Since the hackathon began just two weeks ago we’ve been reading your feedback and comments, and have heard that only releasing death events might limit the possible number of websites and applications that can be created from this. In an effort to provide more tools, and further unlock community creativity, we’re going to be releasing more event types to that that end point. Specifically, these event types are: Impulses, Medals, Player Spawns, Round Starts, Round Ends, Weapon Drops, Weapon Pickups, and Weapon Pickup Pads. I’m sure your creative gears have already begun to turn.
We’ve also fixed an issue that caused the API to consistently return 500s for matches where a player left and rejoined the match.
We hope these new events will allow you to build more amazing applications for your audiences, and to accommodate for the addition of these new events, we’re going to extend the hackathon submission date to May 31, 2016.
NOTE: If you’re already using the events end point you will need to check for the event type, as it’s no longer just the death events.
These changes will go live today at 4:30 PST, and you can get the details here.
As always, post here on Waypoint if there are any questions about Halo API and the hackathon contest.
Happy coding,
Tashi
P.S. – We’ve also seen quite a few requests for overhead images of the maps in the game, and unfortunately this is not something we’ll be able to release at this time.
While I’m sad with the overhead images, the addition of those events does lend itself to quite a few creative ideas. The hope for the ever familiar Halo 2 style game viewer dies though. Thanks for the update and tracking down those random 500 errors we had.
Finally got the chance to take a look at the new data as it is finally loaded and I discovered that we only get timestamps for the non-death events. Is there any way we could get locations for the non-death events as well. This would be great for weapon pickups, spawns, etc.
> … we’re going to be releasing more event types to that that end point. Specifically, these event types are: Impulses, Medals, Player Spawns, Round Starts, Round Ends, Weapon Drops, Weapon Pickups, and Weapon Pickup Pads. I’m sure your creative gears have already begun to turn.
> 2533274847905488;4:
> Finally got the chance to take a look at the new data as it is finally loaded and I discovered that we only get timestamps for the non-death events. Is there any way we could get locations for the non-death events as well. This would be great for weapon pickups, spawns, etc.
We had to hold some data back as they could potentially reveal exploits that people can use to grief.
> These changes will go live today at 4:30 PST, and you can get the details here.
There were some other changes too (not shown on the linked page or documentation). Arena and Warzone Carnage reports now include a couple of new properties:
> > 2533274847905488;4:
> > Finally got the chance to take a look at the new data as it is finally loaded and I discovered that we only get timestamps for the non-death events. Is there any way we could get locations for the non-death events as well. This would be great for weapon pickups, spawns, etc.
>
>
> We had to hold some data back as they could potentially reveal exploits that people can use to grief.
Interesting. I would think that revealing exploits so they can be reported would be a bonus. And discovering exploits seems like it would be quite difficult to do explicitly through the Halo API. You would have to either do a LOT of calculation off of every played game, or already know the game the exploit is in, which means it is probably known by multiple people and needs to be brought to the attention of the 343 sooner rather than later. Hell a tool could be made to help QA maps and ensure that there are no exploits and if there are they could be quickly directed to the team.
Locations of Spawns, Weapon Pickups/Drops, Medals, etc… I can’t imagine what sort of exploits could be found except out of bounds locations or issues in the spawn system for trapping. This is actually info that would be useful, especially for the tool I’m providing for Forgers which will allow them to analyze their custom maps. So being able to detect when there is a weird location for an event would be immensely helpful for discovering containment issues for Forgers to fix. Also with that many events it would be roughly possible to replay an entire match by using interpolation between events for players. This could also be immensely valuable for analysis purposes.
I hope the team reconsiders the decision. I’d love to be able to automatically discover weapon spawn locations, spawn times, common routes, etc. for forgers for custom maps. Thanks for the heads up though Tashi. If you get the chance please keep bringing this up cuz I know a ton of people would love to have locations of events.
> 2533274847905488;9:
> > > 2533274847905488;4:
> > > Finally got the chance to take a look at the new data as it is finally loaded and I discovered that we only get timestamps for the non-death events. Is there any way we could get locations for the non-death events as well. This would be great for weapon pickups, spawns, etc.
> >
> >
> > We had to hold some data back as they could potentially reveal exploits that people can use to grief.
>
>
> Interesting. I would think that revealing exploits so they can be reported would be a bonus. And discovering exploits seems like it would be quite difficult to do explicitly through the Halo API. You would have to either do a LOT of calculation off of every played game, or already know the game the exploit is in, which means it is probably known by multiple people and needs to be brought to the attention of the 343 sooner rather than later. Hell a tool could be made to help QA maps and ensure that there are no exploits and if there are they could be quickly directed to the team.
> Locations of Spawns, Weapon Pickups/Drops, Medals, etc… I can’t imagine what sort of exploits could be found except out of bounds locations or issues in the spawn system for trapping. This is actually info that would be useful, especially for the tool I’m providing for Forgers which will allow them to analyze their custom maps. So being able to detect when there is a weird location for an event would be immensely helpful for discovering containment issues for Forgers to fix. Also with that many events it would be roughly possible to replay an entire match by using interpolation between events for players. This could also be immensely valuable for analysis purposes.
> I hope the team reconsiders the decision. I’d love to be able to automatically discover weapon spawn locations, spawn times, common routes, etc. for forgers for custom maps. Thanks for the heads up though Tashi. If you get the chance please keep bringing this up cuz I know a ton of people would love to have locations of events.
Definitely understand the value of this Ray, and we’ve discussed it in-depth already. At the moment we’re opting to play it safe, and frankly we just don’t know exactly what the community is going to build with the event data we just released.
I’m sure we’ll continue to discuss internally, as our goal is to provide as many tools to the community as we can. We’ll also look into ways we can provide more data tailored for communities, like Forgers.
Can you provide an example set of the requested data so that developers like GP can create a proof of concept? Would it be safe to provide a limited, unchanging set of real data?
I have no idea how much work it takes to wrap up additional info into an API, but maybe providing a data chunk (and optionally some coding standards) and the suggestion that people can create their own API to wrap around the data so they can create a proof of concept… this could work out for everyone?
Having a concrete idea of what the pros would be if you release this stuff would make the decision much easier, plus it’d be hard for anyone to feel like they’re getting brushed off. Not suggesting that’s the case, but you know… feelings.
Wish I knew more about this stuff and could provide support, but I’m limited these days. I really like much of what I’m seeing with Halo and Forge, especially how the development is continuous, how we know our input is heard, and how creative people are given more access + better tools. Viva la revolution.
> 2533274985652665;11:
> Can you provide an example set of the requested data so that developers like GP can create a proof of concept? Would it be safe to provide a limited, unchanging set of real data?
>
> I have no idea how much work it takes to wrap up additional info into an API, but maybe providing a data chunk (and optionally some coding standards) and the suggestion that people can create their own API to wrap around the data so they can create a proof of concept… this could work out for everyone?
>
> Having a concrete idea of what the pros would be if you release this stuff would make the decision much easier, plus it’d be hard for anyone to feel like they’re getting brushed off. Not suggesting that’s the case, but you know… feelings.
>
> Wish I knew more about this stuff and could provide support, but I’m limited these days. I really like much of what I’m seeing with Halo and Forge, especially how the development is continuous, how we know our input is heard, and how creative people are given more access + better tools. Viva la revolution.
Hello all and 343, I dont think your end game is clear. Are you looking for players that are familiar with an API hack for a hire? If so thats cool but lets say someone is really good, like I certainly dont need code or overheads. been lying to hardware for decades etched or no and then a few bits or a couple hundred of code or really just script, bam your done. Making icons I call it when you need a specific address for the xserver for mechanics, even @sum goto or then if, for a UI, or well u get the idea, so why would prizes interest me. I do luv to help, been doing it since well, but what is the end game? Honestly, say what you want,state ur plan, so they can plan not to fail, is it no overheads cuz we dont have it, or you need to know if they can make it happen, facts features objections, I want nothing, no prizes, helping is my prize. Want to make an accelerator\partcle, compressed streaming and new streamed decompresion, better hardware performance, easy right P therum, lie to the hardware. Ok. Thank you, 343 want help, your asking and thats brave, admire that. Take care, be well and good luck,;~}
> 2753093343646559;8:
> > These changes will go live today at 4:30 PST, and you can get the details here.
>
>
> There were some other changes too (not shown on the linked page or documentation). Arena and Warzone Carnage reports now include a couple of new properties:
>
>
>
> - MatchSpeedWinAmount
> - ObjectivesCompletedAmount
> > 2533274847905488;9:
> > > > 2533274847905488;4:
> > > > Finally got the chance to take a look at the new data as it is finally loaded and I discovered that we only get timestamps for the non-death events. Is there any way we could get locations for the non-death events as well. This would be great for weapon pickups, spawns, etc.
> > >
> > >
> > > We had to hold some data back as they could potentially reveal exploits that people can use to grief.
> >
> >
> > Interesting. I would think that revealing exploits so they can be reported would be a bonus. And discovering exploits seems like it would be quite difficult to do explicitly through the Halo API. You would have to either do a LOT of calculation off of every played game, or already know the game the exploit is in, which means it is probably known by multiple people and needs to be brought to the attention of the 343 sooner rather than later. Hell a tool could be made to help QA maps and ensure that there are no exploits and if there are they could be quickly directed to the team.
> > Locations of Spawns, Weapon Pickups/Drops, Medals, etc… I can’t imagine what sort of exploits could be found except out of bounds locations or issues in the spawn system for trapping. This is actually info that would be useful, especially for the tool I’m providing for Forgers which will allow them to analyze their custom maps. So being able to detect when there is a weird location for an event would be immensely helpful for discovering containment issues for Forgers to fix. Also with that many events it would be roughly possible to replay an entire match by using interpolation between events for players. This could also be immensely valuable for analysis purposes.
> > I hope the team reconsiders the decision. I’d love to be able to automatically discover weapon spawn locations, spawn times, common routes, etc. for forgers for custom maps. Thanks for the heads up though Tashi. If you get the chance please keep bringing this up cuz I know a ton of people would love to have locations of events.
>
>
> Definitely understand the value of this Ray, and we’ve discussed it in-depth already. At the moment we’re opting to play it safe, and frankly we just don’t know exactly what the community is going to build with the event data we just released.
>
> I’m sure we’ll continue to discuss internally, as our goal is to provide as many tools to the community as we can. We’ll also look into ways we can provide more data tailored for communities, like Forgers.
Good call Tash, wisdom, young programmer; lets run out and fix 1 xplt. Experenced programmer; Lets walk there when we can fix them all, collision gaps. nice, handled well. he will see, im sure,;~}
Thank the team and I can’t wait to show off what I’m working on. 
If you get the chance please keep bringing this up cuz I know a ton of people would love to have locations of events.