- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
For all you people wanting to know the prices, check out the link that was given in the article, duh. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/news/2005/0325-halo2mappack.htm. For those of you that are to stupid to follow the links, here you go. The retail version will be $19.99 and for xbox live users:
"Two maps, Containment and Warlock, will be presented by Mountain Dew at no cost to Xbox Live subscribers. Two additional maps, Sanctuary and Turf, will be available for purchase via Xbox Live for $5.99 (U.S.). To complete the Map Pack collection, subscribers can download the five remaining maps on June 28 for $11.99 (U.S.)."
I agree that product testing is quite important when releasing a product (I am a programmer as well) but sometimes keeping your customers satisfied are more important. At my company we have different levels of severity for the defects in the code. When something is found, the developers determine how serious the problem is and how important it is to release an update. Now we know that Halo 2 has many developers and each developer works on a particular product and that probably only a select few of the 65 person team worked on/work on networking code. However, you would think with the severity of standby that it would be important and a high, high priority to solve this problem in a more timely fasion instead of making new maps.
I am still ready for the new maps, don't get me wrong and I am sure I will pay the premium fees for them. Considering late April though, that update is a long time away and unfortunately the best game ever built will loose some of its fan base because of the cheaters. Hopefully this does not affect the support of Bungie and Microsoft in the Next Console war considering the Halo series is what really keeps the xbox afloat.
By the way Frankie, you do a good job of reporting what you are able to tell us. It really is hard when you know the inside information and cannot say due to legal reasons and sometimes it is hard to figure out what is open to the public and what is not.
As far as Hang'em High goes, man I really wish that would come back. I can't really bust out halo 1 anymore and play it with my friends because they are 700 miles away and cat 5 is only supposed to go 500 feet. From the rumors I have heard, halo 2 had a working version of hang'em high so why don't you let the users decide if it is as fun as we remember or not? Bungie has already spent the development money to make it, maybe a slight amount more is needed to perfect it but think of the revenue you could produce off it. Even if you sale it for 1 buck for that map, I would think at least 100,000 people would download it. This would probably be close + - a few thousdand dollars of the money it takes a single developer to finish this product and the money for logistcal support.