Pregame Lobby Etiquette Rant

Perhaps you're like me and sit in awe of people who don't know how to act in a pregame lobby, if so, you can read on and chuckle inside in remembrance of people who don't think of these obvious things.

First of all, the Party Leader is the Boss! If he asks you for game suggestions, then you can say what game you want to play. If he picks a custom game that you don't like, don't tell him to change it, just LEAVE!!!

If you have your heart set on a specific game, and the party leader doesn't want to play that game, then you should go and start a party of your own. Seriously. I f he doesn't ask you for a gametype suggestion, then there's a good chance he ain't takin' game requests!

For example, late yesterday there was people in a party with Foo Mo Jive, and they start saying, "I don't like that game, I don't like this, wah wah wah!" Well, here's an idea, if you don't like the games he plays, then what are you doing in this here Pregame Lobby? You have a plethora of matchmaking and custom games that you could choose from! If playing with Foo Mo Jive as your party leader is so important to you, then you should be willing to let him pick the game! If it would be so horrible to play that special gametype, then LEAVE!!! Trust me, there are people waiting who would be more than willing to take your slot in the game, and enjoy themself without complaining!

That was just one time though, I have to give my props to the Podtacular people because except for that one tiny little time, they have been very awesome to play alongside!

Troops Morale

The morale of your team can "turn the tides" in games, and once a team realizes that victory is still possible in seemingly "getting-owned" situations, it can sometimes be attained. I recall a game when it was neutral flag on Sanctuary, first to five flag captures wins. The other team had 4 captures, and we had 1. On one of their attempts, they got the flag almost all the way to the capture point, and my teammate grabbed it and ran it all the way back to our base. We ended up getting 5 captures and won, because we never gave up.

Dual Needlers work well on Warlock

I was playing a game of team slayer on Warlock awhile back, and I found that you can get people using dual needlers on that level pretty well. They are not good weapons to rush with, so I keep my distance and get people who are running after a weapon or trying to kill my teammate! I try to follow the opponent's movements slightly ahead of them.

Beware teh Dual Needlers!

I remember awhile ago, I entered some Team Slayer with a friend and we got matched up. The gametype was "Team Duals" (now removed from Team Slayer) on the map "Beaver Creek." Our team ended up getting really far ahead in the score, and members of the other team quit until there was only one left.

So, being that far ahead in the score, and there being only one opponent left, we did what all great Halo 2 players do... we started running around on top of the bases, telling each other "I'm king of this pillar!" and trying to push each other off the pillar.

Well, I am not sure how he did it, but that enemy took a teammate out using needlers, and then one of us went after him, and then got owned by his needles. We were thinking like "whatever" and kept playing "king of the pillar".

Five minutes later, and he's almost caught up to us. He ended up beating us. He was nice about it too.

So the moral of the story is: don't quit just because you are down by points... you may have a teammate with excellent dual-needler skills!

Guide to Good Times with Halo 2 on Xbox LIVE

I have had Xbox Live since February 06, and I have to say that I am pleased with it. I have found that by doing a few things I can make the most of this pretty cool feature of the Xbox.

First of all, what I do is set my "Voice Output" to "Headset Only". What this means is that all the voices that I hear in the game only come through my "Xbox LIVE Communicator". You can do this by editing your profile's settings, or by accessing your friend's list and pressing "x". This is strategic because all voices you hear, you can hear clearly, and you can adjust the volume of the voices independant of the volume of the TV. It also works good because if anyone swears or anything, you can easily pull your headset out of the slot on the controller and eliminate them. You can just as easily mute people in-game, though this is tough, unless you are playing an Objective gametype (like CTF or Assault) you won' t have enough time to mute them if you die.

You can avoid having to mute people very easily. Just don't enter a Team playlist without a solid group of however many people are put on a team in that playlist. For example, I wouldn't enter the playlist "Team Slayer" without a group of four, or 6v6 without a group of five or six, etc. With the update to Big Team Battle, you can enter it with a group of eight and get a match nearly as fast as you do in other playlists. Before the update, the system would look for another team the same size as yours with similar ranks, now in Big Team Battle only, it just grabs people of similar ranks, regardless of whether or not their in a team like yours.

Having a party of people the same size as the teams of the playlist eliminates the major problems that sometimes are encountered in matchmaking, as you won't run into delevelers (people who lose on purpose in order to lower their rank---I know it doesn't make much sense to me either), racists, bossy people, or lone wolves on your team, unless they were in your party to begin with (they probably weren't if they are peoples' friends lists).

Now, what if your only friends who are on LIVE when you log on are busy? Well you can just enter the playlist "Rumble Pit" and pull your mic out, since Rumble Pit is a Free-for-all there's really no reason to wear a mic, unless you want to be distracted or if something hilarious happens. You won't be distracted if your Voice Output is set to "Headset Only".

If you are doing all those things there's no way you'll end up with a "griefer" player. The only time one could interact with you would be if they killed you and they feel like saying that you are bad at Halo 2.

Sidenote on People who say to every opponent they beat that the opponent is bad at Halo 2:
If you say to every opponent that you beat that they are bad at Halo 2, the message that you sending to the world is that the only people you ever are able to beat are horrible Halo 2 players. Think about this for a second... if the only people you ever are able to beat are horrible Halo 2 players, then what does that say about you? You beat them, so you think therefore they must be bad. It makes more sense to say that they are good Halo 2 players, because beating a good Halo 2 player means something. Beating a person who is bad at Halo 2 isn't that great of an accomplishment, and isn't something awarded or worth mentioning.

Now, if you run into someone who is annoying you, just mute their voice. You might get killed once while you do that, but it's worth it. If in the postgame lobby, someone starts spewing racist or lewd comments, just pull your mic out of the slot on the controller so you can't hear them, and then leave feedback. There is really no reason to entertain those people or try to argue with them. Just leave feedback.

Sidenote to people who say that feedback doesn't work:
Feedback actually does work, but only if you use it. If you aren't using the feedback system then of course it's not going to work. All the time I find that people are posting in the Bungie.net forums that they've been banned from Xbox LIVE, so feedback must be working in their cases, and there's probably many people who've been banned from LIVE who aren't posting.

In conclusion, set Voice Output to Headset/Communicator Only, enter team playlists with a team, and pull out your mic during a Rumble Pit type game or during a bad atmospheric Postgame Lobby, leave feedback.

There are a lot of people who appreciate the gift of playing with fellow gamers, and occaisonally we run into someone who abuses this gift, let's help Xbox LIVE change them so others won't have to run into them too. When multiple people leave feedback on someone, the first time they are punished, they get suspended from Xbox LIVE for a short amount of time USUALLY... if it's a larger issue or a second offense they'll get permanently suspended, so don't feel like they aren't getting a warning. A one-week suspension may be enough to make them rethink their onLIVE gaming attitude.

I leave feedback cuz it improves others’ experience. I leave feedback so it can improve the experiences of my XBL brethren... those I’ve never even met.

Podtacular Rec D

I am beginning to see how great and cool the Podtacular community is. Today, I am meeting my clan "PodtacularRec D" on LIVE for some clanmatches. On Saturday, I am entering a teams of three tournament, in which members of the four recreational clans of Podtacular Rec A, B, C, and D,... and now E, can compete in teams of three. And sometime near the end of may and beginning of June, I get to participate in a free-for-all tourney. I am looking forward to it.

The beginning...

I decided to make a blog about Halo 2 and stuff that happens with it. I've just slapped it together and we'll see where it goes from here. You can listen to Episode 13, of Podtacular by clicking on the audio bob below. Podtacular is an awesome Podcast (a radio broadcast you can listen to on your iPod or Computer). It is a Podcast about Halo 2. I really love it, here is an example of one of their episodes, it is about an hour long so if you've got the time, check it out.

The official website for Podtacular is www.podtacular.com. They have clans, events and a forum, so check it out, it's pretty nifty. I have to warn you that in episodes 60-62 there are some crude and lewd jokes, but it hasn't always been that way. There is a guy who runs podtacular and is on every show: Foo mo jive. He usually steers clear of those jokes, and I emailed him about it and he said that he would let the guests know to tone the lewdness down a bit. The show doesn't need anything bad added to it in order to make it cool, and it is cool on its own. Click on that player below to see what I mean.

Episode 13: Grenades and Burial Mounds


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