At lunch I tried to bring 3 of my co-workers online with me so the 4 of us could kick ass and take names against random XBL rabble. However we couldn’t seem to join any games and a message was showing on the start screen saying only friends and clanmates are able to see the game. Is there anyway to join an unranked game with guests? Seems silly to limit it just to friends and clanmates.
– Xaroc
Look at the bottom playlist in the matchmaking screen. Training Ground or whatever they call it. Those are unranked games that don’t count toward your stats, and it says Guests can join those.
I can see why they did this for sure. If you let guests in ranked games, what’s to stop people from setting up guests to lose on purpose and pad their stats? It’s the same reason you aren’t allowed to know who you’re playing against in ranked games.
As far as I can tell, you can never “host” a game (that word’s never even used) unless you do a match you set up yourself for a party you created, which means no one gets in unless invited or clan mates or friends I think. If you have guests and want to play online with strangers, you have to choose the Training Session category of optimatch games. Training Sessions are unranked.
Cool! We didn’t find the Training Session thing today at Cathcart’s when we tried to take our band of four merry men online. Will have to try that next time.
–Dave
I wish they’d raise the current default for round time, because the games feel way too short, especially compared to the time spent matchmaking.
: /
Ok, is it possible to “host” a game with the settings you want AND have strangers join without being invited? Every time I start a game in the training grounds section it starts with just me and no one ever joins. It’d really suck if it turns out that the only public games you can join all last like 2 minutes.
HUGE oversight, but maybe they’ll patch it.
As far as I can tell, no. You cannot setup a game to your own specifications and have strangers join.
On one hand I can see some arguments for this, who wants to jump into a game with strangers and some bizzare ruleset they’ve cooked up and are used to playing on? If you’re playing with strangers, it’s nice to know you’re all on an even field.
Ultimately, it does seem sorta frustrating though. Time will tell I guess.
Jason, thanks for the info. We were able to get into games yesterday afternoon and we were even joined by Shieldwolf but unfortunately we didn’t have a mic to talk with him. And even more unfortunately we got owned.
– Xaroc