Pro Style Playlists in H2: a Possibility, or Wishful Thinking?
Article Written by: Conor "SolidSmoke" McClain

When Halo 2 hit consoles on November 9th, gamers began their first experiences with Bungie’s new style of Xbox Live gaming, with their innovative and controversial “Matchmaking”, along with its accompanying playlists at the core of the community. Plenty of Xbox Live gamers found things to complain about.

First and foremost, to veterans of Xbox Live was the absence of the nearly omni-present server lists that dominated most games like Rainbow Six 3 and Project Gotham Racing. The server lists allowed gamers to create and join servers at will and easily get games rolling with whomever they wanted and whatever settings they pleased. Bungie decided to favor keeping an evenly sloped competitive field through a more meaningful level system than most other games employ, and more or less forcing players to frag others at roughly equivalent levels as they moved up through the ranking system. In their own words, in the matchmaking overview faq found here, “our ranking system is not about bragging rights, it's about helping people find challenging but fair games, the types of games we consider the most enjoyable.”

It is a lack of capability to create and join public servers that has created one of the major problems facing competitive H2 players today: How do I find enough other players on Live who like to play prevailing tournament rules? (A BR over an SMG start being by FAR the greatest contention between Bungie and tournament players). Due to the mechanics of Bungie’s matchmaking system, the only access a player has to custom games of their favorite leagues rules is through their friends and clan lists, a method that is very inadequate for any player who is not already entrenched in a community of custom players. There are of course other ways for competitive gamers to meet such as the IRC network, Gamesurge, which is host to a myriad of Halo meeting rooms, many dedicated to particular leagues. There are also a number of forums erected throughout the net where dedicated players can congregate. Still, it is a shame that competitive tournament players have to work so hard just to play the types of setups they want.

However, it is nearly impossible that public servers will ever be introduced into H2. Even if it can be done, the draining effect it would have on the H2 population engaged in Bungie’s matchmaking setup would be enough to disrupt the flow of the whole matchmaking system. The only hope for would-be pro gamers to rectify the problem then is for a playlist that caters to a competitive, tournament style. This can be done without disrupting or stealing too many players from the regular playlists. As I sit here typing this article, 96,000 players are currently logged into Live on H2. That is more then enough people to fill out an additional couple of playlists. Bungie has announced the likely creation of a 2v2 playlist after already adding the Team Slayer list due to public demand. Clearly Bungie was prepared to expand the playlists before the game was even shipped. Some players have taken it upon themselves to start badgering Bungie for a playlist they can call their own, enough to elicit this response in the aforementioned announcement on the 2v2 playlist found here: “Please do not spam this thread with copy/paste messages regarding MLG (Major League Gaming) settings.” Perhaps if enough players hound Bungie in this way a new Pro/Tournament style playlist will be added in the same way that TS was added in reponse to public demand. However, demanding the basis for such change on a specific league like MLG will never work. It must be more general in concept to really gain Bungie’s acceptance. Even if enough players petition, there are other things that can get in the way of the creation of such a playlist.

As of now, Bungie’s premier competitive playlists are the minor and major clan battles which were created to facilitate Live 3.0’s clan support, and give clans the opportunity to battle it out for rank. They are obviously intended to represent the most serious games and challenges to the players. If a Pro/Tournament playlist were introduced, it would instantly undermine the credibility (for the average gamer that is, there is none left in the eyes of most hardcore) of Minor and Major clanmatches. Can Bungie stomach that? The possible widespread irrelevance of their premier playlists? The answer in this author’s mind is “no.” If Bungie’s going to come along on the ride with Pro gamers and the type of dedicated players that made the first Halo such a long term success, they wont be able to travel halfway, they will have to buckle down and be prepared to take a new look at what makes Halo 2 competitive. If Bungie’s willing to listen to the Pro/Tournament players and swallow their druthers, then it’s possible for things to happen. Minor and Major clanmatches themselves could have more Pro style settings. If they really listened, they could change the settings of the whole roster of playlists, but that’s getting ahead of things. In any case, no game has suffered from the developer taking suggestions and listening openly to their games best players, a segment of the H2 community Bungie barely seems to recognize lately.

Professional and Tournament H2 competition will live on successfully, regardless of how Bungie reacts to the petitioning for easier access to those styles of games. But it will grow much more slowly and remain a lesson in irony for those highly competitive players faced with the difficult and cumbersome task of finding the right games in a system that was designed to free the player from searching for games at all. Its not impossible that some sort of compromise can be made, but the right minds will have to change and, as the saying goes, only time (and determination) will tell.