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This topic has moved here: Subject: How would you change the story of Reach?
  • Subject: How would you change the story of Reach?
Subject: How would you change the story of Reach?

So as with many people, I was a little disappointed with Reach's story. It wasn't the grand, sweeping tragedy that I was expecting. It had fewer memorable moments, a weaker supporting cast, and a less direct plot than previous Halo games. Many of the missions were spent doing trivial or vague objectives.

So I thought, what would be my ideal version of Reach?

The opening would be in New Alexandria. Noble Six arrives from outer space/wherever, recalled like all the Spartans. He's never been to Reach, which is a good time for some officer to guide him from the dock and explain some things. "This is UNSC's stronghold. This city is the crown jewel of the planet. We have moas here." This would set up what is at stake if Reach falls. Basic controls could follow. "Here, test out this new equipment. We have all the greatest technology here."

Then we go to Welcome to Noble. We need to establish early on that Carter is a worthy leader, instead of some guy. He's talking to a CO about the downed relay outpost. The CO doesn't want to "waste" a Spartan team to go and fix it. Carter, in my version, is the one who declares that Reach is too important for Innies to strike. He leads Noble Team against orders to examine the outpost. Carter's character is "doing what's right is more important than following orders".

Winter Contingency would begin about the same, end about the same, but the middle would feature less random Covenant dancing around. Really, what were they doing? It's not a very secret invasion when Grunts are wandering around picking flowers where any farmer could see them.

I'll end my wall here so that China doesn't get jealous. How would you all have designed Reach's story? Would you fit it more with the canon of the books? Scrap Noble Team altogether and go with Red or Blue team? Spend the whole game in space? I'd like to hear how you all would improve the story.


[Edited on 01.02.2011 5:18 PM PST]

  • 01.02.2011 4:40 PM PDT

Halo Reach - Make a prequel to the fight.
Halo CE - Begin the fight.
Halo 2 - Continue the fight.
Halo 3 - Finish the fight.
Halo 4 - Start a new fight.


Posted by: AfroWalrus9
"This is UNSC's stronghold. This city is the crown jewel of the planet. We have moas here."


Lol @ last sentence.

EDIT: I like what you did there, showing that there was more to Reach than just a battle, that it was a place where people lived. I would do something similar to that.

However, after the PoA takes off, N6 goes to another continent to assist in anyway possible. As he is walking aimlessly, he finds a Pelican. You play as him and you can fly it for about 15 minutes, while avoiding enemy air units, until you find a few other Spartans that have holed up in a base. They are fighting off wave after wave of Covenant infantry. When you arrive, you get out of the Pelican to assist, and once you finish off the 5th wave on enemies, you get back in the Pelican with the Spartans, and begin flying aimlessly.

After the pelican has flown around for a while, the radio on it begins picking up distress call asking all availble combat teams to assist with Civilian Evac's. When your Team arrives, you find an arsenal of weapons and vehicles that can be used to defend the Civies. After defending against 3-5 waves, a cutscene plays.

During the cutscene, you learn that almost all of the planet has been over-run, and you need to get off of the planet ASAP. Then you see 2 Cruisers heading to glass you and the evac ships, and they have 15 minutes until they are above you. You also learn that there is a Sabre facility 5 minutes away. /cutscene

You defend the ships for 5 minutes until they are fully loaded. Then you get ready to set out for the Sabre Facility, even though there are more Covenant troops inbound. One of the Spartans volunteers to stay behind and continue to defend the ships, even though it is a suicidal mission.

When you reach the Facility, you fight through a small amount of Elites, then takeoff to defend the Ships. You escort them into space, you witness the real space battle that happened. After the ships jump, you fight until your ship is about to explode, so you crash into the hanger of an Assault Carrier. Then it is the Lone Wolf level all over again.

That was long. Sorry for the wall.

[Edited on 01.02.2011 6:23 PM PST]

  • 01.02.2011 5:50 PM PDT

I felt as if the planet itself should have been more...militarized? I mean really, what were farmers and civilians doing on Reach? I just felt it wasn't the super-duper-ONI tests secret weapons-tons of ships guarding the place-kind of planet the book made it out to be. And it wasn't really industrialized that much. This is, after all, one of the first colonies of the UNSC? You know, the colony that they had a couple decades to populate? Why is there so much trees and -blam!- everywhere instead of towering military bases?

And besides the opening cutscene of TOTS we don't really get to see a massive UNSC counterassualt. Keep in mind, while the Covenant did win they suffered massive losses on Reach, and it was more of a Pyhrric victory more than anything else.

By Long Night of Solace it's like oh-herp-derp, we've lost, time to take out this one ship and yay we did...oh -blam!- 5 or 6 more corvettes showed up we're screwed, let's start to evacuate some civilians.

It didn't feel like "SCREW YOU ALIENS I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU BLEED BEFORE YOU PRY THIS PLANET FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS" epicness, with lots of ships exploding and stuff. [Jun or whoever DID say that "60% of the UNSC fleet is on route" in one of the missions, couldn't Bungie have given us a cutscene for that battle at least?]



  • 01.02.2011 6:00 PM PDT

Posted by:ScubaToaster
Posted by: HipiO7
This man, this man right here put it so eloquently that I actually cancelled my own 2000+ word long post.
/slow clap for respect


:)
The person who said participating is important, not winning, obviously never won anything.

I liked the story alot. But remember, Noble dosent fight on the planet, only on small parts. It's normal we dont get to see the UNSC's full might...

Except in space, I was expecting more of a battle or debris all over the place.

  • 01.02.2011 6:09 PM PDT

Noble team would all be spartan-IIs

Master chief and linda would be defending the POA with noble team at the end, not asleep.

During the battle to defend it linda gets severely injured and emile dies.

Master chief carries lindas body on board keyes' pelican. They witness emile die. Master Chief immediately offers to man the cannon so the POA can escape. Noble six says cortana chose him (MC), he is too important. Master chief tries to order noble 6 to get on the pelican (if anyone was going to be left behind, it would be him, like in TFOR) noble 6 has none of it and stays behind.

[Edited on 01.02.2011 7:05 PM PST]

  • 01.02.2011 6:09 PM PDT

Don't worry, you're still your mom's favorite Bnet member.

Well first off there would be an epic space battle of epic in Long Night of Solace. Halcyons, frigates and a hell of a lot more ships fighting along the side of a Covenant cruiser

Plus the game would have began on August 28th instead of July 24th, so Reach falls in an unbelievable 2 days on August 30th, not a month.

[Edited on 01.02.2011 6:19 PM PST]

  • 01.02.2011 6:17 PM PDT

I gaze upon the stars and see the majesty that is the universe.


EGO mos bulla astrum.

I wouldn't. I can honestly say that Reach made much more sense in fighting terms than Fall of Reach did.

  • 01.02.2011 6:21 PM PDT

Bungie writes a good story, but is terrible at telling/portraying it.

Reach is the giant military planet, there were absolutely massive space battle taking place but they didnt bother to show any of it.

To those who haven't read the books reach may as well have been a farming colony.

  • 01.02.2011 6:37 PM PDT

Join Robot Academy for a great community, fun gamedays, and lots of lulz.

I would just change the ending, make it so that the Pillar of Autumn waited for like one extra minute for Six to get on board (Why the hell didn't they?) and from then on Six would be Master Chief's sidekick.

  • 01.02.2011 6:40 PM PDT

Posted by: ALMIGHTY DONUTx
I would just change the ending, make it so that the Pillar of Autumn waited for like one extra minute for Six to get on board (Why the hell didn't they?) and from then on Six would be Master Chief's sidekick.

Well the point of that part was that someone needed to man the Mass Driver turret, or the Pillar of Autumn would have gotten blasted by the Covenant cruiser. If Six hadn't sacrificed himself, nobody on board would have survived.

Posted by: MegaMuffin16
Plus the game would have began on August 28th instead of July 24th, so Reach falls in an unbelievable 2 days on August 30th, not a month.

I agree, not only would shortening the timespan fit more with what the books say, it would tighten up the story considerably. When there are weeks in between missions, that's basically saying "Interesting things happened but you don't get to see any of them!"

I mean, I would have loved a level just after you crash land after Long Night of Solace, surviving in the wilderness against Covenant patrols. Rather like... the second level of Halo CE, as a matter of fact.

Posted by: Wazooty
Bungie writes a good story, but is terrible at telling/portraying it.

Pretty much this.

[Edited on 01.02.2011 7:03 PM PST]

  • 01.02.2011 7:02 PM PDT

Oh hey there

Posted by: petarded2
It's a metaphor for the 07s' lack of identity. too old to be newfa­g, yet too new to be oldfa­g, we wander b.net in search of a home, forever trying to be something we are not.

I would have just told the story of TFoR.

  • 01.02.2011 7:23 PM PDT

I feel if they combined tfors story with noble teams (noble team was a splinter of red team that went their own way after they landed on the planet), then it would be awesome.


But...bungie does uh...strange things.

  • 01.02.2011 7:27 PM PDT

I wouls change it so it fits in with the canon of the fall of reach and first strike. So instead of a small stike force of covenant arriving weeks before MK.V tests, it has all the spartans II's readying for the operation to kidnap the prophet and spartan III's testing new equiptment I.E armour abilities. The spartan II's start there mission and then the fall of reach happens a massive covenant force arrives and noble team link up with other military units to defend key locations, also you could have other missions playing as red team like in halo 2 with the arbiter missions, defending the generators, flying in the banshee's to blow up the covenant ship and falling back to castle base. You could even have the first strike mission in it which would explain the start of halo 2 much better.

  • 01.03.2011 3:03 AM PDT

Signatures are for squares.

Posted by: Spartan1065
I would have just told the story of TFoR.


Pretty much the last chapters of Fall of Reach with the rest of First Strike.

  • 01.03.2011 3:57 AM PDT

Posted by: privet caboose
Posted by: Spartan1065
I would have just told the story of TFoR.


Pretty much the last chapters of Fall of Reach with the rest of First Strike.


Like this one million times

  • 01.03.2011 4:20 AM PDT