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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
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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?
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?!
"MS" getting $30? MAYBE gross, but I doubt even that... After paying all the employees, paying back Bungie, and the money that goes towards keeping XBL running with all the extra Halo players (There were rumors that on November 9th almost a full 1% of all internet traffic was XBL)... They're making a profit, but not the huge numbers you'd have us believe. You don't pay for maps? Fine. The rest of us will. I have no problem spending money on something I enjoy. I'm just sorry that you've joined the growing number of people who feel they DESERVE something for free.
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
Hrmmm Troll much? Wow... Such anger on such a small post... Lets begin:
:) As to your point, although it is partially a P2P network, that's not entirely true. There are many server farms for XBL (as anyone who tried to play in mid January could tell you) that regulate Gamertags and, now, the matchmaking process. All of that is handled on the XBL side... Once the game starts, it's all p2p... But that's still a lot of work for MS
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 MS aside, there are people who have to make a living off of working for them.
Why would MS have to "pay back" Bungie for anything? Microsoft OWNS Bungie.
Yes, they do... However the relationship between the two isn't like "Hey go down the hall and talk to Bob in Bungie to do this." It's a seperate entity and still gets "Paid" for the work it does.
If you honestly think MS needs Halo 2's sales money to pay Ballmer's and everyone else's salary; has to "pay back" anything to Bungie, a company they own; and that XBL is some massive centralized super server system that is costing MS tons of money in bandwidth every month, when it is in a fact a peer to peer system for EVERY SINGLE GAME, you're too dumb to even be on the Internet.
What does your opinion on my brainpower and right to be on the internet have to do with the subject we're discussing? I missed that part... It's sad to see that instead of being open and educating other people, you've chosen to try to inflame. Maybe the ending of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back had it right: A few internet people don't feel their intelligence is enough to make it, and need to put others down. However if you'd like to continue your discussion on this subject, why don't you try to make yourself look like less of a jerk and EDUCATE instead of starting flame wars
No, I don't "deserve" anything for free. But I'm not dumb enough to fall for the "well, making maps costs money"
So it is your belief that making maps DOES NOT cost money? Hrmm... Well no, I suppose that making a map itself could be fan driven.. However with the software that was shipped with Halo, that is not easily done (Possible, just not easy) And I'm pretty sure the people that designed these new maps wouldn't be happy with your suggestion that they work for free.
they seem to forget that some people know that they've made a killing on the Halo franchise--hell it took over 2 years for Halo to drop in price, only because it was the only game selling consitently on the Xbox since its launch-- and many of these people know MS is just doing the pay stuff to see if people go for it.
Who are the people who DON'T know that Halo has made millions on millions of dollars. We all know it made money... What's the problem with that? Now it's wrong to make money off of something people like? And they already know people will go for the maps. Why not? Halo2 has been the best multiplayer experience that I've ever had. Hands down. TFC was awesome... Counterstrike is out of this world... But personally I find the matchmaking and balence of Halo much better that either. And I, as well as many many many other people, are willing to spend the few dollars it takes to extend that pleasure.
Think about it, if there are 1 million XBL players playing Halo 2, and all million download both map packs at the pay price ($5.99+$11.99), wow, that turns into $17.98 million in sales. Then if the other 5 or so million people with Halo 2 who don't have XBL go out and buy the disk ($19.99), well gooooooolly! Look at that money! $99.95 million more d
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.