Twinreaper

Welcome to the geatest 343industries site around. Glad you decided to make us your home. if you ever need help with anything in general, I am always available.

True. it is not impossible, but first they would have to layout the source code. Then go about choosing a proper network model to base the engine's netcode off of. The begins the process of tweaking UI response, network allocation in memory, yadda yadda yadda..... very long process. Frankie stated that networking alone on the Halo 1 side, would require the entire team to devote about 2 to 3 years just to work it out perfectly..

Before I put the official servers online tomorrow, I wanted to see if there were any suggestions for map rotations and gametypes that should be included by default. As for Custom Edition, are there ay really cool custom maps you feel should be put in? Deadline is Tomorrow around 5pm, that is when the servers will be live.

Actually contrary to popular belief, halo Pc and Halo Csuton Edition are the sole reasons Halo became so popular and still remains popular today. There are at least 60 out of 352 servers active each day on halo PC, by my most recent nightly count last night. And XBKai and XBC see only around 3 to 10 full servers daily for the xbox version. Besides which, re-making Halo 1 into a full standalone release to be compatable with Live and all the trimmings it had, would have required a 2-3 year effort on 343i's part, which would ultimately lead to a delay in halo 4. Which would you rather have.......Halo 4 now, or nothing halo related for 3 more years?

Not a problem my friend...anytime!

No, Teamspeak is a standalone CP app that works only PC. It has no function or support by nay game that I know of. but it can be usefull for those who want to play on live, and only have a microphone for the PC. You can simply get a bunch of friends, jump on teamspeak, and play some matchmaking without having to worry about proximity voice as well.

Forgive me father for I have sinned. 2 weeks ago during a CTF match, I unplugged my wired connection and then plugged it back in, forcing me to be temporarily disconnected from Live, then re-connected again. As you know, this forces everyone but you out of the match on your end and leaves you wide open to win and capture all flag scores. Not my proudest moment, but I did not have time to finish the match regularly...my wife was rushing me to get moving to finish shopping for the day. But none the less...I felt dirty.

Good idea Fire....I should prolly look into hosting another Halo 2 server as well. So I guess all that is left to do now is, re-install my dedicated halo server 1 and 2 files and we can go have some fun!

Good day fellow members, "Tech Guru" Twinreaper here with an exciting announcement. As you may or may not know, I run from my house, a private server where I host games such as Halo PC Halo CE, Crysis etc... Now that we have finally gained quite a following here at 343i, I thought it was only fitting that I should strt up our very own private chat server for our members to come together in and actually talk via Teamspeak. For those who do not know, Teamspeak is a PC app, that allows you to host a private or public chat server in which people may enter and use mic's or keyboards to communicate. Teamspeak is very popular with certain PC games, as it allows team members to communicate better in games that do not have microphone or chat support. So why am I doing this? Easy.....I wanted to find an additional way to communicate wand contribute back to this great community. Along with this Teamspeak server, I will also be hosting 2 servers for Halo PC with the name "343i.org", for those of us in this community who wish to play the game that started it all, together. Now, I have the server all setup and ready to go, but I need a few days to finalize some admin settings and what not. Before i give out this teamspeak server address, I will be giving it out to those in the higher up so I can before hand, adjust security levels. While you guys are waiting for this, please go to http://www.Teamspeak.com and download the client app. Also if you do have, or ever hwanted to play the original PC Halo, now would be a good time to dust off that copy and re-install it. Look for more on this and an official launch post sometime on tuesday afternoon. Stay classy 343i!!

Sometmes. it really depends on the content or mechanic in question. I know absolutely almost nothing about the overall Halo story unniverse...just what I see in games.

Actually adding in more than 16 players is not the server's own restriction. That restriction is hard coded into the engine itself. There are theoretical ways of overcoming this outside engine manipulation.....just throwing that out there.

Ok, I will try to make this as painless as possible. NAT and wether you are using a wired or wireless connection are really only half the problem. While enbaling NAT to open does solve some connections issues, there are other factors that do not help. 1. DMZ Server. By default, the router may be blocking certain internet requests over udp/tcp by default, regardless of wether NAT is open. TO solve this, you need to specify the DMZ server passthrough, with the Static or DHCP IP of the xbox console. 2. Ports Ports Ports. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have the XBox LIve ports being opened and forwarded to the xbox console only. SOme other devices or applications in the house or whereever, may be trying to use the same port as the console. Obviously forwarding all traffic for those ports to the console only, solves that issue. 3. Actual IP for Xbox. Most people just simply plug-in, powerup their xbox and go! Not so fast. If you ahve multiple devices in your house, it is best to manually assign an IP to them. Remember how I was saying to specify and port forward blah blah DMZ? Well that only works if the Xbox's IP stays the same. If you dont specify manually an IP for it to use, it will randomly be given one based off the IP Range set in the router. 4. Even if you dont have Wi-Fi connection, the modem itself that you got from the provider had properties that you may want to go into and change. One of the most overlooked things to do is port forwarding. If everyone who runs Live did the steps above I outlined, I gurantee you would see a huge difference in MM gameplay and hosting.

Leave it to me to show up with the pretext of bursting bubbles....kinda comes with the job of being ME! ANyway, I was reading thru some of these ideas, and I must say they are creative if nothing else....but I am going to go on record and say that almost 99% of them are impossible or not feasable. The list if you please.... 1. Changeable backrounds or bitmaps. Yeah ok. Bitmap and shader swapping functions. This would no thappen since 99% of all map bitmaps and shaders are tied into the resource maps. Changing them, would have to change the resources...which means resigning a map. They arent likely to hand out map encryption algorithyms. 2. No Budget. You need a budget. budgets were designed to keep the map from getting overloaded and cause drops in fps, and memory issues from arising. 3. Adjust Lighting/ weather effects. Not gonna happen. When a map is compiled, it was certain "zones" marked with special characters in the modeling program is was made in. The compiling tool then marks certain covered ares with special zones to host said weather. As for lighting, it is not done "per-pixel", so lightmaps are compiled seperatly from the map and cannot be changed on the fly. 4. Moving and changing water. Water is what we call static/instanced geometry. it is simply a plane created in a modeling app that is given a water shader and therefore not movable since it is compiled with bsp, as part of the bsp. 5. Placable AI. Ai is a lot more complicated than just placing a biped down. When incorporating an AI, you need to also have "AI zones", "AI Pathfinding", "Styles", etc... This would become far to complicated for people to do as the average user would get lost. 6. Terraforming. By this I assume that you mean changing the physical mesh of a map. Impossible. PHMO and Coll or for you guys, physical collision and standard collision are compiled along side the final bsp product. You cannot change vertices and faces in real time on an already compiled map, and still retain the collisions. 7. Larger maps with loading zones. Can't happen. Maps are traditionally divided up into loading zones used with what we call "portals". Portals render geometry based on if you ar in a certain zone, or looking towards a certain portal marked area. While this may seem cool, it also prevents players from seeing or interacting with players inside a different portal or zone. Making a map that used that feature would be impossible, since portals are placed in the map model app before compiling. All these zones have to be linked specifically with one another and all recieve from the compiler a portal or zone number. 8. Interactable water. Can't happen. As stated before water is a mesh plane compiled with the bsp. Even if they were to fnd a way to add water, it would require them to incorporate a real time "spline" effect mesh object...which is not gonna happen in this decade. 9. Multiple disc, many say 2 discs. Understand that incoprorating massively huge content libraries like everything you guys have been posting, would require a 4 disc minimum. All firefight maps standalone, are standalone seperate maps, they are not campaign maps with certain areas just blocked off. Also, the expense of a massive librayr is huge size wise. A simple objects like a crate from halo, once extracted into it's tag form, was about 2 to 3 mb's in size. That was just for a simple 6 sided cube. Could you actually imagine the stagering data size of just 20 vehicles by themselves? It would be somewhere around (in Reach terms), like 600 or more mb's. A simple multiplayer map from halo 2 alone decompiled into tag form was about 600mbs! And those maps hardly had anything compared to what we have in reach mp. 10. Someone stated make the Forge editor like Crytek's Sandbox. The Crytek sandbox is a standalone app that functions exactly like Sapien. Sapien was Bungie/343i's app to place objects and ****. Giving us a "sandbox" style interface to work with on a console is never gonna happen. there is too much in terms of harware and software blocking anything like that becoming like Crytek's sandbox. A sandbox would only work on the PC, and I highly doubt that in only 2 years, the company could give us a full HEK, a kick-ass game and the ability to make maps on the PC, and port them to the console version. A task of that magnitude would require likely a team of double 343i's current size, and 2 additional years or planning, execution and content creation. Like I said before, I enjoyed the thread, but someone finally had to come in and put a stop to some of the absolutely ridiculous ideas that are circulating. I could ahve probably stated about 15 more ideas that are impossible to incorporate, but I fugured this 10 alone is gonna be enough to have people ahting me until well into Halo 4 release season...AKA Dec 2012. Sorry and good day folks!

Not me. I prefer a long standoff to the fast, nix that....extremely fast matches of zero bloom gametypes. Now, if they toned down the rate of fire, then I might like it...a little. It took me a while to get used to the firing, last time I played was against Ghetto testing a forge map. I still had the habit of pulling the trigger as if the rate of fire was from standard gameplay. Needless to say I got owned. Then again, maybe it's just a subconscious part of me that cannot change or adapt to the tweaks.

Nice one on that to you Zed. Looks like I was close to a few. I have to ask...is this official from 343i or an inside source?

Thats a really good question. Common to popular belief, the Reach Skill search actually uses a combination of stats to determine who is a good match for you. Now this answer in particular is not based off any serach query data from intercepted network model code, but an observation of profiles based on my last 10 matches in which I selected Skill as the search methosd. From what i can determine, each person that I had been paired with had an overall Skill Rank of varied types. A couple matches had both me, and an eclipse on the same team with a few major's. The opposite team had a highest rank of a General, and the rest lower. One was even a major grade 1. Now on the surface, you can see how poorly this match was setup based on overall rank. Quite obviously me and the eclipse alone out rank the opposite team by a wide margin. In fact at first glance it was down right pathertic how they paired the teams. But that was on the surface. Upon close investigation of the players, it seems that the system actually takes these factors into account.. 1. Overall k/d 2. Overall match specific commendations...not the overall completion, but individual ones. 3. Weapon usage Basically what I have theoretically found is, that all the players I was paired against had a comparable amount of same k/d, same weapon most used for that particular matchmade type and the same amount of completed commendations at a specific level. So basically it is like the old saying goes, "You can't judge a book by it's cover." In fact if memory serves correct, the opposite team completely destroyed us. It was an assault match on a map I cannot remember and had never played on. So even though the skill part was matched evenly, the maps I knew was not. my team was ata disadvantage with me not knowing the layout, the heavy trafficed areas etc.... But remember, this is all based off of observations over more than one match, so I am sure I am extremely close to the actual method, or at least the number of profile characteristic stats the system uses to judge who is a good opponent for you or not. Again, this isn't exact science and becaus ethe population and availability of gamers is in constant flux, it won't be a good exact match all the time. After a certain time has passed, the system has to just fill in the blanks with whoever is available. In the end, I guess you can just call it a 50<>50 crap shoot sometimes.

I'll be the first to take a crak at what they do...why not. Let's see if I can get close to the truth... 1. Black Eye. Obvious.....shields recharge with melee only. 2. Boom. All downed grenades can be shot and exploded. 3. Eye Patch. Like Blind, but only removes half the screen or just removes aiming reticules. 4. Bandana. Increases the physics of your melee. 5. Fog. Renders you invisible via flashlight toggle. Like the cammo in halo 2 skull. 6. Famine. Weapons dropped by enemies have 1/2 ammo as usual 7. Grunt B-day. Obvious..dont need to explain. 8. Malfunction. Distorts player controls in some way. Possible invert? 9. Mythic. Makes every enemy the top class of enemy...example all elites are zealots. 10. Pinata. All enemies explode into candy like with b-day skull. or flood sacks spew candy instead of infections. 11. Recession. All weapons have only one shot loaded in the chamber and no reload. 12. Iron. Again, we all know this one... 13. Foreign. Randomly selects an attribute on enemies and icreases/decrease them. Ex.. speed / class/ shields

From what i have been able to uncover in the tags for Reach, there are only multiplayer slots left over in the mainmenu map file. Adding campaign maps would require adding them to the mainmenu. Although i dare do say that megaloScript is being used to alter data in memory for the zero bloom and AA tweaks, so I will not 100% say that it is impossible for even megalo to add new data fields in memory when mainmenu.map is loaded up. That being said, I am unsure what exact data is loaded up from mainmenu besides the shard resource tags used in campaign levels and multiplayer. It is very likely that the UI level data is not loaded and read directly, which means no editing. I am almost 100% sure this is the case, or else we would have seen DLC for campaign by now on one of the Halo titles. As for gears, yes it was planned ahead of time. Also Gears uses a completely different compression format, engine, etc... But with 343 taking, there is whole world of possibilities on the horizon. It ahs even been theorized that 343i plans at one point to start releasing Halo along side a PC port kinda like how the other franchises do it. From a marketing standpoint, 343i realizes that a majority of success today on new games, lies in multiplatform release, and not locking in people to only playing on a console. Microsoft I think, also realizes that other titles support a OS that the maker doesn't, and it hurts the parent company. but that debate is for another day.

Well said Silverado. I am in no way a hardcore MM player, and as I get a little older I stem away from it altogether. It would be sad for us non-competative types to miss out on anything simply because he do not care to rank up to the highest level. I like Reach because it gives me the chance to just play casual, the way I like, and still Reach Inheritor or my current Field marshal rank, and get all the armor choices.

Hopefully I have some dates correct and nothing in here that will cause a stir to some people. Even if it does, suck it! This is a FFL, not a serious story arc to the Halo universe. Enjoy! First Name: Gregor Middle Name: Waldegund Last Name: Eberhardt Rank: Lieutenant Faction: UNSC Species: Humanoid Hair: Shaved Hair Color: Blonde Eye color: Blue General Look of Facial Structure(Optional): Square jaw line, medium set eyes, slightly pointed nose. Scaring around the optical region. Height: 5’10” Tattoos: Lower Right Leg (Inverted tribal pitchfork), Lower Left Leg (generic symbol w/words in german) Body Build: Medium build, slightly muscular. Appearance(Clothing or Equipment): Special green cammo painted armor and undercloth Armor(Sangheili Combat Harness, Marine BDU, etc.): ODST Recon with Hazop Helmet. Given to him by the UNSC and ONI on behalf of friend Matthew. Personality: Very focused and task oriented. Extrememly patient. Dry humored and serious at times. History: Born in 2514 on the Planet Harvest. Gregor is the only son of the Harvest Botanical Gardens lead scientists, William and Ana Eberhardt. Gregor spent most of his days studying and learning about plant biology along side his parents. Gregor was like most 12 year old boys. He often acted out war games with his friends and was more interested in roughhousing and violence than in girls. Then, on February 3rd, 2525 Gregor’s life took an unforseen turn that would forever change him. The UNSC had decided on using the Harvest Gardens to host negotiations between the Covenant . Gregor was just outside the eastern wing when the negotiations ended and turned into a bloodbath. Gregor helplessly watched as the Covenant quickly and without mercy, slaughtered his parents during the battle. Gregor was one of many taken to the Space Elevator to escape the now battle enraged planet. It was that very day that gregor swore he would avenge his parents, and do whatever he could to kill the Convenant. Flash forward to the year 2537 Gregor enlisted in the UNSC, and used his knowledge of plant and botanical type environments to achieve high success at sniping. He was an expert in concealing himself with the environment, and often liked to set traps using botanical pathogens. On June 28th 2540, Gregor was the top UNSC special forces sniper and scout. His total number of confirmed kills was 319. Also collecting quite a few Elite and Brute confirmed kills under his belt. His peers admired his skill and fortitude. On October 12th 2545, a best friend and college of Gregor’s, Matthew, enters the Spartan III program. Due to the nature of Gregor and Matt’s s friendship , he is selected as a special partner instructed to train with him. During a routine training exercise on December 24th 2541, Gregor lost both eyes from a stray reflected sniper round he fired. The shot had been deflected by shear fate, and grazed both corneas of his eyes. Gregor spent six months in recovery before finally being released from a UNSC hospital. Shortly following the accident, Gregor was honorably discharged from service. This event alone catastrophically wounded Gregor and sent him into a spiral of self destruction. Then in early 2544, Matt hears whispers about his spiral and comes to his aid. He tells Gregor that even though he lost his sight, he can still fight and gives him something to live for. Matt officially requests a special leave of absence to help Gregor. During this time, he helps Gregor to hone the senses he has left. Through many months of hard training, Gregor learns to use his sense of touch, smell and hearing to aim, approximate and shoot at moving and distant targets. To much surprise, his skill and marksmanship go unmatched and almost outweigh the skill he possessed with his sight. Upon becoming active and healthy again with his newfound skill set, the UNSC approaches Gregor and signs him on as a special training advisor to the Sniper troops of the UNSC and Spartan III’s. Although he greatly enjoyed working once again under the UNSC he still longed to avenge his family and fallen comrades. It was then on July 17th 2550 that Gregor was asked to participate in the first ever “Optical Implant Enhancement” procedure that was designed to restore sight to a Spartan class soldier. Gregor accepts and receives the implants. The implants take hold and are deemed a success. The implants he received not only restored his sight, but enhanced his vision along with cerebral interactive other side effects. He could now switch his vision in between different spectrums of light, gauge altitude, longitude and distance to targets. He had become a virtual moving target locator. On March 3rd 2552, Gregor was officially re-enlisted into the UNSC and relocated to Reach. During the Convenant invasion and glassing of Reach, Gregor was responsible for defending and securing one of many evacuation pods of families escaping the inevitable fall of Reach. Gregor then had returned to Earth to assist the UNSC in the impending Convenant raid. The rest as we say, is history. Gregor is still alive and well today.

Are there any limits to what the shot can be. Is there any required submission rule? Like does it have to be a spartan or can it be whatever?

Never done it alone but me and my son have done it countless times.

Agreed. Like I said, I will look into it and try to get you a defintive answer soon.