Does the term "XBL Public" sound familiar to you? It might if you're a Halo fan who's been following Halo 3 since it was first announced. It certainly rings a bell to the millions of Bungie.net users, hundreds of which are now up in arms over a "promised" Halo 3 feature by Bungie, which is missing from the final game.
In November of 2006, 1UP interviewed Colm Nelson, a Halo 3 user interface designer, who talked about a Halo 3 online feature called "XBL Public." The feature would let players search for public custom games, via Xbox Live, which they could then join. Likewise, players would be able to make their own game party public, thus allowing other players searching XBL Public to join their game.
We've included the transcript of the interview directly below.
QUOTE
1UP: One of the menus we saw while we were at Bungie said XBL Public, it was described to us as a "Matchmaking for Custom Games." What is XBL Public bringing to the matchmaking space? Is there an XBL Private, as well for Halo 3 online play?
Bungie: The basic idea with our online play still begins with our party system. You can invite your buddies to the party and it's easy stay together and play whatever you want in the game. If you want to keep it private you can set the privacy so that only friends can join, or so that an invite is required in order for any player to join the party. On the other hand you might need more players to play the type of game you want to set up and that's where XBL public comes in handy. When you need more people you can just open your party to the public. It's the perfect way to create a custom game and find people to join you.
1UP: If I've created a game with my friends and don't have enough people for a good match, will there be a way for us to meet up with players that we don't know and have them join our game?
Bungie: That's the perfect example of how XBL public works. In a party with 3 friends but that game you've created really needs 8 players to be fun? Set the maximum party size to "8" and open your party to the public. Public players will be able to find you and join, so you'll get the other 5 that you need for the game.
Bungie: The basic idea with our online play still begins with our party system. You can invite your buddies to the party and it's easy stay together and play whatever you want in the game. If you want to keep it private you can set the privacy so that only friends can join, or so that an invite is required in order for any player to join the party. On the other hand you might need more players to play the type of game you want to set up and that's where XBL public comes in handy. When you need more people you can just open your party to the public. It's the perfect way to create a custom game and find people to join you.
1UP: If I've created a game with my friends and don't have enough people for a good match, will there be a way for us to meet up with players that we don't know and have them join our game?
Bungie: That's the perfect example of how XBL public works. In a party with 3 friends but that game you've created really needs 8 players to be fun? Set the maximum party size to "8" and open your party to the public. Public players will be able to find you and join, so you'll get the other 5 that you need for the game.
Bungie's online community started a petition-style thread on Wednesday, rallying with the hope that Bungie would see the thread and add the mode via a patch in the future. Bungie.net "Overlord" Tom Achronos, who goes by the forum name "Achronos," responded to the 35-page message board thread, saying no such feature will be added to Halo 3.
"There is not and will not be any game browser for custom games," he wrote. "We had this conversation when Halo 2 was new - matchmaking is how you find games. For custom games, you will have to rely on your friends list, your recent players list, and the "party up" feature. This is not something that can be "patched in" either, even if we wanted to do so."
So, why all the outrage? While Halo 3 allows players to join ranked and unranked games through Bungie's matchmaking service, players are unable to search and join custom games. Instead, they must rely on their friends list and recent players list to find custom games. The problem is some users feel it is too difficult to find people to play these games with, because there is no way to meet the kinds of players who play them. The only method in which users can meet other users is through matchmaking, but the types of people that play matchmaking are usually not the kind that want to play custom games.
The Bungie.net community has since started a story on the popular social bookmarking website Digg, which at the time of this report has over 400 Diggs.
We've contacted Microsoft for an official comment and will update should they issue one.
via advancemn