Transcript from #CPL chat on IRC, October 29, 2003

The following groups were represented:
The Cyberathlete Professional League
The Cyberathlete Amateur League
Gearbox
Microsoft/Bungie
8:02 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Hi
8:07 PM:                 CPL|Justin : 1. Will they remove the text typing limitation?
8:07 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : We want longer names, etc... We've got some localization issues
                                      to consider, but we agree that more characters is better...
8:07 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : Will they add level restarts while people stay on the same team,
                                      such as a lo3 in cstrike,
8:08 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : Yes, level restart or reset is already in. Consistent teams across
                                      restarts and level changes has already been implemented in the 
                                      next patch.
8:08 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Will they add a built in voice comm
8:09 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : Sorry to interrupt. The link I gave out was not working. Basically, 
                                      before you ask any question, make sure that you have read the 
                                      protocol for this session at http://forums.thecpl.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001258;p=
8:09 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : sheesh, hope that one works - works for me
8:10 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : We think this is a cool feature. We have a specification for 
                                      improved chat and voice features, but haven't prioritized these 
                                      features above things like performance, anti-team killing features, 
                                      more in-game on-line feedback (like ping in score, etc)...
8:11 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Guys - we're getting slammed! I think we've got a good system for 
                                      answering questions so expect the rate of questions and answers 
                                      to increase a bit...
8:12 PM:                 CPL|Justin : I would like to know if Halo will be able to support the kind of 
                                      computers that are not the best. Because my computer is good, but 
                                      has a really messed up graphics card.
8:12 PM:               BNG_mbastien : Halo's rendering engine is very flexible and will run well on a wide 
                                      variety of systems. We've written a Technical FAQ that contains a 
                                      bunch of info about the rendering options in Halo and on how to best 
                                      optimize it your system. It's available on: 
                                      http://halo.bungie.net/site/halo/features/hpcperformancefaq.html.
8:13 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Will they update the netcode to allow client hit detection,
8:13 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : The netcode will include improved prediction but the client will not 
                                      become authoritative with respect to hits, damage, etc.
8:14 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Will they change fov?
8:15 PM:            CAL-Halo|Joseph : What month will the HaloPC SDK tools be released?
8:15 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Will they change fov: I want this, but unfortunately we can't do it. 
                                      There's a lot of technical reasons for this. There are also security 
                                      reasons as well...
8:16 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : We hope to have the Halo Editing Kit completed and out in mid November, 
                                      its a rather large undertaking and we want to make sure we do it right!
8:17 PM:                 CPL|Justin : "Did you ever expect Halo to get as big as it did?"
8:18 PM:                  CPL|Frank : What are the CPL comitments to Halo because I don't want to shell out 
                                      50 dollars for a game that I wont be able to compete in for only one 
                                      tournement" and also "Will Gearbox be supporting the mod community like 
                                      how Valve supported its mod community"
8:18 PM:                  CPL|Frank : The CPL is totally committed to Halo at this time, there will 
                                      definitely be a Summer 2004 Halo tournament which we will be releasing 
                                      information on soon and most likely a Winter 2004 Halo tournament.
8:19 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : ok everyone, yes we are getting your PMs - we are flooded. Even if we 
                                      do not answer your PM, we are passing your question to the panel. 
                                      Please be patient :)
8:19 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Is there going to be a HaloTV to speak of?:
8:20 PM:                 CPL|Justin : hold out
8:20 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Let me make a quick comment first: We are talking about things today 
                                      that involv plans and ambitions....
8:20 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Our priorities are constantly shifting based on the needs and expectations 
                                      of our customers.
8:20 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Our level of support is ultimately dictated by the degree our customers 
                                      support the game - how much they buy and play.
8:21 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : So, I may talk about things we want to do, but please remember that we're 
                                      changing our priorities constantly and sometimes things we think may be 
                                      important now become less important relative to other things that come up....
8:21 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Having said that... I'll answer the Halo TV question :)
8:22 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Is there going to be a HaloTV to speak of?: We've got plans for this. The 
                                      first step is demo recording mode which we have working prototypically at 
                                      Gearbox. After the next update is released, we'll reprioritize when we 
                                      create an interface for demo recording and after gathering feedback from 
                                      the CPL Winter Tourney will make a specification for something along the 
                                      lines of Halo TV.
8:24 PM:                  CPL|Chris : "Did you ever expect Halo to get as big as it did?"
8:25 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Guys - I'm getting slammed. Please don't feel ignored if I do not reply 
                                      to your PM. I've got at least 100 of them sitting here - no chance I'll 
                                      be able to look at them all...
8:25 PM:               BNG_mbastien : Not really! I think the team always knew we were working on something 
                                      that our fans would really like, but I think we were all surprised with 
                                      the games amazing success and. Really cool to see and we love the support 
                                      that our fans have given Halo over the past two years. Our fans rule.
8:25 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Q: Will they make it work with nvidia refresh tool or reforce?
8:25 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : We've added several workarounds and more robust fall-back code to the 
                                      renderer to support refresh rate tools.
8:25 PM:                 CPL|Justin : q: Is there a chance a public program that will be released for people to 
                                      create there own maps. Like UnrealEd for the Unreal Series game.
8:26 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : Halo content is created with 3ds Max, there are proprietary tools that are 
                                      used to convert the 3ds Max data so that it can be run in the game, these 
                                      tools are part of whats included in the Halo Editing Kit
8:26 PM:                 CPL|Justin : BOXERS OR BRIEFS?
8:27 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : Commando
8:27 PM:          CPL|Hollingsworth : haha
8:27 PM:                    CAL|Joe : lol
8:27 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Is this serious? Let's talk about HALO!
8:28 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Could you seperate chat and kill/deaths into seperate windows, and 
                                      possibly could you add colors to the kill/deaths for Team games?
8:31 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : The chat/message interface we used was used because of its support for 
                                      multiple locales. We're investigating making this more 
                                      readable/understandable but this has not moved beyond investigation.
8:31 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Can we expect a good level of teamwork with the community, developers, 
                                      as well as the CPL to help the game succeed. Seems valve falls short of this 
                                      and makes lots of changes the community doesnt necessarily agree with.
8:32 PM:            CAL-Halo|Joseph : when you do the restarts, does that mean the enitre map will estart or just 
                                      the teams will get respawned. Because this might affect the flag time.
8:32 PM:            CAL-Halo|Joseph : teams will be respawned, as well as every counter reset.
8:33 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : Its a clean restart without a map reload
8:33 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : RE: Community support: We're primarily motivated by fear and terror - we want 
                                      happy customers and we're afraid of making disappointed ones. Since we launched, 
                                      the community has dictated our task lists.
8:34 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Why don't they release more smaller patches?
8:34 PM:               BNG_mbastien : As much as we'd like to roll out patches more often, it actually takes us both 
                                      development time and quality assurance time to put together a release. Our 
                                      priorities are always to insure the stability of the game, address the issues 
                                      impacting important number of users and enhancing the quality of the experience 
                                      for online play. You can be sure we are constantly working on releases and 
                                      we're working as fast as we can!
8:34 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Since we launched, we've done things like...
8:35 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : 33% of our engineering team on performance
8:35 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : we've done a bunch of stuff to improve netcode
8:35 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : we've spent resources on anti-team killing software
8:35 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : we've spent time working on the Halo Editing Kit
8:35 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : we've worked on new content
8:35 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : we've worked on better feedback for on-line game status
8:35 PM:                 CPL|Justin : <Bharak> my question is Will they add a feature to kick players who 
                                      Team Kill. this is a serious issue that I have seen and hate
8:35 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : we've worked on features and foundation for better tournament games (such as 
                                      the CPL tournament)
8:35 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : The next update is massive and I'd love it if that's just the tip of the iceburg 
                                      (more and better is largely dictated by the support of gamers like you).
8:36 PM:                 CPL|Justin : <Bharak> my question is Will they add a feature to kick players who 
                                      Team Kill. this is a serious issue that I have seen and hate
8:36 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : We have already implemented a very robust and flexible team killing solution.
                                       This addition will be in the next update.
8:36 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : It's cool :) I slammed the guys yesterday about how it worked and they were able 
                                      to defend every piece of the feature. I'm looking for feedback once it's released, 
                                      though... Nothing's perfect, right?
8:37 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : BTW - Just before the chat we finished a company wide play test of the latest 
                                      version. Lots of fun - except the bits where I get killed by Dave and Matt every 
                                      fifteen second...
8:39 PM:                 CPL|Justin : <ButalGoerge> how did they get Halo, that was originally on a DVD, onto 
                                      a CD-Rom?
8:39 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : There was a lot of redundant data for the cache files used in the Xbox version, 
                                      we just consoldated the data without sacrificing the fast Halo level load times.
8:41 PM:                 CPL|Justin : I found the mouse movement on the Halo demo would exponentially increase turning 
                                      radius speed as the mouse turned faster. Can that option be turned off?
8:41 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : You can decrease the acceleration of the mouse using the mouse_acceleration console 
                                      variable (or put it in your init.txt file so it's automatically set on load).
8:43 PM:                 CPL|Justin : How do u guyz think halo will do with online play on the pc because the online 
                                      gaming market is alrdy dominated by a loyal fan base <ie Cs bf1942 Diablo2 War3 
                                      and up and coming games like WoW Doom3 and hl2>
8:44 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : How do u guyz think halo will do: I think Counter-Strike is great fun. We loved 
                                      working on it! But, I think that Halo offers things that CS doesn't.
8:45 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Consider that Halo is first generation net code, so it needs a lot of work and 
                                      feedback from you guys to build it up over time to be the best on-line game. This 
                                      is the same sort of community support that helped CS improve over the last 
                                      four years.
8:45 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Consider whether or not you'll still be playing CS four years from now? What if 
                                      Halo had the same kind of community support commitment that CS did? Could Halo 
                                      dominate? I don't think the point of Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 is about multiplayer, 
                                      so I'm not sure how those games will factor in... I don't have a crystal ball, though...
8:48 PM:                 CPL|Justin : <Enixile> Hello, is there going to be a split-screen patch released at some time?
8:48 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : No
8:48 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Hey - who's going to be making cool Halo vids with the PC version like some guys did 
                                      with the Xbox version? Should be easier with the PC version, right? We love this stuff!
8:49 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Is there any possability that the HALO engine could be edited to such a degree that 
                                      you would basically have a entire new game? (A good reference here would be how 
                                      Half-Life was beautifully MOD'ed into Natural-Selection).
8:49 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : There is no telling what people will be able to do once they have access to the tools 
                                      and editing kit. Just look at what people have been able to do to Halo Xbox without any 
                                      tools or information.
8:49 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Are adjustments being made to environment objects such as rocks and vehicles that almost 
                                      always cause tremendous lag when interacted with?
8:50 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : The vehicle warping/lag is related to the earlier question about client prediction. 
                                      This will improve as the client is better able to simulate the results of collisions.
8:50 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Hey, I just wanted to say that Halo is the #1 selling game in the world right now and 
                                      that's because of you guys. Big thanks. When we launch a title, we're always afraid. But 
                                      when people like it and buy into it, we want to support it. We did TONS of support with 
                                      the Half-Life games we made. I hope that you guys give us the ability to support Halo 
                                      even more!
8:51 PM:                 CPL|Justin : When is the patch suuposed to come out?
8:51 PM:               BNG_mbastien : We've been working on the next update really hard in the last couple of weeks and we're 
                                      now putting a lot of time and effort into testing it (both functional and play test). 
                                      While I can't be specific about a release timeframe, it's certainly our hope (and our 
                                      goal) to get it out there as soon as possible. Hey, we want to play with the new 
                                      stuff online as much as you guys...
8:51 PM:                 CPL|Justin : <furious> Will Gearbox ever release a program similar to Steam for their games?
8:52 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Probably not... At least we've got no plans for that...
8:52 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : If I get a lot of community feedback telling me that it's a good idea, I'll change 
                                      my mind.
8:52 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Players should be assigned Won/PB-like ids that are used from their cd-keys to 
                                      properly ban people from servers as well as verify who is who in a match
8:52 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : Halo already supports the concept of a unique ID for each user; this is your 
                                      CD key. Servers can ban problem users by banning their unique CD key. A future 
                                      update will make it easier for admins to verify who is in the server by seeing 
                                      the CDkey live.
8:53 PM:                 CPL|Justin : <CPL|Tonya> who decided master chief should be green?
8:53 PM:            MS|SketchFactor : Chief's armor was created and designed by Dr.Halsey, the lead scientist on Project MJOLNIR.
8:53 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Guys - Don't propose to Tonya. She's getting flooded :)
8:55 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : You guys please do not ask questions regarding Halo2 - this session is for 
                                      the current HaloPC release. :)
8:55 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : thanks!
8:57 PM:                  CPL|Frank : We are still answering questions guys, please be patient, we will be winding things 
                                      down pretty soon though.
8:57 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : We are getting a lot of questions about the netcode; we chose a server authoritative 
                                      model to eliminate most of the cheating that runs rampant online. This does mean that 
                                      you have to lead your targets as you did in Quake 3. Vehicles need more lead because 
                                      they move faster.
8:57 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Clarify what you mean by CDkey live? You mean some form of GUID or heavily encrypted 
                                      CDkey, or the actual CDkey shown to admins in real time
8:57 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : The CDKey is never available to anyone in its original form. Only a hash is ever 
                                      transmitted to servers.
8:58 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : CS makes the client authoritative about what you shoot. This means that you don't 
                                      perceive any lag, but it also means that if a client tells the server that he shot a 
                                      guy in the head, that the server has to trust him. Sometime clients lie - this is called 
                                      cheating. We don't really like cheating and designed an architecture which inherently 
                                      combated it.
8:59 PM:                 CPL|Justin : <CForrester> My question: Is there any chance of having XBox and PC players 
                                      interconnect to play Halo multiplayer?
8:59 PM:                  CPL|Frank : We'll be drawing the Halo Giveaway in approximately 10 minutes.
8:59 PM:               BNG_mbastien : Unfortunately not...
8:59 PM:                 CPL|Justin : will there be a "freezetime" in the beginning of a round, since cal rules say you have 
                                      to have a dead round in the beginning of a half
9:00 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : The instant map reset feature we added will allow the game to be started once everybody 
                                      is in the game, so everyone starts the game at the same time. We hope that leagues will 
                                      make use of this feature to streamline their matches. Look for this in the next update.
9:02 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Why did they take out the Co-operative Play in the PC Version? Would they have any 
                                      intention of possible implementing it back in in a future patch?
9:02 PM:               BNG_mbastien : Ah, the question of all questions. The Xbox version of the game supported the now very 
                                      famous split-screen co-op but didn't support it accross system link play. We've spent 
                                      much energy bringing the Halo multiplayer experience on the Internet and I think we now 
                                      have a very solid basis for the community to build on.
9:02 PM:               BNG_mbastien : With the upcoming release of the Halo Editing Kit, we're looking forward to playing the 
                                      new game experiences you guys will create.
9:02 PM:               BNG_mbastien : While we are looking at what would be involved to implement this in a future update, 
                                      gamers who are thinking about getting the game should make their decisions based on 
                                      the current feature set...
9:03 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : OK guys - you can stop sending questions. We already have a backlog of many many, and 
                                      we will be doing our drawing soon.
9:03 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : :)
9:04 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Will they add a feature if you are on offense, show which player on your team has the 
                                      flag when you show score
9:04 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : YES! It's coming in the next update. There will be an indicator in the scoreboard.
9:04 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : I think we're running out of time here....
9:04 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Man, we should do this again. Lots of cool questions - some of them got us thinking about 
                                      some things we should be doing.
9:05 PM:                  CPL|Frank : A few more minutes til the drawing!!!!
9:06 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : OK, lemme clear out these PMs - gah
9:06 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : and we will do the drawing :)
9:06 PM:                 CPL|George : !list #cpl
9:06 PM:                  MS|Vidguy : my favorite question of the night was "<Coolnat2004> Are there any plans of a 
                                      PC version?" ;)
9:06 PM:                  CPL|Frank : haha
9:06 PM:            CAL-Halo|Joseph : haha
9:06 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : yep
9:06 PM:            CAL-Halo|Joseph : i liked boxers or briefs :-x
9:07 PM:                    CAL|Joe : ?part #cpl
9:07 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Hey, quickly... I'm getting comments about people worried that server admins can get 
                                      CD keys...
9:08 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Here's the deal - no server admin will get a CD key. They'll get a unique hash which 
                                      is kind of like the WON ID you're familiar with in CS...
9:08 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : That's the thing they can use to administer their server...
9:09 PM:               BNG_mbastien : Thanks very much for coming by!
9:09 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Hey - listen... This was really great.
9:09 PM:                  CPL|Frank : We'd like to thank everyone for joining in! We all had fun!
9:09 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : I want to do this again... We'll set it up when we get some time.
9:09 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : Thanks for coming by everyone!
9:09 PM:                  CPL|Angel : Yes thanks everyone!
9:09 PM:            MS|SketchFactor : (shameless plug) www.bungie.net (/shameless plug)
9:09 PM:                 CPL|Justin : We would like to thank our guests for taking the time to be with us tonight. We will 
                                      be holding our drawing in just a few minutes. Thanks for taking the time to be with us 
                                      tonight and thanks for all of the questions.
9:09 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : I wish we had more time, but we want to get back to getting the next update out for 
                                      everyone...
9:10 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Tonya will be conducting our drawing shortly
9:10 PM:                 CPL|Justin : Good luck to everyone
9:10 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : If you want to give us feedback more often, visit our message forums at 
                                      www.gearboxsoftware.com
9:10 PM:                 CPL|Justin : lol
9:10 PM:                    CAL|Joe : !delban Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic
9:10 PM:                    CAL|Joe : hmm
9:10 PM:          Gearbox_Halo_Team : haha
9:11 PM:            CAL-Halo|Joseph : omg randy got owned
9:11 PM:            CAL-Halo|Joseph : !
9:11 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : OK, lemme first thank everyone for the confessions of love and marriage proposals... 
                                      I love you guys too :)
9:11 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : ;)
9:11 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Okay, come to our website's message forum... We read the messages.
9:11 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : time for the drawing!
9:11 PM:                  CPL|Frank : :)
9:11 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : I am using a script that is totally random
9:11 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : and will only choose from those of you without access in the channel
9:12 PM:                  CPL|Tonya : if your name is selected
9:12 PM:            CAL-Halo|Joseph : and the winner is CAL-Halo|Joseph
9:12 PM:            CAL-Halo|Joseph : !
9:12 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Okay - Thanks for your time.
9:12 PM: Randy_Pitchford-DuvalMagic : Bye...