IS THERE HOPE?

Aug 17, 2015
413
23
18
Gamertag
SoddyBoi
#1
"Q: Is this a sign that you’ll be releasing a full version Halo 5: Guardians on PC?

A: Forge – Halo 5: Guardians Edition on Windows 10 is a free publishing tool designed for map makers and creators to build and play their creations on Windows 10 and also publish these experiences to Xbox One. As we’ve stated previously, we have no plans to release Halo 5: Guardians on Windows 10. We are focused on building Halo Wars 2 for Windows 10 and Xbox One. Releasing Forge for Windows 10 for free will open up endless opportunities to the PC community to build and play Halo 5 multiplayer content, while also allowing them to share their creations with gamers on Xbox One as well. Windows 10 remains an important focus for the Halo franchise moving forward."

...

"Windows 10 remains an important focus for the Halo franchise moving forward."
"important focus"

Don't lie.
 

PNill

Lead Dev
Project Cartographer Staff
Oct 25, 2015
99
2
8
Gamertag
TDxPermaNulled
#2
Sod said:
"Q: Is this a sign that you’ll be releasing a full version Halo 5: Guardians on PC?

A: Forge – Halo 5: Guardians Edition on Windows 10 is a free publishing tool designed for map makers and creators to build and play their creations on Windows 10 and also publish these experiences to Xbox One. As we’ve stated previously, we have no plans to release Halo 5: Guardians on Windows 10. We are focused on building Halo Wars 2 for Windows 10 and Xbox One. Releasing Forge for Windows 10 for free will open up endless opportunities to the PC community to build and play Halo 5 multiplayer content, while also allowing them to share their creations with gamers on Xbox One as well. Windows 10 remains an important focus for the Halo franchise moving forward."

...

"Windows 10 remains an important focus for the Halo franchise moving forward."
"important focus"

Don't lie.
Honestly if they give any ability to 'play' at all we'll be able to mod it to make it into an MP game... The issue is we probably won't be given the traditional maps and can't extract them from the xbox one but we'll see what happens.
 
Mar 20, 2013
535
1
0
42
Hawaii
www.h2mt.org
Gamertag
Kills Alone
#4
Indeed, UWP sucks in most respects, its part of the continued effort by Microsoft to lock down and control the PC further. People have been modding the games since Project Spark & Minecraft Windows 10 Edition. Once an application is publicly available that means its in the wild and exposed to mass dissemination & disassembly. I'm, I'm simply saying that modding, uh...finds a way.


Many of us had hope, hope that Halo: Custom Edition, or the Halo 2 Editing Kit, or Halo: Online would allow us to create some form of Halo co-op experience on the Windows PC side.

Unfortunately that has not happened yet due to limitations placed on those engines (number of players, syncing issues, missing Data & Tags source) and/or editing tools. So my big hope, with this cut down version of Halo 5, remains the same, that we can Forge a co-op experience that starts like Firefight and becomes something much closer to a campaign. Of course, this depends on the tool; Halo 5: Guardians PC Edition.


Even if its just Forge that means assets, hopefully tons of them. What form (file type/size) will these assets be in? If we look at the last officially updated Halo: Online we see they used a much different technique from previous Halos. Specifically in regards to packing the tags into map resource files. In H: O we have:

Code:
12/10/2015  07:10 AM           377,269,636 audio.dat
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 bunkerworld.map
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 chill.map
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 cyberdyne.map
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 deadlock.map
12/10/2015  07:27 AM           <DIR>          fonts
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 guardian.map
12/10/2015  07:22 AM           166,292,644 lightmaps.dat
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 mainmenu.map
12/10/2015  07:36 AM           87,288,012 render_models.dat
12/10/2015  07:27 AM           173,175,364 resources.dat
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 riverworld.map
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 s3d_avalanche.map
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 s3d_edge.map
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 s3d_reactor.map
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 s3d_turf.map
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 shrine.map
12/10/2015  07:27 AM           832,331 string_ids.dat
12/10/2015  07:36 AM           168,644,668 tags.dat
12/10/2015  05:12 AM           1,521,192,404 textures.dat
12/10/2015  05:39 AM           604,688,700 textures_b.dat
12/10/2015  07:39 AM           28,900,388 video.dat
12/10/2015  07:31 AM           410,640 zanzibar.map
Notice how the map files, such as shrine.map, are ALL 410,640 KBs. This is because they are small files that basically work as a pointer or link, its saying, 'This is my name and my contents are these, find them over here'. And over here turns out to be the .dat files.


In previous Halos the Tags (compiled Data files) were duplicated and distributed among most of the .map files. So, if a map had a BR on it, that means it had a BR Tag inside of it.

This is important to understand because it is possible Halo 5: Guardians PC Edition might work in a similar way. While it makes more sense to edit only one instance of the BR it introduces potential problems for future edits. Granted the built in weapon modding, if that turns out to be a real thing, might provide a way around some of this.


Has anyone made any progress on XBox One modding that I have not heard about? Is it possible to at least view the contents of a Xbox One disc? If so, that could give us some insight into what to expect.