Podtacular 769: Putting the LASO in Halo

In the world of playing Halo competitively, there’s one challenge that’s often not thought of. It’s not even multiplayer, but rather the Halo campaign on legendary with all skulls on: LASO. It is no small task to complete to as it’s the most difficult campaign experience in Halo. To get the rundown on what LASO is and all the intricacies on how it’s played and the origins of the difficulty, we have some veterans in developing the strategies and exploring the game with the enhance difficulty: ProAceJOKER, Silver and Mythic Tyrant. If you’re interested in learning more about how to get involved with the LASO and speed running communities, give them a follow.

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Podtacular 768: Because We Begged

Another month closer to Halo Infinite, another podcast. Not a lot to cover this week, but it’s been a while since we took a look at the latest updates from fan projects. Not unexpectedly, there’s not a lot of updates from the games and mods over the past few months, but we’ve got Season 5 in MCC and the latest community spotlight to hold us over.

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Podtacular 767: Playing in the Sandbox

Our first Infinite update of the year has dropped on Halo Waypoint, and while it doesn’t contain any groundbreaking revelations, the Sandbox team dove into the pillars that drive their work to make the next Halo experience. With the game coming out later this year, we’re lined up for monthly updates from the studio with the next one about bringing the world of Zeta Halo to life. If you haven’t had a chance to read the update, we highly recommend you do. Also, DJ has been given an incredible opportunity that unfortunately conflicts with our normal recording day and time. For the foreseeable future, his presence will be sporadic or absent until his schedule frees up again. In the meantime, give him some love on Twitter and Twitch at DJBluePDX.

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Podtacular 766: Clicktacular

It’s our first update show of the year as our first two shows featured some community guests who we did not want to rob the spotlight from. Waypoint’s first community spotlight of the year features some very talented community creations and several other interesting milestones related to Halo happened recently. We’re still waiting for the first Infinite news drop of the year, so we’re looking to more guest appearances for the upcoming shows until then. If you’ve got some suggestions, please let us know. Also, thanks to CIA391 and his work over on Halopedia.org documenting the Halo: Reach Clicktacular promo and providing us some end of the show entertainment.

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Podtacular 765: Interview with Covie Canon

This week we didn’t do a live show, but we have a great interview with Covie Canon for your enjoyment. Creating his own fan, in-universe character, he explains the lore of the Covenant races through Kaidon Nakai ‘Vodar. In the interview, Covie Canon explains how he came up with the character, what fascinates him about the Covenant species and his hopes for what we’ll set to see with the Banished in Halo Infinite.

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Podtacular 764: Kicking Off The Year of Halo Infinite with Shyway

We’ve finally arrived (we hope); the year of Halo Infinite! Coming off our holiday hiatus, we look forward to the fall when we expect to finally get to experience the latest installment to the Halo franchise. While there’s still a lot we don’t know yet, that leaves plenty of room for us to talk about the things we think we’ll see leading up to the release and new features we hope will make it in with the delay. Helping us kick off the new year is Shyway, joining us on this episode to talk about his involvement with competitive Halo and his thoughts on how Halo Infinite can breathe new life into the competitive Halo scene. As an analyst and caster, he has a lot of insight into the nuance of competitive play and what sets Halo apart from other games. Give him a follow on Twitter, Twitch and YouTube.

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Forger Fridays: Unsorted Guy

It’s been a while since the last Forger Friday. In fact, you could say we haven’t done one since last year. Not to worry though, as we’re starting off 2021 in style. The first Forger Friday of the year features the one and only Unsorted Guy.

Following the regular Q&A style format of Forger Friday, I asked Unsorted Guy a few questions regarding his forge creations and plans, so please enjoy his answers below.

Question: How did you first get into Forging?

So I’ve been a huge Halo fan, and I’ve played Halo since Halo Combat Evolved first game out. I guess I started as soon as Halo 3 came out. I’ve been forging ever since besides Halo 4. I don’t think I made a single complete map on that game.

I didn’t make anything remarkable or popular until Halo 5. That’s also when I became more dedicated to forging.

Question: What’s your favourite Forge map you’ve made?

That’s actually a really tough question. Probably tougher than it should be. I don’t believe I have a favourite creation of mine. I guess I love all of my maps equally.

I think it’s because many of my maps are different from one another, so it’s hard to pick one. None of my maps have been perfect either, they’re all flawed in some way, so there’s not really a single map that I’ve made that’s been my favourite.

Question: Do you have a favourite game mode that you Forge for?

I prefer making different minigames. Most of my Forge maps have been some type of minigame.

I have tried creating horror maps a couple of times, but I struggle figuring out the layout of the map and what it should be. The horror maps I have made haven’t been very well received either.

I do love when I get my hands on an empty block out map when all I need to do is make the map look pretty, but overall I do love making maps for minigames.

Question: Are there features you’d like to see brought back or created for Forge in Halo Infinite?

I could probably make a big list, but if I’m only mentioning a few, I’d be an a advanced terrain editor where you can make big canvases with mountains and even dig into the terrain.

The next thing on my list would be water. I’d like to be able to place realistic looking water. Everything from lakes, rivers and waterfalls.

The last thing I’ll mention is the option to scale objects. Halo 5 has many different sizes, but I always end up using more objects than necessary to build things. If we could scale the objects to our liking that’d be a huge improvement.

Question: In regards to your maps, are there any you’d like to talk about or mention?

So I don’t Forge as much as I did before for obvious reasons.

I did recently start on a few new maps. Some community members started hyping up and playing a lot of battle royale lately. I’ve played with them and helped out where I can.

I actually did finish a new battle royale myself a few weeks ago, and we’re satisfied with the map. It’s a huge improvement from our last attempt, but I haven’t released it. Not quite sure why. I think I’d like to prepare a video for it but I haven’t done it.

I also have another one that’s nearly complete. It’s a co-forge with another Forger called RPgallagher. However, we wanted to keep the map a secret until we started playtesting it. It’s a very scripted heavy map and has been a huge challenge so far. Out of respect I won’t say much more about it.

Question: In regards to the maps you’ve made, where would people go to have a look at them?

So I love Forge Hub and I post most of my maps there. However I also have a playlist on my YouTube channel that includes much more Forge maps and Forge creations from me, such as my speed Forge videos and tutorials.

You could look through my file list on Halo 5, but I don’t recommend it, due to all the files you’ll find of empty maps and such. I would say look at my Forge Hub profile or my YouTube.

That concludes this Forger Friday piece. We hope you’ll check out Unsorted Guy’s awesome Forge creations via the links above. A big thank you to Unsorted Guy for taking the time to chat with the Podtacular team.

For other awesome community content, be sure to stay tuned here at Podtacular for more community related content. If you’re a forger and think your work deserves a feature, or if you’d like to recommend a Halo forger to the team, feel free to sent the Podtacular Twitter account a message.

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