RedStarRocket91

Wait... hang on, did you seriously just claim Activision isn't as bad as EA? Have you even SEEN all the nonsense DLC they put into their games these days? The only difference between EA and Activision is that EA is worse. Give it six months and I pretty much guarantee this kind of stuff is going to happen to Destiny.

The first thing I'll probably do is try out the new H2:A multiplayer, as it's the only one I haven't played before in some capacity and since it's apparently going to be built with the same design philosophy as Halo 3, my personal favourite multiplayer, I'm quite excited for it. After that, I'll most likely try out the online for Combat Evolved, as although I've played a fair share of that before it'll be very nice to be able to just hop into a game without needing to spend time organising a LAN party (and presumably because they'll have had to write all-new netcode for it, which should mean it'll have one of the best matchmaking experiences). Beyond that, I'll probably spend most of my time in Halo 4 (as I'm finally going to be able to play the DLC with other people), though I might also go back to Halo 3 quite a bit, provided that the dedicated servers increase performance, as right now it's unfortunately all but unplayable online. Really, the only multiplayer I don't have any plans to touch online is the original Halo 2, while virtually everything else appeals to me. And of course, I'll (hopefully!) be participating in this on launch day! For campaigns: we're going to be streaming all four campaigns back to back on our forum Twitch channel, and we've yet to decide who's doing which sections yet, so I'm not sure (although I'd expect to either kick it off with either The Pillar of Autumn or to come in part-way through Combat Evolved's campaign). If not, then while that's going on I'll probably try out Halo 2's campaign as I'd like to see what it looks like with the updated graphics. For Spartan Ops - I'm not sure. Spartan Ops isn't really a big deal for me as I've already played through it once and I'm not really a fan of the way some of the levels are set up (especially as the Promethean missions in particular tend to be focused much more around just spamming foes on all sides rather than using tactics). I'll probably try out one of the earlier missions though, just to get a feel for the controls again.

As of today, we've discovered a new type of spambot on the forums which is significantly better disguised than anything we've encountered before. These new spammers work by copying part of an existing member's reply to a thread, and then hiding an off-site link in their own post, usually in the form of a period at the end of the text. Because these replies are copied from other members, they generally make sense on their own and so to a casual glance appear to be perfectly legitimate replies, unlike the garbled nonsense posts or obvious links associated with traditional spambot behaviour. They also seem capable of using the report system, which is how we managed to catch today's spammer, although I believe this to be a coding bug (as report and quote post functions are right next to each other) and so it's unlikely any in the future will give themselves away in the same manner. Although the moderating team tries to read every post which is made on the forums, due to the well-disguised nature of these bots there's a chance that some of them are going to slip through. We therefore need to ask for your help in rooting out any future posts by these kinds of bots. If you encounter any replies with what appears to be sections of text copied from another member's posts, or see any links in periods or other characters, please report these posts immediately and under no circumstances follow these links. The protection of our members is always our first priority, and so I'll update this post with any new information about these spambots as it comes to light. In the meantime, please be vigilant with reporting anything which you feel may be as a result of a spambot: there will never be a penalty for reporting something which turns out to be harmless, and the moderating team would far rather follow a hundred reports which end up needing no action than allowing a member to be harmed by a post which goes unreported.

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

Well, I'm certainly stumped.

Topic locked due to content repost, please see the original topic here.

You missed 3, start again.

We prefer that people link directly to images and videos because we can't control things like comment sections, other page content, or adverts, which of course can range anywhere from completely harmless and even useful to, as you've said yourself, the garbage that makes up most comment sections on YouTube: this is why we prefer people embed video links into posts rather than just posting them in the shoutbox. The shoutbox has always been a little different in terms of rules - for example, you can just post an image link, whereas a post or thread with nothing but an image would be deleted due to low content - and because you can't embed links there, it wouldn't be fair to force someone to create a thread just to share a video to a discussion ongoing in the shoutbox, or if they're streaming. I concede that's not clearly stated in the rules though, so I'll look into amending that. For the second point: if you see this happening, please report it. This rule is very much in effect, and unfortunately that staff member was mistaken. You can link to another website as a source for something if you're writing a news article or referencing something, but other than that, all links need moderator approval. Right now, we remove any links we find that don't fit our auto-approval criteria and PM the member letting them know, so if you find anything which needs to be approved or doesn't fit the rules, please report it. It's not a case of the rules willingly not being enforced, it's a case of it slipping through the gaps in moderation, and so letting us know when you see it is a big help. Mainly it's just a bandwidth thing. For people who have data caps (which I gather are quite common in the USA), profile music can chew up a fair amount of data, and of course it slows down page loading times for those on weaker connections. This isn't such a big issue when it's only active on around 10 profiles, but if we extended it beyond that, it could potentially cause problems for data capped users. On a personal level, I also just kind of don't like autoplay, which is why I don't use it on my own profile. If any members want to share some of the music they enjoy, then I'd encourage them to do the same thing I do and just put a link to it from their own profile for people to follow at their own leisure. Right now, Instagram isn't something we're really looking into, as it's still predominantly an image-sharing medium rather than a true social network - and we already have our own Gallery in the File Share for hosting images, in any case. If Instagram continues to expand and becomes a bigger social platform then you can expect to see us on there in the future, but for now it would mean a whole new page to administrate and moderate for very little gain, and so for the immediate future there are no plans to expand there. This is for the protection of our members. Members and even non-moderation staff don't have any authority or ability to moderate other members' accounts, and so anyone causing trouble isn't compelled to listen to you if you try to control them or reign in poor behaviour. Essentially, this could make you a target for that member's behaviour, and lead to flaming, confusion, or a situation where we need to issue warnings and bans to multiple people rather than just the troublemaker: it could also lead to accusations of favouritism, special protection, or persecution by moderators, and it puts an expectation on us to reveal any action taken, which is against our moderating rules. Reports are also important as it gives us a case file of information to use when making decisions. If a user enters the shoutbox every day for a week and breaks rules, but is only reported on Sunday night, then unless it's been directly witnessed by a moderator we only have one instance to make a decision on, meaning we're less likely to be able to act quickly and with the correct course of action. Of course, if we get reports every time that member causes trouble, we can track what they're doing better and so moderate that much more efficiently.

1100 credits, for which you could also get an APC and a Missile Squad, so it's best to mix in a few of the latter with your tanks in order to allow you to counter enemy infantry. This is especially important when dealing with the Scrin, whose Disintegrators can't simply be run over by your tanks as they explode and inflict damage when crushed. Ignoring tanks altogether and focusing on Missile APCs can also make for a very effective early game rush by targeting enemy Harvesters and then running away if you're outmatched. Just remember to scout with a Pitbull in case they're playing Nod, otherwise you'll be reducing to force firing and hoping for the best. If it's defaulting to new members rather than new posts, it's likely a browser issue - try clearing your cache and deleting cookies, and that should probably resolve it.

This really depends on what they're asking to boost. If they're asking people to join matchmaking or custom game lobbies to boost rank, XP or commendation, then while that's against the spirit of gaming it's not breaking any rules, and so those are fine. Of course, if people are advertising boosting lobbies in exchange for payment, or are offering hacks or cheats, then those would be against the rules as we don't encourage breaking the rules of Xbox LIVE in any way, shape or form. On the forums, creating or participating in threads for the sole purpose of boosting posts or likes is against the rules, as we want to encourage people to make good quality posts and to contribute to discussions, rather than just posting lots of small, inconsequential things in order to get to higher usergroups. This is a big part of the reason why content posted to either the Offbeat or Clan forums no longer contributes to total post count, as the former tends to have less serious topics where lots of low-content replies are made, while the latter's discussions tend to be fairly insular. I'm sorry, I don't understand, can you rephrase that? I believe it's a holdover from the early days of the site, where all non-moderation staff shared a single usergroup colour. Over time, most of them got their own usergroup colour, but for some reason Event Management and the Art Department never made the change. For the most part, those two departments don't really have that much overlap on the forums so it's not a big deal, but it's something I'll get around to correcting eventually. Part of what's stopping it is that the 'hot' colours (yellow, red, orange) are reserved for senior staff and legendary members, so that we're immediately identifiable: this is why most of the staff groups are shades of blue and green. White and black are used for bots and the Banned group respectively, and silver is already taken by Dedicated members, which essentially rules out the monochrome groups. Community Moderators, Trusted and Members then take up the darker shades of blue, purple and green, and so there are actually surprisingly few options for new, distinct usergroups.

Actually, I can still ban you

As of today, I'm incredibly pleased to be able to announce four changes to the staff here at 343industries.org. The first of the new additions to the staff is a member who has distinguished himself through his regular contributions to our signature shop, often beating existing members of the staff to fulfilling requests! As prolific and talented an artist as he is a regular sight around the forums, the newest member of our Art Department is none other than Jack of Harts! The next member to be joining the staff is not just a dedicated Forger and PC gamer, but also a fantastic organiser whose ideas for the ongoing Teleforge project and several upcoming Let's Plays have made for some of the most interesting dynamics between creator and audience seen anywhere on the forums! Please offer congratulations to the newest member of our Event Management, Sikslik7! Today's final recruit is one of the most active contributors on the site today, frequenting not just the shoutbox and the forums but virtually every Community Event to date - in addition to hosting his own, while somehow still finding the time to write up a plethora of articles for our News page! The newest member of our News Group is, of course, Unease P34nut! No doubt some of you have noticed by now that although I promised four changes, there are only three new additions to the staff. Today's final announcement comes in the form of a new Community Moderator: he's been a long-time contributor to our News Group and after a short spell in control of our forum's Twitter account while travelling, is back to a full-time position on the forums. In a move that I'm sure will surprise no-one, please welcome our newest Community Moderator, BeckoningZebra1!

I didn't realise they'd given his birthdate, my bad.

Mostly, I'm just hoping that our Spartans actually go back to being Spartan-sized: given how the Chief still towers over everyone around him in Halo 4's ending cutscene it's clear he's still clearly much taller than normal humans and even Spartan-IVs, so the fact that in-game he's only the same size as everyone else is probably just an engine limitation. I can kind of understand why they've done it as otherwise they'd need two completely different sets of animations for regular humans and Spartans because of the difference in relative weapon sizes, seat space etc, but it's still a bit frustrating. The alternative would be upscaling Spartan models and the weapon in their hands or having them change sizes whenever in a vehicle (in order to avoid clipping), but that would just look stupid. I actually wouldn't going back to the older, Halo 2/3-style where most weapons looked almost comically undersized in a Spartan's hands because it gave a real sense of the size of the players, and that was definitely missing in Halo 4 (though admittedly the sound design helped make up for it a little). It sort of made sense in Reach because the members of Noble Team didn't get the same augments as the Spartan-IIs and were only really meant to be about the same size as the average human (and of course, Jorge looked suitably massive alongside them), but for the Chief at least, I'd definitely like to see a larger model. Beyond that, I don't really mind which generation of Spartan we play as, as Locke could really be from any of them without harming canon: he could be a Spartan-II washout like Osman whose body was able to accept a later generation of augments, a Spartan-III pulled from Alpha or Beta companies like Noble Team, or just a regular Spartan-IV inductee. Regardless of which one is picked there's plenty of potential to give him a good character and backstory, and I'll be very interested in seeing what they do with him in Nightfall. As for multiplayer: I think we're probably going to be using Spartan-IVs again, as canonically almost all surviving Spartan-IIs are named and have characters, and given Jun's appearance in the comics I'd say by now any remaining Spartan-IIIs have probably been drafted into the Spartan-IV program either as instructors or operatives. As the Spartan-IV programme is a public, volunteer-based branch it's probably not going to be replaced anytime soon, and it's the only way that allows for customisation of Spartans without suddenly resurrecting massive numbers of Spartan-IIs.

Although you'll still be able to choose individual control schemes for individual games if you prefer, there are also going to be several universal control schemes which you can pick from which will be the same regardless of which game you're playing.

Actually, they appear to be reasonably similar in terms of size, the only difference is that on the updated model the stock is folded, whereas in the older version it isn't. I apologise for the poor quality of the image, but it helps demonstrate what I mean as all I've done here is crop out the stock of the weapon:

Images spoilered for convenience and bandwidth. SMG Assault Rifle Battle Rifle DMR Rocket Launcher (?) Sniper Rifle Source: Reddit In general, most of the weapons seem to look fairly similar to their Halo 4 counterparts: the Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle, and DMR in particular all appear to be essentially the same models with updated skins, although it seems as though there's a general trend toward adding more composite materials and colour to individual weapons as opposed to the plain metal of the weapons found in previous Halo games. The Assault Rifle in particular is extremely varied in terms of its materials, although both the DMR and Battle Rifle also share quite a few areas where sections seem to have been either replaced with non-metallic materials or darker shades of metal, though they could also simply be painted darker. On the whole, I'm a big fan of this, as the significant changes to colour silhouettes mean that it's going to be easier to identify weapons at longer distances, whereas in previous Halo titles players generally had to wait until they were being shot at before they could work out what weapon was being aimed at them. I can't honestly say I'm a fan of it from a visual perspective, as I like the visual consistency shared by the UNSC's weapon in previous titles, but it does seem like it's going to bring some benefits to gameplay, so I can't really complain there. The truly major change, of course, is the Rocket Launcher, which appears to have been completely redesigned with a much more modern, realistic aesthetic - again compromising both metal and composites. As most other weapons seem to have been simply upgraded and retextured in the new engine, I'm going to guess that the change in appearance here, radical as it is, means that we're going to see a major gameplay change for the Rocket Launcher, probably moving to single-shot rather than holding two rockets per reload as with previous incarnations. While a nerf for Halo's big explosive weapon will probably have a positive impact on competitive gaming, making it more of a tactical weapon rather than something which can simply wipe out whole teams at once, I still expect this change to be controversial. Another interesting change is that the Battle Rifle is now confirmed to be sporting the same reflex sight that we saw at the E3 announcement, in lieu of its traditional scope. Whether this is going to be a mostly cosmetic change to help distinguish its role from the scoped DMR or have an effect on gameplay isn't clear at the moment, but hopefully it doesn't herald a move toward ADS-style gameplay, or the removal of the Battle Rifle's zoom function altogether. Lastly, and perhaps most interestingly of all, is the inclusion of the SMG, which in its unsilenced variant has only ever appeared in games where dual-wielding was possible. As 343i have confirmed that dual-wielding won't be making a return, I'm curious as to what its role is going to be in the sandbox: if the Prometheans aren't going to be returning, it's possible that the SMG is going to fill the same role as the Suppressor did in Halo 4, of a very inaccurate but extremely powerful close-range weapon. However, in the past I've argued that the SMG, essentially a weaker version of the Assault Rifle, could fill a role as a secondary weapon for players who want to take a rifle as a primary but also want to have an automatic to fall back on without using the Firepower package, and I could definitely see it returning in this form. This is also reinforced by the fact that the SMG has been significantly shortened compared to its previous incarnations, even allowing for the folded stock, and the magazine appears to be loaded either atop the weapon or through the grip in the style of a pistol. What are your thoughts?