• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Halo |OT6| I will not allow you to leave this thread!

Status
Not open for further replies.

CyReN

Member
Given from THC added to his impressions of Halo 4 from RTX. I bolded the new stuff (in case anyone missed it)

I am here currently playing Halo 4 at RTX and I can promise you that Halo 4s movement speed is faster, more crisp, and more responsive than Halo 2 and Halo 3. Its perfect. The aim acceleration has been close to eliminated and you can play much more twitchy looking left and right with ease. This is nothing like the Reach lag when you move left and right. The jump height if way higher than Reach and very similar to H3 but without the floaty feeling of being in the air too long. The DMR can be pulled as fast as you want and you will land all your shots and great distances. I talked to some of the developers on how it just feels like a visual indicator now and does not affect your shot. He gladly told me that its awesome because you can use the weapons how you intend to use them.

This game plays better than anything you could ever imagine. Nothing describes the hands on feel of the game. No video will do justice to these weapons. The wait lines to play the game take close to two hours to either play on Adrift - Regicide (FFA) or Haven - Infinity Slayer (Team Slayer).
The armor ability, specializations, and weapons all pair in so many different ways to allow different styles of play.

If you have any questions you would like me to ask to the team or any questions about the E3 build that we are playing, ask me! They are going to put up LongBow later today or Tomorrow for some Big Team Battle games with vehicles included! I recorded plenty of HD video of the event and will have a video out later this week.
Went 24-11 first game, and 23-9 second game.

The thing about the pros is they never actually type and write out analytical information to the community but they try and explain things through videos and sometimes that doesn't really get the message and feelings across. The jumping feels great though! It's like a leap in the air and you can feel the weight of the spartan bring him back down. It's awesome.

A few notes from my time with the game:
  • When you are shot while sprinting, you slow down very greatly to almost slower than normal walking speed. It is awesome.
  • To use the Sticky Detonator, you press once to launch it, attach to anything, then press the trigger again to pop it. It's instant as soon at it attaches.
  • At first, I was scared of the Ordinance drop landing on my head when I called it in. But then learned that when you decide on the D-pad option, it puts a yellow marker on the ground exactly where it is going to land. If it is a Powerup ie SpeedBoost, Overshield you can simply run into it and it is activated on your player.
  • Weapons are regular hold X to pickup.
  • Thruster Pack might need a slight buffing. It bursts your screen white and it feels like you barely move anywhere, and you only have 1 use then wait to recharge. When other players use it though it looks amazing and they fly pretty far, but from first person it doesn't feel like it.

Oh, and as I left the event 9pmish, there was a Private 343i party playing the game and allowing only special people in. We tried to get in but were kindly sent our way
 

Havok

Member
Remember the Reach Forge World trailer? That thing got me hyped beyond belief. It succinctly showed off a ton of really awesome possibilities.
My favorite part of that vidoc in retrospect:
carneyno-o.gif

"There are lot of people telling us 'No, you can not ship this as one big map.'"

Carney, the prophet.
 

senador

Banned
Remember the Reach Forge World trailer? That thing got me hyped beyond belief. It succinctly showed off a ton of really awesome possibilities.

Overall, I think Bungie handled reveals a lot better than 343. The one majorly smart thing 343 did is wait till March 2012 to show off gameplay. I think a shorter, more dense hype train is the way to go.

I think 343s reveal plan has been odd. I like how they waited longer, and the E3 reveal and info was great. The in between stuff has been weird though, and the BTS vids don't compare to Bungie's Vidocs. It's probably unfair to compare them, but they did take the torch from Bungie.

I do like that 343 seems to be holding some stuff for release as to not reveal too much like I feel Bungie did with Reach.

Sowmthing I miss about Bungie Vidocs is their humor and attitude. It was more edgy and fun. I also like how they seemed to talk more about the game than the people.

Oh well. I'm not that bummed or anything. Overall I'm super hyped, but I've lost some interest in staying up to date on info and being excited for the next thing.
 
Remember the Reach Forge World trailer? That thing got me hyped beyond belief. It succinctly showed off a ton of really awesome possibilities.

Overall, I think Bungie handled reveals a lot better than 343. The one majorly smart thing 343 did is wait till March 2012 to show off gameplay. I think a shorter, more dense hype train is the way to go.

That wasn't the reveal though. That came three weeks after this RvB video. (Hard to believe it was released two years ago today.)

Anyways, the point is that I very much doubt this is the last we'll see of Halo 4's Forge.
 

daedalius

Member
My favorite part of that vidoc in retrospect:
carneyno-o.gif

"There are lot of people telling us 'No, you can not ship this as one big map.'"

Carney, the prophet.

So true.

Ugh, really? Just killed my hype if one fell swoop.

I kinda thought he clipped the kill-ball; but I guess it was fall damage, even though we've seen falls from pretty high in some of the other videos with no damage.

Some of the pro-match videos come to mind...
 
Its also kinda weird we didn't get to see a forge map in Halo 4, like an actual map made from those tools, but just a bunch of random objects. Its was just a weird way to show it off, likely more interesting to the Forger than the general player. Still, I can't help but feel most people expected a little bit more, but honestly I would have probably been more satisfied if I didn't already feel like the visuals looked like poop. Reach ruined that combo of colors for me.

Remember the Reach Forge World trailer? That thing got me hyped beyond belief. It succinctly showed off a ton of really awesome possibilities.

Overall, I think Bungie handled reveals a lot better than 343. The one majorly smart thing 343 did is wait till March 2012 to show off gameplay. I think a shorter, more dense hype train is the way to go.

Yeah, other than e3 every reveal of Halo 4 info in 2012 has felt awkward and kinda sloppy. Its probably due to them being super busy, cause the content looks solid enough, but yeah I certainly expected more from Forge.. Or a better showing making it look cool at the very least.

That actually a cool idea. Have you ever played the game Prey? They had one of them super mario galaxy planets in their FPS.

So, you guys know how franky said there was something cool about the water other than it's shader? Did anything look off about the placement of that river to you guys?

Played it but never beat it, but yeah it would be cool, though Im not sure if it would be great for a shipping forge map, it may limit the sight-lines too much. It would be cool for DLC though! Also, speaking of Prey, I hope Halo 4 allows us to modify gravity so that we can walk on ceilings/walls.

I was wondering if we can place water, that would be a cool feature. Also, a lot of the rocks looked like forge pieces.. But the real question is... Was the large forerunner tower forge made?

Watching the Forge reveal....fall damage. Sad face.

Yeah... I hope its toned down this time around, maybe only killing if you fall straight down for a ways.
 
I think 343s reveal plan has been odd. I like how they waited longer, and the E3 reveal and info was great. The in between stuff has been weird though, and the BTS vids don't compare to Bungie's Vidocs. It's probably unfair to compare them, but they did take the torch from Bungie.

I do like that 343 seems to be holding some stuff for release as to not reveal too much like I feel Bungie did with Reach.

Sowmthing I miss about Bungie Vidocs is their humor and attitude. It was more edgy and fun. I also like how they seemed to talk more about the game than the people.

Oh well. I'm not that bummed or anything. Overall I'm super hyped, but I've lost some interest in staying up to date on info and being excited for the next thing.

Haha yes. I still remember the Reach vidoc where Luke Smith is just trashing his coworkers.

"I'm about to rain death on the plebians I work with" lol

I can't wait until we start getting Destiny vidocs from Bungie. They're definitely one of a kind, I just wish they had gone out with a Halo game that wasn't so polarizing among the fans.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
That wasn't the reveal though. That came three weeks after this RvB video. (Hard to believe it was released two years ago today.)

Anyways, the point is that I very much doubt this is the last we'll see of Halo 4's Forge.
Yeah, I remember HaloGAF people looking at the Hemorrhage bases and noticing that they didn't quite jell with the terrain. That was also the first reveal of the hologram AA, which also sent my hype levels through the roof.

But that was a tease, not a demo, which is what we got today. The demo was awesome, but it should have been paired with a trailer released online. I want to see more videos like the Infinity Multiplayer trailer, where we get a mini tour of features and goodies. Bungie's vidocs were amazing at doing that, and I wish 343 had the same knack.
 

Noricart

Member
Haha yes. I still remember the Reach vidoc where Luke Smith is just trashing his coworkers.

"I'm about to rain death on the plebians I work with" lol

I can't wait until we start getting Destiny vidocs from Bungie. They're definitely one of a kind, I just wish they had gone out with a Halo game that wasn't so polarizing among the fans.

Yes. I loved the personality in the vidocs.
Edit Why did 343 take down the Infinity and Halo 4 First Look Videos?
 

zap

Member
Haha yes. I still remember the Reach vidoc where Luke Smith is just trashing his coworkers.

"I'm about to rain death on the plebians I work with" lol

I can't wait until we start getting Destiny vidocs from Bungie. They're definitely one of a kind, I just wish they had gone out with a Halo game that wasn't so polarizing among the fans.

That Luke Smith video was incredible. So good.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
I was thinking, and damn, nothing will ever beat Halo 3 in terms of reveals.
- Forge
- Theater
- 4 player online co-op
- Campaign scoring
- Skull modifiers

Some of those features (online co-op) ended up being pretty bad, but the hype they generated was insane.
 

Vire

Member
I think the Halo 4 UI does a noble thing and tries to increase usability and ease of use. For new users, I could see how past Halo games' user interface could be a bit intimidating with the multitude of options. As a fan who has grown accustomed to the Halo UI, it may be easy for yourself to navigate and find all the various settings needed, but for a new player you need to simplify the options presented so that it is easily understood. 343 accomplishes this, but as a result, sacrifices a lot of functionality.

I've put together a few changes in Photoshop that I think would go a long way to help the form over function issues presented.

Please excuse the hasty presentation, but it's only meant to get the general idea across.

Current Halo 4 Interface:

ZXVbn.png


Updated By Vire Halo 4 Interface:

vlKp6.jpg


Players each have there own panel and are no longer hidden by the previous card. User names are put across the top for easier legibility.

Options presented are shrunk down so they don't look like they take up the entire screen and text options are present on the right.

In addition, it'd be nice to see how many friends are playing Halo 4 at a cursory glance at the bottom of the screen.


Hopefully, this type of constructive feedback can be taken under consideration.
 
I was thinking, and damn, nothing will ever beat Halo 3 in terms of reveals.
- Forge
- Theater
- 4 player online co-op
- Campaign scoring
- Skull modifiers

Some of those features (online co-op) ended up being pretty bad, but the hype they generated was insane.

Online co-op in Halo 3 was awesome, whatchu talkin about?

Also just saw in the forge reveal that return to battlefield counters are back. cancelled my preorder, called the police.
 
I was thinking, and damn, nothing will ever beat Halo 3 in terms of reveals.
- Forge
- Theater
- 4 player online co-op
- Campaign scoring
- Skull modifiers

Some of those features (online co-op) ended up being pretty bad, but the hype they generated was insane.

Yup, they really nailed how to show off that game.. Halo 4 has had awkward, kinda meh showings with everything other than e3, I hope they try to recapture some of that magic from the Halo 3 era. We really need a MP/Forge trailer and MP/Forge BTS video right about now.
 
Also, I'm betting we're not getting ToD stuff because as we can see, the lighting is not in fact truly dynamic, but it is baked. It's fast because it only needs to bake forge objects + environments they cast to, but if it were the whole map it would take quite a bit longer I suspect.
 

Omni

Member
Dat UI... Who honestly thought that it's easier to read GTs while they're tilted 90 degrees? Even I could come up with something better then this. It looks like something that was developed and designed for Kinect... egh.

I guess I'll add it to the list of things I don't like, along with that hideous sniper and all the other unnecessary changes.
 

Computron

Member
Played it but never beat it, but yeah it would be cool, though Im not sure if it would be great for a shipping forge map, it may limit the sight-lines too much. It would be cool for DLC though! Also, speaking of Prey, I hope Halo 4 allows us to modify gravity so that we can walk on ceilings/walls.

That could be cool, but not likely I think.

Another thing I noticed, you kind of enter a first person free fall, when he jumped from the trait zone over the cliff, you could see the spartans arms and gun react to the wind and start shaking and moving up your screen. You could even hear the wind rushing by. I wonder why they added that?

I was wondering if we can place water, that would be a cool feature. Also, a lot of the rocks looked like forge pieces.. But the real question is... Was the large forerunner tower forge made?

Probably not, otherwise they would have been highlighted when he moved his cursor over them. Maybe there is a mode for modifying terrain they haven't showed us yet?
 
^ Yeah, both of those things are incredibly unlikely, I know.. Still, they would be very neat, especially being able to control if an object has gravity and what way it pulls. Though, I could see that getting really complicated really fast.

Also, I'm betting we're not getting ToD stuff because as we can see, the lighting is not in fact truly dynamic, but it is baked. It's fast because it only needs to bake forge objects + environments they cast to, but if it were the whole map it would take quite a bit longer I suspect.

Well even if time of day kept the same lighting, but cast a filter over it that would make it appear to be more lit by moonlight(blue)/sunset(red) with a alternating skybox would be cool. Given, that would still probably be a hell of a lot of technical work, and something tells me this is more of an expansion of Reach's Forge rather than a completely new thing.
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
That could be cool, but not likely I think.

Another thing I noticed, you kind of enter a first person free fall, when he jumped from the trait zone over the cliff, you could see the spartans arms and gun react to the wind and start shaking and moving up your screen. You could even hear the wind rushing by. I wonder why they added that?

It's awesome and immersive.

Although still don't understand why there is no camera bob outside of sprint.
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
I am primarily interested in what will be default settings, since that is what I will play 99%+ of the time.

I know other outlets made a big deal out of the no fall damage in their coverage and that seemed to be expectation, even if today's Forge stuff suggests otherwise.
 
Updated By Vire Halo 4 Interface:

vlKp6.jpg


Players each have there own panel and are no longer hidden by the previous card. User names are put across the top for easier legibility.

Options presented are shrunk down so they don't look like they take up the entire screen and text options are present on the right.

In addition, it'd be nice to see how many friends are playing Halo 4 at a cursory glance at the bottom of the screen.


Hopefully, this type of constructive feedback can be taken under consideration.

But what happens to the UI when you have 16 players for a custom game?
 

Vire

Member
But what happens to the UI when you have 16 players for a custom game?

Then the cards could be overlapped, obviously they need to be made thinner for 8 players for them to fully fit, but that was just a quick draft I did just to get the idea across.

Just a suggestion I came up with, not saying they need to use it. But maybe brainstorm off ideas like this.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
I know other outlets made a big deal out of the no fall damage in their coverage and that seemed to be expectation, even if today's Forge stuff suggests otherwise.

I'm really dubious of most reporting, and trust that loud crunch and "suicide" announcement more. We'll see.


Random thought: I know little of the technical side of game engines, but it's my understanding that dynamic lighting is a bit of a tax on it. With dynamic lighting in, I assume the game is only calculating that lighting on the visible portion of the objects, so as to optimize it.

And if that's the case, couldn't the engine also only render the visible portion of the objects? In Reach, the game engine renders the entire object even if only part of it is visible, which is probably one of the main culprits behind frame rate struggles on Forge maps. If they've updated the engine to only show/calculate lighting on visible geometry, that might go some distance to improving frame rate - and allowing them to increase the overall object budget, as we've seen.
 

Caja 117

Member
Play some Reach today, had months since last I played the game, Im posting this because I dont know if any of you guys have ever seen so many assist for one player in one game, this happened in a crazyking on Countdown:


Untitled-1.png



To be honest, Halo reach is so boring for me right now, Hope this next 4 months fly by.
 
I'm really dubious of most reporting, and trust that loud crunch and "suicide" announcement more. We'll see.


Random thought: I know little of the technical side of game engines, but it's my understanding that dynamic lighting is a bit of a tax on it. With dynamic lighting in, I assume the game is only calculating that lighting on the visible portion of the objects, so as to optimize it.

And if that's the case, couldn't the engine also only render the visible portion of the objects? In Reach, the game engine renders the entire object even if only part of it is visible, which is probably one of the main culprits behind frame rate struggles on Forge maps. If they've updated the engine to only show/calculate lighting on visible geometry, that might go some distance to improving frame rate - and allowing them to increase the overall object budget, as we've seen.

1. It's definitely not complete dynamic lighting - it does a good impression (mostly by being fast), but it is definitely baked in most of the environmental bits as far as I can tell.
2. Don't know for certain of course, but I highly doubt that it's only calculating visible bits as that would probably actually be far more costly when building the shadow maps.
 
tears currently streaming down my face as I shout my praise to the heavens above

Seriously the best news I've heard about Halo 4, not today, considering everything we've heard about the game. I noticed he specifically mentioned the horizontal axis, hopefully it's similar for the vertical one.

Better not see a dozen Forge maps per playlist in Halo 4 then. It's not a map maker, don't treat it like one.
This.

That Luke Smith video was incredible. So good.
Luke Smith is one hilarious dude.
I know other outlets made a big deal out of the no fall damage in their coverage and that seemed to be expectation, even if today's Forge stuff suggests otherwise.
The only thing that said that there was no fall damage in the game was an article that listed Bravo as their source. We've seen fall damage in the leaked footage, the E3 footage, and today in Forge. Fall damage is in as of now.
 

Vire

Member
Given from THC added to his impressions of Halo 4 from RTX. I bolded the new stuff (in case anyone missed it)

Sounds good but I think the information about the Thruster is outdated, or I may be confused.

In the new multiplayer wrap up video it shows a Spartan using Thrusters and it switches to third person. (For an awesome animation)

iBP93dAen0MZw.gif
 
Sounds good but I think the information about the Thruster is outdated, or I may be confused.

In the new multiplayer wrap up video it shows a Spartan using Thrusters and it switches to third person.

iBP93dAen0MZw.gif

The MP build on the show floor at RTX is the E3 build, which is probably 6 weeks old by now at the very least. So, yeah that looks to be a more recent build with the Thruster going to third person (which I don't think I like).
 
Sounds good but I think the information about the Thruster is outdated, or I may be confused.

In the new multiplayer wrap up video it shows a Spartan using Thrusters and it switches to third person.

iBP93dAen0MZw.gif

He was right about the lack of oomph in FP though, 3rd person provides a much better sense of how you are moving and your new position relative to the environment. On the other hand, I believe it would be awesome if you could still shoot while using thrusters.
 

PNut

Banned
Thanks Dax for updating the OP with all of today's info. 30+ pages since this morning? LOL. I'm sure I missed some epic rage posts about forge and UI. The UI is weird looking though. Guess 343 didn't want to copy paste Bungie's UI from Reach? I think they should've kept in similar though. Being able to see everyone who's playing Halo from the main screen was good. Whatever.

More importantly, was there any talk about Arena v2? Or any real ranking system?
 

Tunavi

Banned
RZGdJl.jpg

Squidhands, Frank, Me, Rev3rb

god damn What a crazy day, freddie wong, rooster teeth, halo 4, suddoth twins hahaha, and elijiah wood showed up out of no where

played E3 Build on and off for about 3 hours. the game is heavily focused on gunplay (so good). halo 4 DMR is sexyyyyy. carbine is awesome.
 

Vire

Member
He was right about the lack of oomph in FP though, 3rd person provides a much better sense of how you are moving and your new position relative to the environment. On the other hand, I believe it would be awesome if you could still shoot while using thrusters.

I was agreeing with you until the last sentence...
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
And if that's the case, couldn't the engine also only render the visible portion of the objects? In Reach, the game engine renders the entire object even if only part of it is visible, which is probably one of the main culprits behind frame rate struggles on Forge maps. If they've updated the engine to only show/calculate lighting on visible geometry, that might go some distance to improving frame rate - and allowing them to increase the overall object budget, as we've seen.

From what I understand, engines typically don't render objects or geometry that you can't see on the screen and Reach's main issue with Forge world was that it was it was simply unoptimised - trying to render too much in any single frame and little issues like the level of detail system being messed up when you scoped into things adding to it.

If objects are not on screen they are not being rendered by the engine at all but are still being kept track of.

Also, Forge's new lighting system is not dynamic at all. It's baked and predetermined. That's what the pause is between switching between player and monitor - it recalculates and rebakes and determines the new lighting each time.

If it was dynamic. then there would be no pause and new lighting would be calculated and generated instantly when build and interacting within it.
 

Rev3rb

Member
god damn What a crazy day, freddie wong, rooster teeth, halo 4, suddoth twins hahaha, and elijiah wood showed up out of no where

played E3 Build on and off for about 3 hours. the game is heavily focused on gunplay. halo 4 DMR is sexyyyyy. carbine is awesome.

So good.
 
Sounds good but I think the information about the Thruster is outdated, or I may be confused.

In the new multiplayer wrap up video it shows a Spartan using Thrusters and it switches to third person. (For an awesome animation)

iBP93dAen0MZw.gif

whered you get that from? new to me
 

daedalius

Member
RZGdJl.jpg

Squidhands, Frank, Me, Rev3rb

god damn What a crazy day, freddie wong, rooster teeth, halo 4, suddoth twins hahaha, and elijiah wood showed up out of no where

played E3 Build on and off for about 3 hours. the game is heavily focused on gunplay (so good). halo 4 DMR is sexyyyyy. carbine is awesome.

yes yes
 
RZGdJl.jpg

Squidhands, Frank, Me, Rev3rb

god damn What a crazy day, freddie wong, rooster teeth, halo 4, suddoth twins hahaha, and elijiah wood showed up out of no where

played E3 Build on and off for about 3 hours. the game is heavily focused on gunplay (so good). halo 4 DMR is sexyyyyy. carbine is awesome.

HAWT
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom