Ascendant Justice has posted ‘Shield World‘, an article that looks at the third element of the Forerunner equation – the Shield Worlds, as exemplified by the structure that dominates the book ‘Ghosts of Onyx’. Go read vociferous’ thoughts on where Bungie (or another development entity) might go next with the Halo story! Thanks, mendicantbias00.(Louis Wu 15:35:41 UTC)

Back in early May, we mentioned an interview with Mike Zak in Game Developer magazine – the full version of that interview (apparently the GD version was an excerpt), including Brian Jarrard, is now available on Gamasutra. They’ve also got an interview with Chris Butcher, unpublished before now. Combined, the interviews take up 11 pages… and are a fascinating read. Everything from playing in the Halo playground (I think the HIH guys might have something to say about Bungie’s feelings of freedom in the three games) to how they work, to what sort of skills are important in turning out a top-tier game like Halo 3… it’s a great pair of interviews.(Louis Wu 15:19:34 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy let us know that she’s interviewed ZZoMBiE13, of Another Halo Comic Strip – it’s a great piece. Go read how ZZoMBiE13 got into this stuff in the first place… and what keeps him going!(Louis Wu 14:29:40 UTC)

ForgeHub‘s TrueDarkFusion let us know that he’s working on a Forging Retrospective – the first of three parts is up now. Come see how far they’ve come!(Louis Wu 14:27:10 UTC)

Nicodemus-07 announced the first trailer to his Halo 3 machinima series ‘Believer’ – a team of Spartans hunts for Cortana between Halo 2 and Halo 3. Go watch it on YouTube.(Louis Wu 14:23:11 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue reminded us that new Reclaimers are released on Mondays – Number 50 is now online. The Reclaimer’s mission objectives have changed a bit…(Louis Wu 14:21:23 UTC)

Haloplayer let us know that Lost Cause 18 is now out – if you’ve forgotten what’s going on (after all, Lost Cause 17 was released in mid-February), you might want to grab that one as a recap. 18 is available as streaming media, , plus multiple download flavors. The map used for the filming has been uploaded as well, if you want to play – check the IKP post for details.(Louis Wu 14:19:50 UTC)

Time Glitch let us know put together The Hacker – I’m mentioning it because the Xbox LIVE message should be real.(Louis Wu 19:54:21 UTC)

bndud announced a new trailer for Backlash, a machinima series that follows the Robbers Unite machinima series ‘Cops and Robbers’. Looks to be a mixture of Halo 2 and Halo 3 footage… first episode should be out on Friday. Keep your eyes peeled!(Louis Wu 15:29:26 UTC)

A video series called ‘Confirmed Kills’ has released Episode 10 – it’s a multikill special. Most of the kills seem relatively attainable by your average player – I’m front-paging this because this kind of series gets better with better clips, and they only get what’s submitted to them. If you’ve got some cool kills, send them the clips!(Louis Wu 15:19:53 UTC)

Over at Brightcove, there’s a clip from a WGC 2008 US Open Halo 3 match between Final Boss and Carbon; you can’t tell who wins it (it’s just a random 2 minute clip, with gameplay mixed with shots of the players), but it’s sort of fun. Maybe full games will come later. Looks like this was posted by eSports TV.(Louis Wu 15:17:04 UTC)

So I’m ashamed to say, I haven’t kept up on the RvB Sponsors forum as closely as I should have – which means I’ve missed some great content. Now, this content is only available to RvB sponsors, which (for most sites) would mean I’d pass over it in front-page news (we’re all about open-source material, baby)… but heck, it’s RvB. We ALWAYS mention RvB sponsor material. It’s the best $10 you’ll spend on Halo material, I think. The cool thing I noticed: there’s an interview with nico, about RvB music, that was deleted from the Bonus DVD – nico discusses where some of this came from, how Tex’s real name fits into things, and more evidence that RT hates – well, you’ll have to watch to learn.(Louis Wu 14:35:24 UTC)

shisno34 was the first to point out Arby ‘n’ the Chief Episode 12 – Conflict, Part 2 of 2. Will the Chief succeed in killing Todd and Travis? You’ll have to watch to find out!(Louis Wu 12:54:56 UTC)

Whee doggies! I love leaving the country. This morning, I got an email from the company that hosts the files*.bungie.org servers. One of their data centers had an explosion that knocked out several walls and an electrical equipment room. All servers are fine… but those hosted in that building are not accessible until (at the earliest) later this afternoon. (‘This afternoon’ would be Sunday, central standard time – the center is in Dallas.) This affects a number of bungie.org sites – the most relevant to Halo visitors is HaloScreenshots. Apologies for the outage – but we should be back up and running in the next 12 hours sometime.(Louis Wu 11:53:32 UTC)