Patch and new maps on January 10th...
 

Found on Kotaku:

The Gears of War update should be hitting sometime today with two new free multiplayer maps hitting Wednesday, according to Epic's Mark Rein.

The patch includes quite a number of fixes and tweaks. Here's Rein's full break-down:

• Fixed aspect ratio distortion when using VGA cable with 4:3 displays at resolutions higher than 640x480
• Fixed voice issue with new players joining Player Match games in progress
• Players can now get the Achievement for "Dish Best Served Cold" when using Troika turret to kill RAAM
• Fixed rare situation where host could loop countdown and never start match
• Fixed rare situation where players could get stuck after chainsawing in multiplayer
• Reduced Grenade Tag melee distance
• Enabled "Strict" NAT check on host to prevent possible connection issues
• Optimized server browser queries to return results more quickly and prevent scroll bars from hiding quality of service icons
• Reduced number of possible revives in Execution to match Warzone
• Removed host name from Ranked match server browser
• Disabled security cameras in Ranked matches
• Ranked matches now require balanced teams (3v3 or 4v4)
• Increased penalty for quitting a Ranked match to -50 points
• Added additional cheat detection code
• Additional housekeeping updates


Pretty much addresses the 2 main issues I had with the game. The range on the grenade stick and the problem with voicechat when joining a game in progress. As for the 2 new maps, here's the details on those:


Raven Down: A Raven Helicopter has gone down in the middle of a large scale battle with the omnipresent Locust Horde. Gears have taken out the Seeder and gamers join Delta Forces moving into the crash site from all angles to search for survivors.

Old Bones: In an attempt to eradicate any traces of human history and culture, the Locust Horde has emerged under Sera's Capitaline Museums and has begun to destroy them brick by brick. Each gamer's mission is to help the Delta Force recapture the museums before all remnants of humankind's existence are obliterated.

Martin's not going to like this game when they reduce the effectiveness of his damn grenade stick.:lol:

I love how they directly manipulate the distance of the grenade stick but do nothing about the fifty yard danger zone of the chainsaw melee :(

Oh well.......as long as I can still blow people's heads clean off thier shoulders with a sniper I'm fine with it.

The chainsaw melee can be stopped more easily by the shotgun than the grenade tag. You have to hit them full-on with the blast and kill them to stop the tag, but if you hit them at all, it interrupts the chainsaw. Also, you can whip them with the butt of the shotgun to interrupt the saw if they try to get you while you're loading.

Is the 'Reduced Grenade Tag melee distance' a multiplayer-only thing? Because I don't play this over Live and don't see a benefit for downloading this patch if it just weakens my grenades against the computer.

I think it's multiplayer. I was watching a, "Multiplayer tips" video on some game site and the ability to melee grenades from a distince was one of the observations/tips they made.

They should have increased the splash damage of the boom shot. That weapons sucks unless you get a direct shot. I was hoping they wouldn't fix the genage tag bug until I got the achievement. ;) I'm still hoping they add a true deathmatch game mode in the future.

Thank god they made changes to grenade tagging. It's so damn cheap. The chainsaw I have no problem with, because all you have to do is shoot the person to make them stop. There's virtually nothing you can do to stop a grenade tagger, short of getting a quick head shot.

I'm so gald they're fixing the tagging too. That is such a pussy weapon that far too many people use on Live. The chainsaw also does not bother me because it can be stopped pretty easily.

I'm also glad about the removal of the host name because every damn match I've played the past 2 weeks has been against a clan or bunch of friends. And when you play with a bunch of random people against a well established team, you don't do too well.

I hear ya, but this won't stop that in the least. All they'll do is agree upon a
set stage/# of rounds and search for their buddies matches that way. Ranked
should just dump you in the 1st slot it finds, not to mention you should be
grouped with like leveled players. Too often you get dumped in a game where
as Eric D described, you're 1 of 4 strangers going against a clan whose players
are all very good, you get killed quick thus getting no real practice against
players, and they just get free kills.

the only fun way to play ranked, or anything online, is with friends. Why would I possibly want to jump into a room with 7 idiots and try to develop some sort of teamwork? It never works..

That's what player matches are for. Ranked shouldn't allow for one team to have
an outside advantage over another.

Yeah I thought Ranked makes you break up your room after each game? Oh wait, that's Rainbow Six...

I'm looking for someone that wants to play coop

My gamertag is demontooth.

"Try and sneak around her, quietly." I watched a friend play this part and was seriously creeped out!

The idea with the Trueskill system and ranked games is that it's testing your individual skill and ranking you accordingly. Not how well you can play with the help of your friends. Player matches are designed for playing with your friends. Ranked games are for testing your individual skill. It's the only way to have a level playing field for the scoreboards. If Epic wanted to create a third type of match strictly for clans with it's own leaderboards, that would be fine. As it stands now in ranked games (pre-patch) you have experienced 4 member groups playing against 4 random people and that gives the group of friends an unfair advantage on the scoreboards. It's as simple as that. Epic's just trying to make the scoreboards a little bit more reflective of individual player skill.

I'm playing on Hardcore and I'm at Raam. I'll say it again, the 1st time I beat Raam was pure luck and if I beat him again, it will be the same. They put some chicken shit rules on Raam and I know this level is glitchy. At one point all the Kryll flew away from him but he still had that black cloud...with no Kryll present. I'm pretty sure he was invincible while that was happening and I'm sure there are other chicken shit things that happens like that and that fuckin' sucks....

Just finished the game on casual. I'm sorry, but why are those last two chapters so short? I couldn't believe the game was done already. Act 5 could be completed in a matter of minutes if it didn't take me so damn long to figure out how to kill RAAM.

It's this reason that I never play a game on casual/easy. Always start on hard or hardest if you want extended game time.

Oh, I found the game plenty challenging at parts. I just thought the last two chapters were very short, compared to the earlier ones. I'll try it again on Hardcore soon.

Lately I've been thinking about starting 360 games on hard or the next level up instead of "normal". I was thinking that I should've jumped right to "insane" on GOW when I first got it. Anyway, although I'm not the best gamer I never start on easy. But then again this whole achievement point thing makes me want play all levels of difficulty just to get as many points as possible. :lol:-ohbfrank-

I think i'm the opposite, I don't want an insanely hard game to play right off the bat, or else i'll probably be turned off by it after I get my ass kicked over and over again. I'm playing Gears on casual and finding it enjoyable enough. I'm sure i'll play hardcore and insane afterwards while i'm more accustomed to the gameplay.

Agreed. I have nothing against clans and think Epic should make a 3rd kind of match type just for them. But I really hate the fact that they can play in regular ranked matches. They always force people to join the other team or else the host closes out the whole lobby. And there is nothing worse then joining a lobby that has 4 people and seeing 3 of them waiting in the center. Sometimes it takes me a good 10 minutes to just find a game that is not a clan.

I'm not feeling the achievement points yet. I guess because I only have 495.

achievements are the epitomy of lameness :lol:

This is the way I feel also. I still haven't got past that mother fucker on the horse in Ninja Gaiden. I stick it back in every couple of months and give it a try but I just can't get past him.

Troll much?

nah, should i start?

It's not buggy. Sometimes he sends the kryll to attack, and you can scatter them by hitting him with a torque shot or a frag. Then you can hose him down with the lancer or snipe him. The hard part is timing the part where you mantle your cover and run past him to get away, but he turns and aims slowly, so once you get a feel for it, it can be done pretty reliably. If you have the magnum, you can blind fire it at him when he gets too close to snipe, and that can wind up saving you a couple of snipe shots.

Sheesh, no doubt edstein, no doubt.

I disagree with the first part of this entirely. If Gears had a straight deathmatch mode then yes the Trueskill system and not allowing parties would make sense. However, since it is a squad based game then it should judge you based upon how well you play with your friends.

Say what you will about Halo 2, but at least it got the damn online system and groups done correctly on a console. Now if others would just follow suit instead of screwing up a blindingly obviously popular and well crafted system.

I don't know man. I realize that he sends the Kryll to attack and I know about using explosives like the T Bow and grenades to make them leave Raam. But what I saw just the other day was Raam covered in the same black cloud that covers him when the Kryll are around, yet the Kryll had long flown away.

Like I said, I was only thinking about it. I do the same as you.

Got the maps downloaded this morning. I saw them at 6:30am EST when I checked.

The map download was around 94 megs.

That may be a bug, but I took multiple tries to beat him and did not see the cloud on him when the kryll were away, and it took me a lot of tries to beat him.

The fight seems to be designed to be dynamic, and as a result, sometimes it will give you a better opportunity than others. It seems like you usually get a lot of good shots at him before he charges your first position most of the time. Occasionally he does not.

It also seems like Dom usually gets killed immediately, but is occasionally useful (by the way, I love how that slacker spends the whole fight sprawled on the ground and then pops up to leap from a moving train onto a helicopter as soon as the machine-gun wielding bad guy goes down).

But the standard technique seems to work.

However' they've patched in a new achievement for killing him with the mounted Troika gun. Has anyone done this? It seems almost impossible to do on hardcore, because the troika position is too exposed.

The Trueskill system and ranked games are judging you based on your ability to play with your teammates. Those that communicate and work well with their teammates will generally score higher. What Epic is doing by forcing everyone to play with random people is equalizing the playing field. Some people have many friends on Live and can create a clan quite easily. Others do not have that luxury. Pre-patch, those with friends had an unfair advantage on the scoreboards. Now, things should be more fair for everyone.

This is not to say that Epic shouldn't also have a 3rd option for ranked clan play. In fact, I'm sure they're working on it now. It just involves more work and wasn't ready to be included in this initial patch.

As for the Halo 2 system, I agree. It's the best online matchmaking system yet devised for a console game. I really hope Bungie allows Microsoft to implement their system into the Xbox Live Dev Tools so other developers can make use of it. That's most likely the reason why you haven't seen others use it yet. Developers probably have a hard time justifying the extra work involved in implementing a similar system when they can just plug in the already existing Xbox Live Matchmaking code and spend the time saved on some other feature for their game.

Is there actually a new achievement? The way this was worded in post 41 it
sounded like you weren't able to get an existing one by using the troika but they
fixed it so you could.

No.. it is the same achievement. I guess it was broken if you killed him with the Troika. You wouldn't get the achievement. They fixed it so now you will.

About the new maps:
Raven Down sucks. It's so damn small. It gets old after about 5 matches.

Old Bones is great, huge map with lots of weapons and lots of places to hide.

Is anyone else getting that connection is establishing screen come up every few games?