New Letters to the Webmaster. Go. Read. Return. Thanks to Louis.

Sharp-eyed reader Phil Maurer pointed out to us a screenshot of the upcoming LucasArts game RTX Red Rock, hosted over at GameSpy. Look closely and you'll see that the bespectacled character there has what appears to be an upside-down Marathon logo on his chest. RTX Red Rock is, ironically, a third person shooter-- just as Halo was originally intended to be.

Marty O'Donnell the Halo music compser will be heard on the internet radio show X-treme Gaming Raido Tonight at 9:30 Eastern Standard Time. You will need a shoutcast compatible MP3 player to listen in.

HBO forum reader Skeletor pointed out the image of a cool-looking Seventh Column coffee mug on the Bungie webcam; Bungie's own Matt Soell has said it will be available soon™ .

A reader over at HBO named gd found some funny and strange sound clips while playing Halo. Get all the info in the HBO forum.

Bungie.net has posted a new poll asking:

Which game should we play in the Bungie Winter Pentathlon?

Warcraft III

Age of Mythology

Go Vote!

Evil Otto put an updated note at Bungie.net about the Bungie Jobs page. The Game Producer position is back on the list, as well as a new spot for a 2D and 3D artist.

Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO.

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Xbox and Halo, as well as the launch date of Xbox Live. Watch later this weekend for a retrospective on the last year of Halo and a look at what we know so far about Halo 2.

Candyman points out that Mordia and Skip Weasel dissect Microsoft's interior design taste in the latest Bungie comic.

Recently Matt Soell posted an item at Bungie.net about Ghostweed Press, a new project by Matt Segur, ex programmer at Bungie who worked on Halo. Those projects include Segur's novel, soft power, described as a post-literature existential socio-political mystery serial fairy tale for the whole family . That's a mouthful.

Check out the Bungiecam today.

Miguel Freewill Chavez pointed out in HBO's forum that PlanetGameCube has a story on their recent trip to the Xbox Live Boot Camp, and it's got pictures from inside Bungie where you can see the offices and spot spot Matt Soell and Ed Fries, as well as what looks like Marty O'Donnell's work space. And, of course, there was mention made of those other guys who were also at the event:

The non-Xbox people (yes, I spoke up quite a bit) had quite a few interesting suggestions for Xbox 2, even though Tycho from Penny Arcade suggested blowjobs immediately (which I still think is a great idea).

Speaking from a former Soviet country, I can say it would definitely be difficult to get an import license for equipment with those capabilities.

For the terminally bored, check in once and awhile with the Bungie Webcam. At the moment it's showing a female action figure, a disembodied hand, a t-shirt for Operation Desert Storm (an early 90s Bungie game) and an Oni poster.

Michael Evans at Bungie has written up the second in Bungie's series about breaking into the game industry at Bungie.net. It's titled So You Want To Be A Programmer, and has a lot of helpful information:

Some colleges offer specific course tracks in computer games, sometimes described as interactive entertainment or new media. I am highly skeptical about those. I would recommend going to the best traditional school you can get into and afford.

If you want to be a game programmer you should major in computer science. Having a solid math background is quite valuable as well, especially some linear algebra (which might well be required for a graphics course anyway). On the computer science side I would recommend a traditional mix - certainly including algorithms and computer graphics. Even if you are not interested in that kind of programming work, a basic understanding of computer graphics will prove valuable. If you like it, I encourage you to take as much as you can.

That and a single page resume ought to do it.

Bungie.net is back up with improved performance and some new features. A list of the new features has been posted by Yeroen on the Chapter Founders page. The site indeed is lightning fast now.