i only ever got to play splitscreen back then
Since no one ever answered you, I’ll take a crack at it. There were positives and negatives to it, but overall, I’ve never enjoyed a game more than halo 2. Which is why I’m so disappointed in 343i and their complete ignoring of MCC.
As far as what made it great:
- Ridiculous population. At the time there was very little competition in fps games. At any given time you were looking at populations in the 100s of thousands at the minimum, which made for crazy fast matchmaking.
- Ranking. For all the knocks against it, the ranking in my opinion was phenomenal. You very rarely had blowout games when playing ranked. Because of this, nearly everyone’s kd at the time was around 1.0. If you found someone near a 2.0, that wad legit, they were crazy good.
- Lack of party chat. Granted, you would get the annoying idiots that would scream or just be irritating, but it forced you to talk to your team. Thus helped you make friends and create a core group of teammates if you got along well in game. It made you focus on your game instead of chatting with friends who were playing a completely different game. You didn’t have the dumb teammates that run out and die 20 times a game because you could give them some direction and coordinate a little.
- Proximity chat. I loved this personally. I was a smack talker back then, and nothing was more satisfying than telling the other team what you were going to go, and then do it.
- Clans. Not sure what it was, but it was just kind of cool.
- Just overall fun. People cared about winning and did their best to accomplish it, whether it was talking and coordinating with teammates, or just trying to survive so as not to hurt the team. Some of my best real life friends now started off as nothing more than a gamertag I matched up with and we won some games together, so we played more together. I nearly left out super jumps as well. I know a lot hated them being used in matchmaking, but when someone used one I didn’t know, it made me put in more effort to not only learn it, but learn how to fight it. I thought they added so much more dynamics to the game, I realize this is personal preference, but I really miss them in MCC.
What made it not so great:
- Cheaters. I’m looking at you, the modders, standbyers, and bridgers. Never understood the draw of it, but nothing was more satisfying than them trying to cheat and still losing.
I know a lot of the halo players of today look back at 3 as the gold standard, but to me 3 will never compare to 2 in its prime. 3 was the start of the downfall with equipment, party chat, and lack of proximity chat. That and the BR in 3 is absolutely atrocious compared to halo 2. As I’ve played therm all on MCC, I’ve appreciated different aspects of different games, but halo 2 will always be my gold standard and remembered the most fondly.
Halo 2 matchmaking was amazing! All the playlists were always filled with players at all times of day and night so there was never any issues finding a game. The friends list system revolutionized Xbox Live because back then, Xbox Live didn’t have a friend’s list system. Bungie was the first to do it in Halo 2. Microsoft added the feature later on the Xbox 360. Halo 2 was honestly one of the best titles of all time and was way ahead of everyone else. The only complaint/problem was in matchmaking with modders/cheaters. If you were a competitive type player and wanted to rise through the ranks, you could hit the mid 30’s like a 34, 35, maybe 36 with a legit team if you were lucky but anything passed that was nothing but modders and hackers. Here’s a few examples:
Ranked BTB Spawn Mod
Ranked Hyper Speed, Super Jump, and SWAT Damage Mod
Ranked Modded Rediculousness on Turf
That was just the higher end of the competitive side of Halo 2 though. The rest of it was pure gold. Truly one of the best times to be an Xbox Live member. Halo 2 was a grail and those who were a part of it will never forget it
The glory days. I made so many friends through chat on H2 & H3 with the party up system. Features the are greatly missed these days! I have yet to meet or make friends with any rando’s on H5. Just different times I guess. Happy to have been there.
> 2678033349862963;2:
> Since no one ever answered you, I’ll take a crack at it. There were positives and negatives to it, but overall, I’ve never enjoyed a game more than halo 2. Which is why I’m so disappointed in 343i and their complete ignoring of MCC.
>
> As far as what made it great:
>
> 1. Ridiculous population. At the time there was very little competition in fps games. At any given time you were looking at populations in the 100s of thousands at the minimum, which made for crazy fast matchmaking.
> 2. Ranking. For all the knocks against it, the ranking in my opinion was phenomenal. You very rarely had blowout games when playing ranked. Because of this, nearly everyone’s kd at the time was around 1.0. If you found someone near a 2.0, that wad legit, they were crazy good.
> 3. Lack of party chat. Granted, you would get the annoying idiots that would scream or just be irritating, but it forced you to talk to your team. Thus helped you make friends and create a core group of teammates if you got along well in game. It made you focus on your game instead of chatting with friends who were playing a completely different game. You didn’t have the dumb teammates that run out and die 20 times a game because you could give them some direction and coordinate a little.
> 4. Proximity chat. I loved this personally. I was a smack talker back then, and nothing was more satisfying than telling the other team what you were going to go, and then do it.
> 5. Clans. Not sure what it was, but it was just kind of cool.
> 6. Just overall fun. People cared about winning and did their best to accomplish it, whether it was talking and coordinating with teammates, or just trying to survive so as not to hurt the team. Some of my best real life friends now started off as nothing more than a gamertag I matched up with and we won some games together, so we played more together. I nearly left out super jumps as well. I know a lot hated them being used in matchmaking, but when someone used one I didn’t know, it made me put in more effort to not only learn it, but learn how to fight it. I thought they added so much more dynamics to the game, I realize this is personal preference, but I really miss them in MCC.
>
> What made it not so great:
> 1. Cheaters. I’m looking at you, the modders, standbyers, and bridgers. Never understood the draw of it, but nothing was more satisfying than them trying to cheat and still losing.
>
> I know a lot of the halo players of today look back at 3 as the gold standard, but to me 3 will never compare to 2 in its prime. 3 was the start of the downfall with equipment, party chat, and lack of proximity chat. That and the BR in 3 is absolutely atrocious compared to halo 2. As I’ve played therm all on MCC, I’ve appreciated different aspects of different games, but halo 2 will always be my gold standard and remembered the most fondly.
As a fellow Halo 2 player, I would love to add my own input on these points.
-
I remember Halo 2’s population being in the 60,000s the day before Halo 3 released. Even after Halo 3’s release, the population stayed above 10,000 until Christmas. Halo games never pull these numbers anymore.
-
I 100% agree with this. Halo 3’s system was terrible compared to Halo 2’s ranking system. But every time I tried to state that on the Bungie forums, the Halo 3 fanboys would shoot me down. To this day, I still don’t like Halo 3’s ranking system. I would love to see Halo 2’s make a comeback.
-
Well there was also people like me who went through 10+ mics in a year and had many instances where chatting was impossible because of a broken mic. I swear the Xbox 360 mics were just terribly designed.
-
Going to disagree on this. I hated proximity chat. I played a lot of objective playlists, especially BTB Skirmish, and proximity chat meant saying anything would give your position away to the other team. And when I say I played a lot of BTB Skirmish, I mean it. Seriously, I got as high as a 31 in BTB Skirmish multiple times over Halo 2’s life.
-
Clans were originally used for Clan playlists. At first there were 2 clan playlists which were Major Clanmatch and Minor Clanmatch which were 8v8 and 4v4 respectively. Lower populations in those led to removing them sometime in late 2005 and making there only be one Clan playlist which was just called Clanmatch. That playlist could have games as little as 4v4 and as high as 6v6. It just depended on how many you went in with. In May of 2006, Clanmatch was then removed with no replacement once again due to low population and from that point on there were no more clan playlists.
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I completely agree. I have never had as much fun playing a Halo game as I had when playing Halo 2 online.
For the negatives:
- Yeah, getting cheated sucked but getting cheated against every now and then didn’t ruin the game for me. I know it did for some however.
- Yeah, Halo 3 was worse than Halo 2 in almost all areas. It had Forge and Theater but those are the only things it had over Halo 2. Crappy netcode made the lackluster BR in Halo 3 frustrating to use without host or an amazing connection. People say the BR spread adds more skill but for online play I disagree.
> 2533274795900255;5:
> > 2678033349862963;2:
> > Since no one ever answered you, I’ll take a crack at it. There were positives and negatives to it, but overall, I’ve never enjoyed a game more than halo 2. Which is why I’m so disappointed in 343i and their complete ignoring of MCC.
> >
> > As far as what made it great:
> >
> > 1. Ridiculous population. At the time there was very little competition in fps games. At any given time you were looking at populations in the 100s of thousands at the minimum, which made for crazy fast matchmaking.
> > 2. Ranking. For all the knocks against it, the ranking in my opinion was phenomenal. You very rarely had blowout games when playing ranked. Because of this, nearly everyone’s kd at the time was around 1.0. If you found someone near a 2.0, that wad legit, they were crazy good.
> > 3. Lack of party chat. Granted, you would get the annoying idiots that would scream or just be irritating, but it forced you to talk to your team. Thus helped you make friends and create a core group of teammates if you got along well in game. It made you focus on your game instead of chatting with friends who were playing a completely different game. You didn’t have the dumb teammates that run out and die 20 times a game because you could give them some direction and coordinate a little.
> > 4. Proximity chat. I loved this personally. I was a smack talker back then, and nothing was more satisfying than telling the other team what you were going to go, and then do it.
> > 5. Clans. Not sure what it was, but it was just kind of cool.
> > 6. Just overall fun. People cared about winning and did their best to accomplish it, whether it was talking and coordinating with teammates, or just trying to survive so as not to hurt the team. Some of my best real life friends now started off as nothing more than a gamertag I matched up with and we won some games together, so we played more together. I nearly left out super jumps as well. I know a lot hated them being used in matchmaking, but when someone used one I didn’t know, it made me put in more effort to not only learn it, but learn how to fight it. I thought they added so much more dynamics to the game, I realize this is personal preference, but I really miss them in MCC.
> >
> > What made it not so great:
> > 1. Cheaters. I’m looking at you, the modders, standbyers, and bridgers. Never understood the draw of it, but nothing was more satisfying than them trying to cheat and still losing.
> >
> > I know a lot of the halo players of today look back at 3 as the gold standard, but to me 3 will never compare to 2 in its prime. 3 was the start of the downfall with equipment, party chat, and lack of proximity chat. That and the BR in 3 is absolutely atrocious compared to halo 2. As I’ve played therm all on MCC, I’ve appreciated different aspects of different games, but halo 2 will always be my gold standard and remembered the most fondly.
>
> As a fellow Halo 2 player, I would love to add my own input on these points.
>
> 1. I remember Halo 2’s population being in the 60,000s the day before Halo 3 released. Even after Halo 3’s release, the population stayed above 10,000 until Christmas. Halo games never pull these numbers anymore.
>
> 2. I 100% agree with this. Halo 3’s system was terrible compared to Halo 2’s ranking system. But every time I tried to state that on the Bungie forums, the Halo 3 fanboys would shoot me down. To this day, I still don’t like Halo 3’s ranking system. I would love to see Halo 2’s make a comeback.
>
> 3. Well there was also people like me who went through 10+ mics in a year and had many instances where chatting was impossible because of a broken mic. I swear the Xbox 360 mics were just terribly designed.
>
> 4. Going to disagree on this. I hated proximity chat. I played a lot of objective playlists, especially BTB Skirmish, and proximity chat meant saying anything would give your position away to the other team. And when I say I played a lot of BTB Skirmish, I mean it. Seriously, I got as high as a 31 in BTB Skirmish multiple times over Halo 2’s life.
>
> 5. Clans were originally used for Clan playlists. At first there were 2 clan playlists which were Major Clanmatch and Minor Clanmatch which were 8v8 and 4v4 respectively. Lower populations in those led to removing them sometime in late 2005 and making there only be one Clan playlist which was just called Clanmatch. That playlist could have games as little as 4v4 and as high as 6v6. It just depended on how many you went in with. In May of 2006, Clanmatch was then removed with no replacement once again due to low population and from that point on there were no more clan playlists.
>
> 6. I completely agree. I have never had as much fun playing a Halo game as I had when playing Halo 2 online.
>
> For the negatives:
>
> 1. Yeah, getting cheated sucked but getting cheated against every now and then didn’t ruin the game for me. I know it did for some however.
> 2. Yeah, Halo 3 was worse than Halo 2 in almost all areas. It had Forge and Theater but those are the only things it had over Halo 2. Crappy netcode made the lackluster BR in Halo 3 frustrating to use without host or an amazing connection. People say the BR spread adds more skill but for online play I disagree.
I agree with pretty much all of this, as far as proximity, if you didn’t want them to hear, just use the direct link. You’d have to hit a button before you spoke, but then it wouldn’t come up with proximity. Anyway, it’s nice hearing others have the love for 2 that I did.
I don’t think I ever spent so much time practicing on one map more than Midship for FFa… but that was just the start of H2’s competitive scene. The skill gap on H2 was higher than any other Halo. Especially when you got players double shotting and quad shotting.
The game was iconic, and simple, what helped its success was the launch of Xbox live. They went hand in hand, no red tape and no precautions for the faint hearted. I can imagine the PC brigade would have had a field day.
H3 was watered down for the masses and the ranking system was made pretty. It wasn’t as raw as H2, but that was the beauty of H2, Bungie even admits that the Multuplayer was thrown together as they were way behind schedule. (Check out a vid doc.)
Todays audience wouldn’t get H2 because it’s not 4K or 60fps. H2 made us addicts, it dropped us into a ranking system that we could never reach the top. It was the best 3 years of gaming I can safely say I’ve had. I’m still trying to recover.
No way man! Proximity chat was so awesome! Trash talking back and fourth made for a fun experience. I made some good friends through smack talking. Chasing each other around the map to keep the trash talk going. Laughing about it in the post game and then partying up for round 2. Boy do I miss what made halo so much fun. Meeting randoms for good games. I’m one who doesn’t care about ranks, I’m in it for the fun. Which is now lost…
Halo 2 was THE BEST I had the most fun playing that out of any halo PERIOD. Online multiplayer for Xbox was brand new than and it was the best there ever was. I was so excited when MCC came out so i could play halo 2 online again but mcc was a total failure that never got fixed and 343 continues to ignore the community.
I only played like 2 matches at a friend’s house and I’ll never forget the story where I got ran over by a player named “a vaa" so the kill feed said "you were splattered by a vaa” that’s about it for my Halo 2 matchmaking experience but I loved it lol
Wish I could have been there to play me some Halo 2 matchmaking back in the day! However I assume it was great, I really enjoy getting in games of Halo 2 in the MCC because Halo 2 is my favorite game and not to brag or anything but I’m really good at it!