Bungie denies two beta sessions for Halo 3

We’re not pretty sure where this started, but as you all know, there are rumors that beta testing for Halo 3 will be done in two sessions: one for those who received confirmation emails and another for Crackdown buyers. Anyway, Bungie came out of its development studios today to inform everyone that these reports are nothing but rumors.

Frank O’Connor, who handles content for Bungie, mentioned that people got it all wrong. He added that while their company has no time to work on two full blown separate beta, they will be conducting a friends and family program which is basically a tiny alternative to the Crackdown beta program. And then he explained:

We’re going to get a bunch of beta invites sent to people in the Bungie community as well as those people who have bought Crackdown. Some people have decided that it was this whole separate beta but it’s the same beta, we’re just giving out our own tokens.

Now that the confusion is out of the way, the Bungie official discussed the goals they want to achieve for the beta. O’Connor said that they would like to know what weapons people enjoy as well as the new levels that will be introduced. Some stuff regarding game balance will also be looked at.

Lastly, O’Connor said that they are really excited about the game’s networking and matchmaking features as well as its population. He said that the beta is really useful as they will used it to scale down all the important data:

The only realistic way to get that data, is to put it out on some scale. So it’s very useful for us. We could try to translate a lot of scaled information from smaller populations and figure out how things are going to scale, but it’s very, very useful for us to see how it works in real life and in the field.

We’re not pretty sure where this started, but as you all know, there are rumors that beta testing for Halo 3 will be done in two sessions: one for those who received confirmation emails and another for Crackdown buyers. Anyway, Bungie came out of its development studios today to inform everyone that these reports are nothing but rumors.

Frank O’Connor, who handles content for Bungie, mentioned that people got it all wrong. He added that while their company has no time to work on two full blown separate beta, they will be conducting a friends and family program which is basically a tiny alternative to the Crackdown beta program. And then he explained:

We’re going to get a bunch of beta invites sent to people in the Bungie community as well as those people who have bought Crackdown. Some people have decided that it was this whole separate beta but it’s the same beta, we’re just giving out our own tokens.

Now that the confusion is out of the way, the Bungie official discussed the goals they want to achieve for the beta. O’Connor said that they would like to know what weapons people enjoy as well as the new levels that will be introduced. Some stuff regarding game balance will also be looked at.

Lastly, O’Connor said that they are really excited about the game’s networking and matchmaking features as well as its population. He said that the beta is really useful as they will used it to scale down all the important data:

The only realistic way to get that data, is to put it out on some scale. So it’s very useful for us. We could try to translate a lot of scaled information from smaller populations and figure out how things are going to scale, but it’s very, very useful for us to see how it works in real life and in the field.