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

nekkid

It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
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.
 

Random17

Member
I'm not sure what to expect as a NZ player - I always thought that after the last update I couldn't find games because the population died. Which is an issue with MCC that can't be patched, unless they make a big deal out of the new fixes.
 

Leyasu

Banned
V
But.

The game still shipped with a ton of other crippling bugs. Faulty matchmaking, as a whole, is only one of many. Broken co-op. Broken saves. Hard crashes. Framerate issues. Countless new glitches introduced by the new ports. Even if matchmaking had been 100% functional, the Master Chief Collection still launched in a dysfunctional state. I mean that literally -- the game was not functional.

I do not believe that these other issues escaped their testing environment unnoticed.



They knew, just look at the dedicated server promise. They only admitted to a p2p fallback when pressed. The game was a mess, and not just the multiplayer part that that message focuses on.

Nice to see something finally happen.

I wonder if they will actually implement the dedicated servers
 
They knew, just look at the dedicated server promise. They only admitted to a p2p fallback when pressed. The game was a mess, and not just the multiplayer part that that message focuses on.

Nice to see something finally happen.

I wonder if they will actually implement the dedicated servers

They still maintained that it was very rare to fallback to a p2p connection and that the majority of matchmaking was on dedicated servers. Like I posted earlier last time I played, they still used p2p by default when my buddy and I decided to go back and play some Halo 1.
 
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.

i did read the whole post. we live in a society of insta access/gratification/knowledge.


Edit, it was a half joke. but i got some interesting responses which i truly enjoyed!
 

hollomat

Banned
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.

After releasing a broken game not fixing it for years and then a few years later saying “there will be a patch next year that hopefully fixes this” I think it’s easy to find outrage.

When Arkham knight for PC, the poster child for broken games is in a better state than MCC, there’s something wrong.

I bought an Xbox One with Kinect for this game (which was removed from the Xbox package a month after I bought it) and paid $60 at launch for this game. All I had to show for it is a complete waste of time and a few years later a promise that there’s a patch coming next year that will hopefully fix it.

Where was the refund for the broken game or the fixes for the broken game when it launched?
 

Leyasu

Banned
They still maintained that it was very rare to fallback to a p2p connection and that the majority of matchmaking was on dedicated servers. Like I posted earlier last time I played, they still used p2p by default when my buddy and I decided to go back and play some Halo 1.

It's a fucking joke. There'll be no thanks from me. Just the dedicated servers part and the "p2p fallback" response shows you their cynicism. The way they have just focused on the multiplayer instead of addressing the whole package is the icing on the cake.
 
Explanation is 3 years too late in my opinion. Will forever stand for me as the biggest blemish on the Xbox One. The state this game released in was appalling, made even worse by it being Microsoft's biggest franchise.
 

clav

Member
Absolutely the most disappointing launch first party game that makes me wince when I think about it. So many dejected friends who grew up playing Halo 1 + 2 were devastated.

Current game state crashes the Xbox One system a lot in fast startup mode. Makes sense to patch this game as it is still broken.

Look forward to the detailed explanation next year.

Thanks.
 
Too little, too late. And the "explanation" is unintentionally painting the 343 team as incompetent for not testing the overall package more thoroughly (something other devs with a tenth of the resources manage to do), while attempting to spin the scope of the project and its eventual broken incarnation upon release as some sort of triumph. Are the fans supposed to be grateful it came out at all? That is some serious hubris.

We get it, it was a huge undertaking, and some leeway for mistakes at launch can be given; but leaving the MCC high and dry until now speaks volumes of the real priorities of both MS and 343.
 
SO MANY people bought an Xbox One just for this collection and what a total clusterfuck it ended up being. I’m sorry to sound negative but I have zero faith they will actually get this patched to a point where it actually isn’t filled with massive bugs. The ship has no only saled but it’s been decommissioned maybe even on the whole Halo franchise. 343 I’m sure tries it’s best but it’s just not good enough to handle Halo as a franchise.

If a miracle happens and they actually manage to make it playable at 4K without crashing all the time then I’ll install it and eat my words. However I’m not really concerned that will actually happen.
 

MysteryM

Member
Frankie, are the new fixes specifically aimed at improving matchmaking and reliability or are the team planning on actually revisiting the matchmaking whilst the game is running as that was hit and miss performance wise. I know it's a big ask but the originals were all p2p, is there any chance of leveraging dedicated servers. I want mcc to last forever, a game that players always come back too with a sustainable population.
 

Ominym

Banned
Best of luck and all, but I’m not going to thank 343i for finally, years after the fact, doing what’s right morally or professionally.

I hope for the sake of the games and the people who play them that they do manage to turn The Master Chief Collection around. The games deserved better. The fans deserved better.
 
Where was the refund for the broken game or the fixes for the broken game when it launched?
I got a refund on mine without issue but from what I gather there were many many fixes pushed out in the weeks and months after launch. Agree though with the sentiment, it should never have launched like that but we can at least see that lessons have been learned.

It's a good post from Frankie, even if it's so long afterwards. You can feel the pain they all went through.

Just can't imagine the damage it did to halo and Xbox - if it had worked it would have been a siren call to old Xbox fans who'd have jumped ship to ps4. Theres a flavour of that damage in this thread.
 

Glassboy

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.
 

anothertech

Member
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.
 
It gets really technical, and this is as much metaphor as technical explanation, but each potential player was assigned a kind of “ticket” which would then grant them entry into a match or session – picture a virtual waiting room at a train station – when the train arrives (a match) – everyone has to board - or the train can’t leave. Issues arose when folks left sessions before games had started that would cause the initial ticket distributions to fail, and that sometimes meant very long wait times for matches as tickets were issued and reissued – especially in countries with lower populations.

This makes me wonder how other lobby based online games work and solve this issue. I'm pretty sure this same potential problem is the reason in Splatoon, for instance, they don't allow you to leave the lobby while waiting
 

Murdoch

Member
This makes me wonder how other lobby based online games work and solve this issue. I'm pretty sure this same potential problem is the reason in Splatoon, for instance, they don't allow you to leave the lobby while waiting

Man. Just thinking about splatoon makes me smile. I bought an Xbox for the MCC collection and quickly sold both shortly after I saw just how serious the problems were. Splatoon is bizzarely the only game that scratches the same halo itch. I will never be as disappointed in a games launch than I was for the MCC. I lived and breathed halo 123 and reach. I read all the books and watched all the animated shorts. It was the only franchise I played for 8 years or so. Its clear to me now that it was because it was made by a ridiculously talented studio at the time who revolutionised console fps gaming and matchmaking systems for ALL platforms. You were a part of that Frankie and for that I thank you good sir. ( Also the bungie podcasts were kick ass!)

Edit : typing on a phone sucks, sorry for my poor grammar
 

cireza

Banned
I am one of these guys that had no problem with the game. Loved playing all 4 Halo games in the MCC.

It is great to see that the collection will have an update, and as a developer on a pretty complicated application, I definitely understand the issues encountered with the testing environments and how fixing something somewhere can break something somewhere else.

Even with very talented persons and all the good will of the world, there are occurrences where you can't avoid these situations.
 

Leyasu

Banned
Frankie, are the new fixes specifically aimed at improving matchmaking and reliability or are the team planning on actually revisiting the matchmaking whilst the game is running as that was hit and miss performance wise. I know it's a big ask but the originals were all p2p, is there any chance of leveraging dedicated servers. I want mcc to last forever, a game that players always come back too with a sustainable population.

It is on dedicated servers and only very rarely falls back on p2p. They have had you covered since day one
 
After releasing a broken game not fixing it for years and then a few years later saying “there will be a patch next year that hopefully fixes this” I think it’s easy to find outrage.

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...

There are even shittier things going on in games (visceral closing down, loot boxes becoming pay to win, sections of the gaming community that continue to harassment or hate other people).

After they did their initial bunch of patches the game worked for most people most of the time. They've specifically said that if they attempted more patches they could easily have made it worse. At the end of the day they were trying to find the least worst position.

"don't release broken games" is a very simplistic take on the situation (by lots of people in the thread, not you specifically) . None of the people building the game want to do that, but sometimes decisions made over a period of years culminate on a game having significant issues. At that point, again you're trying to make the least worst business decision. Do you delay? It's quite likely that the development studio will go bust, or get closed by the publisher. Do you cancel? You will almost certainly be closed down. Or do you work as hard as you can to get rid of the worst bugs, ship it, and promise yourself, and gamers that you'll keep at it and fix it over time?

There's generally only ever one answer.

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.
 

Ratros

Member
Are we coming to the point where a developer should be thanked and appreciated for fixing something that should not have broken in the first place? And I am not even getting started on 343 and Microsoft hyping it all up before launch and pretending nothing serious happened for a really long time afterwards. Have they done anything substantial to reimburse affected customers?

Business is business. It is really hard for me to believe that 343 comes out right now because suddenly their conscience kicks in or the technical/legal blocks finally disappear after 3 years. Call me suspicious, but I doubt 343 will ever address this issue if they are not repackaging the game for Xbox One X.

Also, what the hell is this:
The fixes and patches we’d applied were pretty delicate and we ended up in a precarious situation where there was no way to make more fixes without potentially breaking something else or making things worse. We weren’t happy with that situation, but we were stuck between a rock and a hard place – most users were (by this time) able to play properly and find matches, and further tinkering might put that at risk.

This is basically saying we still do not know what's going on and why the problems happened in the first place, but some magic elves came by and taught us how to tape things together with magic and now we are afraid that if we look into it further the magic will disappear. Really?

I understand that mistakes happen and in large engineering projects they are very likely to go out of control. It is actually not the mistake itself but how one does after the mistake that determines the trustworthiness and creditability of a studio. Coming out after 3 years' silence with a may-or-may-not-work-for-you fix so that you could sell a few more copies to a new platform is obviously not very and trustworthy and credible. Keep trying, 343 and Microsoft.
 

Drencrom

Member
I don’t believe for a second that 343 didn’t know about the MP bugs and issues because they were playtesting in a ”test enviroment”. They shipped a game that is/was considered broken in many aspects in both SP and MP. It’s obvious they just wanted to have it out in the holidays and push XB1’s, there is no way they didn’t know the game was an absolute mess.

And now they’re fixing this 3 years later just around the release of XB1X, how convinient.
 

brawly

Member
No one is gonna line up to buy this again. People have moved on. They're gonna have to do a steep digital sale.

But I certainly wouldn't mind seeing a bit of a revival. H2A multiplayer is damn good.
 

tmac456

Member
i'm all in on this if they can get it right

definitely appreciate the explanation and thoughtfulness of it. i've been harsh about the game only because i want it to be as outstanding as it can be. hopefully this update will get it there!
 

N3DS

Member
Are we coming to the point where a developer should be thanked and appreciated for fixing something that should not have broken in the first place? And I am not even getting started on 343 and Microsoft hyping it all up before launch and pretending nothing serious happened for a really long time afterwards. Have they done anything substantial to reimburse affected customers?

Business is business. It is really hard for me to believe that 343 comes out right now because suddenly their conscience kicks in or the technical/legal blocks finally disappear after 3 years. Call me suspicious, but I doubt 343 will ever address this issue if they are not repackaging the game for Xbox One X.
Yeah... I kinda feel the same...
 

Iceternal

Member
Are we coming to the point where a developer should be thanked and appreciated for fixing something that should not have broken in the first place? And I am not even getting started on 343 and Microsoft hyping it all up before launch and pretending nothing serious happened for a really long time afterwards. Have they done anything substantial to reimburse affected customers?

Business is business. It is really hard for me to believe that 343 comes out right now because suddenly their conscience kicks in or the technical/legal blocks finally disappear after 3 years. Call me suspicious, but I doubt 343 will ever address this issue if they are not repackaging the game for Xbox One X.

Also, what the hell is this:


This is basically saying we still do not know what's going on and why the problems happened in the first place, but some magic elves came by and taught us how to tape things together with magic and now we are afraid that if we look into it further the magic will disappear. Really?

I understand that mistakes happen and in large engineering projects they are very likely to go out of control. It is actually not the mistake itself but how one does after the mistake that determines the trustworthiness and creditability of a studio. Coming out after 3 years' silence with a may-or-may-not-work-for-you fix so that you could sell a few more copies to a new platform is obviously not very and trustworthy and credible. Keep trying, 343 and Microsoft.

They had already broken some stuff with their insane patching though.

For example, playing Halo 1 anniversary in a different language broke a majority of the visual FX of the game.
 

Cranster

Banned
Are we coming to the point where a developer should be thanked and appreciated for fixing something that should not have broken in the first place? And I am not even getting started on 343 and Microsoft hyping it all up before launch and pretending nothing serious happened for a really long time afterwards. Have they done anything substantial to reimburse affected customers?

Business is business. It is really hard for me to believe that 343 comes out right now because suddenly their conscience kicks in or the technical/legal blocks finally disappear after 3 years. Call me suspicious, but I doubt 343 will ever address this issue if they are not repackaging the game for Xbox One X.

Also, what the hell is this:


This is basically saying we still do not know what's going on and why the problems happened in the first place, but some magic elves came by and taught us how to tape things together with magic and now we are afraid that if we look into it further the magic will disappear. Really?


I understand that mistakes happen and in large engineering projects they are very likely to go out of control. It is actually not the mistake itself but how one does after the mistake that determines the trustworthiness and creditability of a studio. Coming out after 3 years' silence with a may-or-may-not-work-for-you fix so that you could sell a few more copies to a new platform is obviously not very and trustworthy and credible. Keep trying, 343 and Microsoft.
You obviously know nothing about game development especially when it comes to how games were developed 10 plus years ago. With how complex games have gotten since the 90's some things are so coded in such a way that of there ever is a certain bug/glitch going back in and fixing it can literally break the game. It's why superbouncing and BXR was never patched in OG Xbox Halo 2, it's also why Red Dead Redemption was never ported to current gen systems or PC.

One of the first MCC patches that actually improved matchmaking to a bearable state was made redundant when a follow up patch caused matchmaking to slow to a crawl again, so 343i's and Frankie's explanation makes perfect and logical sense.

But I certainly wouldn't mind seeing a bit of a revival. H2A multiplayer is damn good.
Maybe once it's fixed they can get Cerain Affinity to remake some more Halo 2 maps for H2A!?
 

93xfan

Banned
This is what I've been waiting for, for so long...

I really, really hope they do more than just network fixes and actually overhaul the UI and fix most every issue.
 
I can definitely appreciate the apology and explanation and I can only imagine what it feels like to work at 343 having to live this one down. I get it. I can empathize. And it took balls for Frank to come out and say all this to us. I think he likely said everything he possible could without 343 or microsoft coming down on his ass and I do appreciate that.

However, I just have to say again that I spent a lot of my money to buy and Xbox just for this game when it came out and I was SO disappointed when I found out what it was like. It kind of soured me on Halo in general and my confidence in 343 to get things right.

But I know the project was incredibly ambitious so it must have been a nightmare. Idk... It's was a tough position for them to be in, but I guess that doesn't excuse the fact that people spent $400 to play the game and it was totally broken.

Im happy they're gonna fix things and im excited for that. But I also haven't had a reason to play my Xbox in months and am considering selling it. It's just a shame this update to the MCC is coming so late :/
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
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...

There are even shittier things going on in games (visceral closing down, loot boxes becoming pay to win, sections of the gaming community that continue to harassment or hate other people).

After they did their initial bunch of patches the game worked for most people most of the time. They've specifically said that if they attempted more patches they could easily have made it worse. At the end of the day they were trying to find the least worst position.

"don't release broken games" is a very simplistic take on the situation (by lots of people in the thread, not you specifically) . None of the people building the game want to do that, but sometimes decisions made over a period of years culminate on a game having significant issues. At that point, again you're trying to make the least worst business decision. Do you delay? It's quite likely that the development studio will go bust, or get closed by the publisher. Do you cancel? You will almost certainly be closed down. Or do you work as hard as you can to get rid of the worst bugs, ship it, and promise yourself, and gamers that you'll keep at it and fix it over time?

There's generally only ever one answer.

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.

Why on earth would a consumer ever be outraged at themselves for buying a game on release? It's a basic expectant that something released for the exchange of money works. In any other medium this would lead to a recall and a refund.

I get the general sentiment, but nah at that. Nobody is happy with how MCC turned out, which I get, but I can't say on the bottom line that it didn't change the way I view them irrevocably.
 

Sesuadra

Unconfirmed Member
I hope this also means the whole home menu in the mcc, which is horrible, gets a refresh.

but honestly, stinkles this took too long and you might remember the pm I send you back then. I know you acknowledge that it took too long and I appreciate that you emphasise with the fan base.

I just really hope you hit a home run with this big update. Especially for fans like me, who bought an OG xbox one just for halo. B/c currently it is nothing more than a white block of tech getting dusty under my tv.
I want to like my favourite shooter franchise again!
 

Compsiox

Banned
Maybe once it's fixed they can get Cerain Affinity to remake some more Halo 2 maps for H2A!?

"We said it was unplayable. Yet people still wanted it. Sooooo today, we're proud to announce the Halo 2 E3 2003 demo for the Xbox One family."

Edit: I realize this sounds like they would be releasing it unplayable but that's not what I intended lol
 

Caayn

Member
This explanation from Frank O'Connor doesn't inspire me with confidence. How could one of the most important parts of a development process be made such a low priority that these errors weren't caught during development. Testing should be the part where you ensure that what was created lines up with what was promised/you wanted. As a software developer myself I'm shocked to see these mistakes being made by one of Microsoft's key studios. Especially with simple test cases such as user cancelling a process that has been started such as matchmaking.

Trying to shove the blame on a new system seems kind of weak and points to incorrect decision making when choosing the frameworks and platforms to work with.
 

Gandie

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.

Wrapping up the project 3 years after taking my money. Didn‘t know MS was in the earliest access business.
 
I hope the best for the game, and for the team. It was a pretty ambitious title and one that I was excited for the release of even as someone who doesn't have an Xbone, but it ended up in heartbreak rather than celebration and remained in a pretty rough state. I don't envy Frankie for being in the position of having the game out there like that, but I'm glad that things are shaping up regardless of how long it's taken. I just hope the community is there for the game once the dust has finally settled.
 
The amount of people accepting an apology for a game that was released broken. They sold a broken product and took peoples money.

3 years later we get an explanation and people are like “oh cool frankie thanks for being such a transparent and cool dude, you’re so cool. Better late than never!” unbelievable no wonder loot boxes are ruining gaming if we have a bunch of spineless people sticking up for it. Pathetic.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
The amount of people accepting an apology for a game that was released broken. They sold a broken product and took peoples money.

3 years later we get an explanation and people are like “oh cool frankie thanks for being such a transparent and cool dude, you’re so cool. Better late than never!” unbelievable no wonder loot boxes are ruining gaming if we have a bunch of spineless people sticking up for it. Pathetic.

Considering the reaction to DriveClub and No Man’s Sky...
Not that I wish on 343i the same kind of “nothing you can do can ever right your wrongs” attitude...
 

Nick

Junior Member
what-year-is-it-robin-williams.jpg




On a serious note... thanks, I guess? You're four years too late, and it's cute this information is coming out three weeks before new hardware is getting released. Won't change the fact that this was my biggest gaming disappointment of all time. It still stings (I have a hard time letting go.)
 

Shpeshal Nick

aka Collingwood
The MCC situation will go down as one of the great shames in the history of gaming.

It could have been something so incredibly special. After these fixes, it still may be, but it will be too late to be recognised as such.

I keep wanting to go back to it but the SP achievements are broken for me.
 
Why on earth would a consumer ever be outraged at themselves for buying a game on release? It's a basic expectant that something released for the exchange of money works. In any other medium this would lead to a recall and a refund.

I get the general sentiment, but nah at that. Nobody is happy with how MCC turned out, which I get, but I can't say on the bottom line that it didn't change the way I view them irrevocably.

Cheers, I was specifically talking about pre orders (and I guess buying immediately on release day). Within hours there was news that the game wasn't working properly.

Yes there should be an expectation that the game will work, I had the same expectation... But there's always a chance that it won't, or parts of it won't. So it's better to just wait a day or two and buy (or not) then.

That way, people haven't spent sixty dollars... They'll just be disappointed that it doesn't work and the game they thought was coming out, hasnt materialised.

People can be disappointed or angry about the latter point, but I don't think they are justified in being angry about having spent money, sight unseen.
 
Great move by 343i to get as much of this out into the open as possible. Transparency can go a long way and as long as you are upfront with any issues or problems then the community will normally give you the benefit of doubt and have your back. Keep doing this and you'll build much stronger ties to the community which in turn should help you make better games.
 
Thanks for the explanation Frankie. I got everything I wanted out of MCC without issues, but I'm glad it may finally be what it was supposed to be for everyone else. I'm sure I'll go back for the campaigns at some point when all this is over, and hopefully 343 and the fans can put it in the past as it should be.
 

Omni

Member
Frankie sounds sincere enough. I hope that they're able to patch and even relaunch it for the Xbox One X. The idea is amazing and I still remember my reaction when the collection was announced... It's just a shame that they couldn't pull it all together three years ago.

I still hop on from time to time to play Halo 1-4 campaigns, so I've certainly got my money's worth (I honestly consider it the best thing that 343i has done to date), but I don't think I ever played more than a handful of multiplayer games because of these issues which was really disappointing. Looking forward to seeing what happens.
 
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