Halo 3’s Multiplayer Designer on armors, player customization, and the Man Cannon

Some juicy facts were revealed in IGN’s interesting interview with Halo 3‘s Multiplayer Designer Lars Bakken, including some tidbits regarding how many armor pieces are in the game, a peek into Halo 3‘s player customisation, online storage limits for each player (and some optional extras), and that chuckle-magnet contraption, the Man Cannon.

While Bakken wasn’t able to specify how many kinds of armor can be found in the game, he stated that there will be a lot more than what is already revealed so far. As to how the secret armor can be found, Bakken said that they will be found both in single and multiplayer modes through Achievements earned in game.

Aside from armor customisation, there’s a new system called Player Traits where players can set basic player characteristics for the following categories: Shields and Health, Damage Modifiers, Movement, and Appearance.

Under Shields and Health, players can set a character’s damage resistance rate, vampirism, head shot damage, and so forth. For Damage Modifiers, players can toggle how many grenades can be carried by the character, as well as the ability to have regenerating grenades. Player gravity, speed, and the ability to ride vehicles can be tweaked under the Movement category, while Appearance pretty much changes the character’s outward appearance, including camouflage and team colors.

The good thing is that all of these tweaks can be saved as a custom setting, and can be labeled with a name and a description for easier retrieval. The customisation settings can be saved in the player’s File Share – Halo 3 players will be alloted six slots where they can put in films, screenshots, etc. aside from custom settings.

If six slots (worth 25MB) aren’t enough, there’s an option called Bungie Pro where players can purchase 24 slots with 250MB worth of virtual space. The good thing is that Bungie Studios will host the saved files and not eat up the Microsoft Xbox 360’s HD space. Pricing for the service is not yet determined as of this writing.

Finally (but not the least), Bakken enlightens us with how the Man Cannon term came to be. In case you’re not yet aware about the Man Cannon, it’s the device that shoots people into the air. Bakken recounts:

The name? You know, I can’t actually remember who started yelling it, but I do remember very early on that, when we were playing multiplayer, one particular single player designer would yell it every time he went through it…we didn’t necessarily mean for that to be what it became, but it is pretty funny.

Some juicy facts were revealed in IGN’s interesting interview with Halo 3‘s Multiplayer Designer Lars Bakken, including some tidbits regarding how many armor pieces are in the game, a peek into Halo 3‘s player customisation, online storage limits for each player (and some optional extras), and that chuckle-magnet contraption, the Man Cannon.

While Bakken wasn’t able to specify how many kinds of armor can be found in the game, he stated that there will be a lot more than what is already revealed so far. As to how the secret armor can be found, Bakken said that they will be found both in single and multiplayer modes through Achievements earned in game.

Aside from armor customisation, there’s a new system called Player Traits where players can set basic player characteristics for the following categories: Shields and Health, Damage Modifiers, Movement, and Appearance.

Under Shields and Health, players can set a character’s damage resistance rate, vampirism, head shot damage, and so forth. For Damage Modifiers, players can toggle how many grenades can be carried by the character, as well as the ability to have regenerating grenades. Player gravity, speed, and the ability to ride vehicles can be tweaked under the Movement category, while Appearance pretty much changes the character’s outward appearance, including camouflage and team colors.

The good thing is that all of these tweaks can be saved as a custom setting, and can be labeled with a name and a description for easier retrieval. The customisation settings can be saved in the player’s File Share – Halo 3 players will be alloted six slots where they can put in films, screenshots, etc. aside from custom settings.

If six slots (worth 25MB) aren’t enough, there’s an option called Bungie Pro where players can purchase 24 slots with 250MB worth of virtual space. The good thing is that Bungie Studios will host the saved files and not eat up the Microsoft Xbox 360’s HD space. Pricing for the service is not yet determined as of this writing.

Finally (but not the least), Bakken enlightens us with how the Man Cannon term came to be. In case you’re not yet aware about the Man Cannon, it’s the device that shoots people into the air. Bakken recounts:

The name? You know, I can’t actually remember who started yelling it, but I do remember very early on that, when we were playing multiplayer, one particular single player designer would yell it every time he went through it…we didn’t necessarily mean for that to be what it became, but it is pretty funny.