sigh, no its not a licensing scheme. The game as a whole runs on dedicated servers, its not a forge exclusive, nor was dedicated servers chosen with Forge in mind.
I want to - want Halo to run on dedicated servers - but still be able to choose if and when that happens.
343 suffers from this thing of not being able to piece a thought together, namely with its characters. They advertise the Spartan Branch as being the best of the best for the S-IV Program, yet Vale is able to join with no combat experience and beats pretty much everyone during training. Villians like Jul Mdama or Didact are introduced, given a TON of backstory from books and in game data and then kills them both off rather quickly in place of Cortana, which was a character confirmed by the head of 343 to be dead, deader then dead. Yet here is Cortana ruling the galaxy now, not to mention the fact that Chief's whole character development was ruined the moment Cortana came back into the picture. Palmer tries to be to much like the "Johnson" of Halo but just comes off as being a cold hearted **** who forgets where she started from to get to where she is now, referring anyone below her as "Others" or "Ladies" she's cocky and arrogant. Dr. Halsey hate train honestly pissed me off in the Kilo Five books simply because Dr. Halsey isn't a war criminal of any kind, she did her job and that was that, but with the new books, they've painted her as some sort of awful character that everyone should hate on, while at the same time joining the very program she helped create, as well as Ackerson with the S-III line of Spartans. Sorry for the tangent, let me get back on track here; 343industries is bad with planning. Like I said before, they introduce these two villains, Jul and the Didact and build them as this great threat, only to regret it mid way through, killing off the Didact in a comic, as well as kill off Jul Mdama like he was nothing, I hate getting invested into a series that goes nowhere, Halo is starting to become like that and its becoming old and stale. Characters are being killed off off screen like Spartan Black Team, or things mentioned in books (Hunters in the Dark; The Arks damage being very severe) yet in Halo Wars 2 footage, The Ark has no remains of Installation 04b anywhere on The Ark, let alone any damage the Halo ring caused to The Ark mentioned in Hunters in the Dark. 343industries just doesn't know how to plan anything out, let alone stick with an idea long enough...
They definitely need to add more social playlists like others have said... plus kids these days.. no mics..