News HaloCustoms Weekly Roundup - 9th Apr '17

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Evening ladies, gentlemen and those of an alternative nature. I invite you to sit down and read this wonderful update.


The Popular Web Series Red vs Blue has been going on for over 20 years and 14 seasons, and season 15 has just started with a whole new story line featuring everyone's favourite machinimated misfits. The Reds and Blues and they've come full circle back to the box canyon of Blood Gulch (again). Expect hi-jinks, hilarity and a whole lot of immature jokes. Watch it a week early on the Roosterteeth website with their First subscription, or wait a week and watch it on YouTube. Watch the trailer here:



343i Interviewed their UX Design Lead Vincent Hui on their website recently, giving us a new insight into what it takes to design and develop the interactive menus and player HUD in the game, how to make a good user experience and keep all of the legions of Halo players happy. Here are a couple of questions that might be of interest:

Q: How do you think about the user experience for a professional or aspiring pro Halo player vs. the day to day “casual” players that enjoy Warzone or Action Sack?

VH: Everyone can agree that they just want to have fun playing Halo. What’s fun for everyone is unique though so understanding where fun overlaps and where it’s in conflict is really important. To complicate things, the same user can be both an aspiring pro and casual player in the same session – you may grind FFA to earn Champion, and then play Action Sack with your friends just to unwind. As players, you shouldn’t really worry about these things. It’s our responsibility to make sure that you all have plenty of ways to experience Halo the way you want to even if you change your mind. Challenging, but that’s fun for me.

Q: With a such a diverse game community and a game itself that offers so many modes and means of customization and personalization, how do you holistically approach the “user experience?” How do you measure success and determine where to prioritize your time and energy?

VH: I want to make sure that we don’t lose things that players liked from previous titles and that when we add things, we don’t disrupt other things unless it’s a clear improvement to players. I also wade through a ton of ideas internally and community posts to make sure we meet these goals. For example, the Content Browser was a plus for those who were interested in it, and it didn’t harm anyone’s else experience. Contrast that with something like adding an animation to the Railgun’s reticle to show that you can let go early to fire? Dicey, but maybe lowering the skill gap slightly is worth trying to teach more people to use it efficiently.

Success for me really comes from player feedback. If we’re doing a good job, I’m confident you’ll let us know just like you would if we’re doing a poor job. Combine that with the data about all the things you do, and we have a good picture about how we can improve. All my time and energy goes towards making sure players are having fun or will have future fun so there’s really no other priority – I work for our players.

Be sure to check out the full interview in 343i's weekly update here


Are you good at Halo? Not as good as this guy. Tony "Lethul" Campbell was recently voted ESPN's "Favourite Esports Pro" besting players from a wide variety of games to face off against a fellow Optic Gaming member FormaL (CoD player, boooooo), beating esports legends such as Daigo "The Beast" Umehara (Street Fighter V) and Faker (League of Legends) to take the top spot in this fan-voted bracket. Watch his spotlight here:



The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) held their annual gaming awards ceremony recently with a wide variety of awards on offer. This is a big thing in the gaming industry as it's one of the more prestigious award ceremonies, it's not exactly the Oscars but it's certainly better than some of the weird gaming awards run by gaming websites or magazines with silly looking award trophies covered in sponsors. They also don;t just award it to whomever paid the most money either which is a nice change. Read the full list of winners below and check out their website here
  • Best Game - Uncharted
  • Artistic Achievement - Inside
  • Audio Achievement - The Last Guardian
  • British Game - Overcooked
  • Debut Game - Firewatch
  • Evolving Game - Rocket League
  • Family - Overcooked
  • Game Design - Inside
  • Game Innovation - That Dragon, Cancer
  • Mobile - Pokémon Go (no surprise there)
  • Multiplayer - Overwatch
  • Music - Virginia
  • Narrative - Inside
  • Original Property - Inside
  • Performer - Cissy Jones (Firewatch)
  • AMD Esports Audience Award - Clash Royale

9a0a06c4f86e3991b808bd80a89b1555.jpg


For our community clip this week, check out these bunch of nice people who ended up in a 4v1 situation and rather than kicking the living daylights out of the poor guy decided to show some sportsmanship and let him get a sweet collateral for his montage. MOM GET THE CAMERA. Kidding aside, it's a nice gesture from these guys, I've been in that situation before and tried to have a bit of fun but it's nearly always spoiled by some kid who thinks they're hot shit getting kills in a 4v1 match to pad their KD.



[Redacted]
 
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front-page-halo-news-png.16504

Evening ladies, gentlemen and those of an alternative nature. I invite you to sit down and read this wonderful update.


The Popular Web Series Red vs Blue has been going on for over 20 years and 14 seasons, and season 15 has just started with a whole new story line featuring everyone's favourite machinimated misfits. The Reds and Blues and they've come full circle back to the box canyon of Blood Gulch (again). Expect hi-jinks, hilarity and a whole lot of immature jokes. Watch it a week early on the Roosterteeth website with their First subscription, or wait a week and watch it on YouTube. Watch the trailer here:



343i Interviewed their UX Design Lead Vincent Hui on their website recently, giving us a new insight into what it takes to design and develop the interactive menus and player HUD in the game, how to make a good user experience and keep all of the legions of Halo players happy. Here are a couple of questions that might be of interest:

Q: How do you think about the user experience for a professional or aspiring pro Halo player vs. the day to day “casual” players that enjoy Warzone or Action Sack?

VH: Everyone can agree that they just want to have fun playing Halo. What’s fun for everyone is unique though so understanding where fun overlaps and where it’s in conflict is really important. To complicate things, the same user can be both an aspiring pro and casual player in the same session – you may grind FFA to earn Champion, and then play Action Sack with your friends just to unwind. As players, you shouldn’t really worry about these things. It’s our responsibility to make sure that you all have plenty of ways to experience Halo the way you want to even if you change your mind. Challenging, but that’s fun for me.

Q: With a such a diverse game community and a game itself that offers so many modes and means of customization and personalization, how do you holistically approach the “user experience?” How do you measure success and determine where to prioritize your time and energy?

VH: I want to make sure that we don’t lose things that players liked from previous titles and that when we add things, we don’t disrupt other things unless it’s a clear improvement to players. I also wade through a ton of ideas internally and community posts to make sure we meet these goals. For example, the Content Browser was a plus for those who were interested in it, and it didn’t harm anyone’s else experience. Contrast that with something like adding an animation to the Railgun’s reticle to show that you can let go early to fire? Dicey, but maybe lowering the skill gap slightly is worth trying to teach more people to use it efficiently.

Success for me really comes from player feedback. If we’re doing a good job, I’m confident you’ll let us know just like you would if we’re doing a poor job. Combine that with the data about all the things you do, and we have a good picture about how we can improve. All my time and energy goes towards making sure players are having fun or will have future fun so there’s really no other priority – I work for our players.

Be sure to check out the full interview in 343i's weekly update here


Are you good at Halo? Not as good as this guy. Tony "Lethul" Campbell was recently voted ESPN's "Favourite Esports Pro" besting players from a wide variety of games to face off against a fellow Optic Gaming member FormaL (CoD player, boooooo), beating esports legends such as Daigo "The Beast" Umehara (Street Fighter V) and Faker (League of Legends) to take the top spot in this fan-voted bracket. Watch his spotlight here:



The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) held their annual gaming awards ceremony recently with a wide variety of awards on offer. This is a big thing in the gaming industry as it's one of the more prestigious award ceremonies, it's not exactly the Oscars but it's certainly better than some of the weird gaming awards run by gaming websites or magazines with silly looking award trophies covered in sponsors. They also don;t just award it to whomever paid the most money either which is a nice change. Read the full list of winners below and check out their website here
  • Best Game - Uncharted
  • Artistic Achievement - Inside
  • Audio Achievement - The Last Guardian
  • British Game - Overcooked
  • Debut Game - Firewatch
  • Evolving Game - Rocket League
  • Family - Overcooked
  • Game Design - Inside
  • Game Innovation - That Dragon, Cancer
  • Mobile - Pokémon Go (no surprise there)
  • Multiplayer - Overwatch
  • Music - Virginia
  • Narrative - Inside
  • Original Property - Inside
  • Performer - Cissy Jones (Firewatch)
  • AMD Esports Audience Award - Clash Royale

9a0a06c4f86e3991b808bd80a89b1555.jpg


For our community clip this week, check out these bunch of nice people who ended up in a 4v1 situation and rather than kicking the living daylights out of the poor guy decided to show some sportsmanship and let him get a sweet collateral for his montage. MOM GET THE CAMERA. Kidding aside, it's a nice gesture from these guys, I've been in that situation before and tried to have a bit of fun but it's nearly always spoiled by some kid who thinks they're hot shit getting kills in a 4v1 match to pad their KD.



[Redacted]
Are you sure they weren't boosting?