It's highly doubtful that Bungie made the decision for our benefit. With the state of the economy and the releases of many other games to compete with Reach, it was suicide for them to make Noble Map Pack mandatory to play Matchmaking. They'd have lost a good portion of their players to other games in that situation. With all games having been out for a while and players making up their minds as to which game they prefer, don't be surprised if they don't start making DLC mandatory for playlists. In the end, it's a business and with the economy slowly improving,.. I'd be surprised if Noble Map Pack wasn't made mandatory within the next 6 months.
One of those map Definitely looks like that map from Halo C.E, and I cant remember the name of it... [br][/br]Edited by merge: I may be an idiot to ask this, and probably already know, by what do you mean when you say "FF"?
Timberland? That is what I was thinking of when I saw the scenery (mainly the trees). I doubt it though because I cannot recognize the bases. FF = Firefight Also, where is this video of Condemned? The youtube video is private and everywhere else shows me nothing.
I'm not saying that either, only speaking of the lack of revenue a Firefight only map pack would make compared to the one that's eventually going to be released. I'd love to see 6 maps released at once, but sadly the Halo 2 model for releasing map packs is long gone. **** you, Microsoft. I think you may be missing something here. In H3, you couldn't play in certain playlists unless you had all the maps, and that was mainly due to the engine's design, not some hideous master plan of MS to suck more money out of us. The Reach engine is totally different, and allows Bungie to tweak things with scripting language that just wasn't possible in Halo 3 (and one of the reasons that we may never get a Title Update). So now we can play the Noble maps in regular playlists as long as everyone in the party has them, and I would be shocked and a little bit disgusted if they changed that midway through Reach's life cycle.
Thankums, after watching the video it became apparent. Also, ya RST, it is. Incredibly. Either way, the best part of Condemned is the out of map scenery. And ya Los, Timberland was the map I was trying to think of, but after watching said video, ive changed my mind. Highlands looks epic though. Im pretty excited for unearthed. We needed a new Firefight map, for those of us who actually played FF.
You fail to anticipate that need for cR and players drive to complete challenges. Yes, Firefighters are a minority of the community... but this community is also riddled with players who strive for more cR and completing challenges. The challenge and cR hunters are often forced to play Firefight games whether they enjoy them or not. Today's population is a perfect example of how much challenges and cR effect playlist population/popularity.
While that is true, it doesnt change much. Those who strive for said credits could just play on the same maps that they're playing on already, so it would save them money anyway. But if there was a FF only DLC, id buy it in an instant as long as it was either slightly cheaper or contained 1 or 2 more maps than usual.
I'd most definitely buy a FF only map pack. It's currently the only playlists that I don't need to rely on teammates, other than Rumble Pit... but Rumble Pit has too many game types I can't bare to play.
I didn't forget, just stating conjecture on what many people would like to have in place of what we will be given. I fully realize only three maps will be released and one of them will be a FF map. As far as Bungie making 6 new maps, they have a coding team of 30 plus people. They have been working on Reach DLC and their Activision IP during all of this. They aren't a one trick poney. The time gap between releases is not because they are writing the code. The time gap is about testing, refining, compatibility, and marketing. So in all likelihood the Defiant DLC, and the next DLC is already coded. So even though it is really irrelevant to the discussion, Bungie probably has 6 maps made, if not more.
Is it just me, or does Highlands remind me of Timberland? Even the names sound kindof similar. got the creek, too. I'm excited.
If they're investing the resources to build 3 FF maps and 6 normal maps, it makes better business sense to sell them as three bundled map packs of two normal, one FF map each. Otherwise the FF maps wouldn't sell very well and they'd make the bulk of their income on two normal maps map packs. This way they sell three full priced map packs instead of two and a fraction. It's aggravating, I wish we could buy maps a'la'carte but it is how it is for very good financial reasons.
...I'm pretty sure that didn't make sense...Look, packaging less packs does not make more money...It doesn't matter if a FF pack alone would make less money comparatively to MM map pack. That is a wrong way to look at it, a company looks in terms of total sales not whether one thing markets better than the other. Only competitors look at things like that. Again the whole point is 3 MM makes would have been preferred over a single FF map and that a separate FF pack would have been better. All just opinion and obviously some people enjoy firefight and have been waiting for something new. I have no problems with that and the plan I proposed, (which obviously isn't happening), would make everyone happy. I'm sorry if that seemed redundant, just tired of having to restate what I'm actually saying every time someone quotes me out of context.
Yes I noticed that too I was about to post it til i scrolled up and saw this xD Yeah all the evergreens and hills instantly brought Timberland to mind
I like them all, the Firefight map (Unearthed) is pretty fun, about the same as the others. Condemned is a bit like orbital in terms of athethics, but didn't play it on splitscreen yet, so can't say how it plays. But the artwork is amazing. Highlands is really, really fun for 4 players on splitscreen. It looks amazing, and the covvy carrier in the background gives it a amazing feel. But i can see it become a late classic for the Halo games.
Go to your Profile on Bungie.net. Edit Profile. Profile Info. Updates on how to become a Bungie Beta Tester. I wouldn't doubt that they've already got people Beta testing these new maps.