How the actions of a few jerks can disgrace and vilify many never ceases to amaze me. I suppose I should not be surprised by it anymore, nor should I expect any better, but that little speck of hope gets me every time. Such incidents are always unfortunate, but when they happen in one’s own community – against the company the community exists for, no less – that is simply disheartening.

Identity Crisis

With the limited release of the Halo 3 public beta on May 11th and the larger-scale release on May 16th, Halo fans everywhere salivated – Pavlovian style. There are three kinds of Halo fans: players, modders, and cheaters. Since cheaters suck and maintain an intelligence level lower than the average household pet, we will ignore their existence in the context of this situation. That leaves the former two: players and modders; modders are players who simply enjoy exploration outside of the game, as well as in the game.

While players find themselves waiting to get into the game and play for days on end, the life of a modder is not so simple, for it must be split between ample play-time and a fair amount of exploration-time. For those of us who have been exploring the inner-workings of the Halo series since Halo 1, there is nothing more exciting than the opportunity to have a thorough look into how the maps in the latest game work, how they have changed, etc. Personally, I was rummaging through the maps as soon as I got my hands on the files, looking for what was familiar and what was foreign.

Hands of Time

Before proceeding, a quick history lesson is in order for the uninitiated. When Halo 1 shipped, the map files contained references to two weapons that were planned for but not playable in the game. When Halo 1 PC shipped, its maps referenced an entire level that did not make it into the game. When Halo 2 shipped, it too contained references to assets that were planned but not included in usable form. When Halo 2 PC ships, it will likely reference missing content.

Who is seeing a pattern here? The fact is, most games ship with references to such assets, as there is often little need to clean them for performance reasons and even identifying or removing them may be difficult to do in the developer’s content management pipeline. Another astounding fact to note is that all of the above details were discovered after each game shipped or assumed (not known) for to-be-shipped games.

Wow, He’s So Cool

Back in the present, the release of the Halo 3 public beta and inherent release of the Halo 3 map files means curious modders satisfied their explorative urges the best way they knew how, by exploring. That is natural, that is healthy, and that is expected. However, good judgment is also expected, but seems to have been poorly exercised by some metaphorically obese modders. It does not really matter whether lack of discretion was a result of ignorance or motivated by hunger for attention, it was sloppy and unacceptable behavior.

Over the past few days I have watched numerous sites report on “new leaked information” about Halo 3 that “modders obtained by hacking the beta source code”. Besides the abhorrent sensationalism (or, potentially, ignorance), irresponsible reporting, and technical fallacies of such claims, what was most disturbing and annoying was the fact that the Halomods forums were cited as the source of such “information”.

The thread in question was promptly cleaned – four days ago – because responsible modders happen to also be moderators on the forums; unfortunately, the cleaning occurred after a few outsiders got the wrong idea about the information. However, beyond that, I personally expected more from the Halomods community; Halomods is the HaloDev team’s origin, it is something many of us were a part of for a long while, not to mention its founder is one of the original HaloDev team members. There are other Halo modding sites I would have expected this from, but not Halomods.

The Scolding

The actions that took place four days ago in that thread are, quite certainly, the most irresponsible and pathetic expressions of modding I have ever seen – besides cheating.

As a modder, there is absolutely no justification for the spread of such information to anyone, at least not when you have the slightest sliver of respect for the company behind the game series you enjoy exploring so much. Did you find something cool that may, potentially, make it into the final game, but is currently unannounced? That’s great, keep it to yourself. If you do not, outsiders who do not understand what it means for something to be a remnant string will misconstrue it.

Wait a second, am I not being hypocritical? Just a few sections ago I mentioned a few examples of what did not make it into various Halo games of the past; does that not mean I am doing the same? No, it does not. As was highlighted at the time, all examples were discovered after the games had been publicly released, in final form. In the case of the Halo 3 information, it is from a beta, it is not done, and it is more likely to reference material that will not make it into the final game. Halfway through the previous sentence is when common sense should have kicked in.

As a result of hit-loving news sites, some players who have stumbled upon the information will have the impression that Halo 3 is “missing” content or features when it ships at the end of September, because irresponsible modders set their expectations. There is a reason that game developers – and more generally, software developers – choose to trickle out information at a slow pace; they know what they want to put in their product but they do not know what will make the final cut. For Bungie, their right to trickle out information has been disrupted by the bad judgment of an outside source.

In short, those who have expressed bad judgment in this situation are a disgrace to the Halo modding community as a whole, have disrespected the company they owe their utmost respect to, and are no longer welcome members of the Halo modding community.