This year there isn’t a list of shiny Bungie-stuff you’ll be getting. No theme, no DLC, it doesn’t even seem as though there’s gonna be a Bungie Day playlist in Halo 3.

Though, there was a mention of Bungie day in last week’s update:

Stop by yourself next week for some colorful Bungie Day love. We’ll keep our pants on. I promise.*

See you soon.

*Pants not guaranteed.

Makes me slightly worried about the sort of Love they’ll be dealing out…
Even if we don’t even get a podcast, who are we to complain, they’re finishing Reach! It comes out in 69 days (September 14th).

Edit: Check out this page where you can download the video below in HD.
New stuff…. CONFIRMED!

I shall be spending tomorrow playing Halo 3 (hopefully copious amounts). You should do the same.

THAT IS ALL.

Unless something interesting happens

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This Bungie day is much more dull for us gamers though; last year we got a free map – Cold Storage, a ViDOC, podcast and, in what we thought was going to be tradition… a Bungie Day theme and Gamer Picture pack. We’ve been given a theme and gamer picture pack every year since 2007.

Way to break that streak.

So, I hear you ask — What are we getting this year?

• The “Bungie vs. The World” playlist. It’s a playlist consisting entirely of community made forge-maps on Foundry and [mainly] Sandbox which makes the Mythic Map pack a must.
  The reason for the name of the playlist is that Bungie employees will be playing for the majority of the day tomorrow and if you beat one of their teams-of-four in a game you earn Recon armor.
• Screenshots of the 3 other Mythic maps including Heretic — confirmed as a near perfect port of Midship from Halo 2.
• A Bungie Day podcast.

The last two items on that list I didn’t think we’d be getting when I first wrote this, so it’s looking a bit better now.

I wasn’t expecting another free map, I knew that was one-off, but I was looking forward to a Bungie Day NXE theme — the previous one’s look rubbish with the new dash. Sadface.

Oh well, only 77 days till Halo 3: ODST is released.

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* They haven’t said there won’t be a theme or gamer picture pack, its just that this time last year we knew there would be one.

The trailer has just been uploaded to Bungie.net & presumably the marketplace too: look here.
Xbox.com gives us a few more details: Campaign will be a side story that takes place during the events leading up to Chief’s return to New Mombasa in Halo 3, Multiplayer will provide “groundbreaking multiplayer content” With Exclusive new maps & Forge options as well as Saved films, Screenshots…. Oh and 4 player co-op
EDIT: It’s now called Halo 3: ODST which makes more sense, but I’m not sure I prefer it.

LOL - The Super Intendant Labels the crashed ODST pod with "POSS. PARKING VIOLATION"

Will we be graced by the reveal of what ‘Halo 3 Prepare To Drop’ is? Click here to see what we know so far (it’s just a trailer, an awesome trailer.)

Well, there have been a couple hints that we might do:

• “Tokyo Rules” mentioned in one of the Super Intendant’s news posts on Bungie.net
• “Prepare to J-Pop” Sound familiar? No? Could be a reference to Prepare to Drop from the trailer. And, from the same source: “Brian and Luke are, as you read this, witnessing the marvel that is the beautiful city of Tokyo.” From last week’s Bungie update.

Also, generally speaking, a keynote at a gaming show implies that there is stuff to show off; hopefully this ‘new Halo 3 campaign experience’ is one of those things.

The keynote starts at 12:00PM Tokyo time. If you want to find out when that is in your time zone, click here.

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Edit: I was right; Look here

After the countdown finished at 07:07AM PDT, Bungie.net revealed a teaser trailer for the next game they’re bringing out. OK no-one knows what the trailer was for, just go and watch it!!!

The description for the video from the marketplace: “High action and deep mystery await players in this new Halo 3 campaign experience. Prepare to drop!”
We can haz new campaign levels???

You can see it here GOGOGOGOGO

Click on any of the pictures below for bigger versions.

WTF?

Don't think water...

Yes, it's upside down, that's how it was in the video!

Possible release date? It

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“THERE WILL BE A PAYOFF”

“IT WON’T BE A LETTER”

Expect something big. It’s what we deserve after last time!

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LOOK HERE FOR WHAT HAPPENED

BTW, sorry if this post doesn’t mean a lot to some people; if you want to read about this and when it’s happened before, look here

There really isn’t a great deal to say, anyone who is a true fan of Halo 3 would have gotten it on its release day one year ago (the 27th for Europe ) and is still playing it to this day. 

I’m certainly one of those dedicated fans; over the last year I’ve played Halo 3 multiplayer for a rather scary 265 hours! (that’s 11 days straight!!!!). (If you want to see how many hours you have spent in Halo 3, click on the picture below or the Spartan over on the right and create an account.)

Supposedly we’ll get a new episode of the Bungie podcast today and hopefully(!) an announcement or at least something more from the Superintendant.

This along with the closing message from Luke in this week’s weekly update (“Earlier this summer, my bipolar, crazy landlord told me, ‘The night is darkest just before the dawn.’ Dawn is about to break.”) suggests that we will see something about Bungie’s next project very soon; what better day than Thursday – Halo 3′s one year anniversary?

Keep an eye on Bungie.net for any other weird goings on and hope for an announcement!

Bungie had better be damn sure that Microsoft isn’t going to stop them this time!

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EDIT: If you watch the Bungie logo on any page on bungie.net for long enough it flashes to the Superintendant (last time it flashed to ‘tru7h’)

EDIT: He’s back in full like last time BUNGIE.NET INVADED BY SUPERINTENDANT – AGAIN – COUNTDOWN TO 7:07AM (PDT)/ 03:07PM(UK) September 25th.

This’ll introduce individual ranks for each playlist, the new achievements and the playlist changes and, as I’ve written about these before; if you want to know about them, click here..

The new achievements can be seen on Bungie.net now; but one won’t appear work until Halo 3′s one year anniversary on the 25th – is it one we haven’t seen / been told about? It’s the one where you have to finish the last level with the Iron scull on, in 4 player co-op with all of you in Ghosts.

There’s 10 new spoken-about achievements which you can get now and 20 which haven’t been mentioned (because you need to have the Mythic map-pack which hasn’t been announced yet.) You can see what the others are here.

Bungie.net has had a few upgrades as of today. For instance, now both ranked and social kills by weapon etc. are shown on one screen and you are able to compare your career stats with someone else’s. (as shown in the picture)

The weekly update which was a day early ended with this:

“Outtro in Go Minor

Earlier this summer, my bipolar, crazy landlord told me, “The night is darkest just before the dawn.”
Dawn is about to break.”

Does this suggest something is very close? I think so. EDIT: look here

Could we see something on the 25th? It’s a definate possiblity. The announcement of the next Bungie game!?!? By this time next week we may already know………

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Don’t get your hopes up though, you never know when Microsoft will spoil the fun

Damn it, he's back. "A small, private Bungie Invitational looms on the horizon."

Bungie came out and admitted that Auto Update 2 (AU2) for Halo 3 will bring some new achievements to the game; they only gave details of the one’s that will make sense now -

“As folks have seen, these aren’t the only achievements we’re adding. But without proper context, there’s not a whole lot else we’re going to say. Stay tuned.“

Most likely, there will be some more achievements with another map pack / update to Halo 3

Here’s a list of the one’s that they did tell us about:

• Vidmaster Challenge: Lightswitch (0 points) – Get to the rank of Lieutenant in any playlist in the new EXP progression system.
• Vidmaster Challenge: 7 on 7 (0 points) – Enter into any ranked or social playlist with 7 EXP on the 7th of the month.
• Vidmaster Challenge: Annual (0 points) – After 9/25/08, complete Halo on 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with Iron, and everyone in Ghosts.
• Double Double (25 points) – On a Legendary map, get two Double Kills during any ranked or social match.
• Poor Yorick (25 points) – On a Legendary map, get 3 Oddball melee kills during any ranked or social match.
• Came…From…Behind (50 points) – On a Legendary map, get 3 assassinations during any ranked or social match.
• Defend This (50 points) – On a Legendary map, get a flag melee kill during any ranked or social match.
• Flag Dropped (25 points) – On a Legendary map, get 2 flag carrier kills during any ranked or social match.
• Road Rage (25 points) – On a Legendary map, get 5 Warthog chaingun kills during any ranked or social match.
• Look Both Ways (50 points) – On a Legendary map, get a Splatter Spree during any ranked or social match.

EDIT: You can see a list of all the other achievements here – They all require the un-announced Mythic Map Pack.

They also said that Auto Update 2 / Title Update 2 will most likely be delayed – “the previously announced date may slip a bit closer to the Halo 3 one-year anniversary.” That’s September 27th so presumably it’ll be between the 16th and the 27th.

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September’s matchmaking playlist update does make a few more changes than normal; as promised by Bungie a couple of weeks ago. A summary of the changes appears below:
• Rocket Race is being removed
• Both Ranked and Social Big Team Battle are being removed
• Head to Head is being removed
• Team Doubles now requires all DLC – Heroic & Legendary packs and Cold Storage
• Default Team Slayer games will now have the Magnum as secondary weapon
• Squad Battle – a new ranked playlist will be introduced; it’s 6v6 and will be Slayer / Capture the Flag
• DLC Free For All (new) – 8v8 – Slayer, Objective and Infection!
• DLC Big Team; another new playlist – 8v8 Social Slayer and Objective (just like Social BTB)

Some of the playlists will see Bungie-forged map variants of Sandtrap (they’ll be no elephant), Epitaph (without shield doors), Snowbound (with some shield doors removed) and The Pit (with “with inaccessible spawn hives.” — That sounds annoying). The normal versions of these maps will also appear.

You can read the Bungie update containing all this information and much more here. It offers some consolation in the fact that the Rocket Race gametype will be added to the Multi Team playlist as well as the fact that there will be less objective, SWATGuns and Magnums in SWAT – and the fact that there will be Carbines on the map!

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Also, they confirmed that they’ll be no bots / campaign characters in H3 multiplayer – just to hush those rumours after the thanks video’s.

As you can see in the picture over there —–>
auto update 2 will make it so that you will have a rank for each playlist and it will introduce the bar of progress that others, and I have missed from Halo 2′s matchmaking system.

The bar shows how close you are to ranking up in that particular playlist. It is not currently clear as to whether the bar will show how close you are to ranking up (Recruit, General….) or how close you are to the next skill level (28,29,30…..).

Principally, it seems as though they are just showing how much EXP you have in each playlist (earned by winning, or tying a game).

Quite why this is being introduced, I don’t know. But, they’ve always said that they can’t make UI (User Interface) changes to the game — perhaps this will be a change that will only appear on Bungie.net? That would be very silly in my opinion. But if it does show up in the game, Bungie should be prepared for a fresh influx of people wanting changes to the interface of the game (like pressing X just after a game finishes to save that film – a la H3 Beta(woo!)).

Also detailed in this weeks Bungie Update is the changes to matchmaking that will occur in August (they may already be live – I don’t know!). It’s a fairly boring list for this month (but includes some changes to Team Doubles that I don’t like — the inclusion of Oddball, for instance).

But the last paragraph in the update suggests that there will be some bigger changes to matchmaking in Septembre!

“You may be thinking to yourself “Hey, that’s a pretty short change list.” While a lot of the changes done this month were backend things that players will never notice, you would be right to think that August’s changes feel very minimal. The reason for this is that we’ve been focused on preparing a larger series of changes to Matchmaking for September. Much larger.

Much, much larger.

No, really. It’s huge. You should see how giddy Luke gets when I talk about the tentative plan.”

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Edit:  Auto Update 2 will be released on September 23rd

It can be seen in the picture below or by going to Bungie.net at this very moment; don’t know how long that’s gonna last.

Is it real?

Is Microsoft preventing Bungie from announcing whatever they were going to announce?

Will anything happen at 07:07:07 AM?

I hope so

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EDIT: 07:12:00 AM – Nothing…. I’m just gonna go be depressed somewhere now….

EDIT: September 20th ’08 – he’s back! – click me

EDIT: September 25th ’08 – he’s back in full – click

So… The 360′s gonna get a new dashboard in the Autumn / Fall; To be honest I don’t like the look of it but hopefully it will work ok. On the up side, it will have 8 person private chat w00t! Fortunately, they clearly realised that people don’t like change — the xbox guide (accessible by pressing the guide button!) will take the form of the blade-like dashboard we currently have and you will be able to use it in game and in the dash.

Gears of War 2 looks awesome and will be released on November 7th.

Fallout 3 looked cool but the demo didn’t show enough for me to decide whether it will be worth buying — this is combined with the fact that I haven’t read anything about them in the past so I can’t tell!

A few more announcements… including that Final Fantasy XIII will be on the 360 and it was the end of the conference leaving Halo / Bungie fans severely disappointed.

Not even a mention of Halo Wars and this after the Bungie guys on the Podcast severely suggesting that something was going to happen on the 14th.

AND SOMETHING DID HAPPEN!

GOTO BUNGIE.NET!

THE SUPERINTENDANT HAS TAKEN OVER AND A COUNTDOWN IS SHOWN COUNTING DOWN TO 2:07:07PM ON THE 16TH!

To be honest; no-one really knows what is going on with the Superintendant but it is driving all the Halo / Bungie fans crazy and it definitely shows that Bungie can capture the attention of people without using the Microsoft conference like others do.

If this is the beginning of an ARG like ilovebees.com, it’s certainly trying to get the attention of a lot more people; and I think it’ll succeed.

So, yet another post where I leave you waiting for an announcement or something else from the brilliant company that is Bungie.

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Edit: just been linked to this page http://www.bungie.net/Inside/soffish/Soffish.html links in with that fish on the Bungie Day 2008 theme….

Someone explain it all!!!

Update – click here

As a reader, I can only imagine just how frustrating it is to not have any new information just yet. Rest assured, dear vengeful, hypertense reader many things are in motion. Many things. These numerous things include the following:

• Major changes to the Halo 3 Online experience
• Sweet Announcements
• Poignant Clarifications
• Certain-point-of-view Truths
• Things you will love
• Things you will argue about
• Things you will make angry videos about

“

Also a pretty funny comment from Frankie in the discussion thread:

Nice to see that he is still around and paying attention to Bungie.

And a comment from the Superintendant(!) who, if you look here comments on quite a few popular threads:

I wonder what the ‘Major changes’ to Halo 3 online will be though?

Can we haz ann0uncemen7?

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I on the other hand cannot has iPhone until next week

I love Bungie…… Hopefully we’ll see something out of them at E3 this Monday.
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Having just been linked to it again [you think I would look for myself, eh? :p], it seems that the Bungie employee(s) who wanted an iPhone couldn’t have one, just like me

iPhone sold out before Mr Hand could haz - FAIL

As was announced earlier last week, we’ll be getting a new map for free – Cold Storage; a remake of a Halo: Combat Evolved map entitled Chillout.

And, just like last year, we get a free theme and some gamer pictures which I hadn’t expected until tomorrow. But, THEY’RE AVAILABLE NOW… GOGOGO!

The theme, as I expected features a picture of the Superintendant (which no-one really know’s anything about! Pictured Below.)

And the Xbox Live blade has an arm with some lightening bolts and some what-is-presumably Latin saying “NON FACETE NOBIS CALCITRARE VESTRVM PERINEVM” — see comments for what this likely means

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?!?!?

Also, one of the gamer pictures is a fish and the System Blade has a fish on the right and a fish in a bottle!?!?!?

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN!?!?!?!

Looking forward to tomorrow…. hopefully it will bring some answers to all these questions.

Comment with any predictions on what tomorrow will bring!

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Click the image to read the update & his farewell (which vaguely mentions another project of theirs) as well as some funny photoshops.

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