Going to a Halo 2 Partay

I'm going to a Halo 2 Partay on Friday, that's why I say "yay!" okay?

Seriously. Halo 2 is a seriously fun game, and I'm looking forward to this great opportunity to play it. One of the plusses is that most of the Halo 2 partays I've been to were run by me, so it's nice when someone else has one. I like Halo 2, it rocks my socks and lego blocks.

And I'm bringin' my own controller, I am required to bring "part of a snack or drink." I like the "Team Effort" thing a lot, and what originally drew me into Halo 2 was actually a Halo 2 Partay. At one time I was against me playing Halo 2 because of the whole "shooting guns at each other" thing, but for some reason I went to one and experienced just how much fun it was!

I have some Halo 2 partay stories. There was one where two of the guys got into a "can crushing on head!" contest, one got a minor scratch but no big deal. At another one, when the Pizza Guy arrived, a friend of mine accidently pulled the doorknob off the door in his rush to open it. At this same one was the one where I met the only person I've ever met in real life that I met on Xbox LIVE first, JordanJr. Since he plays LIVE often and can hold his own against top-notch players, understandably he beat the rest of us, comprised of either recreational LIVE players or once-a-month LAN-ers.

Yes, good times. I'll tell ya, if you've never been to an Xbox LAN partay, take the best time you've had on Xbox LIVE and it won't even come close to how much fun a Halo 2 LAN partay is. I've been without LIVE for a few weeks, and I miss it! But I am looking to the future with the Nintendo Wii, and looking forward to this partay!

Any Halo 2 stories you'd like to share?

My Halo 2 Live Story

My Halo 2 LIVE Story takes us back over one full year:

October 2005

SDtektiv is not interested in Halo 2 because of the shootingness. He attends a Halo 2 Partay, has lots of fun.

November 2005

One month later SD has a Halo 2 partay of his own at his own house, it's a blast!

Dec 05-Jan 06

• SD saves his money and considers getting Xbox LIVE with the intention of playing Halo 2 with his friends from school from his own couch.

February 06

• SD purchases Xbox LIVE Starter Kit containing Communicator, Project Gotham Racing 2, and 12-Month Subscription Card.

Late February 06

• SD questions to himself the racy pictures in the packaging, cuts them out and throws them away. SD gets on LIVE and finds non-friendly environment, he considers applying the 30 day refund policy due to slight buyer's remorse.

March 06

• SD joins a Christian Group on Bungie dot net called Ickthus in hopes of finding people to play with. He attends a tournament with this group, visits site, writes down every member's gamertag and sends out friend requests.

Spring 06

• Group slowly begins to fizzle, SD is now in charge of holding Tournaments on LIVE with Ickthus
• SD becomes friends with CRIM50NA55A55IN, together they start Ickthus LIVE clan.
• SD becomes friends with Geechy Yuy, joins clan Risen Phoenix temporarily.
• SD discovers Halo 2 Podcast, named "Podtacular." He listens to the show and takes note of the incredible amount of unprocessable tips and advice for Halo 2. He joins forums, finds friendliness, no cussing, etc. He requests a Clan Invite for a "Rec" clan. He recieves a Clan invite from Da L0C, arguably the actual Overlord at heart, though the nomial Overlord is nowhere to be found at this point.

Summer 06

• Podtacular Podcast becomes raunchier, forum signatures contain more sexy pictures, SD tries to chip away at these things through Private Messages and it is initially accepted with no hard feelings. The raunchiness and sexy pics die down only to resurge in fragments later on.
• Crazed Penguin suggests to Foomojive that as leader of Podtacular he should visit all the Rec Clans instead of staying in one. Foomojive accepts and moves to Rec B. Rec C and Rec D (well maybe just SD) get into an argument about who will accept Foomo with the openest arms. Stealth Zealot jokingly hints a Clan Challenge.
• SD presents an original rap at this event, which based on good feedback will lead SD to prepare raps for a few Podtacular LIVE events including a few that aren't even his own events! (thanks guys!)
• Rec D challenges Rec C and wins, this challenge spawned a season of Rec Clans in Podtacular Challenging each other which is still going to this day.
• SD acquires "Staff" status and the general approval of Podtacular, a few tips were read on the Podcast.
• The bad jokes and signatures resurge, SD questions if it's the right place for him though feels emotionally attached to Podtacular.
• SD slowly gets more vocal about it, members slowly get more disliking of SD.

Early Fall 2006

• SD gets as vocal as he possibly can, realizes that he's not strong enough to stay.
• SDtektiv leaves Podtacular, surprised at the amount of people who say they'll miss him.
• Begins search for new Halo 2 Community. Considers Clan of Bobs but doesn't agree with all their policies. Considers Lambclan but doesn't want to change his emblem. Searches and searches and lands in a new group called "Christian Video Gaming."
• Leads a "Free-For-All Fun night."

Late Fall 2006

• Attends a "Wacky Gametypes Night." Branches out and visits various Christian group forums, finds friends. Still plays with folks from Podtacular and asks about how Rec D is doing (you gotta represent).
• Watches "Major League Gaming" Halo 2 TV show on USA, is impressed with the show but turned off by overly sexualized commercials that air during the show (the boose mobile ones)
• Sends email to them about it and expects them to take the commercials off because SD thinks that they'll get lots of complaints about this. Commericials continue. Emails continue. No response.
• SD decides to make a blog post about it and go around to various Halo 2 communities and ask for those who've stopped watching the show to let MLG know about it. A few agreed, a few questioned, most gently disagreed, but Podtacular reacted differently and tore SD up, then locked the thread.
• SD moves on and forgives Podtacular on the inside, but never reaches out to another group at the same level again.

December 2006

• SD associates himself at a distance from various groups, fearing similar reactions, and is only truly open in Christian Halo 2 groups.
• Developes an interest in the Nintendo Wii after trying it at a GameStop, aspires to start his own Podcast, and aspires to be a good Blogger. Considers cancelling his LIVE account in February, as he is no longer interested in an Xbox 360. (see other posts)

If I'm going to be playing a Nintendo Wii and not the Xbox, the extra $50 from not paying for another 12 months of LIVE will help pay for a Wii. Microsoft seems to be the sort of company that might do something dumb like not let original Xbox owners play Halo 2 on LIVE since they are coming out with new 360-only maps.

• SD spills his Halo 2 Story, and appreciates it for what it has been. Hats off to my LIVE friends.

It's been a good run. I got my money's worth, and I had no idea that there was so much to this "Halo 2 on Xbox LIVE thing." Thanks guys for all the good times, and I'll play with you until February 2007. Some of you I might not hear your voices again until the next life, but until then, it's SD, signing off.

Camit

Definition: A player with Active Camo

A party I was in made this word up, and I thought that it would be good and practical for at least my circle of friends to use. "Enemy Camit" takes a lot less time to say than "Enemy with Active Camo". And we all know I need all the help I can get spitting the right words out in the heat of battle!

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.

Tip for Teams: Steal Each other's Kills in Halo 2

The accusation of "You stole my kill" to a teammate may lead to team members holding off on assisting other players in a game of Team Slayer. I'd submit that it doesn't matter which person on your team the game attributes the kill to. As long as it's a point for your team, it did its job. Imagine how much faster your team could get points if all four members shot at one target at a time! You could kill the enemy almost instantly, which means that the person he was firing at will have less damage and will live longer. Which person the game attributed the kill to is not so important that one must hold back or complain if someone killed the person they were dueling. In essence, you wanted the point for your team, and your teammate helped you reach your goal.

Imagine if one particular teammate did such tactics that were helpful to their teammates that didn't reflect his or her score. A teammate could be calling out enemy locations, driving the Warthog so the gunner could get kills, or dual wielding Plasma Pistols in order to get as many enemies' sheilds down as possible for teammates to pick up. All of those tactics accelerate a team's point-getting, yet by the postgame carnage report no one would know that this player was even helping his team because his score wouldn't be high.

A team works best when players care more about winning as a team than showing off and getting glory and attention.

A Successful BTB Skirmish Game (it's true!)

I had a great time last night when me and a crew decided to enter the playlist "Big Team Battle Skirmish" aka BTB Skirmish. I know what you're wondering what I was thinking, because I too have been in laggy Big Team Battle games in the past, but this one worked out really well.

It was Assault on Headlong.

It was pretty cool, our team played defense first and after two sucessful defensings and one unsuccessful (offendings?) offensive strike, because I decided to try a strategy a friend told me about where you rush with the bomb through the teleporter, jump down, and enter the base within the first 20 seconds of the game by yourself and arm it while the enemy is still getting it's weapons, it didn't work because there was someone at the arming position. However, if I had waited to have a few people on my team catch up with me, it probably would have worked!

The next offensive round I decided to let someone else hold the bomb. It was really exciting when my teammate was arming the bomb and I was fighting to keep the enemy team from running up the ramps in a rush to stop him. Our team worked together and managed to protect the arming area while STO1C 1 armed the bomb! Even if we weren't successful in arming it, it would've been a good game anyway.

The secret? Entering with a full team of 8 or maybe even 7.

Below is a link to the stats of the game. You'll notice that there's some sketchy names of some of the people on the other team. When I see people with bad gamertags, I kinda feel sorry for them because when you call Xbox LIVE customer support, the first thing they ask is "What's your problem?" and then "What's your gamertag?". Awkward! (for those with bad gamertags), but since I had a good gamertag I got the pleasure of shortly explaining that it's my initials combined with an extra sound to create the sound "ess detective"). So leaving the feedback "Bad Name" on someone with a bad name, might actually be doing them a favor!

http://www.bungie.net/Stats/GameStats.aspx?gameID=588360261&player=SDtektiv

Carbine Tip Read w00t!

I was excited because they read my Carbine tip on Podtacular! Yay! Honestly, my heart skipped a beat when my tip was read, so here you go:

The tip was read at the 35th minute, you'll know it's my tip when the person reads it and says "SDtektiv says..."

Podtacular Episode 76

powered by ODEO

Contention on Foundation

Ever been in a game and you are doing a really good job of staying invisible while helping your team a lot and you get that feeling in your gut of "I hope the other team doesn't mis-take me for cheating."? Well I did get that feeling in a specific game. I was playing a great session with some folks from Podtacular (shoutout!) and we went to a one-territory game on Foundation. What happened was that the whole blue team flooded in to take the territory (located in the smack-dab middle of the map).

While this was about to happen, I was sittin' in the little house-dealy and I backed up into one of the corners, instead of trying to kill any of them. They didn't see me for a while so they were all in there in saying, "how come it won't let us take the territory!?" It turns out that it is possible to take the middle territory while being backed up into one the corners of the "house", you don't have to be standing right on top of the "flag spot" in order to take a territory, and you can keep the other team from taking the territory as well. So it worked out great! The other members of the team would be killing all the blue guys coming in, while I stayed in there to keep the territory from being contested.

I imagine that they must've been flabbergasted when a member of my team would stand on the "flag spot" while I hid in the corner, that the territory was still being taken even though they killed the only guy (that they could see) trying to take it. I'm sorry if I made the other team mad, but I had to do what I thought would get the win!

The other members of my team definetly did most of the work, I was only a small part in a big picture.

http://www.bungie.net/Stats/GameStats.aspx?gameID=496560429&player=SDtektiv

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!