Twinreaper

Bloom cannot be taken out of the game. Bloom is a core tag block value. For that matter everyone doesnt even know what the bloom in Reach is besides a few other well informed modding community members. Reach ruined nothing for Halo. Halo is what ever the creators decide it is, not us. There is no "real" story or timeline in Halo that is defined or has any rivht to be called true or real. Halo is unique in the fact that it was created with no definite story ark or background. Anything published outside Bungie or now 343 is simply fanfare. For that matter..... everyone stop complaining about everything. When one of you develope and release a very optimized and full featured game engine and a game for it...... then you can complain. Only then by showing everyone you have some sort of talent or expertise to base your opinions on. Nuff said!

Not a problem my friend. And to clear a few things up also, I add the following.... Calling multiplayer and campaign seperate engines is not true. The engine itself is the core of the game. the difference between multiplater and campaign, is how the engine itself utilizes the game assets and the individual scripts. people always say stuff like CE multiplayer engine was the best and all that jazz. fact is, the multiplayer handling, physics, particle system etc, are the same core assets we see in the campaign. the only difference in CE's case, is that the spawning scripts for players are different. That being said, the only real world difference between the two, lie in how the game uses netcode, and how much data can be processed and synced with said netcode. The netcode of CE was bar far the worst piece of garbage ever constructed. And that garbage alone took a team of 6 guys about 7 months to make. the Reach scripting uses by Megalo to handle multiplayer probably took a team of 32 or more people the same time frame of 7 to 9 months to create alone.

Sorry for the double post but I also wanted to touch on the whole multiplayer aspect. Does anyone know how much money and pro essing power is needed and utilized to fully collect deploy and provide a multiplayer experience? Didn't think so. This is why we have idiotic fanboys bitching about CEA being included to be part of the current gen multiplayer. It would take more than a year for 343 alone to ship a CEA game with a standalone multiplayer element. The CE engine for multiplayer was written 10 years ago by 6 guys. Gaming languages have changed so drastically that using anything from CE's engine standalone now, you would have to also write an exclusive Live handling servi e just for it. Keep in mind also, 343 nor Microsoft want to split apart the player base. It would takes about a 1.75 years to fully recreate, impliment and deploy a standalone game remastered like CEA. And it would take primarily another year after the title was developed, to.create and deploy a standalone service just for it. Also, who's gonna pay for the added server equipment and maintainence on the equipment? Let me guess, you guys want all this but would be appauled at the thought of having to pay for the extra service of it?

All the above statements are wrong in part. Reach's Blam! engine runs along side the script engine dubbed Megalo. Megalo executes scripts which control up to 75% of everything in the map or maps level assets. This powerful script engine can control, manipulate and load any game asset present in the games own resource library. This is how they achieved the gametypes we play like haloball. That being said, the engine used primarily for the CEA release is actually the entire Reach Blam engine. In order to utilize the function to call Reach's graphic layer in substitution for CE's, requires either that the CE envine be re-written to include the new layer or the Reach Blam engine has to use Megalo to call the CE graphic layer. CEA is using Reach's engine as its core processing and using Megalo to call the CE engine to be used when the game is first loaded. This is the only way to make the game.function as we have seen from the trailers. Remember, CE's blam engine is no where near sophisticated enough to run anything outside 10 years ago. Furthermor, calling it an updated graphic layer is not entirely accurate. During the trailers and comparison shots we are given, it is clear that the shaders are not the only update. Much of each levels geometry is slightly off or changed. Shaders alone using increased bump map depths cannot change structures to appear longer or shaped differently. What we are in fact seeing is touched up physical geometry mesh. Basically callibg CEA a remastered game is accurate. Everything but the core CE engine was touched up and changed.

The Flood Juggernaut is incomplete on Halo 2. No sub tags related to it besides simple models exist in the tag layout. Based on that fact alone you cannot know with 100% certainty how the Juggernaut was supposed to move, act or attack. It wasn't removed because of being overpowered either. It was one of the concept ideas that was scrapped in order to finish the game on time.

Ok, I am unsure where half of you get your information, (cough BROONEY cough) but you may want to go back and look thru some VidOC specials and published developer documents. Frankie himself stated after the initial trailer for CE, that the game was using the Reach engine because of issues with Halo 1's netcode, and that using a seperate multiplayer experience would only divide the player base. It is a wide known and troublesome fact, that H1 suffered from the most horrible written net handling code ever spewed forth. To go back and re-write the netcode, would also mean having to go back and re-write sections of the core engine. Not very investment friendly. Now about the Reach graphic layer. Calling it a top graphic layer is not really accurate. This is because the Reach engine is actually the core layer. Reach uses what is called the Megalo Engine to handle scripting. Scripting controls probably about 75% of everything we can do in Reach. In order for the Reach graphics to be able to be used with CE, it is obvious that the Reach Engine is using Megalo in the backround to use scripts, which in fact call for the CE engine to used. I know it sounds complex, and it is. But in order to use the graphics of Reach on CE, it is the only way one would go about being able to do it without having to re-write the original engine. As for Halo 2, it did not take 9 months to complete. September 2002 was when the first Halo 2 trailer was shown. Production for that trailer took alone 3 months to complete. Actual production time for Halo 2 took place from June 2002 to October 2004. Production time for game discs is very minimal and takes only mere weeks. Bungie just barely made it in time to release it, but had to scrap the whole ending and many other multiplayer and campaign options. As for John's take on the 75% of players not knowing who makes a game or even helps with halo....that number is actually pretty accurate. I will guarantee you that if you go into Reach now and start asking people which two companies produced Halo Reach, 75% of them will tell you Bungie alone did it....which we all know is false, as 343 worked hand in hand with them on it. The main fact is, most new gamers care nothing about who actually produces a game or who slaves over it for ever in the process.

Bungie gave everyone plenty of time to get in on it. You mean to tell me you couldn't spare 1.5 minutes to go onto Bungie.net and click the dang button? If so, then you like most dont deserve it. Don't expect 343 or bungie to feel sorry for lazyness.

You guys really had a hard time getting those? Legendary isn't all that difficult. I played thru on legendary from the start. Only mission that gave me trouble was Pillar of Autumn. Damn those Elites before you have to protect the Pillar from the Capital Ship attack!

Haloid works like equipment. Allows player to double jump and jump off of vertical surfaces. Would be cool for multiplayer too! Unlocked by killing 5 Golden Elites.

I have to disagree slightly. Equipment at least has a set usage, then you have to grab another one, if it spawns. I do agree that people need to get over their ego's and just admit defeat when they are beaten countless times over and over again, rather than blame the game and it's features. If they do include armor abilities, I think the best route to go in would be making the abilities function like the H3 equipment. For the love of god do not make them starting equipment, and do not use loadouts. Make them fought over and controlled, like most weapons. That was the key to equipment being such a great addition to Halo. You had to fight for the right to use them and obtain them, not simply spawn and be given a choice of various ones.

I could not agree more with everything that was said in this thread. The DMR is a great weapon, hands down. Now if this were Halo 2 and not Halo Reach, then yes, the BR would be the dominate one. The DMR is great at any range. Even when spamming shots, it takes skill at medium and long range to hit the target dead on every time. But there is something that is never mentioned in any of these weapon hate threads.....the players "hit box". Depending on where you are hitting the player, all determines who is going to win any weapon battle, obviously beside rockets and such.... Think back to the good old days of H3 and H2 BR fights. Depending on who shot first, and who was able to keep their hits to the head only, determined who got the t-bag. Judging from the poster, he fails to realize that head shots will always win over body shots, no matter how much skill you have. Besides from that, any experienced player should be able to compensate for the firing spread of a weapon (bloom) when spamming shots and playing long distance to close distance matches. Oh, and before the poster decides to flame back some random numbers or bullsh** re-post, I am an old school modder. I have delved deep into map structure, tag structure, weapon mechanics, bsp..etc. I know what I am talking about and can always provide solid hard proof of anything I post. Where is yours? Magic numbers? That's not proof.

See, you are touching something very dear to my heart with this thread. Halo 2 to date, still has the best absolute multiplayer experience and layout. It's a proven fact. it's the only title besides CE to have a complete "original" (not remade) list of maps for it's release. If they remade Halo 2, they would also have to redo the multiplayer aspect, which would be a big "no deal" not buying it sticking point with me. I think rather than redo the title, they should look into continuing some kind of 343 server support for it. Or if possible, retrieve source code for the H2V conversion process from Hired Gun and PI Studios, and start some support for that as well.

Touching back on the whole "hitscan" thing again. I came across an interesting little tid-bit the other day while playing thru Exodus on Legendary with my son. Now the whole controversy around hitscan, is that Reach uses it, and all weapons except for covie ones uses it. I can now say without fail that it is false. As I said me and my boy were on Exodus, where you have to defend the civilians from the covie, the part right before you take the elevator down to the jet pack area. Anyway, as I was engaging the last of the 3 brutes that remained.... I found myself and the brute both running along the same path. As we were running, I had my DMR pointed directly at and kept it at his head while we were both moving. The distance between us at our moving speed was maybe about 3 feet distance in real life perspective. At that distance, with the reticule dead center, I began to fire bursts of shots. By burst, I mean well paced waiting for bloom to rest. Every shot I fired missed the brute. That's right, every single shot, that was dead aimed at his head while moving missed. If hitscan were used, this would not have occurred, since the projectile would have been instantly collided with said brutes head. I almost took a dump in my pants when this happened. 3 feet away, and I unloaded half a clip and missed everytime. Of coarse I went back into theater mode and saw firsthand, that yes indeed, every shot did miss. WTF Bungie and 343!!!! So I tried to replicate this again, after me and the boy got schooled by the last Brute hammer chief guy ****** thingy. This time I lead my shot in front of his head a tiny bit. And wouldn't you know it, every shot hit. Now it just begs the question, is this a random incident or has anyone else had this happen to him or her?

I'm guessing they made you [REDACTED] out the map name you are referencing. Those of us who play and belong to the [CñR] Halo clan, know all too well that the map you talking about is Infinity. It is the only map in the original that fall damage becomes an issue when traversing the gulch center bridges. Sorry if I spoiled it, but I couldn't resist. On a side note, is MP gameplay the only thing that the TU is going to change? I would assume that like all other TU's, it would also have quick fixes and adjustments for the SP aspect of the game?

Does noone read the press releases or the official developer release statements? First off, Halo CEA is finished. It is already more than likley already in the RC2 stages, which is minor or last minute bug fixes before being shipped off to the disc production center. As far as the game engine goes, it is the same old blam! engine you have in the original game. The only thing they added, was a top layer to the game engine to support the newer blam! engine shader templates. The only thing effect, particle or material effect, you will see, are the differences in the shader capability. there is nothing else added to the game that was not in the original. Quite frankly if they do add something else, they already stated it would only be additional info on the events of the first Halo game, so people who have never played it before, can feel as if they know what's going on. Compare this to how we felt the first time we played it. I didn't know why the hell I was here or what was going on.

I have seen all the VidOc's. 3rd party sites that only have members or other people discussing weapons and other stuff hold no water unless a Bungie developer would come in a grant a "yay" or "nay" to the claims. As for sources from Bungie themselves, they admitted that it is simulated hitscan. If you really do understand what hitscan is, then you know that any weapon fired, hits it's target instantly, no matter the range, without any travel time. There is travel time with every weapon, but the difference is so slight, (by a mere 1 frame, according to Bungie) that calling them non-hitscan would be pointless because of the marginal error. Bungie did do a fantastic job with simulating it, but in the end they are still simulated, and takes away a lot of the skill involved with combat that pro players have come to know and love. Simply because of this, I never play Reach multi, and always go on and play H2 or H1 multi. But in the end for the sake of arguing over something so mere, I will just go ahead and say sorry, I was wrong. I wasn't understanding the switching of the weapon style you were talking about, my bad on that. That would be a great addition in the custom game settings, it would really give you more control and balance when playing with new players or freinds that are just not use to Halo multiplayer. Just being able to tweak in a shotgun with those few 3 extra shots would be cool as hell. As far as I am concerned, they did let up a lot in giving the player control of settings, but still held back where it counted the most in the end. I am with you on the betray, but you also have to keep in mind, that sometimes players will shoot by accident and hit a live grenade on the ground. When that happens you know all to well that it explodes, and if a teammate is near it and it kills him, you get a betrayal. Again though, it doesnt apply to me as I dont go into multi, but I do agree that it comes as a major fustration to a majority of other players. Some people just cant use teamwork...lol I almost didn't notice the Plasma Launcher thing. I could not agree more. The plasma Launcher when weilded by covenant in campaign still makes you go "oh crap!". But for us in multiplayer or when turning it against the enemy, it just plain sucks. I would love to know what exactly they did to make it so much weaker then in the beta. What were your personal observations about it's performance? Besides the rediculous arming time to fire multiple nades. My god it takes so long! And everyone can dodge them so easily!

Uh no. All Halo titles use the projectiles defined speed located in the weapon tag. The only, and I say again only weapon to ever use or be close enough to be conscidered "hitscan", was the battle rifle. That is the only weapon. I may have confused some people with the previous post. When we all say "real time" we are clearly talking about a different definition and use when it comes to the Halo games. I am quite aware that every weapon has a starting velocity, and a maximum velocity, both which are reflexives (32 bit floats) located inside the weap tags. When I talk about real time, I am literally using it as it is meant...real. Real is all chance, all gravity, yattah yattah. Halo is pre-defined and bound to the limits of the engine itself. Halo Reach does not use hitscan. They are using a method similar to hitscan, but make no mistake it is not hitscan. If that were the case, you would not have to lead enemies with your shots.

Nah MJ has it dead on guys. Reach's story was fast paced, the flow of the battles and the controls really worked outstanding. Halo 2 is and always will be the multiplayer king of the franchise. I am sure me and MJ could argue you boys on that for days on end. (especially the tech end of it from me). But yes, the multiplayer sucks. Face it. Reach is a failed attempt at something new. Perhaps years from now, the gameplay they tried might be good. But for now, it does not measure up. As for the superiority of games over all, here is my tally... 1. Halo 2. Best multiplayer and really good campaign flow. Things progressed so you could easily understand the events. 2. Halo 1. Best Story layout hands down, especially for a first title launch. Multiplayer maps were awesome. Still the map king. 3. Halo 3 . Recycled maps, but long capaign. Multiplayer was better than Reach, but fell short compared to H1 and H2. 4. Halo Reach. Best campaign out of all of them, hands down. Multiplayer was fail, but did improve the forge system. All multi maps were lazy campaign barrier added areas. Where was the genius?

Well that sucks for both of us!

First off Sierra, still love it when peeps use that name. Second, welcome aboard. You'll quite enjoy your stay here. We got some cool dudes around here.

Baykem, again, you have no understanding of the weap, hud or proj tag reflexives or the links between them using the scripting system of the blam! engine. Bloom is exactly what I defined it to be. Bloom is not some magical formula that the weapon uses to prevent the players from firing rapidly accurately. The spread of a weapon is pre-defined in the weap tag, by a min and max data value. The spread is random, and is not subject to if the bloom effect on the reticule is at rest or not. As for your remarks for the battlerifle. The battle rifle was a "hitscan" weapon. If you know what "hitscan" is, then you know why it functioned the way it did in Halo2, and because of this, it cannot be thrown into the normal catagory you would throw other weapons that have a firing spread. Perhaps you should search for my very detailed, engine in-depth explination on how this works and why it is what it is. As for the post about the real time physics vs hitscan. Do you even know what hitscan is? How it works, or why it has no place in the game? First off, you would not be able to toggle it on and off. The physics handling of the game objects and assets is hard coded into blam!, and would not be easily turned off and on as you suggested. Real time actaul physic calculations for weapons is unrealistic and could not be achieved using the current hardware. Those types of calculations would have to be done at the time the weapon is fired. the game would then have to reffer to player locations, trajectories, the pre-defined projectile spead, or (hitscan - infinite speed), then go thru the process of calculating how much damage based on range at firing, place of hit, and so on. It would have to do this for every single shot you made. Even in Halo 2, there was a slight jitter in animation, which was caused by the collision detection system, to calculate the "hitscan". Hitscan is far less complex and it caused that slight drop in framerate due to calculating it. Could you imagine a 16 player match of people using all real time physics weapons? The game itself would seize due to the computational power needed to run all those game triggers. No weapon in the Halo franchise or the game itself uses a real time physics simulation codebase. Everything is pre-defined with a min max value, and everything that occurs is simply at random. Which is why sometimes you can do the same exact type of stunt one time, and the next it comes out completely different. Suggesting something like that, leans me towards believeing you are one of those lesser skilled players who is looking for someone to blame for your poor tactics or ability on the battlefield. I have no shame in saying I suck at multiplayer, and just cannot get used to how it feels in Reach. My multiplayer skill has gone down roughly 200% compared to the skill I have and still use on HaloPC and Halo2PC. I do agree that things have to change, but before you throw ideas like these out there, you better do a little more research on the engine, it's map structure and architecture before you do.

grunty thirst or orders from

I have to agree about the multiplayer aspect. When it comes to the maps, I feel as if the development just got plain out lazy, and thats why they decided to use levels from the campaign. But there in itself lies the problem. There was nothing new. Usually when we saw multiplayer maps, each one added a new twist or visual to the game. With Reach it was just like, "oh wow, they put the whole level as the.....oh...they didnt. Just this crapy part". Lets face facts. Halo 2 had the only other original line-up of maps that were not all re-hashed from a previous title. Almost all the Halo 3 maps were a redo of the Halo 2 maps. The only map that wasn't a direct copy of an existing map was Narrows. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing to get mad about when they introduce redone maps that are done good, and feel different, but Reach really did not deliver with it. The campaign was hands down the best, obviously. But multiplayer was an epic fail. Hopefully, they will go back to what started the epic goodness that was Halo Multiplayer, but right now, seeing as how they have a brand new Reach overhauled blam! engine to work with, I doubt it will revert and ignore the advances and just focus on the core multi aspect. but here is hoping anyways!

While I do agree that Reach is inferior to the other titles you mentioned, you also have to take into conscideration the timeline of events. Reach was well before anything in Halo 1 and so on. The armor abilities I think were added in because it wouldnt derail the tech timeline any for the previous titles. Now if we had armor abilities in halo 2, and then didnt have them in Halo 3, then it would make no sense. They added all these new things in because of the opportunity to do so. It was a chance to try new things without hurting the story any. Armor abilities going forward shouldnt exist. halsey along with any Spartan program tech data is lost now, hence why we have no new Spartans and Armor advances being made in Halo 2 and Halo 3. If you study the weapons and gear closely while remembering the timeline, it all does fit pretty well. Lets see if I can help elaborate more.... Halo Reach: Spartans are a plenty and have a lot of funding a resources devoted to supporting them. Brutes are shaggy, weild useless weapons, and the Covenant army as a whole is obviously a lot stronger. Halo 1: Chief is now on his own and is supposedly the last remaining active and alive Spartan. He has no tech support and is limited to what supplies and weapons are already on the POA. The Covenant have only sent a single ship to pursue the POA, and because of that, also has no real back-up or tech support. The Covenant did not plan on anybody leaving the planet alive, and because of that was not at the ready to deploy the range of firepower we saw on Reach. Halo 2: Chief upon arriving at Earth, has a suit upgrade. One that was more than likely meant for him to recieve after leaving Reach with the intention on heading straight to Earth. The Brutes are still shaggy but weild a little more firepower, keeping with the timeline of tech development. The elites are more tactical now given the prior encounters and now know that human forces are very resourcessful. The Covenant fail to get to the ring before it is destroyed in Halo 1, and decide instead to go to Earth where the supposed Arc is. The Covenant are not well prepared for what they find on Earth since they did not know humans were there. This is why again, we see little to no new firepower being deployed, like on Reach. Chief goes to High Charity. This is the one place you would expect to find all new tech and wepaons. Wrong. The covenant have already transferred the firepower and stuff to the invading fleet for Earth. They did not expect Chief to show up in Charity, so they were not prepared. Halo 3: This is where we see new vehicles, new outfits and new weapons far apart from what we saw in the previous titles. In keeping with tech timeline, the Covenant had decided to phase out Spectres and Revenants in favor of more Brute styled vehicles. At this time the elites are no longer part of the covenant. The humans also realize that they need new wepaons to use against the Covenant, since they had been invaded once before on Earth. This is why we see now the Hornetss and the Mongooses. There was no need back in Halo 2 since we had no idea the Covenant were coming, and a majority of said gear was on Reach, and thus we needed production time. We see new personell weapons like the trip mine and bubble shield. We learned Covenant tactics and adapted a few of our own to match. Chief has no new suit upgrades due to lack of time and support assets. This seems reasonable in the timeline. We were too busy to worry about one guy's equipment. ODST I would mention but those events take place during and right after Halo 2, and lead mid way into halo 3. That is why we see brutes with armor and new weapons. Because of production time for vehicles, we were forced to use Falcons instead of Hornets. Everything there should make sense after reading all of my above. So there you have it. A well thoughtout event timeline that explains why Reach sucks in multiplayer, and also gives you a little background as to why we more than likely have things like armor abilities and those way cooler vehicles.

Hmmmm. Sounds like a loading issue with the HDD. What style xbox do you have? What I mean is, do you have the new Slim Black one, or the older Xbox Arcade white version? etc....