[360] Halo Reach: Ghosts of GFF

Thanks for posting that Shake, only have a few minutes this morning and likely would have completely missed that on GAF. Fuuuuuck, so many updates to do tonight, and there's the BWU and other various little tidbits not posted here yet either. God damn it.

I was speaking idiomatically.

This week's update is so fucking long I've been reading it for like 15 minutes and I'm not done. Not going to even bother trying to sum this up or update the thread tonight, will do tomorrow.

Bungie.net : Bungie Weekly Update: 07.23.10 : 7/23/2010 2:42 PM PDT

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

In before racis-oh never mind.

Originally Posted by Zip

Been hating a lot on Reach but Forge World looks great. My problem with these games is all the stat tracking. I dont have a OCD or anything but when i see my kill ratio go down or my deaths go above my kills i get weirdly anxious. Might even get this shit...

I'm like that to a point. I think the main thing they're doing here that I don't think has fully clicked with a lot of people yet is that your rank is universal across all modes, and is purely raised by earning Credits, and not necessarily your skill (although trueskill is still working in the background in competitive multiplayer of course). Since you can earn Credits in Campaign, Firefight and Forge as well as multiplayer, you could still reach the highest rank without ever playing multiplayer if you didn't want to. Personally I'm more concerned with rank than k/d (although I care about that to a point), so I'm super pumped by this change.

FELIPE NO

So ranks are stupid and grindy, but k/d isn't? Okay.

How ya doing, buddy?

I don't even know where to fucking start here. This post will be a clean summation of all the news over the last couple days, then I'll work on incorporating this all into the OP after. At this point I think I might just make up to date posts, then wait to update the OP until a couple weeks before release. This post alone took me hours, I can't imagine putting this in the OP this weekend lol.


-Halo: Reach controller shown and announced. Amazon is listing an August 17th release date on this, which seems reasonable as the Halo 3 accessories definitely came out before that game. It is listed at $59.99 which is a tad pricey, but it also comes with a Banshee item for your 360 Avatar (which I could not find any pictures of).




-Halo: Reach Wireless Headset shown and announced. Like the controller, also listed at Amazon for release August 17th. $49.99 price tag, but does not include the Banshee Avatar item like the controller does. For what it's worth, these headsets are actually pretty quality; I used the Halo 3 one for a long time, only reason I'm not still using it and picking up one of these is because I have a Turtle Beach headset now.




-Halo: Reach Limited Edition Console shown and announced. Releasing same day as the game (9/14) at $399. Spec-wise it is indentical to the 360 S out now (250 gig HDD and Wi-fi). Additionally however it has the obvious design differences, but also comes with an additional second controller with both controllers being the Reach design (as sold separately above) and the regular edition of the game. However, all of this matters not in the face of the fact that the system will make "Halo-inspired" sounds. For those not familiar the 360 S makes an awesome chime sound when you turn it on and hit the tray button. This system will make a "Halo-inspired" sound when you turn it on, and we know specifically that when you hit the tray icon you will hear the shields recharging sound effect from Halo. Also according to Wired one interesting thing is that you can't see in any of the photos is that the system is actually painted two different shades of gray, and the grays will "shift" depending on the viewing angle.

Must....not....buy.




-Square-Enix releasing a Halo: Reach Play-Arts line. Volume 1 is releasing this Fall and will consist of Noble Six, Emile, and Jun. Volume 2 is releasing early next year will consist of Carter, Kat, and Jorge. No official dates or prices set yet. No official pics yet, the one below is from their booth at Comic-Con. You can also get a better look in this video where two S-E merchandising guys talk with someone from 343 at their booth about the figures.




-This one's actually a bit old but I hadn't posted, but Marvel is putting out a 4-issue comic called Halo: Fall of Reach - Boot Camp that covers Master Chief from a child when he was conscripted into the Spartan-II program. Presumably based on the title and the tie-in the 4 issues will go up until Reach is glassed. Might be interesting to see if they actually show anything that wasn't already covered in the books I suppose.




-Greg Bear is writing a trilogy of Forerunner books. Release date information seems to be all over the place, I'm seeing this September, this October, or 2011. Not much really known.




-The original Halo book trilogy (Fall of Reach, The Flood, and First Strike) will be re-released in trade paperback format. This is only note-worthy because the three will come with “editorial notes, additional, updated information, and all-new original content.” Amazon has Fall of Reach as releasing August 3rd, could not find listings for the other two yet. I was planning on re-reading all the Halo stuff before Reach comes out anyway as a refresher (since the events in the book are much more relevant to Reach than the other games), so I'll pick this up.




-Karen Traviss has been brought on to pen a "successor" to Ghost of Onyx, to be released next year. Nothing more known at this time.


-Some Halo: Reach Avatar goods available on Xbox Live. All items available to both genders.




-Falcon shown a bit and with some more details. Already known that you can hit a button to lock your altitude. The pilot actually does not have any weapons at their disposal, however the Falcon can support two gunners. Apparently a Banshee "doesn't stand a chance" against a Falcon with two gunners on it.




-The Revenant shown for the first time. According to IGN it behaves a bit like a Ghost crossed with a Wraith tank. This two-seater can boost around and is rather agile, but it fires the massive plasma balls that the Wraith tanks dish out. It's pretty devastating, but it offers little protection for the rider.




-The Forklift shown and announced. I think everyone kinda forgot Bungie said there would be civilian vehicles in the game. Even makes the beeping sound when you are in reverse! Unfortunately, it apparently is so slow that you can't even splatter people with it. Hmmm.




-Entire Comic-con panel can now be found on Youtube staring here if you are so inclined.


-There are now unique assassinations using the Plasma Sword.

Firefight

Quote:

-There will be several Firefight variants shipping with the game, and apparently all will be in matchmaking (?).

*Firefight - One round.
*Firefight Classic - Likely Firefight, but with no time/round limit (like ODST)
*Generator Defense - Returning from the Beta.
*Gruntpocalypse - Easily the most exciting thing about Halo: Reach, the entire game is just like the Bonus Rounds from ODST's Firefight; all Grunts all the time, and apparently all skulls are turned on for this as well (can't seem to 100% confirm this)
*Rocketfight - Regular Firefight, but you have infinite Rocket Launchers.
*Score Attack - Firefight with identical enemy and Loadout setups every time; designed specifically this way so everyone is playing the exact same setup and can compete for the highest scores on the Leaderboards.
*Versus - 2 versus 2 Firefight. 2 play as the Spartans, 2 play as the Elites. At the end of the time/round/life limit, the players switch sides. The Elite players do not score points, their goal is to kill the Spartans as quickly as possible to minimize their point score. Elites have infinite lives, but a longer respawn than the Spartans. The Spartans are shooting for a higher score, and earn an extra life whenever they kill one of the human-controlled Elites. Whichever side has the highest score at the end of the game (from their turn as Spartans) wins.

-Video from Comic-con showing Gruntpocalypse. I honestly want nothing more in my entire life than to play this right now.


-Video from Comic-con showing Rocketfight:

-3 new multiplayer maps (apparently) leaked from a spanish site. The first is Spire. Focuses on Aerial combat, and there are mancannons and elevators to get you up top.




-The second new map is Reflection, a straight up remake of Ivory Tower. Said to be "exactly like you remember it."




-The 3rd new map is Zealot, a heavily modified version of Midship. You can also get outside and the gravity is different.



Forge World

Quote:

-Forge World announced. A huuuuuuge map that was originally 5 separate multiplayer maps, and were all rolled into once space. I would strongly recommend you watch this ViDoc first:


Forge World has the following main areas: Coliseum, Canyon, Island, Pocket, Pillar. Also has smaller observable areas like the Lagoon (waterfall) and the Coastline (beach).

Forge World Variants shipping on the disc:

1. Forge World = default open map with all areas accessible
2. Asylum = Sanctuary "remake" in the Pocket
3. Griffball Court = area in the Coliseum
4. Hemorrhage = Blood Gulch/Coagulation remake in the Canyon
5. Paradiso = new map on the Island
6. Pinnacle = Ascension "remake" on the Pillar
7. The Cage = Guardian/Lockout "inspired" level at the Lagoon
8. Wizard/Warlock-looking level in the Coliseum, not officially confirmed as on the disc yet

Also along with Hemorrhage, Asylum, Paradiso, Pinnacle, and The Cage will actually be in Matchmaking rotation as well (with Hemorrhage and Cage 100% confirmed for this).

-Pinnacle ("Ascension")


-The Cage ("Guardian/Lockout" inspired)


-Asylum ("Sanctuary")


-Warlock/Wizard-looking level in the Coliseum


-They will be looking at popular maps (which can be much more easily tagged and spared) to get popular/good variants into matchmaking.

-Apparently you can Forge Invasion gametypes, but you cannot Forge Firefight variants (supposedly AI issues).

-You can create "kill fields" to block off portions of your map.

-You can make Armor Abilities item pickups on maps (and you can swap them out as well).

-You can now set up Teleporters of different sizes, and can set if you want vehicles to be able to go through them, and what types.

-The limit on saved items is now 1000 of everything; 1,000 Saved Films, Forge maps, gametypes, etc. IIRC it was 100 total in Halo 3.

-In addition to being able to change the color of bases (as seen in the ViDoc above), you can also apparently change the color of vehicles:

-Shot from the ViDoc and panel showing map selections; it's unclear if this is the final listing of maps or not. Also no idea what Halo Classic is.




-Unboxing video for all 3 Halo game editions. I'm much more sold on the Legendary edition now. Also additionally confirmed that the Legendary Edition-only will also net you a download code of some kind to download some crazy Behind the Scenes goodies that they're not talking about yet.

YouTube Video

-As seen in the Gruntpocolypse video up above, apparently the "Elegant Weapon" Achievement is for DMR headshots, as the guy earns it on the show floor lol.


-IGN video walkthrough of the Armory. ONE OR TWO FUCKING MILLION CREDITS for some of the Armor effects, Jesus.

YouTube Video

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'll be going to the midnight release, but I probably won't stay up super late playing it. The Halo 3 midnight release at the store I've pre-ordered from again was ridiculous, they had a live heavy metal band (??) and it was catered. Last time I got boned though because we had stopped by and they said they won't starting lineups until 11, but we got there at like 10:45 and they had apparently been doing line-ups since about 8, and we were a few hundred people back. Didn't wind up getting out of there until nearly 1 .

This year planning on probably going over there shortly after work (8-ish) so I can be one of the first in line, purely with the intent of actually trying to get out of there shortly after midnight. Will probably mainly just come home, install the game, and maybe play a game or two of Gruntpocolypse, then crash and just wake up early around 7 or 8. Definitely playing Gruntpocolypse first though for sure.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Shake Appeal

What exactly is the appeal of Gruntpocolypse above everything else? It's just Grunts.

Yes.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

Why go to a midnight launch? Seems, you know, ridiculous.

About 75% of the reason I'm going is because the last two times (Halo 2 and 3) my store has been ridiculous. They had a god damn MC cake last time. More of a crowd/experience thing then getting the game a couple hours early thing.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Interesting little bit from IGN I don't think we knew about regarding Challenges setting up automatically if you select them:

Quote:

One of the best ways to farm credits is by participating in the daily and weekly challenges Bungie is injecting into Halo: Reach. Each day a new challenge will appear, which you can learn simply by being signed into Xbox Live and scrolling down to the Challenge portion of the menu. Complete the challenge and you'll get "a significant number of credits."

There may be some crazy conditions that need to be met, including playing on specific levels with specific skulls turned on. Just setting up a game could be a chore -- or at least it could be if Bungie wasn't doing all of the work for you. When you scroll to a specific challenge, all you have to do is hit the A Button to accept it. From there, the game will automatically set up a lobby with all of the specific conditions needed to meet the challenge already set up for you.

How ya doing, buddy?

I haven't decided if I'm doing co-op or solo first. I guess if we can get a group to do it start to finish co-op I'm down, but if it's going to be disjointed with different people I'll just play through it on Normal for my first time or something. They said it's "on par" with the length of Halo 3, so solo on normal I can't imagine would take more than 5 or 6 hours tops anyway.

Also I spent practically all fucking day at work thinking about Gruntpocolypse. God damn it.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Finally got the details on the Limited Edition guide. I'm assuming the description below is also for the regular guide, barring the last point.

Quote:

; Beautiful hardcover book with dust jacket features multiple finishes.
; Official artwork enhances pages designed for beauty and ease of use.
; Exclusive maps found only in the official guide show locations of enemy engagements and weapon caches for the campaign.
; Walkthrough is carefully written to guide the user through all difficulty levels.
; Enemies and characters sections show official art, bios, and list stats.
; Chapters covering the credit system and armour customisation provide information and tactics for obtaining the available armour pieces for character customisation in the fastest way possible.
; Achievements guide describes all achievements and trophies in the game, including how to complete them.
; Exclusive 96 page developer's diary with concept art and personal commentary from the design team at Bungie studios. A must for any Halo fan!

Not bad, not bad. Also I got my Noble 7 figure today, I enjoy that it has both a Comic-con exclusive label printed on it, as well as a Toys R Us Exclusive sticker on it.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well this is weird.

http://www.gamestop.com/gs/landing/e...r/default.aspx

Quote:

GameStop has partnered with Microsoft and Tom "Tsquared" Taylor, professional gamer and team captain of Major League Gaming's Str8 Rippin, to provide Halo: Reach tips and tricks, exclusive in-game footage that has never been seen before, the new Firefight mode and tons of other great information that can only be seen at select GameStop locations during the Halo: Reach Afterhours Event. Customers at the event will have the chance to participate in a text-to-win sweepstakes for the chance to win a life-size Halo statue, view exclusive Halo: Reach footage and great product offers.

Stores listed below will be participating in the Halo: Reach Afterhours Event from 9-10:30pm on 8-06-10.
Lines may form early at some locations - call your local participating store for details.

Most amazing jew boots

Is he afraid of anything?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE ACHIEVEMINTS



1. Completed the Campaign on Normal difficulty.
2. Completed the Campaign on Heroic difficulty.
3. Completed the Campaign on Legendary difficulty.
4. Completed every mission in Halo: Reach alone, on Legendary.
5. Completed the 2nd mission on Normal or harder.
6. Completed the 3rd mission on Normal or harder.
7. Completed the 4th mission on Normal or harder.
8. Completed the 5th mission on Normal or harder.
9. Completed the 6th mission on Normal or harder.
10. Completed the 7th mission on Normal or harder.
11. Completed the 8th mission on Normal or harder.
12. Completed the 9th mission on Normal or harder.
13. Completed the 10th mission on Normal or harder.
14. Cleared the 2nd mission without setting foot in a drivable vehicle.
15. Killed 2 vehicles at once with the Target Locator in the 3rd mission.
16. Hijacked a Banshee during the Reach Campaign.
17. Killed the Elite Zealot before he escaped during the 5th mission.
18. Performed an Assassination against an Elite to survive a fall that would've been fatal.
19. Destroyed the Corvette's engines & escort in under 3 minutes in the 6th mission on Heroic or harder.
20. Finished the 9th mission on Legendary with the Scorpion intact.
21. Earned a Triple Kill while Jetpacking in Campaign, Firefight or Matchmaking.
22. Killed 7 Moa during the 2nd mission of the Campaign.
23. Killed 3 of the anti-aircraft batteries during the 8th mission.
24. Used a Health Pack to replenish life after taking body damage.
25. Performed an Assassination on an enemy.
26. Killed 10 enemies in a Firefight or Campaign session with the M6G pistol.
27. Killed 10 enemies in a Firefight or Campaign session with the DMR.
28. Traded weapons with an AI ally in Campaign.
29. Killed 10 enemies in Firefight or Campaign with a supercombine explosion.
30. Let a teammate spawn on you 5 times in an Invasion Matchmaking game.
31. Earned a First Strike Medal in a Matchmaking game.
32. Won a game of Invasion in the 1st phase.
33. Earned a Killing Spree in multiplayer Matchmaking.
34. Earned a Killionaire medal in Firefight.
35. As an Elite, killed 5 Spartan players in Matchmaking.
36. Scored 15,000 points in Score Attack Firefight Matchmaking.
37. Scored 50,000 points in a Firefight game.
38. Scored 200,000 points in a Firefight game.
39. Scored 1,000,000 points in a Firefight game.
40. Completed a Firefight set on Legendary without dying.
41. Purchased an item from the Armory that required the rank of Lt. Colonel.
42. Reached the rank of Corporal in the UNSC.
43. Reached the rank of Captain in the UNSC.
44. Used the File Browser to upload a file to your File Share.
45. Completed all of the Daily Challenges in a given day.
46. Purchased an item from the Armory.
47. Recommended a file to someone.
48. Advanced a Commendation to a Silver state.
49. Completed a Weekly Challenge.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Shin

I'm betting Skills will have them all within four days.

FUCK YES LET'S DO THIS SKILLS AHHH YEAH SON

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Why did Tails edit Skills' post? Anyway, Reach has been submitted for Certification:

Quote:

RTX

A few days ago we released Halo: Reach to Xbox Certification. Assuming things go well in certification, that means the only things standing between you all and Reach are the manufacturing process and shipping the discs to stores. It’s been a long haul getting the game to this point but the team is incredibly proud of the game and can’t wait to play with everyone on September 14th.

A few folks from Bungie will be travelling all over the world in the next few weeks to demo the game: Brian Jarrard and Niles Sankey are currently touring Europe, I’ll be headed to Oceania soon, and Chris Opdahl and David Allen will be taking Asia by storm in August. If you’re in those neighborhoods, look us up If not, you can at least watch the campain trailer and the forgeworld vidoc on more time.

Last but not least, sorry for the long periods between posts - turns out shipping a game and regularly maintaining a blog are not entirely compatible. 

Joe

So barring any problems, discs will likely start being printed soon. Looking forward to France leaking it 3 weeks before release yet again.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Zip

Lol.
Also i had no idea that this was Bungies goodbye to Halo, kinda sad . Somehow the next Master Chief game wont have the same... appeal (I think).

The casual audience that makes up the vast, vast majority of the Halo-buying audience probably could barely tell you who makes the Halo games, if that. It's like the CoD/Infinity Ward thing; average Joe doesn't give a fuck who is making the games unless they're noticeably worse or different. The fact that Black Ops pre-orders are already past where MW2 pre-orders were at the same point in time is a pretty big indication of that.

From a fan perspective though, yeah it'll be different, but they actually have a lot of super talented people at 343 Studios, and Microsoft knows that this is their biggest seller. So you would guess that they'll go balls out on it, it'll just be interesting to see how it turns out. Even if it's up to par with the quality of past Halo games, it will still "feel" different no matter what.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Tails

FUCK EVERYONE

Also good on them re: the Multi achievements. The initial set for Halo 3 were gay. Gay gay gay.

The map pack ones they put out until the end continued to be gay. Get a shotgun spree on a specific level? Really?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Quote

Unfortunately, I won't be able to confirm this for awhile, if at all, but this may actually be a pretty cool spoiler.

I'll be putting this within a spoiler box, since it does seem pretty big, at least to me.

Spoiler:

Frigate/Capital Ship battles may be within Reach, as I've just gotten a hold of this image.



Though, this makes me wonder. Did they specifically say, "Space Combat" wouldn't be available in Multiplayer, or did they say, "DogFighting" is not in multiplayer? Maybe multiplayer is just a Frigate battle.

I'm confused; why couldn't that image just be from the single-player level they've shown? Or am I missing something obvious?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Ah, I just woke up and wasn't awake yet. I thought the frigate was just on the screen and it was just showing you it's status or something, completely missed that it was (apparently) indicating you were controlling it.

Also I don't think I posted this yet, but the game has gone officially gold. Also this weeks BWU has some details on the 3 new maps (that I already posted), as well as screens of the complete Elite armory, all found here.

I haven't been super proactive on updating this thread since I've had a pretty rough couple of weeks, as well as I'm kinda on hold until the game is closer to release. PAX is about a week and a half before release IIRC, and I figure I'll hold off until doing any huge updates until then to trying to capture everything at once and do a massive overhaul on the OP then. I'm pretty sure we should be getting map/playlist details before launch as well, etc.

FELIPE NO

Bungie Weekly Update is up a day early this week, since they're doing the last of the office moves tomorrow apparently.

Bungie.net : Bungie Weekly Update: 08.13.10 : 8/12/2010 2:26 PM PDT

There's a ton of Forge stuff that I won't bother posting details of since I don't think anybody here is really inclined. However urk shows apparently a bunch of the building block options, and does also show off a ton of the visual filters you can place (like the B&W one used for some Zombie gametypes in Halo 3, etc) and some of them are actually pretty sweet. There's a green one that he implies will be used in zombie games for Reach.

Probably the only other interesting piece of news for people here is that urk says there are over 40 custom assassination animations, some specific to Campaign, most multiplayer.

Oh, also apparently there'll be some Reach news out of GamesCom next week, which I believe it Tuesday-ish US time.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Nice. I also really appreciate how for once it's gameplay footage where the player actually knows what the hell he's doing. I wonder if this got put up because of all the people in the GAF thread saying that they should just put up a full freaking match video on Waypoint; that would actually be kind of cool if that's what happened.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The Halo Waypoint folks have put up videos for Pinnacle (the Acension remake) and Zealot (the Midship inspired-type level).

YouTube Video

YouTube Video

The animation when you first pick up or switch to the DMR (you can see it at the start of the Pinnacle video) is total sex.

I had every Halo novel/comic/encyclopedia in my cart from Amazon for $100 and actually ordered, but went back and canceled it. My original plan was to consume all Halo media prior to Reach, in particular the encyclopedia and the last few books that I hadn't read (that deal specifically around or before Reach), but I can't really afford to. Also motherfucking Amazon had the gall to put the Reach controller in my Goldbox, god damn it

Bitching aside, I'll probably start working on the "final" OP sometime this coming week; was going to do it later on, but I had set aside a couple weeks for reading novels and other stuff that I'm not doing now. I think we'll have all pre-launch info after whatever they show Tuesday at Gamescom aside from probably the launch playlist specifics, but I can account for that.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Yeah, actually the more I see footage of it the more I see myself using that one.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

New ViDoc up:

YouTube Video

hyper lethal lol

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I DISAPPROVE OF YOUR FACE

I was speaking idiomatically.