The Halo Bulletin 4-23-14

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As I’ve written before, holidays are pretty fantastic at 343. Sometimes we have unlimited amounts of Lucky Charms, other times we get custom Halo valentines. Most times, there is a lot of delicious homemade food. This past Tuesday was Earth Day, and as you may have guessed, it was a pretty big deal here at 343. Sitting on each desk on Tuesday morning was a little surprise in the form of a custom-made trading card. It is worth noting here that the cards were made from 100% recycled paper.

The franchise team put together a collection of eight trading cards, each featuring a planet from the Halo universe, and gave each employee a random card. This made everyone excited, and also made some people want all of the cards. I may or may not be one of those people. The planet I received was Earth – good place to start, I thought. I quickly looked around at neighboring desks to see which cards my co-workers had received, and immediately stared going through my inventory of Halo figures, dogtags, and other trinkets for items to barter with. Others were a bit more direct, and started negotiating trades on an email chain with the entire studio. This is when I knew things were gonna get serious.

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By the end of the day, I had traded a set of Halo 4 Infinity dog tags for Sanghelios (URS IV), and was lucky enough to nab a Te (SVIR V) in exchange for a future favor. I realize this may have been a questionable decision, but I really wanted the card. At the time of this writing, I am still actively searching for the remaining five Earth Day 2014 Halo trading cards. I will find them.

HFFL: Heh, glad to see the collecting bug has bitten Bravo! Now he is one of us! Well, me anyway…

This week, we’ve got a new issue of Halo: Escalation, a (heavy) Halo 4 Matchmaking update, and more. Let’s chat!

Matchmaking Playlist Update

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As we mentioned last week, we have some new stuff coming on the Halo 4 playlist front. This weekend will be the last chance to play Ninja Assassins during this rotation, so if you’d like to grab some final screenshots or save the game type off to your hard drive, hop into Matchmaking. We’re glad to see that the playlist was so popular as it became one of Halo 4’s most popular Free-for-All playlists. Moving forward, we’ll look to create additional unique and refined experiences for featured playlists, and there may even be a spot for a Ninja Assassins style gameplay in a permanent Matchmaking playlist. Speaking of bringing back game types, we’re excited that Heavies will be returning to Halo 4 Matchmaking this coming Monday in a pretty big way.

Heavies

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Heavies was one of Halo 4’s most popular featured playlists. There’s something special about Spartans, heavy vehicles, and heavy weapons meeting in the middle of a wide open battlefield, and we’re not surprised that the playlist was so frequented. We’ve been listening to your feedback, and over the past week, we’ve been doing some additional game type testing to prepare the playlist for its own spot in Halo 4 Matchmaking. Additionally, we added Heavies CTF into the game type rotation. As of Monday, Heavies will have a dedicated playlist, and the Ricochet playlist will be removed as we move the Ricochet game type into existing playlists.

HFFL: YES! Heavies to be permanent!!!! Now maybe I can finish those dang Scorpion kills for my commendations! And what is this? Ricochet to be absorbed into another playlist? I love the game type, but agree that it should merge with another. I hope if goes to Grifball. Then maybe call that playlist: BALLS! LOL J/K. (not kidding)

The following game types will be available in the playlist:

  •          Heavies Slayer
  •          Heavies King of the Hill
  •          Heavies Capture the Flag

The above game types will be played on the following maps:

  •          Longbow
  •          Daybreak
  •          Wreckage
  •          Shatter
  •          Harvest
  •          Perdition
  •          Ragnarok
  •          Vortex
  •          Meltdown
  •          Exile

HFFL: Okay, looking at this playlist and knowing that many do not have all of the DLC, I foresee Longbow, Ragnarok, Vortex and Meltdown being played the most. I’m okay with that. I’m just happy to have Heavies back and permanently!!!

Multi-Team

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Multi-Team is back! The playlist features four teams of three players each, and offers a mix of game types, including Infinity Slayer, Legendary Slayer BR, Oddball, KotH, SWAT, Regicide and Ricochet. The playlist will be available for two weeks, until May 12.

HFFL: YES!!! I LOVE Multi-team. It’s just chaotic fun! Please folks, play this game type!!! I really REALLY want to see it be made permanent again. Just think of the times you’ve had 2 others in your party… You are forced to play in a playlist that will put a random on your team. We need a 3 party game type and Multi-Team is IT!

Community Choice

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HFFL: Alright! My pick was the winner!

Last week, we asked which game type you’d like to see in Multi-Team, and Legendary Slayer BR was the winner! The game type will offer an interesting mix of precision weapon based tactical gameplay and absolute chaos, as players from four different teams enter the fray respawn after respawn. As is always the case with Multi-Team, it’s sure to be fast paced and chock-full of multikills. To check out the game type, head into the Multi-Team playlist starting on Monday morning.

HFFL: The next section talks about Halo Escalation #5. AS I’ve already covered that a bit, I’m going to skip that section. It repeats much of what I’ve already said…

Update on Halo: Spartan Assault

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Halo: Spartan Assault is now one of the first titles available across multiple Windows devices for the price of a single download, starting with Windows and Windows Phone 8.1. This functionality is currently only available to Windows and Windows Phone 8.1 users, but the single-download functionality will be expanded to Windows 8.0 users in May.

 Screenshot Spotlight: Melee

Last week, we turned the spotlight on Adrift. Take a gander at the following melee screenshots, and maybe even find inspiration to make your own.

Spotlight 4-23-14HFFL: I like “Ninja Assassins 7” by MrMartinit85 as well as “Dropping In” by RECEPTOR 17. Which one or more are your favorites from this week’s spotlight?

For your chance at being in the next spotlight, hop into the Heavies playlist (or grab some friends for a custom game) and take a screenshot featuring a Wraith and then tag it with “Wraith” and “Halo Waypoint,” and maybe, just maybe, yours will be featured in the next Halo Bulletin!

And with that, this week’s Bulletin comes to a close.
Until next week,
Bravo

HFFL: I have to admit that this week’s bulletin was pretty good. Now if I can get my hands on a set of those Earth Day trading cards…

 

 

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About Sal

I’ve got tons of experience with Halo gaming and collecting. I feel I have something to offer to the greater Halo fan community. Posts along the way will be about tips and tricks in the games as well as collecting and many more Halo related things. I’ll also repost interesting articles from the official site, Halowaypoint.com, or from fellow Halo fan sites. As I continue this blog, I hope to help gamers who want advice on the games, as well as any collectors with regards to where to find collectibles as well as deals, coupons and so on. You can also follow me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/#!/HaloFanForLife or Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/halofanforlife11. Welcome to my blog and I hope you’ll come back again and again. -Sal