The Halo 3 beta came and kicked our ass and we loved every minute of it. But what will Bungie change after it's done crunching the massive amount of information collected from the multiplayer test?
There's not too long to go in the grand scheme of things before all work on Halo 3 comes to an end. The game goes on sale September 26 sharp and we're hearing whispers that the studio is gearing up for some sort of single player reveal in the coming weeks. Whether that turns out to be something special at E3 or something on the side, we'll just have to wait and see.
First things first though - how did the Beta perform from Bungie's point of view? Read on for an exclusive interview with writing lead Frank O'Connor about how th einfo gathered from the Beta will be used to make Halo 3 a better game.
What was the most surprising piece of info you learnt from the beta?
Frank O'Connor: That a significant number of people thought the Needler was underpowered. Hint: It's not. Seriously though, there were so many varied, and occasionally conflicting opinions, it's hard to say that we were genuinely surprised by anything other than the sheer wealth of data we gathered. The speed at which people ranked up was pretty interesting, however.
Was any map or game mode vetoed enough to cause concern at Bungie? (cough, Snowbound)
O'Connor: Cough, no. Snowbound holds up very well as a medium sized map, and our stats right now would place it as a popular map - but the game types we often associated with it in the game type are ones that we've already made significant changes too. Stuff like King of the Hill has been improved dramatically.
Now that it's over, is there anything you would've done differently?
O'Connor: There's stuff we wish hadn't happened, like the 11 hour Crackdown delay - but honestly we couldn't have done anything about that. The only way to test it was to roll it out there. I think the extra weekend we added more than made up for the 11 hours, but it still sucked.
Based on the data you've collected, will you be making significant changes to the final game?
O'Connor: Of course. A lot of them, networking code, UI and flow functionality and so on, will probably be invisible. But we will be tweaking weapons, game modes and spawn points for some time to come. The Beta will make the final product better. That's a fact.
Was anyone annoyed by the leaking of the custom games, achievement data etc?
O'Connor: Well, folks were annoyed by all of that stuff, until they found ways to circumvent it.... Honestly though, when we start to get equally vocal complaints that item X is too powerful, and that item X is too weak, then we know we're headed in the direction of balance, at least.
You can read CVG's final thoughts on the Beta here, but it's safe to say that a blast was had by all.
Why are CVG humouring Bungie!. Who the f**k cares about some sales gimmick?!?!?!. Halos multiplayer has always been...well i wouldnt say excellent but above par. It the single player game that sucks!. Lets hope they learned something from Halo2, boring repetitivenes does not make a good game!. We want something new or the game will fail!.
Your in a minority regarding the multplayer matey ,it's certainly very good and Halo 3 should be unbeatable frankly in this area.
Your right though concerning the campaign for Halo2 - it was a smart game in single play that boasted even more evolved combat mechanics and refinements.It did however fall way short of the brilliant first game's scale and epicness - i believed Halo 1 not ever questioning that i was just playing a game.Far less so for the second.
If your just saying that both Halo 1 and 2 sucked then that would clearly be wrong.
No thats not what im saying, Halo 1 was good, I have the PC and Xbox version. Im just saying that the multiplayer wasnt what id call fantastic. It was good, and complimented the game well. But it wasnt the reason i bought Halo in the first place. Deathmatch, Team deathmatch, CTF theyve all been done before, and you expect a FPS to have them in multiplayer.
On the whole this is just a sales gimmick to improve interest in the game after the dissapointing Halo2. It says nothing about what Halo 3 will be like as a single player game what-so-ever. Wich is where Halo 2 was poor in quality.
Im not saying its going to be crap, im just saying dont judge it from what we have seen so far.
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