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The Halo 3 Beta Thread

Mojovonio said:
Did you see how slow it went with the Forza 2 demo? THE FORZA 2 DEMO!
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I was asleep :lol

But to whoever asked, I think the Beta goes up at 8 EST, figure that in to whatever time zone you're in. We should an official comment from Stinkles.
 
Mojovonio said:
Most people's 360's will die before the beta even finishes! They did scientific studies on it. SCIENTIFIC!
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If it wasn't in Scientific Proof Magazine (The Leading Source on Fact), I simply don't believe it.
 
Mojovonio said:
Most people's 360's will die before the beta even finishes! They did scientific studies on it. SCIENTIFIC!
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Just because I'm very bored at work, I figured out the math. That's 20 days...it's not going to take 20 days to download one Beta that MAYBE a million people will grab. I look for around 500,000 to hit the servers with maybe 300,000-350,000 hitting as soon as it launches. Nowhere near the numbers for the Halo 3 Announcement Trailer which still downloaded in about an hour for me. Even though, it was very small.
 
Mojovonio said:
Most people's 360's will die before the beta even finishes! They did scientific studies on it. SCIENTIFIC!
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If my 360 overheats during the download, I am going housin' on Peter Moore's house.
 
JdFoX187 said:
Just because I'm very bored at work, I figured out the math. That's 20 days...it's not going to take 20 days to download one Beta that MAYBE a million people will grab. I look for around 500,000 to hit the servers with maybe 300,000-350,000 hitting as soon as it launches. Nowhere near the numbers for the Halo 3 Announcement Trailer which still downloaded in about an hour for me. Even though, it was very small.
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You dare go against science?

Bungie's servers are 486s, and the turbo buttons don't work.
 
JdFoX187 said:
Could you speak English for the technologically ignorant, such as myself.
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Bungie's computing machines for sharing content are really old and the button which would make them better does not work.
 
Those goddamn turbo buttons were real mindf**ks. Push it on, push it off, push it on, off, on, off, etc. Must've been some genius prick who came up with that shit.
 
How many Halo 3 beta players are online at peak times? Being in Europe the most I've seen is 1500.
Matchmaking starts to get pretty fast when there are about 300 people in a playlist.
 
Mojovonio said:
Which was what?
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Is there going to be a meltdown or will the download go fairly smooth and fast? In other words, will those of us who don't use the work around and weren't lucky enough to get in be able to play at a fairly decent time after the Beta goes up?
 
Tieno said:
How many Halo 3 beta players are online at peak times? Being in Europe the most I've seen is 1500.
Matchmaking starts to get pretty fast when there are about 300 people in a playlist.
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I've seen over 2,000 at a time. I'm very impressed with how fast the matchmaking is especially considering the size of the population; it's faster than Halo 2 has been for me.

When I first got in on Friday, the entire population was 50.
 
I'm curious how Halo 3 will handle high-ping enviroments - Halo 2 actually surprised me with how well it handled my international ping while playing with U.S. players. Luck on my side, and some sleek new networking code should help me play with my friends a bit easier.
 
JdFoX187 said:
Is there going to be a meltdown or will the download go fairly smooth and fast? In other words, will those of us who don't use the work around and weren't lucky enough to get in be able to play at a fairly decent time after the Beta goes up?
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That really can't be determined.

I'm going to just start it at 8am, do my workout, eat breakfast, watch some Jerry Springer and then hope its done.
 
I'm figuring the worst for download speeds so I'm going to have my wife start the download at 8am and hopefully by the time I get home from work on Weds night it'll be done. That is unless someone wouldn't mind helping me get a headstart? :)
 
Dartastic said:
So has anyone confirmed if the work-around results in a ban?
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I highly doubt that it does (or will). But, technically, nobody from Bungie has said one way or the other. Luke indirectly threatened action and Tyson Green commented on it (sort of), but I honestly don't think they care or could do anything if they did.
 
GhaleonEB said:
I've seen over 2,000 at a time. I'm very impressed with how fast the matchmaking is especially considering the size of the population; it's faster than Halo 2 has been for me.

When I first got in on Friday, the entire population was 50.
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This morning I went into Team Skirmish, and the population was 6.
 
Eric WK said:
I highly doubt that it does (or will). But, technically, nobody from Bungie has said one way or the other. Luke indirectly threatened action and Tyson Green commented on it (sort of), but I honestly don't think they care or could do anything if they did.
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Just to add to this, Bungie wants the largest community they can for their testing. If a few people use a workaround, I don't think they'll care. It's not like they're pirating the Beta or anything.
 
Eric WK said:
I highly doubt that it does (or will). But, technically, nobody from Bungie has said one way or the other. Luke indirectly threatened action and Tyson Green commented on it (sort of), but I honestly don't think they care or could do anything if they did.
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Yeah, it's hard to believe that they'd ban you for this sorta thing. I just want to be able to access the beta from somewhere other than my Crackdown disk, and I want to be able to download it at a decent speed, goddamnit. It's rough knowing that I could be playing the beta RIGHT NOW, but also knowing that I could get banned for it. I certainly don't want that. :lol
 
Dartastic said:
Yeah, it's hard to believe that they'd ban you for this sorta thing. I just want to be able to access the beta from somewhere other than my Crackdown disk, and I want to be able to download it at a decent speed, goddamnit. It's rough knowing that I could be playing the beta RIGHT NOW, but also knowing that I could get banned for it. I certainly don't want that. :lol
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Well you do know that after you do that, you're stuck on there because if you sign off, you have to do the whole thing again. I don't know how it would work after the "official" Beta launches Wednesday, but I would imagine you would still have to download the Crackdown version.
 
20070514.jpg


There are many, many, many previews of Halo 3 - which is to say , the Halo 3 beta, which is not Halo 3 and isn't even the complete multiplayer mode. We are Halo detractors, and famously so. We installed our pre-release key on Friday with the idea that we could hoist this holy beast upon the altar, there to perform the old rituals. With increasing distress, we played round after round, hungry to find fault. Here is what we found instead:

Halo has always needed more buttons, apparently, and it has found them: the bumpers have improved my play experience tremendously. They are context sensitive in their operation, so that I can pick up a weapon in my right hand by holding the right bumper, or vice versa. When holding a two handed weapon, the left bumper becomes the button you use to switch grenade types, because you don't actually need such a button when you can't throw them anyhow. Hoping into a vehicle is also done by holding the right bumper, as is stealing a vehicle. I was worried about stacking this much functionality - the A button in Gears comes to mind - but in practice it's very precise.

In The Theater Lobby, you can view your battle films. As currently delivered, it's fairly standard - you can't really "direct" it, as the final version will allow. Each player has twenty five megs of space on Live to upload these movies, and a fifteen minute Slayer match came up to about seven and a half megs. The interface to accomplish this is remarkably clean, and uploads them in the background while you play. You can select any player in your room and view their uploaded movies, queuing them for download in-between matches. It's an old feature - Gabe and I used to watch Quake demos, for example - but its execution here is robust. The Theater Lobby allows for only one person to watch films, but it is a Lobby, and it makes me wonder if watching these films as a group is planned for the final.

What's more, boldface text.

Halo 3 will populate your friends' tabs in the dashboard with Halo specific data while you play, giving you options to check out their information or join their party directly. It's integration right down to the metal, altering the UI options based on the game. Like Halo 2, the sequel clearly intends to be a platform showpiece. I understand that the gameplay feels the same to most people who have played it, but Halo 2 didn't resonate with us the way this does. I will continue to analyze this in an effort to provide you with something useful.

There are some things about it that are still... Halo, for lack of a better term, like push-to-talk team chat. Proximity voice can create interesting gameplay, such as the interception of enemy strategy - I have no beef with it. But for genuine team communion, which I will admit to you is my entire purpose, a free channel for absolutely dynamic communication is a must. It's better than it was, certainly - any press of the dpad will invoke it - but is bandwidth at such a premium that I can't freely communicate with my own team, as I was perfectly able to do eight years ago? And if death only lasts a few seconds, I don't understand the purpose of muting dead players. I assume it's some punitive fraternity thing, like hazing.

In a single night of Halo 3 beta, I have already been called a ***got. Perhaps the insults are also in beta; I expect insults of greater power and ornamentation in the retail release.
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JdFoX187 said:
Well you do know that after you do that, you're stuck on there because if you sign off, you have to do the whole thing again. I don't know how it would work after the "official" Beta launches Wednesday, but I would imagine you would still have to download the Crackdown version.
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Haha. Someone did their research.
Me too, clearly.

Yeah, you have to stay logged into the Beta for as long as you want to play it. So unless you plan on keeping your 360 on until Wednesday morning you'd have to get someone to do this cheat with you everytime you wanted to play.
 
GhaleonEB said:
The Theater Lobby allows for only one person to watch films, but it is a Lobby, and it makes me wonder if watching these films as a group is planned for the final.
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Watching a saved film in a group environment....sounds delicious if it pans out.
 
Sitting here, bored at work, I was thinking. WHY would you NEED Crackdown to launch the Beta? Think about this...

The Beta that everybody is downloading with codes is a gig and it launches directly off the 360. I'm guessing from the demos tab. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.

But the Crackdown version requires the actual disc. Perhaps there's just some kind of key that unlocks the Beta? I know it's wishful thinking, but I find it strange that you would need the disc if you still downloaded the full one gig Beta.
 
Karg said:
Watching a saved film in a group environment....sounds delicious if true.
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That's already been confirmed by Bungie back when they talked about Saved Films to 1up. The party leader controls playing the film FF, RW, slow-mo, etc and everyone in the party can be watching their own view of the same battle, flying cameras around, etc. It will be great for reviewing team strategy.
 
JdFoX187 said:
Sitting here, bored at work, I was thinking. WHY would you NEED Crackdown to launch the Beta? Think about this...

The Beta that everybody is downloading with codes is a gig and it launches directly off the 360. I'm guessing from the demos tab. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.

But the Crackdown version requires the actual disc. Perhaps there's just some kind of key that unlocks the Beta? I know it's wishful thinking, but I find it strange that you would need the disc if you still downloaded the full one gig Beta.
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It seems like it might download it and have it function as Crackdown DLC, only it's a seperate entity. I don't know. Stinkles needs to hop in here and let us know what's up, instead of doing whatever it is he calls work over at that studio.
 
JdFoX187 said:
Sitting here, bored at work, I was thinking. WHY would you NEED Crackdown to launch the Beta? Think about this...

The Beta that everybody is downloading with codes is a gig and it launches directly off the 360. I'm guessing from the demos tab. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.

But the Crackdown version requires the actual disc. Perhaps there's just some kind of key that unlocks the Beta? I know it's wishful thinking, but I find it strange that you would need the disc if you still downloaded the full one gig Beta.
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The disc is required - Microsoft has specified. You can ONLY launch it from withing the Crackdown menu.
 
GhaleonEB said:
The disc is required - Microsoft has specified. You can ONLY launch it from withing the Crackdown menu.
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I know that. I'm talking about the FaF Beta and the other two ways people got in. What I'm thinking is why require the Crackdown disc
monetary reasoning probably :-(
if you're going to download the Beta onto the HDD the same way as the other ways.
 
got2bekidding said:
I have a question for the Beta people that are playing atm. In that "triple kill" video, there was the beeping sound given off my the mine. Is that sound only heard by the person who dropped it, the person's team that dropped it, or everyone? By the fact the 3 red's that were blown up by the mine, I would suspect that they weren't able to hear the beeps, but that's just an educated guess.
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Anyone that has played the Beta can give me a definitive answer on this? Thanks
 
JdFoX187 said:
I know that. I'm talking about the FaF Beta and the other two ways people got in. What I'm thinking is why require the Crackdown disc
monetary reasoning probably :-(
if you're going to download the Beta onto the HDD the same way as the other ways.
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Ah. I don't think it will require the disc - I just launch it from the Demos and More section of the games tab. I'm not going to try downloading the version from Crackdown (no point).
 
JdFoX187 said:
Sitting here, bored at work, I was thinking. WHY would you NEED Crackdown to launch the Beta? Think about this...

The Beta that everybody is downloading with codes is a gig and it launches directly off the 360. I'm guessing from the demos tab. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.

But the Crackdown version requires the actual disc. Perhaps there's just some kind of key that unlocks the Beta? I know it's wishful thinking, but I find it strange that you would need the disc if you still downloaded the full one gig Beta.
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It's so people don't pass along their copies of Crackdown. This way you NEED the crackdown disc in your 360 to play and can't keep passing a single copy to other people. All of them need to have a copy of crackdown, instead of just one guy.
 
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