Dan Miller on Glyphs, Plinths, QTA and BOBs

[Scatcycle]

The first question is not something we can test. We would have to ask. But is it worth asking? It wouldn't really help us in any way.

Think about it. If someone driving a Revenant drives it off a cliff at full speed, gets out, and then the Revenant hits you, your death wasn't caused by a revenant. It's one of those odd ones like collision damage or guardians or ect. A vehicle does not have AI traits. It doesn't think. It just is. It is used, by ones with AI.

What I'm trying to say is that since Halo 1, Vehicles have been commandeered by Elites, or whatever drives them. There have been no vehicles with AI. That's just how they started out, and it's how they finished. Even grunts pilot Phantoms. Marines with Pelicans.

What Bungie realized in Reach, is that they were pushing the xbox 360 to its limits, so they needed to scrap some things so the xbox didn't have to render so much on one screen. A simple solution? Shrink and turn the elites driving the Banshees invisible.

Oddly enough, looking at an Anonymous Pilot while it's on the ground will seriously drop the framerate.

[Pulse Cloud]

The only thing I would want to ask him is about the TotS BOB issues, and this would need to be worded carefully.  Allow me to explain.

We're having a specific issue (there's about a one in five chance that no BOB spawns on Tip of the Spear) but it's not necessarily his area of expertise.  In my mind, this is THE issue right now re: BOBs.  There are different ways to count the number of BOBs, how to number and organize the BOBs, and so on, but that's largely moot.  Since I'll be wiping out each and every BOB spawn in Reach, on Legendary, in a full-run no-death game where I read all Data Pads, it doesn't matter if there are 10 BOBs or 49 BOBs.  I'm going for completion, so if what I'm doing is overkill it's not a big deal.  But, if we can't find a BOB, that's an issue.

Since we can repeatably predict the BOB spawns on every level except TotS, I believe we're aware of the BOB spawns with the exception of that level.  Once we get this particular issue cleared up, it won't be too long before I can complete the BOB guide and determine, once and for all, if anything happens if you wipe out all the BOBs on Legendary.

In short: I believe the missing Tip of the Spear BOB is the last significant BOB mystery, and I believe we should make some effort to get assistance there.

Dan didn't work on Tip of the Spear, so I think he can't help us with that.


Maybe the one he would probably be more apt to explain is Scat's (and CG's) question: why make the Banshee drivers on New Alexandria, a level designed by Dan himself, invisible and infinitesimally small?
Besides Scat's question, I could ask if he knows something about whether TotS is an exception in terms of BOB spawns or not - and if he doesn't, if he would kindly let me know who designed the mission.


Well?

[Lord Friendship]

The only thing I would want to ask him is about the TotS BOB issues, and this would need to be worded carefully.  Allow me to explain.

We're having a specific issue (there's about a one in five chance that no BOB spawns on Tip of the Spear) but it's not necessarily his area of expertise.  In my mind, this is THE issue right now re: BOBs.  There are different ways to count the number of BOBs, how to number and organize the BOBs, and so on, but that's largely moot.  Since I'll be wiping out each and every BOB spawn in Reach, on Legendary, in a full-run no-death game where I read all Data Pads, it doesn't matter if there are 10 BOBs or 49 BOBs.  I'm going for completion, so if what I'm doing is overkill it's not a big deal.  But, if we can't find a BOB, that's an issue.

Since we can repeatably predict the BOB spawns on every level except TotS, I believe we're aware of the BOB spawns with the exception of that level.  Once we get this particular issue cleared up, it won't be too long before I can complete the BOB guide and determine, once and for all, if anything happens if you wipe out all the BOBs on Legendary.

In short: I believe the missing Tip of the Spear BOB is the last significant BOB mystery, and I believe we should make some effort to get assistance there.

Dan didn't work on Tip of the Spear, so I think he can't help us with that.


Maybe the one he would probably be more apt to explain is Scat's (and CG's) question: why make the Banshee drivers on New Alexandria, a level designed by Dan himself, invisible and infinitesimally small?
Besides Scat's question, I could ask if he knows something about whether TotS is an exception in terms of BOB spawns or not - and if he doesn't, if he would kindly let me know who designed the mission.


Well?

Yeah, it may be entirely possible that most people at Bungie don't actually know about the TotS BOB spawn strangeness; a gentle inquiry might persuade him to ask the man responsible for TotS, and in turn send us a (probably cryptic) clue.  I don't expect us to go "tots bob lolwut" and he'll be all like, "omg amirite? you have to jump on a grunt's head 1000 times on Mythic omgwtfbbq".

Although, that would be rad.

[ColdGlider]

You might want to make sure Mr. Miller is fine with his emails getting dissected on a public website as well.  I'm guessing he expects that, but it's nice to get permission to make his private correspondence public.

[nightcrafter27]

I guess I'm a little late on this, but this is probably the most excited I have been all year, and that is quite a bit, considering minecraft's release earlier today. Great work Pulse. Has the email been sent?

[Pulse Cloud]

Added a copy of the sent "thank you" email to OP.
Updated the PDF.

[Scatcycle]

I don’t think you can attribute anything in Halo Legends as related to our stuff. Both things were built by separate teams.

So.... does this mean that BOBs have nothing to do with the GRD helmet?

[ColdGlider]

I don’t think you can attribute anything in Halo Legends as related to our stuff. Both things were built by separate teams.

So.... does this mean that BOBs have nothing to do with the GRD helmet?

Correct.  Ever since Dave "Evil Otto" Candland at Bungie said so on 7/11/2011: CLICK HERE (LF's BOB GUIDE PART 1 @ 4:23)

One of his original responses from that day: http://m.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=62986992&postRepeater1-p=2#62994136

He put the response on his FAQ.

One final post.
Just to clear things up and stop with all the PMs here is the quote directly from My FAQ.

Certain Affinity, under the direction of 343 industries, created the Defiant map pack. When Microsoft released screenshots of the Defiant pack, people noticed a previously un-seen helmet on one of the Spartans.

We at Bungie do not know what 343 has in store with this helmet, and the internet is full of theories. Like you, we will just have to wait and see what, if any, plans they have for it.

After the Bungie day Steaktacular, a rumor was started that this helmet made an appearance during the live stream in our armory. This rumor has picked up a lot of hype and momentum, with a lot of people professing to have seen it. They couldn't have. It was never there.

There is also some talk that I am feigning ignorance to cover something up. I am not. If I was in the know, I would simply say, "I can't talk about it."

But Dan Miller's response doubly confirms it, in my opinion.

[Lord Friendship]

I have a theory that the BOBs and the mystery helmet are two totally unrelated things, but I'll save that speculation for another time.  What's interesting is that Candland never says "we've never seen that helmet" but rather that they don't know what 343 has in store for it.  I think it's plausible that part of Bungie and Microsoft's agreement included turning over some secrets in Reach, allowing 343 to develop the mystery and get the fanbase to transfer from Bungie to 343 seamlessly.

[ColdGlider]

I have a theory that the BOBs and the mystery helmet are two totally unrelated things, but I'll save that speculation for another time.  What's interesting is that Candland never says "we've never seen that helmet" but rather that they don't know what 343 has in store for it.  I think it's plausible that part of Bungie and Microsoft's agreement included turning over some secrets in Reach, allowing 343 to develop the mystery and get the fanbase to transfer from Bungie to 343 seamlessly.

With big business, the path to the truth usually follows the money.  I also agree that your theory about fanbase transference is plausible. 

Likewise, I agree with the notion that Bungie's Reach BOBs and 343's weird helmet are separate entities.

[Pulse Cloud]

OP updated with the two final emails and an image of the whole conversation.

[Scatcycle]

"The invisible elite is a way we saved a lot of memory to make New Alexandria even possible. The game keeps track of all enemies, their skeletons and everything. In order to fit more banshees in the level, we made a special non-skeleton/non-model elite."

Called it.

Anyways, nice work Pulse. We have learned much from this adventure!

[Pulse Cloud]

Indeed, Scat. But why can we still punch them to death? Maybe because melee is so broken you don't even have to look at the enemy to hit him has magnetism?