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[Woorloog]

Woops, I'm from the EU, Holland to be precise.
By the way, when I say that I'm more of campaign guy I mean that I'm mostly looking forward to playing Halo 4 campaign rather than the MP. I've still played a lot of Halo 3 and Reach MP

Ah. Well, what about campaign/Spartan Ops co-op? If there is no input lag issues like Reach has, it will be fun. I hope.
Drop me friend request, GT is (quote to see, just in case lurkers want to spoil stuff...). I'll accept it in a couple of weeks, i'll try to avoid my messages inboxes (GAF, Xbox Live, whatever) just in case they're spoilers.

Feels like i have every Dutch HaloGAFer on my friend list...

 

[Fracas]

So Vic had an interesting tweet if it pertains to Halo 4.

https://twitter.com/vicdeleon/status/260873588788301824

I figured those playlists weren't final. Assumed they were set up for the press/343 matches.

 

[Hydranockz]

When talking about strip halo fyi

I just saw the follow up

 

[DopeyFish]

I figured those playlists weren't final. Assumed they were set up for the press/343 matches.

Again. He was making a remark towards strip halo

 

[bobs...onGaf]

EDIT: Doh missed the strip Halo joke - would have been interesting - will be awesome when 343 officially put out the playlist info.

 

[Mister Negative]

RIP Slayer Pro 11/6/12-11/6/12

 

[Fracas]

Again. He was making a remark towards strip halo

Ah, okay. I missed your post

 

[BigShow36]

I mean, at some point you're playing Call of Duty—the "slowness" you're talking about is really what separates these two shooters.

At this point, yes. They both now feature loadouts, perks, kill streaks and unlocks. The major difference is kill speed. Which is why I choose to play CoD games over recent Halo games.

Halo rewards teamwork quite heavily as you noted: team shooting is crucial to victory. But the game has in fact been sped up. Everyone has sprint. You can respawn almost instantly. Armor abilities stack on top of sprint to add even more movement speed bonuses. What you're missing then is simply faster kill speed (welcome to BlopsII) or harder to use weapons (I don't even know what that would entail).

CoD is at the extreme end of kill times (I would actually prefer it if CoD games took a little longer to kill). There's a middle ground there, which Halo used to occupy. Increasing the kill speed while simultaneously increasing the skill gap will actually make the average kill time stay about the same as it is now. The major difference is that there will be a much larger shooting skill gap, so that great players can do massive damage as individuals or with their team.

You make the weapons harder to aim through a faster strafe speed and lowered aim assists.

Being faster than Halo 3 and Reach is slow, huh?

Yes, especially when it appears to be just barely faster than those two.

 

[HollovVpo1nt]

Oh another dutch guy? You guys planning an overtake? Just kidding, welcome.

Haha thanks. Ever since the DutchGAF thread I've noticed that there are a lot of Dutch people on GAF, which is really weird.

I've played some Halo 3 campaign a couple of days ago. Halo 3 has taken a lot of crap from people when it comes to IQ, but that game displays beauty in moving picture that no screenshot can. Still amazed by Sierra 117.

Ah. Well, what about campaign/Spartan Ops co-op? If there is no input lag issues like Reach has, it will be fun. I hope.
Drop me friend request, GT is (quote to see, just in case lurkers want to spoil stuff...). I'll accept it in a couple of weeks, i'll try to avoid my messages inboxes (GAF, Xbox Live, whatever) just in case they're spoilers.

Feels like i have every Dutch HaloGAFer on my friend list...

Love me some campaign/SPOPS co-op. And I do hope there won't be lag like reach. Playing firefight matchmaking in Reach was like playing Killzone 2 with a chinese Dualshock 3 knockoff on a 10 second latency LCD monitor. I'll add you when I can, I have exams the coming two weeks so I won't be on by then. I think Halo 4 launches on the day of my final exam, which is awesome.

 

[kittens]

So Vic had an interesting tweet if it pertains to Halo 4.

https://twitter.com/vicdeleon/status/260873588788301824

No Strip Halo at launch

That's kind of a weird tease for a level artist to make. But sweet! Groups and playlists are (still) the two things I most want info on.

Edit : Oh, it was just a joke. THE INTERNET IS WATCHING, VIC.

EDIT: Doh missed the strip Halo joke - would have been interesting - will be awesome when 343 officially put out the playlist info.

They'll probably reveal the launch playlists in the November 7 bulletin.

 

[Tha Robbertster]

Haha thanks. Ever since the DutchGAF thread I've noticed that there are a lot of Dutch people on GAF, which is really weird.

I've played some Halo 3 campaign a couple of days ago. Halo 3 has taken a lot of crap from people when it comes to IQ, but that game displays beauty in moving picture that no screenshot can. Still amazed by Sierra 117.

Haven't looked in the Dutch GAF thread for a long while. It has kinda died down, hasn't it?

 

[squidhands]

People still play strip Halo?

GAF™

Forgive my ignorance, but how does one go about making the "TM" small like that?

 

[EvB]

Yes, especially when it appears to be just barely faster than those two.

The Spartans in Halo 4 are equipped with Heeleys, so they can scoot around the battlefield and the supermarket much faster than before .

 

[Fuchsdh]

The trees on Longbow look terrible. They're flat.

I'll add it to my list of things in the game that look stupid from a visual standpoint.

• Terrain textures
• Elites
• Grunts
• Jackals
• Human weapons
• Chief's ass
• Forge pieces
• Forge maps
• Human NPCs (Marines/ODST... etcetera)
• Spartan helmets
• Spartan armour in general
• The lack of grass
• 2D sky box (as opposed to Bungie's amazing creations in Reach)
• Mantis
• Trees

While I agree about many design changes, I like the trees. They're supposed to be forked and flat along the lateral edges like that. It's a fairly subtle but interesting take on alien while still familiar.

 

[Homeboyd]

People still play strip Halo?

Forgive my ignorance, but how does one go about making the "TM" small like that?

Copy paste! Or alt codes.

 

[Digital Limit]

At this point, yes. They both now feature loadouts, perks, kill streaks and unlocks. The major difference is kill speed. Which is why I choose to play CoD games over recent Halo games.




CoD is at the extreme end of kill times (I would actually prefer it if CoD games took a little longer to kill). There's a middle ground there, which Halo used to occupy. Increasing the kill speed while simultaneously increasing the skill gap will actually make the average kill time stay about the same as it is now. The major difference is that there will be a much larger shooting skill gap, so that great players can do massive damage as individuals or with their team.

You make the weapons harder to aim through a faster strafe speed and lowered aim assists.



Yes, especially when it appears to be just barely faster than those two.

Increasing the skill gap would make the game even more arduous in multiplayer, IMHO. I think Halo has skill-barriers far higher than CoD. I could pop into CoD right now and start scoring at the top of the team, but if I'm cold from Halo for a bit it's more of a struggle. I think Gears of War has the highest skill gap of the bunch.

 

[Hydranockz]

People still play strip Halo?

Forgive my ignorance, but how does one go about making the "TM" small like that?

Ctrl + -

 

[heckfu]

Ctrl + -

If on a Mac just hold option and press 2.

 

[squidhands]

Copy paste! Or alt codes.

knew about the copy/paste, but not what the alt code is.

Also, a new lapel pin.

Ctrl + -

Ah, thank you. You too, Dr. fu.

 

[HollovVpo1nt]

Haven't looked in the Dutch GAF thread for a long while. It has kinda died down, hasn't it?

It has somewhat. There hasn't been much to talk about I guess.


By the way, I'm off, have to get up early in the morning. Ciao4now!

 

[ArchedThunder]

I have checked with my sources and can confirm that theater mode does in fact not work with campaign.

Why does 343 continue to make stupid changes that do nothing but shit on Halo fans?

 

[EvB]

Increasing the skill gap would make the game even more arduous in multiplayer, IMHO. I think Halo has skill-barriers far higher than CoD. I could pop into CoD right now and start scoring at the top of the team, but if I'm cold from Halo for a bit it's more of a struggle. I think Gears of War has the highest skill gap of the bunch.

I'd agree with that, when I tried MW2 online, I was being asked if I'd prestiged because I was blitzing everyone. I think Halo lays a good foundation for those games as it is less forgiving.

 

[ElzarTheBam]

People still play strip Halo?

Forgive my ignorance, but how does one go about making the "TM" small like that?

Your ignorance is forgiven.

Actually, I had no idea either. : )

 

[J10]

Can someone explain to me why the spawns on Haven, which is a symmetrical map, are apparently (the oddball video posted a few pages back showed it) asymmetrical?

Asymmetrical spawns on a symmetrical map? What the entire fuck? This is a thing?

 

[.shin]

I have checked with my sources and can confirm that theater mode does in fact not work with campaign.

Why does 343 continue to make stupid changes that do nothing but shit on Halo fans?

"It still feels like Halo!"

 

[BigShow36]

Increasing the skill gap would make the game even more arduous in multiplayer, IMHO. I think Halo has skill-barriers far higher than CoD. I could pop into CoD right now and start scoring at the top of the team, but if I'm cold from Halo for a bit it's more of a struggle. I think Gears of War has the highest skill gap of the bunch.

I think the skill curve in those two games is very different. CoD is easier in some regards and more punishing in others. The initial barrier to entry in Halo is certainly higher, but once you get past that, the skill curve starts to drastically flatten out.

I don't get how you can say the skill gap in CoD is lower when you have greater seperation between yourself and other players. Wouldn't that indicate a greater gap?

 

[Akai__]

I have checked with my sources and can confirm that theater mode does in fact not work with campaign.

Why does 343 continue to make stupid changes that do nothing but shit on Halo fans?

Because the Grifball and/or the Infection fanbase is far more important. *trollface.jpg*

On a serious note, I don't know, it's really sad, because I loved to fly around sometimes or capture an awesome moment or a funny AI fail.

 

[kittens]

Why does 343 continue to make stupid changes that do nothing but shit on Halo fans?

Excuse my SLRP, but I imagine 343 would have kept theater mode for campaign if they could have. As others have speculated, maybe they couldn't get it to work well with the graphics engine for some reason.

 

[Slightly Live]

I have checked with my sources and can confirm that theater mode does in fact not work with campaign.

Why does 343 continue to make stupid changes that do nothing but shit on Halo fans?

I would love to know more about your sources. Do they wear funny black hats?

 

[BeekleMatter]

 

[Ken]

I have checked with my sources and can confirm that theater mode does in fact not work with campaign.

Why does 343 continue to make stupid changes that do nothing but shit on Halo fans?

Perhaps not enough people used it to make it worth bringing pack? At least, that's the impression I get when I view the front page of Reach screenshots on bungie.net which was filled with mostly MP butt shots and Forged anime girls.

 

[Fracas]

Excuse my SLRP, but I imagine 343 would have kept theater mode for campaign if they could have. As others have speculated, maybe they couldn't get it to work well with the graphics engine for some reason.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong (and I probably am lol), but doesn't Halo 4 run on a modified Reach engine?

 

[Slightly Live]

Excuse my SLRP, but I imagine 343 would have kept theater mode for campaign if they could have. As others have speculated, maybe they couldn't get it to work well with the graphics engine for some reason.

They have some of the best hardware and software engineers in the industry and a budget that would make small development houses cry.

There's no excuse.

I imagine you are right though.

 

[xxjuicesxx]

You hold alt and type 0153 and let go.

 

[Tha Robbertster]

Asymmetrical spawns on a symmetrical map? What the entire fuck? This is a thing?

Yep, instead of having the teams spawn on the symmetrical sides, they spawn at the ramps of the maps. One ramp is bigger, widder and doesn't have a back wall.

 

[MaximumFlipFlop]

johnsonquote.jpg

"And this is relevant, HOW?"

 

[LAUGHTREY]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong (and I probably am lol), but doesn't Halo 4 run on a modified Reach engine?

Yeah, the grenades look and sound exactly like Reach even.

 

[senador]

Perhaps the reason for not having Campaign theater is what Letters and Flipyap said: there's stuff going on that falls apart when you are allowed to fly all around in camera mode.

In A Hero Awakens BTS, we see how if a specific cutscene is viewed at a certain angle, it all falls apart. I know this is just for the cutscene and past Halo games did similar, but maybe they have some of that going on with the Campaign environments too. Perhaps it also has to do with their version of impostering not playing nicely with theater and they chose to drop it.

I dont know the technicalities, but I wonder if theatre mode placed restrictions on what Bungie could do with Campaign? If cutting theatre allows them to fit more AI on screen/ have larger battles/ make the gameplay more interesting then I kind of welcome the change.

This is a good point. The Theater plays back the game code while also running and taking up memory itself. Maybe it would have limited the Campaign too much and cutting it allowed them to do more. That seems very plausible and I'd also be OK with this explanation. Though it still is a let down, it'd be more the fault of old ass technology that has less power than my iPhone. Next gen can't come fast enough.

 

[LD2k]

!!!!

Sgt. Johnson said some BADASS stuff!

 

[bobs...onGaf]

They have some of the best hardware and software engineers in the industry and a budget that would make small development houses cry.

There's no excuse.

I imagine you are right though.

I dont know the technicalities, but I wonder if theatre mode placed restrictions on what Bungie could do with Campaign? If cutting theatre allows them to fit more AI on screen/ have larger battles/ make the gameplay more interesting then I kind of welcome the change. If cutting theatre was due to graphics, then

 

[Biggest-Geek-Ever]

They have some of the best hardware and software engineers in the industry and a budget that would make small development houses cry.

There's no excuse.

Flip's post earlier is probably on the mark, and there might have even been more restrictions necessary to include theater. I'm okay with them cutting theater if this was their line of thinking, but of course it's still really bad form that 343 hasn't commented on it.

 

[FyreWulff]

I dont know the technicalities, but I wonder if theatre mode placed restrictions on what Bungie could do with Campaign? If cutting theatre allows them to fit more AI on screen/ have larger battles/ make the gameplay more interesting then I kind of welcome the change.

No. Theater is just executing playback of what the engine was already doing. The AI is not networked.

 

[Bsigg12]

They have some of the best hardware and software engineers in the industry and a budget that would make small development houses cry.

There's no excuse.

I imagine you are right though.

I'm thinking finally making the jump to 720p is really pulling on resources Bungie used for certain things. Maybe the file sizes for campaign theater became massive and unable to process correctly with the limited RAM on the 360.

They can have the best things available for them but they are still limited by 7 year old hardware.

Spoiler

Should have been a 720 launch title. Just kidding, well maybe

 

[LAUGHTREY]

Perhaps the reason for not having Campaign theater is what Letters and Flipyap said: there's stuff going on that falls apart when you are allowed to fly all around in camera mode.

In A Hero Awakens BTS, we see how if a specific cutscene is viewed at a certain angle, it all falls apart. I know this is just for the cutscene and past Halo games did similar, but maybe they have some of that going on with the Campaign environments too. Perhaps it also has to do with their version of impostering not playing nicely with theater and they chose to drop it.



This is a good point. The Theater plays back the game code while also running and taking up memory itself. Maybe it would have limited the Campaign too much and cutting it allowed them to do more. That seems very plausible and I'd also be OK with this explanation. Though it still is a let down, it'd be more the fault of old ass technology that has less power than my iPhone. Next gen can't come fast enough.

It's always like that for cutscenes though, you couldn't fly around in cutscenes in 3/Reach. You set up the scene with clever tricks and angles. I don't think Master Chief ever had his feet on the ground during a cutscene in 2. And if it's outside of a cutscene unfleshed out environments, you can just limit the camera to where you'd be able to go if you were playing it.

 

[The P of Poland]

"And this is relevant, HOW?"

It's like it almost makes sense....

 

[ArchedThunder]

I would love to know more about your sources. Do they wear funny black hats?

I can neither confirm nor deny that.

Flip's post earlier is probably on the mark, and there might have even been more restrictions necessary to include theater. I'm okay with them cutting theater if this was their line of thinking, but of course it's still really bad form that 343 hasn't commented on it.

Bungie never gave a fuck if you saw their trickery in theater, why should 343 care?

 

[senador]

No. Theater is just executing playback of what the engine was already doing. The AI is not networked.

Right, but wouldn't you have to allow enough memory for Theater to run itself and also "playback" the code? So removing Theater as a limitation would give them X amount of extra memory to do more Campaign stuff?

It's always like that for cutscenes though, you couldn't fly around in cutscenes in 3/Reach. You set up the scene with clever tricks and angles. I don't think Master Chief ever had his feet on the ground during a cutscene in 2.

Right, and I specified that. My point was that perhaps some of that stuff is going on during gameplay too.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

No. Theater is just executing playback of what the engine was already doing. The AI is not networked.

You have to somehow generate all the random seeds in exactly the same way though right? Perhaps it was getting to the point where some of the stuff in the backend that needed to be randomized was too difficult to replicate. Why that would be a situation who knows - I imagine 1 or 100 enemies will only be a tiny amount of data to replicate.

So yeah its perplexing - I still dont mind it if theres a technical reason and they simply had to cut it to make something else work within the gameplay itself. If on the other hand they cut it due to something stupid like the CoD style cinematics they have going on then that sucks.

Right, but wouldn't you have to allow enough memory for Theater to run itself and also "playback" the code? So removing Theater as a limitation would give them X amount of extra memory to do more Campaign stuff?



Right, and I specified that. My point was that perhaps some of that stuff is going on during gameplay too.

Yeah this is what im trying to say - perhaps its removal opens up the resources for something else within the gameplay itself which wasnt possible before.

 

[Hydranockz]

Yep, instead of having the teams spawn on the symmetrical sides, they spawn at the ramps of the maps. One ramp is bigger, widder and doesn't have a back wall.

If you went you're way your squeezing the initial play into 2 paths essentially. I think the way they went opens up the map a bit more.

 

[Overdoziz]

Perhaps the reason for not having Campaign theater is what Letters and Flipyap said: there's stuff going on that falls apart when you are allowed to fly all around in camera mode.

In A Hero Awakens BTS, we see how if a specific cutscene is viewed at a certain angle, it all falls apart. I know this is just for the cutscene and past Halo games did similar, but maybe they have some of that going on with the Campaign environments too. Perhaps it also has to do with their version of impostering not playing nicely with theater and they chose to drop it.

Bungie never cared about "stuff falling apart" in theater and neither should 343. The fact that they've shown how they're basically 'cheating' in that video shows that they don't particularly mind if people find out what trickery they've used to pull certain things off. That would probably be the last reason for them to remove the mode.