Halo 2 - online

[Malc]

I love halo 2 but why have they done a really annoying online system?

When your in a game and some other people decide they don't like the level or something. When a few quit at once, the entire game has to stop and go to a blue screen saying 'setting up game' and then puts me back in.

Why does this happen with halo as other games just muck up the person who is causing it, rather than cocking up everyone elses game?

[EvilBoris]

Halo 2 has a fantastic system matchmaking system that might seem dumb if you don't realise what it is doing.

When you are waiting to join a game and you see the list of people filling up, the servers are deciding which player has the best connection capable of providing the highest quality game.

So one person becomes the host, if during the game the host decides to quit (either because they are losing or they are just a miserable bast) then the game goes to the blue screen and reallocates the host to another player.

Obviously if this player quits than the same thing happens again.


Sometimes cheaters abuse this system, if they are hosting the game they feck up their own connection (either by pressing the stanby button on their router) or downloading something , which causes lag for all the other players.

Whilst everyone is sitting on the blue screen, the cheating scumbags will be running around killing your static bodie or planting a bomb or something.

This occurances tend to happen a little more than they used to as the majority of legitimate players got 360s and are playing other games now, leaving a higher ration of nob heads and cheaters.

[Malc]

oh, I didn't know that thats why the game goes to a blue screen as it is making someone else the host.

I played this on my 360 when i first got it and was ok as i put up with it. But now it becomes really annoying when i played it recently.

I hope halo 3 will use a C.O.D. 2 syle as it just seemed to work better for online - letting you create and host a public match that people can join too, not just inviting your friend on a private match.

[EvilBoris]

Alot of people complained about the system for the matches, Halo 2 is quite bandwidth intensive , so all that would of happen is you would of stumbled upon loads of games that were atrocious.
when you are playing as a party then you realise how fantastic the whole system is, it is actually a shame that MS didn't make it standard in all 360 online games.

Saints Row uses the same system

The system really doesn work fantastic as it means you don't have to sit in a lobby for 20 minutes waiting for it to fill up before the host decides to start the game and other annoyances like that.

Halo 3 is addressing some of the complaints by having a voting system as the game loads, which means people won't have a proper reason to quit out if a ****ty game type crops up.

[Malc]

The voting system would be a great idea as sometimes there aint so good game types.

But i would just like 'create public game' option aswell as matchmaking, and private. Maybe even a vote on who would host the match depending on their reputation with Halo 3, or maybe it wouldn't work.