Posted by urk at 2/3/2009 11:57 AM PST

Wet, mangled, and reeking of dog breath.


Another offering from the Ascendant Justice cargo hold, Vociferous has been living up to his moniker for quite some time now, lending his magnifying glass and floral prose to those looking for more insight into Halo's narrative.  Like his comrade Cocopjojo, his words are often so close to the source material that we seldom feel the need to offer up any corrections.  This man knows his Halo.  If you want to learn a little about his own non-fictional tale, read on for some information about the man behind the "Wall of Text."

Q. Who are you and what do you do?

A. I'm Jeremy, but most folks know me as Vociferous from Ascendant Justice. Outside the Jundland Wastes of the internet, I'm a fairly simple guy; I spend most of my time hanging out with my wife and son, who is easily the biggest Halo fan I know.

When I'm not reading or writing, I spend most of the time working a real job: I'm a community administrator with a leading wireless company's website. Essentially, I babysit grown adults on an internet forum and support center - about 1.6 million of them.

Q. Diaper change time must be a drag.  Where did your tag come from?

A. "Vociferous" actually came into being around the launch of Halo 2. At the time, I had tossed around a few ideas with some of the originals from Ascendant Justice and this one was the one that stuck. Anyone who knows me personally will advocate its depictive accuracy.

I'm rolling with Mr Vociferous now because I committed the cardinal sin of changing my original tag which was, in fact, "vociferous". Now some dude has that gamertag and and as internet justice would have it, the last game he played was PGR3.

Yes, that's right. PGR friggin' 3.

Q. Kudos to him for being savvy.  What forums do you drift around in when you have the spare time?

A. I originally hail from Ascendant Justice's forum, but as of late, I've been participating heavily on NeoGAF - both are good folks. I got involved in all of this by starting a small thread on a backwater forum which was really just a way to organize my own thoughts on Halo 2. A lot of helpful hands later and we had a small, fledgling group of guys who loved discussing Halo as much as they enjoyed playing it.

Q. What do you enjoy about that play experience? Do you ever invite your friends and family to share in the fun?

A. Since the advent of Halo: Combat Evolved, I rarely steer my ship far away from the port. I was a heavy gamer in earlier years, but with a family in the picture, I find myself fine tuning my gaming focus on things with guaranteed payoffs. Halo's easily one of them.

I'm really hoping that the new maps and the upcoming expansion re-energize my original base of friends at Ascendant Justice. I have fond memories of razing enemies with those dudes across the geometry of Lockout, Midship, Sanctuary, Turf and Terminal for hours on end back in 2005. I'd like to recreate that in the next few months.

Q. Ah, the future.  It will be glorious.  But what about the past?  What was the first Bungie title you played?

A. My first full Bungie experience was Halo. I had known about Bungie and their games before, but Halo caught the corner of my eye while I was on the way to pick up a GameCube and I have never looked back. There's something magical about that first game. I think what Bungie has done with Halo 2 and Halo 3 is revolutionary and to be applauded, but for me, the first Halo had this powerful draw and charisma about it that I still find myself drawn to.

Maybe it was the crisp controls and movement, maybe it was the sprawling majesty of the nonlinear environments or maybe it was just the perfect composite of sandbox and combat together -- whatever it was, I was hooked on day one. I played hours upon hours, sometimes reloading the same exact encounter repeatedly for six months in a row just so I could experience it differently each time. (Two Betrayals, you have my number. Call me some time.)

The game was friggin' brilliant.

Q. Are you surprised by your friggin' level of community involvement?

A. Nah, I'm not really surprised. Relatively speaking, I've always been this involved in the Halo community since 2004. Thanks to Jironimo, nowadays I have a channel now for my writing - the blog. Before that, a lot of my stuff got tossed onto forums and then eventually passed around the internets as gospel or rumor until it came back to me, hitting my front door like a wet and mangled newspaper with the stench of dog breath.

I'd get my hopes up because someone would tell me that they had an official document chalk full of content for the next Halo game, only to realize that they were talking about something I wrote in my spare time. ULTIMATE SAD FACE! In the end, Bungie surpassed my wildest imagination in their sequels, so it made little difference. At least now I write things and there's no question where it came from.

Well, except for the -blam!- stuff. That's urk's fault.

It hurts me when you say that, Voc.  I think we better wrap up.

Thanks to Vociferous for supplying the answers to our pressing questions and for the walls of text he supplies over at Ascendant Justice.  We're looking forward to what comes next...as long as it doesn't arrive wet and mangled on our Internet doorstep.

Tags: Community, Spotlight

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Posted by urk at 1/27/2009 11:20 AM PST

Built to scale.


A week ago today, Stephen Loftus, aka SoundEffect, dropped an article examining the technical specifications of the UNSC's Halcyon-class Crusier, the SCS Pillar of Autumn.  If you aren't already familiar with his work, this exhaustive examination of the UNSC's warship is a great place to begin.  But before you head onboard and check out the Autumn's decks, stay docked at the Bungie.net Cradle for a few minutes of R&R and get familiar with the man behind the specs.

Q. Who are you and what do you do?

A. My name's Stephen Loftus and I live on the east coast of Canada.

I currently work as a quality assurance test lead for a gaming company that produces video lottery terminals and games for casinos and bars worldwide.

When I'm not in the office on the computer and playing games, I like to be at home on the computer and playing games. Wow, when you write it out… :)

My major hobby is scale model building. For decades, I've built model cars, planes and spacecraft. Not only store-bought kits, but scratchbuilt models made from odds and ends. I'm a part of a group of sci-fi modelers and our site is: http://msfm.seryan.com/

What got me noticed by the Halo community was a scratchbuilt model I was building of the Pillar of Autumn. When finished, it will be about 4ft in length. I've stalled on it, but it's on the bench as I type this, so it's never far from my mind. I was absolutely thrilled when a photo of my in-progress Autumn model made it into one of the Halo 3 documentaries included in the Legendary Edition of the game. It's on screen for about a second and a half, but it's been a highlight of my time with the Halo community.

My other hobby involves research. I love to research the hell out of whatever interests me. I'll get more into that later.

Q. What kind of research went into coming up with your gamertag?

A. Well, I guess there are two names. The name most people know me by online is SoundEffect. The name is a fictitious Autobot from The Transformers (he says as though Transformers aren't already fictitious). It's a name given to me by my wife because when we first met, I was always making sounds with my voice for ordinary things like opening doors, cupboards, driving, walking, et cetera. As a kid I had the best fun with action figures because I could make the laser sounds and engine thrust noises with my voice. I can do a few cartoon character impersonations that aren't too far off from what I've heard from people. Anyway, my wife and I initially got together over our mutual love of Transformers so SoundEffect was a character I made up, sketched, and even wrote a fanfic involving him. I've gone by the name ever since.

If you were asking about my gamertag, it's ScaleMaster117. I haven't been on Xbox Live yet, so no grandiose stats to boast about. The name is from a scale-calculating program I coded after finishing my IT education. The 117 is for the scale work I've done specifically with the Haloverse.

Q. Are there specific areas of the community that you find more interesting than others?

A. I visit HBO a lot; more than once every day. The only site I'm on as frequently is my email. I also regularly spend time at www.starshipmodeler.com on their forums. I'm on Bungie.net for the weekly updates.

My major interest in Halo is about the technology, the vehicles, the weapons. One of my first visits to HBO was to add some of my Autumn research to a discussion underway about the Pillar of Autumn. When I looked for info online about the ship and found very little, I decided to write up my own article about what came out of those discussions and why. It got posted thanks to Claude at HBO...big thanks, Claude! I was then asked about various other vehicles in Halo and became the guy to go to for finding out the actual sizes of things in the Halo universe. I wrote another article or two and then Claude graciously gave me a spot of my own (on HBO's front page, no less!) to post any other Halo articles I cared to write. I still get emails from pretty much around the world either thanking me for the research I've already done, or asking what the next article will be about.

[Editor's Note: HBO has a frontpage? - Urk]

Q. What compels you to game?

A. What compels me to game? Well, I don't actually consider myself a 'gamer' in the contemporary sense. I play a few titles to the nth degree, but I don't sample from everything that's out there. I've played the Halo series, Half-Life series, and Splinter Cell series to DEATH, but I have never bothered to play Guitar Hero or even tried out the Wii. Halo is a type of game where I can go into a level and just look around at where trees and rocks were placed. Just the ambiance of the game makes exploring so much fun and increases the replayability a hundredfold. I seriously never get tired of visiting any level because no matter how many times I've seen it, there's something new to find or discover. Some new trick to pull off.

I have a few friends that I play Halo with, and I play Halo with my wife as well. I keep telling her I'll win 15-0 on any Halo 3 map she chooses, and then the score ends up at 15-13 or sometime she wins too. We're a pretty good match and that keeps it fun. (I'll get that 15-0 someday…)
At my workplace, we have an Xbox 360. On breaks and sometimes lunch, we play Halo 2 predominantly, but Halo 3 and some other titles are on the shelf there. In the 4-player Halo 2 matches, I'm hated for my ability to plasma grenade the faces of the better players, even from across the map. I guess it's become my weapon of choice with that crowd. There's a couple there that can routinely win against me 15-0 until I get out the stickies!

Q. What was the first Bungie title you played?

A. Halo for the Xbox was the first Bungie game I played. A friend had an Xbox and played it with him and fell in love with the game. The vehicle control was top notch and the control scheme was intuitive. I was primarily playing PC games at the time so I was used to keyboard and mouse control. I bought Halo PC when that came out in 2003 and play it to this day. I watched Halo 2 play out before I ever played it myself. I didn't even care…I just wanted to watch the story unfold! I didn’t get an Xbox until late 2005. I bought the Halo Edition 360 about a week before Halo 3's release and got the Legendary Edition of that.

Q. Are you surprised by your level of involvement?

A. I'm surprised the Halo franchise has sucked me in the way it has. I tend to be an obsessive personality when it comes to things I like…I go all out. Halo has certainly give my off time focus over the better part of 7-8 years now. I get into almost every aspect of it: I have tons of Halo figures, multiple copies of the games, all the novels, soundtracks, strategy guides, art books, statues, etc. I can't get enough Halo!

Q. Are you involved with any other entertainment-based community sites?

A. There are others? I don't visit a lot of other interests online actually. I still like a lot of the shows I liked as a kid such as Star Trek, Transformers, Voltron, GI Joe, and so on, but there have been few communities that have the level of interest or the quality of forumgoer like at HBO. I know there I'm among people as interested in Halo as I am. I haven't found that kind of camaraderie with any other entertainment property.

Q. Anything you would like to add?

A. Frogblast the vent core. There. Had to be said.

Big thanks to you Urk, you're the first to interview me about Halo stuff! Thanks also to Claude at HBO for giving me an outstanding place to go everyday. And most importantly my wife, Sarah, who loves Halo as well, but probably thinks I spend a little too much time with it. And replace 'probably' with 'definitely'.

To anyone out there that may not have seen my Halo articles, they can be found here:
http://halo.bungie.org/misc/theworkofstephenloftus.html

Speaking of spending time, it looks like we've run out of the precious commodity where SoundEffect is concerned.  Thanks for the words, Stephen - both here and in your articles.  Technically, they're pretty damn awesome.

Tags: Community, Spotlight

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Posted by urk at 1/20/2009 11:13 AM PST

Just a man and his will to survive.


If you fancy yourself a fan of Halo 3's gameplay and mission design, there's a good chance you've already read Cocopjojo's Hindsight: Halo 3 articles.  If not, hit the link and head on over to Ascendant Justice to get familiar with the man's work.  Cocopjojo's analysis is so sweet, even one of our own designers pitched in with some insight of his own.  If you've already pored over Cocop's articles, scroll down for a short look at the man with the 20/20 hindsight.

Q. Who are you and what do you do?

A. When I'm not on the intertubes, I go by Jacob. I'm an audio engineer, which means that I mix sound for bands, hang speakers from ceilings, and explain to people why I can't “remove” the vocals from “Eye of the Tiger” so that they can sing it karaoke their wedding reception. Here in the real world, I'm known as Cocopjojo, and I help Vociferous and Jironimo manage Ascendant Justice.

Q. Your name is hard to pronounce.  We get confused easily. Explain.

A. Okay, so, it is actually pronounced “coh-cop-joe-joe.” I used to work at a community center where we played Halo on a daily basis on four Xboxes that we had lanned together. Some kid created a profile named CocoPjojo, which I promptly claimed as my own on the basis that “coh-cop-joe-joe” was superior to his pronunciation of “coh-coh-pee-joe-joe.” A lot of folks just call me “Cocop,” for short.

Q. Cocop it is.  If I wanted to call you out for stealing some poor little kid's gamertag, where's the best place to find you?

A. I used to post at HBO, but I now spend the majority of my time at GAF debating such things as which Halo game's pistol is the best, why CTF should be the only gametype in Matchmaking, and – of course – the classic AR vs. BR (although, it's pretty much been decided that the AR wins). Besides GAF, I've been a long-time fan of High Impact Halo. I'm not good enough at the game to pull off the sorts of stuff that those guys do, but I definitely enjoy watching the videos they produce of mile-high blasts to the tops of Halo's various structures.

Q. What is it about gaming that draws you in?

A. With Halo 3, I play almost entirely for the social aspect; I rarely jump into Matchmaking by myself. There's such a variety of things to do within the game, I'm not surprised at all that I still play almost nightly, even here, a year after its release. For example, I typically enjoy driving a Warthog around and getting myself and my gunner killed while trying to make awesome jumps in Matchmaking games, but I'll also jump into Team Slayer every once in a while. I pretty much live for Team Objective and BTB with a full party of friends.

Q. What was the first Bungie title you played?

A. Halo was the first Bungie game I played, and I saw it at a friend's house who had an Xbox. We played through the campaign together, and I was dumbfounded by the variety of things that Bungie had managed to pull off with the gameplay. The quality of the environments, the vehicles, and the music I had never seen before together in one game. I spent most of my junior and senior years of high school playing daily 8v8s on Sidewinder at the aforementioned community center. Also, 16-player Rockets FFA on Chiron (no, I'm not kidding).

Q. Ever feel like you've just come out of a random teleporter when you think about your level of community involvement?

A. No, as far as Ascendant Justice, I attribute it mostly to the quality of the work that Voc puts out, and the overall vision that Jironimo has for the site. In all seriousness, when you're working with folks that love what they do (and are good at it, to boot), you kind of have to give it your all, or get left behind. And it's through my involvement with Ascendant Justice that I've met a lot of good guys, and it's with these peeps that I play the game every day.

Q. Anything you wanna add before you head off into the sunset?

A. Let me just say that I'm really looking forward to seeing what you guys do with ODST and the Mythic maps (is it true that it's Luke's fault that they're taking so long to release?).  Also, I want to give a shout-out to my girl, Cocojpojo! And to my little brother, who has the best gamertag ever: xXMLGxGorillaXx. Lol.

That is a sweet tag.  Could use a few more x's though.

Thanks for the words, Jacob - both here and at Ascendant Justice.  And while something tells me you were pretty close to earning yourself an Editor's Note from L.M. Smith with your Mythic Map callout, we still love you.  We're not in love, mind you, but, well, you know what we mean.

Tags: Community, Spotlight

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