unforum

[thebruce]

*gasp*

[darkmoonz]

[Mazian]

Cool, glad to hear that Austin had something cool.

SF got to meet the PMs.


Here's a shout out to the rest of the Beekeepers and especially to those I met in SF.

[skilletaudio]

Reporting in from Chicago:

There seemed to be major technical problems at the beginning, nothing happened until nearly 8:30.

The theater crew were being professional, did a decent job at taking care of us.

The Bungie/Microsoft people were excited, really ready to put on a show, until they actually had to run the show.

Seemed that they hadn't really planned on how to keep things snapping and rolling along. Downtime, wasted time abounded. We could have gotten in 3-5 more rounds of games, at least if some things had gone a little better.

The first round of games was decided by drawing raffle tickets out of a box. 80% of all the tickets didnt belong to ANYBODY, and we would wait...count to three....not here? Moving on. Perhaps they could have only tossed in the tickets for those people who actually showed up? Seemed that they just dumped a thousand tickets in the box.

After that fiasco, they went to the list. If I could have suggested something, it would be that they ask us all to SAY SOMETHING if our name was called and we were actually there. We lost time because they would call a name, and the person woudl get up and silently walk to the front of the theater, and the guy would be repeating the name...is he here?...going, going "Wait I'm here"

But even on the list, 50% or more of all the names called hadnt even shown up, wasted time. If they had been checking off our names to let us enter the theater, could they not have highlighted, or checkmarked the people who had actually shown up and only call amongst those name?

I am going to make an assumption now: I am going ot assume that many of the people who had not followed ILB, but heard that they needed to send in an email or something, did not assign themselves a rank, just sent in their name, because those of us following the game saw, with our own two eyes "Name, Rank". I would say 60%, at a bare minimum, of all names called were Rankless names. In fact, there seemed to be a preference for calling those folks with either funny aliases, or just "First name, Last Name".

And I definitely saw plenty of people cashing in on non-attendees. THey called "Matt <something>". This guy thought for a second...looked around, actually said to himself, "Well, my first name is Matt!" and ran on down. I've heard that other people were doing the same. Shame on them.

Please dont get me wrong. I had a good time, I saw very cool stuff, I got my souvenirs, and I got to play on the big screen.
But a lot of people didnt, that really deserved it. And I'm not just talking about "the luck of the draw". We were all subject to the luck of the draw.
I think there could have been a lot more draws, and more games, if this had been run a bit more tightly.
I am not condemning the bungie guys to death, I appreciate what they were doing, and I could tell they were upset too at how things were going. THey went from REALLY EXCITED to "Oh god, this is terrible" by the end of the night.

Please, other cities, tell me you had better luck at this than we did.

[Son of a Beep]

Yes, chicago was fun, but could have been put together better. Poor way to choose participants, lag and dropped matches didn't make xbl play look promising for nov 9th's deluge of players, and plenty of stupid people just there to play halo 2 with no interest in ILB.

When we got there there was a guy with lanyards at the box office, but he said we needed printouts of confirmations.. about 20 min and lots of confusion later, we were told there was a list inside..

The guy running chicago was the head of US marketing for halo 2.. he was really cool and I even got a chance to talk to him about marketing the game. He talked about the piracy nightmare and just about how he got that job.. i was more interested in his profession than ILB, honestly. He also said that on this "combat training" event alone, MS spent about $100,000. He didn't give figures but said that the ILB story was written by bungie but otherwise planned by fourty two. I wish I could have talked with him more.

The problem with the event was there were wayy too many kids. Too many dumb people shouting "change the map" "play coagulation!" "give me something free" and how they called so many more unranked people then actual beekeepers that were involved.. (phaedra didn't even get to play, but kali did at least)

They gave away 5 prize packages (Halo 2 LE, XBL starter kit, XBL 1 year subscription, and the plantronics H2 headset) I guess we were lucky that way.. although he said they wouldn't ship until next week, so no early halo 2.

Anyway the multiplayer was great, people were cheering in and out of their seats, and it was incredible. Anyone else notice how much weaker grenade tossing is now? used to be able to toss and bounce them around.. they just kinda drop, now. Also seemed to be some lag between the animation and the actual grenade toss..

[pDK]

yea... i was really mad too about the chicago event. How hard is it really to have a raffle? Everything but that went smoothly though. Ohh yea... one more thing: Doesnt it CLEARLY state you had to be over 17 to get in? And then some kid no older then 11 walks down and grabs a halo2 LE set? Where's the beef?

Ohh yea... alot of punk kids there too... I remember one round where atleast 3 people walked down and pick up a controller when their names were not called. Hell... they were not even on the list. Bottom line, if you were not on the list, you can not go. We earned this! And how hard would it have been to send out an email like 3 days before hand?

I enjoyed the fact that they attempted this event. I enjoyed going to it. But I just think that people who were there made the event terrible.

ohh yea... 'random drawing' to play the game? I waited there for FIVE hours straight (first one to get a lancet!) and not once did i play the game... Hows that for poetic justice!

[Arana]

Report from SF:

The dinner they provided was fabulous, steak and lobster! Amazingly tender. The companions they provided were also exceedingly attentive and helpful. Who knew that so many of the women cloudmakers were also Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models. The iPods they passed out to us were all the new ones with the color screens!

Or, maybe not....

Now that I have your attention, a great time with all the PM's for those of us there for ILB. The Haloites had fun on the four consoles there and I believed kicked the azzes of the other three sites (flame on!).

Biggest news! There will be an update tomorrow with full credits! Biggest scoop! They made the .wavs weekly just before release. They changed the whole plot from the one they had planned after Weephun ratted out the princess as they thought that made a better story!

I would write more, but it is too late!

[Mazian]

[Tar Ecthelion]

[KingJ]

[TridenT]

[Thumper]

Amen brother.

I've been saying this since I got on LIVE:

"XBOX LIVE: teaching suburban kids how to talk like inner city thugs since 2002."

[KingJ]

[Turtle]

[skilletaudio]

There were a lot of bright, baby faced cherubs in attendance here.