Twinreaper

Agreed. Handsome Jacks dialog alone left me.nearly peeing myself stupid. Awesome well put together game with hours of fun to be hqd during the campaign. Now I just have to wait for Creature Slaughter Dome. And yes, the Mechromancer is seriously freekin sweet! Btw...anyone else think Moxxxie is a stacked hottie?!?

Join in progess should have been implimented as a "benched player" option. I see no reason to force "Ranked Playlist" to have such a silly and detrimental effective approach to balancing teams when players quit or disconnect. I had said it before and I will say it again... Join in Progress should allow up to 8 replacement players to sit on the "bench". When someone quits or disconnects, a random benched player is thrown into the match. Benched players can use a "spectator" camera to call out things to their teammates. Benched players who don't play at all get credits for armor perks, but no EXP for rank.

Speaking of Linda.... I bet she has some badass Spartan armor if she is back on active dutie. I mean she did teat the Chiefs new.armor in Halo.2 so..... and because her last post or active whereabouts were Earth, that would mean she got the nano upgrade achematics well before John for Halo 4.

Let me just go on record as stating, that Halo fans have just about the same amount of lame ass excuses as to why Halo is better than everything else also. Not one day goes by you don't here various large amounts of people spouting off reason like, "It's just better", or "In Halo it takes skill". These 2 examples are perspective and not a factual account of what would typically make one game better than another. That beign said, CoD is a great franchise and was not meant in any way to play or ressemble Halo in any aspect, which is why it is nothing like it, and why Halo fans will always bash it. MW3 was the best MW of the bunch. Granted the campaign of MW2 was my personal fav, but MW3 brought the survival and mission sections that amused me for hours on end. Yes I did get Firefight with Halo, but as far as substance goes in terms of weapons and tactics, Survival has Firefight beat by a mile. Black Ops II looks to change how players see CoD by introducing elements we are not used to. The same type of changed happened when we shifted from the WWII genre of CoD to the more modern MW and Vietnam BO. In short, neither game is truly better than the other. Only through personal choice, perspective and comfort of style can tell ONLY YOU what game is better for YOU. Don't listen to thousands of BS posts that try to tell someone different from you how YOU should feel about a game or which one is better.

Hate to break it to you, but with current engine and hardware it aint gonna happen. People.forget that rendered cinematics are not true in-game running. The animations and level of.detail are always just slightly off scale of the engine, and normally dont evwn try to include a massive spawn fest like the one you are talking about here. I agree it would be really cool to see this, but as I said....atm its pretty much impossible.

It's not the weapon that does less damage to vahicles, it's the vehicle itself that has been modified to cut down on the actual physics response. Weapon have what we call an "Acceleration Scale". This controlls how much force a projectile or object has on an opposing object. Then we have what is called a "Physics Response". A physics response tells the object how it will react. Should it roll like a sphere, or roll like a block, or should it be launched by the acceleration scale factor in relative proportion to the object mass. Yadda yadda. So basically all I am saying is this: They didn't lower the amount of force the Concussion Rifle has, they simply increased the mass of the vehicle and tones down it's wacky and extremely high physics responses, which is what we saw in Reach. Now that's not to say that any other heavy weapon WON'T have such an effect, but at least as far the Concussion Rifle weapon is concerned...they made it react different to it.

AI Pathfinding is a seperate set of tag data that is added to a scenario file thru the sandbox Ui known commonly as Sapien. basically this happens... 1. Scenario file is loaded. 2. Spawns are added to the map. (Crates, scenery, machines, etc) 3. A pathfinding tool is then used to calculate where objects, scenery etc are in location to where bipdes are able to be spawned. 4. The map is compiled into it's .map compressed format, along with every other item that requires compiling and compression. Unfortunatly due to how the engine is layed out, as I had tried to explain, pathfinding data is a compressed set of spacial coordinates that tell the AI where and what is located on a level. Without this data, AI would just run around into walls, into objects etc... Campaign maps have the AI Pathfinding already compiled and included into the map file, and cannot be edited as this would change more than just the scenario file or globals. Most players are not aware of this, but all of the Forge features we use are simply memory edits on sections of the scenario_structure file, globals.globals and globals.multilingual_global map files. While yes there ar eother edits that we do such as physics of an object or it's spawning time, but every other edit we are capable of doing is an edit that does not require a complete re-compiling of a map file.

Yeah I'll just download the HD version when it finally gets ripped. Aint noone got time for waiting each week! I'll watch it all in one sitting. my life is far to hectic to add another series into the mix.

343i has said that there are still many items they have not revieled yet, adn one of those is a countermeasure for Promethian Vision. Also from gameplay I have seen, it does appear that active camo does hide a player from the Promethian Vision. My guess is, there will be some sort of either deployable or armor active effect that jams the Promethian vision, much like the jammer does to radar in Halo 3. It would be wicked if the jammer produced like 4 copies of someone when promethian vision was used. it would be like shooting drunk! lmao

The best use of bots, would be to finally add a style that supports gametypes like CTF, Assault, KOTH, etc... One of the best and only ways to sometimes make a good forge map for a certain gametype is hours of coordination with friends to test thigns out. it would be much simpler to have a range of gametype styles that could easily allow AI to actively search for the oddball, or tactically make a flag grab etc. But due to the way the engine is layed out, AI is easily added. Each map would have to have some sort of either pre-compiled AI pathfinding, or a standalone compiler process inside the forge environment that would allow you to update or creat a pathfinding data block. either one would require a lot of memory (RAM) and a whole lot of time to recompile those data fields into the tagsets. Unfortunatly those particular types of tags are not easily stored or referrenced. At least not in the same sense that the scenario_structure file is edited in memory.

Slippery, mind your language please. no need to curse about a change, just accept it. I think the changes they ahve made better suit the newer generation of gamer that is emurging. Killcams are a welcome addition to the franchise. Far too many times do we get killed and don't see it coming, or lose what happened due to lag or too mucha ction on screen. Seeing what happened up front rather than in theatre, will help players grow and avoid making fatal mistaked over and over again. Promethian vision in particular is a isefull and very balanced item. many games have used an infrared or thermal vision item to allow players to see what lies ahead. Halo has taken this method of pre-battle defense and gave it a nice balanced usage.

And this my point exactly when it comes to LOD. The code base should not determine LOD based on what graphics adapter (TV) is attached to the 360. When we talk about the direct streaming process that DX9 uses from the DX10 and 11 library, the 360 should be direct streaming the max LOD at all times. Not picking and choosing. By the 360 using a makeshift determining factor on how to display LOD for a specific TV, you can effectivley inhibit other players playing against others. What I mean is, it is unfair for the system to decide that it should cut LOD for no good reason for some players, which may in turn allow people playing on bigger TV's to gain the upper hand in controlling territory...since they can see more of the battlefield at any point. I have played Reach on both a 60" LCD and a 32" LCD along with a basic tube style 21". The 21" shows just as much rendered models as the others, just not as detailed. none the less I could still clearly see far enemies with no trouble, and the fact that it clips models slightly farther than the larger Tv's is just BS. A bigger TV does not make for a better player or a better gaming expereince. i actually prefer to play on a tv in which I can look straight at it, and see the entire action...rather than rotating my head around or having to focus on one particular section of the screen.

Congrats Choot'em! Well deserved and like SJ said, to me you were already a member of the "Legendary" group of folks we have were. Keep up the great work, the forums would NOT be the same without you!

Cryengine graphics are still far superior to any game or comparable engine on the market, that is fact. The flexibility and source base give it the edge when programming the myriad of codecs for rending and texture compression and streaming output. Halo 4 is a fantastic looking beast, but like with Reach, I am worried about the LOD of things. In general for Reach, the environments were fantastic and had a nice LOD, while secondary spawned objects like scenery, bipeds, etc... seemed to me to be far to clipped or occluded given the distance at which they did all that. Halo 4 looks to have possibly the same issue. It really isn't that big a deal, but when you look over a battlefield and everything starts to disappear at say like 50 yards....it kinda seems lackluster. The one issue I do take with the new engine and the graphical process is the post processing rendering and shader work. A lot of what we have seen in the past month doesn't really do enough for me. I like to see my environment and structures have more of a reflective or shiny aspect to them. Forerunner structures in particular should be throwing or bouncing ambient light and you should always see some kind of environment mapping on them. Everything I have seen in this aspect is devoid of any real life or wow factor. But to get more on topic and more to the point, in terms of comparable graphics it is closer to the Battlefield series in terms of rendering power. Battlefield may not have looked as polished as we had hoped, but the Frost engine in it's current state has the processing and code base that is closest to Blam! Sabre Interactive in my opinion, is like the lost younger brother to Blam!...a great engine and definitely comparable. Now if I just had a recent title from there to compare to, I could make a more informed comparison...

By multiple map zones I hope you are not implying multiple bsp's. Multiple seperate bsp's all tied into one map will never be a reality for multiplayer or custom Forge work. Now if you mean multiple zones by "Trigger Volumes" (spartan trait zones), then yes you could make some pretty drastic changing sections of a large area.

Ughhhhh..... yeah no likie. The map itself is nothing more than a variety of shader tweaks from the looks of it, extremely dissapointed in that map remake. And the Mantis? What good are the vehicles on the map with that overpowered Macross wannabe mech? Not liking that thing one bit.

Robius next

You have to look past weapons as just mearly tools, and look.at the story and why we have the weapon.set we do. This particular Old Covenant.faction we are facing predates the events of Reach and therefore places the weapon sets slightly askew from what we saw in any Halo title before. Weapons like the Focus rifle and Needle Rifle were likely created or produced somewhere between the events of Of post Harvest and pre Reach. It is unclear how long this faction of Covies has been in.deep space, but it is quite clear that they have no knowledge of the events we have seen in previous games. Going by that alone, it is easy to theorize that this alone is why we have the particular weapons we have. Brutes likely created the maulers and brute shots to rival what the Sanghelli had in terms of firepower. Without their presence in the ancient covie factions and in this newest year of events it only makes sense that their weapons, as well.as certain covie ones make an appearance.

Really? So it wasn't Microsoft that saved Bungie from bankruptcy by buying the early half developed rights to Halo? Wow, someone needs to go thru the Bungie company history. Microsoft is the sole reason WHY you and millions around the world are able to enjoy Halo today. If not for them, Bungie would have went broke, Halo would have never been finished or released, and you would all be playing CoD. Microsoft was not the ones whom decided to remake Halo 1, that was all 343i. It was a project that Frank and a few ex-Bungie employees wanted to do as the studios first title, I don't count Halo Wars as an actual Halo title. Yes, Microsoft gave them the green light because of the $$$ it would make, but it was not Microsoft's idea or forcefull hand that made it happen. Technical mumbo jumbo aside, just because it worked for CEA does not mean it will work for H2. CE did not have the luxury of having Havok at it's physics, animation and collision backbone. The first generation of Blam! was more compatible with the Reach engine than any other version they produced. Halo 3 comes close with it's shadering system, but Reach, was more or less a stripped down and upgraded CEA engine. Very open ended and very highly optimized. Also realize that CEA had no base code for a previous network model such as Live, integrated into the engine. This made CEA a great title to remaster on a separate running engine without gumming up any of the internal works. Again though, they already have Halo 2 for the PC, so there is no good reason why people cannot go back thru enjoy campaign. Campaign even works on XP with the right modifications, and said modifications are very simple to do and understand. Yes the campaign play would be solo and no co-op, but who cares. In an age where 4 player or more co-op is now king, 2 player seems lame. And lets be very brutaly honest, after the mess with Hired Gun and PI studios on the porting of Halo 2, do you really think Microsoft would ever contract it back out to be worked on again by an outside studio? Don't get me wrong, Sabre Interactive is a great Studio with a lot of skill, but Microsoft even today is still feeling the effects of the botched port. Honestly Grumpy, I'm getting a little sick and tired of you trolling everything I say, only to reply with complete BS and posting things that are false. If your gonna troll someone, might I suggest you troll someone slightly below your level of programming and gaming experience? Perhaps try a 5 year old?

Nope just me...lol. I got money on Azaxx posting next. Or quite possibly Payne...

First, sorry if I cam off the wrong way...not my intention. But yes and no, to answer your question. It could be done, but it is likely to hit a large amount obstacles that would require a lot of studio time to do so. To put it a better way, lets look at how they ported over Halo 2 to the PC. Now because most of the base code the compiler spit out, almost everything was already able to be formatted easily to be compatable with PC specs, dll's, graphic drivers etc. It took 2 seperate companies nearly 3 years just to port over assets from an Xbox exclusive source base, and yet all we got has a little higher resolution due to the Vista OS using a DirectX10 overlay as it's starting point. If they were to redo the game from scratch and include all new shader systems, rendering processes, etc...it would likely take even a resource the size of 343i roughly 3+ years to do...and that is not including the netcode work to give us a truly original MM gameplay base that would equate to the one we got in Halo2. So yeah, it's a yes and no. is it possible, yes. Is it likely or money friendly to do it...no.

The factor of whether it should or shouldnt can vary greatly. Like I stated long ago CE was remastered to mark a milestone in a franchises history. CE wasnt remade because fana wanted it or because they wanted to bring it up to speed with current gen. It was made as an achievment for reaching ten years,.and to.give new players to the franchise a glimpse of what was and what is to.come.

What about CEA did you not understand? CEA had two different instances of the game running side by side for campaign. One running on the Sabre 3d engine, which only outputted the graphical changes, and the standard base Blam! engine of CE for the physics/game handling. A good representation of this, is how the geometry changes in the modes, but the collision remains the same. Again remember, it was nessessary to run the Sabre 3d engine along side the original, because the sabre 3d engine was the closest out of studio engine that could run and work with the Reach Blam! engine thru Megaloscript and side loading code. At no point did they remaster anything and attempt to put it into the original engine. The nice shiny new shaders and models you see are running solo on the Sabre engine. It would have cost far too much money and time to develop a new iteration or Blam that would both be completely compatable with CE and Reach's version of Blam. Alone reconstructing a network model to handle the original MM would have taken 3 years. This was specifically stated in an interview with O'Connor before CEA's release, and it was as well one of the determining factors in why CEA HAD to use the Reach style MM system and graphics overlay. Now you may be getting confused with my rant before this one, but I was showcasing more how it would need to be done, or how it wouldn't be able to be done for a PC remastered port.

Everyone needs to remember one thing, killcams or theatre mode is useless for showing mistakes almost 75% of the time. Everyones particular theatre mode film and killcam will vary based upon your network strength. Everyone does not sync nor do they receive packet data at the same time, leaving every instance you view, quite different from someone else's That's not to say it doesn't help, because it does. It just doesn't help to the degree that most players think it does. That being said, even with slightly varying films and cams, it gives you a very close approximation to the event or events that caused you or your teams downfall. Killcams are a welcome addition. And your right Killerdude, we don't see MLG guys making those mistakes, instead we see them using lame ass flag juggles and power weapon whoring almost 100% of the time during normal matches. Most MLG guys can't even have a nice clean BR or DMR fight without throwing grenades or secondary items into the mix. At least that's my expereince in playing with them. I'll take the good old days of head to head BR battles anytime...and win!

Anti-cheat being built in is not feesable. There are far too many environmental variables in processes and sub processes to completely 100% filter out cheaters from basic players running another program at the same time. Games use memory, and said memory isn't always locked for exclusive block access and thus creates an issue for anti-cheat. memory addresses change based on when you are playing, what map you play, and what resources need to be loaded into memory. Trust me when I say, you would not want locked memory addresses for games that require the engine to decompress data to a raw form and store them in memory. A single map alone would float roughly 1.5 gigs of memory alone, not including the resource or mainmenu map files. Most commonly you would end up using a dedicated locked 4gig worth block....which in most cases would leave roughly either nothing or maybe 2 gig of memory left for the OS and secondary processes to run on. Most common systems found in homes even today, would not be able to handle it. Aside from that, wanting HD is a big one. They would have to redo the graphics post process part of the engine as well as recompile the textures all over again and with tweaks to give them more oooomph. And even if they did up the resolution and quality of the textures, which by my count last time i completely decompiled Halo 2, left a nice folder of 3.16 gigs worth of basic 512x512 bitmaps, you would also have to upgrade the render models. And this is where it gets tricky. Not only would you have to redo the graphics post process to handle hi-re textures, but you now have to redo the render drawing of the directX inputs of the engine. Then recompile the new models and hope and pray to god that the newer updated version of DirectX you wrote in, can handle to amount of added geometry you need to really make it HD in a true form. Bottom line, non of this will happen or is at least, very likely to happen. Your best bet is to just play Halo 2 PC and enjoy all the modified goodness me and the H2MT (the only halo 2 guys currently modding anything) pump out for you to consume.