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‘Halo: Master Chief Collection’ Multiplayer Patch Coming, Championship Series And Other Leagues Delayed

By Scott Grill
Published on: 10:14 PST, Nov 16, 2014

The launch week of Halo: The Master Chief Collection was messy as the Xbox One exclusive suffered networking issues that crippled the game’s multiplayer. Developer 343 Industries has released some server-side updates to help with connectivity, but they are not coming until Wednesday. However, this has already caused issues with the Halo Championship Series, and even the Grifball league.

Executive Producer Dan Ayoub provided an update Saturday on Halo Waypoint about the state of the Halo: The Master Chief Collection. While apologizing for the issues again, he stated that the server-side updates have “shown a 20 percent increase in server connectivity.”

The first update that Halo: MCC owners will have to download is currently aiming for a Wednesday release. It is currently going through Microsoft’s certification process now and focuses on “Matchmaking performance, non-matchmaking bugs, and a variety of title-specific issues.” Developer 343 Industries Franchise Director Frank O’Connor recently confirmed on NeoGAF that the issue that has caused the issue has been identified. “I promise you I will give you a full breakdown of what happened (and its multiple compounding things) after we fix it all,” he wrote. He also provided a tip to ensure that you see “In Lobby” text above the roster box on the right-hand side of the screen when trying to connect to multiplayer matches.

My personal experience has gone from not being able to play at all Wednesday to being able to connect to matches after multi-minute waits. Community experiences reported on NeoGAF, Reddit, and elsewhere have varied greatly though. Some players have not been able to fully connect to Halo: MCC multiplayer, while others still can’t connect at all. These problems have caused 343 Industries to delay the start of the Halo Championship Series. Andrew “Bravo” Dudynsky announced, “The first pre-season online cup was originally scheduled for 11.16, however, we’ve decided to postpone until the following week, as 343 Industries is focused on resolving existing matchmaking issues. This delay will ensure that the first pre-season cup is up to the standards of our fans and competitors. We’re now targeting 11.23 for the first online pre-season cup, and will provide updates should anything change.”

The issues affecting Halo: MCC also extend to the Grifball league run by Grifballhub. The league organizers wrote, “due to the terrible state of the Master Chief Collection, running a Grifball league on the new console at this time is in doubt.”

While there the connection issues are obviously a problem, Grifballers have a long list of issues with Halo: MCC that prevent a successfully run Grifball tournament from happening. They include not being able to download custom gametypes, missing Forge features that were originally in Halo 3 and Halo 4, plus the last-minute announcement by 343 Industries that custom games are run on P2P connections instead of dedicated servers.

What are your thoughts on the state of Halo: The Master Chief Collection so far? Share them below.

[Image via Halo Waypoint]

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