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
Halo Wars achievement statistics
Robot Entertainment Community Manager Duncan “Aloysius” Stanley has today revealed some interesting statistics regarding Halo Wars achievements:
-More than 75% of all Halo Wars players completed the first mission of the campaign on any difficulty.
-Roughly 35% of players completed the single player game on any difficulty.
-About 7% of players collected all of the skulls in the single player campaign.
-2% of players completed the single player campaign on Legendary difficulty.
-Less than half a of percent of players have the General rank on Xbox Live.
The statistics come after Jason Pace, creative director of Halo Waypoint, the new hub for all Halo content on Xbox Live spoke to g4Tv about how only less than 1% of players has achieved all the achievements across Halo 3, Halo Wars and Halo 3 ODST. There has been some concern on various gaming websites that the general achievement may prove to be a sticking point as the achievement can take a very long time to achieve. This is echoed by the statistics provided by Robot Entertainment, where less than half a percent of players have obtained the general achievement which requires players to gain 2,400,000 worth of expierence points. G4tv made a follow up post based on the statistics provided by Robot Entertainment.
Will the achievement cause a stir amongst Halo players concerning its difficulty? Share your thoughts on the Halo Wars official forums.
Chess with friends players make over 1,000,000 moves in one day!
NewToy’s Chess with Friends iPhone application has been buzzing lately and the studio revealed that over 1,000,000 moves were made in one day yesterday signalling a new record for the game. Help spread the word of this excellent social chess game and you can help get NewToy’s Chess with Friends into the Top 100 App Store charts! If youve got an iPhone and haven’t seen the chess revolution then you should download the application for free on the AppStore below!
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=321916506&mt=8
Justin Rouse & Duncan Stanley complete the last of the Halo Wars skirmish map information pages – Frozen Valley
Justin Rouse and Duncan Stanley talk us through the last of the Halo Wars maps to be detailed on the skirmish map page. Frozen Valley the 3v3 map which was one of the first maps to be designed can now be found on HaloWars.com with top tips from designer Justin Rouse and Community Manager Duncan “Aloysius” Stanley.
![frozenvalleyHi_final[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/frozenvalleyHi_final1.jpg "frozenvalleyHi_final[1]")
“Frozen Valley was the first 3v3 map designed during the development of Halo Wars. After Chasms, this was probably our most played map through internal playtesting. The layout went through one major tweak throughout development and that was the opening down between the teams that runs along the bottom edge on picture shown here. The first iteration had the hole as well as the mount near that bottom edge of the map extend all the way to the edge. Leaving a pocket only access through the middle by land units. It allowed the two bottom player on each team to build up safely. “
Chess with Friends for iPhone update incoming from NewToy
NewToy have announced on Twitter that they have just sent in an update for thier first iPhone game “Chess with Friends” to be reviewed by Apple for publication on the AppStore. Some of application updates include:
- Push notifications,
- Deleting games,
- Facebook & Twitter challenges,
- and many other fixes and improvements
We’ll keep an eye out for when this update gets accepted onto the AppStore!
Microsoft resolve Age of Empires Bad CD Key error by handing CD keys over to Robot Entertainment
Players who have recently purchased copies of Age of Empires 3 have found themselves unable to play Age of Empires 3 on ESO after Microsoft failed to inform Robot Entertainment, now managing the support for Age 3 the CD Keys leaving players unable to create or upgrade accounts. Needless to say the inability to play online bemused many players and some commenting on the official community website.
However today Robot Entertainment has received the keys and Duncan Stanley, Community Manager for Robot Entertainment has updated the community as follows:
We just uploaded 10s of thousands of keys that we received from Microsoft late in the day.
If you were getting the 100 bad cd-key error while trying to create an account, or upgrade an account, please try again.
If you receive the same error as before, please email age3support@robotentertainment.com with the subject Bad CD-key Error 100 with your cd-key.
Paul Jaquays completes his Halo Wars skirmish map blogs with Terminal Moraine, Repository, and Crevice
Paul Jaquays now working at CCP North America as a Senior Level Designer has been blogging with Robot Entertainment Community Manager, Duncan Stanley to reveal some early developer screenshots and ideas which make up some of the Halo Wars portfolio of skirmish maps. Having already blogged about Pirth Outskirts attention has turned to his other map designs – Terminal Moraine, Repository and Crevice.
Terminal Moraine
![terminalhi_final[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/terminalhi_final2.jpg "terminalhi_final[2]")
I started map development by literally copying and pasting a large chunk the Alpha Base ruins into one corner of the map. This established a particularly unique landmark in that corner. These large landmarks in skirmish maps help players immediately know where they are and and let them navigate from point to point by in-game visual references. Ideally, each “corner” of any skirmish map is visually unique, and this was my design goal with Terminal Moraine
Repository
![repositoryHi_final[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/repositoryHi_final1-300x168.jpg "repositoryHi_final[1]")
Early 2007 saw the first completed version of Repository (then called “the Halo map”). Primarily developed by Ensemble artist Patrick Thomas, this was a land of subtle terrain blending, muted colors, narrow paths, rough terrain, and the unrestricted placement of bases and other buildings. Players captured Forerunner power stations to earn resources. Very little of what can be seen in this map survived into the final game. The effects guys put a lot of effort into river that runs through the map, including the appearance of moving water, waterfalls, and spray. But the game was about to undergo an extensive refit, resulting in play much closer to the final version and the need to totally rework this map from the ground up. The river, sadly, became an early victim to those changes.
Crevice
![crevicehi_final[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/crevicehi_final1.jpg "crevicehi_final[1]")
During development, Crevice shifted from the inside of the Shield World to the outside. To achieve this, I painted over a screen capture of the current version of the map, sketching out ideas for details on notebook paper. The design rework of the map had turned the central platform into a big hole. I suggested changing this into a playable area, a partially buried circular Forerunner platform. One feature I wanted to play up was the “bouncy-ness” of the warthogs, so where possible, I sculpted in small steps and shelves into the terrain.
Check out more map blogs from other Ensemble artists on the HaloWars.com map page!
More Ensemble Halo MMO concept art revealed
Dylan Cole an artist who worked with Ensemble Studios on the cancelled Halo MMO has made some concept art and paintings available from the project on his website. The incredibly detailed images show what the game environments may have been like if the project saw the light of day and Ensemble was still with us. Take a look at this outstanding image showing what a Forerunner City may have looked like in game:
![ENS_MPv01[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ENS_MPv011.jpg "ENS_MPv01[1]")
Incredible art
![ENS_MPv01detail2[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ENS_MPv01detail22.jpg "ENS_MPv01detail2[2]")
And another showing a Halo City from a distance:
![ENSlocation2_v04[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ENSlocation2_v041.jpg "ENSlocation2_v04[1]")
If in game graphics were 1/5 as good as these outstanding art pieces the MMO would of been a marvel to play. It is a great travesty that executives at Microsoft pulled the plug on such a promising game. I recommend that everyone check out Dylan Cole’s website for more Halo MMO art plus more incredible pieces from his other projects:
http://www.dylancolestudio.com/
