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Halo Waypoint

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The cover of Halo Waypoint.
Halo Waypoint's official banner

Halo Waypoint is an online portal for all Halo-related content. It is accessible online at Xbox.com as the primary Halo website,[1] and through Xbox Live where it is available to Xbox Live Gold members. The Xbox LIVE version of Halo Waypoint was co-developed by Certain Affinity and 343 Industries.[2] It was released by 343 Industries as part of the Xbox Fall Update on November 5, 2009. A mobile version of Halo Waypoint has been released for the Windows Phone 7 platform for free, though it lacks certain features such as career milestones.

Content

Halo Waypoint provides users with various kinds of Halo information, including information on members of the Halo community, various machinima videos and gameplay strategies and tutorials. It also allows players to access their own gameplay-related data, tracking "milestones" and progress through multiple games in the series. The weekly Halo Bulletin and most major announcements regarding the Halo series are also posted at Waypoint. The site also features a Halo discussion forum. On December 15, 2010, the Halowars.com forums went offline and were subsequently merged with the Halo Waypoint forums.[3]

Weekly content

Halo Waypoint consists of new updates and features every day of the week, with each day highlighting a different aspect of the Halo Universe. Such as;

  • Spotlight: Every Monday, interesting Halo personae (ranging from community site leaders to comic artists and authors) will be featured and interviewed.
  • Beyond the Games: On Tuesdays, various kinds of Halo merchandise will be featured, and yet-to-be-released items will be previewed.
  • Community Day: On Wednesdays, Halo Waypoint will focus entirely on the Halo community, showcasing user-created content and featuring the top Halo fansites.
  • Machinima: On Thursdays, Halo machinima will be featured.
  • Strategy: On Fridays, various gameplay-related tips and tricks will be featured.
  • Halo Legends: On Saturdays, prior to its release, exclusive previews and behind-the-scenes episodes of Halo Legends were featured.
  • Fiction: On Sundays, various aspects of the Halo series' canon will be covered, and questions regarding the various media in the series will be answered.

Career information

Halo Waypoint displays a player's progress through the Halo games using milestones and awards. Milestones are achieved as a player's Halo gamerscore increases. Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach and Halo Wars all support milestones, and future games will support it as well, although Halo 2 Vista and its achievements are currently not supported. Originally there were forty milestones but on January 6, 2010 it was raised to fifty via a title update and was raised again to 60 on September 8, 2010 via a title update, and currently the number of milestones is 64. Earning achievements can also unlock avatar awards.

Halo Awards are medals that a player can earn by unlocking related achievements in the Halo games; essentially, they are groupings of achievements. As an example, the Vehicle Specialist award is unlocked after completing several vehicle-related achievements. Awards are also given in tiers; the more achievements a player unlocks, the higher the tier of their award will become. (For example, completing "extra" vehicle-related achievements will increase the Vehicle Specialist award's tier.)

Intel

Halo Waypoint also offers Halo-related news and grants access to exclusive content. Such content includes podcasts, trailers, screenshots, sketchbooks, videos, and, as previously mentioned, exclusive previews of Halo Legends. It has also been confirmed that full episodes of Halo Legends will be available on Halo Waypoint. Though they are free and require no downloading, they are usually only on Waypoint for a single day.

The Fiction

The Fiction content contains articles and videos, each detailing a specific aspect of the Halo universe. There are five sub-categories to the Fiction content, Characters, Armory, Ships, Locations and History. The most common format of these entries is a written article, containing a gallery of related images, usually screenshots from the Halo games. Some entries include only a video, and in some cases, an intro video and three written parts. The fiction content is written by former Ascendant Justice blog staff, Jeremy "Vociferous" Patenaude and Jacob "Cocopjojo" Benton.

Awards

Halo Waypoint Awards are awards earned in Halo Waypoint. They are unlocked by playing Halo games in the series and currently include Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST and Halo Wars. The awards unlock unique Halo related avatar accessories and in-game unlockables. There are currently 15 avatar items and vary from a Monitor prop to armor variants such as ODST helmets.[4]

List of current Avatar Awards

To encourage players to use Waypoint, several Awards (accessories for the player's Xbox Live Avatar) can be unlocked through Waypoint. To unlock an Award, the player must complete a specific task in one of the Halo games and then log in to Halo Waypoint.

  • Halo Waypoint Monitor: Log In to Halo Waypoint for the first time. An Avatar 'prop' which adds an idle animation to the player's Avatar in which their character summons a Forerunner Monitor who bobs and hovers around them playfully.
  • Rookie Helmet: Unlocked Halo 3: ODST's Campaign Complete Achievement (Any difficulty). A 'hat' for Avatars, made in the image of the helmet worn by the Rookie.
  • ODST Armor: Unlocked Halo 3: ODST's Good Samaritan Achievement. A costume for Avatars which dresses them up in a recreation of the combat armour worn by Orbital Drop Shock Troopers in Halo 3: ODST.
  • Black ODST Shirt: Unlocked Halo 3: ODST's Tourist Achievement.
  • ODST Hoodie: Unlocked Halo 3: ODST's Dark Times Achievement.
  • Recon Helmet/Dare's Helmet: Unlock Halo 3: ODST's Vidmaster: Endure Achievement. Unlocks a 'hat' for Avatars, made in the image of the famous Recon helmet. Referred to as "Dare's helmet" when worn by female Avatars and as "Recon" for male Avatars.
  • EVA Helmet: Achieve Milestone level 50 in Halo Waypoint.
  • Halo: Reach Beta Hoodie: Participated in the Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta (Time-sensitive). A green hooded sweatshirt for Avatars with "Reach Beta Tester" written on the front and the Noble Team emblem on one shoulder.
  • Noble Six's helmet: Comic-Con 2010, GamesCom 2010 and Pax 2010 exclusive.
  • Carter's helmet: Unlocked by completing one campaign mission on Legendary without dying in Halo: Reach.[5]
  • Kat's helmet: Unlocked by earning an avenger medal in matchmaking in Halo: Reach.
  • Jun's helmet: Unlocked by obtaining 100 kills without dying in Firefight or Campaign in Halo: Reach.
  • Emile's helmet: Unlocked by earning a Bulltrue medal in Firefight or Matchmaking in Halo: Reach.
  • Jorge's helmet: Unlocked by earning a Killtacular in multiplayer Matchmaking for Halo: Reach.
  • Covenant Banshee: A prop available via a token included with Limited Edition Halo: Reach Wireless Controllers.[6]
  • UNSC Falcon: A prop available via a token included with Halo: Reach Legendary Edition.

List of current In-game Unlockables[7][8]

Trivia

In Halo: Glasslands, there are two mentions of a news source known as "Waypoint Nine". This is most likely a reference to Halo Waypoint being the official source of news on the Halo universe.

Sources

  1. ^ Halo Waypoint website
  2. ^ Certain Affinity: Halo Waypoint
  3. ^ Halowars.com: Halo Waypoint Transition (Please Read)
  4. ^ Bungie.net: Bungie Weekly Update: 10.30.09
  5. ^ Bungie.net: Bungie Weekly Update: 07.16.10
  6. ^ Microsoft: Limited Edition Halo: Reach Controller with Avatar Banshee
  7. ^ Ready Up Live: X'10 Canada - Halo: Reach Impressions
  8. ^ Gamestop: Bungie Weekly Update: 07.09.10

Related pages

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