Windstorm announces partnership with 226 productions
It looks like things are going well for Dusty Monk’s Windstorm Studios, a company setup by an ex Ensemble programmer aiming to deliver a groundbreaking MMO game with flying cars! The studio has recently announced a partnership with a major Russian art production company, 226 productions. 226 productions have worked on art for a number of games including Pirates of the Carribbean – The Legend of Jack Sparrow and the company has a selection of sample art on their website located here: http://www.226prod.com/
This is good news for Windstorm Studios who also along with the press release offer a brand new piece of concept art found below:
Click to enlarge to desktop wallpaper size
We wish Windstorm and Dusty continued success with their mission to create an excellent MMO title. Stand by for more updates!
New Halo Wars rank numbers revealed!
Robot Entertainment Community Manager, Duncan Stanley has quickly updated the Halo Wars community with the proposed ranking changes for Halo Wars. Previously the ranking system stood as follows:
| Rank | Score Needed | New Points |
| Recruit | Play 1 Game | Play 1 Game |
| Lieutenant | 25,000 | 15,000 |
| Captain | 60,000 | 30,000 |
| Major | 140,000 | 60,000 |
| Commander | 310,000 | 120,000 |
| Colonel | 700,000 | 240,000 |
| Brigadier | 1,500,000 | 480,000 |
| General | 2,400,000 | 960,000 |
The idea behind this change is to help make the General achievement easier to attain whilst still being relatively difficult. Rest assured, in order to achieve this top achievement players will still need to play alot of Halo Wars. Feedback about this proposed change can be made in the official Halo Wars community forum. – head over there and check out the discussion!
Robot to reduce the number of points to reach General rank in Halo Wars
Robot Entertainment Community Manager Duncan “Aloysius” Stanley has confirmed that Robot intends to reduce the number of points to reach the General rank in Halo Wars. The number of points to reach the rank currently stands at 2,400,000 exp. The number of points has been criticised by some players as taking an unreasonable amount of play time to achieve. In wake of the recent launch of Halo Waypoint on Xbox Live which tracks players achievements across all 360 Halo games (Halo3, Wars and ODST) this should make the top achievement more balanced with other games achievements. Currently the scoring system stands as follows:
| Rank | Score Needed |
| Recruit | Play 1 Game |
| Lieutenant | 25,000 |
| Captain | 60,000 |
| Major | 140,000 |
| Commander | 310,000 |
| Colonel | 700,000 |
| Brigadier | 1,500,000 |
| General | 2,400,000 |
Stand by for announcements for an adjusted scoring / ranking system!
Halo Wars Title Update 4 balance feedback sought
Robot Entertainment balance staff Tim “Timotron” Deen and Community Manager Duncan “Aloysius” Stanley have informed the Halo Wars community that the fourth title update for Halo Wars is now in consideration and the balance team at Robot Entertainment are now looking for feedback on the following proposals. So far the first draft of the proposed balance changes is as follows:
1. Buffing the Scarab from a fully upgraded tech level 3 Covenant unit to a “super” tech unit on par with Grizzly’s, Hawks and ODST.
2. Buffing the Hunters Assault Beam upgrade so that Hunters can track fast moving vehicles like warthogs.
3. Fixing the Grunt squads needler upgrade so that they keep their damage bonus against Air craft.
4. Nerfing the Arbiter during Rage so that he takes more damage from attacks.
5. Nerfing the Gremlin by adjusting the vehicle and its upgrades up one tech level, making Gremlins a tech level 2 vehicles with the first upgrade available at tech 3 and the final upgrade at tech 4.
6. *New* Buffing Brute choppers auto-cannon damage to do more damage to air units at the same rate as other scout units.
There are also a number of bug fixes being looked at including:
1. Cryo Glitch
2. TrueSkill display glitch
3. Y-Ability cooldown glitch
4. DLC Leaderboards Display Glitch.
5. Multiplayer Lobby lock up glitch.
Check out the discussion on the official Halo Wars community website to see how players are responding and feel free to leave any comments you think about the proposed changes there. The link to the thread is: http://www.halowars.com/forums/thread/769843.aspx
Dave Pottinger quits Robot, moves to Bonfire
Jeremy W of the Halo Wars official community forum recently spotted the removal of Halo Wars lead designer, Dave Pottingers name from Robot Entertainment’s list of employees. Dave Pottinger was a long time member of Ensemble Studios and was present at the beginning with Age of Empires 1. Dave was fairly big on community engagement appearing on the Halo Wars forums and writing development blogs on the games official website. Dave was also responsible for the mammoth Robot Entertainment lego sign effort who’s blog remains on the studios website. Often a spokesman for game development at Robot Entertainment, appearing on voice and video chats about Halo Wars and post Ensemble, it is currently unclear why he has chosen to move to Bonfire Studios.
Dave has updated his post on Halo Wars forum pointing out that Robot was a great place to work, it just wasnt the things he wanted to be doing and Bonfire was more aligned with the projects they were undertaking.
Robot is a great place with crazy good talent. A huge chunk of my best friends work there:) Just turned out to not be the right place for me and where I want to go/what I want to do.
And I can still play with Legos no matter where I am:)
No matter where Mr Pottinger is placed, its exciting that he will still be apart of developing games with Ex-Ensemble people – keep an eye out for Bonfire news!
Beer galore at Robot Entertainment this October!
More inside pictures of Robot Entertainment’s headquaters in Plano have emerged on the companies official website. Dont expect to see any sneak peaks of upcoming projects though, instead it seems to be a chill down day at the office with beer all round! We’re not talking about a little bit of beer either check out these glasses direct from the Robot biergarten!
![octoberfest01[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/octoberfest011-300x225.jpg "octoberfest01[1]")
Heavy lifting!
Check out more pictures from Robot Entertainments biergarten on the link below. Lets hope this is all in celebration of milestones with the upcoming game! Stay tuned!
http://www.robotentertainment.com/Studio/Photos
