Speculations and Questions from the E3 Announcement.

[Stolniik]

Hi guys,

 

The early hours of today (Australian time) has shown me that 343i has taken a pretty significant step in the right direction.

At first when I heard of a H2 Anniversary, I remembered everything that was wrong with the HCE Anniversary and it made me cringe a little. However, after 343i announced all the improvements that they have made to the now known "Master Cheif Collection", it made me feel like a little kid again, unwrapping my Xbox with Halo CE bundle all over again.

This topic is more to discuss the speculations I gathered from the E3 conference. I'm hoping that there could be some sort of clarification from either a 343i member, or if the community itself is able to help me by pointing things that I have missed. Feel free to add your own speculations also!

 

Moving on to the speculations/questions (most are on the multiplayer side of things, apologies in advance).

 

1. One of my bigger questions... Will each game (H2, H3, H4) have their own seperate Multiplayer aspect? I believe it was mentioned that H2 is completely stand alone, but does this mean that H3 and H4 are not? Perhaps it will be a lobby allocation, by which games are split up into several different lobbies and the multiplayer (along with all of it's maps) will only be accessible through that server and all ranks, progression etc is restricted to that server?

 

2. It was mentioned that there are 100 maps included on the MC Collection that ar playable. However only 6 of the Halo 2 maps were revamped to look amazing. What my question here is though, will the other Halo 2 maps still be playable in Mutiplayer? Will each game vary between HD and STD def graphics dependant on the map you play?

From the conference, it seems as though there might only be 6 maps at first to plau mutiplayer on. Will this change later on? Will more maps be re-made in order to support the H2 community?

 

3. Halo 2 has a vast range of playlists which worked well for the community. Mixing it up between social games and ranked games (banning guests from ranked playlists) really gave Halo 2 a competitive edge to the other games on offer. That said, will 343i provide us with this kind of variety and change it up on a weekly/monthly basis like Bungie once did? Or will there be very little support for mutiplayer?

 

4. Game Engine.... Now when I heard that H2 would be completely untouched, does this also refer to the game engine? Will glitches such as Super Jumps and BXB etc still be useable? In all honesty, I would not mind H2 and H3 multiplayer being played on the H4 engine as H4 was a very smooth game. However, if they were to do this, all the other aspects of H2's multiplayer (ranks, duel wield, lack of armour abilities etc) will be gone. Looking at the footage it seems as though they are retaining the use of the old H2 game engine.

 

5. On the topic of Ranks, will it be ranked? I have a feeling that each game retain it's own progression system and it will be limited to the game you are playing. However, the progression that we were able to achieve on each game 10 odd years ago will probably be reset. It will be interesting and more entertaining if this were to occur as cheating is a lot harder given that the game has dedicated servers and that modding is very asily detected on XBL nowadays.

 

6. Halo 3 campaign and its Multiplayer ever get a re-vamp? Going by what was said at the conference, only HCE and H2 will have updated graphics included in the MC Collection. However, will future updates or DLC give H3 the same kind of treatment?

 

7. Given that Xbox One forces you to install games on the HDD, I am expecting a large portion of it to be taken up by the 4 Halo games. How big will the game be itself? Will it take up 100GB of my slowly filling up 500GB hard drive?

 

8. Another critical aspect of HCE Anniversary that was almost unplayable, was the slow response time (older engine perhaps?). When I would move my joystick it would have about a half second delay to the game, which worsened when playing in the HD graphics. Will H2 Anniversary have this same problem? I don't really want to be playing a H2 multiplayer game that is unresponsive.

 

Anyway, that is all I have right now. While the conference was exciting, it was also scary that I might be hyping myself up for another disappointment lik HCE Anniversary.

What are your thoughts/speculations?

[Buns]

Let me qwell all your speculation.

 

1. All games will have their own multiplayer aspect. In Matchmaking when you select a map to vote on there will be an icon in the corner of the map image showing what game it belongs too and when you select that map it will launch that game and its multiplayer for everyone to play.

 

2. This is unknown at the moment but Halo 2 maps will support forge so maybe they are all sandbox maps!

 

3. They said they will fully support MCC even after Halo 5 releases. They plan on keeping it well updated with rotational playlists I assume.

 

4. All games run on their own individual engine. All engines will be on the disc and each will launch separately when you play that game. From what Frank O Conner said all glitches will still work just fine except for SOME Super Jumps. Why? Well since everything is being rerendered with new models some pixels will be moved which will alter some of the super hard/super specific jumps. 

 

5. They never said much about the actual ranks but Frankie did say if you liked Halo 2s ranking system you would like MCC's ranking system.

 

6.  Halo 3 and 4 will look the same. Halo CE is the same as Halo CEA and Halo 2 is getting a brand new revamp.

 

7. I highly doubt it will be 100G that is like near impossible no. Halo 3 is 6 gigs along and Halo 4 is another 11 I believe. You're looking at around 25 gigs or even less of content. Plus I may be wrong but can't you turn off that feature in console settings?

 

8. That Halo CEA lag you're talking about is like unheard of. Sure the respone time may not be instant because of the older tech that problem is like unheard of. Halo 2A plays exactly like Halo 2 at 60 FPS 

 

I got all my info from the IGN interview with Frank O Conner and lead director of MCC + The MS Conference + Twitter. Hopefully this answers everything

[Stolniik]

Hey,

 

Yeah that did help clarify things a bit. I just finished watching the IGN interview which eluded me this morning.

I'm just hoping that it is all it is cracked up to be. From the gameplay footage in the IGN interview, it seems that a lot of my questions were actually answered.

I just hope the multiplayer aspect of MMC lives up to its predecessors. However, IMO i'm not liking the idea of continuously swapping back and fourth between games.

 

As for the 100GB, that was just an estimate I had come by, given that a normal XB1 game can be around 25GB. It doesn't bother me much, but some others might complain.

Lastly, the Halo CEA did havea response lag (you are probably correct because of the older engine which i mentioned above). But at times it was unbearable. Especially if I played campaign online then it would add an extra layer of lag that made it even worse. I ended up playing the whole campaign again on the older graphics.

 

Halo is the game that I always purchase the "Legendary" edition for. This one will definitely be no exception if they bring one out. Can't wait!

 

Anyway thanks again for your help.