So, I Finally Traded in Halo 4

Games Other Halo
1

I have put it off for a while now.

It had been sitting on my shelf for months, unused. I held off trading it in partly because I hoped against hope that 343 would answer our cries in Australia and add a good connection search option, and partly because I have cherished every single Halo game ever made and I’ve never even thought remotely about trading in a Halo game. But I finally did it and it was a sad occasion.

It wasn’t sad because I won’t be able to play Halo 4 anymore because in truth I haven’t really played in months. I don’t miss it in the slightest. I had the season pass and played the Crimson maps for a while but I never played Castle or Majestic maps online against people at all. I simply couldn’t. For Australians the game is unplayable, it’s so laggy that every night of playing would end in extreme frustration. It’s an absolute mess for overseas players.

It was sad because up until Halo 4, my xbox had been a machine dedicated to playing Halo that happened to play other games too. And now, after 10 years of mind blowing fun in the Halo world, after just months of Halo 4 being out the franchise came to a grounding halt.

I love Halo. I have the shirts, the soundtracks, action figures, Lego, all that awesome stuff. It will always have a place in my heart. You might be thinking “listen here drama queen, you still have all your Halo games, the franchises hasn’t disappeared because of one broken game”. And you’re right, I still have a shelf full of games that work just fine and I have all the saved films and memories and of course they’ll never go away. The real sad part is that, for Australians like me, Halo as a franchise is now a memory, it has no future. I’ll miss looking forward to new Halo games and new adventures and new features. I’ll miss the tingle of excitement at new trailers and glimpses of new guns.

Sure, I’ll check out Halo 5, see if they put in good connection searching and maybe dip my toe in the waters again but 343 have demonstrated that providing the best online experience possible for people from overseas like myself is not a priority. That’s cool. I’ve gone through the stages of grief from denial to anger and I’ve ended up at peace. They don’t owe me entertainment and they can steer the franchise in any direction they choose. I don’t hate them for it. Not one bit.

I’ve got my memories, without a doubt the best gaming memories I’ve ever had thanks to Halo.

So, for the price $21.85 I exit the stage the tip my hat and say my farewell. Even as I type this my Sgt Johnson action figure is staring down at me, probably thinking some heart warming insult. But the truth is that both of our Grunt slaying days are now behind us.

Now I will wander the gaming landscape for a time with no place to plant my roots. I’ll drift from game to game until I find a new destiny to call home and while I cherish every second of escape Halo provided me, when I remember Halo 4, one word continues to repeat:

regret … regret … regret

2

> regret … regret … regret

lol at trading games to gamestop

3

Quite a sad touching story…

Because If I never had internet connection it’s safe to say Halo 4 would have gone back to the shops near Christmas, why?

Because campaign isn’t fun to replay and Spartan Ops requires gold… wooooo!

4

> I have put it off for a while now.
>
> It had been sitting on my shelf for months, unused. I held off trading it in partly because I hoped against hope that 343 would answer our cries in Australia and add a good connection search option, and partly because I have cherished every single Halo game ever made and I’ve never even thought remotely about trading in a Halo game. But I finally did it and it was a sad occasion.
>
>
> It wasn’t sad because I won’t be able to play Halo 4 anymore because in truth I haven’t really played in months. I don’t miss it in the slightest. I had the season pass and played the Crimson maps for a while but I never played Castle or Majestic maps online against people at all. I simply couldn’t. For Australians the game is unplayable, it’s so laggy that every night of playing would end in extreme frustration. It’s an absolute mess for overseas players.
>
> It was sad because up until Halo 4, my xbox had been a machine dedicated to playing Halo that happened to play other games too. And now, after 10 years of mind blowing fun in the Halo world, after just months of Halo 4 being out the franchise came to a grounding halt.
>
> I love Halo. I have the shirts, the soundtracks, action figures, Lego, all that awesome stuff. It will always have a place in my heart. You might be thinking “listen here drama queen, you still have all your Halo games, the franchises hasn’t disappeared because of one broken game”. And you’re right, I still have a shelf full of games that work just fine and I have all the saved films and memories and of course they’ll never go away. The real sad part is that, for Australians like me, Halo as a franchise is now a memory, it has no future. I’ll miss looking forward to new Halo games and new adventures and new features. I’ll miss the tingle of excitement at new trailers and glimpses of new guns.
>
> Sure, I’ll check out Halo 5, see if they put in good connection searching and maybe dip my toe in the waters again but 343 have demonstrated that providing the best online experience possible for people from overseas like myself is not a priority. That’s cool. I’ve gone through the stages of grief from denial to anger and I’ve ended up at peace. They don’t owe me entertainment and they can steer the franchise in any direction they choose. I don’t hate them for it. Not one bit.
>
> I’ve got my memories, without a doubt the best gaming memories I’ve ever had thanks to Halo.
>
> So, for the price $21.85 I exit the stage the tip my hat and say my farewell. Even as I type this my Sgt Johnson action figure is staring down at me, probably thinking some heart warming insult. But the truth is that both of our Grunt slaying days are now behind us.
>
> Now I will wander the gaming landscape for a time with no place to plant my roots. I’ll drift from game to game until I find a new destiny to call home and while I cherish every second of escape Halo provided me, when I remember Halo 4, one word continues to repeat:
>
> regret … regret … regret

I’m in Australia too and have not had the same experience as you!

If you had the opportunity to play anywhere between 7 AM to 2 or 3 PM Australian time, all is fine. It is after that time it all goes pear shaped when the Americans have gone to bed. With basically Australians and Kiwis on, it is God awful.

5

Always sad to see another veteran go, and for a reason that could be easily fixed on 343’s part. I get terrible lag whenever there’s even a single player from the US in the lobby, but at the same time I know it’s nothing compared to the lag issues you guys are battling.

Hope they start realising soon that low population/no local search option have some serious affects on how the game performs.

6

Sad story bro :frowning: I’m in Aus and I know what you mean but I’m still hanging around.

7

> > I have put it off for a while now.
> >
> > It had been sitting on my shelf for months, unused. I held off trading it in partly because I hoped against hope that 343 would answer our cries in Australia and add a good connection search option, and partly because I have cherished every single Halo game ever made and I’ve never even thought remotely about trading in a Halo game. But I finally did it and it was a sad occasion.
> >
> >
> > It wasn’t sad because I won’t be able to play Halo 4 anymore because in truth I haven’t really played in months. I don’t miss it in the slightest. I had the season pass and played the Crimson maps for a while but I never played Castle or Majestic maps online against people at all. I simply couldn’t. For Australians the game is unplayable, it’s so laggy that every night of playing would end in extreme frustration. It’s an absolute mess for overseas players.
> >
> > It was sad because up until Halo 4, my xbox had been a machine dedicated to playing Halo that happened to play other games too. And now, after 10 years of mind blowing fun in the Halo world, after just months of Halo 4 being out the franchise came to a grounding halt.
> >
> > I love Halo. I have the shirts, the soundtracks, action figures, Lego, all that awesome stuff. It will always have a place in my heart. You might be thinking “listen here drama queen, you still have all your Halo games, the franchises hasn’t disappeared because of one broken game”. And you’re right, I still have a shelf full of games that work just fine and I have all the saved films and memories and of course they’ll never go away. The real sad part is that, for Australians like me, Halo as a franchise is now a memory, it has no future. I’ll miss looking forward to new Halo games and new adventures and new features. I’ll miss the tingle of excitement at new trailers and glimpses of new guns.
> >
> > Sure, I’ll check out Halo 5, see if they put in good connection searching and maybe dip my toe in the waters again but 343 have demonstrated that providing the best online experience possible for people from overseas like myself is not a priority. That’s cool. I’ve gone through the stages of grief from denial to anger and I’ve ended up at peace. They don’t owe me entertainment and they can steer the franchise in any direction they choose. I don’t hate them for it. Not one bit.
> >
> > I’ve got my memories, without a doubt the best gaming memories I’ve ever had thanks to Halo.
> >
> > So, for the price $21.85 I exit the stage the tip my hat and say my farewell. Even as I type this my Sgt Johnson action figure is staring down at me, probably thinking some heart warming insult. But the truth is that both of our Grunt slaying days are now behind us.
> >
> > Now I will wander the gaming landscape for a time with no place to plant my roots. I’ll drift from game to game until I find a new destiny to call home and while I cherish every second of escape Halo provided me, when I remember Halo 4, one word continues to repeat:
> >
> > regret … regret … regret
>
> I’m in Australia too and have not had the same experience as you!
>
> If you had the opportunity to play anywhere between 7 AM to 2 or 3 PM Australian time, all is fine. It is after that time it all goes pear shaped when the Americans have gone to bed. With basically Australians and Kiwis on, it is God awful.

The sad part is I can play Halo Reach during the day when my kids are in school and, with good connection enabled, I can get a lobby full of Aussies. After a 5 to 10 minute wait of course. Halo 4 in peak Australian population, around 8-10pm Aussie time, we would pull American hosted games around 75% of the time (I did tests and documented them). Every single Aussie I know has stopped playing Halo. Even my wife, the casual Halo player stopped playing and followed her friends to Blops 2 because they all moved on. I was genuinely shocked the day she ducked into EB Games and picked up Blops 2.

> Always sad to see another veteran go, and for a reason that could be easily fixed on 343’s part. I get terrible lag whenever there’s even a single player from the US in the lobby, but at the same time I know it’s nothing compared to the lag issues you guys are battling.
>
> Hope they start realising soon that low population/no local search option have some serious affects on how the game performs.

Cheers mate. In truth I stayed longer than any of my friends. We ALL wanted to play, we ALL wanted to stay with the game but we couldn’t. We were all die hard Halo fans that played nightly, for years, this problem didn’t exist with Halo 3 or Reach. If you enabled good connection in those games you had to wait longer but you got smooth, lag free games. We played H3 and Reach right up until the day before the subsequent game was released without connection problems but in the first week of Halo 4 the lag was absolutely shocking and after 3 months of it getting worse we gave up, one by one, we all walked away.

8

You traded in Dragons Age!? What the hell!?

9

Yeah, I’m in NZ and I’m having the same troubles. Ending up in laggy games constantly is not fun at all.

I can’t see 343 doing anything about it now, but let’s hope it’s something that is added in Halo 5.

10

> You traded in Dragons Age!? What the hell!?

I like to travel lightly, only keeping my absolute favourite franchises as keep sakes like Gears and Halo. I hadn’t played DA in years so I traded it. I hate having loads of cases building up with games that I’m not gonna revisit.

11

Sad face :frowning:

12

Are we meant to care? :confused:

13

I (and about 12 of my friends) traded in this week as well, halo 4 was a complete let down for me, its really upsetting what they have done to the game, its like once everyone handed over their cash for the season pass they stopped caring.

Since I have moved onto better things, no not COD bandwaggon, we are all playing BF3 and Defiance to see us through till the next gen system.

Its such a shame that halo reach still feels fun to play and halo 4 is a frustratingly unbalanced beta.

14

> Are we meant to care? :confused:

No.

I don’t expect people to care. I’m just sharing my story for anyone who wants to listen. As a defender of 343 and Halo 4 of course you care, that’s quite obvious. But it’s not that you don’t care, which you clearly do, it’s more of a case that you don’t understand. As an American you probably can’t understand what it’s like to be in my shoes. But I have walked in your shoes. I lived in America for years and population over there made online gaming hassle free. When I lived there I didn’t have these problems.

So you can claim you don’t care all you want but the truth is that you don’t understand.

15

> > Are we meant to care? :confused:
>
> No.
>
> I don’t expect people to care. I’m just sharing my story for anyone who wants to listen. As a defender of 343 and Halo 4 of course you care, that’s quite obvious. But it’s not that you don’t care, which you clearly do, it’s more of a case that you don’t understand. As an American you probably can’t understand what it’s like to be in my shoes. But I have walked in your shoes. I lived in America for years and population over there made online gaming hassle free. When I lived there I didn’t have these problems.
>
> So you can claim you don’t care all you want but the truth is that you don’t understand.

The lack of an attempt at empathy is really poorly veiled arrogance.

I’m sorry to hear this is such an issue; I didn’t know this was such a big issue. I’m an American, so connections are seldom an issue for me, but when it is (especially non-weekend Spartan Ops games for me) it really detracts from gameplay.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to fight through that kind of lag every MM game. . .

I hope 343 makes a concerted effort (hopefully now for Halo 4, but for sure by next game!) to fix these connection & matchmaking issues for international players.

Gaming communities transcend country borders, and we want to keep everyone around!