14 DAY TRIAL // Halo Wars is now a new game. Not because a major DLC pack or an update has modified its variables radically but because of the fact that leaderboards and matchmaking rankings are reset to the date when the title was released following a problem related to Xbox Live.
A brief post on the official forum now maintained by Robot Entertainment says that “An Xbox LIVE technical issue wiped all Halo Wars Xbox LIVE Leaderboards earlier today. This includes all singleplayer, multiplayer and Trueskill™ leaderboards, as well as all matchmaking data. At this time it’s unknown if the data can be restored, resulting in the Halo Wars Leaderboards being reset to original Launch Day status. The Xbox LIVE team is investigating the cause, and they will provide an update to the situation as soon as possible.” Of course, apologies are also offered.
Players of the game, which was one of the surprise hits on the Xbox 360 in the early part of the year, something rather strange for a real time strategy title, will not be pleased to hear that all leaderboards have been cleared and reputations need to be rebuilt from scratch.
A bigger problem might be the fact that the matchmaking tables, using the Xbox Live TrueSkill system, are also reset, which means that there is no clear way of making sure that more novice players do not face off against experienced veterans. Those who like the multiplayer component of Halo Wars might experience some pretty strange matches in the coming days, unless the technical department at Microsoft can fix the Xbox Live glitch that caused the initial problems.
Robot Entertainment is also announcing that previous to the problem, there were some changes made to matchmaking, with Tug of War Team 3v3 and Keep Away Team 2v2 being eliminated and replaced with Reinforcement 1v1 and Reinforcements 3v3. Those who have the Historic Battles Map Pack also get a 40% chance to play on one of the new maps if all the players in that game have it.