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February 2004

February 2004 Archived News

News February 29 2004

Weekly updates in FRENCH, too
Eclarap points out that not only can you get the updates in German, as we mentioned earlier today, but in French, too - just stop by Halo-Game and see what they've got! (Louis Wu 22:56:42 UTC) (permalink)

Bullet Time, almost
DocOctavius continues his rendering experimentation with an appropriately named image - 'Action'. I'm lovin' this stuff! (Louis Wu 22:11:44 UTC) (permalink)

Frankie's Weekly Update - in German
Stefan, from Halo Orbit, has pointed out that you can now read Frankie's Weekly Bungie Updates in German, if you so desire - and they're fully searchable, as well. Visit the archive for more details! (Louis Wu 21:04:02 UTC) (permalink)

Lost in Translation...
343GS.com updated their EchoFourNineteen comic series (check the downloads section) with a new strip on Friday - but we didn't notice. (Thanks, snowy_duck, for pointing it out.) Interesting perspective on the Jackal language... (Louis Wu 15:59:47 UTC) (permalink)

The end of something great?
Ouch. Subnova has run out of money... it doesn't look like it can afford to offer the services to the community that it's been offering. (If you weren't aware, roughly half of HBO's pages have been running on Subnova servers for the past month or so.) We're going to do our best to keep this from affecting the HBO day-to-day running... but the bottom line is, it's expensive to run a not-for-profit website... and not everyone has bottomless pockets. (Not everyone has my aversion to donations, either - if you're feeling generous, there's a donate link in Subnova's sidebar.) We're gonna miss you guys! (Louis Wu 02:19:11 UTC) (permalink)

Toilet Humour
Stuntmutt, never one to be right there on top of the day's events, has written a Sunday Strip for One One Se7en that looks at... well, last week's Weekly Bungie Update. You can never sink too low, it seems. There's always another rung down. (Louis Wu 01:07:25 UTC) (permalink)

Homelan Strikes First
HomelanFed recently interviewed the First Strike mod team about their work - the result is an interesting read. How they got started, what their mod will cover, what we might be seeing in the future... check it out! (Louis Wu 00:51:39 UTC) (permalink)

News February 28 2004

Nice lines, baby
Wow - now THAT'S a slick-looking Warthog. quaglinoman, over at the Halomods forums, has posted a TRON-inspired warthog (the original movie, not the recent game) - and it looks great. Check it out! (Thanks to TURBO for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 15:07:32 UTC) (permalink)

Goodbye, CN
John Kedrowski pointed out the sad news that CobaltNova is hanging it up. No more Halo for Emil... he's closing the doors. (Louis Wu 14:50:23 UTC) (permalink)

The Weapon of Choice in Halo 2?
Stuntmutt has provided the world with a bonus movie today - it weighs in at 552k, and it shows off what might just be the most powerful weapon we'll see against certain enemies. Check out Pump Action! (Louis Wu 11:54:34 UTC) (permalink)

IRC aid for mIRC users
Our Homelan-sponsored IRC channel has become its own little community - something that many realized would happen. It's a place for forum regulars and irregulars alike, along with visitors from other sites and the odd (and I do mean odd) Bungie employee to come and hang out; in general, it's a friendly place. We had a problem a little while ago with a rather persistent troll, and the result was that we muted the channel; in order to speak, you have to be 'voiced'. Setting people up for automatic voice (given by the channel server as you enter the channel) is easy to do - but requires that your nickname is registered. (There's information on how to do this on our IRC Info page.) This is all well and good... but it turns out that many IRC clients neglect to 'Identify' the user automatically - so the server isn't sure it's really you, and the autovoice doesn't work. One of the worst offenders is mIRC, a popular Windows-based client. Setting up Auto-Identify is a bit obscure - so Nick has gone ahead and made a short video (1.8 mb) showing how to do it. If you use mIRC, and you're tired of pestering channel operators for voice so that you can speak... check this out! (Louis Wu 11:40:56 UTC) (permalink)

If You Want Something Done Right... Kill Cortana First
And because too what fun is text without pictures, we have today's Guest One One Se7en - Jillybean threatens to take over the place. After that last post, i've half a mind to let her. (Louis Wu 11:31:52 UTC) (permalink)

My eyes are burning.
Geez - you don't update Fan Fiction for a few days, and suddenly you've got 29 entries to post.

• The Raptros Saga: Ch.1: Awakening, by Raptros-v75
• Chapet one: Unforgiving Wounds, by ToFu
• Sep'Reo [The Reclamation]: Chapter 1, by JJiggssaw
• The Covenant Weapon--chapter 2 Capture, by Halo_2204
• The Fall of Rye: Chapter 1: The Seige, by teemus
• The Croton Chronicles: Prologue, by Earl Hershberger (Funkster) & Trevor White (Boxer[subnova])
• The Croton Chronicles: Chapter 1, by Earl Hershberger (Funkster) & Trevor White (Boxer[subnova])
• The Croton Chronicles: Chapter 1.5, It's half as good but twice as fun, by Earl Hershberger (Funkster) & Trevor White (Boxer[subnova])
• The Croton Chronicles: Chapter 2, At least we're not dead...yet, by Earl Hershberger (Funkster) & Trevor White (Boxer[subnova])
• The Croton Chronicles: Chapter 3, This is where the fun starts, by Earl Hershberger (Funkster) & Trevor White (Boxer[subnova])
• The Croton Chronicles: Chapter 3.76, The sea may be a cruel mistress�but trees hurt more, by Earl Hershberger (Funkster) & Trevor White (Boxer[subnova])
• The Croton Chronicles: Chapter 5, If a big purple dinosaur can be your friend why not a big blue Ali, by Earl Hershberger (Funkster) & Trevor White (Boxer[subnova])
• The Croton Chronicles: Chapter 6, Take your orders and shove em'!!!, by Earl Hershberger (Funkster) & Trevor White (Boxer[subnova])
• The Croton Chronicles: Chapter 7.1, With enemies like these, who needs enemies?, by Earl Hershberger (Funkster) & Trevor White (Boxer[subnova])
• The Croton Chronicles: Chapter 9, Into the belly of the beast�and it�s not feeling too well, by Earl Hershberger (Funkster) & Trevor White (Boxer[subnova])
• Hit Hard Ch. 4 pt. 2 --Reclaimer--, by Nick Kang
• Spartan -116 and -118 (Chapter 1), by John Wilson
• Mysteries Part 4, by Horror
• The Enemy Within-Chapter Five: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire, by Mind_Affecting_Parasite
• Halo 2: Chapter One and Chapter Two, by John E
• Probably No Choice, Part II, by Jon M... a.k.a The Flu
• Halo: The Battle Within. Chapter 2, by Bryan D. (A.K.A. B-Man)
• New Mombasa, by Steve
• Battle for Nagidrac System: Part One - Section 1, by BullsEye & Fig
• Battle for Nagidrac System: Part 1 - Section 2, by BullsEye & Fig
• ODST Lead the Way Chapter 1, by Helljumper
• Alive, by Solidus Snake
• The End of the Covenant and The Fall of A Hero., by Jagged
• A Marine Named Peters: The Finale, Part Two: Peters' View, by GLADIATRRR3000

Gah - I hope that's the last of it for the weekend... luckily, you've got two days to read all this. In the future, I'd appreciate it if folks would keep their handles to a minimum - post by your real name, or post by a nickname... but don't post by both, it makes a total mess of my front page. Thanks! (Louis Wu 11:28:02 UTC) (permalink)

The Modeling Continues
I missed the "Bushwacker" yesterday - I hope this doesn't kill Revenant_SP001's Tripod account. (If it does, I grabbed a copy - let us know.) (Louis Wu 09:50:05 UTC) (permalink)

Having Fun with the Chaingun
Today's REAL Bungie Weekly Update is over at TeamXbox - and it's a doozy. Halo 2 PIC! Okay... it's just a prototype of the Joyride action figure... but it's way cool-looking. There's also lots of info about the week's progress; ambient life, new control schemes, lightmaps, you name it. Go read! (Louis Wu 01:32:08 UTC) (permalink)

News February 27 2004

On Top of Old Gephy, all covered with...
Devin Olsen posted a note about a movie he and Goatrope made - getting to the top of Gephyrophobia. There are three mirrors for the 7 mb, 1-minute DivX-encoded film listed in the forum post. Take a look! (Louis Wu 22:33:08 UTC) (permalink)

Hot Buttered Lugnuts!
Episode 25 of Red vs Blue's Blood Gulch Chronicles has been posted for sponsors. It's a monster - 4:48 of hilarity. They just keep getting better and better. Thanks, Ross. (Louis Wu 19:49:23 UTC) (permalink)

Fake Updates Aren't Much Fun
Whoa. WAY ahead of schedule, Frankie has posted this week's Bungie Update over at the IGN forums. Info on the upcoming web overhaul, voice chat, new multiplayer options, and (w00t!) final Halo 2 box art - what more do you want? Go read. (Thanks for the heads-up, Obie!) Update: I should have known it was posted too early - sorry, folks, this was a fake. Bad news for everyone, now - folks are gonna be suspicious of EVERY update from here on in. (Louis Wu 18:08:15 UTC) (permalink)

Would you like to dance?
More rendering from DocOctavius - this time, it's our friend the Elite. I like it! (Louis Wu 13:42:48 UTC) (permalink)

Progress?
Cortana.org is stating that testing is going on for the Halo Editing Kit, and that 'things have progressed'. If we hear more, we'll be sure to pass it on! (Louis Wu 13:34:51 UTC) (permalink)

Voice Actor - John Romero?
One One Se7en checks out the Covenant heirarchy, or something. (Louis Wu 12:11:28 UTC) (permalink)

And You Thought It Was High Quality
Whoa - Captain Keyes wearing Nightmare Armor? Check out today's Halo: Resolution... (Louis Wu 12:09:48 UTC) (permalink)

45 Seconds Too Short
Hehe - there's a new Halo Babies comic up - and I gotta say, I've been there. Oh, yeah, I've been there. Note that this week, while the art is still Gruntsbane's, the strip was written by a fan, vmanjr. Nice to be using community input! (Louis Wu 12:05:19 UTC) (permalink)

Poor Grunts
SexyJosh has released another Halo-inspired tune over at his website - this one is 3.4 mb, 3:36 long, and is sad for Grunts. Go listen! (You can comment in this forum thread.) (Louis Wu 01:11:30 UTC) (permalink)

First Strike moves ahead
Crispy Spartan has posted the second Weekly Update for the First Strike mod; this one contains info from the various section leads, some concept artwork, and a request for help. Read the post for details! (Louis Wu 01:04:49 UTC) (permalink)

News February 26 2004

Gettin' in on the Modeling Action
Wraith, too, wanted to model. No, not Bikinis. MCs. (Trust me - you don't wanna see him in a bikini.) (Louis Wu 20:48:49 UTC) (permalink)

So... what is fun, anyway?
Interesting perspective on last weekend's tournament in Philly from 'Nosolee, one of our forum denizens. Makes you stop and think... (Louis Wu 15:31:37 UTC) (permalink)

MC - A Study in Blue
Whoops, I forgot - there was more modeling action on the forum recently (this time by dolbex), and I forgot to post it. Check this stuff out! (Louis Wu 13:38:17 UTC) (permalink)

To Screen, or Not to Screen
Rampancy.net has gone screenshot-crazy. There is now a full gallery devoted to the shots that XLNC has posted on our forum - as well as a SEPARATE gallery with 8 as-yet-unseen shots (Grunt Justice ROCKS). He's also added a dolbex mini-gallery that includes the shots dolbex posted yesterday (but not yet including these shots, posted 2 days ago). While we're ON the subject of screenshots, there are a bunch MORE that folks are taking, using the HUDless methods pioneered by XLNC: MerecCatfish took a bunch a few weeks ago, JM posted some on our forum this morning, and even BOLL's getting into the act. Screens everywhere! (Louis Wu 13:01:33 UTC) (permalink)

Lag 117
Today's Guest One One Se7en comes from Konrad - we're ALMOST back to the lag thing. He WISHES we were back to the lag thing. Oh, yeah. (Louis Wu 10:45:09 UTC) (permalink)

I say the kid has talent.
Calvin and Halo gets back to snow - something it does really, really well. (Louis Wu 10:38:53 UTC) (permalink)

New Artwork at Halo Babies
Halo Babies has posted 4 new animated avatars an a piece of Fanart - go check it out! (Louis Wu 10:19:58 UTC) (permalink)

MLG announces tourney results
This came in yesterday, but I never got to it. Major League Gaming has released results from the 2-day Halo tournament that took place over the weekend in Philadelphia. More than 400 competitors and 350 spectators were on hand to watch the festivities; more than $17,000 in cash was handed out to the winners. Here are the results:

Halo Free For All:

• 1st Place: Ogre 1 (Danny Ryan, NJ)
• 2nd Place: Ogre 2 (Tommy Ryan, NJ)
• 3rd Place:
  • Saivan (Ryan Danford, NC)
  • C2 (Chris Collins, WV) - tie

Halo 4 vs. 4 Team Competition:

• 1st Place: Team StK:
  • Ogre 1 (Danny Ryan, NJ)
  • Ogre 2 (Tommy Ryan, NJ)
  • Strangepurple (Doug Fabrizio, NJ)
  • Clockwork (Kushik Dutta, WA)
• 2nd Place: Team AP:
  • Acer (Chris Hoover, TX)
  • Anti (Josh Crahan, TX)
  • KillerN (Nick Urso, TX)
  • Shizz (Paul Baffi, TX)
• 3rd Place: Team Shoot Back:
  • Csquared (Chris Collins, WV)
  • Damien (Justin Thomas, WV)
  • Nistic (Kevin Colvin, OH)
  • Zyos (Matt Leto, TX)
• 4th Place: Team DM:
  • Deeter (Pat Danford, NC)
  • Gestapo (Scott Moore, NC)
  • Ryu (Ryan Moore, NC)
  • Saiyan (Ryan Danford, NC)

Halo 4 vs. 4 Tournament MVP award: Zyos (Matt Leto, TX)

Sounds like a party that shouldn't have been missed! (Louis Wu 10:14:54 UTC) (permalink)

I want my inbox back.
To the (literally) dozens of people mailing us about the Gamespy Titlefight - here's the news post, can you stop mailing? (The only category of mail we're getting that exceeds this right now is the MyDoom virus mail.) In a week or so, Halo will go up against Goldeneye (from the Nintento64) in a popularity contest. (Check 'The Abandoned Base' bracket, about 2/3 down towards the bottom.) See what you can do about helping it win, okay? We'll try to remind you next week. (Louis Wu 09:55:55 UTC) (permalink)

News February 25 2004

Warthog Launch Revisited
So that BOLL guy, I think he works for Macromedia, or something. All he does all day is turn out cool Flash toys. And yeah, he's got a new one. It's called Warthog Launch... and that's exactly what you do. Grab a Warthog, pile grenades under it, and try to pop the Engineers. Stats keep track of how many levels you got through, how many grenades you used, the number of launches, how many times your Warthog bounced, how many Engineers you popped, and most importantly, how much time you wasted blowing stuff up. What are you waiting for? Go Play. (Louis Wu 11:43:34 UTC) (permalink)

So That's Why There Are Five Rings
One One Se7en looks at the relationship between Covenant and Forerunner today. If that grunt gets his own strip, I'm leaving. (Louis Wu 11:31:40 UTC) (permalink)

How Did He Ever Become A Captain?
Halo: Resolution doesn't have a lot of respect for Captain Keyes... (Louis Wu 11:29:52 UTC) (permalink)

Dueling Screenshots
Dang. Dolbex has decided to get into the Screenshot act - 21 shots, containing tons of spoilers (for those keeping track). Some seem a little washed out... but all are pretty dang impressive. Mod city, baby! (Louis Wu 11:20:51 UTC) (permalink)

The Halone Gunman Theory
Another 18 stories for you today in the Fan Fiction section:

• Battle For Reach pt.1, by Chris
• Hidden Threat: Chapter 3 - The Plunge, by NBD24
• The Soldiers of Angelon: The Lady of Shadows, by Jinkaiden-XI
• The Siege of Zion Base; Part Two: Siege - Chapter 9, by Scimitarex
• The Siege of Zion Base; Part Two: Siege - Chapter Ten, by Scimitarex
• Part two--- The Covenant Weapon, by Halo_2204
• Visions of Purity Part 2: The Colonel, by xitWOUND117
• The Enemy Within-Chapter Four: Ask, Seek, Knock, by Mind_Affecting_Parasite
• Halo 1.5--From Halo to REACH--chapter one, by Halo_2204
• Trapped Part : Gunned Down, by Daniel Renner
• Neverland: Eradication, by SOS.Odin
• Earths Fall? Prt: 2- The Assault, by Jim
• The Darkness and the Light - Chapter 2:, by IAmDelta
• Long Shot, by Kosh_123
• Chapter 0 of Halo: Fellowship in Blood, by gamer02
• Halo: The Scythe of Death Part Eight, by LordofDestruction
• Dubbo's Demise, by CoLd BlooDed
• Probably No Choice, by Jon M... a.k.a The Flu

Read, dangit - it's only Wednesday! (Louis Wu 11:13:16 UTC) (permalink)

Two Betrayals/AotCR screenies
Scimitarex tried his hand at Screenshot composition - and I must say, the results are pleasing. These are more sweeping visions of Halo's snow levels than other shots we've seen recently - I think they give a nice sense for the grandeur of Forerunner architecture. Take a look! (Louis Wu 11:03:42 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Midi File - Back!
About a year ago, we mentioned a polyphonic ringtone for your cellular phone - the midi file it used was pretty impressive. It seems to have vanished from the web... so Deimos Fawkes has kindly made it available at Subnova. It's a 16K download. (Louis Wu 10:21:03 UTC) (permalink)

News February 24 2004

Poops, now searchable
Later than usual, but it's been a busy few weeks... last Friday's Frankie's Weekly Bungie Update has been added to the Update database, and is now searchable by all. Use the power wisely... (Louis Wu 21:36:12 UTC) (permalink)

He's a master, that one
XLNC continues his Astounding Screenshots collection, this time with 10 shots that show off the breathtaking to the hilarious. They're not just HUDless - they're gorgeously composed. Wow. (Louis Wu 18:35:26 UTC) (permalink)

Pwning At Oddball
MereCatfish has pointed out a link to a large movie he's made available for download - it's a 31 mb WMP7 film showing almost 7 minutes of an Oddball game on Death Island. You can grab it off his server if you're so inclined. (Louis Wu 18:29:17 UTC) (permalink)

No contest, dude. (Okay, maybe a small one.)
Narcogen, in an attempt to make this Rampancy.net News Day (unlike c0ld vengeance, who would never do such a thing), has sent in a link to an interesting poll: Which Bungie game had the best story? Go vote now! (Louis Wu 18:26:17 UTC) (permalink)

Porntana.
Today's Guest One One Se7en is a c0ld vengeance piece. One wonders if there might not be a little autobiographical content in there... (Louis Wu 12:59:26 UTC) (permalink)

A Sandwich.
A new Calvin and Halo today - the moral is, think about the stars, but shoot for the ceiling; it's closer. (Louis Wu 12:56:33 UTC) (permalink)

HBN Contest
mrsmiley writes to point out a new contest at Halobabies.net - anyone who is now, or becomes in the next two months, a sponsor of the site ($10 donation) is entered into the contest. Winner will be determined at random from the available pool. The prize - you'll get drawn into a Halo Babies comic (and receive a framed copy of the strip for your wall). Become a sponsor before the end of April for your chance to win! (Don't forget to check out the misc section for a hand-drawn animated short - apparently many of the visitors to the site since the makeover have missed it.) (Louis Wu 10:31:02 UTC) (permalink)

Teamkilling, revisited
A few days ago, we mentioned an article over at Battleground: Halo on teamkilling. Today, Narcogen, at Rampancy.net, has written a rebuttal. Well, not so much a rebuttal as a rant on volatility. For the money, I think he's spot on in most of his points. (Louis Wu 09:53:55 UTC) (permalink)

Call me.
Rapture has added some pretty cool wallpaper to his cellphone... Update: Narcogen, unwilling to be outdone, added a Halo 2 screenshot as the background image of his Handspring Treo. w00t! Further Update: Narcogen has added a download link for his image, and BOLL has pointed out his own (much older) phone customization. (Louis Wu 09:33:01 UTC) (permalink)

News February 23 2004

It's coming... sooner
Splitboxer wrote to point out that the first Xbox Connect 4.0 /Aquaduct 2 game happened yesterday (today?). Mac/Xbox Halo players will soon be able to compete head to head with PC/Xbox Halo users. w00t! (Louis Wu 22:33:35 UTC) (permalink)

Sparkedit bugs fixed
Couple of healthy bugs in yesterday's Sparkedit 3.0 release - they're fixed in today's 3.01 release. Details at HaloMods. Thanks, DHalo. (Louis Wu 22:30:48 UTC) (permalink)

Nice Chief, Chief
DocOctavius was playing with some freeware modeling tools yesterday... look what he came up with. Pretty nice work, you ask me! (Louis Wu 13:54:43 UTC) (permalink)

A Song to Kill By
Here's a Halo Fan Music submission unlike any other we've received... this song comes from Mothergoat, the composer of the Hail 117 Anthem, and while it's Halo-inspired, it's not as obviously based in Halo's themes; it's designed for fan music videos.

Seeing the Oddbrawl video made me realize the Hail 117 Anthem is more theatrical than it is good for constant firefights. So now I bring you "Repeater," a faster-moving overdrive fury with a good pinch of Halo. There's a lot of repetition on purpose. The tune was made as background music for use in fan videos.  Anyone can freely use it by just giving me credit in the video.

It's a 3 mb mp3, 3:20 long, and as Mothergoat says, would probably work very nicely as a backdrop to Halo carnage. You can grab our local copy. (Louis Wu 11:23:57 UTC) (permalink)

Rap With a Silent 'C'.
One One Se7en reaches new highs in lows. I'm only sorry that iMC had to be the one bringing you this pun. (Louis Wu 03:57:31 UTC) (permalink)

You'd Think It Would Have Hit Something
The saga of the Scorpion continues on Halo: Resolution. This one ain't lag... it's range. (Louis Wu 03:53:24 UTC) (permalink)

News February 22 2004

Random Lake of Fire, indeed
Knives sent in a rather bizarre pic (29K) that looks to be taken on Halo Xbox. A bunch of folks discussing it on IRC couldn't make head nor tail of it... so here it is, for the rest of you to speculate about. Post your thoughts to our forum! (Louis Wu 22:37:25 UTC) (permalink)

Flood Control
Today's Sunday One One Se7en (assuming I didn't screw up again and forget one of Stuntmutt's) is from Wavehawk... and points out a missed (but pretty useful) feature in Halo. (Louis Wu 21:38:53 UTC) (permalink)

Sunday Words
17 pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section:

• The fall of the covenant Part 1(of 3), by Jetboogieman
• Visions of Purity Part 1: The Spartan, by xitWOUND117
• Mysteries Part 3, by Horror
• Who You Are, by Frensa Geran
• The Enemy Within-Chapter Three: New Hopes, by Mind_Affecting_Parasite
• The cruiser, by retardedmonkey
• The Strive to Survive (Chapter 2: Released), by CoLd BlooDed
• SPARTAN III Chapter 2: Your Problems Begin After You Land, by Winters
• If The Covenant Never Came: Section one-Silva, by guns_n_cars
• A Hard Landing, by CoLd BlooDed
• The Mission Never Given (Pt.1), by Frensa Geran
• The Moral Redemption of Dr. Halsey (Part 2), by Ross Becalick
• Scope (Chapter 2, All Hell is Released), by The Silver Spartan
• Halo: Liberation of Earth - Section 3, by HawkEye
• Halo: The Battle Within. Prologue & Chapter 1, by Bryan D. (A.K.A. B-Man)
• Part one-- Amnesia, by Halo_2204
• Life of a grunt, by Jetboogieman

Get to reading - it'll be tomorrow soon! (Louis Wu 21:23:13 UTC) (permalink)

SparkEdit 3.0 is out
SparkEdit 3.0 has been released - swing on by HaloMods for details and a download link. Object Duplication, baby! (Thanks, Turbo) (Louis Wu 21:02:26 UTC) (permalink)

Offensive Tetraboxing - on film
Blackstar finished his Offensive Tetraboxing lanfest vid, commemorating the massive lanfest held here at HBO HQ a couple of weeks ago. It's over 9 minutes long, weighs in at a massive 93 mb, and is encoded in MPEG4 format. (As Blackstar says, if you can watch the QuickTime versions of the Red vs Blue vids, you should be fine.) Production quality is quite high - I only wish the recording devices (for gameplay) had been on more boxes; the footage he had to work with didn't always show the blast this fest really was. It's currently available at Blackstar Productions, Rampancy.net, Boomerica Enterprises, and files.bungie.org - we'll add more mirrors if bandwidth begins to get tight. You can ASK Black if he's willing to have it encoded in other formats... but I'm guessing the answer's gonna be no; there's a lot of text that wouldn't be readable with any big decrease in bitrate. Comments can go in this forum thread. (Louis Wu 14:46:25 UTC) (permalink)

Got a N00blar? You're FUBAR.
In just long enough to notice a new Subzero Chronicles comic - hehe, I played in a game like this today. Thanks, MarkHawk. Update: should have read the whole thread... MarkHawk points out a new wallpaper, as well. (Louis Wu 01:55:04 UTC) (permalink)

News February 21 2004

Project Halo: Weekly Update
SanchezTheLlama has posted his weekly update of Project Halo: Webwar Evolved. A new battle rifle, new music, engine progress... things seem to be progressing nicely! Check it out. (Louis Wu 16:48:13 UTC) (permalink)

it's Times Like There You Need Minties
At the risk of generating yet MORE mail complaining about the database problem, I'm posting today's Guest One One Se7en. It's from Bridie... and it scares me a little. I think it must be British humor. (I say that because we don't HAVE Minties here.) Update: my mistake; it's not a British thing at all, it's an Australian one. (Louis Wu 13:43:55 UTC) (permalink)

Experiencing Technical Difficulties
We're having some trouble with one of the machines serving HBO pages; if you load a page, and get an error page that says 'The database failed to initialize' - please, reload the page. Almost always, it'll work the second time out. We're doing what we can to fix this... please be patient. (You don't need to tell us about it - a few hundred people have already done that. Thanks!) (Louis Wu 12:51:57 UTC) (permalink)

MiniHalo - All New
SESpider, with the help of PsYcHoDaN, has completely overhauled the layout of the Miniature Halo layout, and you can see the results in the latest edition; Miniature Halo Page 17 is now up for viewing. He asks that you please email him (link on the Miniature Halo page) with your thoughts of the new layout - they want to know how you like it! (Louis Wu 10:41:28 UTC) (permalink)

A Ghost Chick!
This week's Bungie Update can be found at 343GS.com - in their forum. Give it a look - lots of very cool little tidbits. For folks looking for new screenshots or a movie, this isn't for you... but for people who want to know where the team is, and how the development is going... check it out! (Louis Wu 01:09:11 UTC) (permalink)

Halo PC World Championship - Details
SketchFactor, over at Bungie.net, has written up a full article on the Halo PC World Championship, held recently in Los Angeles. It's not quite as good as being there... but it's as close as most of us are gonna get. Check it out! (Louis Wu 00:11:11 UTC) (permalink)

News February 20 2004

The Biggest Halo Tournament - Ever
A quick reminder - tomorrow is the day for the Winter Philadelphia Regional Tournament, run by Major League Gaming. This will feature the biggest Halo tournament ever held in the US, with over 300 competitors and 75 teams already registered. The guaranteed purse has been increased to $16,000, to be awarded to the tournament winners. If you're anywhere near the Downtown Marriott in Philadelphia tomorrow or Sunday... you've gotta go! More details can be found at the Halo Nationals website. (Louis Wu 21:32:27 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Star Charts updated
Walshicus updated his Halo Stellar Cartography information, based on requests from fan fiction authors. The map, small Excel file, and text information are all new. (The large 30,000-star Excel file is unchanged.) (Louis Wu 20:40:57 UTC) (permalink)

Community Service
343GS.com has put up episode 14 of its EchoFourNineteen comic; check the downloads section. Thanks to MasterToad for pointing it out. (Louis Wu 19:31:13 UTC) (permalink)

See? He's working. Really.
A tiny tidbit from bentllama - the bizarre T stance occasionally seen in Halo animations when they SHOULD have a weapon, but don't, has been fixed; it won't show up in Halo 2. Always nice when glitches are taken care of! (Louis Wu 18:39:57 UTC) (permalink)

Get a pair, you bunch of Barbies...
Red vs Blue episode 24 is up for Sponsors now - 3:55 of Warthog goodness. Oops, sorry... Puma goodness. The cliffhanger for next week has me on the edge of my seat! (Louis Wu 18:28:13 UTC) (permalink)

Random Halo Homage
Da Loaph discovered an interesting little page; it's a part of the Oddlots Irregulars website, and it pays tribute to Halo. There are a couple of comics on the page, as well as a couple of custom gametypes (downloadable, even). Take a look! Update: It's now 2005, and Oddlots has changed its site layout dramatically; that page no longer exists. The two images do, though: Cortana | MC. If the day comes when they're no longer hosted there, you can find them here: Cortana | MC. (Louis Wu 17:01:52 UTC) (permalink)

Blood Chiefs - for artists of all stripes
CENOBITE has opened a new Seventh Column chapter, the Blood Chiefs, devoted to the creative side of Halo. It's a place where 'an elite group of artists, musicians and writers can share their love of the world that is HALO. ' It currently contains a link to an older piece that bears quite a bit of resemblance to a Flood warrior... Check it out! (Louis Wu 16:50:45 UTC) (permalink)

Yes, it's true. He rocks.
Craig Mullins, master digital artist (with longtime ties to the Bungie community), has posted a new sketch of the MC on his site; it's not in the Gallery yet. (There are a few images in the gallery that might remind you of Halo items - there's a buggy that bears a resemblance to an early tank concept sketch, another one that reminds some of the Warthog, and a wild piece that could be a Seige Tank with legs.) Thanks to Orion, who posted this info on the Subnova Hotline server last night (and to Deimos for bringing it to my attention). (Louis Wu 16:02:02 UTC) (permalink)

Under The Influence 3 - Twisted Joyride Theatre
One One Se7en finishes up the tribute series with a nod to Toyfare Magazine. Wait... isn't this Miniature Halo territory? Oh, man... here come the lawsuits. (Louis Wu 15:09:35 UTC) (permalink)

How Do You See Over The Top?
There MIGHT be a problem or two with the Scorpion design... as Halo: Resolution points out. (Louis Wu 15:07:01 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Generals Mod Update
Dispraiser writes about the Halo Generals Mod - a conversion for C&C Generals: Zero Hour. They've got a new home, a new site layout, and some new renders of vehicles for you to see. They'll be adding content regularly, so if you're a C&C Generals player, check back often! They're still looking for help from folks who can make their homepage pretty with Photoshop, and folks who can get unwraps from already completed models. (The more unwrappers they get, the sooner the mod gets finished.) (Louis Wu 14:41:12 UTC) (permalink)

New Articles at BGH
Battleground: Halo has posted a pair of articles this morning; TCLN-Zenn has written a piece on the Halo Team Killing situation (he's very unhappy with it, and with the fix implemented by Gearbox), and Banshee Ace has interviewed a member of the DC clan. Take a look. (Louis Wu 14:17:44 UTC) (permalink)

Miniature Halo - still coming, be patient
SESpider has been overwhelmed with emails asking when the next panel of his Miniature Halo series is coming out. He's started a thread in our forum; if you have questions, post them here, and he'll try to answer. There's an example of one of the panels that got tossed because of their new design, so you can see sort of where they're going. (Louis Wu 14:08:58 UTC) (permalink)

Sleep? Sleep is for the weak.
Sword theory, religious discussion, and Guilty Spark's motivations... a healthy update, indeed, to the vast collection of speculation and debate that is the Halo Story Page. Check it out! (Louis Wu 13:49:53 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Babies is back - with a vengeance
At midnight, PST, this morning, Halo Babies relaunched their website. A new design by Ghôlsbane (who co-maintains our own myth.bungie.org), new artwork, and more - read the entire news post by mrsmiley for details. No new comic (yet) - but the day's not over yet. :) Take a look! (Louis Wu 13:23:58 UTC) (permalink)

For the ten billionth time...
Since so many people are still confused: HaloBabies is offline. If you go to the site, it will ask for a password. "Offline" here does not mean literally unpowered, it means the site is not fully operational and does not have comics on it. The operators are overhauling the content and it should return pretty soon. There is nothing we at HBO can do about this. So, please stop emailing us... Update:Hehe - see above. Count Zero was completely right to post this - we've been getting a ridiculous amount of mail demanding to know why the Halo Babies website was password-protected until today - and why we hadn't posted more news about this. The timing on his post, compared to the relaunch of the site, is amusing. (Count Zero 06:37:46 UTC) (permalink)

News February 19 2004

PtO posts movies
Will, aka [-PtO-]_EteRnaL from PtO (a halo clan that plays on XBC), sent along a link to his collection of movies; you can find everything from gameplay to glitches. Check 'em out... and hit the contact link at the bottom of the main page if you've got any questions about joining the clan, or comments about the films. (Louis Wu 18:10:00 UTC) (permalink)

Halo-Themed Music
SexyJosh, from Team Sexy Films, has been writing some Halo-themed music recently; there are currently two songs available on his website. Lament to Keyes is a 4-minute ballad, and Cortana is half as long, twice as fast, and a bit ruder. If you like the music, explore the site; there's quite a bit more, non-Halo-related, stuff. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 18:01:12 UTC) (permalink)

Change that text... NOW
w00t - Xhzjang, the guy who brought you the Halo No Hud mod a few days ago, now brings you the Halo Font Editor. Change the ingame halo text - mess with its color, font style, even its location. Fantastic for folks who are tired of having action obscured by chat... or folks trying to make movies without chat at all. Grab this today; it's only 35K! Thanks to Reppyboyo for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 17:31:23 UTC) (permalink)

Wave 3 - on sale now
Devin Olsen points out that Series 3 of the Halo Action Figures (Banshee, Blue Master Chief, Marines, and Johnson) have moved from 'Pre-order' to 'Order' status at DieCast Express. Buy 'em while they're hot! (Louis Wu 17:17:23 UTC) (permalink)

Cortana.org is back
Looks like Cortana.org has come back online. It's positioned to be a file repository for Halo mods... once the Halo Editing Kit gets released. For now, it's just a design - go check it out! Update: Hehe - looks like I got corrected. :) There's a new news post up at the site explaining what it's REALLY about. (Louis Wu 17:06:01 UTC) (permalink)

Xbox Connect 4.0 - now for the public
Bah. Two days ago, SplitBoxer, from the XboxConnect team, wrote to point out that V4.0 RC1 was released, and available for download. I managed to forget to post it, though, until I noticed a note over at Rampancy.net. I'm pretty sure I should stop cooking tomato sauce in aluminum pans... Anyway, go grab it. (The current version available from the XBC site is one rev past the version available in R.net's link, right now. Who knows, by the time you read it, it might be more advanced yet.) (Louis Wu 14:14:51 UTC) (permalink)

Motorized Lego Hog
Dr@Home wrote to point out a small vid (2.7 mb) he's put up of his motorized Lego Warthog. WMP9 format - nice looking vehicle! (Louis Wu 11:51:40 UTC) (permalink)

Some people have too much free time.
Whoa. You think YOU'RE an obsessed Halo fan? You got nuthin' on this guy. Danny Kolacz is a diehard Halo collector, but he's always been unhappy that the Active Camo Master Chief (a figure Joyride didn't sell; they gave it away as a promotion) came in a plain cardboard box, rather than the standard packaging for Joyride toys. It took him about an hour to rectify the situation (125K) without destroying the original packaging... now that Active Camo cheif can sit on his shelf with the rest of the boxed toys, and not look out of place. (Louis Wu 10:44:25 UTC) (permalink)

Big Mac Guns
Today's Guest One One Se7en looks at UNSC weaponry in a new light. (Louis Wu 10:15:01 UTC) (permalink)

Now THERE'S a game I wanna try
Blackstar comes up with a cool new game in today's Calvin and Halo. (Louis Wu 10:11:58 UTC) (permalink)

Haloquaciousness
Seventeen peices for you today in the Fan Fiction section...

• Halo: Liberation of Earth - Section 2, by HawkEye
• Souls of War.: Part 2: Into The Fire, by Dark-NiTe
• Mysteries Part 2, by Horror
• Souls of War.: Part 3: Storming the Fortress, by Dark-NiTe
• Draco III: Wrath of the Covenant, by Kinotrica 'Mocka'
• Hidden Threat: Chapter 2 - Exit Dropship, by NBD24
• Earths End?, by Jim
• The Siege of Zion Base; Part Two: Siege - Chapters 6 & 7, by Scimitarex
• The Siege of Zion Base; Part Two: Siege - Chapter 8, by Scimitarex
• Chapter Three of Halo:Armageddon, by Chris Luchterhand
• SPARTAN III Ch 1: This is War, by Winters
• The Moral Redemption of Dr. Halsey, by Ross Becalick
• The Enemy Within-Chapter Two: A Trap Triggered, by Mind_Affecting_Parasite
• Croton 9: Into the belly of the beast�and it�s not feeling too well., by Trevor White
• Last Resort - Part 1, by Nem0fTime
• Hit Hard Ch. 4: --Reclaimer--, by Nick Kang
• Halo: The Aftermath pt. 4/5, by Matthew Buzas

Some people seem to be having trouble with the submission script - they get to the second screen, and their computer tells them it can't find the site. I can't explain why this mght be happening - we didn't make any changes at all to the script except to move it to a new server, but if you couldn't find the new server, you wouldn't be able to get to the FIRST screen, much less the second. If we figure out the mystery, we'll be sure to let you know. (Louis Wu 10:06:48 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Messenger 3
Sniperman27 has released Halo Messenger 3 (2.3 mb), a standalone windows app that checks rss files from HBO and Red vs Blue, as well as giving you access to the Psyjnir Complex Music Database. It's pretty slow checking rss feeds... but apparently, that's our fault. (Louis Wu 09:57:29 UTC) (permalink)

News February 18 2004

First Strike Mod - on its way
Whoa. Crispy Spartan dropped by our forum to dish out the first weekly update on his First Strike mod project. (We first mentioned this mod a month and a half ago, before it moved to Halocity.org.) Some good stuff in the updates; sketches, early models, and maps. Check it out! (Louis Wu 21:36:07 UTC) (permalink)

Oddbrawl
Silvergrunt created a movie using 'Fraps, Windows Movie Maker, and 2 cans of Mountain Dew' - it's almost 5 minutes of an Oddball game on Derelict, filmed on the HBO-Coerce server. It's in WMP9 format, weighs in at about 12 mb, and is being hosted by MereCatfish. The soundtrack is Mothergoat's 'Hail 117 Anthem'. You can grab it here. (Louis Wu 16:54:26 UTC) (permalink)

Slay again?
BOLL has continued to tweak his Grunt shooting game (wait for it... then shoot the grunt when he appears); at this point, he's done. (The file is now local, so he HAS to be done.) More grunt colors, more stats, piercing bullets, better graphics, less lag... See how you do. (Louis Wu 14:37:49 UTC) (permalink)

Halo PC Championship... goes to the UK!
Looks like I totally misread the iGames Championship Match Results from yesterday; was that explaining paragraph on the top of the page then? The numbers correspond to the player's POSITION, not score; low numbers are better . The US/Canada's representative, Noah Evans, was actually doing quite well - but was beaten in the finals. (Looks like he tied for 4th place overall.) The winner was Jonathan Finglass, of the UK, with nobody NEAR him (Stefan Dammers, of Holland, took a distant second). Thanks to Spideroptics for pointing out the win on our forum! (Louis Wu 11:33:46 UTC) (permalink)

Okay, you two, get a room.
Fluffy, from Battleground: Halo, points out that they have a new mailbag up. It's a joint effort - towards something. (Louis Wu 10:52:06 UTC) (permalink)

Cold plasma still sticks
CYBRFRK wrote up a different kind of reminiscence about the recent Offensive Tetraboxing lanfest that took place here a couple of weeks ago. New (gigantic) pictures... but the meat is in the text. Take a look - this is what HBO is all about. (Louis Wu 04:06:37 UTC) (permalink)

New Halo Action Figure Shots
Very nice. Dan Chosich found some new pics from Toy Fair - very nicely taken shots of the new Halo figures. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 04:03:06 UTC) (permalink)

Under The Influence 2 - Chiefbert
Continuing the homage series, Stuntmutt tips a hat to Scott Adams in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 03:45:16 UTC) (permalink)

Not Like I Paid For It
Have you ever blown something up just for the fun of it? Now Halo: Resolution has... (Louis Wu 03:42:02 UTC) (permalink)

News February 17 2004

Halo PC Championships underway
Bungie's Tru7h and Reconciliation site has an update on the Halo PC Championships; their link to iGames' results page shows that (among other things) the US competitor has taken a pounding so far. Ouch! Keep your eyes open for the finals! (Louis Wu 23:03:43 UTC) (permalink)

Photoshopping.
Is it a viagra commercial, or is it One One Se7en? (Louis Wu 16:00:01 UTC) (permalink)

I hate it when that happens.
Calvin and Halo focuses on the dangers of timed powerups. Or something. This would have been visible several hours ago, but its active camo hadn't worn off yet. (Louis Wu 15:57:05 UTC) (permalink)

Nightmare Helmet raffle
Webshift points out that the Nightmare Armor guys are raffling off a helmet. $5 gets you in; on March 13, they'll pick a winner and give the helmet away. (Louis Wu 15:00:49 UTC) (permalink)

177, First Time Out
Holy... STOP HIM! THE MAN NEEDS TO BE STOPPED! (If you're confused what it's all about, wait a moment.) I realized that I needed to give BOLL credit for his work in this news post, or... well, ask c0ld. (Louis Wu 01:49:13 UTC) (permalink)

News February 16 2004

A Haload of Words
Eleven Fan Fiction pieces for you today...

• The Ring, part 1, by retardedmonkey
• Civilian Assault, pt. One- The Beginning, by ONI_operative_343
• Hit Hard Ch. 3: --Siege--, by Nick Kang
• The Strive to Survive (Chapter 1: Lurking in the Shadows), by CoLd BlooDed
• Chapter Two of Halo:Armageddon, by Chris Luchterhand
• Halo: Liberation of Earth - Section 1, by HawkEye
• Island Force, by retardedmonkey
• Scope (Chapter 1, New Arrivals), by The Silver Spartan
• Homeworlds XXV, by Mainevent
• Halo: Dark Aftermath Ch. 4: --Payback--, by Nick Kang
• Marooned Chapter 13, by Steve Ollett

(Thank c0ld vengeance for the horrible pun at the top of this post...) (Louis Wu 17:56:43 UTC) (permalink)

Under The Influence 1 - Spartan and Hobbes
Stuntmutt begins another series of themed One One Se7en strips; the first pays homage to that master of imagination, Bill Watterson. (Louis Wu 15:53:31 UTC) (permalink)

Wow
Halo: Resolution adds a new... character? Item. Whatever. It's big. (Louis Wu 15:46:37 UTC) (permalink)

The Blackmail List Grows Longer
We've added last Friday's Weekly Bungie Update to the local archive - remember, if you ever need to find that tidbit you sort of remember, it's searchable. (Louis Wu 15:25:29 UTC) (permalink)

Ping discrepancies, explained
Every now and then, I'm reminded why it's so cool that developers visit our boards sometimes. Yesterday, RunningRiot asked a question: how come the ping he measured from his desktop to a particular Halo PC server was lower than the ping reported in-game by that same server? botman, a member of the Halo PC dev team at Gearbox, stopped by this morning to explain the conundrum. (Louis Wu 14:46:08 UTC) (permalink)

Lego Roundup
Fury Three has done a nice job summing up what's available out there in the Lego world; some of these links have been posted before, but the collection, together, is worth keeping track of. The Pelican he points out is pretty impressive! (Louis Wu 09:58:11 UTC) (permalink)

No HUD, flying camera
Very slick... Xhzjang has released Halo No Hud mod v1.5, with a flying camera; it comes in two pieces. Piece one removes the HUD entirely; piece two turns the Banshee invisible (along with its occupant), making for a flying camera on levels with a Banshee. I just tried it, and it works beautifully! If you're looking for easy no-HUD scenery shots, give this a shot! Thanks to Reppyboyo, who mentioned it in our forum. (Louis Wu 09:10:20 UTC) (permalink)

Movie Starter Guide updated
c0ld vengeance has updated his Movie Starter Guide to include some basic information about recording Halo on a PC or a Mac. (He didn't just do this for a front-page mention... he actually felt that people might NEED this information. No, really.) If you're looking for tools to record Halo on your computer - check the guide! (Louis Wu 02:23:58 UTC) (permalink)

Play that solo!
Whoa, cool. Vicious Circle decided he really liked the guitar solo from Silent Carttographer... so he tabbed it out for guitar. You can view it online, or download it as a Word document (link is on the page). Get to playin'! (Louis Wu 00:40:09 UTC) (permalink)

Dat's a lotta pictures.
Continuing to try and clear out the Wallpaper queue - there are another 20 desktops for you today (25 if you count variants). Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 00:03:56 UTC) (permalink)

Homefront to let you fight in space
Interesting. The team from Homefront, the Battlefield 1942 mod, is working on a space map, called Alpha Centauri. Battle will take place on a pair of capital ships, and the asteroid field between them. Sounds like fun! There's a Q&A session about the map over at the main Battlefield 1042 site. Thanks to Ecko, at Battleground: Halo, for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 00:03:07 UTC) (permalink)

News February 15 2004

Mommy, he's doing it again...
Yesterday, BOLL messed with some new Flash stuff. It was pretty easy to overlook; at first glance, it blended right in. His newest offering doesn't quite do that... (Louis Wu 16:09:29 UTC) (permalink)

More on the 1.04 updater
I've already changed local links on the 1.04 Mac Halo updater, so that there's no confusion about which files to update. (The first updater, from 1.03 to 1.04, had some serious issues. The new updater, from 1.03 or 1.04 to 1.041, solves these.) However, the press release sent out by MacSoft on Thursday pointed to two mirrors on our servers - and I have no easy way to redirect those deeplinks to the new files. I've done the next best thing, then - I've replaced the older updater with the new one, using the old NAME. Now, if you get the file off our servers, no matter what name the archive is under, you're getting the 1.041 updater. If you continue to have update troubles with this one, just reinstall Halo from your CD, patch it with the 1.03 updater, and then with the new 1.041 updater. This has worked in 100% of the cases I've heard of so far. (You do NOT need to mess with the files in your home folder; your serial number will NOT need to be reinstalled.) (Louis Wu 15:45:59 UTC) (permalink)

That might be FUN...
Whoa. ViolentlyHappy ran across a pretty bizarre glitch when updating his Mac Halo to 1.041 yesterday. (He fixed it by reinstalling from the CD, and patching the clean version... but it's still pretty weird stuff.) (Louis Wu 14:44:36 UTC) (permalink)

We miss you, Ar.
A year ago today, one of the best members of the Bungie Fan Community passed away. Please raise a mug of Dwarven Ale in honor of our dear departed friend, Brian Morden aka *Ar-Isildur. (Ding 12:55:44 UTC) (permalink)

She Is In This Strip
Today's One One Se7en was supposed to be yesterday's One One Se7en - after all, it's a Holiday strip. Stuntmutt didn't count on my overwhelming incompetence, however; I think MC's rubbing off on me. Anyway, go read it. It's nice when people look on the bright side. (Louis Wu 02:34:00 UTC) (permalink)

Something old, something new
Matt Grap sent along a few screenshots of some work a friend is doing; he's in the process of porting the Halo weapons to Marathon. (Well, okay, Aleph One.) Right now, he's working on adding melee attacks as secondary fire for each weapon. The love just doesn't stop! Check these out:

• Flamethrower (139k)
• Assault Rifle (137k)
• Rocket Launcher (111k)

I, for one, find this heartwarming. (Louis Wu 02:18:29 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Stellar Cartography
Walshicus submitted a monster collection of work; a star chart of the Halo universe, along with an enormous amount of information about these and other stars. We've packaged the lot and (hopefully) made it easy to follow; you can find it in our Miscellaneous section. Fan Fiction writers... take note of his comments near the top. (Louis Wu 02:04:17 UTC) (permalink)

News February 14 2004

So THAT'S what's behind the curtain...
BOLL has done it again - check out the secrets revealed in this post. (If you can't figure out where they are, try the banners at the top.) (Louis Wu 22:35:08 UTC) (permalink)

Mac Halo 1.041 - now with movement!
Yesterday, we posted a note from MacSoft, that an updater for Mac Halo that would bring the application up to parity with its PC counterpart had been released. As many noticed, there was a problem with the updater; it introduced more glitches than it solved. Westlake has fixed the problems, though, and a new updater is now available. It will work to patch v1.03 or 1.04 to 1.041. (You cannot apply this patch to 1.02.) Some warnings, from MacSoft:

The updater may get confused if you have more than one copy of Halo installed on your machine. OSX 10.2.8 user may have to restart after applying the 1.041 patch for the get info (command-I) to refresh and show the proper version number.

That said... this 1.5 mb patch (currently available from nikon.bungie.org and files.bungie.org) should solve your movement woes, and get you back in the game! (Louis Wu 21:57:50 UTC) (permalink)

Hunter Troubles
And AGAIN, he forgets. :( Today's Guest One One Se7en is from Chris Fraser, and warns of asking for things you might get... (Louis Wu 21:35:23 UTC) (permalink)

Saturday Stories
Fourteen bits of Fan Fiction for you today:

• A Resurrection of Death, by Steve Ollett
• The Enemy Within-Chapter One: In the Shadows, by Mind_Affecting_Parasite
• Athenians-II Chapter 7: Mark Two, by ZackDark
• marines nightmare part 1, by crayola
• The Siege of Zion Base; Part One: Mission - Chapters 1 & 2, by Scimitarex
• The Siege of Zion Base; Part One: Mission - Chapter 3, by Scimitarex
• The Siege of Zion Base; Part One: Mission - Chapter 4, by Scimitarex
• The Siege of Zion Base; Part One: Mission - Chapter 5, by Scimitarex
• Halo: Dark Aftermath Ch. 3: --Covenant Pursuit--, by Nick Kang
• The Soldiers of Angelon: At Angelon They Wait, by Jinkaiden-XI
• Chapter One of Halo:Armageddon, by Chris Luchterhand
• Air Force Wing: Part 4, One Way Ticket to Hell, by teemus
• Souls of War.: Part 1: Tides of Battle, by Dark-NiTe
• war on planet Hedge IV- Part 1- nigotiating, by Preston

Not bad, for a site that was down most of yesterday... (Louis Wu 16:53:30 UTC) (permalink)

A special edition of an upcoming release
Marc Friedrichs, of Halo Universe, pointed out an item on the World of Games website (a Swiss site). He followed it up with an email, and learned that it is a special release, a cooperative effort of WoG and Microsoft Switzerland. The release date has obviously been bumped back... but the package itself might be of interest to Halo collectors; it will be Halo 2, as well as 'some other goodies' (unspecified), packaged in a metal tin. It's possible that other shops will be able to sell this as well. Sounds intriguing - if we hear more, we'll pass it along! (Louis Wu 16:02:02 UTC) (permalink)

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about.
An interesting article over on the BBC News website; entitled 'Probing Halo's enduring appeal', it looks at why Halo is still getting as much attention as it is, 2 years down the road. This is the sort of article I'd expect from a fansite... it blows me away that it shows up in the mainstream press. (It's not as though I can't relate, though...) Thanks to SIDEARM for sending in the link. (Louis Wu 10:55:34 UTC) (permalink)

Halo WILL be played at CPL Summer Event
Update on the CPL Extreme World Championships 2004: a couple of weeks ago, we noted that the president of the CPL had warned that the Halo Tournament might be cut from the event if more teams didn't sign up for it. Last night, Tonya Welch, CPL Community Liason, posted on the CPL forums that Halo would NOT be cut from the event. That's good news! Thansk to [FOoM]T3muJin for pointing out the thread. (Louis Wu 10:50:01 UTC) (permalink)

Not Exactly Flowers and Chocolate...
Valentine's Day best wishes from gutupio and Devin Olsen. (Louis Wu 10:44:17 UTC) (permalink)

Ep13 on Fri 13th?!
The 13th episode of EchoFourNineteen was released yesterday (Friday the 13th) at 343GS.com. (Check the downloads section.) Seems corn is infectious... (Thanks to Spartan-39 for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 10:34:39 UTC) (permalink)

Holy Moley - It's Armor Time!
I feel really bad, because some of this info has been waiting on ME for over a week now... but sometimes, things just get away from you. We've got a double-armor update for you; Chris Bryan has sent along a bunch of progress pictures of his solo effort (pretty amazing work - works so well with his gun!), and the Nightmare Armor team has put up a new website, with all-new full-body shots of their armor, being worn. Also pretty amazing work! (gotta love those green eyes...) Comments for the Nightmare guys can go in this forum thread, started by Webshift. (Louis Wu 10:24:46 UTC) (permalink)

I'm lookin' forward to Wave 5!
Eep - almost forgot; earlier today, SketchFactor posted a note over on Bungie.net discussing Toy Fair 2004, the big annual toy convention; JoyRide Studios was there with some pretty cool stuff! They've put up 10 shots in the Tru7h and Reconciliation Gallery of waves 4 and 5 prototypes... go check 'em out! (Louis Wu 03:06:53 UTC) (permalink)

the Junkyard picks up the slack
Jake 'Evergreen98' Billo writes to say that he's mirrored the Geocities site mentioned in Frankie's Weekly update this week; the original link is already down, victim of a small Geocities bandwidth allotment. If you were curious what Frankie had to say, go look at the Junkyard's mirror! (Louis Wu 02:59:43 UTC) (permalink)

Mac Halo v1.04 released
I posted this to our forum earlier, because HBO wasn't reachable. (It's STILL not reachable, for the most part, but that's not going to stop me from updating.) MacSoft has stepped up to the plate and released a 1.04 updater less than 2 days after the PC updater came out. The Press Release is brief and to the point:

MEDIA ALERT
MacSoft Releases Halo 1.04 Update

MINNEAPOLS, MN -February 13, 2004 - Destineers's MacSoft unit announces that they have released a patch for their hit game, Halo. The patch brings Halo for Macintosh to parity with the PC version, which was released just 1 day ago. User's wishing to apply the patch (v1.04) must already have Halo v1.03 installed.

The patch is available now at
http://nikon.bungie.org/misc/halo_103-1041_updater.sit

Mirror:
http://files.bungie.org/halo_103-1041_updater.sit

You should be aware that there might be keyboard issues with this release - there have been a few reports of oddness. (At least one was phrased in a pretty obnoxious way.) These have been reported to MacSoft; hopefully the issue will be resolved quickly. Update: Links have been replaced with the 1.041 updater links, to avoid confusion. (Louis Wu 01:52:35 UTC) (permalink)

The Ballistic Phase
Frankie's Bungie Weekly Update for February 13 has been posted at Rampancy.net... it's exactly what the older fans are expecting, in terms of Updates. Covers where the team stands, who's doing what... and throws in some Frankie-specific humor, as well. Good stuff! (Louis Wu 00:12:42 UTC) (permalink)

News February 13 2004

Prophets Can Go Down As Well As Up.
Today's One One Se7en, as well, should be posted before the clock turns over. Don't worry - U2 would be happy if you missed this one. (Louis Wu 22:51:09 UTC) (permalink)

Good Aim
Before the day is gone, I'd like to put up today's Halo: Resolution - it looks at a fear I had from the first time I played the level Halo. (Silent Cartographer, too.) (Louis Wu 22:39:47 UTC) (permalink)

Master Chief vs Darth Vader
Singh Commando posted a 16-part comic this morning on our forum. He wasnt' sure how long the bandwidth would last, so we put up a mirror of it for him; it's quite good. (I even stole his Slideshow code to display it, though I cleaned it up a little.) Check out Master Chief vs Darth Vader, a humorous look at what might have happened had two universes collided. (Louis Wu 19:58:02 UTC) (permalink)

RvB off this week
No Red vs Blue episode this week - there was a note on the Sponsors forum from Burnie Burns; he's not well, and the audio recording couldn't get done. They'll be back next week. Thanks to Cybrfrk, who noticed the post. (Louis Wu 19:28:35 UTC) (permalink)

Miniature Halo Update
SESpider has released another Miniature Halo; this one is more of a Thank You to those who have helped along the way, and an apology for the delay in the storyline. The Official Storyline will be continued in Episode 17 - thanks to the help of PsYcHoDaN, who's also designing a new website. Be on the lookout for it! (Louis Wu 19:22:48 UTC) (permalink)

Ice Fields Desktops
MarkHawk has posted a set of desktops to promote his upcoming Halo: Ice Fields movie, due out next month. They're HUDless shots of Halo in snowy environments; you can find 'em in two sizes on this page. (Louis Wu 19:16:41 UTC) (permalink)

HaloPC Worldwide Championship Finals in 4 days!
Bungie.net has an update on the Halo PC Worldwide Championships; the finals take place next Tuesday, in Gardena, CA. Details can be found in this news post... we want reports from anyone there! Update: The official press release for this event got sent to us this morning. (Louis Wu 04:05:09 UTC) (permalink)

Are we back yet?
You may have noticed that HBO was offline this evening. We made some major changes - hopefully, they'll help alleviate the frequent outages we've been experiencing recently. (If this DOES work, everyone owes Deimos Fawkes, of Subnova, a HUGE thank-you.) (Louis Wu 03:46:17 UTC) (permalink)

News February 12 2004

Project Halo talks to Fropco
Halo.Fropco has interviewed the Project Halo: Webwar Evolved team about their work in progress. The interview itself is beefier than the one put up at the Junkyard last week; more info, pretty pictures. If you're curious about where these guys are going, and how they plan to get there... go read this! (Louis Wu 20:07:06 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2: Precognition, part 2
Battleground: Halo has posted the second installment of Viper's Halo 2: Precognition article (the first installment was posted a couple of weeks ago). This one uses the novels and the game as its basis for speculation, as opposed to the print articles the first part used. Again - it's speculation, not fact. Read it, think about it, but don't get mad; he's not claiming that any of this will actually happen. (While you're over at BGH, say goodbye to Rams; he's stepping down as Assistant Site Director as of next month. We'll miss you, Rams!) (Louis Wu 19:58:42 UTC) (permalink)

Bullets?
Today's Guest One One Se7en comes from Crouchelle, and it clears up one of the great mysteries of Halo PC. (Louis Wu 10:54:07 UTC) (permalink)

The Valiant Master Chief
I never knew Cortana was edible... Calvin and Halo showed me the error of my ways. (Louis Wu 10:52:40 UTC) (permalink)

Thursday's Writing
13 (approved) pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section:

• The fight for Omega Centauri. Part four: Sound the alarm, by Aonghus Maher
• The Seventh Battalion: Chapter One, by Ajax
• Hidden Threat: Chapter 1 - Briefing, by NBD24
• Halo Installation 01, Chapter 2, by FOrunnER
• The Battle for Earth: part 1, by CommanderElite
• Halo Wing - Chapter One: The More Better Plan Still, by Ermac of VGPro
• Prologue: Zion, by Scimitarex
• Halo: Dark Aftermath Ch. 2: Ambush, by Nick Kang
• Our Cursed Souls: A Field Master's Tale, by MadJackal
• Athenians-II Chapter 6: Battle for M-2568 Part 2, by ZackDark
• Hit Hard Ch. 2 -- Global Defense --, by Nick Kang
• The Dimensional's Last Stand:Part 2, by skseifer
• Forced Betrayal (Chapter 8: The Last Stand), by CoLd BlooDed

You gotta wonder at the people who CONTINUE to submit non-Halo fiction... (Louis Wu 10:11:07 UTC) (permalink)

Crow feathers stuck in my teeth
It has been pointed out to me that my gentle ribbing of Stuntmutt over yesterday's One One Se7en strip was unfair - and so far off the mark as to warrant this apology. So here it is. It is clear, as evidenced by last night's release of a Security Hotfix for Halo PC, that Stuntmutt's strip, far from being out of date, was SO topical that it PREdated the real news... the man must use a crystal ball. Or, possibly, the rounded bottom of a crystal vodka tumbler (seen from the inside). In any case, we'll never doubt his prescience again. Today, at least. (Louis Wu 09:33:31 UTC) (permalink)

Who needs a debug kit, anyway?
XLNC dropped off another set of beautiful hudless screenshots on our forum recently; he's even trying his hand at reproducing existing Bungie shots (at much higher resolution, of course). Never ceases to amaze... (Louis Wu 09:24:19 UTC) (permalink)

Halo PC Hot Fix
A security update has been released for Halo PC this evening; you can find details (and a download link for the updated version of the dedicated server) over at Bungie.net. At the moment, it's not clear what this means for Mac clients... there's no patch for Macs yet, so as soon as all the servers have upgraded to handle this security threat, Mac users will be left with no place to play. We're going to leave HBO-Subnova running 1.03 for the time being, just so they have a home in the HBO family... but apparently, the Mac patch is being worked on, so hopefully the delay won't be too painful. (Louis Wu 01:42:57 UTC) (permalink)

News February 11 2004

Weekly Bungie Updates Archive Up-to-date
Gah. I managed to forget to add this almost until the next one came out... but last week's Frankie's Weekly Bungie Update, posted at Battleground Halo, has now been added to the Updates Archive. Sorry about the delay! (Louis Wu 17:13:06 UTC) (permalink)

Stick Halo
Dr. Nick pointed out another Stick Halo Flash animation; it's more of a teaser, but still fun. (It would be a LOT smaller without the Halo soundtrack...) (Louis Wu 14:11:39 UTC) (permalink)

One One Se7en v1.02
Even Stuntmutt's main One One Se7en strips are subject to posting lag sometimes... (Louis Wu 11:51:04 UTC) (permalink)

I Always Thought It Was Pretty Illogical Too
So what is a Light Bridge, anyway? Halo: Resolution looks at the question. (Louis Wu 11:48:46 UTC) (permalink)

Dialogue Databank updated
Recently, Captain Spark sent in another large batch of dialogue snippets for our Dialogue Databank. We've put up the first 20 - there are still a number of Grunt and Jackal quotes to post. Before anyone gets on my case - yes, I realize that some of the quotes here are static; they show up every time you pass through the area in question. Live with it. (Louis Wu 11:39:01 UTC) (permalink)

Hellface on Halo Editing
progamerz has posted 'Molkien's Q&A on editing' over at the Gearbox forums. This is a set of 20 questions about the Halo Editing Kit, answered by Gearbox programmer Hellface. Lots of good info! Thanks to rapture for pointing it out. (Louis Wu 09:48:01 UTC) (permalink)

Teamwork, by Halo.Fropco
Halo.Fropco has put up an article about teamwork, and how important it can be. Much of it is common sense... but as my youngest is so fond of saying, common sense isn't really all that common. Give it a read! (Louis Wu 09:42:33 UTC) (permalink)

HiRes Halo 2 at GamersGallery
GamersGallery.com has put up 16 super-high-resolution versions of the early Halo 2 shots; swing by and pick up 3000-pixel-wide versions today. Glad to see those promo calendars are going to good use! (Louis Wu 09:36:40 UTC) (permalink)

News February 10 2004

The Covenant will NOT get you out of homework.
Today's Calvin and Halo gives you one more reason to be mad at Bungie. They just don't make reality like they used to... (Louis Wu 13:55:54 UTC) (permalink)

Guest Strip Line
Today's Guest One One Se7en comes from GLADIATRRR3000, and looks at... the Guest Strip Line. Having been to DisneyWorld in the past couple of months, I totally sympathize. (The irony here is that this strip was submitted in... let's see... 2002.) (Louis Wu 13:44:02 UTC) (permalink)

RvB on TechTV
The Red vs Blue guys are going to be interviewed on Unscrewed (on TechTV) this evening (Tuesday), at 11:30 pm Eastern. If you don't have the Red vs Blue DVD, you can see some outtakes linked to that story writeup. Thanks to Gutupio for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 10:15:25 UTC) (permalink)

Hi, I'm Isbe 'Uwudee... who are you?
A week or so ago, in a lighthearted forum thread, Wado SG pointed out a silly little app that would give you your very own Bond Girl name. Stuntmutt was entranced. Unfortunately, he's an artist and a comedian, not a programmer. Hmm. Let's try that again. Unfortunately, he's not a programmer. There we go. Anyway, he contacted BOLL, our resident... something, who whipped together a little tool; now, thanks to these two, you can have your very own Elite Name! (Color, too.) Check out the HBO Elite Namelizer... fun for the whole family! (Louis Wu 09:58:48 UTC) (permalink)

News February 9 2004

Beavis 117
One One Se7en sinks to new lows. Is it possible? (Louis Wu 15:36:43 UTC) (permalink)

Not As Futuristic As You Thought
Good to know (thanks to today's Halo: Resolution) that some institutions are still around, 500 years down the road... (Louis Wu 14:32:44 UTC) (permalink)

Monday Reading
Went the weekend without putting up any Fan Fiction updates... now there are 21 pieces for you.

• Athenians-II Chapter 6: Battle for M-2568 Part 1, by ZackDark
• On The Run: The complete Sam's Flashback Chapter part 1 of 2, by BloodBlade
• Galaxy 08 - Part Nine - Preservation, by Jillybean
• Neverland: The Rescue, by SOS.Odin
• Hit Hard, by Nick Kang
• Battle for the library, by Mr Revenge
• Halo: Speed of Darkness (Chapter One), by Thanatos 117
• The Dimensional's Last Stand:Part 1, by skseifer
• A Series of Wierd Events - Sequel, Part Eleven[H_K], by Hunter_Killer
• A Series of Wierd Events, Part Twelve, by Hunter_Killer
• Halo - A Poetic Overview of the Races, by John
• The Darkness and the Light - Chapter 1: , by IAmDelta
• Forced Betrayal (Chapter 7: Stranded With Only One Option), by CoLd BlooDed
• Forever - Dimidium Facti Qui Coepit Habet , by Dispraiser
• Chapter One: Asteroid Invasion, by PBP
• Bad Memories and new, by Justin Van Patten
• Rifle trainning- the spartan instinct, by Preston
• Zero Script: The Untold War of Halo, by Guilty Spark
• Halo: The Aftermath pt. 3/5, by Matthew Buzas
• Battle for the Norah: Part Fourteen, by Sterfrye36
• Neu Haven: Chapter Three, by Blue Jaguar

Get to reading... (Louis Wu 14:30:32 UTC) (permalink)

Hail to 117
Last week, we posted about a work-in-progress, a musical tribute to Halo (and to its music's creator, Marty O'Donnell), from Mothergoat. Last night, he uploaded the final product. 'Hail 117 Anthem' is just over 5 minutes long, 4.7 mb big, and beautiful. If you like the work - his band, Windsor Medium, has a website up. Update: Mothergoat has sent along this description of the piece:

The final tune is pretty theatrical. It's what I envision as the struggle of the final battle, escaping an exploding moon, defeating the Prophet of Regret and his last minions, then eventual sadness of the death of a close companion at the end of Halo 2 (my pure conjecture based on First Strike).

Marty to speak at GDC
Marty O'Donnell will be talking again the Game Developers Conference this year - the session title is 'The State of Non-Linear Audio for Interactive Media'. As of now, it seems he's the only Bungie employee on the speaker list... but who knows, that might change. Thanks to thunderhawk555 for pointing it out. (Louis Wu 00:43:54 UTC) (permalink)

News February 8 2004

The Psyjnir Music Library opens its doors
We got a press release from Jester - a new website, Music.Psyjnir.Org (MPO) is now open to the public.

Music.Psyjnir.Org (MPO) was built to serve the community as a central library for all Bungie fan music, conversion and scenario music, and any other morsels of audio goodness. And after seven weeks in development, it is now ready to greet the public. In addition to digging up some of the classics, we have exclusive releases including two new pieces by SilverBrin**** and four official Red vs Blue pieces by Grasshopper. And MPO will be ever expanding, so check in every once in a while.

We also highly encourage the community to come up with material we don't already have, either from their own libraries or from those creative juices you've been waiting to unleash. As for me, I'm taking a much needed vacation.

The Halo section is extensive - and as the release mentions, includes a few pieces you can't find in our own Fan Music section... but you should definitely explore the rest of the site; there's music from Oni, Marathon, and Myth, as well. It's wonderful to see all this stuff catalogued in one place! (Louis Wu 14:14:49 UTC) (permalink)

Nobody Likes a Smart-Ass
A new EchoFourNineteen up at 343GS.com... can't say I fully get it, though. (Check the Downloads section.) Thanks to IXIGhandiIXI for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 14:05:57 UTC) (permalink)

Frankie Say Relapse
Okay, last week, Stuntmutt had funny, topical Sunday One One Se7en that was linked to the Weekly Update Frankie had written the week before. I screwed up and forgot to post it. We're not a pair to waste humor, though (God knows there's little enough of it to go around), so we've edited the text a tiny bit, and released it a little late. It's about Old MC anyway... just put it down to forgetfulness, or something. (Louis Wu 13:56:14 UTC) (permalink)

It's a day for modeling
bentllama, Bungie animator and pancake lover, spent a bunch of time being helpful today. He pointed out a few things about Wraith's Assault Boat - and then he pointed out a link to a thread on the CGTalk forum, with some really good advice for up-and-coming modelers (and even those who've been around a while). You never know when you're gonna get a helping hand from a Bungie employee... (Louis Wu 00:42:37 UTC) (permalink)

Randy Pitchford expresses Frustration
Wow. Randy Pitchford posted a note on the Gearbox forums a couple of days ago - he lays the blame for any delays on release of Halo PC content (new shaders, the Halo Editing Kit, bug fixes, and so on) completely at the feet of "Bungie/MGS". Homelan has asked for an official response from Microsoft on this one, so we'll have to wait and see what develops... but it's never a good thing when the dirty laundry starts coming out. If you gotta start pointing fingers, everybody loses - fans included. Thanks to Socrates, who picked this up over at Voodoo Extreme. (Louis Wu 00:15:26 UTC) (permalink)

News February 7 2004

Corn, Corn, and more Corn
It's the Se7enth of the month, so it's time for the One One Se7en Archive update... this time, it's light; we have only 17 strips for you. Submitters Stuntmutt and BOLL hog the spotlight; 4 each, accounting for nearly half the total. (BOLL's are animated, though - I think he's got the edge.) (Louis Wu 17:18:31 UTC) (permalink)

Project Halo posts Weekly Update
SanchezTheLlama posts a weekly status report about Project Halo: Webwar Evolved on our forum. Pistol pics, music, and some progress items. Check it out! (Louis Wu 17:13:32 UTC) (permalink)

Halo links
Lots of built-up Halo links out there - sorry for the delay. (No, these aren't on the Links page yet - please don't write, asking me to get to that. It's a time thing. It'll happen - someday.)

• Halo Central (general Halo site)
• Operation: Halo (general Halo site)
• Polish Halo Center (Polish Halo Site)
• HaloSverige.nu (Swedish Halo site)
• forum.HaloNorge.com (Norwegian Halo forum)
• HALO Legendary Assault Team (German Halo Xbox Clan)
• Halo G33Ks (UK-based Halo PC clan)

Halo is spreading all over the world... (Louis Wu 14:33:34 UTC) (permalink)

Homefront gets new vehicles
The Homefront mod for Battleground 1942 updated its site recently - there are shots of their Achilles class battleship (quite similar to the Halcyon class that the PoA belongs to), as well as a new fast attack VTOL aircraft. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 14:09:25 UTC) (permalink)

Hey, I think I know that guy...
Tyrian points out that a new screenshot from MechAssault 2, released recently at Gamespot, shows a helmet with a remarkable similarity to our favorite Master Chief... (Louis Wu 13:53:16 UTC) (permalink)

Battle of the modelers
Well, the forum argument isn't very pleasant... but the models are quite nice. Wraith has updated his Covenant Assault Boat model we mentioned a couple of days ago (taking into account a number of the suggestions given originally in the thread), and LordHex has put up his own model - this time bringing life to an early Bungie concept sketch of a Shadow. Now if only they'd get along... (Louis Wu 13:32:53 UTC) (permalink)

It Was as Ripped Off as Pokemon Cards in 1999.
The One One Se7en Archive update will happen a bit later today - but we still have a regular Guest strip for you, this time from MrFluffyPants26. Love that Max Payne flavor... (Louis Wu 13:22:47 UTC) (permalink)

Buy! Buy! Buy!
The newest Subzero Chronicles comic is online today; some of it makes me uncomfortable, but apparently, the premise is based on a real event. Ouch... (Louis Wu 13:19:11 UTC) (permalink)

Where do you go?
MereCatFish has set up a 'Favorite Halo Fan Site' poll - something he's tried before, but this time, he's put in a few safeguards against ballot-stuffing. Go vote for your favorite Halo fansite! (Louis Wu 13:13:57 UTC) (permalink)

Audio Interview with RvB's guS
Clarksbrother has interviewed Gus Sorola, aka guS, a Red vs Blue team member (and the voice of Simmons), for his local TV show 'The Not So Late Show'. It's a 14-minute audio interview, and weighs in at 6.6mb as an mp3. You can find it from 3 mirror sites linked off of The Not So Late Show mirror page - it's worth a download if you're interested in the process of how episodes are created, where the group came from, and other behind-the-scenes fun stuff. (Louis Wu 13:05:04 UTC) (permalink)

Homelan Opens its doors for HPC server rentals
Ask for info... and ye shall receive. Serpentius, of Homelan, popped into our new IRC channel to point out that Homelan is now renting Halo PC servers through Homelan Xtreme. Private servers start at $90/month (with discounts for longer contracts), and public servers start at $125 a month. You're paying for premium servers... buy with confidence! (Louis Wu 02:23:37 UTC) (permalink)

POOPS, cutscenes, and schwag, oh my!
A little late for some forumgoers... but Frankie's Weekly Update has been posted; you can find it over on the Battleground: Halo forum. This one's got me pretty stoked - lots and lots of solid progress info. Good stuff on AI, animation, sound design... the works. Go read it! (Louis Wu 00:17:41 UTC) (permalink)

News February 6 2004

Excuses
There's a new poll running over at Subnova - 'Why haven't you bought Halo for PC/Mac?' (Yes, there's an option for those who HAVE.) Go vote! (Louis Wu 22:15:51 UTC) (permalink)

HBO on IRC
A number of people have asked us, over the years, to set up an HBO IRC channel, for folks who feel that the forum moves too slowly. Thanks to the good folks at Homelan... we are happy to say we can now accomodate. The channel name is #HBO, the network is irc.homelan.com, the atmosphere is pure HBO. Come on by! (If IRC is registered for your browser, this link will get you there.) (Louis Wu 21:13:26 UTC) (permalink)

Homelan Xtreme On-Demand
Over the past few weeks, HBO visitors have been able to try out our pair of Homelan-hosted Halo PC servers. The feedback we've gotten has been almost universally positive; folks love the low-lag, high-performance servers, and like the fact that they're geographically spread; it's great to have more than one option when trying to connect and play. Homelan has just rolled out Homelan Xtreme On-Demand, a service aimed at developers and publishers... but if you've got the need for scalable gameservers, it's worth a look! Thanks to Narc, at Rampancy.net, who found it at Forerunners.org. (Louis Wu 18:20:46 UTC) (permalink)

So, You From Around Here, Baby?
Red vs Blue has posted Episode 23 for sponsors - you know where to go. Seems like filler, for the most part... setups for next week. (There ARE a few funny lines, of course...) Thanks to Ross Mills for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 16:48:30 UTC) (permalink)

Is that your ping... or your momma's weight?
Rampancy.net continues with another segment of The High Ping Bastard's Guide to Halo - this part (Part Four) focuses on etiquette. It's quite bulky (the lack of whitespace might intimidate some readers), but in general, it has good advice about how to deal with a low-bandwidth connection, in relation to other players. Check it out! Update: Who says Narc doesn't respond to requests? Whitespace has been added; the article is no longer intimidating. (Louis Wu 13:29:16 UTC) (permalink)

Oh My Aching Sides
One One Se7en finishes up the guest punster series... thank goodness. (This one was already done by rapture, anyway.) To make up for it, Stuntmutt is going to create another 4-page run-through... this time, though, it's going to be a runthrough of Frogger. (Louis Wu 13:20:30 UTC) (permalink)

Mr. Handy Man
That Orange MC is pretty swift... check out today's Halo: Resolution. (Louis Wu 12:45:22 UTC) (permalink)

Reload!
Those crazy guys at Fire Team Charlie have put up another Flash shooter; take out the enemy MCs before they take YOU out. It's pretty tough - I didn't play very long, but my score was only 2375; there are folks in their forum with scores over 7000. it's fun! (Comments can go in this thread.) (Louis Wu 11:55:33 UTC) (permalink)

Elevation
I keep forgetting to put this in the news... but WhoKnew announced a new Halo movie that his clan (Alpha Base) has put together. It's called 'Elevation', and they're hosting copies in both WMP9 and MOV formats. It weighs in at 16 or 17 mb, depending on the version you get. Modded action - pretty fun flamethrower! (Louis Wu 11:37:03 UTC) (permalink)

Project Halo leaders interviewed
Ryan 'Mhaddy' Matthews, of the Junkyard, pointed out an interview with CJ Scaminaci and Sam Bantner, the leaders of Project Halo: Webwar Evolved, a 3D FPS/strategy game based on Halo. This is a really ambitious project, as the interview will make clear... good luck to the whole Project Halo team! (Louis Wu 11:29:50 UTC) (permalink)

Poppy Seeds
Steve "Poppy" Cattell has started up a new comic on our forum - he says he'll be posting new ones every week or two. Nice beginning! (Louis Wu 11:21:31 UTC) (permalink)

News February 5 2004

Please Stand By...
HaloBabies is offline for a bit, while they work on bringing the new site online. The good news is, when they DO come back, there'll be (in the words of Mr Smiley) "a massive amount of new content, which will hopefully make up for our downtime. That, and a brand spankin' new site will be staring everyone in the face! =)" Oooohh... (Some people also call this Halo Babies , now it will show up for both search terms.) (Louis Wu 20:16:19 UTC) (permalink)

Like Bloodwake, except good.
Wraith has been playing with a 3d modeler, and has come up with the beginnings of a Covenant Assault Boat. Interesting critiques in the thread, as well - good stuff all around! (Louis Wu 19:02:58 UTC) (permalink)

Calvin would be proud.
Hehe - Mad Cow (and cohorts) created a huge 7th Column Snowman recently - check out the pics on our forum! (Louis Wu 18:23:40 UTC) (permalink)

Cortana Gets Shirty(2)
Today's Guest One One Se7en comes from -Mopey-... I was waiting for this one. (Louis Wu 11:53:59 UTC) (permalink)

Preemptive strike
Today's Calvin and Halo is by Blackstar. Captain Spark came up with a pretty similar one... but this was already in the queue. (Besides, they're not taking Guest strips.) It made me laugh. (Louis Wu 11:46:21 UTC) (permalink)

Stories
Six pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section:

• HALO: Dark Aftermath, by Nick Kang
• Widowmaker: The Defence of Earth Part One, by LordofDestruction
• My poem before I die, by David Li
• A Series of Wierd Events - Sequel, Part Nine[H_K], by Hunter_Killer
• A Series of Wierd Events - Sequel, Part Ten[H_K], by Hunter_Killer
• In Chaos and Despair: The Enemy Within, by Maraxus6

I know I've said this before, but I guess I gotta say it again: this is a Halo Fan Fiction archive. If you submit non-Halo-related work... we're going to have to reject it. Sorry. (Louis Wu 11:42:38 UTC) (permalink)

Stikfas Master Chief
Again - we're behind. Lots of cool stuff has come in over the past few weeks. It's all still here - and I hope I can get to it soon. DeWayne Muse sent in a few shots of a customized Stikfas Master Chief - he's pretty slick! Check out the pics. (Louis Wu 11:21:34 UTC) (permalink)

Pictures, Part 1
The Art submissions here at HBO have gotten way, way, WAY behind; there are backups in almost every section. I'm really sorry about that. I'll be doing my best to clear as much of this as possible in the next few days. First up - a bunch of desktop images for the Wallpaper section, submitted in the first half of January. (If you submitted a desktop recently, and it's not in this batch - please don't panic; this is less than half the queue. I'm putting up 20 images today, and I'll do it again in a day or two, and so on, until they're all up.) Some pretty cool stuff in here; I particularly like Eric Rodrigues' view of a sexy Cortana. See what you can find! (Louis Wu 11:00:48 UTC) (permalink)

Hard-rockin' Fan Music
Mothergoat of Clan Boomstick, dropped off a pretty cool piece of music he put together. Here's what he says about it:

This isn't any sort of easy remix or anything, this tune was built with full instrumentation from the ground up. Matt Cox (me) of the band Windsor Medium wrote this new theme for Halo, inspired by Marty O'Donnell's favorite melody. I play every instrument heard. NOTE: This is just a 2-minute clip of the 5-minute song it will be soon. I will be adding piano and strings to the final version.

This is the kind of music I want to hear while searching, then bullet-dancing with Gold Elites...with a butt-load of explosions, too.

Go grab Hail to 117 (1.8mb, mp3) and look for that Gold Elite! (Louis Wu 01:22:41 UTC) (permalink)

News February 4 2004

Rumors and Innuendo
Finn digs deep into the Halo Story Page mailbag, and pulls out a healthy dose of speculation and analysis. He also sheds some light on one of the comments made recently in the mini-Interview with Eric Nylund we posted yesterday. Those of you whose copies of First Strike were NOT eaten by dogs... get to work! (Louis Wu 11:47:00 UTC) (permalink)

Laugh? I Thought I'd Never Start.
One One Se7en continues to bring in guest comedians. Improvement? You decide. (I'm waiting for Robin Williams to call.) (Louis Wu 11:41:39 UTC) (permalink)

Why There Are No Ropes On UNSC Ships
Halo: Resolution looks at a potential problem with a half-ton of armor... (Louis Wu 11:35:22 UTC) (permalink)

Erraticus Stupendicus Revisited
Oops - another lost one. Last week, we mentioned a comic that had been started (but never finished) by elmatto. It was hosted on Freewebs, though, and bandwidth ran out soon after we mentioned it. We've put up a local copy of the strips themselves, with the permission of the artist - if you didn't catch them then, go catch them now! (Louis Wu 11:30:37 UTC) (permalink)

Not Your Best Friend...
Looks like we managed to miss last week's EchoFourNineteen at 343GS.com - it, too, is taking shots at multiplayer lag. (Check the Downloads section.) (Louis Wu 11:19:49 UTC) (permalink)

Satisfy your Grunty Shirtlessness
This was noticed on our forum on Monday... and posted on Bungie.net yesterday, but I guess I just forgot to put it up. The Bungie Store is selling a new Grunt t-shirt; it's a nice grey (though I'd LOVE to see it in a long-sleeved version). (Louis Wu 11:03:25 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Skins for Tribes 2
CENOBITE has popped up in our news before - he's released Halo-related Tribes skins, and submitted a pretty interesting piece to the Pillar of Art contest last year. He's back - with a COMPLETE set of Halo skins for Tribes 2. You can see pieces of the skins in this forum thread at the Skinners Guild, and download the whole package (just under 5 mb). (If you like his work, and play Tribes 2, go ahead and take a look at Starsiege 2845, a Tribes: Vengeance mod. He's a texture artist on the team.) (Louis Wu 10:58:43 UTC) (permalink)

New Screen - No Fun?
3Suns points out a writeup of last week's Halo 2 announcement and new screenshot over at Computer and Video Games - there's no information there that hasn't been covered on a few dozen sites by now, but the last paragraph is interesting:

[...] Bungie has also dipped into its vault and pulled out the first ever screenshot from the sequel's multiplayer mode. We're, erm, sure it's a lot more interesting to play than it looks.

I guess they're unhappy that it's barren... (Louis Wu 10:50:29 UTC) (permalink)

Psyrixx under lights
The Junkyard has turned the Spotlight on Robert Sogomonian, better known as Psyrixx, of Psyjnir.org. Swing by to read what makes this guy tick. (Be aware that although it looks like psyjnir.org is finally coming back online, most of the internal links aren't working at the moment.) (Louis Wu 10:43:54 UTC) (permalink)

News February 3 2004

Ze words, boss, ze words!
There wasn't any Fan Fiction updating this weekend... so we're back up to older numbers. 22 pieces for you today:

• Prophecy, by Daan Timmer( I'm Dutch)
• Too Close To Home Chapter 1, by phil451
• The Second Ring (Part 4), by Jason
• Desecrating Providence (Chapter 1), by Marty
• Neu Haven: Chapter Two, by Blue Jaguar
• Super Weapon Bowl, by Steve
• Halo:Sgt.Johnson's War Chapter 2:revenge, by Sgt.Johnson
• The fight for Omega Centauri. Part three: assuming command, by Aonghus Maher
• In Light of Destiny II: Death and Liberation, by Jinkaiden-XI
• The return to Halo, by Covenant Prophet aka Grunteater
• Halo Installation 01, Chapter 1, by FOrunnER
• Spartans Return to Earth (Entering the City), by Tommy Miller
• Forced Betrayal (Chapter 6: Tears of Blood), by CoLd BlooDed
• Earth's Darkest Hour, by Divination
• Halo: Speed of Darkness (Prologue), by Thanatos 117
• A Series of Wierd Events - Sequel, Part Eight[H_K], by Hunter_KIller
• Halo: The War of the Grunts (Part 1), by David Li
• Never trust a Forerunner, by Daan Timmer
• Redesignation 1of 2, by Stuntmutt
• Redesignation 2 of 2, by Stuntmutt
• Eldar Counsels Log Epilgoue Pt.1-Dreams of Eternity, by Blue Angel
• Underfire, by Puck Nny

You might recognize a name near the end of the list - a name not normally associated with Fan Fiction. Let's say he brings the same dry wit to writing that he does to his art. (Louis Wu 21:26:39 UTC) (permalink)

MacAddict reviews Halo
Blackstar points out that the March 2004 issue of MacAddict magazine contains a nice review of Mac Halo. It got 5 bullets ('Awesome' - I miss the Max days of 'Freakin' Awesome', but what can you do?) and does something very few other reviews have done - it adds spoiler-laden pics and descriptions of the later game elements. We'll post this once it's off the shelves. (Louis Wu 15:17:16 UTC) (permalink)

Range... 20 yards.
Today's Calvin and Halo is from Warbow - and I'm tempted to get away from this computer and go outside. Really. (Louis Wu 15:12:55 UTC) (permalink)

Technical Difficulties.
Today's Guest One One Se7en comes from SHARPE - and looks at hardware incompatibilities. If you ask me, them Covenant are pretty silly... (Louis Wu 15:10:18 UTC) (permalink)

More Lanfest stuff
Dan Chosich has updated his Tetraboxing reminiscences with a writeup, to accompany his movie. Looks like today's Dan's birthday, too - Happy Birthday, Dan! Update: Blood, as well, has updated his content - there's now a text writeup to go with his pictures on Bloodgulch.com. (Louis Wu 15:07:20 UTC) (permalink)

Halo may be cut from CPL summer event
The Cyberathlete Professional League is threatening to cancel the Halo portion of its Extreme World Championships 2004, to be held this summer in Texas. Angel Munoz, president of the league, sent out an email to registrants warning that if registration didn't pick up by Friday, February 13, they would cancel the $50,000 Halo tournament. The admission discount period has been extended until that point; $60/gamer for the 5-day event will increase to $80/gamer after the 13th. Thanks to synide, of Cooked Gamers, via Rampancy.net for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 15:03:19 UTC) (permalink)

RvB on G4's Pulse
tsudico points out that Red vs Blue is on Pulse on G4TV this week. Next air date is today, 2 pm. (Louis Wu 09:43:52 UTC) (permalink)

The Bungie Pentathlon Writeup
Yesterday afternoon, Frankie posted a writeup of the Bungie Pentathlon, an event that takes place annually and pits the employees against one another in mortal combat, divided among seniority lines. Frank brings his own inimitable style to the writeup, but fails to obscure the fact that his team (the Newbies) got soundly thrashed by everyone else there - in fact, I haven't seen such ownage since the 49ers trounced the Broncos in Superbowl XXIV. We got a lot of mail about this one, but the first note came from Pete Brown. (Louis Wu 09:39:57 UTC) (permalink)

More tidbits... from those who KNOW.
Our Halo Story Page wizards got the pair of Erics, Nylund and Trautmann, to sit down and answer a few questions about the Halo backstory. (I'm pretty sure their methods involved duct tape and a cattle prod.) The result can be found in our Miscellaneous section, to be filed one day on the Interviews page. (Louis Wu 01:25:20 UTC) (permalink)

Because it's there.
Hehe - people are STILL going where nobody's gone before. Ducain jumped into our forum with a pictorial explanation of a climb he did on Silent Cartographer. I've never seen pics of anyone getting up to that particular spot before. Glad to see folks are STILL exploring! (Louis Wu 01:16:14 UTC) (permalink)

News February 2 2004

Playable Pelican
Still catching up... Nick posted a link to a movie of a Pelican in Death Island (Halo PC) a couple of days ago. Looks pretty neat - you can jump in through the front, but vehicles bounce off. Seems like a pretty gnarly assault vehicle; no offensive weapons, but imagine flying 6 or 7 teammates across the map to the opposing base at Pelican speed! Movie is 20 mb, in .rar format; uncompressed, it's a WMP9 file. (Louis Wu 22:43:01 UTC) (permalink)

Halo music used in political video
Mooreburg found a rather strange report - apparently, according to the Palestinian Media Watch organization, the Palestinian Authority is using Halo's theme in a video aimed at promoting the Palestinian cause. Microsoft has made a statement that the use of the music was wholly unsanctioned. If you decide to participate in the forum thread on this subject, please remember that political discussion is simply not allowed on our forum; keep your comments Halo-related, or the thread will end up locked. (The wider topic is pretty incendiary, and we simply don't need it here... we're a game site.) (Louis Wu 19:49:02 UTC) (permalink)

Dolbex and 2070Wired weigh in
More Tetraboxing material: Dan Chosich has posted a 25 mb QuickTime movie about his experience (a bit over 2 minutes, movies and photos combined), and Dolbex has posted his own writeup of the trip (Georgia to Connecticut and back in 60 hours - with a LOT of Halo in the middle!) on the Been Mawed site. Good stuff! (Louis Wu 19:11:12 UTC) (permalink)

The Llama Speaks
bentllama, the Bungie animator and master of offtopic bizarreness on our forum, sent along a cool link to the CGTalk forum, in which he posted some preliminary (non-Bungie) work on some 3D models of Wonderboy in Monsterland, an old platformer that got released on many, many consoles. (Here are a pair of Commodore64 shots.) With all the time he has to post about pancakes on our forum, and slick models like this one, you wonder how he's getting those Halo 2 animations finished... can we blame that Fall 2004 date on him? (Louis Wu 17:04:18 UTC) (permalink)

One One Se7en visits the Miniature Halo set
SESpider has sent in another episode of Miniature Halo - the set gets a visit from another HBO denizen. It should make you laugh! (Louis Wu 16:51:48 UTC) (permalink)

Funny's Cousin.
One One Se7en looks for new talent for the jokemaking. Whether it's successful is totally your call. (Louis Wu 16:41:01 UTC) (permalink)

I'm Surrounded By Idiots
Halo: Resolution continues the Matrix-like sub-story... and the bad jokes come fast and furious. (Louis Wu 16:39:00 UTC) (permalink)

That Halo Screenshot - nosehairs and all
Sector 7 has written an entire article about the new Halo 2 multiplayer screenshot released last week - it's pretty clear that when a Halo site chooses to analyze a single screen so carefully, it feels the community is starved for content. If you agree, go check this out! (Louis Wu 16:32:58 UTC) (permalink)

Halo: Best Competitive Game of All Time
Gantry dropped us a note that Halo was voted #1 Best Competitive Game of All Time on G4 TV's show "Filter", episode #223 (beating out Battlefield 1942, Rainbow Six, MechWarrior 4, Starcraft, UT 2003, and several others). Next showing is February 4, at 12:30 pm. Not too shabby! (Louis Wu 16:25:07 UTC) (permalink)

Selling Mac Halo - finally
Ghôlsbane was sifting through some Bungie employee data, and ran across David Joost's website; David was Director of Sales at Bungie before the Microsoft buyout. The top news post (obviously written last fall sometime) discusses the long, strange trip Dave's been on, with respect to Halo sales. Interesting tidbits... (Louis Wu 16:15:11 UTC) (permalink)

Poster Design Contest
Catching up on older news... MeatSaw points out that he's sponsoring a poster design contest over at the Gearbox forums; the person with the best Halo-related poster design wins that design printed on 11x14 (or larger) poster paper. It's just for fun - so go check it out! (Contest ends on February 26.) (Louis Wu 15:37:51 UTC) (permalink)

Lanfest pics, revisited
More lanfest pics from the Offensive Tetraboxing event this weekend here at HBO: Konrad9 put up a bunch, (GT)Juggler put up some at Halo GT (including a couple of Konrad's shots), Blood put up about 50 shots at Bloodgulch.com, and Have Blue posted his own set (including some early pics of my vandalized car - more stuff was added after that last pic was taken). More as we find 'em! There's a pretty cool shot of the four downstairs projectors at once in HB's collection. Update: Blackstar put up a collection, as well. His movie focus is evident in the preponderance of shots that include the Film Oasis crew - but there are plenty of good people shots. (Louis Wu 14:20:29 UTC) (permalink)

Ph34r the Claw!
We didn't get a chance to post this on Friday, as we normally do - but Red vs Blue posted a new Public Service Announcement this week, in lieu of episode 23. It's out for everybody now - for sponsors in Hi-res (as it has been since Friday), and for casual visitors in 320x240. Go see what happens when NASA goes overboard... (Louis Wu 13:18:19 UTC) (permalink)

News February 1 2004

Splinter Sell 3.
Quick update, since we missed one yesterday, and I'd hate for the Guest queue to grow TOO long... today's Guest One One Se7en comes from Nukerman53, and is a takeoff of some very early Stuntmutt strips. Check it out! (Louis Wu 23:33:53 UTC) (permalink)

First pics - lanfest
There are going to be many, many updates about this fanfest - pictures, writeups, the works. I'm sure several of them have already been posted to our forum; I haven't had time to find them yet. I did get a link from Brad Griswald, one of the participants yesterday; you can find it on his 'Not So Late Show' website. Three pages of pics... go look! (Louis Wu 18:51:03 UTC) (permalink)

Pictures... not of the fest yet
So here I sit, finishing up an interview with the Film Oasis guys, trying to figure out how far behind I really am because of yesterday's Fanfest... Over the course of the next couple of days, I'll do my best to catch up, but please be patient. Stuff isn't gonna go up in the order it came in here... it's gonna go up in the order I remember it. First up: a forum thread filled with some hilarious images. The Burninator injected some One One Se7en images into Halo... and eventually BOLL took the concept to its absurd (but just as hilarious) extreme. Check it out! (Louis Wu 18:45:48 UTC) (permalink)

February 2004

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