Halo Discussion thread

Zilla · July 7, 2010

I thought of creating a map when the game comes out, I should still be viable if it happens to be Halo 3 level Forge, through it will probably be higher.

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Dark Grey= Lowest Floor

White= Medium Floor

Light Grey= Highest Floor

Pinkish= Inaccessable area

And the ..... = Where a ceiling is above the hallway or room.

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Tell me what you think of the map, I can't think of a name right now, so let's try to come up with one. Try making a map too, we can prepare for Forge with these little maps. :razz:

Zilla · July 7, 2010

I just thought of something, I think that the Blood Gulch/"Deja View" map shown in the Bungie Day video could be a Forged map...

Look at the Shadows for one.

[Hide=Blood Gulch Shadows]

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Bungie generally isn't lazy with shadows, and almost all of them are Pre-Baked. Look at the other maps.

[hide= Powerhouse]

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[hide=Overlook]

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You can see how decent those maps were made, but looking at that map... It could lead to 3 different possibilities:

1. Bungie got lazy.

2. The map hadn't loaded properly.

3. It is a Forged map, which wouldn't all all the pre-rendered shadows.

_______

What do YOU think it could be? I go with the 3rd option. If it is so... I have an AMAZING idea.

sarg1010 · July 7, 2010

http://redvsblue.com/home.php

First story.

Hey everybody. Today is Bungie Day and we are celebrating with an all new RvB PSA video. I don't know if you have heard, but everyone's favorite developer is busy wrapping up their latest game, so they asked us to help out with a new video PSA for all their fans. Doing that meant spending almost four days locked in a room with Reach -- so what were we going to say? No?

We didn't say no.

Probably isn't fully complete, but I bet it's a real map.

Zilla · July 7, 2010

Server upgrade inbound - The old hardware is going away in a flaming blaze of glory

Hi all,

We hope you enjoyed yesterday’s in-game heat wave, but it’s come to a close now that you guys have totally dephlogisticated the server farm. So thoroughly, in fact, that we’re going to retire our dear old Halo 3 servers today and move the game onto the brand spankin’ new Reach-generation servers (well, the ones you got to pound on during the Beta.) During this migration, we’re going to take the file share offline, and new stats won’t show up until we’re done (but will show up eventually.) There aren’t any new features tied to this work (nor will any old ones go away), but just like the way that Halo 2 lived out its retirement years in a quiet corner of the Halo 3 servers, we’re going to give Halo 3 and ODST’s backend features a chance to settle into their new digs on our fresh hardware that’s so powerful it won’t bat an eye at the extra load. The alternative would have us be like a slug leaving a slime trail of old servers in our wake as we push forward into the territory of new games, and while it’s true that most things do go better with slime, we’ve found from experience that servers are that rare exception.

This work will start in the next hour or so, and will continue throughout the afternoon.

I'll be on holiday for 2 weeks, somebody please add the weekly updates while I am away, I'll be very thankful! <3:

K112 · July 8, 2010

Server upgrade inbound - The old hardware is going away in a flaming blaze of glory

Hi all,

We hope you enjoyed yesterdays in-game heat wave, but its come to a close now that you guys have totally dephlogisticated the server farm. So thoroughly, in fact, that were going to retire our dear old Halo 3 servers today and move the game onto the brand spankin new Reach-generation servers (well, the ones you got to pound on during the Beta.) During this migration, were going to take the file share offline, and new stats wont show up until were done (but will show up eventually.) There arent any new features tied to this work (nor will any old ones go away), but just like the way that Halo 2 lived out its retirement years in a quiet corner of the Halo 3 servers, were going to give Halo 3 and ODSTs backend features a chance to settle into their new digs on our fresh hardware thats so powerful it wont bat an eye at the extra load. The alternative would have us be like a slug leaving a slime trail of old servers in our wake as we push forward into the territory of new games, and while its true that most things do go better with slime, weve found from experience that servers are that rare exception.

This work will start in the next hour or so, and will continue throughout the afternoon.

I'll be on holiday for 2 weeks, somebody please add the weekly updates while I am away, I'll be very thankful! <3:

On it like a bonnet.

K112 · July 10, 2010

Bungie Weekly Update: 07.09.10

Posted by lukems at 7/9/2010 2:53 PM PDT

Truly Old School

There’s this odd – and often misunderstood – rule in the NFL with respect to Quarterbacks. It rarely pops up, because it’s not often that an NFL team has their third quarterback (generally referred to as the Emergency Quarterback) take the field. This is one of those times and I am your Emergency Quarterback.

The rule states that “if a third quarterback is inserted before the fourth quarter, a team’s first two quarterbacks cannot be used in the game at any position.”

Some teams don’t even keep a third quarterback around (they just use their Punter as an Emergency QB), but with Urk elbows deep in diapers (belated congrats) and Sketch up to his neck in preparations for a pretty gigantic suite of media visits next week, desperate times call for desperate measures.

As Halo: Reach enters the RC process (more on that later) it is very much the fourth quarter here at Bungie.

Coach, put me in.

Manual Release

Currently the game is entering the RC process – in plain(er) English, we’re cutting our first Release Candidate. Now, the first Release Candidate won’t end up being the final shipping product, but it’s a significant step on getting Reach from us, to you, hopefully without leaking in France. Executive Producer and the man who brings out the worst in my mouth – and the best in my Halo play, Joe Tung offers some additional insight:

“The RC process can be favorably compared to passing a physical blockage. From the giant army of artists, designers and engineers that once fixed bugs with impunity now only a handful of people still have clearance to make changes to the game. ZBR can be a bit misleading because it suggests that you are done with bugs, but that isn’t really the case. You bounce from zero, ratchet up the bar, and take the worst offenders that would prevent cutting an RC. You start taking into account not only how bad an individual problem is, but how mainline it is – in other words, is it something that players will see in Matchmaking on standard map configurations in common gametypes? Or is it something that shows up with specific options on a particular map? Does it happen every time? Or does it require button mashing to reproduce? And so on.

The result is that, day by day, hour by hour, the number of fixes we take decreases, while the stability of the game increases. Matrices that chart the playability of missions which were once red across the board now come in green nearly all of the time. For everyone on the team that is already locked out, a good amount of co-op campaign, firefight and multiplayer is being played. We are knocking on the door of our first RC and may even have it by the time you end up reading this. (editor's note: Nope, not till Saturday)”

An additional perk of the RC process is that we do even more from-home network testing during this period. Folks who are locked out (almost everyone, including all artists, animators and much of Design) are at home all day playing in Matchmaking. The downside of playing from home, is that there are very few residences in Seattle with air conditioning and it just so happens to be our first ‘hot week’ of the Summer. Sweat it out, my compatriots.

Just Buy It

Earlier this week, Gamestop announced that they are going to have an exclusive Armor permutation as a preorder incentive. There was immediately – as oft the case with these things – a breakout of vitriol and sore hindquarters and we wanted to clear some of that up.

If you don’t preorder the game from Gamestop, you will never see the chest piece in your Armory. We aren’t going to wave the banner of something you can’t acquire because you didn’t purchase a particular SKU, or buy from a particular retailer. Buy whichever version of the game you covet at your favorite retailer.

In fact, this particular chest wasn’t ever part of the Investment rollout to begin with, it was from a bucket of items earmarked for this type of thing. Additionally, some pieces will be available exclusively via Waypoint.

And before anyone begins to bounce feverishly on the "Conclusions Mat," pieces available on Waypoint are going to be made available through an Acheivement Progression that spans Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST and Reach. We worked closely with the good folks over there to come up with a system of unlocking that works well – while existing outside of the Reach Player Investment system. The net effect is that once you've completed some Achievements in Reach, and played some ODST and Halo 3, you're going to have a couple more free options to choose from.

Speaking of the Investment system, one of the many stats we’re tracking in Reach is Armory Unlock %. This stat is displayed prominently in the game UI in Player Details – and each time you make a purchase in the Armory it will inch closer to 100%. In the cases of preorder incentives, SKU incentives or the pieces that will be available on Waypoint, none of these items will count toward 100% completion of the Armory. That completion percentage is for Credit (our reward Currency) transactions only.

It’s worth mentioning that there are definitely items in the Armory that are going to take weeks, months and probably even longer to acquire. Some of those things we’re going to show you on Day 1 – some of them you won’t be able to see until you’ve reached specific ranks and made certain purchases. And some of those things won’t even be available until the Community’s collective might has been harnessed.

Hungry Like the...

Roger Wolfson sends along this tidbit and image for this week's Update:

"On the evening of 7/6, Bungie fan Adam Young, who some of us are friends with via the local puzzle-writing community, sent us a message that he was out of town and away from his Xbox this week, and wanted to know how he could support Bungie Day. We had just decided to enable the flaming helmets, so we told him this and suggested that he might craft his own blazing headwear. Within five minutes, he’d written back that he had done so, and would be able to join the ranks of the flame-enabled on the 7th. Sure enough, he spent the day proudly wearing his flames and spreading the Bungie Day spirit to a mix of admiring and confused passers-by. Thanks, Adam!"

Turn on the Faucet

It’s only a matter of time before Halo Reach’s Achievements leak. It is officially the third of life’s inevitabilities, taking a place a few pegs below Death and Taxes. So while we’re not going to unpack all of the Achievements today, we are going to show you all of the icons. It’s such a shame that you only see these at "petite res" in-game, Dave Candland, Andrew Davis and Stosh’s work deserves to be blown up.

Wallpaper flavors below:

Really though, has there ever been a game that didn’t have their Achievements leak early? I can’t think of one. Airtight isn’t the first word that comes to mind when thinking about Achievement security. It makes sense to reveal a few of these now, Sketch and Urk will dole the rest of them out as they see fit:

* A Monument to All Your Sins – Complete each Campaign Mission on Legendary – alone.

* Banshees, Fast and Low – Hijack a Banshee during the Reach Campaign.

* Yes, Sensei – Earn a First Strike Medal in a Matchmaking game.

* A New Challenger – Complete all of the Daily Challenges in a given day.

* Make It Rain – Purchase an item from the Armory that requires the rank of Lt. Colonel.

There will be 49 total Achievements in Reach. Twenty-three of them are Campaign-specific Achievements. We set out to make sure that each Campaign mission has its own ‘special’ Achievement, like:

If They Came to Hear Me Beg – Perform an Assassination against an Elite to survive a fall that would’ve been fatal.

Achievements were bucketed into five different groups, Campaign (23), Firefight (7), Multiplayer (4), Training (6) and Player Experience (9). Some of the Training Achievements can be earned in both Campaign and Firefight.

Here's a couple of wallpapers for Achievements:

New Medals

Last week, a diaper-free Urk mentioned there are 120 medals in Reach (technically 14 of them or so are Bungie.net only). This week, meet three new ones (and hilariously giant iPhone4 res wallpapers for them) that didn’t appear in the Spring’s beta.

Rejection – Armor Lock and survive damage that would be fatal.

How it works: Armor lock and survive single, incoming damage types that have the ability to kill a player at full shields and health, like a Rocket, or a Sticky grenade.

How interested parties will react: The dude who’s Rocket you just rejected will probably throw his controller, or as resident Armor Lock savant Froman can routinely be heard saying, “Oh man, that guy is so angry.”

Protector – Save a teammate by killing his foe.

How it works: We track damage done to players by other players, even if those players don’t generate kills. In Protector’s case, after a certain amount of damage has been done to a Player A by Player B, if Player C kills player B, he earns the Protector Medal. Player A receives a message (in the same place as messages like You sniped JimmyAwful) that says PlayerC saved your life.

How interested parties will react: Player A will survive and have a newfound appreciation for the bro he may or may not know who just bailed him out of harm’s way. Player B will be selecting a loadout while respawning.

Showstopper – Kill an opponent while they are performing an Assassination.

How it works: Assassinations (which have had many names internally throughout development) have a strike frame where the kill occurs. This enables players on the receiving end of an Assassination to be saved if their assailant is killed prior to the strike frame. Enter, the Showstopper Medal.

How interested parties will react: The guy performing the Assassination is going to pitch his controller and possibly his Xbox out of a window. The guy who earned the Showstopper is going to watch his friend stand up and walk away, unscathed.

Blame Stosh, thinly-veiled innuendo and cheesy “We out”-style departures are more Urk’s thing than mine. Fret not, those will return once he’s exhausted his Paternity leave.

Zilla · July 20, 2010

I'm back, thanks for covering that weekly update. This weeks update. ↓

[hide=spoiler]

Bungie Weekly Update: 07.16.10

Happy Friday and welcome to the Bungie Weekly update my friends. Would you believe that we have a mere eight more updates left between now and the release of Reach? The project is steadily winding down but that doesn't mean we're winding down on things to talk about. In fact' date=' it's quite the opposite.

It's been a busy week and after a helping hand from Luke last Friday (who also steps up in a big way today), I'm back in the saddle and ready to quite possibly drop one of the biggest and most jam packed updates in Reach history. Get comfortable, we've got a lot to cover! (honestly, probably TOO much to cover, but seeing as this is the last update I'll be spearheading for a while, I'm pulling out all the stops so Urk can't possibly top this down the road).

[b']Status Check[/b]

First off, let me give you a quick update on where we are with Reach right now. The majority of the team is more or less finished working and participating in a variety of ongoing playtests either at home or at the studio. It isn't quite time for everyone to vanish on vacation since a rare bug could pop up that warrants immediate attention but you can definitely tell that time is just over the next hill. Critical bugs are becoming more and more a thing of the past and the real end is in sight. The test team is still working their asses off as they close out bugs, lock down our release candidate and get a build ready for certification, all the while feeling the pressure of the "Eye of Harold" bearing down on them. Luckily they have the chops and expertise to close this baby down. Hang in there guys, just a little bit longer.

We had another huge milestone completion in the early hours of Thursday when the audio team signed off on their final mix for the game. This was a major accomplishment signaling 100% audio completion for Reach. All music, sound effects and dialog is not only fully implemented but perfectly tuned to the exact balance and level that Marty and his team are happy with. As Dave would say, "Pi Rutsu" guys!

Meanwhile the bulk of the team is having fun just playing the game. In fact, today is a formal playtest "challenge" that promises prizes and fame to teams of people who are able to complete specific objectives during their campaign runs. I'm told it's highly classified as not to skew the playthroughs but imagine that people might win fabulous prizes for finding a big bug or successfully completing a slew of daily challenges. People have teamed up to tackle specific conditions such as playing 4 player on Heroic in Spanish or in the case of Mike Buelterman and Tom Burlington, playing the campaign together on Legendary with ALL skulls enabled.

In Halo 3 and ODST this wasn't anything to sneeze at but with Reach's scaling of the enemy AI to account for additional players on top of the core difficulty settings and skulls, it has the makings of something far more challenging. I watched these guys for a few minutes as they were nearing the end of the first mission of the game, nearly 90 minutes from the time they started. They put post-it notes on the TV screen to keep track of their reticule (with "Blind" on you'll get no such help from the game) and according to them, their strategy has been to take it all very, very slowly and try as much as possible to let the AI Noble Team members absorb as much of the punishment as possible.

It'll be interesting to see how far they get – in the portion I watched, they were pinned down in a hallway (the door closed behind them after they entered) and they were facing the prospects of taking down multiple Elites in close quarters including an Ultra with an energy sword. They were trading off plasma pistol overcharge shots at the Elites while hoping that Jorge could finish them off. This is easier said than done considering you have no indicator of how much ammo you have (or even what weapon you're wielding) or how much health you're working with. I hear there was a bet floating around that they wouldn't even make it out of the first mission. (UPDATE: As I've been writing this it turns out the dynamic duo FINALLY finished the first mission - post game screen below!)

The Canyon

Last week we released a video prepared by our friends at Rooster Teeth in celebration of Bungie day. Apparently many of you have many questions about that – what does it mean? What's beyond the canyon? How does that hologram work? What was up with that shot of Sarge flying incredible distances while carrying the flag?

Some of these mysteries will have to stay as such until Comic-con next week but I can shed some light on a few of the more pressing questions.

First let's talk hologram. It's simple to use – point your reticule where you'd like your holo-self to run and then press the left bumper to activate it. A spitting image of yourself, sporting the exact same armor, colors and weapon, will emerge and run directly to that point and persist for about 10 seconds or until killed. Your hologram can also do fun things like take a man cannon which can result in some crazy shenanigans. Holograms can be used in multiplayer, which has become one of my recent favorite things to do, in addition to tricking the AI in campaign or Firefight. The other day we played a game where pretty much everyone used holograms and it feels awesome to trick someone else but damn does it feel stupid when you fall for one yourself. I hear one of Sage's tricks is to point straight down so his hologram stands perfectly still but then HE runs in a perfectly straight line to dupe his opponent.

Point. Click. Dupe.

Now many people have cried foul over the closing shot in the video that featured Sarge in a hilariously stiff animation flying much further than a jetpack should travel while also carrying the flag. Truth is, that animation was so-bad-it's-good but it was also a bug and has since been fixed. No leet hax were involved though because the game includes custom settings that let you turn on infinite armor ability energy as well as decide if you want to let people use an armor ability while holding an objective (similar to the toggle for driving a vehicle with a flag).

Media Madness

This week we hosted a slew of worldwide media folks for a big hands-on preview with a huge chunk of Reach. During their stay our guests got to play two and a half campaign missions, several new MP maps, a new game mode and Forge. The bad news is that most of the fruits of that visit, including all of the campaign coverage, won't be surfacing until the first week of August. The good news is that some of what we showed will actually be coming out next week including a boat load of new screenshots and even some direct feed video. Did I already mention that next Thursday was shaping up to be HUGE?!

It was really fun to have "civilians" in to play parts of Reach for the first time. It's often hard to really gauge their reactions but members of our team quietly hovered in the background watching the likes of OXM, IGN and Gamepro get their first taste of the Reach campaign. At one point Joe Tung leans over to me and points out "hey look, all four of those guys are on the same part of the mission and each is using totally different armor abilities. That's just awesome." Yeah, it sure was.

In fact, one of our guests from Europe was not a games reporter at all and had very little familiarity playing these types of games. At one point I noticed he was having a particularly hard time dispatching a Hunter pair near the end of the game's third mission. After a few failed attempts I intervened to offer a suggestion. "Here, let me show you something different to try," I said. He handed me the controller and I quickly ran up the stairs where a stash of weapons, healthpacks and a few armor abilities were conveniently placed by the mission designer. I ditched Sprint and picked up Hologram. The Hunter pair arrived in their drop ship and immediately turned to engage me as I ran behind a large rock. I deployed my Hologram off to the left and as the Hunters gave chase, I flanked around the right and unloaded my shotgun in their vulnerable back-sides. Rinse and repeat.

The highlight of the visit for me though was the occasional chance to jump in as a seat-filler for multiplayer when a journalist had to step away to conduct an interview. I realized it was actually my first time ever flying the Falcon in multiplayer and man was it awesome. This particular map is huge and centered around an enormous spire that stretches up into the heavens. My battlebro spawned in one of the gunner seats and we began to climb. I hit "RB" to lock altitude and then we circled the tower, raining death and destruction on anyone foolish enough to step out onto the balcony. Finally our teammate yells "I've got the core, I need a pick-up!" Rather than wait for me to actually land, he jumps onto the top of our Falcon and proceeds to surf his way to victory. Great stuff.

It was also the first time I've really gotten to play some large action-packed games on that Blood Gulch remake you saw in last week's video. And let me tell you – this was hands-down the most fun I've had with Reach multiplayer to date and dare I say even more fun than I remember having back in the glory days of the original Gulch. We played an 8 vs. 8 big team slayer game and I immediately commandeered the Scorpion parked behind our base. Dan "Shoe" (from Bitmob) hopped in the turret seat and together we went on a 35-0 streak and shut down the poor blues. Probably not the gracious host thing to do but damn was it fun. Earlier in the day Ryan from OXM had missed our first play on this map and was dying to fly the Falcon so we dropped in two Falcons and ran it back again. After all the build-up I felt a little bad seeing Ryan and his two teammates flying into view as I turned to get them in the sights of my Scorpion. No sooner had they lifted off than they were annihilated in a spectacular triple kill fireball. Welcome to Reach.

To me, those types of over-the-top yell-out-loud "OH -blam!-!" moments is pure Gulch play at its finest and damn was it fun.
I also got to play my first real game of "Race" in Reach and it's just as sweet and fun as Eric has previously described. The version I played was actually a special variant Derek created called "Grand Tour" that truly lived up to its name and spanned the largest expanse of multiplayer ground ever to be covered in a Halo game.

The Copdahl Chronicles

Back when I wasn't sure if we'd have much to talk about in the update I asked our fan community to pose some questions to Reach's Campaign Design Lead, Chris Opdahl, who graciously offered to spend time answering them. I sent Chris almost every question posed, asking him to answer the few he felt inclined to answer, and he actually answered ALL of them. It's actually too much to include everything in this already gigantic update so we'll share some now and some later. Here are a few of the questions pulled from the forums of Halo.Bungie.Org along with Chris' responses:

"Bluerunner" asks: What are your favorite missions from each Halo game? Is there a level in Reach that you think will be an instant fan favorite?

Chris: Let's see, favorite levels from the previous Halo games: Halo 1 - Silent Cartographer, Truth and Reconciliation, Attack on the Control Room :: Halo 2 - Outskirts, Delta Halo :: Halo 3 - The Ark, The Covenant :: ODST Uplift Reserve.

One of the most exciting parts of Reach is that so many of the missions vary things up. This means that a bunch of them will be different people's favorites, based on their tastes. We have infantry missions, vehicle missions, exploration missions, slow burn missions, crazy action missions, and (if you watched the E3 presentation) there is a mission that takes you places you have never been in a Halo game. I expect there to be a lot of online discussions with greater than and less than carrots (< >) discussing Reach Missions. That said, here are some of the acronyms that are likely to show up in a lot of people's favorites:: TotS, LNoS, Ex, NA, LW (and another that would give away too much if I acronym-ized the title).

"The Alpha Elite" asks: "How is Halo Reach's campaign meant to feel in relation to ODST? ODST had a very somber, lonely feel and I'm wondering if anything from ODST has influenced the atmosphere in Reach?

Chris: If we did our job right, Reach will feel heroic in the face of tragedy. We definitely learned a ton from ODST. It showed us that players can get behind a Halo story that is not about the Master Chief, how to build the big ambient moments in a mission, what a city (or planet) under siege might feel like, and Firefight!

"Leviathan" asks: What's the atmosphere in the studio as Reach nears completion? Or your personal feelings? Confident, nervous?

Chris: The studio recently turned the corner from mad scrambling to get everything in the game, to wrapping it up and fixing all of the final bugs. This is when everyone at the studio has chances to really play through the game and get a sense of everything that is going in. So lately we hear people talking about all the moments they had in the game recently, about what they still want to fix, occasionally cursing the Committee for 'wont fixing' the bug they want to fix, and often laughing and having a good time with what they are currently playing. I am definitely very excited for Reach, and am curious to see what all the fans end up thinking about it. When you are surrounded by the talent at Bungie and have the time and resources that we had for Reach, it is pretty easy to be confident.

Some of the things I have heard from people at Bungie lately:

1) This is the best friendly AI driving we have seen in a Halo game.
2) (In a three player co-op game with multiple skulls on) Nearly every Elite kill requires teamwork with baiting, flanking and assassinating. It's really interesting.
3) My Wife was incredibly invested in that character. (one of the engineers playing at home in co-op with his wife)
4) Goddamn this game is a lot of fun.
5) Cable's little tweak where the suicide Grunts get an upwards impulse before the grenades go off is a nice touch.
6) Where the *blam* did that Elite go?

That sounds pretty excited to me!

"GhaleonEB" asks: With Reach, you Bungie has taken a more intimate, "boots on the ground" approach to story telling, focusing the action around the characters and avoiding some of the epic sweep of the previous trilogy. At the same time, the story is set duringa massive battle on a planetary scale. Can you talk about how the team is approaching conveying the scale of Reach's broader context while also keeping the narrative focus more personal?

Chris: Hey Ghaleon, from what I've read on NeoGAF about your feelings regarding what works for a Halo game, I think you and I are on a very similar page. Looking forward to seeing how Reach treats you.

Keeping the story on one planet (Reach) goes a long way towards solving this issue. By keeping it about one planet and one conflict we are able to spend less time telling the player where they are, and more time with the characters in the story. Not having to explain where the player is and why they are there before every mission helps to allow every line of dialog to be about the who, and not the where or the why. Add to that mix some really talented writers and story tellers in our writing group, you get the chance to make every moment count.

"SPU7N1K" asks: The first level of Halo 3 was pretty much a tutorial for newbies-- jumping over obstacles in the jungle and getting used to the controls. How will Reach cater to those new to halo fps?

Chris: I think you always have to take into account a new player when you are making a game. And not just for the first mission. We have Armor Abilities, Assassinations, new enemies, new vehicles, and new weapons. And taking new players into account whenever you add one of those elements is very important. That said, you want to do that in such a way that it does not immediately feel like a tutorial. The more you can blend those elements into the feel of a mission, the better. Sometimes we do it by giving the player a fairly open space to practice with the new element. Other times we put the player in the encounter with other members of Noble Team, since those friendly AI can help draw fire and keep the player alive. Other times we are more heavy handed and give a series of tutorial elements for the player to play through before they proceed (this is especially true with the more complex or critical path elements).

When Halo 3 came out, Bungie sent Luke Smith and I to London for pre-launch European press work. I remember one of the magazines sent their 'Home and Garden' writer to check out Halo 3. The writer had never played a Halo game, and had likely not played many games at all. She had a heck of a time trying to learn to use two analog sticks to navigate the space. She could move alright, and she could look around alright, but put those two together and she was in trouble. So we broke it down so that she would move OR aim, and not try to do both at the same time. She was able to get through a few of the missions during the play through. Anytime I want to skip out on training for the player I think about that writer. Of course there is only so much we can do, since the more we have obvious training the worse of an experience it can be for the classic Halo fan (who only ever plays Legendary! amirite?) There is definitely a balancing act between catering towards those two ends of the spectrum.

"yakaman" asks: How did advances in programming efficiency, resource use, etc, affect campaign scope? Did the resource people inform the campaign people "you have X processing budget, use it wisely" or was it more like "we campaign people want to do X, Y, and Z, so give us everything you've got?

Chris: We absolutely could not have made Reach without all of the Engineering magic that went on. The sheer volume of code changes and how much more we can do because of them is staggering. We have imposters, AI LOD, a new memory management system, networking (both synchronous and asynchronous), neuticle system, Big Battle flocks, new flying vehicle behaviors, stimulus system, new damage model, physics updates and improvements, perception models, lighting model upgrades… And that is just the few things off the top of my head. All of those together allow us to make moments that we have never been able to do in a Halo game. We are also able to achieve a visual fidelity for those moments (at the scale of a Halo encounter that you have come to expect) well beyond what anyone has done before on a console.

The process is a little bit of both. We start by planning out what we were thinking for the game, at which point we start to bring in all the people who have to sweat and bleed to make it happen, and have them pass along a sanity check. Is this possible to accomplish? What sorts of sacrifices will need to be made to achieve this? What sort of Engineering and Art resources will need to be dedicated to this moment? Is that moment worth those resources? We then answer those questions and begin to flesh everything out. Along the way we always course correct as elements get out of scope or the design changes or the initial idea needs to be fleshed out further. We are constantly evaluating and reevaluating what we are making over the course of the project. Then we get to the end and we make the hard calls (which often means cutting) to get everything working and under budget, and what needs to get cut or changed to make that particular moment (or the entire game) work.

"TravisSch" asks: Since you are mostly done squishing bugs in campaign, how much deja vu do you go through when playing the Reach campaign levels over and over again? Have you played the levels long enough to know exactly what is going to happen at a certain moment in the level?

Chris: One of the most challenging parts of game design is the ability to keep a fresh eye on the game. One of the last tasks I did for Reach was to figure out the balance for Normal, Heroic and Legendary and then solve for 2, 3 and 4 player coop for each of the difficulties. It is very easy to play the game so much that everything feels too easy and you make everything a little harder, which is (obviously) incredibly dangerous. The best way to counteract that is to try to play the game in a way that emulates a newer player, and someone who had not played each mission 100+ times. Some of the tricks I try to use to simulate 'worst-case' players are:

• If I can play the game incredibly aggressively on Normal and still generally make it to cover every time -> the game is slightly too easy. I usually want the game to sometimes beat me when I get really aggressive, but certainly not every time.
• I should be able to beat the game on Heroic with just vehicles and the plasma pistol. I don't get stuck on any encounter for long periods of time but dying times on any encounter is cool.
• Legendary should require me to really think about every encounter when I don't pick up any of the hidden weapons. If I find myself in a location with a placed weapon, I pick it up. But I don't go scouring the map for goodies. With that in mind Legendary should routinely kick my butt until I find the right strategy.
• Coop should have everyone who is playing yelling and laughing throughout the mission (including cursing the Mission Designer for the mission). People should still play the game on their normal difficulty level regardless of coop players, unless they want a challenge. ß tThis one is less about how I play and more about what I listen for when people are playing
- We played the third mission last week on three player coop, on Legendary, with a couple skulls on. And we had to really work together to make it through the mission.

The great thing about Halo is that I still don't know exactly what is going to happen in most of the encounters. They surprise me all the time. I have a pretty good idea what challenge is coming down the pipe, but how it plays out will be very different this time than last, especially if I tackle it in a different way.

"Duncan""asks: - When planning out the campaign levels, is there any push to recreate situations from the previous games? As in, "Ooh, we should have a level like The Maw run. Add in a Truth and Reconciliation level here." Or are those types of similarities more accidental in nature? How much effort is put into making new gameplay mechanics like Space Combat feel like Halo? Was there ever a point early on when it felt too out of place? If you could remake Halo 1's campaign using the Reach engine what would be your favorite change/update to make?

Chris: It is definitely a little bit of both. We went into some missions with the intent to capturing the feeling specific missions from previous Halo games. We also talked a lot about what experiences and emotions we wanted to capture from the previous games. A great example of that isare the senses of wonder and the sense of exploration from Halo 1. You don't need to necessarily recreate a situation to make that happen, but understanding what created that feeling from those missions is important if we want to recapture it.

Obviously there is a fair amount of Art and Gameplay Sandbox that went exclusively into Space Combat, and much of the AI systems were used in other parts of the game (like flying behaviors). My guess is that the amount of work specifically for Space Combat is on par with the work on the Scarab for Halo 3, but that is just a guess. We view Space Combat in very similar ways that we view the Banshee missions from past Halo games. It is a change of pace for the player and an opportunity to see something in the game that they have not seen before. My feeling is that the Space Mission not only delivers on the fun gameplay elements, but also opened up specific story opportunities that we would not have had available without it. Given that, it never felt out of place.

Man, I have no idea what I would change from Halo 1. I still view Halo 1 as one of the pinnacle moments of games for me, and who knows what terrible damage I would wreck cause by changing anything about that game.

This is only about ¼ of the interview between Chris and our fans so check back next week and we'll put the entire thing together in the stand-alone story it deserves!

Spoiling the Spoilers

With the arrival of Comic-con next week we are entering into a period of the PR cycle when we'll have playable builds at big shows with thousands of people getting hands-on opportunities. This inevitably means that some parts of the game, like the Armory, are at risk of getting combed through and revealed by determined fans. Since we can't go through the technical task of removing a core system like the armory from these public builds, we've instead decided to just let it all out there today in a bit more official way than Jimmy's cell phone pic on his blog next week.

First there's this image which you might recognize from prior updates but this time you'll notice the distinct lack of obfuscating pixelation.

For a lot more about the Armory and a few new juicy Achievement tidbits, here's the Luke Smith weekly update within the weekly update:

<ENTER LUKEMS>

And on the First Day…

Below, Sketch has put together a giant, near-monolithic, bandwidth sucking image that contains a whole bunch of stuff from the Halo: Reach Armory. More stuff, in fact, than he's ever showed before. So what exactly are you looking at?

You're looking at – in condensed form – every item that is visible to players in the Armory on Day 1. The word 'visible' is particularly important because it underscores an important couple of notes about how the Armory functions in Halo: Reach.

More items become available as players Rank up.

As you Rank up in Reach – via Credit earn, not via Skill a la Halo 3 – there will be more customization options made available to you. Many of these aren't even visible initially, but you'll be able to see them as you progress.

Additional items become available based on Purchases players make.

You'll notice in the below images that some Helmets don't have attachments at all – well, they all do – you'll just need to acquire the Base variant in order to see what's available next. Furthermore, last Spring's Halo: Reach Beta had the prices of helmets increase as you acquired more variants. In many cases, in the shipping game, the reverse is true – the initial Credit investment is in the base helmet, and adding augmentations to it is cheaper than the actual base variant was. That said, there are certainly some aug combinations that significantly change the helmet and those are priced accordingly.

Click this picture for a bigger, complete version!

Free Stuff

Now seems like a good time to show off the free Avatar unlocks for Halo: Reach. The Helmets from Noble team will be unlocked via some actions in Halo: Reach.

The Noble 6 helmet below will be made available for free to lucky attendees at Comicon, PAX and GamesCom later this summer.

Dream, Achieve

Multiplayer Achievements sure are a mixed bag, aren't they? It's pretty easy for a game to put out Achievements that have everyone running after a certain weapon, or getting into parties to 'boost' for Achievements. These can sometimes lead to undesirable outcomes. We're hopeful that our Achievements in Reach don't direct you to an undesirable outcome. They aren't designed to have you play for a million hours to unlock (though there are a couple that will take some significant time), and we're hopeful that they aren't going to interrupt your gameplay experience significantly (by their very nature, the pop-up and bloop sound of an Achievement being completed is inherently interruptive).

Achievements in Reach were designed with a few principles in mind. We wanted to leverage the power of Achievements – they are something people will chase and pursue – to expose additional features, game modes and systems that players otherwise might miss out on. We believe a game like Reach, which enjoys an embarrassment of riches in the features department, benefits considerably from leveraging Achievements to expose some of those features.

In a world where we have a bunch of in-game Challenges (4 changing Daily and one changing Weekly), Achievements become more useful to leverages features like the File Browser and the Armory than "Kill 250 Elites" (fret not, we'll be pushing you to kill Elites by the boatload all throughout Reach).

That said; let's unpack the rest of the multiplayer-specific Achievements in Reach.

Be My Wingman, Anytime – Let a teammate spawn on you 5 times in an Invasion Matchmaking game.
- Invasion is a new game mode that we're real excited about. Additional, co-op spawning is a new mechanic to Reach that we want to see players utilize. There are some obvious social and teambuilding benefits to this Achievement.

Skunked – Win a game of Invasion in the first phase.
- It's like Steaktacular lite, but in Invasion.

What's a Killing Spree? – Earn a Killing Spree in multiplayer Matchmaking.
- A return of a classic Halo 3 Achievement, with a new name mirroring the way we internally talk about Killing Sprees or any number of cool flavor medals. We think most players get a Killing Spree at some point or another in their Halo Careers.
Including Yes, Sensei from a week ago, that's all four of the multiplayer-specific medals. There are other Achievments that can be earned in Multiplayer, or Campaign or Firefight.

Here are two more Achievements before Sketch reclaims the Update:

I Need a Weapon – Complete the 4th mission on Normal or Harder.
Your Heresy Will Stay Your Feet – Kill the Elite Zealot before he can escape during the 5th mission.

<RE-ENTER SKETCH>

Before we wrap things up I wanted to expand something Luke touched on above. The summer is here which means a few tradeshows and some opportunities to see and possibly play Halo: Reach. Here's a quick schedule of a few places we know for certain the Reach hype train will be stopping in the coming weeks:

Comic-Con – San Diego, CA - 7/22 through 7/25
In addition to having playable Firefight (and possibly some competitive MP at one point or another) in the Xbox booth, Bungie will also be conducting a Reach panel on Thursday 7/22 from 6pm to 7pm in room 6BCF. We'll be showing off some new stuff including "going beyond the Canyon."

Gamescom – Cologne, Germany – 8/18 through 8/22
Plans are still coming together but it's safe to say that there will definitely be hands-on opportunities for Firefight and/or competitive multiplayer.

Penny Arcade Expo – Seattle, WA – 9/3 through 9/5
In addition to hands-on Reach in the Xbox booth, there will also be a Bungie panel on Saturday morning from 10:30AM to 11:30AM in the "Pegasus Theater." We'll share more details as we firm up our plans.

It's highly likely there will be other opportunities popping up between now and Reach and we'll be sure to let you know if that's the case. We'll also keep you posted on where the biggest launch celebrations are taking place once those plans get baked.

Beat that Quote

I didn't get a chance to round up a "Blame Stosh" this week so instead I'm posting a screenshot I took back before E3 but never got an opportunity to release.

I've got your food nipple right here.

And that, my friends, is a wrap. Next week our Ginger Daddy Urk is back in the saddle and I'm off on my first of many Reach trips for the remainder of the summer. Let's keep in touch, things are about to get crazy.

[/hide]

I love the look of the new EOD helmet.

Zilla · July 22, 2010

I found one of the most epic jump videos ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dnLVyxhH_g

Zilla · July 23, 2010

I wasn't expecting much for Comic-con, but... It was epic, and even more so when the FORGE ViDoc was revealed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCcmrL29WII

Also during G4's stream, you can select 1,000 of EACH item, no doubt if you use them all it will be laggy, but Forge will be fun... Very fun.

H2PM · July 23, 2010

I wasn't expecting much for Comic-con, but... It was epic, and even more so when the FORGE ViDoc was revealed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCcmrL29WII

Also during G4's stream, you can select 1,000 of EACH item, no doubt if you use them all it will be laggy, but Forge will be fun... Very fun.

My body is ready.

Zilla · July 23, 2010

I found these options on a thread at Bungie's website, Ferrex answered them, and as he is a Bungie employee these are true on the most part.

Forge options:
Holding nothing and looking at nothing
B for Tools
X to Place Object

Holding nothing and looking at something
A to Grab Object
B for Tools
-Rotation snap
-Delete all
X for Object Options
Y to Delete

When you are holding an object

A to Drop

B for Object Tools
-Edit coordinates
.......x(width)
.......y(length)
.......z(depth)
.......x(pitch)
.......y(yaw)
.......z(roll)
-Reset orientation
-Rotation snap
-Delete all of these

X for Object Options
-Team (changes some aspects of the object to team colour)
-Physics (Normal/Fixed/Phased)
-Spawn time
-Advanced (gametype-specific options, including those concerning 'shape')
-Shape (None/Box/Cylinder+dimensions) (ferrex has explained that this sets a boundary around the object, like KOTH,Killzones, etc.)
-Object colour (change the entire objects colour??)

press Y to Delete

Here is a Gamespot Forge Demo showing a bunch of the features.

Here is a

There also is a lot of pictures on the Halo Reach project page, I'll add the ones from the Forge World map, and the rest after the weekly update (They are Firefight) .

[hide=<FORGEWORLD>]

[/hide]

[hide=<Hemorrhage/Blood Gulch>]

[/hide]

[hide=<Pinnacle/Ascension>]

[/hide]

[Hide=<The Cage/Lockout>]

[/hide]

As I used to be a Halo 2 Fan like Proman (I hope), Seeing them remake Blood Gulch Brought a tear to my CE eye, than I saw Ascension, which brought a tear to my Halo 2 eye... Than Bungie shows that they made Lockout in Forge. Why can't other game companies be as this loving as Bungie *cries*

Also, sombody has pictures of Reflection, Spire, and Zealot (3 new maps) They look awesome, especially Reflections... Reflections will be the Halo Reach map I will remember.

http://www.levelup.c...449/Reflection/

http://www.levelup.c...as/3447/Zealot/

http://www.levelup.c...ias/3450/Spire/

EDIT: I combined several options from the Gamespot menu, all the options in the item list.

K112 · July 23, 2010

Can anyone work out what this vehicle is?

[hide]

[/hide]

At first I thought it might be a red Ghost, but it looks a bit off in shape.

Then I saw this picture, and I believe the mystery vehicle is on the left here, because it's clearly not a red ghost:

[hide=Big ass picture]

[/hide]

It could quite possibly be the Sceptre? Updated though, and less bulky/clunky?

[hide=Sceptre:]

[/hide]

H2PM · July 23, 2010

Can anyone work out what this vehicle is?
-snip-

At first I thought it might be a red Ghost, but it looks a bit off in shape.

Then I saw this picture, and I believe the mystery vehicle is on the left here, because it's clearly not a red ghost:
-snip-
It could quite possibly be the Sceptre? Updated though, and less bulky/clunky?
[hide=Sceptre:]
[/hide]

You know I was thinking the same thing when I saw that picture.

Overdoziz · July 23, 2010

It's a new vehicle called the Revenant. It's agile, swift and fragile like the Spectre and shoots energy balls just like the Wraith (but weaker).

Zierro · July 24, 2010

Just got Two for One today. God, what a [bleep]. Definitely the hardest achievement I ever got. It's so rare to get a level with a Spartan Laser, let alone seeing two people next to each other in Lonewolves - usually at least one guy leaves the match. I'm trying to max out Halo 3 before Reach comes out, but the ones I have left are Annual, Splatter Spree, and Perfection.... :wall:

Zilla · July 24, 2010

Just got Two for One today. God, what a [bleep]. Definitely the hardest achievement I ever got. It's so rare to get a level with a Spartan Laser, let alone seeing two people next to each other in Lonewolves - usually at least one guy leaves the match. I'm trying to max out Halo 3 before Reach comes out, but the ones I have left are Annual, Splatter Spree, and Perfection.... :wall:

I have a good bit of DLC Achievements left, Including Annual. I have tried so many times to get the Two for One achievement, its ridiculous. When my Xbox is fixed, I'll try and get those.

K112 · July 24, 2010

Just got Two for One today. God, what a [bleep]. Definitely the hardest achievement I ever got. It's so rare to get a level with a Spartan Laser, let alone seeing two people next to each other in Lonewolves - usually at least one guy leaves the match. I'm trying to max out Halo 3 before Reach comes out, but the ones I have left are Annual, Splatter Spree, and Perfection.... :wall:

I have a good bit of DLC Achievements left, Including Annual. I have tried so many times to get the Two for One achievement, its ridiculous. When my Xbox is fixed, I'll try and get those.

74/79 here for Halo 3, 47/47 for ODST.

All vidmasters done, all I need is the Overkill, Steppin Razor, Save this film (perfection), Post Mortem and Alas Poor Yorick

Two for one took me about 3 hours of Lone Wolves, I got it on construct, two guys in battle, I had a half charged laser already and they crossed the beam path just as i fired. Lots of luck there.

If you want some help (or you want to help me!) with any achievements let me know.

Overdoziz · July 24, 2010

1750/1750 for Halo 3 and 1000/1000 for ODST. I'm ready for Reach. :)

My stats

Just got Brigadier Grade 3 yesterday. :^_^:

Zilla · July 24, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCtZon_8z9s

Versus Firefight looks fun, and here is the weekly update, its huge:

[hide=Bungie Weekly Update: 07.23.10]

So lemme get this straight. I take a short siesta for some sweet baby-makin and Sketch and Luke blow the lid off of our entire stash of sweet Bungie.net treats? They revealed the return of an old favorite with our Rooster Toothed friends, showcased all the explosive day one Armory offerings, complete with not one, not two, but sixty-freakin seven images? Unveiled achievements, put shiny medals on display, detailed a new armor ability, and capped it all off with insightful campaign details straight from campaign design superstar Chris Opdahl?

I was saving all that for later! How am I supposed to follow that up this week!?

With Forge World, Forge 2.0, and Firefight Versus details. You thought last week was our big salvo? Hang onto your helmets. (And get some balm ready for that forefinger. You got a lot of scrollin to do, people.)

Feels good to finally show off whats outside the canyon and showcase the newfangled upgrades coming to Forge in Halo: Reach. You made a lot of noise about what you wanted out of our map editing tool, and as you can see, our designers, artists, and engineers were listening intently. We cant wait to see what you show us when you finally get your hands on it.

Since were on the subject of show and tell, lets have another look at whats packed in with Halo: Reach, should you decide to go for the upgraded goods or replace your old, big, and busted Xbox 360 with the aesthetically amazing, artfully designed, ONI-inspired Halo: Reach Xbox 360 slim.

Bam! Remember when Sketch said that Halo: Reach was gonna be the biggest game of the year? Yeah, he wasnt kidding. Check out the sheer size of this monstrosity!*

*Box is not actual size, though Carney is actually really, really tiny.

Both videos embedded above, along with nearly forty new high resolutions screenshots are available right now on our Halo: Reach Project Page. Get 'em while they're hot.

Easy Mode

If all the digital pre-order and early bird options have your head spinning, Ill try to break it down for you nice and simple like.

In North America, a day one purchase of any of the Halo: Reach editions will net you a code to download the Recon helmet permutation. Outside of the US, youll have to pre-order.
Pre-order at Gamestop and youll also get a fancy, exclusive chest piece for your Spartan thrown in for good measure.
Buy the Limited Edition and youll get access to an Elite permutation for use in multiplayer, along with the aforementioned Spartan Recon helmet.
Buy Legendary and you get Recon, the Elite, and the Flaming Helmet Armor Effect for use in multiplayer, plus Behind the Scenes Bonus Content to download and drool over.

Well talk about the contents of the Behind the Scenes action a little bit later on. Like not this week later on. Rest assured, though, itll be a tour de force.

For now, lets talk build status.

All Quiet on the Pacific Northwestern Front

My triumphant return to the studio was heralded by the deafening sound of silence. Though a ton of work is being shoveled into the well-oiled test engine that powers the critical Release Candidate process, many of the regulars around this joint have been forced to relinquish their depot access and step far, far away from their builds. What was just recently a cacophonous hive of sweaty man children, swirling snack food wrappers, and a handful of very patient and professional women working extremely hard to squash every last bug they possibly could, has fast returned to a calm and dormant state. Plenty of people are now playing from home or at their desks and the community pod is so lonely I could cry, with Sketch already in the thick of it at this years Comic-Con (speaking of sweaty man children).

Zombie Shishka Thirsts For Braaaaains

And speaking of playing from home, it looks like a couple of designers got a little too engrossed in their epic campaign runs this week. While that bodes well for the addictive nature of Reachs campaign, it created a small problem for Test, and when Jaime Evans couldnt get into contact with either man in the field, his seedy underling, David Gasca, took matters into his own hands. He did what anyone in his position would have done. He abused the crap out of our in game messaging tools.

Loud and clear, Gasca. Loud and clear.

As Gasca and Jevans desperately attempted to wrangle a pair of designers, one lonely and likely overworked Test scribe took it upon himself to pen a hilarious, if not sobering, list of potential Release Candidate Achievements.

Domination 50 points

Pull a shift longer than Dom.

RC 1 Million 25 points

Break the RC.

I Can See Through Time! 50 points

1000mg of Caffeine.

Midnight Munchies 50 points

Do a Burgermaster run.

Hygiene Not Optional 50 points

Own a functioning shower curtain.

COMMando 10 points

Crash every devkit in the studio simultaneously. (Yup, this happened.)

Whos Your Daddy? 15 points

Dont see your kids for three days.

Home Sweet Home 10 points

Physically force a person to go home.

Bungies Biggest Gainer 10 points

Gain five pounds in one week day.

Cowboy 5 points

Change the file system during RC.

Scarab Jockey 5 points

Reactivate the same bug five times.

Schedule-Conflictamajaro! 50 points

Try to cut an RC on a night when there is scheduled PartnerNet downtime.

Harrison, Go Home! 15 points

Successfully kick Harrison out for the night.

Wrath of Gooch! Negative 10 points

Do anything.

Hopefully you find some humor in our Test teams pain. They suffer for you.

The Ballad of Forky

Ah, suffering. Let me tell you a tale, nay, sing you a song, of metal and rubber and a heart as big as the world. Let me hearken to you...the Ballard of Forky.

Forky was a fine steed, but more, he was a fine friend. From the moment my MJOLNIR-clad buttocks pressed deeply into his supple leather seat, I knew ours was a bond that could never be shipped to the wrong depot. And as we lifted boxes and crates together, my hands slipping perfectly around his ergonomic controls, truly it was my heart that soared.

Together we were a force to be reckoned with. Even amidst the Covenant invasion, we refused to shirk our duty. We knew that each and every load could make all the difference. Undelivered, a Marine might go without his beans. A trooper, without her helmet. It was our duty...no, it was our passion.

But it would not last forever. It could not last forever. I'll spare you the details, for to relay them now would be to tear my own soul asunder. To rend my heart into a million beating pieces.

Forky was brave. He was heroic.

But in the end, even together, we could not push the Covenant aside. Our two-pronged assault was not enough. The odds were stacked against us.

Rest in peace, dear Forky. I pray your soul will be lifted to some beautiful warehouse in the sky, where eagles soar defiantly above fields of pristine crates, each pining for safe transit and temperature controlled storage.

Godspeed, my hydraulically gifted friend. You will be missed.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Dear God, they cut the Forklift. I'm sorry, friends. Sometimes I want to have a little fun at your expense. The Forklift wasn't cut. It's alive and well along with a stable of other civilian vehicles, all idling warmly, waiting to go on an adventure with you.

A Whole New Forge World

So, whats outside the canyon?

A whole new world, that's what. Forge World is massive. In fact, its the single largest expanse of multiplayer real estate ever included in a Halo game (betcha haven't heard that before!). And its seamless. If youre playing around on the cliff and see some poor, unsuspecting schmuck running around on Pinnacle far below, you can put a slug through his helmet from your lofty, far away perch.

And of course, if youre looking for a more contained experience, youll have complete control over the size of the playable space. Remember those Return to the Battlefield warnings you received when you slipped too far past the boundaries in the Beta? Youll be able to place (or remove) them with Forge. You can leave your playground wide open and allow players to explore the space, or you can confine them to a single base on Hemorrhage. Its ultimately your call.

And thats just one of the shiny new levers youll have at your fingertips. Overall, there are roughly 150 objects for you to tinker with, from building blocks to actual buildings, and thats still not even close to scratching the surface of the customization options youll be given access to.

Global Rotation Snap for all objects?

Check.

Rotation Snap, per object?

Sure, why not?

Maybe you'd like a sweet, glowing grid just like the one you're already familiar with from Sandbox, only you want to place it in a spot of your choosing so all of your placed objects float on a parallel plane.

Float on.

Phased object placement?

Drop.

Plop.

Squeeze.

And Place.

Its a bit difficult to get a sense of scale on that Sea Stack, so after I fiddled with phasing it into the ground, I thought Id slap a Spartan on it and pull the camera back to help you size it up.

Rock!

Maybe you want to nudge or rotate an object along the X, Y, or Z axis without using the sticks, but instead by adjusting the actual coordinates for ultra fine tuning down to one tenth of a world unit.

Okay, youre really starting to ask for a lot here, but hell, go nuts.

There really is an absurd level of layered customization built into Forge 2.0. To help you get your head around it a little bit better, heres what one of the Fathers of Forge, Tyson Green, had to say about the latest iteration.

Forge-a-Saurus Rex

When we added the Forge feature in Halo 3, we expected to tap a creative streak in our community. What we did not expect was the intensity. So determined was that streak to express itself that it burned through our naive offering, consuming it and finding new ways to use it.

So when we returned to the Forge in Reach, this was deeply impressed on us: don't fight that streak. Take the things that were hard and make them easy, and give authors more of what they need. Space, settings, objects, and better tools. Help the community express its interests and creativity, and let that be our fundamental goal.

You won't find Forge 2.0 to be an unexpected, unwelcome departure from what you know. But you should find it to be easier to build with, and richer than ever. We can't wait to see what you guys do with it.

And heres what he had to say during an impromptu question and answer session he conducted in the wake of the announcement on our forums:

Posted by: DeftestAdam366

If the Bungie overlord comes back, is there a weather effect? i saw we had night effects but I'd love things like snow and rain

No weather effects in the Forge. Was something we wanted, but something we didn't get to in time.

But, there are filters similar to the ones we introduced in Sandbox, a few of which do a pretty good job of making it look like night, late afternoon, and some other visual effects.

Posted by: TOM T 117

Hmmm, what if the Warthog is destroyed? Does the hill remain in the wreckage (then move back to the vehicle upon respawn), disappear until the vehicle respawns or must vehicle-hills be indestructible for it to work?

In the case of KotH, it'll move the Hill to the next object set up to be a Hill.

It really is more fun with indestructible vehicles, though. :)

Posted by: freefall722

Can you offset the shape area from the object? Like make it float above it or to the side of it?

You can offset it up or down (by setting the top and bottom heights appropriately), but not to the left/right. We figured you'd just move the object if you wanted to do that.

Posted by: External Memory

BTW, are object maxes or global object limits returning?

Yes, but they're quite a bit better now. A lot of objects are grouped together so that they share the same object limits ("inventory".) So if you're setting up a map and can place, say, 50 wall pieces, it's actually 50 wall pieces of any type, not "10 doors, 10 corners, 10 single-width, 10 double-width, etc"

The limits are pretty generous too. All of the maps we built are comfortably within the limits.

Posted by: Blaster73

When you phase objects do they also stay fixed? Or do they only stay put if they a phased into another object? If the first is true then I am making a giant ball of phased objects suspended in air...

A phased object stays where you put it.

Posted by: everywhere116

Can you forge every gametype's objectives and spawns without changing through gametypes like in H3? Or do you still have to do that?

You'll have to switch the gametype to set up objects for that gametype (e.g., choose KOTH to place KOTH Hills.)

It's not the most elegant solution, but we figure 90%+ of maps are set up for one gametype at most, so it ended up being the simplest overall solution.

Posted by: wolfhunter9154

What about DLC?

DLC? You mean "don't leak clues"? :)

Can't speak to what we have planned there. That's up to gentlemen like Sketch and Urk.

Nice try, kids. This aint Tysons first rodeo. Urk

Posted by: El Roboto

I wonder what would happen if you made a Warthog the Bomb and had to plant it at the enemies base.

The Bomb (and Flag, and Oddballs) work a bit differently--you can control where they spawn, but not what actually spawns.

But, you could play Assault where the goal is to plant the bomb on a Warthog (or any other vehicle.) Or on a soccer ball!

Posted by: vHyDroCiTy

Can somebody please answer this?

Is there an UNDO button?! I hate accidentally moving/deleting something, thus making me recreate it.

There is not. :(

(Shocking fact herein revealed: we don't even have an Undo button on our internal tools! It's maddening! But it's also really complicated to bolt on at this point...)

Fortunately, object positioning is so, so so much better than H3 that it's usually pretty easy to get that object right back where you want it. Working with Rotation Constraints and Nudges makes it trivial most of the time.

Posted by: BK Burger Boy

So say, if you built an objective gametype that utilized all 5 of the map segments, you would have enough budget to create extensive structures on each part withing the limits, or is the budget intended to be a lot more localized to one area?

You wouldn't be able to build, say, Lockout in 3-4 places on the map. But you could certainly set up some Hemorrhage bases in a bunch of places on the map.

You can actually build quite a bit and pretty complicated structures pretty cheaply, so if you're imagining some grand battles across the entire length of the map, going from base to base, I'm pretty sure you could manage it.

Posted by: the pib

Ferrex: I noticed in one video, when someone was spawning a Falcon, that the limit for Scorpions was 2. Normally that would be fine but Forge World is large enough that having even six tanks on the map would not be unreasonable. Is 2 Scorpions the absolute max, or were there already some on the map?

There were some on the map already. The maximum number of Scorpions on Forge World is *checks map* 4.

Posted by: Pokezilla Linked

Is that what it meant by "Basic Editing"? Is that the new term for "All Gametypes"?

Yes, exactly. (I was hoping that question would come up in this thread, I've seen it a few times.)

Sorry, there is no corresponding "Advanced Editing" gametype. Basic Editing is already pretty Advanced. :)

Posted by: Blaster73

How much inspiration for Forge 2.0 came from what users asked for and what they have created?

A lot of it. Most of it. The Forge is 99% for the community, so we really took a good swing at building it "to spec", based on what the community was already doing with the Forge in H3.

Posted by: Halo_Orlando

1.Are there visual or audio effects associated with the monitor? For example, does it do the light zinging noise when you move, and does it, as the picture shown in the update implies, give a little glow that extends from the monitor to the object carried?

2. Will there be things that will work purely aesthetically, like lights, environmental effects, or directional pointers (arrows signs etc), and if so, will they be mainly included within the object color, advanced options etc within the objects?

3. Is there any interactable geometry like glass?

4. Are there vehicle only teliporters?

1. There's audio (flying sounds) and some little visual touches, but nothing on the objects he's editing.

2. There's lights, global screen filters, and a good selection of decorative objects. No explicit signs, I don't think (might depend on the map.)

3. If by interactive you mean destructible glass, afraid not. There are definitely destroyable objects, though.

4. Yep, you can set a teleporter to work on (and I'm pretty sure only-on) vehicles.

Posted by: Yourm0md07c0m

so ferrex can you answer a question of mine?

with a map that large it would take a long time to load right? so for maps that were made as sectioned off portions of forge world, will they have to load the entire map to be played? that seems like some firefight style load times to me.

It loads as fast as any MP map. :)

(Load times mostly come from things like texture resources, and FF maps pay a large cost from the AI characters we have to load.)

Posted by: Gaara444

Are giant interior rooms something you have to Forge? Or are they implemented into the map itself?

There's one big interior space built into the map, and a couple of little tunnels on the Island.

Posted by: FourKILLMASTER

I have some quick questions here. Has the player cap been increased and is there a tool that allows you to weld objects together?

Player cap is 8 players in Forge (we pay some amount of networking overhead for the editing, so we can't have as many as normal MP), and sadly no, there's no tool for welding objects together (for technical reasons.)

Posted by: freeglader

Why is there a dice?

Why not?

Posted by: wolfhunter9154

Also ferrex, Can we swim in the game?

Deep water is as fatal to Spartans as spikes are to Megaman. :(

Posted by: xXDarkCrimsonXx

Can kill zones be customized to be a one way door? Say if you enter the kill zone you cannot leave it.

No, but we do have some one-way shield door objects that you could use to accomplish the same game mechanics.

Posted by: Yourm0md07c0m

can you set it so that a gametype starts you with an armor ability and you can still swap them out?

Ex: make it so you can only spawn with sprint, but you can pick up jetpack or armor lock elsewhere on the map.

also is that annoying glitch (where you are holding something and you press y to delete it, but it deletes the object behind it instead) fixed?

Yes, and yes.

Posted by: Halo_Orlando

Interactive objects: Do they exist?

Open-able doors, switches, glass?

Afraid not. We ended up not using many of these at all on our maps, so we didn't spend a lot of time building them. Those that we did build were very map specific.

Posted by: RTK ELUSIVE

will any of the built in forge world maps be used in matchmaking? and if they are how would barriers work as to not get to the rest of forge world during MM?

Yep, you'll see these in Matchmaking. And the kill zones/safe zones are set up per map variant, so there's no fear of someone Warthog Jumping from one safe area to another.

Posted by: Celticsgreen17

Is there a possibility to set rocket race checkpoints around the map? Where their first location is, then the 2nd after the first one is reached, etc.

There sure is. :)

Posted by: El Roboto

One other question: Is it possible to intersect objects with vehicles such as teleporters or blocks using the Phased option and still have them be drivable?

Afraid not. The phased objects would remain fixed in their location, and the vehicles would push themselves out of the fixed object.

Posted by: BK Burger Boy

How many Falcons can we have on the Map?

The answer is 8.

(And I'm going to skip object count questions from here, otherwise you guys'll have me listing out the entire palette. :)

Posted by: Jesse James 013

When merging two objects together by phasing them, do they blend naturally now, or do they produce flicker on the surfaces? Or is it dependent on technique, such as snapping to the grid or placing with slightly varying angles?

They blend BETTER, but it still depends on your technique. A lot of the objects are designed to be snug up against each other, and that's the best way to avoid the z-fighting (the term for that flicker.)

Posted by: Fishie1

Is there still the Forge hosting bug where the placed objects look different to different players in the game?

Example: Player 1 perfectly arranges a row of blocks, but to Player 2 the blocks looked all skewed and misaligned.

No, that one should be fixed now. That was one in particular that we wanted to crush.

Posted by: Darth Nader 08

ferrex, what does the object color mean? I know about the team color, which is complete and utter epicness, but the second option gives me the heebie-jeebies.

It's really just setting a specific color for the object instead of using the team color.

Posted by: CQB shotgunner

Ferrex, if you are allowed to tell us, what was the hardest part of building Forge 2.0? What was the most enjoyable part?

The hardest part was [getting] it down to something we could finish, polish, and ship. That's always the hardest part, cause you know that every one of those little features would've BEEN SO COOOL! But that's how the process works.

The most enjoyable part was seeing folks like Shish building real, new maps. And, of course, working on my own ports of old favorites. :)

Tyson tells me hes thinking about revisiting some of his old turf. Urk

Posted by: Time Glitch

We already know we can spawn objects at a certain point in time: "Respawn Time" and then set "Set at Start" to "No".

Can we now get objects to go away after a certain point?

Afraid not. Other than garbage collection, the engine doesn't have any concept of "despawn time", and it never came up as something we really wanted. I can see how it'd be useful, though... dang. Got me there. :(

Posted by: Insane AlphaBeta

i got a question [as does everyone else] but still when you first go in Forge World is it completely blank with nothing on it? or do you have to delete everything?

I think we're shipping a blank version on disc this time.

Yup! The Forge World map listed in the default selection menu is indeed a blank canvas. Urk

Posted by: ShiningArmor16

With forge 2.0 will it be possible to create gametypes where all players have the same super weapons (eg: flamethrower or fuel rod gun) which wasn't possible in Halo 3? Thanks!

More of a game options question, but yeah, you can start everyone with any weapon in the game.

Posted by: Blaster73

Can every single object be set as normal, fixed, and phased? For example in Halo 3 certain things like pallets, explosives, spawn points, guns, and vehicles would never stay fixed.

Not everything can be fixed. Vehicles, for example, will always be physical.

And it looks like Jon is shaking his fist at me right now. Hmm.

Posted by: the pib

Can we "dig" by creating empty space inside solid rock? It would be great to be able to excavate a cave in a rock wall, build an underground vehicle bay or bunker, or have a tunnel running under a field.

Afraid not. Forge is a humble object editor, not quite capable of full on terrain editing of that sort.

You could pile up a bunch of rocks and then delete the ones in the middle, though!

Posted by: MartinOfRedwall

What system does forge use to give you credits after you're done forging?

Time actively spent in the Forge does provide some credits.

(And pre-emptive chill-out: we do distinguish between "active", "idle", and "rubber band on your controller". ;)

Posted by: Bionic Juice

Are all weapons available on all maps? I know in H3 some weapons wouldn't show sometimes.

All weapons, all maps. The MP guys had strong sauce this time, and budgeted accordingly.

Posted by: Archangel755

I must know Ferrix, if you'd be so kind to respond to this. Is there water that is deep, but not deep enough to kill you on Forgeworld? So, water that you can walk around in, and not die. And if so, how much of the water can we walk in? Thanks. :)

Yep, there's shallow water. I had some fun early on setting up a Race map which send you driving along the beach beside and around the Island, a lot of which has you swimming and fording shallow water.

Posted by: Scarphace

Ferrex, Forge World seems a little big even for an 8 vs 8 Team Slayer game. I don't want to spend ten minutes wandering lonely caves and bases alone, with not even a blip on my radar. How has this been addressed?

Safe Zones limit players to certain parts of the map, as defined by the map author. If you leave the Safe Zone, you either die (hard Safe Zone) or are warned to return to the battle (soft Safe Zone.)

Posted by: critical ghost1

Can trees be forged

Also how many items total can we place at one time

I don't think there's any trees. They're just not very good objects for this kind of use--very floppy, physical, and hard to pull off believably.

And number of objects depends on the objects you choose. It'll vary a lot.

Nope, no trees. It was considered, but ultimately wasnt worth removing something else in its stead. Urk

Posted by: the pib

About placing AA's on the map... when you pick one up, does it disappear from the map and go into your armor, as if you're picking up a weapon? If so, is it possible to place an AA on the map that stays on the map after someone picks it up (so your whole team can all get Jetpacks from one object placed on the map) or is it necessary to place multiple of them on the map to achieve this? And what happens to your old AA when you pick up a new one... does it drop on the floor for someone else to take, or just disappear?

It's like swapping weapons, so the old one hangs around.

Posted by: Jesse James 013

Any chance that one of the objects is a GIGANTIC wall, so we no longer have to build walls out of smaller blocks?

There is, in fact, a gigantic wall object. It's pretty damn large.

Posted by: Time Glitch

Can we still make objects be affected by gravity lifts and what not? This is pretty much how we made opening and closing doors beforehand, and I didn't see any objects like Crates or Dumpsters in the ViDoc.

Can we still do those kinds of things?

Yep, those sorts of objects still exist.

Posted by: BLOODED 2951

Ferrex, Can kill balls be expanded to make a lava pit?

Also, will man cannons possible negate fall damage?

No, but you could make a lethal fall by using a kill zone.

And I'm pretty sure man cannons can't negate fall damage. User beware!

Posted by: Yourm0md07c0m

when you set a vehicle to be team specific, does that mean that only that team can drive/pilot it?

No, I don't think vehicles pay attention to which team owns them, except for inheriting team colors (in the case of the Mongoose on Rocket Race.)

Posted by: The Pudie

Sorry if this has been said before. But how high can you fly/build items, is there a limit or can we build in the middle of the sky?

Pretty dang high. There's lots of room for this kind of stuff.

Big thanks for Tyson for making room for this kind of stuff. But hes not the only one answering hard-hitting questions. Here are designers Steve Yeah, he made your favorite map Cotton, Christopher P Carney and Chad Came From Behind Armstrong to tell you all about the origins of the spectacular space that is Forge World.

Q. Where did the crazy idea for Forge World come from in the first place?

Cotton : When I was ten, I dreamed of a place big enough to make the worlds largest Halo maps. This was odd since Halo had yet to be invented, but I guess in my own little world of G.I. Joe and Bon Jovi, I was a visionary. Sometimes I wish I had thought of different things insteadGoogle, Facebook, Megan Foxbut Forge World was my destiny, I guess. Its hard to believe Chris and Chad had similar visions at ten, but its true.

Chad: At first, we had this plan to basically remake Sandbox in a new setting. We had a pretty straightforward plan for a setting in New Alexandria that would have met the minimum requirements for a map dedicated to Forge. But when we really started looking at Forge the tool we realized that a Sandbox remake would really have just been the minimum requirements for a Forge map. We were capable of much more! So, we scrapped that in favor of a new plan. With the ability to set an object to have phased physics, actual, fun-to-play terrain became non-issue. On top of that, we had these great spaces that could be repurposed for Forge. On top of THAT, well How could we ship a Halo without a canyon to romp around in with your friends?

Q. Early on, I was looking at descriptions for several maps set on a Halo ring, each with a distinct geographical framework. Then, all of the sudden, it was all crammed into one massive World. What happened?

Carney: We wanted to make more competitive multiplayer maps for ship but only had art time to do one skybox. In addition, Eamondo and Cable had green lit our ability to fix and phase objects in Forge 2.0. So suddenly, rolling terrain was an achievable Forge canvas. If we could easily phase objects into terrain and fix them in specific locations, we did not need to create a flat orthogonal world (our original Reach Forge map was going to be human skyscraper under construction). So armed with the ability to do compelling things with terrain, we turned our sights to things more familiar. We came up with the idea of creating 5 terrain types (a rock spire, a cliff, a gulch, a small canyon, and a room) based on some of our favorite acreage and then intended to blend these together under one sky. Mr. Cotton took over from there with the intent of combining these terrains into one world (and one sky) which we would then eventually separate into 5 different Forge environments for ship. Chad and I then set to work on designing the pieces.

The pieces were based on several types of parts that we had used over the years (the main tower in Ascension = the invis tower in Zanzibar = tower, 2 story in Forge 2.0) as well as a series of lego blocks straight from the mind of Chad. These pieces were all strictly built on a grid in order to make everything line up nicely in Forge. Also, some of these pieces were designed to function even better when rotated or flipped.

Meanwhile, Steve struggled to carve the map up into 5 environments. There can be only one! he would scream when anyone approached his desk

Chad: Cotton happened.

The plan for Forge World was that we were going to provide multiple spaces that were unique in terms of design but similar in terms of aesthetic. If a player wanted to make a canyon variant theyd pick the canyon map. If a player wanted to work in a smaller space, they could load the quarry. If a player wanted to work in a simple Sandbox Crypt-style box, there was the Coliseum. By working in the same aesthetic (Forerunner, in this case) we could reuse the same family of Forge objects across all of the maps and spare the art team the time to build specialized versions of all the pieces we were making for Forge. It was also a time saver on the maps themselves to use the same environment style, which really helped us sell the maps to our fearless leaders, who needed to be convinced we could actually complete the task in time to ship the game.

Because we were placing the maps in the same environment, it was decided that each map would be hinted at in the sky of the other maps. For example, looking down the cliff side from the quarry youd see a valley that looked suspiciously like the gulch, and off in the distance that island looks like the island map, and so on. We considered that fans would probably gripe that they wanted to just be able to fly between all the maps, but hey it wouldnt be difficult to explain how that wasnt possible, right?

Meanwhile, Cotton had a master version of Forge World that allowed him to work on all of the spaces at once. At first this was just to make the task of working on the map easier for him. But when he realized it wasnt a total disaster when he compiled the entire map (that is to say, performance wasnt destroyed, lightmaps didnt look like dog vomit, and it was really, really, really cool) he pitched the idea to keep the spaces united to the rest of us. And then when people said no, Im pretty sure he did it anyway. Im pretty sure a dozen different people told him not to do even think about it, but Cotton will do as Cotton does.

Q. Why set this sucker on a Halo ring?

Carney: Halo contains amazing terrain. Plus our piece set was based on traditional (and non-traditional) Forerunner architecture. There really was no question as to where to set it.

Cotton: The truth. For something this big, we needed an aesthetic that was simple, refreshing, and versatile. Nothing compares in that regard to Halo.

Chad: Reachs feature set is expanded tremendously over the previous Halo games, but there are still limitations we must abide by. The limitations that affect Forge the most revolve around two issues: Lighting and Performance. To get the most out of Forge we had to build a palette of objects that were individually fairly neutral in terms of contrast and fairly simple in terms of polycount. The Forerunner aesthetic, with its simple angles and steely blue-grays was a perfect choice. Further, after so many games with Forerunner architecture, its a lot less jarring to see large metal pieces jutting out of a rock face when it looks properly Forerunner.

Q. I read that all of the multiplayer maps were ripped straight out of the campaign. Does this mean that were going to visit a Halo ring in Reachs campaign? (SPOILERS!)

Carney: Sure, buddy.

Cotton: Umno. In a lot of ways you should think of Forge World as a unique experience. Not just because its the only non-campaign related multiplayer experience, but because its really like 100 levels in 1. Theres a good chance that there will be more levels played in Forge World than all of the Halos combined. Except this Halo, of course. That would be impossible.

Chad: While it was true at the time when we said our multiplayer maps were integrated with campaign, that changed when we started on Forge World. Noble Team will not be fighting their way through Blood Gulch, Im sorry to say!

Q. Tell me of The Cage.

Cotton: The Cage is a Carney box. Its like Lockout on steroids.

Carney: The Cage was the original name for Lockout back when it was a Halo: CE map. It, of course, did not make it to the limelight till Halo 2, but also changed significantly over development. The latest version of The Cage is based on some of those pre-Lockout ideas and started on that Forge skyscraper (we named it Blockout since we are intensely creative people). Eventually it moved to Forge World. It is roughly the same scale as Lockout and is built around an open center, but features longer sight lines and paths that are strictly one way (unless you have a jet pack). Team Slayer (4 v 4) and SWAT feel good.

BTW, Pete Parsons named Forge World. He too is intensely creative for a marketing guy.

Chad: The Cage came to be because we wanted at least one built from scratch map made to demonstrate that it could be done. It may or may not have helped that Carney promised to build a map from scratch in Forge and Derek and I taunted him into doing that. Wait, who said that? You cant prove anything

Anyway, The Cage is an excellent slayer map, with a flavor not dissimilar from the Lockouts and Guardians of the world (while still being distinctly The Cage). In some VIP testing we did some time back, an earlier iteration was quite popular with a group of damn good Halo players we brought in to take a look. The map has changed a bit since then, but I bet theyll still like it.

Q. How faithful are the Ascension and Blood Gulch remakes? Are they pixel perfect remakes or spiritual successors?

Cotton: Theyre faithful to each other. Blood Gulch might have a little action on the side but otherwise theyre pretty faithful. Thats literally, not metaphorically speaking.

Chad: I wouldnt call Pinnacle either pixel perfect or a spiritual successor. The goal from the beginning was to build in Forge a map that matched (as accurately as it could) the structure of Ascension. In fact, the majority of the pieces used on the map (most notably the towers) were yanked out of Ascension and then tweaked to fit to Reachs scale and what we call the grid; fitting the objects to a standard unit of measurement that makes it easier to make the pieces fit together.

Hemorrhage is a hybrid of Blood Gulch and Coagulation. The terrain of the canyon is rezzed up from Coagulation, and the placement of natural cover and weapons is based on Coags set up. The bases, however, are primarily Blood Gulchs one story bunkers with some Coagulation touches in terms of the structures providing cover on the rooftops.

Carney: Both Ascension and Blood Gulch needed some love (the originals are not perfect), but these versions are pretty damn close. Plus, if you dont like it, you can always go into Forge and fix it.

Q. So, Forge 2.0 is pretty cool then, eh?

Carney: Its not bad.

Chad: I think hes a pretty cool guy. He makes maps and doesnt afraid of anything.

For the sake of the ViDoc I went into Halo 3 Forge so Jim and his crew could capture an example of placing two overlapping pieces in Sandbox. The difference from Forge 2.0 is almost tangible. Im not just talking about the difference in the number of steps to achieve the same goal, either. Everything you do as the monitor in Forge 2.0 just feels better than it did before. I spent an entire day building maps for brief film clips and had a great time, yet all it took was five minutes in the old Forge before I was filled with rage and asking questions like How did I deal with this before without flipping tables and throwing chairs? Then I realized that some of the things I did in two hours in Reach would have taken exponentially longer in Halo 3. Reachs Forge is simply awesome.

Cotton: Imagine if you took all the acorns in the world. And put them into a big pile. I mean, a HUGE mountain pile. A squirrel walks by and is like, holy s@% that is Forge 2.0! Now imagine youre the squirrel, in case that wasnt obvious. Thats how it feels when you first load it up. Everyone should try it. Split-screen with a friend is even better! Its the most seamless, user friendly chance to do something that most people never get to do to CREATE in a virtual world! Yeah, its possible to make an awesome Halo map. But youll forget about that as soon as you start building because youre already playing, youve been consumed by the size, and your mind starts racing through the possibilities, its overwhelming and you forget why you came here in the first place. 2 hours go by and youve built a bridge to nowhere, a floating tower made of man-cannons, and a castle with turrets and a moat. Thats when you realize you havent even scratched the surface.

Q. What are some of the most significant upgrades?

Cotton: Controls are improvedum, actually good. I like to think of it this way. Forge 1.0 was like the first plane the Wright brothers built, you know, got the point across, but you probably wouldnt get in it with a gun to your head. Forge 2.0 is like the second plane the Wright brothers builtif their name was General Dynamics and it was an F-16! More, better, bigger. Pick an area, that applies.

Carney: Ask Chad. I struggled with Halo 3 Forge and did not use it much. One thing to note, since Chad and I were going to make shipping variants with the tools, we made sure that the Reach 2.0 tools were good and useful.

Chad: The camera changes are notable. The big difference is in what the movement is based around. In Halo 3, held objects move around the player, so as the player turns, the object is dragged along to keep with his reticule. In Reach, however, a held object is the point of orbit for the player. While holding an object, the player orbits around it when they move their look stick, moving themselves rather than the object, which would allows the player to grasp where their object exists in relation to the rest of the map without knocking things over or bumping the object into other pieces or world geometry. Another handy feature is that, so long as youre not rotating the object, when you grab something your reticule stays relative to where you grabbed. So, if youre trying to line up to bridge pieces, you can grab the end of one piece to line it up with the other, which is much easier than having to work from the center of the object.

The biggest change of course is the ability to set pieces to be phased which allows you to pass them through other objects and world geometry. That takes about 75% of the time Halo 3 forge authors spent working and setting it free right there! Plus with controls that allow for fine tuning such as the ability to make minute movements by holding down on the left stick, or by directly editing the coordinates of the object.

Q. What were some of the key issues that have been addressed moving from the old and busted Forge to the new and improved Forge 2.0?

Carney: Thats a great question. Seriously.

Cotton: Chads department. In my opinion, the MOST important new thing by far is phasing the ability to push objects into the environment. This makes a lot of the cool new stuff even possible. Embedding bases into the ground, bridging gaps, and generally just building on the ground. Think of it more like constructing than just placing crates. After that, it would be the Rotational snapping the ability to choose an increment to snap by when rotating (1, 5, 15, 30, 45, 90 degrees). You can also move pieces by small set increments to line things up easier. These, together, allow even a brand new player to build the cool new stuff really FAST. There are lots of other things that affect the experience but I wont ruin the surprise.

Chad: The ultimate goal we had while working on Forge 2.0 was taking the common tricks used in Halo 3s Forge and make them not be tricks, but standard features of the tool. A users time in Forge should be spent building and testing the map, not going through a multi-stage process just to complete some basic construction. Building things well is no longer a trial in and of itself, allowing users to focus on making sweet content, and have fun while doing it.

Q. Where are my pants?

Chad: Not a day goes by that I dont ask myself that same question at least twice.

Cotton: DLC.

Carney: What are pants again?

Mapmaker, Mapmaker

If all this lip service about the fine art of Forging is sailing right over your head and all you care about is playing some sweet maps without having to do any work whatsoever, weve got you set up, too. Were not ready to blow all the new multiplayer spaces out yet, but heres the list of Forge World real estate were definitely shipping on the disk:

Hemorrhage Many call this curious gorge their grave, but early inhabitants left only these outposts behind in memoriam. 8-16 players.

Pinnacle Even untold centuries of abandonment and neglect failed to stall the smooth operation of this ancient structure. 2-8 players.

The Cage The walls are in your heart. 2.8 players.

All three of these maps are ready to go without any additional manipulation. Weve lovingly placed spawns, weapons, and taken them through the playtest paces to ensure that youll have yourself a grand old time on them with minimal investment. And just like the Hemorrhage, they are merely the tip of the sea stack. We'll have more maps of our own and as Tyson alluded to above, well be on the lookout for hot new community content soon after launch. Alongside Forge, your ability to share content with other players has also been given a much needed boost (as have our own internal tools for taking and evaluating map submissions for inclusion in matchmaking).

Without making any brave new promises about the state of user created content in the not so distant future, I can say without question that well be intently seeking expertly crafted offerings from the multitude of Forge aficionados out there. We were shocked at the length people would go to work around the tools to build something great in Halo 3. We can only imagine what well get this time out.

Make us proud.

Kill Your Friends

Theres an old adage around these parts. It goes. Kill your enemies. Kill your friends enemies. Kill your friends. So when the team regrouped in the wake of Halo 3: ODST to talk about what kind of improvements they could bring to the table for Firefight, one feature seemed custom fit to bolster the already intense invasion simulatin experience.

We call it Firefight Versus, and to explain it in a little more depth and detail, weve bribed and cajoled the one, the only LarsyB into talking about the bigger, better, and more bad ass version of Firefight youll find in Halo: Reach come September.

Heres what he had to say for himself (and for Firefight Versus Mode):

When Paul, Tyson, and myself sat down to figure out how to improve Firefight in Reach, there were the obvious things like adding Matchmaking support. That wasn't enough, however, and we wanted to push it in terms of customization so we blew the doors off the Game Options. That still wasn't enough, and we wanted to try something different. We already know what it feels like to play as a Spartan surrounded by your UNSC buddies in the Campaign, but what does it feel like to be on the other side? Sure, we saw that in Halo 2 in the Arbiter storyline, but what does it feel like to be in a knock-down, drag out fight against your friends?

That, amigos, is where Versus comes in.

From the Firefight Lobby, with the press of a Bumper, you now have the ability to choose whether you are on the Red Team or the Blue Team. Red Team always starts as Spartans and Blue Team always starts as Elites. Like everything in Reach Firefight, Versus really comes to life with a simple little Option called "Turn Count." Once the limits are reached for the current Firefight session (can be time limit, lives, waves, etc), we swap sides.

So, the short version is if your Turn Count is set to One Each (can also be None, Two Each, and Three Each), when the game naturally ends we change sides and you play from the other perspective. After your turns are over, we end the game.

Wait, WHA? Yes, that's right you get to play as an Elite running around with all the Covenant at your side tearing apart the Spartans.

How does it work? Simple, whichever team has the most points after the game ends, wins. It's the classic Red vs. Blue you've always known and loved.

But how do you keep this fair? First off, you get to play from both sides which makes it pretty equal, barring player skill. Second, and more importantly, you can only earn points while on the Spartan team, so it makes both sides have a purpose.

Ok, ok, I think I get it, but explain the finer details. What's my job as an Elite? Well, as the Elites your task is to stop the Spartans from scoring points by any means necessary. You have unlimited lives, but a longer respawn time. The other crucial piece of information is that if you die as an Elite, you are giving the Spartans an extra life as well as a big point drop... so be careful. If you continually throw your body into the fray, it will be very difficult to make up that point margin when you switch sides. As an Elite player you also have access to the number of Spartan Lives remaining in your HUD, so pay close attention to that number. It helps you know when you have them on the ropes.

So, what about Spartans, how does Versus change for them? The Spartans start by sharing 4 lives for their team and cannot have more than 4 backup lives. They have 5 minutes to try to score as many points as possible. Crucially, by default Elites do not make up any of the waves. So, when you see an Elite, you know that's a human player, or maybe it's a hologram of that human player. Gah!

Sweet! So, say I am way better than my other friends and I want to take them on by myself in Versus. Can I do that? Yup. You can set up the teams however you want. It can be 2v2 or 3v1. It's however you want to handle it in the Lobby.

So, we know that Spartans have full Player Trait and Loadouts customization; does that mean Elites have that as well? Yes, the Elites have all the same Player Trait and Loadout customization as the Spartans but in their own category. Want to give the Elites Loadouts all Fuel Rod Guns with Jetpack? You can do that.

How does this work with the Custom Skulls? Can Elites be affected by them the same way Spartans are? Yes, of course! Custom Skulls are made up of Spartan Traits, Elite Traits, and Wave Traits. When we first showed off Custom Skulls, we just hid the Elite stuff in the E3 build so as not to spoil the surprise.

Hope you all enjoy Versus, it really is a new way to play Firefight. See you online on the 14th!

No, Lars. Ill see YOU online. (Why arent you accepting my friend requests? Its me, the Jurkstore!)

Along with Versus, our Comic-Con contingent also took it upon themselves to reveal two new Firefight spaces, Courtyard (yes, there are Jackals) and the return of Overlook (previously known as Overlook).

Courtyard Wage war in a Courtyard outside an ONI building on Reach. Walkways, connecting rooms and plenty of cover make this a frantic space to fight in. It may not prove to be an effective weapon but feel free to jump behind the wheel of a Forklift if you feel inclined.

Overlook Fight against the Covenant in this settler dwelling set amidst the rugged Reach countryside. Take advantage of turret emplacements to hold off the Covenant crossing the river but beware the occasional Wraith.

MmmFirefighty.

Copdahl Continues His Campaign Against the Humans

Yup, although Sketch promised to publish the rest of Opdahls campaign Q&A in a standalone story, I made a liar out of our old friend. What can I say? He called me a ginger. Besides, we were a little bit busy this week. You understand, right?

To help you understand a little bit more about the approach our campaign designers took with Halo: Reach, once again, I give you Chris Opdahl.

bluerunner asks, "How big of an impact were armor abilities in planning out the missions? and How critical are using armor abilities to completing the campaign levels?"

Chris: Armor Abilities range from critical to making a mission to the spice that is added later to make it more varied. Some moments in the game were specifically designed around an Armor Ability, and those moment would not work without them. Jetpack is a good example of an Armor Ability that falls into that category. We need to specifically design spaces around the Jetpack (in the same way we need to design them around Banshees and Warthogs), and in some cases the player could not even navigate the space without it.

Other Armor Abilities were much more designed to be sandbox spice. Armor Lock, Active Camo, Hologram, and Drop Shield were all thought of as pieces that we would spread throughout the missions to let people chose what kind of Armor Ability they wanted to play with on that specific play through. And other Armor Abilities (like Sprint) were the ones we saw as ubiquitous to the player experience and would be liberally placed throughout the campaign.

And, for what it is worth, there were some Herculean efforts by the Character Engineering team to make the AI react to Armor Abilities in a very fun fashion. We were coming up on ZBR (where the Engineers should not be adding new features to the game), and the AI still needed some help in their reaction to some of the Armor Abilities (not trivially because the design specs for them were a little too complex who the heck wrote those docs oh yeah, I did oops). The Engineers came in and made it work, and now all of the Armor Abilities have really fun mechanics in the game. So when you trick an Elite with the Hologram, give a little shout out to the Character Engineering team.

Vandle Valsher asks, "How did the process of creating Reach's campaign experience compare to Halo 1, 2, and 3? For instance: was this project harder or easier? Did everything go relatively smoothly or were the obstacles much larger this time around? and How has the communication among your team improved over the other games? What lessons did you learn this time around? Were there any lessons from the other games that helped you avoid trouble this time?" and "Coke or Pepsi?"

Chris: So comparing the campaign experiences to Halo 1, 2 and 3 is pretty difficult for me. I only worked on Halo 3, and I came in for the last nine months or so. The mission I took over for Halo 3 was already moving towards finishing so I was only really there to set up the encounters and write the final mission script. So I dont have any insight into Reach development vs. Halo 1, 2 or 3.

I found that Reach went extremely smoothly. That is not to say there were no wrinkles, nor any fights (there were!). But in general we had a solid plan for everything and we course corrected properly when we needed to.

Communication was pretty strong on Reach (although I cant speak to it in relation to the previous Halo games). For me, the most important parts of communication are: 1) people know which decisions are being made 2) people know why those decisions are made and 3) people know who is responsible for making those decisions. If those basic criteria are met then people have enough ability to track down what is going on and can have a voice. Not meeting those basic criteria mean that people get blindsided by decisions and/or dont feel like they can affect change because they dont know what is going on or who to talk to.

The biggest lesson I learned (at least process wise) was to work on the core elements of the game first and then add on the rest later. It is really easy to get caught up solving the new and exciting problems now, and waiting to solve the known (old) problems later. Unfortunately the known problems are often the core elements of the game, and getting that right as soon as possible is really important. Even if that means you cut a lot of the new flashy parts of the game. That said, all the important parts of the game came together, but it was a little hot there for a while!

macgyver10 asks, "what 80's TV action hero inspired you most growing up?"

Jake Cutter (although I would pick your namesake as a close second).

FyreWulff asks, "It has been said that in Reach, players can get much farther from each other than in Halo 3. Now the 360 still has the same amount of RAM as it did when Halo 3 came out. What kind of optimizations were done to pull this off, or is the Reach engine just that much better? Or is it just better level design to work around the 360 hardware?

An example I would make is how in ODST, you can go all the way from the start of the level to just halfway over the "Space elevator explodes" bridge before you'll teleport, which is a relatively far distance for a Halo game. How far would the Reach engine let us go before a teleport on the same level with all of Reach's optimizations?"

And asks, "Have the campaign editing tools improved dramatically since Halo 3? Do designers still have to manually mark areas for AI, vis portals, etc, or have some of this stuff been automated (or the automation improved) ."

And asks, "We know now that the enemy encounters will adapt themselves to the player count in campaign. As a result of this, I imagine you can let the engine help add variety into encounters instead of manually placing the bipeds for each encounter (like Halo 1), or is there still a lot of manual setup for this? Example: instead of placing ELITE_MAJOR at 322,244,93 you can instruct the engine ELITE_BATTLEGROUP CENTER AROUND BOX 344,314,393/321,392,291....."

And asks, "In the Halo 3, the missions seemed to be designed around 'don't go backwards,' which was possible to easily do in Halo 1 and Halo 2. This was obviously a result of having to run without a harddrive. Sometimes it was done in a subtle way, like the drop-downs in Sierra 117. Sometimes it was done more blatantly, like the cave become a wall behind you when you get to the dam in Sierra 117 or the invisible wall/one way walls when you get into the Hornets on The Covenant. Does Reach deal with this in a more transparent fashion?"

And asks, "Are you amazed each time people figure out how to skip a level load or do a load early and the Xbox doesn't catch on fire?"

And asks, "From a technical perspective, which level in Halo 3 or ODST was the hardest to get working in complete order and to 'stable' status?"

Chris:

1) The engine is definitely designed around what we wanted to do with Reach, which is to say Yeah, it is just that much better. It is always easier to build something when you have a solid starting point, and we were able to start making missions really early in the process.

The teleports entirely depend on the circumstances. We have several parts of the game where two players can get quite far away from each other, because we have all of that space loaded into memory at once. But in other locations we end up needed to be very aggressive in teleporting players (because we need to drop out sections in order to load other sections).

2) We improved many of the tools for Reach over Halo 3, but we also added a lot of new responsibility on the Mission Designers. So we simplified some elements while adding new ones. A great example is the new Thespian Tool. This is a tool that allows a Mission Designer to craft a performance in the game that keeps the AI largely in the Sandbox, but allows them to play dialog and animations. We can craft moments with this tool that would have been impossible (or unfeasible) in Halo 3. The upside to this is that we have many more of these moments in the game to keep the player in the world. The downside is that it was another element to building a mission that the Mission Designers needed to manage. All in all we kept the total amount of work pretty similar to Halo 3, in that each Mission Designer was responsible for two missions apiece.

3) Yeah, we have a new tool (that came to us from ODST) called a Squad Formation. In the past we would place a specific location for each AI to spawn. Now we can place a specific location for a group of AI to spawn. We also define Squad Templates now. Squad Template allow us to define a squad once and have multiple missions use that Squad Template. Then we can change that Squad Template in one location and it will change for all of the missions.

4) We will definitely have some of those in Reach as well. This is done for a couple of reasons. 1) It helps keep players from unintentionally backtracking. This makes it easier for the player to keep from getting lost. 2) It allows us to drop all the areas behind the invisible wall, which helps us save memory. That memory is used to make the next section that much more action packed. That said, we did make an effort to use those as rarely as possible, and many sections in the game allow the player a ton of freedom in where they can go at any given moment.

8) My guess is that the Hub in ODST would be the biggest technical hurdle we have had to deal with. Many Bothans died to bring you that hub. But I did not work on ODST, so I am basing that on rumors and innuendo.

ElzarTheBam asks, "How have you guys updated the behaviour of the enemies, will they still surprise us? Over the years we have grown used to how certain ai's act in the halo games through natural progression over course of the halo games. Is it a challenge to keep things fresh yet identifiable?"

Chris: The thing I love most about Halo AI and the philosophy of AI at Bungie, is that we make them predictable enough that you can create plans and strategies to defeat them, but just when you think you have them figured out they do something you did not expect. I remember a couple of play throughs back, Jaime Griesemer was playing one of the missions. Jaime (knowing what he does about Halo AI which is to say a LOT) noticed that there only seemed to be one firing point (which is what an AI uses to determine where he can move to) that the AI could reach from a specific vantage point. So Jaime moved to that vantage point and shot and Elite in the head with a Sniper Rifle. Jaime then sat there and waited for the next Elite to come into view, but the Elite did not immediately move to that firing point. Jaime sat there for like 15 seconds and was about to give up on his dirty, dirty strategy when the Elite came up behind him and killed him with a burst from his Plasma Rifle and then a melee strike. So yeah, I expect people will get surprised from time to time.

The BS Police asks, "Are any of the Halo: Reach campaign stages as large if not larger than Halo 1's biggest campaign stages while only counting the overall playable space?"

Chris: Yep. We have one mission that is probably 10,000x times larger than the largest Halo 1 mission (only counting the playable space). And if you watched the E3 news, you probably know which one I am talking about. :)

Of course using that mission is probably cheating on my part, and not really in the spirit of what I think you are asking. So here goes a real answer:

We Have occasionally brought in the Halo 1 environments into Reach (we did it for Halo 3 as well), to get a sense of scale. And I am always surprised as how much bigger everything is in the more recent Halo games than in Halo 1. Silent Cartographer in Halo 1 only takes about 1:15 second to do a lap around the island in a Warthog. I just watched a speed run of Tsavo Highway from Halo 3 and it took them 4 minutes to drive from the start of that mission to the end of it (mostly in a Warthog as well). Granted Silent Cartographer had all the Forerunner structures inside the island, so that mission is a lot longer than 1:15. But if you are just talking playable space, I would gather that Tsavo Highway is more than 2x the playable space of Silent Cartographer. Reach missions are also quite a bit longer than Halo 3 missions.

I have seen multiple Engineers shake their fists at the sky when they talk about how much bigger the spaces are in Reach, and how this problem was not a problem in previous Halo games because the increase in scale. When Engineers shake their fists at the sky, I am either doing my job or getting really close to being fired. I still have a job, so that is something.

ArteenEsben asks, 'How has the workflow and planning of the campaign changed from Halo 3? Since multiplayer and firefight levels come straight from the campaign, how do the campaign and multiplayer teams coordinate with each other? How do you go about making a map work in both campaign and mutiplayer? Halo CE's campaign had a few levels, especially Silent Cartographer the second half of Halo, which were somewhat nonlinear in structure. Have these, or other levels in the previous campaigns, influenced the design of Reach's campaign? What sort of thing does a campaign design lead do? Who do you boss around and who bosses around you? What Halo 3 missions did you work on, and what were your goals for each mission?"

Chris: One of the decisions we made early on, was that if we wanted to share spaces between campaign and multiplayer, one of the two should take point and create the space to meet their needs. The other group should work with whatever was created. We went in with the assumption that multiplayer is much less forgiving to spaces than campaign. A multiplayer space that has exploits is very difficult for the designers to fix, while campaign can set up the encounters and AI in such a way to bring out the best parts of a space and diminish any negatives of a space. Through development we found that the circular style of many multiplayer maps was difficult to design classic Halo encounters, and the more we tried to make a classic Halo encounter in those spaces the less compelling those encounter became. Eventually we embraced the non-linear elements of the multiplayer spaces and made new types of encounters in them. In the end, many of the multiplayer spaces have encounters that are a great change of pace from what we do in the campaign only spaces, and ended up making the campaign just a little more varied.

We definitely embraced both the nonlinear aspects of some of the Halo 1 levels, and the wide pipe aspects of all Halo encounters. Non-linear being a mission where the player is given a variety of objectives and can tackle them in any order and/or a mission that has multiple routes through it. Wide-pipe being an encounter that has multiple lines of attack the player can approach it from and can deal with the encounter in different fashions each time they play. Non-linear is important to make the world feel larger and more varied than it is, and often leads to more exploration on the part of the player. The down side to non-linear is that it is much more difficult to set up and script, and that the player has a much higher likelihood of getting lost. One of the concepts we debated and dealt with a lot for Reach was how much we would allow a player to feel lost. Wide pipe is more about making fun encounters and is something Bungie embraces pretty strongly.

Not surprisingly, there is a very strong correlation between a player feeling lost and them not having fun in a mission. The tricky part is that every player has a different threshold for when exploring becomes lost. Ideally we solve lost issues by the way the mission is designed. Routes that lead to strong landmarks, roads in the terrain map, and loops that lead the player through the spaces are all good ways to keep a mission open while still giving strong directionality to it. We would start there and see how well we could pull the player through the spaces. Then towards the end of the project, if we found that those elements were not enough to keep the player from getting lost, we would add Navpoints as needed. Another element (that came on towards the end of development) was when we added Waypoints over the heads of other Noble Team members. The Mission Designers generally would use the other Spartans to pull the player through the spaces, but they were often not easy to find if there was some obstacle between them and the player. Once we added the Waypoints the player would go to their Spartan buddies first, and then (ideally) that would get them back on track and fix any lost issues.

As Campaign Design Lead, my responsibilities were to work with the Character Engineers, 3D Artists, and Animators on the characters in the game. We defined the behaviors of the enemies, how we wanted characters to look and move through the spaces, what we needed to make encounters work, and what we wanted the player to do during the missions. I also worked with the Mission Designers to determine what the player did in the missions, what the goals were, how the encounters were laid out, and such. A huge part of this job is just setting people up with a direction, do everything you can to set them up for success and then get out of the way and watch the magic happen.

I worked on Tsavo Highway for the main encounter setup and scripting (the last nine months or so), and then on Floodgate for some final encounter design and bug fixing (last couple of months or so). My main goal for Tsavo Highway (aside from making a fun mission) was to give the player a series of encounters that dealt with vehicles in different ways. First one was the player in a vehicle and the Covenant on foot and moving to a new location, then we had the player in a vehicle against entrenched Covenant infantry, then the Covenant had some vehicles. After the bridge jump we added the infantry vs. infantry battle that was meant to be the anchor of the mission (since vehicle encounters are so much more difficult to make challenging and still keep them fun). Then it was vehicle smorgasbord, with player having access to a variety of vehicles and the Covenant coming at him with a wide variety of different looks. Floodgate was much more about doing the final passes on the encounters and trying to find what was fun about fighting the Flood and how to make that mission as fun as possible.

Silent Cartographer always sticks out in my memory as the most memorable mission in the Halo series. But there are a ton of other missions that are right up there with it.

Ragashingo asks, "We haven't heard very much about the Covenant speaking their own languages. How much did that affect level design? For instance Halo 3 had Truth deliver quite a bit of plot info on Tsavo Highway. That's not really an option anymore so did y'all have to find new ways to clue the player into things the Covenant is doing?"

Chris: We went into the game with the assumption that we wanted the Covenant to be more menacing and scary than we had done in the past. We believed the Covenant only speaking alien languages was going to make them more menacing and scary, since the player would have less chance to relate to them. A price for that choice is that we dont have the ability to get into the mind of the Covenant. When the player can overhear conversations (or listen to the Truth holograms), the player is given the chance to understand the motivations of the Covenant. The more you know something, the more it becomes understandable. And the more we understand things the less we find them scary.

All of that said, we definitely had to adapt our story telling in order to give the player a solid understanding about what is happening and still make the Covenant seem like they have a purpose (and still have the player understand that purpose). Some amount of that is done via other characters in the game having insight into what the Covenant are up to, and part of that is done by keeping the Covenant motivations as straight forward as possible (and therefore easier to grasp without dialog).

Kitekiller asks, "I don't know if this has been answered before, but now that there are 5 computer controlled players on top of any human controlled players. During 4 player co-op, will there be 9 Spartans running around during battles, or do extra players replace the usual members of noble team?"

Chris: It depends on the mission and the situation. In some cases the additional co-op players will replace the other members of Noble Team, and in other cases they will be in addition to them. We did a pass very early on to identify the locations where we wanted the player to run around with a full team of Spartans, when we wanted the player to run around with just one of the other Spartans (to give that character more face time with the player), and when we wanted the player to run around solo. So yes, there are moments in the game where there can be a lot of Spartans fighting in the same space. You almost feel sorry for the Grunts that get caught up in that cross fire! Almost

KalamariKidd asks, "How do you know when you have designed a "good" campaign level? What are some factors that contribute to a good campaign level?"

Chris: I think missions go through three important stages to making them fun. The first one is finding the right hooks to make a mission interesting. These can be gameplay hooks like: fight in this new vehicle, or a sniper mission. They can also be fictional hooks: save Cortana, see the Flood for the first time. These end up defining the entire mission and influencing all of the decisions that follow. The hard part about that stage is that you dont know if you made good choices until you get much further along in the process (and well past the point that you can make any major course corrections).

The next stage is architecting a mission that is fun to play in. This is when the Artists come in, and they work with Mission Designers to build spaces that are: fun to fight in, the player has a clear sense of direction and all of the visual magic gets blocked in (skyboxes, set pieces, etc). You know when this is working and it is pretty obvious when it is right and when it is wrong. We also start having focus tests around this point, which allows us to have fresh eyes on the game to determine if we are off our rockers or not.

Then the last stage comes together really close to the end. Only after the sandbox is locked down, the AI are working properly and the Mission Designers have all the tools to set up the encounters the way they want to. You know this is working when you heard people around the studio having a blast playing the mission. You generally have a pretty good idea yourself, but you can also get too close to it and lose sight of what is working or what is not. So getting fresh eyes is vital.

I think good Halo missions have good hooks, good layout and good combat.

JamesD asks, "What so far has been the biggest setback you've encountered during the production, and how did you overcome it? How does it feel to get bumped up to Mission Design Lead after Halo 3? Do you feel you have more freedom in this position, or do you feel there is more pressure on you to deliver? - When it all gets too much in the studio, and you need to get away from all the Haloz? What do you guys do to let off some steam?"

Chris: I have been thinking about the setback question for the last 10 minutes and I dont know what I would say to it. That is not to say that everything went smooth as silk (because it did not), but there were not any real setbacks that I can come up with. We definitely had some challenges that we overcame, like:

1) We changed many of the ways our tool set worked (in order to do a lot of the things we can do now but could not with the Halo 3 engine), and anytime you do that it takes a while to get back to a point where you are as productive as you were before (let alone becoming more productive).

2) Our spaces are much more detailed than they have been before, and that fidelity made maintaining pathfinding very challenging for the Mission Designer and Mission Architects. The designers would find the issues and then the architects would have to fix them, and every time we made even minor changes to spaces seemed to cause a series of pathfinding issues to crop up.

3) We added the new Thespian tool that had many elements in the game rely on, and it took us much longer to get it fully functional than we hoped.

We overcame all of these types of issues by devoting the resources, hiring the geniuses that scamper through Bungie to find the right solutions, course correcting to get the best use out of what you have (and not always what you want it to be), and just continuing to hammer on everything until it is done.

I was Campaign Design Lead for about 2.5 years on Reach, and I would say the first 2 years was not that much different than Halo 3. Sure the things I did day to day were different, but I still viewed the job as getting the right people together to make awesome (and when you are surrounded by the talent at Bungie, this part is kind of easy). On Halo 3 I did that for one mission, on Reach I did it for the campaign. The scope is different but the actual work is largely the same. Then the last six months I figured out what makes this job what it is (scary, crazy, hard, but awesome!)

The last six months was all about looking at the Campaign and making decisions about what to keep and what to cut, how to keep people motivated to make everything amazing, sheltering people from everything that keeps them from doing their job, making sure people dont overwork the elements that are working well (since it is all too easy to keep churning on something when you really should just step away and wrap it up with a nice bow), and (probably most importantly) walking people away from the ledge when they are concerned/panicking/freaking out about the current fire that someone else is in the process of fighting. I had access to information that gave me a perspective on the project that not many other people at the studio had. That allowed me to see what was coming down the line in ways that they could not. So a huge part of my job was calming peoples nerves and trying to keep everyone focused on their respective job. Now the hard part for them in this situation is that I am new to this job, and they have not seen if I know what the heck I am doing. So it took a while to get everyones confidence.

Gravemind asks, "How prevalent are invisible walls in Campaign? I can understand invisible walls in multiplayer to keep players in-bounds, but I don't want them to be unnecessarily obtrusive in Campaign. Halo 3 in particular was very restrictive due to heavy use of invisible walls, blocking access to places not just out of the way, but even those easily within reach, which annoys players like myself who're keen on exploration. So, can we expect invisible walls to be less obtrusive than in Halo 3, perhaps being scaled back to what we saw in Halo 1 & 2?"

Chris: We use invisible walls (soft ceilings) to keep the player in the right play space. Often that is in order to keep a player from unintentionally getting lost because they got someplace that they should not have. We also use them so that we dont have to spend the finishing art time on the less important locations in the game. All of that said, we made a much more concerted effort to design large spaces that would allow players to explore more than they were able to recently. And hopefully that pays off for people like you who enjoy exploring!

BuzzJuice asks, "When you get four players, you get ton more enemies, AI becomes stronger and more cunning. Is there a skull or an option to add this difficulty w/o having 4 players in for Mythic/SLASO (Solo Legendary All Skulls On) fans like me to get a kick out of the campaign? Any funny moments or shenanigans you would like to share? Have you ever considered music when designing levels? Like let's make this awesome encounter even longer so that Marty can make the perfect score for this? Or don't worry if this battle seems bland, the sound guys will put in some orchestra and make this epic. Has the music in the campaign influenced your design? Any tips on what it takes to be a campaign design lead? You need creativity, leadership, decision making? What do you think is most important out of all three (or besides these three)?"

Chris: We actually do not add a ton of additional enemies when you play coop, but we do make them more dangerous (length of bursts, shorten the delay between bursts, higher evasion chances, AI recharge health and shields faster). We do not have a skull to make a single player game emulate a 4 player co-op game. That said, I think you will have a pretty serious challenge on single player Legendary with all skulls on.

My most recent funny moment had to do with the Audio Team for the Reach. Jay Weinland picked up this mixer system for all the Designers. It allows you to have multiple inputs that play through one set of head phones. So I have my 360 devkit and my PC sound system go through the same headset. So anyway, I got a recent build of Reach and fired up the main menu. Right as the menu popped on screen a song from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack started playing. Without even thinking about what might cause that, I assumed it was some temp music for the main menu. Well we were getting a little late in the project to have temp music around, so I figured I would go talk to Jay (the Audio Lead) and see what was going on. Well, Jay is in his sound proof office with Cyril (our Audio Engineer and C Paul), and I ask why we have Lord of the Rings music in the main menu. Jay gets a funny look on his face and calls me crazy. We have a few minute conversations and then Jay starts playing the tracks that are in the main menu sound folder, and they are all the sound files you would expect. No Lord of the Rings anywhere. Everyone started getting curious about what could cause this, when my brain finally turned on. I figured out that I likely was listening to my PC mp3 collection, and that was my sound file, and not the main menu I heard. So I went back to my desk and double checked, and it turned out I was simply sleep deprived, and there were no unlicensed sound files on the main menu. Embarrassed as I was, I still feel like I dodged a bullet. A different sound track could have been playing and I would have stormed into his office asking why the heck Britney Spears is on the main menu!

We definitely think about the mood of music when we design levels, and we attempt to give Marty and idea of what we are thinking. But at the end of the day, Marty is the master behind all of that and we just sit around and wait for his magic to get into the missions. Marty ends up playing through the missions (when they get close to being completed) and makes all of the decisions how he wants to pace out the music to what we have in the game.

Creativity, leadership and decision making are all incredibly important for any design lead. I always view leads as people who fill in the blanks of the team as needed. If the team needs creative inspiration then the lead needs to fill that void. If the team has an abundance of creativity then the lead needs to channel that and get the most out of people. For Reach we have more than enough talent to fill the technical and creative needs of the project, so I viewed my role as one to channel that talent and make sure it was all pointing in the right directions. The best leads I have worked with know when to charge ahead and get everyone to follow and when to pull back and let people devour all of the issues that come up.

Time Glitch asks, "How will Armor Abilities play into the campaign? Will we pick them up? Will we select them before a mission? Will we GET to select them? Will high-ranked Elites still rage and pull out their swords from time to time? Will the AI in higher difficulty levels not be fooled by simple tricks like Holograms and Active Camo? Can you sword clang with a sword-wielding Elite?"

Chris: The player begins each mission with a specific Armor Ability (which the Mission Designer determines), and then the Mission Designer places more Armor Abilities around the mission for the player to pick up as desired.

Most Elites will rage out (go berserk) and charge the player for a melee strike with their current weapon. However, there is one variant of Elites that will pull out their Energy Sword when they go berserk

Higher difficulties just mean that the AI are fooled less easily by Active Camo and Holograms, but they are still fooled. We wanted the player to always be able to fool the AI in the right situations; otherwise the player will feel like the Armor Abilities are not useful. But we also want the AI to still try to outsmart the player, even when they use Armor Abilities.

Sword clang is something only players can do to other players. The melee system for AI is completely different, and we did not devote the resources to making clang work for them as well.

SonofMacPhisto asks, "Can I finally trust an NPC to drive the 'Hog? Or is it still best just to keep them in the back? How's their decision making regarding targeting when you give them a power weapon and tell them to hop in the passenger seat?"

Chris: The AI do a pretty good job at driving the player around. A couple of the testers played through some of the vehicle missions on legendary as the gunner, and they were able to finish them pretty handily. It is still likely easier to play the game (especially on harder difficulties) as the driver, but the AI can drive if you have the itch.

AI determine the targets they want to shoot at based on a series of factors. 1) Proximity to the target (closer targets have higher priority), 2) what kind of weapon they are carrying or vehicle they are driving (more dangerous weapons/vehicles are higher priority), 3) if the target is currently targeting the shooting AI (enemies that are targeting the AI have a higher priority), and 4) is the player currently looking at the target (enemies that the player is looking at have a higher priority than enemies off screen). All of that said, there are definitely going to be situations where the AI gunners shoots at different target than you wanted him to, but it feels pretty good right now (so hopefully that is rare).

serpx asks, "What do you do to ensure that an area of the campaign you design is "fun?" Do you have any philosophies that you follow? Do you just play and tweak around till you find things interesting/fun to play?"

Chris: A huge part of what makes Reach fun is that we followed all the work that had been done in previous Halo games. There is definitely a winning formula in all of those games, and we just needed to find that magic, tweak around the edges, and create the new experiences that we wanted for Reach. Some over all philosophies are:

1) People like challenges, but they want to have a clear idea why they succeed or fail and have some reasonable idea what to change about their approach to turn a failure into a success

2) People like variety. Both in what they do and why they do it (gameplay and fiction)

3) People enjoy exploring but are not okay feeling lost.

4) People are also nostalgic, and like to be reminded of their favorite moments of previous Halo games (as long as those moments are not simply copied)

5) Lots of projectiles that you can dodge/avoid are more fun than just a few that you cannot

a. Speed of projectiles is directly related to how overwhelmed a player feels (even more so than numbers of projectiles)

6) Players like AI that are generally predictable but occasionally surprise them

a. Elites go berserk and find cover when shields are down

i. But Elites also sometimes sneak up behind you when you least expect them

b. Grunts flee when leaders are killed near them

Another huge part of making things fun is iteration, iteration, iteration! So we just keep working on it until it feels right. Or until it get pulled from our cold dead hands.

RC Master asks,"How are Brutes differentiated from Elites from a gameplay perspective?"

Chris: Fictionally we view Elites as the main antagonists of the player in Reach, and are viewed as the primary forces for the Covenant. Brutes are the shock troops of the Covenant, and are sent in to do the jobs that the Elites view as beneath them.

Gameplay wise, Elites are definitely the more challenging of the two. Elites are faster, more likely to melee a player, avoid shots well, and are the equal to a Spartan. Elites are also solitary and dont generally make decisions in relation to what other Covenant are doing near them. Brutes are meant to fight in packs. A Brute is very dependent on the other members in his pack, and their behaviors are often triggered when members of their pack are killed or in trouble. We view three Brutes with Spike Rifles to be a similar threat level to the player as one Elite (who is given a lot of flexibility where he can go). The three Brutes can definitely put a lot more shots on the player than one Elite, and they would take a lot more damage together than the one Elite, but because the Elite can recharge his shields and is so mobile the challenge ends up being comparable.

Wow, Sketch was right. Opdahl went way above and beyond. Sorry to withhold all the answers until today, but with the big barrage of multimedia we released last night, we were concerned Chris hard work might get buried under the weight of all the new articles. And we just couldnt have that. If you appreciate the time and effort Chris put in providing everybody with this great look into the campaign design process, stop into the attached discussion thread and let him hear it!

SPOILERZ INCOMING!

There are a mere 53 days from now until launch. If you want to go into the Halo: Reach campaign as pristine as possible, now is the time to go dark. Seriously. Stop reading the internet, turn your television off, and for the love of God, whatever you do, dont answer the phone. Youve been warned.

Theres a storm coming.

Blame Stosh

Stosh thinks its just plain awesome you made it all the way to the end of the update today. Enjoy.

And with that, were finished up for another week. Big thanks to Sketch and Luke for stepping into the pocket and throwing up big numbers. I know I left them with a big jock to fill, but they made up for the cavernous hole left by my absence by stuffing the updates full of hot, delicious moistness.

And a big thanks to everybody who passed along personal well wishes and congratulations. I couldnt have done it without you. Well, okay, so I did do it without you, but you know what Im trying saying.

Thanks a million. See you next week.

[/hide]

Overdoziz · July 25, 2010

Energy Sword + Dagger combo assassination. :shock:

silasinth · July 25, 2010

Im 1720/1750 on halo 3 (missing overkill and save this film) and just missing 2 of the firefights and naughty naughty on odst. I remember bungie saying that you could unlock armour in reach depending on your waypoint level (and i dont realyl halo wars so i wont max that out), but does anyone think you might get special armour for maxing out each of the games? Its just im so frustrated with trying to get overkill that i cbb with it anymore :(

Overdoziz · July 25, 2010

Only ODST and Halo 3 have been mentions in that regard. I doubt you'll need Halo Wars achievements for Reach armour pieces.

silasinth · July 25, 2010

Only ODST and Halo 3 have been mentions in that regard. I doubt you'll need Halo Wars achievements for Reach armour pieces.

I hope so, ive got perfection now, and the 2 odst ones are easy...that basically means overkill achievement and i have them all, but i never get the oppourtunity :(

Zierro · July 25, 2010

^^Always using the shotgun is your best bet for Overkill. I got it in The Pit of all places. lol

I really hate achievements that require luck instead of skill.

Zilla · July 25, 2010

A good tactic that got me the overkill achievement is KotH during Lonewolf at The Pit, get on one of the turrets, everyone rushes a hill, gun them down. I personally got mine during swords through on Epitaph, I was standing in the middle and a bunch of people rushed me, I had no clue how the hell I survived but I got them.

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