For folks working on the decoding of the various pages at halo2.com, there’s a great thread over at the Unfiction forums; you’ll find a really useful decoder based on shape, rather than alphabetical order. (If you want alphabetical order, there’s also this one, posted over in the Bungie.net forums – but the signal to noise ratio is much higher over there.) Pretty much all of the text has been decoded at this point. (I even know it’s right, because BOLL cheated, and extracted the XML file that’s being used to GENERATE the text – and it’s in English. No, I’m not gonna show you what he found, because it’s not particularly sporting.) The only things that are not yet decoded are the three password-protected screens in the Prophet subring. And according to one person on the Unfiction forums, those will not BE decoded until the Flash asset involved is actually updated with a real password. So for now, enjoy the site, and the new glimpses into the wonder of Halo 2… and try not to stumble over any major spoilers on other sites. Update: for the lazy among you, NK has decoded the entire site, graphically. It removes the enjoyment of doing it yourself… but hey, nobody’s forcing you. Because it’s far too much work right now to set up a page where you can see these one at a time, I’ve packaged them all up (43 images in all) – you can grab them here (1.8 mb). Thanks, NK!

Need something to read? Something to fire up the neurons and kick the axons in the pants? Try the Halo Story Page. Chock full of conjectural hypothesizing and loaded with really neat stuff. And it’s been updated. Today. By me, strangely enough.

The overhaul of halo2.com is complete – sort of. It’s pretty much unviewable on a mac – it works well on XP/Firefox and XP/IE (though the IE version takes over your screen; there’s no way to get to the desktop any more, without closing the window). The outbound link is also busted, though I’m sure they’ll fix that at some point. All text is in the same code as the teaser stuff we mentioned last night. It’s fun to explore – though there ARE vehicles, weapons, and buildings (and maybe aliens – I haven’t fully explored it) that you’ve never seen before… that’s your spoiler warning. There are at least 3 downloadables – I found some wallpaper. Thanks to Elite TAR, who pointed it out first. Update: I was wrong – the site IS viewable on a mac; OSX/IE5 seems to be a useable combination. (I didn’t even test IE before, since Microsoft abandoned development on it over a year ago.) Thanks, -Nash–housewares. Update 2: w00t! BOLL managed to find a direct link that lets you view the main part of the site (at least the North American version) in a window – it’s now watchable on Macs (any browser)! (It’ll also respond better for PCs that aren’t the top of the line…) Thanks, BOLL!

It hurts to do this, but the forum is shut down for the foreseeable future. Why? Because even though our stance has been consistent, folks out there still don’t take to heart our policy on leaks, spoilers, pirating, etc.

Considering it’s not a right but a privilege, instead of tearing our hair out for the next few weeks until Halo 2 officially launches, we’ll turn it off (you can still read, but you can’t post) if we think you folks are making things too difficult for us to moderate and stay on top of.

Why do we have to feel like we’re fathers punishing our bratty children? I don’t know, I really don’t. Peace out.

Forgot to post this last night – Hawaiian Pig did another RvB MegaBattle pic, but with a twist – it’s the Anti-Leak Edition. Ouch!

Kryptonic lets us know about a new piece of artwork by vegasmike over at DeviantArt. Before you go – realize that this is a sketch of a new enemy that shows up in the latest issue of EGM; some people consider its mere EXISTENCE to be a spoiler. If that’s you, don’t follow the link. For the rest of you, check out this really nice sketch!

pOgO points out an auction on eBay.co.uk for a pop art Halo 2 painting. I sort of wish the artist had chosen a pose that DIDN’T come straight from a screenshot… but it’s a nice work, anyway. (Me, I wouldn’t be selling stuff like this when Microsoft Legal’s in such a tizzy… but then, I’m a coward.) Speaking of eBay, the full action figure auction we mentioned recently has heated up; current bid is over $1,000, and the number of visits has turned the counter over. It’s still a deal – you’re getting stuff you can’t actually buy ANYWHERE – but man, that’s a lot of dough.

More new comics out there today… J_Speeder talks about a new episode of E.A.R.”T.H.” (though it’s in movie form, and a mammoth 45 mb, on Freewebs, so I’m guessing it won’t be accessible within about 10 minutes of this news post), and Halo Babies has a new strip up, looking at one area Cortana MIGHT not be the sharpest tack in the box. (Halo Babies also has an interview with the creators of MC and Cortana, and an anti-piracy message up as new content.) Go see!

Today’s IGN Countdown to Halo 2 article is a diatribe about pirating – appropriate, and a pretty good read (awesome if you contrast it to the last few in this series). Go check it out. First heads-up came from Mumbly JoE, last night.

Pallor points out today’s edition of GU Comics, commenting on the Halo 2 piracy issue. Sounds about right…

Everyone and their brother has pointed out that 1) the same symbols that had appeared on the Halo 2 teaser wallpaper for the Halo2.com site relaunch have appeared on the site itself, clearly in a countdown to the changeover. And the code itself has been cracked, by hundreds (if not thousands) of people – the wallpaper reads ‘BTW Cortana is hot now’, and the site itself reads ‘All your base are belong to us and we love bees’. Yes, there’ll be more. No, I don’t know yet how in-depth our coverage is gonna get; the ILB storyline hasn’t fully played out yet (though it’s pretty darn close now), and I’m loathe to remove the discussion ban from our forum. Bottom line, though – you can stop telling us about this, and stop posting it on the forum. It’s there, and we know. Thanks! Update: here’s a good thread on the decoding – pretty pictures. (Although he can’t add very well – total image size is 126k.)

Murph McManus points out that a new MC and Cortana comic is up.

Shishka wrote a nice FAQ about the leaked copy of Halo 2, and what spreading it might mean to you, specifically, over on the B.net forums. Some of the content is Bungie.net-specific – but folks should take heed of the warnings about the banning of your Gamertag from the Halo 2 experience… Thanks, kwdono04. (You might have trouble accessing this post; B.net is being flakey right now. Keep trying.)

dwchief pointed out a new cordless XBL headset from Logitech – it looks nice, but it ain’t cheap. ($79.99, though that includes a communicator, which the $50 corded Plantronics does not. I don’t count the 2 free months on XBL, since you can get that almost anywhere.) I was amused by the actual text – “the ability to play Xbox Live games over the Internet with complete cordless freedom — from up to 30 feet away — for the first time.” I mean… how useful is that… if your controller is sitting over by the television set? Anyway, dwchief found the info in this Teamxbox article, and there are more details on Logitech’s product page. 30 foot range aside, the ability to go cordless is actually quite nice, as you might find when you’re juking in your chair, trying to get away from that nasty elite…

While we’re on the subject of Fiction – there are 8 new pieces in the Fan Fiction section today. Enjoy.

rockslider points out that Frontline With Suzie is back on the airwaves with an interview with some little people.

Gah. The other thing I missed yesterday was Blackstar’s latest Calvin and Halo. Which is kind of a bummer, since it really was appropriate for yesterday. Go read.

I missed yesterday’s countdown article at IGN – but it’s almost worth missing, because it perpetuates a myth that simply isn’t worth perpetuating. It’s a story from IGN editor Hilary Goldstein about a conversation he had with Pete Parsons a year and a half ago. Pete told him that Halo was not coming out in 2003; he discusses how that made him feel. The thing to remember, however, is that at that point, nobody had announced ANY date for Halo 2’s release – this was a courtesy heads-up to a journalist, not ‘being told that Halo 2’s being delayed’. Go read, but remember, November 9 is the first date EVER OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED AS A RELEASE DATE FOR HALO 2. Thanks to the myriad of folks who pointed this out… I think El337 was first.

Sumthing Distribution, the producer behind the Halo 2 Soundtrack, has put up a track listing for Volume One. There are some typos (Mjoiner?), but you can see what percentage is O’Donnell/Salvatori music, and what percentage is from other bands. (The Incubus piece is 4 movements!) Thanks, Cybrfrk. Update: Oops, seems like Multipilot found an article over at TeamXbox with that listing (though no link back to the source, tsk, tsk) several hours earlier. Sorry, Multipilot!

Wow. Some scumbag uploaded a Halo attract movie to our ftp space; we served a lot of copies before someone was kind enough to tell me about it. I’ve shut down our ftp space for the time being – I don’t have time to monitor it minute by minute, I’d rather it were offline than being used like this. Folks who need to upload files to us – feel free to email me, I’ll give you a private, temporary link (use it or lose it). [Update: This does NOT mean you should mail me asking to see the video – it’s people who do that make me wish I could reach through the internet and smack you upside your head.] It sucks that the majority end up suffering for the idiocy of a few… but that’s the way it goes. In a similar vein, SketchFactor over at Bungie.net has asked for the community’s help in shutting down sources of this leak; yeah, they’ll keep coming back up, but the hope is, the number of people outraged will actually exceed the number breaking the law. Also, Deimos Fawkes, of Subnova, has posted an address where you can send mail; he’ll do the job of weeding through duplicates and the like before forwarding to Bungie. Update: Apparently, the term ‘attract movie’ isn’t as common as I thought. If you leave your Xbox idling on the start screen for Halo (or Halo 2), it will eventually cycle through several movies – showing solo, coop, and multiplayer gameplay. One of these movies, for Halo 2, was what was uploaded. (The name goes back to arcade games, I think, when ‘attract mode’ was the gameplay that would show on the screen to entice you to drop your quarter in the slot.)