You may have heard, you may not have. Either way, I figured I would let the forging community know that there is a legitimate VIP gametype floating around. It assigns one player as the VIP, and you can change several settings about the game itself, and including weapons/damage as per usual. I intend on making some interesting games, but I don't have the most time in the world. To this, I implore you all to check it out, unbury the gametype's secrets, and enjoy the last month of reach making some awesome games with this gametype. Here's the file download: -redacted-
It's not legitimate, seeing as it is a modded gametype. As such, we cannot allow the link to be posted on the forums as we are an affiliate to 343 Industries. There are other ways to get the file.
While the methods of obtaining the file may be in question, The file itself is not modded. Well, either way any interested in the file can find it on my share. Gamertag in the left panel.
You can share maps made specifically for it, Tell people easy ways to get the gametype, Talk about gametype as much as you want, Only thing you can't do it directly link the gametype.(just put: Click here then navigate to fileshare) But thanks for sharing it could be useful for local customs depending on how the gametype works.
I messed around with this gametype for a bit and it seems a bit wonky. Its been a while since I played vip so I don't remember specific details but the scoring was weird and I couldn't change most of the settings. Weapon pickup was off permanently. A couple other things were a little off but with a little adjustment it can be playable.
I haven't had much time to work out little things, but I'll share what I have discovered. 1) The specific gametype settings seem incomplete. You can turn on or off "Escort mode" under this subheading, but I am unsure as to how this affects the game. The other options under here are blank. You ARE CHANGING the values of them by moving left/right, but I have yet to host a testing session to figure any of them out. This behaves similarly to the old assault settings (Pre-TU) when they did not have "Bomb Carrier cooldown" traits, but you could change them by selecting the blank menu option underneath the other subheadings, and edit a seemingly unnamed set of variables. 2) In forge while loading this gametype, you can assign a generic VIP gametype label to any object, as well as VIP_ESCORT_ZONE. While the first will behave to only allowing certain items to spawn in certain game modes (as per gametype/forging standard) the secondary spawns a KOTH objective. 3) Here is where it gets interesting. A VIP scores one point for touching this active objective. It will then move (if it can move) to a "crazy"/non-static location of another VIP_ESCORT_ZONE object. I tried this with mongooses and standard hill_markers. Of course, the game ends at 10 points (but this is editable in the visible settings of the gametype). However, in my testing with mongooses, I had two players as VIP, and three marked mongooses. VIP #1 got in the mongoose/hill/VIP_ESCORT_ZONE, and scored one point. The hill moved to Mongoose two, and VIP #2 occupied it. Interestingly enough, the hill did NOT move again. Rather, it acted as if all zones were occupied, and instantly both VIP scores shot up at a rate of 1 point (likely more) per second. It acted much like a host-checking map that you may have seen before. 4) As to gorillas' comment, Weapon pickup is disabled in the default gametype, along with some other generic VIP standards from H3, including a 2x overshield etc. This is easy to change in the gametype, and is not part of the hidden/broken/confusing settings to edit. I intend to continue testing this, though Borderlands 2 has been occupying most of my free-time. Hope this helps you!
Very interesting find, OP. However, I'd recommend being cautious when dealing with this file. The phenomena you've found are probably part of the reason why the gametype was never released. There is evidence that Bungie attempted to develop VIP (labeled objects on Powerhouse), so it's possible that they ran out of time. However, it's also possible that they ran into some of the same problems that prevented them from ever finishing Halo Chess: memory limits within the Megalo engine. The upshot of all of this is that the file's scripting is imperfect, and at any time, the gametype could behave abnormally or simply stop working; do not rely on it for serious Forging. As for the undefined settings, be prepared to experience instability to the point of unplayability, as you are tampering with gametype features that were never meant to be activated by the public. I once caused massive instability by glitching an Infection variant to enable Teams -- changing a single unused setting on a finished gametype resulted in unstable matches. I can only imagine what could happen when dealing with an unfinished gametype. And as for the file itself, you should exercise caution when creating variants or modifications of it. Even if the file itself is not modded, it may be handled in the same manner as a modded file because it probably was obtained illegitimately. This means that any of the following may make you eligible for a console or File Share ban: Placing the VIP file or any variant of it on your File Share Creating a variant of the VIP file, and having that file made publicly accessible through any means This can be grounds for a ban even if you created the variant through legitimate in-game means, as the illegitimate content is still in the file, and you are now listed as an author