Chronique:BWU 24/10/2008

Posted by lukems at 10/24/2008 3:28 PM PDT

So, You're Not in Bungie Favorites?

I was distracted from my actual work momentarily this week by the new tagging system that the web team recently introduced. I thumbed through Highest Rated and Most Downloaded for the last week and figured I'd include some of the cool stuff I found below. Remember when Stosh was going to do Stosh's Screenshots of the Week? Yeah, would've been sweet. Blame him, because instead of his artful gaze and taste, you have to deal with my colorblind rods and cones.

For you tag searching newbs, I searched under All Screenshots in the Last Week and plucked these images from there. Except for the dude at the computer, which was tagged Funny and Gossett found. Clicking on each image will take you to the File Page for said image.

Matchmaking November Update

**The cries have been heard. The tears have splashed gently on a small percentage of Xbox 360 controllers all over this fertile globe. Economies are in peril, financial crisis looms large and we've decided to make some changes. In a concerted effort to rebalance the fun we're slowing down the Sniper Rifle projectile so that it the race between a Sniper Round and a Battle Rifle bullet trifecta is a dead heat. Additionally, we've added a spread mechanic to Sniper Rifle rounds. The Sniper Rifle is now a short to mid-ranged weapon with a super powerful scope.

Read below for Shishka's actual changelist for the month of November in the year of 2008.

General Matchmaking

Instances of September update maps (Boundless, Pit Stop, Sand Tarp and Epilogue) and their default counterparts are shuffled around and removed in some instances to remove some of the redundancies.

Social

• Social Slayer - Team Snipers and Team Shotty Snipers removed.

Ranked

• Team Slayer - Team Snipers and Team Shotty Snipers removed.
• Team Objective - Weighting for Multi Flag BR's increased.
• Team Doubles - Anvil removed. The Pit replaced by Pit Stop in all variants.
• Squad Battle - Weighting on Heavy Sandtrap and Heavy Valhalla slightly reduced. Heavy Standoff removed.

DLC

• DLC FFA - Haunted Manor replaced with Infected Manor.

Hardcore

• Added Team Snipers - Ranked 4v4 playlist. Sniper Rifle spawns (no secondary weapons) on maps forged with Beam Rifles. Shotty Snipers present with a lower weighting.

Double EXP Weekends (Listed in order)

• Team Flag (Formerly known as 4th of July)
• Grifball
• Legendary Brawl
• Turkey Day*

7 on the 7th

• November's 7 on the 7th will feature FFA gametypes on Blackout.

*Turkey Day

• Four days of tenuously Thanksgiving-themed FFA gametypes for 9 players:

Wishbone Brawl: Score points by beating down other players with the oddball. 10 points to win. Black Friday: More slugs than hugs. Players spawn with Plasma Pistols and score points by beating down or assassinating other players. 25 points to win. Turkey Carvers: Those turkeys won't slice themselves. Team Swords, point leader moves slowly ('cause he ate too much). 25 points to win. Turkey Fiesta: It's a party! Random primary and secondary weapons. Point leader is fat and slow, but we still love him. 25 points to win. Tryptophan: The day the turkeys... Returned. Infection. Turkeys move quickly. Last Pilgrim Standing can run pretty fast. Most kills after 4 rounds wins.

**This part is false. No, not the Thanksgiving games, those are real. The other part of the Update that has the two asterisks.

Avast, Seafaring Jammers

Our friends down at Certain Affinity bequeathed Age of Booty - their Piradical take on strategic territory capture and control - on the masses last week. Age of Booty is available now on the Xbox 360 home video console.

Halo 3: Recon Update

It's autumnal 'round these parts and Seattle autumn is pretty awesome when there's not a slow drizzle of chill-inducing rain coming from the big man in the sky's bladder. The upside, and there always is one my dear angst-filled reader, is that it's sweater weather. Japan and its humidity were borderline insufferable, my kind - the battle-hardened Lithuanians tempered by the frozen tundra of Northern Michigan - don't fare well in the heat, and in kind, I didn't fare well in the land of the Rising Sun. Around here, Boy Wonder looks like he walked straight out of the winter spread from J.Crew. I've never seen a sweater with so many buttons. Seriously, sweaters and buttons - it's the chocolate and peanut butter of fashion.

• Weather report aside, here's the Doppler readout on Halo 3: Recon since we last spoke.
• Dorje showed us all how cool a 3D Cube could be.
• In lieu of the lightmapper, Milton and Ken are brokering a better way to shingle a building.
• Dan Miller is out back taking a break from the most expensive game of hacky sack in the world to think about pimping his ride.
• Vic has a thing for Zebras.
• CJ Cowan just made a Brute Chieftain introduce the business end of his Hammer to some dudes.
• Mat is doing "almost nothing except for making the cache system build a faster environment and adding per-bsp scenario resources to make it easier for multiple artist to paint in the fun." Yep, almost nothing.
• A whole bunch of men are building bridges to nowhere.
• Scott Shepherd is making a better face; not a butter face.
• Marty is taking a break from making Halo 3: Recon music to score his daughter's wedding.
• Steve Scott is venting his frustrations over Milton's future Ford Taurus by photoshopping Bungie staff into the cast of The Watchmen.