Note: It’s been 10 months since our last blog post. The purpose of this post is to clear some confusion, correct some incorrect information floating around regarding ElDewrito, and update everyone on what we’ve been doing since last April. It’s been a roller-coaster of events since then. There are some things I can not speak about, such as features or scope of MCC that have not already been publicly announced/discussed by 343, but I’ve been granted permission to speak about certain things, including any meetings that took place that were not under NDA. But first….
Some Thanks Are in Order
There are so many people who’ve helped the team along the way to make ElDewrito what it is today. As of the time of writing of this post, ElDewrito players have played over 1 million games since 0.6′s launch; 1,101,115 games to be exact. We have been humbled by the support of the players, the creativity of the forgers who have made amazing maps, and the hosters who have kept a steady supply of ElDewrito servers to play on.
- Thanks to the previous ElDewrito devs who are no longer active. The groundwork you layed out gave us the means opportunity to deliver 0.6 successfully.
- The server hosts who volunteer their own hardware to keep plenty of ED servers up. The ElDewrito team does not host a single server - All are ran by you, the community. An extra special thanks to those that are hosting the ranked and social servers.
- Thanks to all of the 0.6 testers. Over 3000 full-lobby test games were played prior to the launch of 0.6, and without this extensive testing, 0.6 could have been 0.5 all over again.
- The forge map makers who put in countless hours recreating maps as well as designing completely original maps. We’ve been extremely impressed with the creativity this community has.
Despite the posts saying goodbye to ElDewrito and the thanks we are giving out, do not be mistaken; the mod is not dead, nor is it inactive or going away. In fact, it’s the most popular it has been in many many months. Within the reddit post, I have made a comment regarding some statistics detailing the million+ games played.
Our Involvement with 343
On April 24, four days after we released 0.6, the few of the more active members of the ElDewrito team met with certain 343 employees and other members of the Halo Universe, including Frank O’ Conner, the Halo Franchise Development Director. Our initial meeting, which was not under NDA and therefor did not touch on the topic of MCC at all, was about ElDewrito and a simple request that we pause development. After the success of our 0.6 release, where we had 12,000 concurrent players, they were professional, impressed, congratulatory, and even sympathetic and apologetic about the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Microsoft issuing DMCA takedowns against Halo Online and Twitch Streamers. They publicly released this statement:
“One thing remains clear – the community really wants more Halo on PC. As we look ahead, we’re very excited about the prospects of an official classic Halo experience making its way to PC and we hope to be able to partner with the ElDewrito team and broader mod and content creation community to help inform the types of experiences and features our fans desire. While we have nothing to announce today, please know that the PC community is very important to us and top of mind as we work towards the future. “
They mentioned to us that our success with ElDewrito lit a spark and we were told it “gave us a kick in the pants”. MCC has obviously always been planned to eventually be on PC, but was never on the current roadmap. So while ElDewrito is not responsible for MCC coming to PC, it is responsible for it coming to PC right now. So for that, the ElDewrito team would like to thank you, the community, for spreading the word, playing ElDewrito with such positive reactions, and enjoying the game we poured our hearts and souls into; ElDewrito is what set MCC PC in motion.
After that initial meeting, our small group of 5 met on occasion with 343 to discuss their future plans, gather opinions, and discuss and how they would like us to be involved in MCC on PC’s development. We have been acting as an advisory board prior to the Halo Insider program to help them shape the MCC experience. While we were brought in by 343 for our particular set area of expertise, we unfortunately have not been actively doing any technical work with them for some time now due to our area of expertise (modding) not being needed at this time. However, as Ske7ch/343 bublically mentioned in the Reddit AMA, modding is on the roadmap for a future time, and they have been focusing on bringing Halo:Reach into MCC. Here are a couple of questions you may have, which have been answered by 343 directly already.
Will MCC have modding tools and/or Steam Workshop support? And splitscreen?
“We are working closely with the members of the modding community (including some friends on the ElDewrito team) to explore our options for "official” mod support, but we won’t have this at launch. Our #1 priority for launch is ensuring we get each of these core games “right” for PC and security/anti-cheat is a big focus. As we’ve stated, this entire offering will grow and evolve over time.”
So to reiterate, MCC will not have any sort of modding capabilities on launch, but they have stated that they want to add support later down the road, and plan to work with our team to achieve this.
What about forge/theater?
The initial launch of MCC will not include any forge or theater functionality. Again, as they stated in AMA, it is planned for later. Below is a quote from the AMA:
“Forge and Theater are awesome features but as we learned with Halo 5: Forge, these features require a lot of extra work and diligence to bring to PC - particularly with the complexities of M/KB and remappable key-bindings. With this in mind, Forge and Theater for Reach won’t be ready at the same time as the MP/Campaign/Firefight experiences on PC. From a development perspective, it makes more sense for the team to tackle Reach’s Forge/Theater a little later in the roadmap at the same time as Halo 3 and Halo 4 work.”
While we are beyond excited that MCC is coming to PC and this is fantastic news for all Halo Fans, many of us are a little disappointed in what is being offered on launch. ElDewrito 0.6 didn’t just attempt to bring a Halo game to PC, it brought it with a very fresh experience while keeping the Original, classic “Yep This Is Halo” feeling. An insanely enhanced forge, and a plethora of gametype and player trait customization never before seen in a Halo game. While we feel that this is a crucial aspect that should be included on launch to keep players interested with the limited initial content, we are very glad that modding support and forge are on the roadmap for a future time, and look forward to helping 343 shape this aspect of MCC.
There are a couple of tings we particularly commend/respect 343 for, including the following:
- Learning from some of the mistakes of the Xbox One MCC. 343 has made it clear that this will be released “when it’s ready”, which is the same approach we had with Eldewrito 0.6. There won’t be a broken release followed by two years of silence with MCC PC; it will be released when flighting has proved it is ready to be released.
- Increased transparency/communication with the player-base. This has been very important for the ElDewrito team and we are glad that 343 has gone to great lengths to keep the community updated with accurate information.
We are not at liberty to reveal anything else regarding our involvement with 343.
What are we doing now?
What any group of Halo Modders and reverse engineers would do. Continue to mod and reverse engineer Halo. Regardless of the future of MCC on PC, the team isn’t going anywhere. We’ve never stopped reverse engineering the game, engine, and resources.
Since last April, we’ve learned so much, and have been able to do some incredible things, some of which were thought to be impossible, and you will be seeing some of this work in the near future in the form of an update.
Bottom Line: This is in not in any way a goodbye. The ElDewrito team is not going anywhere, and you’ll be seeing a hell of a lot more from us in the future, whether it be in the existing ElDewrito mod, or MCC PC itself.
As always, we will keep the community informed of our activities.
Feel free to ask questions on the reddit post where this was linked. We will answer what we are allowed to answer. The future is bright my friends, and it’s time to be patient now. As for the ED team, "I think we’re just getting started.”
Til next time (Soon™),
RabidSquabbit