We missed it, but earlier this month Doobie at MariusNet made an announcement of an app called MythChat, created by Capital and Nae'blis. It runs on top of a Java Virtual Machine and allows users to connect to MariusNet's game servers and chat with players without loading the Myth game program itself.
PMABlades has posted up at PlayMyth what FlyingFlip Studios been up to lately (besides playing Fable):
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.
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.
Cortana has been nominated, along with other curvaceous videogame characters, to be Cyber Vixen of the Year. Editor's Note: Why now, and not in 2001 when Halo launched, is really beyond us. Maybe on PC titles qualify, not console ones, or maybe she's been nominated for her as-yet-unseen performance in Halo 2.
A GameStop manager identifying himself as tenaciousdave, who has apparently made a habit of posting about the annual store conferences he attends, has indicated that Microsoft is telling retail operations that Halo 2 will have cooperative play over the network, a feature that has in no way been confirmed by Bungie. Take it with some salt, people. Thanks Rams at HaloPlanet.
The Xbox Live Backstage Pass contest as announced earlier was only valid in North America; of course, the contest itself is worldwide, but each country gets its own page:
Believe it or not, there's Myth news today. Over at MythForums there are two news items; one about an update to the Myth 2 FAQ, adding information about the community game servers that replaced Bungie.net; the other is the launch of Myth Gazetteer, a site that aims to be a meta-directory for Myth maps; they've got 500 so far. Thanks vinylrake.
Xbox.com has an interesting article up titled Xbox Undercover: Who's watching the Xbox Live service?" which is well worth a few minutes to read just for itself, as it contains interesting information about how XBL is run and what an average day looks like.
Of course, it's made even more interesting for this tidbit:
11:30 p.m.
Pelican Pilot, did you ever transcribe the sheet music to alto sax?
IGN has an interview with Greg Thomas of Visual Concepts; they develop the ESPN branded sports games for Sega. In the interview, he mentions that MS is introducing LSP (Live Server Protocol) next year that will allow developers to host their own servers with Xbox Live, something that stopped Electronic Arts from bringing their industry-leading sports games to the XBL service when it launched.
When Halo hits Xbox Live later this year, will somebody else be listening to the sound of your cyborg's metal skin clanking on the faceplate of your fallen opponent besides you and your fellow players?
Could be. Gamer Feed's Mike Viscel has posted a story that the FBI's request to the FCC to require ISPs to rewire their networks to make wiretapping easier applies to services like Xbox Live, which would have 15 months to comply with the request.