Straying off our beaten path and onto another, I happened upon an editorial at the Townhall written up by fellow Myth veteran HWEDung. An interesting read in its own right, it attracted a response from Bungie's Webmonkey Yeroen suggesting a brighter future for Bungie fans:

At risk of being tabloidishly (that isn't a word, but it will do) concerned with the comings and goings of someone, Freewill pointed out that Myth community leader Butcher is likely bound for Bungie West, based on a few comments made by Alex Okita. Best of luck in San Jose, Butcher!

Next week, webcam pictures that reveal the sordid details of Bungie East's weekly milk delivery , and we blow the lid off the bat boy scandal. Stay tuned. ;)

Two of the Pax Nimbus, SiliconDream and DeusExMachina, made it to MWSF and to the Gathering of Fans on Wednesday the 5th. Despite great hardship - including Silly's damaged camcorder, problems converting the video to QT format and pizza-bloat - they managed to film a number of things, convert it to QuickTime format and hand it off to me so that I could share it with the rest of you.

Score! Claude Errera at bungie.org appears to have cornered Bungie's Matt Soell for long enough to get an interview out of him, touching on topics from Bungie staff to Soulblighter vs. Konoko. And, of course, there's some interesting Halo info in there, so be sure to stop by and take a look-see.

CyberBob pointed out a Macworld article from The Mac Observer that details a few of Bungie's plans for the future. First, and most obviously interesting is Bungie's plan to dominate E3 with Halo, which is reportedly undergoing multiplayer development and is slated for a second half of 2000 release.

Many thanks to Freewill for bringing this to our attention! For Bungie fans who are visiting the MacWorld Expo at San Francisco tomorrow, or who will just be in the Bay Area: be aware that Bungie is now covering the price of admission to the Gathering of Fans at Club-I. I've plagarized the following directly from Bungie.Net's web page:

This just in from Freewill on CPHL: the Bungie gathering planned for Macworld San Francisco is on track, with easily enough people already checking in to ensure that it will happen. In addition to a goodly number of players and some Bungie folk, Total Audio's Marty O'Donnell will on hand, so who knows, you might get some Halo music info while you're there.

And if you do, report it! ;)

Kudos to Freewill, who shared this tidbit with the regulars at CPHL a few minutes ago. For you lucky sots who will be at Macworld San Fransisco a week from now, there will be a get together at Club-I on Wednesday, January 5th, 7pm till closing.

There is a $7 per seat charge, but there will be a few dozen computers with Myth installed on hand along with a few Bungie folk. A small price to pay for a night of enlightenment and mayhem, there may even be other surprises in store. Stay tuned for an official announcement sometime in the next few days.

Certainly wasn't expecting this development... as reported by IMG, Oni Project Lead Brent Pease has left Bungie West. No details are available yet, but it does seem likely that Oni will be a little bit later as a result. More details as they arise...

Noctavis pointed out an oddball rumor at www.bungie.org today, suggesting that Bungie might be in line to produce a Matrix title at some point in the future. While there is no confirmation from Bungie, it would be an unusual (albeit interesting) use of the Halo or more likley Oni engines.

But of course. Marathon's Story reports that Bungie is has been praised in a Macworld Top 10 Mac Gaming Thingies of the Millennium article for their track record of raising the bar every time they enter a genre. Also noted is a MacGamesNews review of the Action Sack... an unusually active Saturday, isn't it?

In what is surely another milestone in the Bungie community, the famous Letters to the Webmaster page has been updated with a new batch of letters, and more importantly, a new batch of responses. Young children and people with heart conditions are advised to steer clear of this one.

And let's have another moment of silence, for the forum has consumed yet another victim. In his last hours as an employee at Bungie, Nathan has announced who will replace him as Bungie's unofficial forum representitive: Matt Soell, Director of Customer Support.

The Core would like to extend its apologies to Matt for the time that perl script from hell is going to suck out of his day. That said, make him feel welcome, folks!

It is with some dismay that I report the passing on of Bungie's Nathan Bitner, who has posted word that he will soon be leaving Bungie to resume working towards a degree at the University of North Carolina (what did you think I meant?).

Kudos to Bullseye and Freewill, both of whom pointed out the Bungie Company Picnic page now available for public consumption at Bungie's site. Just goes to show that they don't spend all their time playing mind games with us... or is this just another one of them?