Reading our forum for these past couple of days has been painful. Dozens and dozens of new people (or even old hands who should know better), jumping in with links to rumors around the net, stating that Halo 2 will be out next week (or by November 28, or in time for Christmas)… SketchFactor jumped in this morning with a Rumor Buster:

Despite all the juicy rumors floating around the net lately, I can confirm with absolute certainty that Halo 2 is NOT coming out in 2003. As we have said for quite some time now, the game will be released when it is done and that will be in 2004. It is not coming out next week. It will not be on store shelves this holiday. Why would anyone want to do a “secret release” with a property as big as Halo 2 anyways? What possible benefit is there in sneaking it onto shelves without making the consumer aware?

Please remember that unless you hear it direct from Bungie, you shouldn’t pay attention to any release dates or speculation you see or hear. I’m sorry to crush hopes of playing the game early but it’s better than getting your hopes up prematurely. I’m as eager as you are to get my hands on the finished game but we’re not there yet.

When the time is right, I imagine we will have more to say about a firm release date. For now, we stand by what we’ve always said – Halo 2 will be released when it’s finished.

It don’t get any clearer than that, folks. It’s a rumor. And it’s been busted. I think I hear a fat lady singing…

Stuntmutt takes a shot at Halo PC shortcomings in today’s One One Se7en. (This was FAR more relevant a month ago… blame the limitations of time, rather than Stuntmutt, for this.)

So what do you do when the AI in your head starts making you hear voices? (Well, her voice, anyway…) Check today’s Halo: Resolution.

Jake ‘Evergreen98’ Billo over at the Junkyard has written an interesting article on Halo’s User Interface, a part of the game you don’t pay a lot of attention to. (In general, the better a UI design is, the less you notice it. It’s there to facilitate your gameplay, not make itself known. Halo’s is quite good.) Take a look!

Okay, I’m posting this to decrease the mail flood, not because I want to lend any validity to the absurdity. There are rumors around the net right now that Halo 2 will be released, in a suprise move, in less than a week. (Here’s one story now.) I don’t have any inside information on when the game will be out… but I can say, with certainty, that if it DOES pop onto store shelves next Saturday, I’ll probably stop running this site, because I will have clear evidence of how far out of the loop I really am. I believe there WILL be some Halo-related announcements – quite possibly the Halo 2 DVD/Controller bundle we mentioned yesterday, or maybe something bigger – but it won’t be Halo 2, finished and boxed. I’m as sure of that as I am that I watched a pretty cool lunar eclipse last night. (Side note: if you have news for posting on HBO, please – send it to halo@bungie.org; my personal address is to be used for personal communication, not general news. When I’m out of town, anything you send to me, personally, languishes until I’m back, whereas info sent to the main HBO address gets read by a number of people with posting privileges. Thanks!)

Jillybean points out one possible use for newbies in today’s guest One One Se7en. Please don’t try this at home. Professional MC on a closed track.

Another massive Halo Story page update, Finn this time. Lots and lots and lots to read. Go read.

Lots of good tech info from the Westlake programmers on the IMG forum – if that goes offline, Madscientist transcribed a bunch of it in this forum post. Not long now!

mrsmiley stopped by last night to point out a new Halo Babies cartoon – I’m just reaching that section of the forum now. Looks like we’re getting away from water balloons to me… Explore the Halo Babies site, there’s also a bunch of other new stuff; new banner ads, AIM Buddy icons, and some new site streamlining. Check it all out!

343GS has put up yet another teaser for their upcoming Flash Halo game; it’s a downloadable standalone Flash executable (runnable only on Windows platforms) with a bit of text about the game. It weighs in at 1.5 mb. Personally, I wish they’d put their efforts into actually CODING THE GAME, and hold back on the PR until it’s done… but that’s just me. Go grab it from the Junkyard if you’re interested.

Team Sexy has posted deleted scenes from their ‘Hall of the Sidewinder King’ movie; dunno, but to me it looks like one guy running out of a base and through the tunnels. (I guess I thought it was gonna be bloopers, or something.) If you’re interested, stop by their forums and look for the ‘NEW VIDEOS’ thread on the TS.Films forum.

IXIGhandiIXI pointed out a new comic over at 343gs.com. It’s called EchoFourNineteen, and it’s in their Downloads section. (The site is framed, so you’ll have to navigate there yourself.) Episode 1 looks at Brutes…

Whoa. So back on August 31, Rampant Cowboy pointed out a thread over at TeamXbox which was discussing a product someone found in their store’s database called ‘XBX-Halo 2 BUNDLE’ – price was $19.99, release date was November 15. RC’s thread went nowhere – there were a couple of posts, but I think MY feeling at the time was that this was a packaged version of the E3 demo, or something. On November 2, RC brought it up again, because there was new info over at TeamXbox. Again, the thread went nowhere – this time, because Mat Noguchi (a Bungie programmer) shot it down. Yesterday, however, Opie301 mentioned SEEING something like this on the shelf at his local Best Buy… and SketchFactor actually confirmed that there IS something to it. He was under the impression that it wasn’t supposed to be released before Thanksgiving… but it really is new Halo 2 material, and it’s not just the E3 demo vid. A cookie to the first reader who tells us what’s actually THERE. (And thanks, belatedly, to Rampant Cowboy, for not getting discouraged. 🙂 ) Update: Gah, I should read the whole thread before posting. Opie went back to Best Buy, and picked up the package (a DVD/Controller bundle) – and it’s all material he’s seen before. (The ‘Behind the Scenes Halo 2 Documentary’ sounds like it might be the Discovery Channel piece that we weren’t able to put online for legal reasons… so maybe there IS a valid reason for buying this if you don’t need the controller.) A full list of what’s on the DVD is in that last post.

Today’s guest One One Se7en is by Michael M, and if you don’t get it, I’d suggest you revisit our Miscellaneous section. (The dangers of long lead times on strips…)

Yesterday, Bungie.net posted an interview with Jay Ubroh, the president of the Associates of Gaming Professionals, an organization devoted to professional Halo Xbox gaming. How AGP started, why Halo, and what’s next were all on the table. Check it out!

Blade writes to say that the Team Ice site has been updated; there are a few movies mirrored there (including the entire Fire Team Charlie series), and their new forums are now online. Take a look!

Longtime bandwidth donator That Weasel wrote to tell us about a new project: That Weasel Television has teamed up with Team X and Ctrl + Alt + Delete Productions to create the Team X: The Beginning of the End collection of Halo videos. It’s being hosted by TWTv. Check it out!

Whoa. Out tonight, there’ll be updates in the morning… but I stopped in to the office to turn the lights off, and noticed a bit of news which should make LOTS of moviemakers happy; Microsoft has released a WMP9 version of Windows Media Player for MacOSX. (As far as I can tell, there is not yet a version for MacOS9 and below… but you gotta have a cutoff somewhere.) What this means for you, the moviemaker, is that we are no longer limiting submissions to block movies that come in only in WMP9. (We haven’t changed our standards, and you’ll still need to meet our posting guidelines if you want us to host the film… but you won’t have to find a way to convert it to a format Macs can read, because most macs can now read WMP9.) Woohoo!

Quick heads-up; seems Yahoo has managed to harbor a big enough mail spammer that it’s gotten its entire block of mailservers listed on SpamCop. Bungie.org’s mailserver uses the SpamCop blacklist… so anybody mailing from Yahoo will not be able to mail us until this is over. (For an ISP like Yahoo, it usually takes a day or so to sort things out.) Sorry for the inconvenience! (Thanks to Socrates for pointing out the problem.)

A few quick points covered today on the Halo Story page… mnemesis continues to hammer away at the iceberg that is the mailbag. Go make his life harder by reading, then commenting.