Pt. 3 of Jason Jones Interview posted

by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Wednesday, July 17, 2013, 16:27 (3939 days ago) @ Xenos

Oh BTW, everyone talking about how the first Halo game didn't need extra stuff etc., he didn't say just that one.

"I think the great tragedy of Halo is that for years and years it provided wonderful single-player and co-op content, and we provided people with almost no fun incentives or excuses, almost no reason besides their own enjoyment, to go back and replay it. So Halo 1 built these 10 labor of love missions, and only if you decided to go back and replay them was there any incentive to do so."

I invite Jones to elaborate.

"If I would have done anything to Halo 1, it would have been to do something to draw people back into those experiences that they enjoyed the first time. Even in the smallest ways, just to give them an excuse to get together and do it again."

Like the Skulls in later Halo games?

"Sure. And that was a shadow of an attempt to do that," he says firmly.

He used Halo 1 as an example, and then when he was asked to elaborate he went into it more with that example. He also says that skulls were a partial attempt at doing what he wanted-- a few people don't like them, but I think overall there's been less complaint about them than at least half the other things in the games (besides being hidden so well). I'd also like to point out the wording there. He calls any more incentives an excuse-- not an excuse to make more money, not an excuse to put more things into the game or give people more to do, an excuse for people to play the games more, and in particular to get together and play them more. I don't see anything wrong with that, especially if we agree the games were already (really) good. Am I the only one here that's ever had trouble getting someone (personally several people over the years, including myself) to do something fun?