CMT Public Beta Feedback

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The Custom Map Team (CMT) has released a public beta for the first map in their SPV2 Campaign Mod for Halo Custom Edition. SPV2 is an extended and upgraded version of Halo 1's campaign, containing all new weapons, vehicles, enemies, UI, and upgraded graphics. Levels have been extended as well, with new areas to explore. Some levels have been expanded 40 minutes, and others by nearly three hours. New options have been built into the UI, allowing the player to detach the camera from the player and freeze time, play in slow motion, or further optimize their performance.

The public beta build of Pillar of Autumn contains many of our additions to the game and has been extended with new areas to explore. Our mod contains Brutes, who at this point in the timeline are working alongside the Elites. You may also notice some revisions to other enemies, though the mod is still in progress and there is still a fair amount of content that we are in the process of adding. Players will also have a variety of new weapons, including but not limited to the: SMG, MA5C Assault Rifle, Spiker, a Battle Rifle with a grenade launcher attachment, and it wouldn't be Halo 1 if the good ole' pistol didn't appear in one way or another. ;-)

http://files.modacity.net/cmt/cmt_a10_beta_promo.jpg

Halo Custom edition can be downloaded at http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?fid=410 for free, although it requires you to have a LEGAL copy of Halo PC and your original CD key.

The public beta of CMT's SPV2 Pillar of Autumn can be downloaded at the mirrors provided below:

Note: The 7-ZIP file can be opened with WinRAR and is smaller in size. We recommend the 7-ZIP version for download.

HaloMaps: ZIP
Modacity: RAR or 7-ZIP
Megaupload: 7-ZIP
Zshare: 7-ZIP
Deposit Files: 7-ZIP
Badongo: 7-ZIP
RapidShare: 7-ZIP

To extract the maps, you will need to download and install WinRAR. Follow the instructions at http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?nid=386 for detailed installation instructions. (tl;dr: Extract the map file (a10.map) to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo Custom Edition\maps and get the custom UI replacement and put that in the maps folder too.)

Please read the readme inside the archive for more beta information and info on how to play the map.

If you download, YOU MUST POST FEEDBACK IN THIS THREAD.

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THE RULES :

• Be coherent.
• Be concise.
• Make SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTS! You should know what a substantive comment is!
• Use the
  [list] tags (quote this post if you don't know how to use them to see how it's done) or some other way of clearly indicating seperate issues/comments.
• Avoid off-topic/wandering (yeah, this includes PC specs which have made many a CMT thread veer off-course) conversation unless it is directly related (ex : pointing out that you had the same issue) to another one.
• If you realize you forgot to add something, or notice something new, please edit it into your original post unless you absolutely MUST reference a post made after the one you made. It's easier to keep track of.

Posts that blatantly violate said rules will be deleted.

Post updated by jcap

• I liked the new BSP's, but some direction would have been nice. I got lost far too often.
• The Brutes are like sponges, as in when you shoot them, they release all the grape soda they have been soaking up over the years.
• In the first cutscene, the arms of the technicians who wake the MC are too thin. It's like looking at paper.
• You need more health packs in your new BSPs. You have so many grunts who like to overcharge their PPs then let their buddies shoot you, I had a hard time keeping my health out of the red. I only found like 2 medpacks in the new BSPs.
• Some more ammo for human weapons would be nice too. It was cool using the spiker, and I liked the new Plasma Rifles, but some human ammo would have been nice.
• During one encounter, I stumbled on what had to be 12 grunts stacked on top of each other like a pyramid. If I had had a nade, I would be complaining, but I didn't, and they tore through me. And it just looked dumb.
• The grenade throwing animations looked uninspired in my honest opinion.

In general, the beta a10 was okay...

Good stuff:

• Twisted destroyed sections
• New weapons
• Brutes
• HUD
• New Spartan model

Bad stuff:

• Textures on the Pillar of Autumn interior D:
• SMG reload? I hear you lose your ammo, didn't have the time to go back and check myself.
• Some new sections were confusing and looked like shit (no offense), I got lost twice.
• Oh god the hands on the crewman who pushes the buttons on the keyboard in Unseal the Hushed Casket, they were so ugly D:

e: I will add that the list tag is a piece of shit and - lists are much better.

The naughty list

• The animations I was overally pleased with. Though the pistol melee could use some touching up. Maybe I can hit up Clad so I can tweek the animations?
• The Brute decals on the build I have make me cry. Not only does it lag but it gives me exceptions.
• When you pickup pistol ammo then it says you picked up a plasma rifle.
• When I stuck an elite in the head, occasionally it would go into the unanimated form.
• Captain Keyes talks while he gives you the pistol, yet no sound is coming out of him.
• Not enough variation in human weapons. In the first part there was a nice selection with assault rifles, pistols, and battle rifles on the floor. Though I only seemed to have found maybe 2-3 smg's in the whole legendary run, and maybe the same amount of battle rifles.
• Legendary compared to Heroic makes Heroic seem like a cake walk.
• Pyramid of grunts

Will add more when I get the PB build.

-Textures seemed as if they where uneven in resolution (PR looks highres, whilst the smg looks lowres)
-Ammo is lost on the SMG
-Laser on the pistol is bent >:U
-Got lost easily in the extra BSP's
-No open sauce >:U
-Nice texturing for the brutes/elites/pr
-Animations are great.

-Elites seem to do small amounts of damage, whilst the brutes do very little damage and have huge amounts of health.
-Why do brutes have the same sounds as elites?
-Hud seems low res :S

-Also, Doublespeed seems to last for a bit long.

To Fix

• The black grate thing near the end of the level
• The string when you pickup a double speed
• The elites and brutes when you stand in the cyro control room above the cyro chamber, they dont go out the door like in the regular campaign.
• Some doors that should be locked, and just bring you to the end of a bsp, aka wrong path.
• Whats with the double shield geometry?
  http://screenshot.xfire.com/screensh...ec7870dd6e.png

• Blood decals need work. Grunt is good but too large, Brute covers the entire floor, Elite/Jackal doesn't appear to have changed, Human is fugly. (You can't just fully saturate it and expect it to look any more than marginally better.)
• More pickups! There were too few human weapons/ammo caches and even fewer medpacks.
• Quality is inconsitent all over the board. Some textures are nice, some look like ass; some new BSPs are cool (twisted corridor), most are bland corridors. Human fire/explosion effects are worse than the stock ones, while Covenant effects are brilliant.

And most importantly:

• Details need hammering. This needs exorbant amounts of polish before it can be called complete.

Of course, the sheer assloads of content makes this worth playing anyway, but if you iron out all the kinks and leave no detail untouched, it becomes more than good; it becomes extraordinary.

Code:

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il Duce Primo: so what do you think so far?
fat kitty: the masterchief model is stupid
fat kitty: feels really arcady
fat kitty: the pistol is downright stupid with the silencer and red dot
fat kitty: i dont like the AR
fat kitty: the textures look really good
il Duce Primo: the ar sucks
il Duce Primo: i hate the modle and the skaders o it
fat kitty: the anaimations for the brutes suck
fat kitty: this plasma rifle is sweet
il Duce Primo: ye ai love the plasma rifle
fat kitty: these plasma grenades are cool
fat kitty: there was one part where the enemies were moving in slomo
fat kitty: but my frames were fine
il Duce Primo: o thats a new powerup
il Duce Primo: its called double speed
fat kitty: oh is that what that does?
il Duce Primo: it slows everythign down and speeds you up
fat kitty: it looks pretty bad
fat kitty: would be fine if it just made u faster
il Duce Primo: ?
fat kitty: the spiker animations are really fast
fat kitty: i should kill the person who thought it a good idea to change the pistol melee animation
fat kitty: and the animation u gave it looks like ur trying to tap someone on the shoulder to get their attention..
fat kitty: ooo the spiker shoots nicely
fat kitty: theres no scope on the pistol :[
fat kitty: plasma pistol is a joke lol
fat kitty: you can tell me to shutup anytime if u want
il Duce Primo: its fine
il Duce Primo: i like hearing it
il Duce Primo: i actually want you to rant
fat kitty: the battlerifles grenade launcher
fat kitty: thats cool for sp
fat kitty: not mp
fat kitty: the animation for the battle rifle shooting
fat kitty: the weapon jitters downwards
fat kitty: shouldnt it go upwards
fat kitty: i dont mean recoil
fat kitty: but the weapon movement while u shoot it
fat kitty: seems funny
fat kitty: invis elites
fat kitty: thats really neat actually
fat kitty: when u get shot
fat kitty: the little blue honeycombs
fat kitty: besides being rly annoying
fat kitty: they need to be red
fat kitty: not blue
fat kitty: :l
il Duce Primo: i think if they were red it would be too odvius
il Duce Primo: like too distracting
fat kitty: theres 6 invis elites at this one part?
fat kitty: 8
fat kitty: that seems like too many 0_0
fat kitty: unless they were spawning
fat kitty: LOL
fat kitty: something sounds like arnold shwarzeneggar
fat kitty: these hunters have downs
fat kitty: the plasma pistol charge looks cool
fat kitty: OHSHIT THE HUNTER JUST DECIDED TO GROW A BRAIN
fat kitty: the hunters weapon is well done
fat kitty: besides the particles when it shoots
il Duce Primo: the gun sucks
il Duce Primo: the hunter gun needs to get a new model
il Duce Primo: its ugly as fuck
fat kitty: the model sucks
fat kitty: the idea is good tho
fat kitty: there sweet uphill tunnels
fat kitty: the new areas are good
fat kitty: seems like there should be arrows tho
fat kitty: to tell u where to go here and there
il Duce Primo: its pretty linear sint it?
fat kitty: yeah but for some reason they seem bland
fat kitty: i cant put my finger on it
il Duce Primo: bc there sint final lightmaps
il Duce Primo: and they need extra polish
fat kitty: the top of the AR seems to stand out too much
fat kitty: the white standing on top of the black like that
fat kitty: i think it would be cooler if it was black all around
fat kitty: they look good
fat kitty: this spiker is definately my fav weapon to use so far
fat kitty: DUDE
fat kitty: this caged area
fat kitty: when u first walk into it
fat kitty: its awesome
il Duce Primo: its boarding action
il Duce Primo: :P
fat kitty: i just died for the first time
fat kitty: when u get in that open area
fat kitty: because i couldnt stop admiring it
fat kitty: :o
fat kitty: this one brute is a tough cookie to crack
fat kitty: kewl mini baws
fat kitty: smg is perfect
fat kitty: new areas
fat kitty: need arrows
fat kitty: ssssssssssssssssss
fat kitty: im lost
il Duce Primo: lol
fat kitty: yeah i found my way
fat kitty: but u need arrows
fat kitty: now im in putput
fat kitty: wall textures are horrible
fat kitty: room is too big
fat kitty: big red room where a tele should be
fat kitty: that makes no sense
fat kitty: no enemies
fat kitty: thats p lame
fat kitty: the next area is cool
fat kitty: the skin on the burning hogs looks really low quality
fat kitty: where are all the enemies?
il Duce Primo: lol bug probably
fat kitty: maybe when i backtracked a few bsp's lmao
fat kitty: hog seat has rubber shader :o
fat kitty: if ur supposed to go up this elevator
fat kitty: its not letting me
fat kitty: ok nvm apparently u can walk on walls
fat kitty: br skin sucks
fat kitty: lame
fat kitty: next area wont load
fat kitty: i just see a thing that says arteen
il Duce Primo: haha
fat kitty: after climbin da elevator shaft
il Duce Primo: look at the ground
fat kitty: oh well
il Duce Primo: see if you can get the trigger to work
il Duce Primo: or mb you weent wrong way?
fat kitty: i killed myself
fat kitty: yeah im lost
fat kitty: what evs
fat kitty: its good
fat kitty: i told u basically everything thats wrong
fat kitty: the rest youd know best

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best crit of the day~

biggest complaint is that I got lost.

Boarding Action BSP Issues:

• The floor and wall grates just look ugly. Give them some borders and more substantial framework, rather than just a repeating pattern.
• Each of the floors should have decals on the walls annotating which level they are.
• Put some large supply doors on the walls on each floor, with each of them being labeled a different location of the ship, and turn it into a loading zone. That's my best guess as to what its function could be, since it is a massive part of the ship that opens up probably only when docked.
• Split the walls and grates in that section as well. It just looks ugly with those areas solid, but the floors split down the middle. Add a groove in the floor split as well.
• Instead of blocking off the tops of some ladders with random scenery, put in (theoretically, not actually) open-able and close-able hatches that align with the floor and ceiling - they'd fit better with the theme (or at least what I perceive the theme is) of that area.

The new BSPs were very uninspired, the multiplayer maps just aren't as well made as the sp visually, they don't fit well, and combined with the kind of off-looking textures of the whole level (the one with the apparent corrugations that replaces steel is just funky looking) they were just not good.

The twisted damaged hallway was awesome, more of that would be the shit.

Brutes are like giant elites that just never move and take forever to easily kill. Ease + longevity + repetition = Tedium, as far as actually fighting the brutes goes. Can they be made to melee attack more often, get in your face? They would be very intimidating if they weren't statues.

I liked the fact that at some points you had to rely on covenant weapons, testing all the new ones out was loads of fun, even if they were familiar from other games. Hunter canon is cool, but I feel like it should have maybe half as much ammo, I had one for most of the map, just killing brutes with it.

• The twisted and burnt hallways were the best part of the map. That and the hog bays are awesome. Everything else is...redundant. I think the original map has enough boring hallways and turns in it.

In all honestly, what would have been awesome to see is a small segment of the last level where you can fight in one of those big rooms you drive through at the end of the game. You could cut out maybe 75% of the hallways and then throw in that giant fight scene.

• The silenced pistol sound is about as loud as it regularly is. Tone it down, jeez.

• Pretty much all of the sounds of Halo 3 weapons sound muffled and horrible. It's like they were recorded from the game with the shittiest mic possible.

• The new BSPs are INCREDIBLY boring without any music.

• The environment sounds cut off and restart slowly again between the stock BSP and the custom one (A Whole New World).

• The freight elevator stops about a foot too high.

-I wish laggy hadn't edited his AR/BR animations since the last build I got. They seem too fluid and weak now.
-The AI seem massively improved, their bigger, more intimidating and more fun to fight. Loving it.
-I got lost a few times, but frankly I think thats a good thing. It shouldnt be entirely obvious where to go. The player should know the direction but not the course. however I did get stuck. Not going to go into detail about it here since I posted on halomaps.
-Im gonna go ahead and promise you that the laser isn't bent. But I do agree that it is stupid.

I had a perfect run through with no glitches at all. Died only once. :realsmug:

The Good:

• HUD is brilliant. Some say it is low-res, I think it looked just fine at 1280x1024.
• Plasma Rifles are drop dead gorgeous. Bravo CMT.
• Good weapon balance; Spiker could be a tad more useful against shields.
• Cortana skin is good (model needs fixin').
• Pistol sound is genius.
• Added sections were fun, the enemies were not too numerous, but not too few. Didn't really get lost.
• Particle effects are awesome (especially the plasma pistol).
• The added length of a10 was fun.

The Bad:

• Cortana model needs anatomical lessons.
• Pistol looks kinda stupid...use the ODST model or something pl0x (and the laser! You hurt me Masters, said it wouldn't be in there :saddowns:).
• The AI is retarded...I massacred a whole room of sleeping grunts and the Brute stood there and watched me do it, and this was at close range too.
• Arrows on ground of added BSP would be nice, not so much for aiding navigation as for keeping a uniform look throughout the level.
• There is no noticeable difference in the two plasma rifles handling other than the fact that the red one is less accurate and less powerful.
• Plasma Pistol skin is ugly.
• Stock marine models all over the place...last I checked ships had real crews, not marines as a crew (placeholders mb?)
• Master Chief skin needs to be twice as dark, and needs more black parts on his armour.
• Low-res damaged 'Hogs.
• Crappy sounds on the Halo 2/3 weapons; they are indeed garbled.
• Low-res skins on Halo 3 weapons (not the BR though).
• Firing animations on the BR55 need some serious work; they defy common sense.
• Slow-Mo power up lasts way too long.
• Needs more environment sounds on custom BSP...it felt like I was playing the underwater portion of Half-Life: Opposing Force (which admittedly was rather refreshing)
• Hatches on closed-off ladders is a good idea.
• New areas need more polish on the visuals, more details pl0x.

Some Suggestions...

Weapons:

• Give the plasma projectiles a whispy trail behind them...I always found the simplistic blue/green/red bolt from Halo 2 and 3 to be underwhelming. Contrails would spice it up nicely.
• Pistol: ditch that laser; it's bent, and it looks dumb anyways. Also, it is rather plain-looking compared to the rest of the arsenal.
• Hunter Cannon needs a charging particle effect for first person. Also, I'd suggest the traditional Fuel Rod Cannon, since it is deadlier and more intimidating. Perhaps give Brute Chieftains this as well.
• Bring back the SPv1 or Vanilla melee for the assault rifle. The current one is the overused smashing of the pistol-grip one...

Enemies:

• Make them smarter and less :downs:.
• Brute shields: make them have some motion; it looks like just a bunch of bright dots that appear in the exact same spot on every hit. It's lame.
• Elite Shields: tile them more. I dunno how it works, but it has the same effect as if a single tile of a low res texture was stretched over one whole map.

BSP:

• Add details to new areas, make it more in-line with the originals.

Closing Statements:

The map was fun, possibly the most fun I've had playing a10 in a long time. Even though some of the visuals were not consistent (and the fact that my normally 200+fps were slowed to <40fps :lol:), it was a good experience. Some say the new parts lacked environment sounds, but it had a good effect...it felt like a remote part of the ship which the Covenant had invaded, which is exactly what it was. I like how SPv2 so far is nowhere near as over-the-top as SPv1 was in terms of weapons and gameplay. It looks good and plays well, so I want to applaud CMT so far. Main beefs I have:
-Pistol Model
-Cortana model
-AI

The Bad:

-Seriously fix the alpha channels on A LOT of the textures. The maintenance doors were horrible to look at, bring back the old texture.
-Normals on a lot of the BSP textures look out of place, or over done.
-Pistol just seems silly, I just want the old pistol back.
-The Dharma logo on the back of the SMG really needs to go. Just looks silly.
-Why in the world are the dash readings working on the blown up warthogs? That makes zero sense.
-Just like what everyone else has said, extended parts were long and boring. And it looked like everything was 4x normal size of what they needed to be. The rooms served no purpose, and just over all looked out of place.
-Ladders need to be UV'd the same. In one section the rungs were huge and wide, and then in, what I guess was the bunk rooms, the ladders were small and the rungs were crazy close together.
-Everything in the new area looked boxy and silly. The doors were huge, and the lights looked ridiculous.
-Please fix the textures on Cortana's eyes and hair. She looked great except for those two things.
-Health packs as previously stated.
-Marine/Key's textures need re done, they don't match anything surrounding them.
-Marines are wearing silly hats and not combat armor? Seems silly to me.
-Battles got a little boring after a while. I kept turning corners and going "Great, more grunts and a few more brutes to kill..."
-Double speed powerup needs named, picked it up, saw it's name, was confused, and then thought that my entire system was lagging, even though I was going normal speed. Took me a second or two to see what was going on.
-Battle rifle still has choppy firing sounds, not sure why.
-Sounds still don't match up for when the MC gets out of the cryo pod.

The Good:

-Was fun. I enjoyed running through and playing with new weapons and what not, but I always do.
-Cortana looked great. Finally she matches the entrance textures before she shows up.
-Twisty halls were good.
-Long hallways of the warthog run looked good and gave a good feeling of foreshadowing.
-The Chief biped looks great.

About the Cryo Pod sounds: what you hear is him standing up in the pod. If you have 2.1 or better, you can hear his feet hitting the ground when he gets out.

Basically I agree with Warsaw^ having discussed the level with him while playing via xfire. The AI was entertaining, if strangely retarded, and some of the details were just odd. The drab corridors, the plasma pistol. THat being said I had a LOT of fun playing through it, and I'd probably do it again.

Stuff that stands out for me, good and bad:

• Like Bacon, I got stuck in a dying loop caused by getting stuck right before a checkpoint. Any way to prevent this?
• Plasma pistol needs moar shiny
• I LOVED the new Elites as well as the plasma rifle models- extremely beautiful compared to the older ones
• Nice updated particles
• Marine hands- different LOD mb?
• Chiron was lol, but cool- all the covenant in the area swarmed me and I hid
• The twisted corridors were very cool, as were the warthog tunnels. Much more interesting than the other a10 areas, though I did appreciate having more areas to run around in
• That corrugated tin (?) texture doesn't make sense. I mean, who builds a spaceship out of tin plates? o_o
• I really like the MC model, but I can see what people mean about it looking out of place. That being said, the only time when it was really apparent to me was the end cinematic when he's standing in the doorway. Just looked... odd. I can live with it though- 'tis shiny and epic.

I'd say great job CMT, you made an old map entertaining again. Tweak the weird stuff a bit and it will be even more awesome.

Oh, and wasn't there talk of gravity failing in some parts being OS-related? If I'm just out of touch debate-wise, let me know. Don't want to start another flame war.

Edit: I have a 5.1 system and don't hear his feet hit the floor. Halo doesn't like my (new) card though- no EAX, so idk.

Bad:
- As said about 10 times before, the new BSP's are very dull and lack detail or anything interesting, The places with the marines and the millions of ladders is very blocky and the needed direction isn't very clear at all.
- Brutes, need attack / charge you instead of standing still, and the Brute that is in the room with the sleeping grunts needs to either react to the player being in the room, or be turned with his face towards a way that would allow you to come from behind and kill him
- Ive seen a Marine just run around in a circle as he was getting shot by grunts, and when you see the 2 Elites and brute in the Cryo area, one of the Elites doesn't leave, instead just stands there staring at you
- First Person Hands, not really liking the texture seen on them.
- Animation for the Pistol whack is a bit odd, doesn't look like it would even harm someone if hit with.
- Brute falling animation is also weird, the feet seem to wiggle around before they fall.
- As seen here, two problems are visible. One being the ground having improper lighting, and the other is that the Spiker HAS full ammo but i am told that i need to switch weapons. ( I will check for the improper lighting problem again )
- Hunter's Fuel rod cannon needs work done to it, as it looks very ugly.
- Don't really like the Brutes shields, they look odd
- What ever is done to the Maintenance access ways doesn't really look pretty with the flashlight on. It shouldn't be applied to places where Flashlight is needed.
- Weapon sounds, (AR reloading for example) aren't that great.

Good:
- The part of the level with the destroyed / slanted hallway is very nice
- Spiker is a very good weapon, good for low amounts of punches to kill
- Skipping the Tutorials, Much better as most people playing SPV2 would have already played Halo before thus not needed
- SMG is also a decent weapon, would use it over the AR
- Level is longer, not as short as it used to be

I Generally enjoyed the map, it could have some improvements like the AI or the BSPs.

Found a glitch. If you're reloading a BR's grenade and you pick up (using E) a BR on the ground, you lose the one that you were reloading and the other BR remains on the ground (leaving you with a single weapon).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lon

- As seen here, two problems are visible. One being the ground having improper lighting, and the other is that the Spiker HAS full ammo but i am told that i need to switch weapons. ( I will check for the improper lighting problem again )

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I noticed the same thing. The flashlight illuminates it, but it's dark normally, which is bizarre.

Tried to get through it, realized how much I suck at Halo and I got stuck in a loop where I got a checkpoint while stuck.
Accidentally hit "Quit" right as I was getting to the new BSP, so no comments on the new stuff. Boarding Action, you say? I'll take a look in a bit.
You've heard pretty much everything I have to complain about, so I'll leave it at that.

E: OH, and I was getting CRAPPY framerate, dipping close to unplayable, even when I was optimizing everything using the new CMT Extras menu (THANK YOU FOR THE "CREATE A CHECKPOINT" FEATURE). I'm running an old 2005 laptop with 512 MB of RAM and Windows 7 (which eats up half that RAM just by running), so it might be my computer.

Quick list of problems:

1. The pistol is silenced- there should be no flash of light happening in the environment. Also, the gunshots alert enemies- they shouldn't, for obvious reasons.
Video here.

2. Camouflaged elites seem to have "shields" appearing over their guns sometimes.
http://screenshot.xfire.com/screensh...f88fc0ed6c.jpg

3. The additional sections should have some kind of markings to help direct players a bit better. (Floor arrows, etc.)

4. There shouldn't be random grates/scenery/etc. slapped over the ladders. (How does that make sense in the first place? I know the whole deal with putting the "shields" over the ladders is fine and all, but grates? Seriously?)

5. The Spiker's shaders seem too shiny. Tone it down a bit.

6. Brute shields are ugly; maybe it's just oversized? It does seem a bit too large, almost as if the texture was made to be bigger than it was supposed to be.

7. The Brute's "shuffle" animation to walk/etc. is rather bad. Needs some improvement.

8. The scenery warthogs that are destroyed don't look good, mainly because the suspension isn't visibly "hugging" the ground.

9. The "butt plate" on the Chief model needs some details added to it.

10. The AR is exceptionally weak. I don't know if it was designed that way or not, but it sucks. A lot.


Things to add, maybe:

The whole section with the warthog garages got me itching to get into a Warthog, yet there were none. Perhaps add a brief warthog run, just for fun? (Or maybe even do something with a Mongoose instead.) To reference something jcap mentioned earlier:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jcap

In all honestly, what would have been awesome to see is a small segment of the last level where you can fight in one of those big rooms you drive through at the end of the game. You could cut out maybe 75% of the hallways and then throw in that giant fight scene.

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I agree, and I think some of the larger areas kind of got me hoping I'd see some brief sniping sections, as well. Perhaps using some of the larger sections like jcap says would be neat; a "large scale" battle being waged inside the POA would be an interesting twist to the level.

Additionally, make the covenant AI more varied... some needler grunts or a few jackals would have been a nice twist to it; perhaps even some Jackal snipers, or just Jackals with carbines in a section, would have been nice. There's no reason there wouldn't be some jackals. Generally enough, there should be some weapon variance, as I found it boring to be picking up Brute Plasma Rifles, Plasma Rifles, and spikers only off their corpses.

The laser on the pistol, as stated, looks ridiculous. Please take it off. The firing sound is also overly loud and scratchy, and it alerts enemies when fired, which it shouldn't.

AR firing animation has absolutely no recoil, which just looks silly (though it does seem consistent with the very low power of the weapon).

Enemies with Spikers don't drop enough ammo, considering how quickly it burns through it. Annoying, since it's a fun weapon to use.

I only got lost once in the new areas, but I can't really fault CMT for that. Most of you guys seem to have forgotten that the level design for Halo was shitty and confusing to start with, we've just all memorized the paths by now. If anything, it's surprisingly consistent in that fashion.

SMG should not waste ammo when reloading. It's annoying, stupid, and unnecessary.

The 'Clear Decals' button never seemed to work for me, which was disappointing considering the biggest gripe I had with the whole experience.

What the FUCK.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Warsaw

• The AI is retarded...I massacred a whole room of sleeping grunts and the Brute stood there and watched me do it, and this was at close range too.

---

IIRC, Masterz (or somebody) said that exact brute is set to sleep (like a grunt would). The animation for the brutes sleeping is ironically, the standing fixed pose. The only way to make him wake up is if you try to shoot something near him (and i mean near him, like insanely close to him) or just shoot him

lol

Forgot to mention this bug (possible game breaker?): Certain loading zones can make all enemies disappear. I accidentally alerted a room full of grunts, backpedaled past a loading zone, and they all disappeared.


Oh yeah: did I mention GALLONS AND GALLONS of blood?

At the end of the twisted hallway, you need to raise the trigger volume that switches the bsps. I went through "jumping" and the following part didn't load. When I went back and walked through it it did.

Alright, finished it.

I actually enjoyed most of it, especially the warthog bsp sections. Alot of the parts really keep you on your toes the entire time. I died once on heroic, but it was challenging.

Handy list of pros and cons:
Pros:
-Keeps you on your toes the entire time
-The encounters were, in general, decently planned out
-Fun new weapons, though I stuck to the human ones the entire time (cause I'm badass like that)
-I also didn't really notice this "lack of polish" many of you have described, apart from the minor things I mention below

Cons:
-Sometimes you could see the ai being placed, and sometimes the ai hadn't yet engaged each other when you arrived, even though they're looking at each other
-I really don't like the AR, it just feels tacky and cartoonish (I absolutely love the SMG though, I used BRG + SMG most of the time)
-Lack of music in certain parts that could have used them
-Sometimes I believe you placed too much grunts or camo elites to be believable, though the grunts are very fun to kill with
grenades + SMG, oh how I adore the SMG
-Silenced pistol is okay, but as said before, sounds a bit too loud, and I don't like the laser

Pros:

• Even though it's fairly obvious when you enter a new BSP, none of them really seem out of place(though a bit more purpose for each area would be nice), new areas keep the feel of old ones and don't seem as out of place as I thought they would.
• Enemy textures are very well done, most of my deaths were from being distracted by how nice they looked(dunno if that's really a pro :raise:), especially the Elites.
• Ditto on the above, but substitute "Enemy" with "Weapon".

Cons:

• Not entirely fond of blood effects, even there was only half as much it'd be considerably less jarring.
• Some of the weapon animations are noticeably... off. Little things mostly, like the spiker having barely any kick, and the pistol melee.
• On the subject of the pistol, laser effect is misaligned, and lasers aren't usually visible like that. Maybe just project a red dot onto the target?
• What exactly is up with the marines? Their faces have some very grey shading, and it doesn't look natural. Also the wrists seem very thin, possibly a rigging issue?

I havnt finsished it yet, but I kept on spawning infront of a brutes fist Lol, I had to melee quick before I died. Then I had to run because two hunters where inches away from me and I had no sheild lmao. But that was just a bad place to die.

I did notice one thing though, after you finish talking to keys when the screen comes out of being white, all you can see are keys balls in your face. Because for some reason he is standing on some invisible box, didnt get a image sorry.

The spikers melee felt incredibly fast and strong, I played through it on heroic and I beat down that group of 3 brutes that spawn towards the twisted tunnels (or thereabouts) with it. Then again that may have just been the fact that I haven't used melee to kill anyone in a long time.

The plasma pistol looks like ass.
The pistol doesn't...feel right. It feels blocky, almost like firing the shotgun.

The twisted tunnel was absolutely mind bending :awesome: and overall it was pretty good. Incomplete (well duh, it's a beta) but good nevertheless.


Also, did il Duce Primo make that bulletin board just as you go into and out of the bridge? The one about the last beta leak? (the red letters)

• The first entirely custom room, the ladders in it aren't tall enough or something... you can't just walk up the ladder and get to the top of the platform, you have to crouch or jump at the right time which is just weird.
• Brutes bleed more than any creature ever should. scale their blood decals down just about 5X 'cause there was a few times that I'd shoot ONE brute and the entire floor of the room would be covered with purple.
• The slowmotion powerup thinger... have some sort of screen overlay to let us know what's going on. I was about to post in here saying the marine's animations were all slowed down and I was confused. Put some sort of overlay... or a soft ticking (clock) sound to let us know that we have altered time.
• There's displays of Halo near a sphere with a big red line squiggly line going across it, they look like they should be like LCD displays, but they have a bump map on the screen that goes with the design on the screen....
• The death animation for the brutes is horrible. They lose any illusion of weight when their feet start sliding around while they are dieing.
• A few of the flaming warthogs are floating. Their OMG IM ON FIRE effect thing looks more like they have a flame thrower attached to them than having them actually be on fire.
• There's a weird metal texture that you use a lot throughout the level that just looks bad. It has verticle lines going up and down it and looks like it's supposed to be some sort of corrigated metal which just doesn't fit in at all with the rest of the POA's theme.
• The part of the tunnel that's broken and twisted... make the entrance to it look broken. When I first got in there I thought it was just bad modeling, rather than it being broken. add broken chunks of metal and such to the area.
• The Chiron area (first part, dunno if there's more than one) felt horribly unbalanced. I was playing on Normal and a ton of guys kept rushing that area rather than staying in their zone until I came along which lead to a bunch of people all in one spot, then nobody for a while.
• This is my last one for now, but it's a HUGE one. I gotta get going... haven't completed the level yet but... MUSIC. I don't care where you get it from but put some music in there throughout, when we're running around in silence aside from our footsteps and such it makes us feel like we're going the wrong way. Bungie used music to guide us and say "Yea, you're in the right area, keep going." by chiming it in when we're doing something right haha.

Overall it looks pretty neat, some of the custom environments needs some more population to them so they're not just big open spaces but at the same time it changes the gameplay a lot to give you something fresh.

Played through it all on Heroic , died alot , had no graphical problems , had a problem when i was trying to fraps stuff , on the original BSP it kept freezing up for some reason , but when it got to the new BSP it did no such thing.

The vast majority of the new BSP i felt was not needed , Bungie made that level short in the original because it was essentially a tutorial level to get you used to the controls , staying in an enviroment for any longer than what was done originally made it seem boring , too long , and the enviroment did not seen to be constant in style , the boarding action and chirion style sections had me thinking wtf is up here most of the time.

The sections i did like in the new BSP where the hog bay sections and the twisted sections that go up and down , apart from that , the rest i thought was too shoddy to keep my interest.

The AI is easily slaughtered because they drop that many nades you can just nade spam your way through the entire level , the pistol has no zoom which made me sad , the smg seems to be a waste of a pick up , the speed power up made everything look very jerky on screen when activated , and i found that most of the encouters are actually the same ones as in the original BSP just in reverse , like for instance the stair well sections , original = Covie : Top , Human : Bottom , but when you go further on its switched around which did not bring anything new to the table , just basically made the masacre easier because i did not have to worry about hitting stuff on the roof with stray bullets or nades , i just threw the nades down the stairs and watched the enemys struggle to avoid them.

In all , i enjoyed the new content like the characters , some of the weapons , and of course the new chief model, but the BSP i just found too boring :(

• You can't crouch with the hunter gun
• Cortana repeats lines as you escape in the pod
• Marines don't follow you, so you get no help for most of the level
• Floor needs arrows or something
• Lots of empty space
• No music
• When you need new brg ammo, you have to pick up a new battle rifle
• Sometimes the plasma pistol overcharged particle doesn't appear in first person

There was one point where I was tagged with a nade by a brute, and the game decided to save. BETTER YET, it decided to save again after I died. So i was kinda stuck in 'death' position. Due to the ai throwing nades so often, it is almost inevitable something like that will happen more often. So in CMT extras could you add something like "go back 2 Checkpoints" or something?Oh ho

oh how could I forget? http://www.xfire.com/screenshots/dazerl/

In there you will see bugs (such as portalling problems) etc, and some other things

• New BSPs are, with few exceptions, either too boring or too irritating (specifically, easy to get lost and horribly dark lighting in some parts) for me to have any fun.
  
• We need the armored marines back. If tagspace is no longer an issue, we can afford to have them and the crewmen be separate bipeds.
  
• Hunter cannon needs a serious battery cap. It's an absolute rapist of a weapon, and you can keep using it for an incredibly long time.
  
• Hunter cannon's melee has the damage occur before it should. You also cannot couch while holding it.
  
• All of the grate textures are messed up in some way. They're either horrendously ugly or missing their alpha entirely. (See the maintenance doors).
  
• Most textures in fact look ugly to me. I would rather revert to the original (yes, original H1 campaign) textures to be honest. I know we're trying to be all "new everything," but we are not doing it right. Tons of bumpmaps are overdone, some textures don't fit period, and some just look ODD. (Ex : the screen in the opening cutscene with "unseal the hushed casket").
  
• Flashlight needs its power upped. Seriously.
  
• We need background sound on the new BSPs and we need music in the new encounters. It feels like a chore to fight them without anything in the background.
  
• In general though, they feel like a chore to fight. There is nothing to break up the elite-grunt-brute repetition except like 3 or 4 stealth elite or hunter fights. I don't know how to fix this. I get the feeling that the level has become too long for its own good.
  
• The damaged BSP really makes no sense to me, even though it was probably the most fun of all of them. I have no problem with keeping it, but then we NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED better lighting. I cannot see shit, and it's not good gameplay to make the player have to keep on their flashlight or charge up a PP just to see if they're walking against a wall. Even just small emergency lights running parallel to the rout you're supposed to take would be fine.
  
• Chiron BSP needs to go, or get a massive makeover. It is unbearably boxy and bland, and completely clashes with the other BSPs' style.
  
• I know I've told you this many times, Masterz, but it is impossible to tell where you are supposed to go. Even a navpoint would be fine. I'd rather have a navpoint in every section than have to wonder which way I'm supposed to turn in some of the new sections.
  
• One of the marines looks like he has a major case of liver failure. The face is tinted a very odd-looking yellow/orange.
  
• The Halo is tinted an odd green and does not "spin." I don't remember if a10 uses an animated ring or if it's shader scrolling, but this needs to be fixed. It's small things like this that totally break immersion and make this look low-quality. The self-illum also flashes on and off, when it should be constant.
  
• I don't know how, but we need to re-work brutes. I don't care what's involved in that. Make small-arms reflect off their shields and do minimal damage maybe? Something needs to be done. As we stand, this is what we have. I know we've talked together about ways to make them have all sorts of crazy shield systems with armor falling off and all that... I think there are better things that we can do.
  
• There should be some way to lead a player to health packs. They're there, but just lying on the ground with nothing to really indicate their presence. I'd suggest putting a dead marine or something by them so they can more easily catch the player's eye.
  
• Why are there sleeping grunts? Why are the grunts asleep only ~30 minutes after they've landed on the ship they're trying to attack?

Here's some feedback from me.

• Loved the new BSP(Though it kinda made the level a bit longer than it should)
• The hunter FRG was fun to use(Though, I couldn't crouch with it)
• The new Master Chief Biped is a lot cleaner and more detailed
• I felt the plasma pistol was a bit overpowered
• The blood decals somewhat hurt my framerate, in some places the room was simply filled with blood

I had a couple bugs here and there as well.

Also, too many spec op elites

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dwood

There was one point where I was tagged with a nade by a brute, and the game decided to save. BETTER YET, it decided to save again after I died. So i was kinda stuck in 'death' position. Due to the ai throwing nades so often, it is almost inevitable something like that will happen more often. So in CMT extras could you add something like "go back 2 Checkpoints" or something?Oh ho

oh how could I forget? http://www.xfire.com/screenshots/dazerl/

In there you will see bugs (such as portalling problems) etc, and some other things

---

I had the same problem, it was about to revert to the last checkpoint when it saved another one and I had to restart. Can't you make the script check to see if the player is alive or not before it saves?

-Brute has alot of blood for some reason (probably mentioned by alot of people by now)
-I can't crouch with the hunter gun :( (not sure if that's a bug)
-When your walking around the "broken" part of the ship, where you're going a bit downhill, it's a tad bit too dark, but before that event, i couldn't get the door to open, eventually when i loaded the last checkpoint it did...
-The level design is really nice, and chirlon or however you spell it, was pretty big, would be nice if their was some kind of vehicle encounter...
-the hands of the marines in the beginning was, thin... and meh...
-I really can't find any "soldier" marines, did you guys take those out?

Oh, and when im walking around the pillar of autumn, there's like, no Music, seems a bit blank with just Keys talking over the loud speaker... :(

Your guys play with your gamma to low, I had no problem seeing the walls in the destroyed part.

is it the old Cortana in the pb, or the new one?
Also, fuel rod guns are unduckable.

Fuel rod guns are fugly.
Also, so are bumpmaps

In comes Ross with his design-related whinges (rather than gameplay issues or glitches)!

• Why the fuck are Marines controlling the ship? What was wrong with naval officers doing the job? What sense does it make to have ground troops in full clobber sitting around the bridge when someone who can't shoot worth crap or isn't fit to fight on the ground can do it?
• The redone wall and floor textures look shithouse, just putting this out there
• Might want to check the noticeboard over, I gave it a quick once-over and spotted at least one pretty glaring error.
• The Brutes are fucking pointless. They're barely any different in behaviour, strength or whatnot to Elites. I get that the fanboys will be crawling over each other for shiny things, but seriously, make them worthwhile for those of us with brains.
• Everything is jittery as fuck when the speed-changer powerup is in effect. It looks bad and is annoying. Don't say it's my framerate because it's in the hundreds.
• The laser on the pistol is stupid. You don't see laser beams in real life unless they're passing through something they can reflect off like dust or smoke. Straight red lines coming out of models are horrible, if anything make it place a red spot an inch or two across (game scale) on whatever surface, like the flashlight. If that's not possible, just ditch the thing. It looks awful.
• Who had the bright fucking idea of putting a whole shitload of cloaked Elites in the lifepod docking area? Nice pacing and difficulty curve, guys!
• The Hunter cannon is pretty well useless as a weapon. In the time it takes to charge, fire, and fire again, you can drop a Brute with half a mag of AR and a few whacks upside the head.
• More cloaked Elites past the cryo area? Are you guys fucking insane?
• I love the way some Brutes gush gallon after gallon of blood when hit
• Can anyone enlighten me as to the purpose of the new BSP areas, other than to show you can do it? They do practically nothing bar extend the level and they're bland as fuck. Now I know the original PoA was no entrant in the 'complex and detailed levels that will blow your mind' contest, but the new area is even plainer. It's like I stepped through a wormhole back to the early days of 3D gaming.
• The Brute guarding the room full of sleeping Grunts is apparently blind and deaf. I approached him from his front right and he didn't see me at all. I just walked around him and socked him one in the spine. Wow. What a challenge!
• If you want to give the player a hard time, don't put 5 fucking Elites or Brutes in the one area, with very little cover for the player. Give them something that takes brains to win, not a mixture of luck and hosing downrange.
• I'm up to the elevator. This has gone from repetitive to tedious.
• The twisted section: holy living fuck! Variety! Originality! The only part of the new section which is actually worth the space it takes up!
• Another staircase? Fuck off.
• Crew quarters: hooray! Another piece of originality! It looks pretty shitty, but the inspiration was there, at least!
• FUCKING FINALLY!

Overall? Underwhelming, and not worth the hype by any stretch. It's a decent demo of what can be done with CE and the effects, new character and weapon models/skins were pretty good, but the fact some things were nice and detailed (Elites, MC) and others weren't (Grunts, Marines) and those two groups appear together really makes everything look pretty shoddy.

I appreciate the work that went into this, but to be entirely honest, I'd say a LOT of it was misdirected. Instead of bringing the other characters up to the same level or making the Brutes actually DIFFERENT to fight, you guys wasted time tacking a pointless section on just to stretch the level out. It was a perfect length in the original game. Any longer gets boring. This had me wishing it would end, and that's not good at all considering I'm usually pretty patient (hell, I actually finished Combine Destiny, and that was about four or five hours of copy-pasted bullshit).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by teh lag

• New BSPs are, with few exceptions, either too boring or too irritating (specifically, easy to get lost and horribly dark lighting in some parts) for me to have any fun.

I didn't get lost too bad. That spot in "A Whole new world" needs work though. Perhaps place a marker so you know where you're going?

• We need the armored marines back. If tagspace is no longer an issue, we can afford to have them and the crewmen be separate bipeds.

I didn't notice that too much.

• Hunter cannon needs a serious battery cap. It's an absolute rapist of a weapon, and you can keep using it for an incredibly long time.

What Difficulty were you playing on? Not only that, but It's the only powerful weapon you'll get the whole way through.

• All of the grate textures are messed up in some way. They're either horrendously ugly or missing their alpha entirely. (See the maintenance doors).

Replace Grates with Plasma shields?

• Most textures in fact look ugly to me. I would rather revert to the original (yes, original H1 campaign) textures to be honest. I know we're trying to be all "new everything," but we are not doing it right. Tons of bumpmaps are overdone, some textures don't fit period, and some just look ODD. (Ex : the screen in the opening cutscene with "unseal the hushed casket").

I like the textures except for certain parts. Especially the bump mapping. :|

• Flashlight needs its power upped. Seriously.

//agree

• In general though, they feel like a chore to fight. There is nothing to break up the elite-grunt-brute repetition except like 3 or 4 stealth elite or hunter fights. I don't know how to fix this. I get the feeling that the level has become too long for its own good.

I disagree, to a degree. Sure it does get repetitive but it isn't THAT bad. It gets a lot easier after the first time through. What IS annoying is that the brutes throw nade so much it's almost as if we're being naded more than they are shooting us. Try making them either weaker or spread the brutes out a bit. no more than two or three in an area. But please DO decrease the nade spamming either way.

• The damaged BSP really makes no sense to me, even though it was probably the most fun of all of them. I have no problem with keeping it, but then we NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED better lighting. I cannot see , and it's not good gameplay to make the player have to keep on their flashlight or charge up a PP just to see if they're walking against a wall. Even just small emergency lights running parallel to the rout you're supposed to take would be fine.

I didn't think it was that bad. We need moar damaged areas to make that one area flow better then.

• Chiron BSP needs to go, or get a massive makeover. It is unbearably boxy and bland, and completely clashes with the other BSPs' style.

Truedat.

• I know I've told you this many times, Masterz, but it is impossible to tell where you are supposed to go. Even a navpoint would be fine. I'd rather have a navpoint in every section than have to wonder which way I'm supposed to turn in some of the new sections.

How about a navpoint if you don't get to where you're supposed to be in the right amount of time. Like if you don't hit a Volume Trigger in, say 5 minutes, a nice little nav pops up.

• I don't know how, but we need to re-work brutes. I don't care what's involved in that. Make small-arms reflect off their shields and do minimal damage maybe? Something needs to be done. As we stand, this is what we have. I know we've talked together about ways to make them have all sorts of crazy shield systems with armor falling off and all that... I think there are better things that we can do.

Yeah there are some funky things going on with those Shields... that needs to be changed.

• Why are there sleeping grunts? Why are the grunts asleep only ~30 minutes after they've landed on the ship they're trying to attack?

Especially RIGHT after you just killed like 20 enemies in the room above it.

---

. //Commentary\\ I heard women love the bold.

When I first played the beta which was around noon I thought it was kind of dissapointing. The reason I say this is because, I suck at Halo but I was still able to run rampant through enemy forces like they were a bunch of little girls. Even on legendary it feels like Im playing on (what should be) normal. I was easily lost among some of the new BSPs and got stuck where all the Brutes and Grunts all seemed to be frozen in place for some odd reason. I tried to walk past them but this wall with "arteen" written all over it blocked my way. So I finally figured I needed to kill all the frozen enemies to get past. But that is acceptable because it is afterall a public beta, I dont expect it to be perfect.

Pros:

• New weapons!
• Newly skinned elites!
• New BSP!
• New enemy!
• New Chief biped in action
• Great Flycam!

Cons:

• Seemed somewhat drawn out and repetitive
• Easy
• dissapointing
• CMT extras did not work properly :saddowns:
• Had trouble climbing ladders?
• Marines just seemed like different variations of the same person.

Overall this public beta was pretty good but still needs alot of work in order to be perfect. I know that some of the things that I've listed are being fixed or have already been fixed, but I can't help the feeling that this public beta was snap decision sort of thing and not really planned.
Before I end I want to thank CMT for all their hard work and effort twoards this wonderful mod, and to keep up the good work.

I found that if you run straight at the brutes their aim is way off, their shooting too much to the left instead of at you. It doesn't happen too often but it did happen a couple times for me.

I agree there are too many hallways that are pitch black. Maybe have some with some lights in them that aren't red.

Like it was said, some of the ladders are fairly difficult to climb up and get to the top. I had to crouch jump at the top of a lot of them. You should make them go at an angle near the top.

I believe the point behind those tricky ladders was to keep you from going up them, since there isn't anything at the top. Some have jarringly placed scenery at the top, whereas others stop short. Both of the cases need to be addressed.

Yeah, that's probably right. I thought that's where I was supposed to go, so I managed to get on top. :P

Zipped through it.

Cons (the things other people probably didn't notice or had an issue)

- When you have the spiker in hand and there's another spiker in pick-up Range, and although you pickup the ammo, it still asks you if you want to pick up the OTHER spiker.

- Everyone else named off the other issues, I've noticed most of them.

- I found one weird part where bump maps integrated with what looked to be the LCD panel showing the pillar of autumn having made a long jump through sub-space. I can post a picture later on today.

Logic Bomb Here:
Why are grunts/brutes sleeping when they're invading due to the fact that they don't want any humans to get on that ring?

Other than this,
Overall a very enjoyable experience.

Thank You so much. :) Hope to here/see your feedback toward ours.

For all of you guys saying problems about the doublespeed powerup, it's not CMT's or your computers fault.

I was sure you already knew of this, but the Double Speed powerup is a BETA powerup, you never see it at all in the original. You were never supposed to use it.

Loved everything, but the level did drag on a bit and confusing sometimes. Brutes should have less health, they were a nightmare to deal with. More human equipment as well plz :)

Shit that sucked:

• Chiron sections
  
  No flow of direction (usually you get some idea of where to go)
  
  CHIRON SECTIONS

Shit that doesn't make sense:

• Twisted hallways: Is the POA actually very hollow or something? I don't see how a section of a ship could just collapse like that.
  
  Pistol ready sound: Clearly doesn't match the animation

Yeah, I forgot the rest.

Double speed worked perfectly for me (except the string "picked up M6C Magnum"). It didn't make the gameplay jittery but served its purpose. It should be kept in game since it is a huge help in higher difficulties when the covenant throw grenades at me.

I can't post any gripes about the visuals in-game, because I'm still running an integrated card without shaders. The current textures are probably as good as they will get for me in a longgg time.

The Good:
- The SMG, fuck yeah. It looks great and it kicks ass too. The only thing missing here was probably the sound. Did you guys stick with the Halo 2 SMG firing noise or the one from Halo 3?
- The Assault Rifle was very well done. The gun-metal texture had a nice sheen to it and the bits and places where the black skin was torn off to reveal the metal underneath made the gun look authentic. In addition, I really like the ammo counter display that you kept from previous builds, and contrary to some other reactions, I think you should keep the animations for it. Some people have suggested that you go back to the gorilla swing melee from SPv1, but I think that'd be pointless seeing how the assault rifle isn't that big of a gun. That would be more like the gun butt wrinkling because of such force.
- BRG fixed: no more shooting while reloading the launcher.
- Very aggressive hunters.
- I chuckled a little inside when I noticed Chiron and The Maw later in the level. Nice mix-up.
- The Spiker is perfect, nothing to change about it except more available ammo.
- Very smooth reload animations for pretty much all the human guns.
- CMT extras was a VERY good idea.

The Bad:
- The pistol melee. He's basically twisting his arm, and it doesn't even extend. It might be inconvenient but I would try a variation of a pistol whip where the arm comes swinging downward. Otherwise, I actually liked the pistol, the silencer, and even the sound (the issue with the sound alerting enemies should probably be fixed.)
- The sound was off for many of the guns. I was especially disappointed with the firing sound used for the SMG (should've used the kickass Halo 3 version... Or am I not noticing it's already being used?) and the Battle Rifle (it's just choppy and it almost sounds like it was recorded off a youtube video of some MLG play or something.)
- The power is way off for the MA5C. The 32 round clip should be enough to leave the enemy brute one melee away from death. It's like you guys improved the accuracy, but reduced the clip size in half and reduced the damage of the projectiles along with it. Was this intended? The SMG on the other hand, has no problem dealing death.
- Brute AI could definitely have some better reactions, although there were some really intense moments when I faced maybe a group of 3 brutes in the same room. On the other hand, Elite AI seems to react very well to shots fired and they strafe a lot more than they used to.
- I'm guessing it was mainly an issue with the trigger volumes, but at one point I entered a room where 3 brutes and a grunt were basically frozen with their bipeds arms raised like they've been loaded by the game but somehow stuck in that time frame, right after the section with the twisted corridor. It was like the game activated devmode's time freeze. After that, the "Arteen" bay door wouldn't open. I guess this loading issue also applies partly to the slow reaction for the Brute AI.
- This was already mentioned before, but climbing ladders is very difficult, and at the very top of the ladder, you have to continuously jump to land on the top or you would rapidly fall to the floor.
- Slightly repetitive level design, but this is expected because most people already rated the Pillar of Autumn the most tedious out of all the campaign levels. I like the effort you guys made trying to add some strategy into the gameplay, but some of it was blatantly obvious and linear, like in between the warthog cubbies, there was a big square room with two brutes, with just two scenery placements of destroyed warthogs to provide cover smack in the middle of the room.
- Aiming is off for some of the AI, especially when you go up-close.
- Not very important, but there are a few issues with strings. Picking up M6C pistol ammo shows that you picked up an "Elite Plasma Rifle."

I can't comment on the new Chief biped because for some reason all my shader-less card does is show him as a bunch of stretched verts and textures, with a visible visor. That's not even an issue with your mod.

Guys, I've gotta say, I'm pretty dissapointed. I'm not trying to flame or insult you guys, but I've played all of CMT's multiplayer maps, and I was absolutely blown away. The simple amount of work on the textures and lighting alone made the maps look absolutely gorgeous. That having been said, playing this, I didn't see any of those nice, shiny textures, except for maybe on the POA's doors. As for the weapon textures, yes, I UNDERSTAND IT'S BETA, but would it have been that difficult to take the weapons from your multiplayer maps and put them in this one(ie: the battle rifle)? As for the brutes, while I was impressed with the models and the movement, some new sound files would have been nice-they sounded just like elites. Is there a list somewhere of what remains to be added to the beta?

- Some of the cutscene in the begining skipped and then jumped to another part.
- Whenever I died it lagged for two seconds, then showed death animation. It was like it froze.
- Didn't finish the whole thing yet, so can't completely comment on the new areas.
- The Ai encounters were pretty boring/annoying, because it'd either be a stack of grunts, a stack with two elites mixed in, or just full elites or brutes. It needs more flavor.
- I was playing on Normal, and it felt like heroic because of how fast my shields went down with brute plasma rifles. But when I try killing them it's twice the effort.
- The brute blood is too much. They just spew out way to much. I fought two of them and my computer lagged from all of the blood spatters.

And that's about it for now.

I'm probably repeating some stuff, but hey, might as well get it into your skulls :)

Cons :
- Many of the new BSPs have a lot of empty spaces with no enemies. I found myself walking around with nothing interesting to look at/shoot quite too many times, for too long.
- There should be a bit more variety in the type of enemies. Put some Jackals in there, maybe a few Elites with swords. Hell, why not put in some Brutes with swords? :P
- The Assault Rifle sucks. The SMG beats it in many ways, and the way things are now, I'd never use the AR.
- When the Covenant are looking at the cryo pod, the Brute is just sitting there, looking at you (or at the wall) when the others are shooting at you.
- Needs more musics.
- Brutes need to charge at you more, or be different than just bullet sponges. They also need to be a bit tougher to kill I find (playing on Heroic)
- Make the Chiron area look a bit more useful. As of now, it doesn't seem to have a specific role. Maybe add some things that would make it look like a part of engineering?
- Plasma Pistol skin, not much else to say :P
- Lack of ammo and healthpacks. I found myself out of SMG ammo too many times to count.
- Marines aren't too too useful, but I guess they're too busy going around and guarding where they are, so it makes sense.
- The regular Plasma Rifle's projectile colour doesn't match the colour of the gun itself, contrary to the Brute Plasma Rifle. It'd look better if the plasma was a darker blue, similar to in Halo 3.
- The Flycam in the CMT extras doesn't seem to want to work properly.
- Brutes never melee, which is something that they quite excel at, maybe you could add that in?

Pros :
-Weapons and new enemies are just beautiful
- New BSPs are creative and fun to play in
- The Covenant weapons are actually worth using now, and I'm actually inspired to do so.
- First time a Brute used a frag against me, I was surprised, but in a good way.
- Destroyed hallways are amazing, really gave this confused vertigo kind of feeling
- Sleeping quarters, what a creative idea
- Red armored Brutes. When I saw that they were taken out of Halo 3, I was really disappointed, but now you made me happy :)

Again, I know that this is still a Beta, and that there are still some things that need to be put into the mod, but keep up the great work, it's definitely been worth the wait so far.

EDIT : Added a bit more to the cons.

Ok, maybe I just fail at Halo 1, but I want to throw out there that I had major issues staying alive in some areas. Examples are the boarding action area, with lots of brutes and elites in the big floor area, and the place with 3 or 4 brutes shooting through the grates down at other crew members. I had to hide behind that big pillar, and run back and forth hoping they wouldn't stick me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Siliconmaster482

Ok, maybe I just fail at Halo 1, but I want to throw out there that I had major issues staying alive in some areas. Examples are the boarding action area, with lots of brutes and elites in the big floor area, and the place with 3 or 4 brutes shooting through the grates down at other crew members. I had to hide behind that big pillar, and run back and forth hoping they wouldn't stick me.

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What difficulty were you playing on?

Here are my likes:

• MC armor was amazing. Great job on it.
• Pistol firing sounds are great. Sounds beefy.
• Over all the fights are much more challenging and difficult
• Brutes armor falls off after a bit of damage is done like in Halo 3. Shat bricks when that happened.
• Textures are very well done. I like the elites armor. Brutes are pretty good. Grunts looked the same :\
• Much more complete feel over SPv1. SPv1 had way too many weapons to choose from, most of them felt clunky and left me wishing I had the regular weapons.

Dislikes:

• What the hell is up with the new areas in this map? I mean the whole purpose of the first level is to gtfo the ship and save the AI, not goof around in the ship. Other maps I can see expanding the fights but this level it just does not feel right. Also getting lost in the new area for about 10 mins was pretty annoying.
• Having the SMG / Spiker dispose of ammo left over in the clip when reloaded. I hated this in the multiplayer maps.
• No music / sounds of the ship being hit by covi when you are in the new areas.
• Marines / grunts still have the old textures. (Not a big issue but looks bad when everything else is nice looking)
• Lots of running out of human weapon ammo.
• Over all meleeing felt clunky and slow. I missed a lot of melees to enemies.
• Brutes are too easy to kill and pose hardly any threat. They just stood there and took it up the ass.
• Vista / Windows 7 does not like decals.

Over all I liked it though. It was enjoyable and a big improvement over SPv1.

What in the world is all this about vista and windows 7 not liking decals? Everything ran just fine for me.

Vista and 7 hates the 8 series. Keep up the feedback guys, we've already changed a number of things requested in this thread.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BobtheGreatII

What difficulty were you playing on?

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Via P0lar's Library UI, Heroic. Idk. There were a lot of easy sections, and then some why the hell do I keep dying? ones. And I kept getting stuck (with grenades). Again. And again. And again. Lol. I've made it through the whole vanilla game on Legendary, so who know.s Maybe I've just gotten a lot worse since then.

Just some things I forgot to mention previously:

The Chiron Section's textures are way too big. Scale the tiling or whatever down, it looks terrible, and horribly off-scale.

Also, if you intend to keep it at such a large scale, add some engineering elements into it, like what Hotrod mentioned. (Maybe some generators and catwalks, etc.? Something to put all that vertical height and room to use, I think, would be a good idea.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 117

Just some things I forgot to mention previously:

The Chiron Section's textures are way too big. Scale the tiling or whatever down, it looks terrible, and horribly off-scale.

Also, if you intend to keep it at such a large scale, add some engineering elements into it, like what Hotrod mentioned. (Maybe some generators and catwalks, etc.? Something to put all that vertical height and room to use, I think, would be a good idea.)

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I agree. Running around an engineering-type area would be pretty cool. Of course, we go to Engineering in d40, but it would still be a nice design style. More of an "ooh, this is cool" feeling than an "oh god huge boring room enemies shit" feeling. :P

Played it through again on Heroic this time (it was extremely smooth on Normal, btw), so I could get the grenade experience everyone else is having.

Addendum:

• Make less electric arcs for plasma explosions, it's too busy...there isn't enough plasma fire in the explosions either, add more of that. The plasma grenades don't flame like they used to (it's just a blue fuzzy spider now), they don't increase in brightness as in CMT SPv1 or H2CE (dunno if that is intentional).
• Fix SMG ammo counting...I want to use it more but I restrain myself because I'll end up reloading a partially full magasine on instinct, wasting that ammo.
• Something is up with the dynamic lighting. In the service corridors, there are bright segments, but no visible light source. Needs fixing.
• The grenades from the Brutes are a nice challenge, don't change that.
• Overcharge bolt on the Plasma Pistol is too slow; either give it better tracking or double its travel speed to fix it.
• Plasma Pistol reticle is squished...there should be a 120 degree arc between the centre of each hair...Halo 3 screwed it up and ruined it, and it isn't something worth copying in the mod.
• Increase RoF on the Brute Plasma Rifle.
• At the top of the lift, perhaps have some Covenant (not too many, two brutes or one elite and some grunts) right there engaging some marines. As it is, it's too quiet.

• give the POA engines a slight purple tint, it might look cool
• hide some rarer weapons off the main path
• brute shield looks odd still
• talk to me about the fire
• AR looks really big in the hands of marines, not sure if this is normal
• in the boarding action area, there needs to be more lighting local to the paths the player takes, as the whole room seems to be lit from a few lights alone
• make it easier to see where to go in the boarding action area; use lighting and scenery
• the custom bsps need music and ambient sounds
• the chiron area looks boring, add more scenery and lighting in the red teleporter areas
• in the warthog run sections, the red light is coming from nowhere. add some glowing red strips
• the elite and brute gibs look stupid
• SMG slightly overpowered
• i still hate the damage direction indicators :-3
• add some fire for light in the bent/crooked warthog run hallway areas; they're too dark
• the elevator isn't smooth, and theres no door closing behind you...it just takes off the moment you step in
• the bsp at the end of the long upward service hallway didn't load the first time, only after venturing backwards a ways then returning

Elevator was smooth for me man, don't know what you're referring to there; it does take off too fast though.

-Very high lag in some of the custom areas.
-Custom areas became very labrynth-y (moreso than the level already is) and frustrating at times
-The specular/bump you have applied to the speckled metal texture (the one on all of the supports) looks worse than the original.
-A couple of the custom areas had some reallllyyy ugly geometry
-Reduce the rates Brutes throw grenades, holy shit. I saw one throw two in quick succession. And every brute having 4 plasmas/ throwing infinity frags is annoying.
-Pistol looks cool, but the laser has a really weird origin/direction

The grenades force you to get up in their face and take them down personally. Otherwise, you hide behind cover and peck at them. The grenades force you to mix it up a little bit which keeps it interesting.

Okay well here goes everything. EDIT: I might continue to update my list /longpost
This could take a while to read (my apologies for the lengthy list)…The following are just my opinions and possible suggestions after running through the map numerous times yesterday and today. Not everything is a big problem and will influence the player that much. The decision is up to the team to change what the community noticed.

Easy difficulty: The level would be completed quite fast. Grunts are well, the usual. Elites aren’t very tough. Brutes are reminiscent of bullet sponges that Bungie reminded us of from Halo 2. There are less AI and the player seems to have some sense of satisfaction after beating the level on Easy, but will probably play again on a higher difficulty later.

Normal difficulty: Maybe the AI could throw a few grenades in normal. It feels pretty bland as the Covenant just relentlessly shoot me with plasma and molten slag. The level would feel more “normal” if I, the player, was forced to find some cover or strafe from a grenade or two [but not grenade spam]. A few more encounters, and more numbers of Covenant troops, nothing is that different from Easy.

Heroic difficulty: As stated in the readme (or somewhere I read), you get the most out of the level and hopefully the entire campaign by playing on Heroic. I testify that statement because the Elites, grunts, and brutes actually throw grenades at you and the whole game play seems more realistic, or in other words, balanced. AI encounters in the new BSPs finally gave a new meaning to the level but most of the new BSPs were still quite boring and there was unnecessary emptiness in a few hallways and corners. I enjoyed the level the most on Heroic.

Legendary difficulty: This is significantly harder than heroic, hence the term legendary. To actually beat the level, I was forced to resort to plasma pistol and battle rifle combo for the majority of the map. I got grenades spammed at me (and I was happy to reciprocate in kind taking advantage of the grenades on the floor) and my progress through the level slowed to the speed akin to crawling (since I had to backtrack, constantly find cover, dodge, and reload). It’s really hard to perform a speed run on legendary…but then the player misses out on the gameplay and works.

AI
• Crew Members/Marines: They seem to block me when I’m trying to get out of tight places and they just keep on running and then I get stuck by a plasma grenade and I am forced back to the most recent checkpoint (thanks for the “create a checkpoint” in the extras). I hope you can change something in how they act and well, they aren’t very good at dodging and rolling away at grenades (they weren’t anything more than body shields and bait on legendary, though they were of some help on difficulties below legendary). I would be glad if there were some who carried battle rifles because without it’s what I usually carry (with the carbine missing from this level) and the marines could score some headshots.

• Grunts: Not the new models, since the team wants them to be a surprise for the community later this year (or whenever the mod is released). Grunts really need to carry something besides plasma pistols in this level…something that needs to be emphasized is that the level needs more variety; maybe you could make the grunts carry needlers and plasma rifles too. They are sometimes really clumsy at throwing grenades (which tips the favor towards me on heroic/legendary), a grunt stuck an elite and took out half the room so I missed out on the fighting intended there. I like the grunt blood right now. The grunts almost replace the jackals in this level because of how they charge their plasma pistols. On higher difficulties, I would have to use some dodging and strategy rather than shooting like a mindless zombie.

• Elites: Their shields seem to be messed up with multiple layers (doubled occasionally and tripled on one time). They are the most formidable enemy to me right now and they have earned my respect. They could carry something besides plasma rifles throughout the level (more variety please) like carbines and needlers…The stealth elites were vexing me on heroic and legendary just before you use the Pillar of Autumn’s first maintenance access ways; cut down the number of stealth elites there and add a few grunts that could possibly come out of the air locks. They don’t throw plasma grenades as frequently as brutes or grunts. Also in regards to plasma grenades, whenever they are stuck on the head, they stop slouching and have their legs and arms at rest. Obviously, they’re hugely improved from the first campaign (those shields were ugly back then, no offense CMT). Elites are still awesome but their melee is weird. It seems to have a large “scope” since I was a few feet away from it and I still received damage from the melee; oh, the dead bodies on the ground also moved, but that’s probably not a bug or problem. Elite blood is satisfactory.

• Brutes: Brutes are a joke; I don’t know how to explain this but the AI needs to be more intelligent and aware of their surroundings (like in Halo 3, although this is a custom modification). The only time they are menacing are when they spam fragmentation and plasma grenades at me on the higher difficulties. They don’t dodge or strafe very often when I shoot. The brutes could also use more variety, don’t limit them to carrying brute plasma rifles and spike rifles on this level; they could use carbines and brute shots. Their shields look like spots that seem stationary from medium-long distance but it is still better than those purplish/bluish shields a few months ago; I’m glad the shields were changed. But the shields can still be tweaked. Brutes right now seem like dumber elites. The “sleeping” brute was hilarious however, it stood and watched me assassinate the room full of sleeping grunts in the new BSP; but, make that specific brute turn his back on you to make it more logical. I noticed two melee attacks: the regular one and the second attack where the brute jumps and whacks you on your head. The only time I noticed a difference between the damage was only when I played in heroic and legendary. The two attacks were equal in damage on easy and normal. Please allocate more health for the brutes and slightly weaker shields (depending on the rank). Brute blood is a problem. They are literally, fruit gushers, whenever they take damage after their shields have been depleted. EDIT: Oh, sometimes they repeat their angry animation. Their death animation(s) are terrible. I don't know if this is out of the ordinary but when I assassinated a brute, he died facing me. These brutes aren't very different from their Halo 2 counterparts other than the fact that they have shields now. They are still ballistic gel targets dressed in metal plates that throw grenades and eat enemy fire until they kill or be killed; they act the same in Halo 2 is what I'm trying to get across to you. Their anger gets the best of them since they go through their angry animation which gives the player abundant time to leisurely kill the brute. I know you guys are trying to make the brutes work as a pack but they seem to have ESP as seen in their display of synchronized motion.

• Hunters: I shot their dead bodies a few times and flood blood splattered on the walls. They are kind of dumb. They stare at me blankly like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck at moments. They are easy to kill on all difficulties – just takes a few melee attacks and some time. Strafing to the left (on this case, their right side) and melee them as you go in an orbital motion. I think I would enjoy the level if there were more [higher ranking] hunters in it.

• Other thoughts: More variety as in, this seems like a good level (to me) and I would suggest introducing “geists” in this level. Instead of just sitting on the lift waiting for the dreadfully boring moment to pass, I would feel I was playing a different game than the original Halo if I fought “geists” shooting me from above. My opinion is that jackals don’t fit well with the language of the level A10. I couldn’t skip the cutscene at the end once and whenever I pressed Esc, the cutscene would just return to the Chief throwing the struggling marine on board the life pod. I hope the new Cortana makes an appearance on this level upon the final release.

Weapons

• Silenced (Spec Ops) Pistol: The melee seems unnatural since the wrist is bent like that and wouldn’t feel very comfortable for anyone, let alone, have any real oomph. Takes more than a clip to put down elites and brutes (mixture of head and body shots), so I would suggest a 10 round clip to compensate for the lack of scoping. The laser is bent, but it doesn’t really annoy me. This is a great weapon on easy though. When I pick up ammo for the pistol, the string displays “picked up elite plasma rifle”. EDIT: Also, when you are out of sight or invisible, the "silenced" pistol seems to give away your cloaking or alert all the enemies in the vicinity. In SPv1, the silenced SMG/silenced sniper rifle did not do either of those while you were camouflaged or out of enemy sights.

• Assault rifle: The 32-round clip just doesn’t seem to be enough for anything with the exception of grunts. I wouldn’t even touch this weapon on difficulties higher than Easy. The damage it deals almost reminds me of the SMG from Halo 2. It took more than 2 clips to put down a brute or elite on normal; I suggest that it take about an entire clip to kill a minor/major brute or elite. When I melee, the numbers and signs on the display sometimes turns the color of pink salmon; this occurs on the climax of the melee attack. The sound seems muffled.

• Battle Rifle: An excellent all-round purpose weapon, but I still mourn the lack of Covenant Carbines. It is pretty good for slaughtering grunts but as most projectile weapons are, weak against energy shields. The grenade is useful for taking out very large groups of enemies like the grunt pyramid near the end of the level. Headshots are the player’s friend with this weapon. The battle rifle sounds don’t feel like they have a metallic sound behind them (like the difference between Halo 3 and Halo 2), but again, it’s the team’s choice if they want Halo 2 sounds or Halo 3 sounds. To me, the sounds for the Battle Rifle seem slightly muffled.

• Elite Plasma Rifle: It is a really good replacement if you don’t have an SMG or plasma pistol nearby as it certainly drains shields rapidly – which works for the player and also backfires (benefits the enemies) on higher difficulties. It would be nice to see projectile effect that is more electrical upon searing scenery.

• Brute Plasma Rifle: The ROF needs to have a significant gain over the elite variant and needs to drains shields faster (it already does, but the whole entire idea behind the brute variant needs to be more apparent). It is almost redundant on easy and normal though. As with the elite variant, an additional effect when the plasma hits walls and other scenery/bipeds, would be nice (but not necessary because of the timeframe we’re dealing with).

• Spike Rifle: It is satisfying to use, but not stronger than the SMG even though it's supposed to be. The weapon itself seems kind of glossy sometimes. I might consider picking this weapon up on easy and normal but not on heroic or legendary. Using this weapon eats up your ammo fast unless you fire in very short bursts which you usually don’t at close range.

• Minor Hunter Cannon: I can’t crouch with this weapon. That’s the only complaint from me on regarding it.

• Plasma Pistol: Nothing much to say here except I’m going to use this weapon very often on legendary for shielded enemies and sentinels. The projectile is visually extraordinary, but it is kind of on the slower side.

• Sub-Machine Gun: This is a very good close-range weapon if there aren’t any shotguns. I also carry this weapon around a lot on all difficulties. The SMG easily has more benefits than the assault rifle and spike rifle (to me) in the encounters on this level since most of them are in close quarters. There isn’t a lot of ammo for the SMG and moreover, because it is a caseless weapon, you discard the unused rounds whenever you reload. If you want to keep it as a caseless weapon, I suggest giving the player more ammo for it throughout the entire campaign, not just this map. I think the sound for the SMG right now is Halo 2. (I doubt that you'd guys would want every sound to be from Halo 3).

• Fragmentation Grenade: I wasn’t surprised that brutes used these grenades since I had seen Brutes use them in the broadcasts. This is a really good anti-personnel weapon – the personnel being unshielded enemies. Not a lot of things going on with the grenade though. It was graphically improved from MPv2.

• Plasma Grenade: This is one of the best things the player do/use besides melee and shooting. The plasma grenade is very strong and it has met my expectations, including visually. But, what happened to the grenade becoming brighter before exploding? This is the feature that kind of foreshadows what might happen to the player and thus the player moves away from the grenade avoiding being sent back in time…But other than that, I loved the plasma grenade. Spectacular!

• Other thoughts: It would be my preference if I saw more weapon variety and opportunities [this includes more ammo] for the player.

Level
• Empty space in BSPs (usually the larger and wider main halls) – I see that as an opportunity or waste. Either add new encounters and ammo or delete some parts. If the empty space is a kind of place for the player to cool down between the heat, shorten the length a bit. The player doesn’t need that much time to find their bearings and prepare for the next battle
.
• Confusing with the new places to go and objectives (this applies for the entire campaign), give us NAV points or some sort of indicator to inform us of the direction we are to go.

• More variety other than just differing permutations/combos in grunt-elite, grunt-brute, and etc. in the encounters because it could get boring after a while of playing ever since the original levels were lengthened

• Very dark in the new areas. Sometimes the BSPs go from light to dark all of the sudden; need to make transition more subtle like a color gradient. Are the dark floors and walls supposed to signify destroyed parts of the Pillar of Autumn? They aren't doing a very great job at that.

• The ladders are very hard to climb since you would have to kind of climb almost to the top of the ladder and then crouch-jump off to the side if you wanted to retrieve ammo or backtrack.

• As how everyone said, “A Whole New World” needs more tweaking and work.
• I thought there was some place in the level where gravity would be disrupted. I played with Open Sauce (from Jcap’s thread) and I didn’t notice any changes.

• If you're going to have large battles, place hunters in them. Hunters tend to work well with larger rooms because they don't seem as cramped in a place with low ceilings and no where to turn to.

• EDIT: The Chiron TL34 BSP was slightly disappointing because there was no variation. It was just sleeping grunts and more elites; they just rushed at your position without dodging or any kind of hiding. It was easy to kill them with the grenades already strung out on the floor. Maybe a few brutes instead of a truckload of grunts could mix things up a bit for the player.

• Sometimes after Captain Keyes gives me the pistol, I don’t see the three grunts that usually spawn outside of the bridge and I don’t have the pistol.

• The whole campaign could use a mixture of Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 music.
• More variety in weapons and new AI/and encounters and environments would make this level fun on the 1st, 10th, and 100th time being played.

Powerups and Tools
• Over-shields: It is useful on all difficulties. Is the appearance of the powerup itself going to be changed at all? /eyecandy

• Double-speed: It is useful on all difficulties, like the over shields. Is the appearance going to be tweaked or is it finalized? And, stated in my post before, my visual performance was never affected in anyway by using the powerup.

• Flash light is needs to be upgraded in power. Larger scope and brighter.
• The gameplay regarding NAV points that pops up after you defeat the stealth elites before you enter the ship's maintenance access ways can be removed, right?

• EDIT: This needs to be emphasized more but since the levels in the campaign have been heavily stretched out, we need more ammo placements for our weapons and maybe even fresh new weapons for the player to use.

Devmode and CMT Extras
• Create checkpoint is one of the best ideas yet; saved me time on heroic and legendary.
• Time Freeze is also something I like to toy with in conjunction with Flycam
• Flycam is a very good idea so the player won’t have to enter multiple dev codes.
• Clear Decals and Collect Unseen garbage is a plus for people who have older computers.

• Dynamic lights didn’t change anything for me (?)
• Sounds, seems kind of useless because we have more of a choice to tune out things in settings

• Display Fps: useful at times, keep it
• HUD On/Off – great for screenshots
• Slow Motion: used it; it doesn’t benefit anyone but it could be a toy in the final release
• How to use CMT Extras button doesn’t work, and isn’t necessary to many players
• Without Devmode, well, the level wouldn’t be fun after the 1st few times because it is part of our nature to have curiosity and to wonder how we might have changed gameplay by activating some cheats and etc. Please enable the player to input devmode codes in the final release. Let the player take responsibility for his/her own actions (liability) by using devmode; the player uses it at their own risk of messing up, and the team won’t have anything to do with it.

I had fun playing through this level again and again (probably played it over 15 times) with various cheats on (only after beating the level without cheats.) like infinite ammo or to mess around, deathless player and jetpack. I wouldn’t have the guts to use bump possession and I prefer inf. Ammo over bottomless clip. Cheat active camouflage worked sometimes and sometimes the enemy would see me even if I didn't fire anything... I disagree with the statement that using devmode on the campaign is bad. Letting us use devmode will keep the campaign alive for a longer time than without devmode. In a way, it will also have better reception from the community.

If I had to rate this map on a scale of 1 to 10, it would be somewhere between an 8.5 and 9 overall.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bleach

Longpost

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Good review, though I need to point some things out because I disagree.

• The Carbine and Needler, etc. are not in this because this is the first level of the game. Think of this with respect to the whole campaign, not as a standalone piece. Let CMT introduce more weapons as the game progresses
• Where is everyone getting the idea that caseless ammunition is any different than normal ammunition? They are still individual rounds that must be loaded into the magasine, just like any other gun, they just don't have shells that need ejecting. The terrible reload system on the SMG needs to go. Make it normal.
• Pistol is fantastic the way it handles as-is. It shouldn't be used by itself against shielded targets. Against soft ones, it is absolutely lethal, and the 8-round magasine keeps it balanced. You can drop all 8 invisible elites in one magasine at the blast door segment.

Good:

• Brute model, skin
• Elite model, skin
• Animations, in all areas
• Gameplay, of the original BSPS
• Twisted pathways, great job there.

Bad:

• AR feels like its shooting confetti, becasue when I shoot anything but a grunt, it feels like its doing little-to-no damage
• Needs jackals.
• Pistol Melee feels like it would hurt to swing your arm that way
• Brutes spam grenades too much. I played on legendary, stood in a corner, reloading, only to have 4 grenades come flying around the corner, 3 frag and 1 plasma.
• Why are there 9 (yes I counted) specops elites in one room?
• Hunter Cannon != M6C Magnum

Here's my main gripe:

The new BSPS make it feel less like it was supposed to. The theme of the first level is "Get off the ship, holy shit, intense action, there are enemies everywhere, dear god we need to get off the ship now!" I got that pretty well in the original BSPS, however, the new BSPS make me feel like I'm exploring the ship and just killing covenant, on my way around. There needs to be bigger, more intense battles in the bigger BSPS to reinforce the idea of "we need to get to a lifeboat, now! or we're all gonna die!" because A: I got lost, B: it was incredibly boring with very little enemies.

I got lost because this is what it was to me:

CMT SPv2 Pillar of Autumn. Oh great. More hallways, with 90* turns.

• As stated before, the Brutes bleeding is horrific.
• The Fuel Rod's model could use a bit more detail to it.
• The new BSPs are boring without some new music added to it.
• The Assault Rifle is just sucking. I don't know why, but it just is; I prefer to use the SMG more than the AR.
• I have NEVER yet to see one decent Battle Rifle... I only used that weapon for the noobtube, and then threw it down.
• The Chiron TL34 section is located on Mars, not the Pillar of Autumn. http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Chiron_TL-34

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bleach

• Sometimes after Captain Keyes gives me the pistol, I don’t see the three grunts that usually spawn outside of the bridge and I don’t have the pistol.

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That is because you walk to fast for the checkpoint to start, that is for normal a10 too.

In a way, yes I see what you mean as in Halo 2, Bungie did not immediately introduce the brute shot until the end and in Halo 3 with the Spartan Laser.
Lol, Nearly everyone here wants the SMG reload system to be changed. do it

It was hard to spot the stealth elites' heads without scoping so I basically stuck with the Battle Rifle instead of the Pistol. Pistol is ideal for targets like grunts, jackals, and human combat forms.

I have a question, why the fuck is there a poorly lit and twisted hallway in the ship in the first place?

Also brute energy shields seem to cover up your gun when you get close to them :S

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pooky

I have a question, why the fuck is there a poorly lit and twisted hallway in the ship in the first place?

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Because your ship is being bombarded by covenant attacks.

I think it would be cool if those areas of the ship were exposed to space, and decompressed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ICEE

Because your ship is being bombarded by covenant attacks.

I think it would be cool if those areas of the ship were exposed to space, and decompressed.

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The way it's implemented doesn't even make sense, so that excuse is out.

There's no apparent damage or any reason for it to be that way, everything just stars twisting suddenly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ICEE

Because your ship is being bombarded by covenant attacks.

I think it would be cool if those areas of the ship were exposed to space, and decompressed.

---

This. Gawd yes, that would be awesome.

Bleach, There is a devmode that you use. The same one that we had before. E.G. The one made by bitterbanana before he left. You have to use that one to load the map in the first place so. :/

There are only a few issues I have with this; the marine blood is kinda weird, it looks almost cellshaded. The pistol is fine with silencer, but the laser just...it doesn't feel like it belongs in halo. Like many others, I got lost in boarding action. I ran around in a circle for about five minutes before I found where I had to go...but after that it was smooth sailing. I loved all the new weapons, especially the new assault rifle. It feels great and is fun to use.

One last thing; Did CMT intentionally not include plasma grenades in the first level?

The reason i brought up devmode was because originally, CMT planned to lock devmode so that people wouldn't cheat their way through the campaign. Yeah, I used Alldev by Bitterbanana. The Halo CE UI from CMT released back in 2006 works fine for me so I didn't have to type in map_name a10.

There are plasma grenades in Heroic and Legendary.

Good

• The cutscene title for the new areas was genius.
• The hangars were fun
• CMT extras
• One section of the new BSP where everything was slanted was great, everything else was much less impressive though.

Bad

• At the beginning of the new area there is this section where it goes from completely clean hallways, and then immediately changes to scarred burnt ones, which show little to no structual degredation at all.

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...osionshere.jpg

Add some explosions, ship rocking, and add some scarring to the clean parts so that it's not just a retarded transition like this

• The glass cubemap in the room across from the main cryo bay is just as bad as it was when I pointed it out last year, subtle, yes, but can still be swapped with the b30 forerunner interiors one and look a lot better.
• Brutes hardly move, and just stand there and take your gunfire, all the time.
• On BSP switches "Loading' is mispelled as 'Loadng'
• Broken Grunts

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...okengrunts.jpg

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l4...morebroken.jpg

• Fix the orange AR display.

Overall though, I had fun with it, even though my laptop is a very poor performer.

Well...your mobile card is better than my desktop card, yet our performance was almost identical. Were you running with 30fps lock, VSYNC, or no VSYNC?

can you make the shield meter flash red when it's depleted like this: http://screenshot.xfire.com/screensh...bd3e5717d6.png ?

I liked the campaign a lot. It is far better than spv1 and the original. A little bit of scenery or direction would've helped. Some places are ridiculously dark and have terrible transitions between the bsps.

Also,is it possible to show the second weapon in the hud kinda like in the other modacity thread?

Can you give the marine ai just a slight edge on legendary? They are meat shields because they always play the animations when they get shot.

Will there be a changelog masterz?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Warsaw

Well...your mobile card is better than my desktop card, yet our performance was almost identical. Were you running with 30fps lock, VSYNC, or no VSYNC?

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The specs in my profile are those of my desktop, not my laptop.

I'm running an X1100 here.

Both my pcs share the orange AR glitch, but I'm willing to bet my desktop will have no trouble maxing this out.

Probably already being mentioned, but Pistol says "Picked up a Plasma Pistol," and I don't think sleeping grunts really have a place for that map. The covenant are supposed to be taking over the ship and then there's a group of grunts sleeping while everyone else is attacking. Really like the new BSP and everything else(Specially the new effects), good work. I haven't even finished playing the map yet so I'm a get back to that.

Could I take a look at the orange AR glitch? I don't seem to see it.

Reload or melee with the assault rifle, and the ammo display will turn orange.

The Beginning cutscene's Poa Lensflare sucks.
Dont like the soldiers on the computers. Bring back the engineers.
Plasma Pistol Charge Bolt contrail is terrible.
I hated the new beep for health at first actually, but I got used to it.
Slow Motion seemed like it lasted too long, but only slightly.
The BR sounds would sometimes cut themselves short.
At one point I went to swap a BR for another BR and ended up dropping and losing both. I held E as I walked to it, which I assume caused the glitch
Not sure if its a glitch, but I killed both hunters with a melee to the front of the face.
as stated many times, the BR shields are fonky.
Blood is explosive and everything is a liquid pinata.
The Medpacks need to be back on the walls.
the BR zoom is ugly. Its all nasty around it.
In the area with the brute and sleeping grunts, why not making him a pissing brute? :P
The trashcans [?] were sticking through the wall.
[COLOR="DarkRed)"]Cant grenade and crouch successively. I assume because the animations conflict[/COLOR]

Everything in red is definitive glitches. The regular text is just my crit on ugly things.

and my +'s.

Cortana looks great [if she was changed at all. I think only texturely.]
Love the spiker bolt fade. Better than poofing away.
Love the pistol lazer. First well done lazer in CE. I assume its because its part of the fp model.
I like the damage indicators, and I was one of the original haters.
The spec ops part was cool. The door closing behind me was great. I was like AW SHIT.
Like the red lights in the vents when they were seldom used.
Love the new fights in the cargo [?] areas.
love the Chiron section.
Liked the elevator too. Very well done.

Special +.
Loved the twisted hallways part.
The elites had this strategy of dashing passed the doorway invisibly and shooting at me.
It failed obviously, but did succeed in freaking me the fuck out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FRain

Reload or melee with the assault rifle, and the ammo display will turn orange.

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not for me :/

There was a part in the game where I was killed by a nade and my body flew into a checkpoint after I was killed, it said saving game and then froze.

Some of the AI encounters were set up pretty illogically. For example, in the last staircase room (the one where you come in on the bottom floor with marines on the upper floor), when you go to leave that room through the upper floor, three brutes are standing just around the corner. You wouldn't think they would have noticed the firefight going on not 10m away from them? There's little variety in BSP's and encounters. I do like the idea of the twisted corridors leading out into a section of the ship that has been blasted away and you're in a vacuum. But since Ranger Elites have been cut, there wouldn't be much chance of AI in those areas. Corridors simply run into more corridors and some of the more interesting areas, like boarding action, have no apparent purpose in the ship and feel rather empty. Maybe adding some more scenery other than the occasional barricade might help.

Also the hunters wedged into that narrow corridor was a bad decision. It's not fun to fight them in such a tight space, not to mention it doesn't look really good when they start clipping through the walls. They should have been saved for a more open area such as the open areas in the Boarding Action area.

All my other criticisms have already been covered a number of times.

I never had that graphical issue with the Assault Rifle turning orange either.

Neither did I. BTW, I don't know if you guys with <30 fps are running on laptops or something, but on my end I have no issue with fps hiccups.

I find it a little strange that people are having such troubles with it. I've been playing it with a horrible laptop and everything maxed out, and not even a hiccup.

Something I didn't mention earlier, as it took a few playthroughs to realize what was nagging me. Brute PR needs a firing rate increase, I almost never notice whether I'm using it or the normal one, and it's wierd.

This, just like SPv1 seems to be pretty hit or miss. Half the things look incredible and the other half looks just...like wow how did anyone really think that would look nice? I almost feel bad getting so worked up about a mod that I'm getting for doing nothing but I think everyone is so damned critical of it because it's ambitious and we're hoping it will fulfill all of our Halo PC dreams.

The FANFUCKINGTASTIC

• The SMG.
• Both Plasma Rifles.
• The Spiker.
• The Chief.
• Cortana.
• Elites.
• Brutes.
• Bigger Hunters? They are bigger right? Awesome if that was more than just an illusion.
• Most of POA's new textures and effects.
• Overall experience was pleasant just like SPv1 and I'd still play it through multiple times if this was the final release.

The really bad.

• Seriously just axe the AR you guys have right now and just inject the CMT_Snow_Grove AR. It was awesome in every way.
• Lose the Pistol's silencer/laser and fix the melee animation.
• Change the Brute and Elite shield effects, they both look terrible and the Brute shields sometimes just appear to be on when I'm not even shooting them. (Ignore if they are supposed to be OSed?)
• There's something visually unappealing with the BR, I can't place what it is but I think it needs to be shinier and the display brighter. Also, you definitely have to increase the delay between shots.
• What happened to the Navel Personnel?
• Bring back the Armored marines! (I'm assuming the odd choice of human npcs is due to them just being placeholders?)
• Hunters would just charge at me no matter what and would just fire as they charged.
• Just remove the chiron/boarding action areas. They were just really really bad. On that note, the twisted area was cool but felt unnatural. Try to make the damage feel more like it was possible of being damaged in that way. If that hallway was twisted the whole deck should have been fucked. Also, remove (or add rubble, bodies, fires) the random scorched hallways, they make no sense other than looking like graphical glitches.
• Enemy/friendly AI placement/behavior should be looked at, sometimes they just feel random instead of actively boarding or guarding the ship.
• Some of the other new areas are cool and well done (I already named the poor ones) but it kind of makes the level drawn out instead of, shit let's get out of here, oh wait apprently we have to go through every major section of the ship first before we go running out. Reason being is in the original you went up ONE deck (which is reasonable considering a realistic layout of the ship to get to the escape pods) whereas in the new one you find yousefl going up and down up and up and down again seems redundant if you are trying to get somewhere specific to gtfo.
• Both Plasma Rifles need their projectiles to match the new fire effects. The new ones are a dark electrical blue and the old projectiles are several shades too light, more baby blue.
• Plasma pistol is poorly textured, charge effect is nice but so slow it's useless.
• Just remove the Speed Powerup, I really admire, REALLY ADMIRE what you tried to do with it and bring back an omitted powerup from the game but it is just bad. It just feels like my computer is lagging and just...ew. I won't care much if it's still in game I just won't use it.

Glitches

• When you get to the first area with the three grunts there was nothing there for me and I had no pistol. Just went through the door and got the AR.
• Sometimes when I would toss grenades the room it exploded in would be ALL black, and I don't mean scorched I mean like a corrupted straight black bitmap would just cover the area.
• Pistol pickup string.
• Sometimes Marines and Covies would just stare at each other until I went in and started the fight.
• Pyramid of grunts?

There's tons more that is either insignificant enough for me to forget or I just couldn't decide if it was good or bad.

wat.

There's been a lot of complaints about the saving issue that I want to address. The reason why this map has unsafe saves is because there is something in the map that is always making it unsafe to save in the stock bsps, so I had to use the script command to save unconditionally in those areas. We also had another similar save bug in the custom bsps, which made me have to do a similar thing. I'll work on reducing the amount of unsafe saves, but it will always be a possibility on this map, and this map alone. I never had anything with unsafe saves like you guys expierenced but you take 100 people with 100 different play styles and things happen, which is why it's good we did this public beta.

But can't you have it check that the player is alive before it saves?

Cause I kept getting saves after I died, so when it reset I was looking at my dead body.

I"m having problems replaying. It saves at the last cut scene, and when I try to press esc for restart level, it just restarts the cut scene.

Also, I thought it was awesome, just the hunter's cannon doesn't look that great in first person, and when I looked at the way he held it it was just weird.