Co-op in Halo PC, should it have been made?

[legionaire45]

I always found the Co-Op too easy even on legendary. Single Player is tough though XD.

[Rescudo]

Yup, netcode pretty much makes it unfeasible. Would be nice though

[rossmum]

16-player co-op as marines... would fucking own. To say the least.

[Boo Diddly]

16 player marine coop would be nice BUT...
http://img65.exs.cx/img65/3924/owned_hl3.jpg
we just got owned by the crapbox's notcode!

[MereCatfish]

Boo Diddy:

I hope your usage of "crapbox" does not mean Gearbox.

If it does, allow me to tell you a short story.

One day, a company called Gearbox Software found themselves developing a port of Halo in order to make money to do what they really wanted to do - Brothers in Arms. They had a wonderful netcode that was almost perfect for netplay. This was fully implemented in Beta 2 of Halo PC.

However, this netcode was so good because dial-up connections were not permitted. Naturally, Microsoft realised that this could stop a large portion of casual gamers purchasing the game, as at this point a lot of people still had dial-up.

Gearbox were probably unhappy, but they had to agree as Microsoft were writing their paycheques. Remember, Gearbox needed the money for BiA.

Gearbox may then have set off to code their own netcode. I would imagine Microsoft aasked for an ETA, at which point they probably said "a few more months". Microsoft wanted the game out in time for the holiday season, so they would have said "No" again, and gave Gearbox their own crappy, dial-up compatible netcode. Or something like that. And of course, Gearbox couldn't say no...

[Boo Diddly]

they could have done a better job...

what about other things that they did wrong? mmm?

[rossmum]

Could you do better? No. Could anyone on this forum do better? Most likely not. Was it GBX's fault they were told to use crappy netcoding? No, they didn't have a choice.

[Rescudo]

If it's true that Gearbox made a good netcode for Halo, I reckon they should have implemented it with an update. I mean, maybe there were a lot of dial-up-gamers in 2001, but now?... Everybody here in Norway that I know about has broadband, anyway.

[rossmum]

Problem is, re-writing the entire netcode and releasing it as a patch is no small ask, and GBX have their own games to worry about...

[Rescudo]

We'll never get 1000 players on at once, will we.