Relevant Level Data Here
The Skull spawns when the following events occur;
Johnson finishes saying "Don't worry, I'll hold his hand."
Johnson has walked into the volume inside of the Elevator
While player is not inside of the Elevator volume
Adds 8 seconds to the timer *[4 for non-H2C]
Starts counting down timer (to continue to the next step)
--
Johnson finishes saying "C'mon, Chief, they're ready for us on the bridge."
Adds 8 seconds to the timer *[4 for non-H2C]
--
Johnson finishes saying "Get on the lift, Cheif, we're gonna be late."
Adds 52 seconds to the timer *[26 for non-H2C]
--
Johnson finishes saying "I don't want to keep the Brass waiting, Chief."
Adds 52 seconds to the timer *[26 for non-H2C]
--
Johnson finishes saying "Fine. you can tell Lord Hood why we're late!"
Adds 72 seconds to the timer *[36 for non-H2C]
--
Johnson finishes saying "Get your shiny green posterior on this elevator!"
Adds 72 seconds to the timer *[36 for non-H2C]
--
Johnson finishes saying "Would it help if I said please?"
{Adds 86 seconds to the timer, but there's no need to wait any more? *[43 for non-H2C]}
Marks Skull as okay to spawn
Checks that it is Legendary first
Spawns Weapon 'cookiesncream' [The Skull]
Waits until Player has a Skull Weapon
Activates Skull
In total, with about 7 seconds of dialog and 264 seconds of scripted waiting, it takes about 271 seconds, or 4 minutes, 31 seconds *[For non-H2C it's about 139 seconds, or 2 minutes 19 seconds. You can find out why here.] from the second Johnson crosses the threshold into the Elevator, to when the Skull is spawned.
Placeholder for Elevator picture
Placeholder for Skull picture
343i have put 'Increases enemy awareness of player.' as the description of what the Skull does in MCC. That does describe what the Skull technically does, but doesn't exactly explain what that means.
The best description I've ever found of what the Skull does is from Kornman00 (Halo Engine Reverse-Engineering Jesus) here, where he explains that it just sets all of the game engine sounds 'volume' to be Loud, so that even the quietest noise you generate, to the AI, is heard as loudly as an exploding grenade. This is why they notice you more quickly.
Now, ever since this Skull was found, there has been confusion with what its name actually is, as in H2C it doesn't flash text when you pick it up like the other Skulls do. Luckily in MCC, 343 have finally put a name on it, 'That's Just...Wrong', to put that confusion to rest. I am not convinced though, after looking at the evidence, that Bungie had actually intended its name to be 'That's Just...Wrong'. That is why I've been referring to is as just 'Skull'.
Here are some strings I got from looking inside the H2V mainmenu.map file in a Hex Editor;
0xEA5B5D-0xEA5C04
Envy|Grunt Birthday Party|Assassins|Thunderstorm|Famine|I Would Have Been Your Daddy|Blind|Ghost|Black Eye|Catch|Sputnik|Iron|Mythic|Angry|Cow Bell|That’s Just... Wrong
0xEB437A-0xEB45F0
Envy|Grunt Birthday Party|Assassins|Thunderstorm|Famine|I Would Have Been Your Daddy|Blind|Ghost|Black Eye|Catch|Sputnik|Ice Cream|Mythic|Angry|Whuppopotamus|ASSASSINS|JUGGERNAUT|NOSFERATU|SAY WHAT?|HUDLESS|DISEMBODIED SOUL|MAKEOVER|Watch your back, the Covenant are having a sale on Active Camo.|Brace yourself for baddies with overshields and boomsticks.|Sure you’re tough, but now you must suck to survive.|Be poised if other emotional scenes tend to errupt.|Go commando! Clear your screen of pesky status indicators.|Experience the miserable existence of the Disembodied Soul.|Who says the Masterchief always has to wear green?|
0xEE559C-0xEE5658 [German]
Neid|Grunt-Geburtstagsparty|Meuchelmˆ¶rder|Gewitter|Hungersnot|Ich wˆ⁄re dein Vater gewesen|Blind|Geist|Blaues Auge|Haken|Sputnik|Eisen|Mystisch|Wˆ…tend|Kuhglocke|Das ist einfach ... falsch
0xF25A67-0xF25B09 [Spanish]
Envy|Grunt Birthday Party|Assassins|Thunderstorm|Famine|Podrˆ›a haber sido tu papˆ¡|Blind|Ghost|Black Eye|Catch|Sputnik|Iron|Mythic|Angry|Cow Bell|Eso estˆ¡... mal
Some things to take note of;
- 3/4 of them have 16 Skulls, not just the 15 (14 named + 1 unnamed) that are in the game
- The Skulls not displayed in-game for each set are;
- 2: Cow Bell|That’s Just... Wrong
- 1: Whuppopotamus
- 2: Kuhglocke|Das ist einfach ... falsch [Translates to 'Cow Bell|That’s Just... Wrong']
- 2: Cow Bell|Eso estˆ¡... mal [Translates to 'Cow Bell|That is... wrong']
Before everybody decided to call it 'That’s Just... Wrong', it was known first as 'Whuppopotamus'. This seemed logical, because that 2nd set of strings contains 15 Skull names; 15 names for the 15 Skulls.
'Whuppopotamus' isn't included in the translations though, so it couldn't realistically be that.
The name of the Skull weapon that the script spawns, is 'cookiesncream'. But that is the only place it's referred to as that.
Out of the remaining 2 Skull names, I firmly believe that 'Cow Bell', NOT 'That’s Just... Wrong', is what the name was originally meant to be.
It makes perfect sense;
- Cow Bells are used on livestock to make them easier to track down if they wander off, by amplifying their smaller neck movements into loud bell rings.
- This is exactly what the Skull does
- There are translations for that name
- 'That’s Just... Wrong' name doesn't really make much sense for it
However, there are 3 good arguments you could take against this name;
- That Kornman00 himself referred to it as 'That’s Just... Wrong'
- He might have been mistaken, following the same logic other people did, or perhaps there was a typo in the game code
- That 343 Industries named it 'That’s Just... Wrong'
- They might have been mistaken, following the same logic other people did, or perhaps there was a typo in the game code
- Bungie changed the name of 'Sputnik' into 'Cow Bell' in Halo 3, and it's stuck since
- They.. well, this one's harder to refute. But, the 'Cow Bell' name still doesn't make a ton of sense for what the 'Sputnik' Skull does (Amplifying explosions? Doesn't seem very Cow-Bell-ey). Maybe they were mistaken too? ¯ \ _ (ツ) _ / ¯
But reguardless;