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.'"

Re:Not to smart either?

[Broken scope]

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.

Re:Online Co-op Possible

[TruePoindexter]

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.

Re:Suck Egg Mule!

[Anonymous Coward]

Counterstrike is played on the same relatively closed map. That was the point he was trying to make: There are things that work in some games, but not in other games. And especially co-op, especially over network (as opposed to split-screen), is a can of worms.
A lot of the game mechanics work in a bubble around the player. Things outside the bubble get removed from memory as he progresses, and are streaming into memory as he approaches them. Scripts are triggered or enemies are spawned.
In multiplayer this has to work for several players simultaneously. This is relatively well understood for the typical multiplayer scenarios, like Deathmatch, Capture the Flag or King of the Hill, or any variation with another name for the flag or the hill. Additionally each round is comparably short-lived, after a few minutes you can reset everything into a known state and restart.
Compare that to a singleplayer quest: You'll spend half an hour or more on a level, and you may do lots of things. You may decide to go a section on foot, you may use a car, or you may capture a jet to fly around. Levels are normally designed in a way that you have do things somewhat linearly, though, so you can make each player choice an interesting experience and appear consistent to the world the game simulates. In co-op the game has to work however all players approach a level, additionally it has to work in a way that gives no player a chance to cheat or exploit the game to the other players disadvantage.
As he said, this can be achieved, for example by adding checkpoints that both players have to reach before they can progress (airlocks for example), he can force both players to enter the same vehicle at the same time, he can eliminate choice, he can eliminate set-pieces that don't work well with two players. But it is essentially a case of developing a second game in addition to the single-player game. (Or three games: Singleplayer, Multiplayer, CoOp).
So please stop whinging. I'd wait for a game that is specifically designed around CoOp, for example like Army of Two.

Re:Not to smart either?

[ZorbaTHut]

You missed the big one - WoW has centralized dedicated game servers, Halo 3 doesn't.

Obviously, though, this reinforces your point :)