Phase 2 of participant selection for the Halo 3 beta has come and gone and someone somewhere should be ashamed. For the record, as far as I can tell I succeeded in getting in and even if I did not, I already pre-ordered the Xbox 360 game Crackdown (pre-ordered and specially marked copies include a beta invite). So, it is without personal anger that I criticize the whole affair.
Phase 1 of the beta was a free-for-all sign up with a chance to be selected based on whatever criteria Bungie saw fit. Phase 3 just requires that you purchase a special copy of Crackdown. Phase 2 is the one that required real, genuine work. Yes, hopefuls had to slave away for three hours playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live. I know, I know–the absolute horror of it all.
Bungie posted the exact rules for Phase 2 in a news update. In summary, two things had to be done:
- Play three hours of Halo 2 on Xbox Live during February 1 – 3.
- On February 5 go to Halo3.com and sign up.
The first 13,333 to sign up that had also played for three hours (and met other requirements such as having an Xbox 360!) would be accepted into the beta program.
The instructions failed to specify what time on February 5 registration would begin. How this could possibly be overlooked is unimaginable. An educated guess would be 12 a.m., but this still doesn’t take care of time zones.
It didn’t matter though: 12 a.m. in every time zone arrived and fervent page-refreshers were disappointed. No registration, no update, no nothing. Even semi-likely times like 3:33 a.m. passed without incident. Not only were those eager to get into the beta faced with numerous competitors, they had to spend hours playing another game and then theoretically make sure they had access to the internet for 24 hours because there was no indication when they could sign up. One forum member suggested, after waiting for hours to no avail, that you were supposed to come back Feb 5, 2008 because no date was specified either.
Finally, at approximately 10:04 a.m. (Pacific time) registration started, but it came with another unnecessary stumbling block. “Halo3.com,” where the instructions said to go sign up, did not change at all. You could patiently wait all day, refreshing every 2 seconds, and never know that registration had zoomed past you. Halo3.com kept its stoic flash animation with a link to another page that had “all the facts” on the Halo 3 beta… including the “fact” that Halo3.com was where you should head to register.
The “all the facts” page was the one to inform people that it was time and at first the link to the registration page was in black text… on a black background. I can hardly believe I was lucky enough to head to the information page AND notice that anything had changed.
Regardless, enough people were still paying close enough attention to crash the registration page within 10 minutes. Yes, even Microsoft faces the “Amazon problem” of driving thousands of people to a single page that has to interact with a database only to be completely overwhelmed.
Really, three things should never have happened:
- The time for registration should have been given upfront.
- The page for registering should have been clearly identified.
- The registration page should have been obviously updated when the time came.
- Prepare your servers for the wave of visitors you know is coming (although I’m not sure this is even possible).
Try a little harder next time, please? There’s no reason to inflict any more than the minimum amount of pain on gamers hungry for any taste of Halo 3.