Gears of War 2 Gets Mega Update, Fans Rejoice
If you haven’t traded in your copy of Gears of War 2 listen up. Epic Games has posted the release notes for Title Update 6 on its forum.
The patch includes fixes for several bugs, better host selection, improved hit detection and adds a social Xbox Live mode (known as player matches in Gears of War 1). The ability to create and join player matches will be available only to those who purchased all the DLC for Gears 2. If you missed out on the content, which includes thirteen maps and a deleted chapter from the single player campaign, fear not: Epic has you covered. The post claimed Epic and Microsoft would be offering the All Fronts pack at reduced price when the update hits Xbox Live.
A teaser trailer for the conclusion to the trilogy aired during series creator Cliff Blezinski’s appearance on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show last month. It confirmed the game will ship in April 2011. The timing of the update to coincide with fresh buzz around the series seems smart, and suggests the patch could even be utilising improved code from the new game. Epic does not traditionally conduct public multiplayer beta testing, but the update seems a perfect way to test new social features and gameplay tweaks we might see in Gears of War 3.
The following fixes and improvements are included in Title Update 6:
Improvements
Title Update 6 makes these new improvements:
Adds a new public multiplayer match option called Social Xbox LIVE (aka player matches), open to anyone who owns all downloadable maps (that is, All Fronts Collection). We’ll be having a promotion that will dramatically reduce the cost of the All Fronts Collection.
You can join Social Matches in progress and can quit any time without penalty, although players who quit a match early don’t receive earned experience (XP) from that match
Social matchmaking lets your party join a match in progress. If a match is not found, your party hosts a new match, filling any empty player slots with bots.
Social Matches automatically cycle to the next map without further matchmaking.
Teams are rebalanced between matches based on XP level without splitting parties.
If you quit, your spot is taken by a bot until a new player joins the match. That new player can join while the match is in progress.
If you join a match in progress, you are assigned a team based on XP level and party size.
If you join a match in progress, you replace a bot at the earliest opportunity: at the first bot’s death for respawning game types (for example, Annex) and at round completion for Warzone, Execution, and Wingman.
Social leaderboards become part of the War Journal.
Renames Public Matches to Ranked Xbox LIVE Matches to differentiate these from Social Xbox LIVE
Matches, and adds some improvements to these matches.
Improved host selection using bandwidth testing and previous hosting data has been added.
Before the match begins, teams are balanced based on XP without splitting parties.
Renames Private Matches to Custom Xbox LIVE Matches and makes these matches invite-only.
Adds the ability to join Horde sessions that are in progress.
In Social Horde, you can join a session in progress through matchmaking and you are able to continue your session from the last wave you failed without starting over.
In Ranked Horde, you can join a session in progress only through invites.
If you join a session in progress, at the end of the session you receive the score you achieved during the time you spent in the session.
Improves the precision of weapon selection using the D-pad.
Improves client-side hit detection for ballistic weapons.
Exploit Fixes
Title Update 6 fixes these possible exploits, where under certain circumstances:
Execution rules could be ignored when using certain weapon types.
On the Subway map, you could get outside of the playable environment by sliding into cover and rolling between a train car and the side of tracks.
On the Blood Drive map, you could get outside of the playable environment in various locations.
Players could grief other players on Submission, Annex, King of the Hill, and Guardian games by preventing the objective from being completed while racking up experience. Title Update 6 adds match time limits to each of these game types to prevent this practice.
General Fixes
Title Update 6 fixes these other issues as well:
An issue that could cause your profile to be overwritten, erasing XP level, and achievement progress.
An issue that could cause a campaign save slot to be overwritten if you previously chose to continue without saving and then signed in.
Balancing
Title Update 6 makes these balancing changes:
Changes the Gnasher Shotgun pellet pattern to increase hit consistency.
Changes the Guardian game type to select the leader based upon XP level (highest to lowest).
Source: Epic Games (via Kotaku)
Why did you change who gets the host? and and if a person always has the best bandwidth thats not fair to other ppl. i think you should change just that part back or at least make it where there is no host in the game. and one other thing why did u make social xbox live? Its like your copying social xbox live from halo because ur desperate or somthing ?
Gears of war 2 and its online play is actually doing three times as good as halo 3. Even if they were copying they are in no way “desperate”.