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[Deadly Cyclone]

I actually love the look of Polygon and The Verge. Plus The Verge's articles have pushed them ahead of everyone aside from Tested as far as my tech sites go. Polygon has had some great features on The Verge, so I'll stay tuned in.

The testing article is a great little piece.

EDIT: Top of page, no gif because Heckfu.

 

[BladedExpert]

LMAO

Edit: For new page!!

 

[TheOddOne]

I actually love the look of Polygon and The Verge. Plus The Verge's articles have pushed them ahead of everyone aside from Tested as far as my tech sites go. Polygon has had some great features on The Verge, so I'll stay tuned in.

The testing article is a great little piece.

The content itself is great, just the way it is presented it just a bit too over-the-top.

 

[Overdoziz]

That Polygon site cause use less huge pictures. I was reading through the MoH Warfighter review and in between most paragraphs they put a picture that covers about 3/4 of my screen.

 

[squidhands]

Oh man, reminds me of the time when I unlocked recon.

I matched with what seemed like a group of 10 year olds, on Avalanche.

They kept asking me how I unlocked recon, they referred to me as sir, and best of all they took all the shots for me. You should have heard them:

"The recon guy is under attack! Don't let him die, get in front him!"

Lmao, good times.

That is truly adorable.

 

[Swarmerr]

Halo 4 is so close... hurry up november 6th...

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Article is pretty interesting, especially HaloGaf's "feels like Halo" obsession.

One of the most important tasks on Schuh's plate has been helping smooth over that transition. Gathering player data on what feels like old Halo, and what feels different. Seeing what players think of the changes. Assisting with making the new Halo feel enough like the old Halo, and enough like something new.

 

[S1kkZ]

dont know if this was posted, but a german games journalist (and pretty huge halo fan) said on twitter he finished halo 4 and he quite liked it ("343 did a great job.").

review embargo lifts on november 1st, right?

 

[Risen]

From the Polygon article:


"C04 knows what she's doing."

"B06, what are you doing? Oh my god no ... no! What are you doing?!"

"Don't go over there! Yes, keep doing that! That's what that blip means."

"Just turn to the left! To the left! To the left! ... or just fall off that cliff."


This is how we get maps like Zealot with space - 3 of 4 people testing don't have thumbs and can't possibly break the map - they can't even turn left.


A quote of Josh Holmes:

"I think for Halo in particular, because there's a competitive aspect to it in multiplayer, it's really important to us to keep that consistency," he says. "So players can learn a skill, pick it up, and know that they can apply that skill without the game sort of overriding their expectation. And so philosophically, that is something that we really held very dear."

But... but... there are auto pick-up flags that I can't put down.


Tongue in cheek salt aside... I actually really enjoyed the article. Would read more from them.

 

[Omni]

1000 gamer points from CEA, done and dusted. Last achievement was to finish Warthog run with a minute left. Now just have to work on Halo 2 Vista

 

[Fuchsdh]

That reminds me of the full 12 minute video - excellent if you've never seen it.

"Life as Halo's Master Chief" - good little documentary on Steve Downes

http://youtu.be/YKuN08Hgpgg

I hadn't. Thanks for the link. Downes seems like a pretty great guy.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Also from the article:

Multiplayer playtesting video:
http://youtu.be/btk_LSfcUbU

 

[Akai__]

dont know if this was posted, but a german games journalist (and pretty huge halo fan) said on twitter he finished halo 4 and he quite liked it ("343 did a great job.").

review embargo lifts on november 1st, right?

You should add, that it took him 13 hours.

 

[AllIsOneIsNone]

Also from the article:
[images]

It's Alive!

 

[YourExWife]

There...is
...another...Recon...user...

<------ Master race.

Also, it's cold as balls this morning for no reason (like <40F). And fully expected to be in the high 80's by noon. And The Weather Channel is telling me that Hurricane Sandy is projected to hit northern New England. lolz. Also, dat Stephanie Abrams...

 

[JohnOfMars]

Is sprint a tap to start or hold to run? I was looking at the different control schemes and was thinking that the "X" button would be nice if it's just tap once to activate sprint, but probably not great if I have to hold it.

Any one with play experience wish to enlighten me? Thanks.

 

[Falifax]

1000 gamer points from CEA, done and dusted. Last achievement was to finish Warthog run with a minute left. Now just have to work on Halo 2 Vista

I still have to do those "play a game on every map and every gametype" ugh

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

"I think it's much more like Halo 1 than, say, Reach or 3, and to me that's a good thing," he says. "That was my favorite one ... I felt there were more open areas. Granted, there were a lot more closed-in ones, but the open areas have always been what I enjoyed out of the Halo games."

Via a Halo fan/playtester in the article.

"Over the 12 years of this group, we have run over 100,000 people through our labs," says Schuh, again reciting the numbers off the top of his head. "We've had seven leaks that we know about."

When things leak, Schuh helps track down the person then hands the name to Microsoft's lawyers. "We're really good about tracking them down, and a lot of the security features that I'm not going to talk about that are subtly here are as a result of things that we've done through tracking them down before."

 

[u4iX]

Also from the article:

Multiplayer playtesting video:
http://youtu.be/btk_LSfcUbU

Now compare those to this:

I think we're dealing with some premium quality maps here.

 

[Omni]

I still have to do those "play a game on every map and every gametype" ugh

Yeah, I have to do that too. Hard when the servers are so limited.

 

[Genesis Knight]

Now compare those to this:

I think we're dealing with some premium quality maps here.

I see what you mean, but the people we'll be playing are on a different level than those testers.

 

[Gr1mLock]

Good morning HaloGaf. What sucks today?

 

[heckfu]

Good morning HaloGaf. What sucks today?

Besides this post?

Sick burn!!!!

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

"In the Halo 1 days, the User Research team had three or four researchers each covering approximately six games, whereas now the team is — depending how you count the numbers — roughly 24-42 people and Halo 4 is Schuh's full time job.

'Because of that, in Halo 1, we were only able to do two-hour game slices," Schuh says. "We didn't look at the entire game. So yeah, the first two hours of Halo had our touch and had our love, and beyond that — where some levels might be a little confusing — those were beyond what we looked at.'"

Explains The Library.

 

[willow ve]

Now compare those to this:


I think we're dealing with some premium quality maps here.

Granted, some of these heat maps will show more hotspots once a the full deluge of assholes on xbox live get a hold of them, but they do look much much more refined (dare I say balanced) when compared to Reach.

I still think it's unfortunate that the heatmaps show everything in two dimensions. Would be great if they could split out the heatmaps per level/floor in a structure.

Also, I don't like the fact that the designers notes about Haven read "man cannons are very safe." I'm hoping that was a note of something to adjust or correct, perhaps slowing down the velocity of a person using said man cannons so they're not this ez pz route to top middle. I think I'd like to see a little more risk involved there.

Perhaps they meant "mancannons don't dump you off the map" or "mancannons don't run you into other players and cause you both to fall to your death"? It's possible they were referring to mancannon usability (ie; it's very simple to walk into the cannon and get launched) as opposed to the inherent risk involved in the route.

 

[u4iX]

I see what you mean, but the people we'll be playing are on a different level than those testers.

Even so, the equality is what I'm liking about where people die. I'm sure as the game progress the death areas will become more "focused" but there's nothing that really sticks out as "this is the end all be all area of battle."

I'd like to see a heatmap of an asymmetrical map like Abandon.

Also, I don't like the fact that the designers notes about Haven read "man cannons are very safe." I'm hoping that was a note of something to adjust or correct, perhaps slowing down the velocity of a person using said man cannons so they're not this ez pz route to top middle. I think I'd like to see a little more risk involved there.

 

[squidhands]

Good morning HaloGaf. What sucks today?

The simple fact that Halo 4 isn't out.

Also, I don't like the fact that the designers notes about Haven read "man cannons are very safe." I'm hoping that was a note of something to adjust or correct, perhaps slowing down the velocity of a person using said man cannons so they're not this ez pz route to top middle. I think I'd like to see a little more risk involved there.

I think the mancannons are too short of a trip to be deemed anything other than "very safe". I don't see it as a risk/reward mode of travel as much as a quick way to remove yourself from the lower corridor and a possible flanking move to reduce the upper middle dominance.

 

[u4iX]

Besides this post?

Sick burn!!!!

I want to play copious amounts of Halo 4 with you, stopping only to nuzzle up against your beard for warmth.

 

[Gr1mLock]

Besides this post?

Sick burn!!!!

 

[Woorloog]

Oh man, reminds me of the time when I unlocked recon.

I matched with what seemed like a group of 10 year olds, on Avalanche.

They kept asking me how I unlocked recon, they referred to me as sir, and best of all they took all the shots for me. You should have heard them:

"The recon guy is under attack! Don't let him die, get in front him!"

Lmao, good times.

Wait, what? They didn't know how to unlock the thing?

lol what a story.

The only (IIRC) time i played with/against a Recon guy before it was made available for all via Vidmasters was against some Bungie guy and a bunch of generals. Standoff. They decimated us. Stayed in-game only because there was a Bungie employee in the enemy team.

 

[MaximumFlipFlop]

LIKELY CAMPAIGN SPOILER IN LINK.

So is there a comprehensive list of the Halo 4 music tracks out there yet? I know there's the standard 15 OST tracks, plus "Armour" and "Desecration", plus the "Never Forget" remake, and I just found this one on youtube (potential story spoilers in title). I always hate having to hunt down songs that don't make the OST. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MgwYKS4Ihg&feature=related

THIS IS FAKE PEOPLE! I knew I recognized the song. It's from a movie called Casshern and the song is titled "The Last Day". Beautiful piece, but it ain't Halo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mg1lLAmZbQ&sns=em

 

[Omni]

Just noticed the Halo milestones on Waypoint. I feel as if 343i missed an opportunity by not using the milestones on the forums... Like a badge or a rank. As of right now, they're pretty useless. At least being able to show them off would give them a little bit of meaning.

And does anyone know why Halo 2 Vista achievements aren't tracked by Waypoint? I understand that both MS and Bungie gave the game the cold shoulder when it was released, but they're still Halo achievements and they still require a bit of effort to get.

 

[willow ve]

Just noticed the Halo milestones on Waypoint. I feel as if 343i missed an opportunity by not using the milestones on the forums... Like a badge or a rank. As of right now, they're pretty useless. At least being able to show them off would give them a little bit of meaning.

And does anyone know why Halo 2 Vista achievements aren't tracked by Waypoint? I understand that both MS and Bungie gave the game the cold shoulder when it was released, but they're still Halo achievements and they still require a bit of effort to get.

Maybe when waypoint gets the full update around launch? It's been rumoured a few times that a major change (including a possibly stat tracking API) is coming closer to launch. But then they've also alluded that rank talk would come closer to launch so take that with as much salt as you want.

 

[bGanci]

Is sprint a tap to start or hold to run? I was looking at the different control schemes and was thinking that the "X" button would be nice if it's just tap once to activate sprint, but probably not great if I have to hold it.

Any one with play experience wish to enlighten me? Thanks.

I think it's tap? But this is a Good question

 

[Woorloog]

I think it's tap? But this is a Good question

COD, BF have sprint as toggle, it is impractical to hold even an analog stick.
So most likely you only press with, like in Reach.

 

[u4iX]

COD, BF have sprint as toggle, it is impractical to hold even an analog stick.
So most likely you only press with, like in Reach.

What AAs are hold and what AAs are tap?

I'd like to see Jet Pack as tap on, tap off to be honest, same with Hardlight shield.

PV - Tap
HL - Hold
JP - Hold
RF - Tap
AT - Tap
HG - Tap
TP - Tap

Is this accurate?

 

[Wifiplayer13]

Is sprint a tap to start or hold to run? I was looking at the different control schemes and was thinking that the "X" button would be nice if it's just tap once to activate sprint, but probably not great if I have to hold it.

Any one with play experience wish to enlighten me? Thanks.

Yes its tap. I played at NYCC with the default control scheme but I would assume they're all tap.

 

[Tha Robbertster]

Also from the article:

Multiplayer playtesting video:
http://youtu.be/btk_LSfcUbU

Anybody has an idea what maps those are?

 

[Beckx]

Eurogamer has a great article up about Keighley and his table of Halo snacks.

(Apologies if old, didn't see it after reading the last 8000 pages since I went to bed.)

 

[S1kkZ]

You should add, that it took him 13 hours.

oh, didnt see that. but he usually sucks at games, so i guess it will take most people 7-10 hours.

 

[The P of Poland]

Anybody has an idea what maps those are?

I believe the first is Longbow and the second is Adrift.

 

[Hydranockz]

Anybody has an idea what maps those are?

Adrift is the bottom one. Top one is Longbow or Vortex?

 

[StalkerUKCG]

oh, didnt see that. but he usually sucks at games, so i guess it will take most people 7-10 hours.

Even still acceptable time frame. Under 5 hours is when i complain.

 

[Beckx]

Will be interesting to see if Ragnarok's heatmap ends up like Vahalla, with the river of death running through it.

Even still acceptable time frame. Under 5 hours is when i complain.

Hopefully, like prior Halo games, a lot will depend on how the person played, too.

I've heard of people who completed Dishonored in 4 hours. I spent that much in the second level, and am only halfway through the game with over 14 hours playtime.

 

[bGanci]

I can't stand Karen Travis's portray of Dr. Halsey...rereading glasslands before I get Thursday war....

 

[VanquishUK]

Anybody has an idea what maps those are?

Take a look at the links.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Where do those of you that do the Halo books in audio form get them? Need to finish Cryptum and Glasslands, but don't have the time to sit and read.

 

[Louis Wu]

Embargoed content removed

 

[bGanci]

Where do those of you that do the Halo books in audio form get them? Need to finish Cryptum and Glasslands, but don't have the time to sit and read.

Amazon or Audible.com

 

[Beckx]

Amazon or Audible.com

If you think you'll consume a lot of audiobooks, the audible subscription (you can sign up through Amazon) is great.