Here's the original content from a post I made on RealLifeForums about the matchmaking system and a few other things you may have questions about.
I decided to create a dediocated sticky for Halo 2. Please post anything about Halo 2 except for spoilers,
Which has it's own Thread.
If you need help with a level, just tell us what level and someone will hopefully PM you about it.
You can post your GamerTag here, or in the
or the sticky about online gamingHow'd you get that Bungie.net thingy?The most common question I am getting so far is how I get the bungie.net in the background of my tag. To do this go to
www.bungie.net, create an account, go to "My Settings" and click on the "Web Settings" tab. the last option is to "Show Bungienet User Status in Halo2", turn that on.
The Ranking SystemAnother common question I am getting is how the ranking system works. This is something I am not concerned with at all, so I'm a little hazy on how it works. My understanding of it though is that you can wither go it alone, or start a matchmaking party for team games. In a solo matchmaking game you do not get the option to pick who you play with. This is done WITH GOOD REASON! Even though a lot of people are complaining about it.
The reason for this is so that you don't cheat your stats by joining a game with a bunch of friends who will let you boost your stats. The only way you can play a ranked game with people you know is by playing a team game and being on their team. The better you do, the higher your rank goes.
This method also pairs you up with players of a similar ranking so that you aren't completely outmatched.
The problem many people are having is that you can't pick the gametype you'd like to be in during one of these matchmaking games. Yeah it is annoying, but because of the way the game set-up was put together, it is pointless to be able to pick what kind of gametype you want to play.
The first and most important reason for this is because the host of the game can change the gametype in the pre-game lobby at any time they want, even after you join.
The second reason is that there are a ton of gametype varients. If you got to decide which gametype beforehand it would take forever to get a game full of people who all wanted to play the same gametype.
ClansI'm a little disappointed that you can only be in one clan at a time, but giving the option to have more than 5 or so would ruin the system, and if Bungie set any limit greater than one they would never hear the end of it from people saying "I want to be in more than just 3 (or whatever the top number was set to) clans! This is hte SUX Bungie!!!12w J0 R Hte SUX!!!22qw".
The clan system is much like the clan system in any online game. There are clan matches which are kept track and listed of over at
Bungie's site.There aren't enough players here at Real Life, even combined with AppleGeeks to make a decent clan, so I'm not going to start one.
What Happened to the No Spoilers Games?It just wasn't feasible. The way the Halo 2 online system is set-up is completely different from any other XBL game. Not to worry though, Out of all of the games I have played no one has said a word about the campaign mode. You really don't have anything to worry about.
As I said, I'm not completely clear on the matchmaking system, so I may make edits to that post once I learn more about it.
Here is the original post if you want to check it for corrections or to see what the RLFers have to say about things:
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