New details on Halo: Reach matchmaking

Bungie have posted a ton of new information on their blog about the upcoming Halo: Reach, including details about matchmaking and other goodies too.

One of the big differences in Reach, will be how differently ranking works from Halo 3. Its been tweaked and improved upon since 3 shipped back in 2007. Thanks to VG247, below is the main bulk of info from the Bungie blog, scaled down.

• Along with under the hood improvements to netcode, Trueskill, and Matchmaking algorithms, Bungie’s also beefing up the Connection Options and Social Settings. These settings inform players in the matchmaking system who players should team-up with should you have open slots in your party when you go searching in any given playlist.

• You’ll be matched based on skill alone.

• Connection options were available in Halo 3, but they’ve now been improved and expanded on and players can now pick and choose from all of the available options. By default the game will always look for the “Fastest” search result, but players can then decide how much importance should be given to things like “Good Connection”, “Language”, and “Skill”. Connection Options can and will have a large impact on matching times.

• Matchmaking will now take into account your locale and match you up accordingly.

• Social Settings can be toggled, just like “Connection Options,” the degree to which these factors will influence your matchmaking results are dependent on the specific playlist parameters and it’s important to note that a Social Setting will never override the underlying core matchmaking that takes place.

• Voting allows you to have greater control over the games and maps you’re playing. Once you’re matched into a squad, the game will provide a default map and game variant, but also provide up to three other alternatives. Majority rules, but if a playlist demands special treatment, we can configure blind or no vote options as well.

• In the Beta, players will be able to create Saved Films and upload them to their File Shares and create screenshots that can be posted to their gallery on Bungie.net. In Reach, you’ll be able to have thousands of custom content items and you’ll be able to upload, tag, and search for content right from the in game menus.

• Active Roster is the result of the lobby and Party system getting together with the Friends List, with Player Details getting on the action too.The lobby now displays more than just your own Party. If you have it set to Xbox Live Friends, then it displays your Friends right there in the Roster. You can select them, see what they’re doing, see if there’s room in their Party, and join them. If a couple of Friends are in the same Party, you can see that right there. There’s now less navigating through sub-screens.

• The DMR and the Magnum can take down a fully shielded Spartan with the exact same number of trigger pulls.

• Expect significant polish to be liberally applied the aesthetics from now until we ship.

The game is due to ship around September time, although there has been no solid word on that yet. The multiplayer beta is due this spring, with access being given on a priority basis to those with copies of Halo 3: ODST, much like Crackdown did with the Halo 3 beta. Remember those days? Aww, you old softy.