Brian Towne, the man with the big pipe (meaning bandwidth.. get your minds out of the gutter) is offering to have Mythica host any user-created file up to 8Mb, suitable for linking at any one of a number of pre-approved Halo and Bungie-related sites. He's written a post in the HBO forum making the offer, and the Mythica User Upload Page explains the process and the rules in more detail. Upload away!
If you're looking for some solid information on Halo 2's top-secret plot, then head right on over to TeamXbox, where they've interviewed Frankie about it and been told... that it isn't being discussed right now.
Frankie is in Japan at the Tokyo Game Show, running errands for Pete Parsons, discovering Korean delicacies, and in generally bemoaning how Halo 2 is so close to finished, there are even people at Bungie with nothing to do. Horror of horrors!
Halo Babies has a new comic today, as well as new concept art for the Baby MC's new suit. Thanks mrsmiley.
The night-owls among you may have noticed that Bungie.net is at least partially back online, and with it, the new My Groups feature that replace the Chapters that were part of the old Seventh Column site seems to be nearly ready. Links to look for existing Groups or create new ones are on the Community page of Bungie.net along with the forums. Right now there's only one Group theme; a theme builder is coming soon according to Achronos.
Devin Olsen points out in the HBO forum that some new items have popped up at the recently-reopened Bungie Store, including a new titanium coffee tumbler. It seems KP tipped him off.
According to SketchFactor and Louis Wu at HBO, there's a massive 9-page feature on the Halo 2 development team in this month's issue of Wired. HBO promises scans once the issue is off the shelves.
guS and Burnie have written up their own compendious Halo 2 Preview based on their trip to Bungie, complete with photos of themselves and other Bungie staff and fans, and a nice rundown on maps, vehicles and weapons.
Rampancy.net is now hosting a node of the IRC network run by Subnova, which hosts channels for Bungie fans, and is the official IRC network for the Seventh Column. Channels include #hbo (http://halo.bungie.org) #rampancy (http://rampancy.net), #subnova (http://subnova.com) and #7thColumn, among others.
You may connect to this network using the server name rampancy.net and port number 6667, which is a standard IRC port.
Microsoft employee Andy Pennell asks in his blog whether or not the launch of Halo 2 on November 9 will affect Microsoft's overall corporate productivity. Although XBL won't work on the company's network, apparently System Link games and tunnelers do. In fact, one of the comments on Andy's blog mentions a tunneler we seem to have missed before now: Xlink Kai.
Bungie.net will be down for a bit on the 23rd, according to SketchFactor, so that Bungie.net can be upgraded to pave the way for the new 7th Column site. Cool new things are afoot, stay tuned!
Looks like bentllama has been fooling around in Fable when he isn't undergoing crunch time on Halo 2. I wonder if pancakes make you evil or good...
The New York Times has put up an article on how true innovation is lacking in today's videogames-- but holds up Halo as an exception to the rule. Editor's Note: Free registration required, or use the login/pass rampancy/rampant.
Marty O'Donnell has been interviewed by Electronic Gaming Monthly; the three-page article is online at 1Up.com. Fun fact: Halo 2 has about 15,000 lines of random combat dialogue. So far.
While most of Bungie has been mum lately about the single player campaign, Marty does reiterate how his sound work is contributing to it, and what Bungie is trying to do in the second game:
