Today Activision launched a site for Guitar Hero III (www.guitarhero.com) that appears to be a start towards what Bungie.net is for Halo 3. You can register your name, create a band for your friends, and earn “groupies” for various things. It’s pretty cool. I created a band called The Hushed Casket. If any THX’ers want to join, just create a profile and search for it. Eventually it is supposed to track scores and provide a lot of other cool social networking features. Official press release is below with more info.

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Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), in partnership with Agora Games, a leading provider of online community development and in-game data collection, announced today that a new dedicated Guitar Hero community teaser website has launched, and fans can now visit www.GuitarHero.com to get a Backstage Pass to obtain insider information, news announcements, exclusive behind the scenes footage of Slash and other in-game talent, gameplay videos, and screenshots. Aspiring axe-shredders will also have the ability to pre-order and hear snippets from the set list of the highly anticipated title, Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock.

Fans who are first to sign up will have the exciting opportunity to create their own account and claim their stage name, which will be their unique identity on the official Guitar Hero community site, scoreboards, and forums. After the game launches on October 28, 2007, players will be able to go “on tour” by creating or joining a group to compare scores, and compete online in global head to head tournaments with other tour groups, along with the opportunity to establish new friendships and connect with other passionate Guitar Hero fans from around the world. They can also build a “rock radius” to opt-in and see friends, tour group members and players to connect with online through a global map.

To complete the rock star experience, fans can obtain groupies on the road to stardom while earning the title of Indie to Rock Star to Guitar Hero and shredding their way into the Hall of Fame. Groupies will determine a player’s popularity around the Backstage Pass, as well as on the full community site. For a limited time, players can now earn groupies by telling friends about their band and getting them to register on the site to join their tour group.

Today Activision launched a site for Guitar Hero III (www.guitarhero.com) that appears to be a start towards what Bungie.net is for Halo 3. You can register your name, create a band for your friends, and earn “groupies” for various things. It’s pretty cool. I created a band called The Hushed Casket. If any THX’ers want to join, just create a profile and search for it. Eventually it is supposed to track scores and provide a lot of other cool social networking features. Official press release is below with more info.

——————————————–

Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), in partnership with Agora Games, a leading provider of online community development and in-game data collection, announced today that a new dedicated Guitar Hero community teaser website has launched, and fans can now visit www.GuitarHero.com to get a Backstage Pass to obtain insider information, news announcements, exclusive behind the scenes footage of Slash and other in-game talent, gameplay videos, and screenshots. Aspiring axe-shredders will also have the ability to pre-order and hear snippets from the set list of the highly anticipated title, Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock.

Fans who are first to sign up will have the exciting opportunity to create their own account and claim their stage name, which will be their unique identity on the official Guitar Hero community site, scoreboards, and forums. After the game launches on October 28, 2007, players will be able to go “on tour” by creating or joining a group to compare scores, and compete online in global head to head tournaments with other tour groups, along with the opportunity to establish new friendships and connect with other passionate Guitar Hero fans from around the world. They can also build a “rock radius” to opt-in and see friends, tour group members and players to connect with online through a global map.

To complete the rock star experience, fans can obtain groupies on the road to stardom while earning the title of Indie to Rock Star to Guitar Hero and shredding their way into the Hall of Fame. Groupies will determine a player’s popularity around the Backstage Pass, as well as on the full community site. For a limited time, players can now earn groupies by telling friends about their band and getting them to register on the site to join their tour group.

So what’s the state of the Halo Nation? Mighty fine. Communities have been stepping up to the plate with some awesome tournaments and giveaways.

• Platform Nation has a Halo 3 tournament happening now where you can win Halo 3: Legendary Edition!
• Cavegirls are hosting the second annual “Fight like a girl” Halo 3 tournament to benefit breast cancer research.
• Global Gaming League has a $10,000 1v1 Halo 3 tournament going on.
• Goozex has an HD-DVD player giveaway for Podtacular members and a Halo 3 Xbox360 giveaway for sharing their facebook app.
• Podtacular of course isn’t to be left out, we have a big and well organized 4 player co-op tournament going on, a mongoose racing tournament, and even a spikeball tournament!

Welcome back to active duty, Halo Nation! Let me know if I missed any big events and/or giveaways.

Introducing the THX Live section of the Hushed Casket web interface: This is just the first step in a series of changes we’re planning on bringing to the THX website. THX Live is now the comprehensive view providing a place for you to go and see all of the content & comments on a single page.

You will also notice the new “Commen117s” section to the right of the page. This was coded from our very own fingers (which are also sore from the repeated abuse of the veto button in the pregame lobby of H3). Click “read more” to find out how it works:

-The latest 30 comments are ALWAYS displayed
-Comments are grouped according to which thread or story it belongs to
-New comments will bump their respective group to the top of the overall section
-Comments that you have not seen before will be “White Hot”
-A snippet of each comment is now provided to you.

The Commen117s section is still considered beta, so please go here to provide feedback if you have any opinions. There’s going to be lots of changes in the future.

Introducing the THX Live section of the Hushed Casket web interface: This is just the first step in a series of changes we’re planning on bringing to the THX website. THX Live is now the comprehensive view providing a place for you to go and see all of the content & comments on a single page.

You will also notice the new “Commen117s” section to the right of the page. This was coded from our very own fingers (which are also sore from the repeated abuse of the veto button in the pregame lobby of H3). Click “read more” to find out how it works:

-The latest 30 comments are ALWAYS displayed
-Comments are grouped according to which thread or story it belongs to
-New comments will bump their respective group to the top of the overall section
-Comments that you have not seen before will be “White Hot”
-A snippet of each comment is now provided to you.

The Commen117s section is still considered beta, so please go here to provide feedback if you have any opinions. There’s going to be lots of changes in the future.

Alex Seropian of Wideload Games delivered the keynote address at GarageGames’ IndieGamesCon conference. GamaSutra has a summary of the content of Seropian’s talk, including the Wideload Commandments.

If you’ve played your way through Halo 3’s campaign, you’ve most likely come across these terminals at some point in the game. Once activated, they display a cryptic set of messages that, unless you’re paying attention, might seem like utter nonsense.

As it turns out, member TheRussianKoLob has found all of the terminals and nabbed the achievement for doing so, but he’s also gone a step further by transcribing all the messages and information from these terminals, in an effort to piece together the story behind them.

Check out the discussion here