Talk:Halo 2/Archive 3

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Contents

hAl0 2 Soundtrack

I removed the last reference. Asking how to violate copyrights on wikipedia is an INSANELY LARGE nono. Answering that question is an even bigger one. Also as to the fact that this has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ARTICLE I am striking it all. Please keep talk pages ARTICLE RELATED.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 05:37, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

Criticism is generally Non-neutral and unencyclopdic in its own right. The one exception is to accompany it with an article giving equal article to praise that has been layed on the media (providing it exists). Unless a subject is notably hated (such as a movie or game almost universally accepted as bad) praise is to be given equal consideration. Also, this section uses personal pronouns such as "you" so say goodbye to any chance that it might have still been slightly encyclopdic, oh, and then it has weasel words, lots of weasel words. "Some gamers claim," and "Many players feel", and so on, are nonsense phrases that have no basis and are simply used to evade sources. It would be different if these were cited. I'm tagging this as all of the preceding as well as tagging specific lines that need citation. If no one feels it necessary to find a source in the next several days the entire section will be removed due to its detrimental impact on the neutrality of the entire article. A simmilar situation lead to the larger criticism article being deleted. Wikipedia need not stand for this crap anymore.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 17:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Editing as such, down to what the section should be. gspawn 14:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I've pared the section down to rougly what it should look like. Anyone can feel free to edit this, of couse, but please don't turn this into a POV rant. Again.
  • Despite the critical and financial success of Halo 2, there continues to be heated debate as to whether the title is superior or infererior to its predecessor, Halo: Combat Evolved. Arguments are mainly directed at the multiplayer aspect of the game, and include claims that the game's learning curve has been simplified too drastically, and that there may be deep-rooted problims within the games's online matchmaking modes via Xbox Live. The game's Campaign mode also recieves some criticism, including dissatisfaction the abrupt, cliffhanger ending that sets gamers up for Halo 3. There is also some criticism of the game's on-the-fly rendering technique, which can sometimes result in textures or models being loaded into a cutscene in full sight of the player.
  • It should be noted that criticism of Halo 2 is mostly voiced by competitive online gamers, and that despite the criticism, Halo 2 continues to be the most-played game on Xbox Live, even after the release of the Xbox 360.
I realize that there are a few notes that might be worthy of mention, such as the demystification of the Covenant / playing as Arbiter, but I couldn't find a way to add it in without making the section grow too cumbersome. gspawn 14:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

It should probably just be mentioned in brief, but in the interest of NPOV include a counter, especially since one is readily available. Very little if any of what you learn about the covanent is at all demystifying if you've read the Books, and even less so if you read the content that came with the special edition of Halo 2 (like the conversations from across the universe pamphlet (I think thats the name).--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 15:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  • It is highly unnecessary to construct such a section in any video game article, taking in due consideration the amount of conflicted views and whatnot being inserted. If viable sources have made comments on the source content's failings, then it should be merged within appropriate sections outlined in the article. I'd advise a similar structure to the method I took on Nightshade (PlayStation 2). -ZeroTalk 16:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm all for merging all of this into the appropriate content sections. My only problem is that, when this was originally tried, the people pushing for POV criticism essentially started to vandalize the entire article, trying to turn the bulk of it into one long, anti-Halo 2 rant. If you have an active interest in monitoring this page to make sure something like this doesn't happen again, I'm more than willing to help. gspawn 11:28, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone added a "too linear" criticism. I may be mistaken, but I don't think that's a particularly common complaint (or if it is, it's no moreso than basically all other FPS games). Deleting unless there's a great abundance of evidence I'm unaware of. There are many scenarios that have many possible paths, even if the beginning and ending points are the same, and this is just as Halo was. gspawn 13:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I added the comment about the linear nature of the game, based on several critical commentaries (such as over at rampency.net), but also because the path you take through levels is often very restricted, even if it appears to be open on the face of things. 2 good examples would be the New Mombosa bridge, which is surrounded by invisible walls, and the Gondolas on Delta Halo. The levels appear to be large, yet the actual path you can take through them is often very small, hence the "On Rails" comment. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.59.144 (talk • contribs)

And my point can be summed up with "Library" and "the Maw run". (heh). I expect rail-like portions of levels will return in Halo 3, because it seems more like a feature of the series, and isn't terribly difference from most any other FPS game. But alongside Library you also have bits like Attack on the Control Room, blancing things out nicely. Although some points in Halo 2 are linear, there are also tons of massive areas (dwarfing the biggest open spaces in Halo) where there's virtually unlimited freedom and variety. gspawn 15:36, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Removed new passage: gspawn 17:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Also, despite assurances by Bungie during the Halo 2 development process that they were aware of complaints about the original game's level design, and that the sequel would improve on this aspect of the series, some still felt that many of Halo 2's environments were drab, uninspired, and repetitive when compared to other first-person shooters.
As per this discussion, removed. Halo 2's environments are monstrously big, often very open, and are in many ways pinnacles of gaming especially at the game's release. See also: Draw distance on the New Mombasa bridge, monstrous 3d proportions of Banshee levels, etc. Especially considering the contents of the addition, Bungie DID fix many problems. Geometry is much less repeated, there are no "reversed" levels, etc. These complaints were completely addressed. As an added bonus, see frequent mentions that the Criticism section must be kept to absolute minimum. gspawn 17:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure criticism should be part of an encyclopedia article. In the end everything get criticism. But in the other hand i'm not sure praise should be part of an encyclopedia article too. There's always a bunch of people who love or hate something. I could be wrong but the goal of an encyclopedia is not to criticism or praise something. It's to explain or describe it. Again i could be wrong. The problem with the H2 article is it praise the game, bungie and microsoft a lot but doesn't talk about the criticism. The part about the cheating is the worst. The article praise bungie and microsoft for fighting cheating (a thing all companies do, all online PC games are patched on a regular basis) but doesn't really say that cheating is actually as worse as before. I'm not knowledgeable when it comes to encyclopedia. I don't know what an encyclopedia should include and exclude and i will never edit Wikipedia main articles (even in my native language). But in my opinion it should show both side of a medal. If everyone think a game is innovative then fine this is a fact. But when the opinions are divided then you must talk about both side or simply not talk about it at all. It's not because H2 sold so much copies and is still played online that it's a perfect game. A lot of people saw Pearl Harbor or Independance Day. Are they great movie for that ? I liked Halo 2 and a lot of people liked it. It's not false to say it's a great game (ranked 17th over gamerankings.com while halo ranked 7th), an xbox live flagship title and one of the most popular game ever (NPD numbers would prove that but not xbox.com for god sake). I just recently stoped playing it when i sold my xbox to get a 360. But when the article say this game is a milestone in the emergence of the video games industry well this need to be backed by a source. When the article say the multiplayer is innovative well it's need to be backed by a source again. Some people and some observers are not sources. And when the article talks (read praise) about all the patches bungie did well it needs to also talk about all the new cheats hackers created like bridging or using 2 month trial cards to mod and boost friends because no people who play with modders are not banned like the article says (it's wrong to say that). I reported them often are they are never banned. Overall the article describe the game well (except the lack of super jump). But some part are really more opinions than facts and some parts are simply just wrong. The multi is different, simple and effective when you don't play against cheaters. Innovative i know a lot of people who would disagree. Maybe thay are wrong. But prove it. --LaP 18:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Multiplayer Update

I've updated the multiplayer section by correcting how long game data is retained on the bungie.net servers, and by correcting a comment on being the host of the game being percieved as an advantage (it is, and one that's especially noticable at high levels of play, or at long range, or on a highly latent connection, such as between the US and Australia). However, I'm wondering if the comment on host should be moved to it's own section.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.59.144 (talk • contribs)


Bridging

The Multiplayer section mentions bridging as a form of cheating: "..it is becoming increasingly common to manipulate the system to forcibly obtain host by a method termed 'bridging'." Is bridging something specific to Halo 2 Multiplayer? If so, it should be embellished upon (perhaps in a new subsection of Multiplayer called "Cheating" or "Bannable Offenses." If bridging is a technique common to other online gaming, the term should be linked to a page describing it. I don't know what the terms means, or I'd do it myself.

The term is misnamed from the fact that in order to actually 'bridge', it requires the user to run their xbox through a PC and set up internet connection sharing, or a network bridge, and limit the connections using a firewall. Unfortunately, despite the term being named inaccurately, it seems to have caught on within the Halo community.

As for it being a common technique ... I don't think it happens in other online games, since most online games do not select the host at random (as Halo 2 does), prefering instead to use server listings. Consequentally, there is no way to manipulate the networking to make someone host, as this is fixed.

I also like the idea of creating a few multiplayer subsections, to make the layout seem more organised. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.59.144 (talk • contribs)

Really, there would just need to be a page for "bridging" (if there isn't one already?), and that's what someone can create if they want. I don't know enough to make a good page or I'd do it myself And yes, it's pretty isolated because of the way in which Halo2 does its matchmaking. It's not like network control doesn't happen in other games, it's that it usually doesn't happen this way. gspawn 11:55, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

To Sum things up, bridging is the **coolest** thing about h2 multiplayer. Whoever has Xlive, I strongly recommend that you learn how to bridge.

Bridging is not the coolest thing about H2. It actually what is killing H2. Bridging is cheating. I sold my XBox last week (to buy a 360) but before doing so i decided to join a group of bridgers to see how bridging affect the game. I always suspected bridging to be the main reason why there's more lags since last fall when playing H2 over XBox Live. By joining this group of bridgers i found that i was right. Basically one player bridge to host to another player (it takes aroung 15-20 minutes to find a team slayer game while forcing host since most team slayer groups now bridge, it takes less time to find a big team game). And this other player can use his PC to regulate his bandwidth so other players in the game will lag enough to give the host an advantage (so he can steal the flag, plant the bomb or gets 20 kills easily) but not enough to be suspected of cheating. We won 19 games out of 20 even if we actually had a very average team. Not every bridgers will us his PC to make others lag. But even if you only force host you are actually cheating. You prevent the game and Xbox Live from chosing the best host in the game. Chances are the guy you force host to is not the best host for this game. I have a good 5000/1000 internet connection. I used to host often while playing Halo 2 because my connection is enough good to be smooth with 8 players only. I can join 32 players BF 2 servers on PC easily. Yet since last fall i rarely host when playing Halo 2 and often the game lags even if there's only 8 players in the game. Team Slayer in now unplayable. I would say 25 to 33% of the games lag so much it gives the host team a big advantage. --LaP 18:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

So why are we not talking about the HUGE sales this game had?

and that is scored more then any hollywood film ever on it's opening day???

I thought that was covered? *double-take* gspawn 12:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject Halo is formed!

It needs members.--Zxcvbnm 14:22, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Uhhh... link? lollerskates. gspawn 18:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Halo. — TKD::Talk 20:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
I think this information needs to be posted at the top of every halo page currently listed in the list of wikipedia articles on halo on the project pages. I am happy to do so if necessary. -007bond 23:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Story cleanup

Attempted some cleanup of the spoilers section, including deleting doubled bits, rewording for brevity when possible, etc. Not too much improvement, but a start. Suggestions? gspawn 18:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Version deletion

The version section needs deleted, and at most left as a one-sentence mention elsewhere (game is at 1.1). The "lower-right hand shows" line screams unencyclopedic. Seems like someone is actively editing now, so I'll just say a simple fix can be seen on most other PC games (a la Diablo 2) where version is a part of the game's infobox. Gspawn 02:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Done'd. Gspawn 12:10, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Mythic Mode

What gives? I've never seen mythic mode. Do you have to beat the game in Legendary? I couldn't beat the game in harder than Normal, which would explain it.

See Halo 2 Skulls. You have to find one of the secret skulls, which only appears in legendary mode. Ace of Sevens 06:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

so why the hell did you guys get rid of the "main article" on the critisim of halo 2?

Is this biased? or is it just me? -Dragong4

Just you. See NPOV--Zxcvbnm 21:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
One entire article article entirely dedicated to bitching relentlessly about a game is biased [pardom my language, but it's true]. The reason it became an article of its own in the first place was because I (and others) basically amputated it from the main article in order to put it by itself and show how ridiculous it was, as well as to keep vandalization of the main article down (haters were constantly inserting reasons H2 sucked all over the entire article- moving the critism stopped that almost immediately).Gspawn
The "criticism" section has always only needed roughly one meaty paragraph's worth of information only, and then to move on. That's almost exactly what we have now- and it should stay. Gspawn
And in case anyone wonders, the "criticism" page got tons of opportunities to save itself, including several votes for deletion that should have acted as rallying points for anyone still concerned about actually fixing the content. Those who supported the page relentlessly protected it from deletion, but basically never tried to meet Wikipedia expectations at any point, even as deletion loomed large. As it stands, this matter is resolved, and any attempts at unnecessarily expanding the "criticism" will be deleted/reverted, and all major contributors here would (probably) agree that any additions to the section need to be discussed on the Talk page first, because until it's proven that the addition is worth keeping, it will be deleted. Gspawn 18:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
So basically if someone adds in valid points of opinion that may have influenced the work of Bungie, while maintaining a, "Even if you don't think Halo 2 sucked, your opinions are still welcomed" attitude over at Halo2sucks.com it proves suceptable to remove a link to a site that is unbiased? Just because the url reads "sucks" doesn't mean every member thinks so; flawed is more of a word just about every member would choose, or "dissapointed," considering they are all fans of the series and just wished for the best. Also, the main page isn't meant to be taken seriously; it's the forums where the arguements and points are. If you're going to provide links to fan sites who will blindly say, "OMG HALO 2 ROCKS END OF STORY LOLZ" I don't see why adding a link to a site with members with a seriously mature approach to the issue is "wrong."--Agamemnon 20:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
The website's name is "Halo 2 sucks" and you're holding it up as an unbiased source? Come on. And again, this has been going on for quite literally MONTHS. All of this has been said before, all of this has been debated before, and the final logical consensus was to get rid of the section (and anything remotely connected to H2sucks). Try to resurrect it all if you want, but you're fighting a losing battle. Sorry? Gspawn 04:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
And by the way, yes even posting the link attracts vandals en masse. Vandals as in replacing a whole section with "you can (f/s)uck Master Chief" (two exact quotes). Letting a criticism section exist at all is virtually a giant neon "vandalize me" sign to way too many people. It's even already starting up again by the looks of the overwikification and little attempts to add in extra bits. But if we got rid of the Criticism section entirely to stop that, the whole page would be destroyed by others, and we'd be talking lockdown or making a new criticism page to push the vandals away. Again. Point- FOR THE LOVE OF GOD (or Allah, or Vishnu...) just LET IT GO. Nobody wants to do this again. Gspawn 04:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Gspawn in most respects here. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that a "Criticism" section alone is too much, and that we should switch over to a "reception and criticism" section for fairness' sake, as done in the Final Fantasy VIII article. Unfortunately, some people are determined to add their little bit of dissatisfied bitching about Halo 2, which unfortunately belongs on a forum or blog, and not in an encyclopedia. Peptuck 14:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Chapters

Hey, can somebody who owns (or is intimately familiar with) Halo 2 add the chapter titles into the article, like in the Halo: Combat Evolved article? It would be much appreciated.--67.172.204.135 22:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I never f***d it, but I have played it. Kind of a pun there. Sorry. Doing it now. Gspawn 22:40, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Minor thing, this section was formatted as a sub-header accidentally by creator. Fixd.Gspawn 15:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

You've never f****d it?! Sacrilege! You don't know what you're missing! :D--67.172.204.135 19:44, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Skulls

Can somebody please add a more in-depth section about the skulls that can be found? As it is, there is only mention of the Mythic skull, and currently I can't tell if it just makes the game harder, or if it unlocks a completely new difficulty mode. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.172.204.135 (talk • contribs) .

Yeah, Wikipedia is not a place to find this kind of thing. Refer to a site like Gamefaqs for that info.--KrossTalk 01:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Understood, I was just commenting on how the mythic skull is briefly mentioned once with no explanation as to what skulls are. Either they should be explained or or not mentioned at all. 67.172.204.135 20:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Anyone involved with the Wikiproject wanna address this? I'm not terribly familiar with the skulls myself...172.129.79.43 20:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Should be in the Electronic sports games category

I tried to add Halo 2 to the Electronic sports games category but, it was removed. Halo 2 is an e-sport game because there are professional Halo 2 teams and Halo 2 tournaments. The biggest tournaments held by MLG. --Credema 17:37, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I am sure the one who removed it did because he thought you classified the game as a sport game. -- ReyBrujo 17:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, my mistake. That category name, Electronic sports games, is somewhat misleading, but I apologize for not checking exactly what it was first. Obviously, Halo 2 is played professionally. I have reverted. --Satori Son 18:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, the category is incredibly misleading and needs revised. Halo is not a game in the Sports genre, so it should not be classified as a Sports game. Now, if the category were revised to read "Games in Electronic Sports" or... something. I will redo the delete because I don't think any "Average Joe" visiting the site would ever read "Electronic Sports Game" and think what's intended. Once the categorization gets a fix, it can be redone. Along with this, I've started a discussion on that category's Discussion on fixing this problem. Solve the problem first, add back after. In my opinion, anyway. 68.255.77.106 14:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Duplicated information on the Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack

It appears that the same information is located both here and here. Is it necessary to have the same information appear twice in the article? --Brent Butler 19:31, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Way to Cop Out

The criticism section, which merited it's own article has been narrowed to 3 sentences. This is the most hypocritical bullcrap I've ever seen, as many game articles out there have critical sections that have remained intanct, but I guess the mindless zombies out there got all Fascist on our asses and got Halo 2's dumbed down to the point where it's laughable to say, "Halo 2 is a failure." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.188.137.52 (talk • contribs) 16:45, 8 September 2006

Criticism never merited its own article under Wikipedia's guidelines, and criticism itself is inherently not NPOV. While other games do have criticism sections, these themselves are violations of NPOV, and should be changed to "Reaction" or "Controversy" sections at best. Reference the Final Fantasy VIII article, of a game which has drawn as much whining and bitching as Halo 2. Peptuck 08:30, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
In addition, and in a much more inarguable way (restating old stuff here) having a Criticism section of more than 3 lines in this article brings incredible amounts of griefing and vandalization of the article at large. So even IF the criticism wasn't inherently against Wikipedia, all the griefing still would be. Read sections above- this is the bazillionth time this has been brought up. 68.255.77.106 14:38, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
The similar section in the Final Fantasy VIII article is called "Reception and criticism". When this article was peer reviewed back in March, Nifboy suggested we change the name to "Reception". Personally, I prefer Peptuck's "Controversy". We're certainly going to have to change it at some point before we even think about trying for FA. --Satori Son 16:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Agreed and changed to "Controversy." Calling that segment a "Reception" section as-is would unfairly make the game look like it was universally pooryly received.
People aren't being fascist, they are following the rules. It seems that most of the "criticism" that gets added is uncited, unverifiable or original research, all of which violate policy. If something can be added then it should be done properly, and then no one will be within their right to delete it. Konman72 08:37, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

vandalism

um, i dunno if the rest of you can see this, but the entire article here has been extensively vandalized, but when I try to edit it, the article appears normal. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.44.212.188 (talk • contribs) 11:35, October 6, 2006.

Hi, it appears there has been quite a bit of vandalism lately, and perhaps between the time of when you noticed it, and when you clicked 'edit', it had already been reverted (we're usually pretty fast on that stuff :) ). If you're more interested in helping fight vandalism, you can register and join the Counter Vandalism Unit, or just patrol recent changes. --DevastatorIIC 19:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the AntiVandal Bot program and numerous vigilent editors are pretty good about reverting vandalism here quickly. But, since this article is vandalized several times per day, what are the opinions as to requesting Semi-protected status for this article? --Satori Son 20:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I'll drink to that! Er, I mean, yeah, sounds good. :) CVU? Sounds like somethingI'd like to be a part of. Although your speed in fixing the article was incredible. bit of a problem though; when I went back to the main article it was the same as it had been. it was probably justme, but you never know... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.44.212.188 (talk • contribs) 16:27, 6 October 2006
I agree on semi-protection. Almost everything in terms of vandalism seen thus far is an IP edit, and there's no vandalism from established editors in recent memory. Semi-protection will save everyone a lot of trouble. Peptuck 06:25, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Peptuck seems to be right. Cyberlemming 00:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and put in a request for Semi-protected status.Peptuck 19:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Taken care of. Now we can improve the article in relative peace :) Peptuck 18:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Multiplayer Map List

Multiplayer / Xbox Live is a huge part of Halo... I think we should have a list of the maps in the game, and possibly even entire pages on each map. I would be glad to help in any way! I am new to Wikipedia, but I am an avid Halo fan and I can learn fast. :)

[Edited for typos] GAMER4EVER 18:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Hate to break it to you, but that list used to exist, and was deleted by consensus. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of multiplayer maps in Halo 2. — TKD::Talk 19:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Halo Combat Evolved Tin

Ok, let me first start by saying that I have no clue where this should be discussed. I'm starting my search here because I would say that this most closely relates with the Halo 2 tin for the collectors edition.

First a little background:

Before I graduated from highschool I had to job shadow somebody in a career of interest for me. Because of some connections, I was able to job shadow the Worldwide OEM manager for Microsoft. He had recently been promoted to this position, having been working as the General Manager of North American Operations and was closely associated with the Halo 2 launch. Before my time with him ended, he gave me a tin case that had the design for Halo on it. He said that it was made for executives to look at how the Halo 2 case would be. At the point that they made this they hadn't finalized the design for the Halo 2 case, but they wanted to make an example and proof of concept if you will. It has the exact image of the regular halo case, but it is made out of tin and embossed. These were made in limited number and not distributed to the public. Before I went there, I did not know that these even existed. I'd like to make an article that tells of their existance. Unfortunately, I don't have much information other than this second hand story. No facts, no references. But I have one, so if I get a hold of a digital camera I can upload a picture.

Is there any support for this, or advice on how and where? I've worked on a few articles but still need help on the finer points. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Stephen—Preceding unsigned comment added by Thestevo (talk • contribs)