Halo Wars HQ all News Posts

Fall Update Preview

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:20:24 GMT

Xbox LIVE Update Preview
Sign up now for a chance to preview the new features coming to Xbox LIVE like Zune, Facebook, and Twitter.

Halo Encyclopedia

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:41:59 GMT

Halo Encyclopedia details the whole series and will be released on October 19th, 2009.

Halo Encyclopedia is packed with hundreds of images, illustrations, and technical drawings that highlight all the information fans and newcomers to the game need to know.

Created in full collaboration with Microsoft Game Studios and guardians of all things Halo, 343 Industries, the Halo Encyclopedia is the first official reference book to give fans a comprehensive guide to the Halo Universe.

From the characters to the history, the weapons to the locations, Halo Encyclopedia reveals everything you need to know from Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo: Wars and the latest installment Halo 3: ODST.

With brand new artwork for the cover and Frank O’Connor’s foreword, this 352 page guide covers the following key chapters:

1. Timeline

2. Humans

3. Spartans

4. The Covenant

5. The Flood

6. The Forerunners

7. The Human-Covenant War

8. Science and Technology

9. Transport

10. Locations

11. Weapons

Fight Like A Girl 2009

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 08:45:03 GMT

The Fight Like A Girl Halo 3 Tournament (F.L.A.G.) is being held October 17 and 18 over Xbox LIVE. F.L.A.G. raises money for breast and cervical cancer research. Every dollar donated from the tournament goes toward finding a cure for diseases that affect thousands of women every year.

Fight Like A Girl for breast and cervical cancer research.

Presented as an annual event by THE DON WAN and Zoom Demon, registration is now open for this year’s tournament, and it includes three different game types: free for all, 2v2, and 4v4. Join the fight, donate to a great cause, and fight like a girl in the tournament. You could also win some cool prizes from the ever-expanding list of donations.

Register NOW for the Tournament! http://flagtournament.com/register/

You can sign up for the Free-For-All, a Single or Team entry for 2v2 competition, a Single or Team entry for 4v4 competition, or a Triple Event Pass which provides a single entry for all three event types. Or you can just donate, and all major credit cards are accepted.

Halo: Legends

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 22:25:07 GMT

Halo Legends

Halo Legends, which officially debuted at a panel presentation at Comic-Con International in San Diego, is being produced by Microsoft's 343 Industries and features creative direction from anime pioneer Shinji Aramaki, director of the critically acclaimed Appleseed and Appleseed EX Machina anime features, and Mamoru Oshii, director of the landmark Ghost in the Shell movies, with additional production from Joseph Chou of J-Spec Pictures. The compilation will include a series of short stories that explore different times, themes and characters from the Halo universe and will be distributed globally by Warner Home Video, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. company. Influential studios that are part of the project include the creators behind some of the most popular and celebrated anime to come from Japan, such as The Animatrix, Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist, Ghost in the Shell, Dragon Ball and more.

"The opportunity to work with talents such as Shinji Aramaki, Mamoru Oshii and others from some of the greatest anime studios is a very rare opportunity for Microsoft," said Frank O'Connor, Halo franchise development director and provider of story and creative direction for 343 Industries. "We've seen the world through Master Chief's eyes, and we've experienced facets of the universe through a variety of literary prisms, but now we get to watch new tales unfold in really rich, visually dynamic ways. I think anime fans and Halo fans alike are in for a real treat."

Set hundreds of years in the future, the Halo series of games and novels chronicle mankind's struggles against an alien collective known as the Covenant. The Covenant is scouring the universe for relics it believes will lead it to a new life and is destroying civilizations and planets that stand in its way. The most prolific hero from the fiction is a super soldier or Spartan known as Master Chief, who is the main protagonist in the original trilogy of Xbox and Xbox 360 Halo titles. In the trilogy, Master Chief discovers that the Covenant is intent on activating a series of mysterious ring worlds known as "Halos," which would ultimately exterminate life throughout the universe. He becomes mankind's champion in a race against an unrelenting enemy in its most desperate hour. Through The New York Times best-selling novels, comics and additional Xbox 360 games such as Halo Wars and the upcoming Halo 3: ODST, the universe has grown and tales of other heroes have emerged.

"Halo and its characters are a very natural fit for anime," said Aramaki, creative director for the Halo Legends project. "As a fan of the Halo universe, it is an honor to work with Microsoft and my very talented peers from other studios to create this collection."

Halo Waypoint

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 21:50:59 GMT

Launching Fall 2009, Halo Waypoint is a new destination on Xbox LIVE for Halo fans around the world. It will inform fans of the latest Halo news and activities, and grant access to content ranging from interviews, trailers and screenshots, to exclusive video footage and community content that you won’t find anywhere else. It will also provide a new challenge for Halo gamers with a career system tied to in-game accomplishments across multiple Halo games. Halo Waypoint will provide a dynamic experience that continues to grow and expand with new content updated regularly.

ODST Community Weekend

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 03:15:40 GMT

Halo 3: ODST has dropped! If you’ve played the game you’ll know that working together with your squad members is crucial, and on the weekend of October 9/10 ODST troopers from all across Europe will be coming together to defeat the Covenant horde! Check out the community events happening in your country below and visit the sites to sign up. Double time trooper – the UNSC is depending on you!

Firefight Competition on MSXbox-world

Think you and three others have got what it takes to challenge the Covenant scum in Halo 3: ODST Firefight mode, then look no further as Msxbox-World are hosting a Firefight challenge over the weekend of 10/11th of October 2009. All you need to do is make a team of hardened players (minimum 1 maximum 4) who can participate on Xbox Live over that weekend and try and obtain the highest team score possible. How you get the highest score is up to you, so if you want to play on a particular map on easy or hard then that's your call. You'll have the entire weekend to try and best your score with the highest being submitted by your team leader at 12 am GMT on the 12th October (or before). Stats will be verified via Bungie.net. Find out more and sign up here: www.msxbox-world.com

Firefight Competition on Play2Compete

Play2Compete are pleased to announce as part of the XCN Halo ODST Weekend a Team Firefight Tournament. For full tournament rules and details on how to

Tournament Registration will open 1st October and will close October 8th

2009.

ODST Firefight Weekend on Xboxliveaddicts

Xboxliveaddicts have collaborated with XCN to bring you a weekend full of Firefight! Test your skills to the test and work as a team to bring home the high scores and see how long you can last against the unforgiving onslaught of Covenant waves to come! www.xboxliveaddicts.co.uk

Report to Halo3: ODST for your briefing on how you can get involved with the ODST Community Weekend events. Double time trooper – the UNSC is depending on you!

source: xxbox.com

Quiz Section Added

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:28:12 GMT

We are adding a quiz section to the site. We currently have a simple quiz on the leaders up if you wish to test it out. More quizzes will be added on all levels of difficulty. A new section will be added shortly to the forum so members can make up quizzes to be put on the site. At this point there is only a link but we will provide descriptions for all quizzes in the future.

http://myhalowarshq.com/?display=Quizzes

Rock, Paper, Spartan and what it means in Halo War

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:56:43 GMT

Tim "Timotron" Deen, Lead Technical Designer on Halo Wars, is here today to give more insight on the "Rock, Paper Scissors" aspect of the Halo Wars combat system.

Coming into any RTS (and Halo Wars is no exception) can be a daunting task for new players as they learn the relationships of the game units, especially game units that are not direct counter or game units that are just soft counters. As such this article will attempt to delve into a more detailed look at the Halo Wars counter system and dissect it for the players into a set of discrete rules and show how the rules apply to the game. Finally before we start a term used often in this article is "RPS" which is shorthand in a RTS for "rock paper scissors" and is used to describe the rule sets that govern which units win fights.

Now then a detailed look at the Halo Wars RPS reveals that it is a layered system of 3 RPS systems with a specific order of priority in application. Also each RPS system provides a different flavor to the game and serves to provide a specific combat flow purpose. Additionally the RPS relationships are split into the two separate buckets of "soft kill" and "hard kill", "soft kill" relationships are where the units have a medium advantage in combat and "hard kill" is where units have a very strong advantage in combat.

Highest priority RPS
- Counter unit RPS
  - Counter units hard kill their countered unit type
  - Counter units are soft killed by mainlines that they do not counter

Mid level RPS's
- Scout unit RPS
  - Hard kill counter infantry
  - Soft kill air
  - Soft killed by mainline infantry
  - Hard killed by mainline vehicles
- Spartan RPS
  - Limited hard kill normal vehicles and air
Lowest priority RPS
- Basic unit RPS
  - Infantry beat Air
  - Air beats Vehicles
  - Vehicles beat Infantry
  - Mainlines are better than counters against buildings*

Note: * the cobra and wolverine has a minor siege counter role as a special bonus for UNSC.

The counter unit RPS provides hard counters to punish players who attempt to run a single unit army and is the highest priority counter system. Next the scout unit RPS provides balance in the early game against counter infantry and air before their main counters come online, while the Spartan RPS provides a specific counter to vehicles in tech level 1. Finally the basic unit RPS provides a low level bias to the combat so that the units not directly involved in a higher level counter system will still have a rule that applies to them.

The final item to cover in this article is to go over just what categories units fall into in halo wars for defining what they are. First all units have a role category assigned to them such as mainline or counter, and second they have a unit type assigned to them such as infantry or vehicle. The combination of those two items defines the unit's base combat relationships to other units.

Unit Categories

Role
- Mainline unit
- Counter unit
- Scout unit
- Special unit

Type
- Infantry
- Vehicle
- Aircraft

One caveat before concluding is that results will vary in actual game play due to players employing micro management of units and in situations where the opponent has superior upgrades or numbers. Now with that caveat said hopefully this article will give everyone an idea of how RPS design is expressed in Halo wars and why many of the units have the combat advantages that they do.

p.s. I included a handy chart of Hard and Soft Counters below. Click for huge:

Selling Halo Wars Risk

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:49:57 GMT

As many of us know and some don't there will be a Halo Wars Style Risk board game. I have been talking to the company and we are going to be ordering the games from them soon. The game does not release until August though. The game will have an MSRP of $39.99 US dollars and about €29.99 Euros. You should be seeing a store added to the site with in a few days which will feature some cool content. We may allow pre-ordering of the game but we can not pomise we will do that.

Sneak Peek at Halo Wars Title Update

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:07:16 GMT

We're going to be releasing some information on the upcoming Halo Wars Title Update, or patch, here on HaloWars.com over the next few weeks. This Title Update fixes some matchmaking bugs, balances a few things inside and outside of gameplay, and adds a small feature that fans have been asking for. The Patch was developed around fan feedback, so hopefully players will be happy.

The first piece of news is that the Prophet of Regret's speed on land has been reduced to match the other leaders. This helps balance the Prophet Rush that was stymieing a lot of players. The second piece of news is that the Flaming Warthog and the Honor Guard Wraith will now be available in Multiplayer battles against other players.

We'll give you guys more bits of the update here on HaloWars.com so keep checking back.

Signature Contest

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 21:24:09 GMT

We are a growing community of Halo Wars gamers. As such we should have forum signatures that show how much we like the game and this community. We will be holding a contest to see who can come up with the best signature for this community.

Requirements:

-Must be the work of the person submitting it.

-Must say Halo Wars HQ

-Must not have no personal names or gamertags on it

-Must depict something from Halo or Halo Wars

-No Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3 logos

-It must be appropriate for all ages.

-You must be a member to qualify.

We are looking for original design, creativity, and great artistic talent put into the making of these signatures.

How to Enter:

To enter all you need to do is upload your signature to the Gallery. Post it under the section called "Signature Contest" with a title and description.

Rules:
-If you are not the creator of the signature you will not be eligible to win.

-If you submit multiple signatures only one will count as an entry into the contest. It will improve your chances of winning.

-You must meet all requirements and submit your work before the contest ends.

If we recieve more than 25 entries by different people into the contest we will be rewarding one lucky person with a 1 month live subscription. All signatures will belong to Halo Wars HQ at the end of the contest. By submitting your signature into the contest you are giving us all rights to use and distribute it how we prefer. They will be available to members for use.

Achievement and Skull checklist Added

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:58:56 GMT

We have added two checklists to our site. One checklist is for achievements while the other is for skulls. As you go through the game you can click the check box next to the item you just got to help you keep track. You can find these lists under the "Community" section on the left of the site. We will be adding a checklist for the black boxes soon.

Image Gallery Updated

Mon, 6 Apr 2009 03:13:57 GMT

We have updated our image gallery with a decent selection of images and categories. We hope you enjoy and members are invited to post there own Halo Wars related images.

We Have a New Location!

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 18:33:00 GMT

We have selected our official web address. We have a total of 6 url addresses so that it is easy to find us.
You can now find us at:
[myhalowarshq.com]

[myhalowarshq.net]

[myhalowarshq.info]

[myhwhq.com]

[myhwhq.net]

[myhwhq.info]

Beta

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 02:58:46 GMT

Halo Wars HQ has entered its beta phase and is almost ready for its official launch in early April. People may roam the site freely but we still may make a few minor changes. We encourage you to invite your friends and help us make this the best community on the internet.

Welcome to Halo Wars HQ!

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:19:29 GMT

Hey everyone, this is our first news post on Halo Wars HQ. We hope you are enjoying the site. With your help we will be the best Halo Wars (Xbox 360 Gaming) social network on the internet. Feel free to browse around, introduce yourself in the forums and comment on stuff. So bookmark this site to your favorites and tell all your friends. We are really excited to get this up and running, it will be awesome.