The Official Happiness Thread

[DoorM4n]

I vaguely remembering not putting fog underwater in Tortuga because I couldn't find out how it was done. I can't recall, however, how long I spent trying to do it.

[OwnZ joO]

You could just try shoving a new hard drive in the console and see what error it gives you. If it gives you Error 5 than you need a locked drive, if it's Error 14 you just need to format the drive and you can do this using a custom Evox Boot CD.

You can format a new HDD using you PC:
http://www.xbox-scene.com/articles/no-m ... d-swap.php

It's been a while since I've messed with my consoles so I don't remember everything I've done with them. I have an Xecuter3 Chip and some other chip with an Xecuter2 BIOS on it.

If I remember right, it's more about which bios you install on the mod chip that determines whether you can have an unlocked drive. Most of them are unlocked for mod chips if I recall, it was mostly just softmods that required locked drives. I had all softmodded boxes so I'm not positive on that, but I think that was one of the benefits of mod chips, you didn't have to jump through a few hoops to upgrade the hard drive.

Also, loving my job. It's awesome that I get to work all day coding with AngularJS on the front end and C# on the backend. Very cool how things turn out, not sure if I would have picked up C# had it not been for the halo modding scene.

[DarkShallFall]

It's nice to see that everyone is doing so well. I can't begin to express how sorry I am for being such a douche over the years - so I won't .

Fuck you guys.

[xXF3RcHoXx]

New pics of Forest of Doom (patent pending)
12th rebuild attempt and finally I got a working sky
(need to get a better water shader)




moar trees ftw (updated)



lol @ floating tree





The funny thing is that I used Entity Alpha's chunk cloner to make the trees spawn, every other Entity (also user various plugins) would black screen

[DoorM4n]

It's look awesome man!

Any way you can make the grass line blend with the wall?

[xXF3RcHoXx]

It's look awesome man!

Any way you can make the grass line blend with the wall?

Yeah, it is not the final skin, it's a 5-minute skin I made just to see how good it could look

[NotZachary82]

Unsure of how I feel about the new Halo, seems like the right direction though. Halo 5 may compare to Halo 4 the way Halo 2 compared to Halo 1 so fingers crossed for a better experience.

[xxpenguinxx]

The Halo series is completely boring. CE & 2 are the only ones that were enjoyable, the rest are just a bunch of remakes like with Call of Duty and Battlefield.

[Click16]

As much as I enjoyed Halo 2 on Xbox LIVE, I never played as competitive as I did when I played Halo: Reach. So I'm going to rate the Halo games in a list of overrall fun from greatest to least:

As far as multiplayer gameplay is concerned:
Halo 2 / Halo: Reach (I enjoyed these games the same amount)
Halo 3
Halo CE
Halo 4

And if we're strictly talking the Campaign and singleplayer stories of these games, then its a tie between Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3 as all of them are as important as the others, seeing as how these 3 games make up the trilogy. But these 3 games have excellent Campaign stories. I didn't like Halo: Reach's story, and I have yet to finish Halo 4s due to a lack of interest in console gaming.

[CaptainPoopface]

What are some of the new characteristics of Halo 5? I have to disagree about some of the above sentiment. H2 was a huge improvement over H1 in almost every way, other than the lousy pistol and SMG. Ability to play as the elite added a lot to the story IMO. H1 campaign is horrible as soon as the flood get involved. H2 campaign ending was stupid but the rest was OK. H3 I hardly played at all. Seemed like H2 with snazzier graphics and no modding. Also seems the most popular, since Forge let people half-ass mod, and everyone who was stoked about H2, whether from modding, in a clan, or super bounce expert, channeled that enthusiasm into H3. It seemed to divert most of the interest in modding unfortunately, as the more profound and useful modding knowledge came after. Reach was a good development with the power ups. Didn't play the campaign, but now it's hard to play without power ups. H4 does not feel Halo-like for some reason, like the physics and movement do not convey the size or mass of the chief as we have come to know it over hundreds of hours. Weapons don't seem balanced, but ability to run and use power ups is great.

They have all failed to expose core features of custom gameplay in Forge, namely weapon and projectile characteristics. They could make a lot of money selling professional weapon models for use in the game, which players could then customize the behavior of. Frustrating and foolish that they have not. If H5 opens that up, i'm on board.

[DoorM4n]

I really enjoyed reading everyone's views on the Halo games. It's interesting to me how others rate the games, and I have some thoughts that tie in.

I remember the very first time I played Halo 1 (in 4th or 5th grade), as Im sure most of yall do too. And I have to say that I am a Halo 1 fan by heart. Im a little biased. But I also played Halo 2 significantly more. I also played very competitively in both Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3, while modding the first two. I had a team and we played in tournaments--and we were dedicated to making some cash. I also played on a LOT of LAN games at my house. For four years during high school, I was holding LANS at my house on Fridays with a regular crowd of 9 to 10 people--so I got to really see these games with minimal lag and with an inordinate amount of playing time/tricking time/and modding time. So I have some categories that I would rank all these games with both competitive aspect and general enjoyment aspect.

Im trying to remove any biases (but I can't guarantee anything), and each game's multiplayer would rank like this to me (I will have another ranking for SP):

1. Halo 2: Some people hated these factors, but the nuances in this game separated the winners and the losers. You had to know the game to excel at it. BXR and BRB were skills you had to learn--whether you liked them or not. I loved how fast the weapons switched and how you can cancel reloads and continue fighting. Some weapons were not even worth picking up in most games, and that is a downside. Lag and host advantage was really noticeable at times, but it was way worse in H1. It was an improvement at the time, and I appreciated it although it was still frustrating a bit.

2. Halo 1: H1 network lag is truly ridiculous. Even on a LAN in my house, we were leading bullets by 6 feet in front a hog and 3 feet in front of a guy running. Host advantage was otherworldly. But to compete and enjoy the game, you had to make peace with it and when you did, you were competitive off host and on host. Strafing as a character was absolutely great. If you knew the game well enough, you knew how to dodge charging players and assassinate them before they knew where you were. The simplicity of the game made it so valuable to me. Every time you spawn, you spawn with a gun that is actually worth a damn: the pistol. The pistol, IMO, was the greatest gun in all the Halo games. It required so much skill to use off host and it did the job with 3 shots. The simplicity of the multiplayer made mastering the pistol the goal. Im not saying H1 had no flaws because we all know that game was a bit unbalanced, but H1 MP required skill and this requirement meant that random bullshit was minimized. OH, and I loved the Halo 1 grenade and rocket explosions. They were powerful and effective. The hard part was timing the damn weapons and powerups and beating your opponent to them. You had to know the game to win, which some people like and others dont.

3. Halo Reach/Anniversary: First off, I love HA more than HR because they tried to capitalize on the H1 simplicity. I know what I am looking for on a map and I am delivered one of the best weapons upon spawning. I enjoy HA not quite as much as Halo 1, but they have some improvements that I wish H1 would have had from the beginning.
HR is a great game. I really enjoyed multiplayer. They really got rid of the bullshit that occurred in Halo 3. Halo 3, which I will talk about in a sec, was riddled with what I simply call bullshit. Halo Reach added the need to truly time your bullets otherwise they you will start missing (the flowering of the reticule). That was an interesting addition and I found it to be a real pain in the ass because I missed all of the time. I guess it required skill. Halo Reach multiplayer had great features and balanced weapons--something Halo really needed. Of course it had Forge and the ability to make custom maps, which was a huge plus, BUT I really did not fully appreciate a SINGLE custom map because they all lacked proper shadows and all of them have the grey monotonous coloring. It was dreary and needed color and lighting severely. And what ultimately happened? The majority of maps played on Halo Reach were custom maps, so I have to play on the same grey maps all the damn time. I loved the vehicle physics in Halo Reach too. They were a bit over-exaggerated at times, but I always thought the Halo vehicles physics were a bit abnormal--and this continued that. I liked Halo Reach, but I didn't like the DMR until H4 and I didnt like the flowering of the reticule. I felt both of these two factors, because they are so prevalent in all HR games, pushed the game down a few notches in my eyes. This was definitely an improvement from H3.

4. Halo 3: Ah, the moment you've been waiting for! H3 was a great game, you say. How is it almost last, you ask?! Bullshit, Bullshit, and more Bullshit. I define bullshit here as all the random shit that one typically can anticipate from skills and many hours of playing that ultimately happen, which defy all of the normal Halo activity one has learned through experience. That definition was a bit abstract so let me explain. Halo 3 took some of the consistencies of Halo 1 and 2 and made you relearn how the game would turn out. Anticipation was almost irrelevant in close combat. When beating someone down, it almost ALWAYS ended up with both of us dying. By dropping a grenade a millisecond before death or because both people can win a beat down battle by both dying. The BR, omg what a disappointment, was so incredibly inconsistent when shooting long range. I played H3 competitively and did well, so I knew the game as well as Halo 1 and Halo Reach, and the BR was always the gun to grab, but it ultimately was so inconsistent shooting across the map. I had to get the carbine if the map was lucky enough to have one. I found close combat to be the most dysfunctional part of the game. The hammer and sword will lunge and often not kill the man I lunged at that I KNOW would have died. Sniper headshots often did not register when you knew they should have because it was a legitimate headshot. Honestly, H3 contained so much "BS" that I really wished they would have fixed. I also felt the game ran a little slower than the other games. Also, vehicles were way over powered in this game. A banshee can fight the entire team on Valhalla and kill everyone without dying because nothing could take on the banshee once it performs aerial stunts. The warthog and its gunner could do the same but not as effectively.

5. Halo 4: H4 MP is balanced now and not as miserable as people say it is. But I must stress that the game simply doesnt feel like a game of the Halo series, and that is why I rank it last. It is vastly different from the Halo series we grew to love so much. The game is fun and playable, but it isnt Halo to me. It isnt COD or Battlefield either--it's something new with traces of Halo elements.

This ranking here is not solid. I honestly feel like I should replay the SP's to get a better grasp.
Entertainment in SP (its hard for me to rank SP because I didnt play it as much as MP):
1. Halo 1--It may be the memories I get when I play it, Im not really sure. But I enjoy most of the maps a lot. I didn't enjoy, however, playing through a massive SP map and then having to retrace my steps in the next mission of the map.
1. Halo Reach--Lots of fun to play, beautiful environment and models..
2. Halo 4--As much as MP felt unlike Halo, I enjoyed the SP a lot--not that I play it often. The middle 3 in my list are all pretty much tied for me
2. Halo 3--Tied with 2 and 4. Not great, but entertaining
2. Halo 2--I just thought the last few levels were a terrible ending to Halo 2. I learned later that Halo 2 SP was never finished, which explains why it feels like I Halo 2 ended horribly. Maybe I played SP in this game so much that the glory of it went a way.
3. Halo ODST--I honestly didnt like ODST at all. If it was the MC in those shoes, I would have the same feelings. There were cool elements to it, but it wasn't exciting to me.

DAMN! This is long.
-------------

EDIT:

I don't have an Xbox One, so if I buy Halo 5, I will have to buy an Xbox One. We don't know anything about Halo 5 except that the name says Guardians, which if they are talking about the original guardians in the original Halo series, then I would assume this game will expand on how me dying by an unexplained, bullshit explosion in Halo 3 or falling off a map in Halo 1 is related to a race or supernatural race in the Halo universe. I would like to learn more about the guardians, so this could be an interesting revelation if the cards are played right, which Im sure they will be. Halo 2 Anniversary is where my attention is. Halo 2 anniversary was alluded to in the Halo 5 newsletter and the rumor is that Halo 2 anniversary will be announced at E3 in a few weeks. I think I will buy an Xbox One for Halo 2 anniversary if there is a MP aspect that is not a modified H4 but an improved H2. We shall see!!

[neodos]

Halo CE will always be the one that'll remember the most, although I have spent way more time playing/modding Halo 2.

Halo CE campaing was the best, much like CapPoop I didn't like the flood levels though, but the last level in CE is pretty great even if it has floods.
Halo CE has the best score, environment sounds and scale, "Silent Cartographer" and "Two Betrayals" are definitely my favourite campaing levels from CE.
You go all around the level, from the inside out, these two levels have a real sense of scale, incredible sound/music and mood.
What makes them so great in my opinion is that you have moments of intense action, suspense, mystery but also and very important moments, -of calm-, they add a sense of immersion, like you just finished killing all the enemies and it feels sort of empty, lonely, in a good way, you can now hear the sound of the weather and look around, explore freely.

That's something that got lost on the newer Halo's, because they started restricting where you could go in the level and it felt way more scripted and guided.

As for multilayer Halo CE in split screen with a few friends was as good as a Mario Kart 64, so much fun, I'll never forget those moments playing Halo CE with friends, or the co-op too.

I'll never forget the thirsty grunton the last campaing level, I would play on co-op with a friend, you need to escape from the ship, but no, I'd stop just to show this easteregg to my friend, some of the easter eggs in Halo CE are the coolest.

Halo 2 campaing was crap and rushed, obviously, though the cinematics where enjoyable still.
Halo 2 multiplayer was amazing, since it also was the first xbox live game I played.
And of course modding Halo 2

Halo 3, cool for a while, the campaing was better than Halo 2, but it felt like they just did a lot of copy paste from Halo CE's campaing, so I didn't like it as much as H2, because it felt super cooked, just mass produced linear levels and scripted to hell.
I think Halo 3 was hyped too much through its trailers and didn't live up to what the cinematic trailers looked like, not surprising though.
The multiplayer had some interesting game modes like VIP, but I didn't play it nearly as much as Halo 2 multiplayer.

Halo 3 ODST, I found it quite enjoyable actually, while the gameplay was allright (though firefight was really cool) the storytelling, voice acting and cinematics were absolutely fanstastic, the game had its own mood and setting, really enjoyed that one, short but sweet.

Halo Reach, better campaing than Halo 3, played multiplayer for a few months, not as much as any other Halo, really less and less, just didn't have time nor that much interest to play as much as I used to, I played it casually, still fun but got bored of it after a while.

Halo 4, the campaing was nice, they were trying a few new things which is cool, but that ending with the flying ships stuff was quite messy, hard to control etc
Though, what the fuck did they do with the artstyle? I feel like they've taken too much freedom on the art style and they aren't respecting the original style, seriously alien enemies with flaming skulls, what the hell is that typical crap, that's what any kid would draw, skulls and flames, I was really disappointed by these poor of aesthetic choices, the environments and architecture design are better than in any other Halo and I like the style there though.

I still play Halo 4 multiplayer a tiny bit, very casually, only when a friend wants to play, but not on my own, they've got some pretty funky game modes going on, Halo has changed a lot.

I don't have an Xbox one, nor do I think I'll get one, I am done with future Halo franchises, unless they come to pc or play it at a friend's house.

[DoorM4n]

Neodos is here! Hey! Also, nice outline. Love reading people's ranking of the Halo series!!

[neodos]

Oh hai! I casually just came in here without saying hello or anything, hehe.
I am actually often online on the computer and on Steam but I don't spend much time on forums/chatting.

Do you guys use Steam?
If you do we should make a group on steam to play some games sometimes.

[XZodia]

steamid: xzodia04

[JacksonCougar]

I am only playing darksouls nowadays but my steam account is my username.

[DoorM4n]

Yeah! I use a steam account that I created when I was 11 yrs old! My ID is dylanmatthews

[NotZachary82]

prozac822

[xxpenguinxx]

Steam: Mr Happy Penguin

I'm holding a large fish in my avatar, and hopefully I will be holding another tonight.

[XZodia]

Just upgraded my PC =)

8 Core 3.7Ghz CPU and 8GB of RAM (but can only use 4 cause of 32bit OS -_-)

And it was free XD

[JacksonCougar]

Congrats

[DoorM4n]

Wow, thats badass xzodia. Can't beat free man

[DoorM4n]

Celebrating my 23rd birthday today by going to class and then drinks...lots of them!

[XZodia]

Just got some grade A nostalgia playing Halo 2 on my new setup =)

Any else one here have H2V?

[DoorM4n]

Does it run on Windows 7? I don't own it, but perhaps I should if it does.