Halo Discussion thread

[Zilla]

I guess I should post this. From the Halo Reach |OT| thread on NeoGAF. Fair warning, it is pretty big and informative.

 

[hide= WARNING, HUGE AMOUNTS OF INFORMATION, LAST WARNING]

 

A summary of SKUs, resources and the top-level features. Consider this the short version of the thread.

 

SKUs | For details on the three Reach SKUs, click here. For the Xbox 360 hardware bundle, click here.

 

Halo Reach 101

Bungie has begun rolling out their launch Guide, which will have pretty much everything you need to know about Reach in it when it's all said an done. Here's what's up so far.

Halo: Reach Project Page

A hub for all Reach content on Bungie.net. Videos, FAQs, Guides, game details, matchmaking playlists, the works.

 

Welcome to Reach

A round up of resources on Bungie.net

 

Halo: Reach Support FAQ

A list of comment questions and issues - with answers.

 

Welcome to Noble Team

All about Credits, the Armory and player customization.

 

Networking 101

A FAQ to networking issues in Reach.

HDD Install

Yes, Reach will load faster when installed to the hard drive, unlike Halo 3.

 

Players

Campaign

| Splitscreen: 2 | Live/LAN: 4

 

Firefight

| Splitscreen: 2 | Live/LAN: 4

 

Multiplayer

| Splitscreen: 4 | Live/LAN: 16

 

Forge

| Splitscreen: 4 | Live/LAN: 8

Achievements | Listed and described in this Bungie Weekly Update.

 

Official Reach Resources

Official Reach Sites

|

Project Page

|

Developer Blog

|

Xbox.com/Halo Waypoint

 

Official Media

|

Trailers and ViDocs

|

Screenshots

|

Character, Weapon and Vehicle Renders

|

Artwork

 

Bungie

|

Bungie.net

|

Bungie Podcast

|

Youtube

|

Twitter

|

Facebook

Reviews | Gamerankings | Metacritic

 

Over-arching systems encompassing all or multiple gameplay modes.

 

Gameplay

Reach retains Halo's core gameplay (guns, grenades, melee; recharging shield; two-weapon limit, etc), but makes several additions and expansions over the previous games in the series.

Targeting Bloom

The player's targeting reticule will expand and recede with each shot fired, indicating the decay in accuracy between shots. Firing quickly will be less accurate that spacing shots out, so players need to learn each weapon's ideal rhythm at various ranges.

 

Health System

Similar to Halo 1, Reach features a health meter beneath the recharging shields which must be replenished with health packs when depleted. In a more significant change, non-power weapons will not have their damage carry through shields to the health below, no matter how little shield is left. For instance, a melee strike when the shield is only 10% up will pop the shield - and no more.

 

Fall Damage

In a return to Halo 1 (and ODST), fall damage is included in Reach. It is not severe, but it should give you pause when leaping from great heights. Crouching upon impact will reduce both the damage and the brief stun that occurs from a high fall.

 

Dual Wielding

Gone.

 

Armor Abilities

An evolution of Halo 3's equipment, armor abilities are a "fourth leg" to Halo's combat. Players can equip one at a time, selected as part of a load out or picked up in certain game modes. Their effects vary, from invisibility to a jet pack. See the Weapons & Ordnace section for more details.

 

Loadouts

Used in Multiplayer and Firefight, Load Outs are game-specific bundles of weapons, grenades and Armor Abilities which can be selected at the start of each game, and between spawns. They can be customized for custom games.

 

Spartans vs. Elites

While the Spartan is the default player model for Campaign and most MP game types, certain one-sided gametypes and Firefight Versus will pit Elites against Spartans.

Size Matters

Relative to Spartans, Elites are significantly larger, have more health, move much faster, and recharge their shields more quickly.

 

Health

Spartan health bars recharge in sections: up to the nearest third lost. (i.e., lose nearly all your health, it recharges 1/3 back). The remainder requires health packs. Elite's health recharges completely.

Assassinations

Optional flourish added to from-behind melee kills, triggered by holding down the melee button. Over 40 unique assassinations exist, many specific to either Multiplayer or Campaign/Firefight.

 

Player Investment & Customization

Reach replaces Halo 3's XP and rank system with a larger set of features to encourage and reward play, this time encompassing all gameplay modes (Campaign, Multiplayer, Firefight, Forge).

Commendations

A large set of metrics (several dozen) covering player behavior, such as headshots, assists, etc. Commendations have five levels each: Steel, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Onyx; a large number of cR are paid out at each threshold.

 

Challenges

In-game objectives which Bungie will be updating weekly, and which pay out big buckets of Credits upon completion (and are recorded in the Service Record for posterity). Five Daily Challenges a day and one Weekly Challenge each week.

Click here for current Challenges

.

 

Credits & The Armory

Commendations, Challenges and just plain playing Reach earn credits, which are spent at the Armory on (cosmetic) customization.

Click here for details on Credits and armor customization.

.

 

Consistent Player Identity

The Spartan that you customize, Noble Six, will be featured in Multiplayer, Firefight, Forge and Campaign (including the Cinematics). They can be male or female, and feature a different base model and voice actor for each sex.

 

Rank

A military rank earned via a player's lifetime cumulative credits. Rank is the representation of a player's time spent and accomplishments achieved in Reach. It is not a factor in Matchmaking, which is purely TrueSkill driven.

 

Matchmaking

Current playlists are here. Campaign, Multiplayer and Firefight vary in player count, but share the same matchmaking systems. The Campaign playlist will be activated in about a week.

Veto System

Accept the initial map/gametype combo, or vote for one of three alternatives - or none of the above.

 

Active Roster

A list of all Friends playing Reach, the members of their Party, their status, and player details integrated into the main UI. Useful for quickly pulling teams together, or joining one. It is essentially an upgrade of Halo 2's "Y-button menu".

 

Queue-Joining

If a Friend is in a non-joinable game (i.e., Matchmaking), this will automatically add you to their Party when they become joinable.

 

Psych Profile

A set of personal settings to express what kind of player you'd like to be matched with: chatty or quiet, lone wolf or team player, what language they speak, etc. These will inform but not dictate matchmaking.

 

Social vs. Ranked

Reach has eliminated the distinction between Social and Ranked games. Under the hood, all games are matched based on True Skill ratings, and your Social Settings. The True Skill rank is hidden, never exposed to the player. Party splitting will only occur if you enter a playlist with more players than one team supports (for instance, entering a 4v4 playlist with 5 players in the party). There is an ultra-competitive subset of Matchmaking for Multiplayer, called The Arena. See the MP section for details.

Custom Content Sharing

User-created content, which consist of custom maps, custom game types, screenshots and saved films can be shared with friends and the community at large, both in-game and on bungie.net.

File Share

Similar to Halo 3, the File Share is an online space for players to share their custom content to the community. Custom maps, game types, screenshots and film clips placed in the File Share can be downloaded by anyone in the community via Bungie.net and in-game. (Files can also be sent to individuals.) Six slots and 25 MB of online storage is standard for all players.

Bungie Pro

An expanded File Share and access to video rendering tools via bungie.net is available via a

Bungie Pro subscription

.

File Browser

A tool built into Reach to search for custom content, by category or keyword, where ever it is: locally saved, shared within the community or recent player history.

 

Local Storage Limit

One thousand pieces of each content type (maps, game types, films, screenshots) can be saved to the HDD, assuming there is space.

bungie.net

For an overview of the new bungie.net, click here. There is far too much to summarize, but the type of support falls into a few major areas areas.

Service Record

The Service Record provides an overview of a player's Reach career: the customized Noble 6 is displayed alongside Rank, Commendations, time spent playing, Arena rating, lifetime credits, past and in-progress Challenges, etc. It also includes details of every game ever played.

 

Career Stats

An aggregated summary of every game played, from every game mode (Campaign, Multiplayer, Firefight, Forge). Career stats can be seen in aggregate, or filtered by mode, map, playlist and gametype. This area includes things such as total career medals earned, enemies and vehicles killed and the tools used to do so. Individual games can be drilled down into for a wealth of stats, from medals earned to the number of Grunts killed in an individual wave of Firefight.

 

Custom & Community Content

Bungie.net will serve as a hub for user-created content (maps, game types, films, screenshots). The past 30 screenshots taken in the Theater mode will be automatically uploaded to that player's Service Record, in addition to any content in the File Share. Across the Reach community, all custom content can be searched, tagged, rated and queued for download to your 360, where it will download automatically the next time you sign in.

 

Theater

Similar to Halo 3's theater, saved films can be viewed for all games in Campaign, Firefight, Multiplayer and Forge for viewing later.

Clips

Highlights can be clipped out of any game (Campaign, Firefight, Multiplayer, Forge) and saved for later viewing or sharing. (Side note: we can rewind Campaign and Firefight this time around, as well.)

 

Screenshots

Screens can be taken and saved from any film. A rolling record of the last 30 screenshots are saved automatically to the player's Service Record on bungie.net.

 

Features

Players

| Splitscreen: 2 | Live/ LAN: 4

Enemy AI and numbers will scale with the number of players.

Matchmaking

As with Multiplayer, Campaign includes matchmaking support through the Matchmaking menu; select the Campaign playlist to find other players.

 

Scoring

As with Halo 3 and ODST, this option enables Firefight-style score keeping and medal displays during Campaign.

 

Difficulty

Easy, Normal, Heroic, Legendary. Bungie recommends Heroic for a "just right" solo game for experienced players.

 

Skulls

Skulls are modifiers which change change aspects of the game; Gold skulls increase difficulty and are multipliers in scored games. Silver skulls are just for fun.

Mythic

| Enemies have 2x health.

 

Catch

(Gold) | Enemies like to throw grenades. A lot of grenades.

 

Tough Luck

(Gold) | Enemies are especially skilled at dodging projectiles, vehicles and grenades.

 

Famine

(Gold) | Weapons dropped by fallen foes have 1/2 the normal ammunition.

 

Cloud

(Gold) | Say goodbye to your radar.

 

Tilt

(Gold) | Shields deflect bullets, armor reflects plasma.

 

Black Eye

(Gold) | Your shields will no longer recharge, and can only be replenished by meleeing an enemy.

 

Grunt Birthday Party

(Silver) | Headshot Grunts for a fun party.

 

Cowbell

(Silver) | The physics impact of explosions are enhanced. Big time.

 

IWHBYD

(Silver) | Rare in-game dialog is common, common dialog is rare.

 

 

Story | From the beginning, you know the end.

 

Set just prior to the start of Halo 1, Reach tells the story of one of the largest battles in Halo lore: the Covenant invasion and, ultimately, the destruction of the planet Reach, home of the UNSC military machine and to the Spartan program.

 

We play as Noble Six, the newest member of Noble Team, a squad of Spartan III's (and one Spartan II) as they do their best to slow the inevitable.

 

Noble Team | Click image for Noble Team bios. From left to right: Carter | Emile | Jorge | Kat | Jun | Noble Six

 

___________

 

Enemies

Bungie's stated goal with the Covenant in Reach is to make them alien and scary again. To that end, none of them speak English any longer, opting for their native languages. In general, they are more aggressive, intelligent and fierce than before. In addition to Covenant foes, Reach is populated with wildlife, some friendly, some not. Note that this is not a comprehensive listing; click for full-sized images.

 

 

 

 

Weapons

The Reach weapon sandbox was pared back slightly and refined from Halo 3 to eliminate redundancy and give a unique role to each weapon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armor Abilities

Armor abilities are the evolution of Halo 3's Equipment. Rather than a one-time object that is tossed out into the battlefield, AA's can be reused after a brief cool down and mostly affect the player. They are part of a Load Out in most online game modes, but will be swappable via pick ups in Campaign, and in custom games.

 

The Covenant can use these as well...

Evade

A diving roll in any direction, handy for escaping grenades or when health is low.

 

Sprint

(Spartans Only)

Self explanatory; a sprinting Spartan is just barely faster than an Elite's native top speed.

 

Jet Pack

Also self-explanatory. A fall from the max jet pack height will cause fall damage, so save some juice to feather the landing.

 

Active Camo

The camouflage will be near 100% when stationary, but be less effective when the player is moving. In addition, the radar of the user and all nearby enemies is scrambled. Handy for freaking them out, but it also alerts them to your presence.

 

Armor Lock

Temporary, stationary invulnerability. This freezes the user in place for a few seconds, impervious to damage.

 

Drop Shield

Similar to Halo 3's bubble shield, the drop shield can now take damage and be destroyed prematurely, and heal the health of everyone inside of it.

 

Hologram

Sends a doppelganger of the player running straight to the location it's aimed at. It can go over lifts and man cannons, but not shoot, turn or jump. Handy as a momentary distraction.

Vehicles

Reach's stable of vehicles include most of the classics from the series, but not all of the vehicles from Halo 3 return; the Chopper, Hornet and bobsled thingy didn't make it. There is a new stable of civilian vehicles in addition to the UNSC and Covenant flavors.

 

 

 

 

 

Players | Splitscreen_2 | Live/LAN_4

 

Difficulty | As with Campaign, Easy, Normal, Heroic and Legendary, each of which will scale based on the number of players.

 

Matchmaking | Feature parity with Multiplayer.

 

Firefight Summary | Firefight is a scored cooperative (or competitive) mode for up to four players, who are pitted against an onslaught of Covenant AI opponents in Multiplayer-style arenas.

 

Game Structure | Firefight takes place in a series of Waves, Rounds and Sets. Between Rounds, difficulty multipliers called Skulls activate to change aspects of the game.

Wave

Up to five Squads of Covenant forces attacking at once. Waves will overlap slightly - pauses are granted between Rounds.

 

Round

A round is made up of five Waves: The Initial Wave (3 Squads), three Main Waves (5 Squads), and a Boss Wave (3 Squads). One Round is the length of a standard game of Firefight in Matchmaking.

 

Set

A Set is a grouping of three Rounds. After each set is a Bonus Round.

 

Bonus Round

These occur at the conclusion of each Set, when all Skulls activate for a brief round of chaos (Grunts galore) and the chance to rack up extra lives. Everyone gets one life, which does not cut into the pool of lives remaining. The Bonus Round ends when everyone is dead, or the time limit is reached.

 

Lives

Lives are pooled on the team by default, but may be allocated individually in custom games. One additional life is awarded per player after each Round. If no lives remain and a player dies, they will respawn at the start of the next Wave (assuming at least one player survives). Additional lives can be earned in the Bonus Round.

 

Ordnance Drops

At the start of each Round, heavy weapons are air-dropped or otherwise inserted into the level.

 

Skulls

The same skulls as Campaign, in addition to custom skulls created in the custom game options. Skulls will toggle on and off between Rounds.

 

Scoring

Bonus points are awarded in Firefight for skilled play: killing sprees, killing clusters of enemies, landing headshots and more all add large bonuses to the points a kill is worth. Players can choose to track only a single team score, their own individual score, or pair off into two sets of two fire teams to compete for the highest score.

 

Custom Settings

Bungie essentially opened up the variables in their tool set from which Firefight was built for the custom options. Each element of the game can be altered: the game options, who you fight, for how long, with what, etc. Custom Firefight game types can be saved and published to the community via File Share.

Firefight Settings

Customizes the structure and content of Firefight games. The duration of the game, player variables (such as load outs and lives), and the enemies that make up each Squad from each individual Wave can be customized. Whether vehicles and ordnance drops are in play and the attributes of the generators for Generator Defense can also be adjusted.

 

Custom Skull Settings

In addition to the Skulls featured in Campaign, Firefight allows players to create up to three Custom Skulls to activate. The variables can affect the players (such as movement speed) or the enemy (how often they shoot, how much health they have, etc) in numerous categories. The custom skulls can then be set to toggle on and off at certain Rounds throughout the game, just as with the built in ones.

 

Player Traits

Variables which affect Spartan and Elite (in the case of Versus) player traits such as movement speed, amount of health, shield recharge speed, presence and range of radar, etc.

 

Gametypes | Firefight has three core game types, and then a set of additional variations which were built from the custom options described above, and which serve as examples of what is possible in custom games. The three top-level game types are Firefight, Generator Defense, and Versus.

Firefight

The basic Firefight mode, consisting of one Round (five Waves).

 

Firefight Versus

A round-based mode where teams alternate playing Spartans (defense) and as Elites (offense) alongside the rest of the Covenant. Elites try to exhaust the Spartan's lives, while the Spartans are trying to score points; they gain a life every time they kill an Elite. Which ever team scores more points as Spartans, wins.

 

Generator Defense

Spartans must defend a number of generators from being destroyed by the invading Covenant. Generators can be "locked down" to protect them for brief periods of time, and must be protected for victory.

 

Firefight Classic

The survival gametype featured in Halo 3: ODST: last as long as possible against an endless and increasingly difficult enemy.

 

Gruntpocolypse

All Grunts, all Skulls on, all the time. Aim for the face.

 

Rocket Fight

You have an infinite supply of rockets and pistol ammo. They don't.

 

Score Attack

A single-player mode with a fixed progression of enemies to combat for one Round or 12 minutes, which ever happens first. This mode has a separate playlist (though it's a single-player mode), the scores for which are kept on a global leaderboard.

Maps

Firefight ships with eight maps, six of which are revealed. The final two won't be announced before Reach ships, as Bungie wants their settings to be a surprise.

 

 

The Arena

The Arena is a set of Slayer-only playlists set within their own seasonal rating system. Players are ranked into Divisions and compete for a personal score over the course of the Season. At the end of each Season, all ratings are wiped and the process begins again. Players are matched based on Trueskill, which remains hidden in the background.

Personal Rating

In every Arena game you receive a Personal Rating based on your individual performance (even on team games). To see a detailed description of the formula used,

read this article

. For more background on it, read

this one

.

 

Daily Ratings and Seasonal Qualification

A Daily Rating is the average of your best three games in a single day; to earn one, just play three games in a day. To qualify for a Division, earn three Daily Ratings. This barrier to entry is in place so that casual players who hop into the Arena for a game or two don't dilute the population and thus the ratings distribution.

 

Divisions

Players are then placed into their initial Division, of which there are five: Steel, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Onyx, which groups players together along the distribution of participants for that Season. While three Daily Ratings are required to qualify for a Division,

every game played

will factor in your Division placement and movement throughout the Season. Once you are in a Division, your movement within and between Divisions is influenced by your performance in subsequent games, and how you stack up to the overall Arena participants over the course of the season. If you get ranked, then stop playing and more players enter the Arena and perform better, you will be pushed down in the rankings.

 

Seasons

Seasons span a calendar month. At the end of a Season, your Divisional Rating becomes final, and your performance becomes part of your permanent Service Record (e.g.

Top 10%, Silver Division, September'10

). All Ratings reset after each Season, and the process begins again.

Custom Game Options

Essentially Halo 3++, Bungie has build in options to alter pretty much every variable in the game. Similar in scope to the Firefight options, it would take an entire OP to detail them, so here are the big categories.

Player Traits

These include any variables affecting the player, such as: movement speed, radar, health shield, shield recharge time, etc.

 

Game Options

Adjust the variables for how the specific game type is played. How long the game lasts, how many points to win, how long it takes to return a flag, whether the flag carrier can juggle or drive or use armor abilities...

 

Weapon & Vehicle Settings

Whether vehicles are indestructable, what the starting weapons are, what load outs are available, whether armor abilities have infinate juice or just bit. That sort of thing.

 

Returning Game Types

Every gametype from past Halo games returns, except for Halo 3's VIP. I suspect everyone is okay with that. I'll present these without description. In general, all but the round-based variants support both FFA and teams. Support for multiple (2+) teams is universal for all applicable game types.

Assault

| Variants:

Multi-Bomb, Neutral-Bomb, One-Bomb

(Turn-based)

 

Capture the Flag

| Variants:

Multi-Flag, Neutral Flag, One-Flag

(Turn-based)

 

Infection

| Variants:

Safe Havens

 

Juggernaut

 

King of the Hill

| Variants:

King of the Hill, Crazy King

 

Oddball

 

Slayer

| Variants:

Classic Slayer, Elite Slayer, SWAT, Slayer, Slayer Pro

 

Territories

| Variants:

3-Plots, Land Grab

New Game Types

Three new game types, plus one long-absent classic. As with the returning game types, team and FFA variants, as well as multi-team (2+), where it make sense. (Pretty sure there isn't FFA Invasion, for instance.)

Invasion

A multi-stage, turn-based objective game type, Elites vs. Spartans. In the first two (of three) Phases, the attackers try to secure a number of territories to unlock a data core. In Phase 3, they try to steal it and bring it to an extraction point. At each phase, additional vehicles and Load Outs become available. Think of it as Territories, Territories, One-Flag. Spire and Boneyard were build for Invasion, though it can be set up on any map.

 

Variants:

Invasion, Invasion Slayer

 

Stockpile

A variation on CTF, teams work to gather up a number of neutral flags and return them to their stockpile. Flags in the stockpile at fixed increments during the game are scored and returned to any of several random locations on the map. There's a bit of a tug of war to this game, as players want to both snag flags, and toss them out of their opponent's stockpile before they are scored.

 

Race

Returning for the first time since Halo 1, Race is what you'd expect it to be. The UI is updated to provide pertinent information such as speed, distance to next checkpoint, etc. Also, there are landmines.

 

Variants:

Race, Rally

 

Headhunter

A Slayer and objective hybrid. Killed players drop a flaming skull, which must be collected and deposited in any of the periodically moving drop zones in order to score points. Players carrying skulls have a waypoint over them indicating how many they have, making them a target. Players/teams win by either banking enough skulls, or banking 10 skulls at once; the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward.

 

Variants:

Headhunter, Headhunter Pro

Maps

Reach ships with 13 multiplayer maps: eight on unique environments, and five constructed within Forge World.

 

Large Maps | For BTB and Invasion games.

 

Midsize Maps

For 4v4 and similar sized games; a few of these are large enough to straddle the line between BTB and 4v4.

 

 

Forge World

Forge World is less a MP map and more a canvas to create MP maps; five of the maps above are built from it.

____________

 

 

Forge Guides

Forging Invasion (bunge.net)

Gametype Required Objects Guide (bungie.net)

 

Forge Overview

Forge is used on Multiplayer maps only, to edit weapon, spawn, objective and object placement, either alone or with a total of eight players. Players can move in and out of playing a Spartan (or Elite), or as a Monitor in editing mode seamlessly. Reach ships with an enormous map designed to facilitate the creation of custom maps, called Forge World.

 

For a video overview on the new Forge, and Forge World, watch this vidoc.

 

Players: Splitscreen: 4 | Live/LAN: 8

 

Forge World

Similar to Halo 3's Sandbox in concept, Forge World is a large, multi-part map designed with custom maps in mind. The object palette is expanded to over 150 items, mostly chunks of geometry to be used in map creation. Bungie broke up geometry from several classic maps, including Ascension, Blood Gulch (bases) and Lockout, for some of the structures. Forge World was conceived of as five separate maps but the environmental artist working on it, Steve Cotton, stitched them together as a single environment. Below are the five distinct areas of the map, though note that players can build anywhere they choose.

 

 

UI Improvements

Aside from the Forge World map itself, most of the improvements in Reach's iteration of Forge are focused on making object placement easier and more precise.

Physics Models

In Halo 3, there were a number of glitches and workarounds that could be employed in order to levitate objects or merge them together. Reach takes those concepts and bakes them in the object properties.

Normal

This is how all objects were treated in Halo 3: let go of an object in the air or on a bumpy surface, and gravity takes over until it is settled.

 

Fixed

The object will remain exactly where it is placed, in the air, on the ground, where ever.

 

Phased

Here the object being held will not interact with any other world geometry. It can be pushed into the environmental geometry or merged into other objects, as if they were not there. When it is let go, the object will stay put.

Fine Editing & Object Handling

Objects, when selected, no longer lurch toward the player. Rather, the player can move around the object without it moving. There is also a fine editing mode, for zooming in and moving objects much more gradually for more precise placement. This should generally make lining up geometry much easier and eliminate the need for an alignment tool. (That said, there's a "blue grid" object to help with object alignment as well.)

 

Coordinate Editing

Once placed, objects can be shifted by degrees in any direction by editing the coordinates to shift them by. Applications range from shifting an object a minute distance to line up with another, or migrating a completed base to another part of the map entirely, one block at a time.

Objective Properties

Perhaps the biggest addition to the Forge tool set. When editing a specific game type, such as Assault, objects can be assigned the role of the game type objectives. For instance, the giant golf ball can be assigned to be the bomb, and the golf cup the goal. It's applicable to vehicle as well, thus the example in the Forge World vidoc: King of the Hill, where a Warthog is the hill.

 

You can see where this is going.

 

 

HaloGAF

Custom Content

If you are working on maps or gametypes, tag them with the "HaloGAF" key word. We should be able to search for and find all of our community content this way.

 

I will build out a list of final or otherwise notable maps and gametypes created by GAFers here (so long as I can link to them in a file share). Post'em in the thread, and I'll round them up. This should serve as our "best of the best" collection.

 

Customs

 

Online Forum Meetup Thread

GAFers regularly start up customs Saturdays at around 5:00pm Pacific time. For other meet ups, use the Online forum to coordinate events. (I'll link to the thread here once there is one.)

Originally Posted by

Meus Renaissance

: Player List

 

GAF gamertag is

Reach GAF

. All Friend Requets will be approved within 24 hours. If you're too late and Reach GAF's list is full, then add

Reach GAF 2

. Do this ONLY if there are no more spaces on Reach GAF.

 

Also, to keep track of all players - please enter your details

here

. You can see that information in this

spreadsheet

.

 

It would help if people could quote this post throughout the thread until the Online thread is created (Ghaleon and Dax will most likely be responsible for that).

Halo Community Sites | The Halo community is vast. Here are a few highlights.

HBO

The oldest and biggest Halo fan site on the web, run by one of the nicest (and oldest) people on the internet. If there's news about Halo, HBO will cover it.

 

Bungie.net forums

A vast community of upstanding and thoughtful commentators.

 

Tied The Leader

A community, clan and site dedicated to fair play and thoughtful commentary on Halo.

 

rampancy.net

Another long time Halo fan site, dedicated to unusually in-depth commentary and analysis of the series, as well as news and community creations.

 

Forward Unto Dawn

In the spirit of Ascendant Justice, FUD is devoted to analysis and commentary on various aspects of the Halo games and universe.

 

Major League Gaming

An organized league of professional gamers, in which Halo plays a starring role. Forums, league schedules, rules and live streams are available from their site.

 

Forge Hub

A large community devoted to creating custom maps in Forge. Tutorials, guides and an active forum to provide feedback and testing, as well as an excellent resource for well crafted maps.

 

Special Thanks to Louis Wu for web hosting.

[/hide]

[michel555555]

Loved the game. Just finished beating it on normal yesterday and i'm going to go for legendary now. Just to bad i don't have live so can't try out on-line games. :thumbdown:

 

 

[hide=End game spoiler]

Is the lone wolf level supposed to be longer than 2 minutes or what? are there alternate endings. I accidently died right away and we still had a nice little cutscene and all but nothing about Srgnt Johnson and Cortana and the Dr.

[/hide]

 

[hide]

 

I am unsure, apparently you are just suppose to survive as long as you can. It seems to get insane the farther you live, at a point wraiths and the sorts are dropped. I haven't heard of anybody who has survived the Wraiths. Imagine a Scarab or two dropping.

 

[/hide]

 

[hide]

 

I'm finding it hard to last more then 5 mins on it. I just stay on the tower with the turrets but the don't have 360 fireing arc so i keep getting attacked from behind. Eventually I run out of ammo and just yank the turrets off for the last minute or so before i get killed. Are there any other turrets around the map or are the 2 on the tower the only ones?

 

I love the final fight scene at the end though. So many eliets to take out one spartan :thumbsup:

 

[/hide]

 

I actually wonder if there might be any more spartans left. Nobel team and the masterchief couldn't have been the only teams left fighting the war at the end. Even if humanity was losing. More importantly where and how were they created in the first place?

[DUELMASTER30]

Read a few of the books and every one of those questions are answered.

[Dizzle229]

Although I haven't read any of the books, isn't it mentioned in one that MC came across a few Spartans after he escaped Installation 04?

[sarg1010]

In regards to the books and any surviving Spartans...

 

[hide]In "The Cole Protocol" and "Ghosts of Onyx", we find out there are a few Spartan-II's and III's left alive. Some with Dr. Halsey that are stuck in a Forerunner Shield World,

others that are deep undercover and will continue to be that way. Also, isn't Kelly still alive? Or did she die on Onyx?[/hide]

[Aeon_]

Although I haven't read any of the books, isn't it mentioned in one that MC came across a few Spartans after he escaped Installation 04?

Installation 04 is the first one right?

He finds one of his team who was put into cryo-sleep because of plasma burns, and the rest of them and Dr Halsey in a chamber filled with thousands of covenant. Read Halo: First Strike.

 

[Zilla]

In regards to the books and any surviving Spartans...

 

[hide]In "The Cole Protocol" and "Ghosts of Onyx", we find out there are a few Spartan-II's and III's left alive. Some with Dr. Halsey that are stuck in a Forerunner Shield World,

others that are deep undercover and will continue to be that way. Also, isn't Kelly still alive? Or did she die on Onyx?[/hide]

 

[hide]

 

Kelly is still alive. She is with Halsey, the S-III's stuck in the pods, Mendez, Tom, and Lucy. All stuck in the Shield World.

 

[/hide]

[Zilla]

Don't EMP the Falcon on Winter Contingency. For a very good reason. This may occur.

 

[Zilla]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-halo-reach-tech-analysis-article

 

From a technical perspective, Halo: Reach is undoubtedly a colossal improvement over the previous games in the series: higher resolution without sacrificing HDR, tangibly improved poly counts, insane use of particles and alpha, far higher levels of dynamic lighting, four times the draw distance, four times the amount of enemy units... the list is seemingly never-ending. But for all its technical achievements, it's clearly still a Halo game. It looks like one, it plays like one - and that's all by design.

[H2PM]

MY GOD this game is freaking HARD on Legendary.

[DUELMASTER30]

I'm nearing Warrant Officer Grade 3, which I'm going to get today, but after I sleep. (it's 1:20AM). I have ~35k credits saved up so another ~18k today and I'll be set. Then by Wednesday I'm going to get to Captain for the achievement and Scout helmet, because my goal for now is all the helmets (~500k credits left to earn...). I'm also slowly getting the campaign done on Legendary and as of this moment I'm done with 3/10 missions including the beginning cutscene lol. Now, time to sleep.

[Overdoziz]

MY GOD this game is freaking HARD on Legendary.

Go play Halo 2. :ohnoes:

[sarg1010]

[hide]How Kat dies is so anti-climatic <_<. [/hide]

Almost done with the campaign though. Second to last mission. This game is kind of annoying on Heroic ([bLEEP]ING FUEL ROD CANNONS)

Anyway, had a pretty fun LAN party with some friends last night, we spent most of the night trying to make a Grifball map. I think we got it all set up...

[Dizzle229]

They gave her a Sopranos ending...

[Zilla]

http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/FileDetails.aspx?fid=496209

 

Suicide Grunt Plan A failed. Plan B successful.

[sarg1010]

 

They gave her a Sopranos ending...

 

[hide]Not even that. Just some random Jackal with a trollfaec mask on shoots ONE shot at her, bypassing all of her shields.

 

 

But I guess that adds to the sadness, that in war, stuff like that happens.[/hide]

[H2PM]

[hide] Kat's death was more of a: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcxpbhM0DaA moment for me. [/hide]

[Zilla]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJZoGgZ6szQ

[Overdoziz]

That video could've done without the last 5 minutes.

[K112]

Got "A monument to all your sins" yesterday, i'm at ~700/1000 right now, but some of the achievements are glitching for me (Assasination and one other not registering as completed but the picture icon is there in the guide) And I can't get the one for killing 7 Moa, even if i kill like 30 of them. Other than that, one badass game.

 

If anyone wants some help with campaign, just ask.

[Atom Smash40]

Got "A monument to all your sins" yesterday, i'm at ~700/1000 right now, but some of the achievements are glitching for me (Assasination and one other not registering as completed but the picture icon is there in the guide) And I can't get the one for killing 7 Moa, even if i kill like 30 of them. Other than that, one badass game.

 

If anyone wants some help with campaign, just ask.

The assassination one isn't glitched; the timing is just really hard

[Overdoziz]

Also, play on Normal or higher.

[Albel]

[hide=Semi-Spoliers]How Kat dies has to be... I literally looked at my TV and said

"What the [bleep]!!"[/hide]

[Dizzle229]

Welp, just spent all my credits on the blue visor. It was the only unlock I wanted anyway. I wish there was more stuff to spend your credits on.

[DUELMASTER30]

So I'm 1/2 of the way to Captain, and I have 90k credits saved up. Tomorrow I should get another ~40k credits (my friend found a great part of the campaign to repeat for insane credits, but it only works for around an hour a day) so by Friday I'll definitely be a Lt Colonel or a high Major. I need around 400k cR though for the remaining helmets that I still can't even see yet, and then PILOT HERE I COME! After I get all the helmets I'm also planning on buying all the armor so I can look like the Master Chief, which would be amazing.