Astronautics7

Oooooh! Is this what I think it is? I've thought about developing my own card game for a while now, and Halo was one of the categories that came to mind if I were ever to get my act together and start development. I would love to help out with this project! What experience do you have with card games? Over the years, I've played my fair share of card games, if not more. I started off with the classic Yu-Gi-Oh (skipping Pokemon o_O) and then moved onto Magic. I've got around a hundred Magic cards and play from time to time, but I play more of the videogame. I have 2012 and, as a result of the fabulous Games for Gold, 2013. What are some of your skill/talents? Hm. Well, I do love to write fiction (stories, roleplaying, that sort of thing) and I have a little programming knowledge, if you can count a basic understanding of HTML4/5 and three or four Computing lessons teaching me how to make a basic calculator as knowledge. From time to time, I can be fairly decent at drawing too, but I wouldn't rely on that How would you like to contribute to this project? I'd like to lean towards the way the game works and balance and all that good stuff. However, I wouldn't mind also writing a few card descriptions as well, if that needs doing. Cheese or Pepperoni? Both! You can't have a pepperoni pizza without cheese! What kind of crazy world do you live in, sir? Favorite Halo game? Ooh, that's a toughie. I like 'em all for different reasons: CE for the nostalgia and soundtrack, 2 for the amazing solo story-line, 3 for the epic custom games, ODST for the badass Troopers, Reach for the awesome missions and 4 for the goose-bumpingly fantastic variety (Woo, Spartan Ops!). But I've got to say my favourite to play is Halo Wars - getting five buds and duking it out in a two-three hours 3vs3 just cuts it for me. On a scale of 1-10(117) how well do you think you know Halo? Probably somewhere between 9 and 117, if I do say so myself. I study and discuss the Halo universe constantly, whether it's here, on Xbox or at college. Facts and figures and trivia have seemed to stick in my head since I joined my first Halo RP three years ago; hell, I know more about the history of the Halo than I do my own country, and Britain had a pretty good empire these last two millenia with a lot of things going on (keep in mind I probably studied that for about ten years of my life as well - it sort of makes me feel like a sad *cough*). Are you rebel scum? Son, I've fought this war for two-and-a-half decades, lost an arm and a leg and killed thousands of those alien ********! Ask the rest of the Corps if I'm rebel scum, you ungrateful little---! I hope ya' let me join in with this - Sam

"Shields, what's goin' on man?" "Good question, Dwyer." Oliver replied, feeling slightly uneasy too. He raised an open hand behind him to stop the squad. "Take your guys forward to those bushes. Keep alert." Oliver lowered his open hand, flicking his fingertips downwards a couple times. The recruits got the gist and crouched the ground, scanning the trees for the sign of any ODSTs blending in with the night. As they did, Oliver took a knee too, ignoring the squishy wet soil that compacted between his single knee-brace thing and his pants. He was used to the feeling, and complaining wouldn't do much with the incoming weather. He'd been dreading it since they'd set off, and the first sight of moonlight had revealed dark clouds. "Bravo - fifty feet to the left. Use the trees for cover. Charlie - fifty feet right. There's a fallen tree flanked by a thicket. Go." he gave the orders, watching Mickey trudge up the mud, to the slightly raised treeline his fireteam was headed too. He got a thumbs up from all three fireteam leaders, followed by his relocation to a couple of thick-trunked trees twenty feet from Alpha. He dropped down to his ass, pressing his back against one tree, feet against the other. Though he didn't have much firepower to the front here, he was able to watch their backs. If these ODSTs lived up to their standards, an all-angle ambush was probably on the table. A roar of thunder rolled through the forest, a flash of lightning lit everything up. He swore he saw a dark figure in front of them, but ignored it when a downpour blocked out all sound. "This is Shields, to any squad leaders. We might be walking into an ambush, if anyone wants to give us a hand." Oliver called out over the radio. He doubted any response, especially with that Kyro jackass running a team. He grunted at the rain, wiped some of it off of his goggles and squinted to see.

Shields watched as the last Pelican lowered into the clearing, letting the recruits aboard deploy onto the soft dirt. The final light of the day was disappearing rapidly, with barely anything visible but the trees around them, which were practically silhouettes. There was no sign of Kawolski or Geza, or anyone else besides themselves. In hindsight, Shields should have probably asked the guys who flew them in what they were supposed to do. "Shouldn't we be setting up a perimeter? Or...are we just going to hike it out now What the f*** are we doing?" “I guess we just get going.” Shields said, unsure himself, trying to work his HMD to find the map. “Gimme a sec.” They had been flying South, so that meant they needed to travel North to get back to base. He checked his map and marked out a path using NAV points, about five-hundred metres apart. He finally came across the camp, putting a final marker on that. The whole journey was about ten kilometres, or 2 hours at a constant speed, accounting for their heavy rucksacks. "Come on. We're heading North." Shields said, heading in the direction of the camp. He raised his weapon, checking the treeline as he entered the forest. When he was sure it was clear, he had Dwyer's fireteam move ahead of him, in the formation that he had suggested earlier: column. Shields followed them, standing between fireteam Alpha and Bravo. Charlie brought up the rear, which was probably safest point, unless they walked straight past an ambush and their enemies hit them from behind. "Shh." Two recruits went quiet at Shields' order, Mickey one of them. He knew that Shields would be on edge like a f*cking ninja for the next few hours, listening out for anything that spiked his spidey-senses. Damnit. Stupid rucksack.

Well, if people don't take anything away from this, that's a clear indication that they don't want to learn. I don't really want to teach people who don't wanna learn, so to hell with 'em If you did read the thread, thanks! Hope it helped

Hey there! Welcome to Astro's guide to Creative Writing! On 343i.org, my main focus is roleplaying, especially in the Militia Roleplay. It's all I ever really do, and it's what I complain about the most. So now, whilst I'm waiting for posts, I think I'll try to assist some of the members who want some help with their writing. To sum up how to improve your writing, you have to flesh out everything. You describe things in different, interesting ways, and make your post interesting to read. It doesn't come easily, but you eventually get used to "overdoing" your posts, to the point you realize "Hey, this is a pretty nice read.". Let's take an example, and work on it. I'll use one of my Militia characters speaking: "sorry, staff sergeant." said oliver. What's wrong here? Well, for a start, the grammar is poor. Let's fix that. "Sorry, Staff Sergeant." said Oliver. Now that the grammar is fixed, we can flesh it out. Right now, the statement is pretty boring, so let's add something to it. "Sorry, Staff Sergeant." said Oliver, looking down at the floor. As well as stating what Oliver said, we show what he was doing at the time. In this case, he was looking down at the floor. Let's continue to expand. "Sorry, Staff Sergeant." stammered Oliver, looking down at the floor with a dumb expression on his face, realizing his mistake. Why didn't he just keep his mouth shut? Here, I've added a lot more to the example. Oliver stammers and looks dumb, and he's made a mistake. He also reflects on the events, regretting speaking up. You can see that the character seems more human than when he was just apologizing to his superior. The expansion is also more interesting to read, and the word count has been increased from a measly five to a whopping twenty-eight! That's the most important rule when it comes to writing, in my eyes at least. Flesh it out, flesh it out, and if you think you can't flesh it out any more, flesh it out! The more detail, the better the post. Okay. Moving on from posts with speech. Occasionally, you have to write without saying anything. Perhaps because your character is supposed to be being quiet, or the character doesn't speak at all, or for any number of reasons. When there is no speech, your ability to describe surroundings and feelings is really put to the test. I'll use Oliver as my example again. This time, it's a quiet training mission, where he is trying to be stealthy: oliver walked through the forest. it was dark. he was scared. Okay, same drill. Let's fix the grammar again. Oliver walked through the forest. It was dark. He was scared. These three sentences are pretty boring. Let's expand. Oliver crept through the forest. He couldn't see a thing in the darkness. He'd do anything to be out of here. Now it's a little more interesting. Once again, we flesh it out. Oliver crept through the rustling, creaking forest, his heavy combat boots careful not to tread on loose twigs. He couldn't see a thing in the dark of the night, every leaf that blew with the wind causing his heart to hammer harder in his chest. Right now, he'd do anything short of killing himself to escape the clutches of this godforsaken, ODST-ridden hell. As you can see, it now sounds a little over-dramatic, but that's what you want! You can really tell what Oliver is feeling, how damn scared he is. If you think about it, when people are scared of something, they're usually overreacting. This is similar, as Oliver refers to the training ground as hell, when it's really only just some trees at 2300 hours. See how that works? Base your writing style off of real feelings, and you'll go far. That's just some basic tips for now. I will probably update this thread in the future, with more tips and pieces of advice. In the meantime, feel free to ask any questions about writing, whether it's for class, just for fun or you're considering writing as a career. I'm happy to answer anything you throw at me - I'll try my hardest to help ya.

At Grec's words, Shields chuckled. He nodded in agreement at what he said, but with the compass and map on their HMDs, they'd be able to figure something out. However, dusk wasn't going to help them underneath the thick canopy of leaves, especially since the ODSTs would blend into the darkness with that damn incredible armour they wore. It wasn't the stuff the Spartans wore, but it was still cool as hell. "Yeah, well, there's a reason I put him at the front." Shields said to Grec, grinning at Dwyer. "You can just imagine him lined with patches." He looked up at the roar of another Pelican's engines. As loose dirt and rocks began to move away from the LZ, Shields ushered everyone back. Mickey, looked at him as he gave the order, rolling his eyes at him. He complied, trying to ignore what he assumed to be power rushing to his head. He had to give him credit though - Oliver was doing pretty well. Then again, that's basically Shields telling himself he's great. It's sort of like a bi-polar, same-puppeteer kind of thing. You understand.

"At least pretend you're excited, Dwyer." Shields smiled, clapping him on the shoulder at his less-than-enthusiastic tone of voice. The sound of the Pelican's rumbling differed than how it had for the previous few minutes. The vibrations throughout the metal were less violent, leading Shields to believe that the craft was landing somewhere. His theory was proved right when an officer, probably the crew chief, walked through to where the recruits were. "Here we are, recruits. Good luck." He didn't sound too sure they were going to do well. They were ushered out of the craft by the guy as the ramp lowered, revealing a clearing in the middle of a forest. The other three Pelicans could be seen a few hundred metres away, approaching them. "So, I guess we wait for Kawolski and Geza, or just go ahead when those asshat squad leaders get here." he said to nobody in particular as their Pelican took off.

Shields looked up to Dwyer, who was suggesting they group as a three. He shook his head at the proposal, watching the last of the empty slots on the platoon roster. They were First Platoon of Asimov company, consisting of four squads. He assumed that meant they were Asimov 1, and he was Asimov 1-1 Actual, being the leader of the squad that was chosen first. Then that would mean second squad would be 1-2, and fourth would be 1-4, lead by 1-4 Actual. Man, he was glad he'd played a lot of accurate video games. "Negative. I'm Squad Lead, I don't get a partner." Shields looked at the men in the Pelican, putting together a structure. "Dwyer, you're to lead Fireteam Alpha. That's you, Andrew, Basic and Clark. Aves, you'll have Fireteam Bravo, leading Griffiths and you two." With four left, Shields chose the hardy-looking brunette, Harlin, as the lead of Fireteam Charlie. He reorganized his team's roster in this way, indents showing subordinates. "Okay, when we're down there we'll need to be moving at different paces, with fire focused on different angles. We'll use a column when we want to move fast, a diamond when we want to cover all of our flanks, and a line when we want to maximize fire to a target in the front." He went on to explain how a wedge was like a diamond, with three guys forming the left, front and rear points, with the fireteam lead taking the right point. He then explained that Alpha would be in the front, Bravo the middle and Charlie the rear. He would be stood inbetween Alpha and Bravo, so that he had good visibility of the situation, as well as good cover. There were a few objections to that, but he went on about how everyone would be disorganized if he were hit. Then, he managed to show them all arrangements on their HUDs, despite killing his own eyes in the process. When he was happy they sort of knew what he was going on about, he smiled a little, before looking down at his rifle. [if you're interested, I'm using this for formations. It'll open a WordDoc when you click it http://tinyurl.com/lry3fne It's what I use for Airsoft.]

"Yeah, good call." Shields nodded, leading his squad away from the other recruits. He walked over to the first Pelican, climbing up into the blood tray, where the magazines of 7.62x51mm TTR rounds were stored in an olive-drab crate. He helped a couple of Marines up, including Dwyer, then leaving them to help the other recruits up. "Nice." he muttered, picking one up and weighing it in his hands. He'd only ever used the MA3s - he preferred these newer variants. He loaded the magazine into the magazine well of his MA5, following the click with a pull on the charging handle. He then flicked the safety on, placing the rifle down on the seats. Shields began to pick up more magazines, slotting them into the pouches on his body armour. When he had six magazines attached to his rig, he placed his helmet on. It was heavy, a couple of kilos or something, but it felt protective. He looked at the HMD on the orange tactical goggles too, seeing his current amount of ammunition and his bio-readings. There were a few other things he could pull up too, such as a map, a compass, a complete roster of the platoon (that was currently loading because only a few had their helmets on) and mission briefings. "Guys. Put your helmets on and let it link to your neural lace thing." Shields casually ordered, grinning as his helmet made the connection, bringing up some of his personal details. >>>://WELCOME TO CH252 MODEL 1542977343// >>>://YOU ARE RECRUIT OLIVER SHIELDS, CONFIRM?// Oliver didn't really know what to do, but he somehow selected the confirm button with his brain. They'd been given a bit of a training course before being flown in, but he'd never got the hang of it. It freaked him out, giving him that headachey feel you get from putting a finger close to the bridge of your nose and focusing on it. His name flickered up on the overall roster, designating him as squad leader of __________. He then saw a few names pop in his squad, and a few in the other squads. "Thing makes my ******* head spin." he complained, sitting down in the middle of the seats on the left. [What is the platoon called, Mike?]

Congratulations, SikSlik7! Keep on Forgin'!

[Quick question, Mike. Are we having some sort of TEAMCOM, using the CH252s, or is it just a few radiomen here and there hefting equipment around?] Sergeant Geza came into view in front of their transport. The ramps all hissed a little, lowering to the ground in what sounded like a chorus of snakes. It was both eery and intimidating, which was probably the point of syncing them all up to drop at the same time. "Step right up. You'll be loading these up for this op. Regular seven-six-twos for your MA5 assault rifles. These are training rounds; red paint laced with a tranquilizer to simulate how useless you'll feel when shot. Make no mistake, these are non-lethal, but like anything fired out of a gun, results may vary. Don't f*** up. Dispense it evenly and make it last." Shields was glad that they were going to be using Tactical Training Rounds. The simulated death was the best part of CombatSim games - he'd heard that, the game it all originated from, Airsoft, had its dead players stand, raise their hand and walk past everyone back to base, or spawn. That sounded like a load of unrealistic crap to him. "Jesus. Would it kill him to smile for a change?" He turned around to face Dwyer, the one who'd made the comment about Geza. Shields smiled, shrugged and looked back to the Sergeant. He looked grizzly as ****, but Oliver guessed he'd been one of the comedians in his squad, back when he'd been deployed. "I guess it probably would. The Staff Sergeant would probably shoot him or something." Oliver grinned at the thought of Kawolski gunning thirty-two TTR rounds into Geza. Then again, it wasn't so funny when he thought of the consequences if he was found talking or thinking about it. He'd probably end up with those thirty-two rounds in his chest. "Gotta keep your eyes open, man." All of a sudden, one of the leaders, Ky-something, jabbed a harsh elbow into his back. Shields frowned angrily, gripping his empty rifle tighter. He didn't raise it, but it made him feel a little more macho. As the cocky little f*** swaggered off, Oliver loosened his grip on the MA37. "The ****?" he muttered. "Great team spirit. Go platoon."

[sorry for the delay. I was orginally waiting for other squad leaders to post, but what does it matter? Also, if anyone else feels like joining the squad, feel free to do so. Know that, when you choose, the other squad leaders might end up with no members. That'd suck!] Shields, his squad now formed, looked down at his rifle. He reached for the display button on the MA5, pressing it down to bring up the blue ammo counter and compass. Whilst he still preferred the iron sights, the display looked pretty cool, and would be useful for when his magazine began to run dry. In CombatSim, he found it very inconvenient having to reload mid-firefight, when he had thought he had more rounds in the mag. "Recruit Sh-Shields, Recruit Aves requesting, requesting command of a-a fireteam." "Fireteams," Shields looked up from the two cyan zeroes on the display, towards Aves' face. "It's good you know the structure. I'll decide once you've all buddied up." Mickey exhaled slightly at that. He turned to one of the recruits who looked as he did: a little shy, a little awkward, though pretty tough-looking. Mickey was about to introduce himself and another NPC showed up, barging in front of him and taking the other NPC as his partner. Obviously, both Mickey and the ignorant arse had noticed the guy's performance with the BR55; the guy looked to be a decent shot. "***hole." Mickey muttered to himself, looking dumbly at the other recruits trying to find partners.

[i didn't really know if we were picking our own men, but yeah... ] Shields had been chosen to be squad leader. Instead of overdoing a reaction, he stepped forward a little dumbly, turning to the other recruits as his fellow squad leaders were called out. He scratched his chin, trying to suppress the grin that would have formed otherwise. He looked to Mickey, nodding next to him. He joined Shields, standing behind him, rifle to the floor. "Er, Grec, Aves, Basic, erm... Dwyer?" Shields called a few names that he knew didn't belong to ********. He called out eight more, so that each member of the squad, minus him, would have a buddy to work with. He was a big fan of that system, having someone you can really work with and get to know well: a brother in arms. He knew he could count on Mickey, but he wanted to follow the three four-man fireteams, plus a squad leader, tactic. He was used to that when he played in the CombatSims. To his right, the other three nominated leaders were bickering about something to do with Professors? Huh? Shields shrugged it off and ushered his troops into a double-file line. "Find someone to partner up with - you'll probably be with them till after we finish training, so choose someone you're not gonna throttle in the field." he mentioned, putting his helmet on and fastening the strap. He made sure it was tight enough for it to stay on, but not so much as to cut off the blood supply to his neck and chin.

It wasn't exactly the best attitude to have, but this exercise seemed like it would be fun. Shields had done similar things back home, but that was against neckbeards and kids. They were supposed to go up against a dozen Shock Troopers? Were they mad? Did they want them to get shot? He looked dumbly at the ground - of course they wanted them to get shot. "I have a question, Staff Sergeant." Oliver piped up, his first time speaking to the Staff Sergeant formally, if you were to exclude the brief apology in the lecture room. "Are we just running in there, or are we going to be placed into organized teams, Staff Sergeant?" The thought of running around with a bunch of brainless recruits that didn't really know anything, other than the "tactics" they'd picked up on in video games or movies, scared the hell out of him. Some form of order would have been better than the Headless Chickens Platoon. Mickey looked at his bud next to him, agreeing with the words he spoke. He acknowledged, however, that Shields would probably get b*llocked for trying to catch Kawolski out. That, or the Staff Sergeant would just laugh at him and enjoy it the most when he got shot. Okay, that sounded a lot more like the stereotypical Drill Instructor that Mickey had gathered from games and movies.