Bungie.net

Bungie.net is the official website of video game developer Bungie Studios.

Background
Before Bungie was purchased by Microsoft, Bungie.net was used to host and play the Myth series of games. In addition to being the main portal to all official information about Bungie and their games, Bungie.net also operates as a statistical database for the game Halo 2.

Bungie.net retrieves data directly from the Xbox Live servers and stores it in its databases. Every Xbox Live player that participates in a match of a Halo 2 will have an account created on Bungie.net. Connecting your Xbox Live Gamertag with a Microsoft Passport enables you to log on to your account. When logged on you can access much more information.

The Game Viewer allows you to see any match on a series of images of the map telling you where you got killed, who killed you, and where they killed you from. You can also change settings to show where a specific player has achieved all his kills. You can also access information on any of Bungie's past or upcoming games, along with news posts and information from the developers themselves. There is also a message board that can be accessed and posted on.

PlayerStats
PlayerStats is a site within each individual Xbox Live Gamertag. Each page displays this players level in the various game types and where the past 1000 game scores can be accessed and viewed. The number of matches played is displayed along with the number of wins. These statistics can also be accessed via RSS feeds. Two developers have recently come up with a template for "Microsoft Excel 2003 Pro" that allows you to download your RSS newsfeed and view it in different charts and tables. The Leaderboards Page has been removed from Bungie.net to deter cheaters from Halo 2.

Groups on Bungie.net
One feature of Bungie.net is creating groups. If you have an account registered and have been a member for at least 14 days, you can create groups—commonly referred to as "chapters" or "fanclubs." Groups can have any theme to them. You can create anything from a free-for-all chat room to a Halo fan club. Groups have a special system in them generally referred to as ranks. These ranks are administrator positions that vary in power. Powers include kicking members out of the group, banning members, posting news stories for the group to read, changing rank positions. The group's founder automatically has the Full Control rank. A common problem with most groups is that they fail to find a 'niche'. For instance, many new groups are themed around Halo, even though there are already dedicated public forums relating to it, as well as a large number of groups with the same theme that have already been established. This is the reason that most groups fail; that, or poor marketing and distribution of power (some members act nice until promoted, then overthrow the group) There is a two-week delay between the creation of a new account and when the account is allowed to create a new group, for anti-spam purposes.

New Look
As of March 19th 2007, Bungie.net got a new look. It is a preparation for the Halo 3 beta and launch. It has a more futuristic look and lets you view previous stories without a link. It shows the job openings on the front page. All the stuff is at the top. Even a link to the forums all on the front page.

Later, after the new Legendary Map Pack was on Xbox Live Marketplace, Bungie.net changed its background to the backdrop of Blackout. It changed once again in mid-May. As of July 2008 Bungie.net's background is of Cold Storage. On Monday, July 14th 2008, Bungie updated their site with yet another new look and a new page that appears before bringing you to their home page. The first page shows text in many different languages, and then apparently translates them showing different phrases. One phrase is 'Keep it Clean', a phrase that appeared crypticaly in the Bungie Day Vidoc at the end. In the Bottom left hand corner under the letters 'ERR', there seems to be countdown.

Forums on Bungie
Yet another feature on the Bungie website are the forums. The forums are a part of Bungie that let the members discuss things in certain topics, to each forum, its own topic. The list of forums are as follows:

The Underground
"Discussions about anything and everything Bungie."

Discussion of old school Bungie games such as Marathon, Myth, and Oni take place here, as well as anything relating to Bungie in general.

The Septagon
"Improve the Seventh Column and take over the world!"

The Septagon is the hub of Bungie's large and dedicated community. Various contests and debates are held here, as well as providing a place for suggestions to improve the site and questions relating to it. Help improve the 7th Column here.

New Mombasa
"Halo 2 General"

This forum is dedicated to the campaign mode of Halo 2, mostly relating to its storyline but also to easter eggs hidden within the game. Fanfics are also posted here. With the removal of the Zanzibar forum, and the addition of the new Halo 3 forum, this is also the place for general multiplayer discussion.

Halo 3 Forum
"Halo 3 General"

This forum is dedicated to Halo 3.

Community Screenshots
"View, rate, and discuss shared screenshots."

Community Films
"Download and watch community films, then come back to rate and discuss."

Community Film Clips
"Download and watch community film clips, then come back to rate and discuss."

Community Game Varieties
"Download and watch community game variants, then come back to rate and discuss."

Community Map Varieties
"Download and watch community map variants, then come back to rate and discuss."

Optimatch
"Dedicated forum for Halo 2 and Halo 3 Xbox Live Optimatch Playlist Discussions."

In this forum, various suggestions for online matchmaking playlists in Halo 2and Halo 3 are put forth, although very rarely are they ever accepted. The employee at Bungie responsible for receiving these suggestions is known only by his screen name, Ninja on Fire.

The Maw
"Dedicated forum for Halo 2 Vista / Halo PC related discussions."

This forum is dedicated to all versions of Halo PC, including Halo: Custom Edition. This forum is also the center of discussion for the recently released Halo 2 for Windows Vista.

The Library
"Dedicated forum for Halo Xbox related discussions."

A relatively inactive forum, The Library is dedicated to Halo: Combat Evolved for Xbox in all its aspects, from storyline to multiplayer.

The Gallery
"We post zany pictures, you get to write about them."

Regular members are not permitted to make new topics in this forum; rather, they post captions to humorous pictures posted by the administrators of Bungie.net. This Forum hasn’t been updated in years. Some members speculate that it will be removed in a future site update.

The News
"This forum is for discussion of the latest Bungie.net news stories."

As with The Gallery, members are not allowed to make new topics. Instead, they discuss recently-posted news stories in pre-made topics.

Voting Booth
"This forum is for official Bungie polls."

Once again, members are not allowed to make topics. Here is where Bungie conducts its official polls on many different subjects.

The Classifieds
"This forum is for promotion and recruiting for Chapters."

The Classifieds is a place where members may recruit other members either for their group or for their clan on Xbox Live. Gamertags are also exchanged here for custom games. Although the main purpose of this forum use to be recruiting members and allowing them to post in the threads thus declaring their interest in the group and subsequently boosting it to the top of the page so others may find it the Moderators of Bungie.net have decided that no more replies shall be allowed on this forum and all who post replies or an ad more than once will be banned henceforth.

The Flood
"Off topic forum. Use at your own risk. Say your stupid things here."

The obligatory off-topic forum, The Flood contains topics ranging from inquiries about your favorite food to comments on the newest games.

Currently, a round of the Diplomacy game is being hosted by one of the moderators.

* The Flood is not a personal blog *

Forum Moderators
The moderators on Bungie.net are volunteers from the community who donate their time and patience to help maintain some peace and order on the forums. They primarily work to combat spammers and rule violators while also helping to answer questions and welcome new members. If a moderator sees a thread that doesn't belong in a forum, they will move it. If it's an inappropriate thread, they will lock it. The moderators also report members who violate Bungie's rules to the Bungie team so they can follow-up as appropriate.

History
Bungie.net began life in 1996 as Bungie.com, a community/business website covering Marathon and previous projects. Even in the beginning, classic pages such as Letters to the Webmaster and Soapbox existed, if in a somewhat graphically inferior manner to the later versions. A few layout and content updates ensued throughout 1997, until at the tail end of the year, consequent of the release of Myth, Bungie.net was born, serving as a community, statistics and multiplayer metaserver. Bungie.com remained to cover the business side, while it's sibling thrived. With the release of Myth II at the close of 1998, the site was further updated and now supported the multiplayer sides of both games.

The Great Hack of '07
On Sunday, July 8, 2007, the Moderator Pezz had his, as well as other's, accounts hacked. Moderators were blacklisted. Stickies and topics were deleted and blocked. The hacker(s) caused panic by Rick Rolling and posting links to Meatspin. Almost every forum was attacked. Many people thought it had something to do with the ARG Iris, but no one is certain. The Flood Forum was said to have been hit hardest with over an entire page filled with blocked topics.

This hacking spree went on for a quarter hour.

The April Fool's 2008 Gift


In the Bungie Online Forum, on the front page the development staff drew a picture of Master Chief in the "1000 Points of Light" Online Multiplayer World Map. This modified map was also displayed on Xbox Live from within the Halo 3 Matchmaking Lobby. The screenshot below was taken during a scheduled Xbox Live maintenance window where all users were logged out of the service. The timing of the outage was purely a coincidence which had nothing to do with April Fool's day (as reported by Major Nelson's prior week podcast). It appears that a person or persons unknown on Bungie's staff decided to take advantage of the outage and further Bungie's quest for World Domination through the appearance of Master Chief across three continents.

There is very little information publicly known about the Online Multiplayer World Map, how the map is drawn and what data is used to compose the map. It can be safely concluded that each point of light does have an actual relationship to a real time user of Halo 3 Multiplayer, but how many people are needed to turn a single point of light on is unknown. The web development team has been typically tight lipped on the subject.

Trivia
Bungie.net is now updated every Friday in what is called a Weekly Update. You can find all news regarding the Bungie world including latest projects here. Occasionally, Bungie.net will have messages in the title bar like: 'Satisfy Your Grunty Thirst' and 'Don't use -blam-!' Occasionally, the Bungie logo in the top-left corner will flicker to "Tru7h".