- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
(knocking loudly) "Hello? Anyone Home?"
I made the mistake of trying to get support for the Halo 2/Vista dedicated server. Resultantly, I’ll likely be spending the rest of my life in therapy.
If anyone purchases Halo 2/Vista, attempts to install the dedicated server, and then experiences problems, the first and only line of support defense is a rather lengthy readme file that serves more as an operational instruction guide than a troubleshooting source. Within that file is the statement, "Note: Halo 2 Dedicated Server is not supported by Microsoft support services. For information about and help with Halo 2 Dedicated Server, see www.xbox.com/en-US/games/h/halo2/."
If you go to that particular site, there's no direct support for H2DS, but there is a link for support. Click on that, you're given several options to contact XBOX support . I have no idea why one would contact XBOX support as dedicated server runs on a – well – server, but I digress. You’re given the option of either using phone, email, etc. Regardless, if you contact XBOX support which I did, you'll get a response that says, "To obtain technical support help for Dedicated Server, visit the following Bungie Web site, and then click Forums: http://www.bungie.net." (Incidentally, you'll get a similar message if you look on Microsoft's web site for anything regarding Halo 2 dedicated server support. They direct you to http://www.bungie.net as well.)
Apparently, that's here, and while it seems that the forums are full of very nice and well-meaning people, the bottom line is that it’s just user on user support, another dead end, and nobody who's profiting by the sale of this game is taking any responsibility for supporting it. I guess it's far more economical to just keep pointing the proverbial e-finger further down the black hole of obscurity (I have a pretty good idea as to exactly which finger that is, too) and hope that anyone with problems just gives up.
No, I don't necessarily see user supported technical forums as a bad thing, but only if they exist to support freeware or open source type OS's or applications like snitz or linux, and so on. But if you pay fifty bucks for a game which is marketed by one of the largest companies in the world, expecting some degree of prompt - let alone sufficient - access to competent technical support isn't an unrealistic expectation.
I’ve asked these questions to so many entities, I’ve lost count, but I’ll present them to you here for your review, public ridicule, utter disinterest, or hopefully, genuine concern.
Is there actually anyone providing support for Halo 2/Vista Dedicated Server?