The Cyberathlete Professional League got the chance the host an IRC Q&A with Bungie and Gearbox Software staff members reguarding the recently released Halo PC. The Q&A lasted over an hour and covered alot of ground. Without further ado, I bring you the CPL IRC Halo Q&A:



Michel Bastien from Bungie will be answering questions as will Randy Pitchford from Gearbox Software


Will they remove the text typing limitation?

We want longer names, etc... We've got some localization issues to consider, but we agree that more characters is better...

Will they add level restarts while people stay on the same team, such as a lo3 in cstrike?

Yes, level restart or reset is already in. Consistent teams across restarts and level changes has already been implemented in the next patch.

Will they add a built in voice comm?

We think this is a cool feature. We have a specification for improved chat and voice features, but haven't prioritized these features above things like performance, anti-team killing features, more in-game on-line feedback (like ping in score, etc)...

I would like to know if Halo will be able to support the kind of computers that are not the best. Because my computer is good, but has a really messed up graphics card.

Halo's rendering engine is very flexible and will run well on a wide variety of systems. We've written a Technical FAQ that contains a bunch of info about the rendering options in Halo and on how to best optimize it your system.

Will they update the netcode to allow client hit detection?

The netcode will include improved prediction but the client will not become authoritative with respect to hits, damage, etc.

Will they change fov?

I want this, but unfortunately we can't do it. There's a lot of technical reasons for this. There are also security reasons as well...

What month will the HaloPC SDK tools be released?

We hope to have the Halo Editing Kit completed and out in mid November, its a rather large undertaking and we want to make sure we do it right!

What are the CPL comitments to Halo because I don't want to shell out 50 dollars for a game that I wont be able to compete in for only one tournement" and also "Will Gearbox be supporting the mod community like how Valve supported its mod community"

The CPL is totally committed to Halo at this time, there will definitely be a Summer 2004 Halo tournament which we will be releasing information on soon and most likely a Winter 2004 Halo tournament.

Is there going to be a HaloTV to speak of?

Is there going to be a HaloTV to speak of?: We've got plans for this. The first step is demo recording mode which we have working prototypically at Gearbox. After the next update is released, we'll reprioritize when we create an interface for demo recording and after gathering feedback from the CPL Winter Tourney will make a specification for something along the lines of Halo TV.

"Did you ever expect Halo to get as big as it did?"

Not really! I think the team always knew we were working on something that our fans would really like, but I think we were all surprised with the games amazing success and. Really cool to see and we love the support that our fans have given Halo over the past two years. Our fans rule.

Will they make it work with nvidia refresh tool or reforce?

We've added several workarounds and more robust fall-back code to the renderer to support refresh rate tools.

Is there a chance a public program that will be released for people to create there own maps, like UnrealEd for the Unreal Series game?

Halo content is created with 3ds Max, there are proprietary tools that are used to convert the 3ds Max data so that it can be run in the game, these tools are part of whats included in the Halo Editing Kit


BOXERS OR BRIEFS?

Commando


Could you seperate chat and kill/deaths into seperate windows, and possibly could you add colors to the kill/deaths for Team games?

The chat/message interface we used was used because of its support for multiple locales. We're investigating making this more readable/understandable but this has not moved beyond investigation.

Can we expect a good level of teamwork with the community, developers, as well as the CPL to help the game succeed? Seems Valve falls short of this and makes lots of changes the community doesnt necessarily agree with.

We're primarily motivated by fear and terror - we want happy customers and we're afraid of making disappointed ones. Since we launched, the community has dictated our task lists.

When you do the restarts, does that mean the enitre map will restart or just the teams will get respawned? Because this might affect the flag time.

Teams will be respawned, as well as every counter reset.

Its a clean restart without a map reload

Why don't they release more smaller patches?

As much as we'd like to roll out patches more often, it actually takes us both development time and quality assurance time to put together a release. Our priorities are always to insure the stability of the game, address the issues impacting important number of users and enhancing the quality of the experience for online play. You can be sure we are constantly working on releases and we're working as fast as we can!

Since we launched, we've done things like... 33% of our engineering team on performance, we've done a bunch of stuff to improve netcode, we've spent resources on anti-team killing software, we've spent time working on the Halo Editing Kit, we've worked on new content, we've worked on better feedback for on-line game status, we've worked on features and foundation for better tournament games (such as the CPL tournament). The next update is massive and I'd love it if that's just the tip of the iceburg (more and better is largely dictated by the support of gamers like you).

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