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Halo |OT13|
- Thread starter kylej
- Start date
- Status
Yeah,I bet ur sis told u that. Idiot
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
I haven't seen a comeback this good since 4th grade
bobs...onGaf
Member
I do keep telling Elzar that if someone wont accept on his first few invites that sending 30 wont get them in but he just doesn't listen.
Bregmann Roche
Member
Whoa whoa whoa. I'm willing to go as far as "Internet acquaintances".
Brolic Gaoler
formerly Alienshogun
I specifically wait for the 31st invite, because until then, I'm not really sure you mean it.
You are my favorite poster.
Yo moma so fat, her patronus is a cake.
Major Williams
Member
I got 51 assists driving a guy around with the Gauss Hog on Exile. It was a fun game, and he had no mic. Honking and being conservative led to an amazing match. I got second place overall with NO kills. I strongly believe a good driver is an equal part to a good gunner.
bobs...onGaf
Member
I got 51 assists driving a guy around with the Gauss Hog on Exile. It was a fun game, and he had no mic. Honking and being conservative led to an amazing match. I got second place overall with NO kills. I strongly believe a good driver is an equal part to a good gunner.
A good hog driver is a rarity and SO lethal.
Halo 3 Team Slayer was so easy when I played with a dude I knew who could drive the thing well. As long as we controlled laser the other team didnt have a chance.
That's why Hog is still my favorite vehicle. It's far more lethal when people know what they're doing, and way more fun
xxjuicesxx
Member
And the Reach like Trueskill is showing it's ugly face.
All the good players have left Halo 4. Realized there were other games to waste time with that don't stink.
In before Frankie confirms the population numbers are being refreshed quicker than Reach's were and the #'s are "about the same".
Orochinagis
Member
USA and UK? lol
Halo CEA integration patch I think.
YourExWife
Member
What did he ever do to you?
Tha Robbertster
Member
1v1 me. I'll be online sometime this week.
Tha Robbertster
Member
Than we'll never know if you're a good player, or just an average player stuck in a low skill level. I'm guessing the latter.
This is why the cries of vehicle users over Plasma Pistols in loadouts in Halo 4 nourished my soul. I'm not playing a first person shooter just to be grass for a lawnmower.
I believe this would lead to stagnation.
I haven't had any problems with ammo, either. At least not anything different from previous Halos.
I'm a average player at best. The thing about is that for weeks I've had some decent matches, even some close ones, but this week just took a real nosedive.
I love you. Seriously friend up so we can swap driving time...I think I am one of the best drivers out there...but never have I found someone to drive me when I want to gunI got 51 assists driving a guy around with the Gauss Hog on Exile. It was a fun game, and he had no mic. Honking and being conservative led to an amazing match. I got second place overall with NO kills. I strongly believe a good driver is an equal part to a good gunner.
"This just in: the killer wore clothes and shoes. Studies are coming out that prove this is a link to being a crazy psychopath murderer."
God, Blizzard must be so pissed that their game just got plastered on TV with this.
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
How the fuck someone links Starcraft to killing someone (besides themselves after playing 90 hours straight) is amazing to me.
CoD? Maybe, still not going to fly. But fucking Starcraft? "Yeah, dude, I'm going to set up my pylon in this hotel and then build a bunch of Photon Cannons and take all these people out!"
Tha Robbertster
Member
Just 1v1 me. Please. Elzar promised me he'd do it but he chickened out for some reason
Poker Face
Member
YourExWife
Member
I was just poking fun because you typo'd and said "wreck" and "havok" instead of what I'm sure you actually meant.
lol of all games, Starcraft2. "I don't want my son controlling those alien armies, he might turn out to be a violent person" Meanwhile, I'll bet play playing Starcraft 2 has more positive effects than negative on the brain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FktsFcooIG8
Penn is one of the dumbest political commentators ever. I watched like a minute and just couldn't do it.
It was a interesting piece, I felt bad for the kid after he shot the gun.
Worth watching Sessler Something on the topic too.
Poker Face
Member
I've honestly never heard anything from him, politics wise.
Brolic Gaoler
formerly Alienshogun
It's the same argument scholars use to say porn leads to rape. I don't ascribe to either. There is evidence that it does, but there's also evidence that both prevent violence. About par for the course really.
Brolic Gaoler
formerly Alienshogun
Where you goin? Nowhere!
Shoutout to heckfu and kylej and all you other grown-up losers that are making actual life decisions.
Just made one of my own: I'm just about to buy a puppy. Can't decide between a Golden Retriever/German Shepherd mix or a German Shepherd/Wolfdog mix. I have until tomorrow afternoon to decide!
Just made one of my own: I'm just about to buy a puppy. Can't decide between a Golden Retriever/German Shepherd mix or a German Shepherd/Wolfdog mix. I have until tomorrow afternoon to decide!
343 Industries
Yeah, this is somewhat of a taboo topic around here. Why? Probably because quite a few of you guys have met them, chatted with them, maybe even had a drink with them. 9 times out of 10, they seem like nice peeps, with the 1/10 occurring when crying babies are posted with no context, after complaints arise about a new Halo "feature".
But let's face it. Their most recent product is not received well by many and a large chunk of the Halo population has gone away, leaving the game to look like a lifeline. The population started leaving en masse with Reach. Now many have said that Reach is a polished turd; that the core game isn't fun but it is a consistent experience all round. Halo 4 has been called the opposite. It's a poop covered diamond; where the core game is the best it has ever been, but there's so much crap on top that it's not fun to play. Now the focus of this post isn't to find out how to get that diamond. That's been covered. My post is about why Halo 4 feels unpolished, and I'm actually going to give some armchair designer advice on what to do to fix it for the next title.(yep, I'm stealing the armchair thing from Havok. It's far too apt of a description.)
For starters, let's compare it to the polished, but unfun game of Halo Reach. We know that Reach was in Alpha phase around Bungie Day 2009, thanks to the Bungie podcast that came out on that day. In it, Nathan Fillion discusses that he got the chance to play Reach in their internal testing on that day. This is approximately 13 months from shipping to gold. We know that in the sandbox podcast for Halo 4 released sometime around March that Halo 4 was still in pre-Alpha, approximately 7 months from shipping to gold.
We know that Halo 4 had 4 builds, maybe 5: First Look, E3, PAX, and Final. Reach had at least 5, although there were probably at least 1 or 2 between the public beta(which was the delta build) and the final. Reach was content complete by May 2010. Due to the lack of any substantial updates on Halo 4, we have no info on when it was content complete. If we scale things, it would be around August. Linearly would place it around December. So Halo 4 was content complete anywhere between 2 months to ship.
So 13 months from ship, Bungie was finalizing their alpha. What was 343I doing? Well, 13 months puts us right around the time of HaloFest. You're probably thinking,"Oh! 343 was making Anniversary." You wouldn't be wrong. But also realize that Bungie was doing the exact same thing with ODST. I recently rewatched the HaloFest Halo 4 panel, and I took note of the basic structure of it. It opens up with a "Working at 343" video. The first half of the panel was talking about what it was like to work at 343. Only the last half and the Q&A did they actually talk about Halo 4. My theory is that they were just finishing up the concepting portion of Halo 4 around then. That's why we got a concept art trailer with music that doesn't appear anywhere in the game or the soundtrack.
Since I brought up Anniversary, let's do a quick look at that. The engine overhaul(or lack thereof) was done by Sabre Interactive and the map pack was done by Certain Affinity. I'm assuming that Sabre primarily worked on the engine and that the 343 art team was working on the actual models and upres graphics. Why are we questioning outsourcing now?
We can extrapolate a lot about how management on Anniversary went, thanks to the 5ViDocs BTSs that were put out on it. Halo 4 had 4 BTSs + 4 little videos on weapons/Mantis. We know that our beloved David Ellis is a Spartan Ops designer, but what was he beforehand? He was a content manager. Look how much meaningful content was put out for Anniversary and how much was put out for Halo 4. Did anyone fill his shoes at 343? For the record, he did a damn good job at teasing no bloom settings in just one video, whereas in Halo 4 we find out about settings from a shaky cam video of someone playing at a convention.
Since we have no idea what went on during the development of the game, the following is all speculation. Halo 4 was made by groups of people, and not a team. There are very distinct things that make you question if everything was done separately. The biggest example is something that Devo brought to my attention. The UIs for every section look different. The Spartan Ops UI looks vastly different to the War Games baseball cards, which looks vastly different from the Main Menu. Certain animations make that model invincible, was the animation team working with the design team at all?
And all of this information was coming to the consumer from Jessica. I don't mean to say that she isn't capable, but that is far too much work for one person to do a great job on all aspects. We were getting "ship themed Halo Reach Forge maps" as a headline after a major Halo 4 news drop. I understand that Waypoint is for all things Halo, but there is definitely a difference between Forge ships and actual news. Post release, you have to search through the blog to get at the patch notes. I brought up Gearbox and their Borderlands 2 patch notes a few days ago. Waypoint360 and Halo 4 need this displayed somewhere prominent on their site. Another note about information releases, there were far too many exclusives going out to far too many gaming journalists.
So what does 343 do going forward? After the game went gold, they should have sat down and said "What do we want in Halo 4 that wasn't there at launch?" They are going to make some tough decisions, that not everyone will agree with. Some decisions that were cut might have to remain cut. Right now, some of the higher ups should be looking at the community feedback and saying "these are the things that we need for Halo 5." There should definitely be some pre-planning on what modes are available to the player.
Campaign theatre should be in development for Halo 5. While it is being developed, it should be analyzed against how it could work in Halo 4 for a potential patch; no guarantee. Sadly, the priority is on the next title, not the current botched one. The multiplayer team should be looking at how they can craft a core setting that is fun. Then add removable layers of additional fluff. This way, the player can truly play the way that they want to play. The campaign team should be looking at design encounters and maybe crafting some basic playspaces on a whiteboard that offer multiple options to the player. And most importantly, every couple of weeks, everyone should get together and analyze what each other is doing. I may not be an artist, but I can tell you that Jackals looking like Godzilla may not be the best decision.
Sorry for the giant wall without any pictures. I was noticing a lot of stuff that just seemed rushed, and that is my theory on why. I know I'm missing stuff like some of the recent news about outsourcing and stuff, but oh well. Maybe next time.
Yeah, this is somewhat of a taboo topic around here. Why? Probably because quite a few of you guys have met them, chatted with them, maybe even had a drink with them. 9 times out of 10, they seem like nice peeps, with the 1/10 occurring when crying babies are posted with no context, after complaints arise about a new Halo "feature".
But let's face it. Their most recent product is not received well by many and a large chunk of the Halo population has gone away, leaving the game to look like a lifeline. The population started leaving en masse with Reach. Now many have said that Reach is a polished turd; that the core game isn't fun but it is a consistent experience all round. Halo 4 has been called the opposite. It's a poop covered diamond; where the core game is the best it has ever been, but there's so much crap on top that it's not fun to play. Now the focus of this post isn't to find out how to get that diamond. That's been covered. My post is about why Halo 4 feels unpolished, and I'm actually going to give some armchair designer advice on what to do to fix it for the next title.(yep, I'm stealing the armchair thing from Havok. It's far too apt of a description.)
For starters, let's compare it to the polished, but unfun game of Halo Reach. We know that Reach was in Alpha phase around Bungie Day 2009, thanks to the Bungie podcast that came out on that day. In it, Nathan Fillion discusses that he got the chance to play Reach in their internal testing on that day. This is approximately 13 months from shipping to gold. We know that in the sandbox podcast for Halo 4 released sometime around March that Halo 4 was still in pre-Alpha, approximately 7 months from shipping to gold.
We know that Halo 4 had 4 builds, maybe 5: First Look, E3, PAX, and Final. Reach had at least 5, although there were probably at least 1 or 2 between the public beta(which was the delta build) and the final. Reach was content complete by May 2010. Due to the lack of any substantial updates on Halo 4, we have no info on when it was content complete. If we scale things, it would be around August. Linearly would place it around December. So Halo 4 was content complete anywhere between 2 months to ship.
So 13 months from ship, Bungie was finalizing their alpha. What was 343I doing? Well, 13 months puts us right around the time of HaloFest. You're probably thinking,"Oh! 343 was making Anniversary." You wouldn't be wrong. But also realize that Bungie was doing the exact same thing with ODST. I recently rewatched the HaloFest Halo 4 panel, and I took note of the basic structure of it. It opens up with a "Working at 343" video. The first half of the panel was talking about what it was like to work at 343. Only the last half and the Q&A did they actually talk about Halo 4. My theory is that they were just finishing up the concepting portion of Halo 4 around then. That's why we got a concept art trailer with music that doesn't appear anywhere in the game or the soundtrack.
Since I brought up Anniversary, let's do a quick look at that. The engine overhaul(or lack thereof) was done by Sabre Interactive and the map pack was done by Certain Affinity. I'm assuming that Sabre primarily worked on the engine and that the 343 art team was working on the actual models and upres graphics. Why are we questioning outsourcing now?
We can extrapolate a lot about how management on Anniversary went, thanks to the 5
Since we have no idea what went on during the development of the game, the following is all speculation. Halo 4 was made by groups of people, and not a team. There are very distinct things that make you question if everything was done separately. The biggest example is something that Devo brought to my attention. The UIs for every section look different. The Spartan Ops UI looks vastly different to the War Games baseball cards, which looks vastly different from the Main Menu. Certain animations make that model invincible, was the animation team working with the design team at all?
And all of this information was coming to the consumer from Jessica. I don't mean to say that she isn't capable, but that is far too much work for one person to do a great job on all aspects. We were getting "ship themed Halo Reach Forge maps" as a headline after a major Halo 4 news drop. I understand that Waypoint is for all things Halo, but there is definitely a difference between Forge ships and actual news. Post release, you have to search through the blog to get at the patch notes. I brought up Gearbox and their Borderlands 2 patch notes a few days ago. Waypoint360 and Halo 4 need this displayed somewhere prominent on their site. Another note about information releases, there were far too many exclusives going out to far too many gaming journalists.
So what does 343 do going forward? After the game went gold, they should have sat down and said "What do we want in Halo 4 that wasn't there at launch?" They are going to make some tough decisions, that not everyone will agree with. Some decisions that were cut might have to remain cut. Right now, some of the higher ups should be looking at the community feedback and saying "these are the things that we need for Halo 5." There should definitely be some pre-planning on what modes are available to the player.
Campaign theatre should be in development for Halo 5. While it is being developed, it should be analyzed against how it could work in Halo 4 for a potential patch; no guarantee. Sadly, the priority is on the next title, not the current botched one. The multiplayer team should be looking at how they can craft a core setting that is fun. Then add removable layers of additional fluff. This way, the player can truly play the way that they want to play. The campaign team should be looking at design encounters and maybe crafting some basic playspaces on a whiteboard that offer multiple options to the player. And most importantly, every couple of weeks, everyone should get together and analyze what each other is doing. I may not be an artist, but I can tell you that Jackals looking like Godzilla may not be the best decision.
Sorry for the giant wall without any pictures. I was noticing a lot of stuff that just seemed rushed, and that is my theory on why. I know I'm missing stuff like some of the recent news about outsourcing and stuff, but oh well. Maybe next time.
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
I'm in agreement with the game feeling rushed, which ties into my building a studio comment. That's why I hope they have the studio aspect nailed down now, and can utilize everything going forward.
squidhands
Member
If it's not a rescue/adoption, then you're a horrible person.
No pressure.
edit: nice writeup, Karl.
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