RedStarRocket91

I need to preface this by saying that what I'm about to say is my personal opinion as a player, not a moderator, and doesn't necessarily represent the views of the staff or forum as a whole. Stuff I like about the beta, based on what I've played of it so far: The weapon balance seems decent enough, and in particular, it's really nice to switch to an Assault Rifle and actually expect to do something with it. Bungie had an odd obsession with making automatic weapons near-useless compared to precision guns even at their supposed optimum ranges, and so it's great to see 343i continuing what they started in Halo 4 by trying to make all elements of the sandbox viable options. The new movement options feel really good: clambering felt completely natural from the very start, the thruster pack actually feels useful without being overpowered, and while I haven't used the slide function much owing to my weird controller setup, on those occasions where I have tried it out it's been both very useful and kind of cool. Sprint seems balanced pretty well, and with the addition of the thruster pack the shield recharge delay doesn't completely ruin player mobility after taking damage. The power weapon and enemy position callouts are helpful without being overbearing, and the inclusion of named, visible position callouts from the start of the game is going to be very nice from a competitive perspective. Stuff I don't like, based on what I've seen: Killcams. These weren't such a big deal in Halo 4 as they were easy to skip, but for some reason unless I'm mashing my X button like crazy I can't pre-emptively get rid of them. An option to toggle them off altogether would be very nice: on a related note, I'd far rather just stare at my own corpse for five seconds after dying than have it automatically follow a teammate. It's really disorienting and I'd far rather know who killed me and have a few seconds knowing where they're going/what they're doing than killcams and teamfollow, neither of which are any use whatsoever. ADS Smart Scope. I complained about exactly the same principle when the first screenshots of Halo 4 came out, because it makes the screen incredibly busy and distracting - and that was when there were just two small HUD markers around the reticule. Now the whole screen is taken up with crap and it makes it far harder to acquire and track targets than previous scopes: there's also now literally no point to scoping in the pistol as the 'aim assist' holographics are literally so obstructive that it becomes just about impossible to actually see the target. I don't hate this because it isn't 'Halo', but because it's a horrible, cluttered method of aiming and targeting in every game it's in, and I'm desperately hoping there's some form of more classic aim introduced for those players like me who don't like half their screen being taken up with distracting nonsense. There's also some evidence - though I can't confirm this for certain - that smart scope and hipfire actually DO have drastically different bullet spread profiles based on a few tests I conducted when I fund a quite spot on Truth for a few minutes, with the AR in particular becoming incredibly precise in its bullet spread, so I'm hoping that's fixed before release. As is, there's a real need to use ADS in order to be competitive, and combined with the horrible animation and screen-filling crap that comes with doing so, that's a big issue. On the same theme, I really don't like how big and screen-filling the weapons have gotten. Guns in Halo have always been pretty large on the screen, but the DMR in particular is now enormous and distracting as hell. I'd love to see weapon models toned down a little bit pre-release, although admittedly the transition to full 1080p might resolve this naturally. There's a LOT of verticality in the maps I've seen so far, and yet inexplicably the reticle has moved back to the centre of the screen rather than staying in the bottom third where it's been for the previous ten years. There was a very good reason why it was there, and that's because it's much more useful to be able to see what's above you than it is to see what's directly under your feet. Put it back where it was. Seriously. The FOV seems a bit... off. This might be tied into the fact that the reticle has moved and the gun models are higher and oriented differently from before, but if it could be moved back to the H2-H4 standard rather than that of CE, which it roughly seems to be analogous to now, it'd be nice. This is doubly important given the complete mess ADS makes of the screen - it's bad enough that half the screen is obscured by crap without targets being half their size in other games. From a texture and lighting perspective, the game is complete crap. This isn't a huge issue yet as it's still very early in the development cycle, but I really hope someone takes a good look at the lighting and colour palette in particular before launch, as right now it's often quite difficult to see opposing Spartans depending on the lighting - Truth in particular gives blue team an enormous camouflage advantage due to its lighting, so either revisiting lighting or making armour a bit less saturated and plasticky would be great - Halo 4's light coloured teams were perfect for this kind of moody background, and so I'm hoping we'll see a return to that kind of colouration.

For the past day or so, Xbox LIVE has been suffering a DDoS attack which has caused problems for the matchmaking services in a lot of games, including the MCC. Hopefully, it's an issue that'll correct itself in the coming days as the network gets back to normal, assuming that it doesn't suffer any further attacks.

If you're looking to use this thread to advance to everyone's favourite purple usergroup, then I have some bad news... any posts or topics made in this forum don't actually contribute to your overall post count, so no matter how big this thread gets you won't be any closer to becoming a Trusted Member. Of course, posting anywhere else aside from the Offbeat and Clan Recruitment forums will increase your total posts, so you can get purpled up that way!

There are two main reasons as to why a member may be unable to access the shoutbox: the first is having received a deliberate shoutbox ban from a moderator, which will be accompanied by either an explanatory PM or a warning point, or by being part of the 'New Members' usergroup, which is inherently restricted from using the shoutbox as a spam prevention feature. Shoutbox bans normally expire over time, with duration depending on the nature and severity of the behaviour which warranted their issue, and upon reaching five posts a 'New Member' will be automatically promoted to a 'Member', which allows access to the shoutbox. Our Offbeat, Introductions, and Clan Recruitment forums do not add to a user's total posts: however in all other forums, any topics created or replies to existing topics will contribute to a member's total post count for the purposes of promotion.

I assume you're playing Halo 4 on the X360 rather than the X1? If so, the problem isn't actually with either your internet or Halo 4 itself: the issue is with the game's population. Halo 4 has always been one of the less popular Halo games, and so there have always been some issues with getting a good connection. However, it's now two years post-release, and since the MCC is out, the number of people playing is really low. Basically, when you've got a population of 25000, 5000, or even 1000 people in a playlist, there's enough people searching for a game that you'll probably be able to get into a lobby where everyone has a compatible connection. However, when a playlist is down to very low numbers of people, as with most of Halo 4's current ones, the number of players you can connect to drops drastically and so the only way to actually make sure that you're getting enough people to fill a lobby to the point where you can actually start a game is to add players who are so far away or whose connections are so poor that normally, you wouldn't be put into a game with them. Sadly, there isn't actually anything that anyone can do about this, unless a lot more people suddenly decide to start playing not only the correct console version of Halo 4, but also the relevant playlist - and since a lot of players tend to actively avoid low-population playlists outright, it's a self-reinforcing issue. Basically, the best thing you could do would be to play a game, save the map and gametype, and then invite a few people who you know you'll have a good connection with to a custom game lobby.

Yes, you need to finish every mission while connected to Xbox LIVE with an uninterrupted connection in order to unlock the Mark VI armour.

This is a known issue, and unfortunately it's by design rather than a bug. In order to unlock the Chief's Mark VI armour for use in multiplayer, you'll need to complete the whole campaign while connected to Xbox LIVE - if your connection drops during a mission or you complete the campaign offline, then unfortunately you won't unlock the armour.

Whether or not you can get your files back depends on whether or not it was just the profile data itself that was deleted, or all the items associated with that profile. You can check this by looking at the contents of your hard drive: if the files are still there, you should be able to access them normally, although you'll need to recover your profile from Xbox LIVE again if for some reason it hasn't detected them the first time. However, if they aren't there, then unfortunately there's no way to get them back, unless you have them synced to your Cloud Storage or uploaded to your File Share in-game.

The power to simultaneously be RSR and the Director.

Oh God, kill me, that's embarrassing O_O Sorry Zan, fixed now!

As of today, I'm very pleased to be able to make several announcements, including another addition to our affiliates, a brand new member group, and not one, but TWO new competitions! Our first announcement is a brand new partnership with one of the most exciting projects in the Halo fandom: Installation 01. The project team is composed of a number of long-time Halo fans including our own Community Moderator Church, and is determined to bring the Halo experience back to the PC scene, and in addition to reporting all the latest news and updates on the project, we'll also be providing their official discussion forums once the game moves into Beta: you can check out what they're all about, in their own words, in the tags below: Installation 01 is fantastic news for anyone who's been yearning for the return of Halo on the PC, and we're incredibly excited to be partnering up with them - we hope you'll welcome our newest affiliates, and that you'll join us in our adventure toward the future of Halo on PC. Next is the introduction of a brand new 343industries.org Forge Group, to complement our updated Forge sections: in addition to producing special maps for our future Community Events, plus hints and tips for map creation, they'll be producing a regular map spotlight feature, showcasing the very best submissions to our Forge sections. We'll be looking to expand this group over the coming weeks, so if you've ever wanted to be a part of the staff here on the site and you've got what it takes to Forge some truly incredible experiences, this is your chance - but for now, please give your congratulations to our Forge Group's first two cartographers, Maestro and Zandril! In addition to their regular duties, our new Forge Group is also going to be involved with the first of our two upcoming site competitions. It's been a very long time since the last one, but I'm delighted to be able to report the proud return of our forum Forge-offs with our inaugural Halo 2: Anniversary Forge Contest! Getting involved is simple: all you need to do is create a 2v2 map in our newest Forge engine, and post it here for us to marvel at. There are site awards, a place in a special submission gallery, and of course glory to be won, so if you're interested in taking part, simply head over to our submission thread, read the rules, and start building! This first contest ties directly into the second, as we announce the return of competitive tournament Halo for the masses! February 2015 marks the opening of our 2v2 Halo 2: Anniversary contest, and will feature the winning maps from our Forge competition. We'll have more details and a sign-up thread once Forge submissions close, but for now, choose your partners and pick up your Battle Rifles, and get ready for a challenge!

It's been a pleasure having you here, TDM

Interesting read - will we be seeing more reviews from you in the future?

If you did the playlist with your brother, that's probably the issue - as far as I know, to unlock LASO nameplates, you'll need to complete a playlist solo, rather than in co-op, as otherwise only 'player one' will receive any relevant rewards.

Good luck!