News Archives - January 2007

Rule of 3
Posted by WatchWood on January 31, AD 2007 @ 6:19 PM
Bungie's Halo 3 Beta opens up tonight. Just under 4 hours from time of posting, in fact. I will most definately be doing a marathon game night tonight, and anyone who wants to join me will be more then welcome to.

Check the thread for details.
Like a Spider?
Posted by Sith on January 25, AD 2007 @ 10:19 AM
The latest article from Bungie on Halo 3's new weaponry is up, this one focusing on the new Brute Spike Grenade; a kind of cross between a fragmentation and a plasma grenade.

Some interesting new information, including the shape of the blast, what it's like to be hit by one of those things, and also raising the often asked question "Just what would it be like to have a shotgun that shoots flaming chainsaws?"

Go check it out.
Halo 3 Beta Signups
Posted by Sith on January 22, AD 2007 @ 8:15 PM
Microsoft Games Studios and Bungie have released some more details over at the official Halo 3 site about the Halo 3 Beta program which takes place this Spring, in order to clarify what happens next:

Phase one registration is now closed. If you have been selected to participate, congratulations and stay tuned for an email notification on the week of January 22-26, 2007.

For those of you that didn't make it in - fret not as this phase one was just the first of three ways to secure an invite to participate in the development of Halo 3. The next two paths of entry are the following:
- Qualifying over Xbox Live via the "Rule of Three" program in early February
- Purchasing marked packages of the upcoming game Crackdown™, which hits store shelves in the U.S. on Feb. 20


There are reports of players receiving their confirmation emails around the web from the first part of the signup phase; if you entered, keep a close eye on your inbox and good luck!
HWH Week in Review: 01/21
Posted by Shadowflare on January 21, AD 2007 @ 12:00 PM
The previous week was one that presented us a lot of new information about Halo 3, and all of it is positive. Game development is moving right along and reports are the game is looking more amazing every day. As for Halo Wars, we continue to patiently await word from ES with giddy excitement and have been entertaining ourselves with mafia games at the forums while we wait. This game can't come out soon enough.
Bungie Weekly Update
Posted by WatchWood on January 20, AD 2007 @ 4:10 PM
The latest of the weekly updates about Halo 3 is out, and it's pretty interesting. Here's the recap.

  • Project speed is accelerating greatly
  • Lots of happy new lighting effects
  • More and more stuff is being done in 3d instead of textured
  • Frankie is going fanboy over the water that's looking more and more awesome
  • Blowing snow and sand, and other atmospheric goodies, and being put into place
  • Frankie is secretly emo
  • Performance is getting better
  • Frankie doesn't know how to turn off a loading screen
  • The combat dialogue is being expanded and slotted in
  • Famous actors may or may not be taking roles in the game
  • The Mutiplayer Voice Guy is back
  • Difficulty levels are being set up
  • The found Ling-Ling
  • There's a brute T-shirt out


    • And if we keep hearing nothing from ES about their game, we may well start a petition to get them to start doing similar updates, telling us all about the game while not actually telling us anything.

    That'd be so awesome.
MA5C Assault Rifle
Posted by WatchWood on January 17, AD 2007 @ 8:47 PM
For those of you who are interested in such thing, Bungie just released an interesting brief on the new MA5C Assault Rifle, which features technical specifications, a description of the changes from the MA5B, observations and remarks from units field testing the new rifle, as well as a fairly in depth description of the ideal weapons combinations for for putting the maximum of hurt down on the Covies.

Check it out.
HWH Week in Review: 01/14
Posted by Shadowflare on January 14, AD 2007 @ 1:01 PM
It was just more of the same for this past week: bubbling anticipation and rampant Halo discussion. The deadline for the Fanfic Contest is fast approaching and we're patiently awaiting all of the entries.
Hopefully there will be more to report as the days countdown to the release of Halo Wars.
Update on the Fan Fiction Contest
Posted by WatchWood on January 9, AD 2007 @ 1:04 PM
There's still 3 weeks left in the Fan Fiction Contest, more then enough time to apply and get a story in, if you work at it. If you've already signed up, be sure to keep working on your entry. After all, you never know who the winner will be, and the prizes are sweet.

Get cracking!
HWH Week In Review: 01/07
Posted by Shadowflare on January 7, AD 2007 @ 12:09 PM
This is the first in a regular weekly series to spew redundant information at the masses concerning the goings-on for the week here at Halo Wars Heaven.
In this first week of 2007 we've seen a leaked screenies of questionable authenticity that are cool nonetheless and only furiously feed our fanboy frenzy over this game.
Besides that we also chose the prizes for our first, and hopefully not last, Fanfic Contest.
Bruce Shelly gave Halo fans a new update on the project's development status and gave a shout-out to HG which makes us all feel warm and fuzzy.
Our awesome new community only continues to grow as time wears on ever closer to the release of Halo Wars and on the Sunday following each week I'll keep you all updated on the occurances here at HWH. Thanks to the community for making this site stronger and we wish you all a great 2007. :)
Fake Leaked Screenshots?
Posted by Elpea on January 7, AD 2007 @ 12:48 AM
Forummer Blackmoon reported on possible leaked screenshots (1, 2). But looking into it, the scene with the tanks and the vehicles are the *exact* same as the announcement trailer's. Pause your Halo Wars trailer at around 23 seconds and see.

Good try though :).
Bruce Shelley Blog
Posted by Elpea on January 5, AD 2007 @ 8:28 PM
Ensemble Studios Developer Bruce Shelley has updated his http://ageofempires3.com blog (I know, not Halo Wars, but keep reading) and had a little Halo Wars info to share with the fans. Shelley starts out by talking about the Ensemble Studios Christmas party (some hillarious gift exchange) and finally gets to sharing the goodies:
Playtesting Halo Wars: We still don’t have much to say about Halo Wars but there are multi-player test sessions every day. Following our process for making all of the Age games, the playtest map/scenario is usually predetermined and the test session is monitored by one of the designers. I took part in a session monitored by Designer Justin Rouse, who took a lot of notes in the debrief following the games. The economy has undergone an important change recently and this seems to force the action. Staying inside your base and building up (turtling) is a recipe for disaster.



Even at this early stage the game is definitely fun and the taunting among players was in good form. I have always felt that once our games got playable, our design by playing process would insure they would be good. I believe that will be true for Halo Wars, as well. As development moves forward, Lead Designer Graeme Devine keeps us engaged with the story through periodic messages about The State of Phoenix. Phoenix was our codename for Halo Wars before the official title was chosen (remember how RTS3 turned into Age of Mythology).

Funny story is that when we (HeavenGames) visited Ensemble, the Phoenix banner was up, we took a picture of it but we were asked to not publish it, back then we had little knowledge of what project Phoenix was. Bruce Shelley then talked about Halo Wars fansites, including us:
Halo Wars Fan Sites: Our old friends at Heaven recently launched their site dedicated to our new game. They launched the first Age of Empires site many years ago and two people who worked on it went on to become valued ES employees. Check it out here.


Read the full entry at Shelly's Blog.
Bungie's Weekly Update
Posted by WatchWood on January 5, AD 2007 @ 8:06 PM

Frankie of Bungie has made their latest update on the Bungie site. Here's the recap:

  • Frankie regularly gets pwnt in Burial Mounds
  • Bungie is adding many wonderful things for the Machinima makers
  • The Mysterious X Button may get moved to a different button
  • Lots of audio sweetness
  • The Halo 2 matchmaking update has been pushed back while they work on the Halo 3 playlists
  • There's still 2 more chances to get into the Halo 3 beta: Playing on February 3rd and signing up on Halo3.com, and buying a copy of Crackdown
  • Stop spamming Frankie's inbox for free slots into the Alpha/Beta
  • Halo 3's music may be a lot darker then Halo 2's
  • Bungie is hiring testers, but only legal adults who can move over tho where they are, and work on a full time basis

An informative update, but while it's certainly interesting, it's not *quite* roxors your boxors material. Still, check it out if you're looking for

Frankie, if you read this, please include more on the water next time around. That would totally roxors the boxors. Many thanks.

Xbox 360 May Have Won Holiday Battle
Posted by Elpea on January 2, AD 2007 @ 3:12 PM
Although not 100% related to Halo Wars itself, the success of Xbox 360 sales can very well affect the success of the game, and the Console seems have done very well these holidays. According to NPD sales figures, around 2 Million Xbox 360s were sold this holiday season, while the Wii sold 1.8 Million, the PS3 sold 750,000 thousand consoles, less than half of Wii sales.

- Source.
Prizes for the Fan Fiction Contest
Posted by WatchWood on January 1, AD 2007 @ 11:19 AM
Good news folks, prizes have now been arranged for Empire of Darkness's Fan Fiction Contest. Both the winner and 2 runners up will receive the muchly coveted Heavengames T-Shirts, which is rumored to imbue the wearer with amazing super powers the likes of which the world has never seen.*

In addition to the T-Shirt, the contest winner will receive The Art of Halo Coffee Book, which is jammed full of all kinds of conept art, screenshots, and loads of other goodies from the geniuses behind the Halo franchise.

In addition, due to the volume of quality entries we anticipate receiving from the contestants (because you guys are just that awesome), we're going to put all the contest entries up on the site, as a monument to your writing talents. Anyone who doesn't want their story on the site should either email me, let EoD know when sending in the submission, or make a post to that effect in the contest thread.

*Super powers not guaranteed. Side effects may include geekyness, fanboyishness, queries from members of the opposite gender about the T-Shirt, excessive coolness, instant recognizability by fellow HGers, and loosing one's lunch money to bullies.