RedStarRocket91

Leaving the match early is regarded as a quit, regardless of the actual reason. If you lag out, that's a quit. If you get disconnected, it's a quit. If you suffer from severe packet loss, sometimes you'll get a game over screen and leave the match, and that's counted as a quit. Unfortunately, this is exactly how Bungie designed the banhammer to function. 343i haven't changed the way it works at all since they took over, all they've done is reorganise playlists - changing the way the banhammer works may not even be possible, as it's a key part of multiplayer matchmaking. It'd mean a mandatory title update at the very least, and perhaps a sizeable download to go with it. As for weird shots, that's a combination of lag and poor programming. Halo has always had fairly poor netcoding, and that's something that will hopefully get better with Halo 4, hopefully along with the banning system.

Are you seriously saying Halo 3 wasn't fun? I don't get why people are so opposed to games just being fun - isn't that the point of a 'game'? Besides, they've said they're working on making this the most balanced Halo game yet, which makes it better for competition.

This is something only the developers would know the answer to, considering they haven't released any details about stat tracking yet. He told you he best place to go and ask them. Also, that's a terrible metaphor. It's more like someone coming into where you work, asking if you sell something you don't have, and you telling them where they could go to get it. And then them insulting you for it.

I don't agree at all. We shouldn't prevent people who have finished the campaign from being able to talk about it, especially not for four weeks - that's a huge amount of time to censor something. A better system would be making it compulsory to tag spoiler threads with 'Spoiler' or something similar, and discourage people from putting spoilers into thread titles. Perhaps we could also try and restrict users from posting spoilers outside of dedicated threads, so that you aren't browsing a thread about the new Battle Rifle and find a post saying 'I thought the way Chief shot the Didact with the Battle Rifle and killed him was cool', or whatever. I would hate for people to accidentally find out what happens in the campaign without playing it for themselves, and people shouldn't have to cut themselves off from the forum to avoid that. But people also shouldn't be stopped from discussing the story just because others haven't gotten as far as them. In short, a blanket ban just hurts one set of players instead of the other, and making sure that there are no spoilers in thread titles and making sure people are given fair warning that threads contain spoilers BEFORE they start reading them is a much better solution for everyone involved.

You know me! If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in style

If we're allowed community Forge maps, mine's probably Synapse. There's a good balance between open sightlines and enclosed areas, the weapon sandbox is appropriate, the symmetric styling makes it perfectly balanced for team games, and the aesthetic is pretty without interrupting function, something that's almost impossible to do in Forge. Otherwise, my favourite map is probably Powerhouse. It doesn't appear nearly enough in Matchmaking these days, even though it's easily one of the most fun maps in the game.

That really does sum things up perfectly. You have the time to write a paragraph, but not to type a few words into the search bar? I'll summarise for you. Some people like it, some people don't, and in the end provided the TrueSkill ranking system is doing its job it doesn't make any difference whatsoever. If the TrueSkill system isn't working, then it still makes no difference as that's what searches for players are based on. The 1-50 system is a representation of where you fit in the TrueSkill rankings. The cR system in Reach shows how long you've played. The system for finding other players has been the same since Halo 2, which was the first game to use it. So just because it was represented in a different way in Reach, doesn't actually mean it was a different system. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with making a new topic, but this really HAS been discussed to death, and beyond - and then some - and then some more.

You raise an excellent point about the maps there, Doc! Thing would indeed by a lot more interesting if maps catered to different audiences - maps like 'Midship', 'Lockout', and 'Zanzibar' were fun because there was a great balance between long sightlines and more claustrophobic areas, so any gun could be effective provided it was actually used correctly. Who didn't love the mad Assault Rifle duels on 'The Pit' in Halo 3? Sure, you could hang back and use the Battle Rifle from the turret towers or from the upper hallway by the shotgun spawns, but the real exciting stuff was going on in and around the centre, by the Energy Sword tower, the Rocket Launcher spawn corridor, and inside the bases themselves. Reach just didn't have the same variety to it. 'Zealot' could have been interesting, but was so badly designed that they ended up literally killzoning off half the level, turning the rest into a dense mess where you could be attacked from any side at once and there was never a chance to get out of the action. Boardwalk has only one or two spots where a Shotgun really does prove more useful than the DMR, and even then the Assault Rifle is still darn near worthless. Same thing with Asylum, Pinnacle, and Uncaged, where there is literally no point in having a close-range weapon, because as soon as someone gets a DR they will kill you from far out of your effective range, with no chance of reply. It hurts map movement if everyone is afraid to go out into the open because they know they can be killed from miles away as soon as they leave a certain area, and it maes the maps all the play the same - part of the problem with why people get bored of Reach's 'samey' gameplay. To my mind, the old map with any real variety is 'Powerhouse', and that never comes up fro selection these days anyway. Plus, how long would it take to get bored of the same map over and over again, just to get a different style of game? And what about those who don't like DMR play, perhaps preferring to fight at short ranges?

Can we get this moved to the Map Room? It's more likely to get noticed by people wanting to download new maps there.

I'm fairly certain it'll be possible to remake most of the older maps in the new Forge World, and although they've said there won't be any remakes in the shipper maps they haven't ruled out remakes as later DLC. If there's sufficient demand for it, I'm sure they'll bring it out.

I'm surprised at how similar that looks to the model used in Reach, I expected there to be a whole new one to replace it. Not a massive complaint, but still a bit disappointing. I wish it was a slightly longer range shot, be nice to know exactly what the maximum kill distance is rather than just a point-blank blast. It's also not clear whether or not that was actually a kill (though I suppose we have to assume it was) - I wish there'd been a bit more to see, get just a little more info about it. Good find nonetheless!

Part of the problem is just the way it's designed. The only differences between Anniversary and Combat Evolved are the graphical and audial upgrades and the inclusion of Xbox Live connectivity. The engine and framework itself is fundamentally the same as it was when the original game came out, and that wasn't designed to run over the internet: the result is that it can be quite buggy and laggy over anything but the fastest of connections, and even then it can be messy depending on a whole host of factors like ping time, NAT settings or firewalls. For best results, you'll have to play either via System Link or Splitscreen. Anything else and it's almost certain that you're going to hit trouble at some point - sorry, man.

If you can show us where you originally saw it, we may be able to track down information a little better.

They'll presumably have to spend money on buying the stuff that you already have, and you'll presumably get some physical stuff that they won't (art books, soundtrack CD, free DLC downloads, etc.), so it probably balances out. Plus, you get exclusive access to all of it early. If you want the physical stuff, only people who buy the Limited Edition will get that, so there's no problem there. If you don't want that, why are you buying the Limited Edition anyway?

It's a great idea, but something like that would really need an entirely new game to work - it sounds more like an FPS MMORPG than a shooter.

I don't really understand the problem. Now everyone who wants to have a Limited Edition can have one. There's nobody who wanted a Limited Edition who'll be left upset that they could only get the standard one, and who'll be frustrated that they can't get all the cool stuff that comes with it (new stuff at the start, character models/colour schemes, DLC passes, whatever). Having plenty of them just means if you want a Limited Edition, you can have one. That's it. The only real reason I can see people opposing this is those people who pre-ordered early not liking the idea of someone else having the same stuff as them. It's like some sort of superiority complex: "I won't be happy just because I have the Limited Edition, I'll only be happy if you don't have it."

First person in vehicles is a bad idea as it severely limits your field of vision. Even assuming most of your screen wasn't taken up with the front of the vehicle, you'd still have a much narrower sightline and it would be much harder to work out where you are in relation to other things. For passengers, it would be much harder to aim and acquire targets as from your own perspective everything would be moving much faster, and again you'd have a lot less situational awareness. As for assassinations, having them in first-person defeats the point of having the animation in the first place. Just do a regular melee if you want a kill in first person: what's the point of doing an elaborate, extended kill animation if you can't see it?

I think it's possible we'll see it in Spartan Ops. Now that the main Covenant faction is dealt with, presumably they didn't create the Spartan IVs in anticipation that they'd be fighting the Prometheans: they'd probably be training them for the same idea that the Spartan IIs were created for, dealing with rebels. If that's the case, there's no reason why they wouldn't simulate encounters with human rebel forces - it'd be fun to dodge AI bullets that aren't coming from the Flood, for once.

If you have Xbox Live, the only way to rank up quickly is Matchmaking. If you want to rank up quickly any other way, you'll have to do it on a profile that isn't subscribed to Xbox Live. If that profile then ever subscribes to Xbox Live, it'll lose a lot of ranks and a high number of credits.

In that case, how about a variant of Oddball where for every second you hold the ball you lose one point, but every kill you get with it earns twenty? You move faster while you're holding it instead of slower: it'd be a good way to prevent camping.

I want a gamemode where every player starts off dual-wielding Rocket Launchers and Shotguns. Player movement speed is at 125%, jump height is 150%, and gravity is at 50%. Player colours go through all the colours of the rainbow, changing every second, and everyone gets the 'Birthday Party' skull enabled. Occasionally a Custom powerup appears on the map which halves your damage and puts a waypoint over your head for everyone else to see, but gives you five times as many points for every kill you get. After the match you get no exp or credits whatsoever.

I think... 30? Certainly that's the most I remember getting in one game, and that's mainly because even with that many kills my team still managed to lose - seriously, I get the worst teams. Outside of Team Slayer, I think I've had low forties in Objective BTB matches, but I suppose those don't really count because that's not what they're about.

There was a similar story a few years back, but with someone playing StarCraft rather than Diablo - they eventually just died in the chair, having played about 40 hours straight. I suppose there are worse ways to die, but it's still such a tragic waste.

Here's a solution. First two people to quit get instant half-hour bans, no exceptions. If something in real life is important enough to pull you away from the game, it's probably going to last more than half and hour, so that only hurts people who leave without a good reason. Anyone who quits after that gets away completely free: while we get a lot of stories of one or two man armies who singlehandedly come back from being 20 kills behind to win a game, that isn't what happens in most games and players should not have to suffer getting power weaponed to death twenty times just because their teammates suck. This would of course be dependant on fixing the banhammer so it can tell the difference between a voluntary disconnect and an involuntary disconnect. No-one should get punished because their connection fails.

You could memorise them. Most people use at most ten websites that require a password, and if you use them regularly it shouldn't be hard to recall what your passwords are. Or, write a new password down in a document in your email address for a few days after you've created a new account. If someone gets into your email you're in trouble anyway, so there's no additional harm.