It isnt really 343s story though. Bungie had made the story of the didact and librarian back in halo 3, all 343 did was use it. I mean at the end of halo 3, you could see a forerunner planet, probably requiem.

The thing is though the Didact was never actually evil. Bungie might have created both the Didact and the Librarian and not 343i, but 343i [i]did[/i] completely contradict what little character that Bungie had established for the Didact and what we did know about him. The story of the Didact and Librarian in Halo 3 is nothing at all like what 343i did in either Silentium [i]or[/i] Halo 4. It'd have been one thing if 343i had just had the [i]actual[/i] Didact die and had the character Bornstellar be the replacement and essentially the Didact in everything but name only (which is what the case was at the end of Cryptum and in Primordium as well), there'd have been nothing wrong with that at all as it still leaves the Terminals in Halo 3 as they are and the Didact is still in character and doesn't change anything about them. But what they wound up doing with the Didact and having the original/actual character turn out to be a villain is absolutely unacceptable and completely undermines and contradicts his character.

Ah, i see. Yeah, the Didact did not sound as he was in halo 4, during the halo 3 terminals.

I feel like if they wanted to have a Forerunner villain, they should have used the Master Builder from the Forerunner Saga, he would have been absolutely [i]perfect[/i] for the role and he was already established as a villain, and a pretty good one too, [i]or[/i] come up with a completely new one we hadn't seen before. And if they felt like they absolutely [i]had[/i] to have the Didact as an antagonist in Halo 4, they could have easily found a better way to do it than making him out of character and evil and doing his evil deeds because he hates humans :/ They could have even worked in that whole thing of feeling like humans weren't ready and/or currently undeserving of taking up the Mantle without him being out of character too. If he were to be an antagonist at all, I feel like it should have only been a temporary one and have whatever the issue(s) were eventually worked out. The biggest problem for me with the Didact being an antagonist in 343i's works so far is that he's an [i]actual[/i] villain and just generally pretty out of character.

They should have explained it better why he hated humans, because without an outside source or terminals i just thought he was just a bad guy, doing bad guy things. I may not hate the 343 story line as much as you do to stop playing and buying the games but i do see some of the flaws that are in them.

Mhm, if it had been handled better in the game, and if Silentium had come out [i]before[/i] Halo 4 did, I think I probably would have been able to at least tolerate it or maybe look past it. The whole thing with the Didact though is only part of why I lost interest in the series and didn't really want to continue it though. Other big things that drove me away were the Kilo-5 Trilogy (which was a [i]REALLY[/i] big one) and the fact that where ONI, their relations and interactions with the UEG and UNSC, and the whole entire plot involving Halsey that was introduced in Kilo-5 has only continued to be built off of as 343i's story has gone on; and a lot of the stuff they introduced in the Forerunner Saga and concerning stuff to do with the Forerunners and [i]especially[/i] the Precursors not really feeling like it belonged in a setting like Halo's....the stuff they introduced concerning them wound up feeling like something that would have sat fine and right at home in a genre like Warhammer 40K or Star Wars, which aren't really pure sci-fi but sort of a mix of sci-fi and fantasy as well. I've always considered Halo to be a sci-fi series that was pretty grounded in reality and pretty much all of the technologies in it were something that felt entirely possible and like something that could naturally be invented given a long enough time, or they were technologies that were already based around ideas and things that were being researched and studied (like the science used to create the MACs on the UNSC's ships or similarly used in the Gauss 'Hog). Pretty much everything they revealed about the Precursors in Silentium or had them capable of doing, or things like the geass didn't really feel like Halo anymore and felt more like something you'd find in a sci-fantasy setting or that'd be at home there.

Yeaah i do see what you mean. Halo felt more serious and close to realistic, like things that could actually happen. I just hope that Halo 5 will be great, and better than Halo 4. Maybe that'll save the halo series.

Well, I know it certainly looks like it'd be a lot of fun to play or at least try. It's definitely something I'd rent at the very least if I had an Xbox1. In any case, I do hope it's enjoyable and good for all of the people who've decided to stick with Halo. And hey, I just want to say thanks for being so cool with all of this and actually having a polite and fairly intelligent conversation, I really appreciate it. All too often I find conversations along this topic devolving into the internet equivalent of shouting matches and one or both parties plugging their ears and essentially going "lalalalalalalala, not listening". So yeah, it was a very nice and fresh change of pace to have someone actually being pleasant about it for once :)

No problem! I too enjoyed our conversation, and sadly there are too many of those type of stubborn and ignorant people. I hope you have a wonderful day/afternoon/night, where ever you are. :D

It would currently be night where I am, and I wish you the same :) Perhaps we shall run into each other on here again sometime. Oh, and I just thought I'd add, if you were curious to see a more in-depth look at the specifics for the problems I've been having with 343i or where I thought they'd gone wrong, I though I'd leave you with [url=http://princessarien.deviantart.com/journal/Halo-and-Why-I-Hate-the-Current-Writers-362092601]this[/url], though fair warning, when I wrote that it was mainly a way to blow off steam and vent all of my frustrations without holding back and without much regard for grammar or proofreading, so it's a bit rambly at times and quite......uh, passionate throughout with more than a bit of swearing >_> I've definitely calmed down [i]considerably[/i] since then XD Even if my opinions ultimately haven't changed all that much at their core from what I wrote in there. What I said in response to people in the comments section would also be good to read as it's quite a bit more coherent and calm, and I think probably gets my points across better and further extrapolates on them a bit.

Are those Bungie-era books worth reading? I haven't read any of the Halo books, new or old.

I'd definitely say so, I definitely enjoyed reading them. The only one that I really didn't particularly enjoy all that much was The Flood (which is a novelization/retelling of the first game with a little bit of extra scenes/characters here and there), but other than that they were all really good for being a bunch of books based off of a video game series. The ones by Eric Nylund especially were really great, aside from a bit of early installment weirdness in the Fall of Reach, which is kind of excuseable since it's the very first book and I don't either Nylund, Microsoft, [i]or[/i] Bungie really knew just how popular Halo was going to prove to be and just how expansive the lore for the series was going to wind up getting. The Cole Protocol is another one of my favorites and right up near the top of the list. If you decide to read them, the best order to read them in would probably be published order, in other words, starting with The Fall of Reach, and then moving on to The Flood, First Strike, and lastly Ghosts of Onyx. The Cole Protocol and Contact Harvest can really be read wherever in there as they can stand pretty well on their own and you don't really need to have done anything besides play the games in order to understand them. Well, actually, you should definitely read The Fall of Reach before you read The Cole Protocol (as the Fall of Reach deals with the origins of the Spartan Program and their training and such), Cole Protocol wouldn't be incomprehensible or anything if you didn't read the Fall of Reach first, but you'll understand the Spartan characters in it and the few little bits that touch on the Spartan Program a whole lot better if you do. And even though I don't like the majority of them, you should give the books published by 343i a try as you never know, while I may hate them and not enjoy them very much, you might. So they're at least worth giving a shot and seeing how you feel about it. The only one that I would [i]actually[/i] recommend as I enjoyed it and felt like it fit in and made sense with the older works is Halo: Evolutions, which is a collection of various short stories ranging from all across the timeline of the Halo series and about lots of different characters, both human and Covenant. So yeah, that one I would definitely recommend reading for sure, and the rest of 343i's stuff I think you should try and see what you think, take whatever negative criticisms I have to say about them with a grain of salt and form your own opinions about them :)

Awesome, thanks! Where should I go for the books? Amazon?

Yeah, you can definitely find them there, though it looks like a lot of the ones I'm seeing are Kindle editions/versions of the books, I didn't see too many hard copies of the older books from Bungie's time with the series, the only ones I really saw were boxed sets: [url]http://www.amazon.com/Halo-Boxed-Set-Various-Authors/dp/0765370123/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442114218&sr=1-10&keywords=halo[/url] and [url]http://www.amazon.com/Halo-Boxed-Set-Various-Authors/dp/0765364670/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442114218&sr=1-6&keywords=halo[/url] Hope those prove useful to you.