Big Team Training grows into Big Team Battle and Double Team Training emerges in this week's Halo 3 Matchmaking Playlist Update.

Last week  in the Halo 3 Beta, we ushered Big Team Training into the fold and this week we're launching a ranked version of Big Team action. Additionally, we've added a nouveau classique to the Matchmaking Playlist -- Double Team Training. In Double Team Training, players will pair off and square off in 2v2 games of the Slayer and Skirmish variety. In case you've lost track of the Playlists during the truffle shuffle of adjustments and tweaks we've been making, here's the current breakdown:

Social Matches

• Big Team Training
• Double Team Training
• Team Training

Ranked Matches

• Team Slayer
• Big Team Battle
• Rumble Pit

Our friends over at Halo.Bungie.Org are kicking off a contest to give away FOUR brand new limited edition Halo Zunes. Visit their contest page for more details! And hurry, there isn't much time!

On June 15th the brand new Halo Zune is being released exclusively through Gamestop retailers around the country. It's a cool device that features custom Halo design stylings and comes pre-loaded with an array of Halo materials including concept art and paintings from Halo 3 (over 120 total pieces of Halo-related artwork). In addition, each device also comes loaded with an exclusive Red vs. Blue episode, many of their classic episodes and a variety of Halo trailers and VIDOCs from past and present.  There's a lot to like on there for Halo fans!

Now you could buy on one 6/15 for the bargain MSRP of $249.99 OR you can head over to Halo.Bungie.Org and win one for free!

You're going to have to work for it though - in order to win, you'll have to create either an awesome Halo song parody, original song, Halo 3 montage video or Halo machinima style video. You can get the full rules and requirements over at the HBO contest page.

We're thrilled to be able to provide the prizes for this cool contest but please be aware that Bungie Studios is not responsible for the program itself. Any questions or issues you have with the Zune Contest should be directed their way.

The Bungie Team will be looking forward to seeing and hearing some awesome community content in the weeks ahead. We'll be sure to share the best of the best with all of you.

Good luck and have fun!

Still waiting for a code to arrive in your Inbox? Did your spam blocker filter you from fun for the last week? Finally, there's a solution.

Major Nelson updated his website this morning with more information on Microsoft's Rule of Three program. We've been aware of folks having problems receiving codes from Microsoft and as of last week we tried to help as much as we could, but ultimately the problem's scale was just too big. Thankfully, now there's a solution. Yet another code emailing occurred this morning, so if you scan your Inbox and Spam Filter and still see jacksquat, you can call 1-8004MYXBOX and customer service will help you recover your code.

We're sorry for the inconvenience, but Microsoft is on the case.

Are some things about the Halo 3 Public Beta confusing you? Do you want to know more about a feature or why you keep getting owned in Oddball on Snowbound? Here's where to ask.

As part of this week's Weekly Update we're going to take a look at some of your questions about the Halo 3 Public Beta and answer them as best we can. Click here to succept yourself to ridicule and in rare cases, enlightenment.

IGN Comics chats with Brian Bendis and Ruwan Jayatilleke about the upcoming Halo: Uprising series of comics from Marvel. Bendis, as you may recall, is the scribe tasked with writing the comic book series, along with his artist partner-in-crime, Alex Maleev.

The interview is juicy enough to whet the appetites of any serious Halo fan. Pop along there now and check it out.

 

We say goodbye to Team Training and hello to Big Team Training.

Like any good chef we're making some changes to the recipe in the Public tastetest we call the Halo 3 Beta. This week we're making our first change to the Matchmaking Playlist . We're swapping out Team Training and adding in Big Team Training. In Big Team Training players will play 6v6 on High Ground and Valhalla. In addition to some existing modes look for some new modes in Big Team Training, like Multi Flag CTF on Valhalla. Additionally, we've made some slight tweaks to the Team Skirmish playlist that should add greater variety in the opponents you'll face.

Those Multiplayer Beta tees that surfaced at last week's press events arrive at the Bungie store.

Over at the Bungie Store, we've made the Halo 3 Beta T-shirts availabe. These brown tees sport a stylized Master Chief vaulting out of a mancannon and are the same ones you've seen the press show off.

Bungie isn't the only team with a Banhammer. The Xbox Live team has infinitely more powerful tools that obviously span beyond just the Halo games. Be warned that using hacked consoles will get you a one-way ticket to Banville - no matter which game you play.

We are continually fighting the good fight to keep modders and jerks out of the Halo 2 online population (and now Halo 3) but we can all sleep easier at night knowing that the Xbox Live team has their own group of agents working towards the betterment of the online community.

Major Nelson and Gamerscoreblog posted reminders today that people who log onto Live using modified consoles are being dealt with. As more and more people pour into the Halo 3 Beta, please take this warning to heart. Using modified content and hacked boxes is against the Terms of Use for Xbox Live and doing so will result in your console being permanently banned from the service. Forever. For all games.

If you get an error message "Status Code: Z: 8015 - 190D" it means you are done playing Xbox Live on that console. Congrats.

To all of the upstanding members of the Live community - we salute you and look forward to fun times throughout the Halo 3 Beta and beyond.

If you were a winner of the Microsoft Halo 3 "3 Ways to Play" promotion but haven't received your beta code yet, please read this important update.

Thousands of lucky gamers around the world won their way into the Halo 3 beta via the “3 ways to play” Microsoft sweepstakes earlier this year. Beta access codes were sent out to everyone on Wednesday 5/16 but we understand that apparently not everyone has received that mail. However, the majority of winners received a mail and are playing Halo 3 right now. The only explanation we have is that many people likely had the mail blocked by their ISP or they ended up in a junk mail or spam folder. The first thing you should do is check to see if the mail was intercepted and might be buried in your inbox somewhere.

Microsoft is going to send out beta codes one more time to everyone who won at 3 p.m. PDT today.

This will be coming from the email alias  halo3beta@microsoft.com. Please keep an eye out for this mail. This is a second mailing and is NOT a new code. Anyone who originally received a mail the first time can disregard – this is the same code you already have.  The original mail was sent from halo3beta@bungie.com. This is the same mail, different alias.

We understand many of you have been waiting and hopefully this secondary mailing will clear things up. If you still do not receive your code, you are advised to contact Xbox Support – unfortunately there isn't anything we (Bungie) can personally do to assist you. Once the Xbox support team verifies your identity, they will attempt to retrieve your code for you.


ADDITIONAL LAST MINUTE UPDATE!!

In order to help circumvent ISP spam filters, a sneaky tactic is being implemented that may or may not improve your odds of receiving these emails. The mails will be staggered and sent out over the span of approximately 30 to 45 minutes. Also, groups of mails will be separated by slightly different email addresses. This means you can expect to receive a mail that will come from halo3beta-X@microsoft.com where "X" is any number between 1 and 30. It's not known if this will actually work (surely the free VIagra people have tried more devious methods than this) but it could theoretically help with some of the stricter mail filters.

If you haven't seen a mail by 4 p.m. PDT then it's  probably safe to assume it was intercepted by the Spam Police.

SketchFactor writes:

Just a reminder, that  as a consolation for lost time and inconvenience during the launch period, we extended the Halo 3 Beta end date to Sunday, 6/10, at 11:59 PM PDT.

UPDATE : 5/16/07  7:05 PM


Halo 3 Beta Downloads via Crackdown are fixed!

It's been a long day for a lot of people but we're happy to announce that effective immediately, a title update for Crackdown is available on Xbox Live that will fix the issue that previously prevented you from downloading the beta. The Microsoft team just deployed this fix and when you launch Crackdown you should receive a prompt to download the update.

Please note that it could take up to four hours for your console to receive this update based on various factors. However, the good news is that we're in the clear and Halo 3 gameplay is just over the horizon.

We realize this has been a pain for many and an inconvenience at the very least. Given the circumstances, we've decided to extend the duration of the Halo 3 Beta from June 6th to June 10th at 11:59 PM PDT.  So, you lost almost a full day of play today but to make up for it we're tacking on four more days (and a weekend at that).

We apologize for the delay and hardships this issue has caused and hope that it quickly becomes a distant memory clouded by good times playing Halo 3 with your friends.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding. We'll see you online!


Note : A rare bug has been discovered that sometimes results in improper text display in the game UI. Basically, you won't see any text at all. If you encounter this issue, you can fix it yourself by doing the following:

1. Restart your Xbox 360
2. Boot up the Halo 3 Beta
3. While the Halo 3 Beta is loading, immediately press up on the D-Pad and hold the A button until you see the Bungie logo. If you perform this correctly a dialog box will appear confirming maintenance has been done to your system.
4. Resume the Halo 3 Beta!

 

  

Red vs. Blue meets Halo 3 on Xbox Live Marketplace.

"Tomorrow, tomorrow, you're always a day away." There's no redheaded elfin child singing here, though. Instead, just ahead of tomorrow's Halo 3 Public Beta launch, the merry pranksters at Red vs. Blue have just released their first flick using the Halo 3 engine and it's available for download on Xbox Live Marketplace. The download will be made available at the RvB official site at a later date. Consider this a "Welcome to the Beta" video, a day early.

Tomorrow can't come soon enough, can it?

Frankie writes:

Some changes have been made to the current Friends and Family preview of the Halo 3 Public Beta. Read what they are and why they're actually good for Halo 3's fall release by clicking through.

UPDATE: In some cases, users are experience a lack of fonts or characters in the user interface after downloading today's update. If this happens to you, all hope is not lost, do not despair, do not run around screaming.

Instead, do the following.
First, restart your Xbox 360.
Second, boot up the Halo 3 beta.
Third, while in the Halo 3 boot up sequence press up on the D-pad and hold the A button until you see the Bungie logo. If you've completed this correctly there will be a dialog box confirming maintenance has been done on your system.
Four, resume bathing in the Halo 3 Public Beta.

Last night we made the first test update to the Halo 3 Public Beta, basically a test to ensure that we are able to make subtle or dramatic changes to the game on the fly, in order to react to problems we could encounter going forward. In this case, the change was both subtle and dramatic going as far as invalidating your existing saved films and wiping your file share in advance of tomorrow's public rollout. You must accept and install the tiny update to continue playing correctly.

Don't worry, we will try to keep these updates to a minimum throughout the course of the Beta, and naturally we don't plan to wreck your films everytime a change is made to the game - but in order to implement and test that stuff for the shipping game, this is one of the wee sacrifices we have to make.

Also, due to player response we've also significantly reduced the appearance of Team Slayer gametypes on the Team Skirmish playlist - this means more High Ground CTF for Beta gamers.

Thanks for both your patience and great feedback and stay tuned to Bungie.net for more updates throughout the Beta.

Community stalwart and Halo 3 Beta-tester extraordinaire "Mr. Jukes" has created one of his trademark videos to tantalize and titillate the masses as the Halo 3 Public Beta draws nigh. Who exactly is this Mr. Jukes and what is a Lazr Cat? The answers lie within.

Maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't... but around Microsoft, Mr. Jukes has established a name for himself as a tireless, hardcore and fanatical player of Halo who isn't too shabby in the video production department either.

Over the last few months, Jukes' logged an incredible (bordering on inhuman) amount of games through the internal Alpha and Beta tests for Halo 3 and he was just as involved in the first ever Halo 2 online tests as well. In addition to playing the games, Mr. Jukes also became known for his entertaining videos - most of which focused on jumping. Yes, jumping. It doesn't sound like much but some of the jumps and tricks he pulls in the games had to be seen to be believed.

I asked Mr. Jukes a few questions to help us get to know the man behind the controller and pass along some of his insights into the Halo 3 beta....

When you're not playing Halo 3, what do you actually do at Microsoft?
Mr. Jukes: I am a developer on the Windows Core User Experience Team. I was responsible for the Start Menu that shipped in Vista and am busy working on the next version of Windows.

How did you get started making wacky jump videos for Halo?
Jukes: During the Halo 2 Beta I found a couple of jumps on Zanzibar that really opened my eyes to the tactical possibilities of taking the less obvious route. I showed them to some of my friends and they thought the jumps could come in pretty handy. From that point on, I was always on the lookout for alternative ways to reach a destination. I had fully explored most of the maps that shipped with Halo 2 and found a lot of useful jumps by the time it went public so I thought it would be cool to set up a site and make some videos to share with the community.

Why do you love jumping so much?
Jukes: I enjoy the social aspect of playing a custom game with friends where we aren't trying to kill each other. I also enjoy the challenge of completing a really difficult jump after many failed attempts. I am totally psyched for the (Halo 3) Saved FIlms feature. This video was made with a very early and basic version... I can't wait to see the videos people will end up making with the full feature. Never again will I miss a shot because I didn't have my capture device recording!

What was your fondest memory playing the Halo 3 internal beta?
Jukes: (NOTE: His real answer was too secret to reveal, so here's his backup answer) -- Playing until 4 a.m. with some friends while trying to break the leveling system. In the process we lined up some sweet Spartan Laser kills and had some fun with the Trip Mine and Fusion Cores.

How many games of Halo 3 do you reckon you've played thus far?
Jukes: If you include the Halo 3 Alpha and Beta, I think I logged about 1,100 games.

What advice would you give to the rest of world as they prepare to play Halo 3 for the first time?
Jukes: Have fun and don't be a douche.

Oh, and one more thing... is it true that you can destroy New001 at Halo 3?
Jukes: Oh man... a chance to bash New001 in a public forum with no recourse for retaliation. It feels like Christmas. In all honesty, I don't think anybody involved in a game with New ends up winning in the end... no matter the outcome.


Before you check out Mr. Jukes' Halo 3 video debut, please keep in mind that this video was produced using the internal beta version of Halo 3. This means it's a bit older than what the rest of the world will start playing in the next few days. It also means that it has all sorts of debug text all over it - this won't be in the version you get your hands on. And, this was fully sanctioned and approved by Bungie - unlike some of those other "leaked" videos that have ended up online.


Check out Mr. Jukes' Halo 3 "Betalicious" Video HERE! (WMV)  (right click, 'save-as')

We hope you enjoy it - we did. And a huge thanks to Mr. Jukes for putting this together for our amusement.

See you online soon!

SketchFactor writes:

Tonight is the night for the long awaited Halo 2 Xbox Live Matchmaking Playlist update and ranking reset. Tombstone and Desolation will be required for some of the playlists and if you purchased them before Monday, 5/7, you will need to download them again before you can play online. Both maps will become free in early July.

It took a little longer than we would have liked but we're happy to announce that later tonight the new maps will finally be integrated into the Halo 2 Xbox Live matchmaking playlists. As you know by now, the original map release didn't go as smooth as we had hoped due to some billing and download issues and then a few wrinkles with the maps themselves. Over the past two weeks those problems were all addressed - everyone should be able to download the maps just fine and the geometry issues that were discovered in Tombstone have been addressed.

As a result of this map "repair", everyone who purchased the maps prior to Monday 5/7 will need to download them again. This is required if you want to play the maps online - only the new versions will work in Matchmaking and they are not compatible with the older versions for custom games or offilne play. You will not, I repeat, you will NOT be billed a second time if you already purchased the maps. However, do keep in mind that each purchase is tied to a single Xbox console. If you downloaded it on your Xbox 1 the first time and try to download it again on your Xbox 360, you will be charged again. Or, if you were one of the few who found the billing loop-hole the first time and weren't charged, you will be charged this time.

Tonight's update means that both new maps will be REQUIRED in order to participate in some of our matchmaking playlists. However, we are keeping several playlists in their oldschool state so if you don't have the new maps you will still have some options. Here's the breakdown of what will be available after this update:

Rumble Pit - Unranked - New Maps Required
Double Team - Ranked
Team Slayer - Ranked - New Maps Required
Team Skirmish - Ranked - New Maps Required
Team Training - Unranked 
Team Snipers - Ranked - New Maps Required
Team Hardcore - Ranked
Team SWAT - Unranked - New Maps Required
Big Team Battle - Unranked

Of course you can continue to play custom games with or without the new maps as much as you'd like.

We've been bracing you for this for a little while now but we're also resetting all Halo 2 online rankings tonight as part of this update. In light of the new maps, changes we've made to some banhammer functionality and a desire to regroup the population to better facilitate game matches, we are wiping the slate clean. Naturally this will cause joy for some and outrage for others. Hey, it's "just a number", right? And the people who were legitimate high level players should have no problem quickly ascending the ranks once again.

Lastly, we are finally happy to confirm that Tombstone and Desolation will be available for free download in early July. We don't have the exact date locked but it will be around the first week. Stay tuned to Bungie.net for the final details.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support of Halo 2 and your patience as we've been working through some of these issues.