Firestream.net
Life... Dreams... Hope... Where do they come from? And where do they go...?
Easy addition, but looks great! You can now pick your Armor Pose when you generate sigs:
Make your own at:
http://firestream.net/h4sigs/posted on May 14th 2013 @ 05:19:04 PM - 744 views
I wrote a twitter bot on the @HaloCharts twitter. With it, you can reply to @HaloCharts with #halo4stats followed by your gamertag and after a few seconds, @HaloCharts will reply to you with the Halo 4 stats of the gamertag you entered. It's cool!
Here's a screenshot of how your reply should look for it to work:
http://grab.by/mo2uposted on May 9th 2013 @ 09:54:56 PM - 96 views
I have setup a system that will let you generate a Halo 4 Stats Signature Image. Check it out here:
http://firestream.net/h4sigs/
There are a lot of uses for images like these, including the use of them on your own site or blog, post them on twitter/facebook, or stick them in your forum signatures all over. Hopefully somebody will find this useful and I only wish I could have set this up 5 months ago :)
Examples:
posted on May 7th 2013 @ 12:26:21 AM - 374 views
I'm having a blast getting back into 3D! It's been a few years.
posted on Apr 2nd 2013 @ 11:00:49 PM - 1024 views
In theaters soon...
posted on Mar 20th 2013 @ 04:07:14 PM - 1143 views
Thanks to Archive.org, I've started building out an archive of a lot of my old work. Came across the original design for HaloCharts.com. This is from November, 2007. Who remembers it? Man, good times...
posted on Mar 13th 2013 @ 06:30:28 PM - 377 views
Feeling all artsy and stuff...
posted on Feb 9th 2013 @ 08:36:04 PM - 1517 views
I had a lot of free time this weekend, which allowed me to get a lot done on HaloSphere2 and Legacy!
First, I replaced the oddball system with a new Juggernaut system. The mechanics are similar, but if you become a Juggernaut your name will glow in the match list and your Attack and Defense will be 25% higher. Also, every game you win as the Juggernaut will give you 2X payout! It's pretty cool.
I was able to get HaloSphere1 working as HaloSphere Legacy now and it has integration with HaloSphere2, which is going to lead to some new awards and achievements very soon. HaloSphere Legacy has reached over 35,000 people since 2009!
HaloSphere2's profile pages have been cleaned up a lot, with a new tab breakdown to make them easier to view. There are more cleanup changes planned very soon. That's a quick summary of what's new! Season #2 is well underway, so come by and check it all out!
http://halosphere.net
posted on Jan 28th 2013 @ 07:51:29 AM - 373 views
Quick update on 1.1. It was approved by Apple today! It was mostly a bug-fix release, but has a few new features as well.
- stability bugs fixed, should run much smoother now
- added playlist section with population data from HC
- weapons and medals now contain ranks
Check it out at:
http://halo4app.com
Android version is about 40% complete! Hoping for release by end of the month.
posted on Jan 25th 2013 @ 05:47:12 PM - 774 views
For about a month, I've been working with Xorth from
HaloTracker.com to build out a nice iOS Halo 4 stat tracking app. It was approved this morning and is available now in the iTunes App Store.
Stat Tracker Halo 4 Edition:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stat-tracker-halo-4-edition/id590494155?ls=1&mt=8
This app features an optimized layout for the iPhone, making it quick and easy to see your Halo 4 stats, Leaderboards and the active War Games Challenges. We will be expanding it out a lot over the coming weeks as we get feedback and reviews. Android version in the works, to be released ASAP!
Screenshot:
posted on Jan 15th 2013 @ 02:42:59 PM - 703 views
Thanks to
@Fyrewulff, I had some cool shots of the Didact to mess around with. Here's a desktop I put together featuring him. Enjoy!
posted on Jan 14th 2013 @ 07:53:09 PM - 2691 views
Not sure how many people know about this, but right about the time Halo 4 launched I setup a JSON service to get the current Halo 4 challenges. It hasn't worked very well since then, but the other night I finally fixed the problems. I also added 2 fields to make showing when it ends easier.
To give you an idea of what you can do with this, check out this page by HaloCommunity.com to see what they are doing:
http://halocommunity.com/forums/challenges.php
The JSON service is at:
http://halocharts.com/2012/json_challenges.phpposted on Jan 4th 2013 @ 03:25:34 PM - 491 views
Unfortunately, things haven't really panned out for
HaloUnity.com. The site was a big success at launch with a lot of activity. However, it has dwindled out over time for a lot of reasons, and I'm sad to say I'm not sure what to do with the site now.
First and foremost, it has no leader. I launched it and life took over so I've had no time to really manage it. Since that time a few great guys have taken the helm and given it their best, but things just haven't turned around for the site. It's nobody's fault. Maybe it's lacking interest in Halo or the fact that most of us already have a home site to spend time at. I think it also is that many of my goals for the site just didn't happen. I worked hard on it, and so many others did as well, but sometimes it's just not meant to be.
Now, I could shut it down, but maybe there's something that could be done with it. It does have a few things going for it:
-
@UnifyingHalo, the official twitter of Halo Unity has over 2000 followers.
-
Unity4Halo, the official iOS app has over 1400 downloads in less than a month
So if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them. Please comment below, or email me at firestream@gmail.com
posted on Dec 31st 2012 @ 08:51:59 PM - 1352 views
This desktop is actually based off the shots of the new Play Arts Kai figures coming out next year, particularly the
Sarah Palmer one.
More info on them.
posted on Dec 15th 2012 @ 09:22:06 PM - 2649 views
It's been 5 days since my last post! That's unacceptable.
Well, I've been busy at least working on the new mobile mode for HaloSphere2. It's the same game you play in your browser, but now optimized for your phone's browser. Should work on any modern smart-phone! Here's a shot of it running on an iPhone:
Mobile Mode:
http://v2m.halosphere.net
Hope to see you soon at HaloSphere2!
http://halosphere.netposted on Dec 6th 2012 @ 07:20:07 AM - 554 views
posted on Nov 30th 2012 @ 09:47:55 PM - 960 views
We have quite a few tablets at work, including a couple of my own. Had a few minutes this morning to pull up HaloWaypoint on all of them. Good times.
Running on my Macbook Pro, iPad (3rd gen), Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and Surface RT.
Some things I noticed:
Apple iPad (3rd gen): Works really well. Smooth scrolling all over. Background images scroll with page, which I don't think they are supposed to. Stats worked about as well as on your desktop, but the entire design seems very oriented to a Tablet and not a PC.
Surface RT: Also worked well. Backgrounds rendered correctly and remained static as page scrolled. Very smooth, probably worked the best on this tablet out of all of the ones I had laying around.
Nexus 7 & Nexus 10: Performed very poorly. Terrible scrolling performance. Backgrounds stayed static. Stats was very laggy and underperformed. Entire site and stats app were nearly unusable. This was the case on both tablets, although the 10 was running Android 4.2 and the 7 had Android 4.1
Just figured I'd share! And no, you can't have my Nestle Crunch bar.
posted on Nov 28th 2012 @ 12:46:53 PM - 748 views
This is a variation of the twitter background I did for TheHaloCouncil, setup as a traditional desktop wallpaper. Hope you like it!
posted on Nov 27th 2012 @ 08:47:25 AM - 728 views
For my friends at
Grifball.net!
posted on Nov 25th 2012 @ 10:50:10 AM - 1070 views
Love these guys! Ancient Warriors
posted on Nov 24th 2012 @ 07:21:20 PM - 891 views
Happy with this one too. For
HaloTracker.com, enjoy!
posted on Nov 20th 2012 @ 08:26:10 PM - 1031 views
I'm super happy with this one, hope they like it!
posted on Nov 18th 2012 @ 08:21:46 PM - 758 views
Last night, I took a little bit of time to fix up HaloURL.com to be a bit more useful. I find it to be handy, so maybe others will over time. Here's what's new:
- URLs are even shorter now, down to just 3 characters!
- There's a JSON option now so that you can integrate the use of HaloURL into your own website if you'd like
- There's a bit more instruction on the site now, to help people know what to do
All previous HaloURL's should continue to work. Enjoy!
posted on Nov 15th 2012 @ 10:11:51 AM - 540 views
Desktop for The Real Forums
posted on Nov 11th 2012 @ 05:38:11 PM - 774 views
It's been a week since my last Halo Community desktop. This time, it's for
Forge Hub, a great site for all your forging needs! I tried to do more than one color variation for this one, but nothing would look good. Enjoy!
posted on Nov 11th 2012 @ 03:07:36 PM - 591 views
I just couldn't resist. There's a new Halo game full of numbers, so I threw together some (I think interesting) charts related to playlist populations on Halo 4 thus far. What better site to showcase this on then HaloCharts.com, so it's once again alive with a little bit of purpose.
What does this mean in the long run?
Who knows ultimately, but I know that I can't build what I had before on HC, due to time and resource limitations. That means there won't be much if any player specific stats anytime in the future, nor will there be player leaderboards. Once HaloWaypoint works their kinks out, it will be a fantastic place to track all of your personal player stats. I may do some things that supplement Waypoint, but you'll just have to wait and see.
What about the community side of HC?
I think everybody from the old HC has pretty much found new homes on the web, and if not there's
HaloUNITY, which will continue to get some updates and new functionality. I don't plan to add any community related things to HC this time around. There's enough sites out there already that have great groups of people, so there's no reason to setup yet another place for people to go. The focus will be Charts and only Charts.
Can I request things to be added to HaloCharts?
Yep! Of course, I have no idea if I'll be able to do all the things requested, and ultimately probably not, but I'm open to any cool ideas you may have.
So stay tuned! There's probably more coming. I am still waiting for my copy of Halo 4 to get here!
posted on Nov 8th 2012 @ 01:17:06 PM - 725 views
Next up is
RatedMature.net:
posted on Nov 4th 2012 @ 11:05:27 PM - 765 views
The next in my series of Halo Community Desktops, this time for
http://readyuplive.com
posted on Nov 4th 2012 @ 12:44:09 PM - 1131 views
posted on Nov 2nd 2012 @ 11:54:46 AM - 1805 views
Worked directly with DustStorm on this one! I think it came out nice.
posted on Oct 25th 2012 @ 09:34:27 PM - 893 views
Desktop for
Podtacular, an online Halo Podcast and community.
posted on Oct 25th 2012 @ 04:11:22 PM - 816 views
Desktop for
HaloSphere2, an online Halo MMORPG I actively develop.
posted on Oct 24th 2012 @ 10:38:46 PM - 965 views
A hodgepodge of recent desktop art:
Check out
HaloUnity.com! It's going to be very active when Halo 4 comes out.
posted on Oct 23rd 2012 @ 10:02:43 AM - 805 views
HaloSphere2 is an online, browser based, Halo-theme MMORPG that has been in development for about two years. It actually started in late 2009 as an addition to HaloCharts and was very successful. HaloSphere2 broke off to it's own site in July of 2011. HaloSphere2 has not had the success that the first version had for a few reasons:
1) HS2 doesn't have a clear end-game. It should have had this at launch, and many people including myself and Psyfireman have thought about ways to add in an end-game to the mix, but it has never materialized. Without an 'end in sight' many people felt that there's no point to play without some obtainable goal in mind. I actually felt that way about Halo Reach's MM, so I never played it much.
2) HS2 didn't have a super-site to push it and there hasn't really been any push to advertise the game besides an online ad occasionally and word of mouth getting new players in. So it hasn't had the growth that I hoped for, unlike the first version which had HaloCharts.com around it. HS1 had over 35,000 players try it, many people really diving into it. HS2 has a little over 6,000 players currently, but only 12% of these players are active. Earlier this year around the 1yr anniversary the active rate was near 16%, which is pretty bad for a game that is only a year old.
3) There are flaws in the core gameplay and abuse of the system has been rampant for a while. It's unfortunate that people won't play a game as it's intended to be played, but all of the Halo games have seen this same effect, so I shouldn't be surprised when it happens to my own game. Outside of abuse there are certain gameplay elements that just aren't as much fun as they were in the first version. I won't spend any time here on which ones, but there were some conservative approaches taken that were probably good and bad for the game as a whole.
So what next?
I've struggled with what to do for a few months now. There's a few options, but I believe I have settled on the correct course of action for the game and it's future. I've spent 4 years on the system, and countless other people have given their time to the site, helping me run the day to day, manage players, think of ideas for the game and more. The game is still good, and can be very fun, it just hasn't lived up to the hype or the bar set by the original version.
Option 1 would be to start again, build a new ship, so to speak. It would be a ton of work and would require a lot of people who played the original version and HS2 to take a leap of faith, which can't be expected at this point due to the lack of attention to HS2 for a while now. I'm against this option.
Option 2 is to give up and the game is what it is, end the project, but allow it to continue running. This is pretty much the fate of the original version. It is running in a very broken state right now, hardly playable. I'm against this option also.
Option 3 is to fix HaloSphere2. Fix the holes, all of them. Fix the abuse the best I can and make the game stable to where people can play it without others ruining it. Improve the existing gameplay components, polish the UI more and just smooth things out. It will be a lot of work, but far less than trying again. This is the option I've settled on.
Along with fixing the game, I cannot expect every player who ever tried it to come back. I can't expect the active player count to really go up all that much, if ever again, but I can fix the game to be great and fun for the nearly 800 people out there that have stuck with it. It could take months, but the HaloSphere project has been a very fun hobby for a long time, and it sucks to see it decline and get abused by people who won't play fair, but I can do my best to make things good again.
With the imminent release of Halo 4, suddenly a ton of people are going to be excited again about Halo, possibly willing to try HaloSphere2 if it can be improved, and especially if it can surface up some Halo 4 related things to the gameplay.
So with the help of Psyfireman and the HS2 Staff, I'm going to fix it. It's going to be great again, and even if it makes a fun game for 1000 people, I'm happy. Numbers are not the end-all, and shouldn't be the focus, which a lot of times I'm guilty of focusing on these things. Please hang with me here on this! I truly believe I can make HS2 greater than it's ever been from now till it's 2nd birthday.
Thanks for reading this wall of text.
posted on Oct 18th 2012 @ 11:26:42 AM - 1397 views
posted on Oct 17th 2012 @ 11:42:56 AM - 862 views
Halo 4 went gold a few days ago, so as a tribute here's a tasty golden logo desktop wallpaper I threw together. Enjoy!
posted on Oct 9th 2012 @ 05:48:08 PM - 5936 views
About a week ago, Twitter added a new header image feature to your profile page. Here's some Halo 4 themed header wallpapers, already setup to look good behind your avatar and bio. Enjoy!
To set one of these:
1. save the image to your computer
2. login to twitter
3. click the gear in the top right, then click edit profile
4. click on design over on the left side menu
5. by header, click change header
6. click choose existing image, select the image you saved
7, click Ok on the popup, then save at the bottom! DONE!
posted on Sep 29th 2012 @ 09:47:58 AM - 3499 views
Some resized version of my past desktops to fit the iPhone 5 screen resolution. Enjoy!
posted on Sep 23rd 2012 @ 05:07:13 PM - 4958 views
I liked the dubstep personally.
posted on Sep 20th 2012 @ 01:19:17 PM - 940 views
... clever prometheans
posted on Sep 17th 2012 @ 06:56:00 PM - 18633 views
Leave a comment with an idea of a cool way to use this domain! I've had it for a couple years and never did anything with it. Thanks!
posted on Sep 17th 2012 @ 08:00:09 AM - 640 views
I'm 95% done with this, which compliments HaloUnity.com to provide news, events and profile data in a native mobile format for iOS devices. The hope is that it will get a lot of downloads being a free app, thus sending people to Unity and all other Halo sites participating. As Halo 4 gets closer, the amount of interest should start rising greatly.
Here's a screenshot:
Planning to finish it this weekend and get it submitted. Then it will take around 10 days for it to be approved (hopefully, but I'm having bad luck with Apple lately). And Android version and maybe WP8 version will come out closer to Halo 4's launch or a bit after.
posted on Sep 14th 2012 @ 07:22:03 AM - 716 views
Check out this super simple Chrome Extension for HaloSphere2. All it does is add a quick toolbar button to the game, however, if enough avid HS2 players out there install it and review the game, then maybe we can get so new people via the Chrome Web Store into HaloSphere2!
posted on Sep 13th 2012 @ 08:51:46 AM - 582 views
This isn't brand new, I made this months ago, but I figured I would share it again. It's free and has almost 5000 downloads! Go get it!
posted on Sep 10th 2012 @ 09:53:08 AM - 716 views
Basically I'm just starting with a render or screenshot I find online and going from there. Feel free to suggest an image you like that would make a good desktop wallpaper. Thanks!
posted on Sep 9th 2012 @ 02:33:46 PM - 986 views
And another! Fun with Master Chief, enjoy!
posted on Sep 7th 2012 @ 09:03:25 PM - 8400 views
Again, still in a creative art mood. Think of these as the spiritual successor to
this piece I did back in 2009.
Update to include iPhone 4/4S versions of each:
Blue
Fire
Green
Gray
Red
Purple
Here is a zip with all versions above and also the 2 Master Chief desktops I posted the other day
Zip Archive
posted on Sep 4th 2012 @ 08:57:08 PM - 29532 views
Quote:Also, and this is an important part: two of the Specializations – Pioneer and Wetwork – will be available at launch. The rest will come online later…unless you purchase the Halo 4 Limited Edition, in which case you’ll have access to all eight at launch.
A few replies on twitter got me thinking about this. Does the paragraph above scare you any? Is it the beginning of a 'pay to win' type scheme in Halo? I fully believe that Halo is going towards a micro-transaction type structure and the statement above only seems to backup that theory. Time will tell I guess, but it has me worried.
posted on Sep 4th 2012 @ 06:10:52 PM - 1213 views
posted on Sep 3rd 2012 @ 10:24:38 AM - 1820 views
Still in an art mood. Made this today real quick, hope you like it!
posted on Sep 3rd 2012 @ 10:14:53 AM - 4224 views
posted on Aug 23rd 2012 @ 12:49:47 PM - 681 views
Some really good samples. Remix stuff sounds great too!
posted on Aug 22nd 2012 @ 08:54:07 PM - 635 views
It's been a while since there have been any core game updates to HaloSphere2. With the help of Psyfireman, we have made a pretty substantial upgrade to the Class system, offering many new classes and a new tier system that will automatically migrate EXP of a class that is maxed out. Huge thanks to Kegonomics for the new Class logos!
Much more to come!
posted on Aug 21st 2012 @ 09:06:43 AM - 673 views
