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Halo |OT14| They call it Halo

K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
I got an overkill, double kill, and triple kill on Prisoner all with the same rockets, and then some guy challenged me to a 1v1 and I narrowly won. Reach is fun.
 
O

Omni

Member
Oooh, Halo 2 got a population spike

halo22013011821473605.png
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That's 21 players!
:(

(My internet isn't slow if you're wondering. Connections are all US based and I'm Australian)
 
MrGreencastle

MrGreencastle

Member
kittens said:
I got an overkill, double kill, and triple kill on Prisoner all with the same rockets, and then some guy challenged me to a 1v1 and I narrowly won. Reach is fun.
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It would be interesting if that was an integrated feature. Imagine someone challenging you to a 1v1 postgame, and being able to accept the challenge, perhaps wagering EXP or something. If you have members in your party, then they can spectate. The game would drop you into a specialized 1v1 arena with specialized 1v1 settings. Would be cool anyway...
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
MrGreencastle said:
It would be interesting if that was an integrated feature. Imagine someone challenging you to a 1v1 postgame, and being able to accept the challenge, perhaps wagering EXP or something. If you have members in your party, then they can spectate.
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That'd be awesome!
 
Moa

Moa

Member
Havok said:
Does that include Blind or just the gold skulls? Reach LASO challenges always excluded Blind, which was nice.
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It actually means All Skulls this time, still laughed how Reach's weekly challenges always said LASO then didn't include the blind skull.
 
H

Havok

Member
CrazY CroaTia said:
I heared Blind has to be activated. Someone correct me, if I'm wrong.
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Moa said:
It actually means All Skulls this time, still laughed how Reach's weekly challenges always said LASO then didn't include the blind skull.
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Gross. That ain't the kind of difficulty I'm looking for.

Wouldn't be surprised if the campaign weeklies were building up to a week-by-week LASO run, given the progression we're seeing. I hope that's not the case, because it would be an incredibly boring way to use those challenge slots for a full 18 weeks just to build up to more repetition.
 
S

Sai-kun

Banned
MrGreencastle said:
It would be interesting if that was an integrated feature. Imagine someone challenging you to a 1v1 postgame, and being able to accept the challenge, perhaps wagering EXP or something. If you have members in your party, then they can spectate. The game would drop you into a specialized 1v1 arena with specialized 1v1 settings. Would be cool anyway...
Click to expand...

One thing I really really liked about MW3 or Black Ops 1 (whichever started it, I have no idea) were the wager matches. Betting a certain amount of money was a cool thing.

Also, if there's one kinda gametype Halo should steal, it should be Gungame. Gungame is fucking fun as shit, and so awesome to play, and basically what I play anytime I boot up Counter-Strike.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Barrow Roll said:
I knew that, but last I heard you still preferred Vanilla Reach.
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Kinda sorta. I prefer the Vanilla sandbox, but felt there were some minor issues. If they had eliminated bloom by lowering the DMR's RoF, or changing the bloom but also taking the time to update the rest of the sandbox to account for the much more powerful TU DMR, NR, and Pistol, I would have been fine with it.

In the end, it was more irritating that parts of the Vanilla experience were still hanging around and being removed piece by piece in each update when we had been promised that we'd get to keep the Vanilla playlists. Sandbox changes should be global. There were parts of 1.0 Halo 2 that people preferred, but since it was global you either accepted them and moved on or stopped playing the game, and Bungie knew they'd lose people from an update. They also updated more than 3 guns.

It was easier to not move on from Vanilla Reach because 343 let us not move on from it. At least they finally removed bleedthrough which was supposed to be tested in the TU BETA playlist first from the rest of matchmaking after months of people telling them it was broken. That improved the TU for me immensely, so all that was left was the poor execution of the DMR/NR/Pistol changes.

A split TU sounds neat on paper and a cool idea but all it ended up with was a CS 1.6/CSS style splitting of the Reach community and they couldn't even stand behind maintaining the split. One of the first Vanilla playlists they converted to TU had 100% AR starts. It didn't seem like there was any plan or reasoning to any of it.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
Wahrer Machine said:
No no no no no. I've seen people like juices say that core/competitive halo has traits similar to those, but never have I once seen any of the seasoned posters here say that should be exclusively what Halo is or should be. We need you to specify exactly who said that Halo should be completely restricted to just those settings.
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I'm not saying AA/perks/whatever isn't Halo or should exclusively not be all of that, but including those things in the game means you have to waste resources designing the game around those elements, and for me, it would be more beneficial if they're not included at all.

AAs, perks, vehicle health like Reach, flinch, 3x scope weapons, global ordnance, these CTF changes, custom loadouts, and sprint (I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff): I never want to see them in a Halo game ever again.
 
B

BlueScrote

Member
FyreWulff said:
I want the Reach TU to go global so nope.

If I were to be put in charge of Reach's playlists, first thing I'd do is make the entire game the TU and drop the stupid "TU" from all the gametype names.
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God, that detail irks me so much more than it really should. The naming of the playlists was kind of stupid the last time I played too. Like "Super Slayer" and "Evolved". I know naming things is hard, but c'mon.
 
T

TheOddOne

Member
How 343 Industries hopes to expand Halo 4's Spartan Ops in Episodes 6 - 10
Ellis uses depth to describe the process of expanding the environments in the upcoming episodes, which he characterizes as "a sort of natural evolution of what we did with the first half of the season" informed both by the developers' desires and player feedback.

"We sort of think of them as layers, and each time you go there you peel another layer back and another layer back," he said. "So you always have something new to do, something to see and something that's going to change your perspective on what that map or environment is."

Ellis was tightlipped about what kind of role that is, but he was obviously excited about the way Spartan Ops is evolving. He praised the art department, which created bigger set pieces for this second half, but he was also careful to avoid revealing them for fear of spoilers.

"Especially as we get down further to the end of the first season," he said, "there's some big set pieces, some big moments that people aren't going to be expecting."
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H4_SpOps_E6M1_1.jpg

H4_SpOps_E6M3_4.jpg

H4_SpOps_E6M1_3.jpg
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O

Omni

Member
I swear looking at multiplayer and campaign/Spartan Ops is like looking at two different games. I don't think that the difference has ever been greater (Multiplayer looks a lot worse than Campaign/SO)
 
J

JB1981

Member
Do a lot of people play Spartan Ops? Like is there a big population of players that play? I played one episode and it seemed so boring.
 
B

broony

Member
JB1981 said:
Do a lot of people play Spartan Ops? Like is there a big population of players that play? I played one episode and it seemed so boring.
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I play every episode all the way through with two different groups of people at least once a week each.

Its really fun. Wouldn't play it more than that, but it has been good. Really looking forward to the new epsiodes and hope they do a second season.
 
Moa

Moa

Member
JB1981 said:
Do a lot of people play Spartan Ops? Like is there a big population of players that play? I played one episode and it seemed so boring.
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Playing it now purely for the Infinity Challenge & Commendations, once the first Season is over, I see no reason to play it :/
The vehicle missions are fun to play over and over, especially The VIP on Quarry (Chapter 1, Episode 1) but nothing else really is.
 
M

Madness

Member
JB1981 said:
Do a lot of people play Spartan Ops? Like is there a big population of players that play? I played one episode and it seemed so boring.
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Not so much anymore... I found as the episodes went on that there were less than 2000-4000 players total in all of the chapters.

The schtick wore off and they just seemed like a chore for me more than anything. I only beat them to get the achievements thats it. They're just not fun on heroic or legendary especially with the horrendous lag that has always been a factor for me.

I will admit some like shootout in valhalla were fun, but it's sad I'm not playing something because I enjoy it, but because I want to beat it, almost like the campaign. Suffice to say, if they were aiming for watercooler moments, they failed. I don't remember a single spectacular thing from any of the chapters/episodes, nor do I think I ever discussed a chapter or episode with any friend/fan later.
 
Moa

Moa

Member
Suppose I have a rough idea of how Episode six of Spartan Ops will start if anyone hasn't figured it out already.

Episode five ends with Crimson being surrounded by a shit ton of Covenant ships, who proceed to capture Crimson and take them to one of the new environments and have them tied up against the wall, and you escape, go through five chapters of escaping the Covenant and finding Thorne, and getting back on Infinity.

I assume the CGI will just have Lasky, Palmer, Miller & Roland worried to shit.
 
P

Pooya

Member
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/18/halo-4-spartan-ops-finally-fulfills-its-potential

just read this, he says new eps aren't shit and actually new levels,

This is because 343 is taking advantage of its own resources -- with campaign designers and animators no longer working on the core Master Chief portion of Halo 4, they're more readily available to help create better, more interesting add-on missions for Spartan Ops. The studio's using more of its talent to make Spartan Ops better -- and it is absolutely working.
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we will find out soon I guess.

edit: beaten by a mile duh. still want to try this again.
 
M

Madness

Member
willow ve said:
Have they ever released numbers on how many people actually play Spartan Ops?
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I don't think they have. I too would like to know, out of the total Halo 4 population that connects online, how many play spartan ops.

Everytime I go on, I only see a few hundred people in each chapter, maybe over 1000-1500 for the popular ones where you can get a lot of commendation/challenge potential.

EDIT: I'm also guessing the increased resource and focus on making the second half of Season 1 better is so that they don't kill all potential for Spartan Ops in the future. With the success of The Walking Dead, there is going to be WAY more increased demand for episodic content delivered in a timely manner. I bet the loss of future DLC monies probably got 343 Industries to devote more time and resources David Ellis' way. I see David hasn't posted in here in a long time, and maybe rightfully so because it probably sucks to have something you make/create be trashed so openly.
 
W

willow ve

Member
Karl2177 said:
The bulletin had SpOps numbers.

I'm probably going to come out incredibly impressed with SpOps1.5, just because my expectations are so low.
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I thought they only ever said things like "you all killed 1 billion grunts in Spartan Ops this month"

I was thinking more along the lines of "this # of gamertags actually played Spartan Ops" vs. "this number of tags played multiplayer." It would be interesting to see how those stack against each other. I can't imagine their workload is justified by the actual numbers of people playing. I would also venture a guess that many of the players of Spartan Ops are continuously playing chapters over and over again (and that's their main form of Halo play).
 
K

Karl2177

Member
willow ve said:
I thought they only ever said things like "you all killed 1 billion grunts in Spartan Ops this month"

I was thinking more along the lines of "this # of gamertags actually played Spartan Ops" vs. "this number of tags played multiplayer." It would be interesting to see how those stack against each other. I can't imagine their workload is justified by the actual numbers of people playing. I would also venture a guess that many of the players of Spartan Ops are continuously playing chapters over and over again (and that's their main form of Halo play).
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I guess I'm mistaken here. I thought it said something like 4 million people played, but the bulletin talked about games played. I'd love to see the numbers you're talking about, as well as something like a player retention rate for it.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
gAg CruSh3r said:
I was really considering to buy H2V and everything but is it really worth it now? :(
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Depends on if they're just taking the master server offline or if they're blacklisting it's titleID and it won't connect to live at all.

It's good if you want a 60fps >480p version of Halo 2 with no pop-in.

If you just want it to get achievements for Halo 2 and they prevent it from connecting to Live entirely, you won't be able to register any achievements for it.. and you won't be able to get the online achievements (no idea if they unlock over LAN).
 
M

Madness

Member
Deadly Cyclone said:
These look awesome. Can't wait. For as much as people bag on SpOps it's a ton of fun to play in co-op.
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Entirely dependent on the people you play with... Matchmaking Spartan Ops is a mess with lag, afk boosters etc. Plus they made the difficulty legendary which is like respawn central when facing prometheans/covenant with all the incineration cannons, scattershots, fuel rod guns. Makes me so mad when people don't play and just go and hide because the rest of us get junk resapwns.

I've found normal with an extra player to be alright, doesn't feel too cheap or frustrating. I'll definitely play through the rest, just to see the story wrap up and see how David and the team took all the feedback into account.
 
T

TheOddOne

Member
Sins of the Prophets UNSC Release Trailer.
Sins of a Solar Empire, the PC 4X real-time strategy space sim, just got a little "Halo" in it as the "Sins of the Prophets" beta was released Friday. Those that have wanted to play a game that features space battles in the "Halo" universe just had their wish fulfilled.

"Sins of the Prophets" is a total conversion mod for "Sins of a Solar Empire" with ship models based on "Halo" lore, a refreshed user interface, new technology research trees, custom maps, new musical score and voice overs. The gameplay has been tweaked as well to make battles more fast-paced along with the size of planetary gravity wells.

The initial beta release only features UNSC ships but the all-volunteer team behind "Sins of the Prophets" is currently working to add the Covenant as well. The Flood are included in the beta release though as the alien parasite takes the place of the pirate faction. Eventually, a Forerunner faction will be added as well.

The mod is set in the time frame of the Human-Covenant war prior to "Halo: Combat Evolved" and will feature Covenant ships that are more powerful than their human counterparts. However, the human faction will be able to build ships faster and cheaper to balance out the gameplay. We've got more details about the mod in a recent interview conducted with two of the mod leads.

You can download the mod directly from the "Sins of the Prophets" site on ModDb.com. Note that this is a beta so don't be surprised if you run into any crashes or bugs. In fact, you can help the team behind the mod by posting issues to the forums at SinsOfTheProphets.com if you do run across bugs.

"Sins of the Prophets" requires a copy of "Sins of a Solar Empire" with the "Entrenchment" expansion. The best bet is to probably by "Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion" from Steam as "Prophets" will eventually upgrade towards it and it contains the game plus all previous expansions.
Click to expand...
Source.
 
Moa

Moa

Member
FyreWulff said:
Depends on if they're just taking the master server offline or if they're blacklisting it's titleID and it won't connect to live at all.

It's good if you want a 60fps >480p version of Halo 2 with no pop-in.

If you just want it to get achievements for Halo 2 and they prevent it from connecting to Live entirely, you won't be able to register any achievements for it.. and you won't be able to get the online achievements (no idea if they unlock over LAN).
Click to expand...

bs angel said on the WP forums that "single player achievements won't be affected".

I assume that it will still be able to connect to Xbox LIVE, but the master server will be taken offline.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Moa said:
bs angel said on the WP forums that "single player achievements won't be affected".

I assume that it will still be able to connect to Xbox LIVE, but the master server will be taken offline.
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Oh, that clarifies it then. So it's still a good buy if you want a 60fps Halo 2 > 480p with some gamescore.
 
ElRenoRaven

ElRenoRaven

Member
gAg CruSh3r said:
I was really considering to buy H2V and everything but is it really worth it now? :(
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I'd say if you want Halo 2 without having to have your OG Xbox hooked up or without the ghosting you get with it on the 360 via emulation then yes. The campaign plays perfectly and includes no texture pop in as a bonus. So for that alone it's worth it. That again is assuming you have a 360 controller for your PC.
 
B

BackdoorBeauty

Member
Cow said:
I wish Halo 4 had a playlist of BR starts and weapons on map and no armour abilities.
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Halo 4 is truly a diamond covered in poo right now. Team BRs is a fucking dream today.

It was fun for a month or so, but now that everyone is jet packin', boltshottin' badasses, the flaws to game design are plainly seen.
 
gAg CruSh3r

gAg CruSh3r

Member
PsychoRaven said:
I'd say if you want Halo 2 without having to have your OG Xbox hooked up or without the ghosting you get with it on the 360 via emulation then yes. The campaign plays perfectly and includes no texture pop in as a bonus. So for that alone it's worth it. That again is assuming you have a 360 controller for your PC.
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I would get the Xbox controller for the PC. Unless it's easier to use 360 via emulation?

FyreWulff said:
Depends on if they're just taking the master server offline or if they're blacklisting it's titleID and it won't connect to live at all.

It's good if you want a 60fps >480p version of Halo 2 with no pop-in.

If you just want it to get achievements for Halo 2 and they prevent it from connecting to Live entirely, you won't be able to register any achievements for it.. and you won't be able to get the online achievements (no idea if they unlock over LAN).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info!
 
ElRenoRaven

ElRenoRaven

Member
gAg CruSh3r said:
I would get the Xbox controller for the PC. Unless it's easier to use 360 via emulation?



Thanks for the info!
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Really I'd go with PC anyway. You load it in and play. With the xbox 360 playing the xbox version you have some really bad ghosting issues that cause an almost burn in like image of the last cutscene of the level before and then as a result you have to restart the 360 to get it to go away. Course then it repeats the next level. This is really noticeable on Arbiter levels. Then of course the OG xbox version has bad texture pop in on the cutscenes. This is due to the way it's loading the next level during that time. With the PC version they actually added back in loading screens between levels which results in no texture pop in during cutscenes.
 
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