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General : Details Revealed on Canceled Halo MMO
Posted Apr 13, 2010 by Michael Bitton
Dusty Monk, formerly of Ensemble Studios (the team tasked to develop the now defunct Halo MMO), and now Windstorm Studios founder sat down with the folks at IncGamers for an interview recently. The interview discussed the canceled Halo MMO project, something we've really not heard much about in quite awhile.
Image Credit: IncGamers
Dusty reveals some interesting tidbits about the project, and how the team at Ensemble was in a good position to compete with Blizzard as they had been for some time in the RTS space with the Age of Empires series, "We had a pretty good history of knowing the types of stuff that Blizzard put into their games to make them really successful, and the kinds of things we'd need to put into an MMO to compete against Blizzard."
Dusty goes on to reveal that a number of the things we are seeing and have seen in games such as Star Wars: The Old Republic and Warhammer Online were in the minds of the Ensemble team when they sought out to make the Halo game. The "heroic stylized" art style that we are seeing in Star Wars: The Old Republic now was going to be used in the Halo game as well. The reasoning behind this is that is "ageless," scaling better with time than say a more realistic artstyle. The Halo game was also set to make use of a version of Warhammer Online's public quest system.
Be sure to read the full interview over at IncGamers for even more details.
Halo, lol.. Good thing this was canceled.
They would have never been able to compete with SWTOR. Halo is a popular IP, but it is a FPS, not an MMO or even an RPG. The whole concept seems pretty hard to imagine, but then again I have never been a fan of Halo. If they were to have been able to launch before SWTOR they might have brought in a high number of sales, but I feel Bioware will produce a far superior game, especially since he kept mentioning competeing with WoW and taking all the things that Blizzard did right... blah blah... People are getting tired of WoW, if they leave it they aren't going to want just another WoW no matter what skin you put on it. The only hope for the MMO industry is innovation, otherwise when WoW does finally die so does the era of the AAA MMO.
Actually, seeing as people are somehow hyped for that perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea. Hooray instances and NPC parties, the way of the future! Whats massive about that?
[mod edit]
Blizzard turned an RTS into an MMORPG. Albeit, a very unoriginal one.
SWTOR is taking a single play game that THRIVES on catering to the single player, and trying to turn it into an MMORPG (by just instancing everything, great idea)
Worse things have happened.
It doesn't matter how 'massive' a game is to me if it is fun. Bioware games are fun, to me, and having a multiplayer version where you aren't just grinding through meaningless swarms of mobs but instead taking part in another person's story is pretty cool sounding. I'm sure it will get old in time, as everything does, but I have faith that Bioware, if the game succeeds, will keep adding content as fast as I can get through it.
But that's just speculation. Who knows? I'm hopeful because it is better to hope for something good than to worry about something bad, but that's just Zen.
You shouldn't talk considering you don't seem to know anything about SWTOR. What's the deal? You hate a game thats a year from release so much you have to derail topics completely unrelated to it?
Agreed, I had to do an April Fools check on this one. Sometimes executives come up with the wackiest things.
Oh no, I wouldn't mind if it were fun to play through the story. A nice little coop game with good story? Sounds like Diablo. Diablo didn't charge a monthly fee or have item shops, nor was it marketed as an MMO.
If Kotor was marketed as a mostly singleplayer RPG with some coop, and they didn't charge a monthly fee, that's fine.
But it seems half the kotor devs tout how great the linear instanced voice acted stories will be, and at the same breath, are trying to convince us its gonna be a full MMO to justify the price tag.
Right, we know absolutely nothing about the game! That's why the devs have outright said, there will be instanced story arcs, 95% of the game is soloable, there will be NPC companions so you're never forced to group, I know plenty about the game, unless the devs are just making it all up for laughs.
no surprise that Microsoft did this to be honest, anyone remember TFLO? same idea... microsoft pulled the plug because "developing an MMO was taking too long"
they really are pretty stupid, kinda highlighted though when they made the HDD "optional" on the 360, of course now it's not.. they all come with it. But really it was like going backwards from the xbox.. and having people still pay for gold "is going backwards now". What is funny is even the wii has bbc iplayer ;)
bad microsoft... tlfo, marvel online and halo online... it's like they start one and then get rid of it before it's ready. amateurs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FvQ8Bq8PHk << true fantasy live online for the original xbox (yes the one with the giant control pads that microsoft abandoned well before its lifespan, i still have mine and it works - thompson drive n all. Unlike my 360 which is number 3 and counting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEWiuFv0He8 << wasn't marvel online due in 2008/9 :-p and yes THAT IS the Cryptic LOGO in there :-p
The did the same thing with Vanguard when they pulled a "changing of the guard".
A shame this was cancelled. I would love some sorta "persistant world" FPS. BC2 an eye opener for anyone else...
BC2 isn't an eye opener, because Battlefield games have been like that for the past 8 years already. Never played BF2 or BF1942? Also, Planetside is a persistant world FPS.
Chances are if they made a Halo MMO it would have been instanced out the butt like everything else lately. SWTOR, I'm looking at you.
Yes, we know, you dont like SWTOR. See you at launch, because you're going to play it too.
Why would I pay money for a game that I don't like? I don't like instances. I don't like linear online games that funnel the players and treat them like toddlers. And I really don't like paying a monthly fee for games that are primarily single player. It's like a sum of all the things I don't like in a game. If it didn't have a monthly fee, I'd probably play.
Well, why would you post so much about a game you dont like? Yet, you do. Is it because complaining is free? Probably. Anyway, see you at launch.
Because as much as I hate the idea of the game I know it'll be a big success and it'll probably be the death knell for MMORPGs, showing you can make a game even MORE casual and instanced than WoW and be successful.
Yeah, but CCP is there to lead the way and show everyone that the road less taken is also successful. So why do you worry?
Maybe if you b*tch more, the world will change*.
*By change I mean not change at all and stay the same as they were 10 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0jyKabLHVc
Sorry, I've just had it with the people who think that MMOs are suddenly all going to be instanced and turn into single player games. What evidence do you have that SWTOR will be extremely instanced? None.
Also, I hate hardcore gamers that say casual is a bad thing. Just because you don't have to play 8 hours a day to be good at the game doesn't necessarily make the game bad, or not an MMO for that matter. And God forbid that someone make an MMO where you actually have FUN playing it.
You're delusional if you think SWTOR won't be instanced.
They outright said that the game will have scripted voice acted storylines, that you can run through with an NPC party. Think that's gonna happen without instances? Nope.
And I can easily believe all MMOs are going to be super instanced single player games, because thats the trend that has been going on for over 5 years now. More linear, more instanced, more single player and instant gratification focused.
I am not by any means a "hardcore" gamer. I like games that promote socializing, and are immersive and complex, games that don't assume I have the brain power of a 2 year old.
The lack of innovation in the MMORPG market is a disgusting thing, its been running on fumes since I guess every unique idea was exhausted by 2003. Maybe if someone took those old concepts and built on them, to make something bigger and better, like DAoC did with EverQuest, but thats not happening. What's happening is the core ideas are being stripped down, removed of any social or interesting aspects, and presented in the simplest most basic form for mass consumption. Can't have anything too complicated, and can't have a death penalty, you might scare away the casual market. MMO companies don't care if they scare away the Virtual world old style MMO players because theres tons more money to be made off the Farmvile sheep.
God forbid someone makes a fun MMO? Well if you don't like MMOs in their current form, why are you here? There's plenty of us who liked how MMOs were, and we saw our favorite games warped and twisted into something that was almost the exact opposite of what drew us into the market. How would you feel if your favorite genre no longer made games, because you were "too hardcore" and they could make WAY more money making a totally different kind of game and marketing it to a totally different group of people, but keeping the same genre label on it. ?
So any game with a story is for toddlers now, because you prefer a different style of game?
Sheesh, I wish people would quit thinking one type of game makes them an adult and another doesn't.
Wow, way to make horrible jumps in logic. I presented several unrelated points and you tried to mash them all together. I didn't say they were FOR toddlers, I said the game treats the player like a toddler. Doesn't punish them at all for death, tells them exactly where to go with a magical map, glowing and sparkling quest markers, tries to funnel them with invisible walls. The AoC trial was the worst offender of this. Could only walk in straight lines through the jungle, it was almost IMPOSSBLE to die, every quest had sparkling glowies in case you didn't know what a giant rock looked like when you were told to find one. And if you somehow managed to die, nothing happened.
And SWTOR's primary focus judging from all signs is on its scripted story. It's what Bioware does best, makes very linear, very good stories. That's fine for a single player game, but I'm not playing a monthly fee for it.
Well, now that that's out of the way, can we get back to the topic at hand?
You know discuss Halo and how horrible an MMO based on it would be?
An Halo mmo would be an awesome idea. Imagine all the tards that would flock there, and away from the games we like. Then we could start seeing nice communities popping up everywhere.
I could get behind one to suit that purpose :).
As far as games go, Halo is just "meh" in my book. BUT... If it brought the MMO community a bit of peace and quiet, I'd certainly be in favor of one being made. Would I play it? No. But many, many dumbasses would.
QFT. I can already envision roughly about 27 different /teabag emotes.
And all these points you bring up are somehow automatically bad things? They mean you need to bash TOR in completely unrelated threads all hours of the day?
By the way "95% soloable" does not equal "THRIVES on catering to the single player." If I do all the content in WoW at about 5 levels higher than the intended content level, I bet I could solo 95% of WoW too.
There you go lying again. The devs have stated that the majority of SWTOR will be non-instanced.
Halo MMO would've been a bit too much imo
I mean if they REALLY wanted to do something fantastic it would've been turning the AoE series into an MMO
Where the player played a role and their guild had a home city they could build up over time kinda like AtlO but more like Age of Empires Building.
But reading that one of the great minds of Ensemble Studios defected to Blizzard leaves a bad taste in my mouth *shakes head*
You hate TOR because you fear it. You're afraid it will be successful and kill what ever game you like. I got news for you. If it is successful, then that means it’s what people want and that you are in the minority. Companies are out to make money and they do that by appealing to the majority. That’s reality whether you like it or not.
I for one don't appreciate your self righteous attitude. If you don't like TOR, then don't play it. You shouldn't trash the rest of us who do want to play it. Nor should you bash Bioware for giving us what we want. To do so males you look elitist
@Garvon3,
I see what you said and I misunderstood you. My apologies and I do agree with you.
"So what happened to the Halo MMO? "There was a bit of a changing of the guard at Microsoft at this time," explains Monk. "Microsoft, from its gaming division, was really changing directions. They were looking really hard at the Nintendo Wii and they were really excited by the numbers that the Wii was turning. This was about the time that Microsoft decided that its Xbox platform and XBLA really needed to go more in the direction of appealing to a more casual, broader audience.""
When does this cycle of scaling challenges down to elementry level end? Do hardcore gamers matter to any markets? This is a case of Bean Counters running the show and devlopers are OK with it as they don't have to work as hard. So are the devs playing these games or just making the poison they are ordered to? Its like a plegue to business practice: "... appealing to a more casual, broader audience."