I've been exploring the file share system for a while in hopes of locating as many ZB variants as I can, and was wondering exactly which gametypes have been given ZB variants? I used the MLG fileshare to get CTF, King, and Slayer, but are there Assault/Territories/other ZB gametypes floating around there somewhere? Bloom has really begun to get on my nerves again, and i'd like to amass as many ZB gametypes as I could. I'd put them up in my fileshare and link them if people found them, but as of right now all the ones I have are able to be created from the existing MLG gametypes anyway. So, anyone have any more ZB gametypes out there, or were they never created?
I don't have the answer to your question, unfortunately, but this does relate to a huge pet peeve of mine - the way 343 has rolled out the TU and ZB updates. Releasing them haphazardly through matchmaking was not the best way to handle things. Now personally I'm in favor of a hard-coded TU that automatically updates ALL games played in Reach, but I don't want to revive the annoying vanilla vs. TU debate again. Regardless of that, if they insist on only pushing out these changes through gametypes, they need to make updated versions of all the common gametypes available to download, from a single, well-publicized file repository. It makes no sense that I have to go a player community to find gametypes for an update they are supposedly giving us. When you get down to it, Bungie and 343 both have prioritized "the matchmaking experience" over everything else, and playing custom games is pretty much actively discouraged, between things like this and the huge credit disparity.
You're totally right; and I'm also annoyed at the lack of organization of this TU in other ways as well: There are so many variants of the same gametype that have uneditable traits, requiring Custom Game lobbies to have people with so many different varaints of the same game even before the TU to an extent, for example, some gametypes and traits: Vanilla Slayer - Custom Game Version (Players can change species, 100% bloom, no bleed) Vanilla MM Slayer/SWAT (Forced Spartan, 100% bloom, no bleed) Vanilla Elite Slayer (Forced Elite, 100% bloom, no bleed, scum of the earth) TUv1 Slayer (Forced Spartan?, 85% bloom, bleed) TUv1 Elite Slayer (Forced Elite, 85% bloom, bleed, still awful) TUv1 ZB Slayer (Forced Spartan?, 0% bloom, bleed) TUv2 Slayer (Forced Spartan?, 85% bloom, no bleed) And so on. Point is, it's way too cluttered, and I don't see how it could be that hard to have the TU version just introduce the modifications as player-changable. Forced species, bloom, and bleed modifiers could have compiled all of those variants into one basic version that could allow the community to create and modify them all instead of having so many versions of slayer alone crowding my hard drive because they have different settings I can't change. Ah well, rant over. Back on topic, I really hope a Territories and Assault version exists, I like adding variety without having to add in bloom. And would a Bloom modifier really be that hard to introduce? I wouldn't need to ask if it was used.
Scorch, just for this post, I like you. As for ZB gametypes... I think we've got everything except for Neutral Bomb and Oddball in MLG at the moment. Well, out of the traditional gametypes anyhow. We have ZB TS, KotH, and CTF. Hopefully we get Oddball and Bomb soon.