The Waypoint Blog

From The Halo Mole:

The Mole was originally a TV show first aired in Belgium and is currently in production in Bulgaria and the Netherlands (the longest running series of the franchise). In 2001, both the United States and the United Kingdom picked up the series becoming very successful. Due to lack of funding, the UK version was cancelled after 2 seasons, and after a 4-year hiatus, the US version concluded with Season 5. Australia is bringing back the series for 2013.

During The Mole, 10-14 contestants are chosen as players, but unknown to the contestants, one of them is the Mole. The contestants, as a team, must complete challenges worth a designated amount of money. During the challenges, contestants must try to figure out who is sabotaging them from within. At the end of each episode, the contestants take a quiz based on the Mole's personal life and their actions during that episode. The contestant, who scores the lowest on the quiz, is eliminated. Players have the opportunity to earn exemptions during challenges. An exemption grants a player an automatic free pass to the next round of the competition, but this usually comes at a cost to the team. When three contestants remain, the final quiz is taken. The contestant with the highest score on the final quiz is the winner and claims the money accumulated by the team during the challenges.

For The Halo Mole, there will be 10 contestants selected (9 candidates and 1 Mole). Each episode will consist of 2 challenges (along with short interviews), a quiz and elimination. Each episode should take no more than 90 minutes depending on the length of the challenges. We will film two episodes a day, meaning that any contestants must be available for at least 3 hours over the 4 consecutive days that we will be filming (times will be arranged to suit all chosen contestants but will take place in June). We're excited about this project and hope you are, too!

From AgentPaperCraft:

Hello, Waypoint goers! With the addition of community-made content going into Matchmaking, custom maps and game types have become an integral part of Halo's Multiplayer. Forgers and game type creators often work hours, days and even months on their content before it’s considered for Matchmaking, and it's usually the lack of having a ready player-base to test their maps that makes it takes so long. So I offer an option to our Forgers, a place to bring your maps and game types to have them tested and reviewed by a group of the top Forgers around. You'll receive top-notch forging tips and tricks to wow your players, improve map spawn and flow, provide a better map experience and get your name out there. You'll also get to work directly with the Community Cartographers, a select group of community Forge enthusiasts who work with 343 Industries in the search of top-quality content for Matchmaking consideration. Every Wednesday night at 6PM ET, get an invite by sending “AgentPaperCraft” a message over Xbox LIVE, or leave a comment in the Test Night Thread.

Hope to see you there!

From AgentPaperCraft:

Hello, Waypoint goers! With the addition of community-made content into Matchmaking, custom maps and game types have become an integral part of Halo's Multiplayer. Forgers and game type creators often work hours, days and even months on their content before it’s considered for Matchmaking, and it's usually the lack of having a ready player-base to test their maps that it takes so long. So I offer an option to our Forgers, a place to bring your maps and game types to have them tested and reviewed by a group of the top Forgers around. You'll receive top-notch forging tips and tricks to wow your players, improve map spawn and flow, provide a better map experience and get your name out there. You'll also get to work directly with the Community Cartographers, a select group of community Forge enthusiasts who work with 343 Industries in the search of top-quality content for Matchmaking consideration. Every Wednesday night at 6PM ET, get an invite by sending “AgentPaperCraft” a message over Xbox LIVE, or leave a comment in the Test Night Thread.

Hope to see you there!

From Goosechecka:

About three weeks ago, Kal and I were wandering the aisles of PAX East and wondering if it was possible to raise $1600 for a Grifball booth at RTX. Last night, the Grifball and greater Halo community silenced all doubts and as of 11:00PM EDT had donated $4,623.

Not only is this a huge accomplishment for the Hub and greater Grifball community, but a major step forward for gaming communities. This is the first time a Halo fansite will have a professional presence at an official industry event (exception: Rooster Teeth – but technically they are a company, not a non-profit fan-run site when they started exhibiting). This project highlights the power of the community voice and the passion for community-created content.

Thank you to everyone who made this project possible through donations, re-tweets, video and article sharing and shout-outs. You all are amazing and we are so grateful for your continued support.

From AgentPaperCraft:

Hello, Waypoint goers! With the addition of community-made content into Matchmaking, custom maps and game types have become an integral part of Halo's Multiplayer. Forgers and game type creators often work hours, days and even months on their content before it’s considered for Matchmaking, and it's usually the lack of having a ready player-base to test their maps that it takes so long. So I offer an option to our Forgers, a place to bring your maps and game types to have them tested and reviewed by a group of the top Forgers around. You'll receive top-notch forging tips and tricks to wow your players, improve map spawn and flow, provide a better map experience and get your name out there. You'll also get to work directly with the Community Cartographers, a select group of community Forge enthusiasts who work with 343 Industries in the search of top-quality content for Matchmaking consideration. Every Wednesday night at 6PM ET, get an invite by sending “AgentPaperCraft” a message over Xbox LIVE, or leave a comment in the Test Night Thread.

Join us this week as we test 4 vs. 4 Objective and Slayer game types on your maps. The party will rotate every three games this time around to accommodate as many players as possible. Hope to see you there!

From The Halo Mole:

Announcing The Halo Mole: the first adaptation of a reality TV show into the Halo Universe. The Halo Mole gets its inspiration from the reality TV show The Mole, which has aired in multiple countries with prize money up to one million dollars. Contestants of The Mole participate in challenges to try to earn money towards a prize pot the winner will claim, but within the group of contestants is a Mole: a traitor, a saboteur whose goal is to try to prevent the other players from gaining the money, without exposing their identity. At the end of each episode, usually after two challenges, the players take a quiz on details of the Mole. The player who answers the most questions incorrectly about the Mole is the victim of the Mole and eliminated from the competition. The last person standing is declared the winner and earns the money.

For The Halo Mole, contestants have the chance to win up to 25,000 Microsoft Points and the title of the first Halo Mole. Ten contestants will be chosen with one selected to be the Mole. People can register for The Halo Mole by going to The Halo Mole website. Our teaser is posted on the front page, along with a button for people to apply. The contest will take place two weeks after contestants are selected at the end of May. When the contest is complete, The Halo Mole YouTube series will start production to be aired approximately a month afterwards in July. We would like to see this be a huge success so please help spread the word.

From SquirrelBurrito and MasterSundown:

April 15th, 2013 changed the lives of the people of Boston and its surrounding communities. Since the National Grifball Association is headquartered out of Boston, we felt action should be taken on our behalf to help our fellow citizens in this time of need. Over the next two weeks, we will be holding multiple "marathon-themed" Grifball events, and we have an open charitable donation campaign on HopeMob.org. Donations are now being accepted and will continue to be open throughout the events. Please give generously, as every donation will completely go to The One Fund Boston, Inc. We are also looking to have the event sponsored, and details for any sponsorships will arrive in the coming days. If you are reading this, and would like to help us in the way of sponsorship, please send an email to SquirrelBurrito or MasterSundown. Should this happen, we may hold prize raffles and other events to help raise money for those who were injured and their families.

EVENTS

May 4th 6:00PM ET - May 5th 8:20PM ET - Live 26.2 hour Grifball stream. We are asking interested community leaders and Halo personalities to join us on the stream on the NGA Grifball Twitch.tv channel for half-hour blocks of Grifball. We are maintaining a Google document with all available time slots. Please contact us in any of the ways listed on the document if you are interested in participating.

May 6th - May 12th: We will be encouraging the community to commit to playing 26 games of Grifball during this week. Players who report their games through a form on our site will be eligible to win prizes when the week is over. We will also give a prize to the player who gets the most sponsorships for this event. More details, including how to donate or sponsor your favorite Grifballer, can be found here and will continue to be updated as the event nears.

In addition, we are strongly considering holding a pay-to-play Grifball tournament, to be held on or around May 18th, depending on the amount of interest from the community at large. 80% of the fees for the tournament will be donated to charity and 20% will go to the winning team. If this is something you and your Grifball team would be interested in, please drop us a line. There will be a cap of 16 teams (with four players) for this event.

To stay up-to-date with this charity drive and our events, be sure to watch the grifball.net forums, as well as following @Grifballnet, @squirrelburrito and @MasterSundown on Twitter. Thank you for your time and support!

From TsengMao x MT:

So, you think you know competitive Halo, eh? I'm sure when you hear the terms "competitive Halo", you close your eyes and picture maps like Sanctuary, The Pit, Midship, Lockout or the smaller maps of old. What if I told you that you were programmed to believe that's the only form of competitive Halo when in reality it is much, much bigger? Big Team Battle doubles the meager 4v4 variants and pits two teams of eight against one another, featuring a much more expansive offering of the Halo sandbox. And yes, it's competitive, too.

BigTeamBattle.net is hosting a prize money tournament this spring with the help of DaveEasily that pits 8 teams against one another for a $1,000 grand prize. Although it’s an invitational, excess teams can battle through a play-in tournament the day before the official tournament on May 4th. Check out full details at the official BTBnet forums sign-up thread.

Matches will be a best of 5 for Round 1 with the latter two rounds as best of 7s, featuring a sampling of game types from the Official BTBnet File Share. Don't miss your chance to assemble your seven (to eleven) closest friends to create a roster for your chance to compete in the BTBnet Spring 2013 $1000 Tournament!

From AgentPaperCraft:

Hello, Waypoint goers! With the addition of community-made content into Matchmaking, custom maps and game types have become an integral part of Halo's Multiplayer. Forgers and game type creators often work hours, days and even months on their content before it’s considered for Matchmaking, and it's usually the lack of having a ready player-base to test their maps that it takes so long. So I offer an option to our Forgers, a place to bring your maps and game types to have them tested and reviewed by a group of the top Forgers around. You'll receive top-notch forging tips and tricks to wow your players, improve map spawn and flow, provide a better map experience and get your name out there. You'll also get to work directly with the Community Cartographers, a select group of community Forge enthusiasts who work with 343 Industries in the search of top-quality content for Matchmaking consideration. Every Wednesday night at 6PM ET, get an invite by sending “AgentPaperCraft” a message over Xbox LIVE, or leave a comment in the Test Night Thread.

Join us this week as we test 4 vs. 4 Objective and Slayer game types on your maps. The party will rotate every three games to accommodate as many players as possible. Hope to see you there!

From AgentPaperCraft:

Hello, Waypoint goers! With the addition of community-made content into Matchmaking, custom maps and game types have become an integral part of Halo's Multiplayer. Forgers and game type creators often work hours, days and even months on their content before it’s considered for Matchmaking, and it's usually the lack of having a ready player-base to test their maps that it takes so long. So I offer an option to our Forgers, a place to bring your maps and game types to have them tested and reviewed by a group of the top Forgers around. You'll receive top-notch forging tips and tricks to wow your players, improve map spawn and flow, provide a better map experience and get your name out there. You'll also get to work directly with the Community Cartographers, a select group of community Forge enthusiasts who work with 343 Industries in the search of top-quality content for Matchmaking consideration. Every Wednesday night at 6PM ET, get an invite by sending “AgentPaperCraft” a message over Xbox LIVE, or leave a comment in the Test Night Thread.

Hope to see you there!