Halo 2 still kinda alive, thanks to some fans

by David Hinkle on Apr 29th 2010 3:30AM

When the sun set on the Xbox Live service for original Xbox games on April 15, some Halo 2 players decided they just didn't want to let go. So they've been in-game and have left their consoles running past the designated April 15 shutdown, staying in Halo 2 for almost two weeks now. They're going to flip when they see their electric bills!

This thread over on the Bungie forums lists the numerous individuals still online in Halo 2, the last few people able to play the game online ever. Determined not to abandon it until they're forcibly removed by Bungie or Microsoft (or their consoles blow up, which is a very real possibility), you can clearly see each individual's commitment via their profile page on Xbox.com:

You gotta give it to these guys for their perseverance. Sometimes, you just can't accept something coming to an end. That's why we've never gotten around to watching the series finale of Who's The Boss?.

[Via CNET]

Source

Tags: bungie, halo-2, Microsoft, original-xbox, xbox-1, Xbox-360, xbox-live, xbox-originals

Reader Comments (89)

You have to salute them for their perseverance, shine on you crazy diamonds!

Quite literally Halo legends!

I salute their lack of real life.

@SewerShark Umm... You do realise that they can leave their console on and NOT touch it therefore having more of a life than you do trolling these comments?

Takes oddballs of steel to do what they're doing. Bud Light should do a real men of genius for these dudes.

"xxMAKDADYxx"

Just had to be one of these guys still playing.

im guessing they will get off when the halo reach beta comes out, lol.

Halo: Reach isn't much different than Halo 3 - are jetpacks enough to make Halo 2 fanatics (yes, I call them that because they're STILL logged into a shut down game 2+ weeks after) jump ship?

this is also assuming that they have an xbox360. You do know that Halo 2 was an original Xbox game, right?

most of them are/were playing on 360's... only a couple people out of the last 20-30 were on original xbox's.

Wait so as long as they remain signed in then they can play online matches with each other? Just want to know if that is correct. Oh and dang these guys are dedicated just comes to show that sometimes its just to hard to let go, hell I went through a depression when Dragonball GT and Yu Yu Hakusho ended lol.

I thought GT sucked so much I just pretended it didn't even exist :P

There is no GT. It would be a terrible idea to create something after Z especially in lackluster manner with whiney characters, a pesophile doll collector, and plain horrible plot. Yup...that would be horrible. Thank god it doesn't really exist.

This is the tactic I take when confronted with the possibility that there was a 4th Indiana Jones

the real question is how are they still connected. if the server gets turned off, it gets turned off. at that point it doesn't matter if you leave it the application (in this case halo 2) open or not.

Yeah I wondered about that too. I looked around and the closest thing to an explanation is a loophole. Maybe a fail-safe and exception in programming that prevents the server software/service from shutting down if someone's still connected?

The other thing was that another blog site called it a "block" (could just be metaphorical and not technical). I'm not familiar with how Live services work but it said that when the servers were turned off Live would block players from playing Halo 2 online. So I guess they don't kick you out and block you if you're already in there.

Halo2 must be peer2peer, I think anyway.

The microsoft servers must have only been doing matchmaking and not doing any sort of hosting. Once the matches had been made 1 xbox would be automatically delegated to be master and the rest to be clients so as long as they keep their xboxes on the matches will be live, but no one new will be able to join because they wont see the matches running. Ultimately its all dependant on the xbox client acting as the halo server still running, once that goes all of them go because there is no matchmaking server to fall back on because Microsoft has pulled the plug on it.

Frankly taking this into account Microsoft could have very easily reduced the amount of servers and kept the server running at reduced capacity.. I dont see why they had to remove the service completely..

Well apparently (and I heard this from Giantbomb) Microsoft only shut off Matchmaking services meaning that pretty much everyone else can't get into Halo 2. However, if you are already playing a game, it won't kick you out.

Live's peer to peer direct connections, i imagine. All Live does for any online game is simply finds someone else and connects you to them (then many more times over for larger multiplayer games), once that connection is made, Live is removed from the picture

A technicality that Microsoft could have worked around if they had thought people might do something like this, but these companies always tend to underestimate fan tenacity.

"Frankly taking this into account Microsoft could have very easily reduced the amount of servers and kept the server running at reduced capacity.. I dont see why they had to remove the service completely.."

If they didn't kill the original Live, they wouldn't be able to upgrade the components shared with the 360 version of Live (friends list, etc.)

the servers are still up, in some capacity at least. yes, the games are p2p once they're started, but all the matchmaking is by the servers, and i've personally witnessed these people play matchmade games since the 15th on the live streams they have going. what i'm pretty sure is happening is that MS simply blocked new access to the servers, but hasn't booted anyone still on. this is probably because they're not ready yet to make an update to Live. i bet once that update is ready to go, they will fully shut down the servers and kick off whoever is left.

I suspect it's because all the server does is track stats (?) and set up the match making at the start. Once in the system everything is peer to peer I spose. Thats the only way this makes any kind of sense to me.

Someone tell them Halo 2 is on PC with improved graphics.

So that service is still up? (If Live on windows, or whatever, stayed logged in for more then 15 mins... i'd be playin Halo 2 right now prolly xD)

Yes, Halo 2 for PC will continue to run. It sort of makes this 'protest' kind of redundant.

I'm guessing someone already told them that Halo 2 PC sucks, and that it's probably more dead than Halo 2 on Xbox. Halo 1 PC is still alive and doing well though.

I hear they have become quite the team.. a family you might say. Nothing says family like murderizing each other in halo 2 death matches.

This must be how families deal with loss.. deny that their loved ones are gone and live in a virtual world of multi-colored space men and their magic puma truck.

didn't i tell you to quit makin up animals?

yeah, i've been talking with them for a while over at the livestreams they've had running; they're cool people. they're not doing this for any kind of prize other than being able to play halo 2 online.

I'd be very interested to hear which of the remaining people are using original Xbox's, 360, even the exact models, this would be some interesting heat data.

*sigh*

i've been hanging out in the live streams with these people, and first, only one or two people are left using original xboxes. almost all of the last 30 at least were 360's. second, LEAVING YOUR 360 ON OR EXTENDED PERIODS WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF RROD OR OVERHEATING. god damn, you have no idea how many times i've had to explain this to people at the livestream. leaving your xbox on is actually safer than turning it on and off a lot. this is because turning it on and off heats and cools the solder, making the solder expand and contract. the deal with RROD is that MS used this brittle lead-free solder, and so all the heating and cooling can eventually break a connection (usually at the GPU).

I never said anything about the original Xbox being more heat resistant, I'd expect the last people will be using jasper 360's.

but even the Jasper 360's shouldn't necessarily last any longer for these people than older 360's. i'd bet that over 90% of RROD's occur when people turn on their consoles, because it was the last cycle of off/on that killed it. once the boxes are on, they're pretty safe until they're turned off.

I'm not really talking about RROD's, just any heat glitch that makes them unable to continue playing, there must be something making the number of people still on drop, I doubt it's just power failures.

Dare me to find out were they live and flip the Main Power switch to off? These dudes will probably Ninja Flip out they're windows and chase me with a chainsaw.

WTF ISP are these people using? WANT!!! Mine doesn...

... 't stay on for the life of me!

That's very well demonstrated joke, planned or not.

Obviously planned and very well executed.

@Reinhart -

That's a very obvious comment, planned or not.

What's even cooler is his ISP automatically adds ellipses (...) to the end of all conversations when it drops a connection, then puts them back in at the beginning of the first conversation when reconnecting. That is cool.

@Foetoid: Yeah I don't know why I added the not, I always add those "just in case" tidbits. My mind skips over ellipses that ends the sentence.

@Deezul

So his ISP is kind of like Candle Jack and das-

bravo

Two days ago it ws 14 players left, now it's 9. Lord knows I would love to known as the "last person to play Halo 2 on XBOX LIVE". Good luck everyone, keep on keep'n on!

9? Obviously according to my brain the counting system goes like this 1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..24!

Hey, I played KnfieFightYaDad in BF:BC2! I think he was my nemesis.

That's funny I for sure had him as a team mate in either BF:BC2 demo or 1943!

Small world.

It's not really still alive, more-so being unnaturally prevented from dying by obsessed fans.

Halo 2 - the Terri Schiavo of video games.

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Halo 2 still kinda alive, thanks to some fans

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