Messages

1

SGP Task Force: Ghost Chasers / Re: SGP: Report - Glyphs Unlock a Door!

« on: October 07, 2009, 20:03:34 »

I've just gone back to my video of me showing a friend the disappearing door and checked out Sector 8 before and after the door disappears and this is nothing more than a repeatable glitch.

In comparison to the fully loaded sector when the door is missing the following applies:

3 areas used as the SI supply drops are open (not just the 1 originally discovered)
The grunts and turrets are not loaded in one of the circular areas
Adverts for cars are missing from the walls
Various items are not loaded such as the Opticon health dispensers and stand alone terminals (such as the one near the shotgun)

So it's a case of good work on finding a glitch, now can we do this on other sectors to access even more areas that should be blocked off?

Edit
I just watched a whole bunch of scenery appear then disappear which caused the enemies there to completely freeze, some even in mid-air.  I urge you all to go back to your in-game videos and look around the area as evidence of the engine glitching.  What is useful though is that all the glyphs appear bold and bright when you move the camera away from your characters 1st person view.

2

SGP Task Force: Ghost Chasers / Re: SGP: Report - Glyphs Unlock a Door!

« on: October 07, 2009, 19:39:22 »

I don't know If anyone has found this yet, but I was walking through sector 5 when I noticed that all the doors in the area near the place where the rookie first starts were opened. Curious, I wandered inside, and found that every door that had something behind it was open (open as in gone, like the secret door, not just openable). This leads me to believe even more strongly that the secret door is no more than a loading error. Doors to rooms that Bungie simply did not use. I have not yet found the trigger that led to these doors failing to load, but I had just traveled from sector 6 through sector 8.

The more I see these kinds of things (missing doors, missing Optican booths) the more skeptical I become.

Video in fileshare
If you look around the rest of the area, you can see a couple of other doors that have also failed to load.

Thanks for sharing JSM26.  For me this is conclusive proof that the ODST modified H3 engine has issues with rendering objects and what we're seeing with the disappearing door(s) is nothing more than a glitch.  I wish it was something more but the evidence is stacking up against it.

3

Intel / Re: SGP: Ghost Chasers - Gothi's Skepticism

« on: October 07, 2009, 17:37:03 »

Don't feel like it was a negative criticism ColdGlider, the tone was down to the fact I was rushing to get it up and I was being talked to at the same time.  I don't pull punches and if I was being derogatory it would be extremely obvious.  Plus I wouldn't have linked back here

The blog post came after the forum post here, I haven't updated my blog in a while and thought it was a fitting rebuttal to the discussion going on.  I stand by my theory that it's a loading glitch rather than anything to do with the glyphs but I'm always happy to be proved wrong.  What we should bear in mind is that the Halo 3 engine was enhanced to support the way ODST is designed and was produced in a very short time (comparatively). This leads to odd glitches which, as anyone who's worked in software knows, are often left in initial releases as the show-stopping bugs take priority.  To me it's even conceivable that this was missed by Test due to the fact that the game leads you around the city in a fairly set order (although the player is free to ignore it to an extent) and this requires back tracking to action.

I documented my experiment and explained my theory, prove me wrong

4

SGP Task Force: Ghost Chasers / Re: SGP: Report - Glyphs Unlock a Door!

« on: October 06, 2009, 18:26:00 »

Hum, i believe now that's definitly a glitch :
look at this secret room, and look in the symetrical district of the Sector 8 (where the secret room is) : sector 3.
Go to Sector 3, and there, you can go into the equivalent room of the secret one, which is not secret. Within, you'll find every answer to these "lines directions" : that's just a random observations, because of trees that are not in the secret room, etc.

Sorry to say that ; but we still could notice that symetrical observations, we could find something !

Tepec

Sane888, this is why I referenced the matching room in Sector 3, everything you see in the Sector 8 room should be there in Sector 3 but will have other objects on/around it.

If I had more time I'd be looking at what glyphs are visible via mongoose headlight as I believe the glyphs appear when appropriate lighting conditions are met not just in VISR mode..
Nope, completely wrong.  The glyphs are faintly visible without using the VISR but the light from the mongoose washes them out.

5

SGP Task Force: Ghost Chasers / Re: SGP: Report - Glyphs Unlock a Door!

« on: October 06, 2009, 16:46:36 »

It might mean that a lot of the shifts that we thought were intentional are merely accidents.

Based on both our experiences and various other chatter around here I'd agree with that statement.

6

SGP Task Force: Ghost Chasers / Re: SGP: Report - Glyphs Unlock a Door!

« on: October 05, 2009, 17:34:20 »

Great theories but I'm sad to report that the door opens without looking at the glyphs...
Since the get go I've been convinced this is a loading error due to re-jigging the Halo 3 engine to support a streaming city.  The engine's not really geared up for this and as you can see the city looks very similar as it re-uses existing assets. But onto the experiment...

I loaded up NM streets and immediately got myself a mongoose and headed to Sector 8 to check on the door. At this point I should point out that at no time after getting the mongoose did I have the visor on.  The door was closed as expected.
I then drove over to Sector 6 and without turning on my visor walked up to the covenant sniper rifle next to the Elites, picked it up and got back on my mongoose (parked near to the Sector exit).  I then drove immediately back to the door which was now open with no glyphs sighted.

If you look at a map you'll see that Sector 8 is actually a twisted mirror of Sector 3 and if you look closely you'll see that Sector 3 also has a room with funny tiles on it matching the location and design of the one in Sector 8.  If you go to this area you'll immediately feel at home and easily spot the Security door as placed in a mirror fashion to the one in Sector 8. This door opens...

So, it's my belief that this is just fall out to the way the game engine loads the levels and nothing at all to do with the glyphs, it's just coincidence that they are located in the area you need to go to de-load the doors.

Please repeat this experiment and see if you draw the same conclusion as me.  I'm sure the glyphs are more than simple decoration and following them from my start point actually led me to a key point in the game (one of the crash sites) so their purpose to me is clear; Player guidance and to add an air of mystery..