Robots react to community feedback with Halo Wars title update 3
A third title update is underway at Robot Entertainment and is once again aimed at addressing issues raised by the community at www.halowars.com . Community Manager “Aloysius” announced on the website today that title update 3 will fix some the most talked about issues including the nerfing of the Warthogs. Team killing will also be getting a review. You can find the full statement below, stay tuned for more Halo Wars title update news!
“We’ve been listening to fan feedback since our release of Title Update #2 and DLC pack #1 Strategic Options and are pleased to announce that we are working on title Update #3. TU #3 is aimed at balance changes and a few bug fixes. We’re looking in to a variety of things such as reducing the effectiveness of Warthogs, friendly fire/team killing and a few other balance issues. We’re also planning on making Invisible Unit’s health bars invisible, among other fixes.
Stay tuned for more details on the upcoming Title Update, including more details on the balance changes. “
Lead Designer talks Halo Wars bases
Lead Halo Wars designer at Robot Entertainment Dave Pottinger today blogs about the reasoning behind the socket based bases found in Halo Wars. The forums have often had questions like “How come I cant place buildings anywhere on the map” and “How come the game doesn’t look like it did at E3 2007?” Halo Wars was completed in 2009 so its inevitable there would be some differences between the released version and the E3 2007 demo. However it is always interesting to know how ideas and changes developed and the reasoning behind the changes.
Think of it as a look into a Robots head, here’s Dave Pottinger with the low down and a link to the full blog post at the bottom:
“Most strategy games are noted for their deep city building and economic elements. WTF Halo Wars??? Why don’t you have an Age of Empires-like infrastructure game where the truly skilled players can “out econ” the newbies? The fairly un-sexy answer is that we just wanted a faster game with a larger focus on combat. Okay, fair enough. Let’s look at the iterations that base building went through to achieve those goals.”
http://www.halowars.com/news/devblog/archive/2009/05/18/How-to-Build-a-Base-in-the-26th-Century.aspx
Halo Wars artwork amongst “Into The Pixel” Winners
Congratulations to Corey Butler, Ensemble Studios and Blur who today found out that their image of Professor Anders landing on a flood planet in Halo Wars has been selected in the Top 10 best artwork of 2009. There has been alot of excellent artwork demonstrated in Halo Wars and I am sure you can appreciate that this is a well deserved recognition. You can view the other winning art pieces and an enlarged image of the Halo Wars artwork below:
http://www.intothepixel.com/artwork/2009_contest_winners.asp
Congratulations Corey Butler again!
Familiar faces amongst the Halo Wars developers play night
The Halo Wars developers play night has been buzzing with excitement as people from Robot Entertainment, Bonfire Studios and other Ex Ensemble people came to play with fans. One of those Ex Ensemble’s was ex community manager “Paragon”. The much missed moderator came out to play with fans as he greeted those on the message boards with:
*the cave door opens*
*a bearded figure of a man walks out blinded by the light*
*He is handed a 360 controller and grunts*
“paragon shall play”
Even though I am vastly out of practice, I will try and pop on for a few matches. My gamer tag is ES Paragon (space between S and P no quotes)
Stick around Paragon!
Hopefully there will be more developer play nights in the future!
The Robots come out to play
The Robots are coming out to play Halo Wars on May 27th from 5-8pm CST (GMT -5)! Its you chance to get tips from the pros and see if they can hold off against your tactics! Needless to say playing anyone at Robot will be a very insightful expierence – if you are on the opposing team.. good luck! These Robots have been playing Halo Wars for over a year!
You’ll need to know the Robot gamertags and ive included these below:
I myself had the lucky privilege of playing with Robot C3PO a few days ago. A very fun game!
You can find the official announcement of the developer games here:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/calendar/gamewithdevelopers/2009/0527-halowars.htm
Designer Justin Rouse talks about Fort Deen iterations
Quick update. The Halo Wars “Fort Deen” map image and information is online complete with a full description from its designer Justin Rouse at Ensemble. Here’s an extract from the page and a link to the full article:
“On this map I love to use Brute commando squads. Since they’re infantry I can put them into the wall towers and block off my enemies ground forces but because of my brute jump packs I can jump back and forth over the walls to get away from danger or to closer to juicy targets coming to shoot my units out of the towers”
http://www.halowars.com/GameInfo/maps/FortDeen.aspx
Dave Pottinger responds to Halo Wars fans about DLC pricing
There is alot of talk amongst the HaloWars.com community of unhappiness with the DLC pricing at 800 MS points for three brand new game modes. I thought I would quickly add my thoughts on the matter. I think the game modes are alot of fun espcially re-inforcements mode which is great fun online. Its also good to see a change from the rushing trend online with these new modes which require new thinking on ways to win. For 800 MS points its certainly alot of sustained entertainment. You can play lots of games of Halo Wars DLC, but you can only complete say Fable 2 DLC once.
But anyway, enough of me and more of the Lead Designer at Robot. Here’s Dave Pottinger’s light statement on the matter as posted on the Halo Wars forums. Ive added some emphasis as well.
“MS asked us to make some DLC. We chose to do that. We made a proposal back to them with what the DLC contents would be. After some back and forth, they agreed. They set the price. They alone control this. HW is a MS franchise and they have guidelines for how much stuff costs. That said, yes, we knew what the price would be.
Personally, I think the price is fair. It’s clear that you guys do not (overall). We can disagree on that, particularly since no one is forcing you to buy it:) It’s worth pointing out that map packs are easy to figure out. They’re easy to make. They’re especially easy to price. Game modes for a strategy game on the console are less clear-cut. We knew there would be some consternation over the modes coming out as the first pack, but we thought it was something that would be very popular. Time will tell. If there was a mistake made with the pricing, then I’m confident that will bubble up in the pricing analysis.
Overall, the based on what folks are playing right now, I’d say a) the DLC is popular and b) the DLC is doing its “job” in refreshing the feel/community for the game. Someone made the comparison to Horse Armor. That’s an ironic comparison given that, to date, the Horse Armor remains in the top 5 or top 10 “most purchased DLC items” (at least based on the last numbers I saw).
Anyhow, we (and MS, I imagine) have clearly got the feedback on the pricing.”
Robot delivers Halo Wars matchmaking changes in response to feedback
Its great to see that fan feedback is respected by Robot Entertainment who have hours after the DLC’s release already implemented changes based on gamer feedback- thats fantastic. It is now possible to play 2v2 Reinforcements non-party!
I have just played a game myself and it is very fun! I encourage everyone to pick up the DLC and play re-inforcements online. You wont be disappointed!
Here is the word from Aloysius on the homepage of HaloWars.com :
Halo Wars DLC #1 ‘Strategic Options has hit the Xbox Live Marketplace, and fans are getting their first taste of the action. We at Robot feel that the new game modes, Reinforcement, Keep Away and Tug of War are best enjoyed as part of a team, so we put in a lot of team game searches. We realize that this leaves out some fans who do not play team games, so we are introducing a new system to rotate in different searches so that everyone can find a game type they want to play.
Players with the DLC who search for games will see 2v2 Reinforcement (non-team) tonight, and next week we will be rotating in 2 new search types, so that fans can play different 1v1 and 2v2 game types without having to be part of a team. We’ll be watching the forums and gameplay statistics to better align matchmaking with what fans want in future updates.
Check out the new DLC here Halo Wars DLC on Xbox Live Marketplace.
Robot Entertainment – working on a resolution to Halo Wars DLC
Robot Entertainment is working on a resolution to complaints on the Halo Wars forums that most of the new DLC games are not playable online without being in a party. Its being worked on right now infact. Expect a change of game rooms. Have faith in the Robots, they’ll sort it!
Halo Wars Strategic Options
In case you haven’t already noticed.. Halo Wars strategic options DLC has been released! The community is buzzing at the HaloWars.com community and you can check out all the action in the official thread. Be on the lookout for comments from Robot developers and rest assured they are watching, gathering feedback.
My thoughts? The DLC is fun and is entertaining, its very enjoyable to play for fans of the game and introduces some new play styles which really make you think about new tactics and strategies in order to win.
Unfortunately though there is no multiplayer online except for party games for a majority of the new modes. Alot of players have expressed some sadness about this so I wanted to highlight comments made by Dave Pottinger about the issue:
“None of the DLC was on the disc when it shipped. The game modes are a small download because they are rules. There is some new content, but it’s obviously a different type of content compared to a map. Also, the recent patch added a bunch of missing support/engine groundwork for both DLCs.
We are limited in the number of matchmaking buckets we can use due to Live. We left a bunch of buckets available for the DLC, but perhaps we made too many team oriented buckets. We’ll evaluate changing/modifying that as we get feedback. FWIW, since the DLC modes are generally more team-based than the default game, we skewed the new hoppers to be team-focused as well.” – Dave Pottinger.
Hopefully Microsoft might be able to extend the number of multi player buckets available for their first party game. If not it is possible based on feedback that Robot will be able to mix and match modes as per gamer feedback.
So.. if you want to make your voice heard head over to the thread!
