CTF That Is Classic

This post will be short, but at the end you'll walk away with a free gametype...if you can call $60+ for the game free.

Anyways, if you have been to Bungie.net lately, I'm sure you have seen that The Upper Echelon got their Community Spotlight. If not, then click here and scroll about half way down the page and there is our first week in the spotlight. Once you've done that, head over here, no here. And check out week number 2 of our stuff. The first week can be found by going to page one and it should be right there.

Now moving on to the point of this post. If you go back to the last link I gave you, and notice the gametypes(Note: Don't feel like you're in a rush...unless you really are stretched for time then yeah, be quick, but take a glance at the other stuff there too, it's some good stuff.) at the bottom, the one titled "Classic CTF" is one that I created shortly before I changed my gamertag to what it is now. So feel free to give it a download if you want. Either from there, or from the direct link to the file; which can be located here. It has become the second most downloaded item on my file share, with 544 downloads. In the last half hour, it gained 100 downloads.
I'm imagining that someday I'll get recognized for creating it. I highly doubt it, and hope that it doesn't happen. I don't want to be that guy that had that gametype, I want to just be that normal Halo fan. Though if I do get found out and people do start sending me messages like they have nothing else to do, that's what the auto-responder is for. I've already got one typed up, but still have it set to send out the reply manually. Probably the only time I will consider setting it for automatic is when I log on four days in a row and I have 20+ messages. Don't get me wrong, I won't just let them sit there and ignore them, that's rude and I try not to be rude. I'll read them and most likely respond to them all personally as I would like to hear feedback about the gametype and maybe were a version 2 could be made.

I believe that is all, like I said, it would be short. On a plus, I'm not listening to the same track off of the ODST soundtrack anymore. I finally listened to the Halo Wars soundtrack...then went back to the same song.
One last update on the download count, it is only 18 downloads away from being tied with one of my screenshots that has 591.
Enjoy all!

Render To Video and Some of My Work

Well I'm sure you know of the Render to Video beta that is going on for those that paid for a subscription to Bungie Pro. Well I guess I got into it somehow and here are some of my videos that I rendered and was able to upload to my youtube accont.
I'll show the best ones I have up there and then link you to my youtube channel to see the rest.



That is one of my friend/driver showing off some of his sweet Grifball skills.

This next one is an awesome wheelie he managed to pull of during a game of slayer on Standoff.



Finally this last one is called "Killball Win!" Watch and you'll see why it's called that.



Now here is the link to my youtube channel for the rest of my little clips. http://www.youtube.com/user/StoredGrunt360
There you have it, a quick little post with some eye candy...if you want to call it that. Plus the link that takes to the Completely Random Forums has been changed to a new address.

Perfect

I'll cut straight to the chase this time. I got my first Perfection the other night. I'm sure a lot of you know what a Perfection is, but if you don't it's simple...sort of. Win a slayer game with at least 15 kills and without dieing. Sounds simple, right? Well it would be to some, but to others it is extremely hard to get one.

I has proof. Huge thanks goes out to Storm for being cautious and driving me to it. Raiden192 almost had a Perfection also, but the great(not) spawning system ruined it. Someone spawned behind him as he was doing something else. It really sucks that he didn't get it, two perfections in one game would of been sweet. The game wasn't too bad, I mean I would of liked to have at least one or two other people from the other team still be playing. I still got it anyways and it'll probably be my only one.
Anyways, moving on.
2,000 Wheelmen for my driver! Yep, my driver(info on right hand side of page) got his 2,000 wheelman. After a couple games before that he only ended up needing three. So in this game, he the last three that he needed, with my triple kill. It's not his main goal of 3,000, but it does mean we are getting closer. I was hoping I would be gunning for his 2,000th and I was, but now I really hope I'm gunning for his 3,000...no idea why I want to be. Maybe it is due to me being his gunner from the start. I don't know really, but hey, we pretty much know what each other is doing or going to do in the Hog. So it works out pretty well if you ask me.

The campaign challenge hasn't started yet, but I am thinking on starting it next week. So you guys haven't missed it yet, plus it will be tagged with a special tag called "Campaign Challenge" for obvious reasons. So there's the update on the campaign challenge.

All right that is all for now people, hope you enjoyed it. On an end note, if you are reading this and a Grade four rank stop by a group called The Upper Echelon and check it out.

Fifth Finally!

Well since it's been a while since my last post, I will try to cram as much as I can in here.

I'll start with saying that after little while I have finally reached 5th in the state of Illinois for most campaign kills. Here's the proof. Not much more to say about it actually.

So moving on. Remember that one map I started on Foundry and never finished? Well I finished it, but it's not on Foundry anymore. It's now on Sandbox! Anyways, it still is the same general idea and layout. I did have to rework a few things on the map several times. Spawns are what I had the most trouble with...go figure. Placing cover in the middle area was also something that stumped me. Not that it's hard or anything, just getting it and placing it there strategically so the flag carrier can't be killed while making his way from one to base to another. Well here you go Prototype. It does need a better name though.

I was finally able to get over that little 1,500 mark for Warthog chaingun kills. I felt like I was going to be stuck on that little barrier. Each time I would look to see how many I have total, it would be really close to that limit. Plus it also means I am halfway to 3,000, which is my current goal.
While we're on the subject of Halo, I managed to get into a party with a few people from H3Wheelmen. I got to play with someone from the "Blue" group, it sounds like it is kind of like a clan, but isn't officially their clan. Also someone from their "Team Euro" group. That's basically the group for people over in other countries. The party consisted of mainly people from other countries, but hey, they didn't yell at me when I would say something. I am going to have to learn the language of the Wheelmen. I was in the party today and they were talking about "Ninja-ing' the objective. Well, I had no idea what it was until I actually saw what they were trying to do. It was rather simple actually, sneak the flag out of the enemy base... So yeah, once I finally figured out what it meant I was able to react accordingly.

Now moving on again, I will be doing a campaign challenge(just for fun really) for my blog here. I have to do some thinking for the first level for skulls and that. I will make a post with the details of the first level. Speaking of campaign challenges, I just posted one for the grade 4 group I am in. I was surprised when a lot of the members liked the idea, it's my first successful idea for a group I am in.

Well, I think that pretty much covers it. Hope you all enjoy it, I know it's not much.

A Post About, Well Nothing

Yep, that's right. A post about nothing. Okay well this post is going to have to do with something, but I couldn't think of a title.
So I have started playing Halo Wars again lately, mainly due to someone I know from Bungie.net getting on me about still not beating the campaign. Well I still have yet to finish it, but hope to sometime. I played against him in a 1v1 twice and lost horribly both times, but hey I haven't played it as much as he has and I'm not good at strategy games either. I did earn an achievement for it today which was reach recruit in the matchmaking part of it. It was really easy since I didn't even play the game. I quit out of the game, but that was because my teammate quit before it even started. I don't know how I even got to the recruit rank since it was my first game and I really didn't even play it since I quit out of it. But I doubt if I play Halo Wars online much anyways, since it's one of those games where best enjoyed without a bunch of loser's. See despite it being a strategy game, I take out the strategy and just assault with a large squad. I don't do any of this "oh go over here and see how many hit points this enemy has then come back with a unit that has 5 more points then him." I guess that's why I'm not good at this game, but it sure is fun to play.

One thing I want to do in Halo is become a better ground pounder. I really have no idea what a ground pounder does, but I do know they support the Hog and grabbing the objective. Anyways, I would like to get better at certain things like rushing laser and at least bringing it back for our team. The one reason I would like to do this is simple, I can't always get in the gunner seat and my driving is fail. On the other hand though, I would like to become a better driver then I already am. So I really need to think of what do I want to do more, drive or what.

Now for a couple games from this past weekend that were good.

This first game is from Fiesta. Got a killtacular with the skull and then blast into the lead with 10 seconds left.

I got randomly matched with someone from a group I am in and I drive him to a Frenzy. Decent considering my driving.

This game would have turned out different if the two people wouldn't have quit.

Our first game were nobody quit and it was close too. The game went like this, they score, we score, they score, we score and we score again. Best game of the weekend.

Another close game. I have no idea when we scored, but the other team wouldn't let up and kept coming at us non-stop.

Okay you know something that really ticks me off about the people that play Halo? It's the people that decide to pick on a rank for no reason at all. I see alot of this with higher ranks picking lower ranks. I mean okay so you're a Colonel and he's a Staff Captain, who cares? What is your purpose of doing so? Is it to make yourself feel good about beating a player who has a lower rank then you? If so, seriously how lame can you get? Rank doesn't get you anything outside of the game and I've argued this point on the forums, but no apparently it does get you things in life. Oh, by the way, you forgot to tell me what they are... The stuff I see these "pro's" do are pretty cool, but it's nothing that impressive to earn you a $500,000 contract yearly to a "pro" team. Okay so you go down to Florida or up to Toronto and win one of the events up there, again, what does it get? Yeah sure it gets you money and fame, but what else? Does it give you a place to live or does it get you food each month you need it? Answer, no it doesn't.
I guess all I'm saying is, no matter what your rank is, no matter how high you can push your k/d spread or no matter how many perfections you've gotten. It's not going to get you anything outside of the game. Yeah I'm probably wrong, but right now, I don't see it.

Sorry for the rant, but I get so tired of these people that think rank means everything. Anyways, that's all for now. Hope you enjoy.

Achievements = Song Titles?

Well the other day I had a friend over and I was playing Mercenaries 2 and looking over some of the achievements I had earned and he noticed that the names for the achievements are titles to songs. When I first played through the game and was unlocking them, I had no idea that they were named after song titles. It's fine I guess, but it seems a little cheesy to me. I mean surely the developers could of come up with names for them, right?

While we are talking about Mercs 2, I have been playing it recently and enjoying it again. I have managed to do what I never thought I would be able to do, make the Chinese hostile towards me...again. Yeah I guess they don't like it if I try to take some of their fuel they have hidden away. Not my fault I need it guys. Also I managed to at least tick off Universal Petroleum once and as of now, they are neutral to me. I don't know what I did to them... Also managed to turn some other faction against me. Again, I didn't do anything to them, well maybe... Maybe I blew some of their tanks up. Finally, for the first time since I got the game I managed to tick off the Allied Nations. How so you ask? Well I had the Chinese mad at me, so instead of paying them 8.0 million dollars, I decided to do some of the work they wanted. Capture some HVT's and destroy high risk targets. Everything was going fine, I wasn't getting caught doing any of this until I had to destroy an AN controlled oil rig. It was hard to do since I couldn't get close to it and my airstrikes were kind of limited. So I regrouped and bought some airstrikes to use. In the end I ended up taking a boat and sneaking underneath to a ladder, climbed up the ladder and threw down a beacon for a cruise missile strike. So now I had to get off of the rig before it blew. I jumped off the side and completely missed the boat I had, so I started swimming. Hijacked the nearest boat and got away as quick as it would go. I got out, but someone was able to call in my acts and report me. That is how I ticked off the AN.
That's pretty much how it's gone so far.

Now time for Halo stuff. Well campaign is what I have been playing lately. Trying to grasp 20,000 enemies KIA, right now I am at 19,720. So I am only 280 kills away, that can be covered in a couple runs through campaign, maybe less. Last I looked with the amount I currently have I was ranked 7th in the state of Illinois, so I wonder were I would stand with 20,000. It wouldn't be too hard to move into the top 5. I am only 1,098 away from it. That would be something to see on here one day. "Top 5 enemies KIA in campaign in the state of Illinois" Okay new goal people!
I am just under halfway to my 3,000 chaingun kills. 1,421 so close to it, yet far enough away. I really can't wait till I reach that halfway mark, it means I am that much closer to the 3,000 mark. Ah well, I'm rambling on about, so now for some good games from this past weekend.
This game was close until the end. This game was close until we got lucky and pulled out by ten in the end. Which won it for us.
Each team had good defense for each round. I mean, there really is no way to describe this game it was awesome.
The other team had good control of the map near the start. We pull a sneaky move near the cliff to take the second score for the win.
Sadly the best game of the weekend, I feel like not posting. Don't get me wrong, it was a great game, it's just that all but two of the other team quit halfway through the game. I really don't consider it good game material. What I mean is yeah we won, but almost the entire other team quit. So we really should of won that game. Some of the best games I have had have been against a full team.

So that is all for now people, hope you enjoy it.

Two Years Work

Well today is Monday March 30th, but yesterday was the 29th. The official day of me being a two year member on Bungie.net. I know I said I would make a post yesterday, but I was busy and wasn't able to write one up. So here it is, maybe not as nice as I had hoped for, but a post nonetheless. My history there is pretty simple, just a fan that wanted to talk about Halo and interact more with the community. I joined looked around the forums every now once in a while, then discovered groups. I joined a couple groups and it went from there. About a year after I joined they introduced these member titles. I soon get the Heroic Member, then they added prefixes related to certain things. I was soon bumped up to Honorable Legendary Member, then yesterday I log on and make a post and find myself a Noble Legendary Member. I went up from Honorable and skipped the Senior prefix, which means that my trust rating is on the increase which is good. So as someone said that I was talking to over instant messenger said, "You R Noble."

Now for some Halo stuff, if I can find anything... Well I've got a screenshot at least that I forgot to post in my last post. This screenshot proves my horrible driving, I somehow managed to flip the Hog on a flat surface and land on a Jackal which was the only good thing out of that.

It's my new trophy shot as you can see with the Bungie card located to the right. More proof of how bad my driving is.

Anyways, here are a few games we played the weekend before last.

This game was good, I became xxmLgH0G4shotzxx. Okay I'll explain the little thing typed out there, alot of people have xx, MLG and 4 shotz(s is optional, but z is cooler I guess) in their gamertag and they get made fun of for not having an original tag.

Now this game I'm not in it, but my friend is and he is playing with some people from H3WM. I was five minutes off from being in there... Thing is, they were in a party of seven and we would have faced them, which is alright, but I would of rather played with them.

Gold bar trashers = the orange team, gold bar trashers = fail. Pretty self explanatory, we started taking trash for being gold and they came in a tie for fourth.

We lost this game, but it was really fun. Didn't help that two people on the opposite team had 25 and 35 kills. Carried much?

Well some of you may remember that on February 24th I got my 1,000th M41 LAAG(Warthog turret) kill. Well right now I am at 1,279 and counting. My next goal is to reach 2,000 kills with it, once I reach that, I'll plan on going from there. I might take a break from gunning and start driving more in hopes to get better at it. If I do this and don't see an improvement I am going to go back to gunning. Another thing I might want to do, is try for a 35 once I have reached 1,800 exp that way I can keep my gold. If I do reach it, I will become a Strike Commander. I don't know what playlist I'll use, probably the "takes no skill" ranked living dead. I'm a 13 in it, but it doesn't take much to rank up in it. I guess that's why it's called no skill needed, oh well it's fun to play. Not as much fun as social infection, now that is awesome. That is the playlist I will forever remember and like. It was the playlist where we first got to play against a Bungie employee. Here is the proof.

That's all I have for now. Not as special I would of liked, but there is next year. Hope you all enjoyed! I also might dig up some older posts I made and throw them together for another blast from the past post.

Mythic or Mithic?

Yeah so it's actually spelled "mythic", but I've seen a lot of people being lazy. Anyways, this past Saturday I went to the local game store and pre-ordered the collector's edition of Halo Wars. You all probably know that it comes with an early download code for the Mythic Map pack for Halo 3 plus some other goodies. Well, unlike a few people I know, I am not just getting it for the maps. I actually enjoyed the demo when I played it and thought it was a really good game. Yeah RTS's really aren't my style, but this is one that I like. It has simple controls and great gameplay, plus I can use the Scarab when I want to in Skirmish. I have a feeling that I will be playing the Skirmish mode more then the actual campaign in it. I really don't know what map I will play a lot and I don't know all the maps, but the instant classic map from Halo: CE makes a return in it, Blood Gulch.



Also you may take note that I changed the background of my blog, hope you like it. I liked the Guitar Hero one, but I thought it was time for something new and saw this one. Now if only there was either a Grunt or Hog one, now that would totally own.



Some of you may know that recently I reached my 1,000 kills with the Warthog chaingun turret(see below post). Well that's the first 1,000 mark that I am aiming for, I am also trying to get to 1,000 wheelman's. Though with the way I have been driving recently I hardly see that happening anytime soon. I guess I have been getting better, but not to quickly as to get the 447 soon.

I was recently introduced to Squad Battle which is a Ranked 6v6 with slayer and objective games in it. It's pretty fun from the few games I played of it. It's got the covies variants which I haven't played in a long time and back then I used to swear by it and thought it was the best gametype. It's a good playlist, but I like Social Big Team much better though. I find it more relaxing and not so serious, maybe it's just me I don't know.



Anyways, time for some good games that I had.

Multi Flag CTF on Valhalla. This game was great, me and my driver got into a hog at the start and made hit and run attacks on their base to clear them out. Well it worked and got me a Killing Frenzy, but no one would get in there and grab the flag plus no one was at their base while we were doing this also.



Now with these next two games, there is a certain order in which they will make sense. This first game was Multi Flag CTF on Rat's Nest. Yeah this game we got spawn camped just a little bit. I mean yeah you could say that they kept us out of our base, but that wasn't the case. We got shut out, but this next game tells the tale of revenge.

Multi Flag CTF on Sandtrap. Yeah this game is the exact opposite and we faced almost the exact same team from the last game. Okay so me and CX4(I need to find a new nickname for him) started out this game by going on the attack. It worked and we get the early lead since no one stayed at their base. Lots of other things happen and we manage to return the favor and shut them out this time around.

More Multi Flag CTF on Valhalla. This is a good example of base defense once the team gets it together. I'll explain that a little more, the game starts everyone on our team goes out and assaults the other teams base for the first few minutes. They then sneak a mongoose in through the metal wall side and take our flag(Granted we spawned at the lake front base not the waterfall one). They get no further then the center before our entire team is on the poor guy carrying the flag. They repeat this same tactic several times again before part of our team finally stays back and defends the base. That's where the Sniper Spree and Killing Frenzy of mine come in, plus the Killing Spree of my friends' come in. I still can't believe we got our defensive game together and won.

Here are a couple older games that I found with some searching.
My first Social Running Riot and two Overkills. Yeah so this game I got my first social Running Riot plus two overkills on the Hog turret. It gave me 29 kills with to go along.
My First and only Social Rampage. Here is my first and only social Rampage I got in a game of VIP.

Okay, finally here is a short little clip I took this past weekend of how to take a Hog out in under 30 seconds. Click me. Yeah, it's pretty sweet so check it out if you have the time.
That's it for now, Halo Wars is coming out soon so expect me back then.

So Close, yet So Far Away

Sorry this being my first post since the 3rd, I have been busy lately and haven't had the chance to do much. Anyways, I'll start off by giving you an update on the CTF Foundry map. Well, I haven't given up on it, but I haven't been working on it lately. The one problem that has made me put it off for so long has been rather simple actually. I got the general layout of it done, but now I don't know what to do with the rest. I've got the back wall enclosed into the base, but that leaves the rest of the map open with nothing. See here I thought the spawns would be the hard part about making this map oh no, it's the map itself that is giving me fits... Only forging I did this weekend was make a little base on Avalanche to have sort of base wars with a friend. Compared to his base, mine was even could even barely qualify for an outpost on a cool map. Yeah so, yesterday I went back and fixed it up a little bit. Added some weapons on my side, ran out of a budget, removed somethings, added more and finally gave up and was happy with it. I think I still have the films of it and if I do, I might take some screenshots and post them.

Bungie changed the design of their site once again. This time it's a little less dark and more blue-ish. One of the things they added was a sort of box at the bottom of the page, some people like it, others don't and say it's a waste of space. I'm not a web designer or anything, but I think it looks cool. With the addition of the box at the bottom and a few other things, I think it has gotten much more easier to use the site. It's easy to navigate from a groups forum to the public forums with the new design. They also added a new auto-reply feature which I guess will be useful for people that are really popular or have Recon. I guess you can set it to where it automatically sends out a pre-typed(you type it up in your profile section) response or you can set it so that you can pick and choose who you send the auto response out to. I'll use it for the people who send out group invites, I seriously hate those things anymore. Yeah, I'll still read them and at least give the group a look at, but if you are just randomly spamming my inbox that is what I find annoying. I can't wait to see what kind of responses I will get from it. I just now need to think of a comeback for when they say something stupid.

Now, some of you may notice the column to the right(It's somewhere over there>) that there is a set of numbers, I'll explain the point of those. It's rather simple actually, each Sunday or Monday I will come and update it with how many kills until I have 1,000 with the Warthog turret. So far I have 71 to go before I reach this goal. I could of had more kills with it, but either other teammates took the hog and wasted it or didn't know how to drive. My friend I normally play with tried to drive me to a Perfection on a Big Team Slayer game on Avalanche. I thank him for the thought of getting one, but it's no big deal if I get one or not. Our run in the Warthog seemed to be very short, but it wasn't actually. I mean considering he got me 8, almost 9 straight kills at the start. I really don't know how we got killed anyways, there was no one around from what I could see. Anyways, the game went pretty good for the both of us, we both got double digit kills. Here's the link to the post game stats: here. We didn't do to well this weekend, but a lot of the losers were playing Big Team and sadly, we got them. All I wanted was one good multi flag game, but no, we get spawn killers and objective holders.

Now for some more Halo 3 related...stuff. So if you have recently been to Bungie.net you should of seen the recent weekly update that they posted. What do you all think of Sandbox now that it has more stuff to it? Not the simple forging map I thought it would, Crypt Grifball is going to be awesome. I don't know what I'll do with the map, but the first thing is going to be mess around with the new Killballs. I mean, you walk into them, you die, you drive/fly into them you die, what more could we do with them? Oh, I know one thing, Killball Wars! I really hope to see some great maps from the community when we get the maps, at least there better be. I'm still sort of one sided on which is my favorite map so far and that would be Orbital. I don't know if it is going to be symmetrical or asymmetrical or whatever, but it looks cool. I've always wanted another "in space" based map since I played Halo 1's Boarding Action and Halo 2's Elongation I think it is.

Anyways, that's all I got for now. Maybe I can get a post out within the next two weeks or so. Enjoy!

Forging Frenzy

In my last post I mentioned that I was going to be making a map. Well, I finally decided that it is going to be two maps on Foundry and Ghost Town. I have an idea for the one on Foundry and have already started it a bit. All I've got placed on the map is a few double boxes and flag spawns and that. It originally started as a CTF map only, but if all goes well it may turn out to work with assault as well. I don't have any ideas for the Ghost Town map, but I want to finish the one on Foundry before I get started on it. The only real problem I am going to have trouble on both maps is going to be getting all the respawn, starting points and weapon placement to work out perfectly. Yeah and if you don't already know this, it isn't going to be an MLG based map. It's going to have rockets and a shotgun on there. Thing I don't understand, is why does MLG use a Mauler instead of a shotgun. Don't they serve the same purpose?


Well this weekend I played some Social Big Team with a friend of mine and did pretty good at points. We went on a little winning streak at one point also went on a loosing streak for a couple of games. I am going for 1,000 kills with the Warthog turret and as of right now I have 890. When I first started this past Thursday, I had 826, so I gained a few, but not enough to reach my goal. Which is okay, it will take a little bit and I did put a little dent in the number. I also reached 600 wheelmen medals also, though all I needed for it was one more. Right now though I have 650 and I aiming for 1,000, but it's going to take a little while since I really don't drive. I have been driving a little more lately in hopes of getting better. I'll let you know when I actually make some progress. I have noticed I have been getting a little better plus I learned something that I wasn't doing before, communicating with your gunner or other passengers. Yeah I know, something everyone knows and I just discovered it, well like I said, I don't drive. I'm the type that likes to shoot things and that.

A couple things I don't understand is why do people that send you game invites either don't wait for you to finish the current game you are in and the join or if you have a friend you want to bring along so you ask and they either say no he sucks(even though they haven't played with him to know) or don't say anything and continue playing and ignoring you. I mean come on if you really want to play with me you'll let me join no matter who I am currently playing with.

Now the other thing I don't understand is why do people spam grenades? All this weekend while playing Big Team and we were about to score or something, the other team would just start throwing grenades at us like it was the only thing in the game. You know, you have a gun for a reason. Besides, once you run out of grenades what are you going to use?

Finally here is a site for all the people who do the driving of the Warthog. You know who you are, the unsung heroes of the team that drive people to Running Riot's and Rampages and get no respect when you only have three of four kills. H3Wheelmen.com
So next time you see someone on your team that has few kills, check and see what they did in game and how many wheelman medals they had.

Screenshot Attack 2

Some of you might remember my other screenshot post where I posted some screenshots of Guitar Hero III. Well this time I am going to post a few that I took from Campaign and Multiplayer about Halo.



This one is rather simple, but I have this strange thing for Grunts.


The tail of how this one got started was rather interesting. It all started when I was reading a fan-fiction someone posted in one of the groups I am in and one of the characters of it wondered what a grunt would do if he was stuck with a plasma grenade and flame grenade. Well, I couldn't get his exact reaction when he got stuck by both grenade, but this is how he turned out to be. Poor, poor grunt.


This one is just totally awesome. It was a DLC BTB Slayer game on Rat's Nest and me and my friend got in the Warthog. We rounded the one corner coming back where the Ghost would normally spawn Well the other team had control over it, so I started shooting at it, but my friend had a better idea and just rammed into the thing. Instead of it getting destroyed instantly, it got stuck in the Warthog for a few seconds, then blew up. It was awesome seeing this in the film after the game was over. Needless to say that is actually the last time we have been rammed by a Ghost.



This one is just awesome, I get to pose with a Grunt! Again rather simple, but I saw the chance to take and took it. It didn't try to kill me like they normally do, I don't know why, but it was perfect. It's now my new trophy shot(as you can see by my Bungie Card in the column to right).
Also, just so you know, all the campaign screenshots were taken during my solo play through on Heroic. Yeah I know it's not Mythic, but I might get there.

Now me and my friend(the same one you see driving the Warthog in the one screenshot)worked on a Soccer map, now up near the top we had to do some work at the top so it doesn't look pretty up there, but oh well it functions. Anyways, I will take some screenshots of it tomorrow maybe and post the map here for you to download. I do need to make some changes to the gametype before then though.

Nameless No Longer

Well I am still nameless yes, but it is out there. Okay what I'm talking about is the Community Mishap Montages made by someone called Mini Waz. I've you have seen them before you know what I am talking about, but anyways. He made another one focused primarily on one group called Facility B5D. I saw a thread in there when I went to it one day asking for clips for the upcoming Mishap Montage submitted and themed around the member of the group. I post my only two mishaps I had and one of them got in.



There it is, the other clips that are in there are much better then mine. Some of the things that happen to these people is just amazing.

Bars of Status

Well I finally got the last 20 xp I needed to reach major grade 4. It did take a little bit, but it wasn't hard really. I got the majority of it in DLC BTB and ranked Living Dead. It was rather a fun journey getting the last few I needed for it. I know that some people take the number next to their name seriously, but guess what? It's just a video game, the number and picture next to your name gets you no where in the real world. It can't get you a job, house, family or anything outside of the game. Oh that's right it can't even give you anything in the game really, just a number and picture that says you may or may not be better then other players. Let's get another thing out of the way here. To all you people that think that any person that is a grade 4 of any rank is bad and needs to stop playing. No, no we don't have to stop playing just because you think we suck. I mean we don't even have to listen to what you say to us. I don't care what you say, I am happy with what I have. When you say that you call dibs on sniper or whatever just because you have a higher rank than us, doesn't always mean you're good with it.
This concludes my little rant.

Onto other things! I mentioned in one of my other posts that I have been playing DLC BTB a lot lately and I have enjoyed the chaos of the games that I have played. One of the couple games in BTB that I have been getting is Multi Flag CTF on Avalanche and 2 Flag Heavy on Standoff Heavy. Now Standoff Heavy isn't one of the more likable maps that I enjoy playing on, but it's the chaos that it delivers. There are multiple laser in each base and on the map, plus Gauss 'hogs which are awesome. Just the utter chaos that happens when the other team starts to invade your base is what you experience when you see the back of the Halo game box. I'll explain a bit here if you don't know what I mean. You are going to try to steal the enemy flag and get all the way to their base and get killed by someone sitting behind the corner with the shotgun camping(loser). You then respawn back at your own base and by then the entire other team is rushing your base with everything they have. Half of your team is back at base defending it and the other half is trying to get their flag while there is no one at the base. Your team manages to repel the other team after a little fight in the base and chasing the few others out. Then just as the other team tries to make another attack, your team manages to sneak into the back of your base with a Mongoose and score for you. Then it's nothing but defense as the other team tries to make up ground and keep you from scoring again. It's awesome, just the rush you get when four people are defending against eight others. That is Halo CTF when you think about it. It brings back memories when I would invite some friends over and play some 2v2 CTF and slayer on Halo 1 and 2, the chaos, the somewhat long matches. Halo, the way you picture it.

I am working on a couple maps with a friend of mine and they are working out greatly. We just need to do some testing of it and if we find anything that needs changing it will be finished. We also need to make a gametype for it that will involve some pretty cool things. It's a King of the Hill map and it's not MLG in any way, shape or form so leave all hateful comments at the door thanks! The other one is a CTF map that we started and got some details down, but getting everything right when we would test it to make sure and nothing went right got us mad. So we quit working on that one, maybe we can start working on it again. As above, this map is in no means MLG style. So again, leave all hateful comments at the door.

Anyways, that's all for now. Enjoy!

Tennis Map Update

Yeah the other day I did some changes to the Tennis map. It basically replaced the one in my last post. Same slot in my file share as the last one. Only changes I did with this version is added yet another level of double boxes to the wall(I'll explain later as to why I did it) and changed some corners that the ball can get stuck in.

As to why I changed this well, I was playing it with someone the other day and I hit it outside the map... So I had to enclose it sort of. The corners were just annoying me, so they had to go.

Map Attack!

Well if you read my recent post you will understand were the idea for this map comes into play.


Starting out I will introduce you too my Tennis map I made. It can be used for 1v1 for now and I am still testing out a 2v2 version of the gametype. Here are some screenshots of the map in action with a friend of mine. You should totally see these screens in High-def, they are even better.

My friend tried to hit the ball back over and it hit the wall and bounced off. What made it even better is I was able to return it too.

Here my friend(right hand side of the blockades) was returning the ball to me and I hit it back at him...sadly I got hit with it :(

Umm...Point? It landed on the blockades and didn't move. Weird, but yet cool since I hit it back and bounced off one of the walls.



I'm scared.... After the game was over me and my friend were just messing around he came and killed me. Sad face :(

If you wish to download the tennis map and gametype here is the link to my file share on Bungie.net. http://www.bungie.net/stats/Halo3/FileShare.aspx?gamertag=StoredGrunt360, slot number 14 and 15.

Enjoy, the other map in my file share I will post at a later date when I can get some friends online and play a game or two for some good screenshots.

The Wait is over

Well I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but I and one other person from Bungie started a group a couple months ago to get some people together and form some teams to play the so called Halo sports. Well after two months of us getting everything ready and not being able to get the group we wanted to do our first humpday against I finally revived the group. Our main focus of the group is to get the teams together(as I said above) and have them face off against other teams and have a season so to speak. Then the teams that had the best overall records and the end of the "season" would advance into playoffs and then we would go into finals for the team that would be champions for that season. We would deal in different sports such as Grifball, basketball, football and my own created version of assualt called Jumpball. I don't know where this will all go, but I hope it does well. We've already got some teams up last I looked. My team for Grifball, Flaming Death and other sports. For the other two sports that are up right now the other founder made these teams. They are Bomb Brawlers(football) and Flamin' Ballers(basketball). I am on these two teams since there wasn't that many people at the start. One thing I was planning on doing is a Founders Challenge, were me and the other founder find 3 or 4 other people to team up with and challenge some people in the group for the fun of it. Maybe like have it's own certain series during the off time or something like that. There are a couple other member from another group that want to create their own team and have, but have not decided what sports they want to sign up for.

That's all for now, I was really excited when I got this group up again and in the first two days we got 6 members. Anyways, if you're wanting to join the only things you will need Xbox Live gold account, Halo 3 and a Bungie.net account. I will link the group's homepage in my link list to the right. --->

Enjoy!

Not everyone can be happy...

It's the truth not everyone can be made happy. Why I say that is I have seen alot of people complaining about the recent release of Title Update 2 or more commonly known as TU2. Personally I think there is nothing wrong with it since Bungie said that the main changes were going to be "under the hood changes". They didn't say anything but that, I figured it might be the major onslaught of banning cheaters, modders and boosters. A couple months ago they set in motion the banhammer that was going to ban modders and it worked good I guess. Anyways to my point, since TU2 was released I noticed all sorts people complaining that they worked hard for their general and now as they put it"noobs, nubs and scrubs" can get a general in a playlist. Okay first of all, who in their right mind uses "nubs and scrubs"? That's just stupid and makes you look bad. Which is why I guess that the Halo community is looked down upon as rude and violent. Okay back to what I was saying, if you stop and think about it for a couple minutes you'll still be a general and you'll be better(I hope at least) then the exp generals. Imagine that you'll have something that the others don't, an actually highest skill of 50, duh. The update wasn't meant for ranks and ruin Halo 3. It was meant to give a fresh breath to the game so it doesn't go down in flames like other good games have and it did just that if you ask me. Also it was meant to rid of the cheaters in it and they're working on it. Which if they succeed will make the game even better since you're not shooting someone then they are behind you all of a sudden. Okay one last thing, this is to everyone that attacks grade 4's. What is wrong with them? Nothing, that's right. Just because they have gold bars and not necessarily get above skill of 20 doesn't mean that they can't play. Maybe they want to have fun and don't care about rank? Maybe they just don't care about their rank. So what, they can play, it's a freaking game people. Onto other things.

Well I just realised that tomorrow is the one year "anniversary" so to speak of Halo 3's release date. Pretty cool, I am somewhat hoping they do release something new. Maybe not maps, but they have been talking about a new one called "Assembly". It looks pretty sweet. One of the moderators took part in a discussion on the new map and said the first thing we should do when the public gets our hands on it is "look up, you will not regret it". I saw that and was like awesome, can't wait to see it now. Now that I go refresh the Halo 3 forum page I see a thread saying "OMG countdown is back", so I go to the Bungie.net homepage and sure enough the countdown that happend a little over two months ago is back. Only this time the countdown is for 11 days and some odd hours. Pretty cool, that changes my mind a little about tomorrow, but maybe, just maybe.
That's pretty much it for now. Enjoy and remember, it's all fun and games until someone gets banned.

Finally!

Well I told you I would try to get a new post here soon. If you haven't noticed already I have changed a few things about the look of my blog. I missed out on this weeks double exp playlist and it was one of my favorites to. :( Oh well it's not like it was I couldn't go from Forge to Matchmaking and switch playlists. Next week is Team Snipers, which I will be sitting out. Why you might ask, well straight forward I don't like it. In other things I have been trying my luck at making a Tennis map for something I am working on. It turned out fine I think, but there are some things that could use some work. I still need to get a couple people together and test it out plus make a gametype for it. That'll be the hard part, getting everything right and all the settings changed to be fair...headache already. I'm looking over the forums and I see this thread about adding a Ghost or Mongoose to Grifball. How about no for an answer? I made a post saying how would you even drive it with the constant swinging of hammers and that. He comes back and says to check the poll and that majority rules. Well I looked and it's 23 votes no and 3 votes yes... Seriously check your own poll. I go back and say that yeah it would add variety to the game, but tell him to check the poll stats and that they answer with a big fat no. Then he comes back and makes a mom joke. I mean seriously is that all you can come up with? If it is you need to grow up since that joke is getting old quickly. Someone I know has made the comment of this, "Some people have the mentality and IQ of a gnat...oh no...the gnat is bigger."

One more thing I though I would add is another theory on StoredGrunt360. I was playing with a few friends over Xbox Live and one person on the other team asked were I got my gamertag and that it sucked majorly(insert comment here). My friend's response was this "It's a grunt that Bungie pulled out of storage for the release of Halo 3 and it's purpose was to reign terror over people." It does sound awesome and I like.
That's it for now since I can't think of anything to say

Flaming Death

So the fourth of July is coming upon us ever so quickly and so is Bungie day. Bungie day or 07/07/2008 is a bit of a mystery to me. I don't quite understand the purpose of it, but they do give you things on that day. Anyways, I was shown a video from someone I know, of this group of people that gain the lead in a slayer game and go hide. I saw comments to where people were complaining that it is was cheating and it's not fair, but if you think about it, it's not really cheating since they are showing you where and how they hide. It's kind of cool though. Moving on now, people are trying before July 7th to get seven billion campaign kill count for Halo 3. It can be done, but it is going to be difficult to do since right now we have 6,859,146,777. This months double xp playlists are better then last months...minus grifball and 3-ball those were two good playlists. The first week is based on July 4th, rockets, flags and VIP all 5v5. This should be a fun playlist as long as we get people that know how to play. Then Fiesta returns again woot!(or woo7, power to the number 7!) This orginally came about during Cinco De Mayo weekend. That was a good playlist as well. You never know what weapons you will start and respawn with. Grifball makes a return mid-month again. Awesome! It has been updated to use the current Summer League map which has no way to get out of the court or get on top of the walls thankfully. Then Team Snipers returns again. It's not bad, but it's not my favorite. I'll play it maybe if I feel like it, but that is on a very rare ocassion. Then at the end of the month comes something totally different, Team Melee. Nothing but Hammers and swords team slayer. This should be awesome and fun to play depending on the lag that happens. That is why when I play Matchmaking I search for a good connection for a game.
Bungie has announced a new map called Cold Storage. It is a remake of Halo: Combat Evolved's Chill out. I can't remember what the map exactly is like since it's been a while since I've played it. This map was shown to the public at the last MLG event at San Diego. It looked pretty cool when they first showed on the site. They have showed some weapon placements and an overhead shot of the map. Next week they are going to show some actual screenshots of the map and I can't wait to see that.
Flaming Death. It is my team name for this group. I want to start my own grifball team and that might be the name of my team. Anyways, it just sounds cool doesn't it? Like I say it has flames and it's dead. I have been working on a little project called HGA. HGA is Halo Gaming. The purpose of it is to bring the popularity of the sports in Halo 3 up. I can't say much since I am still working on it with someone else. Rest assured though, I will tell you what it is all about when I can.

That's it for now. I plan to keep this updated more often so check back soon.

This doesn't happen often...

So I was playing the new DoubleXPWeekend that Bungie has going on right now and each and every weekend. This weeks was the Living Dead playlist. They had it during Halloween(or Haloween). What this playlist consists of is the Infection Gametype. I will tell you more on this later, but anyways to the point. I was going along talking with my friend (who was sitting in the same room I was in) and it finds a match. So we get the game for that match and I have a habbit of looking down the list of players in that game. So I'm looking down the list and way down at the bottom and I recognize the Gamertag of that person. I'm like okay I know who this is. Wait, that's a Bungie employee's Gamertag. So I thought cool it's a Bungie employee this should be fun. Then he starts getting recognized as being a Bungie employee so he says "Better turn off my flaming helmet". Then he starts talking to my friend about all the stuff going on in the game and all. It was awesome! You want proof? Well here is the stats: http://www.bungie.net/Stats/GameStatsHalo3.aspx?gameid=442286272&player=StoredGrunt360. He won in the end, but still I played Matchmaking and got pit up against a Bungie employee. Now some of you may not think it's special or anything, but what would you be like if you met your favorite actor or actress? Or you like a game and you play it online or get to meet the people that made the game? Well it's like that only in my perspective.