Bungie Universe
This topic has moved here: Subject: Reach was a Military Hub?
  • Subject: Reach was a Military Hub?
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 2
  • of 2
Subject: Reach was a Military Hub?

am i the only person who felt betrayed betrayed by Halo Reach's lack of military presence everywhere??? ok... sure you can play the card, noble team was doing more black ops and wasn't really alongside the main UNSC, ok but if that was the case why at the few military type places you visit nothing or no one can be found? even in space where the hell is the military? MACs? the Home Fleet? Ok on ToTS there is a decent amount of vehicles but where are the companies? ODST's? and remainder of the S-II's(because they sure better not have been being debriefed while the planet they call home is under seige) the covenant breezed right through most of reach glassing major cities before they were met by any resistance humanity should have lost the war if this is how easy the covies can cut through numbers like this...
Total Available Military Manpower: 385,421,100
Total Land Assets: 58,430
Total Naval Assets: 1,209 (T); 75 (X)
Total Air Assets: 11,050
now tell me the planet you were fighting to defend matches the one you read about.

  • 12.01.2010 3:23 PM PDT


Posted by: ThE ReD3mPti0n
am i the only person who felt betrayed betrayed by Halo Reach's lack of military presence everywhere??? ok... sure you can play the card, noble team was doing more black ops and wasn't really alongside the main UNSC, ok but if that was the case why at the few military type places you visit nothing or no one can be found? even in space where the hell is the military? MACs? the Home Fleet? Ok on ToTS there is a decent amount of vehicles but where are the companies? ODST's? and remainder of the S-II's(because they sure better not have been being debriefed while the planet they call home is under seige) the covenant breezed right through most of reach glassing major cities before they were met by any resistance humanity should have lost the war if this is how easy the covies can cut through numbers like this...
Total Available Military Manpower: 385,421,100
Total Land Assets: 58,430
Total Naval Assets: 1,209 (T); 75 (X)
Total Air Assets: 11,050
now tell me the planet you were fighting to defend matches the one you read about.
up till the 30th of august the battles as noble team were us fighting an advance war party in the viery territory the fleet that came was most likely a small advance fleet as well or whatever it was(gotta wait for it to be explained) so the last level is the only level were the 700 ships of the covenant attacked the whole of reach.

  • 12.01.2010 3:38 PM PDT

@accordingto343

Your one stop shop for all of 343's fabulous errors and ridiculous notions in the Halo lore.

Not like it would make much of a difference. In the books Reach fell pretty fast despite the military presence on Reach. Besides, just because Reach is a fortress doesn't mean every square inch has military bases on it. The USA is heavily militarized and bases are pretty far apart.

  • 12.01.2010 3:47 PM PDT

Brains beats brawn get used to it

Fear the Red Comet

Variety is the spice of life.
Long live games.
Death to all fanboys.

You visit a rural farm area before the real invasion actually starts.

Fend of an attack on a single isolated small military base and later revisit it.

Go to a secret launch station (which even then turns out to be an incredibly tiny part of the facility, and for the briefest of moments as well).

Go to a single space station.

Fight in a small piece of open ground.

Go to a ship breaking facility.

Visit a single city.

That does not equate to a single state or province let alone the view of an entire planet.

This is a planet wide battle, unless Noble team was to literally fight everywhere you are not going to see that huge of a concentration. While I do agree with you that the presentation of the UNSC's space presence was rather lame, I disagree with your statement that there was a lack of ground presence "everywhere" when we hardly went everywhere.

That said I did wish that we were more in the thick of things in Reach's campaign, and we got to see more locations than just isolated sections of the planet, just one city, and just minor sections of two military bases.

[Edited on 12.01.2010 3:53 PM PST]

  • 12.01.2010 3:52 PM PDT
  • gamertag: opog
  • user homepage:

Yes, there was no reason to have the game set on Reach. It should have been 'Halo: Random midsized lightly defended outer colony world'

[Edited on 12.01.2010 4:00 PM PST]

  • 12.01.2010 3:59 PM PDT

On Waypoint I'm rocketFox;
http://halo.xbox.com/forums/members/rocketfox/default.aspx

Old GTs; RebelRobot, Flamedude

Posted by: opogjijijp
Yes, there was no reason to have the game set on Reach. It should have been 'Halo: Random midsized lightly defended outer colony world'


I agree. It did not feel like the military center of the UNSC and the might of Humanity, it felt like a partially manned colony world with a handful of soldiers, a small defense fleet and a few helicopters. Very disappointed at the lack of scale and scope.

  • 12.01.2010 4:15 PM PDT
  • gamertag: Bobvob
  • user homepage:

It's a big damn planet. The concept of one colony "the desert planet," "the city planet" the "military planet" or generally anything other than "the the farm planet" (Harvest says hi!) is laughable.

You got your secret launch facilities. You got your massive military maneuver. You got your creepy ONI base. You got your dead shipbreaking yard. That seems like a military presense to me.

Oh, and the S-IIs are mentioned here and there. Pay attention next time.

  • 12.01.2010 4:34 PM PDT
  • gamertag: Bobvob
  • user homepage:


Posted by: Alf stewert

Posted by: ThE ReD3mPti0n
am i the only person who felt betrayed betrayed by Halo Reach's lack of military presence everywhere??? ok... sure you can play the card, noble team was doing more black ops and wasn't really alongside the main UNSC, ok but if that was the case why at the few military type places you visit nothing or no one can be found? even in space where the hell is the military? MACs? the Home Fleet? Ok on ToTS there is a decent amount of vehicles but where are the companies? ODST's? and remainder of the S-II's(because they sure better not have been being debriefed while the planet they call home is under seige) the covenant breezed right through most of reach glassing major cities before they were met by any resistance humanity should have lost the war if this is how easy the covies can cut through numbers like this...
Total Available Military Manpower: 385,421,100
Total Land Assets: 58,430
Total Naval Assets: 1,209 (T); 75 (X)
Total Air Assets: 11,050
now tell me the planet you were fighting to defend matches the one you read about.
up till the 30th of august the battles as noble team were us fighting an advance war party in the viery territory the fleet that came was most likely a small advance fleet as well or whatever it was(gotta wait for it to be explained) so the last level is the only level were the 700 ships of the covenant attacked the whole of reach.


The "advance team" only works until TotS. The fleet arrives after LNoS and the Battle of Reach lasts the greater part of a month.

Fall of Reach is dead. Long live the canon.

  • 12.01.2010 4:37 PM PDT


Posted by: StealthSlasher

Go to a single space station.



THere should have been WAY more space stations in orbit. Even if the Covenant Fleet wasn't there yet, Reach should have been covered with super MACs and defense stations like Anchor 9

  • 12.01.2010 4:48 PM PDT

The Forerunner, the Great Journey, and Heaven Theory

[Announcement Trailer] Halo: Forerunner

Posted by: Agustus
I lol'd at the absurd miscommunication that occurs whenever dibbs post something. Perhaps his brain is so highly evolved that he can no longer clearly communicate with lesser life forms, even among his own species.

Posted by: FleetAdmiralBob
It's a big damn planet. The concept of one colony "the desert planet," "the city planet" the "military planet" or generally anything other than "the the farm planet" (Harvest says hi!) is laughable.

You got your secret launch facilities. You got your massive military maneuver. You got your creepy ONI base. You got your dead shipbreaking yard. That seems like a military presense to me.

Oh, and the S-IIs are mentioned here and there. Pay attention next time.
I think you're ignoring an important point though. Reach was supposed to be THE battle. The largest space engagement in the war, the fight nearly every Spartan II participated in, the military hub of humanity. Obviously it is a large planet and you can't accurately convey that kind of scale even if you tried your best; but no effort to convey just how big and important this battle was was made at all.

The scope of this game is much much smaller than Halo 3 both in terms of enemies present during engagements and battlefield size. The whole concept of trying to give a "different point of view" in the battle only works in a video game if that point of view is just as interesting as the main point of view (that of the SIIs). The whole Noble Team "adventure" (because all it consisted of was frolicking around doing menial tasks) would be a better fit as an epilogue in a book as opposed to an entire game.

  • 12.01.2010 4:50 PM PDT
  • gamertag: Bobvob
  • user homepage:


Posted by: dibbs089
Posted by: FleetAdmiralBob
It's a big damn planet. The concept of one colony "the desert planet," "the city planet" the "military planet" or generally anything other than "the the farm planet" (Harvest says hi!) is laughable.

You got your secret launch facilities. You got your massive military maneuver. You got your creepy ONI base. You got your dead shipbreaking yard. That seems like a military presense to me.

Oh, and the S-IIs are mentioned here and there. Pay attention next time.
I think you're ignoring an important point though. Reach was supposed to be THE battle. The largest space engagement in the war, the fight nearly every Spartan II participated in, the military hub of humanity. Obviously it is a large planet and you can't accurately convey that kind of scale even if you tried your best; but no effort to convey just how big and important this battle was was made at all.

The scope of this game is much much smaller than Halo 3 both in terms of enemies present during engagements and battlefield size. The whole concept of trying to give a "different point of view" in the battle only works in a video game if that point of view is just as interesting as the main point of view (that of the SIIs). The whole Noble Team "adventure" (because all it consisted of was frolicking around doing menial tasks) would be a better fit as an epilogue in a book as opposed to an entire game.


Pretty sure the smaller scope was an intentional bid to harken back to the CE days and not to crib on H3's style, which hasn't aged very much even now.

Earth had 300 orbital guns. Reach had what, 20? I'm pretty sure the 10billion+ planetary battle got much more epic than the fight for the 700million colony planet. It's so epic that no game could ever render it for the next 2 generations. This is why we've consistently dodged around the main battle of Earth in Halo 2, 3, and ODST. Even GoO only dwelled on a narrow portion in the middle. THAT'S your be-all-end-all battle for humanity.

Y'see, when Nylund wrote FoR all those years ago, the Battle and Fall of Reach was filler. The entire purpose of the planet, from a plot perspective, was to give birth to the S-IIs, then kill and/or separate them just in time for that little one-shot RTS/3ps/FPS game to take place. It was a fodder planet that existed only to die as soon as possible.

In order to make another prequel in such a lowly location, you must shift things around as a matter of course. Noble Six passes the Master Chief's semiliteral "shield and sword" on to the Autumn - very nearly handing it to our hero directly. This doomed-from-the-start battle now has a purpose in the greater Haloverse.



[Edited on 12.01.2010 5:05 PM PST]

  • 12.01.2010 5:03 PM PDT

On Waypoint I'm rocketFox;
http://halo.xbox.com/forums/members/rocketfox/default.aspx

Old GTs; RebelRobot, Flamedude

The thing is CE has much bigger and certainly much more engaging battles than Reach...... 3-way battles, and big battles too. Some of the AotCR, Keyes and Two Betrayals battles were pretty much massive.

I personally think that Super MACs and the Defense Fleet could have been involved in Halo Reach, be it gameplay or more likely cutscenes like in Halo 2. I certainly think that the gameplay could have been more involving. For instance we could have had large armor rushes (like start of TotS) where we participate or at least destroy some Scarabs!! Man it did feel like taking a step back from Halo 3 in terms of what we actually do in the game. 3 tanks down to 1 tank, Scarab battles to none at all.

If the reason we didn't get these things were technical reasons then I would be surprised, and I would be disappointed that Bungie went ahead knowing this.

  • 12.01.2010 5:17 PM PDT

The Forerunner, the Great Journey, and Heaven Theory

[Announcement Trailer] Halo: Forerunner

Posted by: Agustus
I lol'd at the absurd miscommunication that occurs whenever dibbs post something. Perhaps his brain is so highly evolved that he can no longer clearly communicate with lesser life forms, even among his own species.

All valid points but I'm still skeptical. I don't understand why they would purposely detract from what was (at least portrayed as) the be-all-end-all battle (Reach) in favor of highlighting the Battle of Earth.

Reach was already established as an epic fight, even the marketing for the game seemed to hint that we would get the massive scale present in the book ("From the beginning, you know the end" how would that be possible if we didn't already have and know the story in the book) - that scene was just sitting there for them to exploit. Instead we got Noble Team and the "valiant sacrifices the little guys had to make behind the scenes to make sure the main character could save the day". While that would be fine as a chapter in a book, making "the little guy" the entire focus of a game, while Nylund's version of Reach is just dangling there for you to exploit, seems like a dumb decision.

I also understand the whole concept of giving Reach some greater meaning (through Nobel 6's actions) but I think the mental gymnastics that both the community and Nylund (in Halsey's Journal) had to go through in explaining how we got to that point show it was in fact a poor decision. They chose to essentially disregard an entire battle that hardcore fans loved in favor of making a team who no one really cared about in the first place seem relevant. It's just upsetting that all the possibilities were there but were largely ignored.

  • 12.01.2010 5:27 PM PDT

I don't care. I really don't.

Up until about middle if August, most of fleet are in or en route from Sigma Octanus, only arriving at the end of LNoS, which, at that point, you never visit the areas they are becuase you're pulling black ops (Exodus thru The Package) or they're already all dead (TPoA).
You didn't see that many large battles and Bungie placed the settings where they did due to restraints on the engine and graphics.

But yes, I know they could've pulled off a more epic campaign with less covert operations and more epicly scaled military sieges, however a more than a quarter of their team was on ODST for two thirds of the development time, so that kinda screwed Reach.

  • 12.01.2010 5:28 PM PDT

Online ID: GriffGraff15

Most of Halo:Reach takes place near New Alexandria and the peninsula it is on. I'd guess that most of the UNSC's bases and forces are far from population centers.

  • 12.01.2010 5:39 PM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Halo: Earth could be better from a Spartan-III point of view if you want to have a epic battle from a military hub.

[Edited on 12.01.2010 5:47 PM PST]

  • 12.01.2010 5:43 PM PDT

see my beef isn't necessarily being able to play in large scale fights but the fact that they weren't there at all like cutscene wise or even in the background. A good example is... i think its package, where you look up and see all the banshees and falcons fight when you have to destroy the AA guns.. you know just something in the background that makes you feel like there is a war going on around you. it feels so meaningless and even the members of noble team don't really help you out in campaign, besides taking the attention away from the covies. I would want a spartan to be able to kill an elite if it was next to it not dodge and spray, and not get the kill or even significantly injure. This story was not only a let down but an unnecessary one at that.

  • 12.01.2010 6:24 PM PDT

Cave Johnson here, we're done!

PS: If you are reading this comment while imagining my voice, don't panic. That's just a side effect of the testing.


Posted by: ThE ReD3mPti0n
see my beef isn't necessarily being able to play in large scale fights but the fact that they weren't there at all like cutscene wise or even in the background. A good example is... i think its package, where you look up and see all the banshees and falcons fight when you have to destroy the AA guns.. you know just something in the background that makes you feel like there is a war going on around you. it feels so meaningless and even the members of noble team don't really help you out in campaign, besides taking the attention away from the covies. I would want a spartan to be able to kill an elite if it was next to it not dodge and spray, and not get the kill or even significantly injure. This story was not only a let down but an unnecessary one at that.


I feel the complete opposite. It has always been my assumption after finishing reach that this was bungie showing us how outmatched humanity was. While everyone was expecting to see huge fleets fighting with covenant foes both in space, in air, and on ground, but I was expecting complete devastation. Reach showed you a frigate being blasted out of the sky in a split second, it showed you broken pieces of frigates as the tumbled through space aimlessly, wrought with tangled molten metal and spire like chunks that had been blown to bits. A whole shipyard glassed without a moments notice, each and every one of those ships incapable of ever taking off.

Reach showed us how doomed we were, and to what extent we had to change our tactics to just simply fight back. I mean my favorite scene was being tossed out of the Covie frigate falling towards space as a carrier which is at least twice the size of an assault carrier (Possibly bigger), and watch as our technology which had brought us galactic travel become a weapon in only a split second.

Not to mention every spartan's death was not over dramatized, it was a pure moment of just utter defeat, and regardless of the futility, our hope was that Spartans would never give up, simply because they couldn't. Reach by far had an amazing campaign, which gave us a better understanding of what the battle of reach was like. Dominated in every damn battleground.

  • 12.01.2010 6:48 PM PDT


Posted by: FleetAdmiralBob

Posted by: Alf stewert

Posted by: ThE ReD3mPti0n
am i the only person who felt betrayed betrayed by Halo Reach's lack of military presence everywhere??? ok... sure you can play the card, noble team was doing more black ops and wasn't really alongside the main UNSC, ok but if that was the case why at the few military type places you visit nothing or no one can be found? even in space where the hell is the military? MACs? the Home Fleet? Ok on ToTS there is a decent amount of vehicles but where are the companies? ODST's? and remainder of the S-II's(because they sure better not have been being debriefed while the planet they call home is under seige) the covenant breezed right through most of reach glassing major cities before they were met by any resistance humanity should have lost the war if this is how easy the covies can cut through numbers like this...
Total Available Military Manpower: 385,421,100
Total Land Assets: 58,430
Total Naval Assets: 1,209 (T); 75 (X)
Total Air Assets: 11,050
now tell me the planet you were fighting to defend matches the one you read about.
up till the 30th of august the battles as noble team were us fighting an advance war party in the viery territory the fleet that came was most likely a small advance fleet as well or whatever it was(gotta wait for it to be explained) so the last level is the only level were the 700 ships of the covenant attacked the whole of reach.


The "advance team" only works until TotS. The fleet arrives after LNoS and the Battle of Reach lasts the greater part of a month.

Fall of Reach is dead. Long live the canon.
holland thought they were a whole covenant fleet just because he thought it was doesnt mean it actually was? but we just have to wait till the new canon comes out, and i hope that bungie gets the ODST team to make a red team DLC campaign,

[Edited on 12.01.2010 7:09 PM PST]

  • 12.01.2010 7:04 PM PDT

umm i hope it will just be dlc though no standalone bull that we have to pay up the eye for cuz they ruined the canon

  • 12.01.2010 9:54 PM PDT

This is my main disappointment with Reach. I mean, we had larger scale battles in H3. Don't get me wrong, I love Reach, but I think the Campaign needed larger scale battles.

  • 12.01.2010 11:32 PM PDT

I would've loved for there to be more Noble team members and for the campaign to have been longer. I have always loved Halo campaign and Reach's was really cool. Just three more missions and I think it would have done it a lot of justice.

  • 12.02.2010 2:56 AM PDT

In order to show an epic battle, the campaign should have followed noble team doing a few special operations (as it did), but should also have contained huge scale battles, defensive battles where you basically retreated and tried to survive, or get killed.

I think seeing a company of Marines get cut down around you as you run from Covenant hordes would of been better than a few offensive black ops. How about having to make the choice whether to protect civillians or save yourself?

That said Reach had a brilliant campaign, it just wasn't the battle for Reach IMHO.

  • 12.02.2010 9:13 AM PDT

Posted by: Alf stewert

Posted by: ThE ReD3mPti0n
am i the only person who felt betrayed betrayed by Halo Reach's lack of military presence everywhere??? ok... sure you can play the card, noble team was doing more black ops and wasn't really alongside the main UNSC, ok but if that was the case why at the few military type places you visit nothing or no one can be found? even in space where the hell is the military? MACs? the Home Fleet? Ok on ToTS there is a decent amount of vehicles but where are the companies? ODST's? and remainder of the S-II's(because they sure better not have been being debriefed while the planet they call home is under seige) the covenant breezed right through most of reach glassing major cities before they were met by any resistance humanity should have lost the war if this is how easy the covies can cut through numbers like this...
Total Available Military Manpower: 385,421,100
Total Land Assets: 58,430
Total Naval Assets: 1,209 (T); 75 (X)
Total Air Assets: 11,050
now tell me the planet you were fighting to defend matches the one you read about.
up till the 30th of august the battles as noble team were us fighting an advance war party in the viery territory the fleet that came was most likely a small advance fleet as well or whatever it was(gotta wait for it to be explained) so the last level is the only level were the 700 ships of the covenant attacked the whole of reach.


There is absolutely nothing that suggests that the 700 ships arrive that late in the game, according to the new canon, which more or less overwrites tfors version of the battle.


Even with just the single super carrier, you could clearly see that a rather large amount of the planet was on fire. You cannot honestly think that most of the galaxy was unaware that their planet was on friggin fire.

  • 12.02.2010 9:26 AM PDT

Bungie has good stories, but they tell them poorly imo.

They need to pull things back sometimes and show the scale of everything.

  • 12.02.2010 9:27 AM PDT

  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 2
  • of 2