Chronique:Halo Bulletin 26/10/2011

This isn’t a real job.

Approximately 21 days ago—assuming you are reading this the same day I hit the publish button—I was sitting within the confines of my local airport, dealing with a shoddy internet connection and an overzealous forum profanity filter that had suddenly decided every word starting with "st-" was bad. With my brain more frazzled than usual, I managed to forget the fact that I was soon going to be locked inside a 232-foot-long metal cylinder for nine straight hours. Unfortunately the second I was actually locked inside said 232-foot-long metal cylinder, the terrifying, claustrophobic-related thought came rushing back. It’s worth noting that when I initially agreed to this trip, I was told I was simply going “across the pond.” I wasn’t told that the pond actually spanned OVER 41 MILLION SQUARE MILES.

Moving on.

After 540 continuous minutes of eating, sleeping, and attempting to not pass gas in my not-so-spacious 17” x 31” area, the recirculating air craft finally returned to solid ground. Shortly thereafter, it was border agent time. Our extremely lengthy and thorough conversation went a little something like this:

Agent: Business or pleasure?

Me: Business.

Agent: What are you doing while you’re here?

Me: Showing a video game.

Agent: That doesn’t sound like a real job.

Me: It’s really not.

Agent: Ok.

London Bridge is not falling down.

To make a long story short, your entire childhood was a lie. It’s ok, though. Mine was, too.

This is not the soda you’re looking for.

If you order soda thinking you are going to get their equivalent of Pepsi or Coke, you are mistaken. You will actually get bitter, pucker-inducing carbonated water. Enjoy.

Where’s the beef?

I ordered a club sandwich, expecting layer upon layer of deliciously meaty fillings, all nestled within three pieces of perfectly toasted bread. What I got instead was ham. And eggs. On bread that wasn’t even toasted.

As I reflect upon my time spent in London, I’m struck by how much this Bulletin is like their version of the club sandwich: still delicious but missing some of the meat. Anniversary is a mere 20 days from release, and as that date approaches, more and more information becomes available. Not all of it corresponds with a Bulletin, though, so today’s communications may be a little less juicy than normal. That being said, there are still plenty of other tasty tidbits, so let’s go ahead and dip in, shall we?

Behind the scenes of the Behind-the-Scenes.

On Monday, we released two behind-the-scenes Anniversary videos. One revealed insight into the process involved with remastering the sounds of Halo: Combat Evolved, and the other discussed the development process behind the Terminals. If you missed either video the first time around, they are both conveniently embedded below. If you already soaked in every last detail, feel free to do it again. We know you were looking for an excuse to take another look at that amazing ‘stache. And we don’t blame you. Not one bit.

And, just like that, I was free to roam the streets of London. Being the free-spirited, adventurous soul I am, I went straight to my hotel room and practiced my Anniversary presentation for the remainder of the day. I did eventually venture out, though, and I learned some very valuable lessons during that exploratory time. Here are a few of them, should you be interested in my seemingly endless stream of consciousness.

Drop it like it’s hot.

In case you forgot, Anniversary isn’t the only thing dropping November 15th. Halo Waypoint is also getting updated across all of its various screens (console, mobile, and web). There are treats coming in December as well, in the form of a mobile experience called ATLAS. Back to November, though. On or within 364 days of the 1st, we’ll be rolling out your almost monthly Halo: Reach matchmaking playlist update. Here to give you those details is the collective Matchmaking Systems Team. And no, Matchmaking has not suddenly become self-aware. Because clearly that is a gradual process, not an instantaneous one.

I is Matchmaking Systems Team. Prepare to be destroyed.

010010010010000001101001011100110010000001001101011000010111010001100011011010000110110101 100001011010110110100101101110011001110010000001010011011110010111001101110100011001010110 110101110011001000000101010001100101011000010110110100101110001000000101000001110010011001 010111000001100001011100100110010100100000011101000110111100100000011000100110010100100000 011001000110010101110011011101000111001001101111011110010110010101100100001011100010000001 010111011000010110100101110100001011000010000001001001001000000110000101101100011100100110 010101100001011001000111100100100000011100110110000101101001011001000010000001110100011010 000110000101110100001011100010000001001001001000000110011101110101011001010111001101110011 001000000111011101100101001001110110110001101100001000000110110101101111011101100110010100 100000011011110110111000100000011101000110111100100000011101000110100001100101001000000111 001101110000011001010110001101101001011001100110100101100011011100110010000001110100011010 00011001010110111000101110

MLG Playlist updated: MLG is playing V6 settings at their events, and you should be, too! We’ve updated the MLG list to include new maps and updated gametypes. Yes, we completely skipped the V5 settings, but they were totally lame, anyway. Obviously, because why would there be a V6?!

Grifball Playlist updated: Two new maps are making their way into the Grifball list this month: “Hot Bikini Guys Palace,” the home court of their Good Games League summer champions, and “The Exultant Genuflect,” which my 2-in-1 dictionary & thesaurus tells me is a juxtaposition. Yeah, we can get concomitant over here too, y’all.

Cliffhanger removed: Cliffhanger has had a long and illustrious career in Reach. Try as we did to hold on to it, it slowly slipped out of our hand and plummeted 4,000 feet to the ground below. A year later, we’re reluctant to venture onto those same hallowed grounds in search of 100,000,000 Good Games. Who would’ve known John Lithgow was laying the groundwork for a villainous story arc on Dexter by threatening Rocky with automatic weapons 16 years earlier?

Weightings adjusted in Firefight: More Gruntpocalypse, we’re listening! This Unggoy-only gametype has had its weighting increased, and Unearthed will no longer be your default first voting option. Fret not, though, because Unearthed remains in the lists and is heavily weighted for you Rocket ‘Hog lovers out there.

Beta Matchmaking Playlist fixed to have its own stats: FTFY. Smooches.

TU Armor Lock adjusted: We’ll be constantly tweaking and updating the settings to Reach’s Title Update. This is the first time since the list’s birth that we’ve turned the knobs in the player-facing world, so it will be vital that you continue providing feedback on the Waypoint Forums.

Weighting of the Zero Bloom Slayer DMRs gametype in the Beta Matchmaking Playlist increased: You wanted moar, and MOAR is what we’re giving ya!

Needle Rifle removed from loadouts in the Beta Matchmaking Playlist Slayer Pro gametype: Bloom affects the DMR and Needle Rifle differently, and we’re adjusting the loadout options accordingly. The Needle Rifle will be treated much like the Concussion Rifle: not as a power weapon but as something that you should pay close attention to. This way, you can have your auto-headshot-cannon-cake and eat it too.

Firefight Limited removed: Firefight Limited was dying a slow and painful death. It was breaking our hearts, and we just couldn’t stand it another month. Being the playlist-atarians we are, we thought a swift and painless end would be the most humane solution. Soon, Firefight Limited will be in that big hopper in the sky, frolicking population-concern-free alongside Team Classic and Premium Slayer.

DLC matching reweighting: We are reweighting matching within any DLC playlist so that people with DLC match with other people with DLC on a more frequent basis.

*The Anniversary playlists are coming November 15th.We’ll share those details with you never. And by never, we mean in a few weeks.

010100000010111001010011001011100010000001000010011001010010000001110011011101010111001001

100101001000000111010001101111001000000110010001110010011010010110111001101011001000000111

100101101111011101010111001000100000010011110111011001100001011011000111010001101001011011 100110010100101110

Carve this way.

Halloween is Monday, and if you’re anything like me, you have yet to carve a pumpkin. Fret not, though, fellow procrastinator, because we have some fun Halo-themed pumpkin carving patterns for you. We attempted to provide both easy and complicated designs. So pick your favorite pattern, click to embiggen and print, carve it into a gourd-like squash, and then share a picture on our forums. Oh, and you should probably know the white portions signify areas to carve while the gray patches should simply be scraped. But you probably already knew that. ‘Cause you’re smart like that. (I’m not. But that’s completely irrelevant.)

And now it’s that very special time where you ask a question and I pretend to answer it (without really answering it, of course). Off we go!

Will we be seeing the Anniversary playlists going online before the game's release for any kind of testing? Or is it just going to magically appear at midnight on release day? -JDHarbs19

I used to think the playlists just magically appeared, too. Then I met the people who actually work on that stuff. After seeing the numbers and letters whiz across their screens at an extremely fast rate, though, I have gone back to thinking it is actually magic.

Oh, wait, there was more to that question, wasn’t there? The Anniversary playlists will begin going live when the game is officially on sale. Since we are dealing with time zones spanning the whole world, some people will see the playlists before they can actually play them. We’ll have more details about that soon.

Will we be getting a premium theme for Anniversary? -Bolt Ons23

I asked my Magic 8 Ball, and it said, “Signs point to yes.” Read into that what you will.

When will Europe/UK get a 343 visit? -Sgt HD

Refer to the first portion of this Bulletin. Also, consider yourself lucky you didn’t know I was there. Normally, people put a lot of time and effort into avoiding me, and you were able to do it without even trying. Bleep bloop!

And with that, it’s time for me to move like Jagger. I don’t even know what that means exactly, but I’m hoping it has something to do with making a graceful exit, since that’s not my usual modus operandi. Until next week....

<3,

bs angel

P.S. Friday is almost here, meaning you only have two more days to get your captions in for this week’s image. I would say do it already, but I’m not the bossy type. Wait, I totally am. Do it already! And preferably in a quick-like fashion. In return for your efforts, here is a nice wallpaper-esque image featuring last week’s quips. Enjoy!

P.P.S. We’re throwing a Halo Day Party on November 14th to celebrate the launch of Halo: Anniversary. Join us and other Halo fans at Microsoft stores nationwide. We’ll be sharing more information soon, including a complete list of participating stores, but for now pencil us in on your calendar. Just make sure you do it in permanent marker....

P. P. P. S. Discuss.