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[IHaveIce]

Are you for real?
No of course I can't do it, but I'm not a paid developer at one of the boggest franchises and one of the biggest publishers.

But I'm a yearlong gamer and follower of the franchise and can say what they should focus on and doing right.

And critic can be done without being as good as someone in the same thing.. hell most professionel critics aren't able to develop, cook or paint something.

Don't worry they will continue to make halo even if some say bad things you don't have to be on the knees the whole time

 

[Dirtbag]

It doesn't matter how extensive your knowledge of software/programming/project management/professional organizations/etc is. You haven't made a videogame, specifically, therefore fuck off.

Shut this forum down fellahs

 

[The Henery]

Armchair devs should make Halo 5. "We would have added colors to the armor, but we have no idea what box to click for that. It is just a check box right?"



It was white in Reach right? Must be Bungie's fault then.

The X was white with the players call sign in big red font beneath it. It also directed to the X when the respawning player was off-screen.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

You heard it here folks. All game criticism is moot until said critics become developers. Game journalists now out of jobs.

I think you are taking the point way too literally. There's no issue with criticism, it's more the "I want X, how hard can X be to put in a game?" Generally it's harder than you think, or there is a reason for it.

I, for one, want a flying Batmobile that is full of Game Fuel in Halo 4. How hard can that be?

 

[Hypertrooper]

The most people don't play Halo 4 anymore. Or don't care about Spartan Ops, but I did play the first Episode of SpOps Solo alone on Legendary today and I have to say to the people who think Spartan Ops don't be improved or still the same in second half: what did you guys play? First episode is unplayable on Legendary for Solo player, but the 6th episode was at least. Yeah. Got the legendary episode achievement! yeah!

 

[reggie]

.

 

[JackHerer]

I am choosing to believe that this X business is a bug until I hear otherwise. If this is by design than it might as well not be in the game. The X is on screen for literally less than 2 seconds.

It needs to be there until the teammate respawns and perhaps longer in Infinity Game types with instant respawn enabled. A minimum of 5 seconds.

 

[Obscured]

Seems like criticism is valid, but the assumption that fixes are simple and obvious is more the issue. A lot of criticism I see has a lot to do with hurt feelings or perceived slights, and there is a lot more that seems well thought out and an explanation of how something isn't what it should have been.

In my experience with red X's previous was that "on my X" was a poor callout (one that I was frequently guilty of and attempted to rectify by actually learning the generally accepted callouts) and was cause for derision, so was somewhat surprised for the great support for them. Having said that, I still find them helpful though and was glad to hear they were coming back. Typically I try to have some idea of where my teammates are because as has been noted before teamshot is incredibly important as the series has progressed, so a quick "X" probably will work for me, but I haven't had a chance to jump in and see how it feels.

I'm more inclined to listen to Tashi though when he says it is too brief, just based on previous posts he has made where points seem fairly thought out.

To me a valid criticism is "The X's do not have enough contrast and disappear to quickly to provide any useful information" and even "They should have had this at launch." The first because is makes it clear what the issue is, the second to point out what priorities might be important for future iterations, even though I can be satisfied that they are attempting to continue to support the game and understand that not everything is easy. Easy things are already done.

"They are dumb and everything is dumb and this especially is dumb because it is so easy to do" is not valid criticism - though can be entertaining to read on occasion - because it gets into the how, not the what or why. If we can affect the quality of the game, than yes I want access to the how, but typically I am more interested in the What is working or not working and here is Why it is important to me.

I'm not making a statement on how people should post, just trying to point out what I see happening.

 

[YourExWife]

You ever made a movie? Become a chef? Played an instrument? Made a song? I could go on.

I understood your point. I was adapting it somewhat to my own situation. As in, I haven't worked with their specific engine or codebase, but to argue that changing the color of something ISN'T a trivial thing to do doesn't sit right with me. Granted, my complaint earlier wasn't about the color. I already knew it wasn't red since the PAX-goers said it was white. My issue was the non-static implementation and the short-lived existence.

If this is by design than it might as well not be in the game.

Basically this. If it wasn't ready, don't release it. If it's by design, don't release it.

 

[reggie]

.

 

[Plywood]

It's not even about how hard it might've been to implement the X's. Its why were they absent in the first place?

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

I think the point is maybe they should have thought about it before they released a half finished game out the door. Hmm?

It's not even about how hard it might've been to implement the X's in the first place. Its why were they absent in the first place?

This is the better question. I wonder what the reasoning was. Did it affect the engine performance after the visual upgrades somehow? Was it because of Join in Progress?

I'd guess the addition of join in progress caused the X to be on screen for such a short time that it was better to remove it entirely. Now that they have catered to the fans the included non-JiP gametypes they have to reassess the X situation.

 

[Korosenai]

Tashi, did you help pick these maps for the Forge Community FFA playlist? If so, good job. It's a great playlist, and Edifice is a lot of fun.

 

[FUBAR McDangles]

I was playing some xbox with some high school buddies the other night and we got onto the subject of Halo 4.

We all agreed. The Didact was badfucking ass. Why didn't we see him more than like, twice?

 

[reggie]

.

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Oh, a gif! My argument is now invalid!

Man you need to lighten up a bit.

 

[reggie]

.

 

[xxjuicesxx]

I think you are taking the point way too literally. There's no issue with criticism, it's more the "I want X, how hard can X be to put in a game?" Generally it's harder than you think, or there is a reason for it.

I, for one, want a flying Batmobile that is full of Game Fuel in Halo 4. How hard can that be?

But the X is there its just white and fades too fast. So yes lets even say it was hard to add that X. Then congrats 343 you accomplished a milestone achievement and should be applauded, once you get them to stick out and not fade so fast. Those are probably off-values or something. Its like the person who coded them doesnt play enough Halo to understand why we wanted them.

I dunno I'm talking out my ass but still you get the point. The x's are there.

Furthermore if it is so hard to add stuff like that, shouldnt they look at their foundation and ask "why is it so hard to change our features, surely we could make our game more flexible and have higher adaption?"

 

[Deadly Cyclone]

Oh, god, we've become Plywood. Quick, someone post a GoT Dany gif.

 

[YourExWife]

Oh, a gif! My argument is now invalid!

Man you need to lighten up a bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plz-bhcHryc

 

[reggie]

.

 

[CreateNowSleepLater]

Can you add red Xs to Halo PC? I mean, it's basically the same engine and we've all been playing the game for over 10 years.

Not really a valid argument. The game they inherited and expanded upon already had red X's. They removed them. Most likely because it cocked up the screen too much with all the other bullshit all over the screen.

 

[YourExWife]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=okaNIRTXvV0#t=12s

As this youtube exchange could go on indefinitely, allow me to end it right now by saying:

I DINAUGHT HIT HER!
IZ NAUT TRUE!
I DIN'T DO IT!
I DID NAAAAAUUGHT!


oh hi, Mark.

 

[Madness]

No one doubts for a second it was hard to bring the X back. I'd have thought it would be near impossible this late after launch.

The question is, why were they removed. What possible reason was there to remove something that has been so integral to combat for the past 9 years?

And the fact they are brought back, means they realized just how much fans wanted it.

This leads to my final point, was there no one at 343 who thought removing X on death is a bad decision? You'd think Frankie, Vic and others would have noticed or complained. Maybe even testers? I mean it literally took me only 4 matches to see there was no X on death for teammates.

 

[Mace Griffin]

X's weren't removed for any perk. The perk you're talking about works nothing like a death x.

At pax, Kevin mentioned how insanely hard it was for them to add the x's in. Probably the reason they weren't in the game initially and why they're so bugged now.

This is hilarious. Modders working in their bedroom are able to completely change textures, lighting, physics, GUI's etc etc of numerous games but a AAA game developer such as 343 with a huge amount of resources at their disposal finds it insanely difficult to implement death x's. I'm sorry but that is just ridiculous.

 

[YourExWife]

This is hilarious. Modders working in their bedroom are able to completely change textures, lighting, physics, GUI's etc etc of numerous games but a AAA game developer such as 343 with a huge amount of resources at their disposal finds it insanely difficult to implement death x's. I'm sorry but that is just ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8b5Ru-XUww

 

[Garrett 2U]

Why does it seem like Gears has so much more resources allocated towards it than Halo does?

Gears of War 3 came out less than 2 years ago, and it had ~8 title updates and 4 DLC packs.
Gears of War Judgement came out a week ago and already has a Title Update, free DLC pack, and a new game mode.

I mean look at this update they released for Judgement.
TITLE UPDATE PATCH NOTES BEFORE THE UPDATE IS EVEN RELEASED!
DLC PLAYLISTS GIVES DOUBLE XP!
!!!!DEDICATED SERVER!!!!! IMPROVEMENTS!
USER INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS! <--- THEY CAN CHANGE THE UI!

I mean, COME ON!

/salt
i<3halo

 

[NOKYARD]

Tashi, did you help pick these maps for the Forge Community FFA playlist? If so, good job. It's a great playlist, and Edifice is a lot of fun.

The CCs selected those 8 from nearly 200 entries.

Tashi helped us cull the good looking well forged maps that played like shit.

If we could each kill him more than once per game the map was tossed.

 

[TheOddOne]

Excuse me, but I haven't followed this thread lately. So call me out if those are old news:

Polygon has a GDC coverage and they have two Halo 4-related articles online. The first one is about Forward Unto Dawn and how 343i made FUD with a 'threadbare' budget.

I think the most of us aren't really interested in that article, but more in the second one. Remember the slide Duncan posted here yesterday? Polygon put a summary of that talk online. Scott Werner told the audience how they created the Prometheans and what they learnt from them. Polygon gives a bit clarity of the last few notes from the Postmortem slide. You can read it here.

Thanks for posting.

343 also created three more characters that didn't make the game, but which Warner said 343 would "probably" get to at some point.

A video showing the "first fully-formed gameplay prototype for Halo 4" dating from about May 2010 in which an early Knight prototype transformed to into a ball reminiscent of Metroid. 343 learned that it needed to "reduce the scope" of what it was up to because the interrelating systems were difficult to program to work together.

That's when he studio decided to pare back the original six Promethean enemy classes to the three that shipped with Halo 4. 343 also cut many of the prototyped abilities, which eventually began to make the enemies "a little bit of a Swiss Army Knife." It also helped that the studio had begun to flesh out the Promethean backstory, which provided natural boundaries that exceeded the early ball form.

 

[wwm0nkey]

Why does it seem like Gears has so much more resources allocated towards it than Halo does?

Gears of War 3 came out less than 2 years ago, and it had ~8 title updates and 4 DLC packs.
Gears of War Judgement came out a week ago and already has a Title Update, free DLC pack, and a new game mode.

I mean look at this update they released for Judgement.
TITLE UPDATE PATCH NOTES BEFORE THE UPDATE IS EVEN RELEASED!
DLC PLAYLISTS GIVES DOUBLE XP!
!!!!DEDICATED SERVER!!!!! IMPROVEMENTS!
USER INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS! <--- THEY CAN CHANGE THE UI!

I mean, COME ON!

/salt
i<3halo

Doesn't look like they are changing the UI.....

 

[Pop]

Why does it seem like Gears has so much more resources allocated towards it than Halo does?

Gears of War 3 came out less than 2 years ago, and it had ~8 title updates and 4 DLC packs.
Gears of War Judgement came out a week ago and already has a Title Update, free DLC pack, and a new game mode.

I mean look at this update they released for Judgement.
TITLE UPDATE PATCH NOTES BEFORE THE UPDATE IS EVEN RELEASED!
DLC PLAYLISTS GIVES DOUBLE XP!
!!!!DEDICATED SERVER!!!!! IMPROVEMENTS!
USER INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS! <--- THEY CAN CHANGE THE UI!

I mean, COME ON!

/salt
i<3halo

haha

We will never know.

 

[Rev3rb]

This is hilarious. Modders working in their bedroom are able to completely change textures, lighting, physics, GUI's etc etc of numerous games but a AAA game developer such as 343 with a huge amount of resources at their disposal finds it insanely difficult to implement death x's. I'm sorry but that is just ridiculous.

To be fair, most of these mods can fuck up other parts of the game. Implementing something new into code or changing even small things can cause bugs galore.
And we all know 343i doesn't want anymore bugs showing up in their game. I'm guessing this is what added to the difficulty.

 

[Pop]

but which Warner said 343 would "probably" get to at some point.

The story of 343i life, right here

 

[Syphon Filter]

Had no idea x's were a big deal for people.

 

[Garrett 2U]

Doesn't look like they are changing the UI.....

well there is this "You will now see XP tallies between matches."
probably as complicated as adding a visible ingame rank.

Had no idea x's were a big deal for people.

they are super helpful when new forge maps are added to the game every week and you don't know the callouts for them.
or if your friends hardly play Halo 4, and you decide to hop on, and nobody knows the callouts.

 

[Orochinagis]

Had no idea x's were a big deal for people.

X's are on the mini map and you have indications of your teammates getting shot, still some wanted a proper or more obvious indicator. next time they will add killcams, oh wait they did and failed.

 

[Silly.Mikey]

It doesn't matter how extensive your knowledge of software/programming/project management/professional organizations/etc is. You haven't made a videogame, specifically, therefore fuck off.

You know what tho, this is kinda true. Before i went in games industry, i thought every company was one big happy family and everyone could just input ideas on the games and so on. But then you get into the games industry and you notice how big corporations are run like big corporations. Theres schedules to respect, planning of features dlc, etc that is done way before people can even imagine, and sometimes you have people who don't play shooters who are leads of projects on shooter games. So you can just imagine how that turns out.

One thing i will give Bungie, is they they "seemed" to have a good chemistry over there. They seemed open to ideas coming from pretty much anyone there. Or at least, they'd listen to them.

343 i get the impression that its very corporate. And some features and such dont seem as they were AS thought out as when Bungie did the games. Things like X when you die might seem like minute little things, but god damn do you notice how important it was when its gone.

This is what imo, 343 need to really work on. Thinking things through more thoroughly the next time. Little things might not be so little.

 

[Fracas]

Just finished Infinite.

Mixed feelings overall. Feels like Bioshock trying to appeal to the mass market; the last couple of hours are a straight up military shooter (plot stuff aside). Presentation and dialogue are great. Art direction is some of the best in the industry, as come to be expected from Irrational. Rapture>Columbia, especially in terms of main characters.

Bioshock>>>>Bioshock Infinite&#8805;Bioshock 2

 

[Caja 117]

Seems like criticism is valid, but the assumption that fixes are simple and obvious is more the issue. A lot of criticism I see has a lot to do with hurt feelings or perceived slights, and there is a lot more that seems well thought out and an explanation of how something isn't what it should have been.

In my experience with red X's previous was that "on my X" was a poor callout (one that I was frequently guilty of and attempted to rectify by actually learning the generally accepted callouts) and was cause for derision, so was somewhat surprised for the great support for them. Having said that, I still find them helpful though and was glad to hear they were coming back. Typically I try to have some idea of where my teammates are because as has been noted before teamshot is incredibly important as the series has progressed, so a quick "X" probably will work for me, but I haven't had a chance to jump in and see how it feels.

I'm more inclined to listen to Tashi though when he says it is too brief, just based on previous posts he has made where points seem fairly thought out.

To me a valid criticism is "The X's do not have enough contrast and disappear to quickly to provide any useful information" and even "They should have had this at launch." The first because is makes it clear what the issue is, the second to point out what priorities might be important for future iterations, even though I can be satisfied that they are attempting to continue to support the game and understand that not everything is easy. Easy things are already done.

"They are dumb and everything is dumb and this especially is dumb because it is so easy to do" is not valid criticism - though can be entertaining to read on occasion - because it gets into the how, not the what or why. If we can affect the quality of the game, than yes I want access to the how, but typically I am more interested in the What is working or not working and here is Why it is important to me.

I'm not making a statement on how people should post, just trying to point out what I see happening.

Yeah , actually any callout you made after Getting killed (unless You were Assassinated) was a bad callout. But the x is a good indicator when you are playing with a team that doesn't use Mic.

I actually would prefer faster.kill times, bring back 4sk precision weapons while making the strafe faster, than having the red x.

 

[TCKaos]

Reinstalling Halo PC right now.

Holy shit 60FPS halo.

Play CE with Opensauce. It's the shit.

We need to get some Halo CE customs going eventually. Imagine HaloGAF playing Halo 1 on Sanctuary and The Pit with the CE Magnum and Halo 2 BR. Shit would be cray.

 

[Orochinagis]

Just finished Infinite.

Mixed feelings overall. Feels like Bioshock trying to appeal to the mass market; the last couple of hours are a straight up military shooter (plot stuff aside). Presentation and dialogue are great. Art direction is some of the best in the industry, as come to be expected from Irrational. Rapture>Columbia, especially in terms of main characters.

Bioshock>>>>Bioshock Infinite&#8805;Bioshock 2

There are still audiologs? I love them in Bioshock 1, in Bioshock 2 were pretty simple.

 

[Fracas]

There are still audiologs? I love them in Bioshock 1, in Bioshock 2 were pretty simple.

Yep. I really enjoyed them

 

[Fuchsdh]

Just finished Infinite.

Mixed feelings overall. Feels like Bioshock trying to appeal to the mass market; the last couple of hours are a straight up military shooter (plot stuff aside). Presentation and dialogue are great. Art direction is some of the best in the industry, as come to be expected from Irrational. Rapture>Columbia, especially in terms of main characters.

Bioshock>>>>Bioshock Infinite&#8805;Bioshock 2

What about NPCs/atmosphere? Rapture always bugged me because it felt too empty, especially when you consider in the game's fiction that the civil war is still supposed to be going down.

 

[YourExWife]

You know what tho, this is kinda true. Before i went in games industry, i thought every company was one big happy family and everyone could just input ideas on the games and so on. But then you get into the games industry and you notice how big corporations are run like big corporations. Theres schedules to respect, planning of features dlc, etc that is done way before people can even imagine, and sometimes you have people who don't play shooters who are leads of projects on shooter games. So you can just imagine how that turns out.

One thing i will give Bungie, is they they "seemed" to have a good chemistry over there. They seemed open to ideas coming from pretty much anyone there. Or at least, they'd listen to them.

343 i get the impression that its very corporate. And some features and such dont seem as they as AS thought out as when Bungie did the games. Things like X when you die might seem like minute little things, but god damn do you notice how important it was when its gone.

This is what imo, 343 need to really work on. Thinking things through more thoroughly the next time. Little things might not be so little.

Seriously, you might have misunderstood. I know exactly all those things I listed. I have and am currently working on bigger, more expensive projects than Halo 4, for a much bigger organization than 343.

My point is that it is somewhat insulting every time the "you don't know shit" argument comes up around here. Just like it was insulting when Frankie implied that customizable controls would cause more button glitches. As if it were the specific buttons that caused the issues, as opposed to the in-game commands themselves.

 

[Sr Kitsune]

So... has this already been posted?

Is there any Destiny thread?

_

You could start a thread about the panel coming up in an hour. And then post that there in the OP

Looks like there is one

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=531294

Thanks!

 

[Silly.Mikey]

Seriously, you might have misunderstood. I know exactly all those things I listed. I have and am currently working on bigger, more expensive projects than Halo 4, for a much bigger organization than 343.

My point is that it is somewhat insulting every time the "you don't know shit" argument comes up around here. Just like it was insulting when Frankie implied that customizable controls would cause more button glitches. As if it were the specific buttons that caused the issues, as opposed to the in-game commands themselves.

Ah i get it. Well ya, if you mean people on forums in general then ya, some people might know for sure. But having worked in the industry gives you a much better idea in the end.

edit: like those people who say "just take ordinances out of the game" as if they can just patch that out within the month without causing 1000 more fok ups. Basically asking for a complete game redesign, oh but do it right and super fast. Ya, the whole studio is just waiting on the neogaf forum feedback before moving onto the next project. I always laugh when i see comments like that in here.

 

[Tashi]

So... has this already been posted?
Is there any Destiny thread?

You could start a thread about the panel coming up in an hour. And then post that there in the OP

Looks like there is one

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=531294

 

[StalkerUKCG]

here at GDC the company has announced a new set of programming APIs to make the process even easier for game developers. The new APIs allow developers to send YouTube a live stream of video coming from a game, and YouTube will then transcode the video in real time, providing the appropriate version for various YouTube users. The company has offered similar features to some partners in the past &#8212; YouTube touted BlackOps 2 as a particularly popular example &#8212; but the new platform will expand the number of developers that can participate, as well as take the live video streams beyond just the desktop: they'll now be available for Android and iOS users as well.

needed

 

[User 73706]

Play CE with Opensauce. It's the shit.

We need to get some Halo CE customs going eventually. Imagine HaloGAF playing Halo 1 on Sanctuary and The Pit with the CE Magnum and Halo 2 BR. Shit would be cray.

What did you do to get that motion blur? My computer's a dinosaur and PC looks absolutely atrocious right now.

 

[StalkerUKCG]

What did you do to get that motion blur? My computer's a dinosaur and PC looks absolutely atrocious right now.

motion blur is a open sauce feature