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==Halo CE development==
==Halo CE development==
In [[1997]], Bungie had just finished ''Myth: The Fallen Lords'' and was beginning the development of ''Myth II''. During this time, Bungie only had 12-15 employees, when [[Marcus Lehto]] was brought on board to work with [[Jason Jones]] on a small "side project" then-known as "Armor".<ref name="Armor">[http://forums.bungie.org/halo/archive.pl?read=10986 '''halo.bungie.org''' - ''RE: Armor'']</ref> This side project was the origins of ''Halo: Combat Evolved'', originating as an RTS due to thinking ''Myth'' would be better if it were science-fiction and ''Starcraft'' would be better without resource management. Due to Bungie's interest in physics to provide gameplay, they wanted the vehicles to feel like vehicles and move on 3D terrain. This integration would be based in the ''Myth'' engine<ref name="untold">[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwqjg3/the-complete-untold-history-of-halo-an-oral-history#ulf-1 '''VICE''' - ''The Complete, Untold History of Halo'']</ref>, and was later referred to as "basically ''[[Myth]]'' in a sci-fi universe."<ref>[http://bungie.net/Inside/CustomPage.aspx?section=History&subsection=Main&page=6 '''Bungie.net''': ''Inside Bungie: History'']</ref> This prototype would change name from "Armor" due to the need to avoid the game actually shipping with that title, and would be referred to internally as "Monkey Nuts" as to ensure the game would not ''actually'' ship with that title. "Monkey Nuts" was quickly changed to "Blam!" as Jones didn't want to tell his mother he was working on a game called "Monkey Nuts".<ref name="untold"/>
In [[1997 (real world)|1997]], Bungie had just finished ''Myth: The Fallen Lords'' and was beginning the development of ''Myth II''. During this time, Bungie only had 12-15 employees, when [[Marcus Lehto]] was brought on board to work with [[Jason Jones]] on a small "side project" then-known as "Armor".<ref name="Armor">[http://forums.bungie.org/halo/archive.pl?read=10986 '''halo.bungie.org''' - ''RE: Armor'']</ref> This side project was the origins of ''Halo: Combat Evolved'', originating as an RTS due to thinking ''Myth'' would be better if it were science-fiction and ''Starcraft'' would be better without resource management. Due to Bungie's interest in physics to provide gameplay, they wanted the vehicles to feel like vehicles and move on 3D terrain. This integration would be based in the ''Myth'' engine<ref name="untold">[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwqjg3/the-complete-untold-history-of-halo-an-oral-history#ulf-1 '''VICE''' - ''The Complete, Untold History of Halo'']</ref>, and was later referred to as "basically ''[[Myth]]'' in a sci-fi universe."<ref>[http://bungie.net/Inside/CustomPage.aspx?section=History&subsection=Main&page=6 '''Bungie.net''': ''Inside Bungie: History''] (Archived copy [https://web.archive.org/web/20041216074133/https://www.bungie.net/Inside/CustomPage.aspx?section=History&subsection=Main&page=6 here])</ref> This prototype would change name from "Armor" due to the need to avoid the game actually shipping with that title, and would be referred to internally as "Monkey Nuts" as to ensure the game would not ''actually'' ship with that title. "Monkey Nuts" was quickly changed to "Blam!" as Jones didn't want to tell his mother he was working on a game called "Monkey Nuts".<ref name="untold"/>


The initial RTS prototype was built with an isometric camera view, though experimentation with certain features allowed a third-person camera to be attached to units for control including the soon-to-be Warthog and Marines. The fun of using the Warthog vehicle led to the camera getting closer and closer. The initial revisions of what would become the Master Chief at this time were simple ~400-polygon models nicknamed something along the lines of the "future soldier", designed to be a supersoldier much like the final Master Chief, but deployable en-masse on the battlefield.<ref name="untold"/> These RTS versions of the game had no story and were purely designed for multiplayer<ref name="untold"/>, though by late [[1998]]/ early [[1999]], the game had fully morphed into a third person shooter.<ref name="OriginOfHalo">[https://halo.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?cid=630 '''Bungie.net''': ''The Origin of Halo'']</ref> [[Jaime Griesemer]] was hired in mid-1998 at which point the ''Halo'' team was 8-9 people mostly working on the game engine. By this point, the game had one assault rifle that could fire grenades and a small boat called a "[[Doozy]]", though Griesemer soon began creation of the shotgun and sniper rifle. The multiplayer mode had a [[Slayer|4v4 deathmatch mode]], and the staff would often stop development at 4pm every day and play for the evening.<ref name="untold"/>
The initial RTS prototype was built with an isometric camera view, though experimentation with certain features allowed a third-person camera to be attached to units for control including the soon-to-be Warthog and Marines. The fun of using the Warthog vehicle led to the camera getting closer and closer. The initial revisions of what would become the Master Chief at this time were simple ~400-polygon models nicknamed something along the lines of the "future soldier", designed to be a supersoldier much like the final Master Chief, but deployable en-masse on the battlefield.<ref name="untold"/> These RTS versions of the game had no story and were purely designed for multiplayer<ref name="untold"/>, though by late [[1998 (real world)|1998]]/ early [[1999 (real world)|1999]], the game had fully morphed into a third person shooter.<ref name="OriginOfHalo">[https://halo.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?cid=630 '''Bungie.net''': ''The Origin of Halo'']</ref> [[Jaime Griesemer]] was hired in mid-1998 at which point the ''Halo'' team was 8-9 people mostly working on the game engine. By this point, the game had one assault rifle that could fire grenades and a small boat called a "[[Doozy]]", though Griesemer soon began creation of the shotgun and sniper rifle. The multiplayer mode had a [[Slayer|4v4 deathmatch mode]], and the staff would often stop development at 4pm every day and play for the evening.<ref name="untold"/>


On July 21, 1999, during the Macworld Conference & Expo, Steve Jobs announced that ''Halo'' would be released for Mac OS and Windows simultaneously.<ref>[http://pc.ign.com/articles/068/068975p1.html '''IGN''': ''Heavenly "Halo"'']</ref> Before this public announcement, game industry journalists under a non-disclosure agreement had previewed the game in a private showing during [[Electronic Entertainment Expo|E3 1999]], and were reportedly amazed.<ref name="untold"/><ref>[http://halo.bungie.org/pressscans/display.html?scan=pcgamerusoct99 '''PC Gamer''': ''Your first look at... "Halo"'']</ref> However, the game was still nameless and thus Bungie hired a branding company to help them name the game. The company and Bungie generated hundreds of names<ref name="untold"/> including "The Santa Machine", "The Crystal Palace", "Solipsis", "Hard Vacuum", "Starshield", "Star Maker" and "Age of Aquarius".<ref name="OriginOfHalo"/> However, the name the team ultimately settled on was "Covenant", and this name was given several logo treatments.<ref name="untold"/> However, one artist - [[Paul Russel]] - thought the name was "stupid" and came up with five or six other names, including "Halo". Few people at the studio liked the name at first
On July 21, 1999, during the Macworld Conference & Expo, Steve Jobs announced that ''Halo'' would be released for Mac OS and Windows simultaneously.<ref>[http://pc.ign.com/articles/068/068975p1.html '''IGN''': ''Heavenly "Halo"'']</ref> Before this public announcement, game industry journalists under a non-disclosure agreement had previewed the game in a private showing during [[Electronic Entertainment Expo|E3 1999]] - mid-May of that year - and were reportedly amazed.<ref name="untold"/><ref>[http://halo.bungie.org/pressscans/display.html?scan=pcgamerusoct99 '''PC Gamer''': ''Your first look at... "Halo"'']</ref> However, the game was still nameless and thus Bungie hired a branding company to help them name the game. The company and Bungie generated hundreds of names<ref name="untold"/> including "The Santa Machine", "The Crystal Palace", "Solipsis"<ref name="solipsis" group="Note">Solipsis was the original name for the planet the ring orbited, now known in canon as [[Threshold]].</ref>, "Hard Vacuum", "Starshield", "Star Maker", "Age of Aquarius"<ref name="OriginOfHalo"/> and "Red Shift".<ref name="AOH73">'''[[The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World]]''' - ''p. 73''</ref> However, the name the team ultimately settled on was "Covenant", and this name was given several logo treatments.<ref name="untold"/> However, one artist - [[Paul Russel]] - thought the name was "stupid" and came up with five or six other names<ref name="untold"/>, including "Project: Halo"<ref name="AOH73"/>. Few people at the studio liked the name at first, as some thought it was too-religious and that it didn't particularly sound like an action game.<ref name="untold"/><ref name="AOH73"/> However, when Russel wrote down the name on the whiteboard in the studio, the name "clicked" in a way that was simple, and described the intent of the universe while maintaining a sense of mystery.<ref name="untold"/> Bungie also teased fans with a Blam! mention on their webcam<ref>[http://halo.bungie.org/bborgarch/bborg_072199/e3.html '''halo.bungie.org''' - ''E3 Shenanigans'']</ref>, and on May 20th a ''Myth II'' fan site was suddenly updated with what would become the Blam! project's final name - ''Halo''.<ref name="MBO">[http://marathon.bungie.org/story/blam.html '''marathon.bungie.org''' - ''Blam!'']</ref>
 
Prior to the 1999 Macworld conference, however, then-executive vice president of Bungie Peter Tamte joined the company due to a wish to help an entreprenueurial company grow following Bungie's setbacks in 1998 and the disastrous release of ''Myth II''. Tamte was a former-Apple employee, and one of his first actions was calling his old boss - Steve Jobs - to ask him to introduce ''Halo'' to the world. [[Joseph Staten]], Jason Jones and Tamte went to the Apple HQ to pitch the demo to Jobs - with Jones presenting and Staten there in case the demo didn't work.<ref name="untold"/> The OpenGL technology used on the soon-to-be Mac didn't work yet, and the demo was shown to Jobs on a PC just twelve days before the game was set to be announced for a Mac release at Macworld conference.<ref name="MBOjones">[http://marathon.bungie.org/story/jjonestranscript.html '''marathon.bungie.org:''' ''Transcript of Miguel Chavez's "The Jason Jones Macworld Expo NY Interview movie".'']</ref> By the Friday before the Macworld showing, it became clear that the studio wouldn't be able to get sound working on the Mac, and thus [[Martin O'Donnell]] was tasked with creating a soundtrack that could be played from a CD. The instructions given to him by Staten on the Saturday before the conference were the words "Ancient. Epic. Mysterious.", and Marty began brainstorming melodies, settling on the now-famous [[Halo Theme|gregorian chant]]. The piece was recorded on the following Monday and burned onto a CD for presentation in New York the following day<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtG6--4r_qk '''YouTube:''' ''O Brave New World'']</ref><ref name="H2A">[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9-Wk_R3SPw '''Youtube:''' ''Remaking the Legend - Halo 2: Anniversary''] - ''3:10''</ref>, before someone promptly stepped on and broke the CD in New York. Luckily, Marty had a backup.<ref name="bitner">[http://halo.bungie.org/misc/interviews/halonews.nbitner.092599/ '''halo.bungie.org:''' ''The Nathan Bitner Interview'']</ref>
 
The Macworld demo was still being created on the hour-and-a-half flight from Chicago to New York, completely in-engine.<ref name="bitner"/> On Tuesday, July 21, Jason Jones went on stage with Steve Jobs to show off the long-awaited ''Halo'' demo to the world, visibly nervous due to a fatal bug that could appear and crash the game on startup.<ref name="H2A"/> Luckily,
 
 
<ref name="MediumI">[https://medium.com/@Oozer3993/the-making-of-halo-how-combat-evolved-from-blam-part-1-f6b58fcc4ade '''Medium:''' ''The Making of Halo: How Combat Evolved from Blam!— Part 1'']</ref>
 
===Early story and setting drafts===
Halo was originally set on a hollowed-out planet but this morphed into a ringworld.<ref name="AOH73"/>
 
==Notes==
<references group="Note"/>
 
==Sources==
<references/>

Revision as of 09:00, October 19, 2019

Halo Wars Community Site Archive

As of March 30th, 2018, halowars.com will no long exist. F.

  • Galleries

Note, the links to all the images/ renders stored in these pages still work so you can still access the lovely concept art.

Link dumps

Just a bunch of links to various bits of concept art and whatnot I don't want to lose.

https://www.neoseeker.com/halo-2/concept_art/ https://www.neoseeker.com/halo-3/concept_art/

Project Warthog

Because I'm really creative with names. Project Warthog is my own personal project to revamp and redo the current set of Warthog pages on the wiki, to make the information within more easily digestible and less bloated. For full details of my proposal, see this thread on the forums.

Stats for REQ vehicle health can be found here (backup of the pastebin incase the tweet goes down here).

Steps

  1. Create a page for the M12B Warthog. The idea of this page is to split Warthog information roughly in half, allowing the M12 Warthog page to focus primarily on the Warthog version found in Halo CE through Reach (and also CEA by extent but you get the idea) while the M12B page focuses on the version found in Halo 4 onwards.. DONE!
  2. Create the following page(s) DONE!
  1. Create an overall Warthog page as part of the wiki's wider "hub pages" project (see: Wraith, Lich, Spirit for examples). A disambiguation page will be needed too.
  2. Rework the Warthog navbox to better reflect the nature of Warthog variants. Likely divide M12 and M12B warthogs into different rows. DONE!

v • d • e
 
Warthog FAV variants
Mainline configurations
M12 Warthog variants
M12B Warthog variants
Civilian Warthog variants
Unique and individual vehicles
Prototypes and Proposals
  1. Perhaps the trickiest, figure out a way to better divide the Warthog pages for the LRV, Gauss and Rocket designs (ongoing).
  2. Listed at the end but really something to do as the project goes along, use this rework as an opportunity to bring Warthog information over from Halo Nation as part of the two wikis' ongoing merger project. Links left below for future reference.

Project ODST armour

Because my naming creativeness knows no bounds. Project to revamp the ODST armours part of the site to resemble the MJOLNIR armor pages more, because why do Spartans deserve cool pages alone?

Steps

Creation of the following pages;

Halo CE development

In 1997, Bungie had just finished Myth: The Fallen Lords and was beginning the development of Myth II. During this time, Bungie only had 12-15 employees, when Marcus Lehto was brought on board to work with Jason Jones on a small "side project" then-known as "Armor".[1] This side project was the origins of Halo: Combat Evolved, originating as an RTS due to thinking Myth would be better if it were science-fiction and Starcraft would be better without resource management. Due to Bungie's interest in physics to provide gameplay, they wanted the vehicles to feel like vehicles and move on 3D terrain. This integration would be based in the Myth engine[2], and was later referred to as "basically Myth in a sci-fi universe."[3] This prototype would change name from "Armor" due to the need to avoid the game actually shipping with that title, and would be referred to internally as "Monkey Nuts" as to ensure the game would not actually ship with that title. "Monkey Nuts" was quickly changed to "Blam!" as Jones didn't want to tell his mother he was working on a game called "Monkey Nuts".[2]

The initial RTS prototype was built with an isometric camera view, though experimentation with certain features allowed a third-person camera to be attached to units for control including the soon-to-be Warthog and Marines. The fun of using the Warthog vehicle led to the camera getting closer and closer. The initial revisions of what would become the Master Chief at this time were simple ~400-polygon models nicknamed something along the lines of the "future soldier", designed to be a supersoldier much like the final Master Chief, but deployable en-masse on the battlefield.[2] These RTS versions of the game had no story and were purely designed for multiplayer[2], though by late 1998/ early 1999, the game had fully morphed into a third person shooter.[4] Jaime Griesemer was hired in mid-1998 at which point the Halo team was 8-9 people mostly working on the game engine. By this point, the game had one assault rifle that could fire grenades and a small boat called a "Doozy", though Griesemer soon began creation of the shotgun and sniper rifle. The multiplayer mode had a 4v4 deathmatch mode, and the staff would often stop development at 4pm every day and play for the evening.[2]

On July 21, 1999, during the Macworld Conference & Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Halo would be released for Mac OS and Windows simultaneously.[5] Before this public announcement, game industry journalists under a non-disclosure agreement had previewed the game in a private showing during E3 1999 - mid-May of that year - and were reportedly amazed.[2][6] However, the game was still nameless and thus Bungie hired a branding company to help them name the game. The company and Bungie generated hundreds of names[2] including "The Santa Machine", "The Crystal Palace", "Solipsis"[Note 1], "Hard Vacuum", "Starshield", "Star Maker", "Age of Aquarius"[4] and "Red Shift".[7] However, the name the team ultimately settled on was "Covenant", and this name was given several logo treatments.[2] However, one artist - Paul Russel - thought the name was "stupid" and came up with five or six other names[2], including "Project: Halo"[7]. Few people at the studio liked the name at first, as some thought it was too-religious and that it didn't particularly sound like an action game.[2][7] However, when Russel wrote down the name on the whiteboard in the studio, the name "clicked" in a way that was simple, and described the intent of the universe while maintaining a sense of mystery.[2] Bungie also teased fans with a Blam! mention on their webcam[8], and on May 20th a Myth II fan site was suddenly updated with what would become the Blam! project's final name - Halo.[9]

Prior to the 1999 Macworld conference, however, then-executive vice president of Bungie Peter Tamte joined the company due to a wish to help an entreprenueurial company grow following Bungie's setbacks in 1998 and the disastrous release of Myth II. Tamte was a former-Apple employee, and one of his first actions was calling his old boss - Steve Jobs - to ask him to introduce Halo to the world. Joseph Staten, Jason Jones and Tamte went to the Apple HQ to pitch the demo to Jobs - with Jones presenting and Staten there in case the demo didn't work.[2] The OpenGL technology used on the soon-to-be Mac didn't work yet, and the demo was shown to Jobs on a PC just twelve days before the game was set to be announced for a Mac release at Macworld conference.[10] By the Friday before the Macworld showing, it became clear that the studio wouldn't be able to get sound working on the Mac, and thus Martin O'Donnell was tasked with creating a soundtrack that could be played from a CD. The instructions given to him by Staten on the Saturday before the conference were the words "Ancient. Epic. Mysterious.", and Marty began brainstorming melodies, settling on the now-famous gregorian chant. The piece was recorded on the following Monday and burned onto a CD for presentation in New York the following day[11][12], before someone promptly stepped on and broke the CD in New York. Luckily, Marty had a backup.[13]

The Macworld demo was still being created on the hour-and-a-half flight from Chicago to New York, completely in-engine.[13] On Tuesday, July 21, Jason Jones went on stage with Steve Jobs to show off the long-awaited Halo demo to the world, visibly nervous due to a fatal bug that could appear and crash the game on startup.[12] Luckily,


[14]

Early story and setting drafts

Halo was originally set on a hollowed-out planet but this morphed into a ringworld.[7]

Notes

  1. ^ Solipsis was the original name for the planet the ring orbited, now known in canon as Threshold.

Sources

  1. ^ halo.bungie.org - RE: Armor
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l VICE - The Complete, Untold History of Halo
  3. ^ Bungie.net: Inside Bungie: History (Archived copy here)
  4. ^ a b Bungie.net: The Origin of Halo
  5. ^ IGN: Heavenly "Halo"
  6. ^ PC Gamer: Your first look at... "Halo"
  7. ^ a b c d The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World - p. 73
  8. ^ halo.bungie.org - E3 Shenanigans
  9. ^ marathon.bungie.org - Blam!
  10. ^ marathon.bungie.org: Transcript of Miguel Chavez's "The Jason Jones Macworld Expo NY Interview movie".
  11. ^ YouTube: O Brave New World
  12. ^ a b Youtube: Remaking the Legend - Halo 2: Anniversary - 3:10
  13. ^ a b halo.bungie.org: The Nathan Bitner Interview
  14. ^ Medium: The Making of Halo: How Combat Evolved from Blam!— Part 1
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