First, let me say that I love 343 for continuing on the Halo franchise. However, that doesn’t mean I need to agree with everything they do. So with that said, I’ve got some real issues with the Halo 4 Global Championship going on right now.
I know 343/Virgin gaming had good intentions for this and by all accounts the tournament is being played a lot. That however doesn’t mean it’s been set up right.
Now, I’m not going to say I know everything there is to know about a tournament. NOONE does. However, I’ve noticed and have had friend tell me about things that are just plain WRONG with how the tournament is being run.
My own argument aside for why I feel pro players shouldn’t be in this (long story and I won’t go into it), why wasn’t there a cut off date to register BEFORE the competition? I’ve had MANY a friend tell me they are playing against gamers with VERY low CSRs yet HIGH K/Ds. Folks, that’s playing on an alternate account. It’s NOT in the name of sportmanship. I even asked HaloWaypoint about this. Here’s their canned response (I’ve seen the same answer to this from another tweet):
I’m sorry, but no matter how this wants to be spinned that is down right DIRTY play. MS makes the money on those multiple accounts, so they can turn a blind eye. But really, 343/Virgin Gaming, if you want a tournament to be respectable, you’ve GOT to eliminate this from the competition. Personally, I’d have had some STRICT rules for this, especially given that there is $200K on the line for first place!
Here is just some of what I’ve had done with this:
• You must have been a GOLD member for at least 3 months prior to the event start
• Registration ENDS the day BEFORE the competition begins. NOT each week.
• Blatant alternate accounts will be banned and may suffer a permanent XBOX ban.
Beyond these rules, here are some other things I would have had in place: Players who qualified from events, RTX for example are NOT permitted to play in the online portion or later events. Why? Because for instance there is a certain competitor who qualified at RTX and who IS playing in the online competition. WHY? REALLY? SO you want to wreck people’s hopes BEFORE they even get to Seattle? Totally NOT fair gameplay at all.
Also, NO frackin’ way I’d invite people in to play that didn’t participate in the competition. If you’re going to invite pro-players (which already scants the competition to a pro winning it all), AND inviting 4v4 teams instead of straight up FFA (some where some were not), then where do you stop inviting people? Community leaders may say they would like a shot too. Do you allow them in? What about those smaller groups/sites/etc (like me for instance) that while not as well known, put their life into Halo? See where I’m going with this? Regardless that those pros being invited have to pay to get Seattle, the point is they did NOT work for it in the ACTUAL competition. Or even if they had and not qualified, then maybe they should be going…just sayin’.
Look, I know this is about finding the BEST or the BEST in Halo 4. I also know I’m no where near that. But I DO have friends that are pretty damn good at the game. They won’t have a chance at this, especially with all the opportunities given to pros and alternate accounts.
Here is how I see this. You can’t clone yourself in sports. Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey…No clones there. So why is a tournament that has so much money on the line allowing people to make these multiple accounts and let them use it?
I was excited to just play in this tournament. But after the first DAY seeing that someone had racked up 60+ 1st place finishes, no losses, I figured, why even bother. Now to have these invited people? AND allow alt accounts? Sorry, but no way I’m playing this. Unfortunately, this has also caused a large number of my friends (again some who are VERY good) to not even play in it. Others were discouraged after the first week, and still others after the announcement of the invites for pro-players.
I think another thing to possibly have instituted was a set number of players. Yes, that could number in the thousands. However, add to that a MAX of two players from the same console. This would also help to eliminate alt accounts. There can’t be THAT many possibilities out there where more than two DIFFERENT people on the same XBOX will play in the competition AND have an actual chance of getting in the finals. So it really would be a moot point for those relative few. In turn though, it would promote FAR more fair play for the vast majority of the rest of the competitors.
Here is another rule I’d like to see but I know would be WAY to extreme for some, especially pro players:
Since this competition in in Halo 4, a requirement would be to have at least 500 gamerscore in the game from the original achievements in the game. This would FORCE all players to play more than just Multiplayer. In fact of the 1000GS available from the original achievements in Halo 4, only about 170-180 of them can be had through multiplayer.
So yes, this would mean those of you who just play Halo for multiplayer would have to get your hands dirty in the campaign, and in the case of Halo 4, Spartan Ops as well. Who knows, you might even find you like the story too….The fact is, MANY of these achievements are EASY to get. SO getting a 500GS in Halo 4 is NOT hard at all. In fact you can achieve this in ONE DAY if you just play it. So there is NO excuse here.
As a person with more than 15 years in marketing and advertising, and seeing the abysmal dropoff numbers for people playing Spartan Ops (and it’s cancellation after just one season when many of us though this would continue well on past that), at the least making achievement score tied in with a pre-qualifier would get people to play those other portions of the game. Again, it might just get people to like them too… 343 has said they wanted to be more story centric. So this is one way to get players to buy into that. Would having such a restriction piss some people off? Sure. But how about the blatant “cheating” going on right now with alt accounts? You don’t think that pisses off other fans as well? I’d have loved to see this competition be more for the Halo fans than just multiplayer fans. I’m not saying multiplayer only gamers aren’t fans, but they certainly are not as deep into the lore, story, etc. as those who play campaign and Spartan Ops.
Whew, okay, I better just stop here. This whole thing just has me upset that the everyday fan really had NO shot from the beginning of this AND that pro-players were given more than enough opportunity to get into the finals. Again, I knew that I wouldn’t make it into this. That would have been a pipe dream. But the rules I’ve suggested would have made it at least more fair. And the rule at the end would have brought in HALO players, not just matchmaking players.
We now return to your normal HFFL blog…
/RANT
-Sal
