Rampancy

PrplPplEater dropped into our forum to let us know that the Mariusnet Myth metaserver (say that seven times fast) now supports the encrypted network traffic used by the PlayMyth server; as such, the EEL file is no longer needed, and the most recent versions of the Myth series clients are now supported on Mnet. You still need to make sure the Mariusnet plugin, and not the PlayMyth plugin, is in your plugins folder. More information is available at Mariusnet.

For a game that on the Xbox received almost unanimous praise, Gearbox's PC port seems to inspire reactions ranging from ambivalence to adulation, with some deeply divided opinions in between. In some cases, those opinions are divided even within the same review.

Take the review by Gamers Europe. They gave the Xbox version of Halo a 9.5, and it rates in the top 5 FPS games there. The PC version? An 8. They describe it as a "pretty poor" port, mostly because it is exactly the same as the original. Uhh... wasn't that the idea? That aside, they miss co-op, but like the new flexibility in setting up multiplayer game modes.

The review is full of negative language like that, while at the same time they call Halo "the best FPS out there" and "almost flawless". For some reason, the reviewer seems to assume that all the customers for PC Halo already have Xbox Halo, and that since this is basically the same game, it's somehow not as good.

This review seems to underscore a thread that runs through a lot of such reviews. It seems that many reviewers expected that the game would be enhanced or extended, instead of just ported to the PC for those who don't have Xboxes. Which seems odd, since it was hardly a secret for the past two years that this is exactly what a port would be. And given that Internet multiplayer was added, that two new weapons were added, that one vehicle was added, that six new maps were added, and that if you have the right video card, you can see Halo at resolutions the Xbox can't generate-- I don't know, that seems like plenty to me, and if they manage to patch in network co-op, it'll be perfect.

Randy "Duval Magic" Pitchford of Gearbox Software chatted on the CPL IRC channel with a bunch of Halo fans to answer their questions; a complete transcript of the chat is up at HaloMods and The Junkyard.

In summary, I'd say the important points were:

• There is a new spec that includes improved text chat as well as voice comm, but is not a high priority.
• CPL will likely continue with Halo tourneys through Summer and Winter 2004.
• Halo will get client-side hit detection, but the client will still be non-authoritative.
• Demo recording is working in a prototype at Gearbox.
• Demands of quality testing prevent more frequent patch releases. Currently 33% of their work on Halo is performance-related; other work is on team-killing issues, improved netcode, the Halo Editing Kit, due out mid-November, and new content.
• The next update will be "massive" and is due out "as soon as possible"; no definite date set.
• A "robust and flexible" team-killing solution is implemented and will be in the next update.
• There will be no splitscreen mode in PC Halo.
• Halo is #1 worldwide in PC game sales at the moment.
• Gearbox is still "looking at" what would be necessary for co-op play over the network for a future update.

At the end, Tonya at CPL who was the gatekeeper for questions had many proposals of marriage, and the chatbot booted Randy for advertising Gearbox.

This item at Slashdot points to coverage of the awards at the 2003 Machinima Film Festival, where Red vs. Blue cleaned up.