• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

The Official Halo 3 Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
"Information could not be received from the Halo3 server."

Is it just me, or is this time of day terrible for trying to get a game set up?

It's been like this for the last few days at this time for me. It's just a bit annoying.
 
I'm not at home right now but isn't there some editing options or something you can do on bungie.net? I dunno I'm just looking for something to do. Can you mess with your account at all? I'm not finding anything.
 
striKeVillain! said:
Do you have to start at the beginning of the level in order to get the terminals? No rally points?
Click to expand...

iirc you can use rally points, but I might be wrong. You don't have to get them in order that's for sure
 
vumpler said:
Also on The Covenant I think I found a sweet glitch!!! Or its an error in the scheduled events.

When I was going for the 50,000 on that stage I was really having trouble. I didn't know why but I kept coming up 4k short. The main reason was that I wasn't finishing in time. So i was attempting to get 50k without the time bonus.

When I really buckled down I said ok I'm going to get at least the 1.5 time bonus damnit.

I was having trouble getting to the first tower in a timely fashion. So I tried something new and it helped drastically and also it helped me skip a hard part of what I was struggling with:

At the beginning as soon as you start you see get off the ship. The clocks ticking so what I do is walk up, head shot one of the grunts, and he generally is holding a sticky and it blows them all up. I then head directly right along the mountain ridge. I shoot 1 red laser at the wraith and keep moving. If you make it to the other side of the rocks about about 1 minute the rest of the guys don't spawn for some reason until you get all the way to the top of the hill. So the guy in the turret and all his friends aren't even there. You get to the top of the hill at 2 minutes and you see the grunt getting onto the ghost, well you can blast him in the face before he gets on and then you have a ghost to clear out the other 3. After that just jump down and red laser the other wraith and two other vehicles that come shooting at you and you're in.

Also note you have to walk all the way up the mountain because the guy doesn't even spawn to give you a mongoose :lol

This seemed to be the only way I could get the time achievement because you get to skip like 7 minutes of a normal grind. I ended with 78,000 points when I did this and it went very smooth.

Its weird though if you wait until about 3 minutes and then take off you have to fight everyone up the hill as normal.
Click to expand...
Great strategy. :lol

Strange though, I managed to get 88,000+ on my first go through and I didn't rush at all for time multiplier. What skulls were you using?

striKeVillain! said:
Do you have to start at the beginning of the level in order to get the terminals? No rally points?
Click to expand...
You are allowed to use rally points, and you can access any terminal in any order. Plus, you don't even have to finish any of the levels, just Save & Quit out. Just got this myself yesterday. :)
 
Darunia said:
iirc you can use rally points, but I might be wrong. You don't have to get them in order that's for sure
Click to expand...
You're exactly right. And you don't have to finish the level or anything.

However it seems quite easy to just play through the whole level since there are 3 on The Covenant and 3 on The Ark. Just play through those 2 stages and get your meta scores while you're doing them. And then fire up the final stage Halo to pick up the last one... So really you're only playing 2 stages...
 
vumpler said:
You're exactly right. And you don't have to finish the level or anything.

However it seems quite easy to just play through the whole level since there are 3 on The Covenant and 3 on The Ark. Just play through those 2 stages and get your meta scores while you're doing them. And then fire up the final stage Halo to pick up the last one... So really you're only playing 2 stages...
Click to expand...
What are the best skulls for those stages in order to clear the meta game?
 
godhandiscen said:
B.net is not down, but awfully slow. Has Stinkles commented on this?
Click to expand...

Bungie is a victim of their own success. I have no idea how many people were on at one time back when Halo 2 launched, but I'm sure Halo 3 is at or past that number at times. Then add in the fact that Halo 3 is tracking a ton more data than Halo 2 was (campaign info, how many kills you've gotten w/each weapon, cumulative medals and so on), the fact that the Bungie servers are also getting hit with people uploading/downloading movies, game types, snapshots, as well as people checking out stats seemingly constantly, and I'm not surprised in the least.

I would love to see an in-depth explanation of their back end systems; how the servers are configured, how they are aging the data and dealing with the massive amounts of data flying back and forth, etc. But that's the DBA/database developer in me. :) But I'd love to see a case study, Bungie, if you're willing to share.
 
For getting the skulls, is it mandatory that you start from the beginning of the level where it's at?

For example, I'm trying to get the iron skull so I'm starting at a checkpoint. However, when I finish the level and watch the replay, the skull was never there...!?
 
I'm going to have to give up on H3 right now, I'm tired of that stupid "Information could not be retrieved from the Halo3 server" message. It's almost like MS didn't anticipate selling a lot of this......"Halo" game.
 
suikodan said:
For getting the skulls, is it mandatory that you start from the beginning of the level where it's at?

For example, I'm trying to get the iron skull so I'm starting at a checkpoint. However, when I finish the level and watch the replay, the skull was never there...!?
Click to expand...


You have to start from the beginning of the level on at least Normal difficulty.
 
suikodan said:
For getting the skulls, is it mandatory that you start from the beginning of the level where it's at?
Click to expand...
Yeah you have to start from the complete beginning on Normal or Above. If possible get like 4 guys together and run the train on the game on normal. You can get them all in about 4 hours.

You do NOT have to finish the stage though. Just pick it up and bail. However i have heard reports of the IWHBYD skull not registering unless you run out the drop at the end.
 
striKeVillain! said:
What are the best skulls for those stages in order to clear the meta game?
Click to expand...
I'm a firm believer in Tough, Catch and Fog with Grunt's and Cowbell for kicks.

You truly don't need 4. Just blast em and keep on moving. If you use famine its more of a challenge but not necessary. (read below to hear futher thoughts)


Aurora said:
Great strategy. :lol
Strange though, I managed to get 88,000+ on my first go through and I didn't rush at all for time multiplier. What skulls were you using?
Click to expand...

Heh, I don't know what was going on. I would consider myself an above average Halo player and I couldn't for the life of me beat the covenant with above 50,000. I was using the 4 big ones everyone uses the first time. The second time I dropped famine for the one where they level up. Well that was a bad decision imho because their stickies seemed to get retarded. I was getting stuck mid air jumps as shit. So I dropped that and the third time I just tried it with only 3 on, not using famine.

Thats when I figured out you can just blow by them. And that time I got the score I needed. Its just hard for me to beat some of the mini bosses with 30 rounds of a weak weapon. So famine killed me sometimes.

The only 2 I struggled with were The Covenant and Cortana. Because when you're in that flood base I swear I can't figure out where I'm going. So I was trying to haul ass and run through it to get the 2.5 or 2x time bonus. Needless to say many profanities flew around the room. Also about 5 "Honey, it's just a game" from the wife. I consistently had to remind her "Honey, I know it's just a game BUT ITS KICKING MY ASS WHEN IT SHOULDN'T BE." lol.

But I suggest having just the 3 on without Famine because its not necessary. Unless you just enjoy having to pick up the plasma pistol from time to time. I am a firm believer in the fact that if I'm part of a special ops part of the USMC I would have as much ammo as I could possibly need, or I would make the bitch arbiter carry it for me. Ammo shouldn't ever be an issue.

heh

I easily got 20% over the goal on every level the first time through (except covenant because of what was explained and cortana because I kept getting lost.)
 
Since b.net started getting all funky and slow I've lost a promotion to Captain and about 30 games. It tracked my two games from earlier today, but only another two since Friday. I want that promotion back; it's not easy for me to get to level 20.
 
Good to see i'm not the only one having connection problems with matchingmaking and Bungie.net. Hopefully it gets resolved soon :-/
 
vumpler said:
You do NOT have to finish the stage though. Just pick it up and bail. However i have heard reports of the IWHBYD skull not registering unless you run out the drop at the end.
Click to expand...


For the IWHBYD: I did not have to finish the level. Played it on normal. Defeated all the Flood after
Arbiter kills Truth
, then did the steps. One thing to note: I couldn't get it by going through the rings backwards. First ring is #1, last ring is #7. you have to jump through the ring in the ascending direction (ie, if it's 1,3,4,3 you can't jump toward ring 2 through ring 3 for that last jump; you have to go to the front of ring 3 and jump through it towards ring 4 again). At least, that was what worked for me; I tried it by going through either direction of the ring and that didn't work for me.


striKeVillain! said:
What are the best skulls for those stages in order to clear the meta game?
Click to expand...

I use primarily Fog, Famine, Tough Luck, Catch, and Thunderstorm, and I turn Fog off on level 5, 8, and 9 so I don't have things sneaking up on me. Catch is also a bitch on any levels with a lot of tight areas (Crow's Nest, primarily). Playing on Normal and not ness. getting a decent time multiplier, I was able to clear all score requirements with ease except for levels 8 and 9 (which were a bit closer than I would have liked due to too many deaths and no time multipliers because of said deaths).

One thing that helps in the meta game is simply getting cool kills; sticks, splatters, or whatever gives you a medal.
 
Tieno said:
I'm sorry, I'm usually much better than that, I sucked very hard. I was very tired.
Click to expand...
You should be sorry. Your 4 kills held me and my 5 kills back.


I kid. The co-op was good times.
 
Wolffen said:
I couldn't get it by going through the rings backwards. First ring is #1, last ring is #7. you have to jump through the ring in the ascending direction
Click to expand...

That sucks you had such bad luck with it. We started from the get go and got them all straight through the IWHBYD skull on 4 player coop on normal. We actually did it with 4 of us and we jumped through the rings in both directions so it doesn't matter.

I seperated it up as such:

Player 1: Rings 1 and 2
Player 2: Rings 3 and 4
Player 3: Ring 5
Player 4: Rings 6 and 7

And I just called out what order to jump through them in. The player would jump through them in either direction. For example the player 3 just jumped to one side of the ring and then stayed there until he was called again.

We got it first try. I had everyone perform the jump the same way, so maybe that helped? I had everyone start at the base of the angulation going up to the ring on each side. I had them Take ~2 steps and jump and fly through. We all took practice jumps to make sure we had it down and when I felt comfortable no one would accidentally clip the halo we went for it and knocked it out.
 
I beat the game again earlier today, this time on Legendary. The ending is just so fucking satisfying. Watching that again was great.
I'm so glad that the Arbiter survived. It was also wonderful to see how great both characters worked with each other.
The little extra bit for legendary is really exciting as well.
 
By chance can anyone link to someones complete type out of the complete Halo 3 story? I thought I saw someone post this or say it was there somewhere. I saw someone type out an indepth full explanation and summary of the Bioshock story in the Bioshock thread and it really tied everything together for me even better than the game did. Some people can really get every ounce out of what the game is trying to portray and others like myself can't fully appreciate all the underlying story with just the game itself. It kind of needs to be fully spelled out.

I would like to read it from start to finish everything from what exactly Cortana was talking about half the time at the beginning? Why she seemed completely psycho and off the wall with so many statements? Basically just a full written up short story of the game I've beaten 5 times :lol Maybe even an over dramatized version.
 
I'm having trouble getting the Cowbell Skull. I'm not having trouble getting to the cowbell skull, it's just mysteriously not there when I get to it. I can do the whole grav lift thing in the sorta-stairwell after the room with all the fusion coils, but when I get up to that top platform there is no skull to be found. Is there some other requirement for getting it (like not destroying the Wraith to get the Catch skull)? Does it matter that I'm not starting from the beginning of The Ark? Can you not get skulls if you start from a mid-way checkpoint? This is the last freakin' skull I need...
 
StrikerObi said:
Does it matter that I'm not starting from the beginning of The Ark? Can you not get skulls if you start from a mid-way checkpoint? This is the last freakin' skull I need...
Click to expand...

That's your problem. You need to start from the beginning or it's not there. That's the way the skull rolls
 
Darunia said:
That's your problem. You need to start from the beginning or it's not there. That's the way the skull rolls
Click to expand...

Ahhh, ok. I'll do it later then. I don't want to go through all that crap again. The Ark is such a long ass level, especially the first section...
 
Been replaying the game on Heroic, so I've been able to better understand the story as it occurs. One thing I still don't get though (full game spoilers):

At the end of mission 5, everyone watches a message where Cortana says she has a solution that would end the Flood once and for all. What was it? It can't have been firing Halo since she sent the message before the new Halo was made.
 
Blader5489 said:
Been replaying the game on Heroic, so I've been able to better understand the story as it occurs. One thing I still don't get though (full game spoilers):

At the end of mission 5, everyone watches a message where Cortana says she has a solution that would end the Flood once and for all. What was it? It can't have been firing Halo since she sent the message before the new Halo was made.
Click to expand...

"I'm a thief, but I keep what I steal."
 
SpudBud said:
Bungie broke xbox live again.
Click to expand...

yeah finding matchmakings been a pain this weekend.

Tho it has ment many awesome custom games.

Just had a hour of Classic Zombies so much fun tho some guy was weirdly restricted from custom maps so we gave him shit for having parental settings on :D
 
LukeSmith said:
"I'm a thief, but I keep what I steal."
Click to expand...

AHhhhhhhh yes that's right. Playing through the game a second time and talking with other people has really made the Story much more enjoyable (even more so, that is)
 
Rodeo Clown said:
None of my games since Thursday have been posted. I take it everyone is experiencing this?
Click to expand...

Quite a few people here are yes, though i did get 2 games from today appear on my record, but nothing else from the last 3 days yet.
 
SweetTea023 said:
AHhhhhhhh yes that's right. Playing through the game a second time and talking with other people has really made the Story much more enjoyable (even more so, that is)
Click to expand...
The story in Halo 3 is pretty good addition to the Halo universe.

However, as a physicists and a nitpicker, the impossibility of the Ark bugs me to no end. I like the Ringworld and Dyson sphere ideas since they are physically possible (kind of); the Ark does not fit into the same category. How is the atmosphere able to stay on the Ark? How is there even gravity on the Ark? True, it can be explained away with some super advanced technology, but I like the Ringworld and Dyson sphere since they're believable.
(Ghost of Onyx and Halo 3 spoilers)

Yes, I realize I'm talking about a Universe that has things like Slipspace, but I can still have these crazy views.
 
Rodeo Clown said:
None of my games since Thursday have been posted. I take it everyone is experiencing this?
Click to expand...

Yep...

Bungie.net has not updated for me since a game on 10/4 at 9:52 pm western time.

Since people have been getting games played today posted to the website, me thinks there is going to be about a 50-60 hour period of lost stats. Good job Bungie!!!
 
siamesedreamer said:
Since people have been getting games played today posted to the website, me thinks there is going to be about a 50-60 hour period of lost stats. Good job Bungie!!!
Click to expand...

I hope that they aren't permenantly gone otherwise I'll be a sad panda :( I played mp like hell this weekend, there are probably something like 30 matches lost for me.

Also: even though matches are appearing now, the campaign tracking is still fucked for me. I've played through half of the campaign on heroic today and it's not showing up. Crappedy crap.
 
vumpler said:
By chance can anyone link to someones complete type out of the complete Halo 3 story? I thought I saw someone post this or say it was there somewhere. I saw someone type out an indepth full explanation and summary of the Bioshock story in the Bioshock thread and it really tied everything together for me even better than the game did. Some people can really get every ounce out of what the game is trying to portray and others like myself can't fully appreciate all the underlying story with just the game itself. It kind of needs to be fully spelled out.

I would like to read it from start to finish everything from what exactly Cortana was talking about half the time at the beginning? Why she seemed completely psycho and off the wall with so many statements? Basically just a full written up short story of the game I've beaten 5 times :lol Maybe even an over dramatized version.
Click to expand...

Quoting for new page since there are more than once thought looking for this.
 
LOLl i cant believe i got this
30mvcjc.jpg
 
that's bungie favorites material. Some of the vids there are incredible. Did you guys see the one where a dude sends a plasma flying, hits the air vent in The Pit and sticks to someone? In fuckin credible. Or the guy who got 4 kills off one splazer shot (the entire ctf team dead :lol )
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Halo 3 Main Theme - The Bands of HM Royal Marines
5
62
Ceadeus replied
Rebs Gaming: Halo 2 & 3 Remakes Are In Development
40
966
Arachnid replied
The Witcher 3: Project R.O.A.C.H. Official Trailer
News Trailer 
7
379
analog_future replied
Halo and Silent Hill 3 Decomps in the Works!
Trailer Platform 
3
379
Gitaroo replied
$1000 console? I'm out. official boycott thread
3 4 5 6 7
323
4K
Sethbacca replied
Top Bottom