I duly purchased and installed the update only to find that the “search” only looked at product titles, meaning that all the description text, additional description text and meta tags were being ignored.   Looking around it appears I wasn’t the only person who needed this functionality and I was able to get hold of some code to change in gold_shopping_cart.php. I still didn’t get the results I was expecting so after checking out the Database table structure I went from

$category_list = $wpdb->get_col("SELECT `id` FROM `".WPSC_TABLE_PRODUCT_CATEGORIES."` WHERE `name` LIKE '".$search_string_title."'");

to

$category_list = $wpdb->get_col("SELECT id FROM `".WPSC_TABLE_PRODUCT_LIST."` WHERE name LIKE '".$search_string_title."' OR description LIKE '".$search_string_title."' OR additional_description LIKE '".$search_string_title."'");

Notice the change in the table being searched. The original code I found still looked in the WPSC_TABLE_PRODUCT_CATEGORIES table but this does not contain the additional_description field, an oversight on the original modders part.

Yet I still wasn’t getting the expected results. A quick count of the $category_list array showed I was getting results but they were getting filtered out further on in the function by this little check:

if($category_list != null) {
				$category_assoc_list = $wpdb->get_col("SELECT DISTINCT `product_id` FROM `".WPSC_TABLE_ITEM_CATEGORY_ASSOC."` WHERE `category_id` IN ('".implode("', '", $category_list)."')");
				$category_sql = "OR `".WPSC_TABLE_PRODUCT_LIST."`.`id` IN ('".implode("', '", $category_assoc_list)."')";
      }

Remember that I’m now searching products directly and the above code is looking to match the products unique ID against a category ID, clearly this will fail on 99% of searches. A quick change to the search criteria is all that was needed to return valid results:

if($category_list != null) {
				$category_assoc_list = $wpdb->get_col("SELECT DISTINCT `product_id` FROM `".WPSC_TABLE_ITEM_CATEGORY_ASSOC."` WHERE `product_id` IN ('".implode("', '", $category_list)."')");
				$category_sql = "OR `".WPSC_TABLE_PRODUCT_LIST."`.`id` IN ('".implode("', '", $category_assoc_list)."')";
      }

With that completed I looked at adding a separate search interface and came across WP e-Commerce Search Widget, a handy bit of code but unfortunately it doesn’t appear to be compatible with the latest version of WP e-Commerce so I had to quickly update

<form method='GET' name='product_search' id="productsearchform" action="<?php bloginfo('home');  ?>/">

to

<form method='GET' name='product_search' id="productsearchform" action="<?php bloginfo('home');  ?>/products-page/">

WP e-Commerce is a lot of work, especially considering you have to pay $50 just to get basic functionality and then hack in the desired features. Lets hope the checkout refresh bug doesn’t hit again….

They’ve wrapped it up nicely in this Youtube video which servers as both a demonstration and tutorial.

For detailed information on how to repeat it and how it works check out their discussion forum and get “bumping”!

In comparison to the fully loaded sector when the door is missing the following applies:

3 areas used as the SI supply drops are now open (not just the 1 originally discovered).
The grunts and turrets are not loaded in one of the circular areas.
Adverts for cars are missing from the walls.
Various items are not loaded such as the Opticon health dispensers and stand alone terminals (such as the one near the shotgun).

So it’s a case of good work on finding a glitch, now can we do this on other sectors to access even more areas that should be blocked off?

JSM26 has uploaded an ODST video to his Bungie.net file share showing missing Opticon dispensers and de-loaded doors in the starting sector. Further evidence that the ODST modified Halo 3 engine has glitches, possibly exploitable to access other blocked off areas the designers never wanted us to get to…

I’m sad to say that  the doors disappear from what appears to be a loading glitch, not from looking at any glyphs. Here’s how I determined this, I encourage you to try this to replicate the results:

Having completed the game I loaded up New Mombasa Streets,  immediately got myself a mongoose and headed to Sector 8 to check on the door.  At this point I should point out that at no time after getting the mongoose did I have the visor on. The door was closed as expected.
I then drove over to Sector 6 and without turning on my visor walked up to the covenant sniper rifle next to the Elites, picked it up and got back on my mongoose (parked near to the Sector exit). I then drove immediately back to the door which was now open with no glyphs sighted.

If you look at a map you’ll see that Sector 8 is actually a twisted mirror of Sector 3 and if you look closely you’ll see that Sector 3 also has a room with funny tiles on it matching the location and design of the one in Sector 8. If you go to this area you’ll immediately feel at home and easily spot the Security door as placed in a mirror fashion to the one in Sector 8. This door opens…

So, it’s my belief that this is just fall out to the way the game engine loads the levels and nothing at all to do with the glyphs, it’s just coincidence that they are located in the area you need to go to de-load the doors.

Certain glyphs lead you to keys areas so for me it’s pretty clear that the glyphs are there for player guidance and to add an air of mystery. Give it it a go, try the experiment above and let me know your results.

I’m not sure if I will be updating the app to support the new layout, I’ll have to see how inspired I am with the release of ODST…;)

Avatar props:
They’ve missed the crucial factor here, impulse purchasing. Every thing’s priced too high, prices should range from 20G to 100G, if it were I’d have probably spent 800G this morning alone, but as it is I’ve bought nothing. I’m not spending 320G on a remote control warthog that can only be seen on the dash, that’s almost half the price of a game!
Stan’s Outfit should be 1 purchase, you shouldn’t have to buy the hat separately.
I’ll be sticking to the freebies from games for a while until something that really appeals to my impulsive side turns up.

Dash speed:
Yup, it’s true, the dash feels almost as responsive as the USA one did! I was able to queue up 4 episodes of the guild in the time it would have previously taken to queue up a single episode. I’m hoping that this responsiveness continues into the guide when you’re in game, I’ve nearly thrown my controller around the room before whilst waiting over 2 minutes for the guide to load up at a crucial part of an online game

The other stuff:

It’s all fluff apart from that. I don’t need to tweak my display options, date stamps on saves are very useful but I rarely do anything with my saves as it is. The change to my gamercard is very nice but I can live without it, as can most others I expect. The achievement browser is a useful indication of how few games I have 100% whored, I wish they’d taken this further showing games with easy achievements to reach, links to guides and strategies and the like. Could have been a great cross promotional effort with IGN, as it is it’s just a nice bit of fluff.

It’s good, but it doesn’t have any of the exciting features such as Last.fm, Sky integration and the other cool features we’ve been promised at E3. Still, nice to be on the first wave I guess

1 vs 100 UK launch

Might try it an hour or so before the live show when they might be accepting connections

To assist users old and new I’ve knocked up a quick Halo 3 Asset-O-Matic FAQ, this will be updated as and when information becomes pertinent. If you’re struggling to figure something out and it’s not on the FAQ feel free to leave a comment so I can answer your question and add it to the FAQ if appropriate

What happened to Beta 3 you may ask. Well Bungie made a few changes in between me completing Beta 3 and actually finding time to upload it. By that time it no longer worked.

So, what you have in your metaphysical hands is Beta 4, it’s just like Beta 3 but it works!

The changes are:

*You can now search Matchmaking or Custom games

*You can now go directly to the files instead of the match details

*It is significantly faster (think 5 minutes to search over 2500+ matches..)

*Templates are working (sorta, no word wrapping enabled and no way to clear the output box). This allows you to enter some text in the top section, hit a button and have your text repeated with the following tokens replaced by data from the currently loaded database: %SCREENS%, %CLIPS%, %GAMEID% (used for linking directly to the game), %GAMETYPE%, %GAMEDATETIME% and %MAP%

Alas, Campaign searching did not make it in. I wrote half the code and then realised it needs a whole new DB format to support the relevent information found for a Campaign record. I will add support once my busy work life allows.

Databases from previous versions are not compatible with this new release. A fresh search is always preferred in this house

Give it a try yourself, tell your friends! Download the Halo 3 Asset-O-Matic Beta 4 today!

(Feedback is always appreciated folks! )