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

scoobs

Member
I still remember buying a second Xbox one and another 6 controllers so I could have a bunch of people over and system link. It was probably the most disappointing game launch I have ever experienced. It sucks that an apology and explanation are coming so late, but I do appreciate them trying to fix it.
Wait... you bought two Xbox Ones, and 6 controllers just so you could play Halo MCC? Jesus, talk about a poor gaming investment
 

Raide

Member
Well, looking forward to seeing what they do. Might actually get into some splitscreen fun once it's sorted.
 

RoyalFool

Banned
Whole thing is bullshit, they are so desperate for an Xboxox Halo of some sorts they are resurrecting this so they can add 4k halo to the box, probably where crackdown was supposed to be. Then they have the cheek to make it sound like they are doing all us classic system owners a favour by maybe fixing up it 3 years too late

The argument that it was impossible to have working matchmaking until a recent software breakthrough is fucking ridiculous.

The day one Xbox one SDK had everything the original 360 SDK had in terms of matchmaking. It's how we built all those cross gen titles.

Sad to see people are eating this shit up, this is a marketing move for the new console and if it wasn't for the lack of games they would have left this shit broken.
 

jem0208

Member
Whole thing is bullshit, they are so desperate for an Xboxox Halo of some sorts they are resurrecting this so they can add 4k halo to the box, probably where crackdown was supposed to be. Then they have the cheek to make it sound like they are doing all us classic system owners a favour by maybe fixing up it 3 years too late

The argument that it was impossible to have working matchmaking until a recent software breakthrough is fucking ridiculous.

The day one Xbox one SDK had everything the original 360 SDK had in terms of matchmaking. It's how we built all those cross gen titles.

Sad to see people are eating this shit up, this is a marketing move for the new console and if it wasn't for the lack of games they would have left this shit broken.
Being this cynical must be depressing.



Edit: and even if what you're saying is true, who cares? Everything these big companies do is a marketing move. We can still be happy when they do something good though.
 

Chris1

Member
343 has gained a lot of respect in my eyes, even though it's the right thing to do I don't think there was a single person that expected them to actually go back and fix it or even mention the existence of the game again
 

T-0800

Member
Really good to see they are going to try and fix this but it doesn't excuse the fact that have continued to sell a broken product. Once it became obvious the game was a mess that wasn't going to be fixed by a few patches they should have either recalled the game or offered refunds.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Being this cynical must be depressing.

You may be right... but if you do not think the main biggest reason they are touching the MCC is because they need Halo for the Xbox One X launch (and making only Xbox One X 4K patch would still not fix the issues it has... and fixing these issues would also help all Xbox One owners) then to me it sounds a bit very much a naive way of looking at it.
Not a word for years and now curiously close to Xbox One X launch they finally have the green light to give gamers a fixed MCC thanks to a sudden software breakthrough that also made it impossible for them to do anything or say anything about it for years?
 

tuna_love

Banned
You may be right... but if you do not think the main biggest reason they are touching the MCC is because they need Halo for the Xbox One X launch (and making only Xbox One X 4K patch would still not fix the issues it has... and fixing these issues would also help all Xbox One owners) then to me it sounds a bit very much a naive way of looking at it.
Not a word for years and now curiously close to Xbox One X launch they finally have the green light to give gamers a fixed MCC thanks to a sudden software breakthrough that also made it impossible for them to do anything or say anything about it for years?
but it wont be ready for the the xbox x launch?
 
You may be right... but if you do not think the main biggest reason they are touching the MCC is because they need Halo for the Xbox One X launch (and making only Xbox One X 4K patch would still not fix the issues it has... and fixing these issues would also help all Xbox One owners) then to me it sounds a bit very much a naive way of looking at it.
Not a word for years and now curiously close to Xbox One X launch they finally have the green light to give gamers a fixed MCC thanks to a sudden software breakthrough that also made it impossible for them to do anything or say anything about it for years?

It isn't going to be available to test until Spring of next year, never mind when they actually release it to the public. I don't see how this ties in to supporting the launch of the X in the slightest?
 
Whole thing is bullshit, they are so desperate for an Xboxox Halo of some sorts they are resurrecting this so they can add 4k halo to the box, probably where crackdown was supposed to be. Then they have the cheek to make it sound like they are doing all us classic system owners a favour by maybe fixing up it 3 years too late
MCC is getting it's update in the spring, not at the launch of the X (also the day Crackdown was supposed to come out). Halo 5 is already getting an update, checking off the. "Halo box."

But please, continue enlightening us.
 

eot

Banned
He talks about avoidable mistakes, and then about how they couldn't possibly fix it until now?

Wat
 

jem0208

Member
You may be right... but if you do not think the main biggest reason they are touching the MCC is because they need Halo for the Xbox One X launch (and making only Xbox One X 4K patch would still not fix the issues it has... and fixing these issues would also help all Xbox One owners) then to me it sounds a bit very much a naive way of looking at it.
Not a word for years and now curiously close to Xbox One X launch they finally have the green light to give gamers a fixed MCC thanks to a sudden software breakthrough that also made it impossible for them to do anything or say anything about it for years?

I think it's more likely that with some recent updates they saw an opportunity to fix the game and gain some good will prior to H6's release.
 

panda-zebra

Member
I know your underlying sentiment but I would save your outrage for the massive shitty scenarios in the world like people starving in africa, or genocide, or dictatorships, or various wars that are ongoing...

JFC. Maybe we need an official GAF chart of controversies so we can check out our allowed level of outrage before posting in a way that might not sit well with some members?

Absolutely every single person could have waited for the game to come out, and then bought it (or not) with full knowledge of what did and didn't work. There was literally no reason to pre order the game (I did pre order it from excitement). I don't think anything was tied to the pre order?

And yet very few people are outraged at themselves for pre-ordering a game.

What point are you trying to make here? Pre-ordering is a pointless and often fruitless act and involves taking risks for little gain, but really? Really? Are you honestly suggesting people should look to themselves when looking to blame anyone in this scenario? Even 3 years on? You can't be, surely I misunderstood because, well, you know, fuck that noise.
 
Shit happens.

I appreciate the explaination. It sucked at the time, and I think the game died very quickly because the bugs and issues beat the nostalgia to death. Plus booking a weekend LAN quickly turned to frustration at launch.

It's a crying shame, but hey, fix it up, and the month the patch releases, add it to GWG - everyone is a winner!
 

Rejam

Neo Member
That was a fantastic explanation, I really appreciate it. I look forward to helping with the flighting program next year.

I presume this thread is going to die short, though. Too difficult to find outrage.

If the thread died short I'd be more inclined to put it down to apathy.
The game was released in 2014, it's going to be fixed in 2018.

I think there'd be plenty of scope for outrage if enough people still cared.
 

Madness

Member
He talks about avoidable mistakes, and then about how they couldn't possibly fix it until now?

Wat

They didn't say they COULDN'T fix it until now,but changes to Xbox OS, more RAM for games, the new hardware, changes and increases to servers since launch, what they learned for H5 allowed them to attempt to fix MCC.

So many are saying too little too late. While that may be true, it's better late than never is more true. Imagine if the Xbox One X enhanced version is made available for PC? But even if it isn't it ensure the classic trilogy is left in a better state than it is now. Hell I think they have even achieved some kind of LAN capability for H5 coming with the next update.
 
You may be right... but if you do not think the main biggest reason they are touching the MCC is because they need Halo for the Xbox One X launch (and making only Xbox One X 4K patch would still not fix the issues it has... and fixing these issues would also help all Xbox One owners) then to me it sounds a bit very much a naive way of looking at it.
Not a word for years and now curiously close to Xbox One X launch they finally have the green light to give gamers a fixed MCC thanks to a sudden software breakthrough that also made it impossible for them to do anything or say anything about it for years?

Dude, the update isn't coming out till next year. Your trying way too hard to conspiracy theory this stuff and its just embarrassing.
 

Skyline Owl

Neo Member
I like the transparency and it makes me want a MCC post-mortem when all is said and done.

I bought MCC last Christmas, so I haven't really had any problems with it and had a great time going through the all the SP's with some friends and re-living a lot of old Halo related gaming memories. We even found the old projector we used to use in 04' to play Halo 2 multiplayer and busted that out.

Cracked some beers, drank to the memory to a couple of us from our old Halo group that aren't here anymore and played well into the night.

Good times.


I want to thank 343i and Frankie for giving me the opportunity to re-live those memories.
 

efyu_lemonardo

May I have a cookie?
He talks about avoidable mistakes, and then about how they couldn't possibly fix it until now?

Wat
The two aren't mutually exclusive. It sounds like they made some poor decisions at the design stage with matchmaking and didn't have the resources to scrap everything and start over after launch.
Perhaps now they do.
 
Being this cynical must be depressing.



Edit: and even if what you're saying is true, who cares? Everything these big companies do is a marketing move. We can still be happy when they do something good though.

not hard to see how opportunistic this is. it reminds me of the xb1 launch where people praised MS for changing the shitty DRM plan. "oh you're not going fuck us in the ass? thanks, that you need to be commended for that move"
 
Better late than never but I suspect for some, me included, this does little to address how ripped off we felt buying the game.
 

watership

Member
I will buy a One X if this update truly fixes everything if not most problems. If I can co-op through all the games with no issues, that's all I need.

and add reach please

"Everything" for Halo fans is impossible. A single bug can spawn a narrative online that it's "a broken mess". I feel as much as they do it will never be enough because the loud voices for this will be negative ones. That's the norm. There won't be voices championing it.

Which makes this endeavor even more impressive. 343 knows this is probably a zero sum game for them in terms of the general game community, but it is the right thing to do for Halo fans and Halo's legacy.
 

TheBowen

Sat alone in a boggy marsh
Still own the game so its great news

Improving multiplayer bugs and connections issues would be fantastic
Although as i said in another threat i would love if the maps that got put up for vote could be shuffled more

Big team battle is basically avalanche 24/7
 
I want to believe this took this long for them to be able to fix, but I just can't. 343 aren't some novice team with no financial backing. They've written miles of netcode before, and even if they needed to finish Halo 5 to learn how to do it right for the Xbox One, why didn't the patch come after 5 released? I'm glad they're fixing it now instead of just abandoning it, but it just seems weird.
 

Discusguy

Member
Still have MCC. Completely surprised and pleased that MCC will be getting updates for Scorpio. If 343 nails the update, MCC will live as the best fan service compilation ever.
 

Sordid

Member
But a series of changes to the Xbox architecture, some of them related to Xbox One X – and others just a series of ongoing improvements to the OS and back end networking systems

I hope we get more details about this going forward because I'd love to know what prevented this game being fixed until nearly 4 years after it launched. If they detail what exactly prevented them from fixing it until now they'd garner a lot more understanding of the situation imo (they would from me at least!)

I'm delighted MCC is being fixed rather than forgotten about forever. If it had worked like it should've from the start it'd likely be my most played game ever but instead it soured me on my favourite franchise and gave me a hugely negative view of 343 that's hard shake.
 

Akai__

Member
I hope we get more details about this going forward because I'd love to know what prevented this game being fixed until nearly 4 years after it launched. If they detail what exactly prevented them from fixing it until now they'd garner a lot more understanding of the situation imo (they would from me at least!)

Aside from MS not giving them the ressources? It probably took a lot of convincing and they probably only approved it under the condition that they simultaneously work on Xbox One X Enhancements.

And as Stinkles said in the OP, you will get your more detailed answers at a later date:

I’m going to follow up next year after we have better detail on the fixes and the Xbox One X update, to follow through with an even more detailed technical breakdown of what broke, why and how we fixed it.
 

MouldyK

Member
not hard to see how opportunistic this is. it reminds me of the xb1 launch where people praised MS for changing the shitty DRM plan. "oh you're not going fuck us in the ass? thanks, that you need to be commended for that move"

I can’t see what 343i has to gain from this when you can get preowned copies for £12 in Stores.

Surely the best time to fix it wouldn’t be when you can buy coasters which are more expensive?

Still have MCC. Completely surprised and pleased that MCC will be getting updates for Scorpio. If 343 nails the update, MCC will live as the best fan service compilation ever.

Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection wants to have a word.

Games
- Metal Gear
- Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
- Metal Gear Solid
- Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Videos
- Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Digital Graphic Novel

Booklet
- Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy

Granted it was just HD Collection + Guns of the Patriots + Download Codes...but surely that is more than TMCC?
 

Monocle

Member
Thanks Frankie. It was pretty clear from the start that 343 didn't have the made-up dismissive attitude that spiteful fans claim. That's just ridiculous. Of course a team of Halo fans working on a Halo dream project would want to do a good job.

They shouldn't have released it broken in the first place.
Do you read?

I want to believe this took this long for them to be able to fix, but I just can't. 343 aren't some novice team with no financial backing. They've written miles of netcode before, and even if they needed to finish Halo 5 to learn how to do it right for the Xbox One, why didn't the patch come after 5 released? I'm glad they're fixing it now instead of just abandoning it, but it just seems weird.
Modern games are super complicated, and the MCC is this weird case of a bundle of separate games interlinked. You can't throw money at technical problems and expect a quick fix in every case. There's such a thing as solutions that aren't reachable without the tools of, say, two months from now, or next year. Frankie's explanation seems entirely reasonable.
 

Jrs3000

Member
I can't see what 343i has to gain from this when you can get preowned copies for £12 in Stores.

Surely the best time to fix it wouldn't be when you can buy coasters which are more expensive?



Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection wants to have a word.



Granted it was just HD Collection + Guns of the Patriots + Download Codes...but surely that is more than TMCC?

MCC issues were multiplayer involving all the online being put together. Totally different story. Singleplayer was fine in MCC.

EDIT: Single player Had issues but wasn't broken
 
I think most people genuinely still want tmcc to work as originally intended. Such an amazing collection of games. If 343 can pull this fix off, even the angry halo fans will want to come back and play. I mean it's halo we are talking about here. Anyway, I appreciate the explanation, Frankie. As passionate as developers are about their games, i know it hurt when tmcc had so many issues. I'm sure it feels good to be able to go back and fix things and I can't wait.
 

jelly

Member
Thanks for the explanation, you can tell it hurts they sold a turkey. I understand network problems are a huge headache, the rest of the package.....it's possible that any more changes that aren't even directly network related would have made things even worse so not sure on that front but they definitely didn't release perfect single player or core UI experiences. I still think Nadella/Spencer shoved it out the door to save Xbox One sales, 343 perhaps bit off more than they could chew even with other studio support but it was a great idea on paper, they needed their bosses to go for quality over desperate sales and I get the feeling they choose the latter unless 343 never discussed MCC quality with them.

Anyway, I'm glad it's getting fixed up, X support, better late than never but I hope they really go far with supporting it, not just a 4K touch up, bug squashing exercise. Redo Halo CEA, Halo 3A/ODSTA, Halo 4 lighting, ReachA. Make them so much better. Fix improve the effects, add some swaying trees, I dunno. It could be really neat to stick to original looks but giving it some life. I'm looking forward to it. Frankie, physics based water please

It must be quite a relief to just rip MCC to shreds as a dev, get under that hood and pull the wires and parts out. /not a dev
 
Whole thing is bullshit, they are so desperate for an Xboxox Halo of some sorts they are resurrecting this so they can add 4k halo to the box, probably where crackdown was supposed to be. Then they have the cheek to make it sound like they are doing all us classic system owners a favour by maybe fixing up it 3 years too late

The argument that it was impossible to have working matchmaking until a recent software breakthrough is fucking ridiculous.

The day one Xbox one SDK had everything the original 360 SDK had in terms of matchmaking. It's how we built all those cross gen titles.

Sad to see people are eating this shit up, this is a marketing move for the new console and if it wasn't for the lack of games they would have left this shit broken.

we?
 

vewn

Member
EDIT: Single player Had issues but wasn't broken

People's progress was sometimes not saved or deleted and the game liked to crash - often.
Bought and sold my Xbox One because of this game and will never go back (unless we get a fixed PC port but that's never happening).
 
Glad that they're FINALLY fixing it for those that still care. It's still the biggest gaming scam I've been apart of. They knew about the issues before launch.
 

KageMaru

Member
Thanks for the post Frankie. Hopefully for both gamers and the team, this plan works out in the end.

That was very heartfelt and sincere Stinkles. We really could have used that a couple years ago though.

There’s so much more broken than the matchmaking issues here. I mean, even the offline portion is still broken in major ways. 3 years of that? And silence? For those of us that really played the game and held out for so long, the lack of communication was unbelievable.

THe question that should be asked here is this, if there were no X version, would this fix even be happening? Because if not, it’s hard to believe anyone really cared about the broken state of the game for the last 3 Silent years.

Some of you could be so cold. Frankie isn't head of Xbox or MS, it's not his call on what or when things can be said. I understand being frustrated with buying a broken game, I paid for it too, but there's no doubt they were equally frustrated, if not more. Imagine being in their shoes, spending so much of your life on something that results in so much blowback and negativity. You try to fix it but that still doesn't bring the project up to acceptable levels, causing more negativity. On top of all that, with all this swirling negativity, what can be said or done regarding the project is not up to you.

The whole situation is lose, lose all around. At least now they are trying to do something about it. That's better than doing nothing and continuing to be silent about it.
 
Better late than never is right, and I say this with the least amount of sarcasm possible. This game was and has since been my most anticipated Xbox One game ever. Among other reasons, its inability to work properly made me get out of the Xbox ecosystem entirely for the first time since 2003. This might be a first step towards bringing me back. Microsoft needs to invest far, FAR more in first party though.


I think MS' pricing issue with the Bone and then the MCC collection lost then this generation and led to people like you getting out. Here's hoping they can finally fix it.
 

FyreWulff

Member
The whole entire Xbox One deployment environment is significantly changed from the early days.

I mean, the early era environ was why Destiny 1 on the One didn't let you set your fireteam to invite-only from inside the game, while you could on the 360/PS3/PS4. It was due to a lot of vertical stack requirements and expectations.

I mean..


- You no longer lose overhead to the Kinect. MCC does actually use the Kinect for HCEA still (it does, right?), but they may be able to disable it for the other games more granularly now. Performance boost.

- Snapping is dead. MCC can reclaim some cycles from not having to work with Snap anymore.

- the entire OS went from a Win8branch on DX11 tooling to Win10-ish branch with DX12 backported stuff.

- You now have 2 hard platforms (One, X) and 1 "soft" (S) platform that games have to account for, meaning middleware has been upgraded to make it easier for developers to control.

That's just a starting slate, but imagine how much stuff in the toolchain has either been replaced or optimized or upgraded in 3 years. Shit, there was stuff in 2010 on the 360 that was unavailble in 2007 for Halo 3. You literally could not make Reach on the 360 in 2007. Heck, new functionality for the 360 came out post-Reach. Since the PS3/360 era, consoles aren't really the same console from launch to tombstone anymore via the development eye.
 

Sordid

Member
Aside from MS not giving them the ressources? It probably took a lot of convincing and they probably only approved it under the condition that they simultaneously work on Xbox One X Enhancements.

And as Stinkles said in the OP, you will get your more detailed answers at a later date:

Yup I saw that, it says they'll say what was broken, why and how they fixed it but I was saying it'd be interesting to know details of why it wasn't fixable until now from a tech perspective. The Xbox One has changed/improved a lot over the years and it'd be cool to know what exactly changed to enable these fixes to be made. The why probably covers that but I'm just hoping we get some nitty gritty details and not 'the OS improved so it works now'.
If it was left unfixed because of a lack of resources as you say then saying it was due to Xbox architecture and OS/network issues that have been improved over the years is a bit disingenuous, no?
 
I know a lot of people were upset about this game but his point about mistakes in testing is valid.

I've been involved in software testing for the last year or so and it's surprising how many things can actually go wrong that simply don't get thought of when testing complex systems in a test environment.

We have had misses too where 30+ people looked over a testing effort and nobody caught a crucial mistake in the testing environment or requirement setup that affected the final product.

In the end this stuff is still made by people and still can have flaws.
 
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