There hasn't been much discussion of it here at Rampancy, where recent threads have focused more on the recent disasters in New York and Washington, DC as well as the relative sociopolitical merits of certain theistic and nontheistic belief systems. But over in the Halo.bungie.org forum everyone's been up in arms about the recent confirmation that in addition to having no Internet play at launch, Halo also won't be able to substitute computer-controlled enemies in multiplayer game types.

Meaning, no bots .

There have been some ludicrous claims, an offer to code Halo bots in two weeks and even a rehash of the blame Microsoft syndrome. Matt Soell and Ferrex (Tyson Green) were good enough to put in their two cents and explain the decision a bit:

Ferrex:

It's not really that simple... Butcher has done an incredible job setting up the AI systems for Halo, but none of them could just be quickly retrofitted for use as an MP bot.

For example, none of them know what a flag is. None of them recognize the rules of KotH. They can fight for or against the player remarkably well, but they wouldn't be able to fulfill any real roles in any non-Deathmatch game.

And this isn't just an AI issue, because you're right, it could probably be done. You need to set up the UI to allow a player to set up a map with bots in it, which isn't a trivial task. You need to spend time banging on the netplay to make sure it works well. You'd need to spend a significant amount of time working on the maps themselves to fulfill certain requirements of the AI.

Matt took a second to respond to the allegations that Microsoft's purchase of Bungie was somehow related to the absence of bots:

Bots were in doubt long before MS bought us. I distinctly remember multiple conversations in our pre-buyout Chicago offices in which someone would ask for bots and someone else (usually a programmer in a position to know what he was talking about) argued just as stridently against them. (These conversations usually ended with a Bungie Customer Support person stomping back to his desk, shouting Fine, I'll forward all the hate mail to you. )

Will do, Matt! Just let us know where! Just kidding.