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).
My question is Will they add a feature to kick players who Team Kill? This is a serious issue that I have seen and hate
We have already implemented a very robust and flexible team killing solution. This addition will be in the next update.
It's cool 
I slammed the guys yesterday about how it worked and they were able to defend every piece of the feature. I'm looking for feedback once it's released, though... Nothing's perfect, right?
BTW - Just before the chat we finished a company wide play test of the latest version. Lots of fun - except the bits where I get killed by Dave and Matt every fifteen second...
how did they get Halo, that was originally on a DVD, onto a CD-Rom?
There was a lot of redundant data for the cache files used in the Xbox version, we just consoldated the data without sacrificing the fast Halo level load times.
I found the mouse movement on the Halo demo would exponentially increase turning radius speed as the mouse turned faster. Can that option be turned off?
You can decrease the acceleration of the mouse using the mouse_acceleration console variable (or put it in your init.txt file so it's automatically set on load).
How do u guyz think halo will do with online play on the pc because the online gaming market is alrdy dominated by a loyal fan base
I think Counter-Strike is great fun. We loved working on it! But, I think that Halo offers things that CS doesn't. Consider that Halo is first generation net code, so it needs a lot of work and feedback from you guys to build it up over time to be the best on-line game. This is the same sort of community support that helped CS improve over the last four years. Consider whether or not you'll still be playing CS four years from now? What if Halo had the same kind of community support commitment that CS did? Could Halo dominate? I don't think the point of Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 is about multiplayer, so I'm not sure how those games will factor in... I don't have a crystal ball, though...
Hello, is there going to be a split-screen patch released at some time?
No
Hey - who's going to be making cool Halo vids with the PC version like some guys did with the Xbox version? Should be easier with the PC version, right? We love this stuff!
Is there any possability that the HALO engine could be edited to such a degree that you would basically have a entire new game? (A good reference here would be how Half-Life was beautifully MOD'ed into Natural-Selection).
There is no telling what people will be able to do once they have access to the tools and editing kit. Just look at what people have been able to do to Halo Xbox without any tools or information.
Are adjustments being made to environment objects such as rocks and vehicles that almost always cause tremendous lag when interacted with?
The vehicle warping/lag is related to the earlier question about client prediction. This will improve as the client is better able to simulate the results of collisions.
Hey, I just wanted to say that Halo is the #1 selling game in the world right now and that's because of you guys. Big thanks. When we launch a title, we're always afraid. But when people like it and buy into it, we want to support it. We did TONS of support with the Half-Life games we made. I hope that you guys give us the ability to support Halo even more!
When is the patch suposed to come out?
We've been working on the next update really hard in the last couple of weeks and we're now putting a lot of time and effort into testing it (both functional and play test). While I can't be specific about a release timeframe, it's certainly our hope (and our goal) to get it out there as soon as possible. Hey, we want to play with the new stuff online as much as you guys...
Will Gearbox ever release a program similar to Steam for their games?
Probably not... At least we've got no plans for that... If I get a lot of community feedback telling me that it's a good idea, I'll change my mind.
Players should be assigned Won/PB-like ids that are used from their cd-keys to properly ban people from servers as well as verify who is who in a match
Halo already supports the concept of a unique ID for each user; this is your CD key. Servers can ban problem users by banning their unique CD key. A future update will make it easier for admins to verify who is in the server by seeing the CDkey live.
who decided master chief should be green?
Chief's armor was created and designed by Dr.Halsey, the lead scientist on Project MJOLNIR.
We are getting a lot of questions about the netcode; we chose a server authoritative model to eliminate most of the cheating that runs rampant online. This does mean that you have to lead your targets as you did in Quake 3. Vehicles need more lead because they move faster.
Clarify what you mean by CDkey live? You mean some form of GUID or heavily encrypted CDkey, or the actual CDkey shown to admins in real time
The CDKey is never available to anyone in its original form. Only a hash is ever transmitted to servers.
CS makes the client authoritative about what you shoot. This means that you don't perceive any lag, but it also means that if a client tells the server that he shot a guy in the head, that the server has to trust him. Sometime clients lie - this is called cheating. We don't really like cheating and designed an architecture which inherently combated it.
Is there any chance of having XBox and PC players interconnect to play Halo multiplayer?
Unfortunately not...
Will there be a "freezetime" in the beginning of a round, since cal rules say you have to have a dead round in the beginning of a half
The instant map reset feature we added will allow the game to be started once everybody is in the game, so everyone starts the game at the same time. We hope that leagues will make use of this feature to streamline their matches. Look for this in the next update.
Why did they take out the Co-operative Play in the PC Version? Would they have any intention of possible implementing it back in in a future patch?
Ah, the question of all questions. The Xbox version of the game supported the now very famous split-screen co-op but didn't support it accross system link play. We've spent much energy bringing the Halo multiplayer experience on the Internet and I think we now have a very solid basis for the community to build on. While we are looking at what would be involved to implement this in a future update, gamers who are thinking about getting the game should make their decisions based on the current feature set...
Will they add a feature if you are on offense, show which player on your team has the flag when you show score
YES! It's coming in the next update. There will be an indicator in the scoreboard.
Thanks very much for coming by!
Hey - listen... This was really great.
We'd like to thank everyone for joining in! We all had fun!
Thanks for coming by everyone!
I want to do this again... We'll set it up when we get some time.
We would like to thank our guests for taking the time to be with us tonight. We will be holding our drawing in just a few minutes. Thanks for taking the time to be with us tonight and thanks for all of the questions.
I wish we had more time, but we want to get back to getting the next update out for everyone...
If you want to give us feedback more often, visit our message forums at www.gearboxsoftware.com
