Forerunners get pissed and kill off the Precursors, and the few remaining Precursors devolve themselves into a powder form that can eventually rebuild them. Over time radiation corrupts the powder, and it is eventually discovered by either Humans or San'Shyuum, who have formed a close alliance due to their home systems being closeby. The Precursor ships are plundered for their goods, and the powder is used illegally as livestock feed, which leads to a full-scale Flood outbreak. The Flood begins outpacing containment in Human systems and begins invading Forerunner worlds, which are then glassed to prevent the parasite from spreading. The Forerunners, unaware of the Flood due to Humanity destroying every trace of it, think they're being waged war on and retaliate. A "cure" for the Flood is found, and a third of the remaining Human population is sacrificed as bait to kill off the Flood and it retreats (it's implied that there may have been no cure and the Flood was playing 4D chess). After the San'Shyuum betray Humanity, the Forerunners win the "war" against Humanity on Charum Hakkor, a world filled with Precursor artifacts that had allowed them to hold out so long, and the final few Humans remaining are spared at the Librarian's request in the event the Flood was real. Soon afterwards, the Flood returns and begins invading Forerunner worlds oncemore. The Forerunners desperately try to come up with ideas to stop them as their power is challenged. The Ur-Didact, who led the war against Humanity, proposes massive Dyson Spheres to shelter the Forerunners and from which they can wage war against. The head of the Forerunner council, Faber, proposes the Halo Array to sterilise the galaxy and that the Shield Worlds would be used as safe havens for various species. The Ur-Didact objects to the planned genocide and is exiled. Before his conflict with Faber began, the two had digitized the minds of the remaining Humans that were part of the administration to search for any information on the cure. None is found, and the minds are repurposed into the Contender-class Forerunner AI Mendicant Bias, who is tasked with interrogating a Precursor prisoner trapped underneath Charum Hakkor known as the Primordial. Ten thousand years after the exile, the Ur-Didact is awakened by a young, rebellious Forerunner by the name of Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Lasting to find that the Forerunner empire is on the verge of collapse as the Flood's previously small gains are beginning to compound. The Ur-Didact is pursued by Faber, forgotten why but the guy had gone insane, and Bornstellar transitions to adulthood using the Ur-Didact's genetic imprint (usually it's the father of the Forerunner that does it, but matters were too urgent). They get caught by Faber, the Didact is presumably killed, and Bornstellar takes the moniker of Iso-Didact and takes on his role. Faber is held to trial at the Forerunner capital of Maethrillian for his crimes of murder and test-firing a Halo above Charum Hakkor, which due to Precursor tech being organic, released the Primordial. Mendicant Bias shows up at the trial corrupted by the Primordial, and few are able to escape before everyone there is killed. The Iso-Didact escaped to the Greater Ark, a mostly-defunct installation where the Librarian catalogued species for preservation. By this point the Flood has begun making Keyminds, massive planet-scale Flood infestations devoted to turning the fabric of reality against the Forerunners. The Forerunners had two Arks, the Greater and Lesser Arks. The Greater Ark was used to create the first Halo rings, all of which were destroyed except for one which was suitable for being repurposed into the new array as Installation 07 (side-note, Installation 04B is now Installation 08 if you wanted more reasons to be mad). The Ur-Didact, having been captured by the Primordial (don't know the lore on what happened here, I'm not reading Silentium) is driven insane and convinces his army to be Composed and use their minds as AIs to drive their new bodies, creating the Prometheans, finally giving the Forerunners a slight edge over the Flood. It wasn't enough for him, and he turned to the preserved Humans as a source for more power by composing them, an act of revenge for bringing the Flood to the Forerunners. The Primordial somehow merges with a Gravemind and is imprinted on every Flood cell, so now every Gravemind is him or something. The Librarian, angered at the Ur-Didact's betrayal, infiltrates his ship, subdues him and seals him away inside Requiem. Didn't mention it before, but there's a Precursor construct called the Domain that acts as space internet. Her intent was that he would use the time sealed inside Requiem to reflect on his actions with the help of the Domain and help Humanity later on become the Reclaimers. Mendicant Bias shows up again and destroys the Greater Ark, and the last of the Forerunner's navy is destroyed. Only 40,000 Forerunners managed to survive this assault and make it to the Lesser Ark, with the Forerunner capital destroyed and Slipspace being turned against them there is no hope for evacuating to the Shield Worlds. The few species that had managed to be indexed by the Librarian would remain on the Lesser Ark as the Forerunners reseeded life later on. The Librarian constructs the portal to the Ark on Earth and acts as a diversion for the Flood, claiming she has knowledge of the cure, and is caught in the firing of the Halo array. Since the Halo array destroys all life, it conveniently destroyed all Precursor artifacts and ruined the Domain so the Didact only got more twisted and insane in the 100,000 years between the firing and Halo 4. The remaining Forerunners, ashamed of what they had done, went their separate ways and left the Milky Way. Everything after that goes exactly how it went in Bungie's games. Mendicant Bias' repentance, the crashing of the Dreadnought on Janjur Qom, the forming of the Covenant, the interplanetary war, the insurgency, etc have remained mostly untouched. Check the wiki page out if you want 100% accuracy. [url]https://www.halopedia.org/Halo_universe#History[/url]

[QUOTE=AbbaDee;52731609]good plot synopsis[/QUOTE] You should read Silentium tbh, it's the best of the forerunner trilogy and makes the flood really, really scary

[QUOTE=AnonymaPizza;52731590]Eldewrito is going to make halo great again. [url]https://www.reddit.com/r/HaloOnline/[/url] I actually recognize some of the people working on this project, back when I first started making custom levels back in halo ce.[/QUOTE] I'm hoping that mentioning ElDewrito enough brings back that one guy who had the most autismal butthurt directed at him

[QUOTE=Dr.C;52732875]I'm hoping that mentioning ElDewrito enough brings back that one guy who had the most autismal butthurt directed at him[/QUOTE] Ooh please tell us more

[QUOTE=AbbaDee;52731609]He's got the basics right, but it's not accurate. The story of Halo as told by 343 goes something like this: [/QUOTE] This is so fundimentally wrong on every level from a storytelling perspective i don't even know where to begin. Like, the flood is supposed to represent archtypical chaos, that's why it's called [I]the flood[/I]. Every culture in the world has a flood story, it's supposed to represent the potential threats of reality itself, or the potential breakdown of a society due to neglect of it's citizens. That's why the flood was this unknowable threat from some ungodly corner of the universe that just shows up and wrecks shit, and will destroy any unprepared civilization, and only [I]damage[/I] a civilization that remains perpetually vigilant. That's what a flood story is, and why the corrupt and distracted covenent society in the middle of a civil war immidiately falls, and the orderly and strictly militarized human society is able to contain the flood when they reach earth. But no, let's turn that into something out of seinfeld in space, where jimmy neutron acidentally powederizes an advanced civilization, feeds them to cows and creates zombies or something. It's literally the oldest story that human beings have. Every naitive tribe in north america has a flood story that's [I]at least[/I] 15,000 years old. There's desert dwelling tribes in the middle of areas that haven't seen a flood in 100,000 years, and [I]they[/I] have a fucking flood story that's identical to everyone else's. It's literally the oldest story that human beings have, and 343 manages to fuck it up, convinced that they can improve it. Jesus christ what the fuck is wrong with these people.

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;52732884]Ooh please tell us more[/QUOTE] [url]https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1457589&page=2[/url] Crappy mods deleted his posts but you can still read them through the quotes

[QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;52732896]This is so fundimentally wrong on every level from a storytelling perspective i don't even know where to begin. [QUOTE=Trilby Harlow;52732896]Like, the flood is supposed to represent archtypical chaos, that's why it's called [I]the flood[/I]. Every culture in the world has a flood story, it's supposed to represent the potential threats of reality itself, or the potential breakdown of a society due to neglect of it's citizens. That's why the flood was this unknowable threat from some ungodly corner of the universe that just shows up and wrecks shit, and will destroy any unprepared civilization, and only [I]damage[/I] a civilization that remains perpetually vigilant. That's what a flood story is, and why the corrupt and distracted covenent society in the middle of a civil war immidiately falls, and the orderly and strictly militarized human society is able to contain the flood when they reach earth. But no, let's turn that into something out of seinfeld in space, where jimmy neutron acidentally powederizes an advanced civilization, feeds them to cows and creates zombies or something. It's literally the oldest story that human beings have. Every naitive tribe in north america has a flood story that's [I]at least[/I] 15,000 years old. There's desert dwelling tribes in the middle of areas that haven't seen a flood in 100,000 years, and [I]they[/I] have a fucking flood story that's identical to everyone else's. It's literally the oldest story that human beings have, and 343 manages to fuck it up, convinced that they can improve it. Jesus christ what the fuck is wrong with these people.[/QUOTE] The orderly and strictly militarized human society is able to contain the floo- what? [video=youtube;VSWzo47MTQ8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSWzo47MTQ8[/video] 2:40 The UNSC was utterly fucked by the Covenant's siege on Earth. The only reason the Flood outbreak was contained was because Rtas 'Vadum showed up and, without the permission of the UNSC, glassed the continent of Africa. The only way to stop the Flood is to starve them to death or cleanse the infestation. No one is spared from the parasite, not even the Forerunners could stand up to it with millennia of preparation and planning. If you somehow manage to evade the Flood - when it has fed off your neighbours, be they a system or a galaxy away, it comes for you next and it shows no mercy. With the exception of the "cure" and Johnson's DNA altering (which was thoroughly nuked from the canon by both Bungie and 343), there is nothing that can help you. The Flood is named not after Earth's various flood myths, but the flood myth of the Bible - it's part of a series of references throughout the entire series to the Biblical story. The Flood, the Ark, the Covenant, among others. The Flood in 343's version of the mythos serves to strengthen this connection - it's created by those that filled the Galaxy with life, a manifestation of their worst traits in an all-consuming act of vengeance on those who turned against them, the Forerunners, who only survived by the construction of the Ark. As awful as the idea of the Precursors turning themselves into powder was, the Flood is still thematically consistent in both the original trilogy and the Forerunner trilogy.

[quote](which was thoroughly nuked from the canon by both Bungie and 343)[/quote] So the easter egg of getting Johnson infected by Flood and him going, "Ain't I immune to this?" is basically pointless now, great.

[QUOTE=AbbaDee;52733528] The UNSC was utterly fucked by the Covenant's siege on Earth. [/QUOTE] But they endured that, and contained the flood, yes. [QUOTE] The Flood is named not after Earth's various flood myths, but the flood myth of the Bible[/QUOTE] You're literally saying "No it's not an archetypal story using mythological mechanics, it's an archetypal story using mythological mechanics!" Though Halo is obviously drawn specifically from western cannon, one way or the other that doesn't change a single thing i said

[QUOTE=RikohZX;52733590]So the easter egg of getting Johnson infected by Flood and him going, "Ain't I immune to this?" is basically pointless now, great.[/QUOTE] Well in the books, it was said that he stole a shitload of plasma grenades in a raid on the covenant and the collective radiation from them messed up his nervous system and made him immune to the flood's attempts to control him

[QUOTE=Mio Akiyama;52727025][t]https://shadowofthevoid.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/grunt-comparison02.png[/t][/QUOTE] [t]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/54/05/da/5405dac4b6b3eed1c2dace057e6a821a.jpg[/t] I always wondered why the curl back Grunts from Halo 1 never made it into the other games

[QUOTE=Dr.C;52734029]Well in the books, it was said that he stole a shitload of plasma grenades in a raid on the covenant and the collective radiation from them messed up his nervous system and made him immune to the flood's attempts to control him[/QUOTE] Pretty sure this is [sp]a cover story made up by ONI[/sp], because Johnson [sp]is a SPARTAN-I candidate, back when it was called project ORION, and the program's genetic modifications messed up his body so badly that he is effectively inmune to the Flood[/sp]

[QUOTE=StrykerE;52734165][t]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/54/05/da/5405dac4b6b3eed1c2dace057e6a821a.jpg[/t] I always wondered why the curl back Grunts from Halo 1 never made it into the other games[/QUOTE] IIRC they're in Reach

[QUOTE=richard9311;52724894]obligatory [video=youtube;6qfx9eoB-88]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qfx9eoB-88[/video][/QUOTE] This is so depressing. Hearing Bungie saying "it's not good enough" and then 343 "This is the best game ever made", or Bungie going "everything has to make sense and have a reason or it won't work" and 343 "Well we put them in because it looks cool". I'm not even a giant Halo fan but you can tell the love that Bungie has for their baby and 343 is just...weird. :s:

[QUOTE=kariko;52734543]This is so depressing. Hearing Bungie saying "it's not good enough" and then 343 "This is the best game ever made", or Bungie going "everything has to make sense and have a reason or it won't work" and 343 "Well we put them in because it looks cool". I'm not even a giant Halo fan but you can tell the love that Bungie has for their baby and 343 is just...weird. :s:[/QUOTE] I normally am skeptical of some of CrowbCat's videos but it's sad how he hit the nail square on the head with that video. It's so obvious 343 has no idea what made Halo, well, Halo. With the Bungie games, it was clear that each game had a soul, and 343's games when put side to side to Bungie's games only aim to check the same checkboxes.

[QUOTE=kariko;52734543]This is so depressing. Hearing Bungie saying "it's not good enough" and then 343 "This is the best game ever made", or Bungie going "everything has to make sense and have a reason or it won't work" and 343 "Well we put them in because it looks cool". I'm not even a giant Halo fan but you can tell the love that Bungie has for their baby and 343 is just...weird. :s:[/QUOTE] It actually illustrates the difference between a decent game and a great game. For Bungie, if they wanted something cool, they would first ask, how does it service the gameplay. They focused on making the game fun first, and the cool shit was just consequential to that.

[QUOTE=SpartanXC9;52734337]IIRC they're in Reach[/QUOTE] Nah, Reach had some different variations with the cylinder tank and "rabbit ear" booster thingys [t]http://i34.tinypic.com/2ry3kfq.jpg[/t]

I really wish MS would scoop up some of the old Bungie crowd and would just make a MP-focused classic Halo game. Treat it like a service instead of half of a game. Halo 5 does a lot right in MP, but it also does a lot wrong.