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I don't know if this is already known about, but I came across hints of a Mythic map pack for Halo 3 when viewing the achievements. Some achievements directly refer to the "Mythic maps" and three levels are named. Anyone know any more about this? I think I remember mention of it a while back, but nothing since. It's not on the DLC.

I think there is more then 3 mythic maps off the top of my head there is Assembly, Cidial, Orbital, Longshore, Sandbox and Heretic and all maps have hidden skulls bungie only showed us some screenshots of assembly at PAX you can cheak them in this newsletter aswell [href]http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=15366 [/href]

Actually at PAX they had a full tournament on Assembly (previous Purple Zone)

Bungie stated they are releasing the map pack in March, as well as having it as a free bonus for the Halo 3 ODST Multiplayer aspect which is due for release in September (coincide with the 2year anniversary of Halo 3's release)

It is know that the Mythic Map Pack will contain Assembly, Orbital and Heretic. None of the other maps hinted at in the Title Update 1.2 Longshore, Sandbox and Citidel have been confirmed by Bungie; this could mean that either a) they're based on Halo 3 ODST and as such will not release until that game does... or they're variants... or they might be released one-by-one as free maps like Cold Storage.

Honestly not much information has been released to date for any of it, so it's all mostly speculation as always on the Bungie.net forums. This said Recon Armour will finally be publically unlockable via achievements in Halo 3 ODST, and more interestingly is that Bungie have mentioned they're releasing another exclusive armour set available to Employees, Beta Testers, and Competition Winners.

Halo 3 ODST will not have a public preview beta like Halo 3 did, however there has been mention that as the only changes come in the forum of the Single Player campaign (multiplayer being identical to Halo 3 plus the game shipping with ALL map packs) then Bungie didn't rule out the possibility of a demo for the first time in the Halo franchise on the Xbox platform.

Also should be noted that Halo 3 Games for Windows Edition is currently under development, which is good news to those who missed the 3rd chapter who don't own the Xbox 360. Although I don't recall anyone mentioning if we can finally play against people from either platform. (hope we can)
Although I do look forward to seeing how they combine the map editor with Forge... should be pretty interesting

That said, if previous Halo games are anything to go by; doubt we're looking at seeing that for Windows this year. Maybe next though.

Well sadly it'll probably be Vista-only, like Halo 2. Hardly anyone I know has Vista and if they have it's not used on their primary PC...

i never knew halo 3 was already on its way to PC hope it doesnt suck like halo 2 vista...

In the past Gearbox did the PC ports, normally my guess would be that they'd work on Halo 3 port as well; but that said they're tied up with something else, so be interesting to find out just who is doing it.

I think it will be Vista-only again like Halo 2 mind, that said believe it or not Vista is begining to show the same conversion rate as Windows XP did. I mean the market is nearly clearly split 50:50 between XP and Vista.

Those remianing will have to upgrade sooner or later, as developers start more and more to only support Vista.

Those remaining are most likely to wait for the next version of Windows which is already out next year.

That won't make a blind bit of difference.
Essencially it's an optimised version of Vista, think they're only going with Windows 7 given they're once again rewriting the base code from the ground up.

Personally I'm a tad more interested in what they're doing in Microsoft Cambridge, but ho hum. Redmond is still really tied to the whole Taskbar interface, I'm not so sure that's the best direction to be honest.

Also really hope they do away with legacy Windows application support, I know they technically can't cause it's what makes Windows so appealing to most people; but frankly I think Vista is more than suitable for legacy means, and use Windows 7 to really bring about an entirely new Windows.

Then again I also think they'd probably slow down piracy by providing Windows free, and using a similar system as Xbox Live gives; where you want to go online (outside of Microsoft services for example) and connect with others you'd need like a Gold account.

People are more willing to pay $5/month rather than a one-off fee of $80, and if you think about it each Windows is usually in service for approx. 2-5years, if they expanded the updates to 5 years to coincide with console updates as well... they'd be looking at potencially earning $300 per unit.

Which ends up a much better solution on the whole, especially as people are more willing to spread costs rather than single payments. To me it just makes more sense that way, especially as the countries where it's more greatly pirated is in Asia; where similar systems (WoW for example) are showing that less people pirate the game, and pay for subscription accounts in this way.

Maybe I'm just crazy, dunno... but I think it realistically makes more sense that way. Possibly more so given, well there would be a fairly guarenteed constant income over a large income within a short period and a potencial trickle.

Users feel better cause they'd own legal copies, they feel they're getting the software itself for free, plus while sure in the long-run potencially spending more; not quite as conserned because more people look short-term.

Especially given a large percentage of new PC prices generally is the OS you choose; but given Windows is a household name means very few are likely to switch to Linux. Just doesn't have the same rep or even common knowledge it's real.

Microsoft are happier cause they'd realistically make more in the long-run, plus open new potencial markets that currently use pirated software, plus constant cash influx means budgeting would be easier to guess and provide to each dept... particularly that of support allowing them to provide a better end-user experience and level of service than they currently do.

Just seems like it'd be a Win-Win situation.

Well I'd much rather pay the flat fee than $5 a month I bought XP in 2002 and with $5 a month I would have paid far more than the flat rate. MS should perhaps give users a choice.

hehe perhaps, but you think about it you've had Xbox Live since what 2005 (probably longer given you had an Xbox as well as your 360)

Forget what the prices are for you, but here either it's getting a £5/month or £40/year subscription. Paying monthly gives that freedom to just stop playing online (messaging, etc..) but that said the yearly rate is cheaper so often chosen by those of us who happen to know we'll want to use it month-in month-out even if we don't necessarily play games online daily (or weekly)

Don't recall many people bitching about the cost of Xbox Live (especially since the 360, Marketplace and the better Social structure)

But think about it like this, Windows XP has had quite an oddly lengthy life-cycle compared to other Windows operating systems.

Windows 3.1 (1993)
Windows NT 3.5 (1994)
Windows NT 4 (1995)
Windows 95 (1995)
Windows 95 OSR (1996)
Windows 98 (1998)
Windows 98 Second Release (1999)
Windows Millennium Edition (2000)
Windows 2000 (2000) [Business Aimed]
Windows XP (2002)
Windows 2003 (2003) [Business Aimed]
Windows Vista (2007)
Windows Enterprise (2008) [Business Aimed]
Windows 7 (ETD 2010)

While yes it's true many kept with Windows 98 until Windows XP was released, that was only the home market due to the notorious unreliability of Windows ME.

Windows Vista has had a weird recieption compared to previous Windows, especially when you consider that it is actually a very stable OS with rock solid support. I think most of the issue with people moving to it has been well, people like yourself (and many others who frequent here) who without using it yourselves proclaimed to many who don't know that it is as worthless as Windows Millennium Edition.

Still we put aside the fact that there was some quite obvious nerd fear about moving from XP (which seriously? I still prefer Windows 2000 over XP any damn day) ... the point is if you upgraded as often as Microsoft intended, then you would've been spending £130 every 2 years.

Let's for arguments sake say they used the Xbox Live style of subscription fees. Now first thing to note is that yes over a 2 years period at the monthly fee you would be paying a total of £120... so only slightly less than buying it brand new.

But if you were to get a yearly subscription, then you'd only be paying £80; for those same 2 years.

In-all you'd end up paying far less (if you're sensible about it), but luckily for Microsoft and a reason Xbox Live makes so much damn money is that most people seem not to notice it's a damn sight cheaper buying more than 1 or 3 months at a time.
Despite the more than glaring fact that they'll end up playing an entire year thus keep paying that fee.

Still think of the bonus of not having to physically go anywhere to upgrade your OS? That even core upgrades like from XP to Vista, would be done as a System Update.

You might think this sounds a bit crazy, but Linux OS like Ubuntu do this; they'll download and update your Kernel then simply reboot. Hell Microsoft's NXE now runs a Windows 6.0 Kernel rather than the 5.0 Kernel it did using the old Dashboard.

They know how to do it, and can. Releases of new versions of Windows wouldn't be some "OMG!" style rush to get the new version, or "We'll we might get it at some point"... we would be talking the entire internet-aware community using Windows would be using the same version of Windows on the day of release (or soon after)

That in-turn would mean developers wouldn't need to worry about several versions of Windows they need to support but a single platform.

I mean sure, it would be cool if Microsoft offered both options; but realistically in-order for such a system not to be circumvented it would need to be an all-or-nothing situation, because pirates would easily crack the disc version then distribute it to anyone who still uses the "non-subscriber" version of Windows.

Also think about it like this, developers concentrating on a new platform not only could dedicate their time to that single platform but more importantly it would be commercial suicide for them not to make sure their stuff was working for public release; we wouldn't see a replica of hardware manufacturers playing catch up with limited resources while supporting an old system.

Gotta admit it makes sense to actually pay a bit more for the same sort of peace of mind you get from your consoles, no?
Well maybe not the PS3, I've yet to see a first release update that didn't brick the damn thing...