Quote from: Mr. Admirals on March 03, 2015, 08:46:09 PM

kek.

Being trained to dehumanize enemies? You don't need to do that shit when the enmies are already not human.

You guys seriously think after 28 years of seeing all humans as allies and friends as we struggled against an entirely non-human enemy bent on our entire annihilation, you'd be able to classify humans as enemies, and have no moral qualms or doubts about fighting to destroy humans?

Shit, you guys even realize the majority of soldiers joined the UNSC to fight the Covenant and save humanity, Quite frankly, they had no intent to kill humans. Mickey included.

Now, I don't follow the lore at that deeply, and quite frankly I find Halo's timeline to all kinds of jacked up, but did the insurrectionists just stop being a thing when the covies entered the picture or something? If I remember right, they had some pretty significant numbers.

They were still active, but for the most part, they just went into hiding and stopped doing such blatant attacks against the UNSC.

Which meant the UNSC had no need to go after them, and basically ignored the insurrection.

Quote from: Plotmaster | Fluid Druid on March 04, 2015, 07:55:32 AM

Quote from: ShelfBacon on March 04, 2015, 06:43:10 AM

You've seen the backlash from idiots who want John to be a silent protagonist.

Nobody wants him to be entirely silent. Just silent in-game. Having him speak his shiny ass off ruins the effect of the player being in the game and doing all those badass things (and distracts from gameplay in general).

That's my point. Players shouldn't be John because they aren't. If you want the player is the character add customisation and don't make a background story for them a la Noble Six, the most boring protagonist in any Halo to date.

Even Noble 6 has a backstory and a canon armor set.

Quote from: Plotmaster | Fluid Druid on March 04, 2015, 11:03:18 AM

Quote from: Mr. Admirals on March 04, 2015, 10:31:07 AM

Quote from: RomanGladiator on March 04, 2015, 10:24:24 AM

What worries me is that there isn't going to be any ODSTs left in future Halo games. Everybody just seems to turn into a Spartan IV at this point.

That's not true at all.

My question is, why isn't becoming a Spartan-IV mandatory for all UNSC recruits? There's no reason not to, if they're so easily mass-produced.

-Augmentations are still incredibly expensive and MJOLNIR GEN2 still costs roughly the same as a Dropship. That's still expensive, and the UNSC's Economy is t exactly amazing post-war. Also, not ever soldier way want to be a spartan nor able to.

GEN2 still costs more than a drop ship. The description of Air Assault was referring to use by unaugmented personnel. That means standard Air Assault.

Quote from: Plotmaster | Fluid Druid on March 03, 2015, 08:24:19 PM

Quote from: HurtfulTurkey on March 03, 2015, 08:20:44 PM

Why is he still 'Rookie'? The guy survived New Mombasa on his own, brought his squad together, and provided the most valuable source of information they ever had.

Still ridiculous to kill him off, let alone outside of a game.

He was new to the squad, so they called him rookie. Obviously he's a badass since he's an ODST, and Dare even comments on how odd it is that he's called a 'rookie' when he's arguably the most competent of the squad when he meets her in the tunnels, but he's still the newest member of the squad.

Yeah, obviously that's why he's called Rookie in the game. But after those events, it doesn't make sense for anyone to continue calling him that. It'd be more of an insult than anything, not endearing or buddy-buddy at all. Not to mention that it would have helped remove him from the context of the game, where he's a faceless, voiceless surrogate for the player, allowing the writer to characterize him better.

Wanna know what's even more annoying on why he's called the Rookie?

He's 5 years older than Mickey.

Quote from: Mr. Admirals on March 04, 2015, 09:50:23 AM

Quote from: Sigma617 on March 04, 2015, 09:45:56 AM

All of these patch notes have literally said the same thing for like 5 months now.

So?

The issue is fixed now, is it not?

You tell me.

My game worked fine from the beginning. The update didn't change much.

All of these patch notes have literally said the same thing for like 5 months now.

So?

The issue is fixed now, is it not?

Why are people losing their minds over a character with no voice, face or backstory?

Something something enigma something something

He's BARELY got a back story.

Born on Luna.
Joined the ODSTs with little experience.
Participated in the battle of New Jerusalem.
 

The latest update for the Master Chief Collection has launched, and fixes these systems:

Source: https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/community/blog-posts/3-3-15-halo-the-master-chief-collection-content-update-notes

Matchmaking:

Made a variety of updates to improve matchmaking performance and success rates
Improved matchmaking search times/time to match
Improved stability throughout the matchmaking process across all titles

Parties:

Improved party stability

Halo 2:

Made improvements to multiplayer shot registration
Improved campaign stability across a variety of levels
Addressed stability issues for matchmaking and custom games
Fixed issues around resuming H2A Campaign from “remastered” mode
Improved medal display consistency

Halo: Combat Evolved:

Fixed issues regarding aim assist which resulted in the reticle being pushed away from an enemy
Improved shot registration consistency between host / client in peer-to-peer custom game matches
Resolved a variety of UI inconsistencies, including team color randomization, medals, and in-game scoreboard display


This is supposed to be the update the fixes matchmaking and party systems. Can someone with a shitty version of the game confirm it's fixed?

Quote from: Mr. Admirals on March 03, 2015, 05:34:13 PM

Quote from: PedoLuis (っ◕‿◕)っ on March 03, 2015, 05:27:54 PM

Quote from: Mr. Admirals on March 03, 2015, 05:24:59 PM

Quote from: ChaosMetalDragon™ on March 03, 2015, 05:23:23 PM

What? No! How? What happened?

He was sent around to flank some Innies, and got captured in the process. He was being held hostage in order to get the rest of Alpha-9 to surrender. Instead, Buck ordered Mickey and Dutch to sneak around and get into position to attack. When he executed the maneuver, Mickey hesitated, and the Rookie was shot in the head as a result.

FUCK YOU MICKEY FUCK MICKEY FUCK YOU MICKEY FUCK YOU MICKEY FUCK YOU MICKEY FUCK YOU MICKEY AND FUCK THE FAGGOT THAT WROTE THE BOOK

Death to 343i, down with Forbeck, etc. etc.

Mickey just didn't want to kill humans. Instead of shooting the chick who had the Rookie hostage, he shouted at her to stop.

>spends years killing aliens with no problem
>hesitates to kill one human

Just give up, Mickey.

He was born during the Covenant war. Conflict with humans was as alien as the Covenant.

What? No! How? What happened?

He was sent around to flank some Innies, and got captured in the process. He was being held hostage in order to get the rest of Alpha-9 to surrender. Instead, Buck ordered Mickey and Dutch to sneak around and get into position to attack. When he executed the maneuver, Mickey hesitated, and the Rookie was shot in the head as a result.

Quote from: Mr. Admirals on March 03, 2015, 04:54:53 PM

Quote from: ((go)^ji)^ra on March 03, 2015, 04:51:44 PM

Book was great IMO. Rookie decision served its purpose in the story but nullifies something great about ODST. That being said, pretty much everything else about it was great. Dialogue + character interactions/motivations in particular seem like something Staten himself would've written for ODST.

[Though this is from a quick skim]

What does the Rookie's death take away from ODST?

Player control. The Rookie was meant to be a self insert character, and unlike post Marathon Bungie's other efforts with Chief, Six, and Mr./Ms. Guardian, he was done properly. Instead of being a character himself he was a means of exercising player control within the narrative, a "focal point" if you will. Especially complements ODST's Inferno allegory [something I believe Staten paid attention to given "prepare to drop" and Destiny's main themes]. When you give him a future outside of pure reactionaries you take away the agency of the player and wrap the Rookie up in a sort of narrative determinism.

If I were to give you a simpler analogy: Shepard in the control ending to ME3. Ending's are odd, but that's not the point. In the original ending, we just get an instant cutaway. We don't know what happened outside of Shepard gaining control. The path that Shepard takes isn't detailed, so there's no "determined" action that he takes, i.e. anything is possible. Post EC? Shepard is disconnected from player input and goes on some paragon/renegade based galactic tidy up + policing job. Same thing with Rookie over there.

I'm not saying it ruins ODST or anything [or even makes it worse in a big way], but that it takes away an interesting part of the narrative from a metaphysical POV. The death serves its purpose in the story and I'm not mad [especially given 343's approach of attempting to contextualize everything, I should've expected this the second Chief's personality was realized].

343 was the first to characterize the Rookie in Evolutions back in 2009 with the short story Dirt.

Of course, Bungie was the one who made him born on Luna.

the book was a poor book imo..

Felt like a sequel to ODST to me.

Author captured Buck's character excellently. Provided back story to characters who didn't have any, and got the banter between the members of Alpha-9 down very well. Sure, it didn't drop any lore bombs, but it was a nice continuation of Alpha-9's story.

Also, the plot structure of the book was organized like the game. You have this main narrative thread, but in order to understand everything going on, the author goes into flashbacks that get closer and closer to the main narrative until it merges at the end of the book.

It's no Ender's Game, but for what it was, it was well done.

Quote from: Mr. Admirals on March 03, 2015, 02:58:16 PM

I ain't see no other threads.

>in Flood

bic i aint see no thred

inb4343isucks
inb4343ruiningthestory
inb4inb4

DEATH TO 343! HOW DARE THEY TAKE AWAY SUCH AN INTEGRAL CHARACTER TO THE FRANCHISE

Halo 3's a funny game. It's got these moments where the storytelling quality peaks REALLY high and then drops like an anvil.

"Your forefathers wisely set aside their compassion, steeled themselves for what needed to be done. I see now why they left you behind. You were weak, and gods must be strong!"

"Can you see, Arbiter? The moment of salvation is at hand."
"It will not last!"
"Your kind never believed in the promise of the sacred rings."

"You have not been composed! Such inoculation should not have been possible!"

"If reason does not stop you, then perhaps force can at least delay you."

"You will relent, human, or you will perish. All in life is choice! And your day to choose has come."