Hating a game because it's popular vs hating because it's actually bad?

Hawki

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Xprimentyl said:
Believe you me, when 343 took over the franchise, I was pretty hesitant, but they showed me with Halo 4 and the Master Chief Collection that they had the due respect for and understanding of the legacy of the franchise
Wasn't the Master Chief Collection a buggy mess?

Xprimentyl said:
and could do it justice; my leeriness was assuaged. But with Halo 5, they betrayed that confidence.
After the drek that was Halo 4, that was when they regained it for me.

Xprimentyl said:
Most else could be forgiven had they not literally back-seated the Master Chief for the majority of the game; that?s honestly 90% of my ire with Halo 5.
As of Halo Wars 2, not including remakes, there's been 11 Halo games. John's been playable in 5 of them, and in two of them, has to share with a co-protagonist.

Aren't you chewing out Halo 5 for what Halo 2 did? I'll grant you that Halo 2 had a 50/50 split between John and Thel, whereas Halo 5 is more 60/40 in favor of Locke, but the franchise is called "Halo," not "Master Chief." The universe doesn't revolve around him.

Xprimentyl said:
Halo 4 humanized both the Chief and Cortana in a way the previous games hadn?t, so I was looking forward to seeing that develop. But nope, Halo 5 drops us in the seat of some new schmuck, a glorified cop, to track down the HERO we?ve been playing for over a decade who?s apparently gone? rogue? Excuse us? As if we don?t fucking know better?!
We do know better. Locke doesn't, and even in that context Buck points out that even if they bring John to 'justice,' people are going to hate them for it.

The audience knowing something the protagonist doesn't isn't inherently bad writing.

Xprimentyl said:
For all intents and purposes, Halo 5?s story is little more than an indictment of everything we?ve done throughout the course of the franchise, so 343 wanted us to prosecute ourselves?
No idea how you came to this conclusion.

Xprimentyl said:
We?re just expected to warm up to some new, clueless fuck-wit asshole
Even if I agreed with that assessment, we've been expected to do the same for numerous protagonists in the series. John's got the most appearances in the series, but he's not the only protagonist.

Xprimentyl said:
in the lead for the majority of the 6th major installment of a flagship, console-selling franchise like it?s the next natural progression of the story we?ve lived since day 1? Thoughtless at least; unforgiveable, to be sure.
How many times has Halo ended?

Could have ended at Halo 3. Could have ended with Reach. It could have even ended at Halo 4 as some kind of awkward book-ending to the original trilogy. "Natural progression" ended a long time ago. Halo 5 at least shook up the setting. Locke is part of that, but again, John may have been the 'face' of Halo, but he's by no means the only important character in the universe.

Xprimentyl said:
This gripe is admittedly a fanboy-ish one; I could have done without the focus on squad-based game play. I?m sorry, the Master Chief fell from fucking SPACE, hit the goddamn ground, dusted off his britches and was back to killing Brutes within minutes; how do they rationalize that now, he?s essentially a turtle on its back when he takes too much damage? He never needed another Spartan to kiss his boo-boos and give him a pep talk to rejoin the fight every time his shields went down; believe me; I was THERE. If they wanted to give ?Spartan? Locke help, fine, but the Chief doesn?t need brain damaged AI to babysit while he goes about the general badass-ery of which he?s a tried- and-true veteran.
You do realize that John was relying on Blue Team for 27 years (more if you include training) before Halo 1, right? Even discounting the support he's had in the games (marines, Thel, etc.), in John's service history, operating alone is the exception rather than the rule. Frankly, it's a refreshing change of pace to acknowledge that yes, John does work as part of a team most of the time, and the game doesn't need to contrive another reason for him to go lone wolf. And since Halo 5 does extend his story from H4, it shows from the outset that John's reaching his limits in the game. I don't think it was the intent, but I can appreciate the idea that John needs to rely on his team (again) because he's reaching his expiry date.

Xprimentyl said:
After those gross missteps, they shoved their heads even further up their asses, took the beloved multiplayer and laced it with pathetic, sleazy, money-grubbing microtransactions hiding character customization behind a paywall and random chance.
The microtransactions are hardly intrusive, and are only in one game mode. It helps that after the clusterfuck that was Halo 4's multiplayer with its loadout nonsense, H5 felt like a return to form.

Xprimentyl said:
Agreed, ODST was lackluster, but it didn?t purport (much less try) to be ?Halo 4?; it took its place as a tangential diversion within the larger Halo universe which is what Halo 5 deserves at BEST if it deserves anything at ALL.
Halo 4 is a far more awkward sequel than Halo 5. Halo 5 pushes the setting forward, with new enemies (Prometheans), new themes (Mantle), and new characters. Halo 4's story is an awkward transitory period between the Bungie and 343 eras. It does one thing very well (John and Cortana), but struggles in every other area. Halo 5 does build on what Halo 4 introduced, sure, but again, Halo 5 feels like far more its own thing, in both gameplay and story. Halo 4 comes short in both these areas.

Phoenixmgs said:
I haven't played the game either as I didn't like the story premise nor the change in the game structure. The Initiative's real catalyst doesn't make that much sense either, how are they running low on resources in an entire galaxy?
Their long term goal is to establish a trade route. I think the idea of the Milky Way running low on resources may have been mentioned somewhere, but I forget. Even then, a journey for the sake of discovery alone for long-term benefit is something I can buy. We're doing it in our own solar system right now.

Phoenixmgs said:
The Reaper AI has to be smart enough to put 2-and-2 together that synthetics will overtake organics eventually if they only deal with the problem in 1 galaxy. And the fact that a supreme synthetic hasn't come to cleanse the Milky Way then proves the Reaper logic wrong if all the other galaxies are left alone.
That doesn't prove anything. The Reapers' mandate is that organic life and synthetic life will inevitably collide in conflict. A synthetic race arising in another galaxy actively has to go seeking for trouble.

Phoenixmgs said:
Or why is the Andromeda galaxy not super advanced beyond the Milky Way if their races aren't being destroyed every few millennia?
I don't know, but remember, Andromeda (the game) takes place in only a tiny portion of the Andromeda galaxy, and there's evidence of a precursor race as well. We have little idea as to the state of Andromeda as a whole.

Phoenixmgs said:
Yeah, I fully realize space is so massive is mind-boggling, I love watching documentary-type shows about space, black holes, etc. The reapers are doing nothing for thousands of years, it isn't that out of reach for them to be taking care of the other galaxies at least in a fictional story where you can hand-wave lots of stuff.
I think it is. The Reapers' mandate has never been extended beyond the Milky Way. They'd have to travel to another galaxy, burning fuel, and gambling that there isn't an advanced civilization there that can stop them. If they lose, then they've 'failed' their own galaxy. And Andromeda is merely our closest galaxy. I can't hammer home enough that space is really, REALLY, big.

Phoenixmgs said:
Even playing through the original ME trilogy, the only way the whole storyline works with any logical bearing is if the reapers are in fact doing that for every galaxy.
No, that would ruin it. The Reapers' modus operandi makes perfect sense in the context of the Milky Way. Throwing in other galaxies pretty much sends them into 'god territory.'

Phoenixmgs said:
And Andromeda sorta ruins that aspect of the story if escaping to another galaxy is the solution.
It would, if it was an easy trip. Which it isn't, by any means.

Phoenixmgs said:
And the fact that the reapers even let the galaxy get that advanced to be able to jump galaxies is pretty much dropping the ball for such an advanced AI; it's basically "you had ONE job!!!"
No, not really. Once they're out of the galaxy, they're not the Reapers' problem. Even if hundreds of thousands escape the Milky Way, that's small fry to the billions, if not trillions of individuals they'll cull.
 

Rangaman

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Has someone forgotten about subjectivity again?

Look, you can praise any game as much as you want. Point out everything you like, everything it does well. Whatever. But that only does so much when that game doesn't feature (or doesn't focus enough on) what I like and value in videogames. Or if it does something that I fundamentally disagree with (such as pumping out a new game every year).

B-Cell said:
The Success of COD4 lead to destruction of FPS genre. it was released at the time when far superior FPS like Stalker and Crysis were releaed but COD4 was what praised most.

a 4 hour scripted and linear game praised over ambitious, deep, innovative game like STALKER. in a same year.

Im glad the popularity of MMS has died thanks to MOH warfighter. now developers are making FPS rather than copying MMS.
Um, phrasing? You might not like cover shooters but the Shooter genre is still going just fine, that's like me saying pop-punk destroyed rock'n'roll. I don't much fancy it, but rock is still going just fine.

Also I'm pretty sure the popularity of cover shooters died because of how over-saturated the genre became and nothing else. If it were Warfighter specifically, they would've stopped making cover shooters back in 2012.

And to be entirely fair, in the context of 2007, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. probably looked like a pretender to Half-Life's throne whereas setting a shooter in a present day environment and conflict was something quite new. And S.T.A.L.K.E.R. still averaged around 8/10.
 

Guitarmasterx7

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Devils advocate: If something is popular and bad, or even just mediocre, theres probably a level of expectation or excitement involved that the game didn't live up to. Maybe you bought the game because of the positive buzz around it. Maybe you've been looking forward to it for years. Maybe you loved the previous one and didn't think the new one topped it.

Basically I think disappointment is a much more powerful emotion than distaste or indifference
 

CaitSeith

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Pretty much the rule of hand is: if a person calls the game "overrated", that person is hating its popularity.
 

Xprimentyl

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Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
Believe you me, when 343 took over the franchise, I was pretty hesitant, but they showed me with Halo 4 and the Master Chief Collection that they had the due respect for and understanding of the legacy of the franchise
Wasn't the Master Chief Collection a buggy mess?
The multiplayer was initially, yes, but the overall packaging of 4 games I?ve loved for years, polished, with tons of extras was a fan service I cannot deny. My best friend had never played any Halo, the MCC collection gave me the opportunity to play it ?for the first time? again with someone and we loved every minute. We?d put well over a hundred hours into the campaings, Spartan Ops and achievement before we even touched multiplayer; even then, it was largely custom games with a few friends in which we had a blast.

Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
Most else could be forgiven had they not literally back-seated the Master Chief for the majority of the game; that?s honestly 90% of my ire with Halo 5.
As of Halo Wars 2, not including remakes, there's been 11 Halo games. John's been playable in 5 of them, and in two of them, has to share with a co-protagonist.

Aren't you chewing out Halo 5 for what Halo 2 did? I'll grant you that Halo 2 had a 50/50 split between John and Thel, whereas Halo 5 is more 60/40 in favor of Locke, but the franchise is called "Halo," not "Master Chief." The universe doesn't revolve around him.
Now you?re splitting hairs. I?m of course refereeing to the main Halo games: Halo: CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, Reach, Halo 4 and (sadly) Halo 5; any ?Halo? game besides these I consider satellites, titles that exist in the Halo universe, but don?t necessarily serve to push the main story arc forward.

And I?m more than aware it?s not called ?Master Chief,? but it?s been made pretty clear who the MAIN protagonist is seeing as he IS playable for the majority of the main games. He is the primary set of eyes through which we?ve played the story thus far, so of course, it?s natural most Halo fans (I?m assuming) would prefer to be him most of the time. It?s unreasonable to think you can cast our main character as a supporting role while he?s upstaged by some new guy who is operating under assumptions we know to be incorrect. I personally can?t not empathize or feel invested playing as someone whose mission is both wrong and futile, especially for most of the game. At least the Arbiter?s arc was contained to the Covenant; acting under the Covenants beliefs, he battles those who would subvert those beliefs until he sees the truth himself; we don?t use him to fight the humans directly. But Locke is literally chasing down one of his own, and 343 throws Covenant/Promethean fodder in our way to protract the mission no invested Halo [campaign] player wants to succeed at. Couple that with the fact the Locke is entirely uninteresting. Not saying Chief is an onion, but at least I understand his dedication to duty and loyalty after 4 games of experiencing the exercise of his efforts; Locke is just some guy given an order; his story arc would have been better served in cutscenes, NOT the playable majority of the game.

Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
Halo 4 humanized both the Chief and Cortana in a way the previous games hadn?t, so I was looking forward to seeing that develop. But nope, Halo 5 drops us in the seat of some new schmuck, a glorified cop, to track down the HERO we?ve been playing for over a decade who?s apparently gone? rogue? Excuse us? As if we don?t fucking know better?!
We do know better. Locke doesn't, and even in that context Buck points out that even if they bring John to 'justice,' people are going to hate them for it.

The audience knowing something the protagonist doesn't isn't inherently bad writing.
Never said it was bad writing, but I did infer it doesn?t work in an interactive medium, at least in this case. How is Locke?s arc interesting or intriguing in the least (most importantly how is it interesting to PLAY) when you already know he?s barking up the wrong tree? Normally, games are most enjoyable when both the protagonist AND the player are surprised by the events they?re experiencing simultaneously. Think of any games that would have been equally enjoyable if you the player knew major plot points, but the protagonist didn?t. I?m sorry, going through the motions is for a second playthrough, not the majority of the first.

Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
For all intents and purposes, Halo 5?s story is little more than an indictment of everything we?ve done throughout the course of the franchise, so 343 wanted us to prosecute ourselves?
No idea how you came to this conclusion.
See above.

Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
in the lead for the majority of the 6th major installment of a flagship, console-selling franchise like it?s the next natural progression of the story we?ve lived since day 1? Thoughtless at least; unforgiveable, to be sure.
How many times has Halo ended?

Could have ended at Halo 3. Could have ended with Reach. It could have even ended at Halo 4 as some kind of awkward book-ending to the original trilogy. "Natural progression" ended a long time ago. Halo 5 at least shook up the setting. Locke is part of that, but again, John may have been the 'face' of Halo, but he's by no means the only important character in the universe.
I can?t help getting a ?contrarian? vibe here; I gave my opinion of Halo 5, and you?ve countered with ?but anything else could have happened, therefore: nyah.? Reach is the only MAIN Halo game that released out of chronological order; CE through 5 are clear, progressive steps in a timeline; the Master Chief and his missions have been the primary focus for all of them save Reach (which is actually where his story begins;) 5 then proceeds to introduce a new, co-protagonist (which is fine) who?s sole mission is to bring the Master Chief to justice despite the evidence of the sum total of his (our) entire body of work up to that point, and we do that for the majority of the game (which is NOT fine.) Locke would have made for an excellent story in cutscenes, but acting them out for the majority of the game? Fuck you, 343.

Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
This gripe is admittedly a fanboy-ish one; I could have done without the focus on squad-based game play. I?m sorry, the Master Chief fell from fucking SPACE, hit the goddamn ground, dusted off his britches and was back to killing Brutes within minutes; how do they rationalize that now, he?s essentially a turtle on its back when he takes too much damage? He never needed another Spartan to kiss his boo-boos and give him a pep talk to rejoin the fight every time his shields went down; believe me; I was THERE. If they wanted to give ?Spartan? Locke help, fine, but the Chief doesn?t need brain damaged AI to babysit while he goes about the general badass-ery of which he?s a tried- and-true veteran.
You do realize that John was relying on Blue Team for 27 years (more if you include training) before Halo 1, right? Even discounting the support he's had in the games (marines, Thel, etc.), in John's service history, operating alone is the exception rather than the rule. Frankly, it's a refreshing change of pace to acknowledge that yes, John does work as part of a team most of the time, and the game doesn't need to contrive another reason for him to go lone wolf. And since Halo 5 does extend his story from H4, it shows from the outset that John's reaching his limits in the game. I don't think it was the intent, but I can appreciate the idea that John needs to rely on his team (again) because he's reaching his expiry date.
I?ve read the books; I know where John comes from and that he wasn?t born a badass lonewolf; you are correct and I?d already qualified my gripe as fanboy-ish. I?m 37; I wake up every day to a sore back, crackly knees and blurry vision; videogames offer opportunities to escape into the worlds and live the lives of beings who defy those earthly limitations, particularly power fantasies like Halo. I prefer my Chief 100% badass all the time, and as long as he exists +200 years in the future and is FAKE, I don?t feel his purpose is served by nerfing him and handing him a Life Alert button. And on a personal level, I like overcoming the challenge of ?one against many? (again, power fantasy;) sharing the stage now with 3 inept AI characters when I know I?m fully capable otherwise was more a distraction than an asset.

Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
After those gross missteps, they shoved their heads even further up their asses, took the beloved multiplayer and laced it with pathetic, sleazy, money-grubbing microtransactions hiding character customization behind a paywall and random chance.
The microtransactions are hardly intrusive, and are only in one game mode. It helps that after the clusterfuck that was Halo 4's multiplayer with its loadout nonsense, H5 felt like a return to form.
That?s like saying ?my wife only cheated on my once;? if you?re ok with it once, you?ll be okay with it the second time, and the third, and before you know it, you?re working a second job to help put one of her 13 boyfriends through med school. As a point of distinction and pride, Halo didn?t need to resort to overt, cash-grab scheming to bring in a fuck-ton of cash; instead of capitalizing on that pride, they chose to jump right on that shit-show of a bandwagon and cheapen in the worse way what should have been an exciting, new Halo multiplayer experience.

Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
Agreed, ODST was lackluster, but it didn?t purport (much less try) to be ?Halo 4?; it took its place as a tangential diversion within the larger Halo universe which is what Halo 5 deserves at BEST if it deserves anything at ALL.
Halo 4 is a far more awkward sequel than Halo 5. Halo 5 pushes the setting forward, with new enemies (Prometheans), new themes (Mantle), and new characters. Halo 4's story is an awkward transitory period between the Bungie and 343 eras. It does one thing very well (John and Cortana), but struggles in every other area. Halo 5 does build on what Halo 4 introduced, sure, but again, Halo 5 feels like far more its own thing, in both gameplay and story. Halo 4 comes short in both these areas.
Uh? the Prometheans and the Mantle both were introduced in Halo 4. *drops the mic*

Halo 5 does indeed feel like its own thing, and that thing is thing worse than the other Halo games and an insult to the love of the franchise. But I relegate that to my opinion bucket; if you honestly believe Halo 5 is the better game, I can but allow you that, though I will disagree to my dying day. 343 did enough wrong in Halo 5 to put me off the franchise; and what?s baffling is that they did so in a single game! It?s not like I went along begrudgingly for a few games and bore witness to an appreciable-if-slight downfall, nope; Halo 5 was a hard fucking line, and I?m not crossing it. Since Halo 2, I?ve bought every single [main] Halo on day one; I never thought I?d be the one to say I?m going to wait for a new Halo to price drop before even THINKING about picking it up.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Oh, we're talking about Halo 5? Can I join in on this gangbang? Fuck Halo 5. I mean, they actually did improve it some after some time to be quite fair but it was too little too late. Halo 5 was just too awful to be recovered from without making a whole new game which they're doing right now.

Now, the bright side is, I have it on good word that 343 has finally gotten their heads out of their asses and they're truly sorry about 5 and want to take things back to how they were for the next one, but 5 has stained my opinion of them so bad that I cannot be hyped. I must see for sure what they make before buying anything from them again. 5 was supposed to be a massive recovery from 4. Where 343 had supposedly gotten out of their growing pains and were going to make something great, but instead we got the load of shit that is 5.
 

Ravenbom

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I mean COD doesn't get half the hate nowadays that Nintendo and the Switch does just because it's popular.

I do hate COD and I really love my Switch.

But honestly, I think a lot of the hate for COD is hate for the pseudo-Bro community that plays COD.


I do wish I could convince most of my brethren in the PC Master Race that Mario + Rabbids is a great evolution of XCOM, more so than XCOM2. I mean, XCOM2 doesn't get much praise, since the timers kind of destroyed the way most of us played XCOM EU and EW. EW incentivized moving fast to get a reward (meld) but XCOM2 forces you to rush or you hit a fail state (no incentive).

Mario + Rabbids has such incredible movement options for both teams, with mild incentives to rush but no real penalties, so it feels like XCOM2 could have felt, if they had taken a step back for a second.

My biggest complaint about M+R is that it takes a long time before the challenge ramps up. But when it does, it hits hard.
 

Hawki

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Xprimentyl said:
Now you?re splitting hairs. I?m of course refereeing to the main Halo games: Halo: CE, Halo 2, Halo 3, Reach, Halo 4 and (sadly) Halo 5; any ?Halo? game besides these I consider satellites, titles that exist in the Halo universe, but don?t necessarily serve to push the main story arc forward.
They're spinoffs, but if Halo was really based around John, those spinoffs would usually focus on him.

To cite another example, take Sonic. That's a series of over 70 games with around 17 main installments. Do you know how many games, spinoff or otherwise, that Sonic hasn't featured in that I can recall?

Three.

I can cite numerous other examples where the series is based around a core protagonist, where even spinoffs tend to focus on that character. But while John's been the 'face' of Halo for a long time, I don't see him as being a core protagonist in the same way. Even if we treat those above games as core installments (Reach is dubious), John's been playable in 5/6 of them, and solely playable in 3/6 of them. A 'core protagonist' who gets sole billing only 50% of the time.

Xprimentyl said:
han aware it?s not called ?Master Chief,? but it?s been made pretty clear who the MAIN protagonist is seeing as he IS playable for the majority of the main games.
See above.

Xprimentyl said:
He is the primary set of eyes through which we?ve played the story thus far, so of course, it?s natural most Halo fans (I?m assuming) would prefer to be him most of the time.
Perhaps, but there's a limit to how often you can keep using the same protagonist in a series that doesn't have a floating timeline. I've seen other series get bogged down out of a refusal to move away from prior protagonists (e.g. Terminator). Halo doesn't quite have that problem yet, but given the direction John's character development has gone in, it's getting harder and harder. I theorized way back in the day that if Halo 4 ever came out, John shouldn't be the protagonist, and would be better served as having taken on some kind of mythical proportion.

Xprimentyl said:
It?s unreasonable to think you can cast our main character as a supporting role while he?s upstaged by some new guy who is operating under assumptions we know to be incorrect. I personally can?t not empathize or feel invested playing as someone whose mission is both wrong and futile, especially for most of the game.
Well, I could, so, um, there.

Xprimentyl said:
At least the Arbiter?s arc was contained to the Covenant; acting under the Covenants beliefs, he battles those who would subvert those beliefs until he sees the truth himself; we don?t use him to fight the humans directly.
Thel not fighting humans in Halo 2 is easily one of its biggest misteps, both narratively and mechanically. Of the former, it feels like a sanitization of the game, that, what, Thel just happens to not fight any UNSC forces after fighting them for decades? Mechanically, it reduces a potential enemy set (UNSC); perhaps the only time we could ever fight that enemy set.

Xprimentyl said:
But Locke is literally chasing down one of his own, and 343 throws Covenant/Promethean fodder in our way to protract the mission no invested Halo [campaign] player wants to succeed at.
So we don't want Locke to find John, how does that hinder the experience?

Xprimentyl said:
Couple that with the fact the Locke is entirely uninteresting. Not saying Chief is an onion, but at least I understand his dedication to duty and loyalty after 4 games of experiencing the exercise of his efforts; Locke is just some guy given an order; his story arc would have been better served in cutscenes, NOT the playable majority of the game.
Locke isn't interesting in of himself, but Osiris as a squad does carry their own arc (whereas John's arc is primarily centred around him and not Blue Team). Nor does he have an arc (which isn't really new, few of the Halo games really have a character-based arc within the confines of their own game). But I disagree with the cutscenes stuff. "Play, don't show," to quote Extra Credits.

Xprimentyl said:
Never said it was bad writing, but I did infer it doesn?t work in an interactive medium, at least in this case. How is Locke?s arc interesting or intriguing in the least (most importantly how is it interesting to PLAY) when you already know he?s barking up the wrong tree?
They managed it with the Arbiter. We know that he's fighting "heretics" that are on the money. We know that him retrieving the Index will result in bad things happening. We know that him refusing to believe John and the Gravemind is him being in the wrong. You can easily tell this kind of story and do it well. Locke's campaign isn't as good as Thel's narratively, but is much better mechanically, so you win some, you lose some.

Xprimentyl said:
Think of any games that would have been equally enjoyable if you the player knew major plot points, but the protagonist didn?t.
-Advance Wars
-Army Men: Sarge's Heroes
-BioShock
-Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
-Dead Space
-Diablo
-Doom 3
-Final Fantasy X
-Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
-The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
-Sonic Adventure
-Warcraft III

Just off the top of my head (as in, we know stuff before the protagonists do)

I can?t help getting a ?contrarian? vibe here; I gave my opinion of Halo 5, and you?ve countered with ?but anything else could have happened, therefore: nyah.?
No, that's not my point. My point was that you were complaining about "natural progression" when Halo lost that ages ago. Halo 3 is treated as a trilogy conclusion, but then Reach happens. Reach is treated as a series conclusion, then Halo 4 happens. Halo 4 acts as a book-end, but then Halo 5 happens. The series has had a 'final ending' so many times that it doesn't feel as cohesive as the original trilogy did.

Reach is the only MAIN Halo game that released out of chronological order; CE through 5 are clear, progressive steps in a timeline;
Not my point (see above)

5 then proceeds to introduce a new, co-protagonist (which is fine) who?s sole mission is to bring the Master Chief to justice despite the evidence of the sum total of his (our) entire body of work up to that point, and we do that for the majority of the game (which is NOT fine.) Locke would have made for an excellent story in cutscenes, but acting them out for the majority of the game? Fuck you, 343.
Completely disagree.

I?ve read the books; I know where John comes from and that he wasn?t born a badass lonewolf; you are correct and I?d already qualified my gripe as fanboy-ish. I?m 37; I wake up every day to a sore back, crackly knees and blurry vision; videogames offer opportunities to escape into the worlds and live the lives of beings who defy those earthly limitations, particularly power fantasies like Halo. I prefer my Chief 100% badass all the time, and as long as he exists +200 years in the future and is FAKE, I don?t feel his purpose is served by nerfing him and handing him a Life Alert button. And on a personal level, I like overcoming the challenge of ?one against many? (again, power fantasy;) sharing the stage now with 3 inept AI characters when I know I?m fully capable otherwise was more a distraction than an asset.
Well, good for you, but that's not why I play games, Halo or otherwise.

Hawki said:
That?s like saying ?my wife only cheated on my once;? if you?re ok with it once, you?ll be okay with it the second time, and the third, and before you know it, you?re working a second job to help put one of her 13 boyfriends through med school. As a point of distinction and pride, Halo didn?t need to resort to overt, cash-grab scheming to bring in a fuck-ton of cash; instead of capitalizing on that pride, they chose to jump right on that shit-show of a bandwagon and cheapen in the worse way what should have been an exciting, new Halo multiplayer experience.
And how do the microtransactions hinder the multiplayer experience? You can get the same experience without using any of them.

You don't like microtransactions, fine. I'm generally indifferent to them as long as they don't impact gameplay (which H5's microtransactions generally don't - even if you splurge on Scorpions, you still need to earn the right to use them on a by match basis, so it rarely becomes an issue). But Halo 4's take on multiplayer (loadouts in an arena shooter) is far more egregious than anything Halo 5 does.

Or, to put it another way, Halo 5's multiplayer is fun. Halo 4's isn't. Or at least not as fun, I managed to swallow H4's BS eventually.

Uh? the Prometheans and the Mantle both were introduced in Halo 4.
Where did I claim otherwise?

You may have misread my point, so I'll reiterate. Yes, the Prometheans are in of themselves introduced in Halo 4, and the Mantle, while introduced in the novels (another problem with Halo 4 is that you need the EU to understand any of what's going on - H5 doesn't have that problem), but both have new elements introduced. Mechanically, the Prometheans get new enemy types and an actual character (the Warden Eternal), which is one of said enemy types - main difference is that they're actually fun to fight now. From a narrative standpoint, we get actual Promethean characters (Warden), with actual goals (taking control), with actual themes (Mantle, and the question as to whether upholding it is even desirable), with a return to Abrahamic allusions (Genesis, the Waters of Life, etc.) Halo 4 does introduce the Prometheans, but does nothing with them. Their existence is only relevant mechanically within the story (unless you're hunting down the vid-logs, which aren't even viewable in the game). The Didact references the Mantle, but it has little to do with his actions. His motives are "I want humanity dead because I'm a bad guy, and if you want to know more, refer to the Forerunner Saga." Whatever you think of Cortana's actions and motivations, they're at least contexualized in the game they're introduced in.

It harkens to why I've said Halo 5 drives the story forward. It introduces new enemies, in a new type of conflict, with a new rationale behind that conflict that, while done in sci-fi before, hasn't been done in Halo before. Halo 4's conflict begins and ends within its own game, isn't particuarly compelling, and what stuff it does carry over from before isn't done well (it introduces the Covenant as enemies - their nature as enemies is never explained, nor speculated on after a certain point).
 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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Hawki said:
Their long term goal is to establish a trade route. I think the idea of the Milky Way running low on resources may have been mentioned somewhere, but I forget. Even then, a journey for the sake of discovery alone for long-term benefit is something I can buy. We're doing it in our own solar system right now.

That doesn't prove anything. The Reapers' mandate is that organic life and synthetic life will inevitably collide in conflict. A synthetic race arising in another galaxy actively has to go seeking for trouble.

I don't know, but remember, Andromeda (the game) takes place in only a tiny portion of the Andromeda galaxy, and there's evidence of a precursor race as well. We have little idea as to the state of Andromeda as a whole.

I think it is. The Reapers' mandate has never been extended beyond the Milky Way. They'd have to travel to another galaxy, burning fuel, and gambling that there isn't an advanced civilization there that can stop them. If they lose, then they've 'failed' their own galaxy. And Andromeda is merely our closest galaxy. I can't hammer home enough that space is really, REALLY, big.

No, that would ruin it. The Reapers' modus operandi makes perfect sense in the context of the Milky Way. Throwing in other galaxies pretty much sends them into 'god territory.'
The premise of Andromeda just doesn't make sense. How are you going to establish any kind of trade route that is in anyway logistically viable? They don't know how to build the Mass Effect relays so it's not like they can just build a relay and have any kind of legitimate trade route. Andromeda only adds holes to the very hand-wavy logic the series has always had. They could've just made a prequel game. They could've made a far into the future game after the original trilogy. They could've made it part of the universe that it's just not technologically possible to have intergalactic travel, which would make the original trilogy more sensical.

It would make sense for an AI that had a horrible history and conflict with organic life to be proactive about eliminating all semblance of organic life in the whole universe. That's basically how AI thinks, plus AI doesn't succumb to time like organic life. Sure, that situation may have low odds of happening but I bet those odds are higher than 1 in a trillion as there's that many galaxies and probably more in the universe. Especially if going by the premise that Mass Effect has set forth about organics and synthetics. If organic and synthetic life will inevitably collide, that conflict will inevitably spill into other galaxies once the technology for intergalactic travel becomes available, which it probably is in other galaxies since the races aren't "capped" technologically like the Milky Way. Plus, I'm sure there's a lot of much much much older galaxies out there and just imagine how much more advanced they would be over the Milky Way without any "caps". The reapers logic or mandate makes no logical sense. I forget if the reapers have their own AI or the catalyst (aka the boy) is their "AI" and controls everything, but whatever is the core AI is a really bad AI.

I know space is massive. Even if the reapers had the ability to just teleport anywhere they wanted, they still wouldn't be able to get to every galaxy to cleanse it because there's literally too many galaxies for that to even be possible in the several millennia they aren't doing anything. It's very much like how Santa Claus can't exist because there's too many houses to visit in a night no matter how fast he could travel. I could take that the reapers are doing that though to have the core story at least be in tune with its own internal logic. How it stands now, the story isn't in tune with its internal logic nor real logic.
 

Xprimentyl

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Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
At least the Arbiter?s arc was contained to the Covenant; acting under the Covenants beliefs, he battles those who would subvert those beliefs until he sees the truth himself; we don?t use him to fight the humans directly.
Thel not fighting humans in Halo 2 is easily one of its biggest misteps, both narratively and mechanically. Of the former, it feels like a sanitization of the game, that, what, Thel just happens to not fight any UNSC forces after fighting them for decades? Mechanically, it reduces a potential enemy set (UNSC); perhaps the only time we could ever fight that enemy set.
I feel fighting the UNSC as the Arbiter (just as I feel controlling Locke in his pursuit of John) would (was) be largely dissonant, playing both sides of the board breaks immersion. We must approach gaming differently; I think you?re more objective in that as long as the overarching narrative makes sense, you?re ok jumping in at any point and interacting; you?re watching as much as you are doing. I?m the opposite; I like to have clear goals and I like to see them through. When I am offered a different perspective, I don?t mind as long as that perspective/arc runs parallel and in the same direction as the main. The Arbiter did fight the UNSC, but his failures at the end of Halo: CE led him to disgrace; his role as Arbiter was a last-ditch effort to redeem his honor, and in that course, he learns the fallacy of the Covenants beliefs; how was that sanitizing? If anything, it enriched our understanding of the Covenant, a whole other story and web of intrigue parallel to the events of John and the UNSC; it?s more story with a purpose beyond ?here?s more things to shoot.?

Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
But Locke is literally chasing down one of his own, and 343 throws Covenant/Promethean fodder in our way to protract the mission no invested Halo [campaign] player wants to succeed at.
So we don't want Locke to find John, how does that hinder the experience?
It doesn?t hinder the mechanical experience; it hinders the narrative experience. It utterly defeats the purpose of the narrative effectively making each of Locke?s sequences (again, the majority of the game) a protracted exercise in futility; it makes the game have no point! Just saying, the more interesting narrative was with John. Where was Cortana? What was she doing? Beyond blind loyalty, what was John thinking/feeling? How far was he willing to go? We?d never seen an AI go beyond their 7 year lifespan; is Cortana truly something unique with unique knowledge of things beyond our understanding or is she just another victim of Rampancy, allowed go past her shelf life with access to advanced alien technologies and intimate knowledge of John, what he knows and how he thinks? It would have been far more interesting to explore those questions versus what we got: knowingly dragging Locke through one pointless exercise after another.

Hawki said:
Xprimentyl said:
That?s like saying ?my wife only cheated on my once;? if you?re ok with it once, you?ll be okay with it the second time, and the third, and before you know it, you?re working a second job to help put one of her 13 boyfriends through med school. As a point of distinction and pride, Halo didn?t need to resort to overt, cash-grab scheming to bring in a fuck-ton of cash; instead of capitalizing on that pride, they chose to jump right on that shit-show of a bandwagon and cheapen in the worse way what should have been an exciting, new Halo multiplayer experience.
And how do the microtransactions hinder the multiplayer experience? You can get the same experience without using any of them.

You don't like microtransactions, fine. I'm generally indifferent to them as long as they don't impact gameplay (which H5's microtransactions generally don't - even if you splurge on Scorpions, you still need to earn the right to use them on a by match basis, so it rarely becomes an issue). But Halo 4's take on multiplayer (loadouts in an arena shooter) is far more egregious than anything Halo 5 does.

Or, to put it another way, Halo 5's multiplayer is fun. Halo 4's isn't. Or at least not as fun, I managed to swallow H4's BS eventually.
While the microtransactions in Halo 5 may not affect gameplay as much as they do in other games, they most certainly DO affect the experience and they are undoubtedly a harbinger of the fact that 343 has taken an established, beloved franchise around a dark corner, one it need not ever have rounded. Previous Halos brought us innovations like the Theater, the Forge, Firefight, but instead of following suit and trying to do something new and special, 343 instead decided to tack on a tacky wallet vacuum and hid customization options in their ?luck of the draw? REQ cards. Getting your hands on a power weapon during a match used to be an exciting moment; now, you just wait to die so you can spend one of the dozens you paid for. Do you remember when seeing someone with certain armors/helmets meant they actually DID something? They were badges of prestige; now, they just mean little Johnny?s mom gave him her credit card number, and he spent $150. No, I do not like microtransactions, and I HATE that they?ve now stained what used to be my favorite franchise and most likely will continue to do so until the sun finally sets on it.
 

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Phoenixmgs said:
The premise of Andromeda just doesn't make sense. How are you going to establish any kind of trade route that is in anyway logistically viable?
It can work if it becomes cost efficient. We have a real-world parallel with space exploration right now. Right now, we don't have the technology to exploit space for its resources, but even if we're just exploring right now, the groundwork exists.

It's not the best explanation in the world, but I can understand the long-term thinking behind it.

It would make sense for an AI that had a horrible history and conflict with organic life to be proactive about eliminating all semblance of organic life in the whole universe. That's basically how AI thinks, plus AI doesn't succumb to time like organic life. Sure, that situation may have low odds of happening but I bet those odds are higher than 1 in a trillion as there's that many galaxies and probably more in the universe. Especially if going by the premise that Mass Effect has set forth about organics and synthetics. If organic and synthetic life will inevitably collide, that conflict will inevitably spill into other galaxies once the technology for intergalactic travel becomes available, which it probably is in other galaxies since the races aren't "capped" technologically like the Milky Way.[/quote]

That still requires one such race to actively go looking for trouble. Also, most galaxies in the universe are getting further away from each other, not closer (Andromeda is actually an exception - far into the future, it and the Milky Way will merge).

Phoenixmgs said:
I know space is massive. Even if the reapers had the ability to just teleport anywhere they wanted, they still wouldn't be able to get to every galaxy to cleanse it because there's literally too many galaxies for that to even be possible in the several millennia they aren't doing anything. It's very much like how Santa Claus can't exist because there's too many houses to visit in a night no matter how fast he could travel. I could take that the reapers are doing that though to have the core story at least be in tune with its own internal logic. How it stands now, the story isn't in tune with its internal logic nor real logic.
I disagree, but we're going in circles at this point.

Xprimentyl said:
I feel fighting the UNSC as the Arbiter (just as I feel controlling Locke in his pursuit of John) would (was) be largely dissonant, playing both sides of the board breaks immersion. We must approach gaming differently; I think you?re more objective in that as long as the overarching narrative makes sense, you?re ok jumping in at any point and interacting; you?re watching as much as you are doing. I?m the opposite; I like to have clear goals and I like to see them through.
Eh, probably. I can say that I'm not one person to consider myself as being the character, but rather the person who happens to be controlling them. It's part of why I generally dislike silent protagonists - I don't feel immersed by this nobody, I feel irritated that the nobody decided that they'd be a mute for the heck of it.

Xprimentyl said:
The Arbiter did fight the UNSC, but his failures at the end of Halo: CE led him to disgrace; his role as Arbiter was a last-ditch effort to redeem his honor, and in that course, he learns the fallacy of the Covenants beliefs; how was that sanitizing? If anything, it enriched our understanding of the Covenant, a whole other story and web of intrigue parallel to the events of John and the UNSC; it?s more story with a purpose beyond ?here?s more things to shoot.?
Everything above is true, but I mean sanitized in that the game seems to go out of its way to avoid you fighting humans. We know In Amber Clad is also going after the Index, but while Thel fights through Sentinels and Flood, he doesn't fight any humans besides Miranda and Johnson, and decides that he'll be a really nice guy and only incapacitate them for the heck of it, despite killing millions of humans prior to this. From a mechanical standpoint, it robs us of a new enemy set. From a story standpoint, while it's not a dealbreaker (as I said, in terms of story, I think Halo 2 is the strongest of the original trilogy), it does feel like a copout.

Xprimentyl said:
It doesn?t hinder the mechanical experience; it hinders the narrative experience. It utterly defeats the purpose of the narrative effectively making each of Locke?s sequences (again, the majority of the game) a protracted exercise in futility; it makes the game have no point! Just saying, the more interesting narrative was with John. Where was Cortana? What was she doing? Beyond blind loyalty, what was John thinking/feeling? How far was he willing to go? We?d never seen an AI go beyond their 7 year lifespan; is Cortana truly something unique with unique knowledge of things beyond our understanding or is she just another victim of Rampancy, allowed go past her shelf life with access to advanced alien technologies and intimate knowledge of John, what he knows and how he thinks? It would have been far more interesting to explore those questions versus what we got: knowingly dragging Locke through one pointless exercise after another.
Okay, this is kind of all the place, so I'll try and address it in point form.

-Locke's story isn't pointless. While the goal of his story is arguably pointless (apprehending John), the narrative path isn't. Locke's story has three main impetuses in it - apprehend John, deal with the Covenant plot thread, and lay the groundwork for the Guardians/Prometheans/Created. Locke's story is a window for what's going on in the setting as a whole right now. Same reason why Halo 2's story works, because John and Thel's stories inform the other - events in one lead to a response in the other for instance. Halo 5's story isn't as tight, but it's operating on the same principle, in that we're getting two different viewpoints on the same chain of events.

In essence, Halo 5 does have the unenviable task of being the middle chapter of a trilogy. Like Halo 2, a lot of the middle chapter is spent on worldbuilding and building up the climax, which isn't an uncommon storytelling method in fiction, regardless of the media. I don't think Halo 5 does as well as Halo 2 storywise, but I still think it does its job well.

-The question of what John is feeling/thinking...okay, we do get insight, but Halo has never done this in great detail. It's a space opera FPS that keeps moving at a certain pace with a protagonist that's mostly silent, and didn't even speak outside cutscenes until Halo 4. If there's a lack of insight into John's thought process, it's a lack that every game has had, albiet some more than others. Halo 5 doesn't go in as much depth as Halo 4, but we can still see where he is mentally (near breaking point, arguably jaded, cares about Cortana, but not so much that he's unwilling to call her out on her plans).

-We do know what's up with Cortana in the game - her personality got meshed with the Domain, which explains her meta-stability, but also explains her shift in personality. Eubilant Witness (I think?) makes reference to the Domain being "the waters of life." I can't remember if this is elaborated on, but the Biblical parallels are pretty apparent - Cortana gets taken to a world called Genesis, but gets corrupted by the sum of all Forerunner knowledge. In essence, she's eaten the fruit of wisdom, and unleashing angels (Guardians) upon the universe, since in the Bible, eating the fruit gave Adam and Eve knowledge of evil, which in theory allows mankind to commit acts of evil. At the least, eating the fruit is mankind's original sin in Abrahamic tradition.

Whether you like it or not, Halo 5 is really wearing its Abrahamic inspiration on its shoulder. Not that Halo has ever shied away from this mind you (the Covenant looking for the Ark which is a sanctuary against the Flood...subtle). Cortana fits into the parallels sufficiently in the context of Halo 5's narrative.

While the microtransactions in Halo 5 may not affect gameplay as much as they do in other games, they most certainly DO affect the experience and they are undoubtedly a harbinger of the fact that 343 has taken an established, beloved franchise around a dark corner, one it need not ever have rounded. Previous Halos brought us innovations like the Theater, the Forge, Firefight,
And Halo 5 gave us Warzone.

but instead of following suit and trying to do something new and special, 343 instead decided to tack on a tacky wallet vacuum and hid customization options in their ?luck of the draw? REQ cards. Getting your hands on a power weapon during a match used to be an exciting moment; now, you just wait to die so you can spend one of the dozens you paid for. Do you remember when seeing someone with certain armors/helmets meant they actually DID something? They were badges of prestige; now, they just mean little Johnny?s mom gave him her credit card number, and he spent $150. No, I do not like microtransactions, and I HATE that they?ve now stained what used to be my favorite franchise and most likely will continue to do so until the sun finally sets on it.
Look, I get it, but if Johnny wants to waste $150 on useless swag, he's entitled to do it. If Johnny alternatively wants to grind for swag, that's also his prerogative. But since the gameplay effect is so miniscule, I can't be bothered to work myself into a rage over something that's confined to one mode.
 

Xprimentyl

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Hawki said:
We?re just gonna disagree, or at the very least agree that what we each expect out of a Halo game (or any game, for that matter) are two largely different animals. Sounds like you?re satisfied that, from a strictly objective, macro viewpoint, Halo 5 works as an intermediate narrative and functions well mechanically as but a part of a broader story; I?ll roll my eyes and concede, if that?s good enough for you, enjoy. But when I invoke my emotional/subjective attachment to the franchise, y?know, the part that waits years for each Halo then drops $60 on day one without pause, the part that enjoys a game beyond the experience of pressing buttons and seeing [insert any character name here] obey the inputs accordingly, I feel Halo 5?s delivery of its narrative took undue liberties and was insultingly presumptuous. The narrative points are fine on paper, but the wrong points became the largest parts of the playable game. John?s story, for better or worse, is not over and is arguably more interesting now than ever, yet it was consigned to less than half of the game in lieu of some new guy because? why again? Reasons? That?s where Halo 5 cuts the deepest; every other misstep is just piss in the wound.
 
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I especially hate it when games are popular because if this industry shows anything, that means all we're going to get for the next few cycles are clones of this thing.

Remember Gears of War blowing up with it's Horde mode, and then suddenly every game had to put it in.

We somehow got multiplayer deathmatch in games like Dead Space 2, Uncharted, and Tomb Raider... games about a singular character's trek through adversity, because Multiplayer games were selling like hot cakes.

I have no idea why I was building a town instead of looking for my son in Fallout 4, but that was the mixture we were presented with because crafting was a thing in the last few years. Everyone looking for that Dirty Minecraft money.

Popularity in gaming causes huge tonal shifts. The second I heard Dead Space 2 was going to get a multiplayer, I literally couldn't understand how lone Human Death Machine Issac Clarke translated to a pub stomp. I remembered setting up my town so I can have people like me in Fallout 4 and get some loot out of it and then remembering later that I had a kid or something?

Popularity causes game designers trying to do too much in a title that makes it all feel muddled. No, the game in question that is popular that everyone is trying to copy it didn't do anything wrong. But the popularity around it is bad for this hobby.

I don't like online multiplayer games because they will go away when the next big thing comes along. Or because I'm not an early adopter, I play a game and I get curb stomped and yelled at for daring to learn a game during everyone else's thousandth time playing a map. And I want to be done with a game when I done with a game, and be able to pick it up some time later and have fun with it on my choice. Monday Night Combat is never coming back, no matter how much I'd like to play another match.

But that's the popular thing. People needing to feel superior over those they never met, so it's easy to just build an experience around that. So the rest of us just have to deal and look for games that might appeal to us every once and a while.
 

runic knight

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It is important to remember that hating the fans of something isn't the same as hating it, even if far too many can't disassociate the two. For this example I point to Undertale, though really any medium that rapidly grew popular works the same. Doctor who, sherlock, steven universe, homestuck, league of legends, overwatch, and of course the most common example of backlash because of fandoms in the last 20 years, the bronies. They all have the same effect going on.

You have a relatively unknown property gain rapid popularity over a short time. The fans often take on a near-religious nature of being missionaries trying to convince everyone they know that the thing is great and to try it out. The community springing up around it starts having problems with assholes who push their will and are toxic and hateful towards others, and the people who loved the property start to resent the newcomers for bringing that plague with them, thereby either leaving themselves, or withdrawing.

Now, some will say the backlash against properties is because of how toxic the fandoms got, but this isn't quite right. It is because of how vocal the toxic elements got that colored the view of the fandom, and then the property they were fans of. Not every fan of league of legends will scream at you and call you a noob for playing how they don't like. Not even the majority will. But enough will that they become all that stand out. This in turn negatively affects the community (sometimes to the extent of driving away the less hostile elements) and soon the fandom is thought of as being that as a general whole. This in turn makes the fandom an obstacle to overcome to enjoy the property itself, which is sad but inevitable in such a situation. It also makes a feedback loop where because fewer less toxic people are joining and putting up with it, and some existing and leaving, the toxic elements start to concentrate to higher numbers which drives that further.

And I do understand why people would to want to put up with such things. When you like something, you often want to nerd out over it. You want to discuss thoughts and feelings. You want to predict and discuss fan theories. Hell, you might even want to ship characters or vocalize about cool ways things could improve about characters. That is all common in nerd fandoms after all. But with the toxic elements concentrated, that is harder. Some people are just horribly hateful assholes who will shit all over anything you say in good fun that thy dislike. Remember, people got death threats for drawing steven universe characters as less fat than they are in the show. People screamed and demanded you play certain characters in league or they would abuse the report system on you. Seeing that from the outside, even if it is not commonplace, simply make the possibility of dealing with it seem like an inherent part of the property itself, and as such makes people hate the property.

This ties into the examples given earlier, that of mass effect 3, MW, and DA in similar, if not as extreme, fashion.

Popularity brings bandwagoners, often including the same sort of assholes who ruined previous fandoms. I am not sure if it is something that happens when so many are there and personalities clash as people want to be on top of the social collective revolving around the property itself, or if it is just the sheer number means far more likely for those sorts of people to join the group or switch over from previously popular franchises and properties, but the end result is that the more popular it is, the more likely the fandom will have toxic assholes. And if you aren't invested in the community and social collective around the property, seeing hat will make it hard to want to be, and make you judge the property itself bad by extension.

I think the quality of the property is actually a very minor aspect here. Most things have flaws and outside of it being totally terrible, even relatively bad things with enticing elements can cause the same effect. Remember, minecraft as a game is not that good. Graphics are horrible, gameplay can be confusing, and early in aplpha it had no meat on its bones. But it had fun gameplay and a determined community so it gained popularity in spite of those flaws. So games like andromeda or DA are not out of the running just because they are bad too.

Hmm, I wonder if the popularity backlash effect latched onto the faults at the time to justify their hate of something that was already under the effect of the backlash? People disliking the new community and growing toxicity around the property, justifying leaving it based on obvious flaws, and thus leading the bandwagoners to abandon it as well, effectively nipping the overall toxicity around the property in the bud?

Ignoring one-off flash in the pan successes like undertale, properties like halo come to mind where this might apply some as well.
 

Elijin

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I can understand hating CoD for being popular.

Carried by the merits of its mp experience but releasing a new title annually. The popularity of the series meaning mass player population shifts with each new release. Buying a brand new game, starting from scratch for....a very similar experience. So similar it often could have been a map pack.

But the popularity meaning the average player is left with 3 options: pay up for the latest title; give up on the series; be left with the diehards (often not a worthwhile option for the average gamer due to the level the diehards compete at).