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First Halo 4 GI information (Spartan OPs, multi, etc) [Update: Campaign/More Details]

GI says they are all included.

I read the article, I'd say there's some wiggle room for stopping the hated, dreaded, used game sale. Not that I don't hope your right, but in a thread fraught with desperate hoping that the GI article isn't right about everything, I'm not ready to take quotes about monetization options as written in stone. Time will tell though.
 
Spartan Ops sounds fantastic, looks like a great way to keep everyone coming back to the game after the campaign.

Here's hoping for some achievements like the Vidmaster ones from ODST and 3, they were some of the best online experiences I ever had.

"They're charging their excavation laser!"

"But the dig-site is on the other side of the city!"

I must have heard that conversation at least twenty times.
 
GI says they are all included.

GI says that all episodes (5 mission packs) that comprise a single season are what you get when you buy the game. Maybe there will be more seasons to purchase down the line or maybe "a season" is just a way for 343i to describe the whole episodically delivered Spartan Ops package.
 
If spartan ops is VR training missions, I would love to see some of the battles from the books explored.
Based on the fiction they created for the UNSC Infinity, I don't see why it couldn't do virtual reality recreations of battles from Halo lore.

Maybe that's why the multiplayer is called Halo Infinity and Microsoft recently bought all those related domains. I would pay for Spartan Ops campaigns that explored different aspects of the Halo side stuff.
 
My interpretation is that the Ops missions will be set in Campaign, and they have the ability to carve out spaces from Campaign and craft Ops missions around them, releasing those as new 'missions' post-ship. In this way they can take the same approach as with Firefight to further leverage the spaces in new contexts. A mission set on a 'new' space will be a location that a previous Ops mission had not been set. I will be (happily) surprised if there is significant new terrain, skyboxes, etc. created for them.

I hope that you can play Spartan Ops solo.

I really loved how Firefight evolved from ODST to Reach, and I hope these Spartan Ops missions build on that. Firefight highlighted Halo's greatest attribute: large scale free-form AI battles. Hopefully these missions–even if they've got some form of narrative level progression–maintain that openness & replay-ability.
 
Anyone see the grunts? Looks like they are exploding grunts? They don't seem to have a cone on them.

They look like rogue factions of the Covenant. Even though the GI article said there's a whole armada of Covenant waiting for Chief outside the destroyed FUD, I think they're akin to pirates.

Just look at the Elites, their armor looks pieced together somewhat.
 

GloveSlap

Member
The game is looking way to much like Reach at this point, which is not a good thing to base their game on.

As long as there is no bloom I will give it a fair chance though. Bloom is a deal breaker.
 
The game is looking way to much like Reach at this point, which is not a good thing to base their game on.

As long as there is no bloom I will give it a fair chance though. Bloom is a deal breaker.

Bloom, movement speed and AL are what killed Reach for me, and Halo 4 seems to fix those issues. Reach isn't an awful game, but it is flawed. Thankfully I believe it served as a stepping stone for 343 and Halo 4 to both utilize and learn from. I haven't seen one thing that looks awful in Halo 4, especially after Frankie clarified a few points.
 

JimiNutz

Banned
Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but is there any talk in the article of the base movement speed? I know sprint is in, but will the base speed be as slow as Reach or faster?
 

TheOddOne

Member
Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but is there any talk in the article of the base movement speed? I know sprint is in, but will the base speed be as slow as Reach or faster?
No info was given about this.

All information released thus far:
- Slightly Live's summary of some campaign details and multiplayer.
- How is your day's summary on multiplayer on Waypoint (Scroll down).
- My post about "Spartan Ops" mode.
- Some comments from David and Ellis: Part 1 and part 2 (will continue updating post 2).
- Podcast will be released detailing the MP in full after GI exclusivity, no ETA on release of the podcast.
- Gameinformer's Halo 4 hub will have more info upcoming, such as an interview with Sotaro Tojima (Audio Director), reveal of the "suprise" composer and more.
 

TheOddOne

Member
Comments by Frank and David part 3.

- Part 1: Podcast, reveal reactions, Forerunner vision and Wildcard power weapons.

- Part 2: Split between campaign and multi, customizing, Forerunner vision, reveal reactions, instant respawns in objective games and recoil or spread.

Ranking progression:

We will not be talking about ranking or progression in detail for a while. We are not using TruSkill in the same way Reach did. That's about all we can say for now.

Suffice it to say the game will match people appropriately - Tashi to Kyle, for example, and me to WalshOgreSkrillexTwinBlains.

Armour lock not coming back and Spartan Ops itching the not included Firefight mode:

Armor Lock is gone. Spartan Ops will scratch that and other itches.

BR spreadless or recoil:


If dual wielding will come back:

no dual wielding.
 
Seems more like they will have a seperation on playlist the more cod based ones(TDM and variant off it and party mode games) and the more classic ones.
 

Wiggum2007

Junior Member
I for one am a little bummed that only 4 years into the future, I was hoping they'd pull an Aliens and Chief had been floating around in space long enough for everyone from the old trilogy timeline to be gone.
 
I for one am a little bummed that only 4 years into the future, I was hoping they'd pull an Aliens and Chief had been floating around in space long enough for everyone from the old trilogy timeline to be gone.
Can't really do that because of Cortana. That long she would've gone crazy and probably killed the Chief in the process.
 

Orayn

Member
Seems more like they will have a seperation on playlist the more cod based ones(TDM and variant off it and party mode games) and the more classic ones.

Is that even possible now that they've integrated game-affecting armor abilities and random weapon spawns into the basic multiplayer game? Something tells me it's not.

Can't really do that because of Cortana. That long she would've gone crazy and probably killed the Chief in the process.

Isn't it a plot point that Cortana has passed the point where you have to worry about her going rampant?
 
Isn't it a plot point that Cortana has passed the point where you have to worry about her going rampant?

It's possible this has happened. From all the lore, it's been theorized this could happen. Cortana and Mendicant Bias are the only two AIs where this possibility has occurred.
 
Isn't it a plot point that Cortana has passed the point where you have to worry about her going rampant?
Absolutely not. She's going in that direction – it even says Halo 4 is going to deal with it in the GameInformer article. She's no where near out of the woods yet, and she's nearing the end of the lifespan of an AI.
 
Absolutely not. She's going in that direction – it even says Halo 4 is going to deal with it in the GameInformer article. She's no where near out of the woods yet, and she's nearing the end of the lifespan of an AI.

It looks like she might still be able to live past the level of rampancy:

Cortana is also very aware of her short lifespan (a "Smart" A.I's lifespan is an average of seven years before rampancy) and her derivative nature as a copy of part of another person, rather than a true human being. Desperate and tortured aboard High Charity she murmurs: "A collection of lies; that's all I am! Stolen thoughts and memories!" Later on she says: "I'm just my mother's shadow..." and "It was the coin's fault," referring to the game of chance that Dr. Halsey played with John-117 when he was young. Halo: Evolutions Human Weakness reveals some of this to be her defying the Gravemind and a few of the more rampant things she says to be copies she made of herself which have been consumed by the Gravemind. She, along with Mendicant Bias, is one of only two known A.I.s that may have progressed completely through rampancy and became metastable.

However, this theory of metastability may have been disproved in the Halo Legends short film Origins, in which four years after the events of Halo 3, it is strongly suggested that Cortana is falling into rampancy. She displays several characteristics to support this, such as her hologram flickering, trying to communicate with John-117 despite him being in cryo-sleep, recounting the history of the galaxy, which gets continuously more inaccurate to the point where events being recalled simply did not happen. She even tried to make physical contact with John via her avatar. Cortana's fate is left ambiguous, but it is assumed she became rampant.[5] Let it be noted however, that Halo Legends is a lower source of canon than the games. It is also possible that Cortana had to go through rampancy to get to metastability.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
I really do need to finish the new books. I'm halfway through Ghosts of Onyx (so I can read Glasslands) and also halfway through Cryptum.
 
Dude, half of that source is devoted to making the case that she's not out of the woods yet...which is what I said. The GI article says that the game will deal with Cortana's rampancy, meaning she's not out of the woods yet. Meaning she's not fully recovered.
 
Dude, half of that source is devoted to making the case that she's not out of the woods yet...which is what I said. The GI article says that the game will deal with Cortana's rampancy, meaning she's not out of the woods yet. Meaning she's not fully recovered.

Oh I misinterpreted what you said. My apologies.
 

george_us

Member
I think it's safe to say that Halo series reached its pinnacle with Halo 2/3.
Halo 2 was garbage and Halo 3 was pretty 'meh'. Been playing Halo Anniversary and it's hilarious that it's literally a re-skinned Halo 1 yet I've been freaking glued to it. I hope 343 returns to the sense of mystery and intrigue the first Halo and ODST have along with the more open-ended level design.
 
Halo 2 was garbage and Halo 3 was pretty 'meh'. Been playing Halo Anniversary and it's hilarious that it's literally a re-skinned Halo 1 yet I've been freaking glued to it. I hope 343 returns to the sense of mystery and intrigue the first Halo and ODST have along with the more open-ended level design.
The level of disconnect among fans between what Halo 3 offers and what Halo 1 offers is something that always confuses me.
 

Lothars

Member
Halo 2 was garbage and Halo 3 was pretty 'meh'. Been playing Halo Anniversary and it's hilarious that it's literally a re-skinned Halo 1 yet I've been freaking glued to it. I hope 343 returns to the sense of mystery and intrigue the first Halo and ODST have along with the more open-ended level design.
I agree with you about Halo 2 but I think Halo 3 is a great game as is Halo Reach, I have no expectations going into Halo 4 but I wish Firefight was back.
 

Overdoziz

Banned
"Firefight is absent and it is stated that there are no plans for it to return."

:(

No mention of armour locking.

=((
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Is it safe to assume that the Spartan Ops missions will be just areas from the campaign? Otherwise that would require DLC every week, which doesn't seem possible. Also the cutscences that play would have to be streamed, maybe before the match starts and nothing in the middle and end. The whole thing seems very confusing.
 
Is it safe to assume that the Spartan Ops missions will be just areas from the campaign? Otherwise that would require DLC every week, which doesn't seem possible. Also the cutscences that play would have to be streamed, maybe before the match starts and nothing in the middle and end. The whole thing seems very confusing.

They'll probably be on-disc and unlocked at a certain timestamp.

Or 343's doing some incredibly ambitious/crazy shit with their Waypoint integration, who knows.
 
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