Messages

16

Report In! / Re: Dan Miller on Glyphs, Plinths, QTA and BOBs

« on: November 16, 2011, 22:41:12 »

may I suggest you ask how many in each level and the total number of them.

I believe that would be asking a bit too much - I think the fun part is discovering that ourselves.

I'd suggest something there's no way we can prove, something technical even. Maybe something we've always admitted was true but may very well not be.

Also, Miller probably won't be able to help us on that one because "BOB scripts were written by different designers". He only ever speaks about things he's worked on directly.


Also, I just noticed your signature. No, I won't let you touch my shaft with your red-tipped axe.

17

Report In! / Dan Miller on Glyphs, Plinths, QTA and BOBs

« on: November 16, 2011, 21:41:47 »

I'm very happy right now. You know why? Because yesterday, very late into the night, I followed a link (posted by Lord Friendship) to an HBO thread where Bungie employee Dan Miller talked a lot about the inner workings of the Halo scripting engine.
I was so pumped I sent him an email. Sorry for not warning upfront, but I just couldn't hold it.

Greetings,
I just read the AI Script thread on HBO and noticed how... "open" you are to the community about the inner workings of the Halo games.

Because of that, I decided that I should ask you a question that has been burning inside me since the first minutes of playing Halo 3: ODST, my favorite Halo game.
What secret do glyphs hide?

I hope you are in a bit of a shock: yes - the choice of that particular glyph (the "Super TriGlyph") was intentional. The fact that it "spawns" on the "Magic Wall" of District 04 (D04) if the player's Last Checkpoint is on D04 and the player dies on the same District (or close to it) MUST mean that there is something very, very interesting waiting to be unveiled. Something which you might have worked on.
Another two remarkable glyphs are the Super DiGlyph and the Super MonoGlyph, which were only recorded once in the history of ODST. No one outside Bungie knows how to spawn them (most people don't even know they exist!).

Now, I certainly don't want you to spill out the solution to probably the most spectacular Easter Egg of all time (no matter how minuscule it may be, it will always be the one that struck me the most, if only for the mad hunt). That would be no fun.
I just need a few wise words, a clue of sorts - because trust me: if there is something to be found, me and my friends will find it.
We just need a push in the right direction because, well, there have been no developments in a long time.



As you can probably understand, me and my fellow SGP friends (GruntsPajamas.com) are quite fond of Halo's secrets.
We have quite an extensive research about everything related to ODST and some things about Reach too.
If you have the time, you can check our most ambitious discussions/articles after the jumps below. We have much more and many more threads about the subjects below, too.
Bump Glitching (video available too) - a method which allows the de-spawning of specific objects and therefore allows the players to visit most supposedly locked Districts, areas and buildings. Exploits the way Districts are loaded into memory (no hacks, of course).
Plinths (guide) - very peculiar Forerunner columns found on Mombasa Streets. We know they're Forerunner because of this image, taken from the Halo Legends episode "Origins". Maybe there's a secret related to them too!
Zombielites (guide) - those dead Elites spread around Mombasa Streets? We resurrected them [kind of]. The same happened to a dead cop, so I came up with a possible explanation to why this might happen. It's probably wrong, but it shows how we strive to be as factual and scientific as possible in the search of secrets sometimes so cleverly hidden by people just like you!
J Banner 7 - a group of banners found throughout the Campaign which seem to contain some kind of encrypted message.


There's so much I would like to ask you about the links above! But I know your time is limited, because such is the nature of men. In any case, if you happen to wander around our Forums and find a link which points to our old domain subculturelifestyle.com, you just need to replace it with our current one (gruntspajamas.com) to make it work.



I just ask you one more thing: please don't leave me hanging. If you're not planning on answering any of the questions, please just send an email saying you won't. You can be sure I will understand.


Thank you very, very much for your time.
Best regards,
Pedro Tomé, aka Pulse Cloud.


PS: Are Reach's BOBs' spawns determined randomly at the beginning of each mission? Would you say that each mission has ONE BOB with multiple possible spawn points or MULTIPLE BOBs, each one with one single spawn point, which are mutually exclusive (i.e., if one BOB spawns the others won't)? Is it possible for a full playthrough of a mission to have ZERO BOBs, i.e., when the spawn point of the BOB is chosen at the beginning of the mission, is it possible for that spawn point to be nonexistent?
PPS: Tell Joseph Staten I will, one day, figure out the meaning of this.

His reply:

Hey Pedro! Thanks for the email! I don’t have a lot of time, so let me hit on the pertinent parts of your email:

Because of that, I decided that I should ask you a question that has been burning inside me since the first minutes of playing Halo 3: ODST, my favorite Halo game.
What secret do glyphs hide?

I hope you are in a bit of a shock: yes - the choice of that particular glyph (the "Super TriGlyph") was intentional. The fact that it "spawns" on the "Magic Wall" of District 04 (D04) if the player's Last Checkpoint is on D04 and the player dies on the same District (or close to it) MUST mean that there is something very, very interesting waiting to be unveiled. Something which you might have worked on.
Another two remarkable glyphs are the Super DiGlyph and the Super MonoGlyph, which were only recorded once in the history of ODST. No one outside Bungie knows how to spawn them (most people don't even know they exist!).

Now, I certainly don't want you to spill out the solution to probably the most spectacular Easter Egg of all time (no matter how minuscule it may be, it will always be the one that struck me the most, if only for the mad hunt). That would be no fun.
I just need a few wise words, a clue of sorts - because trust me: if there is something to be found, me and my friends will find it.
We just need a push in the right direction because, well, there have been no developments in a long time.

That secret is also a secret internally, with a total of maybe four people in all of Bungie that knows about it. I don’t. That stuff was placed by Joseph Staten- I had no role in it.


Plinths (guide) - very peculiar Forerunner columns found on Mombasa Streets. We know they're Forerunner because of this image, taken from the Halo Legends episode "Origins". Maybe there's a secret related to them too!
I don’t think you can attribute anything in Halo Legends as related to our stuff. Both things were built by separate teams.


PS: Are Reach's BOBs' spawns determined randomly at the beginning of each mission? Would you say that each mission has ONE BOB with multiple possible spawn points or MULTIPLE BOBs, each one with one single spawn point, which are mutually exclusive (i.e., if one BOB spawns the others won't)? Is it possible for a full playthrough of a mission to have ZERO BOBs, i.e., when the spawn point of the BOB is chosen at the beginning of the mission, is it possible for that spawn point to be nonexistent?
BOB scripts were written by different designers, we tried to remain consistent, but there may be subtle differences between them. For my missions, I generated a random number at the beginning of the script and that determined which Bob would spawn. It is not possible to play my missions (or any other, for what I remember) and have no BOBs. BOBs will always spawn, if not it is a bug.


PPS: Tell Joseph Staten I will, one day, figure out the meaning of this.
Good luck! I don’t fully understand it either! It’s more of an internal codeword.

Proof attached.


I'd like you guys to help me decide if there is something we should ask that he could answer immediately - we should be thankful Dan even read my email, so let's not go overboard and ask too much.
The question(s) would go along, as a quick little bonus, with the "thank you so much" reply.


Don't let that fiery excitement make you need to post your theories right now - please change your pants first.


UPDATE (2011-11-19):
My "thank you" email in response to his reply:

Thank you so much for your reply, Dan.
It's great knowing at least some developers don't mind sharing their knowledge with those who play their games.

I must tell you our correspondence was shared, publicly, with the rest of the community I'm part of, the SGP.
Even though I think you were expecting that, I didn't warn you beforehand - and for that I am sorry. It didn't even cross my mind until a member of the SGP, the founder himself, raised the question.
For reference, the thread where it was posted can be found here.

I would also like to apologize for assuming anything developed by 343 had any direct developmental connection with anything developed by Bungie.



We are all very thankful for your patience and support. And for some of the most memorable campaign missions too!

Best regards, and the best of luck with that "Grognok" project of yours!
Pedro Tomé


PS: Just a couple of questions other members of the SGP wanted me to ask you:
1) What drove the design decision to include invisible "Covenant Pilot" objects inside of the Banshees?
We know they're there because when you hijack a Banshee on top of a building on New Alexandria, the marines start shooting the ground (roof of the building) somewhere where the Banshee pilot would have fallen if it existed - and blood spurts out of the ground. If we melee that exact spot on the ground, we lunge towards it and get a pummel medal, proving the existence of an invisible, super small, non-moving pilot for each Banshee. Also, the frame-rate drops considerably when we look directly at them.

2) Do you know anything about whether "Tip of the Spear" is, or not, an exception in terms of BOB spawns? If not, do you recall who designed that mission? How conducive might that person be to similar emails from us about their level?

UPDATE (2011-11-22):
His reply

> 1) What drove the design decision to include invisible "Covenant Pilot" objects inside of the Banshees?
> We know they're there because when you hijack a Banshee on top of a building on New Alexandria, the marines start shooting the ground (roof of the building) somewhere where the Banshee pilot would have fallen if it existed - and blood spurts out of the ground. If we melee that exact spot on the ground, we lunge towards it and get a pummel medal, proving the existence of an invisible, super small, non-moving pilot for each Banshee. Also, the frame-rate drops considerably when we look directly at them.

The invisible elite is a way we saved a lot of memory to make New Alexandria even possible. The game keeps track of all enemies, their skeletons and everything. In order to fit more banshees in the level, we made a special non-skeleton/non-model elite.

I have no information about BOBs for any level besides my two. Sorry

Thanks for the email!

And my final reply:

Thank you a lot, Dan. It was a pleasure learning all this from you.

Best wishes,
Pedro

18

BOBs / Re: Enyclopedia BOBtannica

« on: November 15, 2011, 02:55:09 »

Until we kill the Anonymous Banshee Pilot (ABP) without destroying its Banshee, we do not know whether it is the ABP, the Banshee, or both which are involved in the requirements of the "Golden Opportunity", "If It Bleeds...", and "Golden Tree City" daily challenges.

Does that mean no one has tried to hijack a Banshee BOB ("Bobshee" just sounds too sexual) instead of blowing it to smithereens?

If it is attempted and proven to be impossible (i.e., we can't hijack Banshee BOBs), then we can't say if what triggers the daily challenges is the destruction of the Banshees themselves or the invisible pilots inside, whose existence was, I believe, proven by Scatcycle (do we have an official thread/video containing the proof?).
It doesn't matter, though: knowing which of the cases triggers the challenges would be purely academic, and not actually meaningful for practical purposes.

If it is attempted and proven to be possible, then I guess the answer arises immediately.

19

BOBs / Re: Enyclopedia BOBtannica

« on: November 15, 2011, 01:29:37 »

CG's Credo implies that only one BOB can "be" at one time because there is only one, single BOB per Campaign Mission.
LF's terminology implies that multiple BOBs can "be" at one time because there are multiple BOBs per Campaign Mission - we've just never seen that happen.

Because we've never seen that happen and all evidence points to up to only one BOB being spawned at any time, I support CG's Credo.

(Funny how I've been doing so many Mathematical Analysis exercises my textual expression's format is becoming like a maths proof.)

20

Multiplayer Maps / Re: New GRD Helmet Easter Eggs!

« on: November 13, 2011, 12:34:00 »

Remember to use glow tags for spoilers.
I want to find everything in Halo: Anniversary by myself - the thing I most regret is being young and YouTubing the location of the H3 skulls so DON'T spoil the fun.

21

BOBs / Re: Tip of the Spear BOB Hunt

« on: November 08, 2011, 21:48:09 »

Interesting, CG.
I've been trying to post a comment but I just can't: when I try to say something against your post I always find a way how my arguments fail, and when I try to say something that supports your post the same happens.
We've reached the "I can say whatever I want and it just might be right - if they did it the way I think they did" stage. There's not much to say: you might be right, you might be wrong - we have no guarantees of anything.

We don't even know if they used random numbers...



Seems a bit hacky and over-the-top, but maybe we can find something by replicating the same exact tasks. For instance:
    1) Be offline;
    2) Turn on Xbox, select the Campaign mission Tip of the Spear and let it load;
    3) Turn off the Xbox with the game disc inside;
    4) Turn on the Xbox;
    5) Start the game with the minimum number of moves necessary (I think you only need to press A to start the game if you're offline);
    6) Let the opening cinematics play and wait until you're prompted to press START;
    7) Press START;
    8) Press A to start the choosing of a new Campaign mission;
    9) Let the mission load (I'm assuming the Xbox remembers it's TotS);
   10) Press A to start the Campaign mission;
   11) Finish the level without killing anything (excluding the obligatory enemies, if any);
   12) Repeat, twice, from 2) to 11) and then skip to 13);
   13) Watch the recordings of the gameplay and check if the spawning of the BOBs occurred in the same location.

If the BOBs spawned in the same location I shall eat dirt for 3 consecutive days.

22

BOBs / Re: The Official Lord Friendship's BOB Video Guide Thread

« on: November 08, 2011, 20:55:54 »

Also, is anyone here playing Reach on a PAL system?  ColdGlider, was your video guide made on a PAL system?  I suspect that the spawns and behaviors of the BOBs varies slightly between NTSC and PAL, but I'm not sure.

The system available in my country is PAL. If you have a PAL-specific theory I can test, do tell - I'll try to manage some time to do it.
I'm actually kind of sad I haven't been helpful, but I've always got so much work to do it's impossible to spend time in ghost hunting (and I need my bi-weekly fix of multiplayer Slaying).

But still, if there is something only I can test, I'll be glad to do it.

PS: Differences between NTSC and PAL are not far-fetched at all - I remember a jump/shortcut on AotCR only NTSC people could do in Halo: CE.

23

BOBs / Re: The Official Lord Friendship's BOB Video Guide Thread

« on: November 01, 2011, 18:09:15 »

Okay, I finally decided to go ahead and post the first part of my BOB Video Guide.  You can check it out here:

BOB Video Guide Part 1: What is a BOB?

Let me know what you think!  I kept going back and making changes, but eventually I decided to just post it, rather than spend forever making it "perfect".

Very nice indeed.

24

BOBs / Re: The Official Lord Friendship's BOB Video Guide Thread

« on: October 30, 2011, 20:01:20 »

Might want to clarify this, Pulse: is the problem the fact that the connection between Gold Rangers and Marathon BOBs is feeble, or is it even that the fact between Gold Rangers and the name "BOB" is feeble itself?

What I meant was that saying that the meaning of "BOB" (the Halo: Reach characters) is "Born On Board" should be avoided because there is absolutely no evidence that this is the case.

25

BOBs / Re: Enyclopedia BOBtannica

« on: October 30, 2011, 16:48:29 »

Pulse, I don't think that this method will work on BOBs. It appears that the chance to get the 0.1% is not actually random at all. You cannot exploit something that is truly random. The programmed list of random numbers is NOT random. It does not fit the criteria. Using the butterfly effect, or a pattern, to get a certain random number, and having it work every time, is not random.

I would think that Microsoft would realize this and make an actual random number code.

The thing is, we can only have simulated randomness to a certain degree - there's no such thing as true, absolute randomness in electronics.
You can argue that you can track the movement or the position of the cursor and then do some calculations and get random numbers - but it is flawed because if I move the mouse in a way and then move it again in the same way, the supposedly random numbers won't be as random as expected: they might even be the same (depends on the algorithm, obviously).


Because of this, you can't actually program the BOB spawning to be random in its true meaning. It can appear to be random and it can be excruciatingly hard to replicate an event, but it is never actually random.

Finally, the point of my post was not about BOB spawning or Zodiac Spear spawning being random or not - because they aren't: they have a fixed, programmed probability associated to them (I am assuming BOB spawning does because that makes sense and Lord Friendship claimed he noticed this probability) -, it was about taking advantage of the limitations of real-world computation to increase the actual probability of a BOB being spawned regardless of what is written in the source code of the game.


It's very much like Bump Glitching, actually.

26

BOBs / Re: Enyclopedia BOBtannica

« on: October 29, 2011, 01:19:05 »

%

Oh god, what I terrible idea I've just had.

If you've ever played Final Fantasy XII you probably know the Zodiac Spear - the ultimate weapon in the game.
Basically, you can find it hidden in one specific chest which disappears and becomes forever unavailable if you open any of the four "Forbidden Chests", which are completely regular chests spread across the world, i.e., you won't know you've just screwed yourself over until you go hunt the Spear and notice the epic chest is missing and then you smash your room's wall against your face (or you know which chests are the forbidden ones and you avoid them at all costs - usually in a second playthrough after your 100+ hours first playthrough lol).

The developers had half a conscience, though, so they created another chest with the Zodiac Spear, but instead of a 100% chance of containing one (like the first chest in case you didn't open one of the forbidden chests), it had a 0.1% chance of spawning a Zodiac Spear (and it didn't disappear after you got a Spear from it, i.e., you could theoretically eventually get an infinite amount of Zodiac Spears), which pretty much meant "lol you know it can be there, but it won't - u mad?".


Now, there was one very clever guy that found a way to turn the 0.1% chance of finding a ZS into a 100% chance without any kind of cheating.
It exploited the PlayStation 2's pre-programmed list of random numbers, which was used by the developers of the game for every randomness-affected event.
Basically, you just had to go to a place, turn the PS2 off, do a couple of actions and then make the character attack itself automatically.
If you had noticed one of the patterns, for example, «a 5 hit combo after 82-84 hits», then you were GUARANTEED that the Zodiac Spear would spawn.

> Here is the guide if you'd like to learn more.



Now, I don't know if the X360 has a pre-programmed list of random numbers, but if it does... well, I think you can guess what I'm thinking: there's a way to assume deterministic control over BOB spawning.
It may be incredibly hard (I have no idea how the guy found out how to do it with the Spear), but it IS possible.

A very interesting lecture about how random numbers are so damn hard to create and why they can be so awesome (the lecturer is amazing, too - I've watched all his lectures):
Lecture 28: Random Numbers - Richard Buckland UNSW (2008)

27

BOBs / Re: The Official Lord Friendship's BOB Video Guide Thread

« on: October 29, 2011, 00:35:21 »

Welcome, Lord Friendship, your dedication is pretty obvious and I picture your work to be excellent by the way you write your posts!

I'd like to leave a few comments, though.

- Name BOB refers to Marathon friendlies that rogue AI instructed player to kill

Even though that's true, the way you wrote it (or, more correctly, the way I understood it) means that the Halo: Reach characters referenced to as Elite Rangers in the Enemies page of a player's Career Stats in Bungie.net are called BOBs and are so because there are characters in a game called Marathon with the same name.
As far as I know this hasn't been confirmed, which means that, in order to stay as accurate and factual as possible, you should NOT say in your guide that "BOB" means "Born On Board". It's okay to say that there are characters called BOBs in a whole different game and that, in the context of the same game, "BOB" means "Born On Board" AND, by chance, the player was instructed to kill every single one of them, which seems to also be the case with Halo: Reach's golden Elite Rangers.

I hope I was able to make myself be understood - I'm so tired I can barely formulate coherent thoughts.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm not sure full-length videos are the best idea on a guide about BOBs. As a reader, I'd sure be more interested in multiple 10-15 second videos with each BOB (or a longer video for each Campaign Mission, I don't know...) rather than 30 minutes long videos.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I was working on a Covenant Ranks guide while working on my proposal for our website's design and layout before school started.
Since then I haven't had neither time or a fresh head to tackle such a huge task, so it's been dormant on the side.
If I recall correctly, though, I think I have a Shield Strength table for BOBs which you might be interested in (or not). If I do then it's in another computer, so I'll have to check.
I'll post it if I have it.



Keep it up! Now I'm going to bed - I even have classes on Saturdays!

PS: I guess it'd be a good idea to check how 343i describes BOBs on their B.net-equivalent stats tracker when it comes out?

28

Work-In-Progress (Halo: Reach) / Re: Shotcode maker - I need [some of] YOU!

« on: July 18, 2011, 18:49:49 »

What language are you using?

Java, it's all I realy know right now.

You guys should port it to C, if you're that interested in having an EXE.
I know it's asking a lot, but would you mind posting or PMing me the code of the latest stable build? I've never learned Java (and according to tons of articles I've read I'm not losing anything valuable), and I think I'm going to have to learn it this year, so it would be cool to see something other than "Herro VVorrd" code - something more structured.

29

Work-In-Progress (Halo: Reach) / Re: Shotcode maker - I need [some of] YOU!

« on: July 18, 2011, 12:13:03 »

What language are you using?

30

Work-In-Progress (Halo: Reach) / Re: WIP: Lone Wolf Study

« on: July 14, 2011, 22:47:15 »

There's something we should try that may be the ultimate glitch of all time in the history of Halo: the Armor Locked moving player that we can do in Forge, but in Campaign.
Why: infinite health.
How:
    1. Start "The Package" ("ONI Sword Base" might also work)
    2. Play until we get to the entrance of the courtyard of the Sword Base (aka, where we get the Target Locator on "ONI Sword Base")
    3. Figure out where, by backtracking, the courtyard area is deloaded
    4. Acquire Armor Lock in the courtyard entrance (implying it is there)
    5. Go close to the deloading area.
    6. One player ARMOR LOCK and the other runs to the deloading area, possibly causing the same effect that deleting all Armor Locks in Forge causes
    7. Partey!!!

Me and Monx tried this and failed miserably. Woo!