RedStarRocket91

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For starters you'll need to show them some previous relevant work: no matter how good you actually are, there's no way they're going to give you a job unless you can prove that you're that skilled. While any previous short stories or pieces of fanfiction you've written might seem like a good start, they're really just extras you can put on any application to make it look more impressive, because you want to show them not just that you're a good writer, but that you can make that writing work as a game. In short, you'll need to show an understanding of game development to some degree: this means that you'll need to show them any previous video games whose creation you've contributed to. Since you're wanting to be a writer, this means that you'll need something where you've had a big degree of creative input and control, not just that you were a beta tester or took part in a survey. If you haven't already had that kind of impact on the creation of a videogame, you need to get it before they'll even consider hiring you. No matter how good your writing is, they aren't going to give any creative input over one of the biggest videogame franchises to someone who hasn't already proved that they can get the job done. If you don't already have that kind of experience, there's a few ways to get it. Websites like Newgrounds are full of Adobe Flash-based games, so learning to use Flash and creating something with that is an option. You could also try creating a text-based browser game, if you have any knowledge of HTML coding: if not, I'm pretty sure there'll be programs out there that can teach you to do it, or even software programs that can do it for you, where all you need to do is write the story and decide what you want to do. If that's not your thing, try downloading the Adventure Game Studio software, which as I understand is very easy to use and gives you a lot of creative options. If you're feeling extremely ambitious and have a lot of programming knowledge, spare time and friends, you could also try using the Unreal Engine, whose older versions are now, I think, available to use for free under fair use agreements: while you couldn't sell anything you made with it, writing and directing the creation of a small game within that engine, with two or three other people working with you, would be a great way of showing off not only your own writing skills, but your ability to work with teams and organisational skills. Once you've created something you're proud of and it's in the public domain (i.e. it's available for other people to find, whether hosted on a website or purchasable through Steam or even P2P file-sharing, if you don't care about making a profit), start writing stuff to do with Halo. Say where you want to take the series: be, clear, confident and consistent in your opinions. They're more likely to give you a job if they think you have a definite plan in mind and know exactly how to do it than if you come across as unsure and directionless. So in short, show them you have prior experience at writing and creating good games (the greater the amount of successful stuff you've been involved in, the better!) and that you can not only bring your skills to Halo, but that you know exactly how you're going to use them. The mostly likely outcome is that you still won't get a job - they claim that they already have the whole Reclaimer Trilogy planned out and they must get hundreds of applications, for job vacancies that might not actually be open - but it gives you a much better chance than having no prior experience at all, and depending on how successful your own work is you might be able to start your own indie development group or even get hired by an existing company: both of these will increase your chances of eventually getting picked up by a really big studio. Good luck, I hope this helps!

I actually happen to agree with you. Even if there is a low playlist population, it's far better to give players as much control over what they're playing as possible. Look at Reach. The Team Objective playlist there was having a really good day if it hit 800 players, out of perhaps 60,000 people online - about 1.5% of the playerbase. In Halo 4, it's not uncommon to see the individual objective playlists containing half the total population. This isn't because these gametypes have somehow become 'better' than Slayer-centric matches: some people like the changes, some people don't. It's all down to the fact that players now don't have to worry about being stuck in a gametype they hate. For example I really like playing Capture the Flag, and used to love Assault before it was removed. I'm also a big fan of stuff like Dominion and Extraction: if you've ever been at a playdate where I'm hosting, you'll notice an unusually high number of Objective gametypes, and if you check my matchmaking history in Halo 4 you'll see my most popular playlists are Capture the Flag and Dominion. Yet go back to my service record in Reach, and you'll see it's almost completely comprised of Slayer matches. I'd never touch the Objective playlist. It's not that I've suddenly started liking Slayer less - I actually kind of prefer Infinity Slayer as I dreaded getting a DMR match in Reach - or started liking the new Objective gamemodes more. It's entirely because I now know exactly what kind of game I'll be going in to. I don't like pure Objective playlists because I think it's a dumb idea to group all the Objective modes together as similar gametypes. Assault has about as much in common with Oddball as it does with Slayer: there's two team trying to win and they shoot each other in the process. In consequence, there are a couple of game modes I really don't like playing: I can't stand King of the Hill, Stockpile, Headhunter and Oddball, for example. But now I actually do play Objective games because I know that I'm guaranteed to get the gametype I want instead of being stuck playing something I'll hate, which previously was a big enough worry that I'd just not play altogether and go and do Slayer or something instead. In short, giving players more control over what they play can only benefit the game. 'Low population' is a bad argument which completely misses the point of having extra playlists, because even if there's only a hundred people in one playlist then that's a hundred people having fun and enjoying the game, rather than five hundred who're playing something they aren't enjoying just because next game they might get to play something they want. Ultimately, it's way better to have a smaller but happy population than a larger, dissatisfied one.

The MoM award isn't your everyday award here at 343industries.org. Unlike other awards, there's no specific criteria to for being given it: instead, our MoMs earn their pink by being the best of the best in their own way, whether it's by starting brilliant discussions in the forums, providing a friendly and welcoming presence in the shoutbox, or by helping out with keeping the site running smoothly and full of content. This month's MoM is no exception, and is someone who will be immediately familiar to our vast Forge community and those who frequent the THFE forums. He freely dedicates huge amount of his own time to helping our Forgers build the best maps they can every Tuesday in Tuesday Night Testing (TNT), played a key role in the promoting the Meet Your Maker contest, and almost single-handedly created the entire Dominion game type Forging scene as it exists today. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a big round of applause for this month's Mom, all the way from THFE, AbleSir Thomas! Congratulations, AbleSir Thomas! We hope you enjoy your month in the pink!

The Shifting Gears game night is a unique playdate, we almost certainly won't be hosting them on a regular basis: we had to move the date as it looked like there was going to be a very low attendance, and one member in particular who'd done some incredible behind-the-scenes work wasn't going to be able to make it. As for other things, we probably won't start regular game nights for other games - we are first and foremost a Halo forum after all - but there may well be the occasional week where we'll play something new. And of course, if you have our community gamertag added, you can always just invite your fellow forum-goers to your own matches, no need to wait for approval from the mods!

"I will be boiled in oil."

As far as the Crimson map pack goes, I think I'd agree. With the exception of Wreckage, which I'll come to in a moment, the maps it came with just aren't very good. The sight lines across most of the maps are are far too open, and vehicles are just too powerful because of the layout: there aren't really and good spots to control, because there's nowhere besides the bases that has a big advantage in either height or cover and it's far too easy to just hop in a Warthog, Ghost or Mantis and strafe around the outside of the maps essentially unchallenged. The bases themselves are also far too defensible: there aren't many ways into them, so matches where one team isn't just being massacred tend to play out with one team getting all the vehicles and wiping out the first rush, and the other team then camping in their bases, neither team able to move because they can't proceed into each others' territory without quickly being killed. Wreckage is a bit better, as there are some very good spots on the map that can alter the way the game plays when controlled: there's the high ground just behind the bulk of the crashed ship, and the interior of the ship itself. Sight lines are also a lot better, as there's plenty of cover whilst still giving elevated positions an advantage and enough open spots that unless you're in a vehicle, running into them is a very bad idea. It also just flows well and looks pretty, which is a nice bonus. The Majestic map pack is completely different: not only does it look amazing (seriously, even if you don't like the architecture take a look at the skyboxes!) but the flow is perfect. There's a great balance between close and long range encounters which makes any starting loadout viable, and matches can be either incredibly fast-paced and chaotic or tactical and tense, depending on who's playing and the number of players. Monolith is probably my favourite as it plays well with pretty much any number of players, from 1v1s to 8v8s, and never feels too big or too small. A round of Capture the Flag with 16 people is, at least for me, up there with the greatest experiences from any previous Halo like wiping out a team of sword-room campers on The Pit or planting a bomb on an enemy-occupied Elephant on Sandtrap. I haven't played as much of the Castle map pack as I should have - I've been really busy since it came out, so I can't really offer any comment there. I played a few matches on Outcast and didn't really like it, but then I tried King of the Hill on Perdition and it was really amazing, so tentatively I'd suggest it's better than Crimson, but not quite on par with Majestic.

...you did read the post up to the part where he said he was able to play Ragnarok, right? Anyway, the first step is to try uninstalling and reinstalling the second disc: if that doesn't work, try borrowing a copy from a friend and using their second disc to install the multiplayer components. If that still doesn't work, try sing their first disc to play. If it starts working, then the 'good' news is that your own disc probably damaged and you'll need a new copy to play any more. This is 'good' news because if it's still not working, chances are that your Xbox itself has been damaged, and you'll need to have it looked at, which can be expensive if you're not still under warranty. However hopefully, it's just your second disc which is damaged, and once you use another copy to install, everything should work fine. Sorry I can't give you better news. Good luck!

I don't suppose you have an official source for this? I would LOVE for this to be true!

I actually quite like the idea of additional weapon and armour skins: as far as I'm aware, these would basically be new textures composed of small image files, and so wouldn't mean really huge downloads, unlike if there were alterations being made to polygon numbers or whatever. I don't know that I'd pay for new skins - they would have to be really good for me to do that - but if they were suitably cheap or could be bought individually for a low price (80MSP, say?) then I might be tempted to pick up one or two. Especially the pre-order skins: I could obviously only pre-order from one place and I'd quite like to have all the existing skins available by the time I hit SR-130. Provided the total download size was suitably small, I don't see any problem, and it's always nice to have the option of bonus customisation. Great idea, Caboose the Ace!

Wait... what? I can understand frustration at the CSR system not being in-game. I can even understand that people don't like the new maps because they think they're imbalanced, cater only to very specific playstyles, or don't look good or whatever. But... not liking Rumble Pit? An entirely optional playlist which greatly expands the options Lone Wolf-minded players have? A playlist which answers all the issues people have with having only Regicide as a FFA playlist? You know, stuff like this is exactly why a lot of people have stopped taking complaints about Halo 4 seriously. It's just opinionated ranting without any supportive evidence, analysis, or even really much in the way of explanation. You want to complain about the CSR? This is how you do it. You recognise that it does exist, and is viewable by the public, and therefore not having it in-game doesn't make sense if 343i don't want flaming and rank-centred abuse to occur because it can be seen anyway, so why not just bring it in-game? You ask why the criteria for getting a good CSR haven't been made clear, so you don't know whether it's better to spend a game getting three kills and then hiding until your team wins or going utterly kamikaze and getting a 0.5 K/D but earning enough medals to require a supportive spinal brace. You ask why, if people don't care about it, they don't just ignore it if it's displayed in-game, and considering it IS possible to be viewed, why they can't make it more convenient to be brought in-game: indeed, why can't it just be placed in your own Service Record somewhere, so that way you can see your own rank without others being able to see it too, which solves most people's issues with not having it. You want to complain about the maps? This is how you do it. You explain what exactly you think is so bad about them: the spawning locations don't offer even access to vehicles, power weapons and key battlefield points, or simply don't have enough initial cover. You look at the cover distribution across the map, and say if there's too much cover, so that it's hard to take on an enemy at range, or too little, so that there's problems with map movement and map control, or that it's too flat, so getting a height advantage is too powerful, or too crowded, so there's no point trying to take the high ground. You look at the weapons and vehicle distribution, because there is too much armour and not enough heavy weapons for the infantry to fight back with. You look at the bases teams have, because one is much harder to attack than the other, or has no long sight-lines with which to attack enemies at range, or they're both too open to attack making it hard for teams to coordinate a proper defense, or too closed, so that even an organised team has real difficulty just getting into it to steal a flag, never mind getting it back out again. Just saying 'I don't like it and it's bad' is, frankly, a very poor argument and doesn't even provide much in the way of discussion. As for hating Rumble Pit... what? It's one playlist which a lot of people have asked for. It has no effect on you whatsoever if you choose not to play it. I don't like Big Team games, so I don't play them. That doesn't mean I begrudge them the right to exist.

There's a difference between winning games and playing well. If I had a K/D of 0.25 or less in every game I played on a given day, but my teammates carried me and we won all of them, would it be right for me to rank up? Win/loss just isn't a good way of measuring skill. Assuming it actually does start matching players and teams of equal skill, everyone should naturally gravitate to a c. 50% win/loss, which then means you'd have people who're really great being matched against people who aren't purely because they have roughly the same ratio of win/loss. Besides, I think the way CSR is calculated is done by medals, rather than straight kills or objective captures or whatever. You might have a 0.9 K/D in Capture the Flag, but if you're regularly earning 8-10 enemy flag carrier kills per game, capturing two flags a game, or just assisting with plenty of flag captures, you should really end up with a decent CSR. What irritates me is that everyone who loves skill ranking systems apparently forgets there are gametypes focused on stuff other than just killing people. I'm aware it's a little odd for a Halo fan to not really like straight up Team Slayer games, but we do exist and frankly I like the fact that they're trying to measure people's ability sets, rather than just how high a K/D they can get, or their ability to get a group of players together and win games against randoms.

I actually think it's pretty good where it is. If you get shot while sprinting, your character begins to slow down, so with every successive hit you move just a little bit slower: this makes it harder to just use it to run away from fights, because not only are you not able to fight back, but you're not even really moving that quickly provided you're actually taking hits. The only thing I dislike about this is that it seems possible for players to actually end up sprinting at a slower speed than their regular movement: once you hit that critical threshold of having taken enough flak to slow you down, it should automatically just kick you out of sprint and raise your weapon so that you know you have to turn and fight instead of thinking you can still get away. Having any fire remove Sprint altogether is a bad idea: someone with an Assault Rifle or Suppressor spraying from the other end of the map might hit you, and if you're jumping over something you could fall to your death as a result, even though you're not really in a fight. Plus, what about someone getting fired at by snipers? That effectively decreases the skill gap, because instead of needing the skill to pull off a headshot on a fast-moving opponent, you can just shoot them in the chest and suddenly they're moving very slowly, and thus it takes less skill to actually hit them.

Since Halo 3, players have only been able to chat with people on their own team while in-game, unless they're standing VERY close to a member of the opposing team, at which point anything that's said can be heard by the other player - this is known as 'proximity voice', and although it is definitely present in Halo 3, I think it was abandoned from Reach onwards as it's not particularly useful, and indeed can be distracting. All players can still communicate in the lobby pre- and post-game, so if you want to talk to your opponents, you can still do it then: I think the restrictions only kick in once you get to the first in-match score screen, where all the player names are displayed on their relevant teams. Basically, it's just a way of letting teams coordinate better: you can talk freely on your mics about tactics and what's happening without having to worry that the other team will hear and use that against you: no more hassle with having to invite strangers to parties or private chats just to make sure you can tell everyone to rush the rockets, or head to the Banshee spawn because it's about to reappear, without your opponents also knowing what you're up to. Basically, it's about giving people a better chance to work as a team, and lets teams be more competitive even if they're not on friend lists or partied up. I don't think it extends to free-for-all gametypes, though. If you want to chat to the people you're shooting, you could always try hopping into Regicide, or playing custom games with all players in one big party.

I use it quite regularly with one of my flatmates: we play Spartan Ops and Campaign in addition to War Games, and we've yet to experience any problems at all. This is especially good when you consider that Spartan Ops is supposed to be played over XBL rather than System Link: it's been a great way for us to minimise lag, as although we're not explicitly setting it up as a system link game, it appears to just default to running the lobby like that anyway. Very positive experiences here!

Our April MOM is a member who may not be so familiar to the shoutbox crowd. When not massacring entire opposing teams on playdates, he spends his time in and around the Halo 4 forums, where he produces some of the most insightful content to be found on the site. Well-spoken and calm even when disagreeing with others, his topics cover a wide variety of subjects from a theory on the Flood as a utopian society to a suggestion for introducing personal ordnance into any return of the Firefight system. A pleasure to disagree with, just for the opportunity of reading one of his incredibly genial and well-considered rebuttals, our April MOM is incredibly well-deserving of his award. Ladies and gentlemen, please put you hands together for this month's MOM, VICTORY ELEMENT! Congratulations, Victory Element! We hope you enjoy your month in the spotlight, and that you can continue to produce such awesome posts! NEW! Read Victory Element's own MOM post here!