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343: Explanation of What Happened with the MCC & Why It Was Left Unpatched Until Now

OmegaDL50

Member
I played through all of the SP of a non-functional game at release then.

Yep, by this metric Driveclub which had a full fledged playable tour mode was a "non-functional game" as well.

Glad to see 343 trying to get things fixed with the MCC. The fact they have not given up and just outright abandoned it is very promising.
 

Madness

Member
It's kind of disturbing to see people praising 343 for holding their money hostage for a couple of years while they tried to figure out how to deliver the product they sold you way back then.

Have we been on the same internet the last 3 years? Myself included, 343 has taken an asbolute beating for MCC. Your own post shows how angry people still are. But why shouldn't they be commended for acknowledging the issues, pledging to fix it alongside the release of updated hardware, and changing the way they approach their other games? By comparison, BioWare did a few patches and then cut Andromeda DLC altogether, and the series is dead in a few months. With MCC we did get the unplanned ODST campaign remastered, and now some kind of a fix and update.

And if you read Frank's post, he literally said the upcoming hardware and changes to the OS and system have helped. Something that wouldn't have happened 3 years ago. Also, they literally did not have to do this. No one was expecting any MCC update especially with all hands on deck with H6.
 

Unity2012

Member
Appreciated 343i.

I never stopped playing the MCC. I have it for the SP and for that is great. The fact that you guys are finally wrapping up the project the way it was intended, beyond a fan service it has to be empowering for the team. I'm sure many had unresolved issues after the launch of the game and now it is redemption time and more.

As a fan, thank you.
 

ps3ud0

Member
Well put. It's great having both an explanation and an apology but it's not great to see them used as part of a cynical marketing push for the Xbox One X.

The correct time for this deep introspection would have been when 343 decided to ship the game, and charge full price for it when they were well aware it wasn't in a working state.
I'm more annoyed than I should be, I didn't buy the game but it's hard not to feel completely insulted and pissed off that it wasn't the hard earned money that people paid (years ago) for your product, but seemingly the release of your latest hardware that prompted such atonement.

ps3ud0 8)
 

hollomat

Banned
Have we been on the same internet the last 3 years? Myself included, 343 has taken an asbolute beating for MCC. Your own post shows how angry people still are. But why shouldn't they be commended for acknowledging the issues, pledging to fix it alongside the release of updated hardware, and changing the way they approach their other games? By comparison, BioWare did a few patches and then cut Andromeda DLC altogether, and the series is dead in a few months. With MCC we did get the unplanned ODST campaign remastered, and now some kind of a fix and update.

And if you read Frank's post, he literally said the upcoming hardware and changes to the OS and system have helped. Something that wouldn't have happened 3 years ago. Also, they literally did not have to do this. No one was expecting any MCC update especially with all hands on deck with H6.

What you say above about Mass Effect Andromeda is basically exactly what 343 did with MCC.

After MCC came out they released a few patches which didn't fix the issues than abandoned it. This "fix" is 4 years after they released it.

If in 4 years, EA decides to release another patch for Andromeda, should they be praised as well?
 

Bsigg12

Member
I wonder if this means Halo 6 is 2019.

I said it in the Livestream thread, Bonnie Ross's comments about wanting the team take all the time necessary to build the next Halo FPS make it sound like Halo 6 is 2019.

What you say above about Mass Effect Andromeda is basically exactly what 343 did with MCC.

After MCC came out they released a few patches which didn't fix the issues than abandoned it. This "fix" is 4 years after they released it.

If in 4 years, EA decides to release another patch for Andromeda, should they be praised as well?

For finally putting the time and resources to fix something that was a disappointment? Sure. EA won't do that though. Microsoft believing in 343 to get this right says a lot in how they value the fans that are still around and are tired of being dragged through the mud with the mess MCC is/was.
 

Jafku

Member
Id take Stinkles post with sincerity if it wasn't just well timed to be part of the XOX marketing cycle. Does it really take years to get around to delivering what a lot of people paid good money for? This should be considered lower than the bare minimum those people deserve...

I still can't believe how many milestones and cross-checks must have been ignored to deliver what 343i (and ergo MS) did. Surely there must have been several points where you could have reigned back scope and just delivered fewer components (need vs want) with the promise of adding to them to eventually create the complete package (say as free DLC considering how dense the content was going to be).

Its good that's its gonna get fixed (and by that I presume completely without any major caveats or omissions and as originally advertised) but damn it shouldn't have taken this long to even say this is gonna happen. If 343i were meant to be the Halo guardians, then Halo 5 should have been delayed until MCC was delivered as promised/sold. I think what actually happened was the worse thing they could have done to Halo...

ps3ud0 8)
Well said
 
wishing for a TL DR version lol

Very paraphrased but:

"We were ambitious, we had a bad matchmaking algorithm that didn't work in a widespread retail environment, and there were a lot of different networking issues that were out of our hands that we couldn't properly communicate to users. On top of that, the things we couldn't see in a debug/pre-release state caused smaller issues to compound into much bigger issues"
 

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
this is still the most disappointing game I've ever bought. I'm certainly not going to buy it again but I might finish the campaigns if it goes GWG or something.

still can't quite believe it was released in the state it was.
 
While I'm almost absolutely sure that I haven't said anything particularly vitriolic in the past about 343, I have to say that I'm sure I would feel terrible after reading that post if I had. It honestly was freakishly easy to forget that everybody over at 343 (Frankie especially) have a deep love for Halo and it hurt them just as much as us when it came to the state of MCC.

Thanks guys. I really appreciate the transparency. At the end of the day, it's only a game. I spent money on it, sure, but being part of a small but super toxic (and largely unhelpful) community that gets nobody anywhere is something that I'm glad that I was not a part of. 60 dollars is not worth giving other people unending shit about something that I would have forgotten about in a year anyway. That said, I'm sure constructive criticism was very appreciated on your end.

Long live Halo!

Still waiting on that PC port :p
 
I've never gotten so little out of a purchase as MCC and Halo 5, and I buy COD every year so it's a tall bar to clear.... I'm done with 343. 'making it right' at this point would involve a full refund IMO.
 

RowdyReverb

Member
I think MCC remains my most-played game on Xbox. It was at over 100 hours, which is a lot for me. I played a lot of matchmaking in the first year and played each campaign. I’d love to revisit the game and up that number some more next Spring.
 

Cranster

Banned
I do hope customization and missing UI options will be addressed with this update. Heck, I'd be for a UI overhaul if that is within the realm of possibility aswell.

Thanks for the explanation though Frankie.

I think MCC remains my most-played game on Xbox. It was at over 100 hours, which is a lot for me. I played a lot of matchmaking in the first year and played each campaign. I'd love to revisit the game and up that number some more next Spring.
Cute, I spent 55 days, 8 hours and 38 minutes on MCC according to my Xbox One stats. I also unlocked 598 out of 600 achievements, lol.
 

Madness

Member
I love Halo and most of my time spent on GAF and elsewhere is about Halo. I took 343 to task for whst happened with MCC but I literally see nothing to be angry about here.

I went out an purchased a white sunset Xbox One. I sold Sunset Overdrive digitally here to someone in the BST thread. I purchased a year of Live. I purchased a wireless battery pack and charger. I lined up at 9pm in the freezing cold temperatures for the midnight launch and spent the next 10 hours downloading and trying to join matches and praying it would work. For 3 months I tried and then I stopped. I never played MCC much at all. It did irreparable damage to my love of Halo to where I didn't even enjoy Halo 5 as much as I should have. But I cannot find fault with 343 fixing or updating the game this many years later. Yes it should not have released like this. Yes there should have been refunds. But I commend Frank and the team for explaining the issues as much now and latee when the update hits. They didn't need to. Everyone had moved on. We all hoped there would be a steam release or an eventual fixed version. Now hopefully we are getting the MCC we should have gotten day one.
 

.la1n

Member
I treat this like I would any company providing products I purchase; they delivered a subpar broken piece of software. The only positive I can gleam from this is hopefully they don’t do it again.
 

RowdyReverb

Member
I do hope customization and missing UI options will be addressed with this update. Heck, I'd be for a UI overhaul if that is within the realm of possibility aswell.

Thanks for the explanation though Frankie.

Cute, I spent 55 days, 8 hours and 38 minutes on MCC according to my Xbox One stats. I also unlocked 598 out of 600 achievements, lol.
You win. I guess we were in the majority for whom the game was fixed with the post-launch patches. Still looking forward to the 4K stuff though
 
I appreciate the post and I hope Xbox/Halo fans (I plan on getting it in the future for sure too) have fun with it fixed, but it seems like GAF has some collective stockholm syndrome or something when it comes to 343i. Half these posts are like what people say to abusive relationship partners: "I can't quit you!" "What you did was wrong but I'll ignore it if you can just change!"

It's like, no, they probably are gonna do it again. They aren't gonna change.
 

Kent

Member
It's concerning that netcode for campaign co-op isn't mentioned here.

I can understand not developing netcode properly for the games that didn't initially support online co-op - though that's obviously sub-optimal for a gameplay experience - but the MCC versions of those that did originally have online co-op for campaigns are affected far worse than their original releases were, even when you're on a better connection than when playing them.
 

Cranster

Banned
I appreciate the post and I hope Xbox/Halo fans (I plan on getting it in the future for sure too) have fun with it fixed, but it seems like GAF has some collective stockholm syndrome or something when it comes to 343i. Half these posts are like what people say to abusive relationship partners: "I can't quit you!" "What you did was wrong but I'll ignore it if you can just change!"

It's like, no, they probably are gonna do it again. They aren't gonna change.
Thats GAF in general, look at everyone that keeps flocking back to games made by Bungie/Activision, EA, Ubisoft, ect.
 

LewieP

Member
I don't understand why they are talking about this at all without having a patch, beta patch or at least an exact date for the patch ready, surely the time for talk is way gone, but it is very good that this work is being done.

Hopefully there is going to be a PC version too.
 

RowdyReverb

Member
I appreciate the post and I hope Xbox/Halo fans (I plan on getting it in the future for sure too) have fun with it fixed, but it seems like GAF has some collective stockholm syndrome or something when it comes to 343i. Half these posts are like what people say to abusive relationship partners: "I can't quit you!" "What you did was wrong but I'll ignore it if you can just change!"

It's like, no, they probably are gonna do it again. They aren't gonna change.
Different people had different reactions to the MCC launch disaster. I was disappointed, but never felt the rage that some posters seem to have harbored. I don’t hold it against 343 because they seemed sincere in their apologies and efforts to fix the game long after the “ship had sailed” as so many of the angrier posters like to say. It helps that I was one of the majority for whom the game got fixed in the months after launch. I know that I could easily find a match in MCC right now if I wanted to. I also thoroughly enjoyed replaying the campaigns in 1080p60.
So for me, 343 already made it right. I’m not having to give them another chance, I’m just glad they’re going the extra mile and trying to fix it for everybody who is still having issues, and if I was one of those unfortunate folks, I’d probably feel some modicum of gratitude for them for fixing something that they really could have gotten away with sweeping under the rug.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
wishing for a TL DR version lol

"We screwed up we tried to fix it we got it functional for most people now we're closing the loop and we knew this would spin up a righteously negative cycle. There's no joy or pride in that but we still want to do it."
 
Still missing Reach, a significant hole in the collection imo.

If they add ODST Firefight I would be sold.

"they" are not really talking about it. This is just an explanation for the fans from one member of the team. While I fall into the category of people who were basically turned off the One because of this mess, it's still appreciated.
 

Toki767

Member
Better late than never is basically my thoughts on this.

I'm sure most of the fixes were a necessity in doing an Xbox One X update but it's nice to see it'll be something that will benefit everyone.
 

see5harp

Member
I just wanna say to Stinkles: I'm glad this shit is still on the radar and I really did have a great time going back through the campaigns. The last addition of ODST made it an even better package.
 
The chicken and egg part still seems weird to me like if the OS stuff didn't change along with backend shit it implies the X version would have shipped broken as well like vanilla is/was

Because MS like Sony would surely make thief 1st party stuff have the new hardware updates and since your doing that you'd fix the vanilla maybe still.
 
Ok, let's see if my understanding of what he said is correct.

He's saying that it's only because they got the green light to enhance and improve it for the One X, that's why they're able to fix all the existing problems at the same time?
He is saying that was a combination of many factors, not just Xbonex only.

But it does look like that's exactly how it went down, because xbonex being all mighty powerful and a shiny new working MCC in 4k could do wonders into bringing back 360 folks that left for the PS4.
 
Very paraphrased but:

"We were ambitious, we had a bad matchmaking algorithm that didn't work in a widespread retail environment, and there were a lot of different networking issues that were out of our hands that we couldn't properly communicate to users. On top of that, the things we couldn't see in a debug/pre-release state caused smaller issues to compound into much bigger issues"

Stinkles said:
"We screwed up we tried to fix it we got it functional for most people now we're closing the loop and we knew this would spin up a righteously negative cycle. There's no joy or pride in that but we still want to do it."


thank you both! EDIT i don't know how to double quote
 

Spade

Member
Seriously, thank you Frankie and 343. Really excited for this update. Looking forward to the follow up next year regarding what broke and such.
 

Anticol

Banned
It is funny to see how people are not only grateful but are praising 343 for finally delivering a complete and playable game after 2 after they paid for it. 2 years and thee only reason it got fixed was because their brand new console has no games for it so they needed something, but yeah then people get mad when developers and publishers blalabtly lie to them about ttheir products.
 
I mean, is this really good PR for Xbox One X? Will people buying consoles this holiday consider, "Oh yeah, Stinkles made a post about The Master Chief Collection, let me invest my life into the Xbox brand by spending upwards of $700+ by buying this Xbox One X, XBL, maybe a game or two!"

Now it's back in the spotlight for Halo fans, so 343 knows they cannot botch these updates. If they weren't serious about fixing TMCC, they wouldn't risk talking about it at this time because that negative press could hurt future Halo sales when, relatively speaking, TMCC talk lessened over the years. This has little, if anything, to do with selling Xbox One X's.
 

nomis

Member
I mean, is this really good PR for Xbox One X? Will people buying consoles this holiday consider, "Oh yeah, Stinkles made a post about The Master Chief Collection, let me invest my life into the Xbox brand!"

Now it's back in the spotlight for Halo fans, so 343 knows they cannot botch these updates. If they weren't serious about fixing TMCC, they wouldn't risk talking about it at this time because that negative press could hurt future Halo sales when, relatively speaking, TMCC talk lessened over the years. This has little, if anything, to do with selling Xbox One X's.

bbbbut i like conspiracy theories

can't wait to play 2a/3 in 4k60
 

Madness

Member
Don't add logic Funk. This is clearly Phil and Frankie pulling the wool over our eyes. By fixing a 3 year old game it's clearly some viral marketing for Xbox One X and not a chance to actually right some wrongs.

But joking aside,I agree. None of us were expecting this. They had nothing to gain and a lot to lose with announcing this.
 
It is funny to see how people are not only grateful but are praising 343 for finally delivering a complete and playable game after 2 after they paid for it. 2 years and thee only reason it got fixed was because their brand new console has no games for it so they needed something, but yeah then people get mad when developers and publishers blalabtly lie to them about ttheir products.

Yeah I feel like this is how it happens unfortunately, I know I'm guilty of it as well. "This practice is bullshit... but it's not a big deal / I'll put up with it / I just don't care in this instance because I love this game." I'm trying to be stricter with myself about where I draw the line, and at least be aware when I'm crossing it.
 

nomis

Member
Don't add logic Funk. This is clearly Phil and Frankie pulling the wool over our eyes. By fixing a 3 year old game it's clearly some viral marketing for Xbox One X and not a chance to actually right some wrongs.

But joking aside,I agree. None of us were expecting this. They had nothing to gain and a lot to lose with announcing this.

Yeah I’m absolutely in love with this premise that TMCC matchmaking is the keystone of the X1X value proposition
 

BizzyBum

Member
wishing for a TL DR version lol

I joked about tl;dr in the Halo 5 OT, but it was a joke. I hope you are joking, too. People have been waiting years for some sort of explanation and when we get it people are too lazy to take 5 minutes to read what he has to say. You guys are a riot.
 
Is this mostly going to focus on matchmaking or will things like missing effects, washed out colors, etc be addressed as well
I don't expect us to know the answer for some time, but I'd love to see even relatively minor things like the typos and incorrect button prompts to get fixed because this package deserves that polish, but I'm trying to keep my expectations in check.
 

jackdoe

Member
Don't add logic Funk. This is clearly Phil and Frankie pulling the wool over our eyes. By fixing a 3 year old game it's clearly some viral marketing for Xbox One X and not a chance to actually right some wrongs.

But joking aside,I agree. None of us were expecting this. They had nothing to gain and a lot to lose with announcing this.
MS probably budgeted some money to patch Xbox One X support for existing titles that 343 studios was able to leverage into expanding the scope of the patch to fix the other major issues with the MCC.
 
If you’re reading this Frankie, thank you for the post. I’ve had some issues with MCC even to this day but it’s been mostly playable. I hope you manage to ’get it right’ with this new approach and better tools.

Hit up Jason Schreier about MCC being a chapter in Blood Sweat and Pixels 2. I’d love to know all about it.
 
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