Last of the DLC maps “Blood River” is detailed along with more Clash of the Titans from Brad Crow
Justin Rouse and Duncan Stanley are back again on the HaloWars.com website with top tips for players on maps from the DLC map pack “Historic Battles” available for just 800 points on Xbox Live. This time one of my favourite maps in the game, Blood River gets detailed.
With starting positions placed in opposite corners, up on a hills, and a river with only 2 crossings above it, even the inexperienced player can feel relatively safe at the onset of a Blood River match. Then there’s the look, we chose this map to be set inside of the Forerunner shield world simply because we didn’t have one in that location yet. We always intended to make sure players of all game sizes (1v1, 2v2, 3v3) have a chance/choice to play on all our worlds.
Says Justin Rouse, map designer at Robot Entertainment. Community Manager, Duncan Stanley continues with some professional gameplay advice:
If you can hold the middle and keep pressure on your opponent, you can spend some time building armor or flying units which can really turn the tide of a battle, especially against UNSC. If they build a flame thrower army to counter your infantry, some flying units can really tear them up.
Given how small the map is, it’s very risky to try to boom on this map, map control early on is much more important than going for late game heroics with super units.
So beware of the rushers in competitive play! Get the full scoop over on http://www.halowars.com/GameInfo/maps/BloodRiver.aspx
In other news we have Brad Crow, an art bot from Robot Entertainments pods with his entry into the Clash of the Titans with Perseus confronting the Kraken:
![Crowbot_Titans[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Crowbot_Titans2-300x153.jpg "Crowbot_Titans[2]")
Looking awesome as always from our favourite Art Bots. Be sure to leave a comment and check out the full blog post on the Robot website!
More art from the art bots and playtesting from David Leary
Its been a busy week so apologies to readers for the lateness of updates here at Remember Ensemble Studios. Good news is though if you haven’t already been on the Halo Wars and Robot Entertainment websites youve been missing out on some juicy blogs and art. Kicking it off we have Robot and Ex Ensemble designer David Leary talking about playtesting which Ensemble was quite famous for in its development cycle. As always theres some cool pictures of the old Ensemble office in comparison to the new Robot play testing labs.
![16thplaytest[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/16thplaytest1.jpg "16thplaytest[1]")
One of the Ensemble playtest rooms on the 16th floor
![fandlc[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/fandlc11.jpg "fandlc[1]")
The new Robot Entertainment play test room
David Leary’s blog post is an informative look into just how Ensemble executed its much talked about play testing and is a good read over on the HaloWars.com website. Or here’s a little snipped of the action:
“Managing a Halo Wars playtest session was a lot like herding cats. Some of the playtests were scheduled, but late in the project, a lot of sessions would get called on an as-needed basis. I’d page for testers over the intercom, but since everyone had other responsibilities, I’d often only get four or five people on the first call. Usually a second page would fill the rest of the seats. If that didn’t work, I’d start walking around the office – it was hard for my co-workers to turn down a personal request, especially if I groveled.”
Mean while over in Art Bot corner the Clash of the Titans is continuing with two entries from grand artists Won Choi and Bart Tiongson. First up we have Won’s Poseidon and Perseus almost painting look a like art below:
![Clash_of_Titans06[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Clash_of_Titans061-300x185.jpg "Clash_of_Titans06[1]")
Bart Tiongson is next with his take on Medusa:
![Medusa_Post2[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Medusa_Post22.jpg "Medusa_Post2[2]")
She’s looking much more “chilled” than she was in Chris Moffit’s scary picture!
If this outstanding series of art is anything to go by we can expect grand things from Robot Entertainment’s currently un announced game. But will it be mythology.. or something else all together?!?
Halo Wars DLC 2v2 map “Memorial Basin” detailed
Justin Rouse and Duncan Stanley are here again to talk about the 2v2 Halo Wars DLC map Memorial Basin.
Memorial Basin, the map based on a design of “excess”. The goal, instant action. First, the close proximity of players starting locations is the number one driving force causing players to mix it up with each other early. Second, hooks! There is an abundance of them littered all over the map. There are Reactor hooks tucked safely behind each team’s starting location, while Supply Elevators and extra Building sockets line the sides of the map between enemies. Cover locations scattered throughout the middle are good for mixing things up defensively or offensively.
Says Justin Rouse skirmish map designer at Robot Entertainment. Community Manager, Duncan Stanley continues with:
Memorial Basin is a great DLC map, a real change up from other maps in terms of strategy. Both teams are directly across from each other, making it really easy to hit and run. The open bases are great to grab early and get it going. I usually try to make my second base my economic base and my first base my unit producing base. All of the extra hooks lying around the map are also great to grab giving you a good bonus, and denyng your opponents any advantage.
You can experience Memorial Basin and three other brand new maps in the Halo Wars DLC “Historic Battles” for just 800 points available today on Xbox Live!
For the full blog post head over to HaloWars.com :
http://www.halowars.com/GameInfo/maps/MemorialBasin.aspx
Justin Rouse details Barrens, David Kubalak talks Clash of the Robots
In another action packed week of Robot blogs we now have more information detailed about a Halo Wars DLC map, the 1v1 Barrens.
Barrens has some interesting gameplay for any leader but Forge is my favorite option. The layout and hooks play into Forge’s strengths exceptionally well. Barrens forces you to leave you expansions more secluded from each other than normal, early game this can allow a Forge player to gain a bit more advantage from his boosted supply pads while other players have to spend their early game resources upgrading pads if they don’t want to risk the far away expansion
http://www.halowars.com/GameInfo/maps/Barrens.aspx
Barrens is an excellent DLC level and if you haven’t yet had a chance to pick up the Halo Wars DLC I encourage you to do so! DLC gets you four maps for just 800 Microsoft Points. Be sure to check out some of the other map information pages to sharpen your strategies on the Halo Wars map page.
In other news Lead of Art Bot Central David Kubalak is back to reveal details on “Clash of the Robots”. This is where a theme will be picked and each of the Robot artists will be posting art on the chosen theme over the period of about a month. Hopefully at the end of each theme there will be a poll or vote for us to select the best submission. Dave kicks off the first theme “Clash of the Titans” with his cartoony model “Perseus” below:
![Perseus[2]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Perseus2-225x300.jpg "Perseus[2]")
Impressive
Check out the full blog on Art Bot central for the full details and be sure to leave a comment!
Vijay Thakkar completes the final part of the Halo Wars leader power blog
More exciting leader power development blogging from Robot’s lead programmer Vijay Thakkar. This time the blog post looks at the covenant leader powers Rage and Vortex along with some very interesting early screenshots of the development process including this early UI mockup of the Spirt of Fire menu:
![ob1[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ob11-300x168.jpg "ob1[1]")
Its come a long way!
It sure is interesting to hear about the background behind the design of leader powers and the hurdles Ensemble programmers encountered getting them to work. Warthogs pushing Brute Chieftain into his own Vortex, Rage taking out whole buildings etc.
![vortex1[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/vortex11.jpg "vortex1[1]")
Oops falling into his own Vortex wasnt intentional!
“It was certainly a challenge to try and create all the experiences we wanted to illustrate with the leader powers, especially under the gun of the inevitable deadline. We quickly learned that in order to make any of the powers live up to the intensity they needed to portray, a high level of polish was necessary. The meticulous details like adding a tenth of a second delay to an effect, a subtle controller shake, or Spirit of Fire chatter in the targeting UI may not have been overtly noticeable, but they were absolutely pivotal to taking the powers over that last step from pretty good to really great.”
Read all about it in the final blog!
Glacial Ravine map detailed by Justin Rouse on HaloWars.com
Skirmish map extraordinaire Justin Rouse is here to spill the beans on tactics and map information for Historic Battles DLC map Glacial Ravine.
Originally, our DLC2 pack (Historic Battles) was intended to contain only 3 maps: Barrens, Blood River, and Memorial Basin. After seeing the outcry for more 3v3 maps we took a look at what it would take to get one into the Pack. We did some due diligence and realized we didn’t have the time to create a new 3v3 from scratch, get it through testing, and put it into the map pack. So we compromised by repurposing an existing map, which allowed us to reduce developer time enough to get Glacial Ravine out the door with the others.
Check out the full blog including large images of the map here:
http://www.halowars.com/GameInfo/Maps.aspx
Grab your Halo Wars Spartans while you can!
Don’t forget its Halo Wars spartan figure giveaway day over at Mega Blocks website. Be one of the first 10,000 to sign up and they will send you the Spartan figure free minus postage! Head over there now to take advantage of this offer!
http://www.megabrands.com/en/kids/halowars/signup.php
Halo Wars leaderboards reset update – the stats aren’t coming back
After the major screw up on behalf of the Xbox Live team all the Halo Wars leaderboards and stats have been permanently lost. Leaderboards for single and multiplayer along with TrueSkill will not be restored and the game is back in Launch day stats.
Needless to say this is a shocking revelation that the systems running Xbox Live could lose such massive amounts of data and not be able to restore it in any timely fashion. One must note that the loss of data was in no way related to Robot Entertainment and they had no control over the loss of data. However, they have kindly put together an FAQ on the Halo Wars website which details the specifics of whats gone wrong and whats going to happen.
Major Nelson of the Xbox Live team has updated his blog as follows:
I wanted to make you aware of an unfortunate incident that has resulted in the loss of all data on the Halo Wars Xbox LIVE Leaderboards. This includes all singleplayer, multiplayer and Trueskill leaderboards, as well as all matchmaking data, resulting in the Halo Wars leaderboards being reset to original launch day status.
This was human error related to Xbox LIVE servers. It is not a broader service issue and will not impact other titles or Xbox LIVE experiences. The Xbox LIVE team is investigating the cause to prevent this from occurring in the future.
Thank you to Robot Entertainment for working with us through this issue and thank you to our Halo Wars community for your patience as we’ve sorted this out. On behalf of everyone at Xbox LIVE, I’d like to apologize for the incident and any frustration Halo Wars players have experienced in having their statistics disappear from the Leaderboards. You can rest assured that we’re putting processes in place to prevent this from happening in the future.
http://majornelson.com/archive/2009/07/30/halo-wars-leaderboards.aspx
Concerned players should check out the lengthy FAQ page.
Some lighter news – New Halo Wars leader powers blog and 10,000 spartan figure giveaway!
The issue of leader board wipage is still continuing and there has been no official announcements on Robot’s plans yet, though expect news soon. However, amongst all the panic of leaderboards loss Robot’s Vijay Thakkar has been busy writing up the third part of the Halo Wars leader powers blog this time looking into things like heal, ODST, cyro and disruption bomb leader powers. Theres also some awesome early game screenshots like the one below in the latest blog post.
![ODST1[1]](http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/ODST11.jpg "ODST1[1]")
Here’s the summary of the post on the Halo Wars website:
The leader powers in Halo Wars had a variety of roles to fill: they needed to illustrate the identity of each of the leaders, to stand out as different gameplay than the traditional RTS, to break stalemates in games, etc. Most apparently to me, they really needed to make the player feel powerful and dominating on the battlefield. All this needed to, of course, fit inside of an RTS world and be balanced. Quite the challenge we had ahead of us.
Read all about it in the leader powers blog part 3.
But thats not all.. fancy getting your hands on one of these?? :
These Halo Wars spartan figures will soon be released by Mega Blocks but you can get your hands on these limited edition figures by visiting the Mega Blocks website tomorrow, July 31st. If your one of the first 10,000 to register Mega Blocks will send you the spartan figure for free! * Minus shipping costs of course!
A perfect item for all your Halo Wars collectors out there!
Major Xbox Live bug wipes out Halo Wars leader boards
A major Xbox Live bug has affected millions of Halo Wars players as yesterday the leader boards for single player, all multiplayer playlists and player TrueSkill was somehow mistakenly reset. News of the “whoopsie” are now being reported on gaming websites. Needless to say I am sure Robot Entertainment are working diligently with Microsoft to rectify the problem and hopefully restore the lost data. Community Manager Aloysius has posted the following on the Halo Wars homepage:
An Xbox LIVE technical issue wiped all Halo Wars Xbox LIVE Leaderboards earlier today. This includes all singleplayer, multiplayer and Trueskill™ leaderboards, as well as all matchmaking data. At this time it’s unknown if the data can be restored, resulting in the Halo Wars Leaderboards being reset to original Launch Day status. The Xbox LIVE team is investigating the cause, and they will provide an update to the situation as soon as possible.
We at Robot Entertainment apologize for the LIVE technical issue and any frustration players have experienced in having their statistics disappear from the Leaderboards.
I am sure that there are necessary backups in place and that these will be utilised to restore data. Community opinion is split however on the forums with many of the high ranking players being happy about the change allowing them to rank up higher than before and over take some of the non-active players in the leaderboards. Of course it is unknown how all the other players who dont visit the forums are feeling having their TrueSkill reset to 0. Dave Pottinger, Lead Designer had this to say:
Well, to be fair, we were talking about the best ways to nuke stale folks who were sitting on top of the boards but not active. But, the plan was never to wipe active folks. This mistake has complicated things a bit.
Correction: The failure was due to a problem with the XBOX Live servers not directly under Robot Entertainment’s control, but be assured its being looked at. Stand by for updates as the issue develops.
http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/100/1008709p1.html
