RSCR:Respond

I too have lost interest in Halo 2 as of late, and mostly for the same reasons. Although Live is amazingly convenient, and at times can be enourmously fun, it still can never ever hope to rival LAN play. Long live the true gaming geeks who actually believe in meeting with real-life people to engage in multiplayer mayhem. I agree that cheaters and griefers should have their own place to go. It would be far better if they left us regular folk's games alone. Most of them are annoying underage boys whose hormonal perplexities have somehow been misguided from the ladies and mutated into this demented anger and rage. It is an untameable beast which can never truly be destroyed. Let them tear each other apart in their own cage.

They probly hate freedom too.

That's the exact way I feel too, the game itself is amazing. It is just the matchmaking (although a good idea) is a bad move as not everyone wants a good fun game. Some (read:big stat whores) just want to cheat their way through games. Technically the game rocks, the game engine, physics, gameplay etc is top notch. Just not matchmaking, if what they had was ranked custom games and a server browser it would be amazing.

I think a big part of the appeal of a lan is sitting relative close to the people you are playing. When you are in the same room with someone, even if they are terrible, noone even slightly socially adjusted would be yelling "Oh, I just f@#$ing pwned you, bitch!" The most you ever here is 'nice rocket', or, in jest, 'I almost had you f@#$er!'.

On the matchmaking note, how about an option to host/join a random custom game? No ranks, just a chance to host a team fiesta ball or something and get a bunch of random folks in to play. I think that would have been a compromise between the old-school multiplayer hounds and bungie's desire to not have server lists.

One thing that everyone seems to be oblivious to when bitching about matchmaking and lack of server lists, is that you almost NEVER experience ANY lag in matchmaking (with the exceptions of standby and people playing online while downloading copious amounts of porn) whereas when you join a server online, if it fills up with alot of people with varying quality connections from all corners of the globe, you won't have fun ANYWAYS because you can't hit something that jumps all over your screen.

They either get halo 3 right or they don't. I think they can, but they REALLY need to GET OFF the mentality that 'we think you'll like this stuff becuase WE do'. Please do not design EVERY F***ing map around CTF next time bungie. I BEG YOU.

You really need to stop b*tching and just live with it or without it, no one really wants to hear about you or anyone else complaining of the problems. I just got back from a halo 1 lan, and it was.... well it was spectacular.

the more i look at comments like the ones u guys have just made the more i think about how wrong bungie made halo 2. its true the game is really quite good, but they got really caught up in making a completly new experience instead of sticking with tried and true meathods. i think bungie should completley get rid of ranks. gone. no more ranks. would u be mad? i wouldnt. in my opinion a big reason that halo 2 matchmaking is so bad is because u get a virtual prize with colors and other people look at it and say cooooll, and then ignorant people say "wow u must be so awsome". but then again, just yesterday i stubled into a custom game. someone was modding. my rockets moved super slow and my grenades went crazy fast. also, every weapon on the map was replaced by a warthogs hubcap. it was kinda neat. then the host ended the game, loaded everyone but himself on to one team and proceded to completley rape us. and i just thought to myslef. what the hell is this? i left imedialty and wondered to myslef what kind of a moron would stay in there to get pwned unfairly for no reason. that was just absolutley mind boggling to me.

You make some very good points, and I think that having a modding "sandbox" is something that not many people discuss. Yeah, there are the lamers that apply patches to their maps to cheat, but there is also a very large community that adds some real content to the game. If there were some kind of partitioned area where people could go and expect that kind of behavior(I suppose there is with Xbox Connect), it might prevent some of these problems.

If you ask me, I think Bungie made a mistake by allowing people to see their level ranking. If the whole point of it was to match comparable skills, then why show it at all. It only encourages stat whoring and boosting. Without that "I'm a level 25!", I think a lot of the kiddies wouldn't have as much motivation to cheat.

Hey Jon...I agree with the majority of what you are saying, and like many others, I agree that Live definitely fails to fulfill the "community couch" that we all enjoy at our "like-minded" LAN parties. However, currently, there is no readily available and convenient replacement for Live and my sickly multi-player Halo fix. This is to say that I am not going to quit playing on Live because of cheaters. So the question becomes not "How can we crush a prevelant annoyance embedded in the human competitive nature: CHEATING?", but rather "How should I respond to those causing the problems?"

Frankie, although extremely obvious, points out a simple truth: Ignoring a cheater/griefer/or modder is as good as beating them. These people, regardless of their actual skill and motives, will be with us always. And assuredly Microsoft Prime will develop the tools to curtail such activites, thus reducing the scope of satisfaction or advantage gained, however, never to be fully iradicated. Until that takes place I will play and enjoy Live & Halo2, continuing to utilize the in-game feedback and e-mail reporting.

Lastly, I propose two not-new ideas. 1) We can really optimize player-created forums and blogs to meet other "like-minded", ethical players. Eventually building friends lists & clans large enough to support constant challenging and exciting games. Thus, making it a rewarding priveledge to belong to a community (i.e. 2old2play) 2) Local LAN parties. Build up your local LAN parties. Even in a place like Oklahoma you can find enough "good" people to have a regularly scheduled LAN bashing.

I know it sounds remedial, but it is what it is.

From the first day I bought Halo 2, I knew ranking would cause a whole lot of crap in the community. Now after a few months, my opinion is even stronger that ranking should never have been included in this game. I play because I want to get immersed in that virtual world, but when I suffer a major rapage by some smack talking 10 year old hacking dim-witted boy, and then lose a level because of that, I just wonder what is the use of those ranks if they don,t add anything to your life and make 50% of the players feel bad. I stopped playing 3 months ago because of that and only recntly restarted playing because I had made real friends on Xbox live and we spent our time talking and enjoying custom games together.

Bungie and Xbox Live will never have a "sanctioned" area for modders online, especially seeing as how modifying your Xbox directly disregards the terms of agreement in the Live contract you agree to abide by when you first sign up.

Like tiger said, XBConnect is perfect for the modding community. I mean, anyone that can figure out how to disassemble the HEX code on a video game and reassemble it to give them super powers should surely be able to route their Xbox through their computer.

As for the rank icons that pretty much do define your "worth" as a Halo2 player when on Live, i agree they should be done away with. We don't need to see them to be matched up with people of our skill level, so hide them from us and let us play.

I, too, have stopped playing Live. I would rather be pawned by someone better than me, then lose to cheating/modding. Granted, I have done my share of modding, but I don't take it to Live, or even XBC or Kai (it's becoming unwanted even on tunneling software). My friends and I have a blast with it at LAN parties, and that's where it stays. Honestly, matchmaking should be gone.

I had (and am once again starting to have) tons of fun on XBC, Halo:CE. Granted, I'm not good, from being absent from the game for around half a year, and losing a lot, but it's a blast! I'm not sure exactly what it is, but even modding has become a bit boring. The LAN parties are growing steadily less; no one wants to play Halo 2, while Halo:CE almost guaranteed a LAN party every weekend.

I really don't want to sound too critical to Bungie, they gave Halo 2 a great try, and are working hard on Live, but it's just not working out (for me, and my firends). Good luck goes out to Bungie for "unconfirmed Halo 3."

Cheating has always been around. It's never gonna go away. You're right about the matchmaking, sometimes it sucks, sometimes it's great. I just played some Rainbow 6 yesterday, and it took me 30 minutes to find a game to play in with no lag, and without the host booting me as soon as I entered. It takes me a minute with Halo 2. I love it's convience. A custom game browser? sure, but leave the matchmaking. And for those that left, you always had that choice. I hate cheaters/griefers, but it's still not enough to make me leave a great game.

yeah, elongation is ok with brute shots but not what i expected for a halo 2 map. i want to see them remake danger canyon, which is in my opinion the best ctf map i've played (bar a few halo custom edition maps). on the topic of those assholes who bitch and moan on live, insult anyone who beats them, etc. i think the best way to deal with them is ignore them, continue beating them then leave feedback after. most of them are just complete asses. and cheaters give modders a bad name.

on that note my suggestion to bungie would be to take a vote on popular modded maps, to see which is most popular, then offer it as a new map for download. i mean, who DOESNT want to drive those cool prophet chairs on multiplayer?

that would be good, because then modders and non-modders can be happy.

my 2c

I would love it to if they had some kind of place for modders to go and show their new stuff...but wait they do that at halomods.com EXCEPT they are about having fun not cheating. You being way to kind to those who mod on halo 2. All they care about is getting their 50's and "being the best" And i could guarantee those modders on xbl just downloaded a ppf and applyed to some map. Those people are not creative.

I agree with the recent comments. Although I personally despise cheaters/griefers myself, I can see how these particular mods can actually be pretty fun to play if everyone had the same abilities. I don’t like playing games where people can do all these weird things and I can’t.

Bungie did have a good idea when they released Halo 2, but for some reason the idea became flawed as soon as people began playing it. The bugs and glitches that were rampant in the game, not to mention the crappy change in weapon balance changed it from the Halo we love to just another generic FPS. The matchmaking concept was a good idea but it was ultimately doomed because of the levels and leader-boards. This is the main reason why many people cheat in it because of some flashy level. Back in the day when I used to go to Halo Lan parties, we all played our best and had a good time because there wasn’t a rank system involved in it. Now, you get bitter, angry, and extremely rude players all because they think that just because they’re a 30 or higher that no one can beat them. And when they do get beat, they start shouting obscenities at other players because they think that they’re still better than anyone in the game, even though they got the lowest score. If there wasn’t a level system in matchmaking I would bet that there would be friendlier competitions instead of people complaining about their levels or where they stand, because honestly, I believe that even though you might say that you don’t care about rank, subconsciously you get upset because you see it go down because of a loss.

And what’s Bungie solution to this new problem of cheating. Another auto-update. All this will do is cause the cheaters to try and find another way to cheat. It’s a never-ending cycle. Just because you closed the door on one particular cheat opens up even more cheating avenues to explore.

What I think that Bungie should do is either just get rid of the levels and leader-boards all together or make it to where good, honest players won’t lose a level just because they lost a game. Or, they could put in a custom game lobby that lets players find custom games currently in progress and just join them. To be honest I was hoping that Halo 2 would be like that. The cheaters/griefers should be penalized for their behavior but that shouldn’t be the end of it. Bungie just needs to get rid of the reason why they cheat. If they did that, then maybe Halo 2 could be a fun place to play again.

What you say is absolutely true, but the main reason why people are being banned for using mods/cheating is when they are doing it solely to "boost their stats" with the advent of leaderboards, it has become something of a competition to see who is the best. If a separate server for modders and cheaters were created, it would alleviate some of the more petty offenses, but the main problem of boosters would remain.

Okay. So what is the immediate proposal for those of us who are non-modders? I don't want to join a CE thing or play mod games. I just want to play fun & competitive Halo2 against people of similar skill and ethical conviction. Do I need to create a website and forum in order to meet and screen for these people of "like-mindedness"? Do I need to create my own "couch"? Complaining is indeed necessary to invoke change, but what about now...I still want to play? My clan consists of about 10 people (m&f) between the ages of 24 and 47. We don't cheat, we don't mod, we don't scream obscenities (except at each other), but we do want to play. Where is the couch and how can one be created sans Live until something better exists as accessible as Live.

I agree with most of what's been said up to now. One thing to keep in mind, if I remember correctly, is that the next iteration of XBL is supposed to have some sort of "reputation" factor in matchmaking. If players are able to set a minimum reputation threshold of who they are willing to be matched with, and able to leave feedback after each game that will be applied to other players' reputation, I think that will drastically reduce the problem. Of course, there will be some who abuse the system, but I think that, by and large, the players with the worst reputation would be the ones who habitually cheat, and taking those cheaters out of the mix would go a long way toward improving the matchmaking experience.

I suggest to Microsoft to make a modding server on live, but was turned down in flames. Some of the modding community (The non-cheaters) are quite brilliant in what they can do with a game. Yet everyone seems to think of them as cheaters because people have sed it to cheat. I still think Microsoft should make a server for modding. Allow people to play mods, share ppf's and such. They'd get so many more people to buy xbox live.

I really respect the people's opinion who love Halo 2. But for me I think Bungie utterly destroyed everthing that made Halo 1 what it was. The worst game I ever had on XBConnect is still better than the best game I ever had on on XBL. I really miss the old days on XBC at 3 in the morning HAVING A BLAST. At a minimum to bring bungie's "next project" back to what it should be this needs to happen:

1. Original Engine
2. Drop Dual Wielding
3. One's weapons set and performance.
4. Increase FOV
5. Hide ranks

I could go on but....

I hold very little hope for 3 knowing bungie's style of putting project's together there just isn't enough time to make 3 what it needs to be for a Spring '06 release. Halo 1 was an enlightened accident.

Enemy Territory:Quake Wars.......

Sorry for the double post but one more thing. They aren't autoupdates. For all intents and purposes they are patches. Typical microsoft strategy is release a product no matter how flawed...then standby for them to make a patch to fix it. It boggles my mind that bungie says they put so much time into testing but it's only a matter of days before a hack/glitch is found then it takes weeks for bungie to put out it's PATCH to fix it. In the mean time people are getting fed up and leaving the game. Bungie is getting what they deserve. Sorry guys just my opinion. Halo 3=Rent before you buy.

does anybody kno how to hack back into halo 2 matchmaking cuz my friend was banned for some reason and he is tryin to figure out how to get back into it and i thought i could help.