Bungie introduces some new changes and updates to Halo3 matchmaking
Starting today, you’ll begin to see some changes in Halo 3 matchmaking and others will be rolled out later this month. Some of these changes are permanent while others are only for a limited time, so charge up those batteries and get yourself ready.
Here’s an outline of what’s coming in matchmaking.
- Starting today (March 6th) at NOON pacific standard time, or 3 PM for those of us on the east coast of the U.S., Bungie will launch the popular team sport of Grifball, which was created by Burnie Burns of Red vs Blue. Grifball will be available until March 23rd. It’s being treated as a tournament, which means there will be prizes. I have no idea what they may be.
- Team SWAT will return! This variant will begin on March 20th, NOON PST (3 PM EST) and last until March 23rd. Here’s hoping they decide to make it permanent eventually. I always loved SWAT in Halo 2.
Both of these new matchmaking variants will award DOUBLE EXP. This could be a nice shortcut to do some ranking up, if you’re having trouble reaching your next skill level target.
Changes made to the Heroic DLC Playlist
Bungie has also introduced some nice new tweaks to the Heroic playlist. If you’re unsure what that is, it’s simply a playlist created allowing those who purchased the Heroic map pack to play against others who also have those maps. I enjoy playing on them occasionally. I may do so more often now thanks to these following updates which are live right NOW.
- Heroic DLC has now been split into two separate variants - Team Slayer 4v4 and Team Objective 6v6. Games included in the slayer variant will be Team Snipers, Team Rockets, Team BRs, Team Duel and Team Duals. While in team objective you’ll have Multi Flag CTF, Multi Flag BR, One Flag, Assault, Neutral Bomb Assault and Team King
Bungie has also made some bug fixes in various maps and matchmaking.
- Map exploits on The Pit, Construct and Epitaph have been fixed. I don’t think I even know what the exploits were, so I don’t imagine I’ll notice this change.
- The size of the large party in Big Team Battle has been reduced to six players
- A fix to matchmaking will now allow for more even leveling for players
- Mixes skill restrictions for Team Slayer and Ranked Big Team Battles has been disabled
That’s all for now. Perhaps I’ll see you online in Grifball over the next couple days.
Mar 9th, 2008 at 11:40 am
[...] but I’d be lying. Nope, I was playing Halo. A LOT of halo. On Thursday of this past week, Bungie added a game called Grifball to their online matchmaking in Halo 3, which sadly will be gone after [...]