Halo 03 |MP| OFFICIAL

[zerolimit]

haha good one! how do you guys take these screen shots?

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

haha good one! how do you guys take these screen shots?

Save and view them in Theatre. You can view the match and save screenshots/clips

[Lingwo]

edit: i lose :p

[magik]

Sci-Fi, Serendipity Spawn Halo 3's New Weapons

By Clive Thompson Email 10.01.07 | 12:00 AM

"Lemme pull out the big gun," says Tom Doyle, a weapon designer for the videogame Halo 3.

On the LCD screen on his desk he's playing an early copy of Halo 3, and the main character, the Master Chief, is hefting a huge tubular weapon. Doyle presses the trigger, and it generates a thin ray of red laser light on a nearby vehicle -- which abruptly transforms into a searing bolt of power that leaves the vehicle a smoking wreck.

"The Spartan Laser," he says with satisfaction. "One shot is all it takes."

The weapon may be fantastical, but like many Halo 3 weapons, the designers at Bungie Studios -- the company that makes Halo -- actually based it on a real-world object: The Galilean telescope beam expander. Doyle and his colleagues happened upon the Galilean laser while reading journals devoted to upcoming military weapons, and watching shows like FutureWeapons on the Discovery Channel. The research, he says, is intended to guide their design by making sure that the weapons are sci-fi but also vaguely plausible according to the laws of physics.

"A lot of our stuff actually is moored in reality," Doyle says. "It's like Star Trek -- it's pseudoscience."

Halo 3 is well on its way to becoming a top-selling game -- pushing more than $170 million in copies on its very first day. That's partly due to the attractive new array of weapons in the game. Halo's gameplay has always been centered around making strategic decisions on the fly -- figuring out what gun will best win a fight. When Wired visited Bungie this summer, the designers were frantically putting the final tweaks on a sizable task: creating twice as many weapons as in the previous Halo.

"For us, the question was, how do you make it new and fresh for people who have been playing Halo 2 for three years now?" said Jamie Griesemer, Bungie's lead gameplay designer.

For Halo 3, Griesemer said, they made several central decisions. Many of the new weapons have costs associated with their benefits: The Spartan Laser may pack a punch, but it takes a few seconds to charge, which leaves the wielder vulnerable.

Griesemer also decided to reduce the clip size on many guns, so that players will have to more quickly dispose of weapons and try out new ones. This, in particular, will shake up the multiplayer online games, which previously suffered when a single, talented player picked up a gun with a huge ammo clip and executed dozens of players before running out of bullets.

Bungie's designers also decided to insert equipment that didn't kill enemies, but simply changed the way a battle played out. That included "power drains," which suck away the defenses of anyone who strays near, and gravity lifts that let players bounce up to higher levels.

Some of the equipment came about through happy accident. One of the most popular new tools -- the "bubble shield," a pocket of temporary protection from weapons -- nearly didn't make it into the game. Bungie's designers had been bandying it about as a concept, but didn't fully commit to developing it for the game until it was featured in a TV advertisement last December. The ad showed the Master Chief throwing down a bubble shield -- with its distinctive, honeycombed shape -- to survive a missile attack.

It looked so cool that Bungie's employees immediately were sold on it. "Everybody went, 'Hey, hmm, that bubble shield is really awesome," said John Staten, Bungie's cinematic director.

The ultimate goal, Griesemer said, is to give players such a range of options that they develop fighting techniques the Bungie designers themselves could never predict.

This summer, the Bungie guys saw it happen. They were playing a game of "capture the flag" on a multiplayer map, and their favorite technique was to use a gravity lift to bounce over the ramparts into the building containing the flag.

But then a journalist came over to play and figured out a new trick: He shot his way into the building, grabbed the flag and used a gravity lift to bounce his way out. The Bungie crew all stared in surprise.

"Then we were all like, 'Of course, no ****! It totally makes sense!'" said Brian Jarrard, Bungie's head of community relations. "But in all those hours of playing, we'd never thought of it ourselves."

Wired

lol, DM beat me by a second... https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...amp;p=588889301

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

I'm just too fast :devil:

[neoadorable]

so you guys are all over this and playing without me? shame on you.

i'll be back this weekend, so watch out you louts...

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Haha, yea that was a good game. Good driving by DL in the beginning :D

Thank you!

That is one thing I think that they did do slightly wrong though, and that is not giving any points for driving assists, regular assists, etc., like they do in the battlefield series and even as recent as COD4 (with the kill assists).

I mean seriously, we went on a good 2 minute rampage there, you had like 10-12 kills or something right?

And although it kept telling me I was getting a drivers assist, my score remained zero. So even if it was Half points, that would be something.

And I honestly do not remember that specific Laser to the eye above posted by mail, since it happened to me so many damn times. LOL

[SnowRanger13]

My first ever Mongoose splatter was DirtyLarry :D

[Lingwo]

Anyone fancy a game in a bit, i got nothing to do for a couple of hours and looking to get fragged on Halo 3.

[PL_ Veteran]

so you guys are all over this and playing without me? shame on you.

Don't feel so bad. I've been ill this weekend and haven't been able to play :(

[Sethos]

Don't feel so bad. I've been ill this weekend and haven't been able to play :(

You are also supposed to be moderating news, not playing games! for shame ... for shame.

[zerolimit]

Whens the next game guys?

[Ironman273]

Just out of curiosity, when I go online and there are a bunch of friends in a match is all I can do sit it out and wait? What's the best tactic to be sure to be included in the next match?

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Just out of curiosity, when I go online and there are a bunch of friends in a match is all I can do sit it out and wait? What's the best tactic to be sure to be included in the next match?

Basically yeah, just sit and wait for the game to be over and send a request. Or if the party isn't private, you can join the lobby from within the guide and viewing friend list.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Basically yeah, just sit and wait for the game to be over and send a request. Or if the party isn't private, you can join the lobby from within the guide and viewing friend list.

In response to this, and @ Ironman...

I keep all of my parties open to my friends list, at least I think I do, so if not, from now on a will.

All I pretty much do is Spam my friends list for everyone I think is from Neowin (I have close to 100 friends so it is not always easy to get everyone), but I do try, and see who wants to join. Sometimes it is 2 people, sometimes it is 12. It all depends.

I think I am going to be hopping on in about 45 minutes, as soon as Heroes (on the east coast) is done. If I do, it will be for an hour, been a long day and need to go to bed at a reasonable time.

[DR3AMxCATCHER]

I'll jump on a little bit later today maybe if not Wed for sure! Can't wait to pwn you guys!

[Phantom Limb]

God the Forge is fun.

[Veedems Veteran]

I love the match making in Halo. I wound up playing a game of Team Slayer with 3 other guys and we kicked ass so we decided to party up right then and there and won every match except for our last one. We played quick, but smart. In one game of slayer on Infestation, we were playing a clan where every member was at least 3 points higher ranked than us and we quickly noticed they owned us at long distance. We took it under ground to close quarters and proceeded to win the match. I love times like that.

[magik]

^ Ah, that's awesome bangbang. Yea, I really like what Bungie did with the new post-game lobby now. You can just hit X to stay with the people you just played with and continue on to more matchmaking. Brilliant. :)

[ramsy66]

Hey guys. I'm sick of playing Halo 3 alone or with people that don't talk! I have yet to play with anyone I know, so does anyone want to add me and have a game of whatever? Co-Op, Forge, I'm up for it, just want to do a bit of socialising on this game instead of just playing the same old incompotent mutes every match.

[Slane]

For those of ya'll who want to get the Lone Wolves achievements easily. Get 5 people to set there Party Connection (press X at screen) to My Language then everyone go to Dashboard Settings, Console Settings, Lanuage and select the very last one. Then you all que up (as long as rank is near each other) and can take turns getting achievements. Just need to be highly organized or use Teamspeak, Vent on the computer to communicate.

[sharpy2k4]

just a quick one, anyone know of anyway to get this to work with a strict NAT? im at university in the UK, and its a very fast connection, but as soon as any game browsing/pinging is done it drops the connection (for example, steam, i search for a CSS game, and the whole net drops out) i used XbConnect ages ago when my Xbox 1 live ran out, but Halo 3 hasnt been added to the list of games yet.

[magik]

just a quick one, anyone know of anyway to get this to work with a strict NAT? im at university in the UK, and its a very fast connection, but as soon as any game browsing/pinging is done it drops the connection (for example, steam, i search for a CSS game, and the whole net drops out) i used XbConnect ages ago when my Xbox 1 live ran out, but Halo 3 hasnt been added to the list of games yet.

Have you tried XLink Kai? http://www.teamxlink.co.uk/

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

I just sent a lot of people the invite through Live, but also posting on here.

In exactly 1 hour now, 10 PM EST, I am going to start up a Social Match.

I will play for an hour and a half.

I will send out invites, and also leave it open.

The only people I need to keep slots open for are my cousin (and probably his friend), so lets fill this sucker up.

[AimLXJ]

Bad... bad... glitch...