Interesting forum post from Noctavis, on Xbox Live, and his first few days’ worth of impressions. Worth a read, if you’re contemplating jumping into XBL. (Not Halo-related, but hey, Noc’s been around a long time, and XBL is the FUTURE of great Halo (2) gaming.)

Bungie rocks. I think that’s what this website (this family of websites) comes down to. Latest example: When Jay Weinland, Bungie Audio Gnome, learned that forum regular Hedgemony was on a quest to catalog all the existing lines of dialog in Halo, he popped into our forum with some targets to shoot at. The basic numbers:

• 153 AI categories (i.e. killed enemy with mounted weapon)
• ~5600 combat dialog speech files
• 1,238 scripted dialog files (cinematics and set in-level dialog)
• Dialog attributed to 4 marines, 2 sargeants, grunt, elite, jackal, flood, Keyes, hunter, and the Monitor

There are some caveats explaining why all of the dialog can’t be found… but this should help Hedge get a lot farther along. One source for AI categories which hasn’t been tapped yet, I don’t think, is Marty’s speech at the Game Developers Conference last March… I’m pretty sure all 153 are visible there. Bottom line; this is a huge project… but not one that Hedge can be helped with, except peripherally (like this). Here’s hoping he gets there!

Back in August, Silverbrin turned in a piece of music called ‘Mahdrigalo’. It was well-received… but SB has built on it.

A few months ago I uploaded a piece of fan music called “Mahdrigalo”. It was a combination of the Halo gregorian chant with the Siege of Madrigal. Both (in my opinion) are some of Marty’s best works. Both songs are also on the Halo soundtrack. After releasing the somewhat crude midi, I got a surprising amount of requests to rework the piece into a more high quality audio effort. Months passed and I came to own some new software. I decided to start from scratch and bring the old piece to life through more powerful software; the way it was meant to be heard. After a a few days of tinkering I was able to recreate the original Mahdrigalo and maintain a duel Myth/Halo aura. The main differences between this sequal and the original include a much higher quality of audio and a new ending. I hope you enjoy Mahdrigalo2.mp3.

From where I sit, it’s definitely a more polished piece of work… check it out, it weighs in at 4.8 mb. (It’s currently hosted here, but if bandwidth issues get in the way (and we’ll only know if you tell us), we’ll move it to another server.)

Forumgoer Mr. Poke held a party for the Xbox (and Halo, of course) – check out the pictures.

Apologies to all who used it appropriately… but html capability has been removed from the Fan Fiction comments section. Hopefully, the ability to express oneself without the use of garish colors or page-breaking code will still be enough for people choosing to give feedback on stories.

Andrew Mello submits a piece that gives homage to classics from the past and future. You’ll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section.

This came in yesterday, but I almost missed it – That Weasel Television, a longtime bandwidth contributor to the HBO movie scene, is back in business on a new host, and has mirrored two recent movies, Speed and Haliens. (Links have been added where appropriate.) Welcome back, TW!

Stosh has started up a new comic series, called ‘Blamed!’ You’ll find the first installment in our Miscellaneous Art section.

Blackstar has been working on a Halo movie for quite some time. He’s recently put up a Question and Answer session explaining a bit about the project, and how you can get your grubby mitts on a copy (no, you won’t be able to download this one). Check it out! (Thanks to Rampancy.net for the heads-up.)

We get nice mail sometimes… but we got a note yesterday that stood out. (Well, for me, at least.) It’s just a note from a Halo player, explaining how he got hooked, and why HBO pleasantly surprised him… but it cleanly sums up what I like about this community, as well. With Ed’s permission, I’m archiving this for posterity; you can find it in our Miscellaneous section.

Update on the 3D Hunter model from Aleph One… •M has generously sent along a few other variants; we’ve put them all on their own Miscellaneous page. Gah – I’d LOVE to see a Halo Marathon mod…

We received word of a mod for Battlefield: 1942 that takes place in the Halo universe. The creator is looking for help in building this, although at the moment it’s not clear whether Bungie will actually allow a mod like this to be released. (With Halo for PC still in production, the fear is twofold; first, that Bungie/Gearbox/Westlake will be judged by the quality of third-party work, and second, that folks will say “well, I can just play Halo on [existing engine of your choice] – why buy Halo for PC?” Until these issues are worked out to Bungie’s satisfaction, any such mod is in limbo. That’s not to say there’s no value in showing you what’s already been accomplished…) Take a look, and feel free to comment on our forum!

Heh – check this puppy out. You can see some static pics on •M’s spnkrghol gallery page – a Myth-to-Aleph One conversion that seems to be taking a side trip or two. (I found the first link in this post on the Marathon’s Story page forum.) Bungie fans are great. 🙂

Matt Soell has written a short update to let you know what’s going on with the ongoing Halo Winter Season. You can find it on B.net’s Tru7h and Reconciliation site. Round 1 saw 1100 people. How many will turn out for the next round?

Quiet weekend for Halo news, mostly because I’m taking it off with my family. 🙂 Spec Ops Elite has sent in an image he calls the Covenant Homeworld… you’ll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section. And to whoever uploaded a pretty cool-looking Master Chief/Xbox wallpaper from Switzerland yesterday… we only got the first 250k of it; could you try again? (And please – identify it while you’re at it. Thanks!)

Having trouble coming up with a Gamertag to use for Xbox Live? Dave Candland has written a guide on how to create the perfect name. Check it out at B.net!

Mark Couto has put together a 5 minute video showing how bad a day the Master Chief can really have. The first 3 minutes are deaths by explosion… lots and lots of them. (Good views of various levels.) The last 2 minutes are a slight reworking of the final sequence in Halo. (Punchline’s near the end.) Yes, there are lots of spoilers. It’s in .wmv format, but the data rate is low enough that even Mac users should be able to watch it. Mythica’s hosting this, all 17.7 mb of it. Enjoy! Update: This has been mirrored on Pez’s ftp server. Thanks, Pez!

Six pieces of Fan Fiction for you today, three from new authors:

• Halo: The Covenant Frontier, by Andrew Golightly
• Decisions, Chapter 1, by Warbow
• The Shots Heard Around the World, by Gasmask
• Hunters, part 1, by whoknew
• Wings of Death part 12, by el_halo_diablo
• Outlaw Chapter 6, by Chris Cassani

The Fan Fiction section has been enhanced a bit – there is still a limit as to how big a story can be and fit into the database… but it will only appear once in the story listing. (Immediate impetus was Andrew Golightly’s 130k story, but this has been on the to-do list for quite some time.) Go read!

Hojjen brings you news of the annual RocketRace – you can find details in our Miscellaneous Art section.

Back to the fan submissions… Jack Smith has turned in a logo modification. You’ll find it in our Logos section (whose idea was that, anyway?).