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[squidhands]

Remove Garrotte from the Forge playlist. Bucking AR fest up in that biaaaaaaaatch.

All the CTF games I played on it over the weekend were more fun than on 99% of the non-forge maps.

SWAT on shutout was a little slice of heaven.

Was KOTH available on Scythe? Seems like a great map for it, but never saw it come up. Good map.

Despair was okay. That forge palette is terrible; shame on CA for wasting another space to forge upon.

 

[Captain Blood]

Was it not a $ deal, where Virgin where willing to pay?

Yeah that could be, I honestly don't know. Just seems to set a weird precedent to me. Maybe it isn't all that weird with the Dew/Doritos stuff that has been happening the end of this generation.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

But having no job, no life and doing real harm to yourself for a video game means they should be rewarded. Frankie should personally thank everybody that did harm to themselves for this Halo tournament.

Hopefully Microsoft and Virgin can expand this type of tournament. Instead of low amounts of hurt over a long period of time, how about high amount of pain in a short period of time?

Maybe a razor slash will get you about a week's worth of playtime/ a few hundred games.

A broken bone has got to be worth atleast two weeks worth of back to back gaming.

They could even allow clans in to let people hurt others if they too wimpy to hurt themselves too. Endless possibilities. And media will go nuts over it. It will bring more promotion than Mountain Dew ever did.

....

The above is sarcastic.

I can't believe I'm going out of my to explicitly state this, but I am.

...

My point is that I would rather have a skill based tourney than one which is basically down to whoever can dedicate the most time to play - just because that would actually be fun rather than a shitty grind that only very few people can go through.

Would use your last sentence for irony, but that would be mean.

 

[TheOddOne]

All the CTF games I played on it over the weekend were more fun than on 99% of the non-forge maps.

Even CTF turns into a AR fest, it's not fun at all.

 

[Akai__]

Ah. Just a scrub I see. Bitching at people when a game is 5 years old is childish. 5 star in H3 btw.

Also, don't cry over that. Guy's got issues. Grammar is important though. This is the interwebs after all.

Nerd!!! Seriously though, I never reached my 50 in Halo 3, because we couldn't get a team of 4 together and my 1 mbit/s inet back then, was just horrible.

I was kidding with the crying and I know that grammar is important, but I'm speaking 3 languages and it's not that easy for me. Still learning. :lol

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

All the CTF games I played on it over the weekend were more fun than on 99% of the non-forge maps.

Was KOTH available on Scythe? Seems like a great map for it, but never saw it come up. Good map.

Despair was okay. That forge palette is terrible; shame on CA for wasting another space to forge upon.

I agree with all of this. The more I play them, the more I appreciate each Forge map and looked past the little flaws.

The new Forge aesthetics in general are starting to grow on me. Much more appealing than Reach and hopefully that'll last longer this time around.

 

[Slightly Live]

Was it not a $ deal, where Virgin where willing to pay?

Back in June, 2012, Microsoft and Virgin announced a new Xbox Live Tournaments platform. A host of browsable tournmanents accessible via an app, with multiple games from a variety of publishers and prizes including cash for players of all skill levels.

Source

Here's the press release.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada - June 4, 2012 - Today, Virgin Gaming announced that it will be teaming up with Microsoft Corp. to launch the new Xbox LIVE® Tournaments service, powered by Virgin Gaming. Available later this year, this new exclusive entertainment application will let Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers seamlessly browse, enter, play in and track tournaments for their favorite games directly from the Xbox LIVE online entertainment network

"It was always our dream to have the Virgin Gaming tournament experience seamlessly integrated into consoles," said Billy Levy, President and Co-founder of Virgin Gaming. "The new application on Xbox LIVE delivers unparalleled accessibility for all gamers to compete like never before in the biggest tournaments, for the biggest prizes with a growing selection of new games to choose from. This is truly game changing."

The Xbox LIVE Tournaments service, powered by Virgin Gaming will offer skill-based events and challenges for players of all levels, including a wide variety of free-to-play or paid-entry tournaments and head-to-head matches in top titles from leading publishers.

"We're really excited to work with Virgin Gaming to redefine the way people think about video game competitions on Xbox LIVE," said Alex Garden, general manager, Xbox LIVE, Microsoft. "The launch of the Xbox LIVE Tournament service, powered by Virgin Gaming will bring a wide variety of competitive and casual tournament options to Xbox LIVE subscribers. Our goal is to deliver a play experience that makes tournaments fun and accessible, in a way that resonates with both the core and casual Xbox gamer, and we've found a partner that shares that same vision. By teaming up with Virgin we are able to match their expertise in operating a tournament service with our large and highly engaged community on Xbox LIVE."

When it's time for gamers to showcase their skills in today's most popular console games, against the best competition, in the biggest and most exciting tournaments in history, Virgin Gaming is the premiere destination. With a community of over 1.3-million gamers and counting, top partners including EA SPORTS, 2K Sports and Ubisoft, and Innovations like in-game integration of automatic reporting of match results; a skill ranking system; secure payment facilities, and customer support all combine to make Virgin Gaming the platform of choice for both gamers and sponsors alike. You don't need to be a pro to be a player at Virgin Gaming, just bring your game.

To experience Virgin Gaming firsthand and to learn why It Pays To Have Game™, please visit www.virgingaming.com

About Virgin Gaming
Introduced in June 2010 through a partnership with WorldGaming.com, Virgin Gaming is the premier destination for competitive console gamers to meet, challenge and play against each in head-to head and tournament challenges for cash, points and prizes. With an array of proprietary features, including The Fair Play Guarantee™ (with automatic results validation), a secure payment back end, and a Community Reputation Management System, Virgin Gaming allows gamers to safely and easily find and compete against players of all skill levels from around the world in their favorite multiplayer games. A leading-edge convergence of competitive online gaming and video games, Virgin Gaming offers robust community features with member pages, clan support, invitational tournaments, stats tracking, news, information, and more. For additional information, visit virgingaming.com.

Obviously this never happened. Lots of noise and nothing came out of it.

Turns out Microsoft and Virgin have a cosy relationship stretching far back across multiple business fields.

Source

The value Microsoft ... delivered to Virgin Media is unquestionable. I’d go as far as to say that working with the team changed our lives.

Seems that, with their Xbox Live Tournaments idea crashing hard, they turned to Halo and secured exclusive rights to hold Halo tournaments.

Source

Virgin Gaming, Xbox 360 and 343 Industries are joining forces to launch the “Halo 4 Infinity Challenge” on Xbox LIVE starting Dec. 17, bringing gamers the biggest and most accessible free-to-enter “Halo” tournament in the world.

Starting today, players can register for the “Halo 4 Infinity Challenge” by visiting www.halo4infinitychallenge.com (localized registration sites available on Dec. 12). Launching on Dec. 17, the free-to-enter tournament will track your personal score in War Games and the number of Spartan Ops chapters you complete on global leaderboards, giving players of different preferences and skill levels all a shot at the more than 2,800 prizes. For the War Games leaderboard winner, the grand prize will be a UNSC-themed, V8-powered 2013 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor truck designed by 343 Industries, and for the Spartan Ops winner, the grand prize will be an appearance in a future “Halo” game.

During the qualifier phase (Dec. 17 – Jan. 10), players will need to climb the ranks of the global leaderboards by competing in either the Spartan Ops or War Games leaderboard. After the qualifier phase, players will be tiered into three groups (based on their results on the qualifier phase leaderboards) and will enter the finals phase (Jan. 12 – Jan. 19). In addition, players can also participate in Weekly Challenges found on Halo Waypoint at http://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/intel/challenges for a chance to win great prizes.

During the finals, the leaderboards will reset and prizes will be awarded to the top performers in each tier. While terrific prizes are available within all three tiers, the grand prizes will be offered exclusively for those that have battled their way to the top tier.

For tournament and registration information, please visit: www.halo4infinitychallenge.com or http://www.halowaypoint.com/

What is not mentioned is that any relation MLG had with Microsoft would be affected, and it was with MLG dropping Halo from it's lineup.

 

[YourExWife]

Nerd!!! Seriously though, I never reached my 50 in Halo 3, because we couldn't get a team of 4 together and my 1 mbit/s inet back then, was just horrible.

I was kidding with the crying and I know that grammar is important, but I'm speaking 3 languages and it's not that easy for me. Still learning. :lol

I was kidding about that stuff too...

First got the 50 playing by myself in Team Slayer one night when I was really bored. Went on something like a 20 game streak with randoms every game. Statisticians could make a case study out of that crap.

 

[Slightly Live]

...

My point is that I would rather have a skill based tourney than one which is basically down to whoever can dedicate the most time to play - just because that would actually be fun rather than a shitty grind that only very few people can go through.

Would use your last sentence for irony, but that would be mean.

Oh I know. I was supporting your point by facetiously suggesting that Microsoft go out of their way next time to cash in on the negative aspect that this Virgin tournament clearly highlighted.

Anti-Social - You need to play Halo 4 all day every day to stand a chance of winning., No time for outdoor activities or friends or anything else. Just holding that controller in your hands and playing. Encourages poop-socking.

Bad For Your Health - you know there's a reason why Wii games explain about seizures and suggest taking a break every hour. Not with this tournament. If you want to win, you need to sacrifice common and sense and your health do to so. Otherwise you don't stand a chance against other players that are willing to do so. The average, health person would not seriously entertain the notion of playing a single video game, every day, every waking hour for two weeks.

No Skill - the tournament is not a measure of skill, it's a measurement of free time and how long you can fight off boredom. Lock down the best way to beat a level in the least amount of time and then repeat that. Multiple times an hour. Over a dozen hours a day. For over a dozen days.

When non-gamers stereotype gaming and people that play games regularly, they pretty much think about candidates for winning the Virgin Infinity Challenge.

Microsoft and Virgin really, really need to reconsider their approach the whole thing because right now, it's not good enough.

 

[Akai__]

Watching a german gaming TV show, when suddenly this happens: http://youtu.be/iAoJkCG1XWg?t=16s

I'm dying over here. :'D

I was kidding about that stuff too...

First got the 50 playing by myself in Team Slayer one night when I was really bored. Went on something like a 20 game streak with randoms every game. Statisticians could make a case study out of that crap.

I could never find good randoms, but if I had tried more, I could have done it, maybe.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

I was kidding about that stuff too...

First got the 50 playing by myself in Team Slayer one night when I was really bored. Went on something like a 20 game streak with randoms every game. Statisticians could make a case study out of that crap.

Aren't you just soooo goooooood?!

I won about 8 straight games on my 49, tied ONE GAME and deranked to a 48. Hilarious yet frustrating lol - It's sad too since I don't even remember the game I got my first 50 :b

Oh I know. I was supporting your point by facetiously suggesting that Microsoft go out of their way next time to cash in on the negative aspect that this Virgin tournament clearly highlighted.

Anti-Social - You need to play Halo 4 all day every day to stand a chance of winning., No time for outdoor activities or friends or anything else. Just holding that controller in your hands and playing. Encourages poop-socking.

Bad For Your Health - you know there's a reason why Wii games explain about seizures and suggest taking a break every hour. Not with this tournament. If you want to win, you need to sacrifice common and sense and your health do to so. Otherwise you don't stand a chance against other players that are willing to do so. The average, health person would not seriously entertain the notion of playing a single video game, every day, every waking hour for two weeks.

No Skill - the tournament is not a measure of skill, it's a measurement of free time and how long you can fight off boredom. Lock down the best way to beat a level in the least amount of time and then repeat that. Multiple times an hour. Over a dozen hours a day. For over a dozen days.

When non-gamers stereotype gaming and people that play games regularly, they pretty much think about candidates for winning the Virgin Infinity Challenge.

Microsoft and Virgin really, really need to reconsider their approach the whole thing because right now, it's not good enough.

Competitive Halo online.

 

[IHaveIce]

Watching a german gaming TV show, when suddenly this happens: http://youtu.be/iAoJkCG1XWg?t=16s

I'm dying over here. :'D



I could never find good randoms, but if I had tried more, I could have done it, maybe.

ahaha perfect.!

By the way did you see the Game One episode with Hypertrooper ?

 

[Orochinagis]

The new Spartan Ops Cinematic is awesome but the new enviroments have low textures compared to Episode 6.

 

[squidhands]

Even CTF turns into a AR fest, it's not fun at all.

you're just mad it dropped your k/d to 8.9. :-b

I agree with all of this. The more I play them, the more I appreciate each Forge map and looked past the little flaws.

The new Forge aesthetics in general are starting to grow on me. Much more appealing than Reach and hopefully that'll last longer this time around.

it certainly was a nice change of pace from Haven, Adrift, and Complex, that's for sure. Forgot to mention Simplex; great, great CTF map, aside from the rampant jetpack abuse. I hope this new playlist with limited AA's will allow mediocre players like me to play without getting completely decimated.

 

[Akai__]

ahaha perfect.!

By the way did you see the Game One episode with Hypertrooper ?

Yeah, I think I linked even Frankie's interview with them here. Was some hilarious stuff.

 

[Moa]

I am probably late to the party but I just read Shadders latest article:

http://www.littleenglishhaloblog.co...f-infinity-challenge-winner.html?spref=tw&m=1

Reading that is exactly why I don't like things like the virgin tournament, one guy took two weeks off work, another was made redundant anyway and they literally spent every waking moment in spartan ops. To the point were they complain about long term damage and crippling boredom.

Time based tournaments suck, skill based tournements would be better

"With energy drinks and caffeine pills it can be done, but it really caused my body some damage. I’m still recovering now. "

That actually made me sick, the fact these guys were willing to harm themselves over this is pathetic.

 

[TheOddOne]

you're just mad it dropped your k/d to 8.9. :-b

My crusade against the AR will continue, even if I am the last man standing!

 

[EagleBurnn]

I cannot stand people calling Ambush just "Pulse". It's like saying "I'm going to play some SWAT in Virgin."

 

[Slightly Live]

"With energy drinks and caffeine pills it can be done, but it really caused my body some damage. I’m still recovering now. "

That actually made me sick, the fact these guys were willing to harm themselves over this is pathetic.

Don't be blaming just these guys. Microsoft and Virgin are at fault for promoting this type of behaviour.

 

[Sai-kun]

Hopefully Microsoft and Virgin can expand this type of tournament. Instead of low amounts of hurt over a long period of time, how about high amount of pain in a short period of time?

They could make people play Reach ~_~

 

[bobs...onGaf]

Oh I know. I was supporting your point by facetiously suggesting that Microsoft go out of their way next time to cash in on the negative aspect that this Virgin tournament clearly highlighted.

Anti-Social - You need to play Halo 4 all day every day to stand a chance of winning., No time for outdoor activities or friends or anything else. Just holding that controller in your hands and playing. Encourages poop-socking.

Bad For Your Health - you know there's a reason why Wii games explain about seizures and suggest taking a break every hour. Not with this tournament. If you want to win, you need to sacrifice common and sense and your health do to so. Otherwise you don't stand a chance against other players that are willing to do so. The average, health person would not seriously entertain the notion of playing a single video game, every day, every waking hour for two weeks.

No Skill - the tournament is not a measure of skill, it's a measurement of free time and how long you can fight off boredom. Lock down the best way to beat a level in the least amount of time and then repeat that. Multiple times an hour. Over a dozen hours a day. For over a dozen days.

When non-gamers stereotype gaming and people that play games regularly, they pretty much think about candidates for winning the Virgin Infinity Challenge.

Microsoft and Virgin really, really need to reconsider their approach the whole thing because right now, it's not good enough.

I think reading it I just felt bad for the guy who was made redundant late last year. The new year is prime recruitment time, its sad to see that someone was so engrossed in the tourney that he missed out on a prime window of opportunity to get a job.

No doubt there are a whole bunch of students that dedicated this time to the tourney instead of revising for Jan exams. 2 weeks is a long time, and its pretty much irresponsible for a company to run a competition which requires that kind of time commitment to enter.

Totally misunderstood you at first btw, for some reason I thought you were being sarcastic about my post rather than about the tourney!

Don't be blaming just these guys. Microsoft and Virgin are at fault for promoting this type of behaviour.

This.

People should know better, but its easy to hook anyone into these things, its the people running the competitions that should be more responsible. Its easy to look at the tourney on paper and know the winner will be the person who plays the most for 2 weeks, so thats the stage were you need to redesign how its run.

 

[Ramirez]

Don't be blaming just these guys. Microsoft and Virgin are at fault for promoting this type of behaviour.

MS & Virgin are not responsible for people being dumbasses, c'mon.

 

[Moa]

Don't be blaming just these guys. Microsoft and Virgin are at fault for promoting this type of behaviour.

Fault at both sides really, Virgin & MS should know better, as well as the guy who harmed himself.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

MS & Virgin are not responsible for people being dumbasses, c'mon.

If they had better rules in place to make it skill based rather than time based then more people could enter and have a chance to win. People also wouldnt be popping pills and spending all day playing Halo. It would be win win.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

If they had better rules in place to make it skill based rather than time based then more people could enter and have a chance to win. People also wouldnt be popping pills and spending all day playing Halo. It would be win win.

Example for time based - Have some restrictions in place:

Only during the hours of 4-8pm can you earn points towards the tournament.

 

[Slightly Live]

MS & Virgin are not responsible for people being dumbasses, c'mon.

Dude, just think about it. They held a "Who can play Halo the most during this timeframe" competition. The only way to compete would be to do nothing but play Halo. No job, no free time. Nevermind all the unhealthy things you can do to boost your performance - something you can be sure others would be doing, so you'd be forced to do that yourself to compete.

When companies directly encourage unhealthy, anti-social behaviour then, yeah, they are partly responsible. Not fully, nor soley, but they do share some (if not most) of the blame (but not all, obviously).

 

[Fuchsdh]

"With energy drinks and caffeine pills it can be done, but it really caused my body some damage. I’m still recovering now. "

That actually made me sick, the fact these guys were willing to harm themselves over this is pathetic.

People being stupid isn't Microsoft or Virgin's fault. They think a truck is with shortening their life expectancy so be it.

Edit: Dani, no one is forcing people to play. It's not too much to ask people to have some self introspection.

 

[Poker Face]

grifball is more populated then infinity slayer at the moment.

 

[Fuchsdh]

grifball is more populated then infinity slayer at the moment.

I really love the 'plink' sound the hammer makes now, although I wish it will had some of the old Ka-WOOOSH too.

 

[Slightly Live]

People being stupid isn't Microsoft or Virgin's fault. They think a truck is with shortening their life expectancy so be it.

Edit: Dani, no one is forcing people to play. It's not too much to ask people to have some self introspection.

I never said anyone is forcing anyone to do anything.

Microsoft and Virgin are both encouraging terrible behaviour here though. I think they both have a responsibility to not do this.

 

[NullPointer]

Missed a lot of the chatter over the weekend. Did I see stuff related to competitive playlists? Is it actually happening?

And yeah, episode seven CGI was top notch.

 

[Overdoziz]

Imagine the people who got in second place :lol

 

[Moa]

grifball is more populated then infinity slayer at the moment.

Won't last long, happened with the Forge playlist as well at launch.

 

[YourExWife]

I could never find good randoms, but if I had tried more, I could have done it, maybe.

Like I said, statistical anomaly. I wasn't doing crazy good or anything either, I was just bored and was like, "ok, I'll play 'til I lose." Then it happened and bricks were shat.

Aren't you just soooo goooooood?!

I won about 8 straight games on my 49, tied ONE GAME and deranked to a 48. Hilarious yet frustrating lol - It's sad too since I don't even remember the game I got my first 50 :b

Oh you!

I remember for months after release, before they finally fixed the issues with the ranks, where I was stuck at 45/46. No matter how many games I/we won, it would never go up. Occasionally, it'd get to the 46, then one loss/tie and it would go back to 45 forever again.

I'm 3-0 in Grifball.

Aren't you going pro soon?

 

[Alchemical]

Missed a lot of the chatter over the weekend. Did I see stuff related to competitive playlists? Is it actually happening?

And yeah, episode seven CGI was top notch.

It's happeniiiiiiinnnnnng.

 

[Zoolader]

Anyone else playing Halo 2 before they shut it down? We should have us a GAF play date.

Wait what??? I just looked that up since nobody really commented, H2 servers going down Feb. 15th. Now I have to finally do my legendary campaign playthrough and get those halo achievements. Are the multiplayer achievements still even possible?

 

[CyReN]

I'm 3-0 in Grifball.

What's your GB rank?

 

[Moa]

Wait what??? I just looked that up since nobody really commented, H2 servers going down Feb. 15th. Now I have to finally do my legendary campaign playthrough and get those halo achievements. Are the multiplayer achievements still even possible?

Multiplayer achievements are still completely possible, just a pain to do.

Once the multiplayer gets taken offline, you'll still be able to get the Campaign achievements, so no rush.

 

[Kibbles]

Anyone else playing Halo 2 before they shut it down? We should have us a GAF play date.

WTF? They are shutting down Halo 2 Vista too? H2A confirmed.

 

[squidhands]

Imagine the people who got in second place :lol

I'm sure their tears taste like Red Bull and deep-vein thrombosis.

 

[Orochinagis]

Wait there are not weekly challenges this week exept for war games? wtf

 

[Overdoziz]

grifball is more populated then infinity slayer at the moment.

Aside from it being the new playlist 95% of the people in the playlist are there for the cheap kills, same as Living Dead. You take away the ability to get easy kills and a shitload of people will leave, just look at the population of Flood.

 

[Crucio]

WTF? They are shutting down Halo 2 Vista too? H2A confirmed.

Halo 2: Anniversary November 12th 2014. I would be so pleased.

 

[Moa]

For those curious about Weekly Challenges.

 

[Shadders]

No question on what they thought of the cheating accusations or rumours?
Not against them, but in general?

But yes, it was a good read and a good idea, nice work.

I've got another couple of articles about the Infinity Challenge coming soon, I'm holding fire on the cheating angle until Microsoft/343i have done their thing, they've added a message to Infinity Challenge page that says:

"The finals have ended and we are now verifying all players to check for cheating."

 

[NullPointer]

It's happeniiiiiiinnnnnng.

Niiiiice.

So will this unite the clans?

 

[CyReN]

I've got another couple of articles about the Infinity Challenge coming soon, I'm holding fire on the cheating angle until Microsoft/343i have done their thing, they've added a message to Infinity Challenge page that says:

"The finals have ended and we are now verifying all players to check for cheating."

We get to live through Halo version of the steroid era now

Great stuff so far btw.

 

[m23]

It's happeniiiiiiinnnnnng.

Is that real or are you trolling? I missed a lot the past few weeks so I'm not sure.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

MS & Virgin are not responsible for people being dumbasses, c'mon.

Yes and no. The mechanics of the tourney demanded this rather than allowing it.

While I agree ultimately, they could have structured it in a better way, considering they should know how people would react.

It's a slippery slope though. *shrug*

 

[Moa]

Is that real or are you trolling? I missed a lot the past few weeks so I'm not sure.

It is a real thing, and its happening.

Mid-february.