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Halo |OT14| They call it Halo

I'm guessing David Ellis was saddened by the fact that Promethean units didn't stick to their clever chess motif so he kept it prominent in Spartan Ops. Granted, I can't make exact parallels, but:

Lasky is the King of one side. He doesn't come into play until end-game and stays pretty static up until the end game. He also very clearly wants to defend his notable pawn Halsey.

Crimson Squad is a Knight, taking unconventional but repetitive paths to take out stragglers and occasionally bigger targets.

Palmer is a Rook: a heavy unit that doesn't really shine until later on into the match because it can be used as a fearful mindgame and doesn't mind the loss of a mere Pawn.

Jul ''Mdama is also, surprisingly, a Pawn. He faced Halsey on numerous occasions, representing the opening of the match. On the proverbial board, they ended up on squares right next to one another, and both have a similar goal - getting to the end of either side's board to revive a stronger piece. Note that two pawns face-to-face result in a stalemate and cannot "jump" one another; Halsey's apparent "plot armor" isn't broken by Jul or even his Elites, but instead by Palmer.

Halsey got to the end of the board first and, Season One's ending permitting, will likely become a Queen.

Jul looks to do the same, trying to "'make these gifts on our own" (rebuilding his army) or arguably reviving his King, the Didact.

The two players on either side represent the Librarian and arguably humanity or ONI.

Kevin-Butler-Mind-Blown.gif
 

lybertyboy

Thinks the Evil Empire is just misunderstood.
I'm guessing David Ellis was saddened by the fact that Promethean units didn't stick to their clever chess motif so he kept it prominent in Spartan Ops. Granted, I can't make exact parallels, but:

Lasky is the King of one side. He doesn't come into play until end-game and stays pretty static up until the end game. He also very clearly wants to defend his notable pawn Halsey.

Crimson Squad is a Knight, taking unconventional but repetitive paths to take out stragglers and occasionally bigger targets.

Palmer is a Rook: a heavy unit that doesn't really shine until later on into the match because it can be used as a fearful mindgame and doesn't mind the loss of a mere Pawn.

Jul ''Mdama is also, surprisingly, a Pawn. He faced Halsey on numerous occasions, representing the opening of the match. On the proverbial board, they ended up on squares right next to one another, and both have a similar goal - getting to the end of either side's board to revive a stronger piece. Note that two pawns face-to-face result in a stalemate and cannot "jump" one another; Halsey's apparent "plot armor" isn't broken by Jul or even his Elites, but instead by Palmer.

Halsey got to the end of the board first and, Season One's ending permitting, will likely become a Queen.

Jul looks to do the same, trying to "'make these gifts on our own" (rebuilding his army) or arguably reviving his King, the Didact.

The two players on either side represent the Librarian and arguably humanity or ONI.


I appreciate your enthusiasm about a variety of topics, but...

If you want to keep posting here, stay off the drugs.
 
Is anyone using a Windows Phone here? I'm curious and want to buy one soon, espacially the HTC 8X.

GF had a mid-high end HTC Mozart a year or two ago and I love the interface. Granted its going to be a step away from the iPhones and Droid phones you are used to but it does some really nice things.

It all depends on what your key points are with a phone.
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
If Destiny MP is shown Sunday and it looks like Halo, this place will melt down.

And it will be glorious.

I don't even know what this game's going to be, but I'm hyped through the roof.

edit: Oh lawd, it comes out October 6th? Yesss
 
Spartan Ops gave us some locations cooler than the campaign. I'd love to be given a game that allows for more exploration of any of the Forerunner installations.

Very true. I had somewhat hoped that that was what Spartan Ops was going to be. Especially when the purpose of the Infinity was spelled out during the campaign, "Infinity's mission is to track down the remaining Halo rings and establish permanent research bases to prepare them for decommissioning." Or something along those lines. I instantly thought we'd be going all over the galaxy to explore all the Forerunner stuff. Then again, the reveal of the Janus Key points to something like this happening in the future, still...
 

ZeNy

Neo Member
GF had a mid-high end HTC Mozart a year or two ago and I love the interface. Granted its going to be a step away from the iPhones and Droid phones you are used to but it does some really nice things.

It all depends on what your key points are with a phone.

Well, that's what I want to try, use something different from what iPhone and Android phone can bring me. Also, I'm thinking about buying a Surface Pro, could be useful to be on a windows environment only.

The only thing that bother me is the lack of applications on the Windows Store, and seeing cool apps are only for iPhone. ='(

Loving my 8S, only issue is how little memory it has.

First, I wanted the 8S, then the memory was something important for me, so 8X for sure. ^^

Glad to see you didn't have bad feedback about the UI, I'm really curious about the start screen and all the informations it can display.

Thanks, both of you !
 
Well, that's what I want to try, use something different from what iPhone and Android phone can bring me. Also, I'm thinking about buying a Surface Pro, could be useful to be on a windows environment only.

The only thing that bother me is the lack of applications on the Windows Store, and seeing cool apps are only for iPhone. ='(



First, I wanted the 8S, then the memory was something important for me, so 8X for sure. ^^

Glad to see you didn't have bad feedback about the UI, I'm really curious about the start screen and all the informations it can display.

Thanks, both of you !


What do you have now?

If your going for a Surface then I'd recommend either an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5. A surface will give you everything you can get from you're phone but your wont suffer the limitations because you can use the App Store on iOS for everything else.

As a smartphone/media device I still think its hard to top the iPhone. I semi-recently upgraded to a HTC One X but iv kept my iPhone on a small contract because I love the ease of use for ... everything.

Note however that my iPhone 4 is jailbroken and so its walled garden limitations are gone. If you are fine doing this I can't recommend iPhone's enough if not then I feel from a freedom standpoint android will be more suited to you.

Like I said its all going to come down to what features you think are "Key". Memory is usually of little concern unless you plan on loading the thing with unthinkable amount of music or app's and the Music issue can be avoided with things like spotify (paid service unfortunately)
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
I can't wait for Spartan Ops next week. My feelings about Spartan Ops have pretty much done a 180 since it came out. It's not perfect, but it's clear that a lot of it was rushed out there and given low priority. The second half is so much more exhilarating and gives you a ton of moments where you feel like your playing an actual campaign.
 

Omni

Member
If Destiny MP is shown Sunday and it looks like Halo, this place will melt down.

And it will be glorious.

I don't even know what this game's going to be, but I'm hyped through the roof.

edit: Oh lawd, it comes out October 6th? Yesss

I highly doubt that it will look like Halo. Bungie didn't split away from Microsoft and Halo just to make another Halo clone.
 

willow ve

Member
I can't wait for Spartan Ops next week. My feelings about Spartan Ops have pretty much done a 180 since it came out. It's not perfect, but it's clear that a lot of it was rushed out there and given low priority. The second half is so much more exhilarating and gives you a ton of moments where you feel like your playing an actual campaign.


The problem with this, and I think the numbers back this up, is that not many Halo players actually wanted a second campaign. They wanted better matchmaking.
 

TheOddOne

Member
I can't wait for Spartan Ops next week. My feelings about Spartan Ops have pretty much done a 180 since it came out. It's not perfect, but it's clear that a lot of it was rushed out there and given low priority. The second half is so much more exhilarating and gives you a ton of moments where you feel like your playing an actual campaign.
It also shows that the mode can be used to experiment with more out of the box ideas. They could create a season where it follows a squad behind enemy lines, with minimal contact with the outside, isolated and a self-contained storyline.

I liked what they did with the Infinity section, cut up sections of the level in chapters. They should do that again with other sections (i.e. alien world).
 

ZeNy

Neo Member
What do you have now?

If your going for a Surface then I'd recommend either an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5. A surface will give you everything you can get from you're phone but your wont suffer the limitations because you can use the App Store on iOS for everything else.

As a smartphone/media device I still think its hard to top the iPhone. I semi-recently upgraded to a HTC One X but iv kept my iPhone on a small contract because I love the ease of use for ... everything.

Note however that my iPhone 4 is jailbroken and so its walled garden limitations are gone. If you are fine doing this I can't recommend iPhone's enough if not then I feel from a freedom standpoint android will be more suited to you.

Like I said its all going to come down to what features you think are "Key". Memory is usually of little concern unless you plan on loading the thing with unthinkable amount of music or app's and the Music issue can be avoided with things like spotify (paid service unfortunately)

I used an iPhone for years, then I'm actually on a Samsung Galaxy with Android.

About the Surface and iPhone combo, that's why I was thinking during months when I was waiting the Surface Pro. I can have everything I want with an iPhone in term of application, then use my Surface for the windows store, but I was wondering if it was better to be only on windows, or make a dual OS environment.

I was decided to take a WP8, but you make me doubt now...

I'm not a phone addict, as I said, I just want to try something new and cool, but it's difficult to like something else when you used an iPhone and you are accustomed try 3 new applications per weeks.
 

OverHeat

« generous god »
I'd like a game to try... both?

Could be cool to have a gun with ADS in Halo instead of it scoping in, while maybe keeping your mobility. IDK, something to try.. Worked out for Gears:

1795044-hammerburst_first_person.png


Halo could also use the spotting feature from Gears IMO
.

I agree 100%
 
I used an iPhone for years, then I'm actually on a Samsung Galaxy with Android.

About the Surface and iPhone combo, that's why I was thinking during months when I was waiting the Surface Pro. I can have everything I want with an iPhone in term of application, then use my Surface for the windows store, but I was wondering if it was better to be only on windows, or make a dual OS environment.

I was decided to take a WP8, but you make me doubt now...

I'm not a phone addict, as I said, I just want to try something new and cool, but it's difficult to like something else when you used an iPhone and you are accustomed try 3 new applications per weeks.

I think iPhone + Surface if the way to go. If I had to choose now from a tablet and a phone to last me that's what I'd go with,
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
The problem with this, and I think the numbers back this up, is that not many Halo players actually wanted a second campaign. They wanted better matchmaking.
This is understandable, and should've been a priority, but different people work on different teams.

It also shows that the mode can be used to experiment with more out of the box ideas. They could create a season where it follows a squad behind enemy lines, with minimal contact with the outside, isolated and a self-contained storyline.

I liked what they did with the Infinity section, cut up sections of the level in chapters. They should do that again with other sections (i.e. alien world).
Yeah, I feel like a lot of the stuff people complain about that is missing was just left on the cutting room floor like more customization. And I do agree, it is a great platform for experimentation.
 

TheOddOne

Member
I also feel that they should cut down the chapters to three a week. Five a week is overkill and leads to fatigue fast. It also means that those chapters get that extra care.
 
So i was watching the Gears:J trailer earlier (Guts to Gears the one that came out a few weeks back)

And they have implemented a "Smart Spawn System, S3 for short" System (I'm aware of the tautology)

Basically this does what HaloGAF talked about before. In campaign enemy spawns are not static. It will spawn new enemies based on a variety of factors much like the director in L4D does but its got more "rules" associated with it.

I really think something like this could work well and help evolve Halo Campaigns. Id love to see enemies in halo change up each time I played it. It would also be fantastic for SpOps.

I also feel that they should cut down the chapters to three a week. Five a week is overkill and leads to fatigue fast. It also means that those chapters get that extra care.

3 Chapters instead of 5 sounds great. The same story could still be told. Location Fatigue would be cut down, Its a smaller chunk of time devoted to it and those missions could have much more meaningful objectives thrown in.
 

TheOddOne

Member
So i was watching the Gears:J trailer earlier (Guts to Gears the one that came out a few weeks back)

And they have implemented a "Smart Spawn System, S3 for short" System (I'm aware of the tautology)

Basically this does what HaloGAF talked about before. In campaign enemy spawns are not static. It will spawn new enemies based on a variety of factors much like the director in L4D does but its got more "rules" associated with it.

I really think something like this could work well and help evolve Halo Campaigns. Id love to see enemies in halo change up each time I played it. It would also be fantastic for SpOps.
Yep, great way to solve the enemy scaling too and add replayability.

One mission/15 Minutes a day is fatiguing for you?
I usually play them back-to-back on release day and usually you notice that there is tons of repetition that is really not needed. I feel that this negatively effects the narrative they put in the mode, it feels so scattered for the sake of filling time. I’m just advocating a more streamlined approach, it’s better to have small amount of content that is absolutely stellar that people remember and is easy to follow then tons of chapters just to fill a quota.
 
I also feel that they should cut down the chapters to three a week. Five a week is overkill and leads to fatigue fast. It also means that those chapters get that extra care.

I would honestly be happy with just ONE extremely solid mission each week. All the resources could be put into one great mission... that would be excellent.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Very true. I had somewhat hoped that that was what Spartan Ops was going to be. Especially when the purpose of the Infinity was spelled out during the campaign, "Infinity's mission is to track down the remaining Halo rings and establish permanent research bases to prepare them for decommissioning." Or something along those lines. I instantly thought we'd be going all over the galaxy to explore all the Forerunner stuff. Then again, the reveal of the Janus Key points to something like this happening in the future, still...

Well, that's certainly a possibility in the future. The Halo universe has never lacked for potential, and it's unfortunate the developers haven't quite delivered--not Bungie, nor 343i, nor Ensemble--and not for lack of trying. I'm always going to be excited to see where they go next.

Likewise, I'm really excited for Destiny because while Bungie has often fumbled with their stories, they are perhaps my personal pick for the best universe creators. They know how to build worlds, and apparently they're going to be building a whole lot of them.


I would honestly be happy with just ONE extremely solid mission each week. All the resources could be put into one great mission... that would be excellent.

For matchmaking and technical reasons, I'd be fine with the current chapters set up, with the episode itself taking on the feel of a big campaign mode, with the chapters fluidly moving you through locations a bit more. Think Halo CE dropship pickups rather than Halo 4 :p
 

TheOddOne

Member
Also a neat idea is to release chapters of an episode on specific days: chapter 1 on Monday, chapter 2 on Wednesday and chapter 3 on Friday.
 
For matchmaking and technical reasons, I'd be fine with the current chapters set up, with the episode itself taking on the feel of a big campaign mode, with the chapters fluidly moving you through locations a bit more. Think Halo CE dropship pickups rather than Halo 4 :p

Halo 4 had some serious issues with this. For example, watch from 37:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KeIHqyjFJPA#t=2218s

Instead of letting us traverse a cool new environment, 343 just throws up and random portal that conveniently puts us into the next firefight. Shit like that needs to never happen again.

STOP USING THESE 343!

2343719-r13qm.png
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Halo 4 had some serious issues with this. For example, watch from 37:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KeIHqyjFJPA#t=2218s

Instead of letting us traverse a cool new environment, 343 just throws up and random portal that conveniently puts us into the next firefight. Shit like that needs to never happen again.

STOP USING THESE 343!

2343719-r13qm.png

The portals really weren't my issue, actually--or at least the portals weren't what made Halo 4 feel discontinuous for me.

I'm working on a big graphic project analyzing all this stuff, but it requires me to play through all the Halo campaigns repeatedly, so it's gonna' take a while before I finish.
 
I appreciate your enthusiasm about a variety of topics, but...

If you want to keep posting here, stay off the drugs.

I'm hesitant to say "FUCK EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I HAD HIM COMMANDER YOU FOOL A THOUSAND HELLS AWAIT YOU" because I'm waiting for Halsey to transcend into digital angel form and you to have some post about you being high as fuck.

In the event that that doesn't happen, you guys know where I'll be.

Here.

Bitching about it in caps and italics.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

He is our national treasure.

Bees?
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
Also a neat idea is to release chapters of an episode on specific days: chapter 1 on Monday, chapter 2 on Wednesday and chapter 3 on Friday.
Stuff like this is why we need next gen ASAP. The limitations of these ancient platforms is holding back so many interesting content delivery methods.
 
Well, that's certainly a possibility in the future. The Halo universe has never lacked for potential, and it's unfortunate the developers haven't quite delivered--not Bungie, nor 343i, nor Ensemble--and not for lack of trying. I'm always going to be excited to see where they go next.

Likewise, I'm really excited for Destiny because while Bungie has often fumbled with their stories, they are perhaps my personal pick for the best universe creators. They know how to build worlds, and apparently they're going to be building a whole lot of them.




For matchmaking and technical reasons, I'd be fine with the current chapters set up, with the episode itself taking on the feel of a big campaign mode, with the chapters fluidly moving you through locations a bit more. Think Halo CE dropship pickups rather than Halo 4 :p

I'm right there with you on the Destiny hype train. Super excited to see what Bungie have come up with. I just love exploring their worlds...

--

I feel like the matchmaking model is part of what holds back some of the game-modes, to be honest. They have had this philosophy of anything longer than 15 minutes is too long. And that's probably very true for matchmaking. People will just want to quit out, and with the current model, that ruins the game for a lot of people - especially when a game mode like Spartan Ops doesn't scale to the number of players playing the match.

In ODST, Firefight was most intriguing to me due to the fact that it was essentially endless. The whole point was to try and get as far as possible, with steadily and predictably increasing difficulty. In Reach, they said, well, you can't really expect that in Matchmaking... so we'll have to redesign the mode to make more sense in 15 minute bursts. The problem with that is it made Firefight either too difficult, or too easy, the depth just wasn't there for me, and I see this in Spartan Ops, too. Episode 7 was great because of the way it essentially broke up one Campaign mission into 4 parts, even though it probably could have been done in 2 or 3, since there was a lot of backtracking for the sake of stretching out the gameplay and narrative to get our 5 episode fill. I wonder how Campaign Matchmaking fared in Reach because of this limitation, and perhaps that's why it was cut in Halo 4, and perhaps also leading to the more episodic model they strived for with Spartan Ops.

Now, ridiculous ambition aside, I would hope that for these types of co-op modes, the ones that require more than 15 minute investments unlike competitive arena multiplayer, that matchmaking is ditched altogether in favor of something more persistent. ODST hub-world mechanics work beautifully for this. Imagine hopping on to Halo (for coop modes) and instead of being thrown into a menu/lobby, you're thrown into a city. Now there's things that you can do in the city/installation/whatever. Firefight missions could be dynamically created via a similar director system, complete with objectives like "defend", "capture", "repair", "escort" or whatever game mechanic you want to thrown in there. If someone wants to quit, they can just leave the area and continue exploring. Spartan Ops could be missions delivered to you by a SuperIntendant type figure, or similar, where you perhaps have to leave the Hubworld for more story-based content.

I'm gonna stop now...
 

Shadders

Member
Also, no Halo project this year.

It would be interesting to see where SpOps takes us. Season 2 with Crimson and Majestic in the summer (because S1 is bound to have a cliffhanger) then Halo 4: ODST (or similar) delivered episodically at the tail end of the year.

If they can hook people in with more SpOps content, they don't need a new game every year.
 
Halo 4 had some serious issues with this. For example, watch from 37:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KeIHqyjFJPA#t=2218s

Instead of letting us traverse a cool new environment, 343 just throws up and random portal that conveniently puts us into the next firefight. Shit like that needs to never happen again.

STOP USING THESE 343!

2343719-r13qm.png
There's like a total of 20 or more portals used in the campaign if im not mistakend. Cutscenes and actual gameplay. They over compensated the scale of campaign levels making them broken, thus resulting to invisible (kill) barriers and numerous portals. Bleh
 
There's like a total of 20 or more portals used in the campaign if im not mistakend. Cutscenes and actual gameplay. They over compensated the scale of campaign levels making them broken, thus resulting to invisible (kill) barriers and numerous portals. Bleh

Portals are almost definitely loading zones. Notice how most times you go through two in a row, the first leading to a hallway toward the second.

"Teleporting" enemies to a location is just not cool, in my opinion. Remember the first Halo mission in CE? Where you have to defend that Valhalla base-like structure from waves of Covenant? Each time a dropship came around, they generally said "They're trying to flank us", but really what was happening was that they were dropping enemies farther away from you, sometimes on the opposite side of the structure. Or, if they were dropping the enemies on top of you, you'd at least have fair warning with the dropships flying in from far away. The dropships served to help you figure out where exactly the next battle was going to take place, and adjust accordingly. Now they teleport, and sometimes even the Covenant have their "drop pods". Not the small ones (like the Elite ODST pods, which I think are really cool and should be used more), but the large multi-levelled ones that come out of nowhere and then go back to that nowhere. Bzzt. :(

Teleporting bullet sponges on top of you is just... frustrating. It's really difficult to make sense of anything when they do that. The introduction to the Prometheans in the campaign was way better: you could see packs of Crawlers running down the side of structures and cliffs in the distance coming toward you. You had time to breathe, time to plan. The Knights stayed in the back with their Watchers. I think that's a lot better than just warping guys left right and centre.

I've suggested that you could have the Prometheans (digital in their makeup) "download" to a location, employing and emphasizing the glowing lines all across Forerunner structures. It's visually and mechanically different than the dropships, but it serves the same purpose: to allow breathing room and recalculation of your tactics.
 
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