Say what you will about the Halo Infinite team (and 343 at the macro level), but I think that the legacy team has generally done a pretty good job at supporting MCC at a consistent pace for the past two years or so. And if you look into the article that they’ve posted about what’s left, it looks that there are at least a few more things left for MCC by 343 before they basically hand off the collection to the community. Mod support for the remaining games (Reach, 4, H2A), steam workshop, a phase-in towards monthly rotational challenges, etc. I can’t remember exactly everything that they have in mind, but it looks like it’s all going to be good for MCC, so that makes me happy.
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343 needs a few years to become comfortable with Slipspace. Once that happens, I expect updates to roll out quickly.
Different teams, work on one doesn’t impact the other really. Plus, MCC has a lot of work done by support studios as well (much like Infinite with Skybox, Certain Affinity, etc). I’m happy for MCC to get Flood FF (was super bummed it didn’t launch last year after being in the Insider flights), but there’s no real takeaway/connection to Infinite’s work.
For the contractor angle, it’s not really a thing to be concerned about. I work at a tech vendor that makes hardware and software for pretty much every aspect of the IT domain - networking, voice, security, you name it. The way it generally works is you have a core team that knows the code well, and after planning and doing high-level design work for a feature (or architecture/design change), you identify when you want/need the feature to launch, and how many heads it’ll take to accomplish this. Then, you contract out for coders (the engine will be written in a common code language, even if it’s a “new” engine) who will work on parts of the code where it doesn’t make sense to tie up a high experience resource who has ties into the full picture of how it comes together. This basically frees up your full-time employees to work on the harder/more involved code, and to oversee the work the contractors are doing. It’s a force multiplier, basically, and is standard industry practice - your key, full-time resources are better utilized where their skills are needed most, and the contractors get the ground work done, with assistance from the full timers where needed. Honestly, many companies even do contracts by the month or week in order to work on features for various software releases, so if the 18-month rumor is true, that’s actually a fairly long time for this type of development practice.
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Can’t get comfortable when they are kicked out the door after 18 months
Does your tech vendor have brand new tech that no one knows how to use?
Didn’t believe this until I read the update and… just wow… I’m not complaining because I’m looking forward to both but I think the Infinite team should take notes. It’s just sad that MCC won’t get the increase in players that infinite likely will for S2 even though MCC deserves it much more after this update.
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That’s what I’m saying - from a code standpoint, it’s standardized. It really isn’t anything new. It’s likely coded in some variant of C, with C++ being typical I’d assume (it is for my corner of the software industry, and generally is for most software, and a quick google confirms C++ as typical for game engines), shaders would likely be written in HLSL (high-level shader language) since it’s a DX-based game, it would make calls against the DX API - all of these things are standardized things. So the engine-side is generally no issue.
Where things get wonky is generally with non-technical people interacting with custom tools. For a game dev, this is likely technical artists, environment artists, designers, etc. That is where things come in that slow down the works. These folks have to be taught workflows and how to use your custom software. This is something that any game company with a home-grown engine has to work with, and IMO, should generally be factored into the onboarding process for anybody new coming into these departments. Honestly, the contractors coming into non-technical roles probably are picking it up easy enough, it’s more that old timers struggle hard moving from tools they’ve used for years to new tools. This is usually the case - workflows that you’ve used for years, no matter how janky they were, are what you know, and unlearning that and learning a new workflow - even if it’s more efficient and better - is hard for folks.
For Infinite, fortunately, most of the changes that the community needs leans more heavily on the code side - UI backend redesign to handle higher numbers of playlists, and server desync fixes, as a couple examples. These are things that will not be slowed down by coding contractors - once 343 identifies where the changes need to be made, and how best to do this, they bring in the contractors and do a feature sprint and then test after implementation. No biggie from a feature dev standpoint.
I guess my point overall is - there’s nothing in the engine that’s “new tech” enough to not be worked on by someone familiar with game engines. It’s likely C++, HLSL, and DX. The tools may be different than other places, or from a middleware engine like Unreal, but this would be covered in an onboarding process for new hires where the role is appropriate to receive that training. There’s likely nothing about Slipspace, from a technical standpoint, that would prevent a contractor from coming onboard, receiving their role-specific training, and getting to work. The contractor discussion is basically people not being familiar with development lifecycles and how software dev works. A few influencer types shake their heads and tsk tsk at big bad MS, and boom, now contractors and the new engine are seen as a bad combo by the community. If anything has been a hindrance to Infinite from a technical perspective, it’s been design decisions that have to be undone later - such as the decision to have the UI support only a few playlists since that’s how other F2P games do it (small number of modes at once), and bugs that crept out in the production release that took a long time to fix like BTB’s issues, and the ongoing server desync.
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I really excited for MCC, and I just hope to end the gamepass today in infinite to not play until season 2.
The multiplayer is awful and frustrating, I miss so much Halo 5 multiplayer.
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No it isn’t. MCC has it’s own separate team from Infinite.
No, they won’t. MCC is for OG Xbox and 360 titles in the franchise. It should be called “The Classic Halo Collection” but Master Chief Collection just sounds better. Infinite will never be added to MCC same as H5.
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MCC has seen an influx of players since the pitiful season 1 mid update.
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They still work at 343, and there would be more people working on Infinite if they didn’t have a team for MCC.
I’m not complaining, I’m glad that they are gonna keep supporting it, but it definitely has impacted Infinite, especially with how low their manpower is right now.
Not really. Infinite is bad because the higher ups decided to use 18 month contractors instead of a dedicated development team. MCC had a dedicated development team instead of contractors. It’s not a lack of devs at 343, it’s the management putting the devs for 18 months and then shoving them out the door.
The MCC team doesn’t have this issue.
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It’s a friggin’ firefight update and some fixes lmao.
That was a burn on TheShadow_CA
If that was just some fixes, what do you call Infinite’s fixes so far? Micro?
MCC update is absolutely AMAZING! Infinite needs an update just like this and FAST!
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People bring up that the MCC team is a smaller team separate from Infinite and that this is a good thing.
Its good for MCC, my GF and I are happy that co-op crossplay was added to Halo 3 and ODST and can’t wait for the others! And flood firefight, I’ve been so busy but we’ve been itching to play.
But this is sad in that in 6 months of time, a smaller team finished an update and included more brand new features than a larger team on a newer game.
To break it down:
The small team working on on a side-project, who only promised to finish the season’s planned update, went above and beyoned and just upstaged, the larger better-funded team on the main project.
I was already baffled by the incompetence of 343, but here is evidence that someone is competent and doing some great work. 343, specifically the Infinite team, What in the hell is going on over there? I’m just confused now!
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Quick comparison of Infinite season 2 and this update
MCC (8 total items, 1 delayed, 3 are brand new, 3 late additions (but never gave promises for release), and future plans! Net gain of 4 counting plans.) :
Firefight for ODST and Reach updated. (delayed from last update)
Campaign Crossplay added for Halo 3 and ODST (welcome surprise!)
mod tool fixes
Full customs browser
Halo 4 customization (welcome surprise!)
Medal fixes
Brand new skulls for Halo 2, 3, and ODST (Welcome surprise!)
Planned features for the future and some rough time frames. (More than what infinite gives)
Season 2 (10 total, 2 pay-walled, 5 delayed/late, 3 actually new. Net gain of 3)
Season. (premium costs money)
Store items. (costs money)
Earnable credits in season (only 1000 for prenium, so it technically pays for itself)
A cutscene
2 maps
King of the Hill returns (should have been at launch)
Last Spartan standing mode (new, but it took this long?)
Better weekly rewards (should have been better at launch)
melee buff (should have been mid-season update)
vehicle balancing (should have been mid-season update)
There are promises of more fixed, and events planned but nothing more than “sometime in season 2” especially considering how much was already delayed.
Infinite has some vague flexible plans where MCC says “We are getting X out late this year, and Y next year.”
TL;DR The MCC team surpassed expectations on their update. Infinite disappointed already low expectations for Season 2 after the previous non-update.
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Are people really trying to say this is some sort of problem? We have been waiting for flood firefight for a LONG time. Of course something like that will more likely be bigger than just a few maps and some cosmetics. More players need to come back to MCC, it’s solves just about every issue people have with infinite, but most don’t want to play an “old” game even if it is superior… In MCC you earn XP by earning medals in every game and the challenges are just bonuses. Cosmetics are free to unlock via season points. There is server selection and even INPUT based matchmaking. You have a social composer where you can pick between Halo titles, game types and even auto or precision starts…
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