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Xbox Live Beta Report
mrquackers writes "CNN has an interesting article up giving its thoughts from the Xbox Live beta test. The system actually gets high marks for its ease of connectivity, matchmaking and voice communicator, but the writer doesn't seem convinced that Microsoft's going to have a big success with this (though he vows to do a better job of backing up that statement "next week")."
He mentioned trash talking. Does this mean the games with the headset can't be rated E? Perhaps MS could design a parental lockout for the headset to keep the games rated E. Or even include some of ther voice recognition software to strips out the nasties.
-Foxxz
Its hard enough to get people to pay for music. I'm not sure why MS thinks it will be any different for people playing games. I can't imagine this will be cheap. (Sounds kinda like game porn. "give us your credit card number and we'll charge you for the minutes.....till your card runs out....")
I wonder how long it will be until someone has figured out how to set up an 'illegal' P2P network to 'illegally' play your games online without paying?
All your likely to hear for the first few weeks is a flood of ten year-olds yelling "All your base
*voice mute*
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green pink yellow red blue orange potatoes
Interesting article. Microsoft has never been so much an innovator than an integrator, taking existing technologies and bringing them to the masses (bugs included).
Kits for chatting live with online oponents have been available for some time, even though I've never had the chance to use one. What Microsoft is doing is standardizing this feature on the XBox Live. It is a huge bet for them, but perhaps the only way to save a system that is lagging behind the competition.
The question is, of course, whether the new "experience" will be "compelling" enough to save their virtual ass. Is there a slashdotter here that has already experienced online chatting? The reviewer says it actually is a good feature, is that your opinion too?
But then, even if this feature proves to be that good, Microsoft will be facing another challenge: scaling it up. As the reviewer said several times, the architecture has yet to be tested at full-charge.
As for me, sorry Microsoft, but some of your competitors have a game catalog that is much bigger than yours, including hundreds of old games that are available for a bargain. Yes, I am cheap.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-08 -30&res=l
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These aren't the droids you're looking for.
This headset thing is really cool. However:
Do you think it's occured to microsoft the repurcussions of the fact that they are going to be relaying voice unfiltered?
Unlike text, there is no realistic way they can filter voice for obscenity.
Do you think they've considered what that means? All the gaming communities i've seen, everyone seems to be pretty free with using just random obscenities. They will probably be more so when communicating requires nothing more than muttering under your breath, instead of having to type out stuff.
How long do you think it will be before that Xbox Live thing comes with a little note saying "Warning: To prevent exposure to adult language, it is suggested children do not use the headset component of this product."
But if the XBox© Live(tm) does not come with an IRC client, FTP client, and a image manipulation software it's pretty much useless.
PLease wait while your xbox connects to MS main database..
...Completing survey.. Why don't you get a drink of warm milk?...
Enter name:_
Enter Age:_
Address:_
When do you go to sleep?:_
Do you think the Xbox is out to get you?:_
Cuz you're wrong:_
Why don't you take a nap now:_
Thank you for completing your survey! Don't worry, the Xbox doesn't actually have little green men in jumpsuits waiting for you to fall as... uh.. nevermind that...
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Forget about the obscenity factor.. how long is it going to be before little Johnny's mom in California realizes she can talk to little cousin Jimmy's mom in New York.. without paying a long distance phone bill?
Moderation totals that amuse me for one of my posts: Flamebait=1, Insightful=2, Funny=2, Overrated=1, Underrated=1
I'm on the beta and I'm quite impressed. Two games were included in the beta: NFL Fever 2K3 and Re-volt. Both games completely suck. The amazing thing is that it doesn't matter. Despite the face that both games suck the easy voice chat feature completely redeems them. Everyone is required to have a decent connection which means less drop-outs. Also, since players can't edit the game files there are no cheaters.
Neither of the included games has any team-play aspect so chat generally is reduced to three phrases: "Fuck...I crashed", " Ha ha. I passed you"and "I win!". It will be interesting to see how it works out in Unreal Championchip and Battlefield 1942.
I thought the following quote said it all: "The trick for Microsoft will be ensuring that lag remains a non-issue when the system opens up to a vastly larger player base."
Latency doesn't add to the gaming experience and the net isn't always the most accomodating environment.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Microsoft has nothing to fear about the viability of the X-Box: in a year or so, the X-Box will become the dominant console platform.
:) But that is my current conviction.
Historically, the console with the most shovelware running on it has been the winner in the console wars for that generation. Because it's easier to grind out Britney Spears or Blue's Clues games than truly otiginal creations, there are far more publishers of shovelware than there are publishers of outstandingly unique games, and console platforms like computer platforms have a sort of "developer gravity about them": the more developers they attract now the more developers they're likely to attract in the future.
The PS2 had a head start in the shovel-wars, but the X-Box was designed from the ground up to be a shovelware console platform. What with its use of fairly stock hardware components and the industry standard Direct3D API, porting games from Windows (another big shovelware substrate) should be easy. Developers which find getting decent results on the PS2 or Gamecube difficult will flock to the X-Box.
I could be wrong on this. In a year I'd love to be proven wrong.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Lets look at this article and some of the facts.
:)
First, you are essentially getting a headset and a demo game for $50...
Ok, now, you have to buy a REAL GAME for another $50...
So...you've got $100 into the set to get a game and all the stuff to play online.
Now, a year later, they will charge you for the "privilege" of using their servers. Now, I understand that they make back some costs by selling the service, and they can't offer this service totally for free, but doesn't this seem like an antiquated pricing scheme to anyone else?
Look at PeeCee games like UT/Quake/etc...in most cases all of these games have free/cheap servers available either as a free download or in addition to the client (game). As a service to their customers, many ISPs offer "free servers". They don't mind doing this, because it is fairly cheap and it brings in the customers that spend 99% of their free time playing games.
Now, I might understand having a centralized server for an RPG, but these games (most are sports games) would be helped dramatically by a localized server. The other thing is, making the server freely available forces pay services to offer higher quality, lower ping times, etc.
The other problem with this is that when M$ brings out V2.0, how likely are they to support their old hardware? It's a known fact that even though UT2k3 is out now, there are still many UT servers out there...and will be for a long time.
And the author even mentions what happens to be one of the biggest problems that has plagued online games...
The experience, for the most part, has been an enjoyable one. Even though I'm regularly on the wrong end of a metaphorical butt-kicking, it's always fun to play console games against someone else.
Even though the author seems to dismiss this as "ok", most ppl don't like paying $50 for an online game and getting their A$$ kicked 99% of the time. M$ should have forced all game manufacturers to implement a ranking system so that a novice player is *never* pitted against an expert. "OptiMatch" seems like it might TRY to fix this, but it obviously isn't working...what's to keep an expert from selecting a novice skill level?
Of course, I just don't feel very good about giving M$ my CC#
As for the actual features, I like the idea of voice masking...this would be kewl, especially for games like UT...but as the author of the article says, "it comes at the cost of making you harder to understand". And if OptiMatch actually works the way it should, it would be a very kewl feature.
That live chatting is mostly a bunch of teens swearing back and forth. Extended Play (TechTV show) talked about this a little bit saying that while the technology is neat, it just isn't workable because all everyone does is swear, and when you have more than two people talking it becomes unintelligible. On top of that, any parent that catches on to what their kids are hearing though this will mostly likely be a quick subscription cancellation.
You use a free ISP and got a free dsl modem. This is why MS should offer Xbox Live for free, not the over-price $50. Nevermind that it is in competition with the PS2 and nothing else; the PS2 charges $50 for the actual hardware: equivlancy.
Many ISPs offer free game servers. Except you just made that up, because I have yet to see an ISP market this fact unless we're talking about Speakeasy.net (which doesn't even give out the IPs to their servers, they're mostly clan servers). Apparently ISPs do mind doing this, because they don't do it. Let's pretend we live in a fantasy world where there are free servers by ISPs; they're not very free if you're paying your ISP. With your logic, we could say that Xbox Live's servers are free. Of course, that would be a fair comparison which you simply wouldn't use.
Localized servers. So instead of putting Xbox Live in the hands of Microsoft, you want to bet that your ISP will throw up free Xbox servers for you to play NFL on? We're talking broadband here, you can realistically get a 100ms travel time from your Xbox to MS to another Xbox. Replace realistically with almost always.
So you're saying when Xbox 2 comes out, MS will stop accepting money? You're cynical in all the wrong places. It's also likely that Xbox 2 will play Xbox games like the PS2 does with PSOne games, I see no reason why Xbox Live wouldn't do the same. Otherwise they'd lose money/customers the instant Xbox 2 came out, and Microsoft doesn't like that.
Even though the author seems to dismiss this as "ok", most ppl don't like paying $50 for an online game and getting their A$$ kicked 99% of the time.
You have a perfect idea. That has never been successfully implemented anywhere and magically it's Microsoft's fault. I don't know how long you've been playing games (maybe you're more casual than I), but there is no way you can possibly improve by playing with people who are at the same skill level as you. If there's more than one super-duper player on the server, then you either really suck (which is okay, everyone gets better with time) or for some reason that's a "hardcore" server and you should try another one. Also, some games are team games where certain skills are more focused than others.
BTW, I believe the author was joking. His wombat coordination skills wouldn't really hurt him that much in a football game.
Now sorry if this sounded like a flame, but I just think far too many people treat MS unfairly in every single instance possible. Not only is Xbox Live a far more organized online platform compared to the PS2 (which has already launched, did you notice?), it'll increase the amount of people who have broadband (even by a slim margin), and it had some exciting titles in the future (unlike the PS2, which has a pretty clear calendar for 2003).
But I will tell you that the PS2 is still the better system, and Xbox Live certainly won't get my money until Halo 2. Cheers.
The thing is, M$ opens themselves to critique like this when they try to pass off everything they do as "new and innovative"...
As for the ISPs doing servers, I guess I must live in someplace where the ISPs just aren't "with the program"...because almost every ISP in the area offers some sort of online servers...this is good for them, because they only need to run a POS Win-Tel box and you're playing on their internal network...read not using their internet connection, so most of em encourage the use of their servers..."and bring your friends too...because you can get lower latency when both of you are on our network"
Yea, Sony may charge similarly for their online hardware, but they're not charging for the use of it...
Now, where did the "Free ISP and Free DSL Modem" come from? Yea, I want the ability to do a LAN game or play with my friend across town...
And M$ will certainly be "crafty" when the XBox2 comes out...the XBox players will stop getting updates, they'll have different pricing categories for them, slower service, etc...if you think M$ has your best interest in mind, let me introduce you to their OS Life-Cycle...never mind that businesses don't want to switch from Win2k...
If you want me to pay for the service, give me the hardware for free...M$ is hardly taking a hit on the hardware cost...it's just a cheap $10 headset+mic combo.
And if M$ is marketing OptiMatch as a solution for the aforementioned problem, it deserves to be railed for not meeting my wishes.
And yes, I am probably harder on M$...they have failed me before, every time they skrew their customers it makes me a little more cautious.
Sony and Nintendo seem to be less devoted to skrewing their customers everytime they turn around...
Now, if you're suggesting that M$ will be offering DSL for $50/yr then I just might sign up for that, but as far as I know you still need to buy your service from a local ISP (if it requires you to pay for MSN then the service should be free as well as the hardware)...
$50 for the starter kit which includes: Headset ... game ... One year of XBox Live play
Even then, you're less than 10 percent along the way to being able to use Xbox Live. Because Xbox Live is not compatible with dial-up Internet connection, you also have to pay MSN (or some other broadband provider) $480 per year for each physical location where you will be playing games. That adds up to $530 per year.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Also, if you don't already have your house wired for electrical power, you're going to have to add that in. Not to mention that you'll need to buy a TV. Damn you, M$!!!
would you really want to play these games on a dial up connection
If you live in the sticks where the only available broadband is $500/mo T1, yes.
Are you suggesting that most people will get a broadband connection and use it for nothing but XBox Live.
Yes. The players' parents don't have any use for the broadband because all they do is e-mail and simple web surfing. Even if the family drops the $19/mo dial-up account, that's still $21/mo extra for broadband vs. dial-up, bringing the total to $300 per year. It's less than $500, but still more expensive than the typical Christmas present.
So let's say I sign up for 3 MMORPGs games that I play on my computer and I'm paying let's say $10 a month for each, plus I have a broadband connection that costs $40 a month.
No, but if you sign up for one MMORPG, you still have to pay $40 a month. And if you travel, you have to pay $40 a month times however many places you play games from because broadband works only from one location. Most subscription services (such as MMORPGs) can be dialed into from any location; broadband Internet access can't.
If anything, most people will probably already have a broadand connection.
I don't because I travel.
In any case, the cost of a broadband connection is comparable to the cost of dial up when you factor in the connection costs plus the cost of service.
Most people don't buy a second phone line to run dial-up Internet access. Sure, you can drop your phone line and get VoIP, but 911 Emergency service doesn't work with VoIP.
Will I retire or break 10K?
They don't have servers only in the US you know. They spread them out, they're not that stupid.
I'm very, very happy MS isn't putting modem support in this. Look at the PS2 net play which allows modems. People are going nuts with modem users lagging games like crazy.
No thanks. My beta kit should arrive next week.
To me $50 is a deal. You get the hardware and a year of gaming. If you don't want to pay to play don't. But, how many of you pay to play Everquest or something similar? The same rules apply here. MS is running servers on their side. The downsides are you have to pay and you can't play against other types of consoles. The upsides are that you can do full online stat tracking, find your friends in any game, set up tournaments, and have the same online identity anywhere.
I'm VERY happy they limit this to broadband. The PS2 net play is getting slammed due to all the modem users lagging games and causing problems. I don't want that.
It's a simple case of ease of use. Sure, someone could build a great Linux system by hand for CHEAP, but most people buy Windows since it's easier to deal with and does what they want. It's the same here. I'll pay for the convenience of it all. My beta kit should arrive next week and I can't wait to sit on my comfy couch in fron to fthe 64" HDTV and just play some good online games. No drivers. No patches. No "why did my game just die to the desktop"?
In my neck of the woods (SE Michigan) the cost of your average dial-up and seperate phone line is actually higher than broadband. I got a cable modem to save money, the speed was a bonus.
I'm just trying to imagine what gaming in a world where everyone can hear everyone else's voice would be like. Can anyone who has done this shed some insight?
I mean, if people were to play EQ/DAOC/AC with universal voice communication, would a conversation still sound like this:
Player1: Ding!
Player2: Gratz
Player3: Need to go afk a sec
Player1: afk as well
Player2: What was that sword drop?
Player1: Back. Sword procs a DD and has a latent HoT.
Player1: Back - Inc
Player2: Add
Player3: aggro!
Somehow, I think if MMORPGers were plunged into a voice-communication MMORPG world, these written words would turn into spoken words and play delightful havoc with the language. But can anyone who's used this kind of service say if they do?
You could have fooled me. In Japan, XBox is locked in a life or death struggle with the Dreamcast for third place. And the Dreamcast has been dead for a year and a half.
Welcome to October 2002. If it weren't for the infinitely deep pockets of the parent company, XBox would aready be dead. As it is, it's on life support, because Microsoft can pay companies up front to produce a game for the XBox, which is about the only way they would ever do it.
And, FWIW, development on Gamecube is rumored to be a breeze.
IMHO, you're already wrong.
Sorry.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
A good mode connection can rip apart DSL in terms of latency?! Please, let me know what planet you reside on, as I think we'd all love to live somewhere that 120ms is usually greater than 10-40ms
Unlike cable and DSL, a connection from one phone modem to another phone modem doesn't have to go through the Internet.
For games that are latency bound, cablemodems AND DSL destroy modems. The internet is a big big place full of lots of information
Then skip the Internet. Set up the game for a direct modem to modem connection, or run a PPP server on the one computer. Then use a phone card that charges per call rather than per minute; you can find those in convenience stores across the USA. From there, you can play with virtually no lag. You'll only get 28.8 (56k modems can't send near 56k), but you'll get NO LAG.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You can leave feedback for players on Xbox live, negative feedback for people who swear or play cheap or quit in the middle of a game. I have not had any problems at all with people being rude or using bad language. If there is, I can mute them.
I am loving every second of the beta actually. Im glad That only broadband is allowed, Im glad that devlopers and MS arent building their system to support other platforms. Im happy that every person will have the same exact hardware, config and same experience. This will all lead to the best possible gamign experience. If I want interoperability, If I want to change the game files, if I want to play against modem users, Ill use my freakin PC. I dont want to though, I hate PC gaming, I hate the small screen, I dont want a PC in my home theater, I dont like playing on a PC with 4 other people standing over my shoulder. PC gaming and consoles are 2 different arenas, XBoxLive is just what console gaming needs.
Of all the Xbox live naysayers, how many of you hate MS with a passion? you are dismissed, How many of you Hate Xbox because you dont have one, you have PS2? You are also dismissed. of all you naysayers, how many of you are slamming it because everyone else does on slashdot? You are dismissed. Is anyone left over? Hmmm not really. Those people left who are still slamming Xbox Live, have you actually used the service yet?
Keep an open mind, There is a world outside of slashdot and we are all very excited about online console gaming like Xbox live.
At the moment, the Gamecube adapters are still supposed to be here before Christmas (November is the best info I've seen so far). As to the games that will be compatible, there is exactly one that will be available near the release of the hardware: Phantasy Star Online (Ep. I and II). So far, there hasn't been any commitment from anyone else on any other games, either this season or next...though I hope that they get to work on Animal Crossing 2 since I'd really like to link with friends' towns (anonymous strangers would be too disruptive) without borrowing, or making them bring over, their memory cards. :)
First hop from modem to terminal server is 120 ms minimum on a dialup connection, period.
Turn off error correction and data compression (do them in the app, not in the modem) and the minimum latency goes down by at least 50 ms. It may not beat DSL, but you don't need extra hardware nor a $240/year service contract upgrade from dial-up Internet access.
56k modes can send 53kbps easily.
Not according to this page and this page. In order for a "56k" connection to work, the party on the "ISP" end has to have a digital phone line.
Will I retire or break 10K?
My XBOX was sitting on the shelf for quite a while. I'd kinda lost interest. Then my XBOX LIVE Beta kit showed up. Honestly ... it changed everything. I've stopped playing PC online games ... and the online XBOX experience is truly addictive. In my opinion, it's online done right for the console world.