- Quarem
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- Exalted Heroic Member
As a long time Halo 2 player I am not happy with the current situation. With the new maps Bungie has effectively forced me to purchase the new maps for $4 to maintain the functionality that has been in Halo 2 since the game was released. As an Xbox Live Gold Member I am already paying an annual fee to play Halo 2 online. Now I have to pay an extra $4 to maintain my current online functionality. This is not acceptable.
I understand that new content has to paid for. It is unfortunate that the current business model on Xbox Live involves charging customers for the vast majority of extra game content (especially on-top of the annual fee, and initial game costs). Charging for content divides the player base, which is ultimately bad for the Halo 2 online community since it limits the player pool for the playlists. Ideally a different model, perhaps ad-based, would cover the costs of development with the benefit that the content would be free to everyone. But I digress.
Bungie chose to give players something more, which I believe was a good thing. They also had to determine how to satisfy players that bought the content with playlists to play in, while at the same time not completely preventing players without the premium content from playing in matchmaking. Despite the fact that I feel that the current situation is unacceptable, I can understand that this was a lose/lose situation for Bungie. Either they could ignore players' desire for new maps (lose), or divide the player base and remove functionality from players, like myself, that chose not to pay (lose).
Ultimately I would like to see Xbox Live support a completely ad-based model for premium content that would make it available to all members. Such a model does not seem to be on the horizon, so I believe Bungie should consider implementing technology that would allow them to implement new, for-pay, maps into playlists without blocking players without that content from playing. I have all but two of the maps for Halo 2 there is no technical limitation that should prevent the match-making system from selecting one of maps I have when I want to play Team Slayer, or Team SWAT. While I do not expect such a feature to be available for Halo 2, Bungie should implement such a solution in Halo 3 so that new maps are not divisive to the Halo 3 player base, or a barrier to entry for any of the match-making playlists.