Halo 3 isn't my favorite online game, but I can definitely say it's the most polished and IMHO best setup out there. It has the best host selection and it was the only game I know of that has host migration (in 2007), MW2 has pretty bad Host migration that often fails. H3 even has a pretty good system in place to deal with lag. It has many playlists for both ranked and social, and also uses TruSkill matchmaking very well for fair competitive matches.

I do agree that you should be able to play your custom games with strangers though, it can be fun. But I really don't see how you can compare Halo 3 to Wii Friends Codes, IMO that is the sorriest excuse for an online system I have ever seen.

Gears 1 had Ranked and Player matches. Basically Player matches would allow you to do what you can't in Halo 3, COD and even Gears 2. It was kind of like a server list like many PC games use.

Gears 1 Player Matches
*Host your own open lobby
*Choose your Map
*Choose your Game Type
*Choose your Weapon setup
*Boot Players you don't want in your game (This can be abused)
*Join the match with the best ping
*Turn on Friendly Fire

Random players can join/leave as they wish. Your hosted game shows up on a list of lobbies and you pick the one with the setup you want to play. In the list it will show Map, Gametype and whether or not Weapons have been changed or if friendly fire is on. Ranked is very similar, but you can't change a few things like weapons, friendly fire and a few other things.

It was perfect, you could basically play what you want however you want. I have no idea why they removed this from Gears 2 and replaced it with a crippled, broken Match
Making system. Because of this Gears 2 is one of the Laggiest games I have ever played.

If they set up a good MatchMaking sytem for Ranked, and add some lobby system for player matches like Gears had I think it would be perfect.

for me, an online match on The Conduit takes about 4 minutes to get ready.

despite being a really good and solid experience online, it takes too much to play, so I just ignored it completely.

Hope they fix this for their upcoming games.

SmokedHostage said: Severance said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FFIGyOReNo That was old, the first time you used it.

i'll use it whenever the topic seems silly

if you were to host your own game with your specs, imagine how hard one random person is going to pick yours over the hundreds of others if you want a server list of games.

You honestly need to play the game a bit more, recieve an invite accept it, as the lobby grows you become friends with these people then you can ask them can i has recon with the shotty on the map blam!.....

I love getting 3 other guys in a party and running through the different play lists. Our team vs some other party of 4. New team every time. They are there the entire game, we are there the entire game, no jump ins. Team vs team. I happen to think matchmaking is the best thing to happen to online gaming.