Xbox One Halo 2 Online and Xbox One similarities...

[cliverederson]

With all of the outrage over games checking in with an internet connection, I'm reminded of a current situation that rather makes me mad. I can't play Halo 2 online. I bought it fair and square, I bought an Xbox, then an Xbox 360 to play it on, and now the makers decide it's offline, I can no longer play multiplayer. I don't think that's right. It's by far my favorite Halo, and I've bought a few after Halo 2, some were decent, but they just didn't quite measure up. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think Bungie should have to keep making new playlists and maps for Halo 2 at this point, that's a ridiculous request. But it's not like Xbox Live is offline, put up all of the playlists and just let it run. All the damn service did anyway was connect Xboxes together, the games weren't even hosted on servers ran by Bungie. It seriously irks me that I can no longer play a game I bought that I am DYING to play. I would resubscribe to Xbox Live right now if I could play Halo 2 online.

By the way, this is how every game will be on the Xbox One, once they decide that's too old to keep online too.

 

[BlackSolaris]

This is what bothers me from digital only releases or a game that has 15 billion DLC spread through costumes, missions, and items. If you want to play the same game 10 years from now, you won't be able to because you either can't access the network because it will be dead or you can't turn the damn thing because much more than 24 hours have passed since the last login.

 

[cliverederson]

You mean if you needed to re-download the content? If you kept in on your 360's harddrive you'd be fine, right? But of course, with everything you have, that becomes almost impossible anyway. I know what you mean though, I just don't generally like how we're going to end up losing the use of old games we bought. I tend to think backwards compatibility should have more of a higher priority nowadays than it does.

 

[Joker99352]

I think the problem is that there are newer Halo games, not that they took the servers offline. At the very end there were only a handful of active users, so it would have been very difficult to even find matches. But Halo 2's multiplayer was a game changer for me; it introduced me to multiplayer in general, and it helped me improve my skills immensely (and not just in that game). And yet in spite of that, I don't really have any desire to play it now. I'm not too worried about the Xbox One's release because they're planning on supporting the Xbox 360 (or should I say milking it?) for at least a while.

 

[Khronic]

I think the problem is that there are newer Halo games, not that they took the servers offline. At the very end there were only a handful of active users, so it would have been very difficult to even find matches. But Halo 2's multiplayer was a game changer for me; it introduced me to multiplayer in general, and it helped me improve my skills immensely (and not just in that game). And yet in spite of that, I don't really have any desire to play it now. I'm not too worried about the Xbox One's release because they're planning on supporting the Xbox 360 (or should I say milking it?) for at least a while.

There was one full game that was still online when they took the servers off. The "game" would basically last until everyone disconnected. This was years ago, and the game lasted as long as people's Xboxs could last without exploding from overuse. I don't agree with the idea that since there are newer Halo games, people still don't want to play the old ones. I used to be an avid player of Dungeon Siege, and Microsoft did a similar thing to the matchmaking for the game as well. I know they are trying to run a company, but the server costs for such games surly aren't that high.

 

[Chunkaroonie]

Yeah, I do see this becoming an issue. It's also kind of the same issue Steam has - if Valve suddenly went bankrupt would we still be able to play all our games that we own? Now Valve has said that they would remove the DRM if that ever happened but who knows if they would or even could deliver on that promise. Maybe Microsoft could do something similar to Valve and just forgo all the restrictions? I'm not sure such a thing would even be possible though.

 

[cliverederson]

Yeah @Joker99352 but just because there are newer Halo games, doesn't mean they're better. None of them held my interest like Halo 2 did, and I'd like to jump back in and relive that game every once in a while. Maybe matching would take longer, sure. But I do think enough people would still be interested that matches could still happen in a reasonable amount of time. But that is beside the point to me, if I went on Halo and it took a half an hour to match me with someone, so be it, at least that's not Microsoft taking the game away from me.