RedStarRocket91

Whether I want specialisations or not is sort of a difficult question, as it feeds into the bigger topic of where Halo is going as a series. Right now there are three main directions it could evolve in, each with quite a few pros and cons; the first, a return to 'classic' arena-style Halo where everyone starts exactly the same; the second, its current form of arena-style with customisable elements; and the last, a class-based system in which players are equipped to fill certain roles. While specialisations would obviously be essential to the third option and completely inappropriate for the first, in the second there's a lot more room for discussion. For the record, it's actually this customisable arena style that I prefer, though I do enjoy the classic style as well. It goes without saying that any specialisations would need to be balanced, but that alone isn't enough to make including specialisations themselves balanced. For all I really liked the loadout system in Halo 4, one of the things I hated about it was the arbitrary system of unlocks. I've used the Team Fortress analogy to explain this before and I'll use it again: think what it would be like if you could ONLY play as a Heavy or a Demoman in TF2 and you had to unlock the others. It's fantastic if you like playing as one of those, but if you're naturally better with something like the Scout or the Sniper, you're at a huge disadvantage, even though the classes themselves are balanced. It doesn't matter how well balanced your loadout options are, if players can only use certain ones to begin with and then have to unlock the others over time (however small a time), then it unbalances gameplay. While person A might well get something which suits his playstyle perfectly from the moment he first spawns, person B might have to wait days or even weeks to unlock the stuff which best serves her own needs, and every time they play each other in that time person A is going to have a huge advantage over person B, even if B is actually a much more skilled player who'll regularly win once she gets her own perfect loadout. Provided that everyone gets access to equipment, perks and specialisations from the very start of their Spartan career, I'm all in favour of their inclusion: they give a few extra options on the battlefield and give players a better chance to have an impact on a game from spawn, whereas under classic systems how you perform often depends more on what gametype variant gets picked than actual player skill. I'm also not averse to players having to choose and complete a specialisation path before they can pick another: however, it would be nice to be able to find out exactly what a specialisation does before you pick it, and perhaps even be able to test it out in solo Spartan Ops games or whatever before you commit to it, rather than just having to rely on the incredibly vague in-game descriptions that Halo 4 provides. In terms of the specialisations themselves, provided they're balanced, I don't mind what effects they have, although it would be interesting to see a system of trade-offs in terms of their effects rather than pure buffs. This would both give an advantage to purists who prefer to use weapon-only loadouts without perks, and also make customisation more tactical: perhaps you could take as many as you like, but each one lowers your maximum shields by 10%, meaning you gain versatility but lose durability. Another option would be that each perk gives you both a buff and a specific nerf: you can have a motion tracker which detects players even when standing still, but its range is halved; you can reload faster but carry less ammunition; you can increase the level of aim assist, but weapons fire slower, etc. So, overall: a tentative, 'yes', provided that they're balanced and everyone has immediate, equal access to them. Otherwise, no thanks.

That's just a glitch though, when playing either locally or via LAN players are always splattered as normal even if the vehicle hits the shield head-on. Surviving a hit either means the vehicle wasn't going fast enough or that there's a lag-based issue. On topic: did you know that although the Binary Rifle deals enough damage to kill a player with full shields outright with a single body shot, it's still marked as a headshot weapon?

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Did you know that the Hardlight Shield deflects any incoming projectiles, including Needler rounds, overcharged EMPs from the Plasma Pistol, and even rockets?

Just to mention, although I'm not going to be available to play for another week or so I do own Rome II, and so could potentially fill in as the second player if necessary. 1. Two players might be a bit better 2. Carthage!

What, were you worried I was going to say... smeeze?

Fifty

Take care of yourself, SG. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you here, but the real world always needs to take priority. I wish you the very best of luck with your issues, and I hope to see you again someday!

I think that the 16:9 aspect ratio is probably here to stay. Over the past 10 years or so, it's slowly been replacing almost all other screen and application sizes because it's generally very convenient for us to view (most societies read horizontally rather than vertically, for example, and people generally prefer to look to the sides rather than up or down). Anything wider and it becomes uncomfortable as we have to move our eyes around to take in the whole picture at once, and anything narrower makes us uncomfortable because we feel like it's cutting off our peripheral vision. FOV doesn't really have all that much to do with aspect ratio. If you're on PC, changing your FOV is usually as simple as just opening a command line and typing in something like 'setfov [value]', and it will usually update as soon as you hit Enter or close the command line. Your monitor size and the size of the application don't change, but your FOV can. In any case, if we're going to talk pixel size then I don't really see any major updates in the next five to ten years. 1080p is still actually less common than 720p for most people, and it's only once 1080p becomes the absolute baseline standard that we're going to see any sort of major push toward even higher pixel counts among the general populace: I'd guess that's going to happen within about five years. After that, I'd say 4k resolutions are going to become the next standard to aim for, but it would probably be at least another seven or eight years before that actually did become the norm.

Quoting from articles to illustrate a point is still okay. As a rule of thumb, if someone Googles a couple of sentences from what you've written and gets matches with other content on all of them, that's when there's going to be problems. Similarly, if someone open a source link and the original article is structured in exactly the same way, just with words swapped out for synonyms, then that would be an issue. Just having a couple of similar phrases here and there isn't an issue in itself - the main aim of this rule change is to protect our forum and its members from legal action, but we're not going to hand out punishments unless there's clear intent of plagiarism.

In the past, it has been common practice among members to copy and paste news articles from other sites in whole with, at best, nothing but token amendments to/analysis of content, and often even without citation of sources. Due to legal concerns raised over the past few days, these types of post are now banned with immediate effect and, due to the severe nature of the aforementioned legal issues, warning points and posting restrictions may be imposed for breaching this rule. Plagiarism of any kind can be an extremely serious matter, and deliberate attempts to steal content such as avoiding source citation, changing individual words, or re-writing entire articles on a sentence-by-sentence basis will result in proportionately harsher punishments. We want the forums to be a great place for original content and discussion, rather than one under threat of legal action. Your support of this policy ensures that the forums remain open and free to all members of the community.

As of today, I'm very pleased to announce a shake-up to the staff here at 343i.org. The first of these changes concerns a News Group member whose fantastic contributions toward the reintroduction of Community Events and boundless creativity mean that he'll be joining D-38 Boss and Onsokumaru as the newest member of the Promotions / Events team. Ladies and gentlemen, he's not just cool, he is - Cooliest! Today's second announcement concerns a brand-new addition to the staff. A long-time member and a regular presence in both the forums and the shoutbox, he's also one of the most prolific contributors to our News page, bringing in the latest happenings from all around the gaming world with engaging original articles and regular updates. Introducing the newest official member of our News Group, Edward Kenway! I hope you'll join with me in giving a warm warm 343i.org welcome to our new staff member and congratulations to Cooliest on his new role. If you want more of Edward's stuff, remember to check the News page everyday for the latest happenings from all around the gaming world!

That I did

Staff Response There's been a lot of flaming in this topic of late, and while we like to try and give our clans as much autonomy as possible, we can't allow this sort of behaviour - especially when, as recently, it begins to spill over and out into the rest of the forums. This thread, and the behaviour of Blue Team members when in the rest of the forums, needs to see a dramatic improvement in the coming days and weeks: if Blue Team cannot be trusted to moderate itself, then we will do it for you.

The title of Member of the Month is an interesting thing. It's one of the few awards on the forums which doesn't have a specific criteria to earn, and yet perhaps the most prominent award of all on the site. We choose our MoMs based on outstanding contribution to the community: how that contribution is made is entirely up to those who strive for it. This month's MoM is someone who has worked even harder than most to earn his new status. It's not simply that he's been producing almost as many high-quality articles as our official News Group put together, nor is it that he's a near-constant figure in the shoutbox, nor a regular submitter to the forums as a whole, nor even that he's one of the most consistent attendees of our Community Events both in the forums and in-game - though all of these things unquestionably form a part of it. Instead, our newest MoM is a shining example of the award at its best precisely because he has proved that it's entirely possible to rebuild bridges that have been burned with other members, to move past personal conflicts and clashes, and to bounce back from a poor reputation to being one of the most popular and well-regarded members of the forum today. With the unanimous backing of the entire voting panel, it's with enormous pleasure and respect that I announce our new Member of the Month, Edward Kenway! Congratulations, Edward: you truly have earned this award, and I hope all of our members will take your inspirational attitude to heart!