No ODST firefight?

[clonegunner237]

Exactly What It Says On The Tin. I'm wondering, with all of this coming out, why Halo 3: ODST in particular loses out on features such as firefight. Why skimp on this particular detail instead of taking a little bit longer to get everything in right?

[vegan cookies]

Publicado originalmente por Shallex:

Publicado originalmente por vegan cookies:

I'm really confused, everyone keeps saying the following:
They are releasing the games in order
They are releasing reach first.

Surely Halo: Combat Evolved would be the first to be released, not reach? I don't see how the two above statements can both be true.

they are releasing the games in chronological order by which the in-game plots take place. Reach is a prequel to Combat Evolved, thus Reach comes first

Oh awesome, I've only played 1 and 2, will look forward to it!

[TROGDOR]

Publicado originalmente por Tagemoss:

^ they've said that many times, it's not in the mcc on consoles, that's what pees me off, the generic reponses.

evaluate
consider
not something we're working on right now
low priority
if there's time
time permitting
throwing the idea around
we hear you and it's being looked into
etc..

ughh..a simple yes or no would do but these devs / cmans never seem to give a straight answer, it's like asking your local mp something and they give you an answer that isn't even what your asked for. it's not just 343 it's all devs, they all do it, it's why i stopped playing lots of games because there was NO support.

It's not like a politician's mealy-mouthed weasel words. It's an honest answer because this is a monumental effort with all the working parts of 7 separate games, multiple of which are being ported to a completely different architecture.

It is ultimately a business decision that is going to be constantly evaluated & re-evaluated and decided as they go along depending on many ongoing factors subject to change.

-Technical challenges, both expected and unforeseeable that will be encountered in porting each game's engine and its various features to PC hardware. Every hurdle will take time & money that might make it not possible to implement X, Y or Z, particularly if one feature isn't vital but presents a large challenge that will be expensive to fix.

-limitations of their own development time and headcount that need to be managed to a budget by a limited headcount, on meeting reasonable timeframes in which to be able to deliver products that perform well both technically and in sales. It's a balancing act, they can't necessarily do everything.

-Rate of player uptake & sales. If the releases don't sell to their expectations, or if multiplayer usage drops off, they might reconsider the degree to which they will make each title performant & feature-complete or support post-release. Which is probably the biggest reason they don't want to allow sales of the whole bundle by pre-order, as they may even decide not to proceed with porting every title if sales are tanking.


The reason why you don't get "simple yes or no" answers is because the questions aren't as simple as you seem to think they are. In the context of development of this many titles, the presence of features in a title that is 2-4 projects down the line or specifics of their business strategy in months to come is very much a how long is a piece of string kind of proposition.

The answer really and genuinely is variations of "it depends". If the technical hurdles are handled in due course without disaster and the games sell amazingly as they're released, then probably no features will be off the table and you'll likely have a smorgasboard of features in post-release support. If the uptake isn't great, you'll probably see some compromises. The best way for the Halo community on PC to get everything 343i may be "considering" really is to support the games on release, as it has to make business sense for them to give you what they want or it won't happen.

It might also be why they're quite vocal about getting mod support in if it can be done without great cost, as if they can get even that in on a compromised budget potentially they could do a Bethesda on it and leave it to the community to lead the way on how the title develops post-release and 343i can decide how they want to use their resources in post-release support then. The steam release alone speaks to this. The whole Halo catalogue on Steam Workshop is a very exciting prospect.