Halo 3 Epsilon: The Fallout

On Friday morning, I booted my Xbox 360 and spent a little time online with it. An Xbox Live friend happened to look at my profile and promptly posted to the Bungie.net forums that I was playing “Halo 3 Epsilon”. What followed was a number of posts about “What is Halo 3 Epsilon?” and “Who is this Randy No Arms?”

I will not discuss what the title is or what I’m doing with it or how I got it – that also means that I won’t tell you what it is, how it is, or how you can get a copy. Suffice to say that while my Xbox Live profile is open for public viewing, there may be titles that appear there that I simply cannot talk about in any way, shape, or form. It happened before with Viva Piñata and Halo 2 for Vista – this is one of those times. While I am amazed at the following that Halo 3 has – and the passion that the fans have for The Trilogy – I have a responsibility to Microsoft and I intend to live up to it. In fact, I didn’t even want to post this without getting a nod from the powers that be, which is why this is a few days behind the storm… And if I’m not talking about the game, what am I talking about?

The fallout of being outed as an XNA employee.

I’ve never really kept what my job is or where I work a secret. Just this past week, I talked about a technology that my team has worked on and how it was included in this month’s Xbox software development kit. Last year, I mentioned I was going to Gamefest – this year, I’m working in one of the booths and have said so. I even talked a bit about my time at GDC earlier this year. Hell, I even updated my “about me” section to reflect this.

It’s all good. Gaming is not only what I do for a living but it’s also one of my hobbies. What has been astonishing to me is the fallout from this one post. Since Friday morning the following has happened:

  • I was outed on the Bungie forums as: an “insider”, a Microsoft employee, a Bungie employee, a fake person, and a fraud. Some of that is flattering, but I think it’s clear who I am now.
  • I received 11 friend requests the first hour that the post went live. Since then I’ve had at least 120 requests which just blows my mind.
  • All morning on Friday, I politely declined a bunch of the friend requests and sent back a “Sorry, can’t talk about it” message – by noon, I had sent enough of messages that Xbox.com told me that I had sent too many in one day.

Originally I was denying the friend requests since I couldn’t discuss anything, but then I got back some notes from people that knew that but still wanted to play in other games – that was cool with me, so I started accepting new friends. Latest count is 98 in the list… the *poink* sound logins pop up enough so often that it sounds like its own soundtrack…it’s kinda neat, actually. There was even one poor user that ran through a string of messages that started out first as curious, then claimed I had a modded Xbox, then wanted to know if he could be involved, and finally got to a “sorry!” message, because he was nervous that he’d get banned for asking questions – I added him as a friend too.

In addition to the friend requests I got also got a bunch of messages. Once posted, I expected a lot of “what is it?!” questions. I also got “if you can’t tell me what it is, can you tell me how it is???” or “how did you get it???” which is followed by “where can I get it???” My response was always the same: “sorry, can’t talk about it.” I even changed my Gamer Motto to reflect that, although I don’t think people believe it.

I have been tempted to close all of my blinds lately – one Bungie.net user has said that he had my Gamertag tattooed on his ass… meh. Anyway, the two most interesting conversations came from two different accounts.

The first story starts with an XBL user on a Silver account. I won’t disclose the actual Gamertag but suffice to say that it was made to look like this user was already involved in this thing. First I get a friend request. Then I get a message: “Hi, I’m with Microsoft – can you tell me how the gameplay is and what your favorite part is?” Now, I have to wonder… why would someone with my company a) have a Silver account and b) asking me such a random question over Xbox Live? After all, wouldn’t email be a better way to contact a fellow employee? I did my usual “sorry, can’t talk about it.” The response was… spirited at best. “If you don’t give me feedback right now, I’m kicking you out of the beta!” Um, who said anything about being in a beta? The public beta ended weeks ago. He got a “you’ve been reported to Microsoft for fraudulent use of Xbox Live” message, a block, and friend removal. Inventive? Sure, but lame just the same.

The second story starts with an XBL user on a Gold account. This one pinged me with a “Hey, I’m on the beta but I’m having trouble – [a possible new feature] is confusing! What is it and can you help me?” Again, this is inventive yet it’s still a little short-sighted: I work for a company that makes very good use of email… you have to guess that we’re not going to use a communication system that limits text messages to 250 characters for this type of stuff. Again, I replied with a “sorry, can’t talk about it.” This guy was plucky. Got back about four messages with a chunk of an “invite” email that he got after “phoning Microsoft”… which, strangely enough, I had never seen and yet it was the same text that Kotaku had posted earlier that day. He was polite, so I was as well: I told him that I still couldn’t talk about it, but he could have saved himself time by linking to Kotaku directly. At least he didn’t get obnoxious, so he’s still on the friends list.

Like I said – I’m thrilled to work for a company that has makes a product that can generate and sustain this amount of passion. It’s awesome in the truest sense of the word. But that doesn’t change anything for me – I’m still unable to disclose anything.

Once it’s released, I’ll be happy to talk about the final product – after all, I did that with Halo 2 for Vista and Shadowrun. I’ll join whatever games I’m invited to, unless I’m already in one. I’m part of the community and proud of it!

I just can’t talk about this right now!


8 thoughts on “Halo 3 Epsilon: The Fallout”

  1. but you can say stuff like..the game is going to be awesome..trust me..or like…wow multiplayer is much better…but that would only be harsh cuz we can�t discus that right…i hope i get invited to the official launch party in amsterdam…

  2. No, trust ME – I can’t say *anything* about anything. Those are the rules for stuff like and they are clearly stated by any NDA you sign and/or by company policy; I’m bound by both. You either follow the policy or you a) get thrown out of the program, b) get fired, c) get sued, or d) all three.

    Given those options, I say nothing :)

  3. epsilon , i know your not allowed to tell me anything and will probably tell me you cant talk about it so dont tell me i know.

    i’m the person who number cracks and reads between the lines, knowing about halo since i was 8(1999) and pokemon since i was 5 (1996) im 16 now im not a clever person but i can calculate that halo 3 : epsilon has those maps we’re not allowed to have yet due to bugs.

    the duel wield of energy swords will finally be intergrated maybe

    and perhaps more hidden treats

    halo 2 was incomplete.

    halo 3 maybe incomplete but awsome

    halo 3 : epsilon will complete everything

    like in one of the cortana letters say in 99

    “this is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a wimper”

  4. i think i might know what it is halo 3 epsilon is the final build of halo 3 and some beta gameplayers apparently got a messege from microsoft to test the final build.

    Me myself i got my copy of halo 3 over 2 weeks ago and i love the unsc version of the banshee also glad to see the flamethrower is back

    also a tip for the spartan laser as its firing quickly spin round and it kills everything that the laser hits :)

    hope you don’t relay that to bungie/microsoft so they make a patch were you can’t do that :P

    hmm i hope you get back to me by the official release date

    answer me this its true halo 3’s been in the making since 99?

  5. Uh, I work for Microsoft: you just relayed that on your own…

    Otherwise, I’ve got nothing to say about anything until Tuesday – and the truth of it is that I probably won’t have anything to say specifically about Epsilon because that is something that I’m not allowed to talk about… NDA’s don’t disappear after a product ships :)


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