Rampancy

Gary "Dolbex" Williams of Been Mawed and Halo50k3.com is announcing a new Halo tournament, Halo50k3, will be held on July 24 and 25, 2004, in Atlanta, Georgia, and will be presented by Major League Gaming.

According to their press release, these are the tournament details:

• A minimum of $10,000 will be presented to the winners. This will be increased by the number of teams entering the tournament. Based on past numbers the tournament is sure to become the biggest ever.
• Totally new formats will ensure that the greatest team will be crowned victor. If you are tired of the same format and facing the same teams, 50k3 will be sure to shake things up.
• State vs. State sides games Saturday night to find the greatest of the 50 states. 8-man teams will be created to take states on head to head.
• Special appearances by members of the Halo Community, Nokia, and other surprises.
• Thirty-two TVs of the same make and model. Imagine the sea of screens with the Halo logo being broadcasted. With double the stations, that means more free play, more game time, and less waiting around.
• T-shirts, merchandise, and giveaways will be available to purchase and win.

Largeunit at Halo50k has this to say about the upcoming tourney:

This won’t just be a tournament, this will be a Halo Circus. All things Halo will congregate on the sacred grounds of the venue and explode with yummy Halo goodness for players of all skill levels, playing styles, and ages.

More information is available at http://www.halo50k3.com/ .

Users of the new Bungie.net site might find one thing to be problematic- linking their Xbox Live GamerTag. Although Bungie.net allows you to choose whether or not to display your GamerTag if it is linked, you can't actually link it there if it isn't already. To do that, you have to sign in to Xbox.com using the same Passport you use for Bungie.net.

If you haven't logged into Xbox.com lately, you may find some changes there, too-- users are being prompted with a message that they need to "migrate to the new version of our website", and if they log in with the same Passport account they used earlier, that they can keep their previous account settings. However, this doesn't appear to be working for everyone. At least one user (okay, me) has received an error message that only states "There was an error attempting to migrate your account." which isn't very helpful or informative. However, keep in mind, that was from Xbox.com, not Bungie.net.

SketchFactor has posted about this issue in this forum thread.

Looks like the new-look Bungie.net is open now for real, and looks like there are a few things to poke around and find.

One is a new video called Can o'Whoop Ass; you can see it on the new videos page.

Another is the link to "webcams" in the Inside Bungie section; looks like two more cams in addition to the original have been added. However, one seems to be pointing at what looks like a kitchen windowsill full of bonsai trees and a fan, while the other appears to be pointing at a Billy Talent album cover.

There are also new forums. The new forums support avatars, thread locking, stickies, and polls, although the new rules are rather draconian: no bad jokes and the use of any variation of the word n00b is punishable by death. You've been warned.

UPDATE: Now there are two new stories on the front page, also. One is a more detailed list of the new site's features, and the other is a retrospective on the Origins of Halo. The latter article, while it summarizes things that a lot of longtime community members already know, is interesting because it's the first time the Mac roots of Halo have been discussed by Bungie since shortly after the buyout, and it also explicitly about a lot of the removed features, such as the elevation map, ambient life, and some of the Covenant vehicles.

Louis Wu at HBO notes that the submission period for the Win A Date With One One Se7en contest is now over; there were 3500 entries that now need to be narrowed down to 5 Halo 2 calendar winners by Wednesday. Wow.