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This topic has moved here: Subject: Halo: Reach Beta Weekend FAQ
  • Subject: Halo: Reach Beta Weekend FAQ
Subject: Halo: Reach Beta Weekend FAQ

Posted by: padraig08
I love you Bungie, we are too lucky to have guys willing to put up with a ridiculous bunch of whining code hunters. Monday's coming. I for one can't wait to rain down on those people who got in early.


yea what a bunch of whiners lol code plz -whine whine whine- lol

  • 05.01.2010 7:34 PM PDT

http://halo3.junk.ws/sig/I%20S0LO%20I/snapshot.jpg

LOL you know the great thing about the internet... it keeps you safe... keep talking -blam!- from behind your keyboard nancy boy

  • 05.01.2010 7:34 PM PDT

Posted by: XxYouxLostxX
he has a good point... that hardly makes him a prick... most the people that got the codes where little kids dude... kids not even old enough to be playing the game to begin with... wich is really unfair to the adults that like i said have to work 2 full time jobs just to make ends meet and be able to play xbox... i would gladly punch one of these kids in the face and take there damn xbox...
I'd be happy to help you with the deliver of punches.

  • 05.01.2010 7:34 PM PDT

Posted by: XxYouxLostxX
LOL you know the great thing about the internet... it keeps you safe... keep talking -blam!- from behind your keyboard nancy boy

ahhhh the beauty of being an "internet gangster" lololol hell im willing to whine so w.e

  • 05.01.2010 7:36 PM PDT

http://halo3.junk.ws/sig/I%20S0LO%20I/snapshot.jpg

seriously... i -blam!- dare any of you from central illinois that has reach early to post your adress... i dare you... see if i dont come take that -blam!-...

  • 05.01.2010 7:36 PM PDT

Posted by: XxYouxLostxX
seriously... i -blam!- dare any of you from central illinois that has reach early to post your adress... i dare you... see if i dont come take that -blam!-...

he would... seriously im not messing around, he's a stone cold killer so you better just give him... and me a code

  • 05.01.2010 7:37 PM PDT

http://halo3.junk.ws/sig/I%20S0LO%20I/snapshot.jpg

lol im a nice guy.... if there was more than one i would gladly send them to your guys pms just for sticking it out and praying for codes with me lol

  • 05.01.2010 7:38 PM PDT
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I'll try to be unbiased here. Nice PR exercise Bungie.

The FAQ was probably made to quell the mass anger at the (quite frankly) stupid ways, for the most part, that the codes were distributed.

Bungie did what they deemed to be fair, shove all the codes out there for anyone to grab, first come first served, and give a few out to various community sites. However, for M$ to give them out via expertzone to a bunch of people who signed up under false pretences was a kick in the teeth to those that have supported the studio and franchise through thick and thin.

The people who actually purchase ODST for the beta alone feel like they have been screwed over here, but I don't think that is the case. Aside from the aforementioned expertzone silliness, everyone had an equally fair chance to get the codes. I know how much getting to play the beta early means to a lot of people, but Monday is only a day away now, and if anything those waiting those extra few days will be looking forward to getting their hands on it more.

Although one thing I don't agree on is the way ODST was advertised as being the only way to gain access to the beta. However, I don't think any anger should be directed towards Bungie here since ultimately it is their publisher M$ who would have the power to make the decision to distribute codes.

See you all in the beta!

  • 05.01.2010 7:39 PM PDT

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  • 05.01.2010 7:39 PM PDT
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Posted by: DeathBringer669
Does Arena go live Monday? I tried to play it today, but it wouldn't let me.


Yes, Arena opens on Monday when the official beta begins. Wouldn't be fair to everyone else to get a head start on your rating now, would it? :)

  • 05.01.2010 7:41 PM PDT

http://halo3.junk.ws/sig/I%20S0LO%20I/snapshot.jpg

i work 2 full time jobs and happened to be making rent money... how is that fair? really please explain how thats fair at all... little kids with nothing better to do get all 1000 codes while people like me that grind there knuckles to the bone doing hard manual labor 16 hours a day are doing what they do best... working... hows that fair? so your telling me i had a chance at the 1000 codes that where long gone by the time i got home? no i didnt... i had no chance in hell... meaning UNFAIR....

  • 05.01.2010 7:42 PM PDT

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Great update really sketch, can't wait to play the beta.

  • 05.01.2010 7:46 PM PDT
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Posted by: XxYouxLostxX
i work 2 full time jobs and happened to be making rent money... how is that fair? really please explain how thats fair at all... little kids with nothing better to do get all 1000 codes while people like me that grind there knuckles to the bone doing hard manual labor 16 hours a day are doing what they do best... working... hows that fair? so your telling me i had a chance at the 1000 codes that where long gone by the time i got home? no i didnt... i had no chance in hell... meaning UNFAIR....


No offense intended here, but Bungie cannot take everyone's life circumstances into account when posting codes. There were a ton of Halo fans on the other side of the world who were tucked up in bed asleep when the codes were posted, that's life. There were plenty of competitions too via various community and gaming press sites, and if you entered them you had an equal chance of winning as everyone else.

  • 05.01.2010 7:46 PM PDT
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Posted by: Chabrikov
Would be more fair if they distributed the codes to devoted community members through PMs, instead of posting them on the front page for randoms to pick up.


We spent two full days doing specific promotions to give away tokens before we just posted the last of what we had left. We decided that was better than letting them go to waste. Plenty of devoted community members DID get codes but unfortunately there are far more devoted community members that we had codes to go around.

Frankly this isn't any different than what was done for Halo 3 except for the fact that Microsoft had 10x as many codes to distribute (via a retail website, media websites, etc..). All that other stuff was out of our control unfortunately and just fueled the internet fires of rage.

Good news is that we're just a day away now and we can put this all behind us and have fun playing the game.

  • 05.01.2010 7:46 PM PDT

http://halo3.junk.ws/sig/I%20S0LO%20I/snapshot.jpg

LOL dropping all 1000 at once was not fair... at all regardless of how you defend it... its not... 100 hour gives 10 hours of chances... its called not being lazy... instead they did it the lazy way and just copy pasted 1000 codes... being lazy doesnt make it fair either...

  • 05.01.2010 7:48 PM PDT

will the file share in reach be seperat from halo 3, me and my friend were falsly acused of moding awer fileshares and have been permanetly banned from them, we wont to know whats going on and if we will ever get them back

  • 05.01.2010 7:48 PM PDT

Posted by: Sketch
Posted by: Chabrikov
Would be more fair if they distributed the codes to devoted community members through PMs, instead of posting them on the front page for randoms to pick up.


We spent two full days doing specific promotions to give away tokens before we just posted the last of what we had left. We decided that was better than letting them go to waste. Plenty of devoted community members DID get codes but unfortunately there are far more devoted community members that we had codes to go around.

Frankly this isn't any different than what was done for Halo 3 except for the fact that Microsoft had 10x as many codes to distribute (via a retail website, media websites, etc..). All that other stuff was out of our control unfortunately and just fueled the internet fires of rage.

Good news is that we're just a day away now and we can put this all behind us and have fun playing the game.


sorry after all the hours iu have wasted i can not just put this behind me, however i do understand sadly :(

  • 05.01.2010 7:49 PM PDT
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  • Exalted Mythic Member

Posted by: Yanni Oblivion
I'll try to be unbiased here. Nice PR exercise Bungie.

The FAQ was probably made to quell the mass anger at the (quite frankly) stupid ways, for the most part, that the codes were distributed.

Bungie did what they deemed to be fair, shove all the codes out there for anyone to grab, first come first served, and give a few out to various community sites. However, for M$ to give them out via expertzone to a bunch of people who signed up under false pretences was a kick in the teeth to those that have supported the studio and franchise through thick and thin.

The people who actually purchase ODST for the beta alone feel like they have been screwed over here, but I don't think that is the case. Aside from the aforementioned expertzone silliness, everyone had an equally fair chance to get the codes. I know how much getting to play the beta early means to a lot of people, but Monday is only a day away now, and if anything those waiting those extra few days will be looking forward to getting their hands on it more.

Although one thing I don't agree on is the way ODST was advertised as being the only way to gain access to the beta. However, I don't think any anger should be directed towards Bungie here since ultimately it is their publisher M$ who would have the power to make the decision to distribute codes.

See you all in the beta!


The expert zone issue was unfortunate. Microsoft shut it down once the problem was discovered but by then it seems plenty of people had obtained a code. Those were likely the same people out there making a lot of noise, rubbing other people's faces in it and generally being poor sports. Not the type of people that were being given codes in the community and frankly some of these people have given us opportunities to test the Reach banhammer already.

FWIW we tried to distribute codes broadly and fairly, giving lots of the larger fan organizations their own codes to pass out in addition to spreading them around Bungie.net and our own Twitter account. Even so, with millions of fans and a mere thousands of codes, it was always going to leave out far more people than we could possibly include.

Near the end of the day yesterday we were told we had more codes left (they were being held for test purposes and ended up not being used) so we decided to just release them all rather than let them go to waste.

  • 05.01.2010 7:52 PM PDT

Posted by: GOOFFYgoobber
Posted by: Sketch
Posted by: Chabrikov
Would be more fair if they distributed the codes to devoted community members through PMs, instead of posting them on the front page for randoms to pick up.


We spent two full days doing specific promotions to give away tokens before we just posted the last of what we had left. We decided that was better than letting them go to waste. Plenty of devoted community members DID get codes but unfortunately there are far more devoted community members that we had codes to go around.

Frankly this isn't any different than what was done for Halo 3 except for the fact that Microsoft had 10x as many codes to distribute (via a retail website, media websites, etc..). All that other stuff was out of our control unfortunately and just fueled the internet fires of rage.

Good news is that we're just a day away now and we can put this all behind us and have fun playing the game.


sorry after all the hours iu have wasted i can not just put this behind me

Same here. Very difficult to put this behind you when you feel like you've been kicked in the groin over and over.

  • 05.01.2010 7:53 PM PDT

Member of B.net since 4/12/2006
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(Bungie deleted my inactive account =/)

Can't wait for Monday!

  • 05.01.2010 7:53 PM PDT

The man with the textbook plan

can you do me a favor sketch, go look at Urk's update discussion thread

  • 05.01.2010 7:54 PM PDT

http://halo3.junk.ws/sig/I%20S0LO%20I/snapshot.jpg

well the sad news is... no... i wont be playing on monday... i wont be playing at all... nor will i be purchasing the game... i already got conned into buying odst just for the beta and to still be able to play mlg... your scam artist... i spent 60 dollars to play mlg... and then watch 1000's of people get to play reach before me... its taken all urge to play the game at all away... now im going to go play call of duty... and tomorrow ill be selling my copy of odst while it still has some sort of value...

  • 05.01.2010 7:54 PM PDT

The Beta has been great getting used to, as it was a bit confusing at first! I hope everyone will have the same positive experiences as I have.

  • 05.01.2010 7:55 PM PDT
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  • Exalted Mythic Member

Posted by: XxYouxLostxX
LOL dropping all 1000 at once was not fair... at all regardless of how you defend it... its not... 100 hour gives 10 hours of chances... its called not being lazy... instead they did it the lazy way and just copy pasted 1000 codes... being lazy doesnt make it fair either...


I didn't say dropping 1000 codes was "fair." What's "fair" in life is another discussion. But either way you statistically wouldn't have gotten one anyways, so what's the difference? 1000 people got codes who otherwise would not have. Unfortunately you weren't one of them (nor were tens of thousands of other people).

I understand that people are obviously super pumped and anxious to play and that's awesome but there's nothing else to be done. I'd recommend pretending no codes were ever given out, don't lose any sleep over it, enjoy your weekend and the sunshine since once the Beta drops on Monday, you may find yourself indoors for a while.

  • 05.01.2010 7:56 PM PDT

Posted by: Sketch
Posted by: XxYouxLostxX
LOL dropping all 1000 at once was not fair... at all regardless of how you defend it... its not... 100 hour gives 10 hours of chances... its called not being lazy... instead they did it the lazy way and just copy pasted 1000 codes... being lazy doesnt make it fair either...


I didn't say dropping 1000 codes was "fair." What's "fair" in life is another discussion. But either way you statistically wouldn't have gotten one anyways, so what's the difference? 1000 people got codes who otherwise would not have. Unfortunately you weren't one of them (nor were tens of thousands of other people).

I understand that people are obviously super pumped and anxious to play and that's awesome but there's nothing else to be done. I'd recommend pretending no codes were ever given out, don't lose any sleep over it, enjoy your weekend and the sunshine since once the Beta drops on Monday, you may find yourself indoors for a while.

to late sketch already lost some sleep over it and so did other over at Urks update discussion thread

  • 05.01.2010 7:59 PM PDT