You're not gonna be able to run around the whole ring, mathematically-generated or not. Too many ways that could go wrong, especially in net play. All the environments in Halo will be human-generated, but we still need to figure out how players will get from place to place on the Halo.

Right now [the Warthog machine gun's supply of bullets] is, for all intents and purposes, infinite. But that's because no limits have been imposed yet. There will be limits.

The real question you seem to be asking is how much control players are going to have over the drop ship or their actions within it. The answer, right now, is "not a lot." You probably won't have to fly it anywhere; there will almost always be vehicles better suited to the tasks you'll have as a player. Thought has been given to letting players control turrets on the ship, but that's not definite yet.

Check out both threads for more.

Several Questions for Matt.

Halo World - To Matt

During his keynote address, Steve Jobs welcomed Ed Fries onto the Macworld stage. Vice President of Games for Microsoft, Fries reassured the audience. Yes, Microsoft certainly will release Halo for the Mac. In fact, it will be released for the Mac at the same time it is released for X-Box, Microsoft’s new videogame console.

However, when asked about this in the HBO forum, Matt Soell had this to say:

I think this "announcement" is the product of some overzealous copywriting over at Apple, or at least someone with only vague memories of what was said on stage at the Expo.

As far as I know, we can't guarantee a simultaneous release on all platforms right now. I wish it were otherwise. If it happens, you'll hear it from us, not from Apple eNews.

-Matt

... And from our own forum:...

As always, take with a grain of salt all pronouncements of what Bungie is going to do made by non-Bungie personnel.

-Matt

Perhaps there was a bit of wishful thinking on the part of someone at Apple? Even an attempt to place some PR pressure upon Bungie and Microsoft? All speculation, mind you... Methinks we should just be happy that Halo is coming to Mac (and PC, supposedly) at all. We'll bring you more information as the news rolls in!

• Forum: MS/Bungie -- for the rep? - Sta7ic

Given America's current socio-political climate, where talking head pundits who've never played a computer game in their lives blather endlessly about their destructive qualities, and the negligent parents who never question anything the TV says snivel in unison that the government isn't doing enough to control the games they buy for their own kids, it would probably be a bad idea to show up at E3 with a movie emphasizing the realism of our virtual blood.

And now, the professional, non-hostile reason:

The primary goal of that E3 movie was to dramatize what gameplay would be like. All the slick technology was put in service of that "substance-over-style" goal. We'd already done one trailer that made people ooh and ahh, but people were wondering what gameplay would be like; we knew we wouldn't have a good, solid, playable build for E3 but we wanted to give people a taste of that. If we'd just wanted to do another engine demo the programmers and artists would have worked on other stuff and the whole thing would have been markedly different, with even more eye candy. My point being: things that were not as refined in that movie as they could have been will change for the better before release.

And concerning IK and the question of whether the deaths in the trailer used it:

IK is basically the process through which a character's body reacts appropriately to environmental constraints. The position of a player's hands on the jeep's steering wheel, for example, or the player's hands taking the appropriate position on a gun. Presently it's a subtle effect; you don't play Halo and shout "Dude, check out that IK!" Well, obviously YOU don't...but even those of us with access to builds don't. ;-)

Work has been done on applying IK to player deaths but none of it has made it into a build yet. So those of you who dissed the deaths in the E3 trailer can chill. ;-)

Check out the two threads.

IK, what is it good for? Sing it again, ugh.

Matt : What's with BLOOD