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No Online Co-Op For Halo 3 At Launch
CVG has the disappointing news, originally reported in the pages of EGM, that online co-op play will not be available when Halo 3 launches this September. In the game the second player would play the part of the Arbiter character, but fans will only be able to complete the campaign cooperatively via LAN or split-screen. Bungie stated the possibility still exists online co-op could be patched in at a later date, but significant hurdles stand in the way of the feature: "'We're not dumb,' says Bungie's Frank O'Conner. 'We know that people want it and we're trying to make it happen. I think the biggest problem for us for online co-op is that we have a situation where you can be in a Warthog with five troops, almost a mile away from the other player. That's a significant challenge. And there's lots of design things you could do to prevent that from happening, but they would make it not feel like Halo anymore. If we can make it happen in a way that works well, we will - and if it works badly, we won't.'"
Well better to not have it at all then it be half assed and read the endless whining that will occur on forums as a result.
Then play it with a... er... your.. friend..... Never mind this is slashdot, we don't have any friends.
You mad
They have been promising this since before 2 came out, just one of the many places where they dropped the ball on 2.
I don't understand why they can't just do they same thing they do in LAN Co-op.. when one player reaches a certain spot it "transports" the other player automatically to that point. That "felt like Halo" enough for 1 and 2...
Sounds more like poor excuses to me. Halo is flirting with solidifying itself as a source of undelivered promises. In-game "vaporware", one might speculate.
That'll be the $30 add-on you buy after the game's been out for a year.
And I really wanted to play co-op with some kid telling me in his whiney voice how much smaller my anatomy is then his...
Besides, co-op is not as much fun when you can't see your friend falling off the couch laughing after assasinating you in the middle of a firefight =D
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Stupid friend....
I completely disagree. I'm sure there are lots of hardcore deathmatch fans out there, but part of what makes Halo great is the storyline and how they carry it out. That being said, I'd also rather have the online co-op rather than deathmatch. I enjoy beating the snot out of my friends in deathmatch at a LAN party or just a get together, but I have no urge to play against random strangers.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Then don't play it with anyone else. Don't force me to play the way you think the game should be made, when we clearly don't share opinions on the matter.
really it isn't that big of a deal. I mean, come on, much like the 7th harry potter book being leaked onto the net, I don't think this is going to impact the success of the game very much...would it be nice to have co-op over live? Hell yes, if done right it would be awesome.
would it be a travesty to do it improperly? Yes it would be. I would MUCH rather they spent time on polishing and tweaking the game rather than continually pounding away at a stone with a toothpick.
Living With a Nerd
It could be based on how level geometry is loaded, and how enemies and such are loaded. It could be engine limitations.
Really the only game I have ever played where you can be on the other side of the physical game world is crackdown. Then again considering how a game is able to recover from the "host" leaving it seems like 2 players could move apart and load separate areas and trade only data that is relevant to the other client. However something about the way the game could have change.
IN the last 2 you were usually confined along a path with some stuff. Most of the wide open areas were arenas almost with 1 way in and one way out. There was not set distance between both players, but when one hit a check
point, or a load point the player in the previous area was teleported up to the new point. Both things kept it so that only one area was loaded at any given time.
Now if the game is much more open and you have more room to run around it could be that the system of keeping the players together would be less effective, or possibly down right frustrating. Still this might not be as technical as it would be a gameplay related issue.
However the fact that it works over a lan would suggest to me that the issue is bandwidth and latency related. Possibly coordinating the in game AI could cause trouble, possibly the physics, ect ect.
Who knows. Feel free to correct me if I said anything too stupid.
You mad
I know I never really liked this option. It breaks immersion -- which isn't a problem in Halo 1 and 2, because there's only supposed to be one Chief and one Arbiter, and co-op simply ads another of whoever the main character is at the moment. But in Halo 3, when apparently the Chief and the Arbiter will be in the same place at the same time, and Co-Op will support that, it would be really nice if you didn't have the random teleporting.
Besides, it makes the game easier -- one player can draw all the fire and simply stay alive while the other charges ahead to the checkpoint.
Regardless, I guess I just don't see why this is a big deal. If the players get far enough apart that they're out of sight, why not simply split it into two simultaneous games at that point? Re-sync everything when they meet up again?
My guess is, it's probably a bandwidth issue.
What pisses me off is, like all other console games, they'd rather prevent you from trying to do something unusual than simply warn you that it might not work. For example, take a university -- all kinds of subnets, but huge amounts of bandwidth between them, especially considering between them and the Internet. If Halo 3 and the Xbox 360's Xbox Live work at all like Halo 2 and the original Xbox Live, it should be possbile to create a game with a specific group of friends, and if all of those friends share a network (if not a subnet), it should be as responsive as a LAN game, right?
I guess the answer, as with many things, is "not necessarily". It's always possible that the LAN game requires on broadcast packets, to reduce bandwidth used. Still, it would only have an effect with three players or more, so the above scenario is still valid for a two-player co-op game (since, as I understand it, three-player co-op isn't available).
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The average idiot will then accuse them of releasing a broken feature and the at then all the review sites will dock them points, despite there repeated attempts to tell people that they can't provide any type of Quality of service.
I mean come one, people blame devs for network problems even when its just their shitty connection or their shitty hardware causing the problem. Do you somehow think console gamers will be any less bitchy about it?
My guess? Bandiwth or possibly a side effect of how they load the levels.
You mad
Um trading data between 2 instances is harder than running 2 things within one?
You mad
Personally I like their stance: We know you want it, but we're not going to just cram it in so we can say we tried. We'll do it right, or not at all.
If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
Apples to oranges
Minimal collision detection
AI is far more simplistic
Time based actions
client side positioning(You can teleport yourself around in the game, till you get caught atleast)
Are there any physics in WoW?
Those are the major differences i can think of off the top of my head.
You mad
Its not just about playing coop with some random stranger online, I know for myself, and many others, it gives an opportunity to play the game WITH someone that isn't close enough to you. For instance, I have a friend in the Marine Corps, and he will probably pick up Halo 3. Because of distance, we couldn't just play split screen or LAN, we will need to play online. Sure, its fun to play with your friends online against other people, but like many others have pointed out, this game has an amazing story, and an amazing campaign. Many games today have adopted this feature, and although it isn't the majority of the players that will play coop, many will, and many will purchase the game JUST for coop/campaign. Just my $.02
That's the problem though, lagging like crazy and moreover packet loss. In Co-op not only do you have to synchronize both players but also every single monster, vehicle, and scripted event on the entire map. Even the slightest difference throws the players out of synch destroying the experience and leading to some interesting situations, like being shot by an Elite five feet away that on your screen is a mile away. It only takes one dropped packet to throw a wrench in the works. I've written code before to synchronize mancala games across the internet while also allowing for observers. That was no small project mind you; and that was with Mancala, a game many orders of magnitude easier than Halo. Many developers with even more clout than Bungie have made claims that they would include online Co-op and then failed to deliver. It's a lesson on why you should take any features list published by a developer with a grain of salt.
They have been promising this since before 2 came out, just one of the many places where they dropped the ball on 2.
I don't understand why they can't just do they same thing they do in LAN Co-op.. when one player reaches a certain spot it "transports" the other player automatically to that point. That "felt like Halo" enough for 1 and 2...
Sounds more like poor excuses to me. Halo is flirting with solidifying itself as a source of undelivered promises. In-game "vaporware", one might speculate. Okay, first of all Halo 1 and 2 did not teleport the second player when they got too far from each other - they teleported the other player at checkpoints, when the game saved, so that if you died and had to restart from a checkpoint, both players would be close together. This is not so obvious in Halo 2 due to how railroaded the levels are, you pretty much *have* to travel in a straight line through all the checkpoints. However, if you take a map like Silent Cartographer in Halo 1, which is a giant island, you can have both players go out several hundred meters into the water on opposite sides and not have them teleport to each other.
And I'd like to ask you, Mr. Loteck, just when and where did Bungie promise Halo 3 co-op? Or promise anything else which they haven't delivered? I certainly haven't seen backtracking on any announced features, the closest is our current discussion: online co-op; but Bungie never said they were putting it into the game. Until now, they've never even said to anyone they've wanted to. It's mostly been implicitly expected by the community. But when it comes to crunch time, and you're looking at the immense problem of implementing online co-op, and you've only got another month to figure out the problem before launch, I think the best, most honest way of going about this is announcing beforehand that no, co-op won't be available for launch, but yes, we'll still try and add it in later.
What did you want them to do? Wave a magic fairy wand and finish the development with their large supply of pixie dust? Or perhaps you'd have preferred they kept this nugget of information to themselves until game launch? So no, Halo is not 'solidifying itself as a source of undelivered promises', this is just one instance of one thing that you won't get in Halo 3 at launch, and you cry bloody mary over it.
Are you kidding me? Halo: Combat Evolved for X-Box sold over 5 million copies and it didn't even have online play. Sure, people played it over LAN, but the guy on the street knew it for its sweet co-op.
Halo 2 sold over 6 million copies. When Halo 2 was released, there were less than 2 million subscriptions to X-Box Live... In fact, X-Box Live just reached 6 million subscriptions in March 2007. Obviously more than a few people weren't playing Halo online and I doubt that those who were ignored co-op.
Bungie has been known for doing co-op since Marathon. Co-op is an integral part of the Halo package, and it never would've become Microsoft's "Killer App" without it. Never. Halo is legendary not only for its versus play, but for the fact that it breathed new life into co-op (something that was being put on the back-burner due to developers' boners for online deathmatches). Without co-op, Halo would not be considered a classic game.
So before you lump "vast majority" in with yourself, take a step back and realize how integral co-op has been to Halo's (and the X-Box as a whole's) success.
You were gonna buy the console, buy the game, and pay for the online service JUST to be able to play the game co-op single player with your friend?... You sure you're just friends?
You missed the big one - WoW has centralized dedicated game servers, Halo 3 doesn't.
:)
Obviously, though, this reinforces your point
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Yes, I suggested Bungie can learn from EPIC, not me. No, I can't better direct Bungie's resources...I didn't say that. Do you work for Bungie? Are you a paid Bungie shill? You seem to be digging way deep into what I say in order to find something so you can slam me for criticizing Bungie.
Stop...read what I say and just let it soak in. Wait a minute and read it again. Did I say I was smarter than Bungie? Did I say that I could run Bungie better? No, all I said was that I wasn't going to buy Bungie on release because they pulled a feature that I want. I also said that while Bungie may want to do things different, Microsoft might find it a good idea to get the two companies to talk...
Now, if you somehow can read into this and again see some form of slam to Bungie, seek professional help.