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[HiredN00bs]

wtf

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A Neatly-Wrapped Backdrop for a Universe In Decline, March 22, 2013
By HiredN00bs

This review is from: Halo: Silentium (Forerunner) (Kindle Edition)

Those who have followed Halo fiction have long wondered on the mystery behind its overarching premise: how did it happen that an ancient civilization built weapons of mass destruction to eradicate all life in the galaxy? Years ago, Microsoft and its internal group of stewards at 343 Industries partnered with science fiction writer Greg Bear to explore this origin story in a series of three novels, 2011's Cryptum, 2012's Primordium, and the finale released this week, Silentium.

While it's an oft-heard complaint that the first two novels skimp on action and plot development, it's hard to imagine hearing such a complaint about Silentium. The structure of this novel is that of varied testimonies from the series' characters, as in a legal trial, so the information dispensed is wide-reaching and full of revelations within the Halo Universe. It's quite possible to injest this story by simply reading summaries of Cryptum and Primordium and then to read Silentium. It's a fast read, and I finished it in a few days, reading whenever I had an hour or so to spare.

Overall, I'm satisfied with the conclusion, and I think any fan that has wondered about the origin of Halo will feel similarly satisfied, in that Silentium is an interesting and detailed explanation that still plants seeds of greater mystery without leaving the reader feeling cheated or desperate for more.

My only dissatisfaction comes from the fictional landscape that Microsoft and 343 Industries has laid with its first entry into the game series, Halo 4. The novel very deliberately fastens story hooks with the game universe, but unfortunately, the story from Halo 4 has gone to some underwhelming places. There are pleasant ties to the older games, but they clearly fall outside the intent of the story Bungie originally crafted. There are even some painful unintended allusions and reminders of the absurd and abrupt Star Wars: Episode III ending (oh, by the way, have that droid's memory wiped).

Regardless of the state of the Halo Universe, Silentium is a quick and fun read for any Halo fan, and delivers the goods on Halo's origin story.

How is that not following the guidelines and why don't they explicitly state the violation so I can fix it? I mean I don't think I've ever written an Amazon review before, and the one time I do, it's discarded. Annoying.

 

[Arnie]

I am the problem, I wouldn't doubt.

I find it really interesting to look at year old posts and notice how I've polarised from feral Halo defender and massive Microsoft fanboy to what is essentially, the complete opposite. These changes have happened for a reason, but I guess the solutions I've proposed just aren't happening, I should probably just accept that. I don't have to support the brand Next gen, but I might as well contribute to what I'm already apart of now. I'll try and have a more positive role in this thread from this point onwards.

On that note, should we arrange a 16 player game? That might be a good start to bring the community together.

Next week, I'd be in. I'm currently stranded in a London B&B whilst I complete an Internship and my Xbox sits dormant at the other end of the country. Speaking of my Xbox lying untouched, despite my many valid complaints with Halo 4, I can't quite shake the feeling that part of my disconnect with the franchise comes from a heightened apathy for the industry compared to the Halo 3 days.

 

[Tunavi]

On a phone so it takes an age to write so only just quickly seen some responses to first post, but...

Not meaning to troll. It's my honest opinion. I think HaloGAF probably has a much higher than average amount of competitive multiplayer guys of a certain mindset than you might find elsewhere in the halo community.

I'm not trying to offend or piss anyone off, just what I think.

That's because kids can't join the site, aside from tawpgun.

 

[heckfu]

Just now caught up with the thread.

Leave it up to Booties to make the thread where Frank quits and everyone melts down.

 

[Domino Theory]

Link to all the new stuff?

 

[TheOddOne]

Bitching about a game you play and want to be better is not what I am talking about.

Anyway, peace. I love all of you.

Except that one guy.

That awkward moment you notice it's about you. Feels bad man. Want to pull a Eric Cartman, but at the same time I don't. Feel bad man.

 

[Madness]

wtf



How is that not following the guidelines and why don't they explicitly state the violation so I can fix it? I mean I don't think I've ever written an Amazon review before, and the one time I do, it's discarded. Annoying.

I've only had one review ever be rejected and that's because I flat out shit on amazon because they sold me a counterfeit part.

I think someone from MS probably complained because you brought the game into the review, even though you have every right to mention it.

I don't know why that review wouldn't be allowed though.

 

[Conor 419]

1. Conor 419
2. Arnie
3. Silly.Mikey
4.

If anyone would like to put aside their unquestionable hatred for me and join in for some lighthearted games of Halo, then feel free to add yourself to the list. I'm sure Devolution, and to a lesser extent, Wahrer could vouch that I am no where near as infuriating over headset as I am in this thread.

All welcome, game types to be decided. Games likely some time next week when I'm back from home and have access to my xbox at uni.

 

[MaximumFlipFlop]

PSN is sltPoison. Don't expect to see me on an Xbox anytime soon.

 

[Tunavi]

PSN is sltPoison. Don't expect to see me on an Xbox anytime soon.

you're sltpoison??? hahahaha

 

[Silly.Mikey]

On a phone so it takes an age to write so only just quickly seen some responses to first post, but...

Not meaning to troll. It's my honest opinion. I think HaloGAF probably has a much higher than average amount of competitive multiplayer guys of a certain mindset than you might find elsewhere in the halo community.

I'm not trying to offend or piss anyone off, just what I think.

I agree and thats part of the problem imo. For the most-part, they think its best played their way and only their way. They can implement all these fixes that these guys want, and it could still change nothing when it comes to people playing Halo online. The user base might not change at all.

I for one think that adding an option to turn most of the stuff on or off and even giving custom settings for the users to tweek gun power/effectiveness can put all the odds in their favor next time around. If the community doesnt like the BR, they could tweek it. Dont like the speed of your character, tweek it. Etc. How can that hurt the game? It cant.

For me, this game has not "downed" me on Halo one bit. I keep telling myself how this is their very first complete game together as a company and with everything they are learning now in regards to that, i have no doubt that next time will be better. No doubts at all.

 

[BigShow36]

I think this is a big point that a lot of HaloGAF are naive about. After launching a game you will have a finite amount if resource to support that release. Most of your company's resource will now be into the next game.

Some fixes are possible, some are not. Sit and think for a couple of minutes about what would be involved in some if these fixes. New scripts, assets, UI, code, gameplay rules and so on. Then it needs to be tested fully to make sure it works in isolation, it works within the product and it works within the community. It is a big drain on your team.

So the team needs to get as much as it can right first time. With Halo 4 I think a brand new team who picked up from where a group of strangers left off have done very well. They have improved in many areas and matched most of what is left.

There are gaps which is what you guys constantly bitch about, but they are not far away. With the money involved you might argue that there shouldn't be any gaps, but the scale of the task will be fucking huge.

I would judge them after the next game. For me the multiplayer is still Halo, still fun and there is less grieving. The campaign was the best yet in parts and somewhat lacking in parts. Spartan ops started off stuttering and finished dramatically better. I have faith in 343 to improve on a job already done pretty well.

I think some of you guys need to walk away and stop shitting it up for everyone else.

Maybe it's the fact that some of us pointed out this shit literally a year or more before the game was released. As soon as we had the information we pointed out the flaws. These shortcomings weren't a surprise, they were blatantly obvious to anyone who understands multiplayer game balance and took a critical look at what they were doing.

This isn't a case of "OMG that's crazy that the game turned out like this when everything sounded so good during development!" But unfortunately more "we said this shit would happen and it did and you ignored everything we said during development, now you tell us to stop bitching cause you tried real hard."

Why would they improve things NOW that we've been telling them need to be fixed for years? They had tools to tweak the game for 3+ years during development, why are we so excited that they can do it now as well? If the people behind the game don't understand the underlying issues, nothing relevant is going to be fixed. Until someone from 343 displays to me that they actually understand, not just "we know best, it's complicated, it's gun b k," then I'm going to continue to meet their promises of "improvement" with a smirk and a roll of the eyes.

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

Halo 4 has been the only Halo game ive stopped playing so soon.

No incentive to try get better online without ranks.

 

[ElzarTheBam]

you're sltpoison??? hahahaha

Wtf, I also wondered what happened to that guy.

Looool

 

[Twilight Gap]

Not meaning to troll. It's my honest opinion. I think HaloGAF probably has a much higher than average amount of competitive multiplayer guys of a certain mindset than you might find elsewhere in the halo community.

I'm not trying to offend or piss anyone off, just what I think.

I'm not competitive by any means but I don't understand why you would say ranks have ruined Halo. I can agree that it's caused problems like cheating, deranking, but there will always be the trash talking crowd who play for bragging rights. Having a system that shows relative player skill/improvement over time only helps to increase the game's longevity. Without that skill carrot to keep people focused on winning, leveling up, and improving their skill, there's little reason to play.

I have friends who've played 10k+ games of Halo 2 and Halo 3 just by trying to get as many 50s as possible. Those same people haven't even played 2% of that in Halo 4 because there's nothing to keep them playing. There's nothing to challenge their skillset and nothing to encourage teamwork.

What I don't understand is why there cannot be Ranked and Social like there was in Halo 3. Keep social matches trueskill sorted but don't make it visible. Then have more hardcore settings in the Ranked hopper with visible trueskill. This way, people who don't want to play the hardcore ranked don't have to, and people who don't want to play the more laid-back social games don't have to. There is a necessary and healthy separation, but one that on the contrary keeps the community together by giving them all something to do.

There's a reason why 4 months later we're peaking at 40k, and it's largely in part to there being no longevity to the game. 90% of the things that keep me playing either don't work or aren't in the game, and it's disheartening to hear 343 boldly state that "it's not in the plans". Well, Halo 4 is not in my Xbox.

 

[Silly.Mikey]

1. Conor 419
2. Arnie
3. Silly.Mikey
4.

If anyone would like to put aside their unquestionable hatred for me and join in for some lighthearted games of Halo, then feel free to add yourself to the list. I'm sure Devolution, and to a lesser extent, Wahrer could vouch that I am no where near as infuriating over headset as I am in this thread.

All welcome, game types to be decided. Games likely some time next week when I'm back from home and have access to my xbox at uni.

They cant, they sold their game.

 

[Ghazi]

PSN is sltPoison. Don't expect to see me on an Xbox anytime soon.

What games do you have?

 

[TheOddOne]

Wtf, I also wondered what happened to that guy.

Looool

I thought he was poisoned by

Spoiler

you. Cause you are a slut HIYOOOOOOOOO.

 

[Duji]

It will also appear front and center on your phone and we have been very clear about the how and why of this. If we put it in the game we massively incentivize cheating and abuse. You guys all know this. If you want to know your relative skill you can now see it at a glance. If you want e-peen comparison it is far from perfect.

The year is 2013. How come games like SC2 and LoL are able to implement fully functional ranking systems with visible ranks and very few cheaters yet the great minds behind the Halo franchise are unable to and have to resort to a half-assed fix to lower the incentive to cheat by also equally lowering the incentive to play the game? Does 343 really think there is absolutely no way to stop boosting? Because that is just flat out wrong.

 

[orznge]

The year is 2013. How come games like SC2 and LoL are able to implement fully functional ranking systems with visible ranks and very few cheaters yet the great minds behind the Halo franchise are unable to and have to resort to a half-assed fix to lower the incentive to cheat by also equally lowering the incentive to play the game? Does 343 really think there is absolutely no way to stop boosting? Because that is just flat out wrong.

it's not worth their money since everyone still fuckin bought the game lol

 

[VivaciousJazzy]

So uh, if I win a game cause the other team quit out of the lobby before the game started that will count as a win for my csr?

 

[kittens]

Halo 4 has been the only Halo game ive stopped playing so soon.

No incentive to try get better online without ranks.

Wow, way to single out Madness again.

 

[Conor 419]

Something very pleasing to find out, which I didn't know about myself, is that Anoj is still to this day continuing with his top 10 videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqL8FVGj1OM

The binary rifle overkill, and the improvisation of the sticky detonator for the Killtastrophe was inspired.

 

[broony]

Maybe it's the fact that some of us pointed out this shit literally a year or more before the game was released. As soon as we had the information we pointed out the flaws. These shortcomings weren't a surprise, they were blatantly obvious to anyone who understands multiplayer game balance and took a critical look at what they were doing.

This isn't a case of "OMG that's crazy that the game turned out like this when everything sounded so good during development!" But unfortunately more "we said this shit would happen and it did and you ignored everything we said during development, now you tell us to stop bitching cause you tried real hard."

Why would they improve things NOW that we've been telling them need to be fixed for years? They had tools to tweak the game for 3+ years during development, why are we so excited that they can do it now as well? If the people behind the game don't understand the underlying issues, nothing relevant is going to be fixed. Until someone from 343 displays to me that they actually understand, not just "we know best, it's complicated, it's gun b k," then I'm going to continue to meet their promises of "improvement" with a smirk and a roll of the eyes.

To be honest though, outside of HaloGAF, or Old halo MLG communities you might find others not being bothered about these things that you were pointing out. For me I couldnt give a fuck about probably 70 % of the stuff kids are wetting their pants about on here.

I guess my wishlist solution would be to release halo 5 with proper custom games options as well as the user's ability to change sandbox options and then have user defined playlists.

So just like a game mode you can create / search for a playlist with a certain rule set. It's almost like having PC style custom servers but restricted within a rule set / sandbox that is controlled by the developer.

That way the competitive community here can create their dream playlist, the commercial MLg playlist exists, the griff all guys get their playlist.

Let the playlist live or die by its own rules, so if what you think works, you end up Si a popular playlist, if not its you and you friend bob and nobody else. There would also ways be the official p,amylose to fall back on.

So you could have a halogaf playlist, that is editable by the nominated halogaf member, who can start at thread here and get votes on the dmr fire rate, or the flag reset time or whatever.

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

Wow, way to single out Madness again.

I PMd him to apologise for this post.

 

[Twilight Gap]

It will also appear front and center on your phone and we have been very clear about the how and why of this. If we put it in the game we massively incentivize cheating and abuse. You guys all know this. If you want to know your relative skill you can now see it at a glance. If you want e-peen comparison it is far from perfect.

Nobody denies that cheating and abuse are problems, but it's troubling how far that seems to be exaggerated.

The year is 2013. How come games like SC2 and LoL are able to implement fully functional ranking systems with visible ranks and very few cheaters yet the great minds behind the Halo franchise are unable to and have to resort to a half-assed fix to lower the incentive to cheat by also equally lowering the incentive to play the game?

It feels like Halo is the only game that can't have a proper ranking system anymore.

Does 343 really think there is absolutely no way to stop boosting? Because that is just flat out wrong.

The only way to stop boosting is to ban stupidity. If you want to minimize cheating, there are plenty of avenues we can invest in, and ones that don't needlessly punish the rest of us like the mute ban I might add.

 

[orznge]

To be honest though, outside of HaloGAF, or Old halo MLG communities you might find others not being bothered about these things that you were pointing out. For me I couldnt give a fuck about probably 70 % of the stuff kids are wetting their pants about on here.

I guess my wishlist solution would be to release halo 5 with proper custom games options as well as the user's ability to change sandbox options and then have user defined playlists.

So just like a game mode you can create / search for a playlist with a certain rule set. It's almost like having PC style custom servers but restricted within a rule set / sandbox that is controlled by the developer.

That way the competitive community here can create their dream playlist, the commercial MLg playlist exists, the griff all guys get their playlist.

Let the playlist live or die by its own rules, so if what you think works, you end up Si a popular playlist, if not its you and you friend bob and nobody else. There would also ways be the official p,amylose to fall back on.

So you could have a halogaf playlist, that is editable by the nominated halogaf member, who can start at thread here and get votes on the dmr fire rate, or the flag reset time or whatever.

so out of curiosity why do you think that HaloGAF's opinion should conform to whatever the collective opinion of a dozen stupid bad communities' is?

 

[MaximumFlipFlop]

you're sltpoison??? hahahaha

Srsly? FB wasn't hint enough?

 

[Silly.Mikey]

Is there some place where all the panel info is? Id like to know everything and i haven't been following every page on here since 5pm.

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

To be honest though, outside of HaloGAF, or Old halo MLG communities you might find others not being bothered about these things that you were pointing out. For me I couldnt give a fuck about probably 70 % of the stuff kids are wetting their pants about on here.

I guess my wishlist solution would be to release halo 5 with proper custom games options as well as the user's ability to change sandbox options and then have user defined playlists.

So just like a game mode you can create / search for a playlist with a certain rule set. It's almost like having PC style custom servers but restricted within a rule set / sandbox that is controlled by the developer.

That way the competitive community here can create their dream playlist, the commercial MLg playlist exists, the griff all guys get their playlist.

Let the playlist live or die by its own rules, so if what you think works, you end up Si a popular playlist, if not its you and you friend bob and nobody else. There would also ways be the official p,amylose to fall back on.

So you could have a halogaf playlist, that is editable by the nominated halogaf member, who can start at thread here and get votes on the dmr fire rate, or the flag reset time or whatever.

See you talk about the competetive crowd like we are one big group.

Nope.

I was very invested in my rank and loved playing to get better in Team Slayer. I rarely played MLG. I dont really like all that hyper competitive shit.

This Legendary Slayer sounds right up my alley. In between Infinity Slayer (Social Slayer) And Throwdown (MLG) in terms of competitiveness.

Team Slayer from CE to 3 was the vanilla settings, the default gametype. The focus on that was gone when Halo 4 launched.

Last piece of the puzzle is an in game 1-50

 

[broony]

I'm not competitive by any means but I don't understand why you would say ranks have ruined Halo. I can agree that it's caused problems like cheating, deranking, but there will always be the trash talking crowd who play for bragging rights. Having a system that shows relative player skill/improvement over time only helps to increase the game's longevity. Without that skill carrot to keep people focused on winning, leveling up, and improving their skill, there's little reason to play.

I have friends who've played 10k+ games of Halo 2 and Halo 3 just by trying to get as many 50s as possible. Those same people haven't even played 2% of that in Halo 4 because there's nothing to keep them playing. There's nothing to challenge their skillset and nothing to encourage teamwork.

What I don't understand is why there cannot be Ranked and Social like there was in Halo 3. Keep social matches trueskill sorted but don't make it visible. Then have more hardcore settings in the Ranked hopper with visible trueskill. This way, people who don't want to play the hardcore ranked don't have to, and people who don't want to play the more laid-back social games don't have to. There is a necessary and healthy separation, but one that on the contrary keeps the community together by giving them all something to do.

There's a reason why 4 months later we're peaking at 40k, and it's largely in part to there being no longevity to the game. 90% of the things that keep me playing either don't work or aren't in the game, and it's disheartening to hear 343 boldly state that "it's not in the plans". Well, Halo 4 is not in my Xbox.

Halo 2 was quite a shock for me. I'd played halo via LAN and Xbox connect for about three years before Halo 2 released and I was looking forward to carrying on playing competitive Halo but without the pissing about in organising matches. Halo 2 launched and very quickly people were quitting games, super jumping, modding weapons and all the fun I had previously quickly turned into arguing with random 12 year olds.

It turned out the main reason most of these kids were acting like twats was to reach fiddy. All the fun of just playing some random dude changed.

 

[orznge]

Halo 2 was quite a shock for me. I'd played halo via LAN and Xbox connect for about three years before Halo 2 released and I was looking forward to carrying on playing competitive Halo but without the pissing about in organising matches. Halo 2 launched and very quickly people were quitting games, super jumping, modding weapons and all the fun I had previously quickly turned into arguing with random 12 year olds.

It turned out the main reason most of these kids were acting like twats was to reach fiddy. All the fun of just playing some random dude changed.

no game should have visible rankings or a reason to win

 

[u4iX]

Just now caught up with the thread.

Leave it up to Booties to make the thread where Frank quits and everyone melts down.

I didn't quit. I'm a trooper.

no game should have visible rankings or a reason to win

Agreed.

Since when has a game supposed to have a decided winner and loser?

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

All the modded games, standbyers, superbouncing, host booting, bridging etc was worth it to play the good matches of Halo 2.

 

[heckfu]

I didn't quit. I'm a trooper.

You're a big silly, I meant the other frank!

 

[u4iX]

You're a big silly, I meant the other frank!

What other Frank?

 

[orznge]

someone on the mic who was less self-aware and smart than me called me a pejorative but now that rankings have been removed and JiP has been introduced everything is way better and I like Halo again

 

[Ramirez]

I for one am offended by all of this negativity.

 

[Silly.Mikey]

no game should have visible rankings or a reason to win

Why do i have a feeling that if the ranks were in game but only visible to the player in question, this would still be wrong.

 

[broony]

Agreed.

Since when has a game supposed to have a decided winner and loser?

You still won didn't you?

Do you need your number to go up to the next number that you know some guy can also get to that number because he modded his Xbox to make getting to that number easier because he finds it hard to get to that number but all his friends have that number so he must get it to prove that he is more than a number.

 

[Twilight Gap]

Halo 2 was quite a shock for me. I'd played halo via LAN and Xbox connect for about three years before Halo 2 released and I was looking forward to carrying on playing competitive Halo but without the pissing about in organising matches. Halo 2 launched and very quickly people were quitting games, super jumping, modding weapons and all the fun I had previously quickly turned into arguing with random 12 year olds.

It turned out the main reason most of these kids were acting like twats was to reach fiddy. All the fun of just playing some random dude changed.

Most of that was a problem with the glitches and banning systems. People are always going to cheat their way to get to the top. People AFKed for cR in Reach. I still see people doing glitches and boosting in Spops and MM.

What I want to know is who decided it was right to have a time-based progression system and wrong to have a skill-based progression system? Who sat there and decided unlocking armor and loadouts would keep people playing longer than achieving ranks in all the playlists?

All questions that forever go unanswered.

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

I for one am offended by all of this negativity.

Your the reason the developers left!!

Whats the point in HaloGAF if theres no one from 343 to interact with.

We were blessed.

 

[orznge]

player retention literally is not worth the money that it would take to hire a single person to work on cheating issues

 

[u4iX]

You still won didn't you?

Do you need your number to go up to the next number that you know some guy can also get to that number because he modded his Xbox to make getting to that number easier because he finds it hard to get to that number but all his friends have that number so he must get it to prove that he is more than a number.

Oh, never saw it that way.

You changed my mind.

Thank you.

 

[Korosenai]

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

Where's the next forum Stinkles is moving to so we can register there and be HaloGAF nerds registering on X forum to talk to Frankie?

lol but funny how long time Halo fans "quit" this forum early in Halo 4, now Frankie is "quitting" too.. communities hate us and the devs despise us (Halo fans that is). I just feel so unloved ;'[

 

[u4iX]

Halo 4.

Spoiler

Still.

 

[orznge]

You still won didn't you?

Do you need your number to go up to the next number that you know some guy can also get to that number because he modded his Xbox to make getting to that number easier because he finds it hard to get to that number but all his friends have that number so he must get it to prove that he is more than a number.

winners feel better than losers do most times, why not hide the score? why can't players just derive enjoyment from the mechanical action of being master chief or a spartan and killing the enemies or capturing the flag or whatever?

 

[Twilight Gap]

Since when has a game supposed to have a decided winner and loser?

...serious?

Almost every game I can think of has a winner and a loser. You either outsmart the AI to win, or you don't and you lose. You either clear the stage to win, or you don't and you lose. You either beat your opponent, or you don't and you lose. You either solve the puzzle before time runs out, or you don't and you lose. I see just as much raging at AI as I do at other players, so why is this being so exaggerated?

Adding either personal scores or ladders to see how you did compared to others is motivation to get a better score. Motivation to keep playing until you reach a goal.

It's not a difficult concept.

 

[Tunavi]

Srsly? FB wasn't hint enough?

I do not check halogaf facebook