Was it ever mentioned if the only way to get this pack is through the Ultimate edition or will it be available to purchase separately?
correct the Halo Reach Character Pack is exclusive to Gears 5 Ultimate Edition - which you can purchase or get via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Honestly surprised they haven't had some sort of Gears themed armour set by now. In fact, before this the only crossover between MS IP's I can think of is the Chief themed costume in Fable 2 and the warthog turning up in Forza.
Non MSFT games:
Still hoping to one day see Chief in Smash :)
WHERE'S MY SUNDAY PEOPLE AT
/wave
Hey, I'm not at the con myself, but my bf is, and mentioned that there will be a tournament going on at noon. Anyway, I was wondering if it is going to be streamed, and if so, where I can watch it :>
Sorry the FFA tournaments in the Gaming Area are not streamed. Hope he does well!
Read moreFirst day, a quick review.
After hearing about how the previous Jen/Steve signings went, we made it our priority to get a ticket to save our place in line. Got to the center about an hour before badge pickup, so we were in the early set of VIP groups.
We went straight to the third floor (where the signature session would be held) and lined up (we were in the first ten). It was only a few minutes before we were told by an Outpost employee that tickets would be given out so that we could spend some time on the floor and come back.
Unfortunately, they refused to hand out tickets until the queue was full (80 people). As I have explained elsewhere, this sucked because the line didn't fill up with 80 people until 1:15.
The main problem is that this meant the first hour for VIP ticket holders was useless if they wanted to get signatures. We made the judgment to just wait it out. While we should have had early access starting at 12, they didn't hand ticket...
glad you had a good time! Good feedback on the ticket process, I'll pass that along.
If anyone has any footage of that super long wheel of fortune game I would love to see it! I was the guy in the watermelon shirt and am trying to find some footage.
Haha wow that was the longest game ever. Fun though
Question for people today to answer and anyone tomorrow too. How are the lines? I would hope by the third one that 343 is doing a better job with them and not letting it be a 2 hour wait time for the VR or Lazer Tag.
Saturday is definitely the busiest day and the lines for most things are certainly longer than Friday or Sunday. The Herschend team has done a good job working on efficiencies but it still takes time to move so many people through - especially the VR experience.
I don’t understand the frustration. Yes it’s annoying that this is happening last minute, however it’s a free opportunity that doesn’t have to exist. A lot of developers don’t offer this to fans. Are we not blessed for the opportunity?
The frustration is understandable. But you’re also right - anyone can opt out of the Halo Insider program at any time and stop reading the updates and hitting F5 for new info. When it lands I’m certain we’ll still have plenty of players excited to jump in and test. All anyone on the team wants is to release the best possible version of Halo: Reach for MCC that does justice to the original and meets the expectations of PC gamers and Halo fans. Thus far, that’s proving to be more challenging and time consuming than anyone expected.
I wish they would give us an estimate and quit blue balling everyone.
Every time we “estimate” then everyone gets amped and starts countdown timers and then... the goal posts move again. We’ve tried estimating with the information we have but it’s never quite worked out thus far. All we can do now is stop estimating and send up the flare once we have a solid go/no-go decision from the team just prior to email invitations going out. The Firefight flight has been on the verge of release for a while, with blocking issues creeping up at the 11th hour each time a new build is evaluated. Waiting sucks, but the team has to take the time to ensure it’s right and that Reach lives up to expectations.
So end of August now?
Ready when it’s ready. We won’t try and predict timing anymore as it’s clearly not been working out for all of us.
Glad they waited until the last possible second to let us down... What is stopping them from telling us earlier that it they wouldn't hit their July prediction? Its literally July 31 in the afternoon, the latest they could wait. Disappointing.
Because the go/no-go decision was just made. Blocking bugs were being worked on up until the last day. Going forward I think we will stop predicting or hinting at any upcoming flight targets as obviously the project is proving to be more unpredictable and challenging than many of us thought and we admittedly keep resetting expectations every time we make a forecast. It’s frustrating on the inside, too. The team just wants to get this into players’ hands.
So many great memories and long nights in this building. Halo 3 media visits, Peter Jackson, playtests with Nathan Fillion, the Bungie podcast, and of course the ske7ch/Frankie studio tour. :) I remember when we took a bus ride there to walk around when it was still an empty hardware store operating as a make shift batting cage place. We were so eager to leave our generic office building. It was an awesome work space - custom designed for maximum creative juice and energy (tho the open floor plan did sometimes lead to mass spreading of colds and some unpleasant aromas). Once the team started to outgrow the space it got tough but for many years it was awesome. RIP 434 Bunker.
I would assume so...we were just on the second floor of a building in some office park.
The old “millennium” business park is indeed still there right by the rock quarry. Not sure if MSFT still operates there but the old Bungie workspace is still standing. (nowhere near as cool and iconic as the 434 Bunker)
Thanks for signing up! Development has been moving slower than anticipated but the team is working towards the next flight (flight #2) which should focus on firefight matchmaking with a much larger audience than flight #1.. Catch up on the MCC monthly dev blogs at Halo Waypoint.
Lol. As everyone else has said, Halo Outpost has absolutely no impact on any game development happening in the studio. The event is run by an entirely separate company - Herschend Live - in close partnership with a handful of folks across the studio (namely the consumer products team, franchise team, and community team).
The only overlap with Reach is the fact that the Reach PC build from the first flight is playable at Outpost in the game area.
We know everyone is eager and anxious for the next flight - trust me, we are just as, if not more, eager to get flight #2 out and get closer to actual release. It's definitely moving a bit slower and taking longer than we would like - hang in there - it'll be worth the wait.
It's definitely a fine line but the team's first priority is staying true to the original experiences - even with little quirks and bugs (some of which have become endearing over time). Duck actually has a little write-up in this month's MCC blog addressing this very topic and an example of a small bug they DID change from the original (after careful consideration).
Awesome to see this finally uncovered! I was pretty surprised it took so long.
Aw man, that is a bummer to hear. Sorry your experience wasn't ideal. I did pick a choose my activities pretty carefully and jumped on any smaller line opportunity I could find. It seems like it can be very hit or miss with wait times and the majority of people will be waiting longer than the times I experienced. I was very lucky day one and I don't expect the same luck today.
The autographs were indeed much smoother but it does leave me feeling for everyone who won't get a chance due to the limitations.
The autographs are always going to be tricky given it's just two people in a room facing thousands of eager fans. I think the approach they took in Philly was fair - first come, first serve - and I like that they gave out the tickets so people didn't have to physically sit in line for 3-4 hours. I know Steve and Jen offered up more time and got through more people than Orlando, too. And they did at least one impromptu stop by the VIP lounge for more mingling.
I’m sorry but did we go to the same Outpost Discovery in Philadelphia? I waited almost 2 hours to play the VR experience. The Covenant Escape room had a line that was over 45 minutes long if you weren’t a solo. The ring experience had a huge line for the first like 4 hours of the convention.
I will say that MOST of the lines were a lot more manageable then what I expected and a lot of them were under 30 minutes after 7pm, but I would expect it to be worse tomorrow since it’s Saturday and they sold out for Saturday like a week ago.
With all of what I said.. I would still tell anyone interested to come to this and try it out. Lines did seem to do better then Orlando and I heard the autographs went a lot smoother although I cannot vouch for that firsthand.
~Athena
Thanks for the feedback Athena! I do know that VR continues to be a bit of a challenge in terms of throughput - while some improvements were made post-Orlando, there's not a whole lot more that can be done given some of the constraints. I did appreciate how they added signage to give guests an indication of the approximate wait times from a given point so you know what you're getting into. I also believe that Covenant Escape had a few hiccups and was down once or twice, which likely contributed to a bit more of a line build-up.
One of the steps Herschend has taken in response to Orlando is to cap the total # of tickets each day to keep the max attendance manageable. Glad that you overall seemed to enjoy the experience!
VIPs also got a backpack and 6 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
Don't sleep on that 6 months of Xbox Game Pass ultimate! Also, the team worked to improve the VIP lounge experience in Philly with food, drinks, and numerous scheduled 343 team meet-ups and a few impromptu visits from Jen and Steve.
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