So this has been a hot topic on the Waypoint forums, and it's been a very, very interesting thing to discuss. I linked this in my other thread, but I decided to make an actual thread for the article. [quote]Holmes recalls was when the team completed a small piece of the Halo experience that he described as a "very traditional" Halo. User research showed that people thought it was a lot of fun, and it showed that the team was capable of making a Halo game that was true to what the series was about. 343 scrapped it, Holmes says, as it was too traditional.[/quote] This will probably be the most upsetting quote here. [quote]"We had people who we hired who hated Halo because of 'X,'" says O'Connor. "But what that really meant was, 'I feel like this game could be awesome because of 'Y input' that I'm going to bring into it. I want to prove it, and I'm passionate about proving it.' So we ended up with a bunch of people who were genuinely passionate about the product. That is a huge advantage, and that helped in hiring and forming our team."[/quote] [quote]"As a general rule, we try not to overreact to the loud, vocal minority," says Holmes.[/quote] [quote]"There were a lot of mistakes we made along the way in which we knew weren't necessarily the right way to do things, but given what we had to deliver and our timeframe, we accepted that these are necessary mistakes, and we acknowledged them."[/quote] Thoughts?