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General Category => Tech Support and Chat => Frequently Asked Questions => Topic started by: MrMxyzptlk on November 25, 2010, 09:39:23 AM

Title: OH NOES! The Halo Gamespy Lobby is DOWN/GONE!?!
Post by: MrMxyzptlk on November 25, 2010, 09:39:23 AM

(Created this so I no longer have to post this in every thread someone creates every time the GameSpy Halo Lobby is down!  ::) )


NOTICE: The Halo GameSpy Lobby is UNRELIABLE and may be inactive - or even GONE! - at ANY TIME.

GameSpy's agreement with Microsoft (the owner of the game, NOT Bungie!) was up over a year ago and has been running without attention or maintenance for some time.  It only remains up as long as some nice soul there decides to leave it up!

P.S. ...And Micro$oft has no interest in keeping the Halo PC stuff up,
since they'd rather you used their proprietary Live! system(s)!....  :bang:

Title: Re: OH NOES! The Halo Gamespy Lobby is DOWN/GONE!?!
Post by: Jä× on November 27, 2010, 01:47:56 AM

So my question is will the affect us joining via IP/Xfire, or does it only affect the ingame lobby.

Title: Re: OH NOES! The Halo Gamespy Lobby is DOWN/GONE!?!
Post by: BFM_JANE on November 27, 2010, 01:55:26 AM

I should think it would only affect the in-game lobby since the servers are paid for by a separate group. The GameSpy Lobby gets all the servers in one, easy-to-search location. It's when the server providers stop offering Halo servers that things will really die. Most people won't run a server in their home probably.

Of course, I may be wrong here. :P

Title: Re: OH NOES! The Halo Gamespy Lobby is DOWN/GONE!?!
Post by: MrMxyzptlk on November 27, 2010, 07:40:19 PM

Quote from: ­­«_Jäסñç_» on November 27, 2010, 01:47:56 AM

So my question is will the affect us joining via IP/Xfire, or does it only affect the ingame lobby.

No, it will not affect joining a server via other means.

Ya, it's not clear how long "commercially-supported, non-individual" servers will continue to exist, but there's nothing going on today that I've heard of to stop supplying/supporting them....

...Except from Micro$oft, due to the Xbox Live stuff....

(Interesting that the biggest competition for players in "publicly-accessible" servers is ... from the game's originator itself....   ::)  )



*UPDATE* 2011-04-21: There is an Open Source effort to make a replacement for the GameSpy Lobby that is currently in testing.


*UPDATE-UPDATE* 2012-07-26: >Sigh< The open source effort to create a generic on-line gaming "lobby" turned into a "tools" effort instead of an actual application. I.e. They've produced a common set of program tools for finding and tracking servers and players, but you have to be a software programmer to make use of the tools.  :doh:

I will not be making any recommendations for any programs that result from this effort. Sorry.  ::)

Title: Re: OH NOES! The Halo Gamespy Lobby is DOWN/GONE!?!
Post by: BFM_SüprM@ñ on December 10, 2012, 09:16:43 PM

In light of Glu's acqusition of Gamespy and their policy towards multiplayer servers, I would like to propose a plan in the event the lobby is gone tomorrow. While this would take time and effort from many, I propose website be constructed using server monitoring software already in place to act as a go-between of sorts. My proposition would include any and all dedicated servers and list them categorically by gametype. It would be akin to skorcard, in a sense, in it's ability to monitor multpile servers at a time. I suggest that it simply be a list however as adding forums to it could create a number of issues. I am not asking anyone to do such  thing, be it a clan or an individual. I am simply throwing an idea out there. Comments, suggestions? Let's see what we can do before Glu has a chance to catch us unprepared.

Title: Re: OH NOES! The Halo Gamespy Lobby is DOWN/GONE!?!
Post by: MrMxyzptlk on December 28, 2012, 10:22:52 AM

Actually... think about what's going on here for a moment: It's not just that we won't be able to find available servers when it goes down, it's the larger problem that no one's even mentioned here:

THERE WILL BE NO SERVER TO AUTHENTICATE HASH KEYS EITHER

This means THAT NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO EVEN START AN INTERNET/MULTIPLAYER GAME


As I see it, there are three possible outcomes:

1) It all goes into the trash can and multi-player Internet Halo (Combat Evolved) play goes bye bye.

2) They realize that there is no longer any need to authenticate users of an ancient game and disable authentication completely, allowing anyone to play the game freely. (And there is no centralized means to find servers through a lobby sanctioned by MS....)

3) They keep it all running (such as it is) and #1 or #2 are postponed a bit longer.


My money's on #3....