Halo eSports: Looking ahead to Halo 5: Guardians

[Jakerdot]

Halo 5 won't have LAN. 

 

HCS events will have some sort of local dedicated server.

Thanks for the reply, do you have a source for this by chance?  I'm asking not due to doubt of your answer, but rather I'm genuinely curious how they plan to resolve this issue from a technical side of things.  Unless I'm mistaken, dedicated servers do not eliminate the issue of needing to connect to the Xbox Live service.  Even if there is a locally hostable xbox live service I'm unaware of, the overhead cost for purchasing a server in order to host tournaments is worrisome.  It's a big 'F off' to grassroots organizations that simply won't have the funding to support that type of financial endeavor.  

 

Also, for relevance I'll site why this is such a worrisome topic to me.  I convinced several friends to sit down and watch the tournament with me this weekend.  For context, none of these friends has any sort of background with the competitive halo scene.  However, once the games started it was easy for me to breakdown the game play and have them appreciate the high level of competition they were witnessing.  The hype was real, and I was excited to have introduced my friends to the scene.  Then, the disconnects.  They lost interest immediately, and I can't blame them.  If HCS wants to garner growth with Halo 5, then the issues at a fundamental level have to be resolved.  It was very evident by the drop in viewership numbers after the disconnects the impact the interruptions had in interest.  

 

Again, if anyone has any further insight into this I'd immensely appreciate it.

[The_R3medy]

What we really need for Halo 5 is for tournaments to not be broken up and delayed by Xbox Live dropping out.  It's an absolute joke that we don't have LAN support.  

[Moa]

Thanks for the reply, do you have a source for this by chance?  I'm asking not due to doubt of your answer, but rather I'm genuinely curious how they plan to resolve this issue from a technical side of things.  Unless I'm mistaken, dedicated servers do not eliminate the issue of needing to connect to the Xbox Live service.  Even if there is a locally hostable xbox live service I'm unaware of, the overhead cost for purchasing a server in order to host tournaments is worrisome.  It's a big 'F off' to grassroots organizations that simply won't have the funding to support that type of financial endeavor.  

 

Also, for relevance I'll site why this is such a worrisome topic to me.  I convinced several friends to sit down and watch the tournament with me this weekend.  For context, none of these friends has any sort of background with the competitive halo scene.  However, once the games started it was easy for me to breakdown the game play and have them appreciate the high level of competition they were witnessing.  The hype was real, and I was excited to have introduced my friends to the scene.  Then, the disconnects.  They lost interest immediately, and I can't blame them.  If HCS wants to garner growth with Halo 5, then the issues at a fundamental level have to be resolved.  It was very evident by the drop in viewership numbers after the disconnects the impact the interruptions had in interest.  

 

Again, if anyone has any further insight into this I'd immensely appreciate it.

We asked Josh Holmes about offline LAN support in our interview with him during E3 and he said that offline LAN support was not going to be supported but they would work with tournament providers to provide a local dedicated server or something like that.

 

Tournament providers won't need to pay for anything. If you are planning on hosting a HCS event, the HCS team will work with you for it.

 

http://teambeyond.net/interview-josh-holmes-halo-5-guardians/

[Jakerdot]

We asked Josh Holmes about offline LAN support in our interview with him during E3 and he said that offline LAN support was not going to be supported but they would work with tournament providers to provide a local dedicated server or something like that.

 

Tournament providers won't need to pay for anything. If you are planning on hosting a HCS event, the HCS team will work with you for it.

 

http://teambeyond.net/interview-josh-holmes-halo-5-guardians/

Yea I actually found that article after my post while I was researching this.  Unfortunately his response doesn't really offer up much detail as for how exactly HCS will help.  I suppose as long as this issue is being addressed, then I'll be content with whatever solution they implement.  I just had a nerd moment since I work in IT and am super passionate about halo; can't say those two things usually relate to one another 

[Hunter]

Why do people still want MLG? Do they understand mlg.tv is a real thing?

[Joseph]

Why do people still want MLG? Do they understand mlg.tv is a real thing?

 

 

The only problem I see with MLG is using MLG.tv and potentially pros being forced to stream HCS Online Cups there as well. 

 

The whole monopoly MLG had with CoD events was a huge turnoff for me

 

 

What if that was not an issue? 

[Hunter]

 

Well turns out I was uninformed. I'm all for mlg events if we aren't slaves of mlg.tv.

[Teapot]

I pretty much take whatever any MLG employee says with a huge grain of salt after dozens of false tweets. I took his post as a hypothetical scenario.

[Joshcon123]

If HCS events have their own dedicated server and not offline LAN support, we still have to rely on Xbox Live being up, right?

[Joseph]

If HCS events have their own dedicated server and not offline LAN support, we still have to rely on Xbox Live being up, right?

 

I think so. I believe players have to sign in to Xbox Live still when they are on a profile.

[BlackShadow]

Never got a response from my earlier post.  Typical.

[Slayer]

I think if we can find no sprint settings the community actually gets behind and supports we could get no sprint settings. Holmes said they would consider it if the feedback is loud enough we jist have to get the right settings and be vocal about it. People are going to be making settings soon as the game comes out I dont see why we have until the end of the season to get changes in there. As long as there is more than 3 "LAN" events left plus some online cups to practice the settings in I dont see why a change in season would be bad.

[PROVERB]

Well, this has been a interesting forum thread to read. Alot of insight and good points have been made. I look forward to what 343 has in store for Halo 5.

 

True that, I disagree with the 90% Gaming Generations thing! they only help with equipment not provide it all. Company's they have worked with is Gamers 4 Giving, UGC and PGL. It would be nice to see more Halo events I would love to compete again!

[Kalon]

I'm assuming the issues with Xbox crashes for MCC HCS will not be an issue for Halo 5 right? 

[My Namez BEAST]

I'm assuming the issues with Xbox crashes for MCC HCS will not be an issue for Halo 5 right?

If the problem involves XBL then yes they will be a problem. The disconnects were more of an MCC issue, not the Xbox.

[Burton]

I've been waiting for a post like this for a while now. What I would like to see for the Halo 5 eSports scene is;

 

- An Individual point system for players (4v4) similar to MLG's old system.

- LAN capabilities.

- 10 letter character (or so) in game service tags.

- Less wait times inbetween tournament matches for competitors.

- Better Referees at tournaments.

 

The biggest thing for me is the point system. The way the points were setup in HCS S1 & S2 made it very difficult for potential teams to break out. Basically the way it works right now is as long as you are on a team from the start to the finish of the HCS season you will be pretty well of in the standings/seeds. Teams do get better from team changes but with this system, team changes become rare. In regards to the amateurs, with Halo's unpopulated state, many good players are stuck with the poo end of the stick due to teams having to stay together or else they will lose their points. If players had their own points they could try out other different varietions of teams and no have to completely worry about having to play EG first round of the tournament. Even for the pros, (and I'm sure contracts and a lot of other things also impact this) but they could keep adjusting their teams/finding a good link of players while keeping a relatively good seed. With that there could be more potential to defeating a team like EG. This topic is big for discussion, but in my eyes this point system would be great for a popular game but Halo does not have enough competitors to make this system work, therefore it is not ideal for Halo eSports. This is not from a biased view point either.

 

The other points, LAN would obviously benefit us (no explaination needed). *Reference: every god damn time XBL or someshit is down.*

 

Long charactered service tags and an option to make that show up in game rather than gamertags. This would be great at tournaments so we would not have to see shit like, "HCS DUMBASS 01" in game. Also, being able to see out teammates service tags would be amazing as well. (Why was that taken out? Are we trying to make the game worse at this point?) (Lmk)

 

Less wait times at tournaments. The amount of time people have to wait now to play their matches at tournaments now, are just absurd. This more likely is from the way tournaments are being ran now by ESL, and it needs to change. Again, I remember at MLG tournaments the matches were all pretty well ran and on schedule.

 

Lastly, the referees at this tournaments cater the shit out of pro teams, and most of the time can't even help without calling over the head guy running everything. Can we hire people that actually know something about Halo please?

 

Sorry for the mistakes in this post, I kind of wrote this fast and just wanted to get my point across. This is my "wish list", it is pretty simple I would say and logical at the same time.

 

Feel free to rip into my post if needed .

[Quinny___]

I dont think the Prize money was bad, especially at the season finals 100k and 150k is pretty good but at the same time Id like to see our pro's being able to viably live off competitive Halo. 

[Moa]

I'm assuming the issues with Xbox crashes for MCC HCS will not be an issue for Halo 5 right? 

The Xbox One's were crashing?

 

I was under the impression it was just players lagging out because of XBL issues.

[My Namez BEAST]

The Xbox One's were crashing?

 

I was under the impression it was just players lagging out because of XBL issues.

I believe that is what he was referring to. That and XBL going down.

[Burton]

The Xbox One's were crashing?

 

I was under the impression it was just players lagging out because of XBL issues.

 

Mainly MCC issues I'd say.

[RyanW]

It would be nice to have the HCS "World Champs", Season Finals, etc be more than 8 teams. Something similar to CoD Champs. Bring in some teams from EU, some online teams, etc and start the event off with pool play. 

[Dead]

It would be nice to have the HCS "World Champs", Season Finals, etc be more than 8 teams. Something similar to CoD Champs. Bring in some teams from EU, some online teams, etc and start the event off with pool play. 

 

Bring in more than EU, how about Oceanic and Asia. We get to see some new talent. 

[LukeHeroes]

I have been a Professional Call of Duty players since Mw2, and have just recently started playing Halo competitively and will be focusing on H5. I have played in many MLG Events and MLG Online leagues.  I have seen them grow and what their focus has turned to, and its not productive to any Gaming community. It literally killed Call of Duty. Yeah they still get substantial viewing numbers and lan turnouts, but by now after many years of them producing it I pictured Call of Duty being x5 bigger and in Black ops 2 they could of changed cod esports forever but just didnt do enough in my opinion. The biggest tournament offered is still Call of Duty champs, NOT a MLG event. To this day I still love the way MLG treats their pros, but they dont understand the amature payers are the future. The way they hold their open bracket tournaments are absolutely horrible, its like the first day of open bracket everyone takes a day off because the stream cant see it.. But since MLG is selfish and wont give up their exclusivity rights for Cod to help grow the community like UMG and 360Icons did. But what does MLG do when they see another company growing along with the community? They buy them out and completly ruin them so everyone is forced to watch their production. Plus their Pro point system is the biggest monopoly I have ever came across, they literally make it required to pay money and play every online tourney they think up just to try and get enough pro points to be able to get a decent seed in a tourney or their leagues. Why make so many pro point tourneys if the same teams usually win everytime? Why waste everyones money? They could do the same things they do now while also making it cost efficient to every player and team. They used to have online qualifiers which were just 1 or 2 big scale online tourneys with lots of support to fill their pro leagues and Closed pro bracket, they intentially changed it not for the growth of esports but solely on the profit from it.  If there is anything you can take away from this rant, whatever you do push away from MLG monopolizing Halo as well, because they will, and they will ruin it for profit. Thanks guys!

[Clap]

I have been a Professional Call of Duty players since Mw2, and have just recently started playing Halo competitively and will be focusing on H5. I have played in many MLG Events and MLG Online leagues.  I have seen them grow and what their focus has turned to, and its not productive to any Gaming community. It literally killed Call of Duty. Yeah they still get substantial viewing numbers and lan turnouts, but by now after many years of them producing it I pictured Call of Duty being x5 bigger and in Black ops 2 they could of changed cod esports forever but just didnt do enough in my opinion. The biggest tournament offered is still Call of Duty champs, NOT a MLG event. To this day I still love the way MLG treats their pros, but they dont understand the amature payers are the future. The way they hold their open bracket tournaments are absolutely horrible, its like the first day of open bracket everyone takes a day off because the stream cant see it.. But since MLG is selfish and wont give up their exclusivity rights for Cod to help grow the community like UMG and 360Icons did. But what does MLG do when they see another company growing along with the community? They buy them out and completly ruin them so everyone is forced to watch their production. Plus their Pro point system is the biggest monopoly I have ever came across, they literally make it required to pay money and play every online tourney they think up just to try and get enough pro points to be able to get a decent seed in a tourney or their leagues. Why make so many pro point tourneys if the same teams usually win everytime? Why waste everyones money? They could do the same things they do now while also making it cost efficient to every player and team. They used to have online qualifiers which were just 1 or 2 big scale online tourneys with lots of support to fill their pro leagues and Closed pro bracket, they intentially changed it not for the growth of esports but solely on the profit from it.  If there is anything you can take away from this rant, whatever you do push away from MLG monopolizing Halo as well, because they will, and they will ruin it for profit. Thanks guys!

 

Interesting that this is your first post Most of what you said is not true and actually not applicable to MLG.

• Our open brackets at events are the best in eSports for this type of competition. You might be thinking of other event operators, but this is false.
• Call of Duty champs IS the biggest event...but is that bad? It is a $1,000,000 publisher funded event. MLG will award OVER $1.5 million this year for Call of Duty between live events and Gamebattles (all 100% funded by us), operate 3 seasons of Pro League, hand out 12 X Games medals, and operate Call of Duty in a massive theater to close out the game. 
• Call of Duty viewership and pro activity has sky rocketed since we have been operating. Call of Duty used to max around 15,000 peak concurrent for non CoD Champs events, now we are regularly over 100k with as high as 205k. Additionally we went from 7,000 pro points players globally in Black Ops 2 to nearly 150,000 in AW. You can say what you want but we grew the competitive footprint, period.
• Lack of Events? We have operated 100 events in 12 years with 50,000+ live competitors and over 1,000,000 live spectators awarding nearly $10,000,000 in prize money (another additional $4-5,000,000 on GB). All of those stats are #1 in this space for 3rd party operators. We took our foot off the event pedal the last 2 years to focus on our platforms, but 2016 will be a different story.

We are all for an open and inclusive system for any game. Keep in mind that the Call of Duty situation was also driven by the publisher who tasked us with being the sanctioning body for the activity. I can understand the criticisms around the MLG.tv exclusivity for our content, but everything else you said is really unfair and in most cases not true.

[BuZZ]

Interesting that this is your first post Most of what you said is not true and actually not applicable to MLG.

• Our open brackets at events are the best in eSports for this type of competition. You might be thinking of other event operators, but this is false.
• Call of Duty champs IS the biggest event...but is that bad? It is a $1,000,000 publisher funded event. MLG will award nearly $1.5 million this year for Call of Duty between live events and Gamebattles (all 100% funded by us), operate 3 seasons of Pro League, hand out 12 X Games medals, and operate Call of Duty in a massive theater to close out the game.
• Call of Duty viewership and pro activity has sky rocketed since we have been operating. Call of Duty used to max around 15,000 peak concurrent for non CoD Champs events, now we are regularly over 100k with as high as 205k. Additionally we went from 7,000 pro points players globally in Black Ops 2 to nearly 150,000 in AW. You can say what you want but we grew the competitive footprint, period.
• Lack of Events? We have operated 100 events in 12 years with 50,000+ live competitors and over 1,000,000 live spectators awarding nearly $10,000,000 in prize money. All of those stats are #1 in this space for 3rd party operators. We took our foot off the event pedal the last 2 years to focus on our platforms, but 2016 will be a different story.

We are all for an open and inclusive system for any game. Keep in mind that the Call of Duty situation was also driven by the publisher who tasked us with being the sanctioning body for the activity. I can understand the criticisms around the MLG.tv exclusivity for our content, but everything else you said is really unfair and in most cases not true.

Clap still setting the record straight on boards all these years later.