- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
You guys have all argued that the non-human rounds flying about in the screenshot are either a reiteration of the rounds fired from a Plasma Pistol, a Covenant Sniper Rifle, or a Needler. You've cited good evidence, and have presented your arguments well.
I don't think it's any of those.
Allow me to rule out the Cov Sniper Rifle, and Needler first.
It is unlikely it is a Covenant Sniper Rifle - the rate of fire (even for two or three such weapons, which I doubt would spawn quickly) for a long-range, high damage, weapon would have to be quite low for the purpose of play balancing. Besides that, we can sort of assume that the confined spaces of a tunnel discourage any sort of precision shooting a la sniping.
It is unlikely that these rounds have been discharged from a Needler, despite the similarity in the controls of the Needles, and these glowing orbs. A Needler fires some sort pinkish purple (the were still pinking purple in the previous screenshot) shard that explodes after a set amount of time, or after anchoring itself in a target. This round balls appear to have no pointed end with which to attach and then anchor. They do not appear to change course erratically, as the Needles have been known to do, nor do they exemplify any element of the target-seeking properties of the Needler. The speculation for these rounds being a Needler is sound - the premise is that Frankie stated that the weapon had been significantly "beefed up" I believe was the term, but that doesn't necessarily imply a coloration and design change, it implies a properties change, like higher rate of fire, greater range, more rounds per magazine, or more damage.
Personally, I believe the weapon discharging those rounds is clearly a high-volume, high rate-of-fire, weapon akin to the Plasma Rifle of Halo, but with diminished accuracy (and likely, damage). We know that there's still a lot we don't know about yet, including at least one Alien Race / Bad Guy who we have never seen, and has only been mentioned in ONE of Frankie's weekly updates. Also mentioned in a weekly update was an alien weapon with a scope that we had seen before and didn't realize it (the two Elite w/Red Guns picture) and one more brand-spankin new weapon that we had never heard, talked, read about or had seen before. I'm inclined to believe that those rounds are flying from said weapon, or possibly a vehicle weapon a la a Covenant LAV. All that supports at the very least the potential for a rapid-fire, unknown plasma/alien based weapon.
Evidence in the screenshot supports the probability of this. It would take concentrated effort to aim that poorly with a plasma pistol. I've been teaching a lot of newbies lately, and even they know that the damn thing will fire in a straight line extremely quickly if they wiggle their little pinkies just right. To be in the middle of a fight (and Bungie pruports to take these shots from actually staff matchups, which they would take "seriously"), and aim that badly ON PURPOSE is not only embarassing, it's ridiculous. The potential of a player strafing across the hallway and blasting at random was cited, but I disagree with this as well. Any sort of side to side strafing and firing of the Plasma pistol, no matter how randomly accentuated, would normally lead to some of linear quality to the tracking of the discharged rounds, much like that of a SAW. The positioning of these projectiles suggests some sort of recoil, and it becomes difficult to establish one linear-travel line of fire in the screenshot, much less two or three, lessening the probability that it is multiple plasma pistols firing.
I'm disinclined to think that this screenshot is of a game that represents Team Adversarial Play in the classic Red Vs. Blue sense, also excluding a three- or four- team formula simply because it's not yet been discussed and I'm ready to rule it out if Bungie hasn't hinted at it yet.
There's definitely a team element to this, and judging from the variety of the "teams " represented here (if we are to truly correspond the disparance of coloring to a disparity in allegiance), and the lack of any clear target on behalf of any of the characters on screen, we have to explore other options. Possibly an expanded four player co-operative mode, or, the summation many people have made, it is an MP Spartan vs. Elite game. This would not surprise me very much, because this is a much sought after feature, the existence of which Bungie has alluded to for almost two years.
The first option would seem to suggest the possibility for user-created "skins", a likelihood I doubt, but would deeply admire and adore. Operation Tsunami (LIVE 3.0) is rumored to include "title-managed online content", which would allow things like user-created "skins", more appropriately color configurations, to quickly mvoe from box to box via simple, small (in kb) things like Data files. This suggest that team A, essentially a group of "Friends" on Xbox Live, got together and chose their own color scheme (olive & cobalt), while another group, Team B, got together and chose some sort of Reddish configuration. Two members of each team are participating in some sort of Four-Player online co-operative mission, where they all work as a team, hence the disparity of color.
The second option, which, incidentally, seems much more likely, is that it is Spartans vs. Elites, the individuals of each side free to choose whatever coloration for their character they like. E.g., an Elite player could choose the standard blue elite, the more nifty grayish-black elite, the red-maroon Elite, or any number of other cool skins/configurations for the elite player, since you're team would be easily identifiable by their... well... species.
That's my speculation for now.