11 Things to do waiting in Halo 2

1. Drop and give me 20! Push-ups of course. I actually did this once when I was waiting for someone to finish their matchmade game. You'd be surprise what a difference it makes, especially if you were tired. It really woke me up and made me alert.
2. Read a few Verses. From the Bible. With Proverbs you can read one at a time and can just stop reading when you need to, it's like a bunch of Chinese Fortune-Cookie Proverbs in one place, except they're Jewish.
3. Create a Gametype. One thing you could do is visit http://h2g.halo2webring.com, copy-paste a few of the gametypes you like onto a Word document, print it out, and next time you're just sitting in the menu, you'll have a few gametypes to make.
4. Let's play "Go get a snack". Why not?
5. Watch some TV. After all you're in the right place for it! Just be in a pregame lobby, have it set to "Invite only", invite all who you want to join your party, and then change the channel! Make sure you keep your headset on so that you can hear them when they join the party.
6. Two words: Rumble. Training. I call this one an "all-purpose" playlist. You can ask your friend to message you when he's done and tell him that you'll quit the game and join him when he sends the message. You can also use this playlist if you have 7 people or whatever and don't know what to do.
7. Write a Rap. Just for fun. Try it. It can be about anything, like having to wait for people to finish their game! Then you can present it to them, providing they aren't prejudiced or uber-critical towards you. I find that the less time I've known the person, the more open they are towards me rapping.
8. Manage your friends list. It's always good to be in control of who's on your friends list and who's not. There's a 100 limit to how many people you can have on it, and maybe there are some people you were wanting to send a friend request to.
9. Look at your Recent Players list and leave feedback on bad gamertags. Hey, if you have the time, and aren't getting a snack, it couldn't hurt to do your part in the Halo 2 universe.
10. My life is good. real good... Go away. Read some books! If you've gotten this far down the list, chances are you might be waiting for awhile! Perhaps maybe you could check out some of the chives of this blog, ar-chives that is.
11. Speaking of which, how about working on your Nacho Libre Impersonation?

Two New Forum Signatures on Halo2Junk!

http://halo2.junk.ws is a Halo 2 stats website offering a variety of free services. One of which is forum signatures!

Recently they had a contest in their community to see who could come up with the best new signature design. They decided to have two winners, and their designs are awesome. Here is my favorite so you can see the awesome design and my less-than-awesome stats!

This particular one was designed by genoc1de. The other one is pretty cool too. This one rocks my socks off!

Letters to Major League Gaming: "Cool Show, Bad Commericials"

This blog post shows four emails I've sent to Major League Gaming in this month. If you're reading a blog about Halo 2, chances are you've seen the show on TV or at least heard about it. All my thoughts on it were sent in these emails, and I said I wanted to publish their thoughts on the unneccessary sexy commericials that air each week with the show, but there was no reply.

I show all four emails separate from each other in chronological order. I have not added anything in or taken anything out (that's why it says "read on").

Sent on Saturday, November 11th 2006 to pr@mlgpro.com Email Count: 1. Days since last email: n/a. Days since first email: n/a.

Subject: TV Show Good, but bad commercials

Dear Major League Gaming,

I recently watched the first TV episode of your TV show. I was surprised at how cool it was and how seamlessly it showed multiple simultaneous events occuring during the matches. I never thought that a TV show about people playing Halo 2 could actually be that exciting. I also liked the interviews and the overhead and third-person-view recaps. In short, the show was awesome! I liked everything put into the show!

Though I liked the show a lot, I'm probably not going to watch it again because of the sexy commericials. "Boost Mobile" or whatever must be pretty desperate and not very confident in their products if they resort to sexually arousing gamers in order to sell their phones. The Halo 2-related commericials were pretty funny though, and it makes me sad because there's lots of great things in the show that interest me and I know eventually I'll get tired of switching the channel during every commercial break and hoping to switch back at the right time, and would end up watching the commercials, so that's why I wouldn't watch the show.

To put it bluntly, producers have for years been working up their potential consumers into having erections in order to sell products, and this is nothing new. I have enough temptation from my imagination and from everywhere else. I am willing to bet that you and them are more concerned about making money than about your potential viewers concerns, so I guess that's it. I wouldn't be surprised if you're secretly or publicly laughing at me for writing this, because I've tried being honest with things from the media about what I actually want versus what they think I want, and why should you be any different?

The TV show rocks! I liked it very much and I hope the show keeps doing what it's doing, but if it came without the sexy commericials I would actually watch it again. Until then, I guess your viewers will have to choose between not watching the show or watching it and hoping that they can have enough will to change to channel, and hoping that their friends and parents won't walk in during a sexy commercial.

-SDtektiv (pronounced "S Detective"), Age 16
PS: this email and your response will be published on the internet after your response is sent, so please choose your words carefully.

------------------

No reply

------------------

Sent on Friday, November 17 to pr@mlgpro.com Email Count: 2. Days since last email: 6. Days since first email: 6.

Subject: Feedback MLG TV WATCHER

Dear Major League Gaming,

I sent an email to you on Saturday, today is Friday. This email probably challenged you, and I hope you understand that I'm not angry with you or anything, I just want to be able to enjoy a cool TV show without having it be ruined by sexual commericials. I want you to have as much time as you need, up until Wednesday, to make a response, and if you are actually recieving this, please let me know. IF I AM SENDING THIS TO THE WRONG EMAIL, please let me know which email address I should send this to. I thought that sending it to your "Public Relations" email address would be the best way to go, but maybe you can help me by telling me which place to send it to.

I'm not trying to slander MLG, I just want to encourage you that you don't have to use sexy commericials, because your show is going to be very successful anyways. Perhaps I was being too hopeless in the first email, I'm not believing in you guys enough, I'm sure that you do have the public's interests in mind, so if you do, PLEASE reply. But just know that I'm planning to post your response so that other people can also know.

Anyway, below is the message I sent to you last Saturday.

I'm sure there's a chance you're just having a lot of email coming in, please get back to me as soon as you can!

-SD
Gamer, Age 16

------------------

No Reply

------------------


Sent on Friday, November 24 to mlg@sutherlandgold.com Email Count: 3. Days since last email: 7. Days since first email: 13.

Subject: MLG watcher's thoughts

Hey MLG,

It's been thirteen days since I sent that first email, and I've been opening my email almost everyday in hope of seeing a response. Since I haven't gotten a response, I'm going to try sending it to another one of your listed contact email addresses, and I hope that the right person gets it this time! It would be very helpful to your fans if you would just tell us when we've sent it to the wrong email. After 6 days of waiting I sent you another email with a copy of the first email included.

I was really hoping to hear what you had to say on the controversial topic

-SD

Read on to see what the first two emails were about, and please respond accordingly. I hope to inform others on it because my friends who were watching the show were wondering the same thing.

------------------

No Reply

------------------

Sent on Tuesday, November 28 to pr@mlgpro.com Email Count: 4. Days since last email: 4. Days since first email: 17.

Subject: no longer watching your TV Show

Dear MLG,

I have tried.

I am tired of watching your quality program and having it ruined by the sexualized commericials that come with it every single week. Because of this I will no longer watch your show! In addition to this, I will not visit your website, I will not buy any of your products or clothes or anything else you have on your website. I will not support Boost Mobile or even think about it! I will significantly reduce the amount of I watch the channel "USA Networks". Though there was nothing wrong in the GameStop Commericials, because they are sponsoring you, GameStop is now my last choice on where I buy video game consoles and supplies, and I will never again praise your TV show and I will encourage my friends, who are also upset by your commericials, to be proud that they've stopped watching your TV Show as well.

-SD
Age 16

----------------------

SDtektiv's comments: if you agree that sexy commercials are unneccessary and unrelated to the Major League Gaming show, and either you wish they would change it or you've decided to stop watching the show and not buy their products, I encourage you to email them at their "Public Relations" email address: pr@mlgpro.com and let them know they're losing your money.

5 Players: "Phantom Fodder" on Foundation

After not being able to find a match, I thought it would be fun to play some custom games with the great people I had in the party. Now I don't normally play custom games all that often, I've liked the mystery of going into matchmaking with a team and not knowing what you're up against. There were only five people but we had some awesome gameage, and I think it was a combination of them being great friends and the Gametypes working for it.

First we played a variant that has become a favorite of mine, "Sniperball", this time on Midship. Sniperball is Oddball, take all the weapons, turrets, vehicles off the map, give everyone a Sniper and Beam Rifle to spawn with, and give the oddball carrier Damage Resistance and Normal Movement. Sometimes it feels like the ball carrier has an overshield.

Next we played a built-in game variant, "King" (King of the Still Hill) on Beaver Creek. It felt like there were two separate competitions going on. One between the top two players and the Second competition was between the other three to not get last place! The smaller map worked perfectly.

Lastly we played a juggernaut variant called "Phantom Fodder" on Foundation. Believe it or not this gametype comes with the game so you don't need to create it. Basically, everyone has Active camouflage except the Juggernaut. And the Juggernaut has Oversheild and a Motion Sensor. First five kills wins a round. First to win three rounds wins?

Next time I have a great party on LIVE, I'll have respect for custom games as not just a place to goof around, but also a good place to have fun and competitive matches.

EGM Halo 3 Issue Dissappoints

I'm sure you've heard all about it. How there's all these screenshots and information on Halo 3 in the issue. I'm sure you've been encouraged to go out and buy it and read it. "You haven't read it yet?" is probably a thing you may have been asked.

Last night my conscience got to me and I threw away the magazine and spit on it.

Though the Halo 3 content is good, you can find out most of the information that is in the magazine online. And then there is the thing that makes me wish I had never bought it. What you can't tell from the seemingly-clean cover about this magazine is that the magazine is filled with sexy images. Porn. The definition of pornography is "writings, pictures, etc. intended to stimulate sexual arousal." There's plenty of that in there, and I was so disgusted I wished that it came with a warning. Because of the plastic cover of the magazine, I couldn't even flip through it to check if there was anything bad in it. There was.

There was even a few paragraphs and pictures on a particular page in Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), about how they believe that "gaming and naked girls go together...". They really don't relate to each other at all. I just had to say something in hopes that someone who was considering getting the magazine would be swayed not to. I know it's hard since it's Halo 3.

Heck I even cried because I was so angry and frustrated. I just wish that all the things I'm interested in with Halo didn't have to come with porn. After all, the game doesn't.

inv plz

After a few months of having LIVE, I realized that it was difficult to listen to voice messages during games, post-game, pregame... hey, the only time I could really listen to a voice message was either in a lobby by myself or in the menu!

Upon realizing this, I decided to express my thoughts in text messages. Text messages in Halo 2 are clear and concise and get the point across.

But take a long time to type! This is why I would shorten everything. "Invite me when you are finished please" became "inv wen d0ne p". I soon decided to switch the shorter and more comical "inv pee". That was a lot of fun. I imagined people's reactions and such but I'm sure they understood completely...

Now most of the time I just say "i". I know it might be lazy but what else would someone have to say. I don't even have to say "i w d p" (invite when done please) since they aren't going to recieve the message until they're "done"!

New Halo 2 Friend's List "Feature"!

Many of you readers may have noticed a new phenomena in Halo 2 on Xbox LIVE. After playing a match, and proceeding back to the pregame lobby, press the "Y" button to look at your friends list and watch all the events that unfolded on your friends list during the game play out in a matter of seconds. Add a techno beatbox "ooonsss"-er and ya got yerselves your very own sound-and-light show!

I'm not sure if this is on accident or on purpose, but truth is there is a bright side to this, aside from this new feature which will surely give Xbox LIVE players bragging rights, you don't have to worry about recieving messages from your friends during a game. Even if they send you messages during the game, your motion sensor will be safe from the popping up of pesky rectangles. Indeed, the only active camo sound effect you shall hear during the game would be from picking up Active Camo.

Sometimes I would try my thumbs at the untactical task of messaging my friends during games, but now my only worry is that people might think I'm ignoring them. I hope that I can still recieve messages during Custom Games! Well I'll be safe because I send party invites to all my friends anyways!

Wacky Gametypes with CVG

I recently participated in an event with my Halo 2 Clan "CVG Disciples". It was a lot of fun! We played "follow-the-rules" gametypes for about 3 hours and everyone followed the rules specific to the gametype with no problems (well of course since it's a Christian clan). A few of the gametypes we played were Tremors, which imitates the feature film, Cat And Mouse, Zombies, Zombie Hill, and a a few new ones I hadn't played before called "President" and "Lava Monster." Because of the follow-the-rules nature of the games, I usually don't play these very often on LIVE, saving them for Halo 2 Xbox LAN partays.

It was a great time and good theme for an event. It's a new group so we've had two events so far: a "Free For All Fun Night" and this "Wacky Gametypes Night." When I was a part of Podtacular I would present raps about events for the event, and so this time I got to present my rap about wacky gametypes.

Here's the end of it for your enjoyment.

In Zombies we must. Defend this house.

But we must drive away. In Cat and Mouse.

In half-hour Tower of Power the frame-rate can be lame like

I can't think of any other wacky gametypes

I bet we got some aggressive and some tame types

I bet Miller's happy that you all came right?

Not knowing many people in the clan was lame like

it was time to have a Halo 2 event with crazy gametypes

Five 100% Hand-Drawn Forum Signatures

I felt like posting something random so I decided to reminisce on some "100% Hand-Drawn Forum Signatures" I drew for some of my friends from Podtacular back-in-the-day. Enjoy!

My favorite is either Decoded Feedback: "Side-seat of Arnold's Chopper" or beasting: "Diving Master Cheif!" I hope you like them!

I hope you liked them! An experienced blogger I respect suggested I develop my own header... I wonder if a Hand-Drawn Header would look good?

Ranks: Do Pretty Numbers Dictate your Decisions?

One thing I hear sometimes is "Let's play something ranked!" or "Let's play something unranked!" The only problem I have with this statement is that all playlists are ranked to match you up with equally experienced players of that playlist. This is to make it so that it is challenging to play the game! The only two differences between ranked and unranked is that one allows guests and doesn't show the pretty numbers.

So, if there's no guests in the party, then that would mean that someone wants to play a certain playlist based on whether they can see the sweet-lookin' number next to the Gamertags or not. My opinion on this is that it shouldn't be about whether you can see a number next to your name or not, it should be about which playlists have the gametypes you wanna play. If you want to play snipers, play "Team Snipers", don't let the fact that the number appears next to your name stop ya!

The numbers will mean nothing 10, 5, and even 1 year from now. You can't put it on your resume, and unfortunately they don't impress girls. The numbers are for our enjoyment though. I might consider attempting to get at least rank 15 in every "shownnumber" playlist this Christmas Break.It's okay to get excited when the number goes higher, but just remember to have a great time as you play, ranked or not.

Bad Reason(s) to play a certain playlist:

1. It shows/doesn't show the number!

Good reasons to play a certain playlist

1. The amount of people in our party matches the number of players per team
   
2. The gametypes we want to play are in this playlist
   
3. We can't find a match fast enough in a certain playlist so we're switching the playlist
   
4. The gametypes of this playlist are similar to a LAN tournament/party I'm planning to go to and I wanna be ready!
   
5. I've had lots of good experiences in this playlist in the past

In conclusion, don't let ranks be your master.

I wish you good games in whatever playlists you choose to play this week, whatever the reason!

My Halo 2 Emblem: The Explanation

I used to change my emblem constantly, then I made this one, and it stuck. If you view my stats online you'll notice that the emblem will be slightly different, this is because this is one that makes a part of it disappear by pressing the "X" button when selecting the emblem type.

When I first made it, a few people had different ideas on what it was, though my only intention was to make a cool design. A few of their explanations of it were: A leaf, A lime, an eye, and my favorite because it relates to my gamertag, "a brown suit and tie".

I can see how having an emblem that relates to your gamertag would help your team in-game!

halo2.junk.ws

A cool website to view Halo 2 overall stats, stats of specific games, compare your stats to other users, and see how much you've been playing!

http://halo2.junk.ws
is a cool website where Halo 2 players upload their gamertags and view their stats in-depth on the internet. A main service it also provides are cool rectangles with various stats and medals on them. People use them as signatures on forums.

I have to note that they have done an excellent job of making the site run well, and there are cool things you wouldn't think of. For example, I looked at the "Game Viewer" which allows you to view your game stats similar to Bungie dot net, except that in addition to the list form, similar to what you'd see as Bungie dot net stats of a Halo 2 LIVE player, there is a "Calendar" form, which shows a calendar of the month with the amount of games played on each day. I showed this to my mom and noted that in the stats it said that the average length of a game I play is 7 minutes--so that it would make more sense out of how it said "12 games" on one day. 12 x 7 = 84 minutes, then you have to add in the in-between time which probably ends up being around 100 minutes. I don't know, I think it's a good feature to let me know if I'm getting carried away with the Halo 2 playing. I want it to always be fun and if people take it too far they can become jaded and bored with it. I think it's cool.

Anyway, back to talking about the cool website

Here's an example of one their in-depth game-viewer pages:

http://halo2.junk.ws/?opt=forms/game&game=15240161

A trend I noticed is that the top three players seem to have a similar Kill-Death Ratio, it's just that one of them had more Kills and Deaths. Though the deaths are really important in 4v4 games, I guess it doesn't really matter as much in Free For All how much you die as long you get to 25 kills first.

Update Nuggets: November 15th 2006

Little updates on what's going on and what to look for on this blog in the future.

Communities Spotlights
I think that sometime in the future I might do a series of blog entries featuring a different Halo 2 community in each post in order to help people find the right group for them. I hope to be very objective about this IF I decide to do it.

Halo 2 Partay!
Last weekend I had a Halo 2 Partay! It was awesome! We had three Xboxes hooked up to each other and 12 players all fighting each other at once. Some of the best parts about it, as usually with Halo 2 Partays, is that there was no lag, and the people you are playing with are people you know, it's a lot of fun. You could almost just not have Xbox LIVE and just have Halo 2 Partays every now and then.

Community Spotlight (hey is there an echo in here?)
No, I'm not repeating myself, I'm just saying that I'm happy because I'm going to be featured in a Community Spotlight on Games in Action (http://www.gamesinaction.com). I've already answered one round of questions and now I'm just looking for the follow-up questions, I suspect that Johnrap will post it on their forum after I answer the questions. I was in another community for 6 months and I didn't get spotlighted at all, now I'm in this new community for just a month and now I'm being spotlighted? Sweet!

Design a new Halo weapon for fun Contest!
Another thing happening at Games in Action is a Halo weapon/vehicle contest. The idea is to create, draw and/or render a vehicle or weapon you invent that relates to Halo. There's an announcement on their site if you're into that sort of thing (on the Games in Action website), there's a link above. I believe that the prize for the contest is Halo 3 when it comes out. I've been working on a unique weapon design and I'll post about it here when I get done with it!

New Halo 2 maps... to come out for Xbox 360?
I read on the Bungie (studio that makes Halo games) main page (http://www.bungie.net), that they are creating new Halo 2 Multiplayer Maps!--Yay! WHAT!--...only available for Xbox 360? It's no wonder that in their article on it, Bungie stated that Microsoft makes these decisions! I thought that Halo 2 was an XBOX 1 game? I'm confused now. Halo 2 runs better on an original XBOX than it does on an Xbox 360, this doesn't make sense. With the ridiculous price of the 360 and sketchy marketing deals (ripping people off with the "Core" edition that you have to buy a hard drive for 100 dollars to play games anyway), this could seriously be the thing that sets me over the edge to buy the Nintendo Wii. It's starting price is said to be $250. Almost reasonable, and plus they don't appear to be ripping us off.

New Halo 2-related Quotes
If you've been reading this blog, you may have noticed that at the top of the blog there is a Halo 2-related quote. I found out how to put it in, and I think there's around 8 or 9 quotes that I've "told it" to randomly select one from, and it puts it at the top of the page, when I first put this feature in, I would just sit there pressing "refresh" every five seconds to read the quotes.

Christian Halo 2 Communities?
Sounds corny doesn't it? Well it's mainly about just finding people to play with who you can have fun with. Plus, some of the best games I've played on LIVE can be attributed to that I was playing with some people, we just got along for some reason, and I didn't even know they were Christians until a long time after I first met them on LIVE! Yeah, it's corny, it sounds unfitting, it doesn't make sense. Fragging for our Father? Tactical Jumping for Jesus? Sniping the Snot out of Sin? (sorry guys I couldn't resist). Truth is we're not out to change the "Halo Nation"

(though we might inadvertantly, considering the state of what you run into on LIVE, that wouldn't be such a bad thing),

we're just out to have a good time on LIVE and have a great time playing a great game, just like anyone else. Having a place to go to is the thing that made LIVE worth it and suddenly I no longer regretted not getting a refund in the first 30 days. So basically, I agree with you, it doesn't make sense, but what's more important? Making sense to some random strangers on the internet or having fun?

Neutral Arena CTF: A Fun Gametype

It's Neutral Flag CTF with some major twists to it. I submitted it to H2Gametypes and I'm telling you about it because I've tried it out a few times and it works well!

Taken from the Gametype Submission


Special Instructions, Rules, and Comments:
This is a new game that takes Neutral Capture-the-Flag to a new dimension.

With a 10-minute time limit on the game, and an unlimited amount of flag captures, it turns into a strategical, 10-minute race for points. It's important to note that with the flag indicator always off, and a 60-second flag respawn, you can choose to hide the flag from the enemy, or drop the flag in order to fight them.

When you are ahead in points, the question is: Do we hold the flag near our base and protect the person in order to keep the enemy team from scoring, or do we go ahead and score it with the possibility of the enemy getting a score?

It's up you how you play it. I encourage you to try this game out at a LAN party or with some close friends, and as always, if one team is total PWNage and the other team is composed of "padawan learners", even up the teams!

I hope you enjoy the gametype and give it a try!

Best if played on the following maps:
Foundation, Warlock, Sanctuary


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to create this game variant:

1.) From the "Select Game" menu, Select: Capture the Flag

2.) From the "Select Variant" menu, Select: 1 Flag CTF

3.) From the "Edit 1 Flag CTF" menu, change the following options. Please note that only the non-default options will be shown. Any setting that is selected by default, you will not have to change to setup this game variant.
Match Options
Number of Rounds: 1 Round
Score to Win Round: Unlimited
Round Time Limit: 10 Minutes
Player Options
No changes are necessary
Team Options
Team Changing: Off
Capture the Flag Options
Flag Type: Neutral Flag
Sudden Death: Off
Flag Reset Time: 60 Seconds
Flag Indicator: Off
Vehicle Options
No changes are necessary
Equipment Options
Starting Weapon: Magnum
Weapons on Map: Rifles

The 'Official' Gametype Page

Try it out and let me know what you think!