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[HTupolev]

What's the current state of the MCC? Still broken? I'm really wanting some Halo in my life right now but I don't know if I wanna spend money on something that won't work.

Tried playing last night, it's still really bad. Our party was being broken up constantly, we had load failures, broken searches still happened occasionally (and perhaps due to low population, search times in general were mediocre), and I even got this beauty.

I honestly liked Reach's graphics (antialiasing solution aside) better than 4s.

Even the AA gets more crap than it deserves IMO. It's a very primitive TAA implementation, perhaps used 1 gen before it should have been, but it does usually correctly detect moving regions and disable blending to avoid ghosting.

Would have been cool to see the results that a regular 2xAA sparse-grid resolve gave, versus their quincunx resolve, though.

Reach felt like a very well realized world and the environments were excellent. Something about Halo 4 just feels off. It's hard to describe but it's almost like everything has this plastic look. Maybe it's the materials idk.

Halo 4's specularity seems to use a lower-quality model than Halo 3's and Reach's, and some dubious texturing (jncluding some spots where things look like they could use normal maps) doesn't help.

Halo 4's crap dynamic lights don't help matters either.

 

[AnonomissX]

Tried playing last night, it's still really bad. Our party was being broken up constantly, we had load failures, broken searches still happened occasionally (and perhaps due to low population, search times in general were mediocre), and I even got this beauty.

(snippage)

They just want to remind you that it costs them money to run Xbox Live. Oh, and that coding is hard!

 

[clav]

Some random thoughts.

I don't like Halo 3 multiplayer. The aiming is stiff. The resolution is whack as I get a headache playing it. I wish there was a Halo 1 + 2/A playlist. Call it classic slayer.

Feel like the one of the large problems in this project was how to make the legacy Xbox party system work with the newer Xbox One party system. That's why we see a lot of issues. The game works right now by pulling everyone into a LAN type scenario like Xbox Connect did and then parse characters/variables in to the game. Also explains why sometimes matchmaking throws everyone into a party and stops searching. The process is extremely buggy.

I think that's why we had 3v4 problems from the start because maybe the system created a server as an imaginary person, but that would affect how the teams were created in the process. Now that most (I suspect all) games are just P2P, this is only a temporary solution. Reintroducing dedicated servers will be another task.

I think one of the issues Halo 2 had was how to fit the name tag into 3 characters. Hence, in older patches, we heard error sounds as the game parsed the clan names of over 3+ characters during the loading screen. UNSC is over 3 characters.

 

[wwm0nkey]

They just want to remind you that it costs them money to run Xbox Live. Oh, and that coding is hard!

Coding is hard, but I don't think we should be seeing a shell command for Find Game lol

 

[SaganIsGOAT]

Yup, if only we had a Custom Games Browser and Matchmaking toggles to play what we want, when we want. You'd see Halo's popularity increase if they focused on that. Imagine being able to see that a pro match is happening on the browser and jumping into it as a spectator? Imagine having a consistent server to join with a group you enjoy being around without tediously searching for people to set up Custom Games?

A CGB is necessary and is the reason why Halo isn't as popular as it could be. Someone call Conor, we'll need him to infiltrate 343 and plant the CGB seed for Halo 6.

So how are these servers that you and your buddies revisit gonna work? Only console game I can think of where this was even feasible was BF3 and BF4 with rented servers that someone was paying for. I guess I'm just confused at what you see as a realistic implementation of this custom game browser. And I still don't think the console community handles server browsers properly.

 

[clav]

So how are these servers that you and your buddies revisit gonna work? Only console game I can think of where this was even feasible was BF3 and BF4 with rented servers that someone was paying for. I guess I'm just confused at what you see as a realistic implementation of this custom game browser. And I still don't think the console community handles server browsers properly.

With Microsoft Azure, the servers aren't on all the time as it is all virtualized. They activate when they are needed.

I think someone mentioned why the packets are coded in IPv6 through IPv4 via Teredo tunneling. Notice this function uses one of the ports that Xbox Live requires you to open.

Don't think the browser method will ever happen until the dedicated server problem is fixed.

 

[HTupolev]

So how are these servers that you and your buddies revisit gonna work? Only console game I can think of where this was even feasible was BF3 and BF4 with rented servers that someone was paying for. I guess I'm just confused at what you see as a realistic implementation of this custom game browser.

I don't see why there's an issue. Having a server to host the browser itself is dirt cheap, so if custom games are peer-to-peer, it really shouldn't be an issue.

Dedis would increase costs, but as they're trying to implement XBLG-funded dedis in MM anyway, they *might* configure them for a system built around a custom game's browser.

 

[clav]

I don't see why there's an issue. Having a server to host the browser itself is dirt cheap, so if custom games are peer-to-peer, it really shouldn't be an issue.

Dedis would increase costs, but as they're trying to implement XBLG-funded dedis in MM anyway, they *might* configure them for a system built around a custom game's browser.

With that method, you would need someone to ping back to the browser server that your game is still active with how many opening spots.

 

[HTupolev]

With that method, you would need someone to ping back to the browser server that your game is still active with how many opening spots.

So?

 

[clav]

So?

Lag.

A better implementation is to create a functional dedi server and have those servers talk to each other while keeping the Windows Azure implementation of activated servers.

 

[SaganIsGOAT]

I'm just thinking back to non Dice run severs in BF3 where the owner set their custom rules. I can't remember how many times you finally find one that looks good with a good population, follow their rules, and get kicked for donging too hard.

 

[HTupolev]

Lag.

A better implementation is to create a functional dedi server and have those servers talk to each other.

Err, what? I think we might be talking about totally different things. I mentioned two possible options:

1-Server to host the custom game browser, to give users a list of peer-to-peer games they can join. The only communications between the browser server and the host would be small and fairly infrequent, so they shouldn't significantly load the host's internet usage.
2-Server to host the custom game browser, and servers to host the games themselves. Same deal as above, except that you have a more powerful host that might be coupled better to the game browser, so definitely not an issue.

I'm confused.

 

[Ramirez]

File custom games browser under the "not happening" pile.

The Halo |OT| Where dreams don't come true

 

[clav]

1-Server to host the custom game browser, to give users a list of peer-to-peer games they can join. The only communications between the browser server and the host would be small and fairly infrequent, so they shouldn't significantly load the host's internet usage.

Your #1 error message would be too many people can't join after the game tries to load. Waste time + energy.

2-Server to host the custom game browser, and servers to host the games themselves. Same deal as above, except that you have a more powerful host that might be coupled better to the game browser, so definitely not an issue.

Halo hasn't solved this yet, so this has to happen first.

The ideal scenario is to strive what Counter-Strike: GO does on PC right now minus running the server 24/7. Hit quick-match. Join game in progress. Game keeps going until everyone drops out, and the server deletes itself.

No more searching multiple times.

Not an easy process since Halo 1, 2, and 2A/3/4 run on different network schemes. Disappointed that we haven't heard time frames of the projects because that would jeopardize sales.

 

[HTupolev]

Your #1 error message would be too many people can't join after the game tries to load.

?????

I'm extremely confused now. If you're saying that join requests could murder the P2P host, that's something that could be easily smoothed out with a little (maybe half-second) join request delay on the CBG server that checks whether a game is actually free to join before allowing a client to try and connect. You'd wind up with occasional instances of waiting a second before "sorry the game is full", but so what?

This isn't even speculative, plenty of games have made peer-to-peer user hosting work fine with a custom game browser.

 

[clav]

?????

I'm extremely confused now. If you're saying that join requests could murder the P2P host, that's something that could be easily smoothed out with a little (maybe half-second) join request delay on the CBG server that checks whether a game is actually free to join before allowing a client to try and connect. You'd wind up with occasional instances of waiting a second before "sorry the game is full", but so what?

This isn't even speculative, plenty of games have made peer-to-peer user hosting work fine with a custom game browser.

But the whole goal for Halo was to run on dedicated servers. That's why we bought this game. Why put the time in to code for P2P?

File custom games browser under the "not happening" pile.

The Halo |OT| Where dreams don't come true

It can happen eventually.

 

[HTupolev]

But the whole goal for Halo was to run on dedicated servers. That's why we bought this game. Why put the time in to code for P2P?

I'm just saying, if they did.

I didn't say it's what they should do (I even pointed out that dedis would make sense given their current goals with MM).

 

[Overdoziz]

File custom games browser under the "not happening" pile.

The Halo |OT| Where dreams don't come true

Which is sad because it could be one of the best things that could happen to Halo at this point.

 

[clav]

Which is sad because it could be one of the best things that could happen to Halo at this point.

We'll see. Time will tell.

The maddening part was delaying the beta test, but I suppose the beta probably crashed the Xbox OS in a bad way.

PR seems to have a tight grip on everyone.

 

[Poker Face]

343 can't get regular old matchmaking to work properly in mcc. do ya'll really think they'll be able to get a custom game browser working?

 

[clav]

Feel like the one of the large problems in this project was how to make the legacy Xbox party system work with the newer Xbox One party system. That's why we see a lot of issues. The game works right now by pulling everyone into a LAN type scenario like Xbox Connect did and then parse characters/variables in to the game. Also explains why sometimes matchmaking throws everyone into a party and stops searching. The process is extremely buggy.

Thinking about this more.

Is dedicated server the same thing as putting everyone on one network (e.g. VPN to the same address)?

I mean, if 343 thinks if that's good enough to just have your Xbox connected to one IP and just reuse the same networking protocol for LAN back then and calls it a day, what we have now probably is it. One Xbox still acts as a host, but technically you are on a "dedicated server" or rather private network for your game. It would be way too much work to properly recode everything to a proper dedicated server that we see on PCs.

You could run the game TCP lock-step, but then you would run into a Halo campaign co-op over Live scenario.

Hm. Thinking of pushing the refund then if that's the case.

 

[Overdoziz]

Don't think I could handle seeing how 343 would baseballcardify a server browser.

 

[Leyasu]

Titanfall let's you spin up a dedi for custom games. Obviously the MCC was so broken, that it was just not possible at launch. Fuck me the game is still so broken, that p2p games are pretty much the norm still! I would HOPE that halo 5 will let you have dedis for custom games.

And then why not have a browser for customs? Not everyone wants to play competitively all the time. Like someone else said, they're all virtual servers, so they are not really hogging resources on Microsofts multi billion dollar azure network. Also having dedicated servers for customs is great for people that are in clans or part of internet organised games. No host advantage.

The server browser would be nice, but they MUST include a choose the datacenter option. These clowns really need to look at what respawn did with titanfall.

 

[HTupolev]

Don't think I could handle seeing how 343 would baseballcardify a server browser.

Good point.

 

[daedalius]

Saturday afternoon and I cant find anything .

This fucking game

 

[JackHerer]

MCC games still randomly end early for me. Just happened to me again in H2A.... I don't understand how shit like this is still happening.

Matchmaking is generally slower than normal today as well it seems. Today I actually considered playing Destiny for the first time in months (I didn't).

 

[clav]

Coding is hard, but I don't think we should be seeing a shell command for Find Game lol

That sounds like scripting.

Is anyone really doing any hard coding?

 

[Welfare]

Another day goes by. Another day where the population is lower than the last. Another day where 343 shows their incompetence.

I don't see how anyone can be surprised at this point.

 

[clav]

Another day goes by. Another day where the population is lower than the last. Another day where 343 shows their incompetence.

I don't see how anyone can be surprised at this point.

Well considering this is how 343 considers our fanbase like this, I'm not really surprised.

Watch these vids:

http://youtu.be/GVz6OthuP-o

http://youtu.be/EBrKglwvfac

 

[SaganIsGOAT]

I'm gonna ask again since I already said I how feel about the BF server browsers on consoles, but what games on consoles have done server browsers successfully?

 

[FyreWulff]

I'm gonna ask again since I already said I how feel about the BF server browsers on consoles, but what games on consoles have done server browsers successfully?

Section 8: Prejudice

There was a wide selection of dedicated servers (official and rented) and peer games you pull with a listing for each game mode.

It also featured a thing where there would sometimes be a blank dedicated server, and if you jump into it, it'd let you set it up and run it for free until everyone left.

Unfortunately all of Section 8 Prejudice's servers are gone due to Timegate getting fucked over by Gearbox for money owed, Timegate went under, and the server provider disabled being able to rent S8P servers due to not knowing the legal status of their renting contract for the IP. I believe the game can only be played on peer hosted games right now, which has less max players (i think 8v8 instead of 16v16) on any platform (GFWL, 360, PS3)

 

[Karl2177]

So are Relic and ODST a thing that's happening or were those just more meaningless words from 343?

 

[Finaj]

So are Relic and ODST a thing that's happening or were those just more meaningless words from 343?

I believe both are intended to come out sometime during Spring (please correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[Tashi]

So are Relic and ODST a thing that's happening or were those just more meaningless words from 343?

They are indeed happening. We'll have more to share on these later.

 

[Overdoziz]

Should just give us Halo 5 for free tbh

 

[jem0208]

We'll have more to share on these later.

I feel like we've been hearing this far too much recently.

 

[Leyasu]

They are indeed happening. We'll have more to share on these later.

Any chance you could ask for a choose the datacenter option to be implemented?. If they don't know what you mean, then tell them to boot up titanfall.

I've been playing BTB p2p or on dedicated servers out of region all night. Something needs to be done about it. Thanks

 

[Tunavi]

When are we getting that beta update?

 

[Stinkles]

I hope that extra week of work on the next CU was well spent. Really optimistic that it will finally fix the game instead of putting band aids on issues.
Even if it takes another month, it would be worth it to finally have a great, easy way to enjoy legacy Halo games for years to come, i.e. What MCC was supposed to be in the first place.

That's the plan. I'm finally feeling good (instead of baffled or out of my depth) about where it's heading. While matchmaking and parties are the number one issue (and the weirdness has knock on effects to lots of other seemingly unrelated bits) stuff like legacy controls, H2 hit detection and so on are all being addressed too.

Obviously it's going slower than we (or anyone) anticipated, but it ended up being weirder and more complicated than anyone thought. I hope we can do a post mortem eventually, because the problem and the efforts to solve it are (frustrating, horrible, embarrassing) pretty crazy in scope and scale.

And it was stuff we never anticipated in testing, that blew up in the real world environment.

And we'll be working on stuff to maintain and grow populations too.

When are we getting that beta update?

Soon! There will be a few surprises in it. Data wise

 

[RBK]

Should just give us Halo 5 for free tbh

Not much they can really give out plus this is just silly.

 

[clav]

Soon! There will be a few surprises in it. Data wise

Do you know if the beta survey will be put back up?

I can't find it on my dashboard.

Obviously the dates changed.

Someone's reddit picture: http://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/2tfmrb/has_anyone_who_filled_out_the_survey_for_mcc_beta/

 

[Overdoziz]

Wonder if Ruffian Games will help develop the Agent Locke Collection.

 

[Leyasu]

That's the plan. I'm finally feeling good (instead of baffled or out of my depth) about where it's heading. While matchmaking and parties are the number one issue (and the weirdness has knock on effects to lots of other seemingly unrelated bits) stuff like legacy controls, H2 hit detection and so on are all being addressed too.

Obviously it's going slower than we (or anyone) anticipated, but it ended up being weirder and more complicated than anyone thought. I hope we can do a post mortem eventually, because the problem and the efforts to solve it are (frustrating, horrible, embarrassing) pretty crazy in scope and scale.

And it was stuff we never anticipated in testing, that blew up in the real world environment.

And we'll be working on stuff to maintain and grow populations too.



Soon! There will be a few surprises in it. Data wise

Hey stinkles, are you guys considering deactivating the p2p? It really needs to go.

 

[Tashi]

I feel like we've been hearing this far too much recently.

Totally fair feedback. Can't confirm dates but we'd like to show you Relic before it releases.

 

[PROh1bited]

That's the plan. I'm finally feeling good (instead of baffled or out of my depth) about where it's heading. While matchmaking and parties are the number one issue (and the weirdness has knock on effects to lots of other seemingly unrelated bits) stuff like legacy controls, H2 hit detection and so on are all being addressed too.

Obviously it's going slower than we (or anyone) anticipated, but it ended up being weirder and more complicated than anyone thought. I hope we can do a post mortem eventually, because the problem and the efforts to solve it are (frustrating, horrible, embarrassing) pretty crazy in scope and scale.

And it was stuff we never anticipated in testing, that blew up in the real world environment.

And we'll be working on stuff to maintain and grow populations too.



Soon! There will be a few surprises in it. Data wise

Thanks for the update Frankie. This is stuff that the community needs. Information like this is much better than radio silence. Sounds like you guys have literally got a "web" of problems. Har har.

P.S. if you guys give us Reach, I'll forgive and forget.

 

[HTupolev]

I hope we can do a post mortem eventually, because the problem and the efforts to solve it are (frustrating, horrible, embarrassing) pretty crazy in scope and scale.

Also, engineering and development presentations make your organization look cool.

Hey stinkles, are you guys considering deactivating the p2p? It really needs to go.

P2P is a fallback when the dedis are problematic. Hence, it'll naturally go away as the dedi situation improves.

They don't have P2P set up just to spite everyone.

 

[Stinkles]

Hey stinkles, are you guys considering deactivating the p2p? It really needs to go.

No. It's a good fallback for people who have rough geographical access to dedis, or weird DNS issues, or crazy unchangeable NAT situations, or when dedis are down, but we will be making general improvements to make sure that both of those scenarios are less frequent. And the rollout of cloud and geographically better server clusters is obviously going to continue forever, basically.

 

[Tunavi]

That's the plan. I'm finally feeling good (instead of baffled or out of my depth) about where it's heading. While matchmaking and parties are the number one issue (and the weirdness has knock on effects to lots of other seemingly unrelated bits) stuff like legacy controls, H2 hit detection and so on are all being addressed too.

Obviously it's going slower than we (or anyone) anticipated, but it ended up being weirder and more complicated than anyone thought. I hope we can do a post mortem eventually, because the problem and the efforts to solve it are (frustrating, horrible, embarrassing) pretty crazy in scope and scale.

And it was stuff we never anticipated in testing, that blew up in the real world environment.

And we'll be working on stuff to maintain and grow populations too.



Soon! There will be a few surprises in it. Data wise

Good post.

 

[Madness]

That's the plan. I'm finally feeling good (instead of baffled or out of my depth) about where it's heading. While matchmaking and parties are the number one issue (and the weirdness has knock on effects to lots of other seemingly unrelated bits) stuff like legacy controls, H2 hit detection and so on are all being addressed too.

Obviously it's going slower than we (or anyone) anticipated, but it ended up being weirder and more complicated than anyone thought. I hope we can do a post mortem eventually, because the problem and the efforts to solve it are (frustrating, horrible, embarrassing) pretty crazy in scope and scale.

And it was stuff we never anticipated in testing, that blew up in the real world environment.

And we'll be working on stuff to maintain and grow populations too.

Soon! There will be a few surprises in it. Data wise

Curious to hear what you guys have planned. Are there any plans to bring Forge maps into H2A? While Relic is good and all, since it's an actual dev created map, the game/playlist still needs more maps to stay fresh and viable.

Also, obviously you guys can see player populations and what not, but will there be any chance to add population counters back to the game? I get it sucked to have so many compare Halo 4 or Reach populations, but it's really helpful to know that there are 4000 playing in team slayer, as opposed to only 400 in Halo 2 Classic etc.

 

[Finaj]

Will we finally figure out what caused this all once matchmaking is working properly?