[Unklejoe]

There were basically VPN services back in the day that would allow you to play Halo CE over the internet with strangers (the game would think it's on a LAN).

This was before Xbox live (Halo CE didn't support live AFAIK), then even afterwards for modded consoles that got banned from live.

[oktwtf]

XBConnect and Xlink Kai if memory serves me right, and I think if you got crafty you could use the likes of Hamachi.

At first it was just fun to play online Halo, then we started diving into the files and modding game types and weapons. The Xbox was such a fantastic console. As someone whom had several GameSharks, hackable is so much of the fun.

[tehbeard]

Ah, XBConnect. So many fun memories.

Me and my brother connected across the Atlantic to a "server/game" on the east coast, I wanna say upstate New York maybe?

Fantastic bunch of dudes, the main one had a fat fiber pipe so 16 player matches were smooth.

We played alot of "party" style game modes (zombies and duck hunt type games)

And some modded game modes came about that were fantastic fun.

Cat and mouse on the Coagulation map, where the cats were in wraiths, and everyone could spawn in their own warthog to drive using the plasma pistol, wraiths were honour bound to not fire, boost only until the last minute, and hogs had to not hide in bases/caves.

There was also Tremors, with ghosts as the graboids.

XBConnect was solid enough that I could rig a network switch to my desktop, and both our consoles could work with it.

Lost touch with them after Halo 3 when system link above ~20ms got "blocked" :(

[emdashcomma]

I had a couple really long running matches on XBConnect. One in particular I remember was team shotguns on Lockout (Halo 2); the points-to-win was something absurd like 10,000 and it was lasted all day. People would come and go as the day went on. I took a nap, went outside, came back, picked up the controller, and got right back into it. Really not something, as far as I'm aware, you can do now on, e.g., Halo MCC over Xbox Live. Good times!

[candiddevmike]

XBConnect: when you thought your crew is the best in the area.

[throwaway6734]

Modding halo is what got me into programming.

[tmh88j]

Between soldering LED's into the controller ports, making the xbox logo in the center of the console light up and the xecuter3 modchip, I had so much fun modding the OG xbox. I was first exposed to IRC and FTP through the Xbox modding community. I thought my multi-colored boot screen[1] was the coolest thing ever. Anyone else make the golden warthog skin[2] for halo 2?!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIVLbVoJIvk&t=1m07s

[2] https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/gaming-urban-legends/image...

[Auracle]

My main high school income was from modding Xboxes. It was all just local kids but one of my friend’s brothers worked for a celebrity and one of the Xboxes was apparently featured on MTV’s Cribs so I called it quits.

[throwaway6734]

Our modded Xbox was done by my dad's friend at his work. Somehow I stumbled upon a halo modding forum and learned what I needed to do the most basic mods: ftp to pull the halo2 map files off of the box, using the signing tools to allow for modded maps to be played, and using a hex editor and modding tools to make the smg shoot tank rounds!

[keepquestioning]

Why was it possible to mod things like the Xbox, but seems impossible for the iPhone?

What is the key thing that makes it impossible for later tech?

[monocasa]

Secureboot style integrity systems that only boot into envs with ubiquitous signature validation and have lots of hardware protections to maintain that in the face of other bugs.

[throwaway6734]

I wonder if size of machine also adds to the difficulty of modding

[hattmall]

I use to play lots of Call of Duty BR1, I think, on Xlink Kai, it worked pretty well.

[vinnymac]

Gamespy Tunnel as well, although I was always more a fan of XBConnect.

[Rodeoclash]

And even before that we had services like Kali which would emulate a local network but over the internet for LAN only games. I remember using it to play MechWarrior 2.. poorly, the networking code was never designed to handle large latencies that you would get over modem.

[paranoidrobot]

Yep, Kali.

I remember using Kali to play Warcraft. It was tunnelling IPX over TCP/IP, on 28.8k dialup.

It was an amazingly good UX.

[zionic]

I remember the first time I hooked it up, finally found a connection, and connected my OG xbox to someone in the UK (!!!) to play halo CE with.

I was promptly called the N word and exploded on spawn again and again because it was a modded/hacked map.

It was still magical.

[sli]

I remember that, but I can't remember the name of it. I used it to play Counter-Strike online on my original Xbox before I had a PC capable of playing modern (at the time) games. It was well-populated enough that I could always find plenty of games. Godsend for a kid that couldn't afford the monthly fee for Live.