Would you pay for dedicated servers for Halo: Reach?

Games Other Halo
1

I, for one, absolutely despise the amount of lag experienced over Xbox LIVE whilst playing Halo: Reach matchmaking. This game (and new company!) have so much potential. Everything I have seen 343i do for the game so far has literally convinced me to buy my Xbox 360 back.

Looking upon my current monthly spending, I spend ~$5.00/month by buying the 12-Month Xbox LIVE Gold Membership cards. After some contemplation and asking others to contemplate the same thing, I’ve yet to talk to a single Halo player that has said they would not pay $1.00-$5.00 per month for dedicated servers for this game.

There are ~64,000 people online right now. If $1.00 extra was charged to play Halo: Reach on Xbox LIVE, that would be nearly $64,000 to use for dedicated servers and to remove (or at least reduce) lag. If $5.00 per month was charged, that would be $320,000 per MONTH(!) to spend on dedicated servers.

Another suggestion to come alongside dedicated servers would be to have a playlist that no one likes to be free and otherwise, one must pay the monthly fee.

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns?

2

Dedicated servers do not reduce lag.

3

> Dedicated servers do not reduce lag.

What could reduce lag? What could $320,000 per month do?

4

Halo already has D.S. I thought. And you would have to pay for them i dont think.

5

> > Dedicated servers do not reduce lag.
>
> What could reduce lag? What could $320,000 per month do?

They could make one hell of map pack…just saying. Thats what they should do with 320,000 per month.

6

> > Dedicated servers do not reduce lag.
>
> What could reduce lag? What could $320,000 per month do?

Fiber optic to the home. That would reduce lag.

7

> > > Dedicated servers do not reduce lag.
> >
> > What could reduce lag? What could $320,000 per month do?
>
> Fiber optic to the home. That would reduce lag.

Struggling to pay $47.99 for 6Mbps DSL. That’s the best internet I can even get out here.

8

No.

9

BAHAHAHAHHAHAHA no…

10

> > > > Dedicated servers do not reduce lag.
> > >
> > > What could reduce lag? What could $320,000 per month do?
> >
> > Fiber optic to the home. That would reduce lag.
>
> Struggling to pay $47.99 for 6Mbps DSL. That’s the best internet I can even get out here.

Which is a shame. The US has terrible interntet infrastructure compared to other developed countries. We should have 100% connectivity with fiber optic to the home and basic speeds should be in the tens of MB’s.

11

I completely agree and I would switch to cable in a heartbeat – were it available in my area.
Ah, well. I guess wishful thinking never hurts.

12

I’ll put it this way. I live in Australia, where a new game costs $100. I already think it’s unfair that people have to pay to play the multiplayer of a game they already own. Why would I think it’s a good idea to pay more?

13

… Why should I have to pay extra? Why doesn’t Microsoft dip into it’s VERY deep pockets and INVEST in some dedicated servers for the game-franchise that made the XBox what it is today?

If Microsoft did invest in dedicated servers, then it would attract more people to the game, and they would get more money, and their investment would be returned nearly instantly.

14

its microsoft im pretty sure they have enough money to do it like come on MICROSOFT they make billions of dollars a year for god sakes if they dont have dedicated servers in Halo 4 im going to be very dissapointed lol. I know that microsoft isnt like developing Halo 4 but they are publishing and they like own the Halo story now so ya they better have dedicated servers.

15

I want them for free paid out of the money I spend on XBL gold, the game and DLC.

I intend to support the games that use them. I’ll definitely get GOW3. I’ll check out Battlefield 3 even though I wasn’t a big fan of BFBC2.

Halo needs to catch up with other games which are leading the way. If Halo 4 is as bad as Halo 3 was for lag I’ll stop playing it. I couldn’t put up with a service that bad any more.

16

> > Dedicated servers do not reduce lag.
>
> What could reduce lag? What could $320,000 per month do?

What could reduce lag? Let’s see, supplying every Halo player with a fiber optic internet connection is all I can think of. I’d say that pulling cables to a house that doesn’t already have one would cost about 3,000-30,000$, probably depends how much they have to dig the cable. Anyhow, 320,000$ a month would be able to supply about 21 Halo players a month. Sounds a bit ineffective.

But on a more serious note. Dedicated servers only remove the host advantage and give the ability to have more players. I have nothing against them, but I don’t know would I be willing to pay for them. I mean, how would the payment work? If someone doesn’t want to pay, but wants to play online, they can’t. We’re already paying for the Xbox Live. And how would the payment be done, would the subscription be paid with Microsoft points? And would you have the ability to use your credit card?

Honestly, I have had no problem with the PvP system. I rarely get bad hosts or bad connection. Reach even has a super good netcode that makes host advantage nearly non-existent. Dedicated servers definitely aren’t a must, but do they even have enough pros to be considerable?

17

As long as we stop having host migrations every 4 minutes.

18

Where would these dedicated servers be, exactly? Because if they’re in America, as a Brit I can basically write off using a shotgun ever again. I wouldn’t pay for a system that made every game consistantly laggy rather than occasionally laggy.

19

> I, for one, absolutely despise the amount of lag experienced over Xbox LIVE whilst playing Halo: Reach matchmaking. This game (and new company!) have so much potential. Everything I have seen 343i do for the game so far has literally convinced me to buy my Xbox 360 back.
>
> Looking upon my current monthly spending, I spend ~$5.00/month by buying the 12-Month Xbox LIVE Gold Membership cards. After some contemplation and asking others to contemplate the same thing, I’ve yet to talk to a single Halo player that has said they would not pay $1.00-$5.00 per month for dedicated servers for this game.
>
> There are ~64,000 people online right now. If $1.00 extra was charged to play Halo: Reach on Xbox LIVE, that would be nearly $64,000 to use for dedicated servers and to remove (or at least reduce) lag. If $5.00 per month was charged, that would be $320,000 per MONTH(!) to spend on dedicated servers.
>
> Another suggestion to come alongside dedicated servers would be to have a playlist that no one likes to be free and otherwise, one must pay the monthly fee.
>
> Thoughts? Questions? Concerns?

Alot of people of saying run fiber optic to the home, but you dont need to go to that extreme… The main reason for the typical - yet often occuring - “minor lag” ( which is subtle, but no doubt affects game play more then most would think ) is coupling a sub-par connection with the fact that the majority of us have terrific download speeds, but probably 75% of high speed companies have so-so UPLOAD speeds and many of us dont even look at that… Download speeds matter, but UPLOAD speeds are often taken for granted… if you’re one of the many in the USA your download speed might average a plentiful 10-20 Mb download ( or more ), but your upload might only be 500k- 1000k ( .5 Mb - 1Mb) … With an upload speed like that you’ll never get HOST and at times when your connection is being shared with someone else in the household who is on the sharing your upload ( as they post to facebook, upload a song to the internet ) you might find your bullets dont seem to be registering or they are registering a split second to slow causing you to die first ! A split second too slow in halo often means you died first because a single shot and that happens alot ! Slow uploads are often more the cause for lag then anything… most peoples download speeds are a more then plenty… You’ll also see lag caused by a low quality or “FAULTY” connection which could cause a HORRIBLE ping time… I.E, true story… I had a terrible lag 6 yrs ago… did a ping test… it was horrendous… over 150ms ( sometimes 180ms ) , which u want it to be around 20ms avg… some squirrels had chewed up some of the cable jacketing outside my place… this caused interference in the signal… I had several technicians come out which did minor adjustments that did very little… and finally after alot of -Yoinking!- they sent out a top tech who isolated this problem and fixed it…

In my area Time Warner is offering for 10 dollars more a month an “Extreme” package which is 30 Mb download and 5 Mb upload… far better then the standard time warner 15 Mb download and 1 Mb upload ( often also in Road Runner packages )… just an example… in the coming years most providers will be offering much better ‘standard’ packages… but MANY providers ( cable and DSL ) only have a 500 k ( .5 Mb ) upload in their so-called ‘standard’ packages … So while may of us think we have a connection a good download speed, many of us aren’t looking at our uploads… I’d read somewhere that while 500k upload might be enough, its far from optimal, because many times you wont get the full amount of download or upload… Testing a connection many times a day at different times will prove a 15 Mb advertised download will only yield 5 MB or less at busy times… and a .5Mb upload might only offer half that at times in example…

Im getting ready to move to only 2 miles away and its only two miles but where i live now they dont offer time warner ! Only ATT DSL ( which its best package is 750k upload ) and Insight Communications ( what i have now ) When i move in a couple months I can order the time warner extreme package… but right now im using Insight Road- Runner Turbo, and I only get 15MB download, 750k upload… Ive tested my speed at different times… sometimes I download only 5Mb, other times Ive hit the advertised speed… but my UPLOAD speed ( which is what most people dont look at ) varies only between 500k-700k ( .5- .7 Mb)… And as i said before time warners ‘standard’ offers 1Mb upload and right now im paying extra for Turbo with Insight that moved me from ‘standard’ .5Mb upload to .75Mb upload… As i said though Im gonna try the Extreme package It offers the 30Mb download, but Im more excited to see how the beefy 5Mb upload affects my game ! Cant wait… I know people who have over 1.5MB uploads tend to get host more often …

Anyone experiencing questionable lag should test their connection frequently at a place like www.speedtest.net and do it often and at peak times to see how it is when they play Halo on Xbox Live…The above link will tell you your ping and your down and up speeds… check your connections in home if you have an issue and call your technican if needed to check outside for ‘line noise’… sometimes something as easy as unplugging both your cable modem and router and plugging them back in will restore a slow connection… some people have to do this every few days…A high ping time could mean data packet loss which means you need service…An ideal ping is less then 50ms, over that not optimal, but less then 100 is ok, 150ms means you have a real problem, over 200 its the kiss of death in online gaming… If your upload speed is so-so then you also have to consider is someone on the pc ( or even wi-fi on a smartphone ) sharing your bandwidth which can make the already bad problem worse… If so, look at your current internet package & check with your cable or DSL provider and see if they offer a package with better upload…

20

Having good internet makes it more likely you will get your turn as host. In the times when the host is on a different continent it doesn’t matter how amazing your fibre optic is. You will notice the latency.

One of Reach’s problems is how often you get foreign host. I always use the good connection search and it often finds americans as team mates. It has even less effect on the opposition.

Dedicated servers do reduce lag. L4D2 and BFBC2 are both consistently better than Reach.