Doobie writes that Dustin "Dc80s" Charest and the PS clan are going to hold a Myth: The Fallen Lords tournament next month. Read his post or the tournament page for the complete details on maps and game types.
Over in the HBO forum, RunningRiot voiced the common-enough question: why in-game and out-of-game pings to Halo servers often don't match up. Botman from Gearbox stopped in to provide the answer:
Xhzjang has put out Halo No Hud mod v1.5 at HaloMods. It does two things; it takes away the HUD, and it makes the Banshee model invisible while you're in it. It's the perfect mod for making aerial screenshots. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.
Steve at Forerunners.org writes that a three-level demo of the upcoming Marathon & Beyond scenario for Bungie's Marathon shooter. It is available from the Marathon & Beyond page. Right now it seems that the scenario is about one-third complete.
According to MacSoft, this second-in-24-hours patch for Mac Halo fixes "a random memory trasher in Halo's input system" which may have been causing the keyboard problems some reported with the 1.04 patch. This update also has a page at VersionTracker now, and is available from Rampancy (http://rampancy.net/machalo/halo_103-1041_updater.sit) and from RHL.
This update synchronizes the Mac version with the PC version 1.04 allowing cross-platform multiplayer to again function. Requires Halo v1.03. NOTE: You should disable your anti-virus software before running the updater. If you are reinstalling Halo, you need to first download the 1.03 update and install it prior to installing the 1.04 update.
Download: http://rampancy.net/machalo/halo103-104_updater.sit
There's a thread in the HBO forum where mikeman445 pointed out a couple of tricks relating to weapon reloading in Halo; one that he was familiar with, the other he wasn't, but noticed in a tournament video featuring StK vs. TDT.
... so pay no attention to those bulletholes in your back. Too often, communication in online games is on that level, especially if you aren't able to use voice services. Halo.fropco.com has a new article up on teamwork in Halo called Sum Utilis Militis. Thanks John "Raider".
Steve at Forerunners.org pointed out a new offer from HomeLAN called HomeLAN Xtreme On Demand; the first 100 customers will get a special price of $99 per month. You have to register for an account with them to get the full pricing plan.
Part Four of the High Ping Bastard's Guide to Halo is up. This one is about the finer points of etiquette when playing on a slow connection-- when to apologize, when not to, when discretion is the better part of valor and when to get the heck out of Dodge... I mean, the server. Salad fork not required.
Pete at Subnova asks why you haven't bought Halo for your Mac or PC. Right now the leading response is "I did get it you insensitive clod." No CowboyNeals were harmed in the making of this survey.
Corey Tamas posted an editorial at MacGamer at the end of last month that commented on the software piracy issue underlined by MacSoft's decision to require the Halo CD to be in the drive in order for Mac Halo to launch. It's entitled Back When I Stole Games, although "back when" seems to be not that long ago, as the most recently-copied game Tamas cites is the original Unreal.
The March print issue of MacAddict has a review of Halo by Niko Coucouvanis; it's on pages 38 and 39. They give the game 5 stars (which translates to "Awesome!" in their rating system). They review the game in typical MacAddict style:
Well, if you haven't already read any of my previous blog entries then you should likely not care about this one either, but just in case you were interested you can read parts 01, 02, 03 and 04 at your leisure. That being said I will continue with part 05. The focus of this final installment will be possible plot connections to the Halo storyline.
Marathon, er.. Halo Connections:
Taking into account all of the possible unknowns regarding the Halo storyline I feel that the only true suitable scenario for a mod such as this would regard the time directly after the Covenant discover (or vice-versa possibly) humans along the outlying colonies. In this manner there would be less reliance upon Spartans and upper echelon Covenant soldiers.
So far my favorite scenario would entail a small interplanetary group of civil and military humans exploring a few of the outer worlds in search of more habitable environments. In their searching they come across a small moon (one of se7en?) orbiting above a gaseous planet. As they set out to explore the moon they uncover the remains of a civilization. Without the proper means to decipher or interpret what happened to the now abandoned settlement the group decides to gather what information and artifacts they can and take them back to their colony after completing their survey mission(s).
Back upon their ship, one of the crew accidently(?) activiates one of the artifacts, which begins to transmit a subspace signal to an unknown source. As the crew frantically attempts to shut down or at least determine what the signal is transmitting, they decide it would be best to return the artifact to the planet and report directly back to their colony. With little to no mishap the crew reports back to their colony and decides to continue with their survey mission after a short hiatus.