Nthro Sraom wrote up a quick guide to the terminal locations in Halo 3. Don’t forget, finding all of them grants an achievement, and viewing all of their pages (which are different on Legendary difficulty) grants access to a lot of Halo 3’s backstory.

After Halo 3, VVV didn’t hold out much hope that he’d like the next installment, and he’s found that the game met his low expectations. Check out his review for a counterpoint to all the pro-Halo 3 enthusiasm. He does like the game– better than Halo 2– but there’s a bittersweet flavor to it for him.

Since I’ve been spending way too much time playing Halo 3, a lot of news has slipped by the last couple days:

Kotaku notes a new Xbox 360 bundle that includes Halo 3, destined for Europe.

TTL says Halo 3 is blam!ing awesome.

Wired interviews Frankie about Bungie’s independence and its future. This is actually one of the better interviews out there on the subject, and while there are still things Bungie won’t talk about, there’s less evasiveness here.

This I can’t let pass without comment:

FO: Microsoft Game Studios is our publisher for two projects that we’ve announced, and beyond that I can’t talk about the details of the deal, because we are a privately held LLC, but on the other hand Microsoft is a publicly held company, so they might be able to talk about those details in more depth than we can.

That’s a bit of spin there. Bungie being private doesn’t prevent them from talking about this deal; that’s a choice they’ve made. Microsoft being public doesn’t enable them to talk about this deal. What really should be said here is that, due to Microsoft being a publicly held company beholden to its shareholders, it might be compelled to talk about this deal, whereas Bungie cannot.

TeamXbox interviews Frankie about Bungie’s future relationship with the Halo franchise, and what it’s like to have other developers work on it.

BusinessWeek interviews Brian “SketchFactor” Jarrard on what Bungie plans to do next.

bs angel in a blog entry over at hawtymcbloggy a few useful netiquette tips for Social playlists on matchmaking.

Speaking of matchmaking, Bungie has rolled out its first playlist update, extending Big Team Battle back to 16 players, and adjusting the balance of shotty sniper games, the upshot of which being, you’ll get less shotty snipers, and if you do get shotty snipers, and you veto shotty snipers, the next game you get will not be shotty snipers. Me? I love shotty snipers.

Microsoft has updated its content usage rules for machinima makers. The changes are, to be kind, mild, and consists primarily of apologies for leaving things in, blamed on Microsoft’s lawyers.

The vague prohibition against “offensive” content is still there.

The music and sound clause now essentially says you’re on your own to secure those rights, instead of flat-out telling you that you can’t have them, which is good. It also says Halo music is okay to use due to an agreement with Marty O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori. No word on sound effects, though.

The clause about “lost chapters” or backstory now says you can do this, but if you do you’re granting Microsoft permission to use what you make, royalty-free, worldwide, without crediting you. Not that they actually want to do that, but they have to make sure machinima makers can’t sue Microsoft for coincidental similarities. Not that Microsoft would lose those suits, but just going to court costs money.

Stories from HBO were used in compiling this report.

Halo 3 may be the most modifiable game for a console thanks to Forge. Nearly everything in each multiplayer map can be moved and modified. Map variants can be created or friends can use Forge to play games. We take a look at the features and limitations of Forge after the jump.

What is Forge?

Forge is a map editor of sorts that allows users to change everything about multiplayer maps except the actual geometry. Gamers can edit the maps to create cool variants or just try out new possibilities and gametypes in the editor.

The original Forge was a map editor for the Marathon games created by Bungie. Its sister program, Anvil, was used for physics and graphics editing (new textures or sprites anyone?) This enabled gamers to make their own levels with varied levels of success. I attempted two levels, neither of which was very fun, but the attempt was educational. Several completely new campaigns were developed by fans that were successful.

Halo 3’s Forge is not going to let people make new campaigns but it does allow for a ton of fun changes that will result in new gametypes and complete reinventions of the included multiplayer maps.

Ease of Use: the Menu

The menu system that allows you to edit the map is well thought out and fairly intuitive. Once you turn into a monitor by hitting up on the D-pad, you can hit X to bring up the menu of items that are available to add. They are divided up into categories such as weapons, vehicles, goals and scenery.

While the menu is generally fast to use, it can take a long time to scroll to the bottom of a large list. An ability to scroll upwards from the top of the list to get to the bottom would be nice.

Ease of Use: Object Placement

Now that you have found an object you want to add to the map, you simply hit A to place it. Bungie has allowed a lot of control over placing the objects. Perhaps too much.

After you hit A the item appears and you (the monitor) are holding it in the air. You can drop it by hitting A and move it and yourself around with the right and left thumbsticks. Holding the left trigger makes your monitor move faster. While holding the right trigger, the left thumbstick moves it toward you or away from you. The right thumbstick rotates it in any direction. While being able to stand a rocket launcher or sniper rifle against a wall is cool, having a slightly off balance turret fall of the map is not.

There are two main limitations. You have a certain amount of virtual money (Halo currency) to spend on placing items on each map. Each object also has a maximum amount of instances that it can be placed on the map. The main purpose of these limitations was to allow Halo 3 to continue running smoothly. These limitations also helped turn Forge into a place where games are not just made but can actually happen.

The amount of currency available is dependent on the map. Also, the amount each object costs seems to be based on its power in the game and size. The limit on number of objects seems to be based on size and the amount of processing power it takes for the thing to operate in the game. Tanks, for instance, cost the most and can only appear on maps in small numbers. Most of the time these limits are reasonable so I won’t complain. Sometimes they don’t make sense. On Last Resort (the new Zanzibar) you cannot add any Brute Choppers. While its not exactly an open level, the Chopper handles well enough that it should be allowed on this map. Yet, you can place a Wraith tank on High Ground which makes very little sense.

Overall, the restrictions Bungie placed on items are reasonable and only occasionally impend on what the map designer wants to do.

Customization

In addition, several things can be customized about each item. The most notable is respawn rate. If you want rockets to be always available set it to a low number of seconds. Setting it high, however, makes the item much more valuable to have. The amount of ammunition each weapon has is also editable. For example, a Spiker or Carbine can have zero, one or two spare clips when you pick it up. The other main property is whether the item appears in symmetrical game types, asymmetric, or both.

Sadly, some things cannot be changed. Some weapons’ ammo level cannot be changed (Spartan Laser and Beam Rifle for example). Shield doors cannot be removed because they are part of the geometry of the maps. The custom powerup cannot be edited in forge; its bonuses are set when a custom game is created using the new map. By default it increases your speed.

The level of customization is pretty much unheard of, especially on a console. Still some of the limits (like the inability to increase or decrease ammo in some of the power weapons) seem pointless.

Bungie.net Features

Uploading your map to Bungie.net is as simple as adding it to your file share. Once it shows up in your profile you can click a link that will create a forum post about your creation. You can type a description then your map will be added to the Halo 3 files forum for the world to donwload, try out and rate. Once a user clicks to download your map, Halo 3 will automatically download it at the next time it is able. Ratings are out of 5 and are based on anyone who sees your map on the forum and votes.

So how easy is it to find good stuff? Well, the best of the best will appear in Bungie’s favorites. It is basically a huge file share with some of the top screenshots, gametypes, maps and films from the community. Beyond that, is the Community Files Spotlight. In this section, I don’t see a way to sort by highest rating so finding something cool may be tough. Only two of the maps on the first page of the Community Files Spotlight have more than ten ratings and a rating of 5.

Summary

Forge is a huge addition to the game and will bring months of gameplay to true Halo fans. Whether you are playing Rocket Race on Valhalla or creating the next killer version of CTF on Construct, there is plenty here. Creating maps takes some patience and maybe even some privacy. My main complaints are: a few limitations that don’t make sense, rotating objects to the desired position can be tough, and the only place to quickly find super maps is in Bungie’s Favorites (except for Podtacular.com of course). Other than those quirks, Forge was easy to use and incredibly fun to mess around in.

You can check out my first creation “Fast Escape CTF” on Guardian at Bungie.net.

Help w/ Forge:
JBurton’s FAQ on Podtacular
How-tos on Bungie.net

Action from the Hushed Casket 5th Anniversary LAN

It’s 10 PM on Saturday night, October 6th. The temperature is 81 degrees Fahrenheit, but my central A/C unit has been running non-stop since noon. There are 38 people in my house playing Halo 3 multiplayer in four separate games on 26 Xbox 360s, most of them connected to high definition displays. In my office sits five gamers I’ve never met. Two exhausted gamers sleep in my living room amidst the commotion. My electrical meter spins like God’s own anti-son-of-a-bitch machine. This must be the THX 5th Birthday LAN.

Someone LAN’d on top of my laundry machine

NDA-breaking cell-phone video from the event

Setup for the LAN began on Friday just before 4 P.M. JDogg arrived with 32” LCD HDTV in tow and Willdabeast wasn’t far behind toting his own version of the same. Slayer arrived at the same time and set up his display near the kitchen. They were the first…the first of many.

Later that evening my two weekend houseguests arrived: Goku from Chattanooga, TN, and Enraged Gnome from Macon, GA. We got their setups installed in my guest bedroom, including Goku’s obscenely large and crisp CRT HDTV and Gnome’s leet 5.1 headphones. By then EA, Disavowed, and Mintz had also arrived, so we constructed the necessary network architecture and commenced a mini-LAN, purely to test the equipment. It all held up for several hours, so we declared it fit for duty.

Goku and EnragedGnome

Mintz and Disavowed builds CAT5 cable.

The next day, Saturday, the real LAN began. Oculus, who is just this guy, you know…arrived promptly at 10 AM to kick it off with his 42” LCD and Dell 2407, each connected to an Xbox 360. Shortly thereafter everyone else began to arrive in droves. We further expanded the network architecture to support the new consoles and duct taped cables to the floor for minimal trippage. Seven CAT-5e wall outlets throughout my house are networked to a closet in my office. We connected each outlet to a 16-port Netgear Switch in the closet and put a 4 or 8-port switch on each outlet to service multiple Xboxen. My Belkin router and Linksys cable modem were trunked to the central switch to provide internet access to all. When the LAN arose we were all logged into Xbox Live and each of our custom games was tracked on Bungie.net. Pwn!

From L-R: Willdabeast’s 32″ LCD, Oculus’ 42″ LCD, Smokey’s 21″ CRT, ICANHAZCHEEBURGER’s Big Macs, dirtyJ’s 15″ LCD

a small ISP

One custom game lobby (all games were played on LAN but stats appear on B.net)

We started with MLG team slayer. I found it to be a bit stale, actually thinking there were too many battle rifles on the map (which sounds looney). Then we tried a THX-tweaked team slayer variant with 125% weapon damage and BR start. It was fun, but 125% may indeed be too much. An assault rifle can lay waste to you at 50 yards if you are low on shield. The team slayer tweak I liked best was as follows:

– 110% damage
– BR start
– AR secondary
– no airborne vehicles
– no radar

I actually prefer radar, but the majority like it disabled, so I can live with that. We played numerous team slayer variants throughout the evening. TS was probably the most played gametype, followed closely by Rocket Race at Valhalla and Sandtrap.

THchiX gaming in style

It’s difficult for me to be sure what other games were being played, as there were generally three games being hosted at any one time and sometimes four. I think I saw EA, Gnome, and Goku playing more objective-based games. During a break in the action we paused to cut the THX birthday cake. I said some words and Foulbreed cut the cake into ridiculously large pieces. I suppose he hadn’t eaten dinner yet. We passed slices of cake around the room, Office Space style, but unlike poor Milton everyone managed to get a piece.

Another THX birthday cake

Cake cutting ceremony: FoulBreed and Midnight

Then the LAN continued, except for Mintz who went to eat dinner with five married women. The estrogenated effects of this were later noticed when him and Slayer were seen throwing a Pampered Chef party near the raised turret platform in “The Pit.” Foulbreed and Reverend talked smack to each other from across the house, and we briefly discussed civil law as we tried to determine how FoulBreed’s ownership of Reverend affected Rev’s belongings.

Mintz leaves the Halo 3 LAN to go to dinner with 5 women. Genius or I-D-10-T?

Someone left the pre-game lobby open and these guys showed up

Holy Shit dropped by, and we took turns hating each other as we each alternated driving the other around Valhalla on Mongeese during Rocket Race. I had to forcibly remove Shyzza and Torrent from co-op campaign on my 30” CRT HDTV. Skull hunting is acceptable late at night when you have only 2 friends on XBL—not at the biggest LAN party of the year.

Beanor, Torrent, JDOGG (huge Alabama fan), and Xray (small Tennessee fan)

2.1M pixels…or is that 640p?

By midnight the crowd had thinned to about 12 conscious gamers and 14 hours had passed since the LAN had kicked off. Correctly surmising that it would take a while to get everyone packed up and on his way, I called an end to the LAN around 12:15 A.M. We tore down in record time, and everyone pitched in to clean up like I’ve never seen before. At 12:45 A.M. my house looked almost normal again. I do have some closing thoughts, but they fit more of a “random thoughts” style than into paragraph form.

I threw a LAN party and a small used car lot happened

– All games were played on our LAN. But if you were logged into XBOX Live while at the LAN your HALO 3 game stats got uploaded to Bungie.net. MLG is going to love this. Too bad there aren’t any LAN achievements.

– To the gamer who put my microphone completely inside his mouth: BattleItch saw you and the mic cover has now been disinfected. Please don’t do that again.

– Goku and Gnome were the lowest-maintenance house guests I can imagine.

– I think the LAN improved my Halo 3 skills. It definitely made me learn the maps.

– Critter, you should have stayed longer. We could have gotten you onto a TV.

– I have Reverend’s CRT TV. I don’t want Reverend’s CRT TV. Goodwill does want Reverend’s CRT TV. Goodwill does pickups on Fridays. You figure out the rest.

– I have someone’s 4-port Netgear hub. Unlike CRT TVs, I actually do want networking hubs, but if you come to pick it up I will begrudgingly return it to you. I shall never remind you about it again.

– On Sunday I gave Goku, Gnome, and EA all the leftover soda and snacks they would take, leaving me with more soda and snacks than I know what to do with. Damn you and your cakes, Little Debbie!

– I want a UNSC cap like Xray. I do not want to vomit like Xray.

– Little plastic tables from Wal-Mart are going to be clutch for BYOS LANs.

– BYOS LANs are going to be the wave of the future. People that had a 360 and screen to themselves required almost no external coordination after initial setup.

– Thanks to Dirty J for making my router talk to EA’s switch and granting us XBL access.

– Thanks to Disavowed for making an ethernet cable for the LAN, and then fixing the ethernet cable that Mintz botched. It’s OK, Mintz. I’ve botched many just the way you did.

– The parking plan worked pretty well, but it’s still extraordinary how far the cars stretched in both directions.

– It’s been a great 5 years.

– I can’t wait until the next one. I’m just glad it’ll be at someone else’s house.

– Pictures from the event can be found in on our Flickr site: http://flickr.com/groups/hushedcasket/pool/

– Incomplete LAN roster can be found in the old LAN planning thread.

Action from the Hushed Casket 5th Anniversary LAN

It’s 10 PM on Saturday night, October 6th. The temperature is 81 degrees Fahrenheit, but my central A/C unit has been running non-stop since noon. There are 38 people in my house playing Halo 3 multiplayer in four separate games on 26 Xbox 360s, most of them connected to high definition displays. In my office sits five gamers I’ve never met. Two exhausted gamers sleep in my living room amidst the commotion. My electrical meter spins like God’s own anti-son-of-a-bitch machine. This must be the THX 5th Birthday LAN.

Someone LAN’d on top of my laundry machine

NDA-breaking cell-phone video from the event

Setup for the LAN began on Friday just before 4 P.M. JDogg arrived with 32” LCD HDTV in tow and Willdabeast wasn’t far behind toting his own version of the same. Slayer arrived at the same time and set up his display near the kitchen. They were the first…the first of many.

Later that evening my two weekend houseguests arrived: Goku from Chattanooga, TN, and Enraged Gnome from Macon, GA. We got their setups installed in my guest bedroom, including Goku’s obscenely large and crisp CRT HDTV and Gnome’s leet 5.1 headphones. By then EA, Disavowed, and Mintz had also arrived, so we constructed the necessary network architecture and commenced a mini-LAN, purely to test the equipment. It all held up for several hours, so we declared it fit for duty.

Goku and EnragedGnome

Mintz and Disavowed builds CAT5 cable.

The next day, Saturday, the real LAN began. Oculus, who is just this guy, you know…arrived promptly at 10 AM to kick it off with his 42” LCD and Dell 2407, each connected to an Xbox 360. Shortly thereafter everyone else began to arrive in droves. We further expanded the network architecture to support the new consoles and duct taped cables to the floor for minimal trippage. Seven CAT-5e wall outlets throughout my house are networked to a closet in my office. We connected each outlet to a 16-port Netgear Switch in the closet and put a 4 or 8-port switch on each outlet to service multiple Xboxen. My Belkin router and Linksys cable modem were trunked to the central switch to provide internet access to all. When the LAN arose we were all logged into Xbox Live and each of our custom games was tracked on Bungie.net. Pwn!

From L-R: Willdabeast’s 32” LCD, Oculus’ 42” LCD, Smokey’s 21” CRT, ICANHAZCHEEBURGER’s Big Macs, dirtyJ’s 15” LCD

a small ISP

One custom game lobby (all games were played on LAN but stats appear on B.net)

We started with MLG team slayer. I found it to be a bit stale, actually thinking there were too many battle rifles on the map (which sounds looney). Then we tried a THX-tweaked team slayer variant with 125% weapon damage and BR start. It was fun, but 125% may indeed be too much. An assault rifle can lay waste to you at 50 yards if you are low on shield. The team slayer tweak I liked best was as follows:

• 110% damage
• BR start
• AR secondary
• no airborne vehicles
• no radar

I actually prefer radar, but the majority like it disabled, so I can live with that. We played numerous team slayer variants throughout the evening. TS was probably the most played gametype, followed closely by Rocket Race at Valhalla and Sandtrap.

THchiX gaming in style

It’s difficult for me to be sure what other games were being played, as there were generally three games being hosted at any one time and sometimes four. I think I saw EA, Gnome, and Goku playing more objective-based games. During a break in the action we paused to cut the THX birthday cake. I said some words and Foulbreed cut the cake into ridiculously large pieces. I suppose he hadn’t eaten dinner yet. We passed slices of cake around the room, Office Space style, but unlike poor Milton everyone managed to get a piece.

Another THX birthday cake

Cake cutting ceremony: FoulBreed and Midnight

Then the LAN continued, except for Mintz who went to eat dinner with five married women. The estrogenated effects of this were later noticed when him and Slayer were seen throwing a Pampered Chef party near the raised turret platform in “The Pit.” Foulbreed and Reverend talked smack to each other from across the house, and we briefly discussed civil law as we tried to determine how FoulBreed’s ownership of Reverend affected Rev’s belongings.

Mintz leaves the Halo 3 LAN to go to dinner with 5 women. Genius or I-D-10-T?

Someone left the pre-game lobby open and these guys showed up

Holy Shit dropped by, and we took turns hating each other as we each alternated driving the other around Valhalla on Mongeese during Rocket Race. I had to forcibly remove Shyzza and Torrent from co-op campaign on my 30” CRT HDTV. Skull hunting is acceptable late at night when you have only 2 friends on XBL—not at the biggest LAN party of the year.

Beanor, Torrent, JDOGG (huge Alabama fan), and Xray (small Tennessee fan)

2.1M pixels…or is that 640p?

By midnight the crowd had thinned to about 12 conscious gamers and 14 hours had passed since the LAN had kicked off. Correctly surmising that it would take a while to get everyone packed up and on his way, I called an end to the LAN around 12:15 A.M. We tore down in record time, and everyone pitched in to clean up like I’ve never seen before. At 12:45 A.M. my house looked almost normal again. I do have some closing thoughts, but they fit more of a “random thoughts” style than into paragraph form.

I threw a LAN party and a small used car lot happened

• All games were played on our LAN. But if you were logged into XBOX Live while at the LAN your HALO 3 game stats got uploaded to Bungie.net. MLG is going to love this. Too bad there aren’t any LAN achievements.

• To the gamer who put my microphone completely inside his mouth: BattleItch saw you and the mic cover has now been disinfected. Please don’t do that again.

• Goku and Gnome were the lowest-maintenance house guests I can imagine.

• I think the LAN improved my Halo 3 skills. It definitely made me learn the maps.

• Critter, you should have stayed longer. We could have gotten you onto a TV.

• I have Reverend’s CRT TV. I don’t want Reverend’s CRT TV. Goodwill does want Reverend’s CRT TV. Goodwill does pickups on Fridays. You figure out the rest.

• I have someone’s 4-port Netgear hub. Unlike CRT TVs, I actually do want networking hubs, but if you come to pick it up I will begrudgingly return it to you. I shall never remind you about it again.

• On Sunday I gave Goku, Gnome, and EA all the leftover soda and snacks they would take, leaving me with more soda and snacks than I know what to do with. Damn you and your cakes, Little Debbie!

• I want a UNSC cap like Xray. I do not want to vomit like Xray.

• Little plastic tables from Wal-Mart are going to be clutch for BYOS LANs.

• BYOS LANs are going to be the wave of the future. People that had a 360 and screen to themselves required almost no external coordination after initial setup.

• Thanks to Dirty J for making my router talk to EA’s switch and granting us XBL access.

• Thanks to Disavowed for making an ethernet cable for the LAN, and then fixing the ethernet cable that Mintz botched. It’s OK, Mintz. I’ve botched many just the way you did.

• The parking plan worked pretty well, but it’s still extraordinary how far the cars stretched in both directions.

• It’s been a great 5 years.

• I can’t wait until the next one. I’m just glad it’ll be at someone else’s house.

• Pictures from the event can be found in on our Flickr site: http://flickr.com/groups/hushedcasket/pool/

• Incomplete LAN roster can be found in the old LAN planning thread.