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Halo Reach: LESS THAN A WEEK AAAAH
LookFreeGrenade
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Penny Arcade Forums Halo
established November 9th, 2004
Halo 3: ODST is Bungie's newly released first-person shooter.You are the Rookie, an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper deployed to New Mombasa in Africa at the same time the Master Chief is fighting there in Halo 2. The Prophet of Regret's ship enters slipspace as your pod falls to earth, and the ensuing blast throws the city into disarray and separates you from the other four members of your squad. You wake up at night in the city, and are tasked with finding clues in the open world to the whereabouts of the rest of the squad, and relive their experiences through playable flashbacks.established November 9th, 2004
Halo 3: ODST comes with two discs. One contains the ODST campaign, and a Horde-esque co-operative multiplayer mode for four people called Firefight. As time progresses, gameplay modifiers are added such as the enemies throwing more grenades or your HUD vanishing. If the team wipes, it's game over.
The second disc (known as Halo 3:Mythic) contains the standard Halo 3 multiplayer that we know and love, as well as all previous free and paid DLC maps. Also included are three new maps, Citadel, Longshore and Heretic. This disc is fully compatible with anyone playing vanilla Halo 3 multiplayer and has all the features you'd expect except for the Halo 3 campaign.
OUT NOW
Halo Wars is a real-time strategy game developed by Ensemble, the company behind Age of Empires. It takes place before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved, and tells the story of the previous Arbiter of the Covenant and the battle for control of the planet Harvest. The Covenant have uncovered a Forerunner artifact that leads to a site now occupied by humans. After travelling from planet to planet, a plot is uncovered that could threaten the survival of humanity.
September 14, 2010
CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE UP TO DATE REACH INFORMATION IN POST #2!
"I'm not here for that campaign nonsense! I'm here to play online with cool dudes," I hear you say. Well, you're in luck! TBK, The Bees' Knees, have been around since 2004 and take their name from the Halo 2 ARG, 'I Love Bees'. No matter what gametype you like playing, you'll find someone who shares your interests here to team up with. Unless you play Lone Wolves, in which case you'll have trouble teaming up.
You don't need the paid maps to play with us, and if you don't have them already, I'd suggest not buying them, as they all come packaged for free with Halo 3: ODST, as described in the post above. However, there's no reason not to grab the free maps, and if you want to grab the paid ones, these images will come in quite handy.
And the map pack DLC for Halo Wars has some people eager to play it if you choose to buy it.
Now you have the arenas, you need gladiators to fill them with. Fortuitous, then, that I happen to have my class register right here.
North America
[IMG]http://www.bungie.net/card/halo3sm/Mechanical Wolf.ashx[/IMG]
Great Britain & Europe
[IMG]http://www.bungie.net/card/halo3sm/Mechanical Wolf.ashx[/IMG]
Great Britain & Europe
If you want your gamertag added up there, PM ME with your gamertag. Please also state which country you live in so I can sort you properly.
This list collates people who want to play Halo, and you can become one of them very easily. Post in the thread, say hi, add a few of us as friends and play some games with us. As long as you're not the typical shit-flinging retard that Xbox Live seems to cultivate, you're welcome to do so and to call yourself a Bee. If someone is acting like a shit-flinging retard, contact FyreWulff or Lookfreegrenade.
Willeth wrote:Using CoTweet, you can get posting access to the @tbkclan Twitter account. You can get updates directly to your phone if someone wants to play, and you can essentially send out a free mass text message to anyone who wants to be notified of people wanting to play. It means that you can get a party going all that much quicker.
Easy-follow guide:
1. Send one of the following to me, with your Gamertag, forum name, and email address (I need this to invite you to CoTweet):
Email: willeth [at] geemale [dot] calm
Twitter: @Willeth
Xbox Live: Willeth.
PM.
2. Sign up for CoTweet and Twitter.
3. Follow @tbkclan on Twitter, and set up your account to send SMS messages to you if you want. You can pick and choose which accounts to be texted about.
4. You will receive an invite email from CoTweet. It might take a few hours or days but I'll get to you. Click the link in the email and log in. You can now post to @tbkclan from CoTweet by clicking New Update, on your web browser of choice.
5. Post. If you want to play with the clan, send a tweet out saying something like "Looking for three people for Endure. Gamertag is XxaWeSuMLaSeRKiD117xX." Remember: If you don't include your Gamertag, people won't know it's you! Feel free to post about general Halo news, but check the main Twitter page to see if it's already been posted - we don't want stuff appearing multiple times.
Remember: these messages are going directly to people's phones. Don't send 'testing' messages. Don't spam it just because you created a Forge map and want people to see it. Don't be a dick with the feed. Don't post stuff that's not Halo-related (although there's a bit of leeway for this one). If I think you're misusing the feed, I reserve the right to cut you off without notice (although unless you're repeatedly being a silly goose deliberately, you'll get a warning first).
I have access to the root account. If someone makes a map or video that's worth seeing, it'll get posted, but this is not a feed for your sweet double kill (unless it was totally sweet).
LookFreeGrenade on
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Posts
Multiplayer
Maps
Firefight
Overlook
Beachhead
Courtyard
Normal/Forge/Invasion
Blood Gulch / Coagulation (on Forge World)
Powerhouse
Swordbase
Boneyard
Spire
Reflection AKA Ivory Tower
Zealot
Pinnacle (Ascension on Forge World)
Forge World
Credits, or "cR", is the new experience/currency/ranking system of Reach. You've probably seen it hanging around the bottom of most Reach screenshots. cR is earned in all game modes: Campaign, Customs, Firefight, Multiplayer.. you name it. As you gain more cR, you can spend it on things like armor, effects, Firefight voices, kneepads, helmets.. the list goes on. You'll also go up in military rank as you gain CR. Spending cR does not drop your rank.
Since Trueskill ranks are no longer visible, they also no longer play into your unlockable items or rank. This means everyone will have to go up through the same ranks!
"But wait, isn't that copying off Call of Duty?" Well.. it doesn't really work like CoD's EXP system. You do not gain cR "per kill" or "per action". You gain cR only at the game over screen. You earn bonus cR for winning. You earn bonus cR as assigned by the playlist. You earn bonus cR for completing multiplayer commendations.
Commendations
"Commendations?!"
Yep. Reach is a lot more persistent about your actions over time than 3 or 2 were. You can now earn Commendations. Completing a level of commendations will award you thousands of bonus cR.
Here's what some of them looked like in the beta (screenshot from my Reach beta stat page)
Each category of commendation has different levels, a few of which you can see here. Onyx is the "top" level for a commendation, and awards the most bonus EXP. I earned through assists. I have a Silver level for Headshots, and so on. These are recorded over time.
The series that innovated usable matchmaking ... still has matchmaking! An important note: your Live party now exists everywhere in the game, including out in the main menu. No more accidentally backing out when wanting to change the gametype.
Most notably gone is the 1-50 level system from Halo 2 and 3. In Reach, Bungie is letting Trueskill work behind the scenes in it's intended format for getting you close games. The ranks you will see in matchmaking are entirely cR-based.
But don't fret. For those that liked ranked, there's arena.
Standard Matchmaking
Standard Matchmaking essentially works like the Social playlists from Halo 3 and the Unranked playlists from Halo 2. Standard allows parties of any size to join (although Bungie still has the option to restrict it to team size), allows guests to play, and is generally more laid back than Arena. All the usual gametypes exist in here, like Slayer/CTF/Ball, and will be the home of Firefight matchmaking. This is probably going to be the destination for most players.
Arena
Arena is Bungie's replacement for the broken Halo 2 ELO system and the misunderstood Halo 3 Trueskill system.
Each game in this area gives you a rating once the game is over. This rating can be anywhere from 0 to 2000, but in actuality will give you something between 700 and 1600. The rating is based off a formula (which can be changed by Bungie) and can be seen in real time during a game by looking at the scoreboard.
The point of the rating is to rank and reward a player's individual skill, although they take a penalty to the rating if they lose. At the end of the game, the players are sorted by Rating, and those standings are the ones fed into the Trueskill blackbox.
But it doesn't stop there. Each month in Reach, a new Arena "Season" will start. To get a Daily Rating, you must play at least 3 games. Get enough Daily games and you'll recieve a Weekly Rating and a Divisional placement of Steel, Bronze, Silver, Gold or Onyx. At the end of the season, the game will tell you your standing in your division and will add your final Season standing to your "baseball card" of stats. The next season, you start fresh.
Essentially, not only will buying a "high level" account be worthless, but it will also be very obvious.
Modes
Normal
The good ol' normal Halo multiplayer is here. The heavily sought Slayer. The frustratingly fun Flag. A tantalizing Territories that functions more like Halo 2's version. A reworking of the jampacked Juggernaut (now with flaming body and hammer!). The otherworldly Oddball. All awesome alliterations that describe Reach's normal game modes that we know about.
Firefight
The Firefight mode returns from ODST in a big way. For one, it returns with matchmaking support, so no need to invite people to co-op it up! Another: the default mode now has a time limit. The general matchmaking version will be limited to One Set. You can still do "endless" just like ODST in customs.
Another big change is that you can now completely control your Firefight experience. Want to play to one set? How about two? Just want a quick fix of one round? Fine. Do you want Iron to be on for the entire game? You can do that. How about we start with Cloud and Tough Luck on the first round and take them away for the next set? Possible! How about an entire set of grunts only? DONE. What if you hate yourself and just want to face an entire round of Elite deathsquads? Sir, you've come to the right place.
And if you don't like the Bungie supplied skulls, you can now customize your own. the "Red", "Blue" and "Yellow" skulls come with options such as player health, enemy health, player ammo (Normal, Unlimited, Bottomless Clip), AI Awareness, AI Accuracy, AI Weapon Drop Behavior, and so on. It's definitely a mode that will offer tons of replayability.
Invasion
Take Big Team Battle and turn it into a mix of Objective and Slayer. You have Invasion. Shipping as a 6v6 gametype, Invasion works on all maps (but some may be better suited than others). In the Beta, it took place on Boneyard. The first round of that gametype required you to stand in special zones to disable the generators, then the second phase had you disable the enemy lockdown (by also standing in zones). Then the last phase was retrieving the Core and taking it to a Phantom. So it essentially goes Territories -> Territories -> 1 Flag, with changing weapon loadouts and vehicle palettes along the way. We do not know if other maps follow the same pattern or not, yet.
There's also an Invasion Slayer mode where it's the same map, but Slayer with a bit of Objective spice added. Be the first team to 100 like any other Slayer gametype, but you can also capture drop points that move around the map for weapons and vehicles. New loadouts also unlock at certain kill point levels.
In both Invasion types, the spawn system is a blend of Halo Campaign and Battlefield. You can choose to either spawn at predetermined locations (Battlefield style) or one your buddy (co-op style). Did I say buddy? Yep, in Invasion you are assigned to a buddy and are formed into a 2 man fire team. a 6 v 6 game has a total of 6 fire teams, 3 fireteams to a side. The game points out your buddy to you with a HUD marker.
Infection
Infection is back. So far we can assume the usual FFA-style mode returns. However, Bungie have also talked about a new mode called Safe Haven where you have to move across the map to safe zones, watching for zombies to jump you along the way.
Medals
<< fill in later>>
Models
Spartans and Elites and OMG GIRLZ
Both Spartan and Elite models will be playable in multiplayer. The change from Halo 2 and 3 is that you will almost always be a spartan in multiplayer, with the Elite model coming into play for certain modes like Invasion. Also unlike 2 and 3, the Elites and Spartans are now differently sized - Elites tower over the Spartans.
Spartans take 5 shots to kill with a DMR or Magnum (4 anywhere, 1 to the head) and recharge their health up to the nearest third. They must pick up a health pack to restore to 100%. Spartans also make exclusive use of the Sprint ability.
Elites take 6 shots to kill (5 to anywhere, 1 to the head) and recharge their health completely. They also run as fast as a sprinting Spartan naturally. Their exclusive ability is the "roll".
The Fairer Sex
Finally making their debut in Reach is female Spartans! Your female Spartan will show up in every game mode.
Instead of just being a different voice like in Halo 3, female characters actually look female now. The female Spartan also has full voice acting in Campaign, so there's full recorded lines for both male and female players throughout the story. Huzzah!
Armor
Reach will have a plethora of armor options to choose from for your character. All armor details and options will also be reflected in campaign, so your character will be the same across all game modes. The only change is that the Flaming Helmet effect for multiplayer will be turned off for cutscenes.
2 limited you to either Spartan or Elite. 3 had Chest, Shoulders, and Helmet. Reach will have Firefight Voice, Helmet, Shoulders, Kneepads, Chest, Gender, Visor Color and a few more options they have not shown yet.
Some armor pieces will only be unlockable through combined community effort. All armor is purchased via the cR system, and only cR-bought armor counts towards 100% completion (the bonus armors do not count towards completion)
Note that none of the armor grants you any traits. It's all just for show.
More details will come as Bungie reveals them.
Abilities
Sprint - Allows a player to increase their maximum speed for a short duration. A cooldown is required before it can be used again. Sprinting into someone and meleeing them will throw them back farther.
Jetpack - It's a jetpack! What more can I say? You can either use it all up in one go for verticality or feather it to clear large gaps. Go too high though, and you'll die when you hit the ground.
Armor Lock - When activated, your spartan punches the ground and becomes invincible. And is stationary. And makes a loud sound and has a shield over him. The longer you hold the lock, the bigger your EMP blast when you come out of it.
Heal Bubble - Basically the Bubble Shield and Regen from Halo 3 combined. When activated, your spartan will drop a bubble shield that quickly heals anyone who steps inside of it. Once the haven deactivates, you can redeploy it.
Evade - aka the roll ability. Allows players to quickly dodge incoming fire and players. In the beta, you could roll 2 times before having to wait for the short cooldown. You stay in the first person view when using this.
Active Camo - A retooling of the classic cloaking ability. Activing this ability will cloak you (duh). It's drain speed increases the faster you move, and your visiblity increases the faster you move. Standing still = almost perfectly cloaked. Running = poor camo from Halo 3. As an added bonus, you'll also jam the radar of any nearby enemies and yourself. Be warned that all your fake dots will show up on the same elevation as you.
Hologram - A fake version of you, demonstrated in the Deja View video. Works by pointing at where you want it to go. When activated, your fake self will walk to that spot and stop. It appears that it can take a few hits before being destroyed.
Your available abilities are dependent on the gametype. You can only "carry" one at a time, and they are not dropped when you die, although this may be avaiable as a custom games option in retail.
When
Halo: Reach takes place right before Halo 1. Your current Halo game timeline:
Halo Wars -> Halo: Reach -> Halo 1 -> Halo 2 -> ODST -> Halo 2 -> Halo 3
Got it?
Where
Halo: Reach takes place on the human colony planet Reach. The game's story is NOT based on the Fall of Reach book by Eric Nylund, although it will probably have references to it. You saw Reach in the opening cutscene of Halo 2 (as the Pillar of Autumn is jumping away from it), and has been referenced by both Elites and Marines in 2 and 3.
Achievements
Bungie has decided to get out ahead of the modders and Microsoft's inability to keep achievements under wraps by showing all 49 of them in icon form:
They have also revealed the names of some of them:
* 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.
"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."
Editions
Legendary Edition - 150$ US
Microsoft has claimed that they learned their lesson from Halo 3 and will only produce enough Reach Legendaries to cover preorders. If you are considering getting it, I'd at least put down the minimum reserve. You can always drop your reserve down to a different edition.
The Legendary Edition comes with all the bonus content of the Limited Edition, plus the Flaming Head armor effect for multiplayer spartans, and a statue of Noble Team made by McFarlane Toys.
Limited Edition - 80$ US
The Limited Edition is probably going to be the more popular "extras" edition for people, and there certainly is no problem with not making the jump for Legendary. Included with the Limited Edition is a book presented in the format of Dr. Halsey's journal, written via a collaboration with Bungie and Eric Nylund. It also includes an exclusive Elite Officer armor for multiplayer Elites. Other real-world items include a patch and some stickers.
Normal Edition - 60$ US
Those who don't want to spend more money on Halo than they have to don't have to miss out on bonus content. All launch day new copies in North America will include the Recon Armor! And if you preorder at Gamestop, they'll give you a belt of grenades and a blastplate for your chest. If you're not in North America, you have to preorder to get the Recon armor.
Bonuses
Still confused? Here's a matrix to inform your decisions.
I think this was mentioned at SDCC.
But now Spartans have Evade?
Anyway, my point still stands.
Oh crap, really? That'd be awesome, I like Evasion a lot more than Sprint. Grenade? Roll. Rocket? Roll. Sniper? Roll.
wut
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
My legendary preorder is paid off! I am so pumped. The vidoc at like 6AM didn't help; I'm running on like three hours of sleep, but I've almost beaten Kane & Lynch 2 already.
Mafia 2 is gonna have to work overtime to hold me over 'til Reach.
Thus implying Spartans can Evade. I'd almost guess that it's not actually a roll, but more of a super jump/strafe thing.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
My theory (coupled with someone from SE++) :
Coran Attack!
So there's Firefight on a new map, Corvette.
PSN: JPBrowncoat Xbox: BamSaidTheLaday Also on Steam! Streaming games!
PSN: JPBrowncoat Xbox: BamSaidTheLaday Also on Steam! Streaming games!
I like how the hunters now try and cover their face with their shield.
just watched the vs. firefight videos. holy shit i can't wait.
PSN - B_for_Business
PSN: JPBrowncoat Xbox: BamSaidTheLaday Also on Steam! Streaming games!
Also: Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, and Nathan Fillion awesomeness.
Some might consider this a spoiler you know.
It's on Waypoint.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Answering the spoiler:
I didn't read it, but this is why I'm staying out of this thread until the day after Reach. Later everyone.
Rat is doing his Iron + Mythic + Famine + Thunderstorm full path ODST run with some of us co-op buddies.
Watch for hilarity, crying, and possibly broken friendships.
Prepare To Drop
Tayari Plaza
Mombasa Streets ->
Uplift Reserve
Mombasa Streets ->
Kizingo Blvd
Mombasa Streets ->
ONI Alpha Site
Except cofirming evade for Spartans and showing a single scrrenshot of Zealot and another level, Spire.
Edit: Spire is labeled as an invasion map with Spartans as the attackers.
Speaking of ODST, when did Bungie add a "wacky" setting to Firefight? Just in the last few games I've played, I've been run over by Choppers after stepping out of a Hog, had a Banshee zooming around inside a building in a spawn area, Hammer launched a Hammer Chieftan across said room where he promptly Death Hammered my teammate, watched a Grunt land a plasma grenade square on the back of a Brute, watched a jetpack Brute launch himself off the side of a building to his death, and so on.
At any rate, I've decided the inaugural round of custom Reach Firefight will be infinite pistols, endless waves off rookie grunts, and Grunt Birthday Party. The ground will run polychromatic with childish celebration!
Two dozen sniper elites
10x worse: reduced Spartan speed and infinite jetpack.
2x better: infinite armor lock.
Although if there is one thing I could still want out of the Halo series, it's being able to use a damn Jackal shield. Always wanted to use one of those. Could make for some great sword-and-shield combat.