- sawnose
- |
- Bungie.net Superuser
- gamertag: [none]
- user homepage:
So why even bother to fix it if there is insufficient danger of this "cheat" being used.
Good question, jman - I didn't specify this before. This issue was brought to our attention by someone who actively searches for exploits in online games, reports his findings to the game companies, and then publishes his exploit code on a web page shortly thereafter. I expect him to publish the exploit code tomorrow. As with the previous couple hotfixes, the very reason you haven't seen problems is that we've been able to release a patch before the exploit becomes public. I assure you that these patches are very necessary, or else it would no longer be possible to play Halo PC online. That's why I'm making sure that Halo CE gets updated this time around - the previous exploits have in fact been used against that version and crashed clients trying to browse the server list.
I understand the community's desire to see more extensive changes to Halo PC, but unlike a little security bug, which I (as a Bungie programmer and tester) can quickly track down and fix on my own without having written the original code, deep engine changes (like reducing apparent latency, or other core-game changes) need to happen while the original dev team is still heads-down on the project before, or right after, it ships. Gearbox added some great features post-ship, like the dedicated server, and then the custom map features that went into CE, but even that was over a year ago, and their team has moved on to their BiA games now. I don't think we should expect new non-hotfix changes, but maybe we'll be surprised. That said, it would take a clear-cut and significant improvement to meet the bar we have set for patches at this point. Just as the little tweaks that went into Halo CE 1.0 (aside from the big custom-map feature) weren't incorporated into the main Halo PC game because they risked introducing new bugs that break stuff that already works, without offering a compelling reason to include them.
Anyway, I hope you see that we *do* care about the game, but sometimes the right choice is sort of a tough love - we could tweak and tinker forever, but the risk of making it worse than it was, and the impact of trying to squeeze tiny improvements out of a released game rather than spending our time making big improvements to a future game, mean that it's usually the right choice to leave well enough alone.