Questions about Halo LAN events...

[Stumanji]

Questions about the LAN:

I only plan to play Halo (of the games you are offering).

1. What types of games are going to be played?

2. Are people generally willing to try new things or do I have to sit through several hours of Slayer? (I have some pretty fun suggestions myself)

3. Are there Team prizes?

4. Do you use Radar at all? (I hope not)

5. Is most of the MP stuff done in Blood Gulch or Sidewinder? (Personally, I've grown tired of BG)

6. Are people willing to mix up the teams now and then?

7. Are people willing to change weapons now and then? (Fun games: Rocket CTF on Hang-em High, Shotgun King Of the Hill on Wizard)

8. Do people tend to use glitches, cheap tricks, or cheat when they play?
(Ex.: Passing the Flag through walls, getting on top of BG or SW, "Screen Raping" etc...)

Your answers are appreciated. Thanks.

[M4LFUNCT10N]

I'm new here.. but I'll give my say...

1. Halo, Unreal Championship(I'll rent a couple extra copies if I have to so we can system link them), Counter Strike(I just got this and I suck)

2. Sure

3. It's not up to me

4. Radar is cheap. All my maps have radar disabled.

5. I prefer Hang'Em High myself. I don't mind the two you've mentioned IF there are more than 4 people. 4v4 on those two and I'm fine.

6. It should always be mixed up. It sucks when you have one team pwning the others. When I play UC Live I switch to the underdog team. I prefer taking everyone on anyways.(I nearly always have the most kills).

7. I don't mind changing weapons around..... but I'm not a big fan of rockets only. I think the Master Chief runs slow enough as it is.

8. I HATE it when people use the glitches. I played Oddball online(XBoxConnect) and the other team launched a player up above the map.

[DiscoDave]

Beings as I don't play Halo, most of those questions I can't answer.

Whether or not there are team prizes will depend on how many people are playing. We'd really like to get some nice sized Halo games going, but BLE is still pretty small so we're just going to have to see how it goes.

What other games do you play? The list isn't the end all-be all...in fact, we're hoping that both the Far Cry multiplayer demo and the UT2k4 demo will be out by the next lan, and those have potential to be pretty popular games if they're out.

[Itsmeee]

[monotone voice]those demos will be way cool when they come out[/monotone voice] *cough* LOL whuahahahahaha!!!

[Ender]

Heyas:
In order for their to be a team tourny with prizes, we'd need to have the teams set up before hand. That's just cause like Dave said we're still small. We've had enough for good ffa or 1v1 tournies in the past, but never enough for team games.
So if we get a lot of xbox signups before hand and have enough for team games then we'll set that up and make sure there's some prizes for it.

Tournaments in general for xbox:
They've typically been done off the hip since the xbox attendance has varied so much. We had two HALO tournies at our first party, a HALO, SC2, and THUG tourney at our second party, and no tournies at our third (go figure!).
Once attendance for xbox becomes more regular, the more structured the xbox tournaments will be. For now, we pretty much just decide then and there based on how many show. However, there needs to be at least 11 paying xbox players in order for us to afford a tournament. With the space we're currently in, two tournaments is the max we can have because 16 attendees is the max we can have (atm-we're working on that) and any more than 2 tournaments with prizes breaks the bank if ya know what I mean. ;)
You could organize 'just for fun' tournies if you'd like, but as far as prizes go we can only have two. So if we fill up this time, we must choose wisely. :)
Personally, I'd like to see a team HALO tourney. Whether tdm or ctf, I'm a big fan of team gaming. I imagine if we get 16 players this party we'll have enough for a team HALO tourney. I'd also like to see a Soul Calibur II tournament. That takes us to my next answer.
Games Played in general
HALO of course is a staple for xbox at LANs. We've also been seeing a big demand for Soul Calibur 2. Unreal Championship has also been a hit in the past. Tony Hawks UnderGround was at a party once too and much fun. Those are the main games. We did have gotham racing 2 at the first party which seemed to go well. We've been going to pick up Counter Strike, but nobody seemed to want to play it yet so as of yet it hasn't been played.

Ok, so from there I'll answer the rest of the questions! :)

1. Slayer, CTF, pretty much everything. The HALO has gotten pretty creative in the past.
2. Yes, most the xboxers that have come have been very willing to try new things, even (gasp!) play different games other than HALO.
3. See my general rule for tournaments for xbox above. One quick thing to mention. If we get enough signups and decide to have a team tourney, we need to have that in concrete before the party for prize allotment purposes. So we have to decide 2v2, 3v3 etc etc. Help bring the peeps, we'll give out the prizes baby!
4. Radar is always disabled in HALO.
5. I'm not really sure tbh.
6. Yes the teams get mixed up regularly.
7. Yes people are willing to mix it up...so far. :)
8. Haven't seen much of that as the great allotment of players haven't been leet-types. There is one guy that came to the first party who is reportedly coming to this one that just destroyed everyone, but I don't know if he used any sort of exploit cause I don't know any myself.
9. Come and have fun :woot:

;) Hope that helps!

[M4LFUNCT10N]

I think it would be a little hard to organize a Halo Team Tourney and have prizes. The teams would have to be set, and no one really knows each others skills. Would you like to just choose random people as your teammates? Maybe if we did some FFA for a bit and decided the rankings of players, then split up the teams evenly.

[Ender]

yeah, basically we'd divide the teams up as people played together and got to know their playing styles and stuff. I'd just need to know before hand how many teams we could have and the number of people per team for prizes sake.

After a while, the community here should build up enough that people will have teams prior to the LAN, and then we'll get the sweet team competition! :woot:

[M4LFUNCT10N]

Hmm... I really can't wait. I'm definately having fun online, but it's always better with other people within yelling distance.

[Ender]

oh yeah, there's nothing better than that to be sure!!! :woot:



ps I noticed you haven't signed up (http://www.bellinghamlan.com/lan_events.php?s=) yet. :p

[M4LFUNCT10N]

So what is screen raping? I tell ya one thing I get tired of... people humping my dead body.

[Stumanji]

Screen Raping: People looking at your screen to find your location on the map. Unavoidable if you're all sharing a Split-Screen, which doesn't bother me.

But one time, we were playing a System Link game in the same room. We had the TV's facing each other so that each team had their backs to each other. We were playing CTF, and both teams were holding onto the flag, waiting for their teammates to return the other team's flag.

I was holding the flag, and hiding as best as I could. A member of the other team, who was also holding the flag, turned around to look at our screen, then started telling his teammates exactly where I was at... and thus the term "Screen Rape" was coined.
-------------------------

Another Question:
1. What is the respawn time set to?
I'm not a big fan of respawn time growth or instant respawn. 5 seconds is best, I think. Especially if you're playing with "newbies" who get killed more than they kill. With respawn time growth on, these guys spend more time watching their countdown instead of playing.

[Stumanji]

:mad: Hey!

Answer my question about that respawn time!!

(Note: My italics under the question are my thoughts)

[M4LFUNCT10N]

Hmm, I didn't even see that last time. I really don't care. 5 seconds is fine with me. Just means I get more killing!

[Ender]

Respawn has typically been set to default, but I'm sure everyone would be more than happy to change it :)

[ghrogels]

as screen raping is unavoidable in halo, its not cheating; the simple idear here is if everyone can do it, there is nothing wrong with it (and also going by this idea, it then doesn't punish those who don't do it).

the only time that it is illegal is when there are more then 1 Tvs with halo being played on, like 4v4 or 8v8, and the other team takes a peak.

but this is just my ideology and is used in many other areas of compition, most of these are specialty rules to complicated to explain here.

now if you don't want ANY screen raping at all in ffa, get 4 screens, 4 xboxes, and go at it.


as for the respawn time, i like it instantly

if i wanted to wait 5+ seconds to restart a game, i'd go play counter-strike

[Stumanji]

Originally posted by ghrog
as screen raping is unavoidable in halo, its not cheating; the simple idear here is if everyone can do it, there is nothing wrong with it (and also going by this idea, it then doesn't punish those who don't do it).

the only time that it is illegal is when there are more then 1 Tvs with halo being played on, like 4v4 or 8v8, and the other team takes a peak.

...now if you don't want ANY screen raping at all in ffa, get 4 screens, 4 xboxes, and go at it.


Read my earlier post on this... it's what I said. It's cheating, IMO, if someone goes out of their way to look at your screen (i.e. - turning around, getting out of their chair, etc).

There's one problem with Instant Respawn that seems to annoy some people: It's rather difficult to get away with a team's flag in CTF with Instant Respawn.

But I could care less if it's Instant or 5-seconds... I just really dislike respawn growth.

[Stumanji]

Bumping for the sake of this question:

With 7 people signed up on the X-Box side of things (and more to come, I promise) is there anything us X-Boxers are going to need to bring?

Our consoles, games, TV's, controllers, anything like that?

Just want to be prepared.

[DiscoDave]

You're certainly welcome to bring your own controllers if you have special attachment to them (ie, some people hate the big controllers).

[Ender]

Check you pm box soon Stu...unless you're coming tonight...but I'll be sending you a pm on Sunday probably about that sort of thing. :)

[Ender]

Oh yes, also Stu, there are likely more xbox people coming who just don't use computers and therefore won't be signing up online. I'm still working on them to sign up, but it's a long ardous task. :p

And when is Bishop going to sign up? He was talking like he was the KOT but now that the competition is showing up he seems nowhere to be found. ;) :p

[M4LFUNCT10N]

I'd say IF it's possible, everyone should bring their Xbox and a TV. If the computer guys can lug around their computers, why can't we lug around our stuff?? I think it would be killer to AT LEAST have 4 xbox's linked for Halo. I'm definately bringing my stuff. Heck if everyone brings their own Xbox and a copy of UC or CounterStrike, we could play up to 16 boxes hooked up!

[Ender]

I thought any game could only support up to 4 xbox's linked. :confused: That'd be hella cool if you could link a ton of them.


A note to those bringing their things. PLEASE LABEL EVERYTHING! ;) Had a controller go to the wrong place at our first party. Labeling has been a successful venture in stopping that from occuring. :)

[M4LFUNCT10N]

You're right, I was being stupid. 16 people. Wait, 16 people on Halo and UC, we could play 16 people, each on their own screen for Counter Strike IF, everyone had their own Xbox Live account. And really, if you have CS, than you better have Xbox Live, because there isn't any single player missions. Just bot matches.

[RawKus]

If i go to this next event, i'll be sure to bring a tv and xbox and what not. Also, about what someone said about instant respawn, its not a very good idea. What happens is that a close quarter fight breaks out in halo and the teams keep killing each other and keep respawning and they never relaly break away from that spot. Also, alot of spawn kills occur then. 10 second respawn in teamslayer is usually a good number, especially if its 4 vs 4. In smaller games respawn can be cut down. In CTF, respawn should be at 5-10 seconds, way to hard to get flag at instant respawn. We play Halo atleast 3 vs 3 about once a weekend. In CTF we usually play respawn instant, but respawn growth 5 seconds. SO if you are getting worked your spawn starts getting pretty high. We used to do 5 second respawn with 5 sec growth, but then the strategy was gone and it was about who could base rape the team better. When respawn starts at instant you relaly have to kick the crap out of the other team to get their spawns really high.

[Stumanji]

Originally posted by RawKus
10 second respawn in teamslayer is usually a good number, especially if its 4 vs 4. In smaller games respawn can be cut down. In CTF, respawn should be at 5-10 seconds, way to hard to get flag at instant respawn.

10 second respawn might make the games go easier, but if you're like me, you don't want to sit there for 10 seconds every time you drop dead. In a competitive CTF game, let's say you put up 150 kills, 70 deaths (Great Job!). That's 700 seconds of looking at your dead body... 11 minutes, 40 seconds of doing nothing... That's no fun...

Remember, we're there to PLAY Halo, not WATCH Halo. ;)

[M4LFUNCT10N]

Originally posted by Stumanji

Remember, we're there to PLAY Halo, not WATCH Halo. ;)

I agree. I think 3-5 seconds would be just great.

[Stumanji]

IMO: 5 second respawn is best.

[Ender]

Most fps games on the PC have setable times, and I've found that 5 seconds is good time. I personally HATE instant respawn (force respawn in UT2k*) and I hate it when a BF server has a 20 second respawn. I personally LOVE the click to respawn option, but does HALO have that? Not that it matters cause I'm PC junkie. ;) But yeah, my two cents. :)

[Stumanji]

Halo does not have that feature, unfortunately... It was nice to press start (a la Perfect Dark, Goldeneye) or the trigger (a la Ghost Recon) to respawn... Cuz sometimes you just need a bathroom break!

[Stumanji]

Halo halo halo, I made you out of clay!

[Stumanji]

And when it's dry and ready, with Halo I shall play!

[Stumanji]

Did you know:
Three more posts and this thread will be 7th overall for replies in this forum?

[Stumanji]

I know it's :spam: but I've taken it upon myself to make sure this thread gets to 7th!

[Stumanji]

This post right here should do it! :hump: :hump: :hump: