Bungie Weekly Update, August 27th 2004 Although there's more than a month of actual mind crushing work left, this week is a real milestone in my mind, and so we bring you a special, extended update, because Halo 2's campaign mode is not only playable, it's fun. Actually, fun is the wrong word – since some of the levels left me sweating, awed and terrified by turns. Caveat: As well as an employee, I'm still part fanboy, so read this with that in mind. BUS STOP I've been getting up very early, coming in and playing the latest test build. It's always full of surprises. One bizarre way to tell how advanced it is is to look at the buses. They started as large oblong crates, completely flat but with the candy-cane default texture that's used for unfinished objects. One morning I loaded it up and the candy cane texture was gone. Replaced with a sort of vaguely instructional "Large Dias" emblazoned across it. A few weeks later, it kinda looked like a crate with wheels. Then, a passable bus. This morning, it wheels, glass, and does something very cool if you lob enough grenades at it. It's a bus. Keanu Reeves would drive it. But like, you can't really drive it. Before you ask. Surrounding the bus, which I admit is kind of a boring thing to watch over a period of months, is some dramatically detailed city environment and architecture. You've already got some idea of what the landscape of Earth City looks like, thanks to the year and a half old E3 demo, but there are varied elements to the city environment, and there are plenty of graphical and environmental surprises in store for you. You'd be surprised what a difference a few power cables make. BUILD QUALITY The system kind of works like this: We have a general resource at Bungie where the latest builds of the game are located. One is recommended as stable by the test department, while others may have been built to test or debug a specific problem. The testers get the stable build and rampage through it, looking for any problems, "bugging" them (that is, saving their exact position in the game, noting what the problem was, and entering it into a database.) and then play on, looking for problems. Parsons has asked Brian and me to get stuck into that process as well. He thinks I'm basically stupid though, so while Brian has been asked to look for "clipping errors, instance geometry problems and physics anomalies," Parsons told me to "watch out for colors that aren't pretty," or "scary things that make you want to go wee." Speaking of Brian, he's getting married today. So congrats to Brian from everyone on the team, except the hardcore dudes who're all like, "Dude, you're gonna be so whipped man," and "this is the end of the party, brah!" Harold the test manager, who's as evil as Carrot Top's Y-Fronts , explained that he's basically been staying until 3am and then arriving again about four hours later. He's opening and closing bugs at a ferocious rate. One horrible thing he did this week to the test team was open 478 bugs at once, using an automated process. That far outstripped the entire output of the rest of the test team. You could hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Still, they were minor fixes. Hundreds more will be opened and fixed between now and the game's ship.

Note: Frankie is out of town this week and the Bungie Princess is our special guest author.. (I'm just posting it). Now brace yourselves for the most fact-filled top-secret-spoiling update EVER!...

BUNGIE WEEKLY UPDATE - August 13th

Frankie’s in Mexico and I’m in charge! So, listen up…we are taking a break from all that blah-blah about Halo 2 and we are discussing a truly important topic…HAIR! I will be devoting several hours of my Saturday to some serious “diva-time� along side my best friend at Joel’s salon. There will be lots of girly-girl talk and wine to be had for all. The only dilemma is what color should I do my hair? Anyone who has known me longer than about a month knows I absolutely love to change my hair color. It is a running joke around here. I am currently blonde, but am thinking it is time for a change. In the spirit of by-passing all that typical video game talk I think we should devote a forum to helping me choose my new hair color. But seriously, I am supposed to be giving you some weekly information about our big project over here in Bungieland.

Biggest news of the week involves the rancid Bungie refrigerator. We are bursting at the seams over here and need to find some space to sit some more people helping out on the game. So, I figured what the heck why not the fridge…that is some prime real estate. But seriously, the dev team doesn’t know it yet but they have lost the battle of the fridge and it’s pungent odor will soon be seeping onto their side of the room.

I ate dinner with the boys tonight (frightening). Have you ever had the pleasure of attacking a taco bar with 70 hungry men…hhhmmmm, let me be the one to tell you this is not a pretty site. Amanda has quickly learned that food is the precious commodity in this office. The way to a man’s heart is most certainly through his stomach. We will be making the ever dreaded Costco trip next week to stock up on goodies. The people at Costco, employees and customers alike, hate me. When I roll up to the check out lane with two industrial size carts stacked to the point of towering over my head and a flat bed stock piled with beer in tow…let’s just say I am not typically greeted with a warm “How are you?� but rather an overwhelmed look of panic.

So, my week has not solely revolved around food and nasty refrigerators. In addition to feeding the masses, Amanda has been hard at work helping Harold keep a running inventory of about a thousand computers…man, these guys are expensive. She has also called all over the world in search of elusive Xboxes from other countries…so if you have one that you don’t need, feel free to send it in…kidding. I just got the 2nd pass of the art book back…looking very cool guys...keep your eyes open come November 9th (oh yeah and Halo 2 will be on shelves as well). The rest of my time this week was spent modeling Dunn’s ever-growing collection of crazy hats. I have been a cowgirl, a gardener and Frank Sinatra so far.

This week's update comes from Frankie who is in Tokyo showing off Halo 2 at TGS. He has spotty internet access so I'm posting this for him. Enjoy!
BUNIGE WEEKLY UPDATE
So Parsons comes up to me and he says, 'Frankie, do you like kimchee?' But more on that later.