Bungie Reveals Lessons Learned from Halo 3 Beta

Bungie divulges specifics gathered from holding the Halo 3 beta period.

During the CoFesta Forum at this year's Tokyo Game Show, Jonty Barnes, Bungie Studios' head of production, discussed what lessons Bungie learned from hosting its Halo 3 beta program. Most surprising to the team was the amount of processing and bandwidth they underestimated would be required to properly manage Halo 3 networked matches. Barnes said, "The amount of polish feedback was especially helpful, and we also found we had to triple our server capacity."

Various other bugs were found by beta testers, including usability problems and networking, but Bungie was pleased by how well the early matches ran. "The nice thing about it was that we also actually proved that some systems worked," he said. The fan response, which was mostly supportive and excited, was taken into serious consideration, causing Bungie to retool parts of the engine to improve the product. Barnes explained, "And, I have to say, our graphical ambitions were pushed harder in response to our community expectations."

Source: GameSpot