Why do Xbox 360 lobbies suck compared to Halo2?

[OS Perry]

This is what grinds my gears! What is up with MS and their not sharing their expertise (or Bungie's) with Lobby and Xbox Multiplayer/Server functionality. Tell me one 360 game that can match or surpass Halo2 in functionality?

Fact 1:
Halo2 has been out for over 2 years now. Best LIVE lobby-functionality, no contest.

Fact 2:
All the promise of Xbox 360's next-gen-ness (is that a word?)

OK, I'm an Xbox fanboy. Love the system, love LIVE, but this horrid lobby LIVE functionality in games has got to end.
Rainbow6Vegas, voice issues, cant here teammates or others in lobby or game.
COD3... lackluster Lobbies to be sure... didn't they learn the frustration and rage from the community from COD2?
F.E.A.R. No after round going back to lobbies you have to find a new game.

Halo 2 features should be standard across the Xbox LIVE game developer community... feel free to add any that I leave out:

Party System... what 360 game has it? NONE!
1 Clan support... kind of the weakest lobby/multiplayer feature that Halo2 had, but at least it was there, what 360 game suports clans? NONE... I think.
2 Host is the person in the lobby with the fastest connection
3 Host drops, then hosting duties pause and go to the next fastest connection
4 Host or person managing game is able to come up with custom game presets and save them out, instead of recreating a setting they use all the time each and every time. User created settings.
5 Multiplayer/Team/Clan/individual Icons. Halo2 custom logos. (I think in multiplayer games like a FPS it would be cool for a clan or team to have a team patch that is seen on all clan members uniforms/armor etc. Forza 2 could have clan specific License plate designs or decals, specific to that clan... etc.

I know I'm leaving out some cool Halo2 LIVE features that have yet to find their way into a 360 game.
It is pathetic on MS's part that they aren't sharing this tech with the game developer community... especially at least their own devlopers... Gears of War is the most glaring culprit... AAA title my ass. Everything shines in the game but the lobby. Is it bad, no, but it is glaringly bad when compared to Halo2. (2 years old Halo2, I might add)

Improving the lobbies of LIVE titles across the board and making this tech/features standard on LIVE titles would only help MS in the long run. It would make PS3 games look even worse than they are in the online arena. This should be mandatory. I also think there should be a standard feature set of LIVE lobby features, and it should at least be on par with Halo2 at minimum.
Why couldn't MS just come up with some standard templates for what a LIVE lobby would be like...
A FPS lobby, Racing title lobby, RPG lobby, RTS lobby etc, then the developers only tasks would be refining it minimally and adding their art assets to it to brand it as their game/property.

LIVE is such a valued part of my Xbox experience and I think it is so great in many ways but lacking at the same time.

When MS puts out a title like Halo2 it set the bar for lobby/multiplayer polished experience... 2 years later everything else is a failed experience when compared to it.

Make these above Halo2 features part of the SDK!

[kidkit]

Make these above Halo2 features part of the SDK!

Exactly. At least something similar. It was either on the 1up show or the podcast but the 1up staff were suggesting the same thing. They were frustrated about not being able to have ranked games as a team of four in Rainbow Six Vegas.

MS needs to ditch the TruSkill garbage for team games. Who cares about the weakest link on the team if one team can still beat another? I'm looking at you too Gears... from a developer known for multiplayer no less!

Sure if everyone borrowed Halo 2s best feature it would seem less significant, but hopefully by the time Halo 3 comes out they'll be a little more willing to share some tech.

[Lotus 111s]

Well as someone who's played ALL his games on PC before i got the Xbox360 i was shocked at the bloody CONSTANT need to refresh the lobby/server list everytime i fail to connect, Gears is a perfect example, click on someones game and instantly it comes up with the 'No Connection' thing then i have to re-scan for another 10-15secs and this can go on for as many as 10 attempts or more before i finally get into a game, Gears is not the only culprit that suffers from this, WHY!!! just let me trying joining the next game in the list for fuck sake.
I can't comment on the Halo2 thing as i have never played it, although i do know the PC is far less painless at finding games to play online than xbox live and so i still play more PC games online than i do Xbox.

[mass9]

Let me start by saying that i agree with this thread 100000%.
Halo 2 had the BEST (by a country mile) XBL Lobby system to date. A major factor was the party system.

I could be mistaken, but I vaugely remember reading somewhere that Bungie owns the exclusive for that multiplayer code. I'd be willing to bet that they will at some future date sell off licenses for that code to other developers.

However, I wouldn't expect them to do that until the day they decided they don't want to publish games anymore. At the very least not until the hype of halo 3 is long gone. In short, dont hold your breath for it....

[OS Perry]

I could be mistaken, but I vaugely remember reading somewhere that Bungie owns the exclusive for that multiplayer code.


I don't see how this could be the case, since Bungie is totally owned by MS, and they are all MS employees, not an independent developer like Epic. I might be wrong on this, but I don't think so. They aren't like Epic or Bizarre Creations (PGR3) .

[charmed699]

I liked the lobby for dead or alive 4 with those cartoon characters acting as avatars but I know what you mean about the rest being a bit confusing to use. I havent played many online games on my 360 yet with lobbies so I dont have much to compare to yet .

[kidkit]

I liked the lobby for dead or alive 4 with those cartoon characters acting as avatars but I know what you mean about the rest being a bit confusing to use. I havent played many online games on my 360 yet with lobbies so I dont have much to compare to yet .

Dead or Alive 4 is another example of a game that made a lobby system that met the requirements of what the game would need. Great example, and yeah I agree it was a good (sometimes annoying) system they came up with.

[mass9]

I don't see how this could be the case, since Bungie is totally owned by MS, and they are all MS employees, not an independent developer like Epic. I might be wrong on this, but I don't think so. They aren't like Epic or Bizarre Creations (PGR3) .

Yes and No.
They are owned by MS as a subsidiary company. They can still register patents under their own name. MS could use the code and I doubt that Bungie woul have any legal recourse. But what purpose would it serve them to license it now? As it stands, Halo is widely regarded as "The Best" for the lobby system. Why give this to everyone that makes a game? It makes sense for us, the consumers, but it doesn't make sense from their own point of view. This ensures that we'll only be able to get into games with our friends over XBL with such ease ONLY by playing a Bungie game. It sucks for the time being for all of us that are struggling to find a good game (CoD3 aaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!!) but I don't think it makes sense for them to hold onto this tech. for ever.

[OS Perry]

Yes and No.
They are owned by MS as a subsidiary company. They can still register patents under their own name. MS could use the code and I doubt that Bungie woul have any legal recourse. But what purpose would it serve them to license it now? As it stands, Halo is widely regarded as "The Best" for the lobby system. Why give this to everyone that makes a game? It makes sense for us, the consumers, but it doesn't make sense from their own point of view. This ensures that we'll only be able to get into games with our friends over XBL with such ease ONLY by playing a Bungie game. It sucks for the time being for all of us that are struggling to find a good game (CoD3 aaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!!) but I don't think it makes sense for them to hold onto this tech. for ever.


Because it is IMO, that the PS3 will be years away from coming up with a lobby functionality experience that surpasses Halo2. If I'm going to buy the next Rainbow6, or HalfLife2, or Colin McRae, or Tiger Woods Golf that is on both Xbox 360 and PS3 and the online experience is so much more refined and polished on the Xbox 360 then why not buy the 360 version. And if Sony leaves developers like Ubisoft to iron out the online intricacies of the lobby system to the developers, where, MS could put it in their SDK with a big ribbon on top, and tell the developers they can just skin the lobby interface, and tweak it if they wish, then you might get a couple of exclusives out of the deal, since a lot of developers will probably be sick of the ambiguousnous of the Sony Playstation network.

If I knew COD3 had Halo2 lobby experience then I'd enjoy it a lot more. Online is very important, and it seems that it isn't that big of a deal to some.

[Chemical Daddy]

I am so glad to hear others saying this. I have also thought this for some time now. I have had the Xbox 360 since launch and am a huge Xbox fan but am very disappointed in this aspect of Live. I wish there was a petition that could be started and sent to MS regarding the lack of team and user interface on Live.
There would be so many more people playing multiplayer games if it was not so frustrating to get into a lobby. Unless you are a hard core gamer most people do not have the time and patents to play online games. People want to fire up a game, go online, and find their friends and play. Not try to link up, can't find your friends, can't get into a lobby, and then can only talk to one friend at a time. Even if MS would not use Bungies system they could create a similar template that would be used universally over all games.

[CitizenErasedX]

Party System... what 360 game has it? NONE!

Saints Row, Quake 4 - both have party systems. At the minute, it's not Microsofts fault that people aren't making decent party systems. It's the developers. They're being lazy and just using the standard menus given to them. Why do you think so many games have similar looking menus? It's just the very basic TrueSkill/Player Match libraries, skinned for the game in question. It is easily possible to have all of your friends in ranked games with you (TrueSkill), Bungie said it themselves, and it's not against Microsoft policy, it just requires the developers to extend the libraries for this functionality, something they don't seem to want to do.