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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Podtacular 763: Halo in 2020 Recap

As we enter the holiday season, we find ourselves wrapping up a crazy year and certainly an emotional roller coaster for many in the community. Despite worldly pandemics and game delays, there are a few nice experiences we got as Halo fans. Among the hundreds of responses we got to our Halo Wars 2 prize pack give away, MCC coming to PC and including Halo 3: ODST Firefight were large highlights alongside the Halo Infinite gameplay reveal back at the Xbox Games Showcase in July. Lastly, we’ve had such a supportive community as we launched our Patreon and continue to grow our follower and subscriber base on Twitch for our live streams. We hope everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays as we look forward to 2021 and the launch of Halo Infinite!

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Podtacular 762: Coating the Halls

Winding down a crazy year of 2020 and we’re hit with the largest piece of Halo Infinite news since the Xbox Games Showcase back in July. The studio took to Halo Waypoint with their latest blog regarding the state of Halo Infinite development to share their thoughts on the response from the game play demo and the community’s concerns over the graphical fidelity and armor coating system. Needless to day, there’s some exciting things coming with Infinite based on the few words from Joe Staten and the interviews with the art and live teams in the studio. Give the update a good read over and put some of those fears at ease. Also, for Fortnite fans, Master Chief also dropped in there during The Game Awards with Blood Gulch as a creative environment in the game.

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Machinima Monday: Halo Grimfall – Cinematic Trailer

We’re back with Machinima Monday and taking a detour from pure machinima, we have a fully animated, cinematic trailer for an upcoming episodic machinima titled ‘Halo Grimfall’. While the trailer is something that is approaching Blur levels of quality, the actual machinima itself is slated to be in Halo 5: Guardians as seen on images from their Instagram page.

‘Halo Grimfall’ sets out to fill in narrative gaps left in the Reclaimer Saga and tell interesting new fan-made stories in episodic form. While we don’t know the extent of animation/machinima mix there may or may not be in the series, you have to admit, the trailer sure gets you hooked. The description provided for the episodic tales from the trailer is below:

A unit of the UNSC’s newest Spartan IVs are forced into an impossible choice when they are ordered to assist in a potentially galaxy changing mission by a shadow organisation not ready for peace.

There’s no release date that has been made available, but as the trailer notes, the group creating the machinima is looking for help. More details about that can be found in the video’s description.

Animation and visuals for the cinematic trailer were done by Oliver Smart with the music composed and provided by The Marcus Hedges Trend Orchestra. You can follow the project’s development over on Twitter and Instagram.

Video Uploaded by: Halo Grimfall

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Podtacular 761: Chewing on Leftovers

After a week of for Thanksgiving, it’s time to see what’s happened in the world of Halo. While Halo 4 has completed the Master Chief Collection on PC, 343 isn’t done yet with bringing more bug fixes and features next year. With the ongoing support and Infinite slated to release in 2021, it should be an interesting year for Halo fans. A new Halo novel was announced, Point of Light, and we got the final installment of the ONI archives. Make sure you check out Haruspis’ blog and Halo Canon’s video summing up the ONI Comms Officer’s conversations.

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