Just wanted to ask a very silly question. I remember back in the days of Reach when players begged for new armour to be added. The typical, and most widely accepted, response they got was that adding new armour would require a HUGE update that wasn’t feasible…
After downloading the new bundle, I am reminded of this. How did they do it? Was that all poppy -Yoink- just to shut up the whiny fans? Or was this armour already created and installed for the release of Halo 4, but just “hidden” until a later update could activate the data.
Sorry if this is a silly question or if its been answered already. I’ve been away from Halo 4 for a while.
I am guessing that it was planned from the beginning or it was disc locked on the second disc. It appears the code was only written for MP, and that is why it is absent from spops. Could be some form of forerunner technology that we dont understand, either way I am diggin it.
> I am guessing that it was planned from the beginning or it was disc locked on the second disc. It appears the code was only written for MP, and that is why it is absent from spops. Could be some form of forerunner technology that we dont understand, either way I am diggin it.
It wasn’t disc locked. Modders broke the game on day 1 and unlocked everything on the discs. The new armour/skins are actually extra content. My thought is that the update on Monday was a partial update that updated specific files ready for the rest of the update on Tuesday. Then when the DLC was downloaded, it updated the rest of the files needed to fully implement everything. But the content definitely wasn’t disc locked.
Just because it wasn’t possible in Reach and other past Halo games, it doesn’t mean that it’s the same case for Halo 4.
Remember, although Halo 4 is built upon the same engine as Reach, as the case has been since every iteration of the game since Halo 1, many modifications were done to the game. After seeing the high demand for DLC armour in Halo 3 and Reach, it’s very likely that 343i implemented a way for such things to be possible in Halo 4.
I was wondering the same thing. I even cleared out my harddrive of older games and save files this past weekend to clear out space because I was expecting a large download file for this updated. I was really surprised to see a sub 1GB file being downloaded. I was really expecting a file larger than that because I remember those Reach Armor comments from the Bnet days.
I imagine that they use a similair system such as DotA.
In DotA 2 you can equip different weapons and outfits for the heroes making millions of different combinations. As it would take a lot of disc space for the animations and models on their own, it’s an unrealistic option.
What’s done is that the “skeleton” is separate from the model, well the undersuit is attached to the skeleton, but the armor pieces are separate objects not connected to the skeleton.
As you customize your spartan with different armor pieces they’re connected to the skeleton and thus follows the animations.
For instance, the Helmet is connected to the “head bone” in the skeleton.
For previous Halos I’ve come to understand that the armor pieces were part of the maps but they’ve obviously changed it so that they aren’t, but must be imported to the map files each time the game loads or when the match loads.
> > I am guessing that it was planned from the beginning or it was disc locked on the second disc. It appears the code was only written for MP, and that is why it is absent from spops. Could be some form of forerunner technology that we dont understand, either way I am diggin it.
>
> It wasn’t disc locked. Modders broke the game on day 1 and unlocked everything on the discs. The new armour/skins are actually extra content. My thought is that the update on Monday was a partial update that updated specific files ready for the rest of the update on Tuesday. Then when the DLC was downloaded, it updated the rest of the files needed to fully implement everything. But the content definitely wasn’t disc locked.
Since you enjoy getting your jollies attempting to be smart with everything I post. Prove it.
They dug up everything on disc 1, no mentions of disc 2. So like I said, prove it.
its true, everytime people asked for armour, the guys (who apparently knew what they were talking about), came out and said it was impossible because of how huge the download would be.
yet 343i just added it, so either they were actually not as smart as they made out or something changed
I think they did change how new armor is added in Halo 4 from Reach by allowing additional content to be added through updates. Would make sense progressing to this feature.
But I wonder what is in store for the next Halo and if they are going to make this feature even better! Will see!
It’s likely that Reach wasn’t built with the idea of adding future content in mind, and thus anything beyond a map pack was not able to be handled by the game’s coding. Halo 4, on the other hand, must have been built with such content being taken into consideration. It’s probably true that adding this DLC was difficult, and required a lot more pre-planning than a map pack, but it wasn’t impossible, evidently. 343, I genuinely believe you that this one was for the fans.
to use spartan ops or wargames requires the content to be installed, by my understanding of how the game works and I do not pretend to be an expert in the slightest. I admit I may well be wrong with my thoughts here.
my question is, if it is indeed a coding issue for spartan ops, why can they not update the spartan ops content, and re-release it so the dlc content works fully?
The 294 MB patch added in an external container (‘map’) that attaches to any real map you load in multiplayer. This container includes the armor and skins. They’re both loaded up and then the real map and the external container cross reference each other to get the new content to work.
It’s not QUITE as straightforward as items being patched into the maps themselves, but irregardless the method, at least War Games didn’t have to be re downloaded.
> Since you enjoy getting your jollies attempting to be smart with everything I post. Prove it.
>
> They dug up everything on disc 1, no mentions of disc 2. So like I said, prove it.
If it was disc locked, I’m sure someone would have found it.
> Just because it wasn’t possible in Reach and other past Halo games, it doesn’t mean that it’s the same case for Halo 4.
>
> Remember, although Halo 4 is built upon the same engine as Reach, as the case has been since every iteration of the game since Halo 1, many modifications were done to the game. After seeing the high demand for DLC armour in Halo 3 and Reach, it’s very likely that 343i implemented a way for such things to be possible in Halo 4.
It was not possible to add new armor in halo 3, reach however had the possebilty to do so. I remember Frank being asked if they where adding new armor with the reach title update, to wich he responded: We wanted to do so, but it did not make the cut.
> > > I am guessing that it was planned from the beginning or it was disc locked on the second disc. It appears the code was only written for MP, and that is why it is absent from spops. Could be some form of forerunner technology that we dont understand, either way I am diggin it.
> >
> > It wasn’t disc locked. Modders broke the game on day 1 and unlocked everything on the discs. The new armour/skins are actually extra content. My thought is that the update on Monday was a partial update that updated specific files ready for the rest of the update on Tuesday. Then when the DLC was downloaded, it updated the rest of the files needed to fully implement everything. But the content definitely wasn’t disc locked.
>
> Since you enjoy getting your jollies attempting to be smart with everything I post. Prove it.
>
> They dug up everything on disc 1, no mentions of disc 2. So like I said, prove it.
couldnt he ask you to prove your claim just as easily?
I’d only be guessing, but it’s possible some of the backend changes they made around the time of the weapon tuning update helped make it possible to add the new content. As to why we didn’t have any skins/stances before now - they would have let the other map packs release as planned and finished development on the new content. Again just theorising, only 343 can tell us at this point (which would be cool if they did a little blog or a mini vidoc on the behind-the-scenes stuff)
I remember reading statements from 343 that making additions to armor were impossible in Halo 4, but that was before they figured out there’s money to be had in microtransactions.
The Multiplayer is already on your hard drive, the Tu prob just injected the armors into that where reach and 3 were on the disk so you couldn’t do that.
