Halo:MCC HCS Cup cancelled because of joinability issues

Halo via twitter:
We're aware of and investigating party joinability issues. As a result, we'll be canceling HCS Cup #1, and apologize for the inconvenience.

[MightyNoX]

Damn, I was too slow. :P

On-topic: This game is such an entertaining trainwreck

[Transistor]

It shouldn't be entertaining, it's terrible for people who bought the game.

What's entertaining is that this game has an 85 on metacritic and still doesn't work months later.

Releasing it in this state is sleazy and disrespectful to their biggest franchise and the fan base.

[hulk_bash1987]

Tell me about it, I made the plunge andbought it thinking they had already ironed this stuff out. Oh how wrong I was, on the plus side, playing Masterchief's story all over again in full HD resolution is awesome. But that doesn't excuse 343's lack of respect for the halo fanbase.

[Erik7357]

Hell atleast the content in the game is good.....
It works fine for me.

[cannon8800]

@Fries1223

The game has good content, but how are people suppose to enjoy that content if it doesn't work for everyone who owns the game and has an internet connection to play multiplayer?

I'm happy that it works for you but there are plenty of other people who are not as fortunate.

[isa_scout]

I bought an Xbox One solely for Halo MCC so I'm really hoping that Halo 5 turns out better than this disaster. And when does MS plan on fixing party chat? I really enjoyed the Halo 5 guardians beta, but if they don't plan to have another one before the game ships I'll just hold off and buy it a few months after launch used. 343 is wrecking the Halo franchise and I'll be damned if they or MS see anymore of my money. Oh well, at least we still have Black Tusk working on a Gears remaster and part 4.**crosses fingers** Please be good.

[Nirvana31591]

I recently bought the Halo MCC Xbox bundle. Never in my life have I been more disappointed.

[Tapani]

Can you elaborate? I'm interested in buying Xbox One only for the Halo MCC collection, because it's been a while I played the trilogy and never played fourth. I only play the single-player campaigns, cuz I like the atmosphere and music, plus the story is deep and I like to collect all the story bits here and there.

That in mind, is it worth it?

[ChrisChambers]

I've had the game since launch and if you want it for the campaigns you'll be fine. At launch the multiplayer was downright awful, I won't deny that, but now it is far better. Is it perfect? No. But nothing is perfect. I can't speak for this issue they've had with this tournament but I just played the game for around 3 hours today with friends on the other side of the country and we had no issues outside of 1 map not loading.

[SonofGod]

Umm no you didn't. You troll almost every Xbox article.

[Naga]

"I recently bought the Halo MCC Xbox bundle. Never in my life have I been more disappointed."
- Nirvana31591 Today

"I bought an X1 from Walmart with SSO and Horizon 2 and returned it within 10 days after beating both games for a full refund."
- Nirvana31591 154 days ago.

"I've bought every console released for the past 2 generations but PS4 is the only one I'll buy this gen."
- Nirvana31591 154 days ago.

Go troll somewhere else.

[Tapani]

You fooled me, damn troll! Away with you.

[Naga]

@ Tapani

To answer your question (since he obviously can't), I HIGHLY recommend Halo 4's single-player campaign. As a huge fan of Halo, it's actually my favorite one of the entire series. If you're a Halo fan, the anniversary upgrade made to Halo 2 and the experience of Halo 4 are worth the price of entry. Just my two cents.

[Rookie_Monster]

Wow..can't believe you still have agrees with such blatant lies. You never have a xb1 in the first place and this is like your 5th post stating you bought the system since last Fall. LoL. Obvious troll is obvious.

Here is one from a couple days ago.

Nirvana31591  + 0;  4d ago
You can't fix a weak ass hardware with software updates. I bought an Xbox recently and I've been regretting it.

[DigitalRaptor]

It's STILL broken?

I just don't get this. I was told by so many that the game was fixed last November. That obviously wasn't true. The last big update I was told it was fixed and heard from many that this was true. I believed it. But this is pretty insane, and not really much can be done to damage control this.

I agree with what Transistor said. The fact that this has an 85 meta score is absolutely unbelievable. Any other game and any other franchise from any other company, and this would not pass a 60 meta score. If Microsoft treats the ultimate legacy release of their #1 franchise as they have done with this, by releasing it broken, misleading and/or not informing their consumers, and not having it fixed months later, how can people genuinely expect anything good going forward?

I wonder how this will affect the perception and the success of Halo 5.
------

@ RocketScience

I think that was clear a while ago. XBL has been down or had problems more times in the past 12 months than PSN has by a large margin - https://www.youtube.com/wat... - The only times I've noticed PSN being down is for scheduled maintenance, which they tell you about in advance, and if you're logged in you can still play online during that time.

[Gazondaily]

Ah Mighty Nox. At least you can play Killz......aaah never mind lmao.

[Ikonic]

Top kek

[BiggerBoss]

Wow thats lame:/

Everybody has been saying the game works fine now, I wonder what the issue is. Its kinda ridiculous how MCC still has problems this long after launch, especially since this is Microsofts biggest franchise. I guess they rushed it to come out before the holidays last year.

[jttwister09]

it was working great they just added ranked play and I guess there was a bug that came over in that sad to see love the game though when it works.

[Kayant]

This and DC PS+ edition. SMH that they both let the games it in such a state.

[Rimeskeem]

DC ps+ doesnt exist because it isnt ready to come out. DC works great now.

[Kayant]

It doesn't exist yet because online is not 100% yet to support it. DC's social racing is one of it's main features yet at launch online was broken and still not 100% features like the MyDriveClub companion app and DC PS+ edition are still ETA.

"Share in the thrill of Club racing
DRIVECLUB is all about you and your friends. It's about teamwork; it's about everyone fighting for one another and earning rewards together – and most importantly it's about sharing in the sheer thrill of every race." - https://www.playstation.com...

[Transistor]

DC PS+ should be out now 200 days later and that's all there is to it. Don't defend it.

[Rimeskeem]

@Transistor

I'm not defending it, just stating the fact it's not ready. I too think it should have come out already and find it completely un acceptable that they promised us this and never delivered.

[hello12]

Investigating party joinability issues!

Its not a gameplay problem at all people overeact when its a Microsoft game.

Its a serious issue, but it doesn't mean everyone can not join a party.

The problem here is you can't afford any issues because its a tournament and you can't be wasting time with delays.

[Kayant]

"Its not a gameplay problem at all people overeact when its a Microsoft game." - So? It's still an issue with a paid product.

[Spotie]

There weren't any gameplay problems with DriveClub, either.

[magiciandude]

@Spotie

This has what to do with DriveClub?

[rainslacker]

So issues are fine for paying customers...but not for a tournament with how many people playing....maybe 1/100,000th of the people that paid for the product? If a person can't connect then doesn't that effect game play, thus becoming a game play problem?

I fail to follow your line of reasoning.

Also, all tournaments have problems. You can't prevent them. It's computers, crap happens. you try to minimize the possibility, and fix problems as soon as they happen, and have back ups in place should something go wrong. If this is a serious tournament, with financial backers, the only reason I can see it being cancelled is if the problems are persistent enough to be routine, and there is no way that the tournament operators to fix the issue should it arise.

[swice]

I feel bad for 343. I'm not even mad anymore.

I could only imagine how they must be feeling right now.

[rainslacker]

I don't really blame 343. I don't know much about them to be honest, but MS pushed out the MCC, and they had to know that the game's online wasn't ready. Same can be said for a lot of online centered games. There was a deadline, and I really don't believe that 343 had enough time to put their all into this remaster. Halo 5 was in the works as well, and I'm sure that took the majority of their focus. The turn around from the annoucement to the release was pretty quick, and I wouldn't doubt that MS wanted to release MCC this summer instead of this past holiday. Games like this are perfect summer releases.

[swice]

Deadlines are a good thing, but I feel like A LOT of games could have been better if it weren't for the really strict deadlines.

It's the strict dealines that are the problem. I see games as art, and as a breed of artist myself, strict deadlines can ruin focus and destroy creativity, or in the case of 343, ample testing time for their engine/servers. It's a shame really

[rainslacker]

No doubt. Generally, in game development, the deadline is fairly flexible for milestones. not months or years or anything, but 3-4 weeks, because things do come up in development which can slow things to a halt and can take time to resolve.

Some games are built in with extra time just in case they aren't ready. The yearly releases, particularly for the holidays, tend to have some of the strictest deadlines, and the ones that are the most broken are that way more because the development team putting it together overestimates their abilities to make the game within a certain time frame as opposed to the publisher saying that it has to be done in 18 months, although there are also times when the publisher does demand more than any team could reasonably handle.

The publisher can't be blamed in every case. I've been in development meetings where the leads on the game would reassure the publisher that it could be done by a certain date, despite the lead engineers saying it wasn't possible. This happens before development even begins, and from what I understand, it's very common because in those cases, dev studios are trying to get work so they can stay open.

However, 343 is a MS owned studio, so things work a bit differently, and there isn't much reason for them to say things like that since the publishers already really know how long something will take.

If MCC is still having issues this far after release, then it was either rushed from the start, or they have given up on trying to make things work with enough effort and have refocused on something else, leaving the bare minimum to get it working eventually. I'd imagine with Halo releasing in 6-7 months, a lot of resources may have been retasked to that after MCC went gold.

[swice]

Yeah you're definitely right. Really nice explanation of what goes through the publishers and devs heads.

Do you think 343 will put some focus back into MCC once Halo 5 has been out for a while?

[rainslacker]

I couldn't say. I'm only speculating based on experience. 343 is likely in crunch mode right now for E3 and a huge holiday release which I doubt MS will allow to be delayed. Given the flack that other companies are getting for delaying games, I doubt MS wouldn't allow a delay if it was something that could be patched in after release.

Not knowing where Halo 5 is in development, I can not say 100% if resources were taken away, or if it was outsourced, or if they brought in more people for it. I also can't say if Halo 5 will be ready in time, or if it would benefit greatly from a delay. So again, everything i say is speculation or hypothetical.

I think they will get it fixed, and they have been fixing issues apparently. Since I don't follow the game that much, I don't know what's been fixed, but after all this time online portions of games typically do not have issues anymore unless it's some random one that comes up in a patch.

[Halo2ODST2]

They are feeling great, they're too busy playing paintball rather than attempting to fix their mess!

[Findingcrybabies]

that is absolutely pitiful.

[Bennibop]

I really believe this will have an effect on halo 5 sales, I for one will not be rushing out day one to buy the game. Mcc was such a colossal let down, got fed up of being told that it still had 4 fantastic campaign, I was only ever interested in Multilayer as I find the campaigns dated now (loved them first time round) and hated halo 4.

[poor_cus_of_games]

It's still broken!?! Glad that I traded it in ages ago.

[LifeInNZ]

Cant wait for Halo ODST to hit next month...guess youll miss out now. But looking at your comment history doubt you care about anything positive on the XB1 side of gaming.

[Dr_Angus]

You mean the game I already played almost a decade ago, I will be missing out on?

[Halo2ODST2]

ODST doesn't even come with Firefight...

[Sureshot]

Sweet another f*** up! we get Reach remastered now yes?

[joel_c17]

Wow this game is still unplayable? What a joke

[ABBAJESUS]

That is awful news! Wtf how can this game be still broken??? Really microsft, oh really?

[MasterCornholio]

I thought they fixed it with the last patch.

I can't believe that they still have issues with the multiplayer in this collection.

[Gamer777]

No one reads anymore. The issue has do with joining parties (which is essential for tournaments) not the game's online as a whole being broken.

[MCTJim]

Why would anyone read when it opportunity to trash MS and the X1 and get more bubbles? The game is not broken, the last patch in December did indeed take away the issues that plagued the mutiplayer....but, the single player was always fine and I rarely played Halo online as I preferred the single play of each game. Halo 5, may have changed my mind.

[isa_scout]

The game is still a shadow of what it could/should have been. I think most Xbox One owners would agree. I bought MCC at the midnight launch came home and had to play private matches because it was so screwed up.I ended up waiting literally weeks before I was able to play my first match, it was a laggy mess and it ended with me being kicked out of the match. I wish they would've just separated all the games along with their multiplayer as I feel that must be where the problem lies. The game was broken at launch, and parts of the game are still broken this issue just further proves the point. And before anyone says that I'm a PS fan and I don't even own a Xbox One let me say this, yes I enjoy my PS4 immensely more than my Xbox One, but I still own one. My XBL name is SM1TExURxTITAN( I love TitanFall) for proof.

[holdmyown83]

Will never buy a game from this publisher ever again!!

[MetroidFREAK21]

So glad I bought this collection just for the co-op and campaigns...

[Ikonic]

As someone who bought this day 1 I feel used and abused.

Halo is my favorite gaming franchise, I hold it as highly as I do classics like Metroid and Zelda. It disgusts me that I was sold this shit, and I'm betting they knew it was shit when they shipped it. My hopes for Halo 5 have been crushed somewhat due to the whole fiasco, but I do have a bit of hope 343 will do us, the fans, some good. I mean after such a bad release they wouldn't dare do it again, right?

[Khajiit86]

Sorry. I dont own an X1 but this is really one game I was rooting for. So many dedicated fans and a really great game franchise. Would have been amazing if it worked properly.

Hopefully MCC is the way it is because they are too hard at work on Halo 5.

[Ikonic]

With what's been revealed tonight with Halo 5 myself and I think a large majority of the Halo community have our hopes up even higher now. The campaign is looking to be very interesting!

[MultiConsoleGamer]

This was my most wanted remaster collection this gen and I have yet to purchase it because of all the issues with this game. Absolutely unacceptable.

[Whirlwind_Fanfare_08]

This game is still broken? wow!

[ThinkThink]

Online multiplayer works great. I guess there is an issue with setting up parties?

[WilDRangeRfc]

Never played Halo on the 360 as I spent most of my time on Gears,for people like me it was well worth the money,I get to play all the campaigns plus ODST for the price of one game,tried MP back in November it was broken,in Dec went away with the Navy back in July so I dont know if its fixed yet but im not to worried,I will finish the campaigns get up to date with the story skip MP and trade it in,will play my first Halo MP on Guardians,does suck for Halo fans who want to hop on MP,I dont think 343 are being disrespectful to fans like people are saying on here,I just think they were too ambitous trying to make different MP/engines run in one game

[Reaper29r]

You guys really will just see a headline good or bad and just start trashing MS without even reading it. So many Sony guys here just talking trash. Even more than the usual ones surprisingly. The issues is with parties, not match making. The only problem I've had in Slayer, BTB, CTF is that sometimes it takes a couple minutes to find players. Sometimes it takes less than one. So while the game is by no means perfect, it's pretty stable. Now I remember why I took a break from this site. It's just a blue circle jerk. And it seems to have gotten a lot worse.