New Robot Entertainment homepage graphic + new blog
Robot Entertainment have updated thier homepage graphic with something rather futuristic:
Could this be a hint to the genre Robot is targeting? Or is it just a pretty graphic? Who knows! (Click the image to have a larger peak)
In other Robot news there is a new blog from Duncan Stanley about the Canadian Men’s Ice Hockey Team recent Gold medal win. Wondering how that relates to Robot? Read on to find out how the Ice Hockey team visited Ensemble Studios in 2004.
343 Industries takes over Halo Wars Community support
As of March 1st 2010 343 Industries’ Halo Waypoint team will take over support of both Halo Wars and the Halo Wars Community at HaloWars.com. Community Manager Jon Goff from 343 has made his introductions in the general discussion.
Hey everyone,
As most of you know, Halo Wars and HaloWars.com are transitioning more closely into the Halo Waypoint family.
As of this weekend, Halo Waypoint will oversee both Halo Wars’ matchmaking and stat tracking servers, as well as HaloWars.com as we continue to bring the Halo universe together as never before.
Before I continue, the Waypoint team would like to thank the amazing group at Robot Entertainment, who have spent the past year working closely with the Halo Wars community, helping to build a vibrant, dedicated fan base, and we look forward to supporting the Halo Wars community as the Halo universe continues to expand and evolve.
Jon then continues to expand on some of the most frequently asked community questions – whether or not there will be a Halo Wars sequel of even any additional DLC. The response is as expected – no.
Will there be a Halo Wars 2?
There is currently no information to share about the possibly of future Halo Wars games. We understand the desire from the Halo Wars community for another installment of Halo Wars, but for now the focus in regard to Halo game titles is squarely on supporting Bungie as they prepare to launch Halo: Reach this Fall.
Will there be more Halo Wars DLC?
Likewise, there is currently no new information on additional Halo Wars DLC.
The transition from Robot Entertainment to Halo Waypoint indicates Microsoft’s reduced commitment to the title for the near future as Halo Wars loses its developer. It is currently unclear whether some small bugs outstanding from the last title update will be resolved. Two of these include the issue that units can use the Y-Ability across the entire map and secondly there are missing cut scenes in the Halo Wars game menu. Robot Entertainment has advised that these issues are now the responsibility of Halo Waypoint.
Whats next for Robot Entertainment?
Losing Robot Entertainment in the Halo Wars community is a sad thing. No one is better placed to support the game and its community than the games developer and Robot had the majority of people from Ensemble Studios working on the titles support. However, this is not the end of Robot’s community presence on other games. Robot will continue to provide support for both Age of Empires and the Age of Empires Community. Also expect Robot to be hard at work on a brand new community for thier upcoming video game project. Robot are expanding thier community team to no doubt make the future community as, or even more vibrant and exciting than ever before. Stay tuned.
Robot Entertainment to hand over HaloWars.com to Waypoint
Hot of the press from HaloWars.com. Today an announcement was made by Robot Entertainment Community Manager, Duncan “Aloysius” Stanley talking about the end of Robot’s primary involvement with the Halo Wars Community. The announcement reads as follows:
On February 28th, 2010, Halo Waypoint will be begin to officially support both Halo Wars and HaloWars.com. Waypoint staff will transition in over the next month to support operations of HaloWars.com and the Halo Wars matchmaking and stats servers. Over the past year, Robot was very proud to roll out 4 Title Updates for Halo Wars, provide technical support on the forums and provide a place for volumes of fan fiction. Robot was proud to be a part of this community for the past year, and we hope we served you well.
Along with supporting operations, Halo Waypoint has exciting plans for Halo Wars. Look for announcements in the near future.
So long and thanks for all the fish!
This was quite an unexpected announcement as in most cases the developer is responsible for the games communities. For example, Rare looks after Banjo and Lionhead looks after the Fable communities. However, it seems Microsoft is not so keen to continue having Robot watch over the Halo Wars community. Presumably, now a year on from Ensemble’s closure the agreement struck between Robot and Microsoft to look after the Halo Wars community has expired and possibly as a result of cost cutting Microsoft are bringing the management of the website in house.
Come February 28th a new moderation team will be drafted in from Microsoft’s, 343 Industries – the “Waypoint” team. Its been a bumpy road for Halo Wars fans having to go through another major change in the way the game is supported. First the closure of the original developer Ensemble, then the removal of the second developers community presence. Microsoft do not seem to be treating the strategy version of the Halo IP very well!
Although the announcement states “exciting plans for Halo Wars” are in the works, one must wonder how “exciting” these plans can be without a developer attached to the game anymore.
Hopefully there will be more details to follow about this announcement in due course.
What about Age Community?
Some good news is that the Age of Empires community will still be looked after by Robot Entertainment as before.
GamersGlobal.de interview Bruce Shelley “Closing Ensemble was a mistake”
Bruce Shelley has been interviewed by a German online magazine GamersGlobal.de. Most of the interview talks about Settlers 7 and Bruce’s role in the games development. It looks like he’ll be bringing accross Ensemble game design philosophies such as playtesting and making the game easier to play for gamers. However if you listen to the first few minutes of the interview Bruce talks about the closure of Ensemble Studios where he believes it was a mistake and says that the studio was closed due to Microsoft thinking it wasnt a strategic studio anymore. He goes onto say that Ensemble were making different games outside of the genre but those games kept being cancelled by Microsoft. Clearly Microsoft did not give the studio a chance to explore titles outside of the RTS genre, a big shame on Microsoft.
Check out the video below:
Bruce Shelley working with Ubisoft on “Settlers 7”
Its been just over a year when Ensemble Studios closed its doors (29th Jan 2009) and we have seen lots of news where the developers have set up new companies such as Robot, Bonfire, NewToy, Fuzzycube and Windstorm and we have seen some of the developers join posts in other prestigious companies such as Paul Jaquays now working at CCP North America. However news has been scarce about iconic Ensemble developer and co-founder Bruce Shelley, until now.
Today it was widely revealed that Bruce Shelley has joined Ubisoft’s Blue Byte studio where he will be working as consultant on the RTS game “Settlers 7”. It looks like nothing can keep Bruce away from RTS video game development! You can find out more about the game and see Bruce in action as he describes the economy structure of Settlers 7 in the YouTube video below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXIs5Z1Kk5c
Also check out the high res download of the video over at BigDownload.com
Settlers 7 open beta now open
More good news is that the Settlers 7 game that Bruce is working on is now accepting beta signups so that you can get a first look at the game. More details about that available here: http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/settlers-7. Note also that an ubi.com account is needed for registration so be sure to get that setup first.
Remember-EnsembleStudios.com will be following developments of this game closely and will update with any more Bruce Shelley blogs or vidlogs. Keep an eye out!
Halo Wars runner up in Kotaku’s best cut scenes of 2009
The awesome cut scenes in Ensemble’s Halo Wars have received a runners up place in Kotaku’s best cut scenes of 2009. There is no question that the quality of the cut scenes in Halo Wars are the best yet in any Halo game, rendered fully in outstanding CGI. A YouTube video with all the 30 minutes worth of cut scenes can be found below and also at the Kotaku website where you can read about the Halo Wars runners up award and other games with great cut scenes.
Link to article: http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/01/best-video-game-cut-scenes-of-2009/
Happy Holidays
![art_maps_wwland_sm[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/art_maps_wwland_sm1.jpg "art_maps_wwland_sm[1]")
Christmas eve today and I wanted to wish all the blog readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Last year was a sad time for the Ensemble crew but this year things are looking up. Studios like Robot, Bonfire, Windstorm, NewToy and Fuzzycube amoung other ventures seem to be going very well with the latter two already performing exceptionally well on the iPhone platform. Will 2010 reveal any teasers for Robot, Bonfire and Windstorm projects? We hope so! Stay tuned for updates over 2010. Meanwhile, here’s a little greeting from your friendly Robots:
Halo Wars title update 4 announced. Meanwhile, Halo Wars wins best strategy game at IGN
Today is a great day for Halo Wars fans kicking off with Robot’s announcement that the fourth title update for Halo Wars will be going live tomorrow on the 18th December. This patch implements many of the proposed fixes as discussed before, these being:
Balance:
Grunts now do more damage to air units
The Scarab now has 25% more health and does 25% more damage
Gremlins now requires 2 reactors to be built
The Arbiter now takes 25% more damage while raging
Hunters now focus their Assault Beam much faster
Brute Chopper is more effective vs. airBug Fixes:
The Cryo/Reactor Glitch has been fixed
The Multiplayer Lobby should now work better for people with misaligned controllers
Y-Abilities should no longer have their cooldowns reset erroneously
Profiles that had problems accruing points in Multiplayer should now be able to gain points properly
Meanwhile over at IGN Halo Wars was awarded the “Best Strategy” game of 2009 on the Xbox 360 platform saying that:
“PC diehards may cry foul at the idea of a real-time strategy game on a console. Halo Wars is enough to silence them. It strips away some of the depth and excessive management required out of a PC game and boils the formula down to quick strategy and exciting confrontations”
Harter Ryan, Executive Producer on Halo Wars at Ensemble Studios who now works at Robot Entertainment had this to say on the official Halo Wars community website:
“We’re proud of Halo Wars and its reception by both the Halo and Xbox 360 communities. Winning IGN’s Strategy Game of the Year is a great honor and is a fine reflection of all the effort that went into creating the game at Ensemble Studios and Microsoft Game Studios.”
Indeed! Congratulations all Ensemblites!
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/
