Halo 3 - now coming to Xbox One. MC Collection.

[Verylonewolf]

They're talking about searchable custom games though, which would be shit if you ask me.

[srgbilco]

Oh right. I take back all my vitriol if that's the case. That would be really shit.

[Ben]

Why would it be shit? I'd probably never use it but if a casual player wanted to mess around with Rumble Rockets for half an hour without braving matchmaking I don't really see the harm.

[Verylonewolf]

Because matchmaking only works when the population is high enough. Half the people who played matchmaking in h2 wouldn't have gone anywhere near it if they could just set up a room with their 4 and played on their favorite settings/ maps against random joiners instead of playing organised teams in mm. It would have lead to slower matchmaking and the alternative would have been to search through a massive list of team slayers on Lockout.

[srgbilco]

Because you'd either get loads of people hosting games worse than even Tyler and that lot could make up or you'd get people coming into your own custom games and being pricks. And it would probably lead to less people on matchmaking as people will want to play the same couple of maps over and over again. Bungie were quite good about matchmaking early on in Halo 2, before they introduced some of the shitter maps and gametypes.

On the other hand, I suppose you'd have control over your own custom game types and you could let a few randoms in if your own party was a little short on numbers. I guess the main worry is the leach on matchmaking.

[Lorfarius]

This is all true. Given chance I would never have left the Blood Gulch map. I loved that and I think that because it only appeared every so often I came to appreciate it more in big team battles.

[Harlen Quinn]

Because matchmaking only works when the population is high enough. Half the people who played matchmaking in h2 wouldn't have gone anywhere near it if they could just set up a room with their 4 and played on their favorite settings/ maps against random joiners instead of playing organised teams in mm. It would have lead to slower matchmaking and the alternative would have been to search through a massive list of team slayers on Lockout.

Joining a random game where you don't understand the rules can be soul destroying. Having played the odd one with members of rllmuk I recall thinking what the fuck is going on here, before dying. Custom games are only any good when everyone knows what's going on, it sometimes takes long enough to learn the permutations of official matchmaking games...

[Verylonewolf]

This is all true. Given chance I would never have left the Blood Gulch map. I loved that and I think that because it only appeared every so often I came to appreciate it more in big team battles.

Exactly. Every other game I ever played a decent amount of on Live ended up being dominated by one map. This meant that if you wanted to play anything else you had to set up a game yourself and have enough people on to play it with just your crew. Splinter Cell had Warehouse, Xbox Counterstrike had Miami, Halo 2 would have been Lockout, even PGR2 with over 100 tracks only had about 5 that ever came up if you tried to search for a game.

Sure, it was annoying sometimes in mm when a map you didn't like came up a lot in one session (BURIAL MOUNDS!) but its still better than being forced to play the same map all the time.

[Pmccee]

(BURIAL MOUNDS!)

The map that must not be named !

[Guest]

...games worse than even Tyler and that lot could make up...

that's just not possible, is it?

[MW_Jimmy]

that's just not possible, is it?

Games that madkiwi made up

[Kryptonian]

Halo works with the radar. You're just a gay.

Nah, in Halo CE everyone I knew turned the radar off. Halo 2 forced it on in Matchmaking and changed the way the game was played and made it worse in some respects.

edit - I leapt in with a reply and have just read Kerraigs points which are very true in multiplayer. Gametypes with and without the radar would be good - like in Team Hardcore.

[MW_Jimmy]

Oh, and Halo without the radar is utter shit.

Playing with it off is just an excuse to let people run up and clobber you in the back, hide in cheap places, and generally act like cretins. It really labours out the mechanics of the game and makes teamwork tiresome.

I'm never playing a game of Halo with it off again (unless it's snipers).

[MalevolentPanda]

I'm never playing a game of Halo with it off again (unless it's snipers).

I think we know what that means, right squad?

[kerraig UK]

They're talking about searchable custom games though, which would be shit if you ask me.

i'll take searchable custom games over matchmaking ANY day of the week thankyou very much.

[MalevolentPanda]

I'm really glad Bungie aren't going to listen to that sort of thing. Every other shooter I ever play really misses matchmaking and being able to get games as a team together easily. No proper teamwork, playing with randoms, urgh.

[Kryptonian]

i'll take searchable custom games over matchmaking ANY day of the week thankyou very much.

I think he's saying the problem with it is, say we were in a 4 and people were joining us, it would be the equivalent of us playing against 4 randoms and they would be generally uncoordinated and crap.

Personally, I'd rather have both options - Matchmaking and Public Custom Games as both have their plus points.

[Alex W.]

Hmm, I just watched the trailer. Not only does it seem to be rehashing Halo 2 (wow, I get to fight a Scarab and hijack Wraiths again!) but graphically it wasn't even that interesting. And they don't seem to have learned that nobody actually cares about Halo's story. The good thing about the first one was that it was so unobtrusively simple.

[MalevolentPanda]

I think he's saying the problem with it is, say we were in a 4 and people were joining us, it would be the equivalent of us playing against 4 randoms and they would be generally uncoordinated and crap.

Personally, I'd rather have both options - Matchmaking and Public Custom Games as both have their plus points.

It'd be far worse than that. It'd be like every other game on XBL. You'd have a room with 4 of you in, but you couldn't just sit there and expect 4 other people to all join together and play as the other team. You'd have 2 of you on each side, with whatever randoms joined. You might be lucky and be able to engineer a game or two where you get to play as a team, but usually that would be impossible. And people would be joining and leaving throughout of course, so you wouldn't even have a constant team of randoms.

It would be fucking rubbish. Halo 2 had it nailed, and thankfully Halo 3 will almost certainly have the same system.

[Alex W.]

Great thing about the first one was that it told you about the orbital ring, and then "oh look, there it is!" That's all the story you need.

Act 1:

Look for dudes.

Act 2:

Look for dudes. Find zombies. Nearly activate super weapon.

Act 3:

Escape.

Whereas in Halo 2 you have:

Act 1:

Defend Earth from invasion.

Act 2:

Defeat seperatists.

Act 3:

Beat up Alien Stephen Hawking

Act 4:

Look for keys.

...

Act 17:

Fight monkey in trampoline warehouse.

Act 18:

INSERT DISK 2 TO CONTINUE

[BeeJay]

I'm with Panda on the matchmaking front. The other thing that made Halo 2 matchmaking so unique was that you could really make use of a spare 10 minutes to have a quick sniper game or whatever. No matter what time, place you knew you could go on, get a game almost immediately which was consistent and you knew what you were trying to do.

I've still not found a game on live that replicates that casual, to fill some time, online gaming.

[kerraig UK]

It'd be far worse than that. It'd be like every other game on XBL. You'd have a room with 4 of you in, but you couldn't just sit there and expect 4 other people to all join together and play as the other team. You'd have 2 of you on each side, with whatever randoms joined. You might be lucky and be able to engineer a game or two where you get to play as a team, but usually that would be impossible. And people would be joining and leaving throughout of course, so you wouldn't even have a constant team of randoms.

It would be fucking rubbish. Halo 2 had it nailed, and thankfully Halo 3 will almost certainly have the same system.

Nah dont agree. I played so much matchmaking it was obscene and the simple fact is that for me it just doesnt work. Game types I dont like against people I dont like on maps I didnt choose. With Lag.

i'll take custom games where it takes a bit of work to get a team I'm happy with over that mixed up shit any day of the week.

[Straps]

They're doing both, aren't they? Frankly, I'd be surprised if there were going to be less people on Halo 3 than Halo 2, so I don't think you're going to see any effect of population-thinning until well into its life. *edit* Actually, I just wiki'd the number of XBox sales and the number was a lot higher than I thought.

I'll probably stick to matchmaking, I know you're still playing against random douchebags but at least there's some rigidity (compared to customs, I assume) in the gametypes.

[Guest]

with the public custom games thing i still don't get how people who join would have a clue what the objectives of the gametype were supposed to be. it'd become tiresome because the people who set-up the game would have greater knowledge of what's going on and would therefore win all the time.

where's the fun in that?

[Harlen Quinn]

with the public custom games thing i still don't get how people who join would have a clue what the objectives of the gametype were supposed to be. it'd become tiresome because the people who set-up the game would have greater knowledge of what's going on and would therefore win all the time.

where's the fun in that?

agree strongly and tbh even if it's your own group the gametype maker skews it to their own strengths, which is fine if everyone takes a turn at making custom games.

[Harlen Quinn]

Nah dont agree. I played so much matchmaking it was obscene and the simple fact is that for me it just doesnt work. Game types I dont like against people I dont like on maps I didnt choose. With Lag.

i'll take custom games where it takes a bit of work to get a team I'm happy with over that mixed up shit any day of the week.

I enjoyed prospering* with randoms when it turned out I was grouped with people who knew what they were doing*. I had more fun doing this than playing with people from the forum because I felt I sometimes actually ended up in better random teams. My only caveat to what I just typed is I did have some good games with Hitcher and his lad, they were really rather good.

* not always the case, obviously.

[Verylonewolf]

I think he's saying the problem with it is, say we were in a 4 and people were joining us, it would be the equivalent of us playing against 4 randoms and they would be generally uncoordinated and crap.

Init. And the main problem is that is what a lot of people want because it makes them feel good. There were a lot of teams on xbc who would just play randoms all the time and think they were amazing, I doubt I have to tell you what they thought of matchmaking (imo because they were forced to see how average they were on a level playing field).

If you give people the choice between playing matchmaking (where they're going to get annoyed a lot of the time) and setting up a room where they're going to be shooting fish in a barrel most will take the easy option and matchmaking will be deserted.

[kerraig UK]

Init. And the main problem is that is what a lot of people want because it makes them feel good. There were a lot of teams on xbc who would just play randoms all the time and think they were amazing, I doubt I have to tell you what they thought of matchmaking (imo because they were forced to see how average they were on a level playing field).

If you give people the choice between playing matchmaking (where they're going to get annoyed a lot of the time) and setting up a room where they're going to be shooting fish in a barrel most will take the easy option and matchmaking will be deserted.

I want matchmaking to be deserted!

[Guest]

I want matchmaking to be deserted!

that's nearly as bad as saying they should permanently get rid of the motion tracker!

[Kryptonian]

I like matchmaking a lot. I just wish it worked.