Here's Yet Another Master Chief Collection Apology From 343

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patrickklepek

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Edited By patrickklepek

Halo: The Master Chief Collection was released two weeks ago. Despite patches and server tweaks, the multiplayer remains busted. A big reason for picking up the bundle continues to be a problem. It's why 343 Industries has issued yet another lengthy apology, even if the words ring less and less true each time.

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This time, 343 Industries studio head Bonnie Ross stepped up to the plate, and promised it would eventually "make this right with our fans." That sounds like free stuff.

Here's the full statement:

"On Nov 11th we released Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The goal being to create a tribute to Halo fans around the world, and to celebrate the Master Chief’s debut on Xbox One. With the initial release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, however, we have not delivered the experience you deserve. I personally apologize for this on behalf of us all at 343 Industries. Our team is committed to working around the clock until these issues are resolved.

While our team works on continual improvements and towards solutions, my commitment to you is that we will take care of all owners of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Our primary and continued focus is first on fixing the issues at hand. Once we’ve done that, we will detail how we will make this right with our fans.

On the matchmaking front, we have encountered unexpected issues that were not apparent in our internal test environment and that have resulted in a frustrating experience, including long matchmaking times and low session success rates. Within 343 Industries and Xbox, I can assure you that resolving these issues is our #1 priority. We continue to partner with the Xbox platform team to analyze all data to make ongoing server-side adjustments to continually improve the matchmaking experience. We are also preparing additional content updates that will address existing campaign, UI, and other issues to improve the overall experience. With each update we will carefully analyze data to confirm that the improvements we’re seeing internally are also happening with fans at home.

Know that we’re trying to be as nimble as possible to put fixes in place. We are planning multiple server-side tweaks and game content updates over the coming weeks. Looking forward, I want to give you a high-level cadence of the latest updates we’re currently working on. Development and testing of our latest content update continues and we are on track for release later this week. We will update you on the status and patch notes of the content update once we have a better understanding of our release window. Only through making changes on both the “server side” (matchmaking and other server rulesets) and, via content updates (to the game itself), can we make the significant progress we’re working towards. And in the interest of expediency, we’re attacking the problem from both sides, non-stop.

As we have been, we will continue to post the details of our updates and other adjustments on Halo Waypoint. Please check our forums at http://aka.ms/mcc_updates for the latest details as we roll out further fixes.

Please accept my heartfelt apologies for the delay and for the negative aspects of your experience to date. We’re doing everything in our power to resolve it as quickly as possible."

While the apology sounds genuine, it doesn't fix the current situation, and it's not clear when everything will be ironed out. You still can't happily play the game you want to play, when you want to play it.

Ugh.

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skynidas

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Driveclub 2.0

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baka_shinji17

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They must be feeling a Guilty Spark. Eh?

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Spitznock

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#4  Edited By Spitznock

I appreciate the sentiment that if you do not have a deadline, work does not get finished, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who doesn't want every game studio to turn into the next Blizzard or Valve, who announce games years upon years before they're released or even playable, but a good balance should be met with making sure video games make it to the hands of the players, and making sure said video game is functional.

Back in my day, video games worked out of the box. They were much less complex back then, but maybe there's a lesson to be learned there.

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Benmo316

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I appreciate the apologies and patch updates from 343, and other developers who's game isn't working at launch, but these issues are too common now. Apologies aren't good enough anymore. And I don't care about compensation for these issues. I just want a game that works at launch like promised and intended.

The deadlines for games, in general, needs to be extended, no matter the time of year. And if your game is online it should become mandatory to have a proper beta to stress test your servers months and months before you think your game will go gold.

I just hope this trend isn't indicative of what this generation of consoles will hold.

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FinalDasa

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Multiplayer isn't the only thing busted. Achievements don't pop, level loads sometimes crash the game, severe lag during online co-op. I'm really enjoying my time back with Halo but I'd like to see some functionality return to the game.

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jlet290

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#7  Edited By jlet290

The "experience you deserve," why can't they just say, we didn't deliver on the experience "we promised" or even "intended." And this is coming from someone who is not effected by the busted online mp, I only bought it for the campaigns and splitscreen mp, but come on... make sure your game works before you release it. Or even give us a preemptive, "Listen this shit might be fucked..."

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robotbee

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#8  Edited By robotbee

'high-level cadence'? This phrase doesn't make sense.

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RiotControl

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I don't understand how this game gets so many near-perfect reviews if it's as busted as everyone says. I don't think there's a solution for releasing games like this, though. They only get a short two month window every 10 months to release a game at peak season. It's an intentional choice to release games like this, but the alternative is to delay the game beyond the holiday's and they will do anything to get the game in that window. Especially as one of the franchises that guarantees a prominent spotlight amid the crowd.

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Amikron

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@skynidas said:

Driveclub 2.0

Except that despite the issues, there is a good game here. The Halo series, while not my favorite, are highly respected games that have a rather large community. Can't really say the same about Driveclub.

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Jazz_Lafayette

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@robotbee said:

'high-level cadence'? This phrase doesn't make sense.

Executive-speak!

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fargofallout

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#12  Edited By fargofallout

The more apologies like this I read, the more meaningless they become. I wish the studios/publishers that release these games felt more repercussions than they currently do. But people keep buying games that are broken like this, so they have no incentive to make certain they work at release.

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potoskull

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I think the worst revelation of this apology is that a fix is still weeks away. I fear the player base will reduce significantly. Also if the free stuff is somehow related to Halo 5.....then fuck that!

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sodapop7

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This is so disappointing. My friend and I were really excited to relive some Halo 2 multiplayer shenanigans and we still can't. I really hope they get this working soon because it's a great package of games and modes.

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Anupsis

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Every time they say they are "testing" stuff I have a hard time believing them, how are they missing all of the new issues each patch seems to bring up? This game wasn't ready to be released and I don't trust them to handle halo 5 anymore honestly. My halo interest was already at an all time low. I wouldn't be so upset but even the single player has tons of issues, random restarts, freezes, and other bugs.

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loki_16

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Apology of the year contender

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confideration

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Sucks for people who want to play multiplayer... I joined a game in no time at all and got my ass handed to me. As an engineer I'd love to see a postmortem on this. There are some smart people that work there and if they didn't see this coming... what the heck is going on?

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ArbitraryWater

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I don't own an Xbox One, but if I did I would've picked this one up and been severely disappointed by this nonsense.

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bgdiner

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I can understand, if not respect, the decision to rush a game to market in a semi-finished state. But there's limits to how much is "too much," and this is a prime example. If 343 had polished the game to the point where the campaign was nigh-on perfect, and matchmaking was mostly reliable, I think most gamers would tolerate the early release. But for the game to be in shambles, especially right before Thanksgiving, is just disappointing. 343 better fix the game before the real holiday season, or else this will truly harm them.

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Oni

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Lukeweizer

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Apparently 343 didn't even work on the project, 4 other studios did. No wonder 343 can't fix it.

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Senate4242

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Multiplayer isn't the only thing busted. Achievements don't pop, level loads sometimes crash the game, severe lag during online co-op. I'm really enjoying my time back with Halo but I'd like to see some functionality return to the game.

I think the Achievements not popping is an XBL problem, although it is speculation at this time. I unlocked 5-6 achievements in Sunset Overdrive that did not pop up. I checked for them before I powered down my console, and they were not on my list. However, they did pop up on xbox.com a day later, while my console was offline. When I turned the Xbox back on, there they were.

I thought maybe it was a weird isolated incident, but it did the same exact thing a couple days later.

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Sidfiou

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@loki_16: you know the game industry has become a wreck when this could be a legitimate category for the end of the year awards lists.

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LegalBagel

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I find it very hard to believe that multiplayer issues of this magnitude were "missed" by internal testing, especially because it doesn't seem to be a simple matter of server load.

Either their internal testing systems are entirely incompetent, which is possible, but unlikely. Or they shipped a product they knew would have issues because they had to get it out the door to have an XB1 Halo holidays game. Considering the fact that they basically had to patch in multiplayer post-launch, the latter seems far more likely.

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sweep

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#25 sweep  Moderator

@oni said:

@baka_shinji17 said:

They must be feeling a Guilty Spark. Eh?

@sweep delete this man's account please

I'll get the gremlins working on it ASAP.

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MooseyMcMan

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@sweep said:

@oni said:

@baka_shinji17 said:

They must be feeling a Guilty Spark. Eh?

@sweep delete this man's account please

I'll get the gremlins working on it ASAP.

Man, I wish I had thought up that word play!

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ShaggE

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"As an apology, we've taken 10% off all microtransactions in Spartan Assault for the next two hours!"

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JonKrag

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@hammondoftexas: total +1 on that duder, the amount of times that's happened this year is unreal.

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darkjester74

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I guess every platform has their Driveclub.

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elvicerator

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Jeff nailed it on the Bombcast. It's HALO and they're MICROSOFT. They absolutely have to release a working, finished product when it comes to their flagship game franchise. It seems like this game desperately needed to be delayed.

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KaneRobot

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#31  Edited By KaneRobot

Still baffled as to why the hell this is taking so long. 343 did Halo 4 and there were essentially no issues, so this isn't a "343 can't do what Bungie did" issue. Really pathetic. It would be nice if publishers had a mandatory beta test for any games that had a heavy multiplayer component from now on, that may have helped get this fixed before it even became an issue.

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Tortoise

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Can't they just spin up some more cloud computers or something

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amiga1200

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Great shout. Hell of a year for it.

I'm predicting during the GOTY deliberation podcasts, worst trend goes to "Unfinished Games"

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FalloutNL

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#34  Edited By FalloutNL
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amiga1200

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Remember when you bought a game from a shop and, if it didn't work, you took it back?

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DGBruin08

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Jeldh

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I remember last year when people where raging about day one patches. Now they patches doesnt even work.

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TehPickle

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Calling a patch a 'content update' seems kinda gross to me. Ergh, spin.

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billyok

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Apology of the Year might need its own self-contained GOTY podcast this year.

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kubqo

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Now expecting one for Far Cry 4...

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LiquidPrince

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@amiga1200: I just yearn for the days where the data on the disc worked properly without needing an extra 20GBs worth of patches...

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superfriend

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Multiplayer isn't the only thing busted. Achievements don't pop, level loads sometimes crash the game, severe lag during online co-op. I'm really enjoying my time back with Halo but I'd like to see some functionality return to the game.

Yep. This exactly. Plus, the singleplayer portions of the games have severe framerate issues, as do some of the anniversary MP maps. This is a botched release of previously unknown proportions.

And has anyone watched that Halo Nightfall thing? Oh god, that looked worse than a fan flick at times. I can't believe how shitty 343 is treating Halo.

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Raptornx01

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What they really should be apologizing for is not releasing the Halo 2 remaster on the 360. which is a huge slap in the face to all the fans that have supported the halo releases on that system. at present you can own every single halo game for that one console EXCEPT Halo 2. which isn't even available as an xbox original on demand like the first halo is.

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rjaylee

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kevinlever

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I bet all they'll do is have the Halo 5 beta go for an extra week. Nothing more than that.

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rjaylee

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#46  Edited By rjaylee

@amiga1200: I just yearn for the days where the data on the game cartridge worked properly without needing an extra 20GBs worth of patches...

Fixed.

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Brendan

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This really sucks for the people who are stuck with a lemon for now, but it just reinforces why I don't buy into pre-order hype culture. There is no piece of entertainment that is worth the potential headaches. I have many options to entertain myself in this world, and can wait a week or two to learn if the game is working as intended.

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Thiago123

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#48  Edited By Thiago123
@superfriend said:

And has anyone watched that Halo Nightfall thing? Oh god, that looked worse than a fan flick at times. I can't believe how shitty 343 is treating Halo.

As part of the many issues the game is having, I couldn't get it to unlock properly in Halo Channel for a few days. When it finally worked I watched ep 1 and fell asleep halfway through...I haven't gone back to it yet. This coming from a someone who really likes the Halo fiction/universe and is a prime candidate for being insulted by Dan Ryckert for reading the books.

@kevinlever said:

I bet all they'll do is have the Halo 5 beta go for an extra week. Nothing more than that.

No chance that will be it at this point. I agree they will lengthen the beta, but after this launch this might be more of them needing actual beta data so they don't fuck up again. I'm not saying that what they will come up with will be any good, just saying it will be more. My guess is either: a) Halo: Spartan Strike gets announced for XBONE, everyone who played MCC in November gets it free; OR b) Some DLC gets given away free like...a few Halo: Reach maps or more Halo 2 map remakes....assuming they get matchmaking working.

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Justin258

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@oni said:

@baka_shinji17 said:

They must be feeling a Guilty Spark. Eh?

@sweep delete this man's account please

Why? He's pretty good.

As someone who really likes Halo and who would have bought this on day one if I had an Xbox One - yeah, this really sucks. I don't think this game even had a beta test, did it?

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hodor

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343i You had ONE job, just ONE. Make Halo. Not even make it, just work on an existing franchise and continue it. That was your sole reason to exist.

At this point Microsoft is going to find a way to kill Minecraft, I don't know how, but they will find a way.