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[Mistel]

Meltdown is the tubby, dumpy undergrad cousin of Ice Fields.

I second that judgement, as for the mantis any may would play better without it.

 

[Karl2177]

Due to the way lockstep networking works, it's just passing around button presses. The reason the magic works is because everyone started in the same state (A) and the same sequence of button presses will always result in the current state (B) because everything in the game is deterministic.

You don't need to send the master state to all the clients at the start of the session because they all have a local copy of the initial state, the .map file and the settings file that adjusts some parameters. They all just load that data into RAM and activate it from the same point, because they know everyone else has the same data and the same starting point.

Now, dropping out a player. This is the easier of the two, since you just need to get rid of one play from the button press relay. It still requires a lot of work, but it's definitely less of a headache. FUN FACT ABOUT REACH/QUIRK OF THIS FUNCTIONALITY: get a checkpoint in co-op. Go past the checkpoint for a while, and have someone quit. You'll notice that it'll say "xxxxxx has left the game" each time you revert - because it's literally replaying the player leaving the game to keep everyone's simulation in sync.

Now why can't we just add players to the session? Can't we just add them to the button press relay? Nope. They need to be given the same state as everyone else; not a close estimate, not a good guess, literally 1:1. Or the simulations will drift and the game desyncs.

The game's state can be huge. I don't know the exact size of Halo's game state, but it could be anywhere in size. It is going to be considerably big. Let's just take a rough guess and say it's 40MB-100MB. This is a lot of freaking data to just send over the pipe to someone, considering some people are using 512/512kb DSL still. And nobody can do anything while the data is being sent to the person joining. Not really feasible. So the binary blob of the game state is right out.

Another option is to send the joining client a recording of the game up to that point, and play the record in ultrafast-forward until it gets to the current state. You can do neat tricks like capture snapshots of the game state along the way, but this replay file can get huge, even bigger than the game's state. Remember, drop-in has to work if we've been playing on The Ark for 20 minutes or 200 minutes or even 2000 minutes. If you've played an RTS that lets you join a game in progress, they tend to use this method. Once again though, you're running afoul of Microsoft's bandwidth limits and home user connections. Whoops. So both our "best" methods of allowing someone to join a lockstep session are technically possible, but not feasible.

Asynchronous networking modes like competitive multiplayer care LESS about being out of synch. The game state is not only smaller, it's not even the same size on all the boxes. The host actually has much more information than the clients and doesn't share everything with them to keep as little data as possible from being sent down the wire. This is why you lose sprees and perfections in Halo titles if the host has to move to another box, because only the host determines if you get a spree medal ("oh hey client 10, i see you got 5 hammer kills in a row, please award this medal to yourself and display it on your UI"), and it does not share the ongoing spree data of every player in the game with everyone else. The new host after a bluescreen doesn't have that data available when it's reconstructing the session. The state is small enough that when you join a session, it just needs to send you the bare minimum to get working.. an asynch session can miss a huge chunk of updates but get back on track and "heal" once it digest enough new data on everyone's positions and status.

The tradeoff to the lower sized game state is that it requires a lot more ongoing bandwidth to keep going. So to have AI with full functionality in asynch, they pretty much have the bandwidth cost of a normal player. The more AI you have, the more bandwidth they cost. Versus lockstep, which uses the same bandwidth if you have 10 or 10,000 AI on one screen. On the upside,you have no button latency. But the asynch bandwidth cost for all the AI is too much for most home connections and Microsoft regulations.


Now put the asynch host on an Azure dedi and you've solved the bandwidth problem.


sidenote: this is why party film clips barely worked in halo 3 but full game films tended to work all of the time. The film clips needed all 4 people in the session to start a the same state, which meant the host starting the film, figuring out state frame 0, then sending that state to the other 3 players, then playing all the button presses to the other players. and it could be a pretty hefty binary blob. Connections were so slow you were more likely to time out of the session waiting for the host to send gigantic state files to 3 different clients than actually see the film ever play.

tl;dr a wizard did it

So I've got a few questions.

1) iirc, AI actions in Halo games worked by having a "seed" that would essentially force each Xbox to do the same AI actions. So example being I shoot "Elite A" and he does "Animation 13" in response. I assume that would be the case, but what happens when someone joins in the middle? Are they simply sent the same seed and it continues as normal? Or is it all controlled by Azure, and the clients don't have to worry about the seed?

2) If AI essentially acts as another player, what keeps the bandwidth low to the client when there are a hundred AI on screen(assuming they made a design decision to have that many)?

3) What happens for things like cutscenes? I understand they are all triggered by either a button press or entering a trigger volume. The one time I played Spartan Ops co-op, we caused all sorts of bugs when we pressed the buttons at the same time(the funniest was when my roommate's Spartan would do the button animation even if he was no where near the button). Would something like this happen in an async setting?

 

[LD2k]

Dem Feels.

I really loved the relationship between Chief and Cortana in Halo 4. Something that was underrated imo.

 

[CyReN]

New Top 5 out.

 

[IHaveIce]

Dem Feels.

I really loved the relationship between Chief and Cortana in Halo 4. Something that was underrated imo.

yep loved when she touched his nips, got an instant boner

 

[Nebula]

Fuck you 343 for sneaking a plasma pistol into Big Team Slayer.

Jerks.

 

[kittens]

Fuck you 343 for sneaking a plasma pistol into Big Team Slayer.

Jerks.

Sounds like you've had enough Halo 4 for the day.

 

[Speedy Blue Dude]

What the hell is wrong with you? Online only campaign, are you Speedy's alt or something?

He's right. It's for the best.

/s again

 

[Mistel]

Dem Feels.

I really loved the relationship between Chief and Cortana in Halo 4. Something that was underrated imo.

It was like bad fan fiction that's why, I didn't see it was even in the game it was just creepy and weird.

Don't worry nebula well save you:

The more speedy posts the more inclined I am to accepting his tag completely.

 

[squidhands]

I haven't played Halo 4 since June 19, and I have no regrets.

 

[Newt]

I haven't played Halo 4 since June 19, and I have no regrets.

The game really lacks the replay values that the other games offered. Even if the gameplay mechanics were good, there's no ranked or arena...

 

[Nebula]

I only play it to abuse the awesome mongoose it has.

 

[Chettlar]

Let me put it this way: when it comes to races (species), both fictional and nonfictional, the strongest evidence of severe sexual dimorphism comes from races where there's an atypical social hierarchy. Sangheili culture, while still distinctly noble, is "human" enough (and even shares a concept of patriarchy with some of our own human cultures) that extreme sexual dimorphism - for example, Queen Elites or female ones with boobs - would be superfluous from both biological and narrative perspectives. We obviously don't know specifics behind reproduction, but it's probably easier to compare Elite gender dynamics to, say, fish or dinosaurs than humans or bees. Does a female shark look much different than a male shark at first glance, for example?

Good point. I still think a little difference, if only in height would be helpful. Remember that this is a visual aspect of a story, so not making any sort of way to distinguish between the sexes doesn't seem like the best idea. I think maybe a slightly smaller body structure with perhaps different clothing (or armor, if you had some story about a direct assault on a Sengheili city, which could be cool) would be adequate for females. You don't want them too similar to each other because, although perhaps perfectly realistic, it doesn't help the viewer to be able to distinguish between the two.

Varieties in personal beliefs, culture, and physical disparities or rather a lack thereof in the games is titular: it's a video game. Technical limitations forced Bungie to stick to some pretty straightforward models and denote hierarchy differentials through armor colors - palette swaps - for the sake of resource accessibility. Deliberately modeling subtle differences in height, facial structure, and musculature for a race that's constantly in motion and is uncommonly used as a first-person perspective would be a waste of resources for most game developers.

That being said, we have received some insight on Sangheili culture thanks to the books, which is where that halopedia tidbit came from in the first place.

And obviously their going to run into those technical limitations again, though just not as quickly since we have some new horsepower now. I'm not saying they need to do that specifically; I was mainly referring to the fact that females don't all have to be just as big or just as small, as far as discussion goes, such as in books and movies where resources are not an issue. In a game, obviously they could all be the same size, in which case I would suggest: [see the first half of this post]


Though I think that would be way cool to have a bunch of varieties in the enemy models. I mean, think of something similar to speed tree. As I understand it, you give the computer several different variables, and have it randomly apply those to the models that the engine. Not quite as resource intensive as one might think. I believe this kind of thing has actually been done before to NPCs and enemies before, actually.

Might be unnecessary, but I think that could be really cool as a new "Next gen" feature.

 

[Fracas]

I haven't played Halo 4 since June 19, and I have no regrets.

The game really lacks the replay values that the other games offered. Even if the gameplay mechanics were good, there's no ranked or arena...

I stopped trying to force myself to like it sometime around September. I don't miss it, but I still get the itch to play good Halo again. I wish more local people were into it, but CoD and League of Legends are the 2 dominant games at my school.

 

[Syphon Filter]

I stopped trying to force myself to like it sometime around September. I don't miss it, but I still get the itch for play good Halo again. I wish more local people were into it, but CoD and League of Legends are the 2 dominant games at my school.

Play Halo 3 ; )

 

[Mistel]

Play Halo 3 ; )

Even with the netcode, inconsistent BR and low population multiplayer has?

 

[Syphon Filter]

Even with the netcode, inconsistent BR and low population multiplayer has?

Yea i still play it,it's that good.

 

[Nebula]

Speaking of connections. I didn't know Halo 4 did that thing where the game starts with a good host and no one is teleporting or lagging and then decides to find the one australian in the game and give it to them instead.

Spoiler

sorry ozzy

 

[Tha Robbertster]

Even with the netcode, inconsistent BR and low population multiplayer has?

Team Slayer, Social Slayer, BTB and Multi Team all have a big enough population to find a match within 2 minutes. I've been playing Halo 3 for 3 weeks now, and the netcode isn't that bad most of the time. People tend to forget that you have to lead your BR shots. When they miss a lot, they quickly blame it on the netcode.

It really still is fun to play. Even more so when you have a regular crew.

 

[belushy]

I stopped trying to force myself to like it sometime around September. I don't miss it, but I still get the itch to play good Halo again. I wish more local people were into it, but CoD and League of Legends are the 2 dominant games at my school.

I think I stopped around the same time as you... maybe a month or two earlier. I don't miss it either. I mean, I always get the urge to try and pop it in, but then decide against it. I know that I'll have some amount of fun for a few minutes before BS happens and then I'm just annoyed and if I play any further I'll just have a horrible time.

 

[Juan]

That's a start I guess, but I mean like an introductory article or two for beginners, not collections of articles that require some knowledge of the subject area to decipher.

Maybe like this?: http://dev.tutsplus.com/tutorials/ui-design-for-developers-introduction--active-9921

I don't know if that's a good article or not, but that's more of what I was thinking of (because I'm not going to sort through 564 articles to find a good starting point).

If you're still looking for article about user interface design, here's an article write by David Candland about his work on the UI of Halo 2 : http://web.archive.org/web/20090329232318/http://www.adobe.com/devnet/director/articles/halo_ui.html

And here is another article by a David's friend, also UI Designer, for the video game industry : https://medium.com/a-ux-designer-in-gameland/5f537ba47c1b

 

[Mistel]

Yea i still play it,it's that good.

Team Slayer, Social Slayer, BTB and Multi Team all have a big enough population to find a match within 2 minutes. I've been playing Halo 3 for 3 weeks now, and the netcode isn't that bad most of the time. People tend to forget that you have to lead your BR shots. When they miss a lot, they quickly blame it on the netcode.
It really still is fun to play. Even more so when you have a regular crew.

No denying it's fun, but the last time I played at the beginning of January I was saddled with awful hosts for 5 BTB games before I gave up. Leading your shots isn't an issue with the BR, the lack of hit scan on a weapon that requires all three bullets to hit and the accuracy decreasing with each bullet in the burst, is the issue with the BR.

 

[Nebula]

BTB in Halo 3 is a game of chance when it comes to connections If you're outside Mexico or America.

Also just noticed that the radar in Halo 4 picks up enemy vehicles outside the 25M radius. :|

 

[Korten]

It was like bad fan fiction that's why, I didn't see it was even in the game it was just creepy and weird.
.

Are you talking the video or in game, cause if you're talking about their relationship in the game as being like a bad fan fiction... I just... I don't even...

Since 343 did multiplayer connected to a canon vision with "War Games".. What's the explanation to the Flood Infected Spartans, are they a hypothetical mashup of what infected Spartans look like similar to Combat forms?

Perhaps there's highly classified records in ONI with evidence of Spartan IV's compromised in investigating a strange anomaly on a ship or planet but then were overwhelmed by an ambush of Flood? Anyways, if 343 does expand on this I'm curious on how they'll handle this part of the lore in future halos.

Pretty sure it's just a simuluation. Hypothetical like you said. Although there is still much we don't know about so it's possible they could have found a place with flood in it.

 

[The Henery]

Play Halo 3 ; )

Team Slayer, Social Slayer, BTB and Multi Team all have a big enough population to find a match within 2 minutes. I've been playing Halo 3 for 3 weeks now, and the netcode isn't that bad most of the time. People tend to forget that you have to lead your BR shots. When they miss a lot, they quickly blame it on the netcode.

It really still is fun to play. Even more so when you have a regular crew.

I agree. If you're running 2's MLG and dubs have healthy populations too. Dubs has terrible settings though. Just play MLG, people.

 

[Tha Robbertster]

I agree. If you're running 2's MLG and dubs have healthy populations too. Dubs has terrible settings though. Just play MLG, people.

1 flag on Blackout. Yuck.

 

[Mistel]

Also just noticed that the radar in Halo 4 picks up enemy vehicles outside the 25M radius. :|

Really I never knew it did that

Are you talking the video or in game, cause if you're talking about their relationship in the game as being like a bad fan fiction... I just... I don't even...

I don't see the problem in disliking the oversexulised Cortana and the relationship aspect that occurred at the end of 4,It was uncomfortable and unwarranted.

 

[Korten]

Really I never knew it did that


I don't see the problem in disliking the oversexulised Cortana and the relationship aspect that occurred at the end of 4,It was uncomfortable and unwarranted.

Uncomfortable... What. Yeah sorry not seeing it. I thought it was a natural evolution of them working together. It was also built up because the fact that she is near death and knowing she isn't Human and so she can't "feel," which considering she is based off a human brain, it's natural she would yearn for things that which Human's only have.

 

[Slightly Live]

I don't see the problem in disliking the oversexulised Cortana and the relationship aspect that occurred at the end of 4,It was uncomfortable and unwarranted.

Someone dropped the ball letting that happen.

 

[The Henery]

1 flag on Blackout. Yuck.

Yep. Also, copy/pasting 4v4 settings into doubles, wholly ignoring the obvious need for adjusted spawn times, weapon locations, ammo counts etc. Shiska wrought a legacy of ruin on almost all of the playlists he touched. MLG scorches so brightly because it is free of his disastrous influence. I sometimes wonder if he sat around smoking blunts all day laughing at madkids on the bungie playlist forums.

 

[Nebula]

I await the inevitable sex scene.

 

[kittens]

I don't think the tone between Chief and Cortana in Halo 4 was necessarily sexual, but it was ambiguous on purpose, and could easily be read as sexual. I have mixed feelings on it. I would have prefered if they would have tweaked the tone a bit, and made it one of two very [platonically] intimate friends struggling with mortality and saying goodbye. The sexual undertones cheapen the relationship, making it feel too much like any other love tragedy.

Uncomfortable... What.

... I just... I don't even...

You're doing the same thing Chettlar does. Don't be like Chettlar.

 

[wwm0nkey]

They really should have played into Cortana's curroption for at least one other game. Seemed to go to fast.

 

[Mistel]

Someone dropped the ball letting that happen.

They did drop it severally, Dave Ellis calling out Kojima for Quiet was the pot calling the kettle black.

Uncomfortable... What. Yeah sorry not seeing it. I thought it was a natural evolution of them working together. It was also built up because the fact that she is near death and knowing she isn't Human and so she can't "feel," which considering she is based off a human brain, it's natural she would yearn for things that which Human's only have.

You have pretty much said why I dislike it, this franchise has few decent female characters as it is 4 reduced it to oversexulised cortana, Palmer, Tedra Grant and a few scientists. Great choices I've got of identifiable characters of my own gender (sarcasm).

 

[Korten]

You're doing the same thing Chettlar does. Don't be like Chettlar.

Whose Chettlar?

They did drop it severally, Dave Ellis calling out Kojima for Quiet was the pot calling the kettle black.


You have pretty much said why I dislike it, this franchise has few decent female characters as it is 4 reduced it to oversexulised cortana, Palmer, Tedra Grant and a few scientists. Great choices I've got of identifiable characters of my own gender (sarcasm).

But that wasn't retconned in Halo 4... It's always been the case since day one. It would have been worse to retcon it and say she wasn't. (Since I know some people also hate the whole Rampancy thing, which has always been there.)

 

[Stinkles]

So is the cboat being outed thing real?

reading about it elsewhere. Which if you find it will make perfect sense. Could also be bullshit.

 

[Korten]

So is the cboat being outed thing real?

Wait? What? Context please?

 

[Mistel]

But that wasn't retconned in Halo 4... It's always been the case since day one. It would have been worse to retcon it and say she wasn't. (Since I know some people also hate the whole Rampancy thing, which has always been there.)

I know that is the case, It's a artificial intelligence based on a flash cloned copy of Halsey's brain,you mentioned retcons.

Are you going to actually respond to points I make or keep evading them?

 

[Fracas]

So is the cboat being outed thing real?

I will protect CBOAT with my life.

 

[Nebula]

I'm bailing. Good luck with this guy Stormtrooper.

So is the cboat being outed thing real?

Outed? Maybe, but no one will truly know. The person did some digging and found the original link to where the source 2 pics originated. It was another GAF users Dropbox.

 

[Speedy Blue Dude]

So is the cboat being outed thing real?

reading about it elsewhere. Which if you find it will make perfect sense. Could also be bullshit.

thfuck is wron with you



Anyways, why do you think it makes perfect sense, his "supposed" identity? Curious as to what reasoning you have, Frankie.

 

[Korten]

I know that is the case, It's a artificial intelligence based on a flash cloned copy of Halsey's brain,you mentioned retcons.

Are you going to actually respond to points I make or keep evading them?

I don't know the point you're trying to make. I didn't feel she was oversexualized or reduced to anything lower than she was. Everything that happened to me felt natural of her character evolution through Fall of Reach to Halo 4. First we were talking about Cortana, and now you have gone on about the other female characters. (I won't argue that Palmer is a strong character, she isn't.)

 

[Stinkles]

thfuck is wron with you



Anyways, why do you think it makes perfect sense, his "supposed" identity? Curious as to what reasoning you have, Frankie.

I'm saying since it may be bullshit and makes scurrilous accusations with confusing"proof" you're not reading it on the front page of GAF.


edit: weird. My previous post shows as edited, but I never touched it.

 

[blamite]

Ugh that last Cortana cutscene was teeeeeeeerrible. I didn't think Cortana was written too badly in the rest of the game (although it was far from her best stuff) but that chest touch was just so awkward and weird and forced.

 

[Omni]

So is the cboat being outed thing real?

reading about it elsewhere. Which if you find it will make perfect sense. Could also be bullshit.

Yeah, I think it is real.

Otherwise said user wouldn't have edited a post from a over a year ago which links him to the account

 

[Speedy Blue Dude]

So, keeping the tradition of "babbyGAF" alive, would this avatar be going in "too far", or is it fine?

Already bad enough getting Tag Quoted, don't want to be avatar quoted (more than I already am).

 

[Gabotron ES]

Ugh that last Cortana cutscene was teeeeeeeerrible. I didn't think Cortana was written too badly in the rest of the game (although it was far from her best stuff) but that chest touch was just so awkward and weird and forced.

It never really felt awkward to me, the scene was very touching (huehue).

Didact's intro is still my favorite cutscene, too bad we didn't get to see more of Didact's badass armor.

 

[Demoncarnotaur]

So is the cboat being outed thing real?

reading about it elsewhere. Which if you find it will make perfect sense. Could also be bullshit.

So, wait, where is this alleged info at?

Ahhh found it. Their conclusion that CBOAT was created to spread bad news and BS about MS though seems to be without merit. Its likely CBOAT is a front account, and the info is carefully vetted from a few sources.

 

[Gabotron ES]

So is the cboat being outed thing real?

reading about it elsewhere. Which if you find it will make perfect sense. Could also be bullshit.

The dropbox thing, germany, the one year old post edit... seems legit to me.

 

[NobleGundam]

So, keeping the tradition of "babbyGAF" alive, would this avatar be going in "too far", or is it fine?

Already bad enough getting Tag Quoted, don't want to be avatar quoted (more than I already am).

Actually i kinda like it. Needs a buggs bunny toy in there for my taste.