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XBox (Games)

No Online Co-Op For Halo 3 At Launch 128

Posted by Zonk from the mark-rein-is-laughing-at-you-guys dept.
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.'"
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No Online Co-Op For Halo 3 At Launch More

No Online Co-Op For Halo 3 At Launch

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  • well... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Is0m0rph ( 819726 ) on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @02:35PM (#19904701)
    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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Fozzyuw ( 950608 )

      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.

      But forums are all about whining. You'll be damned if you do or damned if you don't.

      Cheers,
      Fozzy

  • when are they going to learn?! that is the single most interesting thing about online HALO play, I was super disapointed when Halo2 didnt have it... good grief! who cares if your are a mile away , it works just fine for Counterstrike, or any other FPS...
    • Yes, because the levels in CS are the same size as those in Halo/Halo2 and in CS you have just as many NPC's with complex AI to synch over network.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by 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 h
    • Right well I played HL1 hacked co-op over a network, and that came out in the 90's ... pulheeze!
      • Half life words as a series of small sections of map which are not in an way 'glued' together, and when you enter a trigger zone, the next/previous section of map is loaded into memory and the previous map discarded. This leaves a relatively small footprint of map for 2 machines to sync up at any one time. THAT is why it was 'doable'.

        It's certainly do-able in Halo 3, but there ARE boundaries to overcome first.
  • I enjoyed the Halo SP campaigns because they gave a sense of "one man vs. the universe". Playing it co-op with some whiny kid would not add to my experience.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Broken scope ( 973885 )
      Then play it with a... er... your.. friend..... Never mind this is slashdot, we don't have any friends.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sciros ( 986030 )
      It's always had split-screen co-op and it's immensely fun with a good friend. My brother and I have had some of our best gaming moments in Halo/Halo 2 co-op.

      Online co-op could be just as good as long as you play with a friend rather than some whiny kid. Would you invite said whiny kid over for a round of DOA4, after all? ^_^

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Serengeti ( 48438 )
      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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by XenoRyet ( 824514 )
        Ah, but the key factor is that you disagree with the way the developers think the game should be made, and they do have final say.

        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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by hdh ( 230194 )
      wait, I thought you were the whiny kid. ;)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jma05 ( 897351 )
      > they gave a sense of "one man vs. the universe"

      Isn't that usually the case with nearly EVERY FPS? But Halo is not a pure one-man FPS. It has AI (not including Cortana) fighting along side you. Something I prefer when it works (and it did in Halo).

      > Playing it co-op with some whiny kid would not add to my experience.
      Most people I know play co-op with people they know well.
  • I'm quite certain that the vast majority of people who purchase this game will play it online against other players in death match or capture the flag games. Although online co-op is a nice feature, it's hardly necessary for the vast majority of the people who purchase it. Hell, this franchise is so about online play that the single player campaign could probably be considered optional.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Thyamine ( 531612 )
      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.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by icars99 ( 759048 )
        I have to agree, I've played halo2 three times through from start to finish with my brother, But i can't be bothered to play it alone or in deathmatch. I love to coop play, I wish more games would include it.

    • While the people who invest 100+ hours into playing the game are doing most of that online, I wonder if the make up the majority of people who purchase it.

      I'd love to see that actual stats on this. But, see how poorly online only games do in the market (e.g. Shadowrun) I wonder.

      • "But, see how poorly online only games do in the market (e.g. Shadowrun) I wonder."

        Ever heard of World of Warcraft?

        I think there's a healthy market for online only games. I'd say that I probably spent 99% of the time I played Halo either onine over Xbox Live or on a LAN. The single player story was alright, but it's largely the plot of some older sci-fi novels mashed together. The story in the second game paled compared to that of the first, which doesn't leave me looking forward to playing the third instal

        • I should of been more clear. I was talking about FPS (and console FPS at that). Other than both being "games", Halo and WoW have very little in common.

          But, since you brought it up, WoW makes money be keeping you around month after month (kind of like a health club...more an "anti-health club" actually. But that's another story. ;)). Halo makes all its money selling new copies (plus a bit on tie-ins (books, movies, toys, etc.), and Halo3 will probably have add-ons). So it doesn't really matter to Microsoft

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by wallypop86 ( 1044532 )
      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, an

    • Are you kidding me? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      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 h
  • "This just in: Online Co-op play WILL be available on the PC version released in 2 years. The graphics will be the same, but it'll have, uh, a few new maps!"
    Exclusively available on WindowsRG [deanliou.com]

  • Huge Disappointment (Score:2, Insightful)

    by loteck ( 533317 )

    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.

    • The transporting really only worked in the rather linear and confined halo and halo 2. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't you have to be on one box for coop on both 1 and 2? Have they confirmed that in halo 3 lan coop you will still have to deal with the teleportation?

      Really if it works on lan, but not online, I wonder if its a latency issue or a bandwidth issue. Alas, who knows.

      I don't ever remember them promising online coop though, just hoping for it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AlexMax2742 ( 602517 )

      They have been promising this since before 2 came out, just one of the many places where they dropped the ball on 2.

      I'm calling bullshit. Show me someplace where Bungie specificly said that they were 'promising' online coop. I really highly doubt they ever did, and it was just something the entire fanbase wished they could do instead of something they could actually do.

      And I'm sorry that Halo 2 left you on a Half Life 2-esque cliffhanger and didn't have a 3 shot pistol in Multiplayer, but the rest of the

  • Well, yeah (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rob1980 ( 941751 )
    That'll be the $30 add-on you buy after the game's been out for a year.

    • That I wouldn't mind so much. It's the $30 "add-on" that comes out a month after the games been released that bugs me.

  • It would seem that I will not be buying Halo 3 on release. Maybe if enough people don't buy it at the beginning, it will spark some interest in Bungie to do it sooner than later. GoW has online co-op and it works really well. Microsoft should get Bungie and Epic to talk and maybe some knowledge will help make this happen sooner.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jZnat ( 793348 ) *
      Epic has a lot more experience in developing online games. Halo 2 was the first game Bungie developed that incorporated actual online play, and look at how well (or not) they did in relation to other successful online games (e.g., Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament (an Epic game! oh my!), etc.). Maybe their developers are just still sore that they aren't making Mac-only games anymore? ;p

      • Epic has a lot more experience in developing online games. Halo 2 was the first game Bungie developed that incorporated actual online play, and look at how well (or not) they did in relation to other successful online games (e.g., Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament (an Epic game! oh my!), etc.). Maybe their developers are just still sore that they aren't making Mac-only games anymore? ;p

        The Marathon Trilogy has multiplayer and was made by Bungie about 10 years before Halo 2 came out.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jZnat ( 793348 ) *
          Well, Epic has made more Unreal Tournament online games than Bungie ever has, and Epic makes more than just UT. Off-topic, but Marathon is open source nowadays. :)
    • For every copy of Halo you fail to buy, I'm going to buy three.

      I think the main reason this feature isn't happening is that it actually isn't a major desire of many, many Halo players. Personally, I'm in it for the story, the shared-box co-op, and the multiplayer competitive. I've seen the online co-op in Splinter Cell, and I was not impressed. Ubisoft has excellent developers, and their online co-op was plagued with trouble. If Bungie says there are technical hurdles, I believe them.

      Online co-op would be n
    • You are not smarter than the Bungie devs.

      What you have to understand is that Halo 3 allows the two players to be in very different parts of the map at the same time. In GoW you get rubber-banded pretty quickly and even when you are on different routes, you are still pretty close together.

      Like I said, don't presume you are smarter than Bungie in knowing these things.

      • Where did I say I was smarter than Bungie devs? Are you inferring that? You are incorrect.

        But, hey, if you want to read into things and make a complete ass of yourself, go ahead.

  • no online co-op??!?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bobfrankly1 ( 1043848 ) on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @02:59PM (#19905019)
    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
    -
    Stupid friend....
  • Umm... why is the situation so different in Halo 3 as opposed to how things were in Halo 2? You can play co-op via split-screen in Halo 2, and the exact same issue is still there (players moving far distances away from each other), yet they somehow handled it just fine: when one user is getting way further ahead on the map, the game will just teleport the lagging-behind player forward to the other player. Why wouldn't this be possible when playing over the internet? Why will we be able to play over LAN b

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SanityInAnarchy ( 655584 )

      when one user is getting way further ahead on the map, the game will just teleport the lagging-behind player forward to the other player.

      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, i

      • Re:Teleport users together? LAN but not XBL??? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Broken scope ( 973885 ) on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @03:43PM (#19905685) Homepage
        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.
        • I don't know about you, but I don't write software so my users will stop bitching.

          I write software so my users can use it. To do what they want to do. I then write manuals so my users will stop bitching.

          Seriously: Throw up a big warning that says "Co-op play over Xbox Live is not recommended."

          As for being a "side effect of how they load the levels", that's BS -- unless that is affecting bandwidth.
          • Yes, but do you write software for one of the whiniest demographics on the face of the earth? The halo fan base consists of some of the most fucking stupid walking attempts at preserving meat that walk the earth. Do you think they are going to care if the manual says "This might not work"? No they will bitch and so will reviewers who will then claim the game has broken features.

            As for it being "BS", what takes more bandwitdh? a server sending only that which is relevant to a client, or 2 servers sending eve

            • The halo fan base consists of some of the most fucking stupid walking attempts at preserving meat that walk the earth.

              True enough. So...

              No they will bitch and so will reviewers who will then claim the game has broken features.

              And those fans and reviewers will continue to buy Halo 3, and Halo Wars, and the Halo books, and the Halo graphic novel, and...

              Look, if they're Halo fans, then they can bitch all they want, they're Halo fans. They aren't going to switch over to being, say, Gears of War fans because

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Sibko ( 1036168 )

      Umm... why is the situation so different in Halo 3 as opposed to how things were in Halo 2? You can play co-op via split-screen in Halo 2, and the exact same issue is still there (players moving far distances away from each other), yet they somehow handled it just fine: when one user is getting way further ahead on the map, the game will just teleport the lagging-behind player forward to the other player. Why wouldn't this be possible when playing over the internet?

      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 gi

      • haha, I know the later paragraphs were in response to someone else in the thread, but....

        "What did you want them to do? Wave a magic fairy wand and finish the development with their large supply of pixie dust?"

        Yeah, when you substitute "pixie dust" for "money and talented developers".... ;)

  • well... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @03:01PM (#19905049) Homepage
    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.
  • Since Halo 1 was released on the PC, I've been reading interviews with the Halo dev team guys saying that network Co-Op is going to have to wait a while because their networking code can't handle it. As I recall the explanation was that you get a lot of functionality very easily when you are assured that both players are on the same system.

    Each of those articles also had intense speculation that network Co-Op is 'right around the corner'. First for Halo 1, then for Halo 2. I'm probably willing to say t
    • Bungie has been trying to implement this feature since Halo 2. It was actually in development, but they simply couldn't get it working at an acceptable level. I remember one of the major hurdles was enemy AI getting out of sync between the two players.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by LKM ( 227954 )
        It seems to me that it doesn't matter if Enemy AI is out of sync when the two characters are far away from each other. All that matters is that the two character's stats are synchronized, right?
        • Yeah, but what about when the characters are both engaged in the same firefight with a couple dozen Covenant? Or how about with a swarm of Flood? That is a LOT of enemy data to sync up, and a Xbox has to host it all.

          Rememberm in a multiplayer game, one Xbox has to send data on 4 players AT MOST. The Host Xbox has to relay info on 16 players, at most. If you've ever played any BTB games, you know that latency can throw those games off significantly.

          This is Bungie. If it were easy to impliment, it wou
  • It seems like a disturbing number of new releases have had their online play options severely curtailed or omitted entirely. Witness Tony Hawk (PS3), Metroid Prime 3 (Wii), and now Halo 3 (360) - and I'm sure there are a bunch I'm forgetting. Surely all these companies can't be having trouble putting together workable online play for their latest titles?
    • "Surely all these companies can't be having trouble putting together workable online play for their latest titles?"

      No kidding eh, I mean it's not like Bungie hasn't been making multiplayer games since 1994 [wikipedia.org], or even 1990 [wikipedia.org] if you want to stretch things a bit. Seriously though, the developers of the absolute biggest Xbox franchise can't fulfill the basic expectation of playing campaign with a friend over the net, after the third game in? Not to mention that the Myth [wikipedia.org] games had multiplayer co-op over the net, s
      • Comparing the small Myth maps with huge Halo maps and limited Myth AI with complex Halo AI is absurd. And playing co-op over the Internet is not a basic expectation. Deathmatch, CTF, etc. and local co-op is the basic expectation. LAN co-op is desired and co-op over the net, a challenging feature, would be a nice bonus. This being the third game in the series doesn't suddenly make the issue easier; in fact it probably makes it harder because maps are bigger, there are more enemies, more AIs to keep in sync,
        • "Deathmatch, CTF, etc. and local co-op is the basic expectation."

          No kidding. Three games in, and we're going to be happy with just the bare minimum, eh?

          Maybe some of us want more than just another online multiplayer deathmatch/CTF first person game. I mean, it's only been done hundreds of times. Maybe some of us want a killer storyline/campaign that we can enjoy along with our friends. Maybe some of us are tired of playing effectively the same fucking game over and over with the slighest improvement in g

          • No kidding. Three games in, and we're going to be happy with just the bare minimum, eh?

            That's a bit of a non-sequiteur, given that bare minimum would imply minimal features within those game modes. If you define the quality of a game as being related to the number of game modes then why don't you just go play Mario Party all day?

            Maybe some of us want more than just another online multiplayer deathmatch/CTF first person game. I mean, it's only been done hundreds of times.

            Yes. It's called the FPS genre.

            • Yeah, you know, I'm not interested to argue with someone over this stuff, especially someone who is so antagonistic with every comment. I really don't care that much. I already made my points here that Bungie is basically getting by doing the bare minimum of what we expect. They're not going the extra mile like they used to back in the days of Marathon and Myth, even though they have bigger budgets behind them than they had probably ever imagined back when they were up all night writing the networking code

              • They're not going the extra mile like they used to back in the days of Marathon and Myth

                Then what do you call a public beta? That's pretty cool. Every indication they've given so far is that they're working pretty hard on a lot of features. Really, what did they do in the old days that represented a bigger effort than what they're making now? Don't get me wrong, I loved Marathon and Myth and the company Bungie was back then, but I think a lot of people are letting bitterness over their purchase by Microso

    • Halo 3 will still have online multiplayer "Battle mode", which is halo's bread and butter - just no co-op, which many (or most) gamers aren't too concerned about. I'm not really sure what you're getting at.
    • I can't say it's the case for Tony Hawks or Metroid as I don't know enough about them, but the problems with it in Halo 3 and various other games that have had to take chunks out their multiplayer plans is to do with the massive maps you get in multiplayer games nowadays.

      Many people in response to this story are asking why you can't just teleport the player like in the local coop modes, well, that's actually the problem not the solution. A system can only hold a limited amount of a games assets (terrain, te
  • I don't understand how online co-op play has significantly different challenges from splitscreen and lan play. I mean in theory can't you have 1 player in a warthog and another player a mile away in both of those modes? If not, then just apply the same restriction that prevents it from happening in those modes to the online co-op.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Broken scope ( 973885 )
      Um trading data between 2 instances is harder than running 2 things within one?
      • Well, the thing that boggles the mind is that independent developers have managed to put pretty decently-featured TCP/IP multiplayer into Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City [mtavc.com]. Honestly, if enthusiasts can hack a single player game to allow multiplayer over the net, I can see NO excuse for an original developer not including these kind of features to start (especially when such a feature is in super high demand). We're talking about some guys adding this stuff with NO source code available to them, and then th
        • Correct me if Im wrong, its been a while since I messed with MTA for either VC or SA, but didn't they remove things like pedestrians and the randomly generated cars driving down the road? So really once you get rid of all those things, how much data do you think is actually being moved? Correct me again, but isn't the collision detection in GTA fairly simplified to make it playable in single player? Not to mention that making MTA playable requires a rather good computer.

          The level of complexity and the amoun
          • Oh, I don't know - when I played it had pedestrians and cars for sure, although I don't believe that info was synchronized. However you could get in a vehicle and drive around and the vehicle would also be in the other player's game properly synced up and whatnot. Either way, that's a pretty insane feat for some non-professional developers to basically hack into a non-multiplayer game ! heh

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by British ( 51765 )
            MTA is just races and deathmatch only. There is the occasional NPC-like object(mines, etc) that respawn for the next player to get affected by. There's also boulders that persist for all players.

            There's also GTA:MP which is a separate project for online play for GTA. Sadly, this is the ONLY game I've seen where having a low ping with the server is a penalty. Low ping means anyone that shoots you, you get hit. You try shooting them, and they seem bulletproof. I've done sharpshooting with an M4 against other
  • Seriously, where have the computer nerds gone?

    It's stated explicitly that LAN Co-op will be in the game. Given programs such as Warp Pipe for the Gamecube, how hard is it really going to be to simulate a LAN over the internet and enjoy online co-op in all of it's potentially bugged out glory?

    I guarantee you someone's going to program and finish such an application, possibly before the game even comes out. It's just a matter of convincing two Xbox 360s that they're on a LAN together, and praying you don't la

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by TruePoindexter ( 975295 )
      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
      • I completely agree with you on the emulated LAN. Of course it's possible; I don't see why 360 users couldn't use the same tools that are already available for Xbox for it (XLink Kai, etc). However, as you point out, the lag is insufferable on most games as their netcode is LAN optimized (low latency, enormous bandwidth compared to your standard Internet pipe).

        Regarding your second point, however, I don't buy it. Of course synchronizing two environments is a difficult chore, but it's something that has been
      • Having programmed a rudimentary, networkable Space War clone as my senior project for college, I'm not unfamiliar with the challenges presented by networking things even over an actual LAN.

        I am NOT in any way, shape or form suggesting that simulating a LAN over the internet is going to allow for easy, bug/lag-free play of Halo 3 co-op. I semi-sarcastically (an internet mistake I know) alluded to the probable bug and lag issues within the concept in my post. Hence, "bugged out glory" and "pray you don't lag
    • Of course that's totally possible, but here's the issue: why should the consumers have to come up with a solution for what the developer didn't finish? A lot of us can load up Hamachi or the like with little issue, but the point remains that we shouldn't even have to...

      Also, it hasn't been stated explicitly by Bungie that there will be co-op over LAN. It was written by the writer of that article, who may or may not have accurate information about that.
  • First, let me say that I'm a huge Halo fan; $130 special Legendary Edition Halo 3 pre-order huge. Co-op in Halo 1 & 2 is one of my favorite features, right behind multiplayer versus matches, but I can honestly say that online co-op is not a must-have for me, its just a nice extra.

    There are plenty of technical why this could be a problem, the primary reason is one of scale. In online multiplayer, games are limited to 16 players max -- some of the larger Halo battles in campaign mode have included many ti
    • Disclaimer: IANAGamesProgrammer but i do know a thing or two about randomness in games (see: doom demo format, every "random" event is based on the actions of the player). MY first play-throughs of the first two halos were coop, as were doom2, duke3d, quake1, quake2. (imagine my horror when half life DIDNT have a coop mode!).

      Halo is a player-driven game, non-scripted events react to the player. If they lob a grenade at a bunch of enemies they may return fire or scatter. These reactions are probably decided
  • This is from a leaked EGM issue written over a month ago. Online co-op has been in and out of Halo 3 for a while, and it just so happens that at the time of the issue (a month ago), it was out. Maybe there's hope.
  • ...The 360's super awesome shared memory feature. Sure, let's pack this baby full of hi-res textures-- hey waitaminit, why don't we have room anymore for these important game mechanics?

    Let's face it: Halo 3 HAD to look pretty, no matter what. If it didn't look like pure eye candy, Microsoft would never hear the end of it. Something's gotta give.
    • Wow.. just wow... and what about the PS3's architecture? where you get 256MB of ram tops?

      The developers can choose within the 360 how much of the 512MB GDDR3 ram they want to allocate between game code and graphics. It stands to reason that most of the time they'll probably got a 50/50 split.. meaning that it ends up being roughly equivalent to the memory available in a PS3 (256MB XDR/256MB GDDR3).

      What the hell does this have to do with Online Co-Op again?

  • I had one requirement for Halo 3 (and XBox360 purchase): I had to be able to play with my buddy, with whom I started the series. He now lives an untenable distance away. So, I don't need the game, nor their console, nor their pay-to-play Live service, I guess.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by enderjsv ( 1128541 )
      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?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Janthkin ( 32289 )
        (Someone modded that insightful?)

        Actually, yes. I am in the happy position of being price-insensitive on my hobbies. Likely, owning the system would inspire further game purchases, as it opens up options.
  • They should have the online Co-op mode borrow the technique that MMORPGs use and have a server keep track of the players and send the appropriate info to each of them as they progress. Since cost could be an issue, perhaps they could offer that feature to Gold members only (another can of worms I suppose). Or they could have one player's machine act as the server/host but that could cause quite a performance hit.

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