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[Conor 419]

Some of my best XBL friends came from randomly meeting them in matchmaking games, back when people actually talked.

Now it's all party chat and silence, good luck communicating if you go in alone because your team are in their closed little group.

It's why I think CGB would be great, it'd bring back the community aspect that has been sorely missing from XBL. If I were to go on Halo:Reach, even during it's peak activity period back in the day, the game still felt...empty.

@Tawpgun - I only intended it for Social Games, I've missed out a lot of points in this thread.

 

[The Librarian]

I was just a baby lurker when Reach was coming out so I don't remember but what was the atmosphere and hype surrounding that game like in comparison to Reach?

There was nowhere near the criticism or skepticism. Everyone was willing to give Bungie the benefit of the doubt and many were excited to give AAs, bloom, and all the other new features a chance. I remember excitedly speculating about which AA I would use the most, and it was only well after Reach's release that I disliked bloom, and even longer than that before I disliked every AA (except hologram).

There were problems people pointed out during the beta. Ghaleon's infamous one-line post, "This doesn't feel like Halo," and Eazy's series of posts demonstrating the randomness of bloom. Beyond the beta, most everyone still gave Bungie the benefit of the doubt, and we were excited to give the game another try come release.

That's the gist of it.

 

[Brolic Gaoler]

Some of my best XBL friends came from randomly meeting them in matchmaking games, back when people actually talked.

Now it's all party chat and silence, good luck communicating if you go in alone because your team are in their closed little group.

That's part of the reason Custom servers wouldn't work. The XBL community is atrocious. No one talks because everyone's an asshole, that will inevitably carry over to those servers too. A custom browser isn't a fix all some think it is. I believe if they even implemented it it would either cause more problems or eventually go unused or lightly used.

 

[TheOddOne]

I'm sorry, but come on. This is clearly untrue and is borderline FOX news sensationalism, Custom Game Browsing is unequivocally faster and superior to matchmaking.

Pretty much how I feel about you, to be fair.

 

[JuanGGZ]

Friends bro. Friends.

But I'll side with you on no gamechat. I miss that a lot.

I remember a time, on Halo 3, where private group doesn't exist yet and where I made a lot of friends. More than ever on Reach.

Private groups just killed the social aspect on Halo MM. Halo 4 should have a specific playlist where private groups are not allowed.

 

[Tashi]

I guess I'm just the old guard, I can't adapt to the changing world. I've had my day. But to be fair, I feel like it's tragic.

Voice chat is dead
Teamwork is dead
Clans are dead
Being able to play what you want for however long you want is dead.

It just feels so sad that what I loved so much about Halo is gone and never coming back. I don't like the idea of sitting in quiet BTB games forever, just because nobody wants to talk in a matchmaking environment. Why do people assume that because I god forbid have strong opinions, that I must be automatically trolling?

You're boggling my mind right now bro. You need to find a steady group of friends to play Halo with and play with them often. A lot of HaloGAF plays together, I recommend making some friends here. You sound like a bitter matchmaking random. So dramatic.

Read that Fox News bit and paragraph again and tell me that's not insanely over the top. We all have strong opinions, we just present them in different manners

 

[Brolic Gaoler]

I remember a time, on Halo 3, where private group doesn't exist yet and where I made a lot of friends. More than ever on Reach.

Private groups just killed the social aspect on Halo MM. Halo 4 should have a specific playlist where private groups are not allowed.

No. Hell no. FUCK NO.

 

[CyReN]

I was just a baby lurker when Reach was coming out so I don't remember but what was the atmosphere and hype surrounding that game like in comparison to Reach?

On the MLG forums it was called the savior of Halo and Sage sigs everywhere, don't know about here.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

I don't really care one way or another about CGB. I'm fine with matchmaking as it is. I'd like for the next entrant in one of the biggest video game series of the decade with some of the most talented and well-financed developers in history to have some fuckin' dedicated servers, but CGB I can live without, personally.

 

[Conor 419]

Pretty much how I feel about you, to be fair.

Right okay, I guess I've gone to far.

In fairness, I jumped right into this argument rather than collecting all of the individual points I've made over the course of the year on the waypoint forums. I'm going to go and do something else now and stop bothering you guys.

Sorry chums.

 

[Plywood]

Plywood, do you really have that many bad rounds? The amount of bad rounds I've had due to lag and foreigners are so few I can remember most. Maybe it's the time you play? Maybe you are. Ore perceptible to that? More skilled so it effects you more? I hardly ever even notice lag in Reach. Your stats are the highest I've seen though so it must not cause you too much issue.

I'm not doubting you, trying to understand your view better.

My view is simple:

• Playing on a bad connection is not fun
• One bad game sours the whole experience
• Host feels different over client

I want consistency and I don't want just any kind of consistency, I want the highest level of consistency currently possible. I don't want to get bloodshots because the snipe shot didn't register with the host, I don't want to shoot someone 3 times before I see there player models shield spark from the first shot. I don't want double reloads, I don't want host switching to respawn all the weapons. I definitely don't want to be 5 seconds into the game for the host to switch. I don't want a discernible difference in weapon power or effect for certain weapons such as: grenade launcher, shotgun, concussion rifle. I don't want to get punched by another player and fly 10-15 feet away from them. I want to have the game play as closely as possible to its lan counterpart and to not experience the game on variable latency and other network babble.


I want a straight line: ----------------------------------

Not one with hiccups: -_-_-___-------____---_----__---

 

[JuanGGZ]

No. Hell no. FUCK NO.

Why ? You can be asocial and mute every other players, or play in an another playlist. =)

 

[Rickenslacker]

I don't really care one way or another about CGB. I'm fine with matchmaking as it is. I'd like for the next entrant in one of the biggest video game series of the decade with some of the most talented and well-financed developers in history to have some fuckin' dedicated servers, but CGB I can live without, personally.

All I know is that now that we finally have DIDO I don't have to deal with the misery of trusting the random people I get matched with. At least that's a big step up from the Halo norm.

 

[Karl2177]

[/U][/I][/B]


No. Hell no. FUCK NO.

Am I misunderstanding him or something? I'm all for a mercenary styled playlist where you can't have party chat or whatever enabled.

 

[Arnie]

There were problems people pointed out during the beta. Ghaleon's infamous one-line post, "This doesn't feel like Halo,"

I still get shivers from this.

I was one of the peons posting who wasn't included in Urk's mass friends and family PMathon. I remember watching a Tashi stream of your first custom game.

Heh.
Game link should be here. However, that link doesn't actually work - and looking through your game history, it suggests that it WOULD exist sometime between 4/26 and 4/29, but it's not on the full list. Weird.

The only recent game (today, in fact) that you went really negative in was this one.

Cheers Wu. It's indeed that last one where I went 13-50.

 

[feel]

About the same, really.

Damn your memory is fading already!! Nah, it was a much more positive atmosphere, most changes and fixes seemed good, there were no constant "hey guys, huge spread and non-hitscan are back! Also regen equipment!" sort of announcements, the beta gameplay really took almost everyone by surprise.

 

[Brolic Gaoler]

Am I misunderstanding him or something? I'm all for a mercenary styled playlist where you can't have party chat or whatever enabled.

Why ? You can be asocial and mute every other players, or play in an another playlist. =)

I'm not for any "feature" that removes features. Forcing people out of party chat isn't going to make the communicate in the least.

 

[Tawpgun]

[/U][/I][/B]


No. Hell no. FUCK NO.

Wow that was a strong response. Scared of social interaction? Scared of getting trashed talked by 12 year olds? All part of the experience I miss. If you want to keep to your own little comfortable world, don't go into that playlist.

I'm also a strong supporter of MW2's push for banning party chat in some playlists. I really, really miss gamechat.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Am I misunderstanding him or something? I'm all for a mercenary styled playlist where you can't have party chat or whatever enabled.

Yeah, I'm not really seeing the issue here. But I think you can set up match restrictions so you don't run into Tryhard Troupe when you're playing by yourself, and don't have to make another playlist(because that's the last thing we need).

 

[The Librarian]

Am I misunderstanding him or something? I'm all for a mercenary styled playlist where you can't have party chat or whatever enabled.

I don't see a problem with one playlist having a "no party chat" policy, so long as it doesn't take the place of a traditional playlist (BTB, Team Slayer, etc).

 

[heckfu]

Damn your memory is fading already!! Nah, it was a much more positive atmosphere, most changes and fixes seemed good, there were no constant "hey guys, huge spread and non-hitscan are back! Also regen equipment!" sort of announcements, the beta gameplay really took almost everyone by surprise.

Maybe we'll all look back at this and realize how wrong we were about our negative energy after the game comes out.

...right?

Wow that was a strong response. Scared of social interaction? Scared of getting trashed talked by 12 year olds? All part of the experience I miss. If you want to keep to your own little comfortable world, don't go into that playlist.

I'm also a strong supporter of MW2's push for banning party chat in some playlists. I really, really miss gamechat.

Im not scared of 12 year olds but sometimes I don't want to hear racist, homophobic, xenophobic slurs. Sometimes I just want to have a relaxing evening with actual friends and chill. I shouldn't be punished by having to mute everyone one by one or be banned from a playlist for wanting that.

Yes, punished is a strong word and I didn't necessarily mean that but I don't want to have to go back and change my words.

 

[Hypertrooper]

Heh, no thanks.

I would have preferred Dedicated servers over Spartan Ops at the moment. It is not that I dislike the idea of Spartan Ops. It sounds great. It sounds amazing. Compared to other stuff we have not seen anything about it. We saw the campaign, we read impression and we saw the multiplayer. Not much of course. But at least we saw something. People disliked what they saw but personally I chummed up with the MP stuff and the campaign is going to be amazing anyway.

Spartan Ops is a bit different. We do know just a little about it. Will the Spartan Ops mission play on the MP maps? Or will there be specific designed areas? How are the objective? Will they be repetitive? How many season will we get? I'll play Halo 4 a lot hopefully and I want to enjoy the mp. Laggy games are never good. They will never be if you are on the laggy side. With Dedicated Servers I could have avoided some of these games. At the end I could be friends with an enhanced Firefight. And the combination of FF + Dedicated Servers could have given me the hope to play FF with people online. Right now my experience with FF MM are bad. Really bad...

Edit.: Looks like this is already discussed. Shit. I shouldn't sleep during writing a post.

 

[Brolic Gaoler]

Wow that was a strong response. Scared of social interaction? Scared of getting trashed talked by 12 year olds? All part of the experience I miss. If you want to keep to your own little comfortable world, don't go into that playlist.

I'm also a strong supporter of MW2's push for banning party chat in some playlists. I really, really miss gamechat.

Scared? Is there a reason to post in such a way that you're trying to get a "heated" response? lol read the above post.

You're asking for a feature to remove already established features and ones you already pay for

 

[Tashi]

I still get shivers from this.

I was one of the peons posting who wasn't included in Urk's mass friends and family PMathon. I remember watching a Tashi stream of your first custom game.


Cheers Wu. It's indeed that last one where I went 13-50.

I wish I had my HD stream at that time lol. I was streaming at 320x180 or something. That was a fun day. I remember I started the stream with the download in progress. Viewers started to pour in and then I waited for other HaloGAF members to download it before I started playing. Everyone in the chat was so mad at me for waiting lol.

 

[Fuchsdh]

If you're trying to find friends over XBL you're likely doing it wrong. Voice chat not confined to groups and parties is seldom team chat. It's usually kids screaming at the top of their lungs and sometimes worse.*

*I was in a Halo 3 boosting session where the guy was having a screaming match with his gf, and the. His dad joined in on the fun. The of reason I assumed it wasn't escalating into violence (although things may have been thrown) was that the guy was still playing. Saddest thing I've seen online in a long time.

 

[Rickenslacker]

Maybe we'll all look back at this and realize how wrong we were about our negative energy after the game comes out.

...right?

Certainly possible, and while I'm feeling kind of iffy about Halo 4 right now and have rarely switched opinions based on things from previews to release I am all for Halo 4 to knock me on my ass with how awesome it should be.

 

[daedalius]

wtf is going on in here now?

I'd rather talk about the book cover and what could be in the new novel.

No, lets yell about fox news sensationalism and hyperbole in regards to custom games browsers.

smh

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Scared? lol read the above post.

You're asking for a feature to remove already established features. Ones you pay for.

You realize you could still play 98% of the rest of the game with all those features in-tact, yes? Like...you could never ever have to go into that playlist and it will not harm you in any way.

This is quite the melodramatic response for something that would probably have no effect on you!

 

[TheOddOne]

I'd rather talk about the book cover and what could be in the new novel.

What might the red thing on top of the Spartan's head be?

The knee braches look... intresting to say the least.

 

[Karl2177]

I'm not for any "feature" that removes features. Forcing people out of party chat isn't going to make the communicate in the least.

It's an attempt at it though. In this case, that's an issue of player decision not game limitation.

Wow that was a strong response. Scared of social interaction? Scared of getting trashed talked by 12 year olds? All part of the experience I miss. If you want to keep to your own little comfortable world, don't go into that playlist.

I'm also a strong supporter of MW2's push for banning party chat in some playlists. I really, really miss gamechat.

In certain playlists, yep. When it was borked at patch and you couldn't go into TD with Party Chat, I don't agree with. But a mercenary playlist where you are forced to enter alone, I'm all for.

Yeah, I'm not really seeing the issue here. But I think you can set up match restrictions so you don't run into Tryhard Troupe when you're playing by yourself, and don't have to make another playlist(because that's the last thing we need).

If those buttons had any code for low populations, I would use them. It still sucks when you enter Super Slayer or something alone, and get matched with 3 terrible randoms against a team of 4 average players. I still think that a mercenaries playlist with a 50% Slayer weighting, 50% objective weighting would be best for those of us going in alone.

 

[Brolic Gaoler]

You realize you could still play 98% of the rest of the game with all those features in-tact, yes? Like...you could never ever have to go into that playlist and it will not harm you in any way.

This is quite the melodramatic response for something that would probably have no effect on you!

It depends on what playlist has this "feature." At this point the only thing you're discussing is a playlist that will have it. You and I can't possibly know at this point how I will or will not like a playlist that contains it, hence my aversion to even the idea of it.

Plus like I said, you're asking for a feature to remove features. That doesn't make any sense.

It's an attempt at it though. In this case, that's an issue of player decision not game limitation.

Exactly, player DECISION. Don't force anyone to do anything, that's fucking stupid.

 

[Spawnling]

I have always wanted a Custom Games browser in a Halo game. There would be no true-skill in custom games, as they are custom. There is no experience points, etc. It's just made for the sole purpose of finding other players that want to play custom games.

There would obviously be privacy settings, as if you only want a 4v4 lobby or something like that. But having a system like that would make just finding friends and players in general much easier.

 

[The Librarian]

What might the red thing on top of the Spartan's head be?

The knee braches look... intresting to say the least.

Promethean Vision.

 

[TheOddOne]

Promethean Vision.

Yeah.... how did I miss that :lol

In other news, this is the first time I have heard about the “Kilo-Five Trilogy”.

 

[NullPointer]

I'm not for any "feature" that removes features. Forcing people out of party chat isn't going to make the communicate in the least.

I'm not for forcing people out of party chat, but I do think Halo 4 would benefit from a no-party playlist, like a Mercenaries playlist in COD.

Not everybody has a group of friends to play with, and nobody likes to be in a group of randoms versus a full team of people who play together all the time. Its a space that helps ease new players into the fold while providing more competitive games for non-partied up players of all skill levels. A win/win.

But yeah, its nice to want things ;P

A playlist that is just based upon disabling party chat will not work. People will just mute those they don't know or use another voice system outside of the Xbox.

 

[daedalius]

Promethean Vision.

Better than Forerunner Vision!

Awful name it was.

 

[feel]

I like that book cover.

Maybe we'll all look back at this and realize how wrong we were about our negative energy after the game comes out.

...right?

Very likely. But we weren't completely wrong, it was 343i's fault for mishandling the info distribution.

 

[Merguson]

wtf is going on in here now?

I'd rather talk about the book cover and what could be in the new novel.

No, lets yell about fox news sensationalism and hyperbole in regards to custom games browsers.

smh

Space Magic that solves everything in the end.

 

[Brolic Gaoler]

I'm not for forcing people out of party chat, but I do think Halo 4 would benefit from a no-party playlist, like a Mercenaries playlist in COD.

Not everybody has a group of friends to play with, and nobody likes to be in a group of randoms versus a full team of people who play together all the time. Its one of those changes that helps ease new players into the fold while also making games more competitive for non-partied up players of all skill levels. A win/win.

But yeah, its nice to want things ;P

I would play the shit out of a mercenary playlist, but I might not necessarily want to talk to the people in it. Some people like to talk to their friends or family while playing. Forcing them out of a feature on XBL that we all pay doesn't make any sense.

Let the player make the decision if they want to talk or not. Don't force them out of chat so they simply mute everyone anyway.

 

[WJD]

There was nowhere near the criticism or skepticism. Everyone was willing to give Bungie the benefit of the doubt and many were excited to give AAs, bloom, and all the other new features a chance. I remember excitedly speculating about which AA I would use the most, and it was only well after Reach's release that I disliked bloom, and even longer than that before I disliked every AA (except hologram).

There were problems people pointed out during the beta. Ghaleon's infamous one-line post, "This doesn't feel like Halo," and Eazy's series of posts demonstrating the randomness of bloom. Beyond the beta, most everyone still gave Bungie the benefit of the doubt, and we were excited to give the game another try come release.

That's the gist of it.

I actually liked the Beta. It wasn't until a few weeks after the full game came out that I thought, "fuck. I miss Halo."

Just the sensation of playing a new "Halo" game was more than enough to carry me through that month and I enjoyed donging with the jetpack (something I can rarely be bothered with now).

I'm also embarrassed to say that I liked bloom in the Beta - the feeling of timing my shots like that was quite nice until, as you said, it was pointed out how random it was.

*sigh*

Halo 3, anyone?

 

[Hypertrooper]

Yeah.... how did I miss that :lol

In other news, this is the first time I have heard about the “Kilo-Five Trilogy”.

It was known since the first announcement of Thursday War.

And why do you look at the Spartans? Look at the SIZE OF THE INFINITY.

 

[Tunavi]

guys stop actually talking about halo this is weird

 

[Fuchsdh]

Can someone link the cover image? Hard to sort with mobile...

 

[Karl2177]

Exactly, player DECISION. Don't force anyone to do anything, that's fucking stupid.

It's not the game's fault that you aren't communicating with your teammates because you're in party chat. It's your fault. Remove party chat and you stop communicating. Again that's not the game's fault for your failure to communicate, it's yours.

Besides, it's one playlist. A playlist dedicated to going in alone and being competitive, without having to worry about a full party ruining the experience. I don't see why you're rustling your jimmies so hard about it.

 

[WJD]

guys stop actually talking about halo this is weird

sorry.

what do you think Frankie's favourite position is?

 

[squidhands]

A stellar job? Putting aside framerate, map quality, anything like that. Put aside all the subjective pros and cons of Reach. What I absolutely cannot comprehend is how Forge and Theater went from their Halo 3 iterations, to their Reach iterations, after 3 years of Microsoft funded, renting-out-a-movie-theater-sized-office-space dev work. Mind boggling. Where did that time go? Really, stripped features from Theater? Really, no selectable color palette in Forge? Really, a 4 hour long campaign? Really, 9 maps? Halo 4 continues to underwhelm, because 343 knows they can get away with it. Hoping for feature parity with other releases now means you have "batshit" expectations, or because you don't know every iota about game development, you can't hope for more.

At least HaloGAF continues to amaze in a way Halo 4 never will.

C'mon, dude.

That podcast didn't truly elaborate on armor abilities, perks, they didn't go back to it and added explanation for bloom.

Maybe because the finer details are still in flux so there would be no reason to dole out what would end up being false information. There is the still the potential of getting 6 more podcasts talking about the new features of the game, not to mention vidocs (I refuse to acknowledge gaming sites as a source of real information, because they don't seem to know how to string together words that match what their eyes have seen and their ears have heard properly). Patience, my friend.

 

[Stinkles]

wtf is going on in here now?

People going aggro about a thing that they think would be nice to have, that they knew they weren't going to have a long time ago, but have regurgitated it again so that the conversation can continue to be three or four people repeating the same thing over and over again.

 

[Louis Wu]

Cheers Wu. It's indeed that last one where I went 13-50.

Okay, here's some weird shit.

The guy at the top of the list in kills is an Inheritor, nearly 9500 matchmaking games under his belt... with an overall K/D of 1.1 (That's lower than MINE, fergoshsakes.)

#3 - 2200 games, K/D of 1.29. #4 - 4500 games, 1.27.

There was only one guy on the team with really impressive stats: #2 in kills has more than 4000 games, is Onyx in Arena, and has an overall K/D of 1.67.

You had one guy on your team with crappy stats - but overall, you guys look better on paper than they do. Pretty amazing they rocked you so badly.

This stuff always surprises me.

 

[789shadow]

Hey guys.

Halo 4 won't have dedicated servers.

Discuss.

 

[Trey]

Thursday War can't be much worse than Glasslands, so things are looking up!