unforum

[thunderclap8]

still in NY here.... internet cafe.

DeltinaWildfire and I were rather disappointed in the event.


First of all, Amtrak was a grand total of 5 HOURS LATE in getting us to NYC. We ended up getting to the theater soaking wet after sprinting through the rain at exactly 8:45. Where they then made us stand in the rain some more, finally getting into the theater at maybe 9:30 (people who got there earlier as we intended too were apparently let in earlier). No other registered crew members were available, nobody even know the SIGNAL, CORPS chant!

Then we were so far in the back by that point (Despite preferred admission) that we never got to play. And the people running the Xbox live sessions were morons. All in all it needed more organization. 14 hour travel time for essentially nothing...

Now turning it over to Del:

Del sez: asdhbsadfadifjubhrabf!!!!!!!!

I can't believe I came up all this way to be delayed by Amtrak, miss dinner with you guys, get there late, find out that no one in the line I was standing in knew what a "crewmember" was. (Trust me, I went along the line and asked if any more crew was present. And everyone gave me really funny stares. Well, at least until Haefele and I ran up to the angry spanish lady when she said "RSVP? Crewmembers?" and cut basically the ENTIRE line off. That was funny. But the theater was half full anyway, DOH!) And I attempted to start the Signal Corps chant outside the movie theater, and no one responded. DOH!

Yeah... and what Haefele said. Lol.


STUPID AMTRAK!!

[rhymeswithsausage]

--crosspost--
I put this up in the Updates thread, too.
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I was at the NYC event, 9pm to midnight. It left me disappointed.

1) what was the deal with the passcode? Were we supposed to give it to other cities or use it to unlock something when we got home?

2) Very disorganized. I was around 80th in line (out of about 300). They handed out raffle tickets and only used them to bring people into the theatre in order. Eventually over LIVE we heard one of the other cities giving things away (an actual raffle). I asked on of the guys in charge about it and he said they just handed them to the first row of people in the theatre. Lame.

3) I sat and watched people exit out of the LIVE game, sit and not play for 15 minutes, and generally not know what they were doing. Now, this is a brand new game and I don't expect anyone to know how to operate it. I really think the folks in charge (Bungie/Microsoft) should have had someone at the controls to set things up and hand the controller over to players. It would have kept things rolling smoothly and we would not have had sooooo much down time.

4) I finally got to play at about 11:15pm on one of the 4 TVs at the front of the theatre. The games were not linked together so it was only a one-on-one. And it was only a 5 minute game. Lame. How hard would it be to link the 4 machines and have some real multi-player action? (Not hard at all.)

I'm still interested in the game and I'm very interested in the single player story. But last night definitely killed the hyper buzz that was living in my brain. I'm just not as excited as I was.

On a good note- I met the Rhode Island crew- fun bunch of folks. (I was the beardy guy behind you in line.)

[halcpu]

Hey, I could rant about how poorly organized it was, but all of you know that. I did however get to talk to someone from Bungie. His name was CJ and he was the one setting up the 1vs1 on the 4 Xboxs. He is also the cinematics guy who worked on many of the cool scenes we'll see in the single player missions, especially the epilogue.

He was a really cool guy, but he wasn't in charge. He was just helping out with the Xbox setups.

I think the biggest problem is that this event was outsourced to Afghan Warlords aka Alice the evil bitch who wouldn't let most of us crewmembers (meridianchild you know what I'm talking about) into the event till way late.

Yes, I think it's uber lame to sit in 5 hours of traffic (which should have only taken 3 at the most) to get there and play 8 minutes (I guess I was a lucky one) of Multiplayer. Do I think the New York got fucked over by the PR guys...AFFIRMATIVE.

Too many non-crewmembers...too many employees who were jerks and my god damn frechfries tasted like cardboard.

But worst of all, those f'in' Texans got to drink beer while playing. That really rubbed me the wrong way (like a cowboy get nailed by a horse).

I need to stop ranting...I'm still really psyched...I just feel that Microsoft (Not Bungie) failed us on this one. It could have been a great event in which the crew (who arrived on time between 7:45 and 8:45) to get in first as well as have some giveaways (more than 5 for the first 5 people) and maybe some more well balanced XBox play in which everyone got a fair shot of playing.

As far as let downs...this was a big one. But hey, I'm still cool with Bungie and HALO 2...just bummed about that f'in' theatre and the waste of human life that was in charge. Maybe we do deserve to be eradicated by the covenant if we can't even get a training session to start on time.

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My longest post ever...seriously.

[meta]

I just got home, to South Carolina, from the NYC training event.

I had a blast personally. My plane arrived in NYC at 4pm, I found my way outside, and to a cab...got to my hotel, changed into my ILB gear (which seemed to be a big hit in NYC, everyone taking pics of me, even the camera guy from (xbox.com?) ...

Back to the chain of events..I changed into my gear, and wanted to make sure I could find the theater..So I head towards it, low-and-behold there are people already in line at like 5:15. I'm like "oh my god" .. so i rush to get some pizza at the pizza place i planned on eating at (Pi33a), then i rushed back to get in line. I was, probably #20 in line after going to eat. It took forever, but they finally hand us lanyards and start letting us in..

After more waiting, and seemingly waiting for the line to move, so that we could wait again, we finally got our DVDs. There didn't seem to be any "noob" problems like they had in another city..Everyone knew what the DVD was and what to expect as far as I could tell.

After behind told 10 more minutes, we waited probably another 30 minutes and finally got let into the theater. I was in the 2nd row in the middle-to-right-side. When I was waiting for my turn, it was me and another guy next. I figured it was certain we would be playing on the big screen..but no, he skips us two and tells us to go play on the little screens, and the two people behind us get to go play. Damn, i would have owned so much ass too! oh well..i played 1 on 1..got off too a big jump start winning easily..then i started getting side-tracked, wanting to watch the big screen. Slowly he got closer and closer and beat me like 9-8 i think it was.

I stayed until they basically kicked us out..Went to my hotel, slept..woke up..flew home..now im on here typing. lol

Was it worth the 180$ plane ticket, $110 hotel ticket, and two $30 taxi bills, totally $350. Maybe not, but I still had a helluva a lot of fun, rode on my first airplane/aircraft, went the farthest from home i've ever been..and alone at that..played halo 2, watched halo 2 a lot, had fun cheering on others playing! It was such a blast. So, no it wasn't worth $350 bucks, however, if i could go back in time knowing the outcome and change my decision, i would not change it..i'm happy i went.

South Carolina represented baby!

[rhymeswithsausage]

I do have to admit that it was a really nice touch to be in Theatre #7. Did anybody else catch that, too?

[MarkHawk]

I must say I loved and Hated it and am writing my own response to the whole thing when I get off work tonight. I must say the people I met were awesome. I was the kid in the second row all the way to the left yelloing Ohohohoh Take it every now and then, and playing the A-Z memory game.... Ill Link or post a hug report on the event a long with a few pictures.

Just to let everyone know who left early: By 11:00 the theater was running very very empty. I played the Last LIVE game thanks to a few guys who really helped me out who I never got there (his) name. But like I said ill write more on this later.

[rose]

I agree

[INCyr]

Not much new to add... I managed to get to NYC without much problem, despite the horrible time Haefele and Deltina had (sorry guys!). We were supposed to meet up in DC and ride to NYC together, but due to their train problems...

The event was... dissapointing, I think. Not that it wasn't worth going, and I'll be glad I can say I was there, but I would have rather it been slightly different.

I think it's great that all the halo2 people got to play halo2, and I got my chance, which was cool. But I would have MUCH rather spent the time talking to the PM's, voice actors/actresses, and jsut being able to let the people who put ILB together how much I enjoyed the last 3 months, and how much I'm gonna miss it now it's gone. To me, just being able to shake their hand and say, to their face, "thank you" would have been so much more worth the trip than 5 minutes on an XBox. Even better would have been able to talk to them, and tell them about personal experiences, and pick their brains, and... yeah.

Obviously they needed to have a Halo2 prerelease thing, which this was. However, I would have rather they had it seperately, and had an ILB party for those of us who had spent the last god-only-knows-how-long answering payphones and puzzling over prepositions and all the other fun stuff.

But it was what is was. It was a good time, I'm glad I went, but nothing is ever perfect.

[Thumper]

Re: I agree

[Ceantari]

If you guys remember the gamer tags you played on lastnight and you're still interested in how well/poorly you did, you can find them at Bungie Stats. These are the particular accounts of those that played vs. other cities:

yellow
XboxLive1
XboxLive3

red
XboxLive7
XboxLive9

green
XboxLive10
XboxLive11

blue
XboxLive23
XboxLive23(G)

[MarkHawk]

Re: I agree

[Digitally l33t]

[halcpu]

[rose]

ugly step child

[CPO Schwartz]