Updates for Bungie.net, Halo 3 Matchmaking, DLC on their way

by Griffin McElroy { Nov 10th 2007 at 6:15PM }

No, we didn't vomit on the picture above. That's a Halo 3 heatmap, an upcoming feature of Bungie.net. This technology (which Bungie has actually been using for a while to help balance their levels) allows players to look at a number of statistics for each map, including the locations of kills, and the weapons used most often. It's just one neat addition the Bungie crew announced in their weekly update.

Considering Halo 3's ridonkulously successful launch, the guys and gals at Bungie should be sitting on some private beach right now, drinking out of diamond encrusted goblets, smoking tightly-rolled cigars made of money. Instead, they're hard at work, fixing various in-game bugs and updating the Matchmaking playlists (Rocket Race FTW). We've got a complete list of those updates after the jump.

No downloadable content was officially dated, but hopefully, we won't be waiting too much longer. According to Bungie, "things are in motion and the DLC bullet train is making a bee line straight for your face."

[Via X3F]

Bug Fixes

The bug that is keeping the Commando Armor for elites from unlocking will be addressed.
Issues associated with uploading screenshots will be looked into.

Matchmaking Updates

Social Doubles has been removed from matchmaking
Rocket Race Hopper has been added to the Social hopper – 8 players, join in parties of up to 8 players.
Multi-team:

Hammerzeit game variant has been added

The frequency of VIP gametypes has been reduced

Swords gametypes will now be to 25 kills, rather than 50

Lone Wolves:

Player count has been increased to 6 players

Swords gametype has been added

Oddball games on Snowbound and Epitaph have been reduced considerably

Team Slayer:

Guardian has been added to the playlist

Valhalla has been added to Team Slayer

Social Skirmish

Flag gametypes will now appear more regularly

Rumble Pit

Added both Construct and Isolation to several gametypes

Tags: Bungie, DLC, Halo 3, Halo3, Microsoft

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Your Ad here 555-1923 @ Nov 10th 2007 6:20PM

Zombie matches should be permanent; I love to play those for some reason I become unstoppable in anything that is Zombie related.

Kazi @ Nov 10th 2007 6:25PM

I love the zombie gametypes. I've made several and that's pretty much the only game type my friends and I ever play when we're not playing ranked.

Your Ad here 555-1923 @ Nov 10th 2007 6:29PM

You are lucky my friends only play Gears of War,Team fortress 2 and Gr:aw for some reason,I quited Gears of war because it was way too repetitive.

Only 3 of my friends keep playing Halo 3 and not all of them play it at the same time.

Finalpro @ Nov 10th 2007 6:22PM

Yea, they really shouldve kept that zombie playlist

dan stabbingworth @ Nov 10th 2007 6:35PM

Yeah, but leave it to Bungie to "tweak" the gameplay to the way they think it should be played, instead keeping it the way people want to play it. The zombie playlist was nowhere near as fun as zombie custom games in Halo 2.

CDN Crockett @ Nov 10th 2007 9:12PM

The bug that is keeping the Commando Armor for elites from unlocking will be addressed.

What's the deal with this??

gonk @ Nov 10th 2007 6:41PM

yeah, 2 of the 3 zombie modes were the same, but with shotties vs rockets (rockets are better!)

i preferred cs's zombie mod, they weren't invisible but they had a lot more HP and moved a bit faster

and the constant respawns make it so zombies always win and it's just "who can get the most kills". having it be actual teams where you need to be "infected" by a zombie to become one would be better, without respawns (or have them a lot less frequent)

and wtf is rocket race? all i ever play is team slayer

Brad Lee @ Nov 10th 2007 6:54PM

I agree with all of these tweaks.

I also agree that Zombie should be a permanent game type. Or, at the very least, they should have a selection that just gives you weird game types, like Zombie, Ninjaball, Swords, Hammers, Rockets and Hammers, infinite sticky grenades with super-low gravity, etc. That way, if I get pissed while playing Big Team Battle, or something of that variety, I can just say fuckit and chuckle at the wacky gametypes.

I'm also glad as hell they're reducing VIP. Seriously, that gamemode blows, ESPECIALLY on multiteam with 4 2-person teams. It's just assinine. Now if there were more variations, like Swords VIP, where the VIP gets an infinite sword, or something like that, it might be more tolerable.

If the VIP was harder to kill but took less points to win it would be far more amusing. Oh well, reducing it is a good option too.

Your Ad here 555-1923 @ Nov 10th 2007 8:57PM

There was Vip in multi-team?,I really never play multi-team I always end teaming with some noob so that's why I always play Lone wolves or Team slayer but I say capture the flag and territories are the suckiest game types.

Vip can be a lot of fun if you are in the right team with people who actually can follow orders and attack and regroup in a formation but this Halo so 80% of the times you will find yourself fighting alone with a bunch of idiots camping or simply running around trying to get the Spartan laser first.

They should also add Juggernaut (I don’t know if it’s already available I haven’t played Halo in a while) and it wouldn’t hurt if they added a “Dogfight” mode like a la Warhawk using Banshees or hornets only.

David @ Nov 10th 2007 7:19PM

As long as Shotty Snipers gets less of a chance to be chosen as a game, I'm down.

oreo85 @ Nov 10th 2007 9:46PM

They really need to reduce the chance of Shotty Snipers. Team Slayer is pretty much Team Shotty Snipers.

Magetto @ Nov 11th 2007 2:39AM

What are you guys talking about? They fixed that weeks ago. Shotty Snipes rarely come up now in Team Slayer.

Ramifications @ Nov 11th 2007 2:46AM

THANK GOD for some variety in team slayer...I'm so bored of playing the same 3 maps....Pit, Narrows, Construct.....over and over and over and over!

Would it kill you to add a couple more maps to team slayer bungie?

Robert @ Nov 10th 2007 8:11PM

I'm not playing halo 3 until they update it with team snipers or team shotty snipers. I don't like playing team slayer. That why i stopped at lvl 35

giant enemy crab @ Nov 10th 2007 10:16PM

sweet

outforprophets @ Nov 10th 2007 10:44PM

such a badass feature.

ogvor @ Nov 10th 2007 11:53PM

Is no one else super excited to be able to play Rocker Race (my favorite Halo game type) without having to get more than ten people together? I'm also happy about more flag game types, those are also great becuase I care less about my kills and more about tactical team based game play.

SoulBlade @ Nov 11th 2007 12:33AM

That heatmap is pretty cool and definitely a pretty nice technique for level balancing.

Big Ed @ Nov 11th 2007 12:50AM

I dunno, it's too confusing for me.

Cale @ Nov 11th 2007 1:03AM

i looked at a friends heat map to know where he got his kills on guardian and promptly snuck behind and got 10 on him in one game

Bazza @ Nov 11th 2007 1:25PM

Cool stuff!! ^_^

Sean @ Nov 11th 2007 3:25PM

Is there any specific reason why the incendiary grenades aren't in matchmaking?

Your Ad here 555-1923 @ Nov 11th 2007 8:02PM

If you ever had the chance to use them in "legendary" those grenades are pretty broken,they can kill brute chiefs real quick but you need practice to hit a target.

I think they are a bit more dangerous than stickies,stickies take while and can miss a target while incendiary grenades have a larger radius and kill faster.

jikespingleton @ Nov 11th 2007 8:43PM

I quit halo until the REAL bugs are fixed. Like the fact that I can shoot you in the face for 30 seconds straight, but you panic and hit "B" which causes my death. Or the fact that I can shoot you in the face with a sniper rifle, and you get to live. Or that I can stick you in the face with a Plasma Grenade while you have Overshield... then you walk into a Plasma Container and explode, BUT LIVE and I die because the plasma container exploded. Halo 3 is too dependent on internet connection speed, and not dependant enough on actual skill.

I loved Halo and Halo 2... Even WITH THE MODDERS. Halo 3 is a pathetic disappointment for me. I tried for over a month and a half to fall in love with it, but i can't "Just Accept" the blaring gameplay mistakes, bugs, and shortcomings that Bungie, and those in denial, pass off as evolutionary changes to the game.

Decrease Mele strength, fix latency-based kill priority, and fix the other weird glitchy crap that happens during matchmaking and I'll meet you on LIVE in 10 minutes.

Sieger @ Nov 12th 2007 1:23AM

I just wish they would speed up the actual matchmaking process. I regularly have to wait a couple of minutes for Team or Lone Wolf playlists to be matched.

Matt @ Nov 12th 2007 4:17AM

The heatmap only provides useful information for single player. Any information gleaned from multiplayer matches should be obvious (really, lots of people die in the open area with no powerful weapon spawns and minimal cover?) to anyone that has played the game for more than a few minutes.

It's been used by dozens of projects to track progress or the distribution of actions across an environment, but Bungie (and the press) seem to present it as a great idea they came up with.

Bungie's got so many resources, they'll even throw out useless statistics to the gamers, as a distraction from more meaningful information or future plans for content.