| Aug 25, 1999 (Wednesday) |
The Marathon's Story page is closed for a summer vacation until the 13th Sept.
The last 30 days or so have been pretty hectic. Lots of things to look forward to Halo, Oni and three as yet unannounced Bungie projects. Remember Matt Soell said that #2 was still on the cards.
During the break the Story page's SMD mirror will be offline. That still leaves two mirrors:
Marathon Central mirror
Steve Campbell informs me that everything possible is being done to get bungie.org back online again. A number of options are being explored all of which look good for the future.
So before I close up shop here are some updates.
News just in! Miguel Chavez <JMChavez@aol.com> writes:
The following is clipped from Bungie.net!Server Maintenance [8/25]
We're moving all of our sites over to our new server, so there may be outtages of bungie.net, bungie.com, and the Bungie Store for a few hours today. Hang in there... when we get back there'll be a special treat.Special treat???? Droool!
I wonder what that could be? ;-)
IGN Sci-fi has an interesting article called
Is your favorite game getting turned into a movie?
Some of the games mentioned include: Descent, Diablo, Doom, Duke Nukem, Fallout, Resident Evil, and Tomb Raider.
The entry for Doom is funny, it reads:
It's deader than dead. So many years have passed that Doom's succesor, Quake, is almost on its third version. Films rights are about to revert back to Id, and since all the scripts they've seen so far have been so bad, it probably has no plans to sell 'em again. Thank goodness.
All the scripts have been bad eh? ;-)
halo.bungie.org notes that Bungie and Inside Mac Games both have SETI teams
searching for aliens. Check out the
Bungie team, the
IMG team and the
Halo team. Some healthy competition
perhaps? No Marathon team though. :-(
Tyson Green <ferrex@gamestats.com>, maintainer of the Halo Core website,
asks us to go vote for Oni and Halo as the most anticipated action games in PC Paradox's
Best Action Game poll. Unfortunately it looks like
the poll has ended.
Harry Al-Shakarchi <harry.al-shakarchi@teleweb.at> writes concerning the Oni notepaper that comes
with Bungie's Action Sack:
I have a different notepad than what was sent in yesterday, mine has the picture of Konoko that you can see onhttp://oni.bungie.com/bin/slideshow.pl?dir=gallery/anime/images&bg=white&bd=2&slide=3
Different notepad paper? Harry also passes on these Action Sack tidbits:
If you look behind the packaging of the Sack (the bit where the screenshots are etc.), you may notice a familiar thing.. :)There's a small picture of the ball (skull) in the "Top Ten Uses For Your Sack" box. We also see a skull on the BungieCam... weirdness...
Hey! Bungie like skulls... what's the problem. ;-)
| Aug 24, 1999 (Tuesday) |
halo.bungie.org have obtained a transcript of a Halo preview from the UK Mac magazine MacFormat. It contains some interesting tidbits. Part of the text reads:
Halo isn't due out until next year, but the two-minute Expo preview made a strong impression with the keynote audience. Bungie's strongest 3D graphics yet is married to a Marathon-esque story that should help keep the action fresh over a sucession of challenges. MacFormat was one of a privileged few to sample the game in person directly after the keynote.
"...a Marathon-esque story that should help keep the action fresh..." :-)
Also from halo.bungie.org is the report that
the European publishing and distribution subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive (Bungie's partner)
have entered into a $17 million revolving line of credit with Barclays Bank PLC. Last week
Take-Two Interactive negiotated a $50 million revolving line of credit with Bank of America.
Take-Two Interactive certainly seem to be in the news alot. They released a Press Release today (Tuesday August 24, 8:03 am Eastern Time) stating that they have have entered into a publishing agreement with Illusions Softworks. Initial releases under the new agreement will be a Sega Dreamcast version of Hidden & Dangerous and a PC mission pack for Hidden & Dangerous. Subsequently releases will include Flying Heroes (PC), Hidden & Dangerous 2, and Gangster.
Alan Greene <alan@fontshop.com> writes:
I was browsing through some old news items (Nov-Dec 1995, to be exact), and I ran across the following image:http://www.marathon.org/story/_images/vacuumseal37.jpg
I just thought I'd send in some more info on fonts in the Marathon series, just FYI. It seems that the folx at 00 went hog-wild on type choices for Infinity. The small text at the side, and also at the very bottom below the polygonal image, is called Oakland Six. Like Modula Tall, it's an Emigre font. It was one of the first fonts created for the Mac by an independent type foundry. The reason the numbers are so tight and letters so wide is because the uppercase in Oakland Six is spaced-out pretty far. You can see a nice big sample at: http://www.emigre.com/FontAl/POakS.GIF
The other font in that image is called Moonbase Alpha. It spells out the "vacuum seal 37", and is also a part of the Fuse projects, like State. There's a poster (http://www.research.co.uk/fuse/fuse3gifs/moonbasel.jpeg) of this font that hangs above my head at work. :) The issue of Fuse in which Moonbase Alpha appears is called "Disinformation", which may seems to be an appropriate theme for Minf.
Mike Cramer <jupiter6@flash.net> writes:
I bought the Mac Action Sack directly from Bungie. An Oni Note pad was included. Was this a promotional thing or a standard thing? I have a scan of the whole and a close up of the number pattern found on the lower half for anyone who might decipher it at:http://www.flash.net/~jupiter6/whlenote.JPGThey're small in size but detailed.
| Aug 23, 1999 (Monday) |
Always read the fine print! Patrick Gierke <gierke@delaware.infi.net> spotted this on Bungie's Summer'99 BungieVision newsletter:
While browsing through the latest BungieVision newsletter that I received with my Action Sack, I noticed something that I had not seen before......notice that little foresight comment at the bottom of the order form? 132 days, and they forsee the lines for BLAM (a.k.a. Halo as we all know now) already forming. If only it was four months until I could get my hands on Halo....oh well. I can always dream.
The exact text Patrick is referring to is as follows:
How far into the future can you see? Through concentration techniques, we've gotten our foresight up to an astonishing 132 days- soon we'll be able to see into the millennium! Hey, check it out, the line for BLAM! is already forming.
132 days?
The following was posted on the bungie.org Hotline server:
For the many ppl that have asked about b.org on the web, here is what we got still up and running:halo.bungie.org 129.95.74.55 marathon.bungie.org 24.0.103.61/marathon oni.bungie.org 24.4.104.213 www.bungie.org Down archives.bungie.org Down pid.bungie.org Down hl.bungie.org 24.4.104.213
The bungie.org mirror of the Marathon's Story page is at http://24.0.103.61/marathon/story.
| Aug 22, 1999 (Sunday) |
Sean Phelps <seanphelps@earthlink.net> writes:
Apparently in Forge you cannot set a platform to move at 777, or .777 WU/sec. Forge automatically changes the speed values to 767 or .767 respectively. Interesting isn't it?
James Gurnee <harness@access1.net> writes:
I found this while slowly deleting the BungieWest Cam addresshttp://www.okita.com:81/?width=320;height=240;camera=0;caption=%X
in an experiment (it seems all you need to access the BungieWest Cam is http://www.okita.com:81/? I got to http://www.okita.com:81/ and found a directory page with only one thing on it, a link to this image (the address of the image is
http://www.okita.com:81/snapshot.jpg
Just thought it might be interesting. You might also want to make note of the date at the bottom, 15:01, and 49 (of course, we all know what those are for :).
Thanks to all the people who have been sending me in Bungie West cam pics with distortion in them. Distorted b.west cam pics?
What's new I hear you cry! ;-) No apparently this is real distortion. Chris Camacho <chrispynacho@earthlink.net> writes:
It looks like someone hit the Bungie West Webcam with a bolt from the Fusion Pistol.PS: The real (completely unofficial) reason is that the webcam is now portable - no wires - so it picks up interference sometimes.
| Aug 21, 1999 (Saturday) |
Tim Branin <Sonofhydra@aol.com> makes an interesting observation about the Pfhor and their various eye pattern changes or lack thereof. See The Pfhor section of Facts and puzzling things about... for details.
Michael Lake <beorn@thegrid.net> writes:
Just a tidbit of information, I was just checking out bungie.net, and realized that Cortana is now gone from the comet location, but is still holds an active account. She/He was also on the leader board for three days, hmm... Another thing, when getting the information on Cortana, the state listed is "of Domination", with "Irrelevant" for city and country. I also noticed that cortana has played zero games now, with a score of zero, and is now a dagger (or a sword...)
halo.bungie.org now has an anonymous ftp directory
for uploading Halo art and other related files. It's at ftp://129.95.74.55/.
Apple Tree Puzzle Contest.
The contest involves a tree with seven Macintosh (128K) computers.
| Aug 20, 1999 (Friday) |
Rob Thibadeau <rob@ontv.com> writes concerning the line "By sharp and flame" which features in the fourth Cortana Letter:
I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but the quote "by sharp and flame" also occurs in the poem "Alone" which can be found at http://www.utlink.utoronto.ca/www/utel/rp/poems/bierce1.html.The poem reads:
Alone, adj. In bad company.1 In contact, lo! the flint and steel,
2 By sharp and flame, the thought reveal
3 That he the metal, she the stone,
4 Had cherished secretly alone.I thought it was interesting that the title "...In bad company" parallels the current conditions Cortana was experiencing when she/he mailed the fourth letter.
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. which just acquired a 19.9% equity interest in Bungie Software have
increased their revolving credit facility with Bank of America, N.A. to $50 million. They previously maintained
a $35 million revolving credit facility. Full details can be found at
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990819/ny_take_tw_1.html
Trying to work out that Bungie acronym? Well Alan Greene <alan@fontshop.com> points us to:
http://www.acronymfinder.com/
| Aug 19, 1999 (Thursday) |
Miguel Chavez <jmchavez@aol.com> writes concerning yesterday's "Blam 32" Halo tidbit from halo.bungie.org:
I can say with almost 100% certainty that the application name "Blam 32" refers to the bitdepth of the game. I recall Joseph Statton saying as much when he showed me the demo personally: (paraphrasing) "The textures you're looking at are 32-bit lo-res images" I imagine they have a Blam 16 also handy in case they want to show Halo running a little faster or for lower-powered machines.
Joseph Staten (Statton?) is Bungie's Product Manager.
Muhsin Miski <mmiski@mac-addict.com> writes:
While on b.net (Myth II) today I came across Abunai (David Bowman) of Bungie Software and someone had asked who Cortana was. The response..."...Cortana is one of the three swords made for the gods"
I decided to continue the discussion by asking whether Durandal was another one of those three swords, after remembering that one terminal pict in Marathon 2. He replied with a yes. So we now have the identity of 2 of the 3 swords. This then leads to the utlimate question...
So who/what is the third sword?
Two possible contenders are Damocles or Joyeuse. Damocles is the TCTF Supercomputer in Oni. Joyeuse (Charlemagne's sword) is mentioned in the same company as Cortana and Durandal (Durindana):
"My name is Cortana, of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durindana."
See The Cortana Letters section for details.
Charlemagne was one of the Nine Worthies, figures of 'history' known for their particular qualities of prowess and chivalry. The first iteration of the Worthies occurs in the 14th century, when the list comprised the following:
Hector, Ceasar, Alexander, Arthur, Charlemagne, Godfrey de Bouillon, Joshua, David, Judas Maccabeus
Brian Donohue <wdonohue@21stcentury.net> came across an interesting reference to "Curtana" in
English chivalry from the 15th century. Brian writes:
Found at: http://www.bibliomania.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/319.htmlCurtana The sword of Edward the Confessor, which, having no point, was the emblem of mercy. The royal sword of England was so called to the reign of Henry III.
"But when Curtana will not do the deed,
You lay the pointless clergy-weapon by,
And to the laws, your sword of justice, fly."
Dryden: Hind and Panther, part ii. 419-21.
Brian continues:
See this site:http://www.chronique.com/Library/Knights/coronation.htm
Point 40 - the bearing of the swords is wear Curtana comes in.
40.The Bearing of the Swords: The Earl of Chester shall bear in procession before the king the sword that is called Curtana. On his right side the Earl of Huntington shall bear another. The Earl of Warwick on the left side shall bear the third sword.
Todd Dillen <todddillen@home.com> writes concerning the SCS designator in the Halo quotes:
Upon seeing the ship designator of "SCS" my brain immediately went into Star Fleet Battles mode (a Star Trek based starship combat boardgame that started in the mid-70s). Within the SFB universe, SCS stands for "Space Control Ship", a large vessel with dreadnought class weaponry and shielding, as well as a full complement of fighters and fast patrol craft.Unfortunately, the designators CCS and CAR do not fall quite so neatly. In SFB terms, CAR represented a heavy cruiser with a rear-firing weaponry refit, and CCS has no direct translation, except for possibly command cruiser with scout capability.
You can find further information on SFB at http://www.starfleetgames.com/, and Interplay has a PC game based on it, which can be found at http://www.interplay.com/sfcommand/. It seems to be an excellent reproduction of the original boardgame.
Seth Graham <sether@iconnet.net> kindly saved these Cortana on bungie.net pics for posterity.
Rob Thibadeau <rob@ontv.com> spots the beef on Bungie's Robocam. See the Robocam page 2 for details.
Bungie West's cam is back and the heavy squad have moved
in. Be forewarned!
| Aug 18, 1999 (Wednesday) |
Max Lieberman <MythVaM@aol.com> writes concerning the level name "Never Burn Money":
Never Burn Money-- the fact that this starts with the word "never," in conjunction with the syllable count, makes this level name reminiscent of the two great Bungie directives (Never Stop Running, Never Stop Firing). Perhaps it's the long-lost third rule?
...long-lost third rule eh? Who told you about that? ;-)
Timothy Collett <ckoelbl@hamilton.edu> writes:
While watching the Halo movie (for the umpteenth time) I noticed that as the one-man ship that the man steals is flying off, its silhouette looks remarkably like that of the White Star ships from the SF series Babylon 5 (see attached image 230K).
I pinched this off the halo.bungie.org forums. Guido Baldoni
<pacoman@telemacus.it> posted the following interesting Halo tidbit:
On halo-demo.mov, at 00:00, what is the name of the application that appears at the top of the screen? Blam 32 ?? or what?
You can see the full post here.
Thanks to Peter Cooner <cake29@hotmail.com> (via Matt Boyd on HL), Seann Hamilton <hammy1@bigplanet.com>
and Seth Graham <sether@iconnet.net> for all pointing out the odd goings on at bungie.net. Seems
Cortana is making an appearance. Peter writes:
Well now, Cortana seems to be out and begging for a catching again. This time if you happen to logon to b.net for a game of Myth II you would have noticed this, "Catch me if you can! Love, Cortana" pop up for the chat "blue bar."
Seann writes:
...go look at the bungie.net website. Cortana is the name of the best player. It says he has 7 games plays and NO WINS, and 7777 points. His clan is only one member. it was founded by konrad@bungie.com after checking the stats, I have concluded that this is impossible (well duh!).just looking at the stats, I realized the writting at top city:irrelevant state:of domination country:irrelevant also, 7 of his 8 games(wait a minute, the order board says only 7 games, what's going on here) well, they are territories. which could definitely mean something.
Seth writes:
Recently (past day or so), it was noticed that bungie.net has a new comet.. someone named 'Cortana.' Her score is 7777, and she's played 7 games. The account was created on 1/15/1999 (1+1+5 = 7).Even more, she's ranked number one in the game of 'Territories.' She also seems to have played a bit of LMOTH, though the one game listed she didn't win. She is a member of the order 'Lahran's Badboys' (of which she is the only member). Her email is listed as 'konrad@bungie.com.'
This seems to coincide, at least in terms of when it appeared, with the recent motd message on bungie.net, which reads:
"Catch me if you can! Love, Cortana"
Which appeared sometime on Tuesday.
More robocam pics thanks to Bill Moore <moorew@aii.edu>, Alan Greene <alan@fontshop.com> and
Aaron Gaponoff <eaten_by_fungus@hotbot.com> Some old ones and some new ones. See
Robocam page 2 for details.
Older Bungie East pics are on Robocam page 1.
| Aug 17, 1999 (Tuesday) |
Alan Greene <alan@fontshop.com> writes concerning a font used in the Marathon Infinity terminals:
I don't know if you have this info already, but the font used in some of the Tycho terminals is called State. The font was included in the first issue of a publication called Fuse, and was designed by Neville Brody (of new-Macromedia-identity fame). We sell Fuse here at work, that's how I know. :)Anyway, I'm sure you'll recognize it by the sample I attached...
For more info on the State font check out the Fontshop.
MacGamer's Ledge have a small
update on Halo. Part of the text reads:
Work is ongoing for a new Halo trailer which will highlight more of the game's extraordinary attention to detail than was shown in the Macworld trailer. There is no planned release date but it will definitely be widely announced once it is available.
halo.bungie.org have changed their IP again. It's now located at
http://129.95.74.55/. They also have an exclusive
Halo movie courtesy of Mac Observer. It weighs in at 35MBs. A must see. Get it quick before the IP
changes again! ;-)
| Aug 16, 1999 (Monday) |
Sarwat Khan <sarwat@interlog.com> makes an interesting discovery concerning the Marathon terminal interface:
I was playing M1 today, and noticed something in the upper left corner of the terminal windows: 802.11. That's the standard that the iBook uses for wireless networking. According to this page:http://www.wlana.com/intro/standard/committee.html
802.11 was formed in 1990, which means that Bungie probably did this intentionally.
Mark Levin <mglevin@uiuc.edu>, Dan Rudolph <7thFace@bungie.net>, Chadd Nervig <a7s7t7r7o@hotmail.com>,
Aaron Davies <agd12@columbia.edu>, James Gurnee <harness@access1.net>, Terrence Nowicki <kablam@edmail.com>,
and Andrew Malcovsky <wackyslav@hotmail.com> all write concerning Michael Watson's odd texture finding on
"Come and Take your Medicine". Full details can be found here.
| Aug 15, 1999 (Sunday) |
Remember the IP address of the Marathon pages at bungie.org is:
http://24.0.103.61/marathon/
Want the Story page just add story to the end. Same with scenarionews, spoiler, vidmaster etc.
Jared Cash <jcash@graceland.edu> writes concerning the cryptic binary
string (101111011110111100001) on the Marathon level "Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!"
In reference to what Michael said (a few days ago) about the binary string (101111011110111100001):What if it weren't meant to be a picture of backward sevens. Divide the string into sections of three:
101 111 011 110 111 100 001
Now, turn the binary into Base 10. The numbers become:
5 7 3 6 7 4 1
A phone number? 573-6741
Dan Hembry <durandal_777@yahoo.com> writes:
I was browseing the front page of Planet Half-Life (www.planethalflife.com) today and it had a message up that said the Radium (a map reviewing site thats hosted by PHL) had about 20 newly reviewed maps. Being an hobbyest mapper for Half-Life I decied to check them out. There were a few good ones but a map called Thunderdome caught my eye near the bottom. I took a look at ithttp://www.planethalflife.com/radium/reviews/thunder.shtml
Dosen't look to be a very good copy but the essense is there. There is some interesting placement of heath chargers inside the arena, and it looks a bit too squareish.
Michael Watson <mikey-sanSPAMMERS@AREbungieSPAZEROIDS.org> writes:
I, unlike some, really enjoy taking my time in Come and Take Your Medicine, even though you can finish this map in just a few moments, really.Well, this is what I was doing a little while ago, when some drones descended on me, and I bobbed up to smack 'em around a little...When I noticed something _really_ odd.
I looked up, and noticed something really strange on the ceiling. After I dealt some kung-fu out to the drones, I stopped for a second, and bobbed up over and over to look at this strange little thing. I don't remember a texture in Marathon 2 [or any Marathon] that looks like this, and especially not in the Water set.
I wish I could describe it, but the best I can do is attatch screenshots from both sides [you'll see], and a screenshot of the map, to see if you, or anyone else can replicate what I saw.
It could be some odd bug, but I thought I'd pass it on anyway.
You can see it here. Other odd stuff about this level can be found on
the The Sixth Panel on Medicine section.
| Aug 14, 1999 (Saturday) |
A sword etched into the G3 chip? Shades of Durandal perhaps? Bill Moore <moorew@aii.edu> writes:
Durandal, Version 1.0?http://www.microscopy.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/g3sword.htmlThis is a link to a page from a molecular-level microscopic photography page, which shows an extremly close up veiw of a IBM/Mottorola PPC750 Proccessor in which a Medieval sword has been drawn onto the scribe line. "Why?", you may ask. Think about it... where else do you know about a computer named after a sword? Is the G3 meerly a beta "Durandal"? Or are PPC750s a civilian version of the Traxus Project:
http://www.marathon.org/story/_wheregiantshavefallen/pid7.html?Only time will tell.
Keep in mind that the G3sword pic is very real, and can be found near the scribe line of any G3 proccessor using an electron microscope or other such device.
Robert Zimmermann <robzim@gmx.net> kindly sends in some Marathon Beta SF Jan'94 pics. Check out
that early version of the SPNKR on the Marathon Beta SF Jan'94 page.
Bungie.org are experiencing DNS problems. The forecast is not good for the weekend.
You can access the Story page mirror at the b.org by using the following IP address
http://24.0.103.61/marathon/story/
halo.bungie.org also report similar problems. Their IP address is:
http://129.95.74.79/halo
halo.bungie.org report that videogames.com have a Bungie poll. Seems you can vote for the Bungie game you'd most like ported to console systems.
More Bungie East cam pics. See Robocam page 2 for details.
Older pics are on Robocam page 1.
| Aug 13, 1999 (Friday) |
Quick update #1
Some clarification from Matt Soell (Bungie Software) concerning Bungie's "two undisclosed projects" mentioned earlier today. Matt points out that:
Neither Chimera nor the long-delayed #2 are among the two unannounced products.
Matt went on to say that it was "still too early" to discuss these.
Was the long-delayed event #2 still on the cards? Matt replied:
Very much so.
So Bungie fans have "two undisclosed projects" to look forward to AND a #2. How cryptic can one be? ;-)
Jason Favor <jfavor@radiks.net> just happened to bump into this at his local science fiction club.
Jason writes:
1967 Hugo Winner
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
By Robert A. Heinlein
For 30 years, an Earth-based monopoly has oppressed the moon's colinists. now a rebellion is brewing...but can three million unarmed workers gain freedom against a force eleven billion strong? Sure, with a little help from a friend: a sentient supercomputer who, for his own reasons, wants the revolution to succeed.
Sound familiar? Another book to add to that growing Marathon/Halo book list. :-)
Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" also contains the famous quote "An armed society is a polite society" along with the popular acronym TANSTAAFL which stands for "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
Following-up on Next Generation's
interview with Nathan Bitner Inside Mac Games have posted an
interview with Jason Jones
(Project Leader on Halo). Part of the interview reads:
IMG: Any particular reason for the Marathon logo, or is it just for kicks? Is Halo somehow tied to and/or an extension of the Marathon series?JJ: I'll say this: Observant fans of our games will note that certain themes tend to run through our games. For example, the sword Durandal (from the "Song of Roland") first appears in Minotaur as a magic sword and goes on to become a central character in Marathon. There are many other examples of common themes running through our games.
Which suggests we'll be seeing the reappearance of some previous Bungie character and/or theme in Halo. Top of that list most surely be the Jjaro. ;-)
Many thanks to
Sean Phelps <seanphelps@earthlink.net>, Tyson Green <ferrex@gamestats.com>,
Michael Sheley <michael.d.sheley@intel.com> and Steven G. Washburn <swashburn@emcst.com> for all pointing
out the recent announcement that Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. are to acquire 19.9% equity interest
in Bungie Software for an undisclosed sum. Full details in a Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. press release can be found at
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990812/ny_take_tw_1.html
Additional details in the form of a questions and answers session can be found at
http://www.next-generation.com/jsmid/news/7356.html
Good news for Bungie and Bungie fans.
It was also pointed out that the press release referred to Bungie having "two undisclosed projects". The text reads:
Take-Two also entered into an agreement with Bungie that will provide its Jack of All Games subsidiary with exclusive North American distribution rights to four upcoming Bungie titles, including Halo, Oni and two undisclosed projects.
So what could these be? It has been suggested that one of these could be the free Myth scenario pack "Chimera". However this has already been announced. Indeed in the summer edition of Bungie's BungieVision publication there is a write up on the scenario. Interesting to note that in the East vs West article (in the same BungieVision) Bungie East were allegedly working on two unnamed "current projects". If one of these was Halo (it had not been announced at the time) then that leaves only one unannounced project.
As yet no word on event #2 mentioned by Matt Soell some months back.
What appear to be the remains of another Marathon beta test leaker have been spotted on
Bungie's robocam. See the Bungie East cam pics page for details.
| Aug 12, 1999 (Thursday) |
A few days ago Raul Bonilla <lassonde@hotmail.com> sent in a walkthrough for the Marathon Beta SF Jan'94 which can be found on the Marathon CD and the Trilogy Box Set CD. Now Craig Fay <DurandalM3@aol.com> kindly sends in some screenshots of the walkthrough. See the Marathon Beta SF Jan'94 page for details.
halo.bungie.org report a subtle change in the
color of Bungie's Halo logo. You can see the differences here.
While the color change makes it slightly more difficult to see the Marathon logo it's still there.
Miguel Chavez <JMChavez@aol.com> writes concerning the availability of Iain M. Banks's book.
You can also order his books straight from the publisher.
Tyson Green <ferrex@gamestats.com> writes concering Alex Rosenberg's comments yesterday:
Regarding this snippet from today's news:> FWIW, the article is wrong in once respect... Oni is the first Bungie game > that was developed first on a PC and then ported to the Mac.
Bungie West started Oni on a Mac. Some team members now use Macs exclusively and some use a PC exclusively, but the initial work was done on a Mac and the code is always fully cross-platform.
--
My bad, and I stand corrected. That observation was based on the fact that I didn't see a Mac version of Oni during my internship, and recall that there was a major effort to have a good, solid one ready for MWSF, a few weeks after I left. It may've been that development was parallel, and just slowed by the state of hardware acceleration on the Mac, but I'll plead ignorance on this one. ;)
I agree on all of Alex's other points, though--basically what I was trying to say, albeit clearer and more to the point. And as for those seven bonus points, my guess would be the smooth, flowing terrain and absence of vertical, non-model surfaces in it, characteristics of a Myth style terrain mesh.
| Aug 11, 1999 (Wednesday) |
| Quick update | halo.bungie.org have put up an interesting submission from Darcy Brockbank concerning the use of the name Halo in another of Iain M Banks's sci-fi books "Against a Dark Background". This is a non Culture novel however. The full submission can be found here. Nice find. |
Jon Chang <grind@interactive8.com> writes:
After following that link you posted yesterday to the article on Iain M Banks I tried to track down those books mentioned. On Amazon 2 were listed as out of print... I was able to find USE OF WEAPONS and CONSIDER PHLEBAS are still in print in England. There is an online book shop at
http://www.bookplace.co.uk/that has them in stock, in quantity ^-^, if other people want to find them without placing some expensive out of print order...
Thanks.
Sam Morris <sam@netcity.co.uk> writes:
That page you've put up on Banks is intertesting... Look at the Orbit Book's logo on the cover of Use of Weapons... It is sort of like the Marathon Symbol!
Miguel Chavez <JMChavez@aol.com> writes concerning Halo and a certain other classic sci-fi novel:
I think now is the right time to mention that Bungie is very sensitive about any comparisons being made between Halo and Ringworld. Let's not forget that there has already been a computer game based on the Ringworld series. Think litigation folks. I think Doug said (I'm paraphrasing) "We don't want to hear Halo and Ringworld together in the same sentence."
Sarwat Khan <sarwat@interlog.com> writes:
This may have been discussed on a forum by now, but it turns out the GameSpot article that quoted a "top person" at Bungie was slanted and unreliable:http://www.maccentral.com/news/9908/10.adams.shtmlIt also includes an official statement from Bungie.
IMG has also posted a
letter from Nathan Bitner on Bungie's Mac commitment.
The letter reads:
As you could tell from our announcement at MacWorld '99 of Halo, our newest game, Bungie is no less committed to the Mac platform than it ever has been. It is simply much, much easier to PORT (note, I'm only talking about porting here, not anything else) from the PC to the Mac, rather than the other way around.This may change as Mac development platforms continue to grow and change. This by no means signifies any less commitment to making games for the MacIntosh platform, so perish the thought. :-)
Nathan Bitner
Producer and Creative Developer
Bungie Software
Alex Rosenberg <alexr@spies.com> (former Bungie employee) writes concerning
Tyson Green's (former Bungie employee) recent comments concerning Bungie and platforms:
> Tyson Green <ferrex@gamestats.com> writes:
>
> Jones is a programmer and a gamer, not a platform advocate. He uses the
> best tool for the job, whatever that may be. He might be a Mac user from
> way back, but he's not blinded by that (and I'm one too, so don't twist
> this into a platform slam).
Jones used a PC for most of his early work on Halo simply because he was able to get a higher performance video card running in it at a time when the offerings for the Mac weren't up to par. (It was a Voodoo 2, IIRC.)
> If Halo is following Myth's basic design, then the game engine will be
> cross platform, and tied into platform specific I/O libraries. A project
> opened in CW Pro 4 is the same project opened in Visual C++ 5, or whatever
> they're using on the PC's now.This is apparently the case again. I should also point out that it appears to me that code has been reused from the Myth engine, so this is a natural outcome. (Seven bonus points to whomever can figure out why I think Halo uses a large portion of the Myth 2 landscape engine.)
> FWIW, the article is wrong in once respect... Oni is the first Bungie game
> that was developed first on a PC and then ported to the Mac.Bungie West started Oni on a Mac. Some team members now use Macs exclusively and some use a PC exclusively, but the initial work was done on a Mac and the code is always fully cross-platform.
More Robocam oddities on the Bungie East cam pics page.
| Aug 10, 1999 (Tuesday) |
Next Generation has a short interview with Nathan Bitner (Producer and Creative Developer - halo) at http://www.next-generation.com/jsmid/news/7319.html. Part of the text reads:
Tell us a bit about what inspired Halo."We wanted to make the definitive game of conflict between the human race and an alien civilization. There have been countless games on this theme, but few of them have the depth of story, detail or originality that you would find in a good sci-fi novel. We're going to write this story, and bring it to life with the best technology available in an electronic game.
"One of the things that was most rewarding about the Marathon series was the way that fans pored over the details of the story, analyzing and debating it, and eventually expanding it beyond what we originally had written. Two years after we shipped the third in the series, Marathon Infinity, we could still check out third-party sites to find out the new developments there were in the Marathon world -- it was a blast. That taught us that a complex story reaps benefits long after players have played through the game, and that's very much our intention with Halo.
"It's worth noting that though Halo takes place on a ring-shaped artificial world, the story, characters and world bear no relation whatsoever to Niven's excellent Ringworld novels."
Note the part "...no relation whatsoever to Niven's excellent Ringworld novels."
But parts do bear a passing resemblance to Iain M. Banks's "Culture" series.
Sean Morris <legolas14@theglobe.com> writes:
Do you think "Welcome to the Revolution..." was originally a vacuum level? The only Pfhor are vacuum enabled and in the last terminal it mentions a hull breach.
Interesting point. As Sean points out the last terminal does say:
%durandal is dangerous.
<leela.wirehead.870229//b7>MULTIPLE HULL BREACHES. CATASTROPHIC FAILURE OR
MALICIOUS OBSTRUCTION OF RESEALING MECHANISMS.
Ben Irwin <Jackelblow@aol.com> writes:
Well, I think you might be interested to know that I finally figured out where the Marathon "you're it" sound came from. Just yesterday, while waiting for a mini-Star Trek marathon to come on, I decided to watch the Bevis and Butthead moron-athon. Well, they showed this one REALLY-old looking episode and when the episode was over, they played the sound. This would make sense considering Jason Jones' obsession with Bevis and Butthead.
Flynn O'Connor <foconnor@apple.com> writes:
You might want to check out www.cortana.com. Verrrry interesting. Almost makes you wonder if it was put up by Bungie...or a very odd coincidence; I imagine a military AI would have some very similar responsibilities...
Rick Boyd <rickboyd@starpower.net> and Clem Freeman <clemf@humboldt1.com> both write concerning
Halo's weapons.
Bungie East's Robocam get more interesting. A subtle clue perhaps?
See the Bungie East cam pics page.
| Aug 9, 1999 (Monday) |
| Aug 8, 1999 (Sunday) |
Halo this... Halo that... Marathon's Story page losing its identity some people cry!
Well we're going back to our roots this Sunday by offering you the first EVER walkthrough of the Marathon beta from Janunary '94. Thanks to Raul Bonilla <lassonde@hotmail.com> for this blast from the past. Raul writes:
I wasn't able to take screenshots from any of the macworld sf jan '94 betas (the Command-5 code didn't work.) I was able to take one shot from the preferences window (beta_prefs.gif - 48 k. Look how odd the colors turned.) So I wrote a little walkthrough. Hope it'll be useful.I'm also including a saved game from the beta (barrels_level_2 - 4k.)
I played the Marathon beta -which seems to be the more stable- under MacOS 8.6 with QuickTime 4 and without MacsBug.
CONTROLS
Tab Option - Action
Arrow keys
Numeric keypad
P, ";", L and ' keys - MovementSpace Bar/Enter/Return - Fire
X and C keys
"[" and "]" keys - Sidestep1 key - Selects the Tool Mark IV pistol
2 key - Selects the SPNKR-25 Auto Cannon
3 key - ?
4 key - 100% screen
5 key - 75% screen
6 key - 50% screen
7 key - ?
8 key - floor texture on/off
9 key - low resolution on/off (disabled in marathon.fat)Command-S - Save game (not recommended in marathon.fat. See below)
Command-O - Open saved game (will crash marathon.fat)
Command I - Preferences (works only in the Marathon beta. The other 2 betas crashed. The sound options doesn't work. The default seems to be 3 sound channels)
***
GENERAL NOTES:
- There are a group of six buttons besides the action window. The only one that works is the 3rd, counting from the lowest to the highest. It takes you to the beginning of the game -it doesn't restart your saved game (don't use it too often.)
- I didn't found a map key in this betas or anything that restores your energy or oxygen.
- Under QuickTime 3.0 and later, the player continue to stay alive long after he run out of oxygen.
- As in Wolfestein, you produce more damage and use less ammo when you shot the monsters from a short distance.
- The landscape picture of the betas works in a different way that it does in the final version of Marathon. One of the 2 moons, the mayor, is always looking north while the minor is always looking east. They're not repeated.
***
LEVEL 1
1. Turn south. Open the door, get into the room and open the next door (notice the "Grendel Lives" graffiti besides this 2 doors.) A monster will show up (what's that sound? A Hunter?) Kill it.
2. Go back to the first room. Turn east. In the next room, there'll be a door, south, between 2 barrels. Kill the monster behind this door.
3. Go east. You'll get to a room with 2 doors (east) and a corridor (south.) The corridor leads to a room with 2 monsters. Kill them.
4. Go back to the 2 door room. Both doors will lead you to a room with 2 monsters, a door (east) and a corridor (south) with 2 more monsters. Kill the monsters, take the corridor.
5. You'll get to a room with a door (east) and another corridor (west.) Take the corridor. Now turn around and kill the monster that show up behind the east door. Take the SPNKR-25 Auto Cannon and the 2 energy packs for the cannon. Go back and cross the door were the monster showed up (east).
6. This next room will have 2 doors; one east, one south. More baddies will come out from both doors. If you take the east door you'll return to the first 2 door room, but in the way you'll find 3 more energy packs for the laser cannon (by this moment you should be running out of ammo for the pistol. Notice that the weapons won't change once you have run out of ammunition and that you can still select the pistol even if you don't have clips for it.) If you take the south door you'll get to a room with another 2 doors. One is south, close to you, the other is south-west, in the opposite corner. You'll find a clip for the pistol in the room behind the south door and another door, south-east, behind a wall. This door will lead you to 3 monsters.
7. After you've killed the monsters, go back and take the south-west door in the opposite corner of the previous room. This door leads to a large open room with a group of barrels south-east and 2 doors south-west (one is visible from the entrance.) There's a 3rd door in a corner after the barrels (east,) and a corridor (south) with 3 more doors. A good deal of monster will come after you when you step into this room. Be prepare to dodge slime balls.
8. Lets take the door in the east corner after the barrels. It takes you to a room with a door (east) and a hidden clip for the pistol behind a corner (north-east.) This door takes you to a corridor with a door at both ends (one south-east, the other west.) The south-east door leads you to a room full of barrels, another clip for the pistol and 5 monsters.
9. Go back and take the west door. You'll find yourself in the corridor with 3 doors. The door in front of you (west) takes you to a room with another clip for the pistol. The door to your left (south) takes you to the exit. It have a slime ball on the floor (the only one in the level.) The 2 doors marked as south-west in point 7 will be now north-west. Both takes you to even more monsters and back to the room were you started. There are 3 more clips for the pistol in this section of the level.
***
LEVEL 2
1. As soon as you move you'll pick up a clip for the pistol. Use it to kill the monster in the south east corner. The door (south) and the corridor (east) will take you to the same corridor. West this corridor there's a room with one monster and a dead end. The door in this corridor (south east if you take the door, south west if you went the other way) takes you to another corridor.
2. From here you have 2 choices: you can go east, you can go west. Going west takes you to 4 monsters; in the end of that section there's a clip for the pistol. Going east takes you to a door (north east) with a monster behind it, and if you go further you'll find another door (south east.)
3. Take the first door. If you go east you'll end in front of the second door. Go north west. There'll a long corridor with one monster. At the end of this corridor there's a door (east) that leads to a room with 3 monsters. Now go back and take the second door.
4. There's a "L" shaped room after this door with 2 monsters, a clip for the pistol in the north east corner and a door near the south east corner. Beyond this door is another "L" shaped room with a door (north east.) This door is part of a series of 5 doors put one after the other. As you may have guessed, there's a monster behind the 5th door (followed by another 2.) In the south east corner of this section there's a corridor blocked by 3 barrels. Under some circumstances you can walk through this barrels. I don't know what triggers it. I'm including a saved game where you can walk through the barrels (barrels_level_2 - 4k.)
So where's the exit? Seems there is no exit. As I wrote to you before, the STR# and MP resources of the map clearly show that there are 8 levels. But if you play any of the betas with QuickTime 2.5 or earlier, you'll run out of oxygen before completing the 2nd level. Since these betas where showed as demos in the 1994 MacWorld Expo, it's logic that they have only 2 playable levels. Maybe Bungie opened space for the other 6 six levels, but they never included them.
Can you get further? Can you take screenshots of your walkthrough?
| Aug 7, 1999 (Saturday) |
Quick update. Steve Campbell writes to say that with the help of Claude Errera bungie.org is slowly coming back to life after its move. The bungie.org hotline server is now open for business at its new IP 24.0.103.61. This will be picked up by Hotline tracker soon. Stop in for a chat or browse through the b.org's vast archives (1.5 GBs).
And then there were three. The Story page mirror at
marathon.bungie.org is now back up and updated.
Chris Camacho <chrispynacho@earthlink.net> writes concerning Bungie's new
Halo banner:
On mouse-over of the Halo banner on the main page at www.bungie.com, the link reads "A dark future... an uncertain past... no one left to trust." I guess there's a "link" between Oni and Halo.
I guess Bungie's webmaster will be fixing that. ;-)
Following up on IGN's Halo article
is a similar
Gamespot article on Halo.
It uses the same Halo screenshot as the IGN article but the text provides further Halo details.
Part of the text reads:
The basic premise of Halo centers around two races: a group of humans and an alien race known as the Covenant - both races have crash-landed on a large ring floating around a large gaseous planet. The races are distinctly different from each other and have separate designers making sure they look nothing like one another. The large, ominous aliens move with smooth, fluid movements and use energy weapons like blasters to take down their human opponents. Humans wear military combat suits and use melee and propelled weapons. In battle, both races use a series of inverse kinematics that allow for realistic motion after firing weapons - launch a large projectile into the air, and you'll see your characters arms' recoil and his body sway.Also, the ring encircling the planet was constructed by a third and as yet unseen alien race, but Bungie wouldn't comment on whether we'd be able to see or fight against that race when the game is complete.
Who could the mysterious third alien race be? The Jjaro perhaps! ;-)
Thanks to everyone who sent in web cam pics. If you're going to send one in
please make sure it shows something interesting or funny. Check out the
Bungie West cam pics page 1 and page 2.Bungie East cam pics page.
Chris Camacho <chrispynacho@earthlink.net> writes:
Did you notice the <alt> tag for the RoboCam picture? It says, "Never look directly into the eye of The Man."
Chris also passes on this little known tidbit:
Today is the seventh! And if the 7th is the 7th day of the week then the following Friday is a 13th!
<gulp> ;-)
| Aug 6, 1999 (Friday) |
Just a quick update. Some Halo Action. halo.bungie.org report that IGN have posted a second Halo screenshot and a long article on the game itself. You can read it here. Part of the text reads:
...you play a cyborg warrior deep in a guerilla war on a distant ring construct far from Earth, fighting an alien covenant bent on your destruction. The aliens from the trailer are actually only one a few species to appear in the game, and non-cyborg humans will make an appearance as well. Most of the game will take place on the massive ring world, which you can actually see rise up into the sky and loop around in the far distance from planetside.
...non-cyborg humans will make an appearance as well. Bobs anyone? ;-)
Well my Mac Action Sack finally arrived. Oni notepad, two BungieVisions (winter '98 & summer '99), and
CD. Six games. One Sack. All Action. The BungieVision for summer'99 is a fun read. Top ten uses for your sack,
BLAM!, Chimeria and East vs. West. The latter being a comparative list of 29 salient characteristics of both
Bungie studios. Anyone want to scan these in?
On the subject of comparisons Bungie West's cam is out shining Bungie East's in terms of sheer devilment. Oscar Göthberg <oscargot@swipnet.se> and Bruce Morrison <wimorrison@FTC-I.NET> kindly sent in a number of Bungie West cam shots. You can see these as well as Rob Schultz's on the Bungie West cam page.
Some recent Bungie East cam shots can be found here. Come on Bungie East let's see some Halo action! ;-)
Back to the Action Sack. Good to see the electronic version of the Infinity manual in the Sack. It was pointed
out back in Nov 16, 1998 that the Trilogy manual which came with the Trilogy Box Set was not the same as the
original Infinity manual since it was missing the introductory story text for the Infinity scenario. Thus people who
bought the Box Set missed out on this important story detail. The Action Sack however makes amends. Thanks Bungie. :-)
halo.bungie.org which is now back up and running has posted some
non-Halo art from Halo artist Shikai Wang.
Mark Levin <mglevin@students.uiuc.edu> writes concerning the
happy Marathoner pic posted
yesterday:
Just wanted to point out that in the "happy marathoner" picture, the other player visible is me. Despite my expression, I was also very happy!
Now we can all see what Mark Levin looks like. ;-)
Thanks to Randall Shaw (via IRC) for pointing out an interesting
Gamecenter article on clichés in action games. It's called
Game Clichés That Just Won't Die.
| Aug 5, 1999 (Thursday) |
At the time of writing both bungie.org Story page mirrors are down. Steve Campbell and Claude Errera are hard at work moving the seven bungie.org servers to their new site. Normal service should be resumed shortly. For now though you need to use the two remaining Story page mirrors. Of course if you are reading this today you ARE using them. You might want to pass the word around though. Thanks.
Yesterday Clem Freeman told us to take a look at
www.okita.com and click on "Bungie West".
Yes Bungie West's own web cam. Today Rob Schultz <silvertail@howling.com> kindly sent
in a number of interesting shots from the cam all nicely HTMLized! You can see Rob's
Bungie West cam shots here. Intertesting stuff.
One wonders if the new Bungie West cam will encourage Bungie East to start pointing their web cam at more interesting stuff... such as the Halo development team at work... or play! ;-)
Recent Bungie East cam shots can be found here.
Results of the National Macintosh Gaming Championship 1999 series at Macworld Expo New York are up at
http://www.dexposure.com/nmgc1999r2.html.
A picture of the overall winner can be seen here.
Who was at gaming booth #7? Picture courtesy of Mac 3D.
Here's a happy Marathoner at the recent National Macintosh Gaming Championship. Picture courtesy of MacInTouch.
Back in July (29th) Alan Greene <alan@fontshop.com> pointed out that
Dualism (now down), a Duality fan site,
had reported that DoubleAught had stopped development on Duality. At the time we pointed out that
no official statement has been made at either the Duality or the
DoubleAught web pages.
Now Inside Mac Games have picked
the story up in their latest news offering.
According to David Longo (former DoubleAught artist) people are moving on. Greg Kirkpatrick is leaving games and starting a new career. David himself is moving to Monolith Productions. The loss of Duality is sad news indeed.
Nick Roemer <stompbox@wolfenet.com> points out that the number seven has competition!
Yes the number 23.
| Aug 4, 1999 (Wednesday) |
Mac Observer have posted the The Best Halo Movie You Will See (Until Halo Is Released), at least that's what they say. Image quality is far superior to any previous Halo movie and the soundtrack is straight from the Expo hall (whistles, ohs and ahs, etc emphasize the audience's delight). It weighs in at about 18MBs and you can get it at
http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/august/990803/besthalomovie.html
Worth the download.
Clem Freeman <clemf@humboldt1.com> writes concerning Larry Niven's "Ringworld" and
Bungie's Halo:
First off is that I've been reading Larry Niven's Ringworld and I have noticed even more similarities with Halo. Note: this will spoil the story a little for those that have not read the book.First, in Chapter 12, "Fist-Of-God", Luis Wu and his companions come across a group of natives living on the ringworld. After Luis shows off the use of a flashlight to the less civilized people, they tell him that "fighting with light" is forbidden. When he tells them he did not know, one of the natives, mistaking him for a builder of the ringworld, says:
"Did not know it? How could you not know it? Did you not raise the arch in sign of the covenant with man?"
Now if you thought that was interesting, they come across a map room in Chapter 16, "The Map Room." The most interesting thing about this map room is that it contains a holographic map of the ringworld, just like in the Halo demonstration. The holo map in Ringworld is much bigger though (about 120 feet across), and is horizontal instead of vertical.
Ringworld's influence on Halo is becoming more apparent all the time. And I haven't even finished the book yet!
Clem also goes on to say:
On a side note, you might find something interesting noe if you go to www.okita.com and click on "Bungie West."
Concerning Aaron Davies' comments yesterday about Bungie East's 2nd project Miguel Chavez <jmchavez@aol.com> writes:
Bungie East's 2nd project is Chimera... a free expansion pack for Myth II. At least we all *think* that's the secret 2nd project.chimera.bungie.com is supposed to be up to explain all, but it wasn't last I checked. (it maps back to the main bungie.com page)
James Pillar <rugger@bungie.org> writes to point out that a Marathon 1 MacAMP MP3 player
skin has been released. You can get it at:
http://www.macamp.net/addons/index.shtml
Tom Bridge <Tom_Bridge@edelman.com> writes concerning the Mac Action Sack:
Notice on the new Bungie Action Sack CD how many copies of Minotaur they give you. Could it be.....SEVEN? It is. It's how many people can play against one another....coincidence? never.
| Aug 3, 1999 (Tuesday) |
Brian Donohue <wdonohue@21stcentury.net> writes concerning the name Cortana:
Cortana - the 'Sword of Mercy' is part of the royal panoply of Great Britain, kept at the Tower of London with the rest of the panoply & the crown jewels. Though they don't make much of it these days, it is presented during coronations along with the crown & orb. It represented the monarch's absolute power to condemn or show mercy to the subjects of the realm.
For more information about the name Cortana and possible origins check The Cortana Letters section.
Michael Watson <mikey-sanSPAMMERS@AREbungieSPAZEROIDS.org> writes concerning the cryptic binary
string (101111011110111100001) on the Marathon level "Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!"
I remembered an old Outer Limits episode where Marlee Matlin played this deaf woman [what a stretch] with a cochlear implant to let her hear.Well, the story was, that it didn't work, but she kept hearing stuff. She would hear it, and write it down. She would write pages and pages of binary...But with odd Xs scattered throughout the message.
Then, she gave the pages to this guy, and he printed it out...
If you connected the Xs, it was actually a picture.
This reminded me of an X-Files episode as well. A little boy was hearing strange messages in the television, and he would write pages of binary.
Then, it was typed, and printed out...Mulder laid them out in order on the floor, while trying to figure out what it meant. He almost gave up, when his partner Scully walked up the stairs to the upper level of the house they were in, and she saw that the binary made a picture of the little boy's missing sister.
You're following all this right?... Michael continues:
I'm not saying anything for sure, but I think this may be what this string might be.Some sort of tiny hidden message.
...In my default new document window size for simpletext, if I paste it in a bunch of times, in Courier 12pt, I can see many backwards sevens..[my res is 640x480, a standard at the time Marathon was released]
You can see what Michael is referring to here.
Back in July (21th) Ben Semmler <ben@torquerod.com> pointed out the similarity between the
chaingun in the Halo screenshot and the one the Marathon marine holds in the famous terminal shot.
Now Jamie Reid <jamiereid@hfx.andara.com> and Justin Beatty <alisander@yahoo.com> both
write to point out that a closer example can be found in a Marathon chapter screen.
See the Halo weapons section for details.
Aaron Davies <agd12@columbia.edu> writes:
A recent post on h.b.org reminded me of something I noticed last week: in the latest edition of BungieVision (Summer 1999), there's an "article" comparing the Bungie East and Bungie West development studios. Under "Current projects" for West, it says "Oni", but for East it says "[censored][censored]". This would seem to imply that there were *two* secret projects underway at Bungie East when the newsletter was written. One of them is presumably HALO/BLAM!, but what is the second?
Chris Camacho <chrispynacho@earthlink.net> asks:
What's up with halo.org and halo.net?halo.org is 403 Forbidden, and halo.net is... well, interesting (probably a coincidence).
| Aug 1, 1999 (Sunday) Update #2 (11.55 pm Eastern Time) |
The Marathon's Story page will be closed on Monday (2nd Aug) for stock taking. Next update will be on Tuesday (3rd Aug).
There was some discussion shortly after Macworld about one of the weapons carried by an alien in the Halo movie. Some thought it looked similar to the Zeus-Class Fusion Pistol in Marathon. Ian McClintock <mrbill84@hotmail.com> now writes:
I would like to comment on the topic of the Covenant holding a fusion gun in the movie.The fusion gun looks like it is probably just a deactivated "lightsaber", as we see it deactivating at the part of the movie where the Covenant jump into their hovercraft. After all, it would make sense to deactivate it if you're going to be traveling at high speeds, right?
Also, the same weapon can be seen on Bungie's halo page in the new image of the Covenant. It doesn't look much like the fusion gun from Marathon to me.
Michael Watson <mikey-sanSPAMMERS@AREbungieSPAZEROIDS.org> also pointed out that the raised weapon in the hand of the
alien surrendering in the movie does not look like a Fusion Pistol.
Michael writes:
It does, at first glance, but if you look closely, you'll notice this the weapon is a split weapon, like in the still, and that between the split, it's an energy stream being generated vertically between the two 'teeth' of the gun, and fooling your eyes.This is more evident the few seconds before my still, when he's raising his arms.
It's some sort of sabre weapon.
James Gurnee <harness@access1.net> writes concerning the missing aliens in Marathon.
See the Missing Aliens section of
Facts and puzzling things about... for details.
Dan Hembry <durandal_777@yahoo.com> writes:s
I was checking up on the news on my list of webpages on the GameSpy Network and happened to drop by Planet Unreal (www.planetunreal.com) and I noticed the the Level of the Week was 'DMRoute66'. Well, I clicked on it and came to this page:http://www.planetunreal.com/nalicity/reviews/dmroute66.html
Its a looks like a slightly simplifyed copy of Route 66 but with more pillers added around the outside and the centeral(sp?) pillers bent 90 degrees twice. The guy reviewing the level notes that its a conversion of Route 66 in his review, but it still get pretty good marks: 9/10. I personaly don't have Unreal so I can't say how close it is to the orignal, but from the pict on the page it looks like a pretty fair copy except for the pillers.
David Rodgerson <rodgerson@sprint.ca> writes to point out that Halo Cental
now sports a new look and an article concerning the Halo/Marathon connections.
Kenny Kay <ken@avara.net> writes concerning the Halo MP3 soundtrack by
TotalAudio
I may be crazy, hallucogenic, and ignorant but I can count!The notes in the "Gregorian chants" are done in groups of...well....uhhhhhhh =)
What? ;-)
Chris Camacho <chrispynacho@earthlink.net> writes:
It's interesting what the reception area at Bungie looks like these days ;)
http://www.bungie.com/cam
| Aug 1, 1999 (Sunday) Update #1 (7.20 pm Eastern Time) |
New month... new section. All the Halo submissions since Macworld Expo NY are now in the Halo section. They are listed in chronological order. Enjoy. :-)
The Story page received alot of mail concerning the recent Gamespot article
Macworld Exposé.
Perhaps on reflection the Story page was not the best place to raise the issues contained within.
Nevertheless here are just three of the comments received:
Sarwat Khan <sarwat@interlog.com> writes:
If the "top member of Bungie" is a programmer, his comment that once you get to know a PC there's no reason to use a Mac can be understandable.Programmers think about computers very differently, as many more things just make sense to them. If you understand how things work under the hood, you know how to use the thing so that the stuff under the hood works properly.
From my perspective, I've been an artist first and a programmer second. The most important part about programming to me is good design, and I like designing and programming UIs more than anything else. Many programmers love making ugly incomprehensible code that only they can understand (which I'm sure is one of the reasons why Pearl is so popular :) Game programming often needs to be ugly for performance.
Programmers (including myself) enjoy having a challenge in using a computer--configuring stuff just becomes just like a programming challenge. Witness the popularity of Linux among programers :)
Tyson Green <ferrex@gamestats.com> writes:
Jones is a programmer and a gamer, not a platform advocate. He uses the best tool for the job, whatever that may be. He might be a Mac user from way back, but he's not blinded by that (and I'm one too, so don't twist this into a platform slam).If Halo is following Myth's basic design, then the game engine will be cross platform, and tied into platform specific I/O libraries. A project opened in CW Pro 4 is the same project opened in Visual C++ 5, or whatever they're using on the PC's now.
This whole fuss is silly. Does it matter what logo is on the computer when you punch in the lines of code? It's like complaining that an author wrote his novel on a Mac or a PC (or, god forbid, an Underwood!). The engine will be written on an available computer... the I/O libraries will be written on the platform they serve. And in this case, PC's were ready (ie. had the hardware) to have their libraries written first. Take my word for it--during my internship, I did not see Halo played on a Mac. Nor did I care, since I knew it would be coming to the Mac all the same.
FWIW, the article is wrong in once respect... Oni is the first Bungie game that was developed first on a PC and then ported to the Mac. Same reasons. "Developed then ported" is an innacurate description... it implies that the product was finished and then brought over as an afterthought. They're being developed simultaneously... the PCs are simply in front because they had a headstart in hardware.
Chris Butcher <cbutcher@hermes.otago.ac.nz> writes:
Dan Rudolph is looking for some confirmation of the PC -> Mac porting of Halo. Well, we have the Word from the Man... in Freewill's interview of Jason Jones, JJ mentions that they demoed Halo on the PC running Direct3D to Steve Jobs, and then did the port to the Mac and OpenGL in the next twelve days. Now it's very likely that Halo has been running on the Mac and PC all along (you can't port an entire game in twelve days), but at least the 3D acceleration was developed on the PC first.
Chris puts us back on track with the following:
About Mark Levin's comment that there is zero gravity inside a ring: incorrect, alas. While there is zero gravity inside a sphere, the argument which works in 3D on a sphere doesn't work in the 2D case of a ring. Essentially this is because gravity is an inverse-square law, and the mass of a section of a ring is proportional to its radius whereas the mass of a section of a sphere is proportional to its radius squared (this is a condensed version of Max Francis' explanation at
David Simon <midnight@pnc.com.au> writes:
When your standing on the inside of a gigantic ring in space, the way to create gravity is to set it spinning. The tangental force created is enough to simulate gravity as long as it spins at the right speed.In 2001 this principal is used constantly, the Space Station is a spinning ring (you can see the curvature in the interior shots) and the spaceship Discovery has centrifuges fitted to it.
| July 31, 1999 |
| Update #3 (2.20 pm Eastern Time) |
Dan Rudolph <7thFace@bungie.net> writes:
The following comes from a post by Mitch Crane to comp.sys.mac.games.action. It is attributed to a recent Gamespot article, which is at their website at http://www.gamespot.com/features/macworld/index.html ** Interesting quote:"'Once you're comfortable with a PC, there's no reason to use a Mac,' said a top member of Bungie, who asked that the quote not be attributed."
That's exactly what I'm getting at when I say the ease of use difference between Macs and PCs is not that great. If it were as bad as some Mac fanatics believe you'd never get comfortable with it. Anyone who is capable of reading this is capable of using a PC quite happily.
Also interesting that he didn't want to be identified. I know how he feels. The heretic. The blasphemer.
They referred to halo as Bungie's first PC to Mac port (as opposed to Mac to PC). Does anyone know if this is correct?
**
Can you confirm/deny this? It seems to me any top employee of Bungie would have to have been there before Myth, making them a long-time Mac user.
I note some discussion about this on the halo.bungie.org forums. See the thread entitled "Can we get some confirmation on this?".
Mark Levin <mglevin@uiuc.edu> writes:
Timothy Collett doesn't have to hide from his father, he's completely right, except he's using the wrong facts. Gravity would be acceptable if people were standing on the outside of the Halo (and the Halo was a lot more massive), but if we're standing on the *inside* then we have to take into account the little-known fact that gravity inside a hollow sphere (or a ring) is zero. The strong gravity from whatever point on the edge is nearest to you is canceled out by the combined weak gravity of the other side of the ring. So the only force acting on objects on the inside of the ring is centripetal.For your list of relevant pages, basic proof of this can be found here:
http://www.unb.ca/physics/1940/numerical.object.inside.earth.htm
| Update #2 (10.00 am Eastern Time) |
David Cornwell <goldragonne@earthlink.net> writes:
The W'rcacnter groans under his slab.
<Aye Mak Sicur (Terminal 1: 1st Message)>[I was there with the Angel at the tomb]
<First Cortana email>"There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it."
<Matthew 28:2>Question: doesn't the reference to the W'rkncacnter sound like it is in a grave, or tomb?
Michael Zannetou <mzannetou@dial.pipex.com> writes to point out that his
site containing The Marathon SoundSet for MacOS 8.5 has moved to
www.mzannetou.dial.pipex.com
Michael goes on to say:
As for the Marathon theme for MacOS, I could get started as soon as I get the right tools for the job, anyone know of any theme making programs that work properly?
Hmmm... perhaps a Halo theme next?
Alan Greene <alan@fontshop.com> writes to point out that
Dualism, a Duality fan site,
has posted some disturbing news. The news item reads:
Wednesday, July 28, 1999Duality's fate / dixon [20:04 CST]
This will come as news to some, but not to others: it seems likely that Duality will not be released as a commercial product by Double Aught Software. There's no publisher and no more money to continue its development.So, what now? I suggest an open source release of Duality and its tools. If Double Aught's going to die, it may as well die gracefully.
It should be pointed out however that no official statement has been made by DoubleAught nor is the above text attributed to any official DoubleAught source. Furthermore both the Duality and the DoubleAught pages are still up.
Robin Welsh <myth2@hotmail.com> writes:
I just got my Mac Action Sack yesterday!Did you ever notice, in the Minotaur manual, how many spells there are that use the same plain little scroll icon (the one without the red dot).
Hmmm... well I don't have my Sack yet... but let me guess... ;-)
| Update #1 (3.50 am Eastern Time) |
Timothy Collett <tcollett@hamilton.edu> writes:
I know everyone has been going on about centripetal force (a force pulling in towards the center) and centrifugal force (a silly name given to one manifestation of the law of inertia) keeping people on the Halo, but why can't it just be gravity keeping them there? I mean, if it's got an atmosphere, it's surely got enough mass to have enough gravitational force to keep people on it it could keep people on even without atmosphere (see the Moon, for instance). The only problem could come in the middle, where the gravity from the other side might counteract the gravity from your side somewhat. In this case, if the ring is spinning, then inertia (or centrifugal force) could keep people from floating off if it was spinning fast enough. If this analysis is not correct, then I'm really in trouble, being the son of a physics professor :-)
Kevin Goetz <Kgmoome@aol.com> has posted a short interview with Matt Soell (Bungie's Director of Customer Support).
You can read it here.
Not easy to get answers out of Matt. ;-)
Jesse Tribby <JesterIl@aol.com> writes concerning the Halo movie:
...as our friend flies off in the alien vessel ( about 2:22 into the trailer ) One can see a bridge and a ridge in the backround. Guess who's back there still driving around? The guy in the jeep (though he is only a few pixels), but where is he going???
Joseph Bartlett <avcomlab@paradise.net.nz> also writes concerning the Halo movie:
If you look carefully at the background as the marine is stealing the aircraft (2:13 until 2:15(2:20-2:23 for you people with the extra 7 seconds)) you can see an object falling from the 'sky' towards the ring. As to what is could be? I have no idea :)
| July 30, 1999 |
| Update #3 (6.00 pm Eastern Time) |
Some hard facts just in from the man who knows! Nathan Bitner (Producer and Creative Developer of Halo) writes concerning Mark Bassett's comments earlier today:
From: "Nathan" <nathan@bungie.com>
To: <markb@iisc.co.uk>
Cc: "Hamish Sinclair" <Hamish.Sinclair@tcd.ie>
Subject: Lagrange points
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 16:35:42 -0500
Organization: Bungie Software
X-Priority: 3Mark,
I was reading your comment on the story page - and, yes, unless the moon is very heavy as compared to the planet, IN THE SET-UP THAT HAS BEEN SUGGESTED (I am neither denying nor confirming that this is the game's actual set-up), the "demented space cheerio" should be much closer to the moon and trailing it a 60 degree angle (between the planet's central axis and the moon's central axis).
A little further reading on the subject will also reveal that the cheerio itself, as you guys are fond of calling it ;) should be perpendicular to the line that would connect the axes of the planet and moon. It's unclear to me whether in Mr. Streicker's diagrams, that would be represented as either horizontal or vertical.
Nathan Bitner
Producer, Creative Developer, and Part-Time Astronomer - halo
Bungie Software
Looks like we're all going to have to do some reading. If people can come up with a good list of web pages on this whole subject I'll post them here. For example here is a page on Lagrangian Points.
| Update #2 (2.00 pm Eastern Time) |
Centrifugal or centripetal? Great response to this one! Here are just a few. Bill Moore <moorew@aii.edu> writes:
Mark Levin posted to your page that with the ring spinning at 1rot/90seconds, there would be a ludicrous amount of gravity produced through the centripetal force... Was he taking into consideration the immense gravitational effect of the gas giant, which is supposedly twice as massive as jupiter?? Jupiter has a solid core of about 15-20 earth masses, with jupiter itself being twice as massive as all the planets in our solar system combined, who's to say that this gas giant doesn't have a 4,000 earth mass core?BTW: Halo's force IS indeed centripetal not centrifugal, since, centrifugal force is an imaginary psuedo-force, and is just the feeling of being pulled down because of centripetal forces. The only real force here is the ring pushing up on the people in the ring which is centripetal.
Mark Bassett <markb@iisc.co.uk> writes:
I'm really enjoying the current discussion of Halo's physics; with luck this will turn put to be a useful contribution.Looking at Peter Streicker's diagrams, I'd say that the Halo is vertical. In the figure labelled "Ring Axis 2" you can see that from a horizontal Halo you would never be able to see the equator of the planet, as the ring itself would be in the way. But if the Halo were vertical you could see from below the planets equator all the way to the pole on the other side - which is pretty much what you get in the movie.
Although you can see through the centre of the Halo in the control room, I think that's because we're looking down on the system from an angle; if the resolution were slightly better the Halo would look elliptical in that shot, not circular.
Not that I'm completely happy with the control room sequence though - shouldn't the Lagrangian point be much nearer the moon? Either that, or the moon is really heavy!
The centrifugal/centripetal debate is amusing, and I'm sure Mark Levin will defend himself. But the force applied to the Halo's inhabitants really is centripetal. If it wasn't, they'd crash through the Halo and out into space in a straight line! (Remember things don't like to move in orbits - it takes a force to pull, or in this case push, them into it.)
Mark Levin <mlevin@giss.nasa.gov> writes:
Kenny Kay is correct that the Halo would pull objects towards its center, however this is done by centripetal force. Centrifugal force is the reaction to centripetal force, the force used by rotational gravity. When an object is spun in a circle (or an object stands on a rotating ring), its velocity is always at a tangent to the circle, along the edge. If let go, it would fly out in a straight line, so something must hold it in the circle. This is centripetal force, the force aimed towards the center of the circle to keep the spinning object in a circular path. On the Halo, the force is applied by the inside of the ring towards the center. Centrifugal force is the equal and opposite reaction of the spinning object against the centripetal force, a force aimed away from the center as the object resists the centripetal force's altering of its velocity. As the Halo rotates, a human on the inner surface would feel as if the centrifugal force or gravity was trying to pull him into the ground, but what's actually happening is that centripetal force is trying to pull the ground up through him and his mass is resisting.
Tom Bridge <Tom_Bridge@edelman.com> writes:
I don't know if it's my public school education betraying me, or just my bad memory, but I think that the force that would hold someone to the inside of the ring would be Centripetal. My physics teacher would always say "just cause they call it a centrifuge doesn't mean any motion like that is centrifugal." Might be worth a call to a real physicist.
Patrick Gierke <gierkeNOSPAM@delaware.infi.net> writes:
It seems that some people are getting confused between centripedal and centrifugal forces. With the hope of clearing a few things up, I'd like to throw my two cents in. I hope it's accurate, otherwise my AP Physics course was for nothing.The big problem with centrifugal force is that it has no source. Forces must have sources. As I stand on the Halo, which is spinning at 28,000 mph, there isn't anything to deliver a center-hating force. Sure, the air is pushing on you, but I don't really think that this would account for the 1g-like effect that we are dealing with. So, without anything to apply a centrifugal force, we are left with the centripedal force. This is a very real and important force when dealing with rotational kinematics. But what is the source of the centripedal force, and why doesn't it feel like I'm being pulled away from the surface of the halo? Well, the source is the ground you are standing on. It is actually pushing you up, towards the center of the Halo. If it didn't, you would fall right through, and be ejected out into space. As for why it doesn't feel like you are being pulled up into the center of motion, well, you can thank Newton for that. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. Your body *really* wants to stay in its current vector of motion, which is a strait line tangental to the Halo at about 28,000 mph. The only reason why you don't go flying off is because the Halo is fighting that motion.If the Halo were to all of a sudden dissappear from beneath your feet, you would instantly go flying away, much like a slingshot. So, what's happening is a lot like what happens when you jump off of a table.When you hit the ground, it applies a force against you. This force fights your vector of motion, compresses you, and gives the impression of "g force". On the Halo, this sort of reaction happens continously, as the vector of motion and the vector that the force is applied in are always perpendicular to each other (this is actually what accounts for the rotational motion). This means that they can never "cancel" each other out.
This all may seem very complex, and it actually is (it took about a month and a half for my class to cover the chapter on it!). The explanation would work a lot better with diagrams and Q&A, but, what can you do. This is but a lowly text-only email.
To sum it all up: Centrifugal Force doesn't really apply to rotational motion, and it is more like a description of a force that just happens to vector away from the center. Centripedal Force is the force that keeps us in a rotational motion, and it also gives us that feeling of g force.
And now for something completely different! Another Robocam pic
from Harry Al-Shakarchi <harry.al-shakarchi@teleweb.at>
| Update #1 (8.20 am Eastern Time) |
Halo's world horizontal or vertical? Peter Streicker <momar@home.com> sent in a very elaborate description of the "ancient ring construct". Check out Peter's second Halo submission.
Centrifugal or centripetal? Kenny Kay <ken@avara.net> writes concerning
Mark Levin's submission yesterday.
If the action takes place on the *inner ring* with the sky towards the "center" of the halo, then it's -centrifugal- force that's keeping the feet of our characters on the ground. Centripetal force in the halo (impossible) would draw all the characters upwards toward the center rather than away. Remember, in a centrifuge the samples are spun down until the particles are at the bottom.
| July 29, 1999 |
| Update #2 (3.20 pm Eastern Time) |
Joshua Inglima <jinglima@thinkpos.com> writes concerning the position of the ring construct:
If you watch the shadows [outside] , you will notice that the star is definitively on one side of the ring, otherwise, as previously mentioned, the shadows would be at "high noon." The kicker is when you see the planet in the sky. It's on the other side of the ring! The final few second of the clip with the Marine waving the Bungie flag shows this the best. You can see his shadow going towards the planet, and clearly see the ring's continuing surface is between star and planet.
Mark Levin <mglevin@students.uiuc.edu< writes:
The estimate of the ring's rotational period is probably not accurate for the ring as a whole. Assuming I remember the formulae correctly, if the ring is really rotating once every 90 seconds and is really 10,000 miles wide, it will produce a centripetal force of over 4,000 gravities, which is ludicrous for a life-sustaining world. If the Halo really rotates every 90 seconds and has a centripetal gravity of 1G (9.8 m/s) then it's only about 4 kilometers wide. A 10,000-mile ring would have to rotate once every 96 minutes to maintain 1G of centripetal force. Therefore, all components of the simulation are greatly accelerated.
It's in the bag! Robocam pics from Harry Al-Shakarchi <harry.al-shakarchi@teleweb.at>,
Aaron Gaponoff <eaten_by_fungus@hotbot.com>, Timothy Collett <tcollett@hamilton.edu> and
Robin Welsh" <myth2@hotmail.com>. Yeah I was slow getting this one up! ;-)
| Update #1 (8.45 am Eastern Time) |
Well the Story page received a large number of mails over the last 24 hours concerning the "demented Space Cheerio or something bigger?" report yesterday. There is certainly some confusion out there about what the holograms in Halo control room are showing. Hopefully today's submissions will clear this confusion up. Here are just a few of the many explanatory posts received. Thanks to all those who wrote in.
James Lanfear <jclanfear@presys.com> writes:
Regarding the ring mystery, I think everyone may be correct. There is a ring orbiting between the sun and the planet (though that 'sun' still looks more like a gas giant to me), and there is also a ring wrapped around the room. I believe they are the same ring from different perspectives.The larger ring displays the surface in detail; if you look closely you can see water and islands/continents on the inner surface, and the entire ring is rotating fairly quickly. Within that ring is a view of the star system, planet, etc.
Chris Butcher <cbutcher@hermes.otago.ac.nz> writes:
Couldn't help noticing Mark Bassett pointing out that we're not all seeing the same thing when we look at the pics from the Halo movie. He's quite right, for a very simple reason.The thing is, the Halo / the ring / Big Dumb Object appears _twice_ in the control room. It seems pretty obvious to me that there are two separate holograms in that control room. You can see this best by looking at Peter Streicker's submission (the Control Room picture).
First, in the middle there's a scale model of the planetary system that the Halo is part of. There's a big grey planetoid, with a much smaller blue-grey planetoid orbiting it (the simulation is moving very fast, as you can see if you watch the first few seconds of the movie). The Halo is present roughly halfway between the two, in what looks like the stable L1 Lagrangian point.
Secondly, there's a much closer view of the Halo. This hologram is about eight or ten marine-heights across, and is wrapped around the outside of the planetary simulation. You can see the top section of the ring at the top of the picture, behind the Bungie logo... it goes all the way around below the platform that the Marine's standing on, and is slowly rotating clockwise with a period of about 90 seconds, I'd estimate.
Another point... Brymen pointed out the article at CNN which says
"Halo takes place on an artificial Ringworld-style planet orbiting a gas giant in another system" ...so the greyish-orange object in the middle of the planetary-system must be this gas giant. The rough 10,000 mile diameter estimate of the Halo may not square with this, because if the simulation's to scale then that would make the gas giant (which is depicted as roughly 20 times the size of the Halo) 200,000 miles in diameter or roughly twice the diameter of Jupiter (140,000km). But then again, who says gas giants can't be bigger than Jupiter? Plus there are a lot of fudge factor calculations in this guesstimate. :)
Martin Thorne <mthorne@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> writes:
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the hologram in the control room of the Halo trailer/demo, so I thought I'd just add my two cents to the huge inundation of email you must be getting these days.The control room has a large rotating ring with detailed features that *might* be terrain. This ring surrounds what is apparently a star and an orbiting planet. Between the star and the planet is a small ring, at a Lagrange point. Various people have expressed the opinion that the Halo is either the large ring around the star and planet, or the small ring in orbit between the star and planet.
Why can't it be both?
If you were designing a map for a ringworld, It would make sense to present it on a ring, right? It's not exactly something that lends itself well to a flat representation. (neither does a spherical world, but hey) In the middle of such a map, however, there would be a great deal of empty, leftover space. Why not fill this area with a small diagram of the ring's position in a star system? That's what I think this is. Two maps in one. A large, detailed map of the ring's terrain and major features, running around a smaller map of the surrounding star system.
Nice elucidations. If the Halo control room is an example of the type of environments we can expect in Halo then this game is going to one beautiful experience. :-)
The game news site Sharkey Extreme posted this
yesterday:
Halo is a third person combat game where you are a military recon unit of the fledgling human empire. Chased by aliens, you land on a gigantic alien-made ring world much like that of Larry Niven's Ringworld novels. The construct encircles a star with a gravity effect gained through centripetal force pushing you into the inside of the spinning ring.
"The construct encircles a star..." Oh well... ;-)
Tyson Green (aka Ferrex) has posted a higher quality Halo movie at his
Halo page. It weighs in at just over
18MBs. While it's the same movie that Gamespot
offers it's a larger screen format and the sound is
infinitely better. Apparently the original soundtrack has been overwritten with TotalAudio's recently
released Halo MP3. You can grab it at
http://core.gamestats.com/files/Halo_Big.mov
Well worth downloading folks.
More Robocam pic fun from Chris Camacho <chrispynacho@earthlink.net> and
Aaron Gaponoff <eaten_by_fungus@hotbot.com>.
| July 28, 1999 |
| Update #3 (11.45 am Eastern Time) |
The Halo world... "demented Space Cheerio" or something bigger? Mark Bassett <markb@iisc.co.uk> writes:
I felt I just had to write when I saw Peter Streicker's message, because I have this eery feeling that when we look at the pic's from the Halo movie we're not all seeing the same thing!Peter says:
"if you look at the Controlroom pic, the only thing the ring cuts through is that purple thing at the top"which sounds to me as though he thinks the ring is the big arch that goes behind the Bungie logo. But when I look at the picture that's not the ring at all, I see the ring as floating between the Sun and the planet. (This is how Devin O'Reilly saw it too, when he called the Halo a "demented Space Cheerio")
As I wrote you earlier, this is appropriate because the alien artifact is in what astronomers call a "halo orbit", suspended between two larger bodies. I wonder at what point in the game's design Bungie hit upon this term - did it provide a good name for something they'd already thought of, or did it inspire the whole setting?
In case you are confused take a look at Devin O'Reilly's Halo submission, Peter Streicker's Halo submission and Michael Lake's Halo submission. Then make your own mind up!
What's a Halo orbit? A point in space between two planetary bodies where the gravitational attractions of these two bodies are in balance against one another is called a Lagrangian point, and it is possible for an object to be in stable orbit around this point. Such an orbit is called a halo orbit. The plane of the halo orbit is perpendicular to the axis between the centers of the two planetary bodies.
James Gurnee <harness@access1.net> points out that it might be easier to identify the guy in the
Robocam pic now!
| Update #2 (8.30 am Eastern Time) |
I just know I'm going to get a ton of these pics in my mail today if I don't put this one up quick! Miguel Chavez <jmchavez@aol.com> has an eye for the girls! Check the roving Robocam pics for the new Oni look! ;-)
| Update #1 (8.00 am Eastern Time) |
halo.bungie.org have a questions and answers session with Marty O'Donnell of TotalAudio. TotalAudio did the music for the Halo demo at Macworld Expo. In one answer TotalAudio state:
We decided it needed to be big, exciting, and unusual with a classical orchestra touch to give it some weight and stature. We also wanted it to have some sort of "ancient" feel to it. We worked on it over the weekend and did the final recording on Monday morning. It went to NY that night. No one at Bungie had heard it until Monday afternoon - I'm glad they liked it.
So am I. The music is outstanding.
A Halo blueprint! Peter Streicker <momar@home.com> writes:
I've attached 2 pictures I made in photoshop. With Control room I just thought I'd put together 3 frames of the movie to give you a bigger picture of the room and a better idea of the orbiting planet and ring.With Blueprints I was hoping to get some ideas about what this map is of, perhaps the building you're in or the starsystem. If it is infact the starsystem, then you'll notice that the yellow ring would probably be the halo but it cuts through a big red ball/planet, and if you look at the Controlroom pic, the only thing the ring cuts through is that purple thing at the top, so it could either be a planet or the room's ceiling..
Joey Hoffman <talon@zebra.net> writes concerning Raul Bonilla's submission yesterday:
I recognized instantly that the first picture (Mullins' from http://www.goodbrush.com/hirez_pgs/concept/concept4/robot.htm) is, without a single doubt, an identical twin of the AV-98 Ingram from the popular anime series Patlabor--minus some bits of its shielding, and seemingly a few times taller than the usual 8.02 meters. I've attached a pic from the opening sequence of Patlabor on Television, as well as a scan from the Patlabor manga. Find out more about Patlabor at http://www.tomobiki.com/patlabor/
| July 27, 1999 |
| Update #3 (1.35 pm Eastern Time) |
Ok here we go folks. Hang on to your hats... tighten your belts.
Thanks to Miguel Chavez <JMChavez@aol.com> we now have two additional films on offer. A 60+MB high quality version of his interview with Jason Jones. It's EXACTLY the same as the smaller 20MB movie but the picture and sound quality is better.
And in addition there is a small (<1MB) movie of Jason Jones playing Marathon.
You can get both via ftp at:
ftp://ftp.marathon.org/pub/marathon/story/jjonesmwny99-hi.movftp://ftp.marathon.org/pub/marathon/story/jjonesplaysmara.mov
Special thanks to Nicholas Esborn <nick@flatLAN.net> of Marathon Central for the server space and bandwidth. I know he's going to kill me tomorrow!
If you do upload these movies to other sites please state that they were filmed by Miguel Chavez <JMChavez@aol.com> and you got them from the Marathon's Story page. Many thanks.
| Update #2 (11.10 am Eastern Time) |
Nathan Bitner (Bungie Software) writes:
From: "Nathan" <nathan@bungie.com>
To: "Hamish Sinclair" <Hamish.Sinclair@tcd.ie>
Subject: Human Trip To Water-Rich Asteroid Possible By 2015
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 17:08:41 -0500
Organization: Bungie Software
X-Priority: 3Thought for some reason you might enjoy this Hamish. :-)
Nathan
Producer and Creative Developer - halo
Bungie Softwarehttp://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ts/story.html?s=v/nm/19990726/ts/space_asteroid_1.html
Note the Producer and Creative Developer - halo!!! Hands up all those who remember the Cortana "cover-up" emails? ;-)
Thanks to Brymen Mendoza <brymen@inficad.com> for pointing out that there is Halo news article at
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9907/26/halo.idg/
which contains further Halo story details. Part of the text reads:
Halo takes place on an artificial Ringworld-style planet orbiting a gas giant in another system, much like the vision of Larry Niven's Ringworld universe. The setting is part of the core mystery of the game, with the creators and builders of this world -- and its accompanying wonders -- long gone. While exploring the planet, humans have found new technology that we just have to have, even at the cost of lives. To complicate matters, another alien race is bent on obtaining this technology, and both races must fight to achieve dominance in this system.
The Halo mystery deepens. :-)
Raul Bonilla <lassonde@hotmail.com> writes:
I downloaded the Halo concept art images included in Bungie's Mac Action Sack following the link you provided in the Marathon Story page. One of them, the trooper.jpg, have a resemblance with one of the concept art images I found in Craig Mullin's site. Although Shikai Wang is the author of the "easter-egg" sketches, looks like the cyborg soldier of the upcoming game is the result of a mix between the Marathon player and this Craig Mullin's robot. You be the judge.
| Update #1 (8.30 am Eastern Time) |
All three Marathon's Story page servers got hammered yesterday but coped under the strain.
Thanks to Nicholas Esborn <nick@flatLAN.net>
and Steve Campbell <midwest@bungie.org> for the server space and the bandwidth.
and the following Hotline servers:
Miguel Chavez's "The Jason Jones Macworld Expo NY Interview"
Miguel's wacky, uncensored, free-wheelin' stream-of-conciousness 10 minute
interview with Jason Jones. 20mb of NOT high quality video. Hey, I slapped
the compression in about an hour at 5AM, gimme a break! :-)
Come gather around as we wax poetically about all things Bungie:
What led up to the Halo demo at the keynote
Michael Lake <beorn@thegrid.net> writes:
First of all, in picture 1, we see in the
background an Eiffel tower-like structure beyond the atmosphere. This
could be the ground sloping upwards in a circle shape. In picture 2, we
see a pretty much identical structure in the background. If you were to
put the two pictures together, we can see how this would be the second
slope of the ring that was behind the camera in picture 1.
This second part concerns the first section of the movie, when the
human is at a holographic control board of sorts. It appears as if
beyond the control board there is a holographic projection of a large
ring surrounding a planet (pictures 3, 4, and 5)... Notice the large
orb that is in the background in a couple shots during the movie (6 and
7). This could be the same planet that is being projected in the
hologram.
More appearances of the ring curving skyward show up in pictures 8,
9, 11, 12, 13, and 14. However, in picture 10, we see a dark line going
across the sky. Since it is not an effect of the plane (foreground),
this could very well be the opposite side of the ring, from a ground
view. We can also see the planet in the bottom left corner of this
picture (not marked), which further supports this theory.
Many thanks to M.C. Avistetto <nijhazer@dpnation.com> for drawing my attention to
two interesting posts on alt.games.marathon. I reprint them here.
in case you haven't seen them. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of these.
I asked Jason Jones and Tuncer Deniz about the Marathon source code, and
(with the permission of Bungie) I'd like to share a bit of it with you.
The main concern with the source code is that there is a serial number
generator which is also used in Myth. This is the main reason why they
don't want to release it at the moment. They do intend to go in and take
that out and then release the code. It's just that no-one has had the time
to do so (and can you blame them?). The bottom line, however, is that
Bungie doesn't seem set on clinging the Marathon source close to their
chest for eternity. The sense I got was that they think releasing it is a
neat idea. They may still decide for other reasons that they don't want
to, but everyone should rest assured that they're positive on the idea.
C
I'm going to say this stuff pretty carefully because I don't want to make
Jason Jones sorry he spoke to me. Therfore, forgive me if there are
omissions or questions I don't want to answer about this stuff because he
did ask me not to make a thing out of it yet.
While I was at MWNY, I asked Jason about the Marathon logo in the HALO
logo, and he laughed, but wouldn't respond. I asked further, saying that
mistakes like that don't just happen, and he laughed some more, saying
"Yes. That would be a pretty expensive mistake". I tried not to pressure
him too much, but I explained that Marathon fans are concerned they will
never see anything new in Marathon because 1. Bungie has put the kibosh on
conversion projects, 2. Bungie has said they'll do no more Marathon
titles, and 3. Bungie won't release the source code. He told me that he
couldn't say anything more, but he did say that Marathon fans didn't have
to worry; something very special is going to happen.
Hope you found this interesting :)
C
Halo news continues to flood in and more updates appear on the web.
First off halo.bungie.org</
http://townhall.clanplaid.net/
Bungie.org hotline server (164.58.172.181)
Clan Plaid hotline server (165.82.104.162)
A transcript of the full interview courtesy of
Chris Butcher <cbutcher@hermes.otago.ac.nz> and Miguel Chavez <JMChavez@aol.com>
is now available here.
Halo.bungie.org have posted a
sound-only QT4 movie (1.4 MB) of the interview. You'll find it
in their movies page.
Eylon Caspi <eylon@cs.berkeley.edu> writes concerning the Jason Jones interview:
Just saw Miguel's MacWorld interview. Small world!
The guy on the right (Jason Jones' left) who runs a
counter-interview throughout the video is an old friend
of mine from University of Maryland. Sandro Fouche.
I have not seen him for 5 or 6 years. He's quite the hard-core
computer guy. Used to preach Unix, Apple, and gaming at UMD.
I should send him a pointer to the video ;-)
July 26, 1999
Update #4 (12.30 pm Eastern Time)
Miguel Chavez <JMChavez@aol.com> writes:
How cool is Steve Jobs?
The problems with being such a 'small' company
Watch as someone offers network help on *1* condition
How Halo is going to be different from past Bungie games
Will Halo have Body Count?
Is Jason already at work on something else?
Anecdotes about the Bungie.net server
Surprise walk-on by Doug Zartman!
Harry Al-Shakarchi <harry.al-shakarchi@teleweb.at> kindly sent in these URLs to two pics of Jason Jones playing
Marathon at Macworld Expo NY.
www.imgmagazine.com/features/07_99/mwny/shots/jones3.html
Update #3 (9.00 am Eastern Time)
Ever since Bungie announced Halo, I have been getting as much
information on the game as I possibly can. I have also been watching
the movie quite a bit, and that is what this message concerns. (One
thing, I am going to be talking about different frames in the movie, and
therefore I have taken many screen shots, 14 to be exact, to help you
with what I am talking about. See here.
I am writing concerning the ring-like world that is Halo (hence the
name), and I am supporting evidence towards that theory, as well as some
interesting observations.
Jake Bromberg <core2020@hotmail.com> writes:
...check out the name of the HTML file of the sidebar on the
halo.bungie.com page. It's titled "splat[1]".
Interesting, isn't it? Blam? Splat? Both very onomatopĻic in nature. Hmmm...
Update #2 (7.30 am Eastern Time)
From: jwct@magma.ca (J.W. Corey Tamas)
Subject: What I leared about the Marathon source code
Date: 25 Jul 1999
Message-ID: <jwct-2507991041140001@x2port34.magma.ca>
Organization: Ace Biscuit Web Solutions
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 10:39:33 EDT
Newsgroups: alt.games.marathon
From: jwct@magma.ca (J.W. Corey Tamas)
Subject: What I learned about Halo
Date: 25 Jul 1999
Message-ID: <jwct-2507991041270001@x2port34.magma.ca>
Organization: Ace Biscuit Web Solutions
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 10:39:46 EDT
Newsgroups: alt.games.marathon
Update #1 (6.00 am Eastern Time)
