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Dedicated Halo 2 Fans Keep Multiplayer Alive

Posted by Soulskill on from the never-surrender dept.

On April 15th, Microsoft terminated Xbox Live support for the original Xbox console, marking the end of online multiplayer for many older games. However, a group of Halo 2 players have refused to give up online play by leaving their consoles on and connected since then. Overheating consoles and dropped connections have taken their toll, but at present, 13 players are still going strong.

18 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. MS should... by blahplusplus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    really be required to legally release server side software for the PC to enable people to play their Xbox games. Quite frankly I really hate this bullshit service where companies have control over games people paid for in a "forced obsolescence" model of attempting to control the lifespan of a product and when to torch it to force people to upgrade.

    It's unfortunate that the copyright and software licensing nazi's got control of the law due to the ignorance of the people.

    1. Re:MS should... by JavaBear · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "We're talking about a *game*, not your oxygen supply"

      We are talking about money paid, and the principle of having companies take away our ability to use what we have legally paid for, just because they have us by the balls.

    2. Re:MS should... by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, what CONSUMERS "should" do is to QUIT buying software that's subject to such prone-obsolescence systems. If consumers are too stupid or unable to resist buying the latest and greatest despite such issues, then companies will continue to find it in their financial best interests to do so.

      At least with a PC, there are methods to hack around this (even WoW has private servers, illegal but they're there), but now you see part of the actual total-cost-of-ownership for that console.

      --
      -Styopa
    3. Re:MS should... by Hadlock · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More than likely the Halo 2 servers are running on a PC, be it virtualized or other. Microsoft is completely rewriting the Halo codebase from the ground up for Halo 4 or whatever it is they're calling it. Considering most people bought the game for the multiplayer releasing the source code for the servers is a small concession to make. Usually I could care less, but unless MS offers Halo 2 on the 360 live arcade for free to existing owners, Microsoft is kind of screwing over their customer base.
       
      I bought counter strike back in 1998, but I still pull it out and play it from time to time. Hell, it's Valve's most popular game to date*, even today. To top that off, Valve upgraded me to the Valve Platinum Pack for using the HL CD key that came with the copy of HL I bought just for Counter-Strike. The only thing Microsoft supports beyond the scheduled lifespan of the product is old Windows and Office updates as near as I can tell, never games.
       
      Valve actively supports their games and player base, Microsoft turns their back on them. Which one do you want to support?
       
      -
       
      *Actually right now it's COD4, but that's because they just had a $15 steam sale on it.

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    4. Re:MS should... by blahplusplus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "No, what CONSUMERS "should" do is to QUIT buying software that's subject to such prone-obsolescence systems"

      Reality is people are too stupid to do this because the do not understand their rights, the informed minority is outnumbered by the ignorant majority. In theory the free market is supposed to work this way, in practice it absolutely does not as we've seen again and again.

    5. Re:MS should... by Peach+Rings · · Score: 3, Informative

      You mean you couldn't care less. Sorry, grammar nazi mode from all those Xbox's.

    6. Re:MS should... by tophermeyer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not trying to be a douche here, but the game is almost 6 years old and runs on an outdated service that was generally limited to an outdated console. The last original Xbox's were sold in 2006, and have not been supported by Microsoft for almost a year (seriously any original Xboxes that need service and are somehow still under warranty are simply replaced by an Xbox 360). People that buy multiplayer intensive video games have to enter into that knowing that the game will not be supported indefinitely. I can understand your criticism if it were directed at the mass of sports games that are re-released every year, but not this.

      Plus, the game still runs fine in single player and over system link. The only thing that is being discontinued is XBLive support, which Microsoft never promised would be maintained in perpetuity. Its not like MS is sending people out to repossess the disks.

    7. Re:MS should... by kyrio · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't remember that, actually.

    8. Re:MS should... by peragrin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Every once in a while I pull out my diablo ii cd's and play

      certian movies put me in mood to play a turn based strategy game that came out in 1997 to the point I will install windows to play it.

      Good games hold their replay value. Companies that limit that value undermine future game sales.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    9. Re:MS should... by AnotherUsername · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It makes me feel like I moved from US to Soviet Russia and gave up all my freedoms.

      I completely agree. Not being able to play a game online is just like the massacres, disappearances, and political oppression visited upon people by the Soviet Russian government.

      --
      I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
    10. Re:MS should... by Krau+Ming · · Score: 4, Funny

      hold on, let me just check my old emails... nope can't find anything...

    11. Re:MS should... by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Reality is people are too stupid to do this because the do not understand their rights, the informed minority is outnumbered by the ignorant majority. In theory the free market is supposed to work this way, in practice it absolutely does not as we've seen again and again.

      You call them too stupid. I call them people who do not care if they can play these games on Xbox Live six years later. The game still has LAN support. The fact that only a couple dozen people cared enough to try to do something about it is proof that nobody really cares. I just bought Halo 3 ODST because it finally had a major price drop at Costco ($25.) I don't care that one day, the only way I'll be able to do multiplayer is on a LAN. I'm sure I'll get $25 of enjoyment out of it, and I don't even have Live Gold. To some people it was worth $60 to get it when everyone else got it so they could play online, I'm not that guy.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    12. Re:MS should... by cgenman · · Score: 3, Informative

      Please investigate the situations of individual titles before suggesting blanket solutions.

      Halo 2 is being end-of-lifed in no small part because it relies on an outmoded Xbox 1 Live server ecosystem. This has limited the Xbox 360 to a specific number of friends on their friends list, older types of interactions with people online, etc. There are a lot of people asking for upgrades to the Xbox that have been blocked for this one particular game, which Microsoft has kept alive for 4 years after the original console (that didn't sell that well anyway) went away.

      All of this relies upon Xbox Live. The game expects friend requests, chat requests, server pings, score update connections, DLC purchases, etc. All of these things are signed and protected to prevent A: online cheating, B: griefers, C: penis spam. Further, they have legal commitments to their partners to keep Xbox Live a secure system. This doesn't apply to most individual PC titles, as they are essentially standalone.

      For Microsoft to release official software that allowed people to play Xbox 1 games like Halo 2 online, they'd have to release large chunks of Xbox Live. Then they'd need to do things like strip out any dedicated IP's, Oracle database calls, other copyrighted code, etc that might be floating around in there. What would people get? An impenetrable mess that, at best, would still require a fake NAT and a server farm to work.

      Halo 2 fans, currently by comparison, can use SSH tunneling to create a fake LAN, and enjoy the game that way. This is a much more sane solution.

      --
      The ______ Agenda
  2. Isn't this what the fanboys said was impossible? by mikael_j · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I seem to recall that in pretty much every discussion about "rented" software, software that doesn't work without the developer's servers or online authentication there have been cadres of fanboys who have claimed that obviously the developers (including MS) would nevar!!1 just shut down their servers without first "opening" the game so that full functionality can be retained.

    So how's that trust in corporations working out for you?

    --
    Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
  3. Re:The price of a couple dedicated servers by JackieBrown · · Score: 4, Funny

    They need that 5-10k for Bing :)

  4. Re:One of the ley reasons I don't like online game by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not online games, it's online games where a company with a vested interest in obsolescence has control over the server. I can still play Quake 1 / QuakeWorld in multiplayer, for example. Both were released 14 years ago and the company that created them has released several sequels since then and has no incentive to keep operating servers. Because the online gaming happened over the Internet (rather than a walled garden like XBox Live) and the server software was made available, other people can continue to run servers for as long as there is a demand. When I was doing my PhD, I ran a QuakeWorld server in the lab for people to play on, both in the lab and from home. It sounds like Halo 2 players don't have that kind of option.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  5. Re:One of the ley reasons I don't like online game by Stenchwarrior · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Exactly. ANY old ID game (not sure if you can say this about Duke Nukem or some older Blizzard games) still has many servers up and running AND people actually playing in them. I guess their Celeron 300 (Oc'd to 400, ofc) and their dual VOODOO2 running in SLI has to be used for something. But game-play can, in theory, go on indefinitely or until they stop supporting IPv4. Even then someone will build a patch. Because they can.

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  6. Forget the politics - these guys are awesome by Liambp · · Score: 3, Funny

    Forget about the politics for a moment. What these guys are doing is an awesome tale of human perseverance in the face of adversity. As a fellow gamer I salute them