I have an extra Destiny Beta code for Xbox 360. PM me here or email narcogen@rampancy.net to claim it!

UPDATE: The code has been claimed.

I've opened a new Twitter account for site and gaming news, @Narcogen.

In response to some problems people were having with the in-browser podcast player, I've made some changes to the individual podcast entries as well as to the podcast page.

The new player is HTML5 and Flash hybrid that should work on desktop browsers as well as mobile devices. The podcast page has all podcast episodes, newest to oldest, both audio and video, and all should play in the browser. If anyone is still having a problem, send me a PM and let me know what OS, browser, and device you're using.

UPDATE: Also, for info on all of the contributors to the Anger, Sadness and Envy podcast, check our Podcast Contributors page.

Just a few quick notes here about the site. I'll probably write something longer a bit later, but this should suffice for now.

It's no secret that the code running R.net right now is, in Internet terms, fairly ancient. That's at least partially responsible for the huge influx of spambots I've had to fight off; the latest methods of keeping them under control aren't available on this version of the platform.

A lot of the special features on the site were enabled either by third party modules or customizations I made myself, which means that just doing a straight-up upgrade to later versions of the platform either don't work at all, or break lots of things. I've avoided any such upgrades now in order to avoid that, but it seems as if the time has come.

As of today, user registration is disabled. This is so I can freeze the database in its current state while I work on performing the upgrade, and make sure that no content or user accounts are lost. Addition of new content, including stories, blog entries, sheet music uploads, and images, as well as comments, are also disabled.

Most, if not all, of the restrictions on anonymous users are now removed. During this migration procedure, it is not necessary to login to download sheet music. This will be changed back once the updated site is online. At the moment there is no precise timeline for how long this update will take, or what portions of the site, if any, may be lost or degraded as a result. Please bear with me; because of the many customizations it may take quite awhile to hit on an upgrade procedure that works.

As for the future of the site itself, without belaboring the point, I became a fan of Halo and an owner of an Xbox console because of Bungie. While it is natural to want a good thing to go on forever, I think works have natural endings, and I believe that Halo, at least for me, reached a satisfying conclusion with Halo 3. ODST was a highly enjoyable side story that I thought was probably the most fun since the original, but Reach seemed to me to be a bit of a footnote rather than a whole new chapter, and while it was very solid gameplay wise, it was the start of a number of changes to Halo that seemed to me very... unlike Halo.

Despite my obvious prejudice, which it would be foolish to attempt to deny, I thought Halo Anniversary would be a good way to get a look at how 343 Industries would move forward with the franchise. While I liked the ability to switch back and forth between original and new graphics, and some of the new graphics were quite nice, overall it showed me quite little. What was great about Anniversary was what was great about the original, plus online coop, but without films-- for me, a major sticking point and one of my favorite features in Halo 3. 343 chose to mostly leave the game alone and farm out a new coat of paint for the old game, in the end, telling us very little about the future of the franchise.

Now that the franchise's future is here, I can't say I much care for it. I have not played the game, but I've watched others play it, and to me, it no longer looks, sounds, or feels like the Haloverse I know and love. That's fine; I'm sure the game is as good an exercise at pointing guns at things and shooting them, but for me the context is a big part of it.

The upshot of all of this is that the future focus of this site will remain Bungie games, and Halo is no longer a Bungie game. I'm looking forward to Destiny.

I've now put up a Reach Reviews Page to succeed the old Halo 3 Reviews page. There's also a front-page block on the right that shows the latest new reviews.

Feel free to submit your own review!

Just a quick note; the podcast pages have been slightly reorganized to clear up some things that were confusing.

We've always uploaded an enhanced AAC file in an M4A container first; ASE is authored in GarageBand, and this format, readable by iTunes, supports features like embedded links, chapters and chapter images. If you use iTunes, the best way to get this version of the podcast is through iTMS or you can manually add the feed in iTunes' advanced menu.

If you're not using iTunes then you may want to download individual episodes or just use the embedded flash player on the site. For this, you want the MP3 version. Many times in the past these versions were uploaded much later, and the only way to find them was to find the AAC version first and then find a cross-link. No more. The podcast block on the front page, as well as the podcast's own page, will now prioritize the MP3 versions, which should mean no more problems with the Flash player not working (it can't handle the AAC files) or wonky downloads (Safari seems to add an extraneous .mp3 extension onto the .m4a files when downloading those versions directly.)

Just a short note: the image gallery that accompanies the Cortana podcast episode posted yesterday is also now up, for all those people who (like me) don't yet have their copies of ODST and are still trying to avoid spoilers.

The next episode, Halo, will be out as soon as possible although I do expect more people will be interested in ODST for the foreseeable future. An episode covering ODST is also planned, Coming Soon™.

It's difficult to find words to express the privilege I feel to have been involved in this site and to have been a fan of Bungie for more than fifteen years and of Halo now for ten.

So on the occasion of this, Rampancy.net's tenth anniversary (first post here) I thought I would just make reference to this, one of the many videos of Bungie's first public demonstration of Halo at MacWorld in New York in the summer of 1999.

This is not the best quality version of that video, of course, but it is one that includes the crowd's reaction (and the reaction of the videographers) and for that reason I feel it best captures the enthusiasm that Bungie generates with its unique products, the enthusiasm that creates unique fan communities like Halo has.

There's also a YouTube version of the same demo that is of interest because it is annotated and includes more of Steve Jobs and Jason Jones and their introduction to the video.