With Halo 3 getting its free gold release in about two weeks, I’m curious how the DLC restrictions will be handled.
I assume that 343 is the company that would be responsible for any active matchmaking support in Halo 3 at this point?
Regardless, I would love to see the DLC go free since the game has effectively lived its life. Failing that (DLC would possibly be the driving force behind the free to play releases beyond customer loyalty), I would like to see the restrictions lifted from the play lists even though I do have all the required DLC.
I would much rather play Halo 3 with a large population on a few maps than play laggy games on a plethora of maps.
I concur. It would be amazing to wake up that morning and see the Halo 3 population be at 50k 
I really don’t think Halo 3 is going to be as popular as so many people think it is.
First of all, it’s difficult for me to believe that I am in the minority of gamers because I still have my copy of Halo 3 (plus I can still download all of its DLC, since I have purchased it), and thus have no reason to download it for free.
Second, Games for Gold is not well-known at all.
Third, at six years, it’s old enough to be considered outdated and worn, but not old enough to be played by masses simply out of nostalgia.
Honestly, as of late, I’ve been yearning to play Halo: CE or Halo 2 multiplayer. (I know they’re both on PC, but I hate the way PC shooters feel.)
> I really don’t think Halo 3 is going to be as popular as so many people think it is.
>
> First of all, it’s difficult for me to believe that I am in the minority of gamers because I still have my copy of Halo 3 (plus I can still download all of its DLC, since I have purchased it), and thus have no reason to download it for free.
>
> Second, Games for Gold is not well-known at all.
>
> Third, at six years, it’s old enough to be considered outdated and worn, but not old enough to be played by masses simply out of nostalgia.
>
> Honestly, as of late, I’ve been yearning to play Halo: CE or Halo 2 multiplayer. (I know they’re both on PC, but I hate the way PC shooters feel.)
Assassin’s Creed 2 got a big boost.
LIVE Activity for week of July 15
1.Xbox 360 Top LIVE Titles (based on UU’s)
2.Call of Duty: Black Ops II
3.Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
4.EA Sports FIFA Soccer 13
5.Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
6.GTA IV
7.NBA 2K13
8.Assassin’s Creed II (Free for Gold Members until July 31, 2013)
9.Halo 4
There haven’t been any more updates to see how it held up after the initial surge flattened out, but its still a positive indication.
There are apparently 40 million gold subscribers. I have no clue how reliable that number is. I’m guessing its a little high but not by enough that the number doesn’t at least work for illustrative purposes. Going by that, you are tripling the number of people that have access to Halo 3 at zero additional cost (compared to the 12 million copies on the market). Even if it does require self selection, it certainly has the POTENTIAL to make a huge difference.
Fact of the matter is that among gold subscribers, if you already have Halo 3 you are in the minority.
> Assassin’s Creed 2 got a big boost.
Right, but AC2 doesn’t have multiplayer. The people who played AC2 while it was free were probably people who hadn’t played or beaten it before Brotherhood came out.
Even for players who had played or beaten it before, AC2 only takes around 20-25 hours to 100%, which could be done in a few weeks. Compare that to Halo 3, which had multiplayer that gave it hundreds of hours of replay value over the course of months or years. My point is that on average, Halo 3 was played a lot more and for a lot longer than AC2, and so players may be more likely to feel tired of it.
But this is all speculation. I don’t want anyone to misinterpret me as acting authoritative.
Frank Oconner said that there is going to be a playlist consolidation after halo 4 he said. That means they are going to remove the most inactive game types just like they did with reach. They also fixed the population counter in reach and added 3 new playlists. So that seems like the best we will get
The DLC should definitely be free. The game and its DLC have been out for 6 friggin’ years!
Its Microsoft’s policy that DLC with tied achievements CANNOT be free (although they did seem to ignore this with all of Gears of War 1’s DLC and some of Red Dead Redemption’s).
This is the only reason that the Heroic map pack and Cold Storage map were free, they had no tied achievements like the Legendary and Mythic map packs did. There may be a discount during the free download period, but this is just a guess.
> Its Microsoft’s policy that DLC with tied achievements CANNOT be free (although they did seem to ignore this with all of Gears of War 1’s DLC and some of Red Dead Redemption’s).
> This is the only reason that the Heroic map pack and Cold Storage map were free, they had no tied achievements like the Legendary and Mythic map packs did. There may be a discount during the free download period, but this is just a guess.
Policies are changeable, but I agree that free DLC is unlikely. That’s why i also addressed what i would like failing my first choice. =D