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User:BaconShelf/Sandbox

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Revision as of 08:53, October 20, 2019 by BaconShelf (talk | contribs)

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

Early 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 project was at least in progress by the time the "Armor" trademark was filed on September 24, 1997.[2] 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[3], and was later referred to as "basically Myth in a sci-fi universe."[4] 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".[3] The trademarks for "Blam.net" and "Blam.org" were filed in March 1998.[5]

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.[3] These RTS versions of the game had no story and were purely designed for multiplayer[3], though by late 1998/ early 1999, the game had fully morphed into a third person shooter.[6] 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.[3]

Macworld and official unveiling

On July 21, 1999, during the Macworld Conference & Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Halo would be released for Mac OS and Windows simultaneously.[7] 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.[3][8] 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[3] including "The Santa Machine", "The Crystal Palace", "Solipsis"[Note 1], "Hard Vacuum", "Starshield", "Star Maker", "Age of Aquarius"[6] and "Red Shift".[9] However, the name the team ultimately settled on was "Covenant", and this name was given several logo treatments.[3] However, one artist - Paul Russel - thought the name was "stupid" and came up with five or six other names[3], including "Project: Halo"[9]. 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.[3][9] 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.[3] Bungie also teased fans with a Blam! mention on their webcam[10], and on May 20th a Myth II fan site was suddenly updated with what would become the Blam! project's final name - Halo.[11] The trademark for Halo was filed in February 1999.[12]

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.[3] 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.[13] 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[14][15], before someone promptly stepped on and broke the CD in New York. Luckily, Marty had a backup.[16]

The Macworld demo was still being created on the hour-and-a-half flight from Chicago to New York, completely in-engine.[16] 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.[15] Luckily, the demo went off as planned and Halo was unveiled to the world as intended.[17] The creation of this trailer would ultimately sow the seeds of what would become the Halo universe, bringing the Master Chief character to life and giving the Covenant a reason for existing.[3] The same day, Bungie officially announced the game with the following synopsis;[18]

“ The player is a military recon unit of the human race's fledgling planetary empire. Pursued by alien warships to a massive and ancient ring construct deep in the void, the player must single-handedly improvise a guerilla war over land, sea and air, using the arsenals and vehicles of three distinct cultures. Using everything from composite swords to orbital bombardment, driving everything from giant tanks to agile combat aircraft, players wage intense warfare over and under the surface of this world. ”

Despite this, the primary issue remained that the gameplay footage seen at the Macworld conference was almost everything the studio had working at the time.[19] At the time, the game promised a seamless world without levels or loading screens, open terrain, fauna, flora, weather, celestial events and more.[18] Ultimately, many of these features would be cut for various reasons, but the large expansive levels and seamless transitions from indoor to outdoor environments - considered revolutionary at the time[19] - would remain in the final release.

Microsoft acquisition

Despite the hype surrounding Halo and Bungie's success in announcing it, the company was undergoing financial struggles due to the less-than-successful launch of Myth II[20] - the game had an installer bug that forced Bungie to recall copies of the game so it could be fixed. A month following the Macworld unveiling of Halo, on August 13, Bungie announced they were entering into a publishing partnership with Take Two Interactive, and would begin to see their games published on consoles - where before Bungie had primarily been a PC game developer. Bungie would handle publishing in North America through Take Two's framework, while the two would co-publish games in Europe and Asia.[21] Around this time, Microsoft had begun work on the Xbox, and then-Microsoft Game Studios head Ed Fries was tasked with building up a portfolio of games for the console's launch in fall 2001. When he received a call from Peter Tamte about Bungie's financial situation, he was extremely interested. Take Two invited two of their leading studios - Bungie and Rockstar Games - to meet with Microsoft in January 2000.[3][20] Alex Seropian and Tamte later agreed that joining Microsoft would be good[3], particularly as Seropian believed that if Bungie was going to lose their independance - as was the case with Take Two - they may as well fully merge so they can try and have as much a say as possible.[20]

However, Bungie was still in a deal with Take Two, and thus Microsoft and Bungie negotiated that Take Two would retain the rights to Bungie's previous properties and the other game being developed by Bungie, Oni, while Microsoft would keep Bungie itself and Halo.[3] Microsoft announced their Xbox console at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) in March 2000, to which Bungie later stated their interest in working on the platform.[22][23] At this time, the Microsoft aquisition was still not complete, and speculation remained that Halo would be ported to other consoles such as the Playstation 2.[24], though Bungie later said "We never got it running on PS2 anyway".[4]

[25]


Early story and setting drafts

Halo was originally set on a hollowed-out planet but this morphed into a ringworld.[9]


Multiplayer

The studio played a lot of multiplayer in development, but for a long time the terrain seen in the Macworld demo was the multiplayer map.[19]

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. ^ Armor trademark
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p VICE - The Complete, Untold History of Halo
  4. ^ a b Bungie.net: Inside Bungie: History (Archived copy here)
  5. ^ Blam.net and Blam.org trademarks
  6. ^ a b Bungie.net: The Origin of Halo
  7. ^ IGN: Heavenly "Halo"
  8. ^ PC Gamer: Your first look at... "Halo"
  9. ^ a b c d The Art of Halo: Creating a Virtual World - p. 73
  10. ^ halo.bungie.org - E3 Shenanigans
  11. ^ marathon.bungie.org - Blam!
  12. ^ Halo trademark
  13. ^ marathon.bungie.org: Transcript of Miguel Chavez's "The Jason Jones Macworld Expo NY Interview movie".
  14. ^ YouTube: O Brave New World
  15. ^ a b Youtube: Remaking the Legend - Halo 2: Anniversary - 3:10
  16. ^ a b halo.bungie.org: The Nathan Bitner Interview
  17. ^ Youtube: Halo - Macworld Unveiling
  18. ^ a b Rampancy.net: Halo Brings Action Gamers A World Without End
  19. ^ a b c Youtube: GI Show: The Halo Spectacular (Feat. 343i, Jaime Griesemer, Marty O'Donnell) - (1:09:45)
  20. ^ a b c halo.bungie.org: Interview: Bungie's Alexander Seropian
  21. ^ The Mac Observer: Bungie Software Brings In Distribution Partner, May Head Into Console Market
  22. ^ halo.bungie.org: "X-Box is a prime example of a console entering the market at the leading edge of technology, which is where we want our games to be"
  23. ^ Rampancy.net: Translation of the GameStar May 2000 Halo Preview
  24. ^ IGN: Halo - Bungie's ambitious first-person shooter is coming...
  25. ^ Medium: The Making of Halo: How Combat Evolved from Blam!— Part 1

Transparent images

As part of the concept art revamp I'm restoring the original artist-uploaded images to the wiki rather than cropped pngs. The crops are stored here for archival purposes should they be needed then.

Navigation

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