Chronique:WWU 08/07/2005

Posted by Frankie at 7/8/2005 4:27 PM PDT

Frankie is back, and of course, he missed a lot. He missed new hacks, more cheating and the rollout of the new maps. He also missed you, dear gentle reader. And you, mean jerk reader. he missed you both.

iJosh says,

I have an important glitch that can totally destroy what you guys wanted Relic to be. I love the fact that you can turn the two-way teleporter on to get your team from one end to the other, but I know a way to surpass that. If you jump on the top of the teleporter and crouch during the whole jump, you will go through the teleporter just like it was on. You can do this on BOTH SIDES!!! I realize this is not what you guys at Bungie wanted Relic to be, and I would love it if this glitch was deleted. Try it for yourself...it really would make any CTF game a lot less fun. Will you ban people who do this, or just delete the glitch entirely, or what? Please respond to this--it's pretty important.

Well, you're not the first to point this out. It is being taken care of. It's a mistake we should have caught and we apologize. That said, you'll find that with a little practice, opening the teleporter on relic is one of the easier problems facing the attacking team – much, much easier, for example, than opening the gate on Zanzibar. But it will be taken care of relatively soon.

Weeeeeee asks,

Why didn't you guys ever make demos for Halo and Halo2?

We did for Halo. We didn't have time on Halo 2. It takes ages to kind of pull a level or two apart, test 'em and all that. As you know, we like to take things down to the wire. There was a demo of the PC version of Halo if I recall correctly.

Trillions of concerned citizens ask,

What's up with the new maps, and why can't I play them in matchmaking yet?

Same as last time, matchmaking will roll out hopefully this coming Monday to give players time to download, buy and install the maps. Initially, the maps will be available in matchmaking in the Team Preview and Rumble Preview playlists. They won't count against or for your stats (same as before) and the other way to play them of course, is in custom games. Matchmaking will include everything at the end of August, beginning of September, when the maps are available for free, to everyone. Oh, and remember, there are now a FOUR free maps available (Containment, Sanctuary, Warlock and Turf) for free download on Live, and you NEED to get them because they are going to be part of matchmaking very soon. If you don't get them (the Free maps) then you won't be able to play a lot of Matchmade games. To get them, just select the Downloadable Content link in your Halo 2 title screen when you're logged in. A semi-automated process will take you through it.

An unnamed hacker asks,

Why do you guys even pretend you can do anything to stop us playing hacked maps? I do it every day and nothing has happened to me, so you guys are not only noobz, you're liars. You can't stop us.

I looked up this guy's Gamertag, and guess what? He was banned about two hours after sending this message. Irony and coincidence in full effect. We have banned literally thousands of players and we are banning more every day. So don't come crying to us when you get banned. We warned you like, a thousand times.

Camarones asks,

I thought there was going to be a new Autoupdate that fixed all the cheating and other glitches. Where is it?

There is. It was delayed slightly because it had a bug that could corrupt your game save. It's fixed and back in testing. Will be coming soon. With some very nasty surprises for cheaters and hackers. It also takes care of some more minor stuff and who knows, it may even fix the teleport bug in Relic.

Nick asks,

I was wondering if Bungie is publicly traded, and if so on what exchange, and what is the symbol?

It is and it isn't. We are fully owned by Microsoft (although you wouldn't think it to look at Dave Dunn's poster collection) but we don't trade as an individual unit. So if you want to invest in Bungie, you have to invest in ALL of Microsoft, and it's traded under MSFT. And we're just a tiny, teeny part.

A surprising number of people say,

You guys claim you are doing everything you can to stop cheating, but you're NOT .

Oh really? You must be sitting in our office watching us then. Once and for all: Yes. We. Are. Doing. Everything. We. Can. To. Stop. Cheating.

Nathan asks,

I was playing a double team on lockout with my girlfriend, during the game I got a splatter after shooting an explosive barrel, how did that happen without any vehicles? I added the page link for the game stats, because I find this hard to believe.

That means that an object hit you - probably another barrel. Splatters can happen if ANYTHING big, heavy and not-alive hits you. That includes debris.

Rose asks,

Where were you last week?

Scotland, Italy, Germany and Denmark.

And finally (or is it?) CJ Cowan (our cinematic supremo) made such a cool Mister Chief that we had to show you it. It's the commerative T-Shirt design for tomorrow's (damp) Golf Tourney

And nobody scrolls down this far, but if you do you'll see what Sketch would look like if he ate all the pies.

http://tomg-iis-01.bungie.bng.local:81/images/news/inlineimages/sketchthehutt.jpg