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MINIMIZING WORK
Last night, Bungie released a brand-new podcast - it's a monster 80-minute piece of work full of jokes, interviews, and bears. Paul Russell is the special guest, Shishka discusses the playlist changes coming up next month, and security expert Jerome Simpson comes by for a mini-interview. Shishka puts up with ribbing from Sketch and Luke, Paul talks about the evolution of Halo in the last ten years (guys - ask Rob McLees about the origin of 'seven' in Bungie games, and say thanks to Hamish Sinclair), and Jerome discusses protecting the Bungie offices from any and all comers. Great stuff! Avateur was the first to notice on our forum. (Louis Wu 10:16:03 UTC) (permalink)

http://halo.bungie.org/news.html?item=23783

Environment Artist and Grizzled Ancient Paul Russel sits in on this new episode of the Bungie Podcast. A key part of crafting the iconic Forerunner aesthetic (many artists at Bungie worked on Forerunner structures in Halo 2 and Halo 3), Paul Russel lifts some of the veil on his Unbreakable-esque Origin story. Bungie Security Expert Jerome Simpson faces a few hypothetical (and heavily exaggerated) Doomsday Scenarios.

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Direct-to-you download: Bungie Podcast 082108 (1:20:49) [93 MB]

Want to talk about the Bungie Podcast? Join the Official Bungie Podcast group here at Bungie.net.

Last edited by Bat (2008-08-28 12:35 am)

Gearbox/Halo Rumor, Laid Out
Okay, so back in February, we posted a news bit about one of our readers who speculated that an announcement by Gearbox's Randy Pitchford was Halo-related; his original post is no longer available on his website, but Archive.org has a copy. This info was updated, sort of, in May - but nothing really materialized. Well, the latest Official Xbox Magazine has a rumor in it that ties Gearbox and Halo together again; Planet Halo was the first site I saw to notice this, but by last week, it had been picked up by almost every major gaming site. Today, Kotaku has published an internal Gearbox email in which Corrinne Yu, a programmer who's worked for them for some time, announces that she's taken the Lead Engine Architect job on the Halo team at Microsoft. (Thanks, Ross.) Now, this might actually be totally unrelated; it's been clear for a while that Microsoft is building up their internal Halo team, and the fact that they recruited Yu from Gearbox might have nothing whatsoever to do with Gearbox - it might just be that she was the best prospect for the job. Lots of people are connecting the dots, though, so the rumor's out there - and now we have a reason why. (Well, kind of. If you were planning on building the next Halo game, would you let one of your best programmers go to someone ELSE'S Halo team?) IS Gearbox working on a new version of Halo for the next-generation Xbox? That remains to be seen. One of their hottest programmers is leaving to run the Microsoft Halo team, though. That much, we know. (Louis Wu 10:52:51 UTC) (permalink)

http://halo.bungie.org/news.html?item=23789

Cute- er, giggity.

Yesterday, we broke that Gearbox Director of Technology Corrinne Yu has been hired by Microsoft Game Studios to be Principle Engine Architect for Microsoft's Halo Franchise Team. Microsoft has confirmed to Kotaku that Yu had in fact been hired by Microsoft. "As the Halo franchise continues to flourish, Microsoft Game Studios is growing its internal team to develop future Halo projects," Microsoft stated.

We've been told by several industry sources that Yu was part of a package deal. She, and her husband, Kenneth Scott are both joining Microsoft Game Studios. Scott is an art director at id Software, most recently working on Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

But why does it matter that Corrinne Yu is headed for Microsoft Game Studios? Let's look at the tech Gearbox is using and deduce from that. Brothers in Arms, Aliens: Colonial Marines and Borderlands all use Unreal Engine 3 — with Borderlands using a heavily modded version of the Unreal Engine 3. Sources tell us that Yu has been staffed to work on the Peter Jackson Halo game, which Microsoft is still in the planning stages of. The company is ready to kick that project into full gear. (Remember this job ad?)

And since Microsoft Game Studios is doing the Peter Jackson Halo game, that means the chances of Microsoft using Bungie's proprietary, in-house "Halo 3 Engine" are slim at best. Though, if she's not bringing her Unreal Engine 3 expertise to Microsoft's internal studio, she could very well be working on a new in-house engine specifically for the Peter Jackson game.

http://kotaku.com/5043287/microsoft-con … -expansion

Last edited by Bat (2008-08-29 5:33 pm)

We'll see... meanwhile

Achievements Unlocked

Inevitably, this will be blown out of context, misread and misunderstood, but let’s do it anyway.

For a number of reasons ranging from obvious to sublime, Title Update 2 (which is the new, hip, Xbox 360-version way of saying “Auto Update” or “Patch”), introduces new Achievements to Halo 3. Last weekend at Penny-Arcade Expo we played Assembly on the TU2, which meant that folks would see and buzz about the new achievements.  These will be made live when TU2 turns on later this month - the previously announced date may slip a bit closer to the Halo 3 one-year anniversary.

Here’s a look at these achievements which can be earned via the Legendary Maps and Halo 3 Campaign:

Vidmaster Challenge: Lightswitch (0 points) – Get to the rank of Lieutenant in any playlist in the new EXP progression system.
Vidmaster Challenge: 7 on 7 (0 points) – Enter into any ranked or social playlist with 7 EXP on the 7th of the month.
Vidmaster Challenge: Annual (0 points) – After 9/25/08, complete Halo on 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with Iron, and everyone in Ghosts.
Double Double (25 points) – On a Legendary map, get two Double Kills during any ranked or social match.
Poor Yorick (25 points) – On a Legendary map, get 3 Oddball melee kills during any ranked or social match.
Came…From…Behind (50 points) – On a Legendary map, get 3 assassinations during any ranked or social match.
Defend This (50 points) – On a Legendary map, get a flag melee kill during any ranked or social match.
Flag Dropped (25 points) – On a Legendary map, get 2 flag carrier kills during any ranked or social match.
Road Rage (25 points) – On a Legendary map, get 5 Warthog chaingun kills during any ranked or social match.
Look Both Ways (50 points) – On a Legendary map, get a Splatter Spree during any ranked or social match.

As folks have seen, these aren’t the only achievements we’re adding. But without proper context, there’s not a whole lot else we’re going to say. Stay tuned.

Title Update 2

Like we’ve said previously, there’s a bunch of under-the-hood changes in TU2 that will be largely invisible to players. Things like rare occurrences of crashes, server-side support for data collection, making more data available and consumable for internal use – you know, the sort of bullet points that warm engineering loins and sing the rest of us a lullaby.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx … ;cid=15422

Who wants Annual?

NightCougar_37 wrote:

Gah, what the heck with all the online only ones. Granted they are a lot easier than some of the originals, but still.

As folks have seen, these aren’t the only achievements we’re adding. But without proper context, there’s not a whole lot else we’re going to say. Stay tuned.

New MP Achievements don't need context.

Rumors and stuff
The rumors are flying... yesterday, one showed up suggesting that Bungie would be showing off its next game at an event (which one wasn't specified) in Europe next week - thanks to CrazedArabMan at NeoGAF for the first heads-up on this one. Today, Kotaku is suggesting that Ryan Payton, who was assistant producer on Metal Gear Solid 4, has been hired by Microsoft to be Creative Director for the upcoming Peter Jackson Halo game. (Thanks to gunluva for the heads-up on this one.) Tomorrow: Bungie will be rumored to be creating the next Viva Piñata title. Or something. (Louis Wu 17:27:33 UTC) (permalink)

http://halo.bungie.org/news.html?item=23952

Well, this may be a record. We got thru all of Friday, Int'l Talk Like a Pirate Day, without a single "yar!"

D'oh. It goes on all weekend.

With that in mind, HAFT (Elnea's Halo Action Figure Theater) has an ep with that talk. Don't worry about not following the plot; there are no spoilers that way. Yar!

And from the Weekly Update (which actually came out Thursday)...

Title Update Zwei

Title Update 2 will download when you log in to Halo 3 on September 23rd. Smart alecky types guessed it would be either today (the 18th) or the 23rd as we make a habit of doing our updates on pretty particular days. If you poke around you’ll see that some stuff has changed here on Bungie.net, some of that stuff will flick on when TU2 turns on next week, and some of it is Live now.

When TU2 goes live next week we fully expect a crazy period in Matchmaking. See, there will be a period after TU2 goes live where not everyone will have the Title Update for a number of weird reasons like: You left your box on and the TU came out so folks who turn their boxes on are getting the new patch and you're playing the previous version of the game; Your Xbox doesn't recognize a new patch (clear your boxes' cache - Go to the System blade and select Memory. Press Y on the HD symbol and then press X, X, LB, RB, X, X. If you did this properly a message will appear saying: Do you want to perform maintenance on your Xbox 360 storage device. Selet the "yes" equivalent and then boot up Halo 3) or any number of other weird issues like the host has TU2 and the client doesn't or the client has TU2 and the host is on TU1, it's going to be a bit like the end of Ghostbusters, but we promise, that even though it seems like Matchmaking has fallen into the gaping maw of cement cracks - it will climb out.

We expect all of these issues to resolve within four or five hours of TU2 going live. We will be watching it closely.

...

Outtro in Go Minor

Earlier this summer, my bipolar, crazy landlord told me, "The night is darkest just before the dawn."
Dawn is about to break.

Ooh, I like that... and posted today:

KEEP IT CLEAN Posted by IIIIlll at 9/19/2008 7:07 PM PDT

<\\> UNSC OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE

<\\> CLASSIFIED SIGNALS ARCHIVE [ONI.SEC.PRTCL-1A]                 

<\ OPENED PER OFFICIAL REQUEST [DARE.V.500341(S1)]   

\ SOURCE: URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE A.I. [SUPERINTENDENT]

\ RECEPIENT: PROWLER “TOKYO RULES” [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]                                                                 
>> NOTATION KEYWORD SEARCH: “EMERGENCY” “DATA” “CORRUPTION”                               
>> (...) ~ QUERY RUNNING                               
>> (..)                                 
>> (.)   \ VTT TRANSCRIPT AS FOLOWS...                   

            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMERGENCY!”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMERGENCY!”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMER--!”                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “We know. Personnel are en route. Can you--”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “DETOUR! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!”                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “--put Kinsler on the line?”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: [UNITELLIGIBLE > DOG GROWLING(?)]                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Sorry, what?”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “BE A HERO! REPORT VIOLATORS!”
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Oh, come on... ”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMER--!”                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Listen. We have a report of core data corruption.”                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “I need you to upload your--”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “PARDON OUR DUST!”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!”                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER] “--logs for the last twenty-four hours!”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “KEEP IT CLEAN!”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “KEEP IT CLEAN!”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “KEEP IT CLEAN!”                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: [UNINTELLIGIBLE > PROFANITY (?)]                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “We're sending a team, alright?”                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Until they arrive, all additional comm needs to route through me.”                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Repeat and acknowledge.”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “OBEY POSTED LIMITS!”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “YIELD TO UPHILL TRAFFIC!”                 
            [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “I'll take that as a ‘yes’...”                 
            [SUPERINTENDENT]: “PLEASE REMAIN CALM!”   

\ ~ QUERY COMPLETE

\ ARCHIVE CLOSED \>

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx … ;cid=15526

And for those who must be the best, like Sci ( ), beyond Legendary there's... SLASO.

Fortunately, HBO is here to help you.

Halo 3 Mythic Walkthrough
HBO has a long history of helping fans get through the toughest parts of Halo Campaign play - Asmodeus wrote up a Legendary Walkthrough of Halo, and Mike Miller put together a much-lauded guide that could get you through Halo 2 on Legendary. For Halo 3, Daniel Morris (AKA Tyrant) has upped the ante - not content with a guide for muddling through on plain old Legendary, he's built a Mythic Walkthrough - Solo, Legendary, All Skulls On. This is Halo 3 at its most difficult - Legendary difficulty, using 9 gold skulls, 4 silver ones (and don't think the silver ones are all sweetness and light - the Blind skull, for example, removes your HUD, meaning you have no easy access to health or weapon status, and you have no reticule for targeting). Just showing a runthrough, though, would be somewhat useless, from the standpoint of teaching you useful skills - if that's all you want, you should swing by High Speed Halo and check out the SLASO runs. No, what Tyrant gives you is much, much more useful - it's a guide you can follow that will get most of us actually THROUGH THE GAME on this difficulty. There are several pages of general tips, and then a guide for each specific level. We'll be releasing one level per week - there are a lot of video clips that go with each level, and we want to make sure we have the bandwidth to support everyone who wants to try this. First up - Sierra 117. Read the text, watch the video clips (download them, so you can refer to them during your run)... and you're well on your way to finishing Halo at its most challenging! (Louis Wu 15:25:40 UTC) (permalink)

http://halo.bungie.org/news.html?item=24080

Me like this, altho...

7. What's next for Bungie.net?

Well I can't spill all beans, but there will be at least a couple more large updates that people should watch out for this year.

buTube (<-- not really called this)
Chris can't spill the beans, but that doesn't mean other people can't as well! Roger Wolfson, Online Team extraordinaire and certified mathemagician has another really awesome feature that that film clip fans have been requesting for some time. From the Wolf's mouth:

Hello again, Roger here with an update on the Bungie Pro subscription service we inaugurated a year ago. To recap, Bungie Pro allows subscribers expand their Halo 3 File Share from 6 slots and 25MB of storage to 24 slots and 250MB of storage, to the tune of 750 Spacebucks for the year, which is around 78 cents per month. Halo 3 file sharing has been tremendously popular, with over 53 million pieces of content shared online in the first year alone! That year is up for the first subscribers, which makes this a great time to announce a soon-to-arrive feature that we're going to add to Bungie Pro.

And that new feature is? Render-to-video! At long last, you won't need to have a video capture card to free your saved film from the confines of your Xbox. Integrated right into the Bungie.net file-sharing experience alongside current features like "Copy to My File Share" and "Download to Halo 3" will be "Render to Video" where your short Saved Films or Film Clips (length and quantity to be determined) can come to life as a computer-playable WMV file which can be downloaded to your computer, or seen on Bungie.net alongside other game content like your Screenshots.

We're still finalizing quite a few implementation details and trying to determine at what temperature a server melts into a pool of slag that will drip through the datacenter floor. So stay tuned over the next few weeks as we get those last details sorted out. In the mean time, enjoy the Title Update, and keep that great content on your file shares.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx … ;cid=15659

...most of my best moments come from Campaign, which can't be edited into "clips" and are likely too long. Me no afford vidcap gear.

Zomg, if that breaks onto Live..theres gonna be a new taunt for all the mindless idiots in H3 multiplayer.

Btw, any word on when legendary mappack will be free? I'd hate to buy it then suddenly it turns free within a month.

NightCougar_37 wrote:

Btw, any word on when legendary mappack will be free? I'd hate to buy it then suddenly it turns free within a month.

Second guess, around the Time the Mythic pack comes out.

Btw, you missed some fine MP tonight. Played Grifball (a first) and more with some Hudson Hawk guy, then linked up later with Digi & pals. Leveled up a number of times, 'bout equal to Digi- not too bad for guys who play a lot more MP than I ever have (and still no working mic), and Broken Design came on as others were leaving. Primarily Icks' friend, but I've played w/him before, recently even... but it's late, couldn't stay. But I've found I really like Triple Kills.

(Books, Dead Space could've waited. Recon is awhile off, and life is uncertain, as well as nasty, brutish and short. )

Good stuff in the WU...

What’s New?

The biggest and most obvious change to the site is a complete overhaul of every aspect of the Halo 3 File Share section. This includes your personal file share, Bungie favorites, your screenshot gallery and everything in between. At the surface you’ll notice what is hopefully a more intuitive and easier to navigate layout that presents content in more manageable way and allows you to find and share content more efficiently. Beneath the surface you’ll notice all sorts of new tools to help you find new awesome content created by other people and share content you’ve created yourself and ultimately infuse these new elements into your Halo 3 game experience. We’ll break down a few of the main items of interest below: [..]

Hardcore Screenshotting

There’s a nice secret feature available to hardcore users who aren’t averse to downloading a quick and free plug-in. Due to popular demand and requests on our forums, Bungie.net now supports “cooliris” (formerly known as “PicLens”) which offers a new dynamic (and super badass) way to browse through Halo 3 screenshot galleries on the site. You’ll need to do a one-time download and install of this plug-in and then you’re good to go.

This will work when viewing anyone’s Halo 3 screenshot gallery on Bungie.net or if you do a search of all screenshots (note: It only works on search results of just screenshots – If you have other content items sprinkled in, it won’t work). To activate it, mouse over a screenshot for a few seconds and you should see a white box with arrow appear in the lower right corner of the image. Click it and behold. Note that this little application is dependent on the specs of your computer.

Mac Mini?.. and a new guy, plus

The Art of Halo 3

As some folks saw over at Amazon there is in fact a new Art of Halo book in the works. We don't know who this Fernando Bueno guy is, but pixelsmith Lorraine McLees has been wrangling horses and herding cats to collect a robust group of pieces that will populate this fine collection of coffee-table-topping literature. Here's the first look at the book's cover.

The first was a castle of Lovebricks and Winmortar. This should be teh awesome.

More at  http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx … ;cid=15841