Matt eager to ditch this particular albatross Soell at Bungie put in more than a couple of cents' worth into yet another HBO forum thread about whether or not Halo really is being ported, if so when and by whom, and whether the definitive source of such information should be Bungie (doing the work) or Microsoft (footing the bill).

Matt summarized his ideas about why MS rep Chris DiCesar might have not been completely forthcoming or accurate in his recent interview with Loonyboi at Shacknews, and then had this to say:

Those who want tangible proof that Microsoft is serious about this don't have much longer to wait.

The emphasis is ours.

Ok, definitely put this one in the Crack Pipe category. But recently a story ran on MacCentral that Contraband Entertainment had announced a new secret project in development for the Macintosh platform that they dubbed Heroin 4 U .

Contraband Entertainment, one might recall, is a company headed by Bill Burger Heineman and features other former Mumbo Jumbo developers. Several of those returned to Contraband after Myth 3's release and the subsequent closure of MJ. Contraband is doing development for a lot of different platforms, including Windows, the GBA and the PlayStation 2. They've also ported first person games to the Mac before (Hexen, Hexen II). They also list the Xbox among the platforms they can develop for, although there are currently no Xbox platform titles on their project schedule.

Is it possible this secret project is the Mac port of Halo?

One might assume that the Windows port could be more easily done in-house, given the Xbox's wintel heritage. Doing so might upset Bungie's other development efforts minimally.

Well, to be honest, there's no information to confirm or deny it; it's just a raw speculation. But giving the job to an outfit like Contraband would, in some vague sense, keep the job in the Bungie extended family, while freeing up Bungie proper to work on other projects. And in the vacuum created by the lack of official information, this story sneaks right in there like a whiff of Mary Jane from underneath the boys' room door. Stay tuned, if for nothing else but the hangover.

Gamespot is running a poll on the most-missed E3 no-show, and Halo is an option-- in two flavors, even. Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO for the heads-up.

Infininight at Myth Village has posted that Mythforums and marius net will be supporting orders; the .orderlist command will list online users in the same order as you.

There's more information at marius net.

Zandervix posted at MBO that the PlayMyth ranked server will have a full reset on June 1.

Yeoren has posted at bungie.net that after the Bungie Store sold out of Mac Action Sacks, they found another stack of Sack CDs without sacks, which are now being sold for $10.

From Anima at MythVillage comes word that Marine Recon will be hosting a 2002 Spring Offensive tournament on Sunday, June 2nd from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. EST. Team registrations will be taken until 1 p.m. EST on Thursday, May 30.

The game, of course, is WWII:Recon.

Matt Soell dropped into the HBO forum to address the recent not on the board comment from Chris DiCesar at Microsoft. In short, DiCesar was just trying to be as conservative as possible, and as a result, understated what's being done on Halo.

Matt reiterates:

I spent a lot of time pestering people about the status of Mac/PC Halo in the days leading up to E3, and while I knew I couldn't say anything substantial at the show, I also knew exactly where the project stood. PC Halo may seem an abstract concept for an indefinite future to the PR folks because we haven't given them anything to say about it yet, but it is very real to those of us personally involved in making it happen.

Work on PC Halo continues. When we're ready and able to say more, we will. That it didn't happen during E3 is a drag, but the lack of an E3 announcement doesn't MEAN anything except that we haven't gotten much faster in 11 years.

As for other questions-- regarding whether Mac/PC Halo will have mods, or whether any more information about Phoenix is available, Matt's answer as a simple, not yet.

Chris Barylick at Macgamer managed to nab an interview with Bungie's Matt Soell at E3, and covered a rather wide range of topics. Thanks again to Louis Wu at HBO.

On Bungie doing another Myth or Oni game:

There's no plan to do another Myth game right now, but it might happen in the future if we got the rights back. I haven't played Myth 3 since a lot of people ran out, bought it and have had problems with it.

I don't know, they haven't really approached us about it. If they came to Bungie with another Myth or Oni game, at least in an advisory capacity, it could happen.

On another Marathon game:

I don't think we'd ever do something where we just took an old game and slapped it into a new engine, tell the same story again. It would be possible for us to do another Marathon game. Whether we're going to, I can't say.

On Bungie's silence regarding the Mac/PC port of Halo:

The lack of information, the radio silence that Bungie maintains, it doesn't lend itself to a lot of confidence. When it happens, people are going to be happy and surprised. We're really honestly working to keep our promise. It would be a lot easier to say fuck it, no Halo version for Mac or the PC, buy an Xbox.' We thought we were going to be able to say something substantial here at E3, but couldn't keep the legal dogs at bay, which we're clearing up. There should be an announcement soon.

The code is being ported from the Xbox to run on the Mac and PC and we'll see what needs to be done. Once the Xbox version was done, people went away for a while and came back, we're playing it to make sure it doesn't suck. Now we're figuring out how we do it and who does what, it's taken a long time and been a huge pain in the ass. The good news is that the preliminary stuff is taken care of and people are working with the code to get it working.

The emphasis is ours, but this seems to directly contradict what DiCesar said about development not being on the board-- in fact, it sounds as if code is being ported right now.

Jason Loonyboi Bergman from Shacknews recently interviewed Chris DiCesar, Microsoft Games' group PR manager, about the status of the PC/Mac ports of Halo. In terms of when it will happen, DiCesar said it's still up in the air . He also indicates that no actual work has even begun on the port:

Jason: So itТs not on the board at all at this point?
Chris: No. Well I would say itТs on the board as planned to do, but in terms of actual development of it, it is not.

There's little concrete to point to from Matt or anyone at Bungie that directly contradicts this, although it certainly is disheartening to hear that at this point no actual work has been done, more than six months after the release of Halo on the Xbox.

Just kind of a non-update update, since news is slow.

Matt popped onto the HBO forum recently to respond to continuing questions about the PC and Macintosh versions of Halo and said:

We have nothing to say about PC/Mac Halo...yet. But cool stuff is happening, and the time when we can discuss it is not that far away. Trust me: you will dig it.

Prepare to dig.

Project Magma is proud to release the first original gametype for Myth:TFL-- Ghôl Rugby! Having taken over 2 years in development and testing, Ghôl Rugby pushes the TFL engine to new limits, providing an entirely new style of gameplay. Not only is Ghôl Rugby a brand-new gametype, it's also the first original gametype in Myth history that is FFA-based-- Expect intense 4-way Rugby action!

The object of Ghôl Rugby is to get the ball into your goal, and score more points than your opponents. This can be done many different ways; In order to win, you will need to carry, toss, shoot and blast the ball into your goal with a variety of specialized units. Expect an all new colormap, customized units and scenery, and over 400 lines of scripting to make for very immersive and intense games . We've also included a handy, self-running tutorial version of the map, so you and your friends can learn how to play quickly and easily.

At only 3.3 megs, Ghôl Rugby is one of Project Magma's smaller plugins. Download it today at projectmagma.net and hit marius.net for some Rugby! For more information about the plugin, check out the Ghôl Rugby site.

Zandervix at MBO has posted that MythMaps and MythWA are both hosting patches that replace the Bungie.Net and Marius.Net patches for Myth, thus allowing play on the new PlayMyth server. The patches are available for both MacOS and Windows.

Gholsbane at Myth.Bungie.Org has added the Myth 3 journal items to the index of journal entries for the Myth game series.

Anima at MythVillage has posted news that the website for the new Myth game server has now launched at PlayMyth.net. Users may set up accounts now in anticipation for the server's launch on April 25.