But underneath those numbers rests the game itself, a solid single-player campaign buttressed by some of the best multiplayer action available on any console platform. In honor of Halo 3's nomination for GameSpy Game of the Year, we briefly spoke with Writing Lead Frank O'Connor about Halo's legacy, the community's reaction, and more.
GameSpy: Halo 3 had an extensive beta program. What all did you learn from the beta? Will you be doing this for future games?
Frank O'Connor - Writing Lead: We learned a lot of hard technical data, for one thing. The sheer numbers we were able to sift through led to some significant improvements in our code and systems. And of course during that Beta we observed how players reacted to changes in core gameplay mechanics and used that information to tune and refine our gameplay.GameSpy: Halo 3 included a content creation tool. Has the community content surprised you?
O'Connor: Yes and no. We're not surprised that we're surprised. We said to ourselves, "This is going to lead to some amazing, surprising things." And it did. There are things from left field though -- not just game types, but legitimate art and architecture, to name but a couple of "disciplines" being attacked by the community.GameSpy: How does a user-created level make it to the Bungie favorites list?
O'Connor: We have kind of an ad-hoc vetting committee, but we also scour the forums, fansites and message boxes looking for that next gem.
THAT's what I'm talkin' about!
GameSpy: So the Halo 3 community is notorious for harassing speech during multiplayer games. Do you think this is the developer's responsibility? How can you police or fix something like this?
O'Connor: Correction, the anonymous online community is famous for that. For example, I have never had genitals spray painted onto my corpse in Halo, but that happens frequently in a certain other online game. That said, we've taken careful steps to help police and moderate that behavior, primarily by giving players the ability to instantly and permanently mute offensive players at the press of a button. You can do it in game, or in the pre-game lobby when you find out you have a potty-mouth guest.GameSpy: Halo 3 incorporated items into the gameplay. Did this implementation work out as well as you had hoped? Have the players responded well?
O'Connor: The equipment -- power drainers, tripmines and grav lifts, for example -- are being used in ways both brilliantly strategic and epically comedic... just as we'd hoped. It's a subtle, well-balanced addition that caused way fewer (if any) problems than some pessimists predicted.
