Bungie dodged a bullet earlier in the month when they announced that online co-op would indeed be included in the final release of Halo 3. Then they even 1-upped themselves and made it 4-player online cooperative.
However, whereas before they saved themselves from the wrath of their fans, this time they might not be so safe. Bungie community manager Frankie has been heard saying things all over their forums that indicate that clan support will be absent from the online modes out of the box.
He doesn’t rule out the possibility of it being added later as a patch, but as of now he stated that in Halo 2 it ended up being a glorified second friends list.
One of the things that made Halo 2 such a legendary online multiplayer experience was the fact that everything was so seamless, and you could do anything on that console that you could in a PC multiplayer shooter (except mod of course).
I just don’t understand the idea of removing a feature that appeals directly to your biggest fans.
I wholeheartedly believe that the feature will be added via a patch, though. This sounds like Frankie offering up a preemptive excuse before Bungie is on the defensive. The honest truth is that they’re probably running behind and don’t have time to implement the feature. It’s sort of a lame excuse. Not entirely unlike forgetting to feed your girlfriend’s cat while she’s out of town and then offering the consolation, "The cat was old anyways. It was gonna die sooner or later."
