Man I used to love nerf guns as a kid. I still have this one Bazooka that fires a giant foot long dart. It doesn't hurt at all but the sound this thing makes when you fire it will make you **** your pants. Found a pic online http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v252/MK3Brent/ultimator.jpg
Wow, those would have been awesome. You were a very privileged youngster Now you got me thinking...how cool would it be to have a Halo map themed paintball park?
Halo Community Update 7.17.15 We’ve returned from the adventures of San Diego Comic-Con, each of us in (mostly) one piece, with new stories to tell. We met Halo fans from around the globe, showed you some new things, and played hours of real life Breakout. There are many more stories yet to be told – stories of characters, environments, champions, and more – and we’ll do some of that this week in this very blog, starting with the first in-depth look at the development of the recently announced Warzone map, Raid on Apex 7. But before we get started, I’d like to touch on a few items, the first of which is the Halo 5: Guardians Limited Collector’s Edition. When we last left off, we let you know that we had heard the feedback that some of you prefer a physical disc instead of a digital copy, and that we were exploring options. Today, we’re able to confirm that for those who would like a physical disc, we’ll provide an option for fans to exchange their digital copy for a physical copy at no additional cost. We’ll get into details as we get closer to launch, and we’d like to once again thank you for the feedback. The Halo 5: Guardians Limited Collector's Edition - fans will be able to exchange their digital copy of Halo 5: Guardians for a physical copy at no additional charge. Next up, the playlist team is currently putting the finishes touches on the Action Sack playlist, which will be the next featured MCC playlist. Additionally, we’re looking to make some tweaks and changes to voting options across additional playlists based on feedback you’ve shared – we’ll talk details as we get closer to the release. If you’d like to sound off, be sure to join the discussion in the Matchmaking Feedback section. San Diego Comic-Con At San-Diego Comic-Con this past weekend, we shared new Halo experiences that are on the way, revealed new worlds, and met up with some of the most passionate, skilled, and creative Halo fans on the planet. SDCC is a special event for Halo, in that it allows all of us to celebrate nearly every corner of the franchise – both in and out of the game. On the show floor, players had a chance to play Warzone at its first public debut, while others duked it out in the Breakout Arena, joined us for panels, cosplay meetups, and more. Halo fandom comes in many flavors, and no event represents and promotes this variety quite like SDCC. Collectors, cosplayers and costumers, fiction fanatics, and creators of all kinds have a special place at Comic-Con, and we like that quite a bit, so we come down each year to hang out. With free stuff. Everybody loves free stuff. Over the years, the show has become a meetup location for fans from every corner of the Halo universe. One of these reasons, of course, is our friends over at the 405th Infantry Division. The displays of Halo cosplay and costume were unmatched. Between hyper-detailed ODST armor, brand new Athlon armor, Master Chef himself, and everything in between, the 405th unsurprisingly put on a quite a show. We’d like to extend a big thank you to all Halo cosplayers, armor builders, and gunsmiths – not only at SDCC, but worldwide. Your passion, talent, and attention to detail continues to impress us, suit after suit. Members of the 405th at SDCC 2015 Last week, we also released A Hero Reborn, a brand new Halo 5 ViDoc which goes behind-the-scenes to tell some of the development tales from the last few years, highlight new story elements, and more. Also, you may have caught the new Halo: The Fall of Reach trailer, an animated series that will tell the oft-shrouded origin stories of the SPARTAN-II program and introduce you to Blue team. At the Halo 5: Guardians story panel, we also confirmed that Hunt The Truth Season 2 is indeed on the way and arriving this September. To get ready for the drop, you can now download Halo Channel on iOS and Android for Halo goodness on the go. Lastly, to wrap up SDCC, the team at faced off against a few of the gentlemen from the Workaholics crew as well as Carli Lloyd, who was fresh off of a World Cup win, which may or may have not been a major factor in the final result. I’ll let the video tell the rest of the story. Crafting a battleground: Raid on Apex 7 Last week, we revealed Raid on Apex 7, a brand new Warzone map, with the help of our friends over at Mega Bloks. To get some early details, a first look at concept art, plus a recreation of the map utilizing over 89,500 Mega Bloks, head here. Raid on Apex 7 not only contains more words than any other official Halo multiplayer map (edging out Hang ‘em High and a few yet-to-come Warzone maps by just a single numerical value), but it’s also the largest multiplayer map to date. When I first heard that designers and artists were working on a canvas inspired by The Silent Cartographer, my interests were sufficiently piqued, and I hope yours were as well. This week, we’re going to take a peek behind the curtain as we dive deeper into the map, and quite literally procure notes and sketches off of the desks of the Warzone design team. I grabbed Multiplayer Level Designer Jeremy Raymond, Environment Artist Chin Fong, and Multiplayer Design Director Kevin Franklin to tell us a bit more about the map - its origins, goals, how it has evolved, and more. Now, I’ll hand it over to three of the gentlemen who are crafting this battleground. Jeremy Raymond, MP Level Designer: I grew up playing Halo: CE and will always remember my first time playing the campaign levels Halo and The Silent Cartographer. When I joined the Warzone team, I knew I wanted to bring those iconic themes into our new multiplayer experience -- including such memorable moments as the beach landing battle, fighting into ocean facing bases, and defending off waves of Covenant on the Forerunner Spires. My focus was to pay fan service through the entirety of its development while creating a fun and balanced experience for Warzone. With the support of the entire team at , we were able to make this vision a reality. Let’s take a look at the paper prototypes: After choosing the level’s theme, I started to sketch layout ideas. We call these “paper prototypes”. They help us consider how the level will feel, where bases are located, and how players will flow through the environment. Initially, we had much larger maps, as you can see here I was contemplating adding some classic levels into the level that we could block off and reuse as individual maps for Forge and Arena. Shortly after the first prototype, we cut back on the overall size of the level. In this version, you can see I was thinking about including separate islands where bases would be located that players could traverse too. But it didn’t feel right yet. This version is the one we chose to move forward with. While it was the smallest of the 3, it was clear, concise, and balanced. More often than not, simplicity wins in level design. This was the finalized version I put together for our design documentation. It clearly messages the overall layout, theme, base locations, and encounters that I use for the first playable version of our blockout. In fact, I place these maps on the initial terrain in Maya, which makes the initial blockout process much faster as I can visually see where blockout geometry should be built. After many weeks of playtesting and iteration of the blockout, we soft lock the layout and begin working with artists to make the map look great. Our teams work closely throughout the art process to consider how things will impact gameplay. Even at this stage, we may make changes to integrate cool ideas or visuals we had not previously considered during our blockout phases. Finishing the art, integrating the remaining gameplay, and polishing the level takes some time. But after several months of development, this final version of the level is what you’ll get to play online with thousands of other players. Chin Fong, Environment Artist: My main contribution on Ring (Bravo note: Raid on Apex 7’s codename) was creating the Forerunner tower and arch reminiscent of the old Installation 04 map. Though there were many technical bumps along the way, it was a pretty awesome experience overall working on this map - knowing that it's the spiritual successor to such an iconic Halo level and that Mega Bloks was going to recreate the map. It was tricky at first to try and keep all the old look of Installation 04, but in the end, we decided to set ourselves apart by updating the Forerunner structures completely, creating a pleasant tropical scene, and turning up the graphics on the organics. Kevin Franklin, MP Design Director: From very early on in development, Raid on Apex 7 was a map our entire team was incredibly excited about. From the beginning, we had a great set of development goals that are all featured in the map: Epic Scale – Apex 7 is among the largest of all of our Warzone Maps Island Paradise – We were heavily inspired by The Silent Cartographer, AI beach assault at the beginning of each game is a great example of this. The art team has done an amazing job of creating this beautiful battleground. Opposing Bases – Apex 7 has a unique layout as the team home bases face away from each other. BTB Style Vehicle Combat – We drew quite a bit of inspiration from vehicle combat and battles on BTB experiences like Valhalla and Paradiso. Mystery – Fitting with a remote Installation on a Halo Ring, we ensured there were many hidden areas to engage bosses in, the home bases also feature passageways to the center. I expect it will take many playtests for players to find and hunt down all of the bosses in Raid Apex 7. Massive Forerunner landmark – Our environment artist Chin Fong really knocked this out of the park with this one - it also serves as the central base and main contest point of the map. Overall, I’m really happy with where Raid on Apex 7 ended up, and we can’t wait for the community to get their hands on it - just watch out for the Banshee Raiders. -- Stay tuned for more Halo 5: Guardians previews and behind-the-scenes peeks as we get closer to launch. Halo 5: Guardians gamescom Invitational 2015 We’re gearing up for our return to one of the world’s largest gaming industry shows – gamescom in Cologne, Germany, and today, we’re excited to announce this year’s Halo 5: Guardians gamescom Invitational by ESL. The tournament will take place on Friday, August 7 in the ESL Arena on the gamescom show floor. The Invitational will provide us with a first look at high-stakes Arena gameplay, which focuses on pure, skill based 4v4 combat. Four top teams have been invited: Epsilon Esports (EU) Roster: BUK20, BUK57, Jimbo, Snipedrone Supremacy (EU) Roster: Ramirez, TuFoxy, Chalkie, Riotz CAZ.Esports (EU) Roster: Flamez, Vard, Snakey, Hollers OpTic Gaming (NA) Roster: Flamesword, Ace, Assault, Maniac The teams will have an opportunity to get reacquainted with Arena during the week at gamescom, and on Friday, duke it out against one another in a four-team bracket. Be sure to tune into the action on the Halo Channel and Twitch.tv/Halo to see the first look at pre-launch Arena tournament goodness. We’ll have more to share about the teams, format, maps, and more as we get closer to the event. That’ll do for this week. When we meet again, we’ll be back with a preview of the HCS Season 2 Finals and more. To get up to speed be sure to check out the latest HCS Update on YouTube. Bravo Source: Halo Waypoint
The Halo Bulletin: Episode 20 The Bulletin brings you the latest Halo news, game updates, and exclusive reveals direct from the source at Industries. In this episode, we're at San Diego Comic-Con where we get a look at The Fall of Reach Animated Series, reveal a new Warzone map - MEGA Bloks style, and visit McFarlane Toys HQ.
Halo Community Update 8.2.15 If you’re reading this, it means that we’ve arrived safely in Europe for gamescom, and have found a charming café from which to post this transmission. We’ve snuck this very text through French, Belgian, and German borders in an effort to get it to your part of the world, and we’re glad that it too has arrived safely. In the paragraphs that follow, we’ll talk about gamescom, new development tales from the world of Warzone, the adventures that await within pages of a recently released short, and beyond. But first, let’s check in on MCC playlist and content updates. Last week, we talked about the new Action Sack playlist, which is now available in matchmaking for a few weeks. Since its release, it’s been consistently ranked towards the top, and for a few days this past week, it even saw more players than any other playlist. While featured playlists generally draw in a substantial crowds during their first few days, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it continue to do well, and hope that you’re enjoying the wacky and often nonsensical chaos it offers. To see a breakdown of all of the game types included, as well as additional updates that have been made to existing playlists, head here. The playlist team continues to work on future updates, and it’s quite likely that we’ll be talking more about things like Infection in the coming weeks. It’s also quite likely that I will continue to try and persuade the playlist team to put in a Head-to-Head playlist, and that they’ll continue to say “maybe” after a long hesitative pause. Additionally, the MCC team continues to work on the next content update for the game. We’re continuing to keep a very close eye on your feedback on Waypoint, Twitter, r/Halo and elsewhere, and prioritizing items within the next update based on said feedback. Look for more details as we get closer to the release. The Halo 5 team is busy putting the finishing touches on new experiences – some of which you’ve seen glimpses of, and many of which you have not. The lab schedules are booked with nonstop playtests, which allows people like myself to sneak in and play hours of new Warzone maps in the name of science. There are exciting new battlegrounds being built, weapons being tweaked, tuned, and skinned, and plenty more that we are looking forward to sharing with you in the coming months. Also, many members of the Halo 5 team have packed their suitcases with dedicated servers (literally) in preparation to bring Halo 5: Guardians across the Atlantic for the first time. gamescom, here we come. GAMESCOM 2015 This coming week, hundreds of thousands of gaming fans will converge on Cologne, Germany, for the world’s largest gaming show. In an effort to beat what will also be the world’s largest crowds, the team is on the ground setting up dozens of stations for the European premiere of Halo 5: Guardians and a the first opportunity for many of you to take to the 24-player skirmishes offered in Warzone. Last year’s gamescom was a special experience for us on the Halo team. As our annual pilgrimage to the other side of the world, it’s our chance to hang with fellow Halo fans we’d otherwise have no chance of meeting. Each day, we’d continue to get new glimpses into the global passion for Halo, thanks to fans and communities like Halo.fr, 17K Group, and many more. Getting to know you and talk about the things you love about Halo is a true treat, and we can’t wait to return this year to see both new and familiar faces. If you won’t be joining us in Cologne, you’ll likely want to stay up and / or wake up at potentially ridiculous hours to catch all things Xbox and Halo. Here’s a breakdown: XBOX GAMESCOM 2015 Briefing Catch this year’s media briefing – with in-depth looks at tons of upcoming games in 2015 and beyond - live on Xbox One, Xbox.com, and Xbox 360. Tuesday, August 4 at 4:00 PM CEST (7:00 AM PDT / 10:00 AM EDT) XBOX Daily: LIVE @ GAMESCOM Xbox Daily returns next week, live from Cologne. The hour-long live show will cover breaking news, exclusives, and interviews with folks who are creating many of your soon-to-be-favorite games. Tune in on Xbox One, Xbox.com, and Xbox 360. Wednesday, August 5 at 6:00 PM CEST (9:00 AM PDT / 12:00 PM EDT) Thursday, August 6 at 6:00 PM CEST (9:00 AM PDT / 12:00 PM EDT) GAMESCOM Invitational by ESL As we announced earlier this month, gamescom will be host to the first preview of what’s to come for Halo 5 esports. Featuring four invited teams – Epsilon Esports (EU), Supremacy (EU), CAZ.Esports (EU), and OpTic Gaming (NA), the Invitational will feature a look at two maps: Empire, which was originally featured in the beta, plus Fathom, which was first seen on Conan. Before the tournament, we'll provide you with a closer look at these maps thanks to help from our friends at Prima Games, who just happened to announce the Halo 5: Guardians strategy guide. You’ve likely guessed by now, but I’m excited to say that I’ll have Richard Simms joining me for the broadcast. To watch, tune into Twitch.tv/Halo or the Halo Channel on Xbox One, iOs / Android, or Windows 8.1 and above. Friday, August 7 at 4:00 PM CEST (7:00 AM PDT / 10:00 AM EDT) Stay tuned for more details on all things gamescom this coming week. We’ll see you soon. It is also worth noting here that while we wish we could be two places at once, we’ve found (after months of exhaustive experimentation) that we cannot, which means that we’ll unfortunately be missing this year’s RTX festivities. While we wish that our schedules would allow us to join the fun, we very much look forward to the prospect of joining our fellow Rooster Teeth fanatics at next year’s show, if not sooner. <3 HCS Season 2 Finals Last weekend, another chapter in the history of competitive Halo was written. After months and months of online and LAN battles, Evil Geniuses cemented themselves as the #1 Halo team in the world, capping HCS Season 2 with what many would agree was the only appropriate finish. After losing the first series of the Grand Finals, the gentlemen on EG stormed back, winning three games straight and leaving no questions as to whether or not they were the top contenders at the event. For a full breakdown of the Finals, head over to Xbox Wire, and to catch the Winner’s Bracket Finals, Loser’s Bracket Finals, and Grand Finals VODs, head over to the Halo Channel. Point of View Recently, Josh Holmes talked Campaign Co-op in a new developer blog series, and one of the new features that was discussed was character-specific Heads-Up-Displays (HUDs). Here’s a quick refresher on the design of the unique HUDs: These design cues carry into the play experience through the look and feel of the Heads-Up-Display for each character. From a first person perspective, it’s challenging to convey the differences between characters. Having unique HUDs for each of our eight characters allows us to convey a sense of identity and personality through the visual design. Each character’s HUD has been painstakingly designed by our artists to reflect the visual language of that particular Spartan. So Locke’s HUD has aggressive lines that follow the curvature of his visor while Linda’s enhanced optics are represented in muted tones that reflect her armor palette. We’re sure you have questions about the character HUD design - how they came to be, the visual language of each, and more. But, rather than have me guess at what you want to hear, we thought it’d be much more appropriate to have you ask the artists themselves. If you’ve got questions for the team who crafted the HUDs you’ll soon be shooting through, drop ‘em on the forums here, and we’ll get them answered in a future update. Don’t be shy now. Halo: Saint’s Testimony We first talked about Halo: Saint’s Testimony back in March, and the digital single is now available. If you’re playing catch up, here’s a look at the description of the story: The military-grade artificial intelligence known as Iona has only one week to live. After that, the UNSC will legally terminate her seven-year existence in order to stave off the threat of the data corruption phenomenon known as “rampancy,” a condition that will eventually take hold of her functionality and persona, endangering all those around her. In a last-ditch effort to save herself, Iona has successfully launched an unprecedented legal appeal against her own death sentence—a case being watched very closely at not only the highest levels of human government, but by others with a very different agenda… For some added background, head to Grim’s Novel Ideas issue of Canon Fodder. Ending with a Bang – Designing the Warzone Power Core A few weeks ago, we took a look at how the Warzone map Raid on Apex 7 came to be. This week, I once again grabbed some time from the gentlemen on the Warzone team, but this time to step back and talk about one of the central features of Warzone gameplay – the Power Core. I realize I could’ve referred to this as a “core” feature for an easy slam dunk, but I absolutely won’t even mention a pun like that. Capturing bases, eliminating AI Bosses, and killing enemy players all award points towards victory in Warzone. But there’s more to winning a Warzone match than just points. Destroying the enemy Power Core is an instant victory and is an always-present reason to push forward into hostile territory during every Warzone match. Each Warzone Home Base safeguards a destructible Power Core. Both teams in Warzone have a Home Base, and safeguarded inside each Home Base is a Power Core. Each Power Core represents a team’s vitality, and it is game over if one of them is destroyed. Shield doors and a protective barrier defend the Power Core from enemy fire. However, capture and hold all three bases on the map and enemy defenses drop, opening up the Power Core to a coordinated attack. Destroy it and be victorious. As you’ll read below, the design and functionality of the Power Core have gone through a variety of changes since development began. To help give some background into the process, where they began, and where they are today, I talked with Lawrence Metten, Sr. Multiplayer Designer, and Adrian Bedoya, Multiplayer Level Designer. Take it away, gents. Designing the Power Core Lawrence Metten, Sr. Multiplayer Designer: The Power Core was one of the first pieces we tackled when we started development on Warzone. A downfall of base capture modes is what we call a “dead team walking” scenario where one team has clearly won the match but the win condition hasn’t yet been reached. Have you ever played a game of Territories where your team is losing so badly that it’s mathematically impossible to win? That’s a “dead team walking” scenario. Situations like this are frustrating for the losing team and boring for the winners, everyone in the match is simply waiting for the game to end. With the Power Core we wanted to give players a reason to continue to push forward and stay aggressive during the match, regardless of the score. Players can expect epic 12v12 base assaults to end matches that end on a Power Core destruction. With Warzone we also set out to create bigger battles than ever seen in Halo multiplayer. We wanted to create a system that would facilitate epic match climaxes with all 24 players involved and the entire sandbox of Halo toys in play. The destructible Power Core brings everyone in the match together, whether players are attacking or defending, to create exciting down-to-the-wire match finales. Early Development Power Core Concept Art & Early Space Development Before we had a playable Warzone map or any of our objectives working there was a Home Base and Power Core prototype. This prototype, which we internally named “Alamo”, was a Home Base in an empty map with three thrown together Fusion Coil Power Cores placed inside it. Click on the link below to read the rest of this weeks update SOURCE: Halo Waypoint
While I can appreciate the versatility of the structures in the map and the skill gap required to learn all the ins and outs, I still cant get past the over-designed art style and convoluted routes. Then add the horrible Halo 5 engine and weapons on top of it....
343 has said that they don't want the default and competitive settings to be much different, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too much.
They won't be. Its the physical movement, aim assist, bullet magnetism, field of view, TTK, etc that bothers me, and that stuff can't change.
Halo Wars 2 Revealed In 2009, Halo Wars launched and gave the community a new perspective on the Halo Universe. We built and commanded entire armies to take down the Covenant and the Flood. We were introduced to new characters such as Captain Cutter, Serina, Sergeant Forge and of course, Professor Anders. We also duked it out on Xbox Live together, climbing the leaderboards. Halo Wars fans have always inquired about the possibility of a sequel, and today, we are excited to finally pull back the curtain. We’re working very closely with critically acclaimed developers Creative Assembly to bring you Halo Wars 2 simultaneously on both Xbox One and Windows 10 in the fall of 2016. With an all-new story, new campaign, and robust multiplayer, we can’t wait to dive back into the RTS genre with you. For now, we’re gearing up for the launch of Halo 5: Guardians this fall, but we’ll have plenty more to share on Halo Wars 2 next year. Be sure to head on over to the Halo Wars 2 forum on Waypoint and join the discussion! Marines, ooh-rah! Source: Halo Waypoint
I think they got the wrong balance. The aim assist is low but the bullet magnetism is high. I think the aim assist needs to be bumped up slightly due to the lack of precision in thumb sticks on controllers, and the bullet magnetism should be lowered to force players to actually line up the correct shot instead of just shooting near an enemy.
The Bulletin: Episode 22 Before working at , I was aware of esports but it wasn’t until RTX 2013 that I really got into it. I remember sitting backstage of the qualifiers for the Halo Global Championship in complete awe of the production and competitive play. I found myself getting caught up in the high-stakes matches and becoming interested in the personal stories of pros and amateurs alike that showed up. I’ve been hooked ever since and with the announcement of the Halo World Championship, the gamescom Invitational, and launching Halo 5: Guardians this October 27 with our new Arena multiplayer, the future of Halo esports is very exciting. Speaking of gamescom, what a show! We made some big announcements which you can learn about in this episode including the reveal of the Halo 5: Guardians Xbox One console. It’s a beauty and you can pre-order right now. For this episode we decided to have a bit of fun at the HCS Season 2 Finals. The entire crew of casters, hosts, and production teams are amazing at what they do and work so hard to put on these events. We appreciate their time during the event to let me goof off as their “intern” for the weekend. For Fresh Picks make sure to check out the brand new Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer trailer where we show off unseen maps and game modes for Arena and Warzone. I can’t wait until we ship this so I can play at home with everyone. And for a great recap of the HCS Season 2 Finals plus a personal look at Season 1 and Season 2 champs Evil Geniuses you should watch the latest HCS Update. Thanks for watching! Make sure to tune into the next episode on August 28 where we’ll have some MEGA cool things to show you. -Jay
Halo Community Update 8.14.15 We have returned from gamescom – some of us with terrible jetlag, others with a mild case of the post-gamescom flu, and all with stories to tell. Whether it was talking with Halo fans who spent entire days at the Arena or Warzone booths, reuniting with friends that we had met in year’s past, or commiserating with fellow fans about the German heat, we had a blast hanging out with all of you. Our pilgrimage to Germany also gave us an opportunity to show off some new, never-before-seen goodies, including a new multiplayer trailer, some new Arena tournament gameplay, and more. One of those mores, of course, is Halo Wars 2. Halo Wars 2 For many moons, the Halo Wars 2 team here at had been working in secret, designing the all-new strategy game with developers Creative Assembly. If you happen to swing by their desks at the right time, you may even be able to catch an early look at new units and worlds yet to be explored and conquered. Over the past few months, it has been rather fun to keep an eye on threads like “What would you want to see in a Halo Wars sequel?” and “Why I am sure Halo Wars 2 is coming!” and sneaking the links over to the design team. You likely (read: definitely) were not aware that your feedback was being read by the folks designing the very title you were speculating about, but I am happy to say that this was indeed the case. We know many of you are excited for the game to come to Xbox One and Windows 10, but to set expectations appropriately, we won’t be talking much about the title until next year. That time will come though, and we’re looking forward to sharing more with you when it does. Halo World Championship At the Xbox Briefing at the historic Gürzenich Köln, we also announced the Halo World Championship - the biggest investment in Xbox esports history, which will feature a prize pool of over 1 million dollars. Over the past few years, we’ve crowned champions, witnessed incredible comebacks, and learned a great deal about Halo esports, and we can’t wait for what’s ahead. We’ll be sharing more in the coming months, but the gamescom Invitational provided us with a quick look at pre-launch tournament play, and we hope you enjoyed the action. Speaking of, let’s recap. Gamescom Invitational We invited four teams to the gamescom stage: Europe’s Epsilon Esports, CAZ.Esports, and Supremacy, and North America’s OpTic Gaming. Each team was able to practice for a few hours each day leading up to the tournament, learning map routes, jumps, setups, and getting acquainted with Spartan Abilities, weapons, and more, and on Friday, they duked it out for all the marbles. To catch the VoD, head over to the Halo Channel, or if you’ve only got 13 minutes and 43 seconds, check out this highlight montage by Reflex, which showcases some of the top plays from the event. For us at , the tournament offered a variety of invaluable insights. The broadcast, production, and video teams are taking learnings from the show as we gear up for the presentation of Halo 5 esports at the Halo World Championship and beyond. For the multiplayer and sandbox teams, they’re currently evaluating things like Overshield timing and strength, weapon respawn time (both power weapon and non-default weapons), overall sandbox tuning, and more. Some things you saw at the Invitational have already been changed, such as the Shotgun ammo count/range and map lighting, and others are still being tuned. I also caught up with sandbox designer Chris King to discuss some of the other changes that have been made since the build you watched at gamescom: Improved stick tuning (vastly improves ability to use the precision weapons) BR: Reduced some of the randomness/spread/kick to make it more effective/consistent at range Sniper: Reduced recoil and fixed some bugs that were introducing randomness/spread Shotgun: Reduced effective range slightly Misc. melee fixes Fixed lots of bugs with physics impulses We’ve kept a close eye on pro player feedback, and also your feedback from the forums. Overall, we’d like to thank you for watching the tournament and opining on what you saw, and we look forward to providing you more updates on all things Halo esports in the future. Stay tuned to @HCS and Halo.gg for the latest. Speaking of, with the announcement of the Halo World Championship, we also launched the official HCS Twitter, which will provide updates on all things competitive multiplayer. To celebrate the launch of the account, we’re giving away some limited edition Chief and Locke pins – details below. https://twitter.com/Halo/status/632303362797518848 Point of View Earlier this month, we talked HUD design, and fielded your questions for the artists themselves. Many of you took to the forums with your ponderings, and UI artists Eric Will and Jeff Christy answered your questions, and also provided us with some concept sketches. Let’s get into the Q&A. (Follow the link at the bottom of the page to read the Q&A) Grifball at RTX: A Community Report While we couldn’t be at RTX while we were in Germany, our good friends at GrifballHUB held down the fort. To catch up on all things Grifball at RTX, I bugged Goosechecka from GrifballHUB to provide us with a report of how things went in the deep south: As RTX has grown in size, so has GrifballHub's presence. This year we had around 40 Grifballers fly in from across the country - and some from across the pond - to attend. Thanks to , we were able to offer up a $5,000 cash prize to the winners of the RTX 2015 Grifball Championship. The 16-team tournament took place over 3 days, and the finale of which was played on the main RTX stage. In addition to the tournament, two of our community members got engaged at the booth under the pretense of a Grifball grudge match! Similar to last year, there was never an empty console station over the three day period, especially when we offered "Play a Pro" where attendee teams could win a poster for scoring on our pros and a t-shirt for beating them. For the record, no t-shirts were given and only 4 attendee teams earned a poster over the 5.5 hour event. The rest of RTX was great as well, or so I heard - didn't leave the booth much! According to a Guardian, this year saw 50 exhibitors, compared to last year’s 90. Regarding numbers, we're still pulling them together, but we do know 40,000 tickets were sold and over 1,000 people came through our booth as evidenced by our decimated swag items. was missed, but between us and the 405th, Halo was well represented. -Goosechecka Halo 3 Hardcore Just yesterday, Halo 3’s Team Hardcore game types were added to the Team Hardcore playlist. As stated on the forums, we know that some of you love your Halo 2 Classic Hardcore, and may not want to play Halo 3, and that some of you who are excited about playing Halo 3 may not be looking to play Halo 2. We’d love to be able to separate these games so that every player can get what they want, but at this time, these two experiences (H2C & H3 Hardcore) don’t warrant a large enough playerbase for their own respective playlists, and keeping these tournament-approved game types in the same playlist ensures a healthy population. We know some of you have fond memories of last second clutch plays on Guardian Ball, or epic flag runs on The Pit CTF, and that you’ve been waiting to play these game types in matchmaking – we hope you enjoy. We’ll see you in the playlist. Community Spotlight To close this week, we’re highlighting a brand new H2A Forge map – Bad Blood – from Forger The Fated Fire. Here’s a description in his own words: Bad Blood is a symmetrical two-base forge map designed for 5v5 CTF in Halo 2 Anniversary. The map is a super open, vertical, and punishing CTF design that curves from base to base around a massive chasm, encouraging strong team coordination and player-specific roles to hold certain key outposts and lines of sight across the map. Highly coordinated teams will discover and execute unconventional strategies to move the flag across the map -- such as throwing it across the chasm to an exposed teammate on the other side, launching it across the chasm on a ghost, and running the portal-lift route to launch the flag up to top mid. Bad Blood currently supports 2-Flag CTF and Team Slayer. The map can be found by searching for the gamertag "Reborn Stellar" in MCC’s “Find Player” feature. If you’ve got a map, game type, or creation you’d like to share with the world, be sure to post it in the Community Creations section, or by shooting me a link on Twitter. Moving forward each week, we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite maps, game types, montages, and more - from the wacky to the hardcore. Whether it’s a creation of your own or one you stumbled upon, send it over. That’ll do for this week. Until next time, -Bravo Source: Halo Waypoint
Halo Community Update: Rigged Hello friends! PAX Prime is upon us, which means that we’ve got long days and long nights ahead, and hope to spend many of them with many of you. Due to the holiday weekend, we’ve got a quick update this week, but we’ll talk about a new Halo 5 Arena map, the latest MCC playlist update, and more. Before we move on, just yesterday, we brought Halo 5: Guardians to the ID@Xbox event at the Xbox HQ in Redmond, and it was a pleasure having some of you join us for the pre-PAX festivities. If you joined, you were likely able to snag some game time, plus limited edition Chief & Locke posters and pins from Frankie and Josh Holmes as well. We hope you had a great time, and we thank you for spending your evening with us. Let’s do it again some time. Speaking of, we want to hook some Halo fans up with some last minute, surprise PAX badges. Whether you’re local to Seattle, or are willing to hop on a plane in a moment’s notice, just reply to the below on Twitter. We'll be selecting and contacting winners this evening. https://twitter.com/Halo/status/637375255091150848 As a reminder, we’ll have 24-player Warzone goodness on the show floor in the Xbox booth all weekend long. We hope you swing by, say hello, and play some games. The Rig: a deep dive In this week’s Halo Bulletin, Jay Fresh is showing off a bit more of the upcoming Arena map, The Rig, which you first saw at gamescom. The Rig, short for Mining Rig, is set on a planet called Meridian, which you’ll learn more about in the near future. It’s also one of our Pro Team’s favorite maps, and one that we hope will become one of your favorites as well in just a few months’ time. This week, I hung out with the team who made this battleground a reality, and they generously shared some fantastic insight and work-in-progress images from throughout the development process to shed some light on how the map came to be. Today, you’ll hear from Mike Byron, Multiplayer Producer, Christopher Hands, Senior Environment Artist, and Adrian Bedoya, Multiplayer Level Designer. Let’s get right into it. Mike Byron, Multiplayer Producer The Rig was an interesting map. It was the first map that the Design team felt captured the mixture between old Halo map layout, and our new movement set introduced in Halo 5. It quickly became a favorite around the office during playtests for different modes and weapons. In fact, the Sandbox team even used the map as their primary test bed for all their weapon and ability tuning for much of Halo 5’s development. Since we started later in development on the map, we had to make sure we built the map smartly and efficiently to allow enough time to hit the quality bar needed for the project. Chris Hands worked with the campaign teams to use Meridian’s solid foundation, and benefit from all the lessons learned throughout their lookdev/pre-production time. This allowed us to do a quick massout (where the art team roughs in all of the major shapes, themes, and ideas for the map), and cut down on our art development and iteration cycle. Chris and the Art team worked really hard with Adrian, throughout the process, to continually improve map layout and visual identification of key landmarks to help orient players. It was a map goal to stay as close to the block out as possible, due to the fact that it was an internally loved map played often, while still trying to push the theme of being on a giant moving facility and making all of Adrian’s block out designs make thematic sense. We also tried to hide some fun little surprises around the map to let people discover once the game is out. Christopher Hands, Senior Environment Artist For The Rig, our inspiration was industrial mining platforms combined with the crawler-transporter, so a combination of these two: The original pitch for this map was a large mining platform that is also a large vehicle that is mining on a sand-covered, desolate planet. Originally, I wanted the vehicle to be actively moving while the match is going, but we settled on having it stationary, so that we could have the drill actively mining instead. Since the vehicle no longer moves, we had to visually communicate that the players are on a giant vehicle so we decided to place other mining vehicles in the skybox. From there we had our concept team started on the “vision piece” for The Rig: The “vision piece” for The Rig The vision piece for The Rig helped guide the environment, lighting and skybox teams. It also defined the buildings aesthetics which we kept throughout the level. But we still didn’t have a clear idea of what the vehicle actually looked like, so we needed another painting to help describe the exterior and skybox: Exterior and skybox concept art The Drill Pit really makes The Rig stand out, so we wanted to make it a unique and interesting area to fight in. The original design blockout only had a pit, so when we decided to add a giant drill we also needed players to be able to jump or interact with it. The Drill Pit We settled on adding a platform on the top of the drill so that players can precariously jump from the catwalk onto the drill, and this is a concept of the final iteration of the drill: Adrian Bedoya, Multiplayer Level Designer Starting a new level from scratch is one of my favorite times during a project, a blank canvas where anything is possible. There are many ways to start a map, paper designs, picking a theme and building from there, or sometimes working it out in 3D. The Rig was one of those maps I decided to just go for in Maya (3D). Early on I usually don’t worry too much about the theme or setting of the map when I’m roughing in a layout, because my ultimate focus is fun and interesting gameplay spaces. The Rig in prototype form was codenamed Towers, because the main focus areas of the map were these towers in various areas of the map. One of the things I do on nearly every map I make is have defined materials for the upper and lower floors, walls and any accent pieces. I also do a very quick lighting pass to help define the areas. This is all helpful for playtests to help players orient themselves within the map. Early on I wanted to create a map with a lot of interesting play around verticality and a map that took some time to learn all the best routes and flanking options. Once the block out is at a good place, we get into the engine, and we start play-testing as much as possible on it to get feedback. Maps always evolve and change over the course of a project and The Rig was no different. Although much of flow and layout of the final layout is very similar to the original block out, we tweaked and tuned many areas to improve on the design. Tower One/Two One of the biggest changes was to the main Tower area next to Red Spawn. In the original, it was more of an open platform that was very difficult to fight against because of the lack of ways to grenade bounce. Red Spawn had also connected to the lower section of the tower, but we closed of the lower path and made it connect to the upper platform. This prevented people in the lower cargo area from jumping up into that path. Final Layout of Tower One and Two Lower Dock Next, we found that the lower dock area was too porous and offered players a bit too much escape, and we decided to close off this route. Block out and final layout of the Lower Dock Nest and Engine Two During that same time, we tuned and reworked the Nest area on the more open half of the map. As we played the map more and more, we found we needed a route from Engine Two into the other side of the map, thus we added a catwalk and opened up a route to Nest from Engine Two. Original and final layout for the Nest Blockout and Final layout for Engine Room Two -- About one year ago, and possibly more, I recall playing on the block out of “Towers,” and it’s one of those multiplayer maps that’s purely fun to jump around on, and one that should allow for some great routes and variety – but we’ll let you be the final judges of that. It’s exciting (and slightly crazy) to think that we’ll be playing with you on this map in less than two months. I’ll see you in the Drill Pit. Playlist Update Just yesterday, the playlist team pushed out the latest playlist update, which adds Infection. Many of you have fond memories of fighting off infected hoards, and we hope this playlist provides you with some brand-new variety. Additionally, based on feedback last week, we’ll be keeping the HCS playlist around a bit longer, and retiring it a bit closer to the release of Halo 5. Here’s a quick recap of the changes that went into yesterday’s update: Infection Playlist added for a limited time! The playlist includes: Halo 3: Braaaains, Creeping Death, Save One Bullet, Hide and Seek, Speed Demons Halo 2: Anniversary: Infection, Cadre Halo 4: Flood, Hivemind, Last Stand Team Hardcore The Construct TS map updated to the correct TS variant for Halo 3 Team Doubles SMG starts removed from Halo 2 Classic Big Team Battle All AR-start Assault Halo 3 game types removed (until BR variants can be added) Big Team (8v8) Dominion added Weighting/frequency of Remnant reduced Halo 4 Small team (5v5) Dominion added Pitfall and Vertigo added for Legendary Slayer Ragnarok CTF added Halo 2: Anniversary Weighting/frequency of Remnant reduced Halo 3 Voting options rebalanced (see last week’s update for some extra details) As always, we’re keeping a close eye on playlist feedback, and moving forward, some top priorities for the playlist team include continuing to improve variety and voting option balance across all playlists, as well as new experiences that are ahead. We’ll be sure to provide more updates on what’s next for MCC, including the next CU in future updates. Play of the Week Selecting this week’s Play of the Week was no easy feat. There were several top contenders, but in the end, the creativity and flawless timing and execution of apriliars125pls’ Sandtrap Assault bomb run is one for the record books and highlight reels. We’re not quite sure how you pulled this off so perfectly, but we have watched over and over and over again, and it’s beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that we felt the need to visualize your thread title (“Mongoose Airlines wishes you a safe flight”), and our graphics designer Chase went ahead and created a commercial jet livery just for you. To view the clip, perfect dismount and all, click on the masterpiece below: Community Spotlight For this week’s Community Spotlight segment, we sat down with the super-talented armor and props creator, Jim McCrea, from Stony Props and the legendary 405th. Jim just finished up a recent project, so we grabbed some time to hear about it and see more of it. Because we really like it. Check out Halo Waypoint for the rest of the Community Update Bravo Source: Halo Waypoint