We've visited Bungie Studios and played Halo 3! Holding our hands throughout our day-long visit were Allen Murray (producer), Brian Jarrard (director of franchise and community affairs), Jaime Griesemer (design lead), Joseph Tung (producer), Lars Bakken (multiplayer designer) and Tyson Green (multiplayer design lead).
What version of Halo 3 will we be playing?
Brian Jarrard: You're going to be playing what we're calling our pre-alpha build. In a couple of weeks, we launch an internal alpha here at Microsoft with a couple of thousand people who will all be playing the game internally. The goal is to test our networking and matchmaking.
There's been lots of rumours of 50+ players for Halo 3 online. What's the official figure?
Jaime Griesemer: We're keeping the online player limit to 16. We found that when you increased the capacity of the players beyond that, it just wasn't as much fun. Not everybody got a chance to get involved in all the action - so we're not going to increase the number.
Obviously this is your first crack at a Halo game on Xbox 360. Where did you start?
Jaime Griesemer: Xbox 360 has a new controller. It's similar to the original, but there are differences - having bumpers and lacking Black and White buttons being the most obvious ones! Instead of porting the control scheme from Halo 1 and 2 we're trying to customise it for Halo 3. We came up with the idea that the bumper buttons are associated with your left and right hands. If you wanted to reload a weapon in your right hand or switch to a two-handed weapon, you just press the Right bumper. This replaces a lot of what the X button did in the first two Halo games. Hopefully you won't find it too confusing.
What has the Xbox 360 allowed you to do with the visuals that you were unable to do before?
Lars Bakken: The first thing you'll notice about the Snowbound level is that it's pretty wide open. If you look out into the distance, you'll see this huge windswept vista. One of the cool things that our artists have been able to do on Xbox 360 is to not be bound by the typical way of ending a map with a huge wall, like we've done before. From a design perspective, it's pretty cool to be able to do something unique in Snowbound, which is to have this perimeter fence. You'll see all these guns monitoring the outside, vast open area - and if you go out there you're going to get killed. That's how we keep the player in check.
We're glad that you've resurrected the assault rifle but why have you brought it back after ditching it from Halo 2?
Jaime Griesemer: When we look back at multiplayer Halo 1 and 2, one of the biggest problems we had is with the spawning weapon. The weapon you start with kind of defines the feel of the whole game. You have to very carefully balance it so that it doesn't spoil the experience.
Joseph Tung: In Halo 1 we had two main spawning weapons. There was the assault rifle which was fairly useless. It spread bullets out and wasn't really effective. Then we had the pistol, which was probably too useful. So, in Halo 2 we switched this and you had the SMGs as the main spawning weapon. But that sort of had a flattening effect on the game. We saw a lot more dual-wielding of that weapon than we originally expected. So when we started to look at Halo 3, we took a lot of time to make sure that we got the spawning weapon right.
Jaime Griesemer: We decided that the spawning weapon couldn't do any kind of special damage because if you could do headshots, the game would just become all about headshots. It had to be a basic weapon without any special characteristics. When you spawn and someone is standing on top of you, it's frustrating not to be able to do any damage back. So the new assault rifle has a little bit of a longer range than in Halo, and it's a little more accurate.
Tyson Green: Another thing we thought is that a spawn weapon should be a fundamental part of the overall game. For us, the golden tripod of Halo multiplayer is your primary weapon, grenades and melee attack. We wanted a weapon that worked really well with the grenades and melee. After we talked about this, we realised that it was a lot like the original assault rifle. We want to encourage players to work with it rather than dumping it as soon as they possibly could!
How does a Brute theme differ from a Covenant or human one?
Joseph Tung: The aesthetic we're going for is high-tech, but low brow. The Brutes are space faring, they have sophisticated technology. This weapon is plasma battery-driven, but they use it to fire giant spikes at you. It's not a sophisticated use of technology. They like to put blades on theirs weapons so they're a lot more brutish than their Elite counterparts.
Jaime Griesemer: We're also adding a new grenade type for the first time since Halo 1, which we're calling the Spike Grenade. It's different because it doesn't do spherical damage; instead it produces a highly directional cone of damage. The blast goes a lot farther than other grenades, and it's capable of dealing out a lot of damage in one direction.
Aside from the headset, have you come up with any new features we haven't seen before for online play?
Tyson Green: Instead of the emblems over your team-mates' heads, we're introducing what we call Service Numbers. The idea behind this is that we're trying to improve communication between players in-game. Think of the times when you've been in a game and you see a team-mate up ahead and you yell, "Hey, you over there with the spiky blue head logo - oh, you're dead." We're implementing Service Numbers as they're more legible. Now you just yell, "Hey, t44 get that Warthog!" They're generated from your player name. In the final game, you'll be able to choose your Service Number and emblem, and these will form your online identity.
One of our favourite parts of the multiplayer game is its vehicles. Can we expect to see more than just the Mongoose?
Lars Bakken: Oh yeah. In Halo 3 we're pushing the vehicles even harder. We're not just using them for combat anymore; we're integrating them into every aspect of the game. The Mongoose is primarily used for moving around the battlefield. Players will find this useful if they need to get somewhere quickly. It's a small vehicle; sort of an ATV that's really agile and you can get some great air off it. Two players can ride it and we call this 'riding brokeback'.
How are you pushing the Matchmaking options in Halo 3?
Allen Murray: What we did in Halo 2 has never been done before and we're building on that for Halo 3. You're basically two button presses away from getting into a game with other gamers of a competitive skill level. The big complaint from Halo 2 was that people wanted more control over their destiny when the system chose the game type. That's where the new option of vetoing comes in. When you get pistols on Midship for the fifth time in a row, now you can just veto that decision. If more than 50 per cent of players veto a map, it'll pick another map and game type. The second option you get you can't veto.
Brian Jarrard: This also allows us as a developer to get that data back and make really fast updates to our playlists. We can find out right away if everyone's vetoing a map, and can remove it and update our game types accordingly. We're pretty excited to have that fl exibility.
Anything else? Don't go quiet on us...
Jaime Griesemer: Well, we're doing what we're calling Saved Films. You can pause the action and see what's going on, so if there's a crucial moment in your game you can check it out in slow-mo. If you just want to get to the action, you can fast forward. If there's a scene that you really want to check out and get a bird's-eye view of, you can fly the camera around and start the action again and watch it from a different angle. If there's a moment that you've missed - you can rewind! You'll also be able to watch the fight in third-person, and you can do all of the same things from that perspective.
Brian Jarrard: One of the things that's exciting is being able to watch your Saved Films with your party over the network. Imagine what the community will do with that! It's a great way to review your game and work on your strategies and find out what worked and what didn't.
Wow, i love details about multiplayer, PDZ would have been poor if it wasnt for the online play. I hope the control arnt too sympathetic, nothing worse than a newb killing pro's. The dual weild in PDZ was good, although you could use the second feature on the other weapon cause it was roll, i wonder if Halo will have similar problems.
Saved films? WTF? Come on man, concentrate on making the game better and more even. I.E sort out the hosting issues and the weapons consistency ( E.g unloading a couple of shots at point blank range in the back of someones head only for them to turn around and kill you with one shot!). Saved films is for imbeciles with too much time on their hands I'm sure most people would rather the weapons were consistent and there was no more hosting probs.
You really shouldn't complain because in the end if they did nothing to multiplayer, everyone will complain that it's just a polished version of Halo 2 with nothing new or extra. They need to add some new features into it because they want to give us something different. That's the whole point of bringing out a sequel: improving on what was in the last one.
They are under a lot of pressure because of the high expectation from gamers, they want to get everything right.
Also, Bungie aren't a small team. They have dedicated teams working on Campaign, others working on Multiplayer, play testers and a whole host of other teams (which I am no expert on). Give them a break, they're doing the best that they can.
I am looking forward to Halo3 and I welcome the new info that Bungie have given because lets face it, Bungie don't give out much info this early.
i cant wait my favorite game is coming out ive collected halo 1 and 2 on the day it came out and possibly the third one? i suggest they keep halo 3 in first person because its always been like that.
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will they never listen!!
