This week’s Humpday Challenge is posted over at Bungie.net; they faced off against Clantacular on the new DLC maps. As an example of how big and powerful Bungie.net has become: near the bottom, the automatic censoring code in the website rewrote something Luke put in – it’s 6:30 in the morning here, and I haven’t had any coffee yet, so I was struggling to figure out what got ‘blam’ed in the phrase ‘”-blam!-le Sayers”. I dropped “le Sayers” into Google, to see if anything obvious popped up… and the Humpday writeup was hit number five. It’s been online for less than 12 hours, fergoshsakes! (This post will probably make it rise, even.) I still don’t know what was censored… but the writeup is entertaining anyway. Thanks, Psychophan7.(Louis Wu 11:39:42 UTC)

Heh – yesterday, I mentioned that the community could really use a searchable database for Forge creations – and today, Rampancy.net opened a Forge maps database. You can browse/search/download maps without logging in, but you’ll need to have an account to submit them. (They need to know who they belong to, after all.) Ask, and ye shall receive!(Louis Wu 10:28:01 UTC)

RotaJota noticed a couple of Halo articles at Gamasutra – both are interesting, though one has lots of meat and the other’s just an appetizer. For snacks – an article suggesting that Halo 3 sales caused many, many fewer than expected sales for Stranglehold. (What… mediocre reviews might not have something to do with it?) The main course – a Q&A session with Bungie’s Steve Cotton about the thought processes that went into the development of the DLC maps. It’s a great read, and might give you some ideas about customization after the fact.(Louis Wu 23:39:55 UTC)

Bungie’s posted a ‘Quick and Dirty Guide to the Heroic Maps‘ – layouts, weapon locations, vehicles, basic strats – absolutely worth reading if you want a leg up on the competition when you jump into the Heroic DLC playlist. Thanks, Avateur.(Louis Wu 23:29:48 UTC)

Whoops. Hikaru-119 pointed out that I forgot to mention yesterday’s or today’s One One Se7en Advent offerings… the dangers of auto-updates. Sorry about that! (Well… you might actually thank me after reading them.)(Louis Wu 23:22:44 UTC)

Machinima.com’s Inside Halo Episode 4 is now online – you can watch or download it at machinima.com, or stream it at YouTube. SodaGod is off this time around, but the dead pixel will walk you through the basics of making machinima with Halo 3. Good info, interesting to watch, funny! Go grab it. Thanks, Adam Kovic.(Louis Wu 22:14:27 UTC)

ThinkGeek is selling a pretty nice messenger bag – comes in Khaki or Grey, and holds an awful lot of stuff. Check it out!(Louis Wu 21:25:37 UTC)

There’s a press release at GamesIndustry.biz that announces that MCV, the leading trade publication for the video games industry, has named the Halo 3 launch as the “best single moment in 2007”. Not bad!(Louis Wu 21:19:57 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy wrote up her experience at the Childs Play Charity Dinner Auction a couple of nights ago – her focus was on the Halo-related items, of which there were many for sale. A chance to use Bungie’s ‘Flaming Helmet’ armor on Xbox Live went for $740, a bag of schwag (along with Recon armor) went for over $5000. All the proceeds went to Child’s Play, the charity started by the Penny Arcade crew to bring games (and smiles) to hospitalized kids everywhere. Go read about it all!(Louis Wu 21:15:35 UTC)

CNN.com has posted their Top sci-tech stories of the year as part of their Year in Review coverage – use the little circles on the bottom to jump to September 25, and you’ll see that Halo 3’s launch made the list. Thanks, Avateur.(Louis Wu 21:03:59 UTC)

If you missed out on Amazon’s $59.99 Halo 3 Legendary Edition on Black Friday, you’ve got another shot – while supplies last. Wal-Mart (well, walmart.com, at least) is selling the helmeted game for $59.82 right now. What are you waiting for? Update: looks like Clefton Twain noticed this, too.(Louis Wu 19:55:07 UTC)

chrischang127 has transcribed Unforgotten, from Halo – it’s available at Rampancy.net as a PDF. (Remember, you must be logged in to see the download links.)(Louis Wu 17:00:26 UTC)

Today’s Another Halo Comic Strip has a shout-out to all you folks using Legendary helmets on your trees. (Yes,like Paul.)(Louis Wu 16:22:36 UTC)

This is intriguing – if you have Windows Vista, here’s a sidebar gadget that lets you view Bungie.net screenshots on your desktop.(Louis Wu 16:14:59 UTC)

Hmm… not totally sure about this, but… cannon1iron let us know that tickets for a New York City performance of Video Games Live next April go on sale tomorrow, officially… but you can get in on an internet presale by using the password HEHALO on this page. I checked, and there are some great seats available! (Well, right NOW.) Beat the rush – prebuy now. Update: Mig has an opinion you might want to read. (Louis Wu 16:10:49 UTC)

MLG Canada has posted a video of some MLG Pros and office staff playing Halo 3 soccer. It looks fun. Not NEARLY as much fun as the several hours of Grifball I played last night with some RvB folks.. but fun.(Louis Wu 16:02:25 UTC)

AceHawk made a Minitage of Halo 3 gameplay – I’m not sure why it’s called a ‘Minitage’, since it looks like a standard montage to me, but hey, you can call your work whatever you like, right? Thanks to trigger119 for letting us know – and for hosting it at GamingTV.(Louis Wu 15:55:27 UTC)