| Ryuu96 said: BALLROOM BLITZ Annnnd the man in the back said 'the update is back,' and it turned into a ballroom blitz! Happy 2017 everyone! Welcome to our first Community Weekly Update of the new year! As you can probably tell, we've got blitz on the brain. Halo Wars 2 Blitz, that is. Read on for the latest on the upcoming beta, a bit of news on Halo 5 matchmaking, the latest info on Halo World Championship, a look at more amazing Forge creations, meet a 343 team member, and more. Things have really started to heat up here around the studio as we returned from our winter break to find ourselves less than two months away from the launch of Halo Wars 2. This will be the the sixth Halo game I've shipped but the first one since I was with Bungie and we got Halo: Reach out the door. Thankfully I've found it's a lot like riding a bike - It was a little wobbly at first but in no time at all I'm cruising no-hands with obnoxious day-glow cycling gear, sipping from my camelback and crushing Washington's hilly terrain. It's a real rush and something I've missed far more than I even realized. It's equal parts frantic, stressful, tough, exciting and ultimatley rewarding and I love every minute of it. It's pretty awesome seeing so many pieces come together so fast and the team working hard to put the final touches on a game that will very soon be in the hands of players around the world. Since we're all Halo Wars 2, all the time right now, we'll kick things off there.... HALO WARS 2
In case you missed it yesterday, we officially announced that the Halo Wars 2 Blitz Beta will begin next Friday, Jan. 20! The Beta will be available to everyone on both Windows 10 PC and Xbox One and features 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 Blitz PvP multiplayer on the map Proving Grounds. Check out the official trailer and read more about the beta in this blog post from Dan Ayoub. For now though the most important thing to know is that it's available to download beginning Jan. 20 and we could really use your help to play Blitz and share your feedback with the team. If you have the first Halo Wars 2 beta on your console it should auto-update and be ready to go on Jan. 20. If not, no worries, you'll be able to download it from the store on either your Xbox One console or your Windows 10 PC. In the days ahead we'll have a lot more info coming as we work to get you up to speed and ready to hit the ground running to get an early edge on your Blitz opponents. In the meantime, if you like that red hot Atriox artwork, here's a wallpaper to spruce up your desktop. RETAILER PRE-ORDERS As we get closer to launch, many of you are starting to see all sorts of pre-order offers popping up at your favorite retailers. If you haven't pre-ordered the game yet and are debating where you might make that purchase, check around because different retailers have different bonuses ranging from an Atriox statue to collector's pins to some in-game Blitz decks for digital purchases. And yes, I know that as a Halo Wars fan this kind of thing can be frustrating because hey, all of these cool bonuses are awesome and naturally we want ALL OF THEM. For better or worse, this is the nature of the games retail business as marketing teams around the world partner with retailers who obviously look to differentiate themselves and offer something unique to their customers. Grim himself is quite depressed that he may never get his hands on the awesome steelbook SKU we've seen being sold in Australia. [*shakes fist in broken-hearted frustration* - Grim]
Keep in mind too that if you pre-order the digital version of the Halo Wars 2: Ultimate Edition you can still get a code for early access download of Halo Wars: Definitive Edition which is playable on Xbox One and/or Windows 10 PC. And yes, sorry to say, those Halo Wars: DE codes are still being sent out 7 to 10 days after your purchase so please set your expectations accordingly. HALO LEGENDARY CRATE Speaking of sweet Halo Wars 2 goodies, in case you missed it last week, some details were revealed for the next version of the Halo Legendary Crate which will be Halo Wars 2 themed! Check out this awesome poster:
Heads up that you'll need to order by Feb. 15 at 9 p.m. PST to make sure you get in on this next, Halo Wars 2 themed, Legendary Crate. THQ NORDIC PUBLISHING PARTNERSHIP You may have noticed a tiny bit of news around the interwebs on Wednesday as THQ Nordic issued a press release regarding a publishing partnership with 343 Industries and Microsoft for the physical release of Halo Wars 2 on Windows 10 PC. This isn't exactly newsworthy in its own right but this partnership does mean that fans who prefer a physical disc for the Windows 10 version of Halo Wars 2 will now be able to get it. Even cooler, this physical PC disc will also grant digital access to the Xbox One version via "Xbox Play Anywhere." Physical discs of the Standard and Ultimate Edition of Halo Wars 2 will be avaialable at retail stores with "high quality packaging" and the Ultimate Edition includes four-day early accss to the core game, a season pass and Halo Wars: Definitive Edition - just like the Xbox One version. One important point to note is that the physical version of Halo Wars 2 for WIndows 10 still requires a one-time, non-transferrable online activation at installation via a digital token. HALO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
We're just over a week away from the first official HWC 2017 event with the NA HaloWC 2017 Qualifier in St. Louis on Jan. 20-22. We'll have a detailed pre-event blog coming to Waypoint in the very near future but you can also head over to the official UGC page for more info. The event will be streamed via Twitch.tv/Halo starting at 10:30 a.m. CST, Friday through Sunday, and there will be some Halo 5 REQ codes given out throughout the weekend, so mark your calendars and be sure to tune in! As a cool special bonus, Halo Wars 2 Blitz Mode will be avaialble and playable at the St. Louis event so be sure to check that out if you're in attendance. Also don't forget that anyone who attends an official HWC event will get the exclusive legendary emblem for their Spartan in Halo 5: Guardians. This Saturday, Jan. 14, is the seeding cup for the St. Louis event. The seeding matches won't be officially streamed on our Twitch channel but we imagine many of the players will be streaming on their own so be sure to check their Twitter feeds and Twitch pages. In case you missed it, last Friday Tashi posted a few updates including some great news about updated age limits for HaloWC 2017. With these changes we're definitely looking forward to seeing some new, young blood come out to compete this year! HALO 5 MATCHMAKING This past Tuesday, Jan. 10, ushered in the official start to the Jan-Feb 2017 Season in matchmaking. To coincide with this, Team Arena officially ended its "Preview" phase and now reflects the final map layouts and settings that will be featured in all HaloWC 2017 match play (check out this blog post for details on the final few tweaks that were made to this playlist). All of the official map variants are available in the "Official HCS" Gamertag's File Share if you want to grab them to practice custom scrims with your teammates. The team is working on getting these updated maps propagated across the rest of Halo 5's matchmaking playlists so hang tight, it's coming soon
XP & RP BOOSTS Beginning tomorrow, the team is making some changes to increase the amount of RP and XP earned in specific playlists as well as increasing the effectiveness and awards for all Arena boost REQ cards. Last week the RP payouts for the weekend Mythic WZ Firefight playlist were increased but after further evaluation and feedback the team is going to turn the dial even further, resulting in an even higher payout in exchange for the tough challenge players will face. Additionally, Legendary Warzone Firefight RP payouts are also being bumped up slightly. The Warzone team will continue to monitor data and player feedback going forward. Stop by our forums and let us know what you think! The amount of XP players will earn in the Infection playlist is also getting boosted starting tomorrow as part of some testing and evaluation on overall XP gains across multiplayer as a whole. Consider this a real-world test case scenario and let us know what your experiences are like as you earn bonus XP playing Infection. As with Warzone, the team will be monitoring this closely to see what impact this has and what player feedback is to help set some parameters for potential future adjustments. Lastly, the amount of RP and XP being awarded from all boost REQ cards is being cranked up across the board for Arena. So your Arena Jackpot, RP & XP boosts, Win, Assists, Kills and Medals cards will all be awarding higher payouts. In most cases the reward has been doubled while some are slightly less or even slightly more than double. All in all these are awesome, welcome changes that we hope players will enjoy as the team continues to monitor and optimize your Halo 5 multiplayer experience. WARZONE FIRETEAMS As you know, late last year the Warzone team instituted some changes to limit the Fireteam size for Warzone to six players to test out the impact on the experience for different player segments. In the weeks since we've heard a tremendous amount of feedback and we know this has been a divisive change across the community. Players who tend to play solo or in smaller groups have been very positive about these adjustments and our data shows that the instances of "blow out" wins/losses have decreased. On the other hand, Companies that have large rosters and have become accustomed to playing with 12-man pre-made Fireteams naturally are pretty unhappy with this change. The team has heard the feedback loud and clear and while they always have to optimize around the overall majority of players (which truthfully is individual or smaller Fireteams) we know that 12-man Fireteams are a still an active, core part of the WZ community and are looking for ways to accommodate them. As this 6-man Fireteam limit test continues the team is working on testing out another idea for a special 12-man specific WZ playlist to accommodate larger groups that were negatively impacted by the reduction. We had every intention of releasing this test playlist prior to the winter break but unfortuantely a few bugs surfaced that forced the team to delay release. That work is still ongoing and right now it sounds like we're potentially still a few weeks away from it getting released. Once released we anticipate that this test playlist will likely experience longer match times due to the 12-person requirement but we're still eager to explore this idea and see how it meets the needs of players. We know this is a hot topic for a chunk of our community so please know that the team is working on it and we thank you for your patience and understanding WARZONE MYTHIC WEEKEND The Warzone Mythic Firefight playlist for Jan. 13-15 will take place on Raid on Apex 7. Round up your Spartan squad and dive in... if you dare. And don't forget, your efforts will be rewarded with even more RP!
On the subject of Warzone Firefight - are you sitting down? Go ahead, I'll wait. Ok, get this - I just today found out that there's apparently an Easter Egg in Warzone Firefight that, as far as the team knows, has yet to be found. They'll give me more details later but for now that's all we've got to go on. I can tell you though that this has nothing to do with anything mentioned above (i.e. this isn't a cheeky "it's right in front of your face!" type of thing). And difficulty doesn't matter. Happy hunting! PROJECT "HAGGAR" Earlier in the week there was a little dust up across the Halo Community as news broke about a canceled Halo title internally referred to as "Project Haggar." This project, dating back several years ago for Xbox 360, was something 343 and Mega Bloks explored together that ultimately didn't come to fruition. As someone who personally never knew this existed, I (like many of you) had a very positive reaction to the screens and videos that surfaced. I would love to play something like this with my younger son who isn't quite old enough to don Spartan armor in the mainline Halo series.
343 Founder & Studio Head Bonnie Ross took to our Halo Waypoint forums with the following statement in response to the outpouring of fan enthusiasm and inquiry: Over the past few days, footage has recently made the rounds of an exploratory Xbox 360 project we worked on several years ago, known as “Haggar.” Since then, we’ve received a lot of great feedback from the community. Haggar was something we prototyped with our friends at Mega Bloks that focused on the elements of action, exploration and user creativity found within the Halo universe. Haggar had a lot of fun ideas and invention behind it, but ultimately didn’t progress beyond the early prototyping levels that are shown in the recent video. This is just one example of several similar projects we have evaluated throughout the years – a process that we continue exploring on an ongoing basis. Who knows, with so much positive support and feedback coming to light, we may yet see Halo experiences along these lines at some point in the future. More in Link (343 Team Spotlight, Community Spotlight & Forge Spotlight) |
Nice knowing they are looking into megablox Halo.
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