
Bungie Unveils New Halo 2 Maps 103
An anonymous reader writes "Bungie has revealed that a total of 9 new maps will be made available both over Xbox Live and as a separate $20 add-on DVD for those without. The first maps will come out on Live in late April with 2 free and 2 for purchase (all maps will be free on Live by the end of the summer) with the remaining 5 debuting on Live when the add-on DVD is released. Also featured in the content update are a wide variety of fixes to eliminate cheating and balance gameplay elements."
Re:New Maps - No Hang 'Em High (Score:2)
Yayish (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yayish (Score:1)
Re:Yayish (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yayish (Score:2)
Re:Yayish (Score:1)
Patch? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Patch? (Score:2)
Anyone knows what cheats are around for Halo 2 ? Or is it stuff the developers forgot to remove and is now being exploited ?
Re:Patch? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Patch? (Score:2)
Re:Patch? (Score:2)
So in the end, they -are- bugs left in by the developers, that are now being exploited.
So funny how they -are- allowed to update the game, while others (think Thief 3) weren't.
If the excuse is that they are also adding new content, I don't think it's fair to those other developers (who, admittedly, screwed up when shipping a buggy game) are not given that same chance (I bet the developers of Thief 3 wouldn't have minded to add an extra map, just to also ship the bugpatch
Re:Patch? (Score:2)
In Other News (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In Other News (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In Other News (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, it will be free eventually. They're just trying to recoup some of the losses.
Re:In Other News (Score:1)
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
Another thing; Do you honestly think it costs Valve anywhere near $60 to digitally distribute Half-Life 2?
Re:In Other News (Score:1)
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
Re:In Other News (Score:1)
Re:In Other News (Score:1)
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
Re:In Other News (Score:1)
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
Some of the losses?! Halo 2 is the most popular game for the X-box, and one of the most popular games around right now! It was the big hit this past holiday season! Both Microsoft and Bungie have made a pile on this game, and X-box Live is one of the big reasons for it. Now they're trying to make it profitable by selling multiplayer maps?
Lame.
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
I'm not saying Bungie or MS lost money overall on Halo 2, but they still have expenses.
Re:In Other News (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In Other News (Score:1)
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
And let's not forget: X-box Live itself is not a free service.
And also let's not forget: how much of a cash surplus does Microsoft have, again?
I have no sympathy.
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
Re:In Other News (Score:5, Insightful)
The game has already been developed, and people have already bought it. That money is already in the coffers, regardless of whether they do an expansion or not. It's like the concept of 'sunk costs', only in reverse.
The question is, if MS/Bungie spend the incremental cost to produce expansion levels, do they get enough additional revenue as a result to justify it. The expansion has to pay for itself on those terms, not based on revenue already banked.
That additional revenue might come directly, or might come in the form of additional sales of the parent product. You can also factor in the value of customer goodwill and perpetuation of the brand. It's still probably a good calculation for them, but that's not directly related to the amount of money they have already made.
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
I guess I was responding to the mass of posts that were making the poor case I was arguing against, and lumped yours in with them by mistake when selecting one to reply to. Apologies.
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
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Personally my plan is to get the retail disc edition, b
Re:In Other News (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In Other News (Score:2)
Re:In Other News (Score:1)
Re:In Other News (Score:1)
Re:In Other News (Score:3, Interesting)
In that vein of thought, I wonder if the DVDs will install the content completely to the hard drive, and, if so, if there's any way to limit the number of times you can install it. Without a Live subscription, you have no reason to connect yo
Re:In Other News (Score:1)
$20 for a DVD of nine maps? What a ripoff. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:$20 for a DVD of nine maps? What a ripoff. (Score:1)
Consoles always been like that (Score:2)
PC expansion typically sell for about half of the full price game so 20 bucks for an x-box expansion is pretty low considering the high prices for console game vs pc games (might be different for you but over here top console games are easily 10-20 euro's above the price of the same game
Re:Consoles always been like that (Score:2)
Where would gamecube or PS2 store extra content?
On a memory card.
And consoles have had a lot in the way of user-created content for a few generations now. You don't see a lot in the way of user-created maps as with PC FPS, but "Character Creation" modes are extremely popular in a lot of different games. They usually store their data on the memory card for systems other than the X-Box.
A dvd worth of maps on a memory card? (Score:2)
Re:A dvd worth of maps on a memory card? (Score:2)
I never said consoles had as much user-created content as PC games, simply that user-created content for console games already exists.
Re:Consoles always been like that (Score:1)
On a memory card.
The memory card for PS2 and the memory card 1019 for GameCube can only hold 8 MB each. Is that enough for one map, let alone 9? And then how do you copy maps from a console in one town to a console in another town?
Re:Consoles always been like that (Score:2)
For the PS2, at least, there are USB devices that make it possible to load savedata downloaded off of internet sites and FTPs onto memory cards. I imagine when you get into the next console generation, wireless will make such devices unnecessary for data transfer.
And I never said a standard memory card could hold the 9 new Halo maps. I don't play Halo and I don't know how much data is involved with the maps. I just object to the PC guys saying that console users don't have any experience with user-created
Timesplitters: Future Perfect (Score:1)
Re:Timesplitters: Future Perfect (Score:1)
Still comparitively very good value for money (Score:4, Insightful)
People get a vast amount of entertainment time out of games but seem to be able to entirely dissasociate the amount of money they pay with how much entertainment ('bang') they get for their buck. It's one thing to bemoan a lack of quality (and say, expect and actual ending, or ensure that levels are not repetitive clones - with reference to both Halo, Halo 2 and a number of other titles, including BF:Vietnam where they pulled the same 'reuse the same level' crap), but it's another to moan about the cost of a decent offering if levels still cost less than a cup of coffee.
I find the amount of whining about the price of perfectly good titles often ridiculous, especially as games get increasingly complex and time consuming to develop. This is also true in relation to people complaning about paying sums of 8-10 USD a month for MMOG's (especially when you the same people will spend 3-6 times that on cable, yet don't actually watch 3-6 times more cable).
But that's going off topic just a little..
Now (speaking for experience) building half decent Wolfenstein levels was very easy. Doom/Doom2 were a little bit more involved, but pretty easy still, I did a few of those (not to say that stuff like Aliens:TC wasn't still impressive). Quake and Quake 2 were a bit more tricky, requiring 3D modelling, art and map design skills. At this time, dedicated model markers as well as artists, level designers, and coders are starting to have to appear as entirely separate entities (not so many sole level developers as their used to be due to the time and complexity required in making a decent level). Quake 3 and UT upped the bar still further.
These days, with games UT2K4 and Doom 3 (in particular) it's vastly more complex and to turn out a decent set of levels or mods - you need an entire team of people, you often find you have separate people doing music, sound, art, modelling, animation, level design, scripting even UI work (and often someone else just to co-ordinate things and run the web site and forums for a mod).
In fairness, you don't need other people to pitch in (beyond testing) if all you want to do is build a new network only level that reuses *only* existing elements - but even doing that (once a fairly simple task you could master in an hour or two) takes many, many times longer Doom 3 or UT than doing really enjoyable levels in Doom/Doom 2 ever did.
FWIW, I don't know about other people, but for me (building a solo level), it's something like an hours vs. weeks comparison as far as time-to-build-a-decent level goes. Personally, I find it a lot easier to learn a new programming language than to get my head round the newer level editors used by the likes of UT2K3/2K4 and Doom 3.
Now there varying levels of bang-per-buck, and I probably wouldn't be all that tempted to buy them at 20 USD either unless I'd heard the levels were especially good, but it still beats the crap out of a lot of other forms of entertainment and in that light isn't unreasonable at all IMO.
Fans are going to get many, many hours of entertainment out of them with their friends online. And what about those who don't want to pay? Well they can just play the free ones that are going to be released now, and then just play the rest in a few months (as Bungie say up front, all the maps will be available for free download in a few months).
On the topic of the accessibility of modern level design tools...
Personally, I'd much prefer to have seen Doom 3 be true to it's roots - as I see it - in the sense of providing greater accessibility to level designers and artis
Re:$410/year is not free (Score:1)
So now what looks more appealing? $20 for 9 maps and some extra dvd content, or $45 for the same 9 maps when paid for online?
Re:$410/year is not free (Score:1)
Re:$410/year is not free (Score:1)
Re:$20 for a DVD of nine maps? What a ripoff. (Score:2, Redundant)
Also, last I checked $20 for a pretty nice-looking expansion pack is not a bad deal - most expansion packs come out at around $30-$40. And if you think about it you only have to buy the $20 once and you can install it on as many Xboxes as you
What's next? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's next? (Score:1)
For what now? (Score:2, Insightful)
Same as other games (Score:1)
Re:Same as other games (Score:2)
Wow, nice savings.... (Score:2)
Man, Bungie and MS know how to please their true fans, don't they?
If I get the maps (I'm thinking of selling Halo 2 at this point), I'll wait until they are all free. I don't pay for maps, sorry. MS can't say they're trying to recoup losses on time spent making maps.
Re:Wow, nice savings.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Wow, nice savings.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow, nice savings.... (Score:2)
Let me explain WHY we feel we deserve these types of things for free. You see, it used to be the case that you could just download these minor updates no problem with no fee and that would be that. It was an assumed service the company provided. And while I am not faulting MS on this, the current trend is to try to find ways to make people pay for additional game content.
It starts with minor things,
Re:Wow, nice savings.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, so you mean the sales from Halo 2 go to paying Ballmer, the workers in the Windows division, and the Office division, and the MSN division, etc.?
Nah I was thinking more like the people that press the CDs, the people who run the plants that do that, the artists who design the package, the actual shipping to regional centers.. Etc... I'm sure that the people you mention have other sources of income. Your unwavering hatered of M
Re:Wow, nice savings.... (Score:1)
Re:Wow, nice savings.... (Score:2)
Businesses are not here as a charity to you. They try and make money. It doesn't matter how many billions of dollars Microsoft has made on windows/Halo/Halo2 sales. They are not expected to give stuff away for free because they've been successful.
Again, if you don
Re:Wow, nice savings.... (Score:1)
Re:Wow, nice savings.... (Score:1)
I henceforth propose to call Bungie "the Microsoft Department of Bungieism"
Re:Wow, nice savings.... (Score:2)
"true fans" are the kind of that will pay just for the priviledge of being able to pay to these magnificient people.
it's not stupid to sell something at high price, it's stupid to buy it.
Re:Wow, nice savings.... (Score:1)
The new expansion (Score:1)
Re:newbies (Score:1)
Re:newbies (Score:2)
The maps will ALL eventually be free (Score:2)
For Those Who Don't Have XBox-Live (Score:1)
Cost vs. Quality (Score:2, Insightful)
Other developers do it for the love of the game (Score:1)