Monday Night Combat XBLA

[ferrarimanf355]

Just got this a couple of days ago, I'll be on it over the weekend.

[Stoney Mason]

Finally MS got off their ass and approved the title update.

[Beezy]

Lol I haven't touched this since I got Reach. Great game though. Maybe I'll get back to it after I rank up completely in Reach.

[chronovore]

Finally MS got off their ass and approved the title update.

Is anyone actually still playing this? I assume XBLA titles' online community degradation curve to be sharper than for a popular full retail game, if for no other reason than the total number of sales of a successful XBLA game is still far lower, resulting in a smaller community to begin with.

[Stoney Mason]

Finally MS got off their ass and approved the title update.

Is anyone actually still playing this? I assume XBLA titles' online community degradation curve to be sharper than for a popular full retail game, if for no other reason than the total number of sales of a successful XBLA game is still far lower, resulting in a smaller community to begin with.

I definitely don't have any problems getting in games. It sold very well for an XBLA title.

[Beezy]

Finally MS got off their ass and approved the title update.

Is anyone actually still playing this? I assume XBLA titles' online community degradation curve to be sharper than for a popular full retail game, if for no other reason than the total number of sales of a successful XBLA game is still far lower, resulting in a smaller community to begin with.

True, but this was honestly one of the better online multiplayer games on Live. I think about 200,000 people owned last I checked. The community should still be there.

[Stoney Mason]

Patches and fixes and two new maps being added. For free. Awesome devs.

Due out in November, Spunky Cola Special adds two new maps, Spunky Cola Arena for the competitive 'Crossfire' mode and Survivitol Arena for survival mode 'Blitz.' Survivitol also brings a new mode of its own, "the incredibly frantic Super Sudden Death Blitz."

On top of that, the DLC will add the option for private matches as well as scores of fixes, map changes, balance tweaks and new features as detailed below.

Balance Changes

Assassin
Reduced damage done by the dagger to the Moneyball.
Increased the damage Assassins do after both dagger and sword lunge.
Normalized multipliers for both dagger and sword when doing damage from behind an enemy.
Reduced recovery time on Assassin's alternate fire grapple on the Dagger, Sword and Shuriken Launcher.
Fixed an issue that caused Assassins to do too little damage from front facing, alternate fire, Shuriken face slap grapple.
Sniper
Reduced the damage the Moneyball takes from a sniper rifle.
Reduced the skill drain rate of Sniper Traps.
Reduced the amount of juice gain from the sniper rifle damaging targets.
Support
Reduced juice gain from healing with the Heal/Hurt Gun.
Increased skill recovery time of level 2 and 3 of the Support's Air Strike.
Gunner
Reduced minimum damage on Gunner's minigun, making it less effective at long ranges.
Tank
Reduced the damage the Moneyball takes from the rail gun.
Other Balance Changes
Decreased effectiveness of Lazer Blazer Turrets vs players.
Increased effectiveness of RockIt Turrets vs bots.
Reduced cost of all levels of RockIt Turrets.
Greatly increased the cooldown time for Juice machines in Crossfire.


Bug Fixes and Gameplay Changes

Arenas
All Arenas:
Added game clocks to spawn rooms.
Added new opening and closing cinematics.
Added heat vents to top of spawn room tunnels.
Changed all jump pads to be non-enabled at the start of a match.
Steel Peel Arena
Added glass walls to break some long lines of sight.
Moved turrets in each base.
Moved some jump pads to help getting 'stuck-in-jump' loops.
Added game clocks to the inside of the dome.
Ammo Mule Arena
Added bridge supports to better protect turrets.
Fixed issue that caused AmmoMule to show up less often than intended.
Lazer Razor Arena
Added extra jump pads to get to the top level of the left side of both ends of the arena.
Fixed Bot Spawners showing usable by wrong team.
Fixed jump pads not lighting up green when active.
Grenade Arena
Reduced the number of juice machines so there are the same amount as other arenas.
Fixed Bot Spawners showing usable by wrong team.
Sprintz Arena
Added game clock to spawn room.
Added multiple round displays in the arena.
Added two more digits to round displays so that they show up to round 9999.


Tank
Fixed Rail Gun from being able to shoot through nearby walls.
Fixed various issues with the Jet Gun.


Sniper
Sniper Traps will now only freeze enemy Pros caught in the initial freeze trap explosion. An enemy Pro entering the area while the effect is active after the initial explosion will only be slowed. Traps work the same on bots as they did before.
Changed Flak visual effect to include team color and to have better performance.
Fixed issue where Sniper's Flak would damage players inside their spawn.
Fixed Snipers disappearing in the other view port in split screen when they are zoomed in with the Sniper Rifle.
Using bot spawners as a Sniper will now spawn two Scrambers.
Fixed issue where the sniper rifle, in certain instances, could shoot through walls .


Gunner
Fixed Minigun getting stuck with no ammo and not reloading.


Assassin
Assassins no longer make an audible hum to allied players.
Fixed an issue with the cloak sound not going away when the Assassin dies.


Support
Fixed an issue with Firebases that caused them to focus on a Moneyball they can't hit.
Reworked Heal/Hurt Gun code to make it more reliable.
Fixed griefing with Firebases: Firebases placed on an active jump pad or activating a jump pad with a Firebase on it will now destroy the Firebase.


Other Fixes and Changes
Fixed GapShots in Blitz from moving on clients when they are stopped on the host.
Reworked reload to greatly reduce the occurrence of having to restart reload when the reload animation was interrupted near the end.
Reworked the death UI so that it now displays the endorsements of who killed you.
Fixed players assisting in their own death.
Fixed Tank's and Gunner's jump jets staying on after a jump.
Fixed getting charged multiple times when using hazards and juice machines in high lag situations.
Changed money, kills, assists and deaths font in the scoreboard to add more emphasis on money making.
Fixed new round music riff and crowd cheer to play during Crossfire.
Changed formatting of numbers in the ticker to make them more readable.
Fixed seeing two Moneyballs in the end-game cinematic if the game ended without one being destroyed.
Fixed Bouncers playing their grapple animation when they charge at a player but hit a Blackjack.
Fixed Moneyball sometimes showing its shields when it has none.
Fixed players recovering health very quickly while juiced.
Various audio tuning for frequency and balance of sounds and voices.
More improvements to host migration to make it faster and more reliable.
More improvements to the party system when joining games and after host migration.
Reworked how random maps are chosen to be less repetative.


New Features and Additions
All Star Mode
Added a feature that allows players to go beyond level 99 by going back to level 0 and getting a new "All Star" icon next to their name.

Highlights
Added in 12 new highlights with associated ProTags.

Career Milestones
Added career milestones and ProTags for bacon pickups.
Added career milestones and ProTags for killing each type of class.

[TASTY PICKUP]
Added [TASTY PICKUP], a prize that drops and gives [SOMETHING AWESOME].
Added career milestones and ProTags for [TASTY PICKUP].

Club Tags
Added a 4 character 'Club Tag' that players can append to their name.

Other Additions
Added "South Paw" and "South Paw Tactical" control schemes.
Added multiplayer ready functionality so a game can start before the timer runs out if most players press X in the lobby and set themselves as ready.
Added several new loading movies.
Added a mascot head icon on the locker room menu denoting when you have a new ProTag from a highlight or career milestone.
Added many new Mickey Cantor announcements.
Added new effect for picking up bacon and [TASTY PICKUP].

Arenas
Added a new Crossfire Arena:
Spunky Cola Arena: A single lane arena that puts players into the action faster and guaranteeing more explosions, more shooting and more awesome!

Added a new Blitz Arena:
Survivitol Arena: Bought from Grandma Betty's, the Survivitol Arena is the next level of Blitz action. Small and deadly with two tiers of bot spawners will keep Pros on their toes!

Added a new Blitz Mode:
Only in the Survivitol Arena will you be faced with the deadly, the intense, the incredibly frantic Super Sudden Death Blitz!

Private Games
Added in new options for private games:
Set game duration
Set overtime duration, including 0 time for no overtime
Toggle buying bots
Toggle buying Juice
Toggle Bullseye spawning
Toggle using Hazards (Annihilator / Ejectors)
Choose specific or random map
Hazards on / off
Force random classes
Toggle use of custom classes
Toggle class changing
Class limits on all classes
Added IceMen Pitgirl to updated level intros/outros

http://www.uberent.com/blog/2010/10/monday-night-combat-halloween-unmasking-part-iv/

[Beezy]

Sweet, this game needed new maps. Will play again when they're released.

[Stoney Mason]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Beezy]

[Stoney Mason]

I find it crazy that I don't have a single person on my FL that has this yet they keep pushing updates.

Game sold very well for an XBLA title. At least a few hundred thousand (probably around 200k) on the leaderboard from what I saw which is more than a lot of retail games. I never have a problem finding a game.

[Stoney Mason]

Oh yeah? How's the community?

Small but like I said, I never have a problem finding a game. It's a neat little game. I mean it doesn't have the longevity of something like Blacks Ops or Reach but its nice for the occasional change of pace. And they've done an admirable job of supporting an XBLA title. Actual real devs on retail games could take some lessons from them.

[pilonv1]

This seems like one of the few XBLA games to get constant support.

[chronovore]

I wonder if it was planned as a free update from the outset, or if it became a free update when they realized it might just split the remaining online community between have and have-nots.

[archie4208]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/63200/

PC version comes out next year.

[pilonv1]

didn't see that coming. I'd totally pick this up in a sale.

[Stoney Mason]

Cool. I think its a neat game so any money they make on it is worthwhile.

[Stoney Mason]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Smooth Groove]

Pretty nice visuals for a budget game.  My interest is piqued. 

[archie4208]

I never got into the XBLA version, but I see 'DOTA' namedropped in every MNC thread, so I'm interested.  How exactly is it related to DOTA?

[Stoney Mason]

I never got into the XBLA version, but I see 'DOTA' namedropped in every MNC thread, so I'm interested.  How exactly is it related to DOTA?

Various robots continuously spawn for each team. They travel on a pre-determined path to reach the other teams "moneyball". The goal is to escort your robots to the other team's moneyball. When enough robots are there the moneyball drops and your team can attack it with their guns and weapons. You can also build and upgrade turrets at pre-determined positions on the map to kill the other team and their robots. The winner at the end of the match is the team that did the most damage to the opposition moneyball.

It's classed based with the players who all have different attributes and special abilities.

[chronovore]

I'm regretting that I didn't get this while it was on sale, but with the PC release, it seems more likely that the community for it may last longer there. Is it too much to hope that the 360 and PC players will be able to play together? I imagine that's a GFWL exclusive...

[Stoney Mason]

Is it too much to hope that the 360 and PC players will be able to play together?

I think that MS inspired dream is over. Too much difference in accuracy between the keyboard and mouse and dual analog control schemes. Shadowrun got away with it by slightly gimping PC controls which made the PC crowd mad I heard. I think MS finally realized that and stopped pushing that idea.

It will never happen but I've always thought it would be cool if PS3 and 360 users could play with each other since they at least both use the same control mechanism.

[chronovore]

It will never happen but I've always thought it would be cool if PS3 and 360 users could play with each other since they at least both use the same control mechanism.

Yeah, it's tragic. The walled garden competitive and wholly self-limiting playgrounds are not for the consumers' benefit.