Halo MCC development update

Johnson · Feb 1, 2018

belushy said:
Shame there seems no way to just release all the games as individual products at this point. Unified UI is just dumb.

The unified UI is my favourite thing about MCC; it's like a museum, everything standardized and in one place, Halo 4 alongside 1-3, it's easy to switch between games, the cross-game playlists. It makes it feel special and not cobbled together.

If it didn't have it, they might as well just enhance the rest of the 360 back compat games for X and release H2A standalone.

5taquitos said:
343 engineers snuck into the Creative Assembly offices and inserted code in a game they didn't make just to delete your saves.

It was co-developed by 343 and Creative Assembly. AFAIK, 343 has a second team that work on the spin-offs like H1A, Spartan Assault/Strike, MCC and HW2. They handled the art design and they've done bug fixes and balance updates for HW2 since launch.

Akoi · Feb 1, 2018

Yes this is late, but better late than never. I welcome the X enhancements and I hope they can salvage this game vs just leaving it to die like they did after releasing all the previous games dlc for free and making them backwards compatible like they did. (I really thought when they did that they were just giving up)

I also hope this makes it possible to bring to PC so I can enjoy this series with some of my long time PC gamer friends.

Narpas Sword0 · Feb 1, 2018

FUNKNOWN iXi said:
I still play on the regular, both solo and with parties, and have a shit ton of fun. Been there since day 0, have felt disappointed many times throughout Halo's history, but I'm not crying and personally calling people out on some nonsense I don't know about.

Your hostility is what keeps industry folks away from these discussions. While it may be rewarding to work on Halo, it must also be nightmare due to community members like you who can't see any good in what should be positive situations.

I do not feel that the quoted snark about the meaning of the term "press release" was a message written in an official capacity. In any case, every post I've made since then has been about either MS' budget choices and my own personal experience.

For better on-topic content, please see below for my experience of this game one year after its last patch. I bet a lot of Xbox latecomers are not aware of how bad it was, even that long after release. And it was WORSE at launch.

Here is a video from June 2015. At the 4 minute mark we give up trying co op as the mission will not even load. At the 7 minute mark we finally get the party to work. We spend 10 minutes trying to find a match in a big playlist before giving up entirely.

https://youtu.be/bNzuKjf0ekM

Here's one from a week before, two crashes doing a H2A mission

https://youtu.be/uW4xxZAMjpQ

The video before that is from February 2015. We get in a math that is only 3v3 and I get stuck not respawning for the last third of the march.

https://youtu.be/nbQEN3BUy0Y

I gave up on the game entirely in early 2014 but I did check in periodically to see if it could work. It didn't. I did not get many hours of enjoyment from this product.

Needless to say I do not feel that MS/343 are entitled to the benefit of the doubt in 2018. If I am pleasantly surprised that would be wonderful. And still way too late.

wwm0nkey · Feb 1, 2018

I am going to also assume the tests will be going out in Late March / Early April. I'm hoping I get into an early wave so I can test out splitscreen with my roommate

Detective · Feb 1, 2018

borges said:
In all fairness, SP were great -almost- since the beginning of MCC. The real problem was MP.

Yeah, but not while playing on coap. The game crashes or *loses connection* when we tried to play coap H3

Akai · Feb 1, 2018

Indy in the Fridge said:
Stinkles

Wasn't huge chunks of the original release of MCC outsourced as well? Isn't that something you referred to as being a contributing issue to the wealth of broken features at release? What changes are you making this time to ensure that history doesn't repeat itself?

I'm not Stinkles, but yes, there were several studios involved that did work on the MCC:

- Blur Studios (CGI cutscenes)
- Saber Interactive (H2A campaign)
- Certain Affinity (H2A MP)
- Ruffian Games (porting games to Xbox One)
- United Front (UI/UX)
- 343i (complete package)
- Splash Damage (post launch patches)

Many of these things worked flawlessly on their own and the absolute majority of problems were happening in MP (and Campaign co-op). The part about "APPMODEL / REBOOT" in the blog post in the OP really does explain many of these issues.

ArmsofSleep · Feb 1, 2018

Honestly with an update and a small push/sale I would totally pick this up. I got scared off of launch issues but this would totally be my timewaster between big SP games.

Narpas Sword0 · Feb 1, 2018

Detective said:
borges said:

In all fairness, SP were great -almost- since the beginning of MCC. The real problem was MP.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Yeah, but not while playing on coap. The game crashes or *loses connection* when we tried to play coap H3

Single player was bad too. Fail to load, crash during mission, fall through floor, lose your save, menu interface from different screens collides with itself and makes the screen illegible. Bad frame rates, checkpoints not working...

The sound mix for Halo 3 was completely horrible - you could barely hear the music, and that wasn't fixed until the second to last patch in march iirc.

And I'm sure there's more that I am forgetting.

Deleted member 9100 · Feb 1, 2018

It's too little too late.

I've never been more disappointed in a game than Halo Master Chief collection. It was the sole reason I bought an Xbox One as Halo 2 and Halo 3 were my two favorite games of all time. I was so excited to be able to play them again and play them online. And then I couldn't. And it never got fixed.

For everyone giving 343 respect for this, why? At the time when it came out broken, they didn't offer refunds or fix it. Even Arkham Knight on PC offered full refunds to anyone who purchased it and worked to get it in a playable state.

They completely abandoned all their die hard fans who bought this new console and game only to see it unplayable online.

wwm0nkey · Feb 1, 2018

TAH3145 said:
It's too little too late.

I've never been more disappointed in a game than Halo Master Chief collection. It was the sole reason I bought an Xbox One as Halo 2 and Halo 3 were my two favorite games of all time. I was so excited to be able to play them again and play them online. And then I couldn't. And it never got fixed.

For everyone giving 343 respect for this, why? At the time when it came out broken, they didn't offer refunds or fix it. Even Arkham Knight on PC offered full refunds to anyone who purchased it and worked to get it in a playable state.

They completely abandoned all their die hard fans who bought this new console and game only to see it unplayable online.

With the gamepass, it most certainly isn't too little too late, that a lone should boost the community numbers in addition to the potential added features like a custom game browser.

Is it late? Ohhhhhhh yeah. But imo there is no such thing as too late.

5taquitos · Feb 1, 2018

Johnson said:
It was co-developed by 343 and Creative Assembly. AFAIK, 343 has a second team that work on the spin-offs like H1A, Spartan Assault/Strike, MCC and HW2. They handled the art design and they've done bug fixes and balance updates for HW2 since launch.

I didn't realize this, please excuse my snark.

Vespa · Feb 1, 2018

JaggedSac said:
They've been consistently adding more Azure regions around the world. Hopefully there is one near you now. Well, that and hopefully someone is playing near you, lol.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/regions/

Those Azure servers aren't all used for Xbox, some are reserved solely for other services. No new dedicated server locations have been opened up for TitanFall (You can actually check with the server browser) or Halo 5 as far as I know.

Narpas Sword0 said:
Wait, are we now praising them for keeping the game P2P when dedicated servers were being promised from the game's announcement and past its release?

Has MS commented on whether or not they are fulfilling that promise with this patch?

Don't put words in my mouth, there was no 'praising them for keeping the game P2P'.

Hesemonni · Feb 1, 2018

Yet all they need to do is add in Reach to make the collection complete.

Aardvark Barber · Feb 1, 2018

infinityBCRT said:
I'd pay $30-40 for an updated MCC which included Reach, Halo 5, rendered cutscenes for Halo 1 and Halo 3, and updated ODST faces

I would, if it was Play Anywhere - Jonesing for my halo fix on the go.

Deleted member 1238 · Feb 1, 2018

Narpas Sword0 said:
I truly did not. I honestly wonder how many of its defenders were there on launch day.

I have a YouTube playlist of my complete MCC experience. It was extremely poor. By the time it approached the realm of acceptable (that last patch in May of 2014), the user base was dead. And it still had tons of problems.

I tried doing H2A co op in fall 2016 and it was still a quagmire of disconnects, glitches, and crashes.

Here is a video from June 2015. At the 4 minute mark we give up trying co op as the mission will not even load. At the 7 minute mark we finally get the party to work. We spend 10 minutes trying to find a match in a big playlist before giving up entirely.

https://youtu.be/bNzuKjf0ekM

Here's one from a week before, two crashes doing a H2A mission

https://youtu.be/uW4xxZAMjpQ

The video before that is from February 2015. We get in a math that is only 3v3 and I get stuck not respawning for the last third of the march.

https://youtu.be/nbQEN3BUy0Y

I gave up on the game entirely in early 2014 but I did check in periodically to see if it could work. It didn't. I did not get many hours of enjoyment from this product.

Well in that case you should probably harass stinkles some more. Maybe it will make the game work better.

Deleted member 9100 · Feb 1, 2018

wwm0nkey said:
With the gamepass, it most certainly isn't too little too late, that a lone should boost the community numbers in addition to the potential added features like a custom game browser.

Is it late? Ohhhhhhh yeah. But imo there is no such thing as too late.

It's definitely too late. They let the game sit in a broken state for 3 and a half years at this point. The game that was for their die hard fans.

They don't deserve praise for putting out this patch 3 and a half years after the fact. They deserve scorn for waiting 3 and a half years to fix this broken mess and not offering refunds to anyone who bought it or removing it as a pack in game.

Dusktildawn48 · Feb 1, 2018

TAH3145 said:
It's too little too late.

I've never been more disappointed in a game than Halo Master Chief collection. It was the sole reason I bought an Xbox One as Halo 2 and Halo 3 were my two favorite games of all time. I was so excited to be able to play them again and play them online. And then I couldn't. And it never got fixed.

For everyone giving 343 respect for this, why? At the time when it came out broken, they didn't offer refunds or fix it. Even Arkham Knight on PC offered full refunds to anyone who purchased it and worked to get it in a playable state.

They completely abandoned all their die hard fans who bought this new console and game only to see it unplayable online.

"unplayable online"
Maybe for the 1st few weeks, but I've played 1000s of games without issue.

wwm0nkey · Feb 1, 2018

TAH3145 said:
It's definitely too late. They let the game sit in a broken state for 3 and a half years at this point. The game that was for their die hard fans.

They don't deserve praise for putting out this patch 3 and a half years after the fact. They deserve scorn for waiting 3 and a half years to fix this broken mess and not offering refunds to anyone who bought it or removing it as a pack in game.

I don't get why people think any slight positive is giving them praise. Yeah of fucking course we wanted this years ago, but at least we are finally getting it and I will be going back and from the sounds of others some will return and others say they will even buy an X if the patch works perfectly. Going back to a game we wanted to play isn't singing praises of 343i at all.

Also as for refunds, I am pretty sure if you contacted Xbox support they were issuing refunds iirc.

Deleted member 9100 · Feb 1, 2018

Dusktildawn48 said:
"unplayable online"
Maybe for the 1st few weeks, but I've played 1000s of games without issue.

Playing games in matchmaking? Consider yourself lucky then because that was not the case for me or my friends at all.

Gingerbread Man · Feb 1, 2018

daninthemix said:
Can the 'open conversation' include the possibility of a MCC Windows 10 release with cross-play?

I hope they do it since I have not bought an x yet. Be glorious to play Halo MCC on PC. I'm more interested in the single-player campaign content missed out on last gen.

Lockheartilly9799 · Feb 1, 2018

I remember how mad I was when this game launched and how long it took them just stabilize it decently. I hope some day down the road they offer a real apology and be more introspective regarding their previous efforts. More updates now are fine but it shouldn't have gotten to this point, minus the XBOX ONE X stuff, of course.

Sephzilla · Feb 1, 2018

belushy said:
Shame there seems no way to just release all the games as individual products at this point. Unified UI is just dumb.

I was hoping we'd be able to see remastered versions of those awesome Halo 1 and Halo 2 menus

Roy · Feb 1, 2018

TAH3145 said:
It's too little too late.

I've never been more disappointed in a game than Halo Master Chief collection. It was the sole reason I bought an Xbox One as Halo 2 and Halo 3 were my two favorite games of all time. I was so excited to be able to play them again and play them online. And then I couldn't. And it never got fixed.

For everyone giving 343 respect for this, why? At the time when it came out broken, they didn't offer refunds or fix it. Even Arkham Knight on PC offered full refunds to anyone who purchased it and worked to get it in a playable state.

They completely abandoned all their die hard fans who bought this new console and game only to see it unplayable online.

I'm giving them respect because they haven't abandoned it.

If I got burned by HMCC, then I'd be far more angry with myself for not being smart enough to not get caught up in day 1 hype culture.

Deleted member 11995 · Feb 1, 2018

Reach remaster when?

Please do it 343. Pretty please.

Lothars · Feb 1, 2018

Narpas Sword0 said:
Needless to say I do not feel that MS/343 are entitled to the benefit of the doubt in 2018. If I am pleasantly surprised that would be wonderful. And still way too late.

Agreed, They don't deserve a pass in this and even if they fix it that's the bare minimum they need to do.

Akai · Feb 1, 2018

wwm0nkey said:
I don't get why people think any slight positive is giving them praise. Yeah of fucking course we wanted this years ago, but at least we are finally getting it and I will be going back and from the sounds of others some will return and others say they will even buy an X if the patch works perfectly. Going back to a game we wanted to play isn't singing praises of 343i at all.

Also as for refunds, I am pretty sure if you contacted Xbox support they were issuing refunds iirc.

That's how I see it. It's dumb to constantly dwell on the past. What happened, happened and we can't make it undone. It's also not important that it's "too late", it's important that the fans get what they deserve, which is a flawlessly working Halo Legacy Collection.

Dusktildawn48 · Feb 1, 2018

TAH3145 said:
Playing games in matchmaking? Consider yourself lucky then because that was not the case for me or my friends at all.

I mean yeah, we still play a few times a month.

Era of not Yakuza · Feb 1, 2018

They are doing nothing more than obligation, there is no reason to praise or congratulate.

Real Hero · Feb 1, 2018

put it on pc ffs

wwm0nkey · Feb 1, 2018

The era of Luigi said:
They are doing nothing more than obligation, there is no reason to praise or congratulate.

Again. Being happy to finally play the game correctly != singing 343i's praises

Gestault · Feb 1, 2018

This is real dedication, and goes beyond what many thought was worth it even within the community. After extent of the the frustrations around matchmaking and party management, there are a lot of rightfully burned spirits. Assuming they pull this together in the end, I've gotta tip my hat here. Also, I totally dug the Halo 2 Remastering (which made it a properly complete game), the core campaigns overall, and the split-screen co-op throughout. This collection is worth the effort.

Jeff6851 · Feb 1, 2018

Real Hero said:
put it on pc ffs

I will not believe MS is dedicated to PC gaming until they put mainline Halo games on PC. I don't even NEED matchmaking, just give me campaigns, co-op and custom games.

Edit: mainline outside of outdated versions of CE and 2

wwm0nkey · Feb 1, 2018

Jeff6851 said:
I will not believe MS is dedicated to PC gaming until they put mainline Halo games on PC. I don't even NEED matchmaking, just give me campaigns, co-op and custom games.

MCC on PC would mean we only need Halo 5 on PC to complete to current story as of now. Halo 5 already works on PC, just in "Forge" mode only with a custom game browser

Gestault · Feb 1, 2018

TAH3145 said:
It's too little too late.

I've never been more disappointed in a game than Halo Master Chief collection. It was the sole reason I bought an Xbox One as Halo 2 and Halo 3 were my two favorite games of all time. I was so excited to be able to play them again and play them online. And then I couldn't. And it never got fixed.

For everyone giving 343 respect for this, why? At the time when it came out broken, they didn't offer refunds or fix it. Even Arkham Knight on PC offered full refunds to anyone who purchased it and worked to get it in a playable state.

They completely abandoned all their die hard fans who bought this new console and game only to see it unplayable online.

No doubt this is overdue, but in effect insisting that a company not improve a game post-release is unbelievably hostile. Also, extended refunds were offered at the time. This isn't to say everyone has to throw up their hands in joy at the announcement, but your bit that they "abandoned" the game as you criticize efforts to support the game has to be one of the worst takes imaginable.

Narpas Sword0 · Feb 1, 2018

Peter said:
Well in that case you should probably harass stinkles some more. Maybe it will make the game work better.

I made a post that wasn't about him, he quoted me, and I responded to him one time. It seems like I'm the one being harassed at this point. Do you have anything to add to this topic?

Akai said:
That's how I see it. It's dumb to constantly dwell on the past. What happened, happened and we can't make it undone. It's also not important that it's "too late", it's important that the fans get what they deserve, which is a flawlessly working Halo Legacy Collection.

It could have been undone with refunds, like Epic is doing right now, instead of giving people ODST for free if they bought it in the first month even though it wasn't "fixed" for 8 more months and they are now admitting that it was never fixed at all.

People keep saying that refunds were issued, but this was absolutely not an across the board policy and it was not applicable at all to anyone buying physical.

You know what would be true transparency? A list of all of the bugs they are fixing in this game. Most/all of their messaging about this patch has been about XBox live updates. If they want to keep generating headlines about their continuing work here, maybe they could earn it by actually outlining everything that they feel is wrong with the game. They could invite the community to add to the list too. People in this very topic are still asking about what all this is even going to be.

wwm0nkey · Feb 1, 2018

One thing I forgot about, when the MS CEO tweeted this. I think this is the image that got my hopes up as high as they could for MCC PC lol

JaggedSac · Feb 1, 2018

Vespa said:
Those Azure servers aren't all used for Xbox, some are reserved solely for other services. No new dedicated server locations have been opened up for TitanFall (You can actually check with the server browser) or Halo 5 as far as I know.

Well, yeah, the servers won't automatically propagate to new regions, the devs would have to specifically do that. But the capability for more regions is there whereas it wasn't before when using Azure. The capability for Xbox devs to target any of these regions exists, they are not specifically reserved for anything. If I wanted to spin up a server of my own I could target any of those regions.

Era of not Yakuza · Feb 1, 2018

Gestault said:
This isn't to say everyone has to throw up their hands in joy at the announcement, but your bit that they "abandoned" the game as you criticize efforts to support the game has to be one of the worst takes imaginable.

edit: I get it, people are happy because the game will finally get the fix it needs, but again, everyone who complain is right. Getting upset because these complaints is almost estocolmo sindrome.
Result: 1179 days
It is 1179 days from the start date to the end date, end date included

Or 3 years, 2 months, 22 days including the end date

Alternative time units
1179 days can be converted to one of these units:

101.865.600 seconds
1.697.760 minutes
28.296 hours
1179 days
168 weeks and 3 days

3 years is the very definition of abandoned

wwm0nkey · Feb 1, 2018

The era of Luigi said:
Result: 1179 days
It is 1179 days from the start date to the end date, end date included

Or 3 years, 2 months, 22 days including the end date

Alternative time units
1179 days can be converted to one of these units:

101.865.600 seconds

1.697.760 minutes

28.296 hours

1179 days

168 weeks and 3 days

3 years is the very definition of abandoned

I mean it's being updated, so abandoned would imply it would be indefinitely stuck in it's former state right? Ske7ch has said since he was hired that MCC was always a subject at meetings in 343i, so it's not like it never left their mind.

Evan · Feb 1, 2018

Its just odd timing. Im glad they're fixing it for the people its important to. I let my xbox live sub run out, so I won't be able to see the improvements first hand. I just wonder if they are thinking of porting it to PC, especially with Halo 6 on the horizon, and from what we know that will be on PC. So this could be used as a vehicle to introduce new players on PC to Halo before 6 releases.

Gestault · Feb 1, 2018

The era of Luigi said:
edit: I get it, people are happy because the game will finally get the fix it needs, but again, everyone who complain is right. Getting upset because these complaints is almost estocolmo sindrome.
Result: 1179 days
It is 1179 days from the start date to the end date, end date included

Or 3 years, 2 months, 22 days including the end date

Alternative time units
1179 days can be converted to one of these units:

101.865.600 seconds

1.697.760 minutes

28.296 hours

1179 days

168 weeks and 3 days

3 years is the very definition of abandoned

If the support after launch, and the support currently don't count as "support" to you, you're not worth talking with about the situation. I specified at the start of what I wrote that it was long overdue, and didn't mince words about the issues themselves. Frustration that support for a game is occuring legitimately shouldn't be allowed in the thread, any more than complaining that a game is being released is considered shit-posting.

Comet · Feb 1, 2018

I still stand by not having many issues with MCC when I played this summer. It was fun and didn't have match making issues.

VincentMatts · Feb 1, 2018

Im all for this, i just wish i didnt have to be an xbox insider for it. I dont want to have to also download beta xbox dashboards too just because i wanna help them with this.

Gestault · Feb 1, 2018

Comet said:
I still stand by not having many issues with MCC when I played this summer. It was fun and didn't have match making issues.

If you're playing online on your own, it's worked pretty well for a while, but party matchmaking has been consistently rocky. That was a biig thing Halo 2 introduced when it was fresh, so having that mostly broken in the collection was understandably frustrating.

VincentMatts said:
Im all for this, i just wish i didnt have to be an xbox insider for it. I dont want to have to also download beta xbox dashboards too just because i wanna help them with this.

This is sort of the boat I'm in. Their dash previews starting getting a little too "early" for my taste (actually caused issues launching some games), so I dropped out. I get why they want compatibility forward-tested, but I hate being in a test environment with so many variables, w/ the OS itself and the game/networking.

Theorry · Feb 1, 2018

Wasnt the whole reason they are going back to it because the found something in the back end that would fix some problems?

VincentMatts · Feb 1, 2018

Theorry said:
Wasnt the whole reason they are going back to it because the found something in the back end that would fix some problems?

Yes and a lot of that is already done according to the article. Its just internal builds for now.

wwm0nkey · Feb 1, 2018

VincentMatts said:
Im all for this, i just wish i didnt have to be an xbox insider for it. I dont want to have to also download beta xbox dashboards too just because i wanna help them with this.

you can be an insider without opting in for the dash updates :)

nickncs · Feb 1, 2018

PC port please, even if it's barebones

Gestault · Feb 1, 2018

wwm0nkey said:
you can be an insider without opting in for the dash updates :)

Yup, though some games require a particular test-dash version for their betas, if I'm remembering right.

Barrel Cannon · Feb 1, 2018

Will LAN custom games require constant internet connection still and will their be any added lag to this?

Halo MCC development update

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