More Humpday antics, and per your popular demands, against real people with real jobs and lives. Problem is, real people seem to have real skill. See how the Pooflingers fared against the Poofingers - a well known Bungie clan.
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We interview Lee Wilson, the new Bungie storyboard artist, to find out more about his new job, his game and movie influences, and how an Englishman describes the act of having a cup of tea in his native tongue.
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Voting Booth Needs Your Input
A few new polls and plenty of old ones are still waiting for your feedback over in our [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/topics.aspx?forumID=8]Voting Booth[/url]. Share your opinions on everything from potential playlist adjustments to your favorite weapons. Rock the vote and be heard!
The [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/topics.aspx?forumID=8]Voting Booth[/url] is filling up with loads of polls and chances for you to share your opinions with the Bungie team.
A few new polls have been added that deal with the Xbox Live Matchmaking playlists:
How do you feel about [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=2181647]Random Weapons[/url] ?
What are your thoughts on [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=2181745]Single Weapon Variants[/url] ? (i.e. snipers only, shotguns, etc..)
Do you like [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=2192093]Random Vehicles?[/url]
Chime in on these and many other thought provoking topics over the Voting Booth!
And, for even more chances to share your opinions and help further improve the Live experience, check out this latest post over in the [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=2192259&viewreplies=true]Optimatch Forum[/url]. The question of the week - what starting weapons would you change if you could?
Lots of questions this week, some obvious, some not so obvious. Progress is being made on cheating, the feedback system is garnering results and parents are concerned about what their kids have been up to...
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More dancing on our graves in a one hour and eight minute mammoth game of Assault, but Bungie had a few tricks up its sleeve in this latest Humpday Challenge. Find out how the Halo 2 CE Mods, a leading PC Halo mod squad, fared against our best.
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RSS is a brilliant, yet complex and mysterious aspect of the Bungie.net stats story. We chat with the guys from Halo.Defas.Org about what's possible with a website, a plan and a Bungie.net RSS feed.
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Stats Back Online
Sorry about the extended downtime. Stats are back up. It took a while longer than we though it would, but moving that many gigabytes of data takes a while. We also had a bit of problem bringing everything online, causing a small false start. Sorry about that.
Your games played during the downtime should be all caught up as well. Thanks for being patient, those of you who were.
Want to play Halo 2 on your PC? Well, now you can, sort of. H2CE is a custom mod that brings all the new hotness of Halo 2 to the world of Halo PC. Meet the team behind this impressive project and see how they're taking matters into their own hands to ensure that PC players can experience Halo 2.
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Stats Maintainance Continues [UPDATED]
[b]Update:[/b] Due to the sheer size of our database, things are taking much longer than anticipated. At this time, we expect stats to remain offline until Tuesday morning. We apologize for the downtime as we upgrade our storage capacity for archived and old stat info. We'll keep you posted as the upgrade continues.
Note that your stats are still being tracked and will update when stats are returned to normal service. This process can take a few hours, however.
Yet more answers to pressing questions about Halo 2 online and off. This week we discuss recent movie rumors, Thai food etiquette, Matt Soell and lots, lots more. Plus a moody new Mister Chief.
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Bungie took on its first civilian clan in The Bungie Humpday Challenge last night and the results were pretty much what you'd expect - only perhaps a little more physically attractive than normal.
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Sunday Stats Downtime
This Sunday is the Superbowl, but we'll still be working to make Halo 2 better. On Sunday evening at around 10pm, the Halo 2 Stats display on bungie.net will be offline for approximately 24 hours. This only affects the web site display, not the collection of your game data or your Xbox Live play.
See, the problem is you guys play lots of Halo 2. So, our stats database needs to have some upgrades done to it to make sure it can handle the load. Bear in mind that your stats will still be collected as you play, they just won't be processed for viewing on the web site until the maintenance period is completed. We apologize for the downtime, hopefully we'll complete the maintenance faster than 24 hours.
Bungie Store Bargains
[url=http://www.bungiestore.com/]The Bungie Store[/url] is having a post-holiday blowout, and selling some of the discontinued Halo items at bargain prices, including the Titanium Eclipse Tumbler – a swanky-looking Halo 2 beverage receptacle, the game character fridge magnets, and the Battle Rifle and Dual SMG notepads.
There are other bargains there too including metal Luggage Tags and our Holiday Gift Card set, which will of course work just fine next holiday season. So go [url=http://www.bungiestore.com/]check it out[/url].
Halo Wins Awards
The awards season continues and we're very grateful to our peers for selecting Halo 2 to win four of the six categories in which it was nominated by [url=http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-8/winners.asp]The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences[/url] a group largely composed of developers and publishers.
Lots of awards in there for you to read about, so [url=http://www.interactive.org/awards/IAA-8/winners.asp]go check it out.[/url]
Oh, and special congrats to Katamari Damacy, an office favorite.
Joyride is hard at work on new Halo action figures and vehicles. We take a sneak peek at some of the cool new toys headed your way in 2005. Everything you want, from Tartarus to Spectre! Pricing and dates to be decided!
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More of your questions about Halo 2 online stuff this week, including an update on cheating (thousands more accounts suspended) and some tricky interface questions just for good measure.
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Another in our ongoing series of looks at what it takes to work at Bungie, or any game studio, for that matter. This time we talk to the Grand Moff of Music - Marty O'Donnell, the Halo composer.
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Last week we were brutally defeated by EGM in the Bungie Humpday Challenge. This week, we exacted a brutal and terrible revenge on the unsuspecting gentlemen of Tips & Tricks magazine. Caution: Madness ahead.
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Cheating FAQ
There's no question that cheaters suck, but there are certainly a lot of questions about cheating itself. What is considered cheating? What will happen? What's being done? What can I do? Answers to these and other inquiries can now be found in this handy [url=/Stats/page.aspx?section=FAQInfo&subsection=cheat&page=cheat]Cheating FAQ.[/url]
If you play Halo 2 on Xbox Live, then you've no doubt encountered a dirty cheater at some point in the past few weeks. We received hundreds of mails per week accusing people of cheating, protesting bans from cheating and asking questions about cheating in general. To help shed some light on this problem, we've whipped up this quick [url=/Stats/page.aspx?section=FAQInfo&subsection=cheat&page=cheat]FAQ[/url] to better explain what's going on.
To date, THOUSANDS of players have been banned from Xbox Live. And more are certain to follow. Read this FAQ and understand what you can do to help and what we're doing to help you.
Extreme Makeover : Desktop Edition
If you're like us, you stare at your computer monitor ALL day long. Sure, you could look at the same old desktop all day, OR you could keep it fresh, by downloading these awesome new Halo 2 [url=/Games/Halo2/Gallery.aspx?Gallery=Wallpaper&page=2]Wallpapers![/url]
This week we've got [b]3[/b] brand spankin new Halo 2 wallpapers to liven up your computer. Shishka, AGDTinMan and Frankie have all contributed a work of art to adorn your desktop. Which is better? Who made which one? We'll leave that up to you to decide.
The "Sneaking" image was originally created by long time Bungie friend and artist-for-hire, Craig Mullins. This image was commissioned towards the end of Halo 2 development for possible use as a magazine cover or promotional item. Unfortunately, we never quite had a good opportunity to use it. Recently it was leaked onto the web so we're now making it officially available to everyone. Despite the rumors flying around about this image, this is NOT a screenshot from Halo 3, Halo 2.5 or Halo 999. It's just a painting done by an extremely talented artist. That's it. And it's damn awesome.
It's time to make the Bungie smack-talking and infighting official! It's the Annual Bungie Winter Pentathlon. The most incredible feat of athletic prowess and endeavor in the history of Mankind.
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Steve Cotton, multiplayer map-maker, gives us the inside scoop on his history at Bungie, and what it takes to be a multiplayer map designer in the bitter, frozen North.
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Go Gamespot Readers!
Venerable gaming site [url=http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/bestof2004/day7_26.html]Gamespot[/url] has announced the results of its 2004 Reader's Choice Awards and we did just fine, thank you very much. You can check out the winners in the various categories [url=http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/bestof2004/day7_26.html]here.[/url]
And remember, these are Reader's picks, not thos of [url=http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/bestof2004/day7_26.html]Gamespot.[/url]
After a slight delay thanks to technical errors, we present another Q&A session featuring topics as diverse as cheating, banning, the banning of cheaters and of course, downloadable content.
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We're practically speechless. EGM came, they saw, they kicked some ass. As ever, Bungie reports gracefully and politely on the Humpday Challenge, without resorting to words like "Jerk."
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