Franklinator
Member
Nah, it seems more like small campaign missions than Firefight to me. I'm pretty sure that there's some CG (if that makes a difference to you, but it's cool to me) and you're traveling rather than staying in a set environment.
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Halo |OT8| A Salt on the Control Room
- Thread starter The Librarian
- Start date
Nah, it seems more like small campaign missions than Firefight to me. I'm pretty sure that there's some CG (if that makes a difference to you, but it's cool to me) and you're traveling rather than staying in a set environment.
We got 7-9 minute version of one at SDCC, so let's say they are 8 minutes that would equal roughly 40 minutes a week, overall around 6-7 hours of extra gameplay.
angelkimne
Member
Furthermore, Spartan Ops only arrives as a replacement. A replacement for Firefight -- the first major feature to simply be phased out of Halo.
Which makes the lack of spark and innovation even more jarring.
Edit: I'm thinking of it this way; up to now, every major Halo instalment has brought to the table significantly more features and content than the last. Halo 2 introduced online multiplayer. Halo 3 brought forge and theatre to the table, in combination with a revolutionary online infrastructure. Reach... well, actually, it arguably didn't introduce anything major, firefight being a previous innovation. Halo 4... well, it adds Spartan Ops, in return for Firefight...
Yeah, re-playability is a major issue. I really hope 343 have made that the priority, but I'm not sure how it could ever live up to Firefight in that regard given what we know.
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
I know you're being cynical, but you're right. We have no idea really what Spartan Ops really brings to the table. How is the gameplay in Spartan Ops any different than the Campaign on even Firefight?
Is it really just a series of micro missions? Episode 1 - starting cutscene, walk through area 1 to area 2 then hold area 2, end cutscene.
I will be playing Reach or League of Legends in the next 15 minutes... you decide.
User 73932
Banned
There are similarities, but I wouldn't call SPOPS bite sized firefight missions. I would say that it is closer to campaign in terms of production and how the player progresses through the level. It certainly felt like a campaign mission more than a firefight map.
It is story and objective oriented. Even during the gameplay, you have radio transmissions from other characters detailing the mission and updating you on the progress of the mission. It isn't simply survival and racking up points, though I'm sure those two aspects will in some way play a significant role in SPOPS, or at least more firefight oriented options.
It was the same mission.
I don't know what you played at SDCC, but the SpOps episode available at E3 (and RTX) was intentionally shortened for the conventions - the real mission it was based on is longer.
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
The problem is, if you look at it from that perspective, it's a terrible value trade off.
I'm not a fan of Firefight, yet I've easily spent dozens and dozens of hours in that mode for whatever reasons.
I haven't seen or heard any compelling reasons to replay Spartan Ops content more than once. 343 just haven't given reasons, never mind compelling ones.
In terms of value, at least from what we know, Firefight was and is a better proposition.
Plenty of other developers is a huge overstatement. Telltale is practically the only one that has been anywhere near consistent with meaningful content, and has done it with small, bite-sized adventure game chapters almost exclusively on the PC. It isn't until three months ago that they finally realized how to do it on console. The things that Halo has been known for innovating on weren't usually things that were super new, they were just done better than people had done them before. You could save replays from all sorts of games in all sorts of genres before Halo 3, Bungie just did it better and made it social. You could make maps in a bunch of games before Halo 3, Bungie just did it on the console well and made it social. There was rudimentary skill-based matchmaking before Halo 2, Bungie just did it better, brought it to the console, and made it social with Parties. If you want to take it all the way back, then you could play shooters on consoles, Bungie just did the controls and mechanics better than everyone else. Yes, I think being one of the first developers to do episodic content right in a AAA game, especially in a console environment with all the restrictions that brings, is a big deal. No, it isn't the only thing I'm hoping they innovate on. Of course it's not, and I don't know why you think I'm saying that's the only thing they should be pushing forward on.
But frankly, with our current offerings of Halo releases that I can play on my 360, I'd probably take a safe Halo game that is very well executed over one that tries to do too much and falls on its face.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
You guys are forgetting the new lighting system in Forge
How is that NOT innovative
How is that NOT innovative
Headed dat way mami
xxjuicesxx
Member
Great post, agree 100%. I would probably take a super safe sequel to Halo 3, but seeing it as a CODfied sequel to Reach with nothing exciting being added to compensate for it is disheartening to say the least. Sucks that the only reason I'm looking forward to Halo fucking 4 is seeing more Chief and Cortana, that's it (not even that excited for the campaign gameplay), when in the past a mainline Halo always overwhelmed me with the amount of amazing things on it that I had to look forward to.
Poker Face
Member
so um, how about that MLG announcement tomorrow? do we know what time to expect that? anymore hints that it's about halo and not blops
User 73706
Banned
Would it make any difference to you guys if Spartan Ops could be affected by Campaign Skulls and be modifiable as Reach's Firefight?
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
Are you sure? I haven't seen that said anywhere, and it seemed like it could be a full mission to me.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. I'm also not sure why you're responding to me after repeatedly telling me to fuck off and harassing / instigating me.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
So offensive
Personally, I think Spartan Ops looks pretty cool, but it seems a bit odd that it's replacing firefight completely. After being in the last two Halo games, it feels like an expected feature, and from an outsider's perspective, it doesn't appear to be too resource heavy; just section off a piece of campaign and and organize enemy spawns into waves. I'm sure there is more to that than I'm giving it credit for, but still, I can't imagine it being harder than creating 5 unique co-op missions, complete with story and cutscenes, to release each week. I just really enjoy endless/challenge modes in games and Spartan Ops looks more like a campaign experience. I enjoy those as well, but I'm not sure it will scratch the same itch.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
Cool. I accept your handjob gif peace offering. I'm still working on writing you back, btw. Been busy.
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
So you're going to beat 5 missions in 5 minutes? Speed run?
Spartan Ops is where I see Halo 4 "stepping forward" as Dani mentioned. Yeah 343 is playing it safe in a few ways (to be fair, we don't know anything about theater yet), but SpOps is seasons of DLC. Massive amounts of content coming out for months after Halo 4.
No one in the industry is doing it on such a time limitation. Valve does awesome at updates, but even those are far between.
Yeah, I hear that man. My schedule has been nutso, too.
It saddens me that they haven't shown any features yet that help the experienced Forger. A magnet system is only useful for someone who rarely use Forge anyway, same with the object copy system. I use Forge regularly and I can align objects pretty fast with relative ease. I can also go through the object menu quickly so a copy option is nice but not exactly something people asked for. Now if you could group together a bunch of objects and copy that group that would be useful. An option to mirror groups of objects would be even better especially for symmetrical maps.
So far it doesn't seem like they've actually done much about the functionality of Forge. A performance meter, undo/redo option, object grouping, etc. All that kind of stuff is what I would like to see. The jump from Halo 3 to Reach Forge was incredibly in terms of how much easier they made it to make proper maps. Nothing seems to point towards a similar jump from Reach to Halo 4 which is disappointing.
I'm interested in seeing what the other two Forge maps and palettes look like. For some reason I've got a feeling they will just use the same objects and slap different textures on them. I hope I'm wrong.
Also, I remember when Frankie said (or hinted) that there would be a big flat surface available in Forge for you to build maps on. If that's just a big grey or white object that would be very disappointing. A huge flat object with - for example - grass on one side and sand on the other would be great so switch things up a bit visually. The coliseum walls in Reach get boring real fast.
My problem is that being annoyed by something so stupid, is well, stupid.
nerd...
NobleGundam
Banned
Ive made the theory in the past about Spartan Ops introducing possible episodes that could feature new environments outside of Requiem. I mean why wouldnt it?
Also SpOps is Dlc and Season Pass 1 is free, but why say that its free if its supposed to be already on the disc and not Dlc?
Leaves me to believe that Campaign, MP maps (10), Forge (3) and Theater are only on both discs.
Correct me if im wrong plz..
Also SpOps is Dlc and Season Pass 1 is free, but why say that its free if its supposed to be already on the disc and not Dlc?
Leaves me to believe that Campaign, MP maps (10), Forge (3) and Theater are only on both discs.
Correct me if im wrong plz..
I see Spartan Ops as a significant innovation in the delivery model; the concept is pretty great.
It's in the content that is delivered that my questions arise. I've said this before, but delivery system aside, they're short Campaign missions; what else differentiates them from Campaign, in any significant way?
More significantly, where Firefight was pushing further toward customizable experiences, Spartan Ops goes the other way toward more strictly developer authored content.
One of the things I've always loved about Halo has been the tools Bungie has been building to let the community make their own content. Custom game types, maps, films, screenshots, Firefight game types - that's what they built up to with Reach. And in swapping out Firefight for Spartan Ops, a big chunk of the customization - and thus re-playability - of the game mode goes with it. The compensation is volume of content (50 missions is a LOT of missions). I may sing a different tune once the game is out, but right now, I'd rather have the customization back.
And this is setting aside the fact that I love Firefight because it's a survival mode - Last Man Standing - and that appears gone with Spartan Ops as well. So in terms of both feature set and appeal, it's looks like a step backward to me. This is not to say I'm not looking forward to Spartan Ops - I am. It's just that while it replaced Firefight as a co-op mode, it does not appear to have also carried over what I liked about that co-op mode.
Rand0m TAG
Member
Isn't season one all downloaded and not on disc
I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you hoping there are objects that are restricted to a limited set of maps? I can understand a desire for more visual variety across different forge maps, but ideally shouldn't all objects be at your disposal on any given forge environment?
Ideally there would only be one canvas with all objects and you could shape your own environment, change the time of day and decide what kind of weather there would be.
Sigh...
Ajemsuhgao
Member
Suddenly, 344i introduces a SpOps scenario creator, and everyone is happy because it would then be Firefight on crack.
If only
If only
hopefully spartan ops...
1) does have a TON of customization to it. i see no reason why it couldnt have at least the options of past firefight matches, possibly unlocked after completing the "default mission"?
2) has missions that behave more like traditional firefight. put me in a well designed arena and let me fight wave after wave of enemies with my only hope being to save good ammo and scavenge good weapons when the opportunity arises. in this way, spartan ops will have the best of firefight along with more campaign-like missions. also, something like this may end up being more replayable as well.
Domino Theory
Crystal Dynamics
Haha, perfect.
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
I can see this. This makes sense to me. It's up to 343 to make these missions awesome. Make the fiction great, the gameplay more than "go there and get this object" and make the experiences feel like something special. Personally just having missions from the books, or extended fiction would make me happy.
Anyways, we leave for PAX in less than 7 hours, the airport anyways (4:30am). Not too long before we get hands-on for ourselves (and report back to ALL HaloGaf "teams").
Domino Theory
Crystal Dynamics
Anyways, we leave for PAX in less than 7 hours, the airport anyways (4:30am). Not too long before we get hands-on for ourselves (and report back to ALL HaloGaf "teams").
I'm looking forward to more HaloGAFfers playing Halo 4 and getting to experience for themselves what Voltron, mastrbiggy, and I have been saying about the game for the past couple months.
As well as donging on you all at the show floor in front of thousands.
HigherLevel
Member
I think some of you have unrealistic expectations as for as innovation in future Halo games. Most of the major innovations to the series were because of new tech/hardware. Look at Halo CE. It didn't do anything that PC shooters hadn't done really, but because of the Xbox power and dual analog controls it showed first person shooters could work on consoles. Halo 2's major addition was because of Xbox Live. Bungie took that technology and made a easy to use, well designed system to play games online with people. Halo 3's Forge and Theater were because of the Xbox 360's huge power increase over the original Xbox. Neither ODST or Reach did anything new honestly because they were on the same hardware as Halo 3. Yes I know ODST brought Firefight, but that was just an improved version of a game mode from Gears of War 2. If it was so simple to come up with new ideas that change the game, they wouldn't be so rare. A lot of times that stuff happens because of good timing, which was the case with many of the innovations Halo brought to the table early on. I'm not trying to say Bungie doesn't deserve credit for what they did, because they definitely do deserve it, but a lot of it had to do with timing and outside forces.
For anyone expecting huge new gameplay changes, honestly what addition to the gameplay has made the game better since Halo CE? Dual-wielding? Nope. Equipment? Negative. Armor Abilities? Definitely not. Most would agree these changes have all been for the worse. After 10 years though, what can you really add to change the gameplay that will make it feel fresh, yet still feel like Halo? The series has been around long enough where you have an established idea of what it is, and if you change much more, it's no longer Halo.
So basically the point I am trying to make is, that you can't really expect major changes for the series at this point. Hardware upgrades in the future won't be nearly as significant as what we have seen in the past, and the gameplay at this point has an identity you can't really change.
I don't mean this as a diss to 343 and it will probably come across as one, but you can't really expect them to do a whole lot new. For reasons I've already stated, and because they were put together for the sole purpose of making Halo games. They can't dramatically alter an established brand.
For anyone expecting huge new gameplay changes, honestly what addition to the gameplay has made the game better since Halo CE? Dual-wielding? Nope. Equipment? Negative. Armor Abilities? Definitely not. Most would agree these changes have all been for the worse. After 10 years though, what can you really add to change the gameplay that will make it feel fresh, yet still feel like Halo? The series has been around long enough where you have an established idea of what it is, and if you change much more, it's no longer Halo.
So basically the point I am trying to make is, that you can't really expect major changes for the series at this point. Hardware upgrades in the future won't be nearly as significant as what we have seen in the past, and the gameplay at this point has an identity you can't really change.
I don't mean this as a diss to 343 and it will probably come across as one, but you can't really expect them to do a whole lot new. For reasons I've already stated, and because they were put together for the sole purpose of making Halo games. They can't dramatically alter an established brand.
AllIsOneIsNone
Banned
But, Halo 4?
HigherLevel
Member
I think Halo 4 is about as far as they can take it without making it a completely different game.
GodlyPerfection
Member
MADMAN Redux said:
Along these lines I think a lot of us forgers can learn from games like Transformers WfC/FoC where flying is built into the system. WFC/FOC have some amazing maps that don't dissolve despite Scientists being able to be a Jet at any time. Sure it encourages more enclosed areas to control aerial movement, but it isn't impossible. I think the biggest problem was dealing with that plus the additional limitations of forging maps... especially for matchmaking.
AllIsOneIsNone
Banned
Right, well I think this might be the game where 343i really tests the waters. They don't want to go too far, but they want to make it their own. I'm all about pushing into new territory, and you're right, each iteration won't be too different from the last. However, 3 games from now, all those differences will add up and in retrospect it'll seem like a different game...hopefully.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
I've got like 15 multikill medals between my last three games of Anniversary Slayer. Condensing the playlists have forced all the Anni BKs into one list, it's great.
Yeah, 343 really hasn't demonstrated how SpOps "scratches a similar itch" as Firefight.
You should be able to contact RedBubble about that, since the dark blue shirts I've gotten through them have closely resembled the color shown online.
xxjuicesxx
Member
Livestream commentate from Blops 2 is new.
Thats innovative.
Its not hard to do you just think of something people want and make it very simplified and easy.
For instance people obviously watch video games when they arent playing as Twitch JTV shows.
HaloTV a mode off the main menu or off of theater. Where your console secretly has already downloaded a few clips and while those are playing behind the scene it downloads more and you can just watch random players live (technically it would be games that just happened) but still new games. Like after you play a game theres a chance it gets uploaded for people to watch (of course theres the option to turn this off) You could even make categories like MLG or Snipes Slayer BTB Misc.
That shit could be done if they hired a few more programmers. Probably would need to add some servers. Who knows. It could probably be done by the time H4 goes gold. It wont though.
This is apparently in Gotham Racing X something? And its in Street Fighter ? I think. Why not Halo? a game people love to sharpen up their knowledge of so they can shit on kids better.
That would be a feature you could put on the back of the game and brand as something unique.
Weekend playlists in H3 with fresh playlists were pretty innovative. I mean H2 had updates but slowly. Fresh content is really key. This week I went back into Diable 3 after forgetting I had even bought it and spent ~150 hours in that game a month ago. All because they added a new leveling system and tweaked some other stuff.
Thats innovative.
Its not hard to do you just think of something people want and make it very simplified and easy.
For instance people obviously watch video games when they arent playing as Twitch JTV shows.
HaloTV a mode off the main menu or off of theater. Where your console secretly has already downloaded a few clips and while those are playing behind the scene it downloads more and you can just watch random players live (technically it would be games that just happened) but still new games. Like after you play a game theres a chance it gets uploaded for people to watch (of course theres the option to turn this off) You could even make categories like MLG or Snipes Slayer BTB Misc.
That shit could be done if they hired a few more programmers. Probably would need to add some servers. Who knows. It could probably be done by the time H4 goes gold. It wont though.
This is apparently in Gotham Racing X something? And its in Street Fighter ? I think. Why not Halo? a game people love to sharpen up their knowledge of so they can shit on kids better.
That would be a feature you could put on the back of the game and brand as something unique.
Weekend playlists in H3 with fresh playlists were pretty innovative. I mean H2 had updates but slowly. Fresh content is really key. This week I went back into Diable 3 after forgetting I had even bought it and spent ~150 hours in that game a month ago. All because they added a new leveling system and tweaked some other stuff.
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