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This topic has moved here: Subject: Bungie Weekly Update: 02/11/2011
  • Subject: Bungie Weekly Update: 02/11/2011
Subject: Bungie Weekly Update: 02/11/2011

Skee ball ftw. Awesome all star pics. Excited to hear about whatever is happening at the toy fair!

  • 02.11.2011 7:20 PM PDT

DMH-Always Loaded
My name is Tyler. Computers and Video games is what I love to do.

skee ball looks really fun! Good update.

  • 02.11.2011 7:22 PM PDT


Posted by: urk

Posted by: HANTER 03
One word for all these contests.


FAVORITISM.


Ive noticed that almost all the star recipients are friends of urk and other people who are involved with this. All the winners are friends of urk or someone involved with the contests.


Not a single winner is on my friends list, and I didn't recognize any of the gamertags I gave stars to today. I literally picked my favorites, copied the corresponding gamertags, and pulled the trigger.

:)


Maybe not friends, but they might have all been gingers or something? Elitism?

  • 02.11.2011 7:30 PM PDT

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wow that skeeball looks insane

cant wait to play :)

  • 02.11.2011 7:40 PM PDT
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  • Senior Heroic Member
  • gamertag: WoopyD
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member since 09-06-05

we all saw the maps why are you going to pretend we didn't

man up and talk about it we already are

  • 02.11.2011 7:44 PM PDT

Fantastic screenshots!

^_^

  • 02.11.2011 7:46 PM PDT

Here was my entry for week 5: http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Reach/FileDetails.aspx?fid=137779 84&player=Tech%20Artist

Posted by: urk

Posted by: HANTER 03
One word for all these contests.


FAVORITISM.


Ive noticed that almost all the star recipients are friends of urk and other people who are involved with this. All the winners are friends of urk or someone involved with the contests.


Not a single winner is on my friends list, and I didn't recognize any of the gamertags I gave stars to today. I literally picked my favorites, copied the corresponding gamertags, and pulled the trigger.

:)

I really like the way you handle a lot of posts like this. Professional and in a friendly way. Sets a great example!

The update was fantastic and once again injected with plenty of clever wording and humor which I so enjoy to read in these updates. Loved all the screenshots and to no surprise they were all quite amazing! Though, a few I do question how they got in there in comparison to ones I've seen that didn't get in, but I'm guessing it was to have more of a variety? I do however agree with the winner. I found it in the Most Recommended while playing Reach, a couple days ago, and was floored. I will definetly be making it my wallpaper!

Looking forward to the next all stars. Keep up the great work Urk!

  • 02.11.2011 7:51 PM PDT
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  • Noble Heroic Member

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Posted by: WoopyD
we all saw the maps why are you going to pretend we didn't

man up and talk about it we already are
With how Urk mentioned the incident indirectly in the update I'm pretty sure they're going to be officially announcing it within the next week. That's what I'm guessing anyways.

  • 02.11.2011 8:03 PM PDT

Nice Solomon reference!

But good update, but was hoping for more solid food. Looking forward to next week, and news on you-know-what.

  • 02.11.2011 8:16 PM PDT

Hi.

Posted by: Dr Syx

Posted by: WoopyD
we all saw the maps why are you going to pretend we didn't

man up and talk about it we already are
With how Urk mentioned the incident indirectly in the update I'm pretty sure they're going to be officially announcing it within the next week. That's what I'm guessing anyways.

Whoo, crappy maps for a crappy game that's officially confirmed to be never fixed.

  • 02.11.2011 8:16 PM PDT

If you read this I command you to buy Skyrim.


Posted by: RoBiNmiamollyji
OMG THANKS BUNGIE I GOT A STAR OMG


well done dude :)

  • 02.11.2011 8:18 PM PDT

I never post on here, but before Halo Reach came out I came on the website here from time to time to see new advertising videos for Halo Reach, and I have come time to time now after playing it hoping for three things:

1. Maps. Free Maps.

Seriously, you guys have Countdown, Reflection, Powerhouse, Zealot, Boardwalk, and Sword Base. 6 normal multiplayer maps. That's nothing! Especially considering that Zealot and Boardwalk suck big time and are largely disliked by players. I personally think you guys ripped Boardwalk straight out of the campaign with only minor modifications to alter it into a multiplayer map.

Look at how many maps Halo 2 had, or games you guys are competing with. You're getting trashed by the Call of Duty series, which isn't saying much because the gameplay in those games sucks. But regardless, Black Ops does have some excellent maps, although I never play CoD.

2. A New Forge World as Downloadable Content and Forge Update

Forge in Reach turned out to be a joke, largely due to the inflation of the budget, the pitiful object pallete, and the strange grouping of objects. (Objects that are NOT similar need to be grouped together, NOT objects that ARE similar to each other). Its Halo 3 forge plus angle snaps, phasing, and a couple of other things. You can't even make a larger map than in Halo 3's forge, or edit your own terrain. I have 2 words and a number to respond to Halo Reach's forge:

Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 is old, and laughs at Halo's forge. I'm guessing you guys couldn't put a mad editor like Far Cry 2 has in Reach because you can't fit it into your engine, and you can't fit it into your engine because you guys are simply altering an old engine rather than making a new one. I read a big reason you guys took out duel wielding and something else was to make room for some forge related stuff, like a big forge world map, phasing, snaps, and a slightly increased budget.

The Cry Engine puts your engine to shame, seriously. I can't wait for Crysis 2, because I have a strong feeling its going to turn out to be what Halo Reach should have been.

Forge also needs to be updated to simplify some features. How are players supposed to know if they need to use a Hill, Capture Plate, or whatever the other thing is when placing an objective on a map for example? Then, on top of that, how are they supposed to know which label they need to put on the objective object? It took me TWO MONTHS to figure out how to make a map compatible with gametypes like Capture the Flag! I finally looked it up on the internet, and the help wasn't that clear, so between looking at maps that came with the game and the tutorial online I eventually figured it out. Tons of players that forge STILL don't know how to make a map play CTF. That's just sad. If its too complex to change through an update, you guys could at least have a forging tutorial prominently displayed on this site. (Which should have been there anyway for people knew to forging since there was no in-game tutorial for forge).

3. An Update Patch (Whatever those things are called to fix things)

Halo Reach is in dire need of some pretty significant tweaking to keep its multiplayer functional and fun. The bloom in Reach is not right for some reason. I used to play SWAT all the time, until I got bored of Reach due to these reasons I'm listing at least, and Reach does NOT count headshots right all the time. Maybe I'm wrong and its not the bloom, but it sure feels like it. And I'm aware bloom has been in all the Halo games, but its off in Reach for some reason. Perhaps you guys screwed up the hitboxes in the heads or something and it simply feels like bloom causing the problem to me.

Armor Lock also needs something done to it. And it doesn't need to save people from plasma grenades that they have already been stuck with. That's ridiculously stupid. Armor Lock is just very glitchy, and all around not right. I would suggest just giving up on it altogether and removing it from ALL playlists, and replacing it with the Drop Shield. (Which is pretty lame too, especially the regeneration, but it seems to work exactly how its supposed to unlike Armor Lock).

The ranking system SUCKS in Halo Reach. Arena needs to be removed and replaced with a 1-50 ranking system that people like me understand. If I play Arena, which I have probably only done like literally 5-10 times after playing Reach 15 hrs a week for a few months, and I got a rating of say 1255, what in the world does that mean? Is 1255 good? Where does it come from? What is it? I have no idea, so I don't care about that. I skip past it to look at my k/d spread to see how I did.

Also, what is the gold/ silver/ onyx junk? I don't know what color is best, or how they work exactly. And whatever they are, they reset like every month or something?!? Very wierd. It makes no sense to me.

And why would I want to get good to move up in that wierd rating system if it resets every month or few months? (I don't even know when it resets because there's no way to know).

Weapons need tweaking very badly too. The Plasma Launcher is now useless compared to being awesome in the beta. Me and a friend of mine loved the Plasma Launcher in the beta, and thought it was one of the most fun weapons ever put in Halo. Then the REAL game came out, and it sucks now?

The laser needs 2, yes TWO, shots to kill tanks and banshees now? Is that seriously how its supposed to be? If not, it happens all the time to me in matchmaking. Its crazy that it takes two shots to take out a Banshee while a Sniper Rifle takes what, 3-4 shots to take out a Banshee? I know some people criticized you guys for making the Sniper Rifle more powerful against vehicles, but I think thats fine, and it functions anyway. But is the laser seriously supposed to take 2 shots to kill Banshees and tanks now? Either way, it needs a damage increase. Its also TERRIBLY inaccurate now as well because it lags behind where you're actually aiming for some reason.

The Focus Rifle. Rename it the shield drainer. Its not like its going to kill anyone. Even back in the beta it was less powerful than a Needler. (I shot someone at the same time they shot me with a Needler while I had the Focus Rifle, and I died first because the Needler kills faster). And after the beta instead of giving the Focus Rifle a slight damage boost, it was made far less powerful. Its useless. I NEVER pick it up. It might as well not exist.

The armor abilities also seem unbalanced because some are used far more often than others. I think Sprint is certainly not balanced against others since it is by far the most used armor ability.

The abilities also glitch VERY badly. Lots of games everyone spawns without armor abilities until they die and respawn, armor abilities drop onto the ground instead of spawning with players, last longer than they're supposed to, don't work at all, and so on. There are tons of common issues with them in matchmaking games.

Firefight matchmaking lags so badly its pointless for it to be there for most players. Has it been fixed yet? No. The only way I can play firefight in matchmaking is by myself in score attack. And its not just my internet. My internet is fine and tons of other players have the same problem with severe lag in firefight that's so bad they can't really play it.

The Infection playlist sucks big time. It has so many problems I can't even fathom how a playlist was put in matchmaking that is so screwed up. And your response was to fix the worst couple of problems, while there are many more. Most of the maps chosen for that playlist don't make sense either because they're the worst maps possible for Infection. Are you guys actually truly looking at your voting data, and really making changes to playlists based off that information? It doesn't seem like it.



There's probably much more that needs to be fixed in Halo Reach, but I will stop here. That is more than enough to make you think I just don't like Halo, but thats not true. I've been a fan of Halo since CE, and still think Halo CE is the best game made yet.

Also I would like to say you guys INSULTED your players that forge maps and share them with the community playlist you made by putting such bland maps up. You guys even put two maps in matchmaking from the same person, and picked maps for different things that were made by people that you guys know in some way. I have seen the HUNDREDS of maps on forgehub.com, and know there are easily at least 20 maps that could go straight into matchmaking. But instead you guys put HORRIBLE maps into matchmaking, and declare them winners of your contest.

Its an insult to the people that play Halo Reach and make maps to play when you guys put BAD maps from people you know into matchmaking and declare them the best. There ARE better maps out there, but you guys want to sell your map packs. (Which the first 6 downloadable maps should be FREE since Reach has no maps).

If Bungie doesn't listen to this criticism, you guys will continue to lose to other popular games such as CoD. You can't just slap the name Halo on a game and expect everyone in the world to love it if it sucks.

Obviously as you can tell Bungie, you have lost my business if some attempts to solve some of Reach's problems aren't shown. So far you have shown arrogance and disdain for your fans rather than sincere efforts to fix at least the simple problems, like the infection playlist, and other things like that. At the very least, a free map pack of at least 3 maps should have been released by now. I feel ripped off because Reach has no maps, and the invasion maps are only good for invasion games, not even big team really.

If you guys at Bungie don't get off your high horse of arrogance, and start explaining what you're doing to improve Reach, and don't offer at least 3 free maps, I won't be buying your next game. Hopefully 343 turns Halo around.

[Edited on 02.11.2011 9:13 PM PST]

  • 02.11.2011 9:00 PM PDT

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Tell her that If you jingle my bells, Ill promise you a white Christmas - Call Me Venom
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My friends were the ones who created the Skeeball thing. Glad to see it's recognized.

What I'm not glad to see go unrecognized are the pleas for a word on a Title Update. It seems as though Bungie isn't interested in fixing any of the bugs, glitches, and balance issues ranging from custom and forge options to gameplay mechanics. Halo 3 had a patch this time last year already.

Even if these issues weren't going to be fixed, simply saying "No Title Update" in plain black and white instead of "no huge changes to fundamental systems" would be better. The latter leaves too much room for interpretation. Now we have those who believe that a TU has been denied, and then we have those who say one will come, but only change minor things.

So far the only issues that were fixed were gametype-specific, and that was for MLG.

[Edited on 02.11.2011 9:35 PM PST]

  • 02.11.2011 9:34 PM PDT

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Posted by: urk
Not a single winner is on my friends list, and I didn't recognize any of the gamertags I gave stars to today. I literally picked my favorites, copied the corresponding gamertags, and pulled the trigger.

:)

Yeah, I don't know this wack-job...I hear he's a real Jurk though.

:p

[Edited on 02.11.2011 10:25 PM PST]

  • 02.11.2011 10:24 PM PDT

When the dust settles, you will learn what true terror is.

Great screenshots, but I wish there were links to their fileshares. I want to download a few of them in their full-size high-res glory. :/

  • 02.11.2011 11:03 PM PDT

I wish Bungie would update us on what exactly they are working on to fix the game. Improve your relations with fans. The is the lowest moment halo has hit maybe ever. I want the yellow words of the Bungie Gods to tell me there will be a title update and the arena will become respectable again. Do you actually take advice from the forums or all of us just wasting our time trying to help?

  • 02.11.2011 11:39 PM PDT

"Please, don't shake the lightbulb." -Sgt.Johnson


Posted by: Halo biggest fan
Almost first! Wow mine didn't even get on =(.


That screenie is awesome :O
Mine didn't make it neither. :(

  • 02.12.2011 1:24 AM PDT

>>/INFO_ONISEC1SER3
/CLASSIFICATION>> CLASS ?
/MISSION_CONTROL>> BASE ALAMO
/CODENAME>> FACOTA FI
/MISSON_LOCATION>> CLASSIFIED
/MISSION_STATUS >> 7H+IN_PROGRESS
>>END //INFO_ONISEC1SER3 >>CLEAR

Mind someone tell me where I can get this picture in full resolution? In my opinion it should have won. It's effing awesome!

And yes, to be honest, not many of the pictures were that great.
Oh well, I hope there is still hope. : )

  • 02.12.2011 3:21 AM PDT

@Helveck

Just an Average Joe...

Amazing Skee ball is amazing.

  • 02.12.2011 3:56 AM PDT


Posted by: eating lunch
I never post on here, but before Halo Reach came out I came on the website here from time to time to see new advertising videos for Halo Reach, and I have come time to time now after playing it hoping for three things:

1. Maps. Free Maps.

Seriously, you guys have Countdown, Reflection, Powerhouse, Zealot, Boardwalk, and Sword Base. 6 normal multiplayer maps. That's nothing! Especially considering that Zealot and Boardwalk suck big time and are largely disliked by players. I personally think you guys ripped Boardwalk straight out of the campaign with only minor modifications to alter it into a multiplayer map.

1st off, the maps will be free eventually. Bungie is a business. They need to make money as well. Be happy they even bother updating the game or work on it all, ecpesially without charging you.

2nd, it's pretty obvious some of the maps are out of the campaign. What adjustments were made, I don't really know.

Boardwalk(this one I'm not too sure on if that exact part was in Exodus), Boneyard, Reflection, Spire, Sword Base, and all the Firefight maps(not sure on Corvette), were all from the campaign. I don't mind that they did this. It's nice to play on maps I played on the campaign. Not a big fan of Boardwalk or Spire but that is just my opinion.

  • 02.12.2011 5:48 AM PDT

The rumor mill huh. Would the rumor be that you guys are making a hd remake of Halo Combat Evolved? I think that's it.

  • 02.12.2011 5:52 AM PDT
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  • Noble Heroic Member

"A life lived for others is the only life worth living" - Albert Einstein

"I have your RCON right here." - Iggwilv

"Always my pleasure to be lazy." - InvasionImminent

The maps weren't cut and pasted out of the campaign to the multiplayer. That's an illusion. In fact, it's quite the opposite. They made them in the game based them aesthetically off of Campaign levels (They've done this part on every Halo)then they just put them into the Campaign levels to make them seem as though they really exist in the world.

[Edited on 02.12.2011 6:03 AM PST]

  • 02.12.2011 6:01 AM PDT

Awesome screenshots. I'm also curious as to what is going to be at the toy fair. Nice update, Urk.

  • 02.12.2011 6:38 AM PDT

No core mechanic changes? Have you seen the population recently?
I'm absolutely sick of the way this game is being handled post-launch, it is frankly embarrasing watching as a bungie fan after watching them support Halo 3 and more specifically Halo 2. If they're putting so little effort into it because of work on the new ip then that's ridiculous considering how far away from launch it is.
I've pretty much lost all hope that reach is going to make a comback and I couldnt care less about new maps.

Also sizable update last week? Sizable? Really?


[Edited on 02.12.2011 8:02 AM PST]

  • 02.12.2011 6:42 AM PDT

Death by figure skater.

Reach is Bungie's Too Human.

Dennis Dyack and Chris Carney are now on equal footing.

  • 02.12.2011 8:16 AM PDT