Ruby of Blue

Episode 8 of the Halo 2: REBALANCE series is live on my YouTube! Examining what went wrong with Halo 2's Brutes and Drones, the lessons Bungie learned for future games, and what kind of other neat touches we can add that complement their characters. #halo #halomods #gamedesign

Preview for a WIP of one of the new sections added to High Charity >:) #halo #halomods

Thank you so much for the donos and support on the last stream fellas! Really appreciate it aaaaaa

LIVE on YouTube right now showing off some of the work we've done on High Charity, as well as working on some new spooky areas we're adding! #halo #halomods

Gonna stream more H2R dev work on High Charity tomorrow!

LIVE on YouTube right now revamping the mission HIGH CHARITY for Halo 2: REBALANCE. Showing off all the neat new toys we have to play with. #halo #halomods

H2R dev stream in a couple hours!

I'd say they managed to handle their level splitting much MUCH better in the early game. Outskirts, Metro, Arbiter, Oracle, Delta, Regret, Sacred Icon, Quarantine, while not all hitters, all feel like complete missions with beginnings, middles and ends.

I could say the same thing about Uprising too. Its super linear railroaded level and encounter design would've worked great when paired with Great Journey's more wide open segments. But as standalone missions they're very weak.

Man it's weird to think how High Charity's uber-fast paced and short runtime would've made for a phenomenal cap-off to Gravemind like originally intended. But as a stand alone mission is doesn't work at all lol and is gonna need some SERIOUS buffs to bring it up to standard

High Charity is heavily underway! Hoping to stream this Saturday or Sunday :}

My point is, for how well Halo 2 handled Arbiter's arc, Halo 3 filled in the blanks by giving him a more defined personality. Of course I would've preferred at least *some* single player action as Arbiter in 3. But 3 rarely gets credit for what it *does* do, only what it doesn't.

He's not a main playable character anymore, but 3 goes to EXTREME lengths to give Arbiter as many scenes during gameplay as they can. One single Halo 3 mission allows Arbiter to have more of a character and personality than the entirety of Halo 2.

The "Arbiter was sidelined in Halo 3" has always been such a shallow sentiment. True, the bulk of his arc took place in Halo 2. But, Arbiter in Halo 3 has MAGNITUDES more personality and character simply by virtue of not being forced into silence as a player character anymore.

@AzelfandQuilava There's nothing wrong with silent protagonists. But I really don't think Arbiter benefitted from being completely silent during gameplay in Halo 2 like Chief is, considering they wanted him to be a more defined character with an arc.

@RubyofBlue This sounds more like a jab at silent protagonists tbh, but you have a point. Arby still feels a tad sidelined by not being playable in singleplayer though. It’s not like he isn’t in every level anyway and him being around in MP doesn’t break the story.

@wweirderguy Arbiter has significantly more character-building scenes in the 3 than 2 (counting in-game scenes, not just cutscenes). And they used all that dialogue to make his character traits significantly more interesting and defined than in Halo 2.

@RubyofBlue Wdym forced into silence by being a playable character? He's more silent in Halo 3, there's even a line of his that is literally set too quiet that has not been fixed for almost 20 years

@vaaniellis That's not what I said though. Of course a playable character is going to have more presence and impact in a game. I'm talking about Halo 3 succeeding in making Arbiter a much more interesting character than its predecessor.

@RubyofBlue I disagree about that. He had more presence and impact in Halo 2 than 3. I think that the right move would have been to have the Arbiter always with S-117 in solo play, just have him being controlled by the AI.

Taking a lil inspiration for our new rooms on H2R's High Charity 👀#halo

I want to eat the Halo CE plasma Pistol. I want to chew on the orange bits. I want to snack on the yummy glossy shell.

@LateNightHalo Plasma Pistol gummy when???