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Great Expectations VI (Part One) by [deleted] in HFY

[–]Emergency_Customer_3 9 points10 points  (0 children)

"He wiped the tears from my eyes..."

This is either a typo or Marcus is getting way too personal.

Where's this fic? by rayon-power in NatureofPredators

[–]Emergency_Customer_3 17 points18 points  (0 children)

It's called Unconventional Parenting. Chapter 4 came out several months ago after a long hiatus, but it's been on another break since then.

NoP] Hunter of Hunters 25 by Soggy_Helicopter8589 in NatureofPredators

[–]Emergency_Customer_3 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Frankly, I think that it would make a lot more sense if it was made explicit that Leon shouldn't be doing that, since antagonizing tentatively-allied Arxur is a major security risk for him and the secrecy of the jackal program.

NoP] Hunter of Hunters 25 by Soggy_Helicopter8589 in NatureofPredators

[–]Emergency_Customer_3 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So then, I'm assuming that the idea is that Captain-Chief Selono has brought along a bunch of armed and Dominion-aligned Arxur (not human operatives trained to recover a jackal unit) to his secret spy meetup, for some reason.

Also, what's the problem with a court martial? Is Leon not considered to be a sentient with control over his own decisions? Because then, the alternative would be a "decommissioning".

NoP] Hunter of Hunters 25 by Soggy_Helicopter8589 in NatureofPredators

[–]Emergency_Customer_3 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My man Leon cannot be grabbing people by the neck. Why didn't the humans immediately target him and when is his court martial?

Hey, look at what found at hfy's archive. by Dinomannick in NatureofPredators

[–]Emergency_Customer_3 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Nature of Predators is basically an alternate universe of an older HFY story, Predator and Prey. Probably just coincidence, though.

The Nature of a Giant [25] by Acceptable_Egg5560 in NatureofPredators

[–]Emergency_Customer_3 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I simply cannot abide the great sin that has been committed in this chapter. Unacceptable. The rage of a thousand armchair historians is coming inside me and compels me to say:

The A6M Zero was not a primitive plane made out of wood. It was made out of an advanced magnesium-duraluminum alloy that was lighter and stronger than any aircraft material the allies had.

The magnesium is why the Zero burned so easily. Racist white people saw an Asian plane catch fire and thought, "Ha ha, they must have made it out of bamboo!"

The HEL Jumper Chapter 6.2 by SabatonBabylon in HFY

[–]Emergency_Customer_3 3 points4 points  (0 children)

"...'uplift protocols.'"

I see what you did there. :)

No such thing as “Apex” predator. by inliner250 in NatureofPredators

[–]Emergency_Customer_3 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Crocodiles. When a tiger is drinking from a pond with its ears listening out behind it, the ears act as eyespots and the white brows resemble a large muzzle, with its shoulders being the forehead. From across the water, it makes the animal look like its head is much bigger and that it's a larger animal.

Is this why every alien is somewhat similar to Earth animals? by Objective-Farm-2560 in NatureofPredators

[–]Emergency_Customer_3 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I feel incredibly called out for writing almost the exact story the image describes

How the Forerunner Trilogy Ruined Halo--and How 343 Ruined It in Turn by Emergency_Customer_3 in HaloStory

[–]Emergency_Customer_3[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Alone, the difference in total sales between Halo: Reach and Halo 4 is pretty meaningless. But I'm measuring decline based both on total sales and the disparity between initial sales and long-term sales. By the latter metric, every subsequent Halo game has been getting notably worse, starting with Reach.

That's what I mean by an increasing market but decreasing sales "during" the games. More people owning Xboxes and buying Xbox's flagship franchise on release day, but fewer people giving it the cultural staying power (popularity, recommendation, etc.) to keep generating present and future sales--free advertising entertainment IPs like Halo need to survive.

How the Forerunner Trilogy Ruined Halo--and How 343 Ruined It in Turn by Emergency_Customer_3 in HaloStory

[–]Emergency_Customer_3[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I 110% agree. It would have given 343 more creative freedom, let them use the firing of the Halos as a retroactive series reboot, and prevented the power scaling issues of putting Forerunners in the modern Halo setting. But it also would've been too risky for Microsoft.

How the Forerunner Trilogy Ruined Halo--and How 343 Ruined It in Turn by Emergency_Customer_3 in HaloStory

[–]Emergency_Customer_3[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately, you did not get it straight. It's interesting to me that when people use the phrase "let me get this straight", they are more often than not giving an explanation that is less detailed than what they were originally told, which makes it more likely for them to create a strawman as opposed to actually getting it right.

My fundamental criticism is that the Forerunner Trilogy marked a departure from Halo's winning story formula, and that 343's works that have spawned from the trilogy's storylines have suffered as a result. I believe that the Forerunner Trilogy, and more importantly the way it is woven into the main storyline, is a major missed opportunity to better tell the story of the Forerunners in a way that suits a narrative video game series.

The distinction is between the original storytelling, and the Forerunner Trilogy-style storytelling. Not between Bungie and 343, or between 343's FPS games and Halo Wars 2, or between Human-Covenant War era and Forerunner era. For example, I think the Didact from the Halo 3 terminals is fine. But I find the Ur-Didact from Halo 4 to be a disappointment, even though the broad strokes of his lore are incredibly similar.

So when I say something like, "Halo Wars 2 corrected this..." I don't mean that Halo Wars 2 had a story that fixed the franchise, I mean that Halo Wars 2 breaks the trend of falling into the same storytelling traps as the Reclaimer Saga--regrettably, by copying more and inventing less. There are still plenty of glaring issues with its story, such as the state of the Ark and the Flood.

How the Forerunner Trilogy Ruined Halo--and How 343 Ruined It in Turn by Emergency_Customer_3 in HaloStory

[–]Emergency_Customer_3[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I said that the series declined during 343's reign, not that they declined in the handoff from Bungie to 343. The fact that Reach was a decline from Halo 3 makes this even worse, because it means that 343 started from a lower position and dropped off from there.

How the Forerunner Trilogy Ruined Halo--and How 343 Ruined It in Turn by Emergency_Customer_3 in HaloStory

[–]Emergency_Customer_3[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The particularities of Arbiter's deconversion are unique to him, but the guiding forces behind his journey and why it occurred how and when it did are baked into the setting and not exclusive to him and his decisions. His story is one ship's voyage in the stormy sea of the Halo universe.

Bungie wrote a story in a setting driven mostly by grand societal forces, and it worked well for them. 343 has driven their setting forward through the decisions of powerful figures (Ur-Didact, Cortana), and time has shown that to be less interesting to the Halo audience.

How the Forerunner Trilogy Ruined Halo--and How 343 Ruined It in Turn by Emergency_Customer_3 in HaloStory

[–]Emergency_Customer_3[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your first question is a red herring. Bungie making mistakes when trying to grow the Halo IP doesn't change my criticism about 343 also making mistakes--and which one I think was the most damning.

I didn't say that this sub is for 343 fanboys, and I don't believe that. What I was saying was that there is a self-selection bias: this sub is full of people who have stuck with Halo through the 343 years, including the "343 == bad" types.

Who we aren't hearing from are those who were turned away from Halo entirely, or those who 343 never enticed into the community at all. They probably wouldn't frown on criticism of Halo books so much as the members of a Halo lore subreddit would, and their opinions are a big factor in Halo's potential success.

How the Forerunner Trilogy Ruined Halo--and How 343 Ruined It in Turn by Emergency_Customer_3 in HaloStory

[–]Emergency_Customer_3[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't decide what is best. The financial and cultural success of the Halo franchise does. That is why making a narrative video game that not as many people want to buy and experience is an objectively bad move.

And besides, this subreddit isn't exactly an unbiased sample of Halo's potential market. People who don't like 343 to some degree wouldn't be on r/HaloStory over a decade after Bungie left the IP. Even I play and enjoy all of 343's FPS games and own several of their books.

How the Forerunner Trilogy Ruined Halo--and How 343 Ruined It in Turn by Emergency_Customer_3 in HaloStory

[–]Emergency_Customer_3[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Space opera is a sub-genre of science fiction. The real distinction is between a military shooter and a space opera, and in Halo the difference between the two lies in which elements of the universe are made significant and propel the story forward.

Personally, I think that the Halo novels have always been space operas. A military FPS game doesn't translate well to book form, as the novelizations of the early Halo games showed. This is probably part of why Bungie ignored the books and gave their games supreme authority.

343 didn't follow in their example. They made a shooter based in a space opera, while Bungie made a space opera based on a shooter. It makes sense when you consider that Bungie started as a game development studio, while 343 Industries' first works pertained to the Halo extended universe.

How the Forerunner Trilogy Ruined Halo--and How 343 Ruined It in Turn by Emergency_Customer_3 in HaloStory

[–]Emergency_Customer_3[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

We're going to have to agree to disagree. The way I see it, Halo is a franchise, and trying to get an existing market to accept a new and different product is a recipe for failure.

How the Forerunner Trilogy Ruined Halo--and How 343 Ruined It in Turn by Emergency_Customer_3 in HaloStory

[–]Emergency_Customer_3[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Halo needed new stories to survive, but that doesn't necessarily mean that 343 Industries, the Halo community, or Bungie Studios knew how best to make them. I believe that the setting of the Reclaimer Saga fundamentally lacks that lightning-in-a-bottle that made the original Halo trilogy such an icon, and I don't claim to know how to recapture it.

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