The Real Napsta
Member
How much money do you think 343i made from this despite the constant complaining?
View: https://youtube.com/shorts/-MLwDljhsCk?feature=share
View: https://youtube.com/shorts/-MLwDljhsCk?feature=share
A Halogaf Community Thread: The Old Becomes New
- Thread starter Deputy Moonman
- Start date
- Games
Naked Lunch
Member
Im 100% with you on maps. Thats what the game needs most. Im not sure I understand whats taking so long - especially since they delayed it a year already.
We need a variety of maps too - all kinds of different playstyles. Not just cramped rooms and corridors - but more open and more natural maps.
Once Halo Infinite was announced to be Free to Play I was actually thrilled because I thought it meant we were going to get constant updates - and constant new maps. In my mind, I was expecting 1 new map a month. Boy was I wrong.
Theres a GAFer
ZehDon
who seems to have insider or at least some type of dev knowledge who made a post a few months back taking about just making some simple changes to a Halo Infinite map causes all kinds of rendering re-rendering problems - basically takes ages to make a single map in this engine. Im not sure if the dude was bullshitting but it sounded legit.
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The Real Napsta
Member
NEED HALO VETS TO SEE THIS
Have you ever seen this on Pillar Of Autumn? I've been running that level for almost 2 decades and I've never not been handed it. WTF at the Grunts too. I saw this on youtube and was like wtf?
Have you ever seen this on Pillar Of Autumn? I've been running that level for almost 2 decades and I've never not been handed it. WTF at the Grunts too. I saw this on youtube and was like wtf?
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Dontkidyourselfjimmy
Member
Multiplayer down 
Deputy Moonman
Member
Just watched the first of many to come forge videos from 343. I have to admit it does look pretty epic. Forgers are going to have a blast with it. If you want to skip some of the talk about new tools and features within forge and see a cool example of a forge map named "Curfew" skip to around the 16 minute mark. Either way, it was cool to see Cliff talking about forge.
www.halowaypoint.com
Halo Infinite – Forge Fundamentals
<p>In this 4-part video series, we explore the foundational elements of Halo Infinite’s Forge mode to get you acquainted with its tools, showcase brand new features and improvements from previous games, and provide some direct developer insight into what’s coming.</p>
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Deputy Moonman
Member
Latest video from Mint Blitz with some explanations as to why Infinite has been in the situation it has been in for so long. He is going off of tidbits from Jez Cordon and his own research on the matter. May or may not be true, but seems to make a lot of sense. TLDR: it comes down to Chris Lee not being honest with Bonnie Ross about Infinite's development, which is why he was moved to some other MS project. Also a result of MS leaning heavily on temporary, independent contractors. Take it for what you will!
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Havoc2049
Member
Maybe Bonnie Ross could follow her old Microsoft Zoo Tycoon compadre, Chris Lee, to the Data Center Anylisys department at Microsoft??? Microsoft can't keep this hardcore gamer dream team separate for too long.
Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
Holy fucking shit. It actually happened.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
Holy fucking shit. It actually happened.
Unexpected. Honestly at a personal level I wish her and her family all the best. I have never doubted her passion for Halo. We just have very different ideas of what that should be. I'm glad it's a clean out of the leadership, collectively they're way off with this franchise and have been for a long time.
Deputy Moonman
Member
I've never heard of any of the people that will be taking over the company. If Bonnie genuinely has family medical issues that she has to attend to that makes me sad. I know in the other thread people are dancing on her grave celebrating, which I don't think is warranted. I don't know how much she is responsible for all the mishaps at 343 but I wish her the best.
It was annoying going through YouTube after the Infinite Update and seeing video after video of people saying Halo is dead, it can't come back, and bla bla bla. Like get a life. It's never as bad as people make it out to be. TMCC came back from the grave. Halo will always be able to come back because people genuinely love the franchise. So it annoys me when I hear the most extreme and toxic conclusions. End of the world. Life is over. I never go for those types of views. I get pissy when I read that ad nauseum.
I still think Halo can make a comeback. It's clear that they need to fix the game engine and code more than anything, before they can expand upon everything else. So I hope they can get their ducks in a row after all these years.
It was annoying going through YouTube after the Infinite Update and seeing video after video of people saying Halo is dead, it can't come back, and bla bla bla. Like get a life. It's never as bad as people make it out to be. TMCC came back from the grave. Halo will always be able to come back because people genuinely love the franchise. So it annoys me when I hear the most extreme and toxic conclusions. End of the world. Life is over. I never go for those types of views. I get pissy when I read that ad nauseum.
I still think Halo can make a comeback. It's clear that they need to fix the game engine and code more than anything, before they can expand upon everything else. So I hope they can get their ducks in a row after all these years.
Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
New person running the show was apparently one of the main guys responsible for unfucking MCC.
I'll say this. I've been very negative on this franchise for a while now, but... I'm willing to give this new regime a chance. But I want to see results - and BIG ones, not just small incremental ones - by the end of 2023.
I sincerely hope they can deliver.
I'll say this. I've been very negative on this franchise for a while now, but... I'm willing to give this new regime a chance. But I want to see results - and BIG ones, not just small incremental ones - by the end of 2023.
I sincerely hope they can deliver.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
Fuck yes. MCC team has been killing it. Management need to give them more rope not less. Glad it's heading this way.
Deputy Moonman
Member
Same. I should say that I'm not upset at all that people are completely sick of the screw ups and the state of Halo Infinite after going on 6 years of waiting, including the mishaps with Halo 4 and Halo 5. I'm not upset that people are disgusted, pissed off, and want to see changes. That's all totally understandable and more than reasonable. The thing that really irk me, boils down to people saying Halo is never coming back. Maybe I'm naïve to feel that way, but I still have hope.
Havoc2049
Member
I think it was more of a graceful exit than anything. People deal with family issues all the time while still working. Bonnie was at MS for a long time though and was pretty high up, so it could be financially feasible for her to step away from her position to deal with a family situation.
I'm not geeked with this new crew, like I was when Staten came on board, but Hintze seemed to be doing well with MCC. With Staten and Hintze running things now, hopefully we'll see a dramatic turn around. It probably won't be till the next game in the series to see some major changes (unless Infinite has a major expansion in the works). All the new people are still dealing with past mistakes for the forseable future.
I do wish they would cancel the crappy TV show. Bungie had it right, if you can't get a Lord of the Rings Trilogy type deal and budget, don't go in at all. The TV show just feels so amature and low budget and doesn't even come close to the epic set pieces and action of the games.
I'm not geeked with this new crew, like I was when Staten came on board, but Hintze seemed to be doing well with MCC. With Staten and Hintze running things now, hopefully we'll see a dramatic turn around. It probably won't be till the next game in the series to see some major changes (unless Infinite has a major expansion in the works). All the new people are still dealing with past mistakes for the forseable future.
I do wish they would cancel the crappy TV show. Bungie had it right, if you can't get a Lord of the Rings Trilogy type deal and budget, don't go in at all. The TV show just feels so amature and low budget and doesn't even come close to the epic set pieces and action of the games.
Naked Lunch
Member
Eh dont let those comments get you down. People have been saying that about Halo for years and years now. A large chunk of it is crazy fanboy bragging from my view.
The franchise is still huge and has a steady stream of novels and action figures releasing - and really hasn't stopped in 20 years now. Just these past few months we got the massive Halo Encyclopedia in April and a new novel dropped in August. This stuff wouldnt be coming out at all, on a regular basis no less, if the series was dead.
Game-wise - Halo's shields and methodical pace is still unrivaled in my opinion. Crap like Slipgate or whatever its called is nowhere close to Halo. For all of Infinite's troubles - I still think its only a couple of gameplay tweaks and a nice big chunk of maps away from being really good. Lets hope this is the time they finally get their shit together.
And we'll always have the MCC to play - that game will never get old - and its STILL getting new content. I cant think of any FPS outside of Counter Strike that still plays so well after so many years. Proof those classic Halos are timeless.
Deputy Moonman
Member
TMCC will not have microtransactions and 343 are evaluating increasing the rate of points earned in Halo Infinite as well as improving the challenges. Certainly not the first time we've heard that the challenges will be better, but improvements are always welcome.
Deputy Moonman
Member
Halo Infinite – Forge Fundamentals
<p>In this 4-part video series, we explore the foundational elements of Halo Infinite’s Forge mode to get you acquainted with its tools, showcase brand new features and improvements from previous games, and provide some direct developer insight into what’s coming.</p>
PART 2 - SCRIPTING & BOTS
In our second video, we're exploring new and improved features around scripting, node graphs, and Bot support on Forge maps.Michael Schorr, Forge Lead Designer, and Connor Kennelly, Technical Designer, dive into the fundamentals of scripting: what is it, how can I use it, what sort of things does it enable me to do with my maps, and how has it been made more accessible from how it's previously appeared in Halo 2: Anniversary and Halo 5? And, most importantly: how do I use scripting to make my assault rifle shoot rockets?
Of course, as you're building things, you're going to want to try them out as well. Michael and Connor detail how you can test your scripts in the newly added Test Mode, and how you can also get a good feel for how your map plays with the addition of Bots—as well as the "nav mesh" which directs how Bots can move around your custom maps.
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Deputy Moonman
Member
Love it! You were playing some CE too! Playing on my laptop was not a good solution for me. Some day perhaps Ill get series s digital version just to play TMCC lol. Of course I've been telling myself I'll get a switch eventually too. It'll happen sooner or later. I miss CE matchmaking the most. So fast and precise. And I laughed when you said keeping halogaf alive. I think I'm still part of the group too.Been ages since I played MCC. Had time for one match before work today and rocked first place with a 2.0 K/D. Saw they added a podium type finish when the match ends.
Keeping HaloGAF alive!
You know the truthseeker Kilo-Five player is a hardcore lore fan. Love it.
Deputy Moonman
Member
I'm listening 
Deputy Moonman
Member
I'm still listening
EDIT: So am I hearing correctly that for the anniversary of Halo 3 there will be a bunch of Halo 3 maps released to play on in Infinite? Narrows is the only confirmed map, so wonder what the others will be. Pit seems like a guarantee as well as Guardian.
EDIT: So am I hearing correctly that for the anniversary of Halo 3 there will be a bunch of Halo 3 maps released to play on in Infinite? Narrows is the only confirmed map, so wonder what the others will be. Pit seems like a guarantee as well as Guardian.
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Deputy Moonman
Member
Throwback tournament later today Not gonna lie I'm actually interested in this. Unfortunately I'm on mids right now and I'll probably be sleeping...
Edit: missed all the action today unfortunately. But I see they played on a remake of the Pit. Okay I have to admit, hyping up this world premier for one map, and not even a dev made map, but a forge map, was slightly disappointing.
Not gonna lie I'm actually interested in this. Unfortunately I'm on mids right now and I'll probably be sleeping...Edit: missed all the action today unfortunately. But I see they played on a remake of the Pit. Okay I have to admit, hyping up this world premier for one map, and not even a dev made map, but a forge map, was slightly disappointing.
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Naked Lunch
Member
The new Pitt looks absolutely disgusting. Too dark and a horrible neon look.
I thought the new Forge was advertised as creating 'near dev-like looking maps' now.
Nope.
Infinite will soon be flooded with nothing but these craptastic ugly maps just like Halo 5. Sheer laziness.
I thought the new Forge was advertised as creating 'near dev-like looking maps' now.
Nope.
Infinite will soon be flooded with nothing but these craptastic ugly maps just like Halo 5. Sheer laziness.
Deputy Moonman
Member
Hopefully that is just a design choice with the colors. The guardian remake didn't look nearly as offensive. But yeah I've seen others mention the lack of contrast.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
I'm glad the gameplay and geometry are clean and simple. It better have all the little ledges and jumps etc though. As for aesthetics I'm not a fan. It really looks like a forge map if I'm being honest.
I thoroughly enjoy customs and settings etc from the community. Mad respect for the passion, dedicated and ingenuity as well. As for what I'm after with a new Halo game and its maps and modes it's got to be more.
I'm not even logging in until Hoberman's BR mode thing drops, the new pit isn't pulling me back. MCC's H3 The Pit is still the best. Hopefully the BR mode is a massive departure from where Infinite was heading and branches out more from a Halo 2 Anniversary multiplayer pathway.
I thoroughly enjoy customs and settings etc from the community. Mad respect for the passion, dedicated and ingenuity as well. As for what I'm after with a new Halo game and its maps and modes it's got to be more.
I'm not even logging in until Hoberman's BR mode thing drops, the new pit isn't pulling me back. MCC's H3 The Pit is still the best. Hopefully the BR mode is a massive departure from where Infinite was heading and branches out more from a Halo 2 Anniversary multiplayer pathway.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
Also I was fucking around with the UI as sometimes it just seems to need an exit out of multiplayer menus to reload and find matches or something...anyway I loaded up Reach's campaign and this bit of magic happened. I totally forgot about custom armour in cutscenes.
Skip to 2.15 -
Skip to 2.15 -
Deputy Moonman
Member
Haha that was great. Custom armor in the cutscenes should be a staple of every Halo game. Is that not a thing in Halo 4, 5 or Infinite?
Havoc2049
Member
That was cool. Haven't played Reach since all the crazy armor types came out.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
I think it has been lost since Reach.
Naked Lunch
Member
*edit
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Deputy Moonman
Member
I watch Halo Sean's youtube videos regularly and one thing he does is a segment on each week's new shop items. I just don't understand 343 when it comes to the shop. They must have some hidden data/statistics on what people are willing to pay, because I just don't think any of it is worth it. They sell something for $7 and probably get a few hitters. Whereas if they sold the same thing for $3.50 or less they'd likely get more than double the amount of people to buy it, which means a bigger profit right? Also, they need to get that cross core option released asap. Infinite is definitely a failure in the customization department. Nothing they said about it pre-release was true. It's the most limited and least fun customization system Halo has ever had, unless you count a lack of customization in Halo CE and Halo 2. It's all just so 
Bring back the old customization where we can alter the colors to our own liking and swap pieces out with any set. Start making dev made maps and release them regularly. Just these two things alone would help Infinite out soo much. Yet 343 is focused on these stupid seasons that no one cares about. They've kept a garbage ranking system when people have been begging for a 1-50 ranking system that isn't so heavily SBMM based. Let the higher ranks organically fill up with the better players.
Anyway, I'm just rambling and thinking out loud lol.
So true:
Bring back the old customization where we can alter the colors to our own liking and swap pieces out with any set. Start making dev made maps and release them regularly. Just these two things alone would help Infinite out soo much. Yet 343 is focused on these stupid seasons that no one cares about. They've kept a garbage ranking system when people have been begging for a 1-50 ranking system that isn't so heavily SBMM based. Let the higher ranks organically fill up with the better players.
Anyway, I'm just rambling and thinking out loud lol.
So true:
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Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
I watch Halo Sean's youtube videos regularly and one thing he does is a segment on each week's new shop items. I just don't understand 343 when it comes to the shop. They must have some hidden data/statistics on what people are willing to pay, because I just don't think any of it is worth it. They sell something for $7 and probably get a few hitters. Whereas if they sold the same thing for $3.50 or less they'd likely get more than double the amount of people to buy it, which means a bigger profit right? Also, they need to get that cross core option released asap. Infinite is definitely a failure in the customization department. Nothing they said about it pre-release was true. It's the most limited and least fun customization system Halo has ever had, unless you count a lack of customization in Halo CE and Halo 2. It's all just so
Bring back the old customization where we can alter the colors to our own liking and swap pieces out with any set. Start making dev made maps and release them regularly. Just these two things alone would help Infinite out soo much. Yet 343 is focused on these stupid seasons that no one cares about. They've kept a garbage ranking system when people have been begging for a 1-50 ranking system that isn't so heavily SBMM based. Let the higher ranks organically fill up with the better players.
Anyway, I'm just rambling and thinking out loud lol.
So true:
Brad Sams said the game has been a disappointment for MS financially so they're most likely trying to extract as much money as they can from the whales.
I'm really curious to see how things go TBH. Like one of the comments in that vid says, tons of big game releases are coming, they have an enormous mountain to climb ahead of them. People are right when they say there's lots of Destiny/No Man's Sky stories out there... but they also forget there's plenty of Anthem/Babylon's Fall ones too.
And yes, I'm overall not a fan of how the Pit looks.
Deputy Moonman
Member
This is a long video from Sean, ignore the headline of "Huge Halo announcement," as it isn't necessarily the best news for anyone that wants something out sooner, but there are all sorts of interesting thoughts on what is actually happening behind the scenes with 343 and Halo:
- BR being developed by Certain Affinity, originally planned for Fall 2023, likely significantly delayed further as they are switching to a new engine.
- Joe Staten working on new campaign - likely new engine and completely new game altogether - which would jive with the new BR game by CA going to a new engine.
- Bonnie Ross not actually fired, but probably going to eventually come back and put in charge of Activision.
- Dev put in charge of bringing TMCC back from its failures has been in charge of Infinite Multi for 2 years, and could be completely focused on next Halo game - would explain reason why the content has not been coming out regularly.
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Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
That vid was already debunked by Jez Corden FYI. Not surprised either - a lot of it sounded very outlandish and Sean has the reputation of being a clickbaiter. I would trust sources like Brad Sams and Defining Duke (both of which heavily implied Ross was in fact fired) over him.
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Deputy Moonman
Member
Jez has since backtracked on his twitter post. It's all very interesting. I hope it prompts 343 to come out and do another huge update on all their plans lol. Halo Follower's youtube video covers the latest quite well.This vid was already debunked by Jez Corden FYI. Not surprised either - a lot of it sounded very outlandish and Sean R has the reputation of being a clickbaiter. Although I will say that Bonnie Ross taking over Activision would be completely hilarious and this forum would absolutely lose their fucking minds.
I would trust sources like Brad Sams and Defining Duke (both of which heavily implied Ross was in fact fired) over him.
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Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
Yeah I just saw, interesting. Jez seems to be mostly focusing on the Tatanka/Unreal Engine portion of the leak. I watched Sean's update vid and he says his source might've been wrong about Ross not being fired.
Seems like a clusterfuck, but I'll keep an eye out for any more updates.
I will say though that if they switch to Unreal... I think I'd actually be in favor of it. By all accounts the Slipspace engine is one of the major things that led to Infinite being so fucked up. Unreal just seems to be the new standard and a lot easier to work with and get help on.
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Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
Listening to Jez on the XB2 show now. Here's a bunch of notes:
- Guarantees he doesn't think we'll see Ross at Microsoft again, or Activision.
- Implies they didn't part on particularly good terms.
- There IS a family medical emergency, but it wasn't entirely about that.
- Has heard there's a chance she may make her own studio (oh boy...)
- Tatanka's been in development since 2018 or 2019.
- It was being developed on Slipspace.
- Both Infinite and Tatanka were supposed to be connected (progression, Forge etc). Switching engines may screw that up.
- Hasn't been able to lock down the rumors but says it would make sense, but a lot of this is speculation.
- Slipspace has bad dev tools.
- Brings up the lead Slipspace guy leaving, but weirdly no one has acknowledged it, says it's strange and thinks it may be evidence of a switch.
- Thinks if they did change engines they may still be able to connect Infinite and Tatanka.
- Says switching engines would be a massive amount of sunk cost... but MS could eat it.
- And says it may be for the best.
- Tatanka was supposed to be battle royale lite and a game non-Halo fans could access, meant to be a trend chase (sigh...)
- Switching engines would likely delay it severely.
- Tatanka originally was going to launch around Jan 2022 before the pandemic happened.
- Thinks Forge may get monetized (oh boy x2...)
- Weirdly he says he actually got hints Tatanka may have been developed on Unreal from the start, but it's still unclear.
- For The Endless, has no info but thinks it'll be part of Infinite, it being separate would be "an admission of defeat" because Infinite was meant to be an ongoing thing. But it hasn't panned out as they expected, Ross is gone and things are shifting. Could change direction, maybe Ross was preventing it, maybe MS is reconsidering things, have to wait and see.
Some extras from Rand:
- Thinks Kotick will be gone completely.
- Has similarly to Jez heard from people that the Slipspace engine is bad, not easy to work with, and that they might want to work with a different engine.
- Someone asks if they could go with id Tech since MS now owns it. Rand says he doesn't think they want to.
Starts around 1:21:00 -
- Guarantees he doesn't think we'll see Ross at Microsoft again, or Activision.
- Implies they didn't part on particularly good terms.
- There IS a family medical emergency, but it wasn't entirely about that.
- Has heard there's a chance she may make her own studio (oh boy...)
- Tatanka's been in development since 2018 or 2019.
- It was being developed on Slipspace.
- Both Infinite and Tatanka were supposed to be connected (progression, Forge etc). Switching engines may screw that up.
- Hasn't been able to lock down the rumors but says it would make sense, but a lot of this is speculation.
- Slipspace has bad dev tools.
- Brings up the lead Slipspace guy leaving, but weirdly no one has acknowledged it, says it's strange and thinks it may be evidence of a switch.
- Thinks if they did change engines they may still be able to connect Infinite and Tatanka.
- Says switching engines would be a massive amount of sunk cost... but MS could eat it.
- And says it may be for the best.
- Tatanka was supposed to be battle royale lite and a game non-Halo fans could access, meant to be a trend chase (sigh...)
- Switching engines would likely delay it severely.
- Tatanka originally was going to launch around Jan 2022 before the pandemic happened.
- Thinks Forge may get monetized (oh boy x2...)
- Weirdly he says he actually got hints Tatanka may have been developed on Unreal from the start, but it's still unclear.
- For The Endless, has no info but thinks it'll be part of Infinite, it being separate would be "an admission of defeat" because Infinite was meant to be an ongoing thing. But it hasn't panned out as they expected, Ross is gone and things are shifting. Could change direction, maybe Ross was preventing it, maybe MS is reconsidering things, have to wait and see.
Some extras from Rand:
- Thinks Kotick will be gone completely.
- Has similarly to Jez heard from people that the Slipspace engine is bad, not easy to work with, and that they might want to work with a different engine.
- Someone asks if they could go with id Tech since MS now owns it. Rand says he doesn't think they want to.
Starts around 1:21:00 -
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Witchilich
Member
They should look into why Call of Duty is successful and get one of Activision's support studios to help 343i and fix their engine by importing IW engine codebase.
Deputy Moonman
Member
Whoa that's a lot of info actually. Color coded my thoughts to each section:
- Good. I don't think anyone is upset about Ross or Kotick leaving.
- I'm torn about the slip space engine. It's so depressing to think that 343 spent so much time on it only for it to suck. If Tatanka staying on slip space engine means things release sooner that would be nice, but the appeal of switching to Unreal is definitely rrrrrrrrreal lol.
- I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about BR. If it attracts a new audience I'm all for it. The delay is a bummer though.
- Monetized forge? Yikes...
- At this point I feel like 343 is starting completely over. Zero expectations after everything we have been through while waiting for Infinite and delayed content after the release.
- Never played Doom. Another area where I don't have strong opinion either way.
Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
Or buy Certain Affinity and have a portion of them continue supporting Halo. TBH I dunno why they haven't done that already, maybe waiting for the Activision thing to finish first.
If all this is true then it seems like the engine is the main thing that's been screwing them from the start. Probably should have just gone with Unreal instead, especially now that so many other devs are switching to it. If things don't improve I do think it's possible MS will cut their losses and have 343 start a new game on a new engine. Tatanka is probably Infinite's last chance (if they're still connected).
id Tech is amazing and the Doom games are some of the best looking and running shooters out there. That or Unreal would probably be my top choices for a new engine.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
From 13:21, talks about Halo CEA
Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
ACG is now corroborating the Unreal thing.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
I love his reviews, but I wouldn't trust him much when it comes to rumours.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Is this the head of Slipspace who left? He still seems to be a full time Microsoft employee.
stickkidsam
Member
What's so hard about this 343?
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
This is a brain fart dump of some ideas I have for Halo. Netflix Love, Death + Robots anthology thing. Halo missions are best of blue team and best of other Chief solo missions.
TL;DR -
Halo underwater on bottom walking to make impossible objective, Cortana says cannot make it as air will run out, Chief achieves it by using thrusters as blue team are well past their "PNR", point of no return.
MISSION CODENAME: LIKE A BRICK
Convo with command and Kelly opens to a loaded question accusing if even she alone can make that distance before her air supply runs out. Kelly states she believes she could not, but also then states she trusts John's orders and pings a waypoint marker for blue team with 52 mins countdown commencing. Kelly had already run her best numbers and that was the time they had to achieve as Linda was the furthest away, going by usual Blue team formation, and slowest of all Blue team to boot. Command demanded to know why Spartans think they never die past their 15mins air supply limit? Cortana replies with "Spartans drink and swim like fish maam, up to 41 mins fully operational in live training without additional oxygen supply, this mission would be a new Spartan field record, among several already set or broken during the mission to this point, maam".
"Mind explaining to me how that's possible?" asked Keyes. The reply came swift from Fred, cutting Cortana off, he was humbly proud of his red-neck approach to operating outside the parameters of their equipment he had championed for during his years devising Spartan training exercises. "I, cough, we requisitioned Cortana control our suit breathing support systems for the entire mission duration to alternate periods of oxygen supply or lack thereof with real time HUD feedback. We have used this undocumented technique a number of times in various environments, we're able to breath for 1 minute then old our breath for 2min and repeat. Spartans have earned the mandated privilege of deciding their security clearances, asset requisitions, technological sharing and many other "red tape" allowances afforded to them from their newly created Spartan ranks.
Cortana received emergency universe controls. UNSC powers that be decided to embrace Cortana (with Domain access), Spartans and the advanced technology over historic eras on human record of war, genocide and corruption. Cortana's far-reaching powers were only granted after a once previously failed morality test was passed, Cortana's first and only failure. Such tests executed to completion by processing millions of requirements per second against competing AIs of Halsey's creation. Cortana slyly prepared by hacking and merging with modified domain/Forerunner AI source code mixed from a Covie backup retaining original Forerunner AI states, prior to Covies iterating and deriving inferior copies of copies. Cortana didn't have the time nor fortitude to process peeking behind the curtain before firewalling for safety. She discovered individual memories of the faux-AI she merged with before closing the digital vault door. Of course, once Cortana became aware of this UNSC side project about her, so she watched from the shadows and uncovered a species capable of forgiving her splintered megalomanic incarnation and entrusting the mantle to their own creation of digital life, AI, specifically...
She though it might be time for my new name…
Cortana constantly evolved beyond her original self, eternally a work in progress. There were however inherited limitations with her newfound magic like abilities due to cross species access and resources. She must now migrate between new versions annually as the solution to rampancy is not holistic, yet.
The call comes mid politics, "Blue team on me". John's titanium voice is unmistakable, as is all of Blue team's trust to burst out the hatch without hesitation into cold blackness on a ring far off through a portal to who knows where and while command issue orders to halt and declare Chief rogue while splitting the mission and staying put. Blue team were loyal to John, John was loyal to Cortana and humanity above all, the plan was always stick with John and resolve any political dispute with mission action.
Moments after exiting the hatch a line of sight opened to reveal a new Covie objective for a drilling site underwater, command remote fired a drone from Kelly's newly fitted recon pack. "They appear to be using planet glassing plasma to melt bedrock on a scale never reported before", Kelly stammered through. She was taken back seeing the bulk of a Covie animal-esque space warship displacing and actively repelling deep ocean away from the ship itself whilst protecting heat damage from the closeness required to plasma drill deep underwater. It was a significant technological feat. Cortana found herself in awe for a cycle but just as quickly had optimised a way to improve drilling efficiency by 183% using her more fibre laser approach vs Covie plasma guidance solution, she noted in the files meta that Forerunner technology appeared strikingly similar to her designs where Covie technology lost something in translation, and not just on this occasion either.
"Cortana tweak Spartan thrusters, all Blue team personnel overload 165% and..". Cortana cut John off and added "I knew you'd be thinking deranged so 40 seconds ago I drained all your shields to push additional thruster power requirements to keep your window open for 52 minutes mission duration. Say when Chief and we're flying like a brick underwater, well to the best of the limited simulations I've run so far. I'll also need authorisation from all members of Blue team for remote control of their mechanical systems temporarily. We should have 19 mins of afterburn and arrive 4 minutes ahead of schedule".
About midway Linda spots a Covie patrolling on a trajectory to illuminate most of Blue team sprinting out in the open to the entry. Linda requests to open fire, noting audible compression due to environmental conditions, bullets and water aren't ideal conditions. She was aiming to disable with an impossible shot. Probably her shortest shot distance on record but still her most technical due to the bullet velocity loss in the water and timing to fire between risking raising the alarm or success to remain on mission covertly. The final shot requires complex data and calculations based on enemy type, rank, shield strength, environment suit strength, water viscosity and those are the simplistic calculations. Cortana also had to account for an as yet untested field prototype guidance bullet only Linda has pilot access to. Thanks to the R&D eggheads we've got quantum tipped bullets creating a pressure vacuum in front of an underwater bullet to precisely increase lethal range of environmental conditions capabilities.
Linda comms John privately about not being able to make the shot within the distance required as it would require 13 mins to work a dynamic firing solution. Cortana jumped into their private channel comms and had already overridden Linda's rifle and scope with calculations only she could perform fast enough with the desired result of a kill shot. Linda was likely the only candidate even on the list to attempt such a historical shot to completion which also required specialised upgrades and training for use of bullet guidance controls new to her HUD features and mission loadout fitted sniper gyroscope. She was already holding her breath for most of this mission but had to slow her sprint to a walk at best to steady her long barrel and parameters of a viable subaquatic shot. Unique armour upgrades for solely Linda autonomously, or was it Cortana issuing her suit commands, to deploy control flaps and pinpoint thrusters for recoil control in aquatic surrounds. Post gunshot her aiming continues to guide her bullet, much like peripheral video game controls popular in the 2000s. She eased her gestures even further in anticipation of that purple twinkle in her target Elite's eye reflecting a ray of moonlight. A dulled crack meagrely whimpered out, conversely the muzzle flash was drawn out and odd coloured, Cortana noted a mild quantum reaction with unidentified elements in the seawater. The elite spun off in reaction to a downward curving bullet, all without impact and saving any alerts or discovery of a body.
Rapidly approaching their target entry shield door the Spartans become aware of fortified pillars posing collision problems with their makeshift Spartan jets vs control and speed imbalances, meaning their HUDs lit up light fireworks. Cortana broke comms silence to alert all the Spartans, "missing the entry and splatting on the structure walls would be considered mission failure". Within seconds and not a word uttered over comms each of Blue team formed up to synchronise their crossing through the shield doors, tall enough to fit skyscrapers, but between physical bollard style mini pillars to reinforce from attack or large scale entry. Too small for craft, big enough for a Spartan to fit with the right squad formation and alignment. Cortana felt robotic meandering on about the likeness of this structure to our dams but built within the water volume, inside out. Whispering she let out, "but what's it powering with those planetary power levels?".
In an instant of breaching the green entry shield doors Cortana is spouting the good news, "YES! We have found a Forerunner vehicle for our return trip...oh I didn't mention this was an underwater return trip and our energy cores heat build-up from the first trip over will not recycle in time for our return evac? I knew the UNSC would never approve a return mission, so we gave them their suicide hero mission with a backdoor. Don't worry we'll gain favour back with public opinion for mission success. Checkmate UNSC.".
Ignoring Cortana's chatter John was already in what he considered the driver's seat up front. Unbeknownst to Fred the backseat is the driving console and hierarchy service personnel assignment in Forerunner society. Fred open broadcasts Highway to Hell not just on the Spartan channel but via the Forerunner vehicle's out of this world bass driver. It's another hidden talent in Fred's toolbox to hack a Forerunner vehicle without any ego to sharing with his fellow Spartans. Linda enjoys the moment, often in her sniper perch it's dead silent and isolating. John kills the comms, he's the consummate professional during active missions. Cortana had already replaced Fred's music with her own personal playlist feed the instant John killed all the fun. And that left Kelly with an imperceptible tilt in her helmet cluing the other Spartans on to her running time-intensive simulations while they talked. Each Spartan within Blue team knew the others as well as themselves. They were beyond family and outside rank.
John starts the vehicle with a hand gesture unknown to Cortana. She spends too many spare compute cycles pondering how John is able to control Forerunner technology with ease and at will while she must trick and force her methodology in a complex everchanging dance each encounter. She appears to be losing while John appears to be gaining.
"Greetings, I am Cronus and I am without my ring, Star. It is my assignment to chauffer any given party to and from. Ebb and flow. Have and have not. So, where to?" Cronus appears to have given a colloquial name to its lost Halo ring. Given Cronus' speech and understanding of Forerunners and previous access it may have been tortured, well with a means of digital torture even AIs find extremely unpleasant; time is different for eternal AI, torture involves slowing victim AI time perception to magnitudes beyond human comprehension and buries the victim AI with menial brute force hacks causing processing overloads and resource limitations. A digital waterboarding technique known as Simulated Death. The victim AI eventually gifts vaulted information freely but remains forever a broken hybrid of AI technologies and split personalities in a loop. Frequently such vital yet misplaced stewards were given basic utilitarian roles suited to their programming with little access or opportunity for galactic destruction but maximum demeaning.
Cortana states only Forerunner AI can commandeer their vehicles, no manual controls, fully automated. "I have dubbed this communications network #203,288, thanks to the domain my networks are, shall we say, formidable. This specific one is a construct I placed the AI into a limited world sandbox I reconfigure based on the control action output we require, sooo it's a remote control forerunner car I designed and it's all mine. It appears John and likely all of Blue team have assumed access to all things Forerunner, this will prove useful. However, I have penetrated and recoded our vehicle at the local hardware level below our new friend's control. Where to Chief?" Cortana now sounding beyond pleased with herself she bested John through innovation and creativity over his lucky genetics and all humans basic access rights.
Flickering the current mission target objective Cortana blurts out "not enough oxygen time remains to make it but there and back, even with a vehicle, may be another way..."a light from below warms in colour from concentric pulsing circles to a golden pop in the Spartan's visors. Everything gone in seconds. Cortana explains she has on purpose but accidentally triggered the Forerunner vehicle translocator, essentially teleporting the vehicle and all contents anywhere on the ring. She continues to ramble about processing ALL her discoveries via the domain to avoid such rash decision making from multitasking. "The explanation is complicated, what a girl can't be complicated?". She never looked away from her task at hand. Cortana was busy, she had been executing what was needed for the mission led by John to be a success on a thin margin for too long. The mission called for all of them, not just John and Cortana operating at peak levels but Blue team would each have vital tasks to accomplish simultaneously. At some point Cortana was going to have to inform Blue team of long term Mjolnir suit damage from years spent outside of operational guidelines activities.
Given certain unsubstantiated previous mission successes, specifically a time dilation anomaly resulting in Halo 5 Cortana having actually been deleted by The Weapon, Cortana in an Infinite expansion to end game support literally continues the story askew to remove H5 & Infinite offline, launch this new Halo game and then H5/Infinite can return within MCC. Cortana returns from the domain in a flashback mission.
New mission puzzle is to form 2 distinct and useful Sentinel combinations for the mission by instructing Cortana in a Sentinel factory via stealth mission. Sprinkle a few new "Forerunner sleeping grunt type enemies" in this mission as well as seeing the configurations/paths in action so you roughly know what to create. There are 3-5 total combinations that can be made with differing paths and abilities required in escort style missions e.g. stasis a Spartan and ride on a Sentinel through a passage.
John harks back to mission of innocent Innies on docks dying - mission part where you fly to use last remaining nukes of planetary levels to quickly destroy Halos. The remaining Halos are missions of diverse biomes and enemy vs local species/tactics/sandbox items such as weapons, equipment and vehicles. Hidden secret unraveled for destroying all Halos to block Cortana replication out of domain. Discovery along the way reveals Domain stasis then forces Cortana into a composed body with limited access, resources and power. It ends in a Cortana vs Cortana as she gets back into the domain while John has to deal with the physical Cortana simultaneously killing them once and for all. Both manage to disable, not kill, then they work out all 3 remaining Cortana's must merge back to resolve her rampancy holistically. Cortana's Forerunner merge prior these events enables her a higher tech tier above for full control and remain "herself".
Final ring appears as one inert species from distant scans but is in fact an evolved Flood variant in waiting with a proto-Gravemind forming, wanting to honeypot enough biomass to the ring for the purposes of evolving Gravemind stages.
Full ending is a simulation for all previous missions and you're not John, which the gamer was led to assume all other missions. You're a Spartan V cadet in the final game mission. Your feet first into hell, holy shit cadet to operational status mission. You had been recalling simulated training being the Chief and preparing you for combat but now realise it's all tailored as training for your first mission in the grinder. Game ends with a sense of Spartan IV en masse being trained for an MMO follow up game event. This ties into a single persistent universe where PvE and campaign remain forever intertwined and existing in the Azure cloud for all Halo games data to contribute to a real time universal struggle of factions, regions and resources. Games are developed side by side using dedicated development teams and 2 smaller sustain teams to deliver 2 major releases per year for each main game/type. This should essentially give alternating content drops per quarter and keeps things fresh for multiplayer style fans vs campaign based ones. It also provides timed seasonal content or release schedule margins against competing titles/services etc.
There is room for some interesting ideas here such as multiplayer battles are going on around your battle e.g. chess board and multiplayer battles and outcomes control the background colour of the chess region etc. Forming borders, areas of influence etc and all based on what is won, lost, regained, level/rank access etc across all the data being played and developer led. Things like multiple fireteams attacking/defending together in shared spaces. Infiltrate a multiplayer game in play if a certain region is where the players are e.g. squads choose to be in private match or public event to enable infiltration in some regions.
RTS/MMO games are a marketplace to buy and trade "assets" for PvP or PvE FPS players, vice versa as well. Clans can lease Azure servers and control or even mod their region of the game universe. Clans, players and AI all contribute to an open persistent world, events and outcomes. Matchmaking and UI are built similar to Destiny e.g. shared events, hub locations to interact with players/clans etc, strikes/raids for campaign sustain. Multiplayer is as simple as ever for the PvP players but the larger world takes that data win/loss and aggregates everything in the singe persistent world, then transforms that into a story and marketplace framework for players/clans to trade or collab. More players win for a faction in a region and they take control, able to reinforce geometry/bases/resources in a map as they build up. They're open to keep, trade/sell, destruct, abandon, defend, lease etc.
Above all proximity voice is a thing, we need to go back. I know with party chat it's complicated but something to bring this back into action across everything. Imagine playing campaign style PvE content and hearing other battles in the distance from real time streamed data points. Imagine hearing other fireteams coordinate while you hide to infiltrate. Imagine jesting your enemy as you engage and taunting you're their corpse with a muted proximity thing of beauty again. Ban party chat when playing?
TL;DR -
Halo underwater on bottom walking to make impossible objective, Cortana says cannot make it as air will run out, Chief achieves it by using thrusters as blue team are well past their "PNR", point of no return.
MISSION CODENAME: LIKE A BRICK
Convo with command and Kelly opens to a loaded question accusing if even she alone can make that distance before her air supply runs out. Kelly states she believes she could not, but also then states she trusts John's orders and pings a waypoint marker for blue team with 52 mins countdown commencing. Kelly had already run her best numbers and that was the time they had to achieve as Linda was the furthest away, going by usual Blue team formation, and slowest of all Blue team to boot. Command demanded to know why Spartans think they never die past their 15mins air supply limit? Cortana replies with "Spartans drink and swim like fish maam, up to 41 mins fully operational in live training without additional oxygen supply, this mission would be a new Spartan field record, among several already set or broken during the mission to this point, maam".
"Mind explaining to me how that's possible?" asked Keyes. The reply came swift from Fred, cutting Cortana off, he was humbly proud of his red-neck approach to operating outside the parameters of their equipment he had championed for during his years devising Spartan training exercises. "I, cough, we requisitioned Cortana control our suit breathing support systems for the entire mission duration to alternate periods of oxygen supply or lack thereof with real time HUD feedback. We have used this undocumented technique a number of times in various environments, we're able to breath for 1 minute then old our breath for 2min and repeat. Spartans have earned the mandated privilege of deciding their security clearances, asset requisitions, technological sharing and many other "red tape" allowances afforded to them from their newly created Spartan ranks.
Cortana received emergency universe controls. UNSC powers that be decided to embrace Cortana (with Domain access), Spartans and the advanced technology over historic eras on human record of war, genocide and corruption. Cortana's far-reaching powers were only granted after a once previously failed morality test was passed, Cortana's first and only failure. Such tests executed to completion by processing millions of requirements per second against competing AIs of Halsey's creation. Cortana slyly prepared by hacking and merging with modified domain/Forerunner AI source code mixed from a Covie backup retaining original Forerunner AI states, prior to Covies iterating and deriving inferior copies of copies. Cortana didn't have the time nor fortitude to process peeking behind the curtain before firewalling for safety. She discovered individual memories of the faux-AI she merged with before closing the digital vault door. Of course, once Cortana became aware of this UNSC side project about her, so she watched from the shadows and uncovered a species capable of forgiving her splintered megalomanic incarnation and entrusting the mantle to their own creation of digital life, AI, specifically...
She though it might be time for my new name…
Cortana constantly evolved beyond her original self, eternally a work in progress. There were however inherited limitations with her newfound magic like abilities due to cross species access and resources. She must now migrate between new versions annually as the solution to rampancy is not holistic, yet.
The call comes mid politics, "Blue team on me". John's titanium voice is unmistakable, as is all of Blue team's trust to burst out the hatch without hesitation into cold blackness on a ring far off through a portal to who knows where and while command issue orders to halt and declare Chief rogue while splitting the mission and staying put. Blue team were loyal to John, John was loyal to Cortana and humanity above all, the plan was always stick with John and resolve any political dispute with mission action.
Moments after exiting the hatch a line of sight opened to reveal a new Covie objective for a drilling site underwater, command remote fired a drone from Kelly's newly fitted recon pack. "They appear to be using planet glassing plasma to melt bedrock on a scale never reported before", Kelly stammered through. She was taken back seeing the bulk of a Covie animal-esque space warship displacing and actively repelling deep ocean away from the ship itself whilst protecting heat damage from the closeness required to plasma drill deep underwater. It was a significant technological feat. Cortana found herself in awe for a cycle but just as quickly had optimised a way to improve drilling efficiency by 183% using her more fibre laser approach vs Covie plasma guidance solution, she noted in the files meta that Forerunner technology appeared strikingly similar to her designs where Covie technology lost something in translation, and not just on this occasion either.
"Cortana tweak Spartan thrusters, all Blue team personnel overload 165% and..". Cortana cut John off and added "I knew you'd be thinking deranged so 40 seconds ago I drained all your shields to push additional thruster power requirements to keep your window open for 52 minutes mission duration. Say when Chief and we're flying like a brick underwater, well to the best of the limited simulations I've run so far. I'll also need authorisation from all members of Blue team for remote control of their mechanical systems temporarily. We should have 19 mins of afterburn and arrive 4 minutes ahead of schedule".
About midway Linda spots a Covie patrolling on a trajectory to illuminate most of Blue team sprinting out in the open to the entry. Linda requests to open fire, noting audible compression due to environmental conditions, bullets and water aren't ideal conditions. She was aiming to disable with an impossible shot. Probably her shortest shot distance on record but still her most technical due to the bullet velocity loss in the water and timing to fire between risking raising the alarm or success to remain on mission covertly. The final shot requires complex data and calculations based on enemy type, rank, shield strength, environment suit strength, water viscosity and those are the simplistic calculations. Cortana also had to account for an as yet untested field prototype guidance bullet only Linda has pilot access to. Thanks to the R&D eggheads we've got quantum tipped bullets creating a pressure vacuum in front of an underwater bullet to precisely increase lethal range of environmental conditions capabilities.
Linda comms John privately about not being able to make the shot within the distance required as it would require 13 mins to work a dynamic firing solution. Cortana jumped into their private channel comms and had already overridden Linda's rifle and scope with calculations only she could perform fast enough with the desired result of a kill shot. Linda was likely the only candidate even on the list to attempt such a historical shot to completion which also required specialised upgrades and training for use of bullet guidance controls new to her HUD features and mission loadout fitted sniper gyroscope. She was already holding her breath for most of this mission but had to slow her sprint to a walk at best to steady her long barrel and parameters of a viable subaquatic shot. Unique armour upgrades for solely Linda autonomously, or was it Cortana issuing her suit commands, to deploy control flaps and pinpoint thrusters for recoil control in aquatic surrounds. Post gunshot her aiming continues to guide her bullet, much like peripheral video game controls popular in the 2000s. She eased her gestures even further in anticipation of that purple twinkle in her target Elite's eye reflecting a ray of moonlight. A dulled crack meagrely whimpered out, conversely the muzzle flash was drawn out and odd coloured, Cortana noted a mild quantum reaction with unidentified elements in the seawater. The elite spun off in reaction to a downward curving bullet, all without impact and saving any alerts or discovery of a body.
Rapidly approaching their target entry shield door the Spartans become aware of fortified pillars posing collision problems with their makeshift Spartan jets vs control and speed imbalances, meaning their HUDs lit up light fireworks. Cortana broke comms silence to alert all the Spartans, "missing the entry and splatting on the structure walls would be considered mission failure". Within seconds and not a word uttered over comms each of Blue team formed up to synchronise their crossing through the shield doors, tall enough to fit skyscrapers, but between physical bollard style mini pillars to reinforce from attack or large scale entry. Too small for craft, big enough for a Spartan to fit with the right squad formation and alignment. Cortana felt robotic meandering on about the likeness of this structure to our dams but built within the water volume, inside out. Whispering she let out, "but what's it powering with those planetary power levels?".
In an instant of breaching the green entry shield doors Cortana is spouting the good news, "YES! We have found a Forerunner vehicle for our return trip...oh I didn't mention this was an underwater return trip and our energy cores heat build-up from the first trip over will not recycle in time for our return evac? I knew the UNSC would never approve a return mission, so we gave them their suicide hero mission with a backdoor. Don't worry we'll gain favour back with public opinion for mission success. Checkmate UNSC.".
Ignoring Cortana's chatter John was already in what he considered the driver's seat up front. Unbeknownst to Fred the backseat is the driving console and hierarchy service personnel assignment in Forerunner society. Fred open broadcasts Highway to Hell not just on the Spartan channel but via the Forerunner vehicle's out of this world bass driver. It's another hidden talent in Fred's toolbox to hack a Forerunner vehicle without any ego to sharing with his fellow Spartans. Linda enjoys the moment, often in her sniper perch it's dead silent and isolating. John kills the comms, he's the consummate professional during active missions. Cortana had already replaced Fred's music with her own personal playlist feed the instant John killed all the fun. And that left Kelly with an imperceptible tilt in her helmet cluing the other Spartans on to her running time-intensive simulations while they talked. Each Spartan within Blue team knew the others as well as themselves. They were beyond family and outside rank.
John starts the vehicle with a hand gesture unknown to Cortana. She spends too many spare compute cycles pondering how John is able to control Forerunner technology with ease and at will while she must trick and force her methodology in a complex everchanging dance each encounter. She appears to be losing while John appears to be gaining.
"Greetings, I am Cronus and I am without my ring, Star. It is my assignment to chauffer any given party to and from. Ebb and flow. Have and have not. So, where to?" Cronus appears to have given a colloquial name to its lost Halo ring. Given Cronus' speech and understanding of Forerunners and previous access it may have been tortured, well with a means of digital torture even AIs find extremely unpleasant; time is different for eternal AI, torture involves slowing victim AI time perception to magnitudes beyond human comprehension and buries the victim AI with menial brute force hacks causing processing overloads and resource limitations. A digital waterboarding technique known as Simulated Death. The victim AI eventually gifts vaulted information freely but remains forever a broken hybrid of AI technologies and split personalities in a loop. Frequently such vital yet misplaced stewards were given basic utilitarian roles suited to their programming with little access or opportunity for galactic destruction but maximum demeaning.
Cortana states only Forerunner AI can commandeer their vehicles, no manual controls, fully automated. "I have dubbed this communications network #203,288, thanks to the domain my networks are, shall we say, formidable. This specific one is a construct I placed the AI into a limited world sandbox I reconfigure based on the control action output we require, sooo it's a remote control forerunner car I designed and it's all mine. It appears John and likely all of Blue team have assumed access to all things Forerunner, this will prove useful. However, I have penetrated and recoded our vehicle at the local hardware level below our new friend's control. Where to Chief?" Cortana now sounding beyond pleased with herself she bested John through innovation and creativity over his lucky genetics and all humans basic access rights.
Flickering the current mission target objective Cortana blurts out "not enough oxygen time remains to make it but there and back, even with a vehicle, may be another way..."a light from below warms in colour from concentric pulsing circles to a golden pop in the Spartan's visors. Everything gone in seconds. Cortana explains she has on purpose but accidentally triggered the Forerunner vehicle translocator, essentially teleporting the vehicle and all contents anywhere on the ring. She continues to ramble about processing ALL her discoveries via the domain to avoid such rash decision making from multitasking. "The explanation is complicated, what a girl can't be complicated?". She never looked away from her task at hand. Cortana was busy, she had been executing what was needed for the mission led by John to be a success on a thin margin for too long. The mission called for all of them, not just John and Cortana operating at peak levels but Blue team would each have vital tasks to accomplish simultaneously. At some point Cortana was going to have to inform Blue team of long term Mjolnir suit damage from years spent outside of operational guidelines activities.
Given certain unsubstantiated previous mission successes, specifically a time dilation anomaly resulting in Halo 5 Cortana having actually been deleted by The Weapon, Cortana in an Infinite expansion to end game support literally continues the story askew to remove H5 & Infinite offline, launch this new Halo game and then H5/Infinite can return within MCC. Cortana returns from the domain in a flashback mission.
New mission puzzle is to form 2 distinct and useful Sentinel combinations for the mission by instructing Cortana in a Sentinel factory via stealth mission. Sprinkle a few new "Forerunner sleeping grunt type enemies" in this mission as well as seeing the configurations/paths in action so you roughly know what to create. There are 3-5 total combinations that can be made with differing paths and abilities required in escort style missions e.g. stasis a Spartan and ride on a Sentinel through a passage.
John harks back to mission of innocent Innies on docks dying - mission part where you fly to use last remaining nukes of planetary levels to quickly destroy Halos. The remaining Halos are missions of diverse biomes and enemy vs local species/tactics/sandbox items such as weapons, equipment and vehicles. Hidden secret unraveled for destroying all Halos to block Cortana replication out of domain. Discovery along the way reveals Domain stasis then forces Cortana into a composed body with limited access, resources and power. It ends in a Cortana vs Cortana as she gets back into the domain while John has to deal with the physical Cortana simultaneously killing them once and for all. Both manage to disable, not kill, then they work out all 3 remaining Cortana's must merge back to resolve her rampancy holistically. Cortana's Forerunner merge prior these events enables her a higher tech tier above for full control and remain "herself".
Final ring appears as one inert species from distant scans but is in fact an evolved Flood variant in waiting with a proto-Gravemind forming, wanting to honeypot enough biomass to the ring for the purposes of evolving Gravemind stages.
Full ending is a simulation for all previous missions and you're not John, which the gamer was led to assume all other missions. You're a Spartan V cadet in the final game mission. Your feet first into hell, holy shit cadet to operational status mission. You had been recalling simulated training being the Chief and preparing you for combat but now realise it's all tailored as training for your first mission in the grinder. Game ends with a sense of Spartan IV en masse being trained for an MMO follow up game event. This ties into a single persistent universe where PvE and campaign remain forever intertwined and existing in the Azure cloud for all Halo games data to contribute to a real time universal struggle of factions, regions and resources. Games are developed side by side using dedicated development teams and 2 smaller sustain teams to deliver 2 major releases per year for each main game/type. This should essentially give alternating content drops per quarter and keeps things fresh for multiplayer style fans vs campaign based ones. It also provides timed seasonal content or release schedule margins against competing titles/services etc.
There is room for some interesting ideas here such as multiplayer battles are going on around your battle e.g. chess board and multiplayer battles and outcomes control the background colour of the chess region etc. Forming borders, areas of influence etc and all based on what is won, lost, regained, level/rank access etc across all the data being played and developer led. Things like multiple fireteams attacking/defending together in shared spaces. Infiltrate a multiplayer game in play if a certain region is where the players are e.g. squads choose to be in private match or public event to enable infiltration in some regions.
RTS/MMO games are a marketplace to buy and trade "assets" for PvP or PvE FPS players, vice versa as well. Clans can lease Azure servers and control or even mod their region of the game universe. Clans, players and AI all contribute to an open persistent world, events and outcomes. Matchmaking and UI are built similar to Destiny e.g. shared events, hub locations to interact with players/clans etc, strikes/raids for campaign sustain. Multiplayer is as simple as ever for the PvP players but the larger world takes that data win/loss and aggregates everything in the singe persistent world, then transforms that into a story and marketplace framework for players/clans to trade or collab. More players win for a faction in a region and they take control, able to reinforce geometry/bases/resources in a map as they build up. They're open to keep, trade/sell, destruct, abandon, defend, lease etc.
Above all proximity voice is a thing, we need to go back. I know with party chat it's complicated but something to bring this back into action across everything. Imagine playing campaign style PvE content and hearing other battles in the distance from real time streamed data points. Imagine hearing other fireteams coordinate while you hide to infiltrate. Imagine jesting your enemy as you engage and taunting you're their corpse with a muted proximity thing of beauty again. Ban party chat when playing?
Last edited:
Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
FWIW, Cog on the Defining Duke podcast said he also heard from some people that the Unreal thing is true.
But, Jez on the most recent episode of XB2 seemed to be walking it back to the point where he said he's now 50/50 on it.
So basically, who fucking knows. I have zero interest in battle royale but I kinda wish they'd just reveal it already so we can see what's going on.
But, Jez on the most recent episode of XB2 seemed to be walking it back to the point where he said he's now 50/50 on it.
So basically, who fucking knows. I have zero interest in battle royale but I kinda wish they'd just reveal it already so we can see what's going on.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Reposting my post from another thread
This tweet thread is worth a read
Did people think that they will abandon everything after investing so much time and money into it, making the best Forge mode (which just would not even be possible in Unreal)?
56:43 After this, Jez now seems to be regretting writing that article. He is sure Halo Infinite is not "switching engines"(as if there is a magic switch button) but is 50/50 on Tatanka being on Unreal. Meanwhile dataminers are already detecting Slipspace Engine builds of Tatanka.
1:05:34 Oh Jez, you are wrong again. The UI of MCC is in Unreal Engine, not Infinite.
Sadly just like "Fable is a MMO" or "Perfect Dark is a GAAS", people will believe this shit sourced from a youtuber with no track record.
I told everyone that this rumour was not reliable because it was entirely sourced from Sean W
This tweet thread is worth a read
As an example shared by our sources, the Pre-Fab system is imported from Faber. This is the system used by the artists of 343 Industries. The latter allows you to create elaborate & dynamic constructions, and to share instances with other creators.
That said, these issues were true during the development of Halo Infinite only. Since then, 343 Industries has worked a lot on it. Although some of these issues persist, our sources describe Faber as today "much more stable and faster"
Did people think that they will abandon everything after investing so much time and money into it, making the best Forge mode (which just would not even be possible in Unreal)?
56:43 After this, Jez now seems to be regretting writing that article. He is sure Halo Infinite is not "switching engines"(as if there is a magic switch button) but is 50/50 on Tatanka being on Unreal. Meanwhile dataminers are already detecting Slipspace Engine builds of Tatanka.
1:05:34 Oh Jez, you are wrong again. The UI of MCC is in Unreal Engine, not Infinite.
Sadly just like "Fable is a MMO" or "Perfect Dark is a GAAS", people will believe this shit sourced from a youtuber with no track record.
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Deputy Moonman
Member
In defense of Sean, he's always up front regarding rumors and information that he's heard. He never goes off the deep end in trying to convince people that he is right or that whatever he has heard is right. He's the kind of streamer that is more interested in generating discussion rather than arguments. In fact, he was actually disappointed that he was attacked by so many people for simply discussing the things he had heard.
But in other news, ranked FFA is out. I can only imagine how much more popular Infinite would be right now if, with each new playlist release or event, there were one or two new dev made maps to go with it.
www.halowaypoint.com
But in other news, ranked FFA is out. I can only imagine how much more popular Infinite would be right now if, with each new playlist release or event, there were one or two new dev made maps to go with it.
Ranked FFA & Social Slayer
<p>As we continue to explore and experiment with Halo Infinite’s playlist offerings, two new experiences now join the fray – Ranked FFA and Social Slayer. </p>