Halo Reach Multiplayer Beta starts today.

[The Biznut]

For those of you who already have a copy of ODST anyway. I'll be borrowing a friends copy on the 3rd or using mine if it comes in the mail quick enough, got a copy off ebay today.

Is anybody else here gonna check it out?

My gamertag is Pennerico. If you are gonna get in on the beta, feel free to send me a friend request, hopefully I'll be able to play a good chunk next week.

[The Biznut]

I knew this thread would be generally ignored, I know the Halo series is not exactly popular here. But I like it, so I'm bumping it, and the rest of you can deal with it

If you're gonna give the beta a shot and you want some company, let me know!

[DarkeSword]

I'll play.

[Hy Bound]

Eh, anyone who hates Halo is a douchewhistle... I'll definitely be playing it if i get some time between working on several projects and finals week...

[prophetik music]

i'll be online quite a bit over the next two weeks. look for me =) just add me to your friends list. even if i'm playing with someone else, you can jump in, i'm always looking for normal people to play with.

[Brushfire]

I am in for this too.

[Tinus]

I'm not a huge Halo fan, but I do have ODST. It was a fun shooter. I'll try out the Reach beta at least once.

[The Biznut]

haha, there we go I'm sure I'll see some of you online at some point.

[The Biznut]

First impressions.

Controller response is much improved over halo 3, the games I have played have felt seamless. No frustrating jump lag, melee glitches, etc.

The Loadout system is pretty neat. Definitely allows people to customize their play style based on the situation, adds another layer of strategy right off the start. I feel they are well balanced so far, though the armor lockdown ability can be a frustrating thing to encounter.

Overall it looks pretty slick. For some reason I feel like I am looking at UT2004 sometimes. Couldn't say why at all though, maybe the level designs.

It is definitely a beta; despite Bungies preparation for toady, there is some pretty significant server downtime, its been about 30% playing to 70% waiting for the server to become available again. The matchmaking is set up in a better way in my opinion, the only downside I see is the new voting system will almost surely result in the same maps being played far more, though that could be augmented by not offering the most popular map / gametype configurations as often.

Hopefully by later this week the gaming to server down time ratio will level out, it's really poor at the moment, and I am enjoying this so far.

[Nabeel Ansari]

I wanna try this out.

I'll play tomorrow (gamertag is neblixsaber in case anyone thinks they might see me)

[prophetik music]

the server downtime was caused by a literal fire in the bungie server department. that, and 600k people trying to download a gig and a half and then play.

bungie.net's post about the subject is incredibly hilarious.

Some quick tips to shorten your wait.

So, yup some stuff is on fire here at the office and if the forums are any indication, we were totally unprepared, don't care about our real fans, and should totally give everyone their zero dollars back with a side of free Xbox LIVE. While none of that's the case, our test team just broke away from an epic struggle with some molten server metal and 600,000 players to deliver us some quick tips to help you get games going a little bit faster.

1. Don't restart your search, even if load times are long. The initial load for map and game type will take a really long time, which is super lame, but once you've made the connection, the files will be cached to your hard drive and the next time you load to same map/game type, it should be nice and fast.

2. Don't reboot or reload the beta. It won't help and it will actually clear your cache, making your wait times much longer.

3. Don't leave your party. Since everybody in the party has to load the same files, your wait is tied to other player's download process as well. Stick with the same crew and things should iron out.

Rest assured that we're working on the issues and as soon as things start to smooth out, we'll let you know. Thanks for your patience.

[Nabeel Ansari]

the server downtime was caused by a literal fire in the bungie server department. that, and 600k people trying to download a gig and a half and then play.

bungie.net's post about the subject is incredibly hilarious.

I remember me and my school friends on XBOX live hours ago...

Jimmy: I've been stuck at 20 percent for about half an hour.

Brad: I started fifteen minutes ago and I'm at 6-7 percent.

Me: I started two minutes ago and I'm at 6-7 percent...

Rob: Hey guys

Me: What percent are you at?

Rob: I finished downloading but the server isn't working

Jimmy: NO MINE JUMPED BACK TO 1%...

Me: 0_0

Jimmy: *five minutes later* YES IT JUMPED TO 99%!!!

Me: Weeeird, I'm at fourty percent about now.

Jimmy: *ten minutes later* wtf is it stuck at 99%?

Brad: YES THIRTEEN PERCENT

Me: brad, how did I zoom past you? 0_0

Good times *sigh*

[JCvgluvr]

First Day Impressions:

Both maps are pretty good. Varied, multi-faceted, same old, bungie-level goodness.

The loadouts are cool. My favorite is scout, for now. Getting a shotgun, and running straight into a back-peddler's face, only to blast it full of buckshot? Good times, my friend. As of now, I see little use for cloaking. It doesn't make me invisible, it turns me into walking statue of water. Lame.

Weapons are a mixed bag. I'm probably most disappointed by them. The scout rifle seems horrible to me, and the Needler Rifle doesn't fare much better. But every gun looks and feels great. The rocket launcher sounds beastly, and the Needler looks insane! Not a big fan of this game's pistol. I haven't seen a good pistol since Halo 2, and that was only when it was dual-wielded with an SMG. Oh yeah, right, no dual-wielding in Reach. *Sigh*

Still, great fun, many improvements overall to almost every aspect of Halo gameplay. Reach was going to be a day-1 purchase before, and it still will be.

[Zombie]

played today and had some decent games and some kind of meh games. really, i consider myself a casual FPS player, but when i go online... it might as well be halo. i'm mainly into them for campaign because i kind of get owned in them sometimes. some of the games i had today were good but overall my performance is just average in shooters, i'd say.

i really dig the classes - i feel they add a new dimension of spontaneity to the game that really isn't in most FPS games. i can use a friggin' jetpack! how awesome. the two maps are pretty fun and balanced too, i feel. reminiscent of older stuff with some newer elements.

good stuff.

[Tinus]

Couldn't get into a game yesterday.

I discovered I really don't like Bungie's tone, both in the Halo Reach menus and in the official posts. They're acting as if this beta is god's gift to gaming and we should all be very grateful for it (which would have gotten on my nerves even if the game had worked). Also after the way they and Microsoft hyped this beta's launch, they could stand to be a little more humble / apologetic about underestimating the server load. Oh well, maybe I just don't "get" the Halo culture.

[Azure Prower]

Couldn't get into a game yesterday.

I discovered I really don't like Bungie's tone, both in the Halo Reach menus and in the official posts. They're acting as if this beta is god's gift to gaming and we should all be very grateful for it (which would have gotten on my nerves even if the game had worked). Also after the way they and Microsoft hyped this beta's launch, they could stand to be a little more humble / apologetic about underestimating the server load. Oh well, maybe I just don't "get" the Halo culture.

They're just warming up before they hop into bed with ActivisionBlizzard after this game is done.

[prophetik music]

Couldn't get into a game yesterday.

I discovered I really don't like Bungie's tone, both in the Halo Reach menus and in the official posts. They're acting as if this beta is god's gift to gaming and we should all be very grateful for it (which would have gotten on my nerves even if the game had worked). Also after the way they and Microsoft hyped this beta's launch, they could stand to be a little more humble / apologetic about underestimating the server load. Oh well, maybe I just don't "get" the Halo culture.

the beta is kind of a free gift, and it's the only big-name shooter to come out for a while in terms of multi online play (battlefield and CoD are already out for a while, gears 3 is next year, etc). i know betas are no big news in PC gaming, but on a console they're making history with this one. of course, they might have been a bit frazzled by six hundred THOUSAND people coming online in the first eight hours, with more to come when they finished their downloads.

[Tinus]

They're just warming up before they hop into bed with ActivisionBlizzard after this game is done.

Hah

the beta is kind of a free gift

I suppose that's true. Although you could also argue that it was advertised prominently on the ODST box.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

I agree that the weapons are pretty "meh..." right now. Something about the way they handle just seems a bit off. Of course it's just the beta, and I'm sure it'll be cleaned up in the end. I haven't given any real feedback on that issue since I can't really pinpoint what feels off about them. I'll have to play a bit more.

I already love the interface however. Being able to vote on the preferred map and game type is a serious boon, as well as defining the parameters for match making such as general game type, Live chat, motivation, etc.

Loadouts are pretty cool, and I can see them adding new levels of depth to a game that essentially amounts to "run to the sniper rifle, go to the best sniping point, shoot everybody, lather, rinse, repeat", although I have to admit that I'm not really feeling that level of "oh cool!" that is advertised with the assassinations. Since you can get the same result from just hitting them in the back, it just feels like a glorified tea bagging. Maybe they should(and this is sacrilege, I know) not have melee hits in the back count as one hit kills, or add some kind of temporary stat bonus after performing an assassination. Right now it just doesn't feel that compelling.

Overall I have mixed feelings about the beta, but I'm sure as time passes it'll get better.

[The Biznut]

I won't be able to play too much this week. Work opportunity came up so I better take it, as fun as Reach is, it doesn't exactly pay my way through school, or anything for that matter.

I had a good laugh when I saw Prophet's post about bungie catching fire. That is hilarious!

[The Biznut]

Double post whaaaaaat!!!

Played 5 matches again today, matchmaking was very smooth this time, good work on the fix Bungie. I'm curious to hear how he rest of you are performing in reach so far. I played Halo 3 a lot, and while I wasn't phenomenal, I can say confidently that I am good at it for sure. So far in Halo Reach, I am fairly phenomenal. Of the 8 team deathmatch games I have played so far, I've scored exactly 20 kills the last 5 times I have played on the powerplant or whatever map, and then I went 29/5 and 24/7 the only two times I played on the sword map, the multilevel one.

I am sure this will all start to fade as people start to rank up, etc, and when others start figuring these maps out, I doubt I'll be this good for too long I think a big part of it is that for whatever reason I have had practically zero trouble adjusting from H3 to HR.

Have you been faring better or worse than you would expect? Has Reach been easy to get comfortable with, adjust to for the rest of you too? Also, do you mix up your loadouts often? I personally use Scout only, and I am wondering what it will take to get me to switch. That Sprint is becoming very very near to my heart. Grab a sword and have some serious fun

[DarkeSword]

I have not had a chance to play that much. Make sure you guys add me and let me know when we can do a OCReach session.

[JCvgluvr]

I've been doing worse that I'd expect. I was usually pretty good in Halo 3, while I tend to be on the lower/bottom section in Reach scores. I blame the weapons!

[Nabeel Ansari]

The game physics are different from Halo 3:

- Grenades require different arc for aiming than in Halo 3

- Grenades don't get sent through air elevators

- Melee'ing is not as strong

I haven't played much so I'm not sure what else there is

[DJ Mighty]

Eh, anyone who hates Halo is a douchewhistle... I'll definitely be playing it if i get some time between working on several projects and finals week...

I was not a fan of Halo 3 and barely played it and then Modern Warfare came out and havent played it since. I played 2 a lot back in the day but now i just stick with MW. I also only played it online. I have never played any of the campaigns.