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Halo |OT15| Beta-tested, GAF approved

zap

Member
Silentium cover still looks horrible. I would buy it if it actually fit in with the other Forerunner novels aesthetics-wise.

To anyone who has read it, does it have a meandering first 75% with the last quarter overloading you with information in traditional Greg Bear style?
 

Omni

Member
As a story nerd, I should like it then? I just bought it on my Kindle earlier because of you!
I would think so! Definitely my favourite in the saga. :)
To anyone who has read it, does it have a meandering first 75% with the last quarter overloading you with information in traditional Greg Bear style?
Naa, not really. It's pretty evenly paced in that 200 pages aren't dedicated towards walking around a ring. It helps that it's split into perspectives
 

Havok

Member
Its not the auto pick up, or that you cant drop it. It's the maps and gametype settings.
What, you aren't into Multiflag on asymmetric maps with ten players per match? Adrift CTF where half the enemy team camps in the base with camo and boltshot not doing it for you? Not even Ragnarok CTF with its camo snipers? You don't enjoy the majesty that is getting a full three-slot voting round of Infinity CTF? Other rounds having voting choices of Complex, Settler, and Abandon not your cup of tea? That playlist is a colossal bummer, but somehow it's still the best thing in there after Throwdown. And I say that as someone who has traditionally kept pretty far away from MLG/Hardcore playlists in the past since vanilla objective playlists were enough, but now that it's the only place you can go to get something with decent settings, I'm having to be more receptive to it.

I've made my peace with not being able to drop the flag, and I think the magnum and carriers at full speed are good ideas...but none of that can make up for the carrier waypoint, autopickup nonsense, the continued mistake of making it a 10-player playlist, the atrocious map pool they've chosen for that playlist, and not being able to sit on the thing and return it (even if it was longer than a 3 second return). There were some steps forward being taken with the tweaking of the reset timers per-map...but then "super OP but fun" Infinity CTF reared its ugly head and burned it all to the ground.
 

m23

Member
I've been watching Oz last couple months, great show. A lot of the shows now on TV are sometimes a pain to get through with almost nothing happening in most episodes.

Game of Thrones however, I can't wait for.
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
Last day to enter US Halogaffers. This weekend it's all for the foreign Halogaffers. We're looking at about 10 entries right now.


So I've decided that I'm going to give back to Halogaf since in the past people were good to me and hooked me up with stuff. There is one small limitation though. It's limited to US Halogaf sadly. The cost to ship this overseas would cost me more then the item.

Now all that said here is what is up for grabs. I am giving away 1 Hardback copy of Halo Silentium. I ordered and have now received a copy from Amazon to give away. Now here is all you have to do to be entered is PM me. Everyone has until 11:59 PST tonight. Any PM's sent after that time will not be eligible.

Tomorrow I'll announce the winner as soon as I can. So there you go. Again sorry for those not in the US but I'm sure you can understand.

Also as a note to foreign HaloGaffers. Later probably this next weekend I'll be running one for something I can hook you guys up with so don't feel left out on this one. You'll have your own.

As a note to Foreign Halogaffers for this weekends give away you will want an amazon account. The prize is going to be a kindle book. If you don't have a kindle don't worry. You can read the books via their Cloud reader or with the Kindle for PC app. In case you haven't figured out the prize for this weekend will be a Kindle copy of Silentium. So see told you foreign Halogaf. You weren't going to miss out.
 
Read the first 30 pages of Silentium. I'm really enjoying it so far. A bit of an information dump but I like the investigation angle this one is taking. It's a lot more accessible.
 

TheOddOne

Member
oh, FUCK you

but seriously, fuck you
PsychOMGGIF.gif
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
I used to like Scrubs... Until I saw season 9. It just put me off the series.

Season 9? I'm sorry but there was no season 9. Now they did attempt to spin it off but ABC wouldn't let them drop the name Scrubs so they had a season called Scrubs:Med School. It bombed of course but when you lack most of the cast of the original seasons it of course is going to suck. Didn't help that the chick who was the wannabe JD really sucked.

Course I respect them for what they did. Bill didn't wanna put all of the crew out of work with the economy the way it was and that's why they carried on. I of course refuse to acknowledge that season. So yea Season 9? I know not of this season you speak about.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
What, you aren't into Multiflag on asymmetric maps with ten players per match? Adrift CTF where half the enemy team camps in the base with camo and boltshot not doing it for you? Not even Ragnarok CTF with its camo snipers? You don't enjoy the majesty that is getting a full three-slot voting round of Infinity CTF? Other rounds having voting choices of Complex, Settler, and Abandon not your cup of tea? That playlist is a colossal bummer, but somehow it's still the best thing in there after Throwdown. And I say that as someone who has traditionally kept pretty far away from MLG/Hardcore playlists in the past since vanilla objective playlists were enough, but now that it's the only place you can go to get something with decent settings, I'm having to be more receptive to it.

I've made my peace with not being able to drop the flag, and I think the magnum and carriers at full speed are good ideas...but none of that can make up for the carrier waypoint, autopickup nonsense, the continued mistake of making it a 10-player playlist, the atrocious map pool they've chosen for that playlist, and not being able to sit on the thing and return it (even if it was longer than a 3 second return). There were some steps forward being taken with the tweaking of the reset timers per-map...but then "super OP but fun" Infinity CTF reared its ugly head and burned it all to the ground.

Lol tell us how you really feel. No but I agree with just about everything you've said and I think I have a solution. Get rid of the 5v5, make a BTB CTF and a 4v4 CTF. 2 separate playlists. That way, you'll have maps that work and you don't have to add in bullshit maps to inflate map count(Abandon, Complex). I really like Abandon but who the fuck wants to play CTF on that?!

Also, the fact that you think CTF is the best playlist next to Throwdown and not Doubled breaks my heart </3

:p
 

Blueblur1

Member
I don't understand why people are immediately writting off Gears of War Judgement because of the "4 MAPS!" thing.

Whatever happened to Quality Vs Quantity. :p

I believe the concern is not only are there just 4 maps but also 4 game types and 2 maps that are part of a promotion with Maxim (or some other magazine). As a Gears fan, I find it somewhat insulting that they would include such little content on the disc and then have the gall to advertise 2 promo maps which should be on the disc and offer less variety in both gameplay and map selection. It seems like they really don't care for their fan base when they do things like this. Furthermore, the game is riddled by ridiculous optional purchases such as weapon skins and Double XP booster packs. Also, there's the issue of VIP playlist which does not provide purchasers any incentive to play with the general population (since they get more XP from that playlist). It segregates the player population. It's just one bad decision after another.

And then there are all the gameplay changes which is entirely another discussion.
 
Lol tell us how you really feel. No but I agree with just about everything you've said and I think I have a solution. Get rid of the 5v5, make a BTB CTF and a 4v4 CTF. 2 separate playlists. That way, you'll have maps that work and you don't have to add in bullshit maps to inflate map count(Abandon, Complex). I really like Abandon but who the fuck wants to play CTF on that?!

Also, the fact that you think CTF is the best playlist next to Throwdown and not Doubled breaks my heart </3

:p
How would you mitigate the bad map selection for 4v4? The best maps for CTF are either DLC or forge variants, which to me is just really poor form for a staple gametype. 343 doesn't seem to have any desire to remove custom loadouts from the game, so that makes camo/boltshot an enormous problem on corridor-heavy maps like Adrift and Solace. Since 1-Flag is dead (RIP), Complex has no business being in the rotation. Abandon is also a poor choice for CTF like you said (personally, I hate the map). So, for default on-disc maps that are really worthy of being in the 4v4 CTF playlist are...forge maps. And maybe an altered version of Ragnarok. :-|
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
How would you mitigate the bad map selection for 4v4? The best maps for CTF are either DLC or forge variants, which to me is just really poor form for a staple gametype. 343 doesn't seem to have any desire to remove custom loadouts from the game, so that makes camo/boltshot an enormous problem on corridor-heavy maps like Adrift and Solace. Since 1-Flag is dead (RIP), Complex has no business being in the rotation. Abandon is also a poor choice for CTF like you said (personally, I hate the map). So, for default on-disc maps that are really worthy of being in the 4v4 CTF playlist are...forge maps. And maybe an altered version of Ragnarok. :-|

Oh, I was thinking Forge maps all the way. You can probably make Haven a good CTF map. Add in the new maps, sprinkle in a couple Forge maps and you've got a really good playlist on your hands.
 

Havok

Member
Lol tell us how you really feel. No but I agree with just about everything you've said and I think I have a solution. Get rid of the 5v5, make a BTB CTF and a 4v4 CTF. 2 separate playlists. That way, you'll have maps that work and you don't have to add in bullshit maps to inflate map count(Abandon, Complex). I really like Abandon but who the fuck wants to play CTF on that?!

Also, the fact that you think CTF is the best playlist next to Throwdown and not Doubled breaks my heart </3

:p
Yeah, my original post probably reads as being more bitter than I actually am, but it is pretty frustrating that Team Objective in Reach, even with the multitude of warts it had, kept me going night after night in that game for two years but somehow CTF can't do the same even six months after H4's launch. You hit the nail on the head, though - the incessant need to pad the playlists out with maps just for variety's sake is super damaging to the experience.

Just glancing at the CTF pool, there are around seven maps in that playlist that I think work reasonably well (though YMMV), one being a Forge map and two being DLC (none of which are Harvest, because my enjoyment of that map tanked almost immediately because of the spawns and middle). Seven decent maps with thirteen in the playlist for ONE gametype. The remaining six shouldn't be anywhere near it in their current states, but somehow they still are. Looking at Throwdown by comparison, it has seven maps in there (with I assume two Majestic on the way)...but that playlist also features FOUR core gametypes. Throwdown doesn't pad out its pool and the average experience from match to match ends up being much, much more consistent as a result. Of course, it also doesn't have Infinity CTF in there to bring it down, but hey, I can only hope that it gets the cut soon (why does it need to exist when Action Sack does?). The point is, variety for the sake of variety is really dumb. Variety should arise from there being a lot of maps that actually work well with the gametype, not from shoving a square block in a round hole and saying "See? They fit!"

We know 8v8 Objective is coming, and I'm 100% sure that'll include CTF, so we'll see what they do with the other objective playlists after that. Maybe you know more with all those Cartographer secrets, but I certainly hope that they revisit each and every one of the combinations they have and think about whether or not it needs to (read: deserves to) live.

(I do like Doubles! ...but I've also never been able to get CTF to show up in there and rolling the dice on avoiding Infinity is really off-putting.)

Edit: Maybe you can answer this - Why is the version of Simplex in the CTF playlist different from the Throwdown variant? Not having the Railgun and Sticky Detonator makes it sort of less interesting, in my experience.
 

willow ve

Member
CTF playlist is dead to me as long as Complex is in rotation. Throwdown provides a vastly superior CTF experience anyway.

Throwdown just needs to drop deluxe and move up the list to between the Infinity playlists.
 
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