Modding

Modding is a way of changing the appearance and gameplay of a game by manipulating its base coding. This can vary from changing colors of a character to re-making a map or weapons, such as in Halo 2. Using the mods can significantly alter the processes of a game. As modding is sometimes used for cheating, it is not allowed on Xbox Live and the use of a modded Xbox on Xbox Live will result in a terminated account.
Modding games on personal computers is sometimes officially supported when not used to assist in cheating, unlike on consoles in which modding while online is usually immediate grounds for a major ban. Halo Custom Edition, an expansion of Halo PC created by Gearbox Software, was designed to allow and support modding, such as adding custom maps, and Gearbox Software has released tools such as the Halo Editing Kit to assist in creating modded content. Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC has a mode which disables the anti-cheat system, intended to allow players to play on modded servers with modified content, though this also disables the ability to play on official servers.
==Types of Modding==
There are many reasons users use mods. Mods were intended to create additional enjoyment for games, such as adding brand new maps, weapons, and mechanics for more gameplay variety. Some use them merely to assist in cheating, which is considered unacceptable, both officially by Bungie/Microsoft/343 Industries and by gamers in general, when it is used to gain an unfair advantage in multiplayer matches or other competitive challenges. Some may use mods to increase challenge in gameplay past what a game may provide.
===Modding for Cheating===
Most modders are legitimate players and do not cheat. These individuals discourage the general public from referring to cheaters as modders, rather hackers, and mods used to cheat as mods, rather game hacks or cheating tools. There are also cheaters that don't use game mods to gain an advantage.
Modding can add weapons, turn weapons that are single-wielded into dual-wielded weapons, such as the Covenant Energy Sword, can make a player jump incredible distances and in some cases, break the game or map barrier. These types of mods may be used by cheaters to gain an unfair advantage.
Modding only affects other network players if the modder is the host; for example, if the Assault rifle is modded by the host of the game to shoot tank rounds or sniper bullets, the players can shoot out only sniper bullets and tank rounds. However, if the non-host player has a modded map that shoots out tank rounds when he shoots, it will appear to him as he's shooting tank rounds, but it has no function - everyone else shoots normally, and everyone else takes normal damage.
Mods used for cheating can do the following things and more:
*Increased speed, ammunition, damage output, or health or damage resistance.
*Making all hits count as headshots.
*Making actions such as kills count towards badges that shouldn't count according to the base game.
*Changing a character's meta-data.
*Playing as any character (examples include Grunts, Elites, Hunters).
*Taking control of other players, or vehicles or weapons out of the intended context.
*Making enemies your allies, either by changing teams of players in the match where the player is not supposed to be able to (such as a matchmaking match or a custom match where someone else is the party leader), or some other method.
*The introduction of elements into maps where they weren't intended, such as AIs into multiplayer maps, extra vehicles, or weapons such as sniper rifles and rocket launchers.
*Modifying map textures to make it easier to see enemies.
*Cloning yourself.
*The creation of new weapons and vehicles.
*The modification of weapons and vehicles (e.g. combining two different vehicles to create a new one with both vehicles' characteristics, forcing grounded vehicles to fly, or turning Shotgun ammunition into a spray of Wraith plasma mortar).
*Making undrivable vehicles drivable (Pelicans, Longswords, Phantoms, etc.)
*Modifying collisions host side so that the collisions on unmodded players don't match the terrain they're seeing, and possibly make it seem as if they're falling through the floor.
*Changing the physics on a map or player to make players lightweight or super-dense.
*Forcing a player to spawn with power weapons such as sniper rifles and rocket launchers, and/or forcing others to spawn with incorrect and inferior weapons or even no weapons.
*Replacing or dropping the weapons of a player.
*Creation of energy barriers or flying turrets.
*Adding an overlay to the game that reveals the placement of enemies even through walls (called a wall-hack).
*Adding an auto-lock on that aims towards enemies without user input (called an aim-bot).
*Causing other player's bullets to miss, either by corrupting their trajectory, or implementing a reverse aim-bot on others, making them automatically aim away from enemies when they try to aim towards players.
*Making certain players have infinite ammo, or blanking the current magazine of an offending player.
*Changing gamertags or player names during a match. While you may be able to do it legally during a match on some services, doing it to other players against their will is cheating.
*Kicking other players out in matches where the player is not supposed to be able to (such as a ranked or social matchmaking match, or a custom match where someone else is the party leader), either by using the game feature to kick players out, or by blocking network packets from the offending player until they lose connection and are ejected from the game by the server itself.
*Causing other players' games or systems to crash, removing them from the match.
*Getting other players banned due to abusing mods to kick others from a match repeatedly, injecting bannable mods into their games, or somehow directly banning them. Similarly, their games can be rendered unplayable with corrupted save data or damaged game data.
*Using vulnerabilities in the game code to force unwanted software on others.
All of these mods are used to give the "modder" an edge in gameplay, or to preform malicious actions on other normal players. Not all of the above types of mods are used by cheaters. Usually only the least conspicuous cheat mods such as wall hacks and aim-bots are used, to try and stay undetected, though even these are detected most of the time and result in a ban on Xbox Live. However, some cheaters are also griefers and target high profile targets such as ranked match players and live streamers, usually with more severe mod attacks such as bans and annoying gameplay modifications such as dropped weapons and lost ammo.
Detected use of these kinds of mods will quickly result in bans on Xbox Live, as cheating and using mods on Xbox Live are bannable offenses. In addition, such mods may quickly result in a ban on PC games with anti-cheat software, such as Halo: The Master Chief Collection, if detected by the software. Mods may be required on PC to implement custom game modes or custom maps, so the Halo PC games allow for launching without anti-cheat software enabled, though this disables access to official servers. Most servers also have a rule against cheating, so bans can still be gotten on specific servers if using mods to gain unfair advantages. Using mods to cheat is more prevalent on PC due to the open nature of PC software and hardware.
The modder can only use a lot of the mods if he/she is the host of the game. Often, modders are in a party with a "bridger" or a "stand-byer." The bridger uses a program on the computer which interacts with other players' routers and Xboxes to make a modder or anyone else host of the game. This is effective in the process of "leveling-up." This is when gamers join a modder's game to get their level boosted up, as the modder is almost unstoppable. Stand-byers use many techniques to freeze other gamers games, like disconnecting from Xbox Live. When a stand-byer is successful, other gamers either get the dreaded "blue screen" or they get a similar black screen. Everyone but the stand-byer gets this. This allows the stand-byer to run around the map and kill all opponents. This is effective, but illegal on Xbox Live, as are all mods.
===Modding for Increased Enjoyment===
Usually, players mod for fun by making the mods on the maps able to be used by everybody in the game. This is what modding was originally intended for: fun and messing around. Often modders make a map with a theme, such as a snowy version of a normal map, a nighttime version of a normal map, a SWAT-type map, or anything you can imagine. Some mods add player models from a Campaign map to a Multiplayer Map, including Heretic Elites, ODSTs etc. Sometimes people make mods just to see what kind of new and innovative things they can do such as "Active Scenery" which allows objects, like Pelican Dropships, to move around the map without AI or anyone controlling it. Examples of Bungie using active scenery include the Train on Terminal, 2401 Penitent Tangent on Backwash, or the Monitor on Cold Storage. Some mods change the HUD and GUI appearance to a different, unique design, or a design that more closely matches a different game in the series.
Modding isn't limited to the Xbox. Halo PC's modding potential is much greater than the ones from the console, given the right tools, and Halo Custom Edition even encourages user-created maps. Many popular maps available for Halo Custom Edition are Yoyorast Island, which is basically a twisty racecourse, Extinction, a very large map set between a large UNSC ship resembling the Pillar of Autumn and a large crashed ship resembling a Covenant ship, and Coldsnap, another very large outdoors map that relies mainly on vehicular combat.
Some also mod to make nice screenshots like those seen at Halouvre or even to create machinima.
It should be noted, however, that this type of modding can still result in a ban from matchmaking, and is still considered illegal by Xbox Live, although Bungie doesn't appear to mind it as long as the modder does not go onto Xbox Live.
===Modding for a Challenge===
Some players may look for an increased level of challenge past what the default difficulty settings can provide. Mods can add additional challenges for the campaign mode, such as the following:
*Turn allies into enemies.
*Change the type of enemy (Grunts to Hunters, Elites to Prophets, etc.).
*Make new standard weapons (Enforcer Needler, Scarab Gun, Prophet Beam, etc.).
*Make enemy vehicles appear in different levels.
*Increasing enemy forces.
*Creating new compound vehicles by "welding" two or more existing vehicles together.
*New, more challenging single player levels.
==Consequences for Modding==
Any use of mods on Xbox Live is in violation of the Xbox Live Code of Conduct and will get a modder's account banned from all matchmaking games. Even outside of the context of Xbox Live, using mods to gain an unfair advantage in competitive events or online servers will usually result in bans due to cheating in challenges being considered dishonorable.
Cheating by mods has become such a widespread problem in the Matchmaking system that Bungie was forced to resolve the problem by releasing auto-updates which ban hackers from the system and terminate their accounts. Bungie has banned thousands of players and is working to clean up the rest, earning the moniker "Banhammer" in the process. Several sites offer a list of cheaters and hackers.
Although there used to be several ways to mod, Microsoft, Bungie, and 343 Industries have collaborated to rectify the programming mistakes and prevent the Halo games from being modded as easily. They are also reinforcing much stricter punishments for cheaters, such as instant bans and longer suspensions.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection on PC has an anti-cheat system intended to catch and ban users who use mods such as aim-bots and wall-hacks automatically, as mods on PC are much easier to install due to the open nature of personal computers compared to the lock down of Xbox consoles.
==Softmods and Hardmods==
PC is much easier to mod games for due to the open nature of the platform, while Xbox consoles need exploits or hardware modifications to mod. Contrary to common belief, getting a chip installed in your Xbox is not the only way to have mods. Many popular mods are retrieved through what is called "soft" modding.
*Soft modding does not require a chip; it is done through a special file and an Action Replay.
*"Hard" mods are done by acquiring a special chip and installing it on to your Xbox.
==Game Crashing==
PC programs, such as Halo PC and Halo 2 for Windows Vista, default to crashing when running into an unhandled exception, or an error that the code was not developed to specifically handle as a special case. Of course, bugs in the code itself or hardware malfunctions can cause exception crashes, but mods add their own code on top of the game, increasing the code complexity, and thus room for exceptions and crashes.
For example, some mods require a Level restart, or the game will have an Exception Error and crash.
In Halo PC, game crashing usually leads to a Window showing, "Gathering Exception Data" which means the game had crashed through an uncalled-for mod, or a physics glitch, while in Halo 2 Vista, the game does not show the window. Instead, it will automatically close, which some claim is an exception.
==Halo PC Mods==
Halo PC by Gearbox Software has an expansion pack in Halo Custom Edition which introduces support for custom, modded maps and other modified content.
An example of a Meta Tag modding program is Halo Map Tools, or the more supported, advanced Eschaton. 
Existing modding programs examples are SparkEdit, or SwordEdit as the Mac equivalent is named, and DotHalo. DotHalo is viewed via winzip for certain computers.
===Demo Modding===
Modding maps in the Demo/Trial version of Halo: Combat Evolved is also possible, although there are a few differences:
*Limitations: by default, gametypes are Slayer/CTF only, and available levels are The Silent Cartographer (SP)/Blood Gulch (MP) only. Through file conversions, one can get full version maps and levels to work with the demo.
The Demo does come with every gametype, however. You can access them by replacing the Slayer/CTF file with the file of the gametype you want. The header is scrambled, and the magic used in its monolithic structure has a difference of exactly 0xBAD0000 from the retail version. There are applications which allow for the conversion of retail/CE maps to usable Demo maps, which expand the game too far more than the stock Silent Cartographer and Blood Gulch, but they are considered illegal and are therefore shunned by a portion of the modding community.
===Halo PC Machinima===
Through modding, it is possible to make it easier and more practical to film machinima. Since certain applications (e.g., Eschaton) allow weapons to be tweaked, it is possible to remove the heads-up-display and give the weapon certain traits that make it more useful as a "camera" to film with. When effects such as lighting are boosted, the dramatic effect is also raised, especially when used on dark maps.
==Halo 3 Mods==
Like Halo 2, and Halo: Combat Evolved before it, Halo 3 has already gained some notable mods, provided by community members unaffiliated with Bungie or Microsoft. Though not always used for cheating or providing one player or team an advantage, the use of modded content on Xbox Live in any regard is still considered illegal and can result in a ban. 
The biggest change with Halo 3 is the ability to share modded content via File Share making anybody without any modding experience able to play with or view the modded content.
===Map mods===
Currently, the only way to mod maps by introducing new default maps or modifying existing map terrain and layout is to either have a dev kit which requires some files or to hardmod your 360 and patch some files. Map mods for Halo 3 are like Halo 2, allowing anything to be done to the map that is discovered at the moment, or that you can do in a hex editor or modding program.
Most of these maps are hard drive maps such as Containment or Terminal. It is possible to modify the maps on the game disk, but it is a very hard process and may break your DVD drive. The easier way is to copy the game to the Xbox hard drive, but you won't be able to play on Xbox Live with them.
===Map Variant mods===
Mods allow custom map variants to include removed material from the Halo 3 Epsilon build such as Deployable lookout towers, Shade turrets and Vehicles like Hornets and Banshees on Narrows and Warthogs on The Pit. Mods also allow objects that can't be forged such as the Elephants on Sandtrap to be duplicated. Additionally, they allow objective melee weapons such as bombs, skulls, and flags to be used without playing that gametype. 
It is also possible to place object out of the map boundaries, but this less impressive because it can also be done using glitches. Modders can also add effects, such as a Holographic Ark on Guardian or other items. Some mods can also add Gauss Turrets to the map.
Note: Modded content on a map will disappear when a new round in started or when the map variant is saved as a new variant, with a few exceptions.
===Gametype mods===
Gametype modifications allow changes to certain settings in gametypes. Bungie used enumerated values for Halo 3's Gametypes, so most of the settings are only the ones available from the beginning. There are some settings stored as integer values, for example:
#Respawn Time
#Return Time
#Sudden Death Time
#Captures per Round
#Reset Time
Most other values are accessed in a "list' fashion, which removes many purposes from creating specialized modding tools to edit settings in the main menu. One exception to this is the Primary and Secondary weapons, which have entries enumerated that are not usually accessible to the player. Setting these values produces a blank text in the main menu, but a functional weapon in-game. If the current map does not have a selected weapon, the default (Assault rifle) is loaded. The list of weapons that can be specified are as follows:
#Battle Rifle
#Assault rifle
#Plasma Pistol
#Spiker
#SMG
#Carbine
#Energy Sword
#Magnum
#Needler
#Plasma Rifle
#Rocket Launcher
#Shotgun
#Sniper Rifle
#Brute Shot
#Depleted Sword
#Beam Rifle
#Spartan Laser
#No Weapon
#Gravity Hammer
#Mauler
#Flame Thrower
#Missile Pod
Gametypes also have the .blf (Blam File Header/Blam Library Format) header, which stores information such as Variant Name, Variant Author, and Variant Description. These fields may be edited to anything, including censored terms, and displayed in the menu. It can become difficult for the original author or any information about the file to be verified locally.
===Video and Screenshot mods===
With the help of modding, player armor in Film Clip and Recorded Games can be changed to whatever the player wants, even Recon and Bungie Armor. It is possible to share modded map variants and gametype variant without being banned through a modding trick: Recorded Games store the gametype variant and the map variant information and you can extract these and videos of mods (not modded videos) on File Share will not get you banned.
With modding, it is also possible to replace Screenshots with other pictures such as pictures you take with your camera.
===Weapon Mods===
With modding, players can change what their weapons do and whether they're duel-wieldable or not. Modders can make (For example) Needlers shoot Fusion coils and Confetti. Other mods are Plasma Cannons that shoot Plasma Grenades or Frags. Though some weapon mods don't make the weapon shoot something that isn't supposed to be shot. Some mods include making Turrets shoot the beam from a Sentinel Beam. But as said above, other Weapon Mods can make weapons duel-wieldable. Such as duel-wielding 2 Turrets, 2 Rocket Launchers, or even 2 Snipers. Also, some modders can mod so that their weapon shoots faster, such as a Rocket launcher firing at the speed of an Assault rifle.
==Community mods based on Halo==
There is a significant number of community mods for other, non-Halo, games that center around bring the Halo universe to the selected game. These mods generally consist of fans of Halo dedicating time from their lives to bring Halo to games they think it would work well and/or look good in. They are usually total conversion mods, meaning the entire game, the way it functions, the sounds, the visuals, are all changed to suit and follow Halo.
Most operate within Microsoft's content usage rules to avoid persecution and the mod being prematurely shut down, as has happened to several mods. Most also have a disclaimer similar to this: "Halo © Microsoft Corporation. {Mod Name} was created under Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules" using ideas from Halo. It is not endorsed by Microsoft and does not reflect the views or opinions of Microsoft or anyone officially involved in producing or managing Halo. As such, it does not contribute to the official narrative of the fictional universe, if applicable."
A list of community mods, with their name and the game they are for:
*Halo: Fleet Command, Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
*Homefront, Homeworld 2
*Sins of the Prophets, Sins of a Solar Empire
*X3 Covenant Conflict, X3: Terran Conflict
*Covenant at War, Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
*Campaign Commander, Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption
*Evolutions, C&C3: Tiberium Wars
*Zero Hour: Human-Covenant War, C&C Generals: Zero Hour
==Gallery==
ScorpHog.JPG
Needle Ghost.jpg
purplehog1-1.jpg
yellowhog2.jpg
Halo_PC_Banshee_Skin_by_Psysaturn.jpg
Mythos.jpg
Hornet.JPG
Engineers Halo 1.jpg
Red P.jpg
Red PP.jpg
haloreach.png
SpaceBanshee.png
pistolhog.png
zealotpp.png
==Sources==
==External links==
*Why We Mod - A collection of creative mods displayed in a music video.
*http://www.macgamingmods.com - A Modding Website Dedicated to Mac users.RemnantMods - The Last stand of Halo 2 Modding
*http://halodemomods.com/wiki/Main_Page - A wiki mostly containing mods for the Halo Demo/Trial for Windows and Macintosh
*Halomaps.org - Debatably the most popular site dedicated to Halo Custom Edition maps and mods.
Category:Terms and Phrases