Podtacular 455: Gods of the Damned

Halo: Nightfall had some high anticipation going for it when announced that 343 would be working with Ridley Scott to produce the origin story for Agent Locke, who will be a prominent character in the upcoming Halo 5: Guardians.  While it was a pretty good production, it didn’t live up to the standards of Forward Unto Dawn, which told the origin story for Thomas Lasky.  It received mixed reviews from many of the Halo fans, with the opening episode leaving much to be desired.  With all 5 episodes of the series out, we give our opinions and thoughts on Halo: Nightfall.

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Podtacular 454: Get Your Update

As is now the norm for the Master Chief Collection, Content Updates seem to be the prime source of news lately, leaving a lot of other typical happenings in the community a little dry.  The latest update addresses some minor Matchmaking issues and because of the focus on fixing the collection, Halo: Spartan Strike is now delayed until early 2015.  The Halo Championship Series Handbook was also posted by Bravo with the different tournament point tiers and the first season schedule. And that’s pretty much it for this week.

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MCC Patch Notes: Dec 7th

e3-2014-halo-2-anniversary-ascension-needles-versus-bullets

A new content update is available for The Master Chief Collection and it’s a big one.  343 Industries is making some pretty widespread changes including a lot of stability fixes for matchmaking, which seems to be the big hitter needing updates.  There are a few smaller fixes including game specific fixes, custom lobby issues like making the “Make Party Leader” option work properly, achievement unlocks, game stability and post-game carnage report fixes.  Here’s the full list of patch notes from Waypoint:

Matchmaking & Parties

  • Made improvements to matchmaking team balance
  • Made an update to improve matchmaking search times and success rates, specifically expediting the “Players Found” and “Connecting Session” search phases
  • Made improvements to prevent a player’s rank from resetting unexpectedly
  • Made an update to resolve an issue that allowed players to be placed into an incorrect lobby after a matchmaking game
  • Made improvements to prevent the party from being disbanded upon returning to lobby
  • Made an update to ensure that players are sorted by team in the “Match Found” screen
  • Resolved an issue where Team Slayer matches in Halo 3 could separate players onto individual teams
  • Resolved an issue where players could be placed into a group of 7 players and unable to find more
  • Made improvements to ensure that the party-leader is prompted to “Bring Party” when leaving a lobby
  • Made an update to ensure that split-screen players cannot be divided onto different teams
  • Made improvements to ensure that clients are not kicked from parties at the end of matchmaking games with a “failed to connect” error
  • Made an update to ensure that Halo 2: Anniversary matches do not continue indefinitely after entire opposing team quits
  • Made an update to ensure that parties are not separated when the party leader navigates through multiple titles

Custom Games

  • Made improvements to prevent manual team selection from getting reset after a Custom Game match
  • Made an update to ensure that the “Make Party Leader” command functions correctly

Achievements

  • Made an update to ensure that the “Too Close to the Sun” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met
  • Made an update to ensure that the “Monopolized” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met
  • Made an update to ensure that the “Devastating” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met
  • Made an update to ensure that the “You’re Joking” achievement unlocks when prerequisites are met

Game-specific

  • Made improvements to Halo 2: Anniversary objective pickup, specifically in regards to objective “juggling”
  • Made an update to Halo 3’s movement input, specifically to resolve a deadzone issue which affected moving in a straight line
  • Made additional improvements to Halo: CE fall damage scenarios
  • Made an update to resolve a Halo 2 Classic campaign issue where a black screen could overlay the gameplay screen

Stability

  • Made a variety of stability improvements across the following areas:
    • Matchmaking
    • Custom Games
    • Halo 4 Campaign

Misc.

  • Made an update to ensure that clan tags appear in the post-game carnage report for all players
  • Made an update to ensure that players are sorted by team in the post-game carnage report
  • Made an update to ensure that emblems are displayed correctly in the post-game carnage report

Discuss in our forums.

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Spartan Strike Delayed for Early 2015

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With the ongoing issues continuing to plague The Master Chief Collection, 343 Industries announced today, a week before the scheduled launch of the title that Spartan Strike will release early 2015.  This delay let’s 343 Industries focus on fixing the Matchmaking system without having to worry about an additional title to maintain. Spartan Strike is the new top-down shooter produced by 343 Industries and Vanguard Games and is the successor to Spartan Assault taking place around the events of Halo 4.

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MCC Patch Notes: Dec 3rd

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Another Content Update for The Master Chief Collection has hit the streets focusing on addressing more issues with finding matchmaking games, party stability and post match actions.  Overall it seems that the patches are making a difference for the masses, but it seems there’s still quite a ways to go.  Next week’s update will focus on the all-too-familiar team balance issues with matchmaking that has been sacrificed in the face of finding games.  Let us know how the update has affected you in our forums.

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Bonnie Ross Comments on State of The Master Chief Collection

Xbox gamescom 2014 Briefing

A couple days ago, Bonnie Ross came out with a public apology on the current state of Halo: The Master Chief Collection not being the experience we deserve.  In her Status Update on Halo Waypoint, Bonnie states that the studio continues to work around the clock to get the game working.  Their number one priority is to fix the issues with matchmaking that were not made apparent during their internal testing and to roll out updates as quickly as possible that addresses this as well as other issues currently affecting the game.  Server and client side updates will continued to be rolled out as the team evaluates where issues crop up and the latest update is now available next time you launch the game.

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Podtacular 453: Are We Fixed Yet?

Since the release of the Master Chief Collection, there have been many frustrations amongst Halo fans with the numerous issues plaguing the game.  The content update that came out this week, while it seems to statistically helped as reported by 343 Industries, many people are either seeing better results, new issues, or a degradation in capabilities.  Despite the issues, the Halo Championship Series announced during the week leading up to the Launch Invitational is shaping up to bring Halo eSports a new life in competitive gaming.  One of the people responsible for helping put together HCS is none other than one of the favored eSports commentators Goldenboy, who happens to be our guest on this episode to give us the details and where we can expect the series to go in the coming months.

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