HOLY SHIT! THAT IS AWESOME!

summarize?

Well, if everything discussed here comes to fruition, this is indeed exciting. 
I've become increasingly more enthusiastic about the Halo series with each new release, and Halo: Reach looks to be the game that'll make me a full-fledged fan.

Man... I want to read this but I just got done with 3 hours of homework.  I shall bookmark it and do so later.

don't just post a bunch of links. give us an idea of what makes you excited, so I don't need to read 8 pages of text. 
if you had done that, the whole argument going on in this thread would not have happened.

Codemasters, watch out! Bungie is coming for that UI crown.

Just to clarify, I did not post a summary because there's really a lot of info here, some of which complex and a bit tough to understand. Decided it would be better to just give raw links. Sorry guys!

" Codemasters, watch out! Bungie is coming for that UI crown. "

Awesome you can fight in a crappy arena now, and see what other people are doing without having to hit the guide button, like I care. I'm in awe of these incredible new features. 
 
Oh, and who can forget queue joining. Now instead of playing in a crappy game for 10 minutes waiting for a friend, you can listen to crappy menu music for 10 minutes waiting for a friend. 
 
I'm impressed.

" Awesome you can fight in a crappy arena now, and see what other people are doing without having to hit the guide button, like I care. I'm in awe of these incredible new features.  Oh, and who can forget queue joining. Now instead of playing in a crappy game for 10 minutes waiting for a friend, you can listen to crappy menu music for 10 minutes waiting for a friend.  I'm impressed. "

" @Pinworm45 said:

" Awesome you can fight in a crappy arena now, and see what other people are doing without having to hit the guide button, like I care. I'm in awe of these incredible new features.  Oh, and who can forget queue joining. Now instead of playing in a crappy game for 10 minutes waiting for a friend, you can listen to crappy menu music for 10 minutes waiting for a friend.  I'm impressed. "

So you should. "

Dude.... if that UI were a woman, I'd take her out to lunch and then ask for her number.

" @Agent47CSim2 said:

" @Pinworm45 said:

" Awesome you can fight in a crappy arena now, and see what other people are doing without having to hit the guide button, like I care. I'm in awe of these incredible new features.  Oh, and who can forget queue joining. Now instead of playing in a crappy game for 10 minutes waiting for a friend, you can listen to crappy menu music for 10 minutes waiting for a friend.  I'm impressed. "

So you should. "

 Obviously nobody likes pinworm and he never got to play SBTB in teams of 8.   

Can you summarize what you're excited about? I don't really have time to read 10 pages of Halo stuff published by the dudes who made the game, thus not even giving me an idea if their shit works.

I'm not reading all of that, but after skimming through it I'm totally excited about this game.

" @Agent47CSim2 said:

" @Pinworm45 said:

" Awesome you can fight in a crappy arena now, and see what other people are doing without having to hit the guide button, like I care. I'm in awe of these incredible new features.  Oh, and who can forget queue joining. Now instead of playing in a crappy game for 10 minutes waiting for a friend, you can listen to crappy menu music for 10 minutes waiting for a friend.  I'm impressed. "

So you should. "

The more you played in a party in halo 3, the more you will understand simply how brilliant these new features are. Obviously nobody likes pinworm and he never got to play SBTB in teams of 8.   Seriously, in halo 3 it already takes like 8 seconds to assemble a full party, even when the majority of my FL is on MW2 or whatever the flavour of the month is. With Reach it's just going to be hop on, hop into party. And if you're playing at ridiculous times, it will be hop on, get party in match since you will be able to choose the type of player you get matched with, and it will auto party up afterwards unless you say otherwise.  It's going to be halo: facebook. And amazing. Bring on may 3rd... "

yep, once again Bungie sets the bar for all the other FPS devs to go after. Of, course if you look at how many years it took for other games to mimic Halo 2's party system (I believe Call of Duty 4 was the first game after Halo 2 to let you "party up", that is of, of course, if you don't count Halo 3), it could be awhile

" Awesome you can fight in a crappy arena now, and see what other people are doing without having to hit the guide button, like I care. I'm in awe of these incredible new features.  Oh, and who can forget queue joining. Now instead of playing in a crappy game for 10 minutes waiting for a friend, you can listen to crappy menu music for 10 minutes waiting for a friend.  I'm impressed. "

You're really underestimating the significance of the Arena. It's not so much a "crappy" new addition as it is a "reliable new way to increase true competition between serious players with similar skills, while simultaneously eliminating the aspects of the Halo 3 ranking system that allowed for and encouraged account boosting and cheating." 

Basically, if you're a Halo fan in any capacity then there's no reason to shit all over this news.   "

The menu system and even the font are almost identical to Killzone 2.

From what I ascertained from looking at the pictures and reading the topic headlines the articles had something to do with halo and it's network. 

New info was pretty good. I am genuinely excited for this game. Too bad I was a bit letdown due to being excited for the announcement of bots or something like that lol.

" Sure.. there's also no reason to make tons of threads talking about how "amazing" these new additions are and how they're going to revolutionize the gaming universe.  I'm sorry I don't agree with all of you who seem to be so easily impressed, but I remain unaffected by promises of smaller scale fights and lists that show what my friends are doing without me having to hit one button. I can't express in words how little I care that it's done to "eliminate boosting", because god forbid if someone has more XP than they deserve. "

did i just read that theres a mute ban... sold

LOOKS AWESOME!!!!

Bungie is the king of matchmaking.  They basically invented it with Halo 2, and they are always the biggest innovators with it.  Now I just hope the actual game is fun, because I can't even play Halo 3 multiplayer anymore, I always get bored.

" @Pinworm45 said:

" Sure.. there's also no reason to make tons of threads talking about how "amazing" these new additions are and how they're going to revolutionize the gaming universe.  I'm sorry I don't agree with all of you who seem to be so easily impressed, but I remain unaffected by promises of smaller scale fights and lists that show what my friends are doing without me having to hit one button. I can't express in words how little I care that it's done to "eliminate boosting", because god forbid if someone has more XP than they deserve. "

No one is saying that it's going to revolutionize the gaming universe. People are just excited for some cool new features that will make life easier for online players. When you take into account the fact that in a game like Modern Warfare 2 (the most popular online shooter of all time) I can't even back out of the lobby of a Private Match without being completely separated from my party, some of these new additions that Bungie has added to Reach start to sound really good.  My point about boosting earlier also had nothing to do with EXP boosting, but rather about Ranked playlist boosting for level 50 accounts. In every ranked playlist in Halo 3, there are players who manipulate network conditions in order to guarantee themselves a win. Legit players like myself who play in the 45+ level range in matchmaking are often placed into matches with cheaters. Sometimes, cheating players known as "host-booters" will target the IP of specific opponents and "hit them offline" using DDoS attacks that leave the target's internet down for minutes or even hours at a time. Bungie can't ban all the cheaters out there, so any new ranking system (ie. a season-based Arena playlist) that gives people less of an incentive to cheat is welcomed by me and many others.  Also, for what it's worth, there are a whopping total of 3 threads on all of Giant Bomb discussing this topic; not a "ton" by any stretch of the imagination. "

"Dude.... if that UI were a woman, I'd take her out to lunch and then ask for her number. "

Just out of curiosity if everyone quits upon being standbyed wouldn't that effectively make that form of cheating redundant? Since they wouldn't be able to get kills, assists and the likes? "

" @crunchUK said:

Just out of curiosity if everyone quits upon being standbyed wouldn't that effectively make that form of cheating redundant? Since they wouldn't be able to get kills, assists and the likes? "

Yep, it sounds like standbying is going to be made pretty much useless by Arena. Simply being on the winning team does little to add to your player rating, and so if players on the other team quit out of because the other team is cheating, then the cheaters won't be rewarded even though they "won" the match. Similarly, host booting is going to be useless too, because if booters kick all of the enemy players out of the game they'll have no one to kill, and thus no way to improve their player rating.   I'm really looking forward to being able to jump into a high level ranked playlist without having any anxiety about being matched with cheaters; that's something that I haven't been able to do in my entire online Halo career. "

" The menu system and even the font are almost identical to Killzone 2. "

" Indeed. Honestly people on the forums were complaining about individual ranks... mostly the uber hardcore guys who spend most of their time complaining about cheaters... why? "

" The menu system and even the font are almost identical to Killzone 2. "

thats impressive.  
definitely going for the jugular on mw2 with this one.  
will have to dust off the 360 for sure. bungie is making the kinds of changes people were expecting mw2 to make ya know? they really changed nothing in terms of clans, matchmaking etc etc

" Can you summarize what you're excited about? I don't really have time to read 10 pages of Halo stuff published by the dudes who made the game, thus not even giving me an idea if their shit works. "

" @crunchUK said:

" Indeed. Honestly people on the forums were complaining about individual ranks... mostly the uber hardcore guys who spend most of their time complaining about cheaters... why? "

I was reading some complaints on the Optimatch forums from people who seem think that making the ranking system more focused on individual performance is just going to lead to stat-whoring and camping and poor teamplay. Essentially, they don't want Reach to turn into that other super-popular online shooter that solely rewards individual performance, to the detriment of quality teamwork.  It's a valid complaint, I guess, but only if Bungie completely mishandles the rating formula. Bungie employee Tyson Green (known as Ferrex on the Bnet forums) was answering a bunch of questions about Arena in some thread the other day, and basically said that the only way to really excel with their current rating formula is to play in a way that helps your team: by keeping a high K/D spread and racking up a bunch of assists. We'll have to wait until the Beta to really see how effective the ranking formula is, but from what I've read so far there isn't anything to complain about yet. "

" Maybe, but it's not like the current system particularly promotes team play, unless you're playing with other super competitive guys. People still rage quit, people sitll betray you for the sniper, people still go rambo and feel the other team kills, people still do all that.

The only real way to keep teamwork in the game is by ensuring the individual gain is linked to the common goal as much as possible, which doesn't happen in say, BC2, where you can be a sniper and obliterate everything and as a result everyone is a sniper, but the end result is that it's no use for actually winning the game.

It sounds like poop.

My, oh my. I am rapidly getting an unhealthy addiction for Halo: Reach. It just sounds so good! Thank you for those links thou, great information.