http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-28-halo-4-5-6-the-reclaimer-trilogy

Thought i'd share, sure someone has pointed this out though.

Personally, I consider the computer to be a console, if not more advanced than what is considered to be one.

I also think that MS just didn't want a repeat of H2V's terrible porting - that's why they avoided the PC for...well, forever :|

Everyone complains about the H2V port but it is EXACTLY what people wanted most in the game and that is in-game map downloads and that it allow for competitive play. All the restrictions to making maps for H2V that people whine about is a direct result of the community insistence that the H2 PC version have in-game map downloads and that it allow for competitive play. The only way that could be accomplished was to keep the user maps small for download and the only way that could happen was to share a large portion of the game assets in standard files. The anti-cheat/competitive play aspect prevented any third party memory hack utility or cheat from being used like a dev-mode or flycam and both contributed to not allowing a change in basic game play like game speed physics hacks, new weapons and vehicles.

This is a case of "be careful what you ask for" because the unintended consequences may be worse than not having what you desire.


Edited by Dennis on Oct 19, 2011 at 03:34 PM

H2V Doesn't support Single Player creation. Thats why no one likes it

A seperate toolkit for more customised content such as single player maps would be what I personally want. How is Halo 2 Vista's netcode btw, do you still have to lead shots like in Halo CE?

This. If H2V had SP support, I'm positive HCE would be completely dropped as a dev engine.

Single player support required access to shared files, it also required access to internal script functions both of which are prevented by small map size and the competitive play requirement.

I understand what people wanted but what they wanted was not what the asked for or rated the highest in the "wish list". Due to the technical limitations of the Blam! engine trade-offs had to be made to accomplish the overriding top two requirements which as it turns out was not really what people wanted so much.

The development of the H2V PC game was driven by the fans and the fans were not exactly forward thinking.

I'm sure that if MS at least tried in replicating what Gearbox did with HCE with one of their later games (be it H2 or later), they may have had success.

inb4 someone says "MS are just trying to go for a cash grab" - If they were really trying to net cash, they would've ported all of the Halo games to PC - especially if they were also trying to promote their flagship OS. Two birds with one stone, imo.

Is there a poll or something where all these people voted to have maps downloadable, if so I must have missed it. You almost make it sound like "the fans" had any choice in how h2v was handled, when they in fact they did not. Also if the reason maps weren't aloud custom tags were because of competitive play they really didn't put any effort forward to prevent them. Once a map's loaded and put into the registry it never checks it again for custom tags.
Edited by Sprinkle on Oct 19, 2011 at 04:16 PM

Yes they did in consumer focus groups, direct contact and on the Bungie website. The developers reviewed this and other Halo game websites for public consensus, how else do you think HaloMaps.org was listed in the manual as a resource? H2V may not have given you want you really wanted but it delivered on what was the consensus at the time in that in-game map downloads and competitive play was most important.

It just goes to show that video gamers tend to be a fickle bunch since that is not what people want most of all today.

what

You make it sound like the game wasn't a hilariously lazy port, and there's a good reason why everything in h2v was terrible.

Having common game assets shared between maps by a single file is hardly a new thing, Halo 1 does that, and source does that. That's a terrible reason to lock down the editing kit, especially since the MAJORITY of stuff they locked down doesn't increase filesize in any significant way.

What you're suggesting makes no sense since the most common cause of large filesizes are custom bitmaps, which Halo 2 Vista allows mappers to compile. ( http://h2v.halomaps.org/editor/index.htm?page=ImportBitmaps.html )

Also if Hired Gun had cared at all about competitive play they would have made some effort to deal with online cheaters, and fix the hacks that were present years before on the xbox.

In addition to that, Halo 1 has had a competitive community for a hell of a long time now, and the fact that some maps had custom vehicles/weapons/etc has never deterred them from playing customs competitively.

Hello HCEL?

So no, and no.
Edited by SeL on Oct 19, 2011 at 06:51 PM

Lol I also can't asign the q-key to H2V, that's how lazy they were. It literally is impossible to do (and thus play on my keyboard).

Well they didn't do a good job on that did they. Probably one of the biggest things is that the game isn't compatible with windows XP. Whatever consensus they did wasn't for anything major leaving the overall product unscathed. Which is why it belly flopped. I still don't see where competitive play comes through with the lacking dedicated server and postgame data, along with a matchmaking system that places you in empty servers. That's just a half-as lazy done job, sure they may have had a limited time to do it but they sure as hell didn't use it to their advantage.
Edited by Sprinkle on Oct 19, 2011 at 07:13 PM

You can knock out consumer focus groups because they're in the shallow end of the pool. Direct Contact is incredibly vague and too easy to disregard for a corporation. The Bungie Website doesn't have any of the real users from HCE/HPC and I don't remotely recall any thread/poll/whatever being brought to the attention of the forum-goers here or at Modacity. Half of the maps out there are entirely custom MP maps (which H2V allows), but the other half consists of AI/SP maps (of which H2V does not allow). Basically, you're telling us that the people MS/HG listened to were only one half of the actual user-base? On top of that, your reasoning for having one over the other is entirely obsolete; HCE is far more fragile than H2V and uses shared files regardless, not to mention the technology that H2V was provided was far more advanced than that of HCE. Therefore, one can and should deduct the publisher/porter did a very half-hearted and cheaper job.

Then you have misunderstood what I am saying. I am not defending the choices they made but I understand why they made them and the ramifications of those decisions which resulted in a game that was far less than optimal. I am not nor ever have suggested that H2V was a wonderful game and that they executed the project to its fullest but the reasons things are the way they are is because they listened to the what the fans "said" instead of what they "meant".

I spent fifteen years as a product manager and the thing you learn is that when developing new products what people say they want and what they will actually like and buy for the most part are different things. All I am saying is that the decision to prioritize those two items is what drove the limitations of the SDK and I am not defending those decisions nor how they executed them.

Agree with Dennis. See that a lot these days.

Used to happen at old school. People asked for a fun game, but it turned out it wasn't a game the thought fun. You see, most fo the people in the class wanted fun game. Others didn't give a bother, including me. The teacher set up'fun game' which was not what they asked for. But, it was fun to others.


What people say and what they mean are usually two entirely different things. Sarcasm, for example.

And who are you to insult Halo 2 PC, anyway? Sure, they made the biggest mistake ever having it only for xp, which is why I don't play it except for when I go to my cousins house. He is halo DEDICATED. The Halo 2 map editing system was the school for forge. And it is still fun. Even though it is outdated with things like forge out, it is still incredibly fun.

Anyway, if they released a Halo 2 Custom Edition, we would have lost that good old Halo Combat Evovled. Admittedly, it'd be much better on 2, but we might not have things like CMT's SPV, or TM's Lumoria, because maybe they would have settled for the great halo 2 multiplayer?

Ya never know.

FIFY.

That's the reason why they never should've rushed Halo 2 out the door. I know they wanted to please, but releasing a half-arsed game port to the PC on an OS that everyone complained about was THE biggest mistake MS/Bungie (mainly MS) had ever done.

Oh ok

I was just pointing out that the reasons you specified for why they locked down the editing kit didn't do anything to further the reasons you specified.
Edited by SeL on Oct 20, 2011 at 08:39 AM

Agree with you chief. Microsoft is pretty idiotic these days.

I mean, seriously, why the heck do they have to release all these [sarcasm]wonderful[/sarcasm] casual kinect games that ruin the look of the xbox and diminish the size of great titles like Halo 4, Halo CEA, Halo 4 again.

But, after all that's out of the way, it is pretty fun placing all that scenery on containment. Made it awesome 1 time.

Oh yeah, to select a control to change, apparently you have to press enter, not left-click.

In my opinion, once you get your LIVE profile to work after re-downloading it several times, the LIVE system's messaging, friends, and achievements are very nice.

Halo 2 doesn't run well on my PC, I have to set all of the graphics to lowest possible (not that they let you change very many of those). The Cod4 demo didn't have as many frame-rate issues as h2v. Using Fraps to record h2v, I get a sucky frame-rate, cod4 demo recorded fine.
Edited by Xoronatus on Oct 22, 2011 at 03:22 AM