MLG News writes:

Major League Gaming held the first ever Halo 3 tournament this month at the Meadowlands with record breaking attendance. Over 250 teams showed up to battle it out for bragging rights and over $50,000 in prize money. Thankfully MLG and ESPN put together a Live Broadcast of the event that is now available for on-demand viewing.

Major League Gaming hosted the first ever major Halo 3 tournament this past month during their 2008 Pro Circuit Season Opener at the Meadowlands. With record shattering attendance the action was intense as the best Halo players in the world went at it to prove they really are the best Halo 3 team on the planet. ESPN was on hand all weekend long to cover the action and bring it to the fans live. The first ever live broadcast of a Halo competition, MLG ESPN Saturday Night, is now available for on-demand viewing here (http://www.mlgpro.com/?q=node/209998).

Stay tuned for more news from MLG including the rebroadcast of MLG Championship Sunday to see which team was crowned the first ever Halo 3 Champions.

Why are you reading this? Team SWAT's in matchmaking again!

From 2pm PDT today until Monday morning, Team SWAT is available as an unranked Double EXP weekend. This is SWAT's last weekend before it graduates into a full time, DLC-required ranked playlist in May. Grab some friends and spend the weekend practicing your headshots. Enjoy!

Legendary Map Pack owners get to slake their bloodlust all weekend long in frenzied free for all glory.

To celebrate the release of the Legendary Map Pack, this weekend's Double XP playlist is the Legendary Brawl, a 12 man free for all playlist. Legendary Brawl is ranked, so this is a great chance to get those last few achievements and land yourself a new helmet and a katana.

Legendary Brawl starts today at 2pm PDT and ends 2am Monday morning. To play, you'll need both the Heroic and Legendary map packs. Have fun!

We've added several new profile backgrounds. Sign-in and customize your Bungie.net profile now!

Stosh has been busy making new themes for your Bungie.net profile page.

You can customize your profile by logging-in and selecting "My Bungie.net Settings" under "My Stats" in the main navigation. Select your custom background from the lower right of the page. Don't forget to hit the "save changes" button after you find the one you want.

Enjoy!

Within the next hour or so the playlists should be updated to include the Legendary map pack.

Legendary Map Pack owners will be happy to know that within the next thirty to sixty minutes, the Matchmaking playlists will be updated to include the new Legendary maps. In particular, this means that within that time frame the DLC Slayer and Objective playlists will become Legendary Required and focus solely on the new maps.

Enjoy!

[UPDATE]

In case you weren't aware, this change is now in place and the DLC Playlists feature the Legendary maps exclusively. You can leave Luke's poor inbox alone, now.

The Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack is now available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace! Purchase these maps within a limited time and receive a complimentary four-month subscription to Bungie PRO and expand your Halo 3 file sharing capacity.

The wait for some was unbearable but at long last the Legendary Map Pack is now availble for purchase on Xbox LIVE!

As a special bonus to early purchasers, we're giving out a free 4-month subscription to our Bungie PRO file sharing service. This conveniently expands the size of your Halo 3 File Share by increasing your maximum number of slots to 24 for a total combined size of 250 MB (the default file sharing limits are 6 slots and 25 MB).  Bungie PRO is normally sold as an annual subscription for 750 points so this is basically a free 250 point bonus just for buying the maps!  (not to mention you just might find the extra storage capacity to be very handy as you start creating and sharing your screenshots, films and map variants).

After you've downloaded the map pack all you need to do is play one game on Xbox LIVE (matchmaking or custom) and within 24 hours you will magically have Bungie PRO access. Note that in all likelihood this could happen as quickly as ONE hour but to be safe you should plan on it taking up to a full day.

If you're already a Bungie PRO member don't fret - you will get the four bonus months added onto your current subscription.

You can read more about Bungie PRO and the Legendary Map Pack in last Friday's Weekly Update.

And, if that wasn't enough, there's also the upcoming Halo 3 Legendary Weekend! Head to Xbox.com for the all the details and find out how you can win some cool prizes while playing Halo 3 online later this month.

Check back soon for more information about upcoming Macthmaking Playlist changes and upgrades.

thanks!

Soon, the dead shall arise and consume the brains of the living. But only until Monday morning.

Today at 2:00 pm pacific, Gamers everywhere will see the dead come to life. Zombies, the Halo 2 cult classic gametype made manifest as Infection in Halo 3, and will have all weekend to try and survive this weekend's double XP playlist "Living Dead." The Living Dead Double XP weekend lasts from today until Monday morning at 2:00 am PST.

Time to brush up on your shotgun skills, boys and girls. That Hell's Janitor medal awaits. Enjoy!

[UPDATE, 2:42pm] So, when I said "Double XP," I meant "Not Double XP." A technical issue has arisen and people are getting their standard 1 XP. We're aware of the issue and are looking at resolving it.

[UPDATE 2, 5:34pm] The problem has been identified, and a fix is on its way. However, it will take some time to fix. Expect to start getting double XP tomorrow morning. At least the actual weekend part of this playlist will be double XP, right?

[UPDATE THE FINAL, 1:48pm Friday] Issue resolved! You should see double XP for all games played after around 11am today and for the rest of the weekend. Unfortunately, we cannot reward extra XP for games played before we implemented the fix, but on the bright side, that's a great excuse to play twice as many games. Or something. Wait, does that make sense? Let me get my calculator...

Designers Lars Bakken and Shishka join the Bungie Podcast this week. One talks about DLC and the other talks about the fate of SWAT.


It's been some indeterminate, irregular period of time, which means, it's time for another episode of the Bungie Podcast. In this show, Lars Bakken talks up the Legendary Maps and new hire/old homie Chad "Shishka" Armstrong debuts on the Podcast and at some point talks a bit about the fate of Team SWAT.

Bungie Podcast 041108 (58:11) [54 MB]

Subscribe via iTunes here

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Join the Official Bungie Podcast Group here on Bungie.net, where Frankie, Sketch and I will take your feedback, regurgitate it and feed it back to you. Have you missed one of the episodes of the Bungie Podcast? Check the Podcast Archive and catch up.

"Mapmaker, Mapmaker Make Me a Map" - the latest ViDOC is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace.


Yesterday's Internet-only ViDOC, is today's Xbox Live Marketplace content. "Mapmaker, Mapmaker Make Me a Map," the ViDOC focused on the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack, is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace.

We're taking the Legendary Maps to MLG's Meadowlands Tournament.


I'll be on hand this weekend (April 11-13) in the Meadowlands for MLG's first tournament of the season. Far more interesting than me getting beat up on by professional Halo players, however, is that we're sending the maps from the Legendary Map Pack in a carryon bag that will be handcuffed to my wrist. This Meadowlands event will be the first (and only) public hands-on with the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack prior to its April 15th release. Never heard of MLG? Check out their Web site for more info about this professional gaming association.

Forums were offline a couple hours due to scheduled database maintenance. Everything completed without issue.

Bungie.net forums and private group forums were offline for about 2 hours this morning. However, this work is now complete. Enjoy.

Double EXP Weekend and Grifball return at 2 p.m. today.


Did you catch the fever in last month's Grifball playlist? Grifball returns for another Double EXP weekend, to further fill up your Social Medal Chest with legions of Hammer kills, Killamanjaros and whatever that other medal is that is nigh impossible without the insanity of Grifball. The playlist is live now and will vanish Monday morning at 2 a.m. PDT.

Red vs. Blue, makers of many tres excellente things like: The Blood Gulch Chronicles and Grifball turned five years old today.


Our friends over at Red vs. Blue are celebrating their fifth birthday today (no seriously). The dudes over at RvB are releasing The Red vs. Blue Box Set to commemorate their birthday. The six disc box set includes every episode of the Blood Gulch Chronicles and an all new disc of bonus content. Over at RvB, Burnie Burns informs the folks who've already purchased the RvB discs: "...have no fear. We will also be offering the box and the bonus disc as a separate "build your own box set" kit (some assembly required). There's no need to re-buy five years of precious collector's items."

Stay tuned to RvB all week for more birthday shenanigans.