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[Kibbles]

Podcast - http://downloads.bungie.net/podcasts/Bungie_Podcast_41910.mp3

Derek Carroll talks about the rules that run the game, Dave Candland interfaces with his fans, and Luke "Froman" Timmins answers all the right questions about Reach's under-the-hood upgrades.

 

[Kapura]

DOWNLOADING NOW THANKS FOR THE HEADS UP

NO PROBLEM BRO

IT'S ALMOST AN HOUR AND A HALF HURN HURN HURN

 

[Veelk]

Earth is a diverse place. It doesn't all have to look like freaking High Ground. You people really think that another inhabitable world would be an exact copy of Earth?

Have you not heard? Reach is one of the most earth like planets out there.

 

[Matty McDee]

Podcast - http://downloads.bungie.net/podcasts/Bungie_Podcast_41910.mp3

I hate it when I can't run the Podcasts in Chrome.....

 

[soldat7]

One of the maps does - Powerhouse. But more to the point, I think the levels we've seen in campaign are the same missions the maps are from, for the most part. So they all look similar.

If you take out the skybox from the first Halo, and swap the Forerunner architecture for human structures, it would look like earth. Halo's worlds have always had that mix of the familiar and the alien - a big, green vista with trees with alien buildings and the giant ring arching into the sky. Reach looks similar to me, with an earthy ground, and an alien sky. And I suspect there's a lot more to the game that we're not seeing.

^This is a good response^

Unlike most of you, I will not be happy going through Halo 3-esque environments again. Have some imagination people; we're talking about a freaking video game here. Sure, it's human-inhabitable, but that doesn't mean it has to look exactly like Earth. My argument that it should look different is just as valid as your argument that it should look exactly the same. Last time I checked, the only planets discovered so far outside our solar system are gas giants, with the exception of blah. We truly don't know what a human-inhabitable world would look like. I suspect evolution would be quite different on other worlds.

HaloGAF is simply not open to criticism at all; it's truly amazing. I said that I have faith in Bungie. The actual levels look very fun to play. Yes Valhalla, Snow Bound, and Ghost Town are quite varied; but unfortunately for Bungie, their past behavior does not always dictate future behavior. I just didn't expect to see High Ground 2.0 in Halo Reach. If I'm not mistaken, two of the four beta levels we've seen have an uncanny resemblance to High Ground (I see Ghaleon's argument but still wish they'd at least play with the color palette); I know and you know that Bungie is more clever than that, or at least can be, and I'm pretty sure that they will be.

 

[The Librarian]

Old intro song>>>>>>>>>>>this new intro song.
Edit:

One of the maps does - Powerhouse. But more to the point, I think the levels we've seen in campaign are the same missions the maps are from, for the most part. So they all look similar.

If you take out the skybox from the first Halo, and swap the Forerunner architecture for human structures, it would look like earth. Halo's worlds have always had that mix of the familiar and the alien - a big, green vista with trees with alien buildings and the giant ring arching into the sky. Reach looks similar to me, with an earthy ground, and an alien sky. And I suspect there's a lot more to the game that we're not seeing.

Right. I just don't see what exactly could be done to make it more unlike Earth. Blue grass? Green sky? From the books, FoR and First Strike, Reach was never really portrayed as being much different from Earth, and you can tell this from the picture on Bungie's website. I mean, the skybox tells you you're not on Earth. We've only seen maybe three minutes of footage of the campaign, and from that I think we can't take anything at face value: there's probably more to it than what we've seen, as you said.

 

[Slightly Live]

Old intro song>>>>>>>>>>>this new intro song.

Dreadful. :lol

 

[Sai]

:/ Why is it that Bungie's DDLs are so slow for me lately? Podcasts, videos, they go at a snail's pace and usually time out on me.

[EDIT] - Graahhh! Keeps going down into the bytes! The bytes!

Somebody mirror it for me please? ;_;

 

[Cuban Legend]

Just a head's up, FUD has posted up the first part of our staff's retrospective look back on Halo 2.

Backwards From Dawn

Part Two from Issac will follow tomorrow and Dave's concluding part on Wednesday.

Also, Dave's first article, a great piece on the Insurrectionists, will be going live on Tuesday and I'll make a quick post here when it goes up.

Question. HOW TEH HELL do i change the Vertical Splitscreens in Halo 2?

I've tried in 4:3 and 16:9 (1280x1024 & 1280x720)... and still nothing.

 

[Slightly Live]

Question. HOW TEH HELL do i change the Vertical Splitscreens in Halo 2?

I've tried in 4:3 and 16:9 (1280x1024 & 1280x720)... and still nothing.

Change your 360's output to 4:3 and 480p SD (not HD).

 

[dilatedmuscle]

I just thought about something, there is way more AI and vehicles in reach... I wonder if we will have an encounter with a large ammount of scarabs :-o

 

[The Librarian]

So vehicles, along with weapons, can be dropped off if you capture this territory in Invasion Slayer? Oh my....

 

[EazyB]

HaloGAF is simply not open to criticism at all; it's truly amazing. I said that I have faith in Bungie. The actual levels look very fun to play. Yes Valhalla, Snow Bound, and Ghost Town are quite varied; but unfortunately for Bungie, their past behavior does not always dictate future behavior. I just didn't expect to see High Ground 2.0 in Halo Reach. If I'm not mistaken, two of the four beta levels we've seen have an uncanny resemblance to High Ground (I see Ghaleon's argument but still wish they'd at least play with the color palette); I know and you know that Bungie is more clever than that, or at least can be, and I'm pretty sure that they will be.

People are in suck-up in hopes to get into F&F mode but I think HaloGAF is otherwise pretty critical of just about everything Halo.

I've always thought Bungie's human environments have been the weakest and least interesting but they did some neat things with ODST's environment and Sword Base's environment looks similar to that. Powerhouse likes alright and Bungie's pretty good at natural environments and Overlook benefits from that but Boneyard looks like a mess aesthetically to me. I was really happy to see the forerunner environment in the april fools video and the concepts art for the glassed environment could be something we've never seen being. Should also expect some glorious purple covie stuff as well.

 

[Veelk]

Unlike most of you, I will not be happy going through Halo 3-esque environments again. Have some imagination people; we're talking about a freaking video game here. Sure, it's human-inhabitable, but that doesn't mean it has to look exactly like Earth. My argument that it should look different is just as valid as your argument that it should look exactly the same. Last time I checked, the only planets discovered so far outside our solar system are gas giants, with the exception of blah. We truly don't know what a human-inhabitable world would look like. I suspect evolution would be quite different on other worlds..

We know we need a certain kind of oxygen to live in a planet, and what kind of oxygen would be harmful to us, and we know we need a certain kind of gravity to live in it. Reach was an uninhabited planet before humans reached it, so the buildings having similar architecture to earth is only natural. I expect that we will see different wildlife, but that doesn't mean we can encounter something like a giant flying purple whale that farts strawberries. A story needs to be logically coherent before it's imaginative, and because of the circumstances surrounding reach, it will be very earthlike, though not entirely so.

Edit: It really depends on how long they've been on reach and how closely they've maintained contact with the rest of humanity. Depending on those 2 factors, they could have developed their own subculture that separated itself from earth, so architecture would be designed differently. In Halo reach, I expect differences, but they will be more subtle rather than the stark differences between Human and Covenant architecture.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

People are in suck-up in hopes to get into F&F mode but I think HaloGAF is otherwise pretty critical of just about everything Halo.

I've always thought Bungie's human environments have been the weakest and least interesting but they did some neat things with ODST's environment and Sword Base's environment looks similar to that. Powerhouse likes alright and Bungie's pretty good at natural environments and Overlook benefits from that but Boneyard looks like a mess aesthetically to me. I was really happy to see the forerunner environment in the april fools video and the concepts art for the glassed environment could be something we've never seen being. Should also expect some glorious purple covie stuff as well.

I doubt thats the reason people have been so defensive recently, some of the stuff thats been said has just been stupid. :lol

Not the Reach thing though, I agree that Reach should give off a semi-alien vibe, Of course it will have been humanized through the colonization of it, but I would be dissapointed not to see unique wildlife and plants. The Bioshock world felt pretty alien to me, of course a underwater city wouldnt feel like anything im used to, its similar but also subtly different. If Bungie can do that with Reach I will be happy.

 

[CrazedArabMan]

I doubt thats the reason people have been so defensive recently, some of the stuff thats been said has just been stupid. :lol

Not the Reach thing though, I agree that Reach should give off a semi-alien vibe, Of course it will have been humanized through the colonization of it, but I would be dissapointed not to see unique wildlife and plants. The Bioshock world felt pretty alien to me, of course a underwater city wouldnt feel like anything im used to, its similar but also subtly different. If Bungie can do that with Reach I will be happy.

People will do crazy things just to get into the beta early.

 

[nilam01]

Have you not heard? Reach is one of the most earth like planets out there.

Wow lol I wonder who took the effort to do that.

 

[soldat7]

Ah, now we're talking! Great responses. At this point, I'm going to try and remain optimistic.

Now for something completely different. Why shouldn't I install the Halo 3 Multiplayer disc? I did last night, played a handful of games, and didn't notice any difference outside of a tiny increase in pre-game load times.

 

[Thagomizer]

I doubt thats the reason people have been so defensive recently, some of the stuff thats been said has just been stupid. :lol

Not the Reach thing though, I agree that Reach should give off a semi-alien vibe, Of course it will have been humanized through the colonization of it, but I would be dissapointed not to see unique wildlife and plants. The Bioshock world felt pretty alien to me, of course a underwater city wouldnt feel like anything im used to, its similar but also subtly different. If Bungie can do that with Reach I will be happy.

According to the Tom Morello leak, there is at least one

Spoiler

optional three-way encounter with Reach wildlife that can own a Covenant fire-team

 

[JaggedSac]

Bit off topic, but does anyone know why the Halo soundtracks are not available on the Zune Marketplace?

The podcast is up in good time on it though.

 

[Cuban Legend]

Change your 360's output to 4:3 and 480p SD (not HD).

Thanks, I'd try that out, but my 360 is connected via VGA to a ''21 CRT...

By the way, just read the Backwards From Dawn article.

I enjoyed it very much, it was very well written. I could relate to the experiences you expressed regarding H2, as I joined the party to Halo 2 a bit late as well as having the fun of the experience soured by the netcode issues. But as you said, better late than never.

 

[The Librarian]

Edit: It really depends on how long they've been on reach and how closely they've maintained contact with the rest of humanity. Depending on those 2 factors, they could have developed their own subculture that separated itself from earth, so architecture would be designed differently. In Halo reach, I expect differences, but they will be more subtle rather than the stark differences between Human and Covenant architecture.

Reach is the UNSC's military stronghold (aside from Earth), so Earth has an extremely strong presence on Reach. The Inner Colonies are all very similar to Earth; if you're looking for planets that have cultures develop independent of Earth, you'll probably want to look towards the Outer Colonies.

 

[Tashi]

Ah, now we're talking! Great responses. At this point, I'm going to try and remain optimistic.

Now for something completely different. Why shouldn't I install the Halo 3 Multiplayer disc? I did last night, played a handful of games, and didn't notice any difference outside of a tiny increase in pre-game load times.

Don't worry. I've had it installed for months now due to a crack in my disc and I've had absolutely 0 problems.

 

[SpudBud]

Not really digging the new intro. :/

 

[Slightly Live]

Thanks, I'd try that out, but my 360 is connected via VGA to a ''21 CRT...

By the way, just read the Backwards From Dawn article.

I enjoyed it very much, it was very well written. I could relate to the experiences you expressed regarding H2, as I joined the party to Halo 2 a bit late as well as having the fun of the experience soured by the netcode issues. But as you said, better late than never.

Thanks very much to you and anyone else that read it. I think I felt that I had to give Halo 2's online a shakedown to appreciate how Halo has evolved over the years. It's made me appreciate some things in Halo 3 a lot more and things like the hitscan have me looking forward to it's implementation in Reach.

Nice to have Derek on the podcast, Great to have an official word on Invasion Slayer.

 

[les papillons sexuels]

HaloGAF is simply not open to criticism at all; it's truly amazing. I said that I have faith in Bungie. The actual levels look very fun to play. Yes Valhalla, Snow Bound, and Ghost Town are quite varied; but unfortunately for Bungie, their past behavior does not always dictate future behavior. I just didn't expect to see High Ground 2.0 in Halo Reach. If I'm not mistaken, two of the four beta levels we've seen have an uncanny resemblance to High Ground (I see Ghaleon's argument but still wish they'd at least play with the color palette); I know and you know that Bungie is more clever than that, or at least can be, and I'm pretty sure that they will be.

I'm not sure I'd agree with you on that. We've likely seen 1 map with a similar look to highground, that being powerhouse.

http://www.bungie.net/images/Games/Reach/images/screenshots/090410/Reach_MPBeta_Powerhouse.jpg

Other than that all other levels we've seen differ greatly to high ground. Overlook is more muted variations of greens, yellow oranges, spotted with reds, and boneyard is clearly favoring a red and red violet hue with warm complements various dark shades for human structures.

http://www.bungie.net/images/Games/Reach/images/screenshots/090410/Reach_MPBeta_Overlook01.jpg

http://forwarduntodawn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/SmelterSmall.jpg

Other maps from the campaign that we've seen are mainly based on night missions, so it's hard to get feedback on the colour pallet.

Most other content is based on interiors shots.

Sky boxes are heavily alien in both pallet and content. The addition of weather effects and time of day also play a large factor.

 

[Veelk]

Reach is the UNSC's military stronghold (aside from Earth), so Earth has an extremely strong presence on Reach. The Inner Colonies are all very similar to Earth; if you're looking for planets that have cultures develop independent of Earth, you'll probably want to look towards the Outer Colonies.

Then there we have it. Manmade things will be very similar to Earth. Your best bet would be looking for wild life that's not earthlike. Maybe some architecture will give a slightly distinct feel, but nothing greater than the difference between like Chicago and New York.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

Im so glad they explained Invasion in the podcast, I think I even heard them take the piss out of how GTTV messes everything up with its segments.

Either way Invasion has to be amazing, especially if theyre designing maps specially for it, if Invasion ultimately sucks thats gonna be a lot of wasted effort. The problem is right now Bungie have only really played this mode Internally - when the outside world gets theyre hands on it if people discover a foolproof way of locking out Elites first round every time the mode will be hated.

I hate to be so negative but I watched a Halo 3 vidoc the other day where a Bungie guy spent ages over gushing how well Snowbound plays for Oddball with the Shield doors :lol In game design you just dont know how well your stuff works until its released, Bungie typically does do the right thing though... except that awful new intro music.

 

[Tashi]

The intro sounds like a Weezer song. That's all I'll say. lol

 

[big ander]

The intro sounds like a Weezer song. That's all I'll say. lol

So it's awesome?

 

[Trasher]

The intro sounds like a Weezer song. That's all I'll say. lol

It's bad. Did they say someone in the community made it, and that they are gonna use new intro songs every podcast?

 

[EazyB]

It's bad. Did they say someone in the community made it, and that they are gonna use new intro songs every podcast?

You should've layeed something down for them. Put all that talent to use.

 

[Trasher]

You should've layeed something down for them. Put all that talent to use.

I should!

 

[big ander]

Wasn't that bad.

 

[2 Minutes Turkish]

^This is a good response^

Unlike most of you, I will not be happy going through Halo 3-esque environments again. Have some imagination people; we're talking about a freaking video game here. Sure, it's human-inhabitable, but that doesn't mean it has to look exactly like Earth. My argument that it should look different is just as valid as your argument that it should look exactly the same. Last time I checked, the only planets discovered so far outside our solar system are gas giants, with the exception of blah. We truly don't know what a human-inhabitable world would look like. I suspect evolution would be quite different on other worlds.

HaloGAF is simply not open to criticism at all; it's truly amazing. I said that I have faith in Bungie. The actual levels look very fun to play. Yes Valhalla, Snow Bound, and Ghost Town are quite varied; but unfortunately for Bungie, their past behavior does not always dictate future behavior. I just didn't expect to see High Ground 2.0 in Halo Reach. If I'm not mistaken, two of the four beta levels we've seen have an uncanny resemblance to High Ground (I see Ghaleon's argument but still wish they'd at least play with the color palette); I know and you know that Bungie is more clever than that, or at least can be, and I'm pretty sure that they will be.

I kind of agree with you, but in all fairness to Bungie, they're semi-following an existing story/canon.

Reach was uninhabited by humans, and is now inahbited by them. So naturally, architecture is going to be human?

Development on the planet, infrastructure on the planet would all be human would it not? I know it can look like a cop-out to say that and it can be easily used to hide laziness, but knowing how Bungie is working on this game, it doesn't seem like a laziness/lack of creativity issue.

Otherwise I'd agree with you.

 

[Nutter]

What track is being played at the 54minute break.

 

[urk]

I should!

Do eet.

 

[RebornYeti]

I bet Lukems wrote the intro song. Or maybe Stosh since we can always blame him.

Spoiler

 

[Trasher]

What track is being played at the 54minute break.

It's new or it's some sort of mash-up?

Btw, sounds like we are going to get TONS of options for multiplayer. Toggle option for being able to drive with the flag? Cool stuff. MLG community will be happy for sure.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

I love the idea of all gamemodes at once so "everyone can have fun" :lol

Please Bungie intergrate the new toolset you developed in a user friendly form into the custom game options somehow, we will love you forever!

Its probably the hardest thing to make user friendly, if so just release a really crappy version of it, you know Halogaf will figure it out!

 

[Tashi]

If I had decent recording equipment, I would give a shot at making one. That'd be a lot of fun actually. Trasher, you should definitely give it a shot though.

 

[Trasher]

If I had decent recording equipment, I would give a shot at making one. That'd be a lot of fun actually. Trasher, you should definitely give it a shot though.

:lol :lol
EazyB is a jokester guys. Not only do I not have the means to record anything, but I am also what some may call "talentless" in that sort of department!

 

[Tashi]

:lol :lol
EazyB is a jokester guys. Not only do I not have the means to record anything, but I am also what some may call "talentless" in that sort of department!

lol, oh EazyB you kidder you. Are there any HaloGAF musicians??

 

[AwesomeSyrup]

lol, oh EazyB you kidder you. Are there any HaloGAF musicians??

I can play jingle bells on the piano. :lol

 

[Blueblur1]

Wow, that theme song was pretty bad. I thought you guys were exaggerating.

 

[RebornYeti]

lol, oh EazyB you kidder you. Are there any HaloGAF musicians??

I'm what people call "The man who can play many instruments and does not totally suck at playing them."

I am able to play the Tuba, Trombone, Saxophone, Guitar, Piano, Stand-up Bass, Percussion, and the Ukulele (somewhat).

However, if someone were to ask me to write a song involving any of them, I would totally refuse. :lol

 

[Tashi]

I can play jingle bells on the piano. :lol

Ok...that's a start lol

I'm what people call "The man who can play many instruments and does not totally suck at playing them."

I am able to play the Tuba, Trombone, Saxophone, Guitar, Piano, Stand-up Bass, Percussion, and the Ukulele (somewhat).

However, if some were to ask me to write a song involving any of them, I would totally refuse.

Wow that's awesome. I wish I had access to all of those instruments.

 

[Slightly Live]

Loved the end music in the podcast.

Spoiler

Not talking the Bro jingle!

 

[Kapura]

Podcats summary:

New theme...

First guest Derek:
Worked with Sage previously
Fasa bro
Fasa, rhymes with NASA
Invasion:
destroy shield generators in 4 min (if can’t, game over)
Map opens up, loadouts open up
6v6 sweetspot
In final game, Boneyard not only for Invasion, others supported
Invasion is focus

Invasion Slayer – Simpler – Slayer – to 100 – Roaming territory – If captured, 15 sec get "special prize" – Vehicles/loadouts unlock based on kills or time – Weapons Get better – Hold the territories! – like Rockets/sniper early – Scorpion late game

Bungie does NOT hate CTF
Sage beard in game (on Cortana )
Tons of gametypes outside of the beta

Derekball – As crazy as it gets – one noch less crazy than Cable’s gametypes – Every partygame as long as you can stand it – ex. Slayer for 5 kills – Randomly picks game based on time/kills – Cable had Calvinball: Every game all at once

New toolset for gametype engines. Totally sweet.
Armour lock a 'catastrophe' in headhunter
Sprint good on Headhunter


Another baldy: Dave Candland (EvilOtto)
UI guy, formerly merch/website
Did UI for Halo 1 in a year
Now: Reach UI
Urk stalks him for "daily erection"
Tinman won’t let urk look
Doing a lot cooler things
More depth and complexity in the UI than ever before ("six layers deep")
Complex really quick
Have to plan for *everything*
Not gonna cut too much
2 systems of UI: Menus and HUD
Starts on Paper
Lots o’ prototypes
Don’t want to load a menu
Concept art in Halo menus
Can back out to main menu in-party
Created additional problems though...
Can’t support everybody on the low end for lo-def TVs
In theory, no need to bring up Guide over the Active Roster
Active roster updates real time
Pop-in co-op?!?
Can form entire invasion game at his house...
6 kids.
Oldest son works for Nintendo
"clencher" in game
Wants to hear feedback on UI!


Final guest: Froman!
Beardless!
His Razor: It shaves everywhere
Team of guys working on netcode
Automated internal stats website for beta
Arena rating formula still getting changed
Gonna make you care about statistics
Defending old code
Some stuff all the way back to Halo CE
Rebuilt good chunks of the UI from the ground up
Can track how long players live after spawns in dev
An advantage of old code base
Brian bad at understanding networking
“How do you make a sticking warthog... meet expectations [under huge amounts of latency]?”
BTB much better now DDDDDDDDD
Less interesting to froman than other stuff
Hiding latency is awesome
Host selection improved
Much better with locality (that is, location of data center)
Lots of big terminology :[
Real-time matchmaking evolution (Skynet)
Luke's pipe goes limp
Better able to use historical data to pick hosts
Better improvements of data estimations
Trying to prepare for millions of users...
File of contingency plans...
Nuclear fire extinguishers
Froman can think like a cyber criminal
There are community snitches for network hacks...
Months on security model
Community are monkeys
4-way split screen is hard to code
Should mic up committee meeting...
Committee Froman is not Podcast Froman
Froman: MAKE CUTS
Shipping is awesome and it’s also depressing
Chris Butcher says Halo 2 unplayable
"The perfect is the enemy of the good"
Not putting in bots
Network guys over the hump
New level of matchmaking
Froman wants us not to think about networking
Lots of cool stuff
Luke and Luke gonna kill every two man team possible.

New musics on outro?
"Spawn on your bro" remix as the coda

 

[KevinRo]

I'm what people call "The man who can play many instruments and does not totally suck at playing them."

I am able to play the Tuba, Trombone, Saxophone, Guitar, Piano, Stand-up Bass, Percussion, and the Ukulele (somewhat).

However, if someone were to ask me to write a song involving any of them, I would totally refuse. :lol

Can you play the skin flute?

Sometimes when I listen to the Bungie Podcasts ( a total of 3 times ) I think they just like hearing themselves talk.