Note: Frankie is out of town this week and the Bungie Princess is our special guest author.. (I'm just posting it). Now brace yourselves for the most fact-filled top-secret-spoiling update EVER!...
BUNGIE WEEKLY UPDATE - August 13th
Frankie’s in Mexico and I’m in charge! So, listen up…we are taking a break from all that blah-blah about Halo 2 and we are discussing a truly important topic…HAIR! I will be devoting several hours of my Saturday to some serious “diva-time� along side my best friend at Joel’s salon. There will be lots of girly-girl talk and wine to be had for all. The only dilemma is what color should I do my hair? Anyone who has known me longer than about a month knows I absolutely love to change my hair color. It is a running joke around here. I am currently blonde, but am thinking it is time for a change. In the spirit of by-passing all that typical video game talk I think we should devote a forum to helping me choose my new hair color. But seriously, I am supposed to be giving you some weekly information about our big project over here in Bungieland.
Biggest news of the week involves the rancid Bungie refrigerator. We are bursting at the seams over here and need to find some space to sit some more people helping out on the game. So, I figured what the heck why not the fridge…that is some prime real estate. But seriously, the dev team doesn’t know it yet but they have lost the battle of the fridge and it’s pungent odor will soon be seeping onto their side of the room.
I ate dinner with the boys tonight (frightening). Have you ever had the pleasure of attacking a taco bar with 70 hungry men…hhhmmmm, let me be the one to tell you this is not a pretty site. Amanda has quickly learned that food is the precious commodity in this office. The way to a man’s heart is most certainly through his stomach. We will be making the ever dreaded Costco trip next week to stock up on goodies. The people at Costco, employees and customers alike, hate me. When I roll up to the check out lane with two industrial size carts stacked to the point of towering over my head and a flat bed stock piled with beer in tow…let’s just say I am not typically greeted with a warm “How are you?� but rather an overwhelmed look of panic.
So, my week has not solely revolved around food and nasty refrigerators. In addition to feeding the masses, Amanda has been hard at work helping Harold keep a running inventory of about a thousand computers…man, these guys are expensive. She has also called all over the world in search of elusive Xboxes from other countries…so if you have one that you don’t need, feel free to send it in…kidding. I just got the 2nd pass of the art book back…looking very cool guys...keep your eyes open come November 9th (oh yeah and Halo 2 will be on shelves as well). The rest of my time this week was spent modeling Dunn’s ever-growing collection of crazy hats. I have been a cowgirl, a gardener and Frank Sinatra so far.
Looks like the work to upgrade Bungie.net and the new Seventh Column wasn't quite complete; the site is down again for maintenance at the moment. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Looks like Bungie.net is back, perhaps this time for good. The new 7th Column site is also up, and if you check your profile page while logged in, the XBL integration also seems to be working again.
This image appeared on Sculptech Studios' website on the Halo 2 page. It might be an as-yet-unseen Covenant species. It was later removed.
Luckily, Halo Planet snagged it. Sculptech lists both Microsoft Game Studios, makers of Halo, and Joyride Studios, manufacturers of Halo toys, as clients. It could be from another client... except he's holding a plasma rifle. From the head, it could be a Prophet, outside his chair, and without its robes... but it doesn't look "frail". A bunch of people at HBO contributed to finding this.
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.