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Subject: How disappointed would you be if there was no support for 3 guests ...
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  • Exalted Mythic Member

January 30, 2004 (Warthog's Day)
The Master Chief emerged from his code. After seeing his dynamically lit realtime shadow, he went back for 9 more months of development.


Behold the power of the Originals, the Gods Axeone-Neurone.

With Halo 2 on a wide screen TV I don't think 4-player split screen will be bad at all.

Guests are not a must for me, but they would be a huge plus. That would bring the experience of a LAN match to your living room with only one Xbox.

[Edited on 5/26/2004 8:45:56 AM]

  • 05.26.2004 8:44 AM PDT
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I've had live from close to it's launch. It is kinda a big deal, because we would then have to buy another xbox, two copies of Halo 2, another Live account, and run cables through the house. To me, a guest account would be much more conveniant.

  • 05.26.2004 8:44 AM PDT

Technically they wouldn't necessarily have to be guests since you can have more than 1 Live account on 1 box.

I'll buy Halo 2 no matter what but I'll be begging Bungie implements 4 players per box over Live !!!


[Edited on 5/26/2004 8:56:21 AM]

  • 05.26.2004 8:55 AM PDT
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Posted by: Kweekwom
I've had live from close to it's launch. It is kinda a big deal, because we would then have to buy another xbox, two copies of Halo 2, another Live account, and run cables through the house. To me, a guest account would be much more conveniant.


...so you would have to do all that...and...it's make the Xperience on Live better for me and everyone else...so get started.

  • 05.26.2004 9:32 AM PDT
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Posted by: KayCeron
Posted by: Kweekwom
I've had live from close to it's launch. It is kinda a big deal, because we would then have to buy another xbox, two copies of Halo 2, another Live account, and run cables through the house. To me, a guest account would be much more conveniant.


...so you would have to do all that...and...it's make the Xperience on Live better for me and everyone else...so get started.


How would that make the experience for you better?

  • 05.26.2004 9:34 AM PDT
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as long as there is one guest i'm cool

Posted by: Alerus
We all have talked about it before. How disappointed would you be if Halo 2 did not support up to 3 guests on Live for 4 player split screen online? Personally I would be really disappointed, I have grown accustomed to the fun of having my friends right next to me to play with through XBC.

  • 05.26.2004 9:36 AM PDT
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Better...hmm, everyone has a mic, and I can tell you you suck by your own GamerTag not GamerTag + Guest...and it always helps with the lag as well. I bought live to play games, and talk with people all over the world...not to play with you and your guest.

  • 05.26.2004 9:38 AM PDT
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good news guys, someone at E3 asked that same question to the Bungie guys, and answers was "yes, it would support 3 guests"

  • 05.26.2004 9:44 AM PDT
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Posted by: KayCeron
Better...hmm, everyone has a mic, and I can tell you you suck by your own GamerTag not GamerTag + Guest...and it always helps with the lag as well. I bought live to play games, and talk with people all over the world...not to play with you and your guest.


I thought guests could use mics too. If not, then that would be better in that case. I'm assuming that it won't just be GamerTag+Guest since it's going to have all the clan options. It will probably show your in-game profile name. The GamerTag may only be used in the lobby. Again if this isn't true then that would be better too. It wouldn't help with lag, you're still sharing your connection with the person in the other room.

  • 05.26.2004 9:45 AM PDT
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Posted by: CrimsonHawk82
good news guys, someone at E3 asked that same question to the Bungie guys, and answers was "yes, it would support 3 guests"


Do you have a link to that info?

  • 05.26.2004 9:45 AM PDT
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yeah i know that stinks

  • 05.26.2004 9:51 AM PDT
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Posted by: halo master 550
yeah i know that stinks


What stinks?

  • 05.26.2004 9:53 AM PDT
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I would be deeply disapointed. Most of us have a few friends that go over to the "Halo" house every week to play team games on XB Connect, And all of us have a copy at home to play campaign or go on XBC ourselves just so we can practice for that one night, or two, That we get together to play 4 vs.4 CTF @ Blood Gulch. Now how disapointing will it be if we can't continue that tradition, That for us has been going on for about 2 years. I guess I just love screeming at my friends to get back our flag!

  • 05.26.2004 9:57 AM PDT
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What if there were two kids in a family, huh, huh, as you can see nobody wants to buy another Xbox and TWO games, cash dosen't grow on trees man.

  • 05.26.2004 10:04 AM PDT
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Posted by: halo master 550
What if there were two kids in a family, huh, huh, as you can see nobody wants to buy another Xbox and TWO games, cash dosen't grow on trees man.


Exactly.

  • 05.26.2004 10:06 AM PDT
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...you guys take turns...just like you do with all the other games.

I'm not trying to be rude or mean or anything but I think everyone who's playing on live should have their own GamerTag, Mic, and TV...it makes the experience that much better.

[Edited on 5/26/2004 10:12:02 AM]

  • 05.26.2004 10:09 AM PDT
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i answered something about Star wars Clone wars and it poped up later (like 30 posts later) in the middle of a firefight, sorry. But I have to agree that guests is a must have for halo 2, preferabley 3 but it will not kill me if they don't have 3 guests because I only have one guest. (IMPORTANT) also, for like 5 bucks you can get 3 guest mic's that work THROUGH your mic so you can talk to guests, also go up and read whats-his-name's post about how guests will reduce lag. Whew.

  • 05.26.2004 10:16 AM PDT
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Posted by: Drakan
I would be deeply disapointed. Most of us have a few friends that go over to the "Halo" house every week to play team games on XB Connect, And all of us have a copy at home to play campaign or go on XBC ourselves just so we can practice for that one night, or two, That we get together to play 4 vs.4 CTF @ Blood Gulch. Now how disapointing will it be if we can't continue that tradition, That for us has been going on for about 2 years. I guess I just love screeming at my friends to get back our flag!


don't worry you can scream at your friends over Xbox Live...you'll have a mic and your own damn TV screen...it's great trust me.

  • 05.26.2004 10:19 AM PDT
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Go right ahead, YOU can do that but that doesn't mean everbody else has to do it your way, Hey, wait a second, didn't we learn this in Kindergarden? Guess not, if some of you have ever been there.

  • 05.26.2004 10:20 AM PDT
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Posted by: Lakatu
It would eb great to have three guests but the problems are technical. Xbox live is available to anyone with broadband and so the options available have to work with the worst compatible connection.

Lots of live games have 1 guest (correct me if i'm wrong) but 3 guests means your getting just one quarter of the bandwidth you could get in One player.

The average broadband connection in the UK is probably 512k, with a 256k upload. Which provides good play for one or two people. Having four people sharing that connection would only give them 56k each.. Lag would become a real problem.

I have no real knowledge of the exact limitations but i'd imagine 4 player lagless on one broadband connection would be tecnically very difficult. Bungie may surprise me but i think 1 guest is likely but 3 isn't.

Of course, if people had upload speeds such as 1meg this problem wouldn't exist. It is perhaps possible that the game could sense your upload speed and then limit you to none, one or three guest depending on your connection.

Anyway, i think bandwidth rather than FPS is the problem.


Read one of my other posts on the first page as I go into how the networking works. The lag is significantly better when you clump more people onto your box (mean guests = less lag). If you don't believe my words go play on XBC a little and you will there is a huge difference when its 4 on 4 with two boxes instead of 2 on 2 with four boxes. The lag much favors the 4 on 4 despite there being more players because of the less number of xboxes talking.

Since I only talked about the host side in that previous post, and while the host side is really the clincher, I'll talk a little about the client side. The average numbers you gave were 512 down and 256 up right? Earlier the 128k number was tossed around for what a host needs to get out to each box. Well first of all thats each box, not each player. If a box has 4 players the data sent to it is not split. A single packet can be sent and the local xbox can figure how it applies to everyone from there.

As for the upload of a client, I don't know what the specific number is that is idea, but the amount of upload for a client is much less than what the host needs to do. Your number was a tiny bit off 256/4 = 64. On a client side upload this is definitely sufficient. This is not to mention that the host will get all these 4 players packets at the same time which makes things easier on it.

We could all sit here and talk about theory of lag, but the best demonstration is to go play XBC and compare the differences. The difference is phenominal.

  • 05.26.2004 10:21 AM PDT
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Posted by: KayCeron

I'm not trying to be rude or mean or anything but I think everyone who's playing on live should have their own GamerTag, Mic, and TV...it makes the experience that much better.


That would be ideal, but not everyone can do that. Playing people with guests won't lessen your experience any, only theirs. It especially won't lessen your experience if there isn't "GamerTag+Guest" but in-game profiles as names.

  • 05.26.2004 10:23 AM PDT
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I agree with you Alerus, I play on XBC alot and you're definately right.

  • 05.26.2004 10:25 AM PDT
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hey, i have what i beleive is 3MB downstream and 1.5Mb upstream, is this good for hosting on XBL? Also, if you have DSL, with bellsouth for $5 extra a month you get 3MB speed and all kinds of other things that my dad says it has but i can't remeber them now, and DSL is steadly becomeing much more available to everyone as we speak, and by Nov. 9 quiet a bit of people who can't have DSL today might be able to have it then.

  • 05.26.2004 10:33 AM PDT
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Agreed Alerus. One of the most fun aspects of Halo, even now, is the ability to sit down, sign into XBC, drink a couple of beers, and slap the host around a bit. :) If I wanted to sit in my basement, alone, and play without the real camaraderie of having someone sit next to me, I'd play more counterstrike (barf). Halo is about hanging out with your friends and having a good time with them. Don't change that on me. The Live connection is good to keep the competition fresh. Your team should be right there on the couch with you. It's as simple as that.

BTW, I hope someone from Bungie reads this thread.

  • 05.26.2004 11:04 AM PDT
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Alerus, don't forget that XBC is not really a good indication of what the Xbox can do online. Keep in mind that Halo was not written to be played the way we play it over XBC; rather, XBC is a brute force method of creating a tunnel connection over the net. Halo was written with the assumption that you would always be on a 10/100 network, thus giving you tons more bandwidth. They didn't really have to worry about being efficient with their network code. Halo 2 is being specifically designed for Live, which does a great job of maintaining information efficiency.
XBC just forces a connection between the boxes, and then captures and routes the xbox packets over the tunnel. To be fair, it works as well as can be expected. But, a lot of XBC is kind of a "shot in the dark" approach. They don't know exactly what is happening at the instruction level of Halo, so they can't completely optimize XBC to work with Halo.
Live requires far less bandwidth to run with minimal lag. I don't think guests will really be a problem.

  • 05.26.2004 11:14 AM PDT

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