2007-08-04 12:12:01 Halo 3: Fastest-Selling Pre-Ordered Video Game in History

Hay guys wut’s goin on?

I just got back from Amsterdam. Ishn’t that weerd? Eet ish time to get HYPED! The spellchecker continues to battle my attempts at phonetic spelling, which although initially based on Austin Powers: Goldmember, isn’t really THAT far from a real Dutch accent, although they swing wildly from mostly English sounding to mostly German sounding. All of which is wrapped in the embarrassing fact that everyone there speaks at least two languages fluently.

At the Amsterdam event, we basically assembled a bunch of European press and showed them some Campaign (Jungle and Tsavo Highway levels) and let them play some multiplayer and Campaign stuff. The big announcement we had (obviously) was the four player co-op mode, which we’d been sitting on for a while, making sure it actually worked well.

Well, it works great, so announce it we did. We even let the European press play co-op (although the location – a moving boat, forced that experience to be System Link only). Xbox Live play is practically identical when your connection is solid, right down to the instantaneous Lobby joining process. And speaking of that, let’s clarify what actually happens in co-op, so that nobody is left in any doubt:

Number of players: You can play one, two, three or four player co-op, online or on System Link.

You can play two player split-screen co-op for a single Xbox 360 – and yes, you can play online or System Link co-op against another split-screen setup for a total of four players, two Xbox systems. You can also combine a split-screen with two single players over Live or System Link.

To start a game, you can invite players to your Campaign lobby as the host – or, if they see you sitting in a lobby and there’s a slot available, they can “Join Session in Progress” and they should instantly appear in your Campaign lobby.

You can only begin a game from a level start or an “Insertion Point” which is like a sub-chapter in the game, and always a nice logical place to start. The number of insertion points per level varies, but is usually around least three or so.

Once you’re in a game, you should (unless one of you hits a snag, like a lost connection) stay together until you volunteer to leave the party.

Edit: Because of things like team scoring and so on, the game is now set up so that if a player leaves the party, he drags the other fellows back to the lobby, where they can restart from an insertion point.

Co-op will be easier, even with the measures we’ve inserted to keep it challenging, so we automatically suggest upping the level you play at to either Heroic, or preferably Legendary. There are other measures you can take to increase the challenge, and we will discuss those later. An example of it being easier is that you can send out a bullet sponge to draw sniper fire while one of you runs out to grab a much-needed weapon. So you can see that co-op also dramatically changes the types of strategy you’ll employ too.

The two new Elites, joining the Arbiter and Master Chief, both have real bios and appropriate fiction, but they will not be appearing in the cinematics and so on. They are designed to be believable and useful allies, without affecting the fictional arc in a negative way – and they do not appear in the game as AI controlled opponents during one or two player games.

Scoring in co-op games will be revealed in all its glory soon, but simply put, each player will have his or her own score, which is at its simplest, you get points for killing something, and you get more points for doing it with style (say a headshot, for example). There will be measures in place to ensure that both individuals and the party as a whole, feel a sense of satisfaction while playing and scoring in co-op. But again, more on that later.

But that’s an aside. The new EGM is now arriving on store shelves, and we heartily recommend that you purchase and digest this fine tome immediately. There is a ridiculous amount of information and art from Halo 3 in there, and it’s a must-have for fans. It also has the most complete description of Forge available – but you can read all about that in Forge. However, I came back to discover the most outrageous-looking movie of Forge ever created and couldn’t not share this tidbit with you.

Petar, one of our engineers, found a saved film from one of our testers playing on Sandtrap. He basically placed a RIDICULOUS number of exploding fusion cores on and inside the Elephant vehicle. They had their respawn times set to as close to “instant” as Forge allows, so that every time one exploded, it respawned. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what kind of chain reaction this would cause once a single core was detonated.

What we didn’t expect was the effect it had on the Elephant physics. Now the huge metal beastie is indestructible, but it has weight and mass in the game universe, so explode it enough and you can move it. Explode it with a never-ending cascade of fusion cores and you have the most dangerous Halo item ever. A vehicle big enough to park a Scorpion a Hog and two Mongooses inside, flipping around at incredible speeds and tumbling all over the map, releasing exploding cores and the occasional vehicle like some kind of satanic piñata.

And all the while, players have the ability to play a normal game variant in this environment. It’s sheer insanity, and just a taste of what players and player-designers will be able to achieve with Forge. We literally cannot even fathom what folks will come up with using time and imagination, as well as Forge’s multiplayer nature. Actually, I need to invent a fake word that combines normal game players with level designers.

I christen that word: Desciplayers. No, wait, Playsigners. No that’s not right. Forgers. Bam. You’re Forgers. Go forge something.

Of course, this kind of madness – while it seems to work fine right now – might add some unforeseen shenanigans – so if what I just described ends up being impossible in the shipping game, then it was my fault for drawing attention to it.

Got a lot of questions about the AV calibration tool, and so I decided that it’s not terribly secret, so I should give you some info. Of course this isn’t on the same schedule as the game, so it could change slightly, but at the time of writing, this is all correct.

First off, what is it? Well, simply put, it’s a 360 app that helps you tune your TV to best display Halo 3. Now, we’re using industry standards to make sure that this actually helps with any and all TVs. These standards are as close to objective and “correct” as is possible to achieve, but again, the nature of this kind of calibration is by its nature, subjective. However, we’ve had them independently tested and verified by industry experts, so the settings, if correctly adjusted, should make Halo 3 and everything else you watch on an HD set, look better.

The process is seated firmly in the Halo universe – basically, Sgt. Johnson appears and guides you through a number of tests and retests. He will, for example, ask you to adjust the contrast on your set until a Grunt barely becomes visible from a white background, or to change your color settings until an image of Cortana becomes crystal clear. It’s all very simple – the only real challenge for the viewer will be making sure that words like “Sharpness” actually map to an equivalent in the myriad TV interfaces out there.

He’ll ask you if things are correct for say, the brightness settings, and then move you on to the next item. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, and the end result will be confidence that your set is calibrated to industry specifications and if you prefer your settings brighter or darker, or warmer or m0ore dynamic – you at least have a great baseline to work from.

A simple audio test follows, which basically lets you make sure your 5.1 speakers are at least wired correctly. This is an upgraded version of the olde surround sound test. No more wondering whether your right rear is actually wired left rear. A Grunt makes it all perfectly clear…

One other item to note – more advanced visual settings can be reached by using a blue filter that we’ll make available at the Bungie store. This is basically just a dumb piece of transparent blue plastic, but it will help tremendously when making very fine scale adjustments. We’ll try to make sure it’s priced fairly. More information on that later.

I will close with a photo of the crazy Dutch guy who, dressed as Master Chief, yelled at us in a thick accent to “get hyped!!!” and so we did.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topne...

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Halle Berry: Delgado i am feeling really reall dirty tonight, shall i call Jessica Simpson for a threesome?

Delgado: HALLE what have i told you about bothering me when i'm playing Mass Effect!!! now get out and dont come back for 2 months!! (Slams door

2007-08-04 17:54:17

Holy sheet! That'd hurt in the morning.

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Ignorance is the true enemy of all things.

http://www.x10hosting.com/index.php?rid=6230 Best free webhosting

2007-08-04 18:32:00

Reminds me of an incident I encountered in a custom game on Zanzibar.. where we pushed all of the fusion cores to the beach and surrounding a Hog with them.. it reached the heavens.

2007-08-04 18:56:23

EGM SCAN REMOVED

These are the details on the feature in Halo 3 called Forge other known as "map editor". Here are the details:

>Map editor (you're not making your own maps though)
> Does not support geometry creation, or texture modification
> Allows you to remove and place any items or vehicles or spawn points or objectives, etc... anywhere on the existing maps
> For things like weapons you can tweak their respawn timer and ammo count and other minor things
> You can have multiple people work in the Forge editor over Xbox Live!
> You can also dynamically switch from creation mode to playing mode and run around in the game.
> If you are "playing" in Forge and have other players in it, they can still change things! For instance, if you have a friend making a pyramid of fusion cores, you can return to "play" mode and lob a grenade in to destroy all his work!
> Make your own kind of games in forge. Bungie gives the example of grab the mongoose. One player rides a mongoose while everyone else tries to grab it out from under him by removing it in Forge! Another is like a magic carpet ride where one player will stand on a object and a forge monitor will drag it along making the player ride it through the air.
> Finally Bungie talked about how you can kind of make it into a real-time strategy game (RTS) where you set up "teams" where each team has a monitor creating items for his team to use.
>After editing/making a level you can upload it and anyone can download it.

http://xboxfamilynews.blogspot.com/2007/08/halo-3-...

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Halle Berry: Delgado i am feeling really reall dirty tonight, shall i call Jessica Simpson for a threesome?

Delgado: HALLE what have i told you about bothering me when i'm playing Mass Effect!!! now get out and dont come back for 2 months!! (Slams door

2007-08-04 19:32:08

Forge sounds pretty lame tbh and I think people modding levels could lead to more imbalanced play than anything else. That was until I read

They may as well make this an official mode. Now that sounds fun -- BF2 / Battlzone like even. Natural Selection... almost like being in the loading program in the Matrix. I am all over realtime RTS-FPS games.

I can see a mode like territories (Conquest) where once you have captured an area your RTS Commander can then place content in your territory. This would make them valuable, and also making defending such very interesting.

Being able to control where, how often, and what your RTS-Commander could drop would be important. While being able to drop stuff anywhere anytime would be cool at first, from a tactical-team combat scenario, not so much IMO. Maybe a balance of a timer for "any place drops" and unlimited base / territory controlled drops (totally customizable) would be just right. Heck, put an option to place a "cost" value on items and tie territory control time to points, and you have a true RTS-FPS synthesis going and something that, in terms of teamplay, is boarding on the team-oriented focus of games like BF (yes, CTF and TDM are team games, but game styles like conquest involve more than just killing but a lot of defense, tactics, teamwork, patrolling, repairing, etc and allow more people to contribute other than the "I am a killing machine" types).

In general I think Forge sounds pretty weak -- MS, what ever happened to us making our own content on the PC as you said in 2005? -- but it does sound that with some Bungie assistance Forge could essentially turn Halo 3 MP into the game I have been dreaming of since BZ2 was released.

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The fans have spoken. Concerning the graphics of the Halo 3 Beta: "There's so many little effects and things going on that make this game pretty much 2nd only to Gears at the moment."

2007-08-04 19:36:52

Jesus this is going to be the game to end all games.

The descriptions in these updates just bleed with high production values and fantastic presentation.

Can't wait for Sgt. Johnson to help me calibrate my TV!!!

2007-08-04 19:52:28 In reply to Acert93 (2007-08-04 19:32:08)

It is weak.. and it's even weaker that they're hyping it up to be "more than a level editor!"

No if it were more than a level editor, it would allow you to edit from existing tile sets, deform terrain--AND DO EVERYTHING ELSE. It's just.. not a level editor at all. Screw making content on the PC, you're not getting that on Xbox (XNA, yada yada).. I would settle for the ability to create compelling content at all.This would be cool--but there aren't going to be such rules and restrictions--meaning that game modes created here will be for kicks and that's it. It's soft of like making a game out of Garry's mod. Fun, but not all that compelling in the long run.

Just to counter Forge, Valve should ship orange box w/ Garry's mod.

2007-08-04 20:17:15

Hmm, im not sure i understand your post Grift. So forge is basically a custom settings tool, cant actually make new maps and what not... whats wrong with that? Its still a nice addition...
2ndly why compare HL with halo. they are such diff games... HL is about using your environment to your advantage, and puzzles. Halo is a run and gun that just plays better than other run and guns... duno i must have missinterpreted what you said.

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GoW, War3, Halo, MYST, Civilazation

2007-08-04 20:20:53 In reply to Schmooboo (2007-08-04 20:17:15)

Just upsetting because it's been positioned as a map editor.. and it's.. not. I wasn't comparing HL2 and Halo btw--I was just comparing Forge to Garry's mod.

I don't think Forge is a bad addition to the game.. I just wish they'd allow you to actually create content when they try to pass it off as "so much more than a level editor!"

Although I must say.. I don't see what's wrong with comparing games, even across genres.. let alone in the same one. But that wasn't the intention of my post anyway. The closest thing out there to Forge, is Garry's mod, which is a component of Half Life 2. That is all.

2007-08-04 21:07:14

Its a map editor not a map creator, not the hardest thing to understand.

Sounds pretty good btw.

2007-08-04 21:07:15 In reply to Schmooboo (2007-08-04 20:17:15)

Yep its a VERY nice addition :)

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Halle Berry: Delgado i am feeling really reall dirty tonight, shall i call Jessica Simpson for a threesome?

Delgado: HALLE what have i told you about bothering me when i'm playing Mass Effect!!! now get out and dont come back for 2 months!! (Slams door

2007-08-04 21:18:04 In reply to Jin187 (2007-08-04 21:07:14)

Trying to defend it on a technicality ? Oh please! The FarCry (PC) Editor is called a Level editor and in every other game, a level editor is called a LEVEL editor. It's pretty obvious that FORGE doesnt let you create maps Hence, it shouldnt even be called a level editor. FarCry Instincs (Xbox) had a better level editor than this. It's pretty obvious Microsoft doesnt want to give people the chance to create their own stuff because they want to keep making the maps and charging for them and this is what is NOT the hardest thing to understand.

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Assassin's Creed-Blue Dragon-Lost Odyssey-Eternal Sonata-Final Fantasy XIII-Cry On-Ninja Gaiden 2-Heavenly Sword-Devil May Cry 4-Resident Evil 5-Naruto 360-Mass Effect-Alan Wake-Too Human-Infinite Undiscovery-Metal Gear Solid 4-The Last Remnant

2007-08-04 21:27:57 In reply to alimokrane (2007-08-04 21:18:04)

Did bungie call it a level editor? No they didnt, the posters here did. Forge is a nice feature that lets you create your own gameplay, and edit maps(edit =! create). Also whats wrong with Bungie making some money off of Maps if they make them fun and balanced? I guess you're just another passenger on the "MS is evil" train.

2007-08-04 21:37:55 In reply to JXB (2007-08-04 21:27:57)

I wouldn't blame him since his 2nd(or 3rd?) 360 died on him. But anyway, lol at you thinking alimokrane's is some kind of anti-MS fanboy just because he doesn't act like one of their many heel licker's.

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all good things must come to an end

2007-08-04 21:45:18 In reply to JXB (2007-08-04 21:27:57)

and your just another passenger on the "Bungie Can Do no Wrong" train. I guess we're even.
I Swear to God I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA!! NO IDEA why when it comes to Halo, everyone should just shut up and accept everything. This is a forum and I am free to express my opinion period, I think I'm done with this thread anyway. Good Day!My second actually and that's not the reason, Im still hanging out here :D

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Assassin's Creed-Blue Dragon-Lost Odyssey-Eternal Sonata-Final Fantasy XIII-Cry On-Ninja Gaiden 2-Heavenly Sword-Devil May Cry 4-Resident Evil 5-Naruto 360-Mass Effect-Alan Wake-Too Human-Infinite Undiscovery-Metal Gear Solid 4-The Last Remnant

2007-08-04 21:56:46

I think we got Halo Wars a bit earlier than what Bungie thought... but anyway kinda lame level editor. Reminds me a bit UT mutators (or whatever those where).

edit: After reading it again. It is a bit more than just mutators but anyway same levels with small tweaks. Better than nothing though.

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Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2
Give a guy a gun, he thinks he´s Superman. Give him two and he thinks he´s God!

2007-08-04 22:04:55

man lol, I hate the design of that Mjolnir Armor in that picture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAF5FxzZ17E
should have used that one, excluding that lame ass sword :P

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all good things must come to an end

2007-08-05 00:09:29

It's a map editor like someone else, and the description just sounds like it :|

Nothing ground-breaking, just cool.

2007-08-05 00:12:01 In reply to Jin187 (2007-08-04 21:07:14)

That's ignoring years of precedent for what a "map editor" is in a videogame. Instead of trying to change the definition of what a map editor is--why not call it something else completely?So does the EGM article that this thread is talking about. Hell, it's on the cover.And here I thought I was (and Ace..) were the only ones who felt this pain.. thank god.

2007-08-05 01:18:53

They kinda have though. Its called Forge. The description of Forge is that it is a level editor. Its not like you will go into a menu and click map editor. You will click Forge.

2007-08-05 01:42:26 In reply to TheBeagle (2007-08-05 01:18:53)

Fair enough.. poor description though. It's more of a spawn editor. This is all more of a reaction to the comments in EGM (from, Bungie) saying, "It's more than a map editor!"--no--it's just something else completely. You can not edit the levels--you're editing spawns, that's not level editing.

I just think it could have been so much more than it is. I'm not "bashing" Frankie's mod.. I just think the game would have benefited greatly from a real level editor.

It could still be a lot of fun to play around with, and it ads depth to the games custom options.. and one more layer of depth, even if it is a bit more shallow than I had hoped (Forge, not Halo), is always welcome. It's just not as big as the games other features (the custom game lobby, saved films, and four player online co-op being the most important to me) and it could have been..

2007-08-05 02:02:51 In reply to Jin187 (2007-08-04 21:07:14)

You cannot edit the map, i.e. the geometry.

If you want to be technical it is a, "map content & asset placement editor". Or as Grift said, "spawn editor".

In no way is it a map editor, that would entail, you know, changing the actual... map. You are only changing asset placement. It doesn't even sound like you can change the values of the weapons (ROF, penetration ability, damage, splash damage, speed, magazine size, deviation, etc) or vehicles (speed, acceleration, damage, weapon loadout, etc). So it really isn't an asset editor either.

Ok, Grift is right. It is a Spawn Editor.

Which, imo, after ALL the hardwork Bungie will do to balance the levels they are going to allow people to muck them up with "cool" yet balance breaking gameplay additions. I think more than anything this could be detrimental. While there have been some cool stuff like this when done in balance (OCX Servers for DC were always cool because you had like 20 jets and helos per side) the bottom line is most were unbalanced and badly designed. Not to mention...

Perfect way to glitch.

Think about it. Drop vehicles where they shouldn't to be able to screw up the game.

I like the general idea of Forge, as in Bungie's own RTS suggestion, I really hope they have it well designed in regards to prevent cheating.

Cool addition (not a map editor though) and with Bungie's help it could rebirth RTS-FPS -- which I think it a totally legitimate direction for the franchise and could be the rebirth of a genre that would absolutely rule.

So there is hope.

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The fans have spoken. Concerning the graphics of the Halo 3 Beta: "There's so many little effects and things going on that make this game pretty much 2nd only to Gears at the moment."

2007-08-05 02:08:43

I just see Forge as way to turn a H3 level into a sort of sandbox/playground.. serious gaming.. it's not. Which is also why I think the Garry's mod comparison is completely valid. Which really isn't harsh criticism, since Garry's mod f'n rules.

2007-08-05 02:14:05 In reply to GriftGFX (2007-08-05 02:08:43)

Garry's Mod is really good, but I hate it online. With anything more than two people it's just unreasonable. It simply does not work because either the freaking server admin won't give you more than 1 tire/ragdoll, or because the lag will be extremely horrible and basically unplayable.

Still, versions before 10 are free, and you really can't beat that price.

2007-08-05 03:37:39

I can see Forge being most valuable in Machinama, especially if they allow some user defined animation / interaction. With the vid editing system I can see them going this route. Halo user movies FTW?

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The fans have spoken. Concerning the graphics of the Halo 3 Beta: "There's so many little effects and things going on that make this game pretty much 2nd only to Gears at the moment."