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Halo |OT19| 793 Posts, And None Worth Reading

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Caayn

Caayn

Member
The story behind the flood mode in SA:
Roland: Today I need to talk to you about November 17, 2552 and the Battle of Kenya. The official story is that the covenant glassed the area in a sneak attack, killing thousands before we could stop them. Truth is... we let them do it. The glassing was a last ditch attempt to stop an alien infection called the flood. Had the plan failed...
... the earth would have fallen in hours.

Officially the flood is all gone. Kaput. But if humanity encounters the flood again, Spartans are our first line of defense. You need to know what you could be up against and you need to train to deal with it. I've loaded up a Forerunner themed test location and set it to be infested with Flood. Good luck, Spartan.
Flood in Halo 5 confirmed?

NobleGundam said:
But its as almost as if Bungie didn't want to touch on expanding the Forerunners. Like they'd prefer to keep the mystery untouched but leave us with just the text terminals and nothing more.
Click to expand...
I find it kinda sad that the forerunners aren't the all-powerful mysterious species anymore I also kinda prefer the Bungie approach were they teased us that the Forerunners may have actually been ancient Humans instead of a completely separate race.
Also i think that it went all to fast, and that that's partly to blame. The Forerunners were seen as gods in terms of wisdom and technology. But now? Not anymore. We reserve engineer their tech so incredibly fast that you begin to question if they were even that advanced despite their enormous structures and technical marvels. We've fought their elite fighters in Halo 4 (Prometheans) but they were push-overs outside of being bullet-sponges.
 
M

Mistel

Banned
Caayn said:
The story behind the flood mode in SA:
Roland: Today I need to talk to you about November 17, 2552 and the Battle of Kenya. The official story is that the covenant glassed the area in a sneak attack, killing thousands before we could stop them. Truth is... we let them do it. The glassing was a last ditch attempt to stop an alien infection called the flood. Had the plan failed...
... the earth would have fallen in hours.

Officially the flood is all gone. Kaput. But if humanity encounters the flood again, Spartans are our first line of defense. You need to know what you could be up against and you need to train to deal with it. I've loaded up a Forerunner themed test location and set it to be infested with Flood. Good luck, Spartan.
Flood in Halo 5 confirmed?
Click to expand...

All gone seems like a stretch unless they are referring to the delta halo outbreak. I'm sure there more flood containment facilities and breaches waiting to happen
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Caayn said:
The story behind the flood mode in SA:
Roland: Today I need to talk to you about November 17, 2552 and the Battle of Kenya. The official story is that the covenant glassed the area in a sneak attack, killing thousands before we could stop them. Truth is... we let them do it. The glassing was a last ditch attempt to stop an alien infection called the flood. Had the plan failed...
... the earth would have fallen in hours.

Officially the flood is all gone. Kaput. But if humanity encounters the flood again, Spartans are our first line of defense. You need to know what you could be up against and you need to train to deal with it. I've loaded up a Forerunner themed test location and set it to be infested with Flood. Good luck, Spartan.
Flood in Halo 5 confirmed?

I find it kinda sad that the forerunners aren't the all-powerful mysterious species anymore I also kinda prefer the Bungie approach were they teased us that the Forerunners may have actually been ancient Humans instead of a completely separate race.
Also i think that it went all to fast, and that that's partly to blame. The Forerunners were seen as gods in terms of wisdom and technology. But now? Not anymore. We reserve engineer their tech so incredibly fast that you begin to question if they were even that advanced despite their enormous structures and technical marvels. We've fought their elite fighters in Halo 4 (Prometheans) but they were push-overs outside of being bullet-sponges.
Click to expand...

Huh. Interesting that they blamed the Covenant for Half-Jaw's move. I guess it wouldn't play too well that our allies glassed a nice chunk of Earth.

I was surprised in Halo 4 we didn't hear any mention of Flood containment on Installation 03. They did have those unexplained difficulties grabbing the composer, though...
Stormtrooper said:
All gone seems like a stretch unless they are referring to the delta halo outbreak. I'm sure there more flood containment facilities and breaches waiting to happen
Click to expand...

Key word is officially. I'm sure the decommissioning Lasky talked about in Halo 4 includes disposing of the Flood there as well as making sure the rings can't fire.
 
H

Hindle

Banned
What kind of new weapons do you guys want to see for Halo 5? I've always thought a weapon that allows us to play with the physics would be awesome, kinda Halos equivalent of the gravity gun.
 
K

Karl2177

Member
Havok said:
I agree with them. In my opinion, it was better left as a background mystery that served as context for the cool worlds that players get to explore, and I think the humans-are-forerunner solution they arrived at at the end of Halo 3 is more elegant than the Forerunners-as-a-separate-race-with-a-weird-caste-system-and-oh-also-there's-ANOTHER-ancient-race-we-just-called-them-another-synonym-for-ancestor-oh-well-also-PS-the-flood-aren't-so-mysterious-anymore-I-guess thing that the Halo mythos has morphed into. There's something to be said for having these legendary figures stay, well...a legend when you're trying to make a grandiose world. I loved that about the Halo 3 terminals. You got a glimpse of these amazing things, but you sort of got to make up the surrounding elements on your own. Especially when there is so muchcontext needed to introduce a concept like that into the forefront.

Maybe it's just that I'm totally checked out on the Halo fiction after seeing it go in a direction I just don't really care for, I don't know. All I know is that the in-game and transmedia stories I wanted to see from Halo 4 are very, very different from what it ended up being.
Click to expand...
On one hand, I agree. The Forerunners and Flood were better off being something that was left to the imagination. I'm also in the group that thinks that trying to humanize Master Chief isn't the direction to take him either. But if there was to be another Halo game after 3, what enemies are there to fight? You could fight the Covenant again, but it wouldn't be that much fun. You could fight the Flood again, but it wouldn't be that much fun. You could attempt to introduce another alien race, but what would set them apart from the Covenant? You're kinda forced into a corner with the Forerunners, since they are mentioned and we know that they could have survived with Shield Worlds and what not.

Caayn said:
The story behind the flood mode in SA:
Roland: Today I need to talk to you about November 17, 2552 and the Battle of Kenya. The official story is that the covenant glassed the area in a sneak attack, killing thousands before we could stop them. Truth is... we let them do it. The glassing was a last ditch attempt to stop an alien infection called the flood. Had the plan failed...
... the earth would have fallen in hours.

Officially the flood is all gone. Kaput. But if humanity encounters the flood again, Spartans are our first line of defense. You need to know what you could be up against and you need to train to deal with it. I've loaded up a Forerunner themed test location and set it to be infested with Flood. Good luck, Spartan.
Flood in Halo 5 confirmed?

I find it kinda sad that the forerunners aren't the all-powerful mysterious species anymore I also kinda prefer the Bungie approach were they teased us that the Forerunners may have actually been ancient Humans instead of a completely separate race.
Also i think that it went all to fast, and that that's partly to blame. The Forerunners were seen as gods in terms of wisdom and technology. But now? Not anymore. We reserve engineer their tech so incredibly fast that you begin to question if they were even that advanced despite their enormous structures and technical marvels. We've fought their elite fighters in Halo 4 (Prometheans) but they were push-overs outside of being bullet-sponges.
Click to expand...

SA stuff:
War Games simulation cop-out again... Even if it is the simulator, they couldn't have gathered enough info about the Flood to know how they work. The Forerunners took centuries to study the Flood, and the time between Flood release on Halo 1 and the Ark firing is like a month or two.

As for the Forerunners, two things:
1) The beings we fight in Halo 4 aren't Promethean Warriors, but instead robot Promethean Knights. I'd be willing to bet that the Warriors would be a much more formidable foe. That being said...
2) If you add an enemy that is wildly different from every other enemy, you lose a bit of what make Halo a sandbox game. When this happens you either end up with something like a Halo 3 Scarab or something like Tartarus. The Scarab works because it is an addition to the playspace. Tartarus, the Prophet of Regret, and Guilty Spark don't work as well, because they are basically enemies with a giant invisible health bar. If the Warriors were to ever exist in the Halo sandbox, they would probably be like the latter, which weren't as fun.
 
H

Havok

Member
Karl2177 said:
On one hand, I agree. The Forerunners and Flood were better off being something that was left to the imagination. I'm also in the group that thinks that trying to humanize Master Chief isn't the direction to take him either. But if there was to be another Halo game after 3, what enemies are there to fight? You could fight the Covenant again, but it wouldn't be that much fun. You could fight the Flood again, but it wouldn't be that much fun. You could attempt to introduce another alien race, but what would set them apart from the Covenant? You're kinda forced into a corner with the Forerunners, since they are mentioned and we know that they could have survived with Shield Worlds and what not.
Click to expand...
Sure...but none of that was prevented by going with the Forerunners as an active antagonist, though. You still fought a watered-down Covenant faction, and all that was gained were three enemy classes that were more or less just robot analogues to Grunts, Elites, and Engineers with some interesting abilities attached.

I think you can still make the Covenant a fun enemy. Give some of the Elite bigshots the Knight teleportation ability, expand on Engineers to make them more than an AOE Overshield generator, and generally just expand on the action verb pool that each enemy has at their disposal. There are more than enough ways to expand the abilities of the huge roster of enemy classes that the Covenant brought to the table to keep the action fresh while maintaining that really unique identity each of them has. I think yeah, you eventually need to introduce new enemies to keep it all fresh. Even then, if you're looking for enemies of the Forerunner variety, the series has already introduced autonomous Forerunner enemies with Sentinels and Enforcers, both of which were completely ignored outside of a couple of noncombat Sentinel cameos.
 
M

Mistel

Banned
Fuchsdh said:
I was surprised in Halo 4 we didn't hear any mention of Flood containment on Installation 03. They did have those unexplained difficulties grabbing the composer, though...


Key word is officially. I'm sure the decommissioning Lasky talked about in Halo 4 includes disposing of the Flood there as well as making sure the rings can't fire.
Click to expand...

I wonder if their taking a vault Tec style approach with the installations,
experiment on social changes and other environmental changes on population
. This might explain the lack of quarantine failsafe's apart from the space thing and sentinels.

Could the ONI team been composed by it?
 
ElRenoRaven

ElRenoRaven

Member
So I thought Spartan Assault was coming out tomorrow? I could swear they said the 24th and not the 23rd. Oh well I'll take it a day early. Anyone wanna play feel free to add me.
 
M

Madness

Member
I thought with the humans ARE forerunner story, that we would have had an entirely new villain/race emerge.

I mean the Ark was at the edge of the galaxy right? Further than the Covenant and Humanity had traveled.

Imagine if instead of having this forerunner human ancient war, split up humans into races thing etc. There was an ancient Forerunner war against someone else. A war they had before the flood even. And they chased them out of the milky way galaxy. The destruction of the Ark drew their attention, and because humans are forerunners/descendants they take revenge on them instead. And since they left before the flood arrived, they don't know what it is, and possibly release them again. They also get Brutes on their side, promise revenge against elites.
 
R

Ragnarok Flames

Banned
Madness said:
I thought with the humans ARE forerunner story, that we would have had an entirely new villain/race emerge.

I mean the Ark was at the edge of the galaxy right? Further than the Covenant and Humanity had traveled.

Imagine if instead of having this forerunner human ancient war, split up humans into races thing etc. There was an ancient Forerunner war against someone else. A war they had before the flood even. And they chased them out of the milky way galaxy. The destruction of the Ark drew their attention, and because humans are forerunners/descendants they take revenge on them instead. And since they left before the flood arrived, they don't know what it is, and possibly release them again. They also get Brutes on their side, promise revenge against elites.
Click to expand...

The Humans were the next in line to inherit the Mantle, They are NOT however THE Forerunners. they (ancient Humanity) co-existed with the San'Shyuum and Forerunners. but Ancient Humans and the Forerunners were and are completely different species.
 
Caayn

Caayn

Member
Madness said:
I thought with the humans ARE forerunner story, that we would have had an entirely new villain/race emerge.

I mean the Ark was at the edge of the galaxy right? Further than the Covenant and Humanity had traveled.

Imagine if instead of having this forerunner human ancient war, split up humans into races thing etc. There was an ancient Forerunner war against someone else. A war they had before the flood even. And they chased them out of the milky way galaxy. The destruction of the Ark drew their attention, and because humans are forerunners/descendants they take revenge on them instead. And since they left before the flood arrived, they don't know what it is, and possibly release them again. They also get Brutes on their side, promise revenge against elites.
Click to expand...
That would be a really interesting story line. It sounds more interesting that what we currently have.
 
M

Madness

Member
Ragnarok Flames said:
The Humans were the next in line to inherit the Mantle, They are NOT however THE Forerunners. they (ancient Humanity) co-existed with the San'Shyuum and Forerunners. but Ancient Humans and the Forerunners were and are completely different species.
Click to expand...

Uh, I know. I said that's what I kind of wanted after Halo 3. Instead, they basically said ancient humanity got too strong, expanded too fast, and were running from the Flood, the forerunners defeated humans, split them back up or something.

What I was implying was, I liked it when we didn't know anything about the forerunners and the subtle hints throughout the first three games implied Humans were the direct descendants of forerunners, not because of some inherit the mantle, protect the universe bullshit but because they had forerunner DNA and ancestry. I always thought that's why the Prophets hated humanity so much, why they would never accept them. For example, like the movie Prometheus in a sense.

Edit: Most of all this ancient humanity, war, mantle, forerunner stuff comes after Halo 3 correct? I never really followed it much, but I'm pretty sure this was all made up by 343 to reintroduce forerunners and take their reclaimer trilogy forward.
 
S

Shadders

Member
Hey HaloGAF, hows things?

I've not been around here for a few months, I'm sure you were all worried about where I'd gotten too. >_>

I've had a whirlwind few months - had a baby, moved house, got an awesome new job, had to move house again (and towns this time), all in the space of about 12 weeks.

It's been crazy, barely had time to get online, haven't played any Halo at all. So.. what's been going on with you guys?
 
N

Nebula

Member
Shadders said:
Hey HaloGAF, hows things?

I've not been around here for a few months, I'm sure you were all worried about where I'd gotten too. >_>

I've had a whirlwind few months - had a baby, moved house, got an awesome new job, had to move house again (and towns this time), all in the space of about 12 weeks.

It's been crazy, barely had time to get online, haven't played any Halo at all. So.. what's been going on with you guys?
Click to expand...

Halo is asleep.
 
M

Mistel

Banned
Shadders said:
Hey HaloGAF, hows things?

I've not been around here for a few months, I'm sure you were all worried about where I'd gotten too. >_>

I've had a whirlwind few months - had a baby, moved house, got an awesome new job, had to move house again (and towns this time), all in the space of about 12 weeks.

It's been crazy, barely had time to get online, haven't played any Halo at all. So.. what's been going on with you guys?
Click to expand...

Congrats on the baby and new job as for here the general trend is all of us don't like halo 4 and juices is banned so is waher i think that covers it. Also where nostalgic about a balanced halo game as well
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Shadders said:
Hey HaloGAF, hows things?

I've not been around here for a few months, I'm sure you were all worried about where I'd gotten too. >_>

I've had a whirlwind few months - had a baby, moved house, got an awesome new job, had to move house again (and towns this time), all in the space of about 12 weeks.

It's been crazy, barely had time to get online, haven't played any Halo at all. So.. what's been going on with you guys?
Click to expand...

Congrats! Halo's been quiet. Probably going to run another customs night in January though.

Karl2177 said:
SA stuff:
War Games simulation cop-out again... Even if it is the simulator, they couldn't have gathered enough info about the Flood to know how they work. The Forerunners took centuries to study the Flood, and the time between Flood release on Halo 1 and the Ark firing is like a month or two.
Click to expand...

Well, if we want to be nitpicky, Spartan Assault doesn't take place until years after the events of Halo CE (the game is framed as Spartans taking part in historical simulations from 2553, but considering it's set on the Infinity and Roland is the AI it can be presumed this is closer to Halo 4's timeframe than Halo 3's.)

As for knowledge of the Flood, they've clearly been on Installation 03 for some time by the events of Halo 4, they've been back to the Ark, and we know ONI was busy experimenting with the Flood right after learning of their existence. I think it's safe to say that the Flood is a known quantity—even if they haven't developed very effective measures to fight it yet.

(I do like their comment that the Spartans are their best option though because a) it's true, and b) it reminds me of how 343GS was telling the Chief in the first game that while his MJOLNIR was a decent Flood defense, he should really upgrade his suit from Class 2 to Class 12. I still want to know what a Class 12 combat skin looks like.)
 
S

Shadders

Member
Stormtrooper said:
Congrats on the baby and new job as for here the general trend is all of us don't like halo 4 and juices is banned so is waher i think that covers it. Also where nostalgic about a balanced halo game as well
Click to expand...

Oof.. are they perma banned?

Have there been any major updates to Halo 4 matchmaking lately? Is it still an unbalanced power weapon bonanza?
 
T

tj hazuki

Member
belucheez said:
I believe there is a problem with twitch lately were you pretty much have to have your stream on a 1 minute delay in order for it to encode everything fully. Either that or your internet is not good enough to handle a stream or you don't have all the bitrate/quality stuff set up correctly. As for the echo, you'll need to mute the stream if you have your stream page loaded up because the computer will just take anything it hears on the computer and spit it back out to the stream, causing the echo. If it isn't from a stream page opened up, then I have no idea what is wrong. Not sure what you mean by video player repeating itself
Click to expand...


I have my video bitrate set at 525; what should I set it as normally?
 
M

Mistel

Banned
Shadders said:
Oof.. are they perma banned?

Have there been any major updates to Halo 4 matchmaking lately? Is it still an unbalanced power weapon bonanza?
Click to expand...

I think they might have been i'm not sure though. Matchmaking yeah not much improvement classic game types are alright but with the maps available to us it really doesn't work, also few people know how to use a carbine or BR it's bewildering.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Shadders said:
Oof.. are they perma banned?

Have there been any major updates to Halo 4 matchmaking lately? Is it still an unbalanced power weapon bonanza?
Click to expand...

You can find Halo 3 flavored gametypes (no AAs or personal ordnance, BR starts) or Halo Reach-style gametypes in addition to to the launch Infinity gametypes which have been greatly reduced in frequency and is now just a voting option as opposed to its own playlist.

Most of the power weapon bonanza gametypes have been reduced, although with rotational playlists you might not be able to play them in matchmaking (Dominion had almost all its power weapon resupplies dropped, but it's been rotated out as of two or three weeks ago.) You can find a listing of all the rotational playlists planned and community playdates here: https://blogs.halowaypoint.com/post/2013/10/02/Matchmaking-Playlist-Calendar.aspx

Ricochet, if you haven't played it, is a lot of fun, especially with a team.

Race is back as a supported gametype.

That's about most of the updates.
 
A

aj1467

Member
Fuchsdh said:
Well, if we want to be nitpicky, Spartan Assault doesn't take place until years after the events of Halo CE (the game is framed as Spartans taking part in historical simulations from 2553, but considering it's set on the Infinity and Roland is the AI it can be presumed this is closer to Halo 4's timeframe than Halo 3's.)
Click to expand...


I decided to check Roland's page on Halopedia. He was put into service on December 5th, 2557. So the time frame for the simulation part of SA is post Halo 4 (July 2557).


The what franchises will falter thread is making me feel depressed. Damn.
 
M

Mistel

Banned
I'm going to hop on halo 4 at about 17:00 GMT if anyone wants to play I fancy some rocket race, as I've not played since VIP in three and a bit of BTB GT: deadly bl0ss0m
 
T

Trey

Member
Madness said:
I thought with the humans ARE forerunner story, that we would have had an entirely new villain/race emerge.

I mean the Ark was at the edge of the galaxy right? Further than the Covenant and Humanity had traveled.

Imagine if instead of having this forerunner human ancient war, split up humans into races thing etc. There was an ancient Forerunner war against someone else. A war they had before the flood even. And they chased them out of the milky way galaxy. The destruction of the Ark drew their attention, and because humans are forerunners/descendants they take revenge on them instead. And since they left before the flood arrived, they don't know what it is, and possibly release them again. They also get Brutes on their side, promise revenge against elites.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much what happened anyways.
 
D

daedalius

Member
1517396_10201021813483289_1592478506_n.jpg
 
D

Demoncarnotaur

Member
Caayn said:
The story behind the flood mode in SA:
Roland: Today I need to talk to you about November 17, 2552 and the Battle of Kenya. The official story is that the covenant glassed the area in a sneak attack, killing thousands before we could stop them. Truth is... we let them do it. The glassing was a last ditch attempt to stop an alien infection called the flood. Had the plan failed...
... the earth would have fallen in hours.

Officially the flood is all gone. Kaput. But if humanity encounters the flood again, Spartans are our first line of defense. You need to know what you could be up against and you need to train to deal with it. I've loaded up a Forerunner themed test location and set it to be infested with Flood. Good luck, Spartan.
Flood in Halo 5 confirmed?
Click to expand...

I know I am ready to see the Flood comeback.

If Halo 5 features the following for enemies..

'Covenant': revamped to feel less like the unified Covenant of the past, with a full variety of species. Perhaps lets each species culture slip into their armor as they no longer have the Covenants full might to arm them.

Forerunners/Prometheans: Rebuilt- take the good, throw away the bad. More variety, and less robot like. Also, vehicles.

Flood: familiar, yet with more variety.

...it could have a really interesting dynamic. That said, fighting the Covenant so frequently in Halo 4 felt cheap.. even with the books it doesn't fully make sense post Halo 3. If we are going to fight against the 'Storm' faction then we should fight alongside other factions. At least give us some unlikely allies, even if it is filled with tension and mistrust.
 
T

Trey

Member
Ragnarok Flames said:
How do you figure?
Click to expand...

The Forerunners warred with the Precursors because the mantle was going to be given to humanity. Defeated them. The latter retreated from the galaxy. Humanity came up. Forerunners warred with them. Precursors came back on some "fuck all y'all" shit. Humanity got devolved, Forerunners took that loss, Precursors got contained until the events of Halo CE whereupon humanity assumed the mantle.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Stormtrooper said:
15 days old wow i though he was a couple of months maybe. yeah it might be a while hopefully he likes halo though :p

Tashi's fireteam was killed of in spartan ops :(
Click to expand...

I approve of the Laura Dern avvy.

Smart, cute, gets her hands dirty and fights velociraptors? Ain't no common woman.

In terms of the Flood, assuming they come back in Halo 5 (they'll come back *eventually*, the question is when), what would you like to see changed for their gameplay?

I appreciated the insta-convert abilities of them in Halo 3, but I felt that dual-wielding and melee had the effect of making them feel more disposable and weak. I liked the tension of not having melee as a fallback if they got too close, and I appreciate the tension of having your allies susceptible.

Grenade sticks should kill the Infection forms inside of the carriers.

I'm not opposed to the pure forms returning, but I think the ranged forms were just not fun to fight. Make them more mobile and weaker, rather than semi-invulnerable stationary turrets. Maybe giving them another form besides the stalkers who mostly just seemed to get in the way during speedruns.

More multi-faction fights would definitely spice them up, but obviously that requires some story allowances.

I'd love it if they went further with Flood Mode and combined it with Reach's Generator Defense so that the Alpha Zombs have something like an arsenal of Flood carriers and infection forms to provide cover. (It would be great if they left regular Infection for customs too though.) Maybe tie "reinforcements" into an ordnance-like system where kills give you more options for stronger enemies to drop on your foes.
 
R

Ragnarok Flames

Banned
Trey said:
The Forerunners warred with the Precursors because the mantle was going to be given to humanity. Defeated them. The latter retreated from the galaxy. Humanity came up. Forerunners warred with them. Precursors came back on some "fuck all y'all" shit. Humanity got devolved, Forerunners took that loss, Precursors got contained until the events of Halo CE whereupon humanity assumed the mantle.
Click to expand...

when did the bold happen? The flood are not technically precursors, that is explained in Silentium by the Primordial/gravemind.
 
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