Podtacular 424: Halo 5 Discussions – Forge

Welcome to one of many shows dedicated to discussions around Halo 5. The Halo community is expecting much from 343 Industries for their next Halo installment and we’re here to talk today about Forge. Whether you realize it or not, Forge is responsible for a lot, if not all, of the communities that rely heavily on the game’s longevity. Even Halo matchmaking as we know it has relied heavily on Forge since Halo 3. After catching up with the latest Halo news and this week’s Halo Bulletin, we dive head on into the Halo 5 Forge Wish List pulled together by Pete the Duck. While it does not have everyone’s opinion in it, the list is quite comprehensive and is broken down into categories of changes and additions people would like to see that contributed to the list. To help us discuss the wish list and the future or Forge, we are honored to have Pete the Duck, Receptor 17 and Community Cartographer Psycho Duck.

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Halo 5 Forge Wishlist Show

halo-4-forge-logo

Tonight we will be recording with some prominent Halo Forgers to discuss what new things would be useful in Forge 4.0 to come with Halo 5.  Even though it’s not yet confirmed that we will get Forge, it is likely we’ll see Forge return as it has become a staple feature in the Halo franchise.  Our guests include Pete the Duck, Receptor 17 and Psycoduck.  Tune in to tonight’s live stream at 8:30PM Eastern to hear us talk about the future of Forge!  If you have questions for our guest tonight or want to add your own thoughts and ideas to the conversation, post in our forums here.

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Halo Mash-up Pack for Minecraft Coming Soon

Minecraft Halo Mashup Pack

Halo Coming to the Ultimate Forge World

Last week, we got a teaser from a Halo Waypoint tweet that seemed to indicate some kind of mash-up pack for Halo in Minecraft.  Today, we got news from the official Play XBLA website that a mash-up is coming.  The mash-up will include Halo themed textures, menus and UI, 40 character skins, Halo music in game, and pre-generated worlds that include classic Halo maps like Blood Gulch, Sandtrap, Valhalla and many others.  There have been two previous Minecraft mash-up packs for the XBLA game: Mass Effect and Skyrim.  There is no official release date yet.

Source via PlayXBLA.com: http://playxbla.com/halo-mash-up-pack/

Update

PlayXBLA has posted a couple more screenshots of the mobs in the mash-up pack: http://playxbla.com/minecraft-mobs-and-halo/

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Podtacular 423: Guardians Unite

Yesterday, thousands of Halo fans were united in celebrating the announcement of Halo 5: Guardians. Master Chief’s journey continues Fall 2015, but people are already excited and speculating on where Chief’s journey is taking him, who is this new Spartan depicted in the teaser image and dissecting every pixel of the concept art posted by Frankie. Even knowing so little about the game, the recent actions of 343 have not gone unnoticed and Bonnie Ross’s statement about embracing the community has given Halo fans a new spark to gleam on. Epic news of epic proportions calls for an epic podcast, so we pulled some of the best minds from the Halo community to talk about this monumental announcement. Joining us is Greenskull (@Greenskull) from Ready Up Live, Mark Turcotte (@MarkTurc) from Guardian Radio, Vanirfreyja  (@Vanirfreyja) from GrifballHub and the former BigTeamBattle.net, Laird (@LairdSVF) from Halo Collector, SaUcEySOARS (@SaUcEySOARS) from Beyond Entertainment, Matty McDee (@MattyMcDee) from /r/Halo, and lastly Chance King (@HaloDispatch) from Halo Dispatch.  Make sure to check out all of our guests and their sites and show your support for the Halo community.

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The Great Journey – Frankie Comments on Halo’s Legacy

Halo 5: Guardians Concept Art

Halo 5: Guardians Concept Art

With the recent announcement of Halo 5: Guardians on Xbox Wire, Frank O’Connor, Franchise Development Director for the Halo Franchise, shares his thoughts on the announcement.  He points out the mention of the Halo Journey shared by Bonnie Ross, 343 Industries’ General Manager, has lead people to suspect a little more than what we’ve gotten in the past.  It’s a huge weight off their shoulders to get the announcement out and affirms what fans have said that Halo needs a three year development cycle.

343 Industries is definitely looking to the future on the Xbox One as they already called out 60 fps and dedicated servers last year.  Halo has been at the innovative end of Xbox for a while, pushing the limits of the system ever since the original Xbox in 2001.  Frankie writes,

Previous Halo titles, Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 for example, strove to push the entire ecosystem forward – dual stick FPS with big open spaces in the case of Combat Evolved, and broadband matchmaking in Halo 2 – are just a couple of examples of the series innovating or amplifying ideas. So in building Halo 5: Guardians, we want to push the ecosystem as well as the universe. And we’ll have some surprises in store for new and loyal players of the series.

As a token of their appreciation for all Halo fans, they have some nice new wallpapers for you to go download for virtually any device.

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Halo 5: Guardians Announced for 2015

Halo 5: Guardians
This morning, Halo fans everywhere awoke or stayed up for one epic announcement: Halo 5: Guardians. 343 Industries General Manager, Bonnie Ross posted on Xbox Wire this morning that Halo 5, that continues the story of Master Chief, will be coming out Fall of 2015. In her article, Ross says,

“Halo 5: Guardians” is a bigger effort than “Halo 4.”  That applies to the content and scope of the game, as well as the technology in what’s now a brand new and more powerful engine.  Certainly there are some core elements carried over from prior games, but we’ve invested a huge effort in retooling our tech to take full advantage of the Xbox One’s hardware and ecosystem to create worlds and experiences worthy of next-gen.

Halo 5 is a huge undertaking for the studio and they are looking to make a game “worthy of next-gen”.  343 Industries has been making some very select hires over the last few months including Eric “GH057ayame” Hewitt and Jeff “GrimBrother One” Eastering, showing some very good promise for the future of Halo.  Ross comments on the emphasis the team has taken on learning from Halo 4 and using the talented team 343 Industries has built by embracing the community.

It’s a game that will hopefully demonstrate the talent, learnings and abilities of the 343 Industries team. A game that will incorporate the things we learned from “Halo 4” about technology, aesthetics, performance and scale – and perhaps more importantly, understanding and embracing a community of gamers who love what lies at the heart of this game, and the limitless potential of the “Halo” universe.

There will be more information on Halo in 2014 at this year’s E3 Xbox Media Briefing happening June 9th.

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Podtacular 422: It’s Elementary

We were supposed to start our discussions for our Halo 5 roundtables this week, but due to some scheduling conflicts for the people we were getting on, we are going to try again next week. Not to worry though; there’s still plenty of Halo news out there besides the matchmaking update in the weekly Halo Bulletin. Halo Waypoint tweeted out a Minecraft image with a Master Chief Steve skin, a Halo in the sky and what seems to be some custom Halo-themed blocks that hints at a Halo mash-up pack for Minecraft on Xbox. More rumors are floating around the Xbox press conference that will take place at E3 this year. A new Legendary speed-run for the Halo PC campaign was achieved and element 117 was discovered.

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