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Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.
Posted By: guy who doesn't post....too often <brandon@coerce.net>Date: 12/11/03 3:39 a.m.

**disclaimer** Someone needed to say this. Yes, I have posted this at the GBX forums.
*******************************************************************

I am unhappy.

A game that brings me much joy is now bringing me much frustration.

The game I speak of is Halo PC.

We waited and waited for this game. Why? Well for starters, Bungie took 9 months to “hand-pick” a company to do the port. This is not necessarily a fault of anyones. Once the game was started, it took a while to port, but the time span was within reason.

Upon launch of Halo PC, we all found out several things:

1. The game requires high-end hardware to run smoothly. Want performance better than smooth? Too bad, the hardware doesn’t exist yet. Can’t afford or simply can’t justify the hardware purchase? Suffer through sub-Xbox quality graphics and frame rates. Why? Gearbox apparently wants to be on “the cutting edge”. Great, all your customers are on the dull blade, simmering on the backburner. Maybe in two years, when video cards and processors exist that can handle this game’s full capacity, a grand total of 4 years after Halo debuted on the Xbox, gamers everywhere can finally enjoy the masterpiece that Gearbox has painted.

2. Tweaking about two dozen setting on your computer can potentially increase frame rates. You better know what you’re doing and where to go for this information.

3. ATI video cards in particular have huge incompatibility issues with Halo PC. Any changes in resolution can potentially lead to your computer restarting after an error screen. Also, simply loading new maps can cause your PC to reboot. I have personal experience with this. Frustration doesn’t begin to describe how I felt when my PC rebooted for the 14th time of the night due to Halo PC. Thank goodness I still had the receipt.

4. The lag that everyone complained about on the Xbox tunneling software is almost non-existent compared to that of the PC version of Halo. All of a sudden, we realized how good we had it. This lag, though, isn’t just the kind that makes the game “freeze” for a short time (but that does happen, frequently), it is a new lag, permanently imbedded into every game. This new lag makes leading your target by two or three feet the standard. This leading is even worse when vehicles are the (intended) target.

This is apparently caused by server-authoritative net code, although I don’t pretend to know the alternatives and ramifications of such alternatives of that. What I do know, is that it sucks.

5. Along with the lag came unbearable warping. Vehicle warping, weapon warping, teleporter warping, rock warping, and spawn warping…the list goes on. The Beta testers didn’t report any of this?

6. Team killing hasn’t been addressed by Gearbox and as such, it runs rampant on every server out there. This drives everybody up the wall. A patch is promised.

Ok, so the Halo PC community is upset and rightly so. Gearbox promises action, in the form of a patch. Yay.

We are told the patch will come mid-late November, 03, and it will fix many issues, specifically team killing and the hopefully improve net code.

The patch release period comes and goes, and three weeks later, it finally arrives. I woke up excited to install the patch on my Halo Dedicated Server, which I have because of my extreme love of the game and the community.

The patch “fixed” the team killing issues, by allowing server administrators to set the team kill penalties and thresholds. The problem is, there should be different settings for different game types. A no-shields game needs more team kill leniency than a standard match with shields. Gearbox did not make this flexible.

The patch also added more information to the in-game carnage report. It now shows assists, deaths, and kills along with the player’s ping. The new info is great, although I question the validity of the ping since all pings are multiples of 33. Real pings were too difficult to code? Gearbox needed to group pings?

The patch supposedly made the net code better, with improved target prediction, but regardless of whether it actually helped or not, it brought with it a boat of new problems.

Players are now experiencing crashes due to halo. I personally crash when loading new maps online. I enter the new map, and I freeze. My health bar is missing, and I can’t move. My teammates on voice chat, who haven’t crashed, ask me why I, along with 2 or 3 other people, quit out. I laugh and say I didn’t and shut halo down by ending the process, since its frozen stiff. Sometimes, the crashes shut everything down and my PC won’t respond until I reboot.

Some players can’t even play now, the patch won’t install correctly and that’s it. No Halo PC for them. Others have varying issues that plague their online and solo play. The frustration is starting to outweigh the enjoyment.

We waited so long for this patch, and the explanation given to us was “Microsoft is testing it.” Well, I ask this, “What the hell were they testing?” The patch is less than satisfactory as far as fixing the issues that were present since launch. Additionally the patch is bad because it caused a slew of new problems.

When I first heard about people complaining about crashes, etc., I assumed it was people jumping on the bandwagon and having a bitch-fest. Once I experienced these issues myself, I truly saw what was going on.

As an outsider, I think Gearbox should thank their lucky stars that Halo is a Bungie game with a huge, loyal fan base. If this were any other game, it would be dead by now, or at least not enjoying the sales at present.

You botched this up guys and girls of Gearbox, and it’s your responsibility to all your customers, and your fans to make it right. I have faith in you, not much, but some. Please, please, read what people are saying, get to work, and fix what is wrong.

Thanks for your time.

Brandon Raffensperger

HBO-Kingpin

Admin HBO-COERCE

gwdpto

Brandon@coerce.net

oh, nothing...



Message Index




Replies:

Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.guy who doesn't post....too often 12/11/03 3:39 a.m.
     EXACTLY! *NM*Ben Roth 12/11/03 4:19 a.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Dustin aka Bean83 12/11/03 4:27 a.m.
           this might helpBen Roth 12/11/03 4:33 a.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Petrit 12/11/03 4:30 a.m.
           Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Petrit 12/11/03 4:39 a.m.
                 umm why the ping?Iceman1330(at school) 12/11/03 11:28 a.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Viscily II 12/11/03 4:41 a.m.
           can't go wrong w/ xbox halo :] *NM*mc_killa [01ah] 12/11/03 8:07 a.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.nof 12/11/03 9:05 a.m.
           Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.2 Cents 12/11/03 9:28 a.m.
           Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.guy who doesn't post....too often 12/11/03 1:51 p.m.
                 Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.halofan141 12/11/03 9:53 p.m.
           Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.halofan141 12/11/03 9:47 p.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.KP 12/11/03 9:11 a.m.
           Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Konrad9 12/11/03 8:49 p.m.
                 Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Louis Wu 12/12/03 4:04 a.m.
                       Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Konrad9 12/12/03 5:33 a.m.
                             Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Louis Wu 12/12/03 5:44 a.m.
           That's what happens when you pressure the devs. *NM*halofan141 12/11/03 9:49 p.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Captain Spark 12/11/03 9:11 a.m.
     Good Post Brandon! I AGREE 110% *NM*2 Cents 12/11/03 9:13 a.m.
     well said!Master of SPARTAN's 12/11/03 10:14 a.m.
     Bravo, bravo. Well said! *NM* *NM*Mhaddy 12/11/03 1:22 p.m.
     Beautiful, man. *nm* *NM*Texrat 12/11/03 2:56 p.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Dan Chosich 12/11/03 3:12 p.m.
           my commentsBreak Point 12/11/03 3:56 p.m.
                 Re: my commentsCaptain Spark 12/11/03 4:58 p.m.
     ConcurrenceMikeMan445 12/11/03 4:09 p.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.guy who doesn't post....too often 12/11/03 5:37 p.m.
           Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Louis Wu 12/12/03 4:21 a.m.
                 hehe...Louis Wu 12/12/03 4:26 a.m.
                       Re: hehe...KP 12/12/03 10:58 a.m.
                             Re: hehe...guy who doesn't post....too often 12/12/03 12:56 p.m.
     Stop Bitching is what i say...Spenser 12/11/03 9:58 p.m.
           Re: Stop Bitching is what i say...Brian 12/11/03 10:26 p.m.
           Re: Stop Bitching is what i say...guy who doesn't post....too often 12/11/03 11:27 p.m.
           And to think, some say we don't have trolls...Socrates 12/12/03 2:57 a.m.
                 Re: And to think, some say we don't have trolls...Ben Roth 12/12/03 5:13 a.m.
                       Re: And to think, some say we don't have trolls...Texrat 12/12/03 11:06 a.m.
                             you're both right...Socrates 12/12/03 2:01 p.m.
           Grow up is what I sayTexrat 12/12/03 11:03 a.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Brian 12/11/03 11:09 p.m.
           Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Louis Wu 12/12/03 4:38 a.m.
           I've said it before...Miguel Chavez 12/12/03 11:15 a.m.
           Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Texrat 12/12/03 11:41 a.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.guy who doesn't post....too often 12/12/03 1:28 a.m.
     Re: Halo PC Complaints. Say what you will.Ducain 12/12/03 9:42 a.m.
     Couldn't agree with you moreViolentlyHappy 12/12/03 4:19 p.m.



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