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Bungie Unveils New Halo 2 Maps
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."
Like my esteemed colleage above, I am indeed excited about the prospect of more killing. That, and mulitplayer with scorpions. I can't believe Bungie forgot about that! But I would've like some kind of new single player thing. Or new weapons. I have no doubt that the new maps will indeed be awesome, but there's so many things they could do than the requisite fancy schmancy new maps. I am happy for the retail CD. There really haven't been many ways for the un-Live among us to use the live content. I have Live, but its something that needed to be done.
Beyond the Polygons : Because 50,000 polygo
No sig for now.
Valve software use Steam to give new maps and mods to its customers for free. I don't mean to start a flamewar, but most companies, not just valve release extra maps and content for free.
Remember when in one of the numerous mods for Half-Life you could download one of the "new" maps for the low, low price of $0.00? Not to mention the widespread availability of maps due to them being user-created. When it comes to console gaming, (since so many claim consoles to be the so-called "future of gaming") are we seeing the end of user contribution to games like this?
Will we have to pay $20 for an ending patch?
I'm excited about them releasing new maps but also a bit disappointed that they aren't remaking Hang 'Em High.
From the article: "...Hang 'Em High proved pretty quickly that the changed weapons and physics made it far less fun than you remember it..."
These new maps better be good.
I believe the fourth map, Warlock, is a remade Wizard from Halo 1. I'd still like to see Sidewinder, but I guess this new Containment map kinda fills that void a little, and is supposed to be huge.
Buy the DVD, install the maps, and then sell it on eBay. Total cost to you will probably be only a couple bucks.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I already paid $50 for the game and $50 for a Live subscription. Now they want another $20. I'm waiting until the maps are Free.99. Anyone actually going to buy them?
-Broke-
Buggers still have to release a remake of Longest.
The disc is also a very good way to archive the content, should you ever need it again (if you replace your Xbox, for example). Ermm... Wait a second... If I buy a map, and something happens that is beyond my control... I have to rebuy the map? No other game makes me do that, it's all linked up in my gamertag... Otherwise, I'm really happy about these changes... Bungie has taken their time, and released the new maps just when attention is starting to slip away from Halo 2.. Kudos on timing, kudos on lowering your profit loss while not putting too much of a dent in my pocketbook, and kudos on all the pies! Wait.... What happened to all the pies?!
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... Halo 2 has sold over 6 million copies, and even if MS only gets $30 of the $50-$55 (collector's edition) price tag, that's over $180 million. Now, I highly doubt that the making of Halo 2, these new maps, and the bandwidth to distribute them cost them more than $180 million. Anyone else agree?
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 for the pc).
As for user content. Consoles never had this so they don't know any better. The theorie is that console owner in turn get games that just work from launch and do not have to be patched first.
Just because halo is available on pc and x-box does not suddenly mean the x-box stops following console rules.
So this is not the end of free content. PC owners of halo can still make maps and distribute them if they want to take the time and effort. As long as PC gaming does not die out (considering that THE console company sony has several big MMO PC only games I think we don't have to worry to much) then user created content will continue to be available. Just not to console owners.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Actually, you also lose all other paid download content if you have to get a new xbox. It's not just Halo 2.
Want customized, user created maps on a console? Get Timesplitters: Future Perfect. The series has always had a mapmaker. Since FP is online, people can now upload and download user created maps. They may not be as nice as some professional maps, but a lot of them are really fun. Plus, the host can choose a custom map and other players temporarily download it, which goes fast since the filesizes are small. There are also other console games coming out with mapmakers. I think we are seing the begining of user created content in console games, more and more future games will allow users to create their own content.
The new expansion pack will come with these maps bundled, and whatever new maps they produce espiecally for it.
Business Voyeur
20 USD for 9 levels (giving N hours of entertainment) compared with 18.50+ USD for a regular cinema ticket here (which gives 1.5-2 hours of entertainment) is entirely reasonable, even assuming a 10 USD (or third rate outlet 5 USD) ticket price, it still represents very good for money as far as entertainment goes, the same comparison is valid with music (where it's commonly ~7-14 USD per CD) or with buying a typical DVD.
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
If Halo had been released on the PC instead of some wimpy console, it wouldn't be anywhere near as popular.
From what I have been reading of the possibilities of gaming in the future, specifically an article on a speech given by Will Wright, the future of concole gaming could very well be user-defined or created maps. Developers have the ability to include depeloper tools in games, they just choose not to at this moment. I can see publishers starting to use that route in teh future, especially considering that is how games like Doom and Half Life got their popularity and longevity.
For those of you complaining about the cost, Bungie stated ALL the maps will eventually be made available for free. By the end of the summer, all of them will become free downloads.
and still have a net connection, dont fret, soon enough you will be able to get these maps on the net, and simply send the across via network... sorry i couldnt give a link to a site with them, but its too early, give it a few days.
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - HHGTTG
Grab a copy of TimeSplitters Future Perfect - it's got a built-in map editor, and right from inside the game you can hop on Live and upload or download maps, rate other peoples, etc. User created content isn't dead - developers are just too lazy to support it properly.
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 $20 once and you can install it on as many Xboxes as you want without paying extra, whereas over Live you have to have a Live subscription to download, and while you keep your content if you cancel Live, if your Xbox dies, you're SOL unless you sign up for Live again.
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
yes but when you got a bunch of school jocks and nerds wanting to pay for it, what makes the difference i know at least 10 people that will be suckerd enough into buying the dvd or the maps sadly enough. Half life 2 has a expansion coming out with high-dynamic range lighting, the expansion is called the lost coast, it will add character switching, new skins least 10 more hours of game play and guess what the price tag is 0 dollars hmm i luv that.
Paying 5 Dollars for two maps, is not a big deal. These are quality maps, that your going to be playing over and over again. Think about it. After 10 plays on this map it only costs 50 cents a play. And I'm not sure about you, but I'm playing these maps for more than 10 games. Your getting a proffesional map, fairly cheap. And eventually its still free. There's nothing bad here, once again bungie delivers up the goods.
Society never gets more or less violent, the definition of violent just keeps changing.
I think you have never seen the size of and number of The Sims user made content or quake maps. Let alone complete mods wich basically give you a new game. It just doesn't fit.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
When was the last time we heard: "Call Of Duty patch features more maps", or "Call Of Duty: United Offensive features more maps for 30$"? It's the same thing either way.
Since when did Halo 2 and World of Warcraft become the only games people care about?
That's a stupid solution to a stupid problem.
Anyone who pays ~$20.00 for 9 new maps for a game they already have is slightly less so, though still entirely insane seeing as it's going to come out for free.
$50/yr for Xbox Live plus $360/yr to upgrade from Netscape dial-up to MSN DSL is not "for free".
Epic, Dice, Ascaron, Maxis ... just a few of the companies that release FREE content to the fans of the game. Bungie do not need the money and charging for 9 maps basically shows how much they appreciate the fan base.
Epic are well known for releasing free content that includes far more than the Bungie offering. One of the last patches contained entirely new vehicles, maps and skins for the grand price of nothing.
The guys at Legend distributed XMP for nothing after working on it in their spare time - purely because they thought it was too good to waste. And it was. Great vehicles, gameplay and class based MP which was actually better than the retail game.
Dice are always adding new content to their Battelfield series even outside of the retail expansion packs.
Welcome to the new Bungie. They aren't that special but they sure act like it.