We wuz right! Haloplayers got Matt’s Halo update this week. Thanks to Tim Jenks for letting us know. The site also underwenta full redesign and content overhaul. Pretty cool!

Well the HBO staff here are playing one of their favorite games, no not resetting Louis’ desktopprefs but “Who has Matt’s Halo update?” So far we haven’t been lucky. Either Matt didn’t sendone out or it’s sitting in someone’s mailbox! WAKE UP AND LOOK!

“Bungie Chat Wednesday” says IGN Xbox. This is the big one!

Next Wednesday IGN Xbox will be hosting a chat withmembers of the Bungie development team, giving you an opportunity to kick off your holiday vacations with a little Bungie cheer. We’ll be releasing details about the chat on Monday, so check back for all the info, and start mulling over those questions.

Will Bungie sing? The HBO staff will be asking the hard questions. Will you?

fire phoenix writes to say that Halo Center has just had a forum upgrade, with several new and improved features. You can try the General Discussion forum or the Clan Discussion forum… go experiment! Pax.

Thanks to RazzBlade, who submitted three variations on a theme for our Wallpaper section. Fogged Halo… nice touch! Pax.

Deja vu? Our good friend Tim Jenks over at Haloplayers (got Matt’s update yet?)sent us this note:

take a look at: http://halo.bungie.org/misc/snap.jpg then: http://www.haloplayers.com/newbies/vehicles.php3blatent rip off imho

not to put a dampner on the release of a new site, but i find that a bit out of line.

That’s not cricket.

Khen Rigzin sends word that he’s working on a new Halo site. It ain’t up yet but he sent us in a snapshot of the main page. Now the snapshot he sent in was over 2 MegaBs which took ages to download on the 33.6K modem Louis left us. So we cut the pic down to about 100K. Hey what’s that guy doing at the top?

“Beware false prophets.” says Matt Soell. Matt lays down the smack on the recent Cortana scams on r.net.

The “real” Cortana is not a gloryhound or smurf.

Beware false prophets.

HBO Spin: False prophets. They’re everywhere. Can’t stand ’em.

Nabisco Lobstrosity drops a note on our forum that the Arbiter, a Covenant clan, is back online and ready to rock. Swing by and take a look! Pax.

Where’s Louis? Concerned HBO staff are to start wearing thought screen helmets after Louis scores 25 in the Alien Abduction Survey.

HBO spin: We couldn’t think of one.

The SETI team ranks page hasn’t been updated since Sat (Dec 9) so NO we haven’t been slackin’ on the SETI stats. The Halo SETI Marines are still crunchin’ away and team membership is solid. Help the war effort this Christmas… buy Covenant bonds. Pax.

While a number of sites have already mentioned the games.macnn.com editorial on the lack of ‘realistic violence’ in Oni the Story page goes further and asks what effect this will have on Bungie’s Halo? If the editorial is correct in suggesting that the ‘realistic violence’ was removed to achieve increased sales in the console market then won’t the same happen with Halo? We hope not but if Microsoft want to reach the widest possible demographic with Xbox then who knows what could happen. Keep watching those screenshots! Pax.

We’ve had a couple of recent desktop submissions… we apologize for the delay in getting them up. One is a beautiful gas-cloud pic, the other an enhanced screenshot. You’ll find both of them in our Wallpaper section. Pax.

As noted by Electric Sheep on our forum, cortana.org has gone live with some intriguing info. A quick registry search shows that this domain was registered on December 5th by Steve Campbell, a long-time Bungie fan with some interesting contacts in and around Bungie Software… one wonders, what’s behind this domain, and where is it going? Pax.

Bitner Blitz! Nathan Bitner returns with another posting spree. One postcaught our attention. It concerns cooperative play on Halo’s solo levels.

“We REALLY like cooperative play on solo levels. REALLY like it. A lot.”

But as Nathan says “Don’t count on ANYTHING until Bungie announces it”.

Looks like next Friday’s Halo update will be going to Haloplayers. Leastthat’s our reading of Matt Soell’s cryptic post on our forums. If any new site deserves it Haloplayers do. They’ve been around for a long time now and regularly update. But what of this line?

“Someday soon, we’ll all be hangin’ ten and none of this will matter a whit!”

Has Matt taken up surfing on the North-West coast?

Matt Soell takes time out to help clarify Jason and John’s involvement at next year’s Game Developers Conference on our forums and goes on to hint at the possibility of seeing some new Halo stuff before March 2001.

“A lot could happen between now and March.”

We live in hope.

fire phoenix informs us that Halo Center is now undernew management. Yrro left and fire phoenix is the new site manager.

According to a report over at the Marathon’s Storypage Jason Jones and John Howard will be talking about Halo at the Game Developers Conference 2001. Their talk is entitled Halo: A Case Study. No other details are available yet but an abstract is forthcoming. Kudos to Sean Phelps who sent this in to the Story page. 🙂

Hamish “Godot” Sinclair over at the Marathon’s Story page has spotted a similarity between the Halo story and Vernor Vinge’s “A Fire Upon the Deep”. A genocidal alien alliance attempts to wipe out humanity and a lone human ship escapes with the alien fleet in hot pursuit! Weeee doggie! Another book to add to our Christmas list. 🙂