Halo's multiplayer component was becoming a popular e-sport, and I think the industry doesn't know how to handle games with potential to become e-sports. Video-games are currently treated as throw-away media—you play, throw it away, because the sequel's coming out and it's "better" than the original, throw that away when it disappoints or you've become bored, look for the next big blockbuster title, and so forth. Any multiplayer component is used to lengthen that game's expected life-span and promote sales. Unfortunately, because multiplayer is seen as a component rather than a full game in and of itself there has to be a campaign component too—and that means when one gets reevaluated the other does as well: when Halo 2 came out you not only got a new campaign, improved graphics, and new game-play mechanics, but also a new multiplayer mode. With each sequel the multiplayer component transforms into something different, and so there's a lot of divided opinions concerning this topic—some people like Halo: Combat Evolved's multiplayer over Halo 3's, or Halo: Reach's over Halo 2's, etc. The campaign and multiplayer aspect are so vastly different it's illogical to change one just because you've changed the other. People primarily play Halo's campaign for the story, whilst people primarily play the multiplayer for the gameplay. I don't mind if the gameplay in Halo's campaign component is changed with each sequel, because the gameplay is rather boring and becomes glaringly repetitive when you're fighting A.I. drones. If you constantly change the gameplay in the multiplayer component I would just stop playing (as I did with Halo 4's release), because the game doesn't have time to mature. When you're getting decent at manipulating the abstract laws the sequel comes out, active player population drops, developer support ebbs, and tournament interest dies. If you move on to the sequel you have to start from square-one again, or if it still shares similarities with the predecessor you can start at square-two—but what's the point when another sequel will come out again, and the process is repeated? The multiplayer gameplay's not monotonous like in the campaign, because you're playing against thinking human beings that come up with new strategies and tactics—it's much more dynamic. However, the game has to have time to mature if you're to see anything new in player behavior. Players have been playing Quake 3 for 14 or so years now, and it's beautiful to see how the game has evolved. People are still playing it actively too through Quake 3's re-release in the form of [url=http://www.quakelive.com/]Quake Live[/url]. Other games that last the test of time don't change every year or two, they stay relatively the same. The fun in something so static comes from the new ideas players bring into the game and the underlying goal of perfecting play! If you keep changing the multiplayer component for the sake of releasing sequels you kill off any potential for that game to grow past anything but mindless throw-away entertainment! If you're to release a game with a campaign component and a multiplayer component why not make them separate entities? You can produce expansions for the campaign that improve graphical fidelity, tells new stories, and mixes up the gameplay, but the multiplayer component doesn't get affected by those expansions. Treat the multiplayer component more like an MMORPG game—a player subscription fee ensures the game's maintenance, new content and bug fixes. If you no longer enjoy the game's multiplayer you can cancel your subscription, but you can still buy the campaign expansions if that's what you enjoy, because they're separate. This way a rising e-sport won't be squashed by needless re-iteration of game mechanics and a lack of good maps due to sequels!

Didn't they do that already?

[quote]We stay that way?[/quote] huh? wtf are you saying OP? Wtf is the point of this thread?

People would complain that 343 doesn't have the skills to make a new Halo game from scratch and can only fall back on making a remake for an old Halo game. 343 can't win in any situation, it seems.

Hey guess what? Their not so stfu and stop bringing up stupid subjects so you can get attention on the forums

Then people would complain because it would be too much like Bungie's Halo; Yet people are complaining that Halo 4 is too different from Bungie's Halo.

I would rather have Halo 2 servers back and play Halo 2 than play Halo 3 of any version.