t3h m00kz
August 28th, 2008, 09:11 AM
Okay guys. I, as a person who's bit of a theorist and questioner, have been doing some thinking about something that's kind of important to this community, the modability of the Blam engine.
Keep in mind, this is mostly all just theory mixed with some of my own personal opinion.
To sum it up in a nutshell, I think Halo may have originally been planned to be as Open Source as any other engine like Source, or even Unreal. I don't think Halo's engine would have been so closed and limited if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft bought the franchise.
Let's look at the facts.
Bungie:
Rockstar of gaming companies
"Let's look at what the fans want and do it!"
Microsoft:
Evil Nazi money mongerers
"Let's make everything in Vista NEW! BUT INCOMPATIBLE! AND WE HATE XBOX MODS, TOO!"
What's Bungie done before Microsoft, back when it was just Bungie? Well, personally the only other game by them I've played is Marathon. And from what I understand, the game was heavily modable. There are TCs (Marathon RED, Rubicon, Marathon Evil, Tempus Irae, Morgana's Revenge, Eternal), and they even released a Windows-compatible "port" of the engine, AlephOne, for people to do whatever they want with.
Then Halo came around. It was going to be a Mac-only game. Microsoft, a bunch of "FUCK THE MODDING COMMUNITY" Nazis, bought them out.
Let's look at how much Microsoft hates mods.
1. The XBox was the first major Gaming console (to my knowledge) that didn't include a Gameshark/Game Genie style hacking device.
2. Hackers of any sort get banned from XBox Live.
3. Games released for the XBox 360 that are heavily modable on the PC, such as Unreal Tournament 3, UE3 being a HUGE modable engine, and COD4, also very modable, are left with nothing but the pure game with no support for mods. Epic Games fought and fought for mods on the XBox, but lost, apparently.
On the other hand, we've got Bungie, this company that fully supports their previous game, Marathon, being Open Source material, working with a complete Close Sourced one.
Halo PC came out. From what I understand, Microsoft had less involvement than in the XBox version. Rather, it was more of a collaboration between Bungie and Gearbox. It was nothing more than a port of an XBox game, so naturally it wasn't very hackable in it's release. However, programs came out, Halo Hacker Tools, and Bungie and Gearbox picked up on it. They released Halo: Custom Edition, which came with a brand new Editing kit that allowed for custom models, sounds, weapons, levels, the whole nine yards. And, through third-party hacking and backwards engineering of the engine and editor, we've come up with things like Kornman's editor, Yelo battery, third person/FOV and camera hacks. Basically the community tearing apart the Engine and editor to make new, interesting content.
Halo 2 was released. As with every other XBox game, hackers who connected to the service were banned from XBox Live. The only way you could play with your hacks was offline over LAN, or over XBox Connect.
Halo 2 Vista was released. And, while I may not be 100% sure of the facts preceding this statement, I do know for a fact, based on a highly reliable source (I can't say much more, someone's job may be at risk) that Bungie had no hand in the porting of Halo 2 to Windows Vista. It was an internal Microsoft project.
What are we left with? A bad port of a game that requires players to pay for any good Online features, and a stock editing kit that you can't do SHIT with. The only way the game would become modable is if the community completely hacked the shit out of everything to unlock the closed features, as well as publishing programs capable of injecting and extracting data such as models and textures.
Halo 3 came out. The game ships with unbelievably versatile custom games options, as well as Theater mode, screenshots, and most of all, Forge. Forge, if anybody recalls, was the old editor for the Marathon series. To me, it seems like Bungie is paying homage to their old Open Source engine.
So, why hasn't Bungie gotten pissed at people like ZTeam ripping their models and animations? Honestly, if ZTeam does it, it's just as bad as anybody else, they don't work for Bungie and they don't have the rights, same with anybody else on these forums or anybody else who plays the game. Still, Bungie hasn't stepped in and said "Hey, stop this, this is bullshit and you're shitting on our hard work." I doubt they would if anybody else came out with an animation extractor as well and started modding the shit out of Halo 2 Vista.
Bungie has such respect for what their community wants it's unbelievable, yet the Halo franchise was kept under the keen, Nazi eye of Microsoft. Halo is now OWNED by Microsoft, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the series started going downhill from here. Not saying it's going to happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
Again, these are my own personal interpretations on the situation. Hopefully people will look at this and think about things in a different light, but I don't expect that.
Also I don't have time to proof read because I'm heading to my new job.
And now that I've had my say, any thoughts on the subject?
Keep in mind, this is mostly all just theory mixed with some of my own personal opinion.
To sum it up in a nutshell, I think Halo may have originally been planned to be as Open Source as any other engine like Source, or even Unreal. I don't think Halo's engine would have been so closed and limited if it weren't for the fact that Microsoft bought the franchise.
Let's look at the facts.
Bungie:
Rockstar of gaming companies
"Let's look at what the fans want and do it!"
Microsoft:
Evil Nazi money mongerers
"Let's make everything in Vista NEW! BUT INCOMPATIBLE! AND WE HATE XBOX MODS, TOO!"
What's Bungie done before Microsoft, back when it was just Bungie? Well, personally the only other game by them I've played is Marathon. And from what I understand, the game was heavily modable. There are TCs (Marathon RED, Rubicon, Marathon Evil, Tempus Irae, Morgana's Revenge, Eternal), and they even released a Windows-compatible "port" of the engine, AlephOne, for people to do whatever they want with.
Then Halo came around. It was going to be a Mac-only game. Microsoft, a bunch of "FUCK THE MODDING COMMUNITY" Nazis, bought them out.
Let's look at how much Microsoft hates mods.
1. The XBox was the first major Gaming console (to my knowledge) that didn't include a Gameshark/Game Genie style hacking device.
2. Hackers of any sort get banned from XBox Live.
3. Games released for the XBox 360 that are heavily modable on the PC, such as Unreal Tournament 3, UE3 being a HUGE modable engine, and COD4, also very modable, are left with nothing but the pure game with no support for mods. Epic Games fought and fought for mods on the XBox, but lost, apparently.
On the other hand, we've got Bungie, this company that fully supports their previous game, Marathon, being Open Source material, working with a complete Close Sourced one.
Halo PC came out. From what I understand, Microsoft had less involvement than in the XBox version. Rather, it was more of a collaboration between Bungie and Gearbox. It was nothing more than a port of an XBox game, so naturally it wasn't very hackable in it's release. However, programs came out, Halo Hacker Tools, and Bungie and Gearbox picked up on it. They released Halo: Custom Edition, which came with a brand new Editing kit that allowed for custom models, sounds, weapons, levels, the whole nine yards. And, through third-party hacking and backwards engineering of the engine and editor, we've come up with things like Kornman's editor, Yelo battery, third person/FOV and camera hacks. Basically the community tearing apart the Engine and editor to make new, interesting content.
Halo 2 was released. As with every other XBox game, hackers who connected to the service were banned from XBox Live. The only way you could play with your hacks was offline over LAN, or over XBox Connect.
Halo 2 Vista was released. And, while I may not be 100% sure of the facts preceding this statement, I do know for a fact, based on a highly reliable source (I can't say much more, someone's job may be at risk) that Bungie had no hand in the porting of Halo 2 to Windows Vista. It was an internal Microsoft project.
What are we left with? A bad port of a game that requires players to pay for any good Online features, and a stock editing kit that you can't do SHIT with. The only way the game would become modable is if the community completely hacked the shit out of everything to unlock the closed features, as well as publishing programs capable of injecting and extracting data such as models and textures.
Halo 3 came out. The game ships with unbelievably versatile custom games options, as well as Theater mode, screenshots, and most of all, Forge. Forge, if anybody recalls, was the old editor for the Marathon series. To me, it seems like Bungie is paying homage to their old Open Source engine.
So, why hasn't Bungie gotten pissed at people like ZTeam ripping their models and animations? Honestly, if ZTeam does it, it's just as bad as anybody else, they don't work for Bungie and they don't have the rights, same with anybody else on these forums or anybody else who plays the game. Still, Bungie hasn't stepped in and said "Hey, stop this, this is bullshit and you're shitting on our hard work." I doubt they would if anybody else came out with an animation extractor as well and started modding the shit out of Halo 2 Vista.
Bungie has such respect for what their community wants it's unbelievable, yet the Halo franchise was kept under the keen, Nazi eye of Microsoft. Halo is now OWNED by Microsoft, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the series started going downhill from here. Not saying it's going to happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
Again, these are my own personal interpretations on the situation. Hopefully people will look at this and think about things in a different light, but I don't expect that.
Also I don't have time to proof read because I'm heading to my new job.
And now that I've had my say, any thoughts on the subject?