My Halo 3

If you’re someone who considers themselves forging experts, of either Foundry or Sandbox take heed of today’s post. Although I don’t think anyone is an ‘expert’ with Sandbox quite yet.

In Bungie’s weekly update, they featured someone who is an icon in the Forging community, Cosmic Rick. He has created classic Forges, such as: Kentucky Tango, and Pallet Parade.

Bungie had a Q&A session with Cosmic Rick about Forging, and it’s a very interesting read. Here’s a response from Cosmic Rick about how he builds maps…

“The process really depends on the map. For Utah Mambo, the only thing I really had planned out initially was the Defensive base, and that I wanted something asymmetric which could handle symmetric games, too. Then I looked at what attack angles and lines-of-sight would make for a fun objective game and designed the central structure (with a little inspiration from Sandtrap) around that. I find that it’s usually better to have a solid idea, but to be flexible during the build process. It’s definitely fun to just throw things together until something works, though. (I’ll admit it: that’s mostly how Pallet Parade and Kentucky Tango came about.)”

Cosmic Rick has a new Sandbox variant coming out by the name of Utah Mambo. It’s looking quite impressive, and I plan on giving it a shot later on.

Tags: Bungie, expert, Forge, foundry, Q&A, sandbox

• Halo General
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Alright HaloMega readers. Today marks the event that a large amount of you have been waiting for. Dragonball movie release? No, today the Mythic Map Pack will be released to the public.

For those who have already gotten their map pack, just sit quietly and enjoy the awesomeness you’ve obtained. For those who’ve been waiting patiently, Bungie has a couple of surprises in store for you today.

First, Bungie will be giving out Bungie Pro subscriptions for free. They will last until July. If you’re unfamiliar with Bungie Pro, it’s basically a service where you get 24 save slots for your custom creations.

There have been some interesting creations already, and if you’re interested take a peek at the ones below:

Flying Dutchman

Excavation

Pivotal

Tags: 3, Bungie, content, creation, custom, Halo, July, Map, Mythic, pack, Pro, public, release, subscription, surprise

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There are a few key ingredients to pulling off a good April Fools joke. First, it has to be lighthearted. April Fools isn’t about being mean, it’s about having fun at your expense or the expense of others. Second, if you’re conducting a fake story online, make it extreme yet believable. All of this is what Bungie did for its April Fools gag.

Bungie announced yesterday that they’d created their own professional gaming league, B.U.N.G.L.E. According to Bungie, their new league would be the premier professional league based around Halo. The story was pretty easy to spot as an April Fools joke, but just professional and real enough to fool some. Also, the idea itself sounds pretty good.

Here’s a list of some of the fake features for B.U.N.G.L.E. :

•The ONE and ONLY Pro Gaming League featuring Halo 3
•Monthly Online and Local Tournaments in Every Major City
•Annual World Championship Event, Super Summ3r Jam Extreme™
•Multi-Tiered League Play for All Ages Competition, featuring Halo 3′s Golden Bear, Louis Wu
•”PRO” Nameplate in Matchmaking to separate the Pros from the Schmoes
•Huge Cash and Amazing Prize Payouts for Local, Regional, and World Champions
•New, Fully-Customized Multiplayer Arenas: Blowout, Bungital, and Showerball
•Corporate Sponsorships from Big Jed’s Rib Shack and Dr. Phizzle and Diet Dr. Phizzle

Tags: April, B.U.N.G.L.E., Bungie, competition, Fools, gaming, Halo, league, professional

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For those out there who are seriously thinking about getting into game development, should know a couple of things. First, it’s a very hard field to break through in, and second a lot of it is who you know, and some luck.

This interview with Bungie’s sandbox engineer, Jon Cable proves my points correct. Here are some Q&A’s about how Cable got his start at Bungie.

Q. Did you get any guidance during your time in High School?

A. I remember one test saying something about an electrician. I think the system was so old it didn’t know what a computer was. I tried to talk to authority figures in high school as little as possible.

Q. Did that aversion to academic authority lift long enough for you to earn a college degree?

A. Yep – a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.

Q. And how did you end up first make contact with Bungie?

A. I was interning at Microsoft in the summer of ’05. We had a weekly Halo night where we played on system link in the conference rooms on these big projectors. I met another intern there named François, who was working at Bungie in level design. I asked him to get me in touch with someone here, and a while later Chucky contacted me and we started the interview process. I still had two years of college left, so I got an internship for the next summer.

Q. What did you bring along to the interview process proper?

A. I brought my laptop with a couple games I had written. I didn’t get a chance to show them off until the very end. But mostly I just came prepared to meet whatever challenge was thrown at me.

——–

So, there you have it. Be sure to have a portfolio of your works. Then make sure you can somehow get in good with people over at Bungie.

Tags: Bungie, developer, engineer, halo 3, interview, ODST, Q&A, sandbox

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As I keep up with news about Halo 3: ODST I’m impressed with how liberal Bungie has been about releasing news of their upcoming shooter. Their latest site update has released even more news, mostly about what enemies will be in the game.

The latest piece of information, and what will be a disappointment to some is that no Elite will be making their presence in ODST. Instead, according to Bungie we’ll mostly be taking on the Brutes.

Some other cool info that Bungie decided to be let known, is the timeline of this game and how it compares with what was happening to Master Chief.

* October 20: New Mombasa, Kenya is destroyed by the Slipstream Space Rupture Backlash from the Prophet of Regret’s ship.
* November 2: The Prophet of Regret’s ship and In Amber Clad arrive at Delta Halo. Prophet of Regret liquidated by SPARTAN-117.
* November 3: Prophet of Truth leaves High Charity for Earth in Forerunner dreadnought.
* November 8: The Forerunner dreadnought arrives in the Sol system and proceeds to Earth at near relativistic speed.
* November 17: The Forerunner dreadnought arrives at Earth. SPARTAN-117 ejects and lands in the Kenyan jungle.

Tags: Brute, Bungie, Elite, enemies, halo 3, information, news, ODST, shooter, site, update

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For those who sit anxiously anticipating any kind of Halo 3: ODST news, today is your day. Bungie has graced us with some updates into how the game is coming along, and what they have completed. It sounds like everything is shaping up nicely, if I dare say.

Here are a couple of exceprts from Bungie’s Halo 3: ODST update:

-All of the ODST mission dialog is written and implemented thought the current implementation is often the dulcet tones of Joseph Staten coming through my headset.

-Halo 3: ODST is just a day away from the Representative Experience milestone and preparing for a team-wide playthrough of the whole game next week. (This means the game is playable from start to finish)

It’s looking like things are going great so far. The release date hasn’t been finalized yet, but that’s not surprise. It’s still slated for a Q3 2009 release.

Tags: 2009, Bungie, game, halo 3, news, ODST, Q3, Recon, release, update

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For those who’ve been keeping up with the history of Halo Wars, knows it’s quite interesting. The latest bit of news being announced for the Halo RTS is questionable to say the least.

The good news is that Halo Wars finally has a solid release date. For those who’ve been long waiting, March 3, 2009 will be the date you’ll be able to pick up Halo Wars. The puzzling part of the news, is that the US will be the last region to get the game. Europe will be getting Halo Wars, February 26th. With Japan receiving the game February 27th.

I know that the economy is down in the US, but come on. It’s pretty obvious at this point that Halo’s popularity shines brightest in the states. For Microsoft to release the game in other regions first really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

For those who pre-order Halo Wars, you’ll get a cool in-game item. The exclusive item is a Warthog with flame decals plastered on the side. Those who wish to fork over an extra twenty bucks for the Limited Collector’s Edition will get some great additions. You’ll get an in-game Covenant Wraith with ‘Honor Guard’ decoration. A graphic novel, and early access to the Mythic Map Pack will also be included with the Limite Collector’s Edition.

Tags: Bungie, collectors, edition, Europe, Halo Wars, Japan, Microsoft, release date, RTS, US

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If you’ve been wanting to get into game design, and love Halo now is the perfect time to strike. Bungie is hiring en masse and there are a good variety of jobs available.

Here is a list of some job titles currently available with Bungie:

Lighting Artist: Turn on the bright lights, indeed. We’re looking for someone who wants to shine bright…

Server Programmer: Bungie Studios is looking for an experienced developer of server-side software to create and maintain scalable services to communicate with our games and our internal development tools.

Test Supervisor: As a Test Supervisor at Bungie, your responsibilities will include hiring, training, building and supervising large teams of quality assurance contingent staff.

Graphics Engineer: Bungie is seeking a software engineer with a passion for graphics, who is interested in pushing the state of the art of real time CG to a level previous considered unattainable, and do it all in close collaboration with the world’s most talented artists, in a creative endeavor to create the best video games ever.

Engine Programmer: Are you the person that others come to when they can’t debug their code? Bring your thirst for knowledge and fuse it with our talented team.

Tags: Bungie, employment, Halo, halo 3, positions, Recon, website

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I know you’ve done nothing but think about it, dream about it, and lust after it. Of course I’m talking about Recon armor. The Holy Grail of items in the world of Halo. People have begged and pleaded for Bungie to give it to them. Of course, in stellar Bungie fashion they keep saying you have to earn it.

In a issue of Game Informer, Bungie was interviewed about their highly anticipated, but still far off game Halo 3: Recon. There were the obvious questions about progress, and release dates. There was one question that really stood out in the interview. For those who are continually trying to impress Bungie enough to give you recon armor, you’ll want to read this.

Everyone gets Recon armor for multiplayer!?

“Yes, sort of. We did confirm that when Halo 3: Recon is released next Fall, fans will finally have the means to acquire the Recon multiplayer armor for themselves. The “Vidmaster” achievements that were kicked off in the Halo 3 title update a few months ago are the first step on the road to unlocking Recon. Eventually, once you have successfully completed all of the Vidmaster achievements, you will be able to wear the armor. Some of these achievements can be earned when the Mythic Map Pack is released early next year, but you won’t be able to complete the full chain until the retail release of Halo 3: Recon next Fall. So yes, approximately two years after the release of Halo 3, the broader community will finally be able to get their hands on the Recon armor.”

Tags: armor, Bungie, fashion, halo 3, progress, Recon, release dates, site

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I think Bungie’s site is at its best when there isn’t any killer news to report. This week it’s been mostly about Halo 3: Recon, but with not much to say about it they held an open Q&A forum with their site users.

Like with most Q&A’s, there were some morons that showed up but there were some questions of worth, that followed with interesting answers. Here are some of them:

Q: In the news earlier, it was said that Halo Wars will come with the Halo 3 Mythic Map Pack including three maps. What happened to the other three? Aren’t they part of the Mythic Map Pack too? Did we just read wrong and when you were referring to the Map Pack, you guys meant all six of them. Any clarification would be wonderful.

A: This question has popped up a handful of times around the Internet. The Mythic Map Pack in question (comprised of Assembly, Orbital and Sandbox) will be included as part of the Limited Edition of Halo Wars. Those are the only Halo 3 maps that will be bundled with Halo Wars.

Q: I believe I remember Shishka mentioning that there might be a playlist with user created content in it. Is there any more info on that, or am I delusional?

A: Shishka was here super duper late earlier this week looking at exactly this sort of thing. I even saw Jones stop by Shishka’s desk to watch him run around some user created map. Jones said, “Huh, this looks neat.” And before you ask, no, it wasn’t something that was messaged to him via Live, it was something he found here on the site using the tagging system. That said, he’s looking at maps pretty regularly, but the quality of them is mostly in line with the quality of this batch of questions. That doesn’t mean that they won’t be used in some fashion. Shishka’s thinking about using them for a new content series here at B.net titled, “What Not to Do in Forge.”

Q: How is the render-to-video feature coming along?

A: It’s still in the works and it’s still shaping up to be sweet. The Wolf is hard at work on it and it’s going to take a giant mountain of servers and flowing rivers of bandwidth.

For The Full Q & A, click here.

Tags: Bungie, halo 3, mythic map, pack, playlist, Q&A, Recon, website

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