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Halo |OT| HaloGAF Evolved

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Beta Talk? Real Talk.

I just finished reading the article(you always have great articles)
PM Address for fly by handy
i think the bigger question is, Is multiplayer "spoiling" anything.

It hard to put across exactly what i mean, Iv went into each halo game with very minor info about the Single player knowing only the characters names and the basic premise of the game, less information than what a books blurb would divulge.

The flip side to this is iv followed the multiplayer news and leaks with a feverish excitement, iv dug into beta files, iv refreshed sites and hunted down magazine scans for any tidbit of the game.

I think we all remember the Halo 3 Last Resort leak or the Epsilon leak, first info about brute maulers and hornets ect. This spoiled nothing for me it only served to build excitement for the final product as did the beta's.

Halo is about the single player for me, but because i enjoy it and as a symbol of my devotion as a fan i pour hours upon hours into the multiplayer, we (to a degree) know what to expect, new maps, movement tweaks new weapons ect but will also know its going to feel like "halo" and because we know this i dont see how anything can be spoiled.

Knowing about Equipment or AA's for example before Halo 3 and Reach respectively didnt spoil anything, i assumed these would play a part in the campaign but judging from the Halo 4 teaser i know of some crazy grenade gun and thrusters and i assume this will be in campaign.

Maybe some peoples excitement comes from the feel of the game but i see a big distinction between "OMG johnson has been recreated as a friendly flood now" and "ohh run speed is similar to 110% from reach and halo 3 jump hight has returned".

The distinction being that one is a true spoiler and one is just an adjustment of physics. I suppose it depends on where you draw the line between info and spoilers.

Id love a beta, i fear its getting too late for one but honestly they could turn round tomorrow and release a little press statement that says "every copy of Mass effect 3 on xbox will include a halo 4 multiplayer beta to go live in june" and every single gaming news site would repost it and everybody would tell their friends and it would of circulated the entire gaming collective within 2 days and still draw insane population counts.
 
Halo 4, mercenaries playlist for those of us who happen to play when no one else is on and throw the guests in their own shit too. The amount of idiots in games is staggering but going up against a group that is not full of them, with nothing but people who probably can't tie their fucking shoe let alone play the game with one iota of common sense is just frustrating. And for it to happen more than once in a night makes me turn the fucking Xbox off so fast.

I rage quit two games in a row the other night because I wasn't going to sit through such shenanigans. Actively trying only to get shit on is not fun, and I won't stay in the game out of some warped sense of masochistic pride. I'll stay in games in which I'm losing too, that's never a problem, it's just aggravating when the spawn camping occurs or I'm blue team on fucking Headlong.

I can't carry every group of morons you happen to MM me with. I don't care how much of asshole that makes me sound like at this point.
 

FyreWulff

Member
That wasnt how reach leaked was it? How do you even pull a .XCP from a console if thats the case?

Journo sells access to account, group uses account to find where file is via the account history, use exploit to make Live give you the game now that you know the location.

Microsoft is like a damn sieve, and it wasn't the first or last time.
 
Journo sells access to account, group uses account to find where file is via the account history, use exploit to make Live give you the game now that you know the location.

Microsoft is like a damn sieve, and it wasn't the first or last time.

My recollection of those events where "people" who Game-tuts later took the credit for, manipulated the XBLMP servers and downloaded the GoD file in a . xcp format at which point a huge portion of the community banded together in IRC to decode the .xcp into something playable which after about 40 hours happened once it had been converted between about 4 different data formats before ending up in a pseudo ripped .iso file that worked exclusively on JTAG

I wasnt aware they found the file from a journo i assumed its location had been passed down via some illegitimate Pnet user.
 
Relax, E3 '12 is in five months. He said less than five months to imply we'll get a reveal before E3 '12 which has been obvious since day one.

So I guess thatsthejoke.jpg
You know that he gave us a time frame from January 22th to June 22th. E3 is June 5-7. So it will be "less than five months" too. :p
 

TheOddOne

Member
Is this your first time really seeing posts about Halo on gaming side? I stopped reading them a while ago.
No, but that post really stood out. Usually I really don't mind gaming side opinion about Halo, some valid and some outright trollish, but his post just made be bust out laughing.

He has some other gems like this and this. I wish somebody would do a dramatic reading of them :lol
 

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
hEsLD.jpg
 

heckfu

Banned
Send some good vibes my way. More threats of tornados tonight for my town...what the hell is going on with this weather this year?!
 

Ramirez

Member
I think there will be a beta. To not have one after 3 & Reach says to me that they're scared to let people play it, which I don't like the thought of.
 
You know that he gave us a time frame from January 22th to June 22th. E3 is June 5-7. So it will be "less than five months" too. :p

Nothing on Halo 4 until E3 confirmed.

10_Dream_Crusher%21.png


I think there will be a beta. To not have one after 3 & Reach says to me that they're scared to let people play it, which I don't like the thought of.

Meh, 343 is a different developer than Bungie, and not only may they have a significantly different development schedule and process than Bungie, but they may market the game differently, and at different stages than Bungie did. Now that's more of a statement about people's expectations about the info releases for the game in general than a possible public beta, but I think it applies to that as well. I don't think their decision to not do a public beta (if in fact that's what they do) really says anything about the game.
 
Nothing on Halo 4 until E3 confirmed.

10_Dream_Crusher%21.png




Meh, 343 is a different developer than Bungie, and not only may they have a significantly different development schedule and process than Bungie, but they may market the game differently, and at different stages than Bungie did. Now that's more of a statement about people's expectations about the info releases for the game in general than a possible, but I think it applies to that as well. I don't think their decision to not do a public beta (if in fact that's what they do) really says anything about the game.
Maybe they will release a demo instead of a beta. You know 343i did the Reach demo.
 

FyreWulff

Member
My recollection of those events where "people" who Game-tuts later took the credit for, manipulated the XBLMP servers and downloaded the GoD file in a . xcp format at which point a huge portion of the community banded together in IRC to decode the .xcp into something playable which after about 40 hours happened once it had been converted between about 4 different data formats before ending up in a pseudo ripped .iso file that worked exclusively on JTAG

I wasnt aware they found the file from a journo i assumed its location had been passed down via some illegitimate Pnet user.

When I was contracting out for another developer they had one of the journalists that they sent a review copy to sell the copy to one of those shady groups. That illegitimate Pnet user was more than likely a journo, because I've seen it happen before, and the Reach event seemed to be a classic case of it.

It's one of the sides of the industry you don't see talked about much. And if you're making a multiplatform game the 360 version is the one that is mostly likely to be leaked or stolen before release, because Nintendo and Sony have better tracking over who has what.

fakeedit: I'm working on youtubing up that voice message, but since I just installed Win7 it's like.. I need something to record it.. go download and install Audacity. Got it recorded.. shit, need to grab Windows Movie Maker so I can make it into a video for YT to accept.
 

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
Searching with only 2 in BTB? I think a HaloGAF beacon would have been in order.
Eh, I roll BTB solo often enough and find a good amount of success carrying the seven scrubs on my back against the eight unfortunate on the enemy team. That feeling when you have 30+ kills at the end of a game.
 

Booshka

Member
Eh, I roll BTB solo often enough and find a good amount of success carrying the seven scrubs on my back against the eight unfortunate on the enemy team. That feeling when you have 30+ kills at the end of a game.

Damn right, who gives a shit about the win, just pad that K/D baby.
 
The best thing ever is rolling through anniversary BTB and attempting to go +∞. I'll look for the stats if I find myself being less lazy in a few minutes but the gauss hog on Headlong is probably the best thing ever when you and a competent friend team up. Sniping on timberland is pretty entertaining also if you forget objective. I don't know why but those playlists seem to be populated by people even more idiotic than the average reach playlist.

Oh and does anyone know how old this is? Someone just posted it on the MLG forums and I found it to be pretty awesome.

Edit:
Youtube'd

Right wanker he is

I hope you reported this dweeb
 

Ramirez

Member
Meh, 343 is a different developer than Bungie, and not only may they have a significantly different development schedule and process than Bungie, but they may market the game differently, and at different stages than Bungie did. Now that's more of a statement about people's expectations about the info releases for the game in general than a possible, but I think it applies to that as well. I don't think their decision to not do a public beta (if in fact that's what they do) really says anything about the game.

I'm sure many wouldn't share my thoughts on the subject, but I feel pretty strongly about that. Regardless of another developer taking over, the precedent has been set of Halo games having betas, and it's helped each title some what from having them, so I see no reason not to have one.
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
I'm sure many wouldn't share my thoughts on the subject, but I feel pretty strongly about that. Regardless of another developer taking over, the precedent has been set of Halo games having betas, and it's helped each title some what from having them, so I see no reason not to have one.

I have two conflicting responses to this.

1) 343 doing their own thing with Halo, they don't have to follow the old ways. A new developer and an opportunity to do things differently.

2) Defying expectations can backfire. Millions of folks are expecting a beta and will be disappointment if one doesn't happen. It's like anti-PR.
 

Booshka

Member
For the record however I do try to win, but one person can only do so much.

Yea I was joking, I always try hard to win, so getting a lot of kills is a part of that. I also am the type of player that avoids death at all costs, got that style of play from Shadowrun where death is extremely costly.
 
I'm sure many wouldn't share my thoughts on the subject, but I feel pretty strongly about that. Regardless of another developer taking over, the precedent has been set of Halo games having betas, and it's helped each title some what from having them, so I see no reason not to have one.

I would actually assume that the majority would share your view on the subject over mine, but that's just a gut guess.

As for general release of info and footage, I'd like to see the game as much as the rest, but I commend them for not showing the game 'too early', where you see a product that is not nearly representative of the final one (see initial Reach shots from the magazine). I think it's a mistake when footage is shown of games that is clearly not close to what the final build will look like, and I feel like games are sometimes shown prematurely because for some reason they (the publisher obviously) feel the need to show off the game well before release.

Of course, then you have games like Bioshock Infinite, where they show gameplay footage years before release and it's looks incredibly polished...

Random: Something is funky with the keyboard on this laptop, although nothing appears to be visibly wrong.
 

stephen08

Member
It would be extremely arrogant of 343 not to release a beta for Halo 4. If time constraints or resources are a limiting factor the release schedule should be re-evaluated.
 

heckfu

Banned
It would be extremely arrogant of 343 not to release a beta for Halo 4. If time constraints or resources are a limiting factor the release schedule should be re-evaluated.

Arrogant? That's last on the list of words I would use. If I were them I'd wait to show off the whole game on launch to blow people's minds; not giving a beta builds MORE hype and builds more suspense, in my opinion.
 

stephen08

Member
Arrogant? That's last on the list of words I would use. If I were them I'd wait to show off the whole game on launch to blow people's minds; not giving a beta builds MORE hype and builds more suspense, in my opinion.

That would be the aforementioned arrogance. Thinking that what they have will blow people's minds and that their ideas are so good and executed so flawlessly that the community will undoubtedly eat it up is total arrogance. Even if they happened to be right.

It would also be arrogant to assume that their testing is sufficient for approximating real world conditions. The community will find bugs, exploits and imbalances that just aren't picked up in internal testing. This is painfully true with 343 as they have had a couple glitches sneak past them on some of the more simple things in Reach like the credit cap changes or the health pack glitch.

I'm not an expert on this so I could be wrong but I would assume that fixing an issue pre-ship is a lot easier.

Having no beta as a means to build hype would be taking their customers for granted. Some people seem to forget this but 343 still has to prove themselves as worthy successors to develop Halo. Delaying this until launch cannot be a good thing.
 
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