My theory wasn't at all that they're using those servers for Xbox 360's live. I said they're probably using those servers for something else. I never said specifically what for. They could be using them for Hotmail for all I know. (No. I'm not suggesting they're using it for Hotmail. I know that you'll misread that and think that's what I mean.) I could just easily imagine Microsoft sitting there thinking they could easily save money on buying servers if they just used the original Xbox servers instead of buying new ones for stuff.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx Get used to Microsoft bull-blam!-ing you. The longer you're around, the more you won't even take a second glance at it. In reality I bet they just needed some more servers for something else so they went cheap and used the original Xbox servers instead of buying new ones. They had to make up some sort of situation where it would be beneficial to everyone so people weren't so mad at them for it. Not many people at all were on the original servers before the announcement came that they were being shut down. People will have you believe there were almost as many as there were on Halo 3 which is an absolute lie. There were two games that were populated. One was Halo 2 and the other was Star Wars Battlefront II. I'm willing to bet they figured since the population was so low that no one cared. They didn't count on the "hipster" culture of gamers where they care oh so much about something when they're losing it but couldn't care less when they think they'll have it forever. They shouldn't have brought down the servers. Even if they did, they should have sold it to the community to use instead but since that's not how Microsoft likes to run things, they just went with the evil "It's gone and you'll have to accept it." approach.[/quote] I remembered they tried to buy us off by offering 3 months of Xbox Live and 800 MS Points plus an invite to the Halo: Reach beta. I think they should've just run two seperate xbox live services if they were really telling the truth. However with your theory, I find it hard to believe there'd be a shortage of servers for Xbox 360's Xbox Live. There was one time during the holiday season, I forgot which year it was, but original xbox was still up at the time, too many people signed on and most of the servers crash to the point where only a few people could connect to Live and even then, those few people were unable to communicate or play with each other. That happened to me, I was able to sign on, but only 2 out of 100 friends were only and even messaging wasn't working properly. However, since then, there hasn't been any issues like that again so I don't think additional servers were required. There were some game developers that agreed with Microsoft's statements about the architecture of Xbox Live. They specifically mentioned how Original Xbox Live was strictly limited to 100 friends and couldn't be changed no matter what. I could believe that. However, since Microsoft never expanded the friends list limit, I still have my doubts.

Get used to Microsoft bull-blam!-ing you. The longer you're around, the more you won't even take a second glance at it. In reality I bet they just needed some more servers for something else so they went cheap and used the original Xbox servers instead of buying new ones. They had to make up some sort of situation where it would be beneficial to everyone so people weren't so mad at them for it. Not many people at all were on the original servers before the announcement came that they were being shut down. People will have you believe there were almost as many as there were on Halo 3 which is an absolute lie. There were two games that were populated. One was Halo 2 and the other was Star Wars Battlefront II. I'm willing to bet they figured since the population was so low that no one cared. They didn't count on the "hipster" culture of gamers where they care oh so much about something when they're losing it but couldn't care less when they think they'll have it forever. They shouldn't have brought down the servers. Even if they did, they should have sold it to the community to use instead but since that's not how Microsoft likes to run things, they just went with the evil "It's gone and you'll have to accept it." approach. [Edited on 04.26.2012 12:14 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] JacobGRocks [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed Oh one more reason why I like halo 2 vista and games for windows live is that I enjoy surprising my friends with games invites to halo 2.[/quote]You're one of [i]those[/i] guys! Do you know how many people invite me to play with them on Halo 2 Vista when I'm on Halo 3/Reach or the opposite with invites to games on the 360!? Why do they think they're special enough for me to switch platforms!? I have a hard time figuring out why they'd feel they're special enough for me to change [i]games[/i], let alone a platform! I hardly know any of them! /rant[/quote] It could have been worse, I used to get CoD invites while playing on the Xbox 1 pre shutdown.[/quote] I never fully understood why Microsoft had to shutdown original Xbox Live. They claimed it was due to the architecture restrictions that prevented the Xbox 360's version of live from being improved any further. However, since they've shutdown original xbox live, I haven't noticed any improvements to the system that would've required a vastly different architecture. The friends list still has the 100 friends limit and party chat is still limited to 8 people. There aren't really any new features other than the upgraded Kinect Video Chat which most likely runs independently of Xbox Live's architecture. Even if the architecture had to be changed, Microsoft could just run two sets of servers for Xbox Live. One for the original xbox and one for the 360. While this may prevent cross-platform communication, it isn't really important since messaging between platforms wasn't perfect to begin with. I would've been willing to pay for 2 seperate xbox live services (as long as original xbox live is a lot cheaper).

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed Oh one more reason why I like halo 2 vista and games for windows live is that I enjoy surprising my friends with games invites to halo 2.[/quote]You're one of [i]those[/i] guys! Do you know how many people invite me to play with them on Halo 2 Vista when I'm on Halo 3/Reach or the opposite with invites to games on the 360!? Why do they think they're special enough for me to switch platforms!? I have a hard time figuring out why they'd feel they're special enough for me to change [i]games[/i], let alone a platform! I hardly know any of them! /rant[/quote] It could have been worse, I used to get CoD invites while playing on the Xbox 1 pre shutdown.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed Oh one more reason why I like halo 2 vista and games for windows live is that I enjoy surprising my friends with games invites to halo 2.[/quote]You're one of [i]those[/i] guys! Do you know how many people invite me to play with them on Halo 2 Vista when I'm on Halo 3/Reach or the opposite with invites to games on the 360!? Why do they think they're special enough for me to switch platforms!? I have a hard time figuring out why they'd feel they're special enough for me to change [i]games[/i], let alone a platform! I hardly know any of them! /rant[/quote] Well, it's not that I like bugging them. It's that they're not aware of the existence of GFWL and therefore, they ask me all sorts of silly questions like how did I hook my PC up to my Xbox to sign onto Live or vice versa. I only do it to friends that have never seen Halo 2 PC before or even heard of GFWL. If they already play PC games or they know about GFWL, then there's no point in me inviting them. When I invite them, I don't expect them to change games or platforms. Mainly because they wouldn't even have any Live-enabled PC games, if they even play PC games to begin with (majority of my friends list are console-only gamers). I got started on that because the very first time I signed onto Halo 2 PC back in 2007, a couple of my friends sent me messages expressing extreme shock and disbelief at what I was playing. The more intelligent of those friends assumed I was using an Xbox emulator on the PC to play Halo 2. I guess it was a close assumption, but still far off. I found their theories and shocks to be very entertaining so ever since, I like to surprise friends with PC games. [Edited on 04.23.2012 11:55 AM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed Oh one more reason why I like halo 2 vista and games for windows live is that I enjoy surprising my friends with games invites to halo 2.[/quote]You're one of [i]those[/i] guys! Do you know how many people invite me to play with them on Halo 2 Vista when I'm on Halo 3/Reach or the opposite with invites to games on the 360!? Why do they think they're special enough for me to switch platforms!? I have a hard time figuring out why they'd feel they're special enough for me to change [i]games[/i], let alone a platform! I hardly know any of them! /rant [Edited on 04.22.2012 10:48 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed Alright fine, you got me there. However, the main reason I play halo 2 vista is because it's all we have left of halo 2 online multiplayer.[/quote]Actually you have Xbox Connect and Xlink Kai as well. In fact, they have a higher population than Halo 2. [quote]Plus, I want to enjoy the campaign but still be able to talk to my friends on Xbox live. Halo 2 vista definitely delivers in that case.[/quote]Technically it doesn't because there's no party chat. :D [quote]Basically, all I want out of halo 2 vista is a substitute/replacement for the Xbox version which no longer has Xbox live support anymore. I guess that's why I felt halo 2 vista was great. I always looked at it from a console gamers perspective and from that perspective, the port is good enough if not better than the Xbox version. But I'm curious about what you think, is halo 2 vista at least an improvement over the Xbox version? [/quote]I think I said in this thread already that it's literally the only game to be on both console and PC that I'd rather play on a console. I couldn't care less about the graphics. The 60 FPS is nice when I'm not getting frame rate drops that I should [i]not[/i] be experiencing on this system. The editing kit is so poor there might as well not even really be one. In fact, I can find better maps from mods made for the Xbox version. The mouse support is so bad that [i]I[/i] even prefer use a controller while playing it. In short, there are too many bugs and it doesn't play well enough to make a difference if it's on the PC. The graphics are better but that in no way makes up for its faults. I'd rather play the game on Xbox Connect or Kai. :P[/quote] Well games for windows live does have private chat which is good enough if I only want to talk to one person which happens frequently. Anyways, playing halo 2 on the Xbox 360 has bugs of its own that have never been fixed. Though these bugs are mainly related to the campaign so it won't affect people who don't play the campaign very often. I just noticed that even though my original Xbox supports resolutions up to 1080i, halo 2 still looks better on the Xbox 360. In fact, while the Xbox 360 automatically upscales all games to 1080p, the original Xbox will only play games in the resolution they were designed for, mostly 480p. I think only 3 games on the original Xbox natively support 1080i. Just a little fun fact there. Also, the Xbox 360 adds the benefits of anti aliasing to original Xbox games (though the original Xbox GPU is theoretically capable of 2x msaa. Oh one more reason why I like halo 2 vista and games for windows live is that I enjoy surprising my friends with games invites to halo 2. A lot of people on Xbox live still aren't aware of the existence of gfwl. They're aware halo 2 was shut down on the original Xbox, so they'd be very shocked to see a game invite to halo 2. Plus, the pc icon next to my gamer tag when I'm playing also confuses them. So yeah, that's one of the big reasons I want halo 2 vista and gfwl to survive. [Edited on 04.22.2012 8:38 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed Alright fine, you got me there. However, the main reason I play halo 2 vista is because it's all we have left of halo 2 online multiplayer.[/quote]Actually you have Xbox Connect and Xlink Kai as well. In fact, they have a higher population than Halo 2. [quote]Plus, I want to enjoy the campaign but still be able to talk to my friends on Xbox live. Halo 2 vista definitely delivers in that case.[/quote]Technically it doesn't because there's no party chat. :D [quote]Basically, all I want out of halo 2 vista is a substitute/replacement for the Xbox version which no longer has Xbox live support anymore. I guess that's why I felt halo 2 vista was great. I always looked at it from a console gamers perspective and from that perspective, the port is good enough if not better than the Xbox version. But I'm curious about what you think, is halo 2 vista at least an improvement over the Xbox version? [/quote]I think I said in this thread already that it's literally the only game to be on both console and PC that I'd rather play on a console. I couldn't care less about the graphics. The 60 FPS is nice when I'm not getting frame rate drops that I should [i]not[/i] be experiencing on this system. The editing kit is so poor there might as well not even really be one. In fact, I can find better maps from mods made for the Xbox version. The mouse support is so bad that [i]I[/i] even prefer use a controller while playing it. In short, there are too many bugs and it doesn't play well enough to make a difference if it's on the PC. The graphics are better but that in no way makes up for its faults. I'd rather play the game on Xbox Connect or Kai. :P

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed But that's my point, if Microsoft had patched the problems, then it would've been a great port. [/quote]So would every other bad port to PC. Your point is? Saying it [i]could[/i] be a good port if Microsoft would have attempted fixing the problems doesn't say it is good. It's not because they didn't. That's the same reason [i]every[/i] bad port is bad. You can't honestly think that's a good argument in the case of Halo 2 Vista, can you?[/quote] Alright fine, you got me there. However, the main reason I play halo 2 vista is because it's all we have left of halo 2 online multiplayer. Plus, I want to enjoy the campaign but still be able to talk to my friends on Xbox live. Halo 2 vista definitely delivers in that case. Basically, all I want out of halo 2 vista is a substitute/replacement for the Xbox version which no longer has Xbox live support anymore. I guess that's why I felt halo 2 vista was great. I always looked at it from a console gamers perspective and from that perspective, the port is good enough if not better than the Xbox version. But I'm curious about what you think, is halo 2 vista at least an improvement over the Xbox version?

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed But that's my point, if Microsoft had patched the problems, then it would've been a great port. [/quote] You know, if al-Qaeda would just turn their attitude around and stop killing innocent people, they could be heroes. You don't say something's "not that bad" if it is actually bad simply because of what it [i]could[/i] be, especially if there's next to no chance that it would happen.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed But that's my point, if Microsoft had patched the problems, then it would've been a great port. [/quote]So would every other bad port to PC. Your point is? Saying it [i]could[/i] be a good port if Microsoft would have attempted fixing the problems doesn't say it is good. It's not because they didn't. That's the same reason [i]every[/i] bad port is bad. You can't honestly think that's a good argument in the case of Halo 2 Vista, can you? [Edited on 04.22.2012 12:55 AM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] DusK [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Ben2974 Could patches fix these problems?[/quote] Yeah, actually they could. But as of this date, that has yet to happen, so it's a bad port as it stands, rendering this statement [quote]I still stand by my belief that Halo 2 Vista wasn't that bad of a port.[/quote] a delusion.[/quote] But that's my point, if Microsoft had patched the problems, then it would've been a great port.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Ben2974 Could patches fix these problems?[/quote] Yeah, actually they could. But as of this date, that has yet to happen, so it's a bad port as it stands, rendering this statement [quote]I still stand by my belief that Halo 2 Vista wasn't that bad of a port.[/quote] a delusion.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] DusK [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed I still stand by my belief that Halo 2 Vista wasn't that bad of a port.[/quote] Horrid netcode. Broken keyboard/mouse support. Terrible graphics optimization. Completely lack of any anti-cheat. Instability across a massive range of hardware and any OS that isn't Windows Vista. "A delusion is a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary."[/quote] Could patches fix these problems?

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed I still stand by my belief that Halo 2 Vista wasn't that bad of a port.[/quote] Horrid netcode. Broken keyboard/mouse support. Terrible graphics optimization. Completely lack of any anti-cheat. Instability across a massive range of hardware and any OS that isn't Windows Vista. "A delusion is a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary."

Halo 2 Vista was buggy as hell (Twice that of Gotham City Imposters), it was bounded with Games for Windows Live (Which IS a negative to pretty much any PC gamer out there), it has a terrible FoV that has no true fix for, it doesn't have any support from Microsoft, the dedicated server application is an absolute joke when even compared to Halo: Combat Evolved's, the mouse support is absolutely gimped, you can't even map keys on the controller, the editing kit is atrocious compared to HEK, nearly 35% of the people who bought the game can't even get it to run, the CD key limit only gives you 5 installs before you can't play your own copy of the game anymore, it was so poorly optimized that something with twice the specs of what's supposedly required has frame rate issues, there's not even a console, no way to manage your server in game, low amount of control over visual/audio settings, and [i]many[/i] more things I simply don't have the time to list here. Halo 2 Vista is an absolute joke of a port and if you think it's decent then you obviously haven't played many ports. It absolutely fails. In fact, it fails so much that Halo: Combat Evolved PC with its terrible netcode holds up better than its sequel does. It wasn't even an over time thing. If Halo 2 Vista ever had a higher population, it didn't last long after release at all. Pretty much everyone in the PC community claimed that it was an absolute piece of garbage. This isn't coming from someone who hates Halo 2 its self. This is coming from someone that actually loves the game. This thing is an absolute [i]wreck[/i] on PC and if you actually want to defend it, you're blind to the truth. It's bad. There's no arguing it. This is the [i]only[/i] game in existence that I'd rather play on my Xbox than on my PC. That says something. That says [i]a lot[/i]. Definitely since it's a First Person Shooter. I've been playing games on the PC since the late '90s and I can guarantee you that I've never played such a terrible port. [i]Never[/i]. [Edited on 04.21.2012 10:22 AM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Iggwilv As much as I hate to credit M$. They found Halo exactly when they needed to. It launched the Xbox platform. It was revolutionary in bringing FPS to the console. Halo PC is special in that it kept with the original design of the original game, but it introduced (through M$ meddling) lag which at first seemed a mistake but created a gap between newbs and veterans. It had a thriving competitive league in CAL and TWL. HaloPC had amazing community which is long gone. Halo 2 Vista was a travesty that never should have happened. M$ thought since Xbox live was such a success lets launch it on the PC. If I ever get three wishes one will be to be present when some executive in MGS decides this is a good idea. I will then proceed to choke the life out of that individual with no remorse. Halo PC represents what PC games should be and never will be again. Rant over[/quote] I still stand by my belief that Halo 2 Vista wasn't that bad of a port. It had the same features as Halo PC as well as updated graphics to higher degree than Halo PC had compared to Halo 1 Xbox. The only issue with Halo 2 Vista is really lack of support from MS. That lack of support allowed bugs to be exploited as well as stability issues to arise. Most of the issues people listed could've been fixed with a patch. If Microsoft had continued to support Halo 2 Vista with patches and updates to improve stability and quaility, then it would've been a great port. Other than that, I don't see anything else wrong with Halo 2 Vista. [Edited on 04.21.2012 9:11 AM PDT]

As much as I hate to credit M$. They found Halo exactly when they needed to. It launched the Xbox platform. It was revolutionary in bringing FPS to the console. Halo PC is special in that it kept with the original design of the original game, but it introduced (through M$ meddling) lag which at first seemed a mistake but created a gap between newbs and veterans. It had a thriving competitive league in CAL and TWL. HaloPC had amazing community which is long gone. Halo 2 Vista was a travesty that never should have happened. M$ thought since Xbox live was such a success lets launch it on the PC. If I ever get three wishes one will be to be present when some executive in MGS decides this is a good idea. I will then proceed to choke the life out of that individual with no remorse. Halo PC represents what PC games should be and never will be again. Rant over

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] I RaveN I Out of the 3 or so people that use xfire in h2v (why would you) [url=http://beta.xfire.com/games/halo2]here's the stats.[/url][/quote]I'm kind of confused... Who is this in reply to?

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Arbiter 739 I personaly find this annoying as well, though it does add up. I think it's obscurity comes from that Halo is a core X-box game and that people who have X-Boxes or other consoles are less likely to have a gaming PC. Although to be fair, I have yet to buy the PC versions becasue I fear that I will find the community gone when I look for a server. [/quote] It annoys me too however although the communities are pretty dead you can find servers playing on CE (i usually average between 5 and 30) at a given time

Out of the 3 or so people that use xfire in h2v (why would you) [url=http://beta.xfire.com/games/halo2]here's the stats.[/url]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] DusK Are you guys talking about touch-screen RTS? Because that would be freakin' orgasmic.[/quote]Oh yeah. RTS would be great with a mixture of touchscreen/keyboard. We were actually talking about FPS though xD[/quote] FPS games on smartphones and android/ios tablets today have an interesting way to manage the touch controls. However, I haven't really seen any games with perfect FPS controls. Most of them just try to emulate a controller using two virtual joysticks which kind of defeats the purpose of a touchscreen. The FPS genre would have to be adapted to touchscreens. In their current form, there would be issues with using the touchscreen because like you said, your hand would get in the way and it'd be the same as using a touchpad. I've seen videos on youtube of people playing Starcraft on a Windows tablet and it actually looks really fun to play the game like that. However, I think a physical keyboard is still a must for RTS games unless everything you'd need the keyboard for can be done on screen including movement of the camera. I think in this case, finger gestures on a touch screen could become very helpful in an RTS game that was meant for touchscreens with no physical keyboard. One concern I have is even if a tablet could handle these games (Intel HD Graphics 3000 isn't too bad), how much heat would these games generate? Desktop PC's have really powerful cooling, laptops need good cooling, but struggle to fit powerful enough fans inside, and with tablets, even the ones with built in fans don't have very powerful ones. I'm concerned a few minutes of Halo 2 Vista or Crysis on a Windows 8 tablet will cause it to overheat and shutdown. A tablet without any active cooling will probably melt from playing Crysis. [Edited on 04.16.2012 12:24 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] DusK Are you guys talking about touch-screen RTS? Because that would be freakin' orgasmic.[/quote]Oh yeah. RTS would be great with a mixture of touchscreen/keyboard. We were actually talking about FPS though xD

Are you guys talking about touch-screen RTS? Because that would be freakin' orgasmic. [Edited on 04.16.2012 7:25 AM PDT]

Yeah, I was thinking it's possible for it to work but at the same time using that for playing an FPS against playing with MS Paint is massive. One obvious thing is your hand getting in the way of your sight. You would also have to control it much like a touchpad on a laptop. It just would work right like that. :P