Halo: Reach

[Acert93]

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/...iew--Bungie-Talks-All-Things-Halo--Reach.html

With a bigger squad, can we then expect much bigger epic battles then as a result?

ML: Absolutely. In Halo 3 we could have about twenty active characters within the combat zone - that includes both friendly and enemy units. In Halo reach we can have sixty AI, or like forty AI characters and twenty vehicles – all of that with weapons and explosions going off everywhere. Yeah, we’re definitely going to have much, much bigger, open battles than ever before.

You are part of a military campaign and you will see battles taking place outside of your immediate gameplay area – something we’ve never done before.

The reference to active area is interesting (i.e. you could make a massive battle appear larger by having enemies just beyond the active play area who, upon progress slowly enter the game zone).

It also applies to the amount of content as well, so in terms of maps – you’ll see a few maps, you’ll see a couple of different game types – some old stuff that returns, but also some new stuff that we haven’t revealed yet. It’s some brand new multiplayer experiences that are big and risky and need to be in the beta to give us real stress testing and real balance testing. On top of that you’re going to see a huge selection of the weapons that the game has to offer, a pretty healthy amount of armour abilities like our sprinting and our active camo and some things we haven’t talked about yet. Because really, from a design perspective, those things have the biggest impact on how people are going to play Halo – hopefully in an awesome way, but also it’s the riskiest so we’re looking forward to that getting hammered on during the beta.

Lets hope they aren't hyping a new slayer variety It would be a blast to see some dramatically new (and long legged) MP!

Some of my biggest "wants" are custom game browsers and more robust Forge tools, specifically in regards to game type manipulation and objectives. A ticket system would be great.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm still drooling over 60 independant AI entities. Wow... And if they've improved the AI over H3... Wow again.

Regards,
SB

 

[(((interference)))]

I'm still drooling over 60 independant AI entities. Wow... And if they've improved the AI over H3... Wow again.

Regards,
SB

That sounds kind of fishy to me, I doubt we'll see such large encounters. They're probably including stuff like tiny ships fighting off in the distance in that number.
40 sounds reasonable.

From that same article:

Is it true that there are more polygons in the assault rifle in Reach than there was in any of the major characters in previous games?

ML: There are far more polygons. It’s pretty cool actually; we have this new level of detail in our geometry – we call it nose-hair geometry; I have no idea why – but it’s this little level of detail geometry where we can put little details like knobs and buttons on our vehicles and our weapons. It’s just this kind of cheap geometry that we can build that gives everything this super high fidelity.

Any ideas what 'cheap geometry' they're talking about?

 

[scently]

Read their recent update, I think they are waay past the sixty figure limit.
Anyway here is the article.
http://www.bungie.net/news/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=24866

 

[TurnDragoZeroV2G]

If 200 refers to entities in the game, that might be the 60 AI/Vehicles plus far less intelligent distance entities. They already had such a setup in Halo 3, though it was limited to things like Banshees and such AFAIK (far off banshees would do some "flocking" as they said, plus other stuff, so that they weren't TOTALLY scripted, but nothing like normal AI either)

Have a hard time figuring out what else that could refer to, since the one guy is their lead AI programmer and the other a mission designer.

 

[Rangers]

Any ideas what 'cheap geometry' they're talking about?

Teh Tessaelationz!!!

Ok, just kidding over B3D's tessellation obsession.

 

[warb]

Any ideas what 'cheap geometry' they're talking about?

An example:

 

[czekon]

when you think about scale of halo this level of detail is really impressive. Im wondering if all objects will be so well made.

 

[scently]

Finally, Bungie has unlock the Fourth core.

 

[ShadowWolf64]

I bought the Halo Reach beta and I got ODST for free

well put JL... By the way, are you ready to get thoroughly decimated by my elite DMR skills come May 3rd!?!

 

[AlNom]

Zoom and enhance!
Now do it again!
...again!
...more!
...hit it baby one more time!


......

If 200 refers to entities in the game, that might be the 60 AI/Vehicles plus far less intelligent distance entities. They already had such a setup in Halo 3, though it was limited to things like Banshees and such AFAIK (far off banshees would do some "flocking" as they said, plus other stuff, so that they weren't TOTALLY scripted, but nothing like normal AI either)

Yeah, probably if you took the camera looking down on the entire world, you could count 200. IIRC, those far away air battles in H3 used some pretty low poly models too. Slap on some dumb A.I. to approach the battlefield, and there ya go. It wouldn't be the first game to have a sort of flocking system of sorts.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I would love to be on the Covenant side again real humans in FF or Campaign. That would be awesome and I have been begging for "cross player" like this long before the concept had a name. While it may be a challenge to impliment in SP I think it is possible as a bonus mode: Spartans do normal respawns; Covenant controlled players spawn at the next check point. So when you die the Spartans essentially "win" that encounter. In FF it is much more direct as the mode is competitive.

Is what you're describing anything like the Counter-Op mode in Perfect Dark, but on a larger scale?

 

[dragonelite]

This week some multiplayer info.

Best case scenario a vidoc hopefully and worst case scenario some voiceovers/pictures imo

 

[warb]

There should be something today.

On another note, I hope you all like the MP bomb we’re about to drop on the world in about a day. Enjoy!

-Marcus

http://www.nobleactual.com/

 

[AzBat]

Seems like they were a little early...

No worries, Marcus primed the fuse a little early but everything is proceeding exactly as planned re:"bomb."

To those inquiring about bomb dropping, go ahead and enjoy your evening, get some sleep, etc...

Marcus was telling the tru7h but his blog post doesn't have a time stamp so incorrect conclusions were drawn.

http://twitter.com/bungietweets

Tommy McClain

 

[Rangers]

It's coming at 4 AM (CST) on the 3rd (5 hours from now), so, almost certainly a new (multiplayer) Vidoc (4 AM is XBL upload time).

Lucky for me I'm normally awake at 4 AM anyway (evil grin .gif)

 

[ShadowWolf64]

It's coming at 4 AM (CST) on the 3rd (5 hours from now), so, almost certainly a new (multiplayer) Vidoc (4 AM is XBL upload time).

Lucky for me I'm normally awake at 4 AM anyway (evil grin .gif)

Awesome..can't wait to download and thoroughly enjoy the mp vidoc..Should be fantastic...

 

[Rangers]

Is this it? Looks like I lied about the Vidoc thing. MP trailer.

Less graphically impressive than the SP footage, but still darn nice looking imo. You can more clearly see Halo 3 in it now though.

 

[scently]

It looks as good as the vidoc.

 

[czekon]

imo look as good as sp footage i dont really get what is less impressive. Some sweet action here cant wait