I found this link via HaloWaypoint:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4BraRoTAXQ

Wow, just wow. I can only hope that guy was banned permanently. Like not just from Halo, but his XBOX too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_-CzZIgSDU&feature=player_embedded

I knew there was an easter egg in Ep6 just didn’t know where it was. Well, I do now and I plan on hoping onto SpOps immediately to do this!

Thanks to HaloDiehards.net for posting the link on their site for this.

-Sal

Now you may be wondering why I’m bringing this up now instead of shortly after release. Well, I wanted to give the game some time to grow on me as well as gauge reactions fro friends and fans on Halo 4. While most of the opinions in this article are my own, some are also drawn upon and in agreement with those friends and fans.

I’d love to see some of the old armor return. Barring that, I think 343 really needs to take a look at much of the armor they created. Not so much from the neck down, but rather the helmets.

An overwhelming majority of them simply aren’t plausible. How is anyone supposed to see out of some of them? The ones I like the most are the ones with decent sized visors. Operator is great, so too the recruit. But what of Waterworks? Really? A slit in the middle of the helmet for a visor? Also, just the general design of some of these helmets is plain awful. EVA isn’t rounded anymore. And how about the sad face helmet..That’s the HAZOP helmet if you didn’t know. Or the Frankenstein helmet? Seriously, did 343 have any kind of focus group outside of themselves to gauge reaction? (And I’m talking outside of Microsoft altogether.)

As a designer myself as well as a long time Halo gamer, I’d have shot down at least a third of the helmet designs and had them redone or scrapped entirely.

Here are all but I think one of the helmets in Halo 4, with some commentary by me:

A plain “X” means I think it should just be completely removed from any future Halo games.
A “NP” means “not plausible” but could be reworked into a helmet that is plausible to see out of.
A “X” with a “F” next to it means “fugly.” Yeah, you know what that means… How did that design get approved.

(Might I suggest you download this graphic below and open in a new window to make it easier to read along)

Starting at the top, I could have dinged the Gungnir helmet as not plausible, but I gave this one a pass as it was in Reach and very popular as something different. I think however that 343 went just a bit too wild in their designs of helmets for Halo 4. Especially in thinking that we’d like more helmets without plausible visors. Really, what’s the use of visor colors for some fo these helmets when they have none or barely there visors? Anyway, back to the top row. I’m actually fine with them all except while I think the FOTUS helmet (marked “NP” is cool, that horn really should go.
Second row: CIO? More like I can’t see at all. Okay of the offending NP helmets this one has the next to the best potential behind the FOTUS helmet. Change it so that the black area surrounding the three visor dots is also part of the visor and we have a workable helmet that even looks decent. The last one in the row is kind of the same, though that visor would be HUGE.
Third row: Orbital…uh, the mish-mash of Emile’s helmet from Reach, that skull is just horrid. Sorry but I really would have preferred the carved in look. Though yeah, then people would complain about continuity with Emile being dead. So just can this helmet and bring back the traditional EVA helmet. (Which bears noting that the Strider and even to a point the new Rogue helmets are close to the EVA. While I like the Strider one, it and the Rogue one can go in place of a proper EVA helmet.) The helmet next to the Orbital one (forgive me that I can’t recall which one it is) is kinda ungly. Put a visor on it please. Otherwise drop it.
Fourth row: OMG, that Pioneer helmet…It’s a dual vertical Cyclops helmet. Yeah, that’s kind of an oxymoron and there in lies my point, moronic. Make the visor part that strip of metal in the middle and those circles metal instead and maybe, MAYBE you have a viable helmet. Otherwise…yep, CAN IT. Oh the poor Hazop helmet. What happened to you? You now look like a very sad Stormtrooper from Star Wars. Sigh. I liked the Hazop from Reach. Why did 343 have to change it so dramatically? Can this one please and give us something more reminiscent of the Reach Hazop.
Fifth row: Be my Frankenstein! Or at least my weird Halloween helmet. Okay it could also be said to look like a jar, hence jar-head. However I think my marines buddies would take serious offense to that. PLEASE, kill that design. While I think the Locus (why not add that “t” at the end 343?) is very cool looking and even used it for a time, it’s just not plausible since it doesn’t have a visor. Also, consider how bulbous the head is. It looks out of scale with the rest of the body. Fix the scaling at least and keep it in.
Six row: I actually like the Vanguard helmet (the first one), but dang, does it have to have that small square visor? Expand the visor and it would be a great helmet. I do want to unlock this in Halo 4 though as I like the “cross” pattern on it. (that’s the secondary Vanguard helmet which, IIRC is a bit harder to get) Next is the Wetwork helmet. While it’s a cool design in theory and could have been a good replacement for the Hayabusa, that small slit of a visor down the middle just ruins it for me. I’d like to see this reworked with at least a slim banded visor across the middle. Oh the stalker. Okay first, let’s discuss that name. Stalker. Not really something you want to be known as. Yes, I know it was taken from “Brute Stalkers” in previous Halo games. However, some may not make that correlation. It really is a bit creepy. Beyond that though is the stunted, blunted top of the helmet. The visor is just okay. It could definitely have been made bigger and the helmet even shows where that change could have been made.
Seventh row: The Tracker helmet is kind of cool, but the visor is a bit small and low on the helmet. The one thing that does bother me a little is that it constantly reminds me of the Geth head from Mass Effect. The Venator helmet without a doubt is a cool design, but the visor isn’t too plausible. It’s close however. It kind of has the Dead Space feel to it. I think a little bit thicker though on the visor parts would have made this more plausible.

Also, do others think it’s strange that 343 changed the name of some of the helmets from what they were to something else entirely? The Security helmet comes to mind. It’s now the Operator helmet.

Speaking of previous helmets, I’d really like the Mark V, CQB and original Rogue helmets back. I’ve already touched on the EVA coming back as well. Scout looks okay in it’s Halo 4 version as do the EOD helmet.

I just think while wanted to make Halo 4 their own, 343 went a bit too far with some of the helmet designs. Practicality needs to come back. If you’ve read the books then you know that on a rare occasion, the armor fails and they have to use their eyes. Those helmets I listed about as NP would not make the grade. You just can’t remove your helmet in battle. You’d just be begging to be headshot.

Some of the helmets have had such negative review (well and many before my own) that they’ve been dubbed Power Rangers. That’s not really a moniker I want associated with Spartan armor.

Please 343, get back to more practical designs. It can be done, yet still have some splash or “pizazz” to it, without looking otherworldly or alien.

-Sal

Are Spartans “Legends” anymore?

This question was posed on the Halo Waypoint forums. It’s a good one to ask and talk about.

In my opinion, Spartan IVs are NOT Legends. For one they haven’t even been around long enough to earn that title, nor have they done anything near the epicness of Master Chief. He IS a legend. Spartan IVs are not.

I do have my hopes for Spartan Thorne. I foresee him being the successor to Master Chief. We’re only just now seeing him develop. He is a rookie Spartan after all.

Spartan IIs are/were legends. Their battlefield prowess very often changed the tide of battles. They are the most disciplined troops in the Halo universe. Being trained for combat from 6 years old, by the time they started seeing real live-fire battles when then were in their mid-teens, they already had a decade of training and experience as a cohesive unit to draw upon. Their regimented code of battle, their skill, and then later their armor all point to them being legendary.

The status of Spartan IIs as legendary though come more from the victories they’ve achieved over time. Not only their initial victories against Insurgents, but then against the Covenant. Master Chief is often the one credited the most, however he was not the only Spartan II to turn the tide. Don’t get me wrong though, Master Chief is the embodiment of what it is to be a Spartan AND a Legend. His actions in the last 6 months of the war with the Covenant completely changed the war.

Moving on to Spartan IIIs, while not as strong as their Spartan II brethren, they still were conscripted fairly early on and had similar training to Spartan IIs. Their armor while different  still posed a major threat on battlefields. However they were utilized more as strong arm cannon fodder rather than Super Soliders like the Spartan IIs were. As evidenced in Halo Reach, they were not as disciplined. This in part is why they should not be considered legendary. Kat stealing info… She was too sure of herself. That is not a trait of a legendary spartan. Emile had some issues for sure. Jun was okay, but not legendary. Carter was a good leader, but not great. Were the legendary? NO. Heroic? Yes.

Spartan IVs are at this point little more than glorified ODSTs. Even look at the Recruit armor they get. The helmet bears a resemblance to the ODST helmet. With attitudes on display such as Commander Palmer and Fireteam Majestic’s leader Paul DeMarco, it’s a wonder they can even be considered any where in the realm of being true Spartans, let alone legendary.

Will they rise to legendary status? That remains to be seen. As I mentioned earlier, I have my hopes for Thorne, but even he has shown insubordination and gross misconduct. While saving his squad, he should have never let to attack a Banshee on his own, as well he shouldn’t have been anywhere near the Forerunner artifact after having left in a huff over the incident onboard the Infinity. In doing so he was transported to Requiem away from his squadmates and anyone else who could help him for that matter. We can only hope that he learns from these errors and while improve as a Spartan. Halsey even hinted that he may be more ready than some of the others.

So taking all this in, I ask again, are Spartans legendary?

Spartan IIs, YES
Spartan IIIs, No, but heroic
Spartan IVs, Definitely not, but some have the potential to be.

What do you think about this? Are they legendary?

-Sal

Halo 4 was an INITIAL success. That really needs to be understood. It is not on the path to being a CONTINUED success. The biggest evidence of that is the in-game population. Want to see proof of that? Check out this link:

http://halocharts.com/2012/chart/dailypeakpopulation/all

Here is the chart current as of today.

For Frank (O’Conner-Franchise Development Director) or Kiki (Wolfkill-Executive Director for Halo 4) or any other of the 343 folks to say “We learned out lesson and we’ll do better on Halo 5,” just isn’t going to cut it. We’ve got nearly 3 YEARS before Halo 5 is due to come out, if they stick to the normal schedule. That’s way too much time to hope and rely on Halo 4 to carry the population through. Especially when it’s been shown to be continually and dramatically losing gamers.

I still have the highest hopes for Halo as a franchise and I really DO want 343 to succeed. But not just an initial success. It needs to be a lasting success, a continual success. The complaints people have about Halo 4 are mostly valid. If the overwhelming aren’t addressed and SOON, Halo 4 (and the franchise) will suffer greatly in the XBOX market as well as the gaming market overall. That is something neither 343 nor fans of Halo want.

Personally, I’d rather have these issues fixed with Halo 4 before 343 even starts/continues developing Halo 5. It’s not going to be worth it in the long run if THIS game (Halo 4) bombs just a few months after release. It’s not even 3 months that the game has been out. Let that sink in. Wednesday this week it will turn 3 months from being released. And yet the population is well down from ANY previous Halo FPS game. That just doesn’t bode well for the continued success of the franchise. If Microsoft needs to work 343 employees 60+ hours a week for weeks on end to get it right, then do so. Pay them well of course, but this ship must be righted or it’s going to sink.

Please 343 hear our pleas and concerns. Address them AND let us know they are being addressed AND please do that quickly for your own reputation as well as the rep of the franchise and it’s fans.

I was on Halo Waypoint overnight perusing the forums as I do (no not trolling, LOL). It’s plainly obvious there that a good many fans aren’t happy with the game as it stands. Whether it’s 343 taking too much time to fix the game in their opinion or that the game came out unfinished or too much like CoD, are topics of conversation in many threads.

I put my own two cents into some of these threads and I wanted to post them here. Before I do, I want to be clear that I, like many fans, WANT 343 to succeed. ON that note though, we do want them to hear our concerns. Halo isn’t just their franchise, we fans have years of playing time vested into the series. So on that point we do deserve at least some respect at should have our voices heard and our concerns addressed.

Here’s what I posted overnight:

The following was in response to a forum poster saying that 343 is Microsoft. I took that and ran with it.

Thread title: WHY 343 CHANGED HALO FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE..

Well you are right about 343 being Microsoft. They are not their own independent game developer. They are part of MS. They are there to only make Halo games which is a distinct MS property.

Is it CoD? Well, I’m told from my friends who play CoD that it is indeed much more like CoD than any previous Halo title. Does that make it CoD? Not necessarily. However, it also doesn’t mean this game is halo at the core.

I really REALLY hope MS gets a clue. All the complaining we do is because we LOVE the franchise. Sure we may not all be tactful in our responses. But the point is we want 343 to succeed, we want Halo to continue. However, to do that they need to not go in the direction of another game. Why? Well, because if it’s TOO much like another game, then why even buy Halo when you can just go and get the game it seems to be emulating?

Halo at it’s core has been about team play and tactics. Ordinance has crushed a good bit of that. Certainly power weapon drops and the randomness that is the drops to begin with.

Beyond this though, I do hope that more attention to the UI is taken into account for Halo 5. What we got just seems a bit underwhelming. The game itself looks gorgeous, so why didn’t we get something equally as so for the interface? Game menus just seem fairly generic.

I was talking with some friends tonight about this very thing. Personally, I think to “buy” armor or unlock it, we could have had an interface that took us to the Spartan armory on Reach. There we would have seen a holo of what our armor would look like. Then when we want to change it, it would go into an animation that would put our spartan into that gyroscoping armor harness and put the armor on. Of course, we would also have a “quick change” option if we wanted to by-pass this so we could do it on the fly between games without the need for the animation. In this way, the change would be for the better in that we get a whole new experience with changing armor. Something more interactive that would endear us more to our personal war games spartan.

I hope we get something like that in Halo 5 since it’s going to be on the NextBox. I’d actually like to see us be able to traverse more of the Infinity outside of War games and Spartan Ops. Have a shooting range for challenges, maybe a “boxing ring” area where we could have sparring matches with our spartans again for challenges/commendations. Those could be against AI and/or other gamers. Again, have the armory to visit. Changes like those would NOT change gameplay. However they WOULD add to the UE (user experience).

Forge took both steps forward AND backward. Magnets can be incredibly useful as is the copy tool. However, taking away the race playlist to be able to forge, certain special effects, other playlist tools, just hurt forge. Again, we can only hope that with the NextBox we’ll get all of those things back and more. People have been asking for a Far Cry like editor. That is something I could get behind. It wouldn’t change actual gameplay but WOULD allow we users to make much better maps. The NextBox will be able to handle all of that memory and coding so this needs to happen. (Heck if Far Cry can get it into their game now, why couldn’t Halo?)

No more excuses about not having a public beta. Whether it’s 343 or MS or both to blame, you asked us to trust you. We did. However you didn’t quite fulfill OUR wants and desires from the newest Halo game. Many changes that were made were not asked for by the Halo community. If MS doesn’t want to listen to us, well, maybe they need to check themselves. Whether you’re an old Halo fan like me or a newcomer to the franchise, we all have time vested in this game. MS ignoring us and doing what they think should be in Halo just shows the amount of disrespect that have for Halo’s faithful fans. That is eventually going to backfire on them. It’s already happening with the Halo 4 War Games matchmaking population dwindling.

Respectfully,
HFFL

This next response has similar tones to the above response but takes more into account Microsofts handling of Halo 4’s release.

Thread title: CHANGE IN HALO 4. IT TAKES TIME

Well that’s because Bungie got it right for the most part (excluding Reach). Plus they had an established team, where as 343 while having experienced people, those folks hadn’t worked together before for the most part. So workflow had to be established from the ground up.

I do think the Microsoft had a hand in the game coming out when it did. No public beta hurt the game and again I think MS had their hands in this as well. My gut tells me that 343 would have loved to have another 3 months to develop the game as well as have a public beta for it. In that time you BET they would have had all or certainly most of the feedback they’d have needed to have not only the game THEY wanted to put out, but the game WE wanted to play.

I’m grateful for the game we got from 343. However, I, like many have some concerns about certain aspects of it. Fixing it after it came out doesn’t speak well for 343. Well not for as much fixing as they done and as we’re asking for. Again though, I have that feeling that MS tied the hands of 343 from doing any further development and wanted to get the next Halo game out there.

And finally the third response is regarding getting to rank SR130, how it could and should have been higher and was actually planned to be but didn’t make the cut at the end.

Thread title: TAKING POLL: WHO IS 130 NOW?

I’ve been 130 since the 40th day of release. It’s boring now as all I have to work for in matchmaking is commendations.

I get that 343 wanted people to be able to rank up quickly to get to specializations. However, once we got to 50, it should have taken a long while to get to each subsequent specialization. In that way, you’d pick your next one more carefully.

I zipped through these so fast that I didn’t care which one I was picking next since I knew I’d be moving on to another one in just a few days.

This is one reason why we need some other form of a ranking system. I’m grateful we’ll have one for ranked playlists. But that may not be enough for some.

I just really think it should have taken longer to rank up. Heck I got to Inheritor in Reach within 9 months and that was FAST for Reach. I couldn’t believe that I maxed out in just 40 days in Halo 4. The SR rank really doesn’t mean anything now. If there aren’t going to be other specializations then adding more SR ranks just wouldn’t do it.

Anyone else remember when 343 said there would be 10 specializations? There are only 8. There WERE 2 more. It’s even been uncovered in the Crimson Map pack as teleport and hacker. So really we should have been able to achieve SR150. Doesn’t that number sound more deliberate than 130?

Still even then, with the small amount of XP needed between specializations I’d have been maxed out in maybe a week after I got to 130.

I can only hope that when Halo 5 comes out that rank for playing games and getting XP is overhauled. And on that note, I’d love to see the ranks match those of Halo lore. Why not “Petty Officer” And heck, why not Master Chief? Who wouldn’t like being ranked as a master chief in Halo?

End of responses.

So what concerns might you have of Halo 4? Beyond what I’ve posted above, I have to say that I really hate the Join-In-Progress system. We should at least have an option to NOT JIP. As well, that Boltshot…way to overpowered, IMO.

please PLEASE shoot me your responses. I want to read how others feel about Halo 4 and what they think needs to be fixed to make it a better experience for them.

-Sal