Even More Ready Than Before
Xbox.com has added two more parts to their Halo 2 Readiness Guide. Part 2 is on the Haloverse, and Part 3 includes tips from beta testers on playing the game.
Death by intelligence.
On Halo 2 And Piracy
The response of the Bungie fan community, and indeed much of the online gaming community, has been one of sympathy and support for those at Bungie affected by the French-language copies of Halo 2 that are now circling the world ahead of their official release date, in defiance of international copyright laws, and allowing users to consume expensively-produced entertainment content without paying anything to get it.
On Piracy And Halo 2
The response of the Bungie fan community, and indeed much of the online gaming community, has been one of sympathy and support for those at Bungie affected by the French-language copies of Halo 2 that are now circling the world ahead of their official release date, in defiance of international copyright laws, and allowing users to consume expensively-produced entertainment content without paying anything to get it.
However, some, of course, have expressed slightly different sentiments, which is desireable and understandable. Such an outpouring of support for Bungie would mean nothing were it not sincere and well-considered, something impossible to generate if the possibility of differing opinions did not exist.
Unfortunately, many of these expressions of doubt, anger, jubilation and skepticism-- as well as some of the expressions of support-- are not based on careful consideration, knowledge of the market or the law, or any basic insights into human behavior; and many are just appeals to humanity's baser instincts, or to rank paranoia.
So I thought I'd take a moment to address some of them.
The leak helps Microsoft. There have been a number of reasons used to justify this conclusion; some call the leak a kind of unofficial demonstration.
However, the bottom line is that Halo 2 is already one of the most-hyped console games ever, and certainly the most hyped on the Xbox. It had advertisements in movie theaters, for goodness' sake. And if it weren't for Doom 3, it'd probably be the most hyped game coming out in 2004. Some may argue that it still is.
In short, the pirated copies of Halo 2 don't, and cannot, benefit Microsoft. The download is so large, and the hurdles-- namely, modchipping an Xbox-- so high, that nobody who can successfully use it is someone who didn't already know about Halo 2, enough to decide whether or not to purchase it. If they're purchasing it anyway, then they are breaking the law out of sheer impatience; if they were not, then they are doing so with an intent to steal.
And if we rule out the ludicrous idea that someone who doesn't already own an Xbox would purchase one to play a game they got for free, we have to admit that every illegal copy of Halo 2 out there is, at least, a potential loss of a sale for Microsoft.
Piracy is good because it builds mindshare/marketshare. This is actually a more reasonable concept; the only problem is, it's being applied to the wrong market. There are markets in which Microsoft, like other companies, either ignores, tolerates, or takes a slightly more conciliatory than usual attitude towards the piracy of their products; mainly emerging markets with developing economies, where the usual retail prices of such essential tools as Microsoft Office are simply out of reach of most businesses and individuals, and illegal copies are freely available. Such is the case in much of the Former Soviet Union, for instance, and much of the Far East. In those markets, it affects not just operating systems and applications, but games and movies as well.
Call It The Pelican Briefcase
MTV is running a story on how the Halo 2 Council, a group of celebrities featuring members of some of the bands on the Halo 2 soundtrack (namely Incubus and Hoobastank) who are going to get Halo 2 early, as well as an item called the Halo 2 Pelican case; it's a portable Xbox inside a briefcase, with a 15" flat screen HDTV inside the lid. There are only seven of them in the world. A shame, since I think they could probably sell a boatload of 'em.
October 15, 2004. Originally at Rampancy.
Weekly Update: October 15th, 2004
You ever have one of those weeks? You know, the kind of week where you try to start your car, and it explodes in your face because the mob wired it to blow up and hurl your broken body across the street and through the plate glass window of the local acid factory? Well that was kinda like my week this week, but with the following metaphorical caveat — my broken, glass filled, acid-ruined body became a perfect fertile bed for a glorious, colorful display of flowers.
What is Frankie going on about this time? The horrible leak of the French PAL build of the game, and the impressive, wonderful, heartening reaction from our fans — who have been closing forum threads, slapping posters on the wrists and even reporting folks who broke the law. Community sites are all over it, and the big sites have been helping too, so a HUGE thanks to all of you guys.
Whoever did this is a criminal, plain and simple, but this isn't a pulpit from which to spew a sermon. Suffice it to say that stealing a traceable, Live Aware video game isn't the smartest thing you could do. But the way our community rallied to our support yesterday and the day before was incredibly gratifying. And a note to otherwise regular folks who might be tempted to download a copy — don't. It's really not worth the risk. Fines of up to $100,000 and all sorts of other legal remedies can be assessed against even individual downloaders.
You know, we're not Metallica. The cost of this is emotional, not fiscal (jerks would just hack and pirate the game on Nov 9th anyway). Bungie is mostly concerned that this event is going to ruin the plot of the game for the 99.9999999999% of fans who buy the game on November 9th. As you know, we've spent three tortuous years preventing story leaks, hoarding screenshots — not because we want to — but because they'll reveal twists and surprises. Now a few jerks have ruined that for everyone. It's one thing to sneakily pirate software — quite another to yell spoilers from the rooftops. As Napoleon Dynamite would say, "IDIOTS!"
Anyway, I'm making myself vomit with my combination of preachy outrage and quilted two-ply, absorbent love. Back to the matter at hand — the Bungie locomotive. Let's call it more of a monorail right now, since about 80% of the office is in Hawaii (if they're smart) or in Rainhole, Alaska (if they're married).
This week was another out of the office week. I accompanied ten copies of Halo 2 to San Francisco so that they could be reviewed over a period of nearly a week by gathered luminaries from various gaming, entertainment and technology publications from all over the US.
Everyone who played seemed to have a good time. Everyone had LOTS of questions about plot twists, new characters etc. I had to help out once or twice when people got stuck, but mostly it was eerily quiet, as the journos sat around in our special E3 chairs, with wireless surround headphones on, in front of 30 inch widescreen sets (CRT for maximum awesomeness and maximum Teamster complaints — since they weigh 200 pounds.) Actually, widescreen is a very cool feature, since the multiplayer game can then split vertically (for two) giving each player a great deal of real estate in co-op or MP.
The event was long enough for people to finish the game on NORMAL difficulty level, but then go back and try HEROIC: "Wow, that was freakin' hard!" And then they tried LEGENDARY: "What is wrong with you people!?" We should note that nobody completed it on LEGENDARY or frankly, more than a couple of levels. LEGENDARY is a whole new sick twist on game difficulty. LEGENDARY includes bizarre stuff like perma-death for co-op players — meaning that you can't hopscotch like you can on other difficulty levels. Once a player dies on LEGENDARY, both players are hurled back to the last checkpoint. It's brutal. Also, that place where you encountered two grunts and a flowerpot on NORMAL? Well now they're Hunters, high-ranking, sword-carrying Elites, and they're all PMS-ing. Seriously, sticking your head around a corner on level two can get it shot clean off.
Multiplayer was a blast. Like we'd hoped, players spent a long time exploring new modes, and enjoying them. As suspected, Swords is a huge favorite, but we (I was only HELPING!) played a lot of Assault, Territories and Juggernaut. Folks love NinjaNaut — Juggernaut where the Jug is invisible, has triple overshields and is the only player with a motion detector — you don't event WANT to find him!
Nobody would tell us what they thought, so I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks.
Special props to Mister X — who, having only 24 hours to visit, played the game as a speed run, and pulled in the fastest completion time — though he missed about half the game doing that, and Mister Z — who, being hardcore as all getout, completed it on Heroic — and in a pretty respectable time. Epic, considering that was his first time playing.
Anyhoo, this week was short (game is done folks) and a downer, sorry, so here's a sad picture to make you feel even worse
Xbox Solution Erroneously Reports Source Code Leak
XboxSolution is reporting the same story as everyone else-- that a French language version of Halo 2 has hit the Internet. However, they've chosen to headline the story Halo 2 Source Code Leaked on the Web, which, as far as we know, is NOT true; Shishka's FAQ denies that anyone has broken into Bungie, and that the leaked copy is the binary version of the shipping game, most likely lifted from a manufacturing plant.
Let's Hope It Doesn't Fall Down
There's going to be a Halo 2 launch party in the UK, at London Bridge, open to everyone over 18. Xbox.com is giving away tickets. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.
Keeping It Real In The Library
Skeifer and the Captain venture into the Library to see how "real" a giant multilevel archive full of Flood can be in Part 7 of The Junkyard's series on realism in Halo. I have to admit, this article must have been a real challenge, as the Library is probably the most unnatural and arbitrarily designed environment in the game, so it's difficult to imagine it as a real scenario. The Captain does ask the question I've always wondered about, though:
This Is It: Halo 2 Has Gone Gold
retsamolah pointed out in #hbo channel that Frankie has posted at Bungie.net that Halo 2 has gone gold. Incidentally, the "they said it couldn't be done" line mirrors the voice over in the leaked theatrical trailer bootleg I won't link you to.
Sketch promises a video update later and mentions a lot of new media items in the Halo 2 page.
The Crisp And Fluffy Heart Of Death
Fluffy Pants has a writeup, with photos, of the Crisp Death LANfest held at Louis Wu's earlier this month online at The Junkyard. The photo of the network rack is a nice touch. For carnage, apply within, I guess. Thanks Ryan "Mhaddy" Matthews.
Xbox Next May Be Smaller, Use New Media
GameSpot has two recent articles on the successor to the Xbox; one mentions that Microsoft is pledging to make it smaller, with a simpler design, at least in part to cater to the Japanese market, where the Xbox did not fare particularly well.
What difficulty will you first try Halo 2 at?
Easy
20% (175 votes)
Normal
37% (317 votes)
Heroic
19% (161 votes)
Legendary
24% (209 votes)
Total votes: 862
Finn Throws Down The Gauntlet
Finn of the Halo Story Page asks in the HBO forum if anyone is willing to try and complete all of Halo 2's levels for the first time around (solo or coop) only on Legendary. Any takers? This inspired our new poll, so take a look and vote.
Where XYAB Meets WASD
Wired Halo 2 Article Goes Online
Major Nelson points out the Wired article on Halo 2 is now available online at Wired's site. They talk to Pete Parsons, Joe Staten, Chris Carney, Lorraine and Rob McLees, Eric Arroyo, and, of course, Marty O'Donnell.
Some interesting facts: