Synthesis Discourse Community

There are many layers to the discourse community of Halo fans. You have the “Pros”(People who play only ranked multiplayer all day every day!) , People who play the game for the story of the campaigns, and casuals who only play the multiplayer, but not to the same extent as the pros. In terms of the “campaigners”, many of them don’t just keep the narrative to the actual game but extend their knowledge of the Halo universe by immersing themselves into the books. I fall under that category. For the most part, I am actually a reputable source of information when it comes to the first five Halo books on the old Halo forums (before they were moved late in 2011).

When Halo: Reach was announced in 2008, a lot of campaigners jumped for joy at the thought of playing the beginning of the war as described in Halo: The Fall of Reach, which is the first book written and takes place just before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. From a campaigner’s perspective however, the game was very disappointing in terms of story as it didn’t follow the book at all! It only even shows two of the characters in the book (Captain Keyes and Dr. Halsey). Fan cried out in honor of the Halo canon to which was answered with re-writes of the original books with slight variations made to fit the new fiction. 

With the Halo Community, there is a clear ranking system of seniority and moderators. Having been exposed to Halo since 2003, I rank pretty high on the seniority level. People also can use their ranks in-game to show their seniority. In Halo: Reach, even though I don’t play many ranked games, my BPR (Battle Percentage Ranking) is very high at 93 out of 100 and gives me some sway when strategies are being discussed on various maps. Like how it is not a good idea to try and snipe directly from the sniper tower as it is too obvious on the map Ascension.

Halo is a genuine community that I belong to and I could talk about it for hours.