Why is the party system only in Halo 2?

[Rorschach]

Halo 2 came out 2 years and a couple of days ago. One of the best features was the ability to get a group of friends together into a party and have those people stick together through menus, lobbies, and games.

With the complaints of Gears of War's managing ranked matches there's been some talk why the party system wasn't used here. But I haven't seen anything definitive, just vague hinting that MS didn't let them or Epic didn't implement it or Bungie has the patent.

So what is the real reason no game has even tried to implement a multiplayer party system in the last 2 years? I would have thought every multiplayer game on X360 would have it by now.

[forgeforsaken]

Yeah it's a bit nuts isn't it? It really hurts my desire to play any ranked games if I can't play with people I know.

[ElGuapo]

Exactly. I NEVER play ranked games, because of this reason. Why play with strangers when you can play with friends?

[delirium]

For a game that is basically designed for team coordination and strategy, the omission of this feature makes the entire ranking system worthless. How is my team supposed to develop the chemistry that's required to win in a short 5 game series? It's just random chance deciding whether you get a team that clicks with each other or a team that has no desire to communicate or work together. More often than not, it will be the latter. On the rare occasion you get a good team, you'll only get to play a few rounds with them before getting tossed back into the random team generator.

If for nothing else, the party system needs to be implemented to allow ranked competition between squads of serious players. This is how you foster a dedicated game community. I'm sure independent leagues will be created where squads compete in unranked games and track their records on independent webpages. But, with a powerful tool like XBL at the developer's fingertips, it is a total waste to not have included such features.

[Xaroc]

I agree, this is my biggest complaint with the game. It is a flaw on an otherwise great game.

[Rorschach]

I know there's some (new) games journalists on this board. I think it'd be quite a scoop if someone used their contacts and found out what's really going on here. Is it a Bugie/Epic thing? Is MS hoarding tech like wireless controllers and Guitar Hero II? Did Epic just skip it to get it out in time and will add it in later? Someone give me a reason! :)

[rjcc]

the party system will apparently be in shadowrun, according to an interview on neogaf.

[Moore]

yeah, but noones going to buy or play that except dave long, so it doesnt help us.

[Wholly Schmidt]

I know there's some (new) games journalists on this board. I think it'd be quite a scoop if someone used their contacts and found out what's really going on here. Is it a Bugie/Epic thing? Is MS hoarding tech like wireless controllers and Guitar Hero II? Did Epic just skip it to get it out in time and will add it in later? Someone give me a reason! :)
Why are you trying to make this a Bunie/Epic thing? How many other multiplayer games, on any system, have come out since Halo 2? I liked the party system, and I think it's a shame that other games haven't picked up on it, but it's no more a "story" that Epic didn't use it than that, I don't know, Perfect Dark didn't use it.

[ElGuapo]

Saint's Row uses it. And you can kill each other while the party is forming.

When is that damn patch coming out?

[Moore]

what, the SR patch? it's out, plus a new map for 80 points. who cares? it's pants next to GOW.

[Rorschach]

Why are you trying to make this a Bunie/Epic thing? How many other multiplayer games, on any system, have come out since Halo 2? I liked the party system, and I think it's a shame that other games haven't picked up on it, but it's no more a "story" that Epic didn't use it than that, I don't know, Perfect Dark didn't use it.

I apologize for making it a Bungie/Epic thing. You're absolutely correct. Although it's most felt in Gears, my original premise was why don't any multiplayer games use the party system. I'm just focused on Gears right now because it's a great team based game. The same could be said for R6:Vegas. I just thought it would be interesting to hear the reason behind it for any game that could have put it into the development cycle past November of 2004.

[Marsh Davies]

My understanding is that it's common policy now not to allow group matching for ranked games on the basis that it would result in people messing about trying to get achievements. For example, if grouped with friends you are more likely to be dicking about killing and reviving your own teammates to get a "Don't You Die On Me" achievement.

Seems like a lame excuse to me - firstly because, as Elguapo suggests in another thread, they should separate achievements from ranked games altogether, but secondly because I can't see people regularly jeopardising their rank to get achievements like that.

This was discussed on both the Gears and Bungie's forums. There was some suggestion on the Gears site that it was a Microsoft policy not to allow ranked group matches, on the basis that it would mess up the achievement system. But I think that was either contradicted or quashed by the Bungie guys. If I recall, Halo 3 will have ranked group matches.

[Marsh Davies]

Informative and optimistic link:
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/12210/Gears-of-War-Ranked-Friends-Games-Coming-Soon/

[Rorschach]

I'd love to see some confirmation or official response on that. Vague hinting during a multiplayer game chat does not get my hopes up much at all.

[Rorschach]

Joystiq has been poking (http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/07/shadowrun-has-online-party-system-further-damages-epics-claim/) at the party vs. TrueSkill reasons why there's no party system in Gears or R6 for ranked matches. Sometimes the comments are more interesting than the blog posts. They claim (http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/07/shadowrun-forgoes-trueskill-for-party-play-epic-told-the-trut/) Shadowrun eschews TrueSkill to implement a party system, but the TrueSkill researcher's blog states (http://blogs.technet.com/apg/archive/2006/11/05/team-play-in-trueskill.aspx) that you can play ranked matches with your friends.

Note that the researches say there's no reason the TrueSkill algorithm can't handle parties of friends, but there's nothing said about the implementation. I still think there's a story here.

[Harkonis]

Saint's Row also had the party system for multi

edit: beaten by Guapo! and I thought I read through too. That's what I get for staying up to 4:30am on R6

[Wholly Schmidt]

Note that the researches say there's no reason the TrueSkill algorithm can't handle parties of friends, but there's nothing said about the implementation. I still think there's a story here.
The achievements answer still explains things, whether you think it's smart or not. TrueSkill can get your party matched up and as long as you're still only in charge of organizing one side of a ranked match (i.e. you still can't plan to have friends on the opposing team throw the game for you) there's no reason it can't work from a TrueSkill perspective.

Achievements though, like the reviving your teammate one, could be "cheated" if you got on a team of friends. I think that's a really stupid reason to avoid the party system, obviously. If you're really going to take that hard a stance on the possibility of players being cheap about their Achievements, you should probably make the party system your priority and throw out any achievements that could be marginalized by it instead of the other way around. The Achievement argument does "make sense" where the TrueSkill argument really doesn't though.

[Rorschach]

Did Epic or Ubi or anyone else claim achievements are why they didn't use a party system?

[Wholly Schmidt]

Did Epic or Ubi or anyone else claim achievements are why they didn't use a party system?
Oh, I don't know, I was just going by what someone up thread said.

[Kunikos]

The Achievements don't unlock extra weapons ala BF2/2142 so who cares?

[Holliday]

If people want to cheat to get achievements they will just copy the saved games files like they have been doing. What I want to know about Gears or R6 is why can't you even do the party system outside of ranked games? Granted I would really like to be teamed up with my friends then play against other teams of similar skill.

Inviting works but it is cumbersome at times and it doesn't work all the time. I can't figure out why but sometimes I just do not have the option to invite. Even when the server is nearly empty.

[Guido Jones]

Bungie has the patent.


that's untrue.

[Wholly Schmidt]

The Achievements don't unlock extra weapons ala BF2/2142 so who cares?
The Achievements don't do anything, but they are still supposd to represent literal achievements. Plenty of people around here have admitted to getting far more hooked on them than they thought they would, and for that to work at all, we need to be able to believe to some degree that they are protected and at least a little sacred.

I can't imagine MS would ever allow games with a code you could enter that would actually unlock Achievements (and many games with cheat codes don't record Achievements when they're used), I can't imagine (much to EA's disappointment) that you would ever be able to buy your Achievements through the market place.

Somewhere the line has to be drawn, however erratic it may look when plotted across all games, so we can pretend the Achievements still mean enough to get that slight buzz of satisfaction when the alert pops up.

I can't tell you where that line should be. Should we through out all Achievements that amount to pure repetition (Host X matches online) because they're too easy, or the Achievements that by design very few people will ever get (Be #1 on a leaderboard)? Should multiplayer Achievements be weighted differently on average from single player? There are no indisputable answers to these kinds of questions, and I'm not saying any of this was really behind any decisions about Gears of War's multiplayer setup, but since we're off on this tangent, I wanted to make the point that the Achievements do warrant some kind of consideration.

If Gears of War really didn't have a party system just because someone at MS felt like it would be too easy to get 30 points for reviving teammates taking a dive, I'd say that's pretty silly, but my issue would be where MS decided to draw the line, not that they're drawing one. We care, so someone at MS needs to at least put on a good show of caring too.

[Jason Cross]

Other developers haven't implemented the Halo 2 system because it takes work, basically. The whole "random people on server X" thing has been done for ages, there's middleware from folks like Gamespy to facilitate it, etc. Shaking that up means writing new code, including new back-end server code. I guess it's perceived as a cost/benefit thing, or just that developers have bigger fish to fry before releasing their "didn't even get to squash the bugs we knew about" game.

Halo 2 doesn't just use pat Live code that Microsoft included with the dev kit or anything. They spent a lot of time and effort working on how games would be found, how players would join them (from a client/server model way, not an end user experience way), how players and teams would be ranked, etc.

If MS was smart, they would make Trueskill 2.0 include all kinds of clan and party stuff, so developers relying on plugging in whatever Live code they can will have all these features.

I'm still shocked that there are Live games that still don't show you who is talking. How hard is it to put a little icon with the gamertag by it in the corner so you can see who is yammering? Literally the first real Live game, MotoGP (the demo that came with the original Live kit) had that problem, suffered no amount of bitching, and did a software update to address it.

[baren]

I'm still shocked that there are Live games that still don't show you who is talking. How hard is it to put a little icon with the gamertag by it in the corner so you can see who is yammering? Literally the first real Live game, MotoGP (the demo that came with the original Live kit) had that problem, suffered no amount of bitching, and did a software update to address it.

Animated talking icons are a requirement now in Live interfaces. It wasn't always the case, but you shouldn't be seeing it in new games.

[Jason Cross]

Animated talking icons are a requirement now in Live interfaces. It wasn't always the case, but you shouldn't be seeing it in new games.

Do you know when they made that a requirement? And is it during gameplay that it's required, or just in lobbies?

[Harkonis]

I don't know when it happened, but it's supposed to be required pretty much anytime someone can talk. It seems loading screens get excluded, so I know a lot of people talk crap during loading screens.

[baren]

Do you know when they made that a requirement? And is it during gameplay that it's required, or just in lobbies?

It was not a requirement in fall 2004, it was in fall 2006. I don't track the individual releases of the TCR document, though, so I can't say more precisely than that.

We had to put the animated talking icons up whenever the friends list was visible. As noted, that didn't include the loading screens. It pretty much covers any interactive part of the game, though.