Microsoft Reboots Two Classic PC Games

An anonymous reader writes "Ever since it launched the Xbox, Microsoft has had a fickle relationship with Windows as a gaming platform. On one hand PC gaming is a major driver of hardware and operating system sales, but on the other hand the PC is inherently less secure than the Xbox console, with piracy much more likely to impact sales of a PC title than a console one. Games for Windows Live has been an attempt to bring some of the success of Xbox Live to the PC, and while many games have shipped with support for Games for Windows Live, it hasn't exactly been a favorite of PC gamers. After all these half-hearted efforts, the last thing anyone expected was for Microsoft to announce new PC-only reboots of two classic game franchises, Flight Simulator and Age of Empires. But yesterday it did just that, announcing a massively multiplayer version of Age of Empires and a new Flight Simulator called Flight. The big question is whether Microsoft can make Games For Windows Live relevant in a market where Steam has taken hold, or if it's too late."

Comments

GFWL, no thanks

[cbope]

As long as it's attached to GFWL, no thanks. GFWL is such a piece of shit I will not have anything to do with games that require it. If you want me to buy your game, do not tie it to GFWL. It is unstable and a huge pain in the ass to deal with. MS should fire the management that came up with it; it does not in any way help Windows as a game platform.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[EvilIdler]

To pile up on the hatred: Live accounts will also occasionally expire. Accounts tied to purchases. Fuck MS.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Xian97]

The only game I have tried through Games for Windows Live is Warhammer 40K Dawn of War II and it has yet to ever be able to connect - it always returns error 0x81051911. The troubleshooting steps Microsoft has you go through include everything from port forwarding a half dozen ports to resetting your TCP/IP stack, yet I can play any other online game with no issues, including connecting to X-Box Live on my sons console. GFWL is a POS and I won't buy any other game that requires it.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Spad]

What's that? You want me to register for a GFWL account and sign in every time I load the game just so I can play in single player? Good luck with that.

Yes, I know, you can create offline accounts, but you still have to create them and sign in just to play single player and yes, I know Blizzard have done the same thing with Starcraft II & Battle.net and they're fuckers for doing it too.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Don't forget about all Steam games.
Or the recent Bioware games.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[CeruleanDragon]

I don't know what Bioware's up to, but I think Steam is different... since you're buying the game from them and getting it download-only, setting up an account is less invasive, since you had to do it to make the purchase to begin with. GFWL games require you to setup an account and login every time you play for a game you purchased in a box at the store. To that I disagree wholeheartedly. If I buy something at the store it's mine and unless it's something like WoW, I do not want to have to sign up with anything when I get home with it, I just want to jump in and play. If the game offers online gameplay against friends, then the worst I would hope I'd have to do is create a username. That's all.

On the other hand, does GFWL not allow an auto-login feature? When I double click a Steam-based game icon I get a brief, "Logging you in" screen and then on with the game. Unless I'm not online in which case it's not as brief and eventually changes to, "You are offline, loading the game anyway, 'cause we love you like that" screen. Which is ok, as long as it gets into the game.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[EvanED]

Or the recent Bioware games.

Huh? Both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age shipped with only a disc check; no online activation at all, let alone each time you want to play. (At least if you bought the DVD version; I don't know how the online versions work.)

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Zarhan]

Huh? Both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age shipped with only a disc check; no online activation at all, let alone each time you want to play. (At least if you bought the DVD version; I don't know how the online versions work.)

You still needed to register to get the stuff from Cerberus Network and whatever bonus content you got with Dragon Age.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Kjella]

Huh? Both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age shipped with only a disc check; no online activation at all,

I believe for Dragon Age you get some additional shit if you bought any of the DLC. Which I didn't, so... Great game, looking forward to DA2 but give the fucking in-game DLC peddlers a dollar sign instead of the usual exclamation mark. I'd ask for an option to completely get rid of them, but I know I won't get it.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Spad]

Registering * Signing In to get Bonus Content is *not* the same a having to do so just to play the game.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[naz404]

The new version of GFWL can run in offline mode which is a welcome change for those with flaky internet connections. That being said, it's still irritating and its only use is to record GFWL achievements in single player games.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[jimicus]

The only game I have tried through Games for Windows Live is Warhammer 40K Dawn of War II and it has yet to ever be able to connect - it always returns error 0x81051911. The troubleshooting steps Microsoft has you go through include everything from port forwarding a half dozen ports to resetting your TCP/IP stack.

That's not troubleshooting. Troubleshooting is when you log exactly what's going on, dig through the logs, work out what the error is and then propose a solution based upon that. Or, if you personally aren't equipped to do that, the system provides some means for you to submit the logs to someone who is.

What you're describing is "Choose a random item from a list of half-a-dozen or so things which seem to make some sort of sense based on the error code, try it, lather rinse and repeat until success. If no success, think about what else might make sense (or - more likely seeing as relatively few people have full source access and even fewer really understand all the things that are likely to be going on - make wild guesses)".

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[realityimpaired]

Blizzard at least gives you something in return for it... you can chat with friends playing other games. I don't have Starcraft II at all, but I regularly chat with friends playing that game from WoW.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[petermgreen]

I don't know what Bioware's up to, but I think Steam is different... since you're buying the game from them and getting it download-only
IIRC half life 2 (and I think other valve games too) requires you to sign up to steam and activate and your copy through it (and IIRC the activation process involves a forced update to the latest version of the game) even if you bought your game as a boxed copy.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Bioware/EA also offers download only versions of the games. Steam games can also be bough as "normal" retail versions, but still require Steam. When you bought a retail Steam game (like: Just Cause 2, Borderlands, Mafia 2, Half Life 2, etc.) you will have to through the additional hassle to set up an account. For Steam games you also have to log in every time you want to play a game.

GFWL does have an auto login feature. GFWL doesn't require logging in or being online, it depends on the games. Most GFWL games I played didn't require being online, or to register you product online. You just had to create a GFWL profile (which was only stored on your system). These games are: Gears of War, Fallout 3, Batman: Arkham Asylum. For Fallout 3 you can also get rid of GFWL completely, can be done by simply installing the patch directly from Bethesda.

But yes, GFWL is quite an POS. It fails to log in often, or takes a long time, sometimes forgets the saved credentials. Installing patches through GFWL are a real PITA. Newer versions of GFWL broke older games, which then needed a patch, a patch you could only install from within the GFWL interface of the running game (chicked-egg, hurray).

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Pharmboy]

Fallout 3 and Bioshock 2. I bought both on Steam, both use Windows Live, so I have to log into both to play them. Love both games, I freaking hate Windows live. It told me I already had an account on Windows Live, and getting it to work the first time was a bitch. Now it just works, but I don't care for MS tracking my gaming. Gabe and Steam I worry a little less with.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[fprintf]

Your technical notion of troubleshooting is entirely much more complicated than the consumer/user version of troubleshooting. What you described as "choose a random item from a list" is exactly what MS and any other consumer company label as troubleshooting. Look in the back of many device manuals and you will see a section labeled "troubleshooting" where it gives a description of the problem and a list of things to do/try.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[imakemusic]

Same here though the game was GTA4. Not sure if it was the same error message but I never managed to get it to work.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Robert Zenz]

I'm not sure what people always have with Steam...I can circumvent Steam and play all games without logging into Steam first, so *real* offline playing here I come. But it's possible that the games itself have further DRM systems which won't allow you that...but that's not the problem of Steam/Valve, that's a problem with the companies which are doing it.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[YojimboJango]

The only game I have tried through Games for Windows Live is Warhammer 40K Dawn of War II and it has yet to ever be able to connect - it always returns error 0x81051911. The troubleshooting steps Microsoft has you go through include everything from port forwarding a half dozen ports to resetting your TCP/IP stack, yet I can play any other online game with no issues, including connecting to X-Box Live on my sons console. GFWL is a POS and I won't buy any other game that requires it.

Believe it or not I bought Bioshock 2 through steam, and it still required GFWL. I had to go through all that and more just to be able to save my progress in the game. Included in this mess is having to type in a CD Key twice for a digitally downloaded game (once to install the game, and once to tie it to my GFWL account).

Never again. Ever. YMMV, but all two games I've ever purchased that required GFWL have required googling for a solution to their DRM hassles to get the single player up and running. Never ever again.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they fixed that years ago, it was due to the passport account expiring due to over a year of inactivity or similar.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[wjousts]

I had similar problems, but did eventually get it working. IIRC, I had to set up my router to give my desktop a static IP address and then set up firewall exceptions for various ports coming from that IP address. I'd played GTA4 with an offline account and I decided I'd see how it worked with an online account. Totally not worth the effort.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[wjousts]

I don't know what Bioware's up to, but I think Steam is different... since you're buying the game from them and getting it download-only,

Except when you buy the boxed game in the store....and still need a Steam account. That's why I'm not buying the more recent Total War games.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[DamnYouIAmALion]

Actually, I have Dawn of War II (the only Windows Live game I have) and recently moved so didn't have an internet connection for a while. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Dawn of War II did not require either an internet connection or the game disc to run.

When you do have an internet connection it does sign in and all that jazz, but if you don't it doesn't. As far as I know I've not done anything special to my account to enable it for offline.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[MobyDisk]

Single player steam games do not require you to sign-on to steam. (There might be some, but I have yet to encounter one. Let me know if you find any so I make sure not to buy them.)

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Bai jie]

Not everyone owns an XBOX.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[ShakaUVM]

The only GFWL game I own is Fallout 3, and it worked just fine. Achievements appeared on my Xbox, which would be nice if I cared at all about gamer points.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[cduffy]

I got GTA4 working to my satisfaction (memory-editing hackery and save-game hacking in single-player mode is fun, and if I paid for the game, who's to say that I can't/shouldn't?) by using a replacement for the GFWL DLL which stubbed out the icky stuff. Sadly, such a thing isn't available for the entire GFWL-based library.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[MrNemesis]

I'm not trying to say Valve are saints and Steam is the rapture, but it's so much better than GFWL (God-Awful?)

Like the OP, I also got saddled with it on my last system with DoW2. It worked maybe 60% for connecting games, and connections would frequently drop out. It would frequently lock up the admittedly crappy BT router I was forced to use at the time when negotiating UPnP. There's a god-damned banner ad at the bottom. A bunch of publishers have chosen to go the "you must be logged in to play!" option whereas, IIRC, steam insists that offline mode remains functional for single player.

When I was forced to install Steam under a throwaway account cos I wanted to play Portal (via the freebie update) I expected myself to be uninstalling it as soon as I'd gone through the game a couple of times, but it's clearly been engineered to put the user experience first on the list (well, first behind DRM anyway) and it shows. Once your account is created, playing offline is never a hassle - I was offline for two months (longer periods I can't vouch for) whilst I moved house and all my steam games worked seamlessly - although there's a delay when you start it due to it trying to contact the login servers first. There's none of that fucktarded bullshit where you can't save your game unless you're logged in (indeed, not all games support backing your savegames up to the steam "cloud" in any case). I've since bought the orange box (physical, as steam prices in the UK are often higher than the physical media) plus steam copies of old faves like Deus Ex and the original Half-Life; I still have the original discs but the low price on steam was worth it for me, especially to avoid having to hook up optical drives and hunting down patches for the machines I wanted to play on. I've even started playing the superbly tongue-in-cheek Team Fortress 2 and found it rather surprisingly free of rabid 13 year olds comparing me to meat dumpling.

Lastly is adverising; there is some on steam, but it's not in your face. But I most love the searching for games thing - there's a pretty awesome repository of little indie games on steam which I found out about through one of their regular bundle offers, which got me into Darwinia, Defcon, Defence Grid and a whole load more interesting games that - most importantly - were easily playable on my dinky laptop with intel graphics. The GF also loves some of the interesting puzzlers. I also like the way I can give the little man my hard earned, rather than relentless advertising for the next AAAAAAAAAAAAAA FPS title that indistinguishable from the last one.

Lastly - the old "but what happens when Valve goes bust/gets bought/gets a headcrab?!?!?!?!1111" problem. No, I don't believe Valve will be able to "open" the servers, as anyone with the slightest bit of nouse about takeovers or bankruptcy will be able to tell you, the rights I have to my game will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. But this is also the case for GFWL, and indeed any other system that relies on remote authentication servers. Steam is currently displaying the best track record for this by a long chalk.

So just to add my voice to the choir - I hate DRM, but it's a fact of life if you want to play games without downloading a pirate copy; I just chose not to buy games with onerous DRM (here's looking at you Bioshock 2). Steam is DRM underneath with a highly polished exterior that's almost entirely transparent to the user and gives me added value, at least. GFWL, IMNSHO, is a thinly veiled and malfunctioning surveillance platform masquerading as a games portal that provides nothing of merit to me that the games couldn't do better themselves.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[tenco]

Don't forget about all Steam games.

I'm done with Steam, but for a different reason. Bought several games on it, like Warhammer 40k and CS:S. Then I decided to try some CS1.6 and see what's all the fuzz about it from so-called "progamers". Guess what. I got an advertisment in the game for Valves Orange Box! E-mailed them that i find that outrageous and that they should remove it. They: sorry, can't do that. Me: i guess i can't buy from Steam then, anymore.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[morari]

Games for Windows Live isn't that bad. So long as they're not trying to charge for online play again, it's not really any more noticeable than Steam. Besides, an RTS and a Flight Simulator are games that simply cannot be done correctly on a console.

They also mention Fable 3, but I don't recall ever getting Fable 2 for the PC?

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[morari]

I don't know what Bioware's up to, but I think Steam is different... since you're buying the game from them and getting it download-only, setting up an account is less invasive, since you had to do it to make the purchase to begin with.

Yeah. Imagine my surprise when I bought Half-life 2 down at the local Wal-Mart on a whim, only to discover that I couldn't play it because 56K was the only available internet at the time. Steam is no less shitty than Games for Windows.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[IndustrialComplex]

Try using your Xbox gamer tag account then

I don't want all of my devices/games tied to a single account, Hell, I don't want my games tied to ANY account.

I want to be able to plug in my console, put in my game, and play the damned thing. I don't want to run into problems where "Oh crap, I must have started that game while on my sister's account or xbox, looks like all that playtime gets reset if I want to play it on MY account/xbox"

Or maybe that's not the problem, I don't know, because everything gets so freaking out of whack if you don't play the games exactly as you were 'supposed' to play them as defined by the service.

I also love how it used to be that if I bought something and hooked it up to my television that it was a household purchase. Now? Looks like I'd have to buy every item for each person in my family if they want to enjoy the same game that I have.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[IndustrialComplex]

"You are offline, loading the game anyway, 'cause we love you like that" screen.

Yeah, glad that works for you.

For me it's almost always. You are offline, something you did we didn't like so we are treating your game as online only, fuck you.

And it ALWAYS happens when I'm waiting at the airport and just want to play a few offline, single player games.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[arth1]

Offline accounts is a nice idea, but the way GFWL has implemented it makes is worse than nothing.
1: You still need to sign up for a Windows Live account and Microsoft Passport to activate it.
2: If you save your progress in offline mode, and then log in to online mode, your save progress is unavailable. Even on the same machine.

I did the big mistake of buying a collection of games on Steam that looked nice: Dirt, Dirt2, Fuel and Grid. Then I discovered that I could play but not save my progress without signing up for an account I didn't want. And would get interrupted every few minutes by a notice saying the servers could not be reached. It turns out that the service doesn't appear to work through NAT if instead of a cheap cone NAT home router, you have full symmetric NAT. In short, the games were a waste of money.

It's getting ridiculous when in addition to the Steam DRM, you are subjected to Securom (or worse) AND have to enter a CD key to use online AND have to sign up for a Live account. The incentive to download a cracked copy has become rather large, and isn't caused by pirates, but by MBAs who don't seem to understand that making your paying customers jumping through hoops make it more likely that they'll go somewhere else for their fix.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[IndustrialComplex]

Registering * Signing In to get Bonus Content is *not* the same a having to do so just to play the game.

My game won't play unless I'm logged in because I made the mistake of trying to, you know, get the rest of my game that I bought working.

Now my save game will say "You must log in to the servers in order to load this game"

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[imakemusic]

I wasn't too fussed as the game ran like crap on my system anyway - despite the fact that it seemed to fit the requirements - and online play would probably have been painfully slow. I only bought it because it was ultra cheap on Steam. Why it needed Steam, Live and (I think) Rockstar accounts is beyond me. Seriously weak.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[TheKidWho]

If GFWL is crashing for you, you're doing something wrong.

I've never had it crash on me once.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[tenco]

I still have the original discs but the low price on steam was worth it for me, especially to avoid having to hook up optical drives and hunting down patches for the machines I wanted to play on.

Why didn't you simply register it with Steam by punching in your CD-key, getting it for free to download?

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[0123456]

It's getting ridiculous when in addition to the Steam DRM, you are subjected to Securom (or worse) AND have to enter a CD key to use online AND have to sign up for a Live account.

Don't forget GTA4: Steam and Windows Live and Rockstar logins required just to play a single-player game.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[delinear]

Oh, has a court enforced said contract and legally ruled out cracking a game you bought (and thought you owned) to remove said restrictions? Because until they do, I don't see this as any real restriction, much as it might annoy the software houses.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[WuphonsReach]

Fallout 3 and Bioshock 2. I bought both on Steam, both use Windows Live, so I have to log into both to play them

No, no you don't have to login to LIVE to play Fallout 3. Even if you bought the DLCs via LIVE (which was the only option last year). Just move the DLC's ESM/ESP files over to the proper Fallout 3 program folder (C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\fallout 3\Data on Windows XP) and add them to your load order.

I haven't touched LIVE since last fall when I bought the DLCs for Fallout 3. With the advantage that I can now install mods and have a pleasantly customized game.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[delinear]

If by "additional shit" you mean "having them remove that ridiculously limited inventory space", since the only way to be able to store anything over and above what you're carrying (despite all the crates littered around your camp) was by first buying and completing the DLC. I don't have any issue with paying extra (or not) for new quests/characters/items but seriously, storing stuff at camp should be part of the basic gaming experience. Especially on the first playthrough when you're not sure if stuff might be needed later for quests (all the seemingly useless stuff I dumped which it later turned out I was meant to give to people in my camp to give them a fighting boost in the end battle, for instance).

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[delinear]

Ditto GFWL for DoW II (seems like that's how they got most of us) - the insane thing is Live is actually okay on the Xbox, it's a lot more like Steam is on the PC, i.e. a hub for all your games, game related news and gaming friends, it's always there in the background but when you don't need, it it's not overly intrusive, you don't need to be online to play, you're always logged into the system in the background so you can switch games without logging out and back in, etc. It's just a seamless experience. If they'd created something similar on the PC it could at least be comparable to Steam, instead the whole thing feels like some cobbled together afterthought.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[wjousts]

IIRC, you only needed a Rockstar account for online play and uploading stupid gameplay videos. I never signed up for one. You could use an offline GFWL account which I did for a long time before decided to try and see what this GFWL was about. But, yeah, either way it's still weak.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Mongoose Disciple]

Same here.

I know lots of people who have no problem running Steam games offline. It doesn't work even semi-reliably on my machine.

I threw about an hour or two at trying to figure out why and reading Steam support forums before deciding that it would be a simpler solution to just not buy anything on Steam again. I don't have enough free time to make spending more of it troubleshooting Steam seem like a good idea.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[wolrahnaes]

I don't want to run into problems where "Oh crap, I must have started that game while on my sister's account or xbox, looks like all that playtime gets reset if I want to play it on MY account/xbox"

1. There are no problems moving games between Xboxes.

2. Saves are locked to their associated gamertag. This is designed to solve the "Oh crap, my brother/sister/parent/dog played on my console and erased my f*cking save!" problem. Just create yourself an XBL Silver gamertag, it takes seconds and is completely free, then all your stuff will be safely partitioned away. The 360 can use a USB drive to save, so even if you don't own a 360 at all you can just put your account and gamertag on any cheap USB drive to easily take it between friends houses.

Or maybe that's not the problem, I don't know, because everything gets so freaking out of whack if you don't play the games exactly as you were 'supposed' to play them as defined by the service.

What the fuck are you talking about? Log in to your account, play game any way you feel like.

I also love how it used to be that if I bought something and hooked it up to my television that it was a household purchase. Now? Looks like I'd have to buy every item for each person in my family if they want to enjoy the same game that I have.

And that hasn't changed at all. Purchases are tied both to the account and Xbox that they were bought with, so anyone playing on that Xbox can access the content regardless and that user can access it on any Xbox. It's very well implemented and there's an easy transfer tool to reassign the content to a different console in the event of a dead console or buying a new model.

So no, you're totally wrong if you think you need to buy content once for each person. One console, one purchase, everyone can use it.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[delinear]

Fable 2 was a bone of contention on the XBOX anyway - all games are meant to be required to allow users to get 1,000 gamer points via achievements, out of the box without any additional expense (other than a gold subscription for online multiplayer). Only some (or one, I forget) of the achievements in Fable 2 were tied to a separate game that had to be purchased (Fable Pub Games or something - you basically earned items in the one game that were used to unlock expressions in the other) - their weasel excuse was that you could get these items from other people who had played the game so technically you didn't need to buy more than the original game (ignoring the fact that the other people still had to). If that's their modus operandi these days, you probably had a lucky escape.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Nemyst]

Or the permanently online or you're screwed Ubisoft games.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[MrNemesis]

Wasn't aware I could do that...! Oh well, it only cost me a fiver for Deus Ex, I bought HL as part of a bundle that included Blue Shift, Opposing Force and Team Fortress as well.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[slyrat]

Believe it or not I bought Bioshock 2 through steam, and it still required GFWL. I had to go through all that and more just to be able to save my progress in the game.

You know, I had similar problems when I got fallout 3 on steam. The big problem I found was that you only need the gfwl if you wanted it to track the achievements. I had hoped that there would have been steam equivalent achievements but that is not the case. It otherwise would work fine, save games, and not be a pain. Hopefully further games that have gfwl can operate this way so that you don't have to use it if you don't want to.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[slyrat]

Blizzard at least gives you something in return for it... you can chat with friends playing other games. I don't have Starcraft II at all, but I regularly chat with friends playing that game from WoW.

Right, but Blizzard only aggravated the problem. Steam has had this for ages and does it very well. Having different in game only im clients is a pain. It feels like icq / aim wars from ages ago. Finding who you want to talk to is much easier when it is on one im client.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[quanticle]

Steam gives you this too. I was playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and I was chatting with a friend playing CounterStrike:Source.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Thaelon]

You guys are all missing something.

GFWL isn't for you. It's for Microsoft's benefit.

Not yours.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Jorl17]

Agreed. I also have to add that I've been waiting for a new Age of Empires for ages now. What I saw there is a disappointment: It is made for the idiots that use the web. Why did we let them in anyway? The Web would be better if nearly everyone that uses new how it works -- that way, they'd probably value it.

I sincerely hope this fails on MS. I hope they go bankrupt on that service and go back to what they did well: Trying to innovate. Their best innovation was that of spreading Computer Access throughout the world, and I admire them for that. Other than that they're some crazy-assed monopolist sons-of-bitches. I hope everyone understands that -- and I hope everyone tries to contribute to Wine, so that we can free ourselves from those bastards. I can only point out that it's good they employ people, and I hope that, when this fails, said people continue employed.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[tenco]

I bought HL as part of a bundle that included Blue Shift, Opposing Force and Team Fortress as well.

Don't want it to make more sad, but i gotta inform you that i got that whole bundle for free when i registered my copy of HL :)

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[QuantumBeep]

It's not benefiting anyone else if you deprive yourself of good things just to make a point (usually). Food for thought.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[arkane1234]

I back this 100%.
XBox is for kids who don't know anything but BANG BANG BANG what I had to move out of the way of the bullet? that's lame! Where's my cheatsheet?

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[arkane1234]

Until the online service is no longer available.
Anything tied to something outside of my hands is worthless in gaming.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[mobby_6kl]

Who says CS1.6 is a good thing? Maybe it's a piece of shit, but event if it's not, there are plenty of better things to do than to bend over to Valve's will.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[tenco]

How can i be sure they are good? As far as i'm concerned, Valves position of trust has been compromised.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[QuantumBeep]

If you rely so heavily on being able to trust that a game company will not advertise games to you, that you feel your "trust is violated" if you see an unexpected ad, maybe you are asking too much of the universe. These days I'm pretty happy nobody bonks me on the head and steals my food.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[richlv]

i have no idea what gfwl is, and i haven't really used windows for some 8 years... but let me say that age of empires was my favourite rts game. and i don't have that many games i would list as my favourite :)

frankly, ms fucked up with aoe3. aoe 1&2 were 2d, simplistic controls, allowed for quite prolonged games with large scale cities & armies etc. aoe3... half-baked 3d with performance problems and visual glitches, more like rpg than rts at times, very attack oriented (defensive strategies were pretty much nonexistent etc). so in a way i don't believe they will make something i might be interested in anyway :)

but aoe2... damn, this made me want to run it in wine and waste an hour or so. that's how great it was :)

interestingly, another game i could name as my favourite also was completely messed up in version 3 while ruling the scene in version 1 & somewhat in version 2 as well - carmageddon. version 3 was more like crappy fps with main hero having wheels attached...

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[IndustrialComplex]

So no, you're totally wrong if you think you need to buy content once for each person. One console, one purchase, everyone can use it.

Not quite true, that depends on the game. You probably just haven't run into it yet based on the selection of games you play.

Now, this wasn't with paid content where it causes me the most issues, but with unlocks. My most recent example was a Magic The Gathering game.

My friend and I took turns playing the game at his apartment, and eventually unlocked a great deal of content. Awesome, we got everything working! Let's play head to head.

No such luck I'm afraid. We could play head to head, but each of us had to log in to our unique IDs. The result is that one of us had an AWESOME game to play with everything unlocked, the other ended up with the shit game where everything was still locked. If we both wanted to play against each other we would have to unlock everything on BOTH accounts.

Even if there is some background technical measure to transfer data over, or move gamer profiles (which in many cases there isn't), you shouldn't have to worry about that sort of thing when you just want to play a game.

I don't keep my Xbox hooked up to my network because it is out in my garage where I just want to play a few games and drink a beer. I don't want to have to deal with managing profiles with USB drives or carrying the damned thing in to synch up via the network.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[IndustrialComplex]

1. There are no problems moving games between Xboxes.

2. Saves are locked to their associated gamertag.

Yeah, you see that's my problem. Opps I played with the wrong gamertag logged in.

I appreciate the concern for erasing someone else's game, but there should be a mechanism for "Transfer this save file to X gamer profile". However you CAN'T do that for many games.

On my PC, it is as simple as opening my Sister's "My games" folder, and dragging the save file to MY "My games" folder.

The Xbox tells me that such a thing is prohibited. (Mass Effect 2)

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Man Eating Duck]

I had to go through all that and more just to be able to save my progress in the game.

Same thing with GTA IV. Not logged in to GFWL, no saving. "Oh well," I thought, "at least I'll be able to access my save games from my other computer." Guess what, no. They don't even store the savegames online for you. No added value at all, it's like "For no reason, you'll only be able to drive this car you've already paid for if the salesman gets to knock you on the head with a club."

Fuck that.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[wolrahnaes]

Key word there is PURCHASE. You said it initially, then you respond by bringing up content earned through gameplay. Obviously that's on a per-save basis, but again I was only talking about purchased items just as you said.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[tenco]

If you rely so heavily on being able to trust that a game company will not advertise games to you, that you feel your "trust is violated" if you see an unexpected ad, maybe you are asking too much of the universe.

Why do i ask "too much of the universe" in this case? It is in fact possible to produce games were there's no pesturing advertisment everytime you're in spectator mode. And which obscures part of the screen which displays information important to the game. It's not some unobtrusive ad when the game starts. It cripples the game. So Valve basically sold me a defective game. Maybe you don't care when someone sells you broken stuff for full price, but i do and i'm acting accordingly.

These days I'm pretty happy nobody bonks me on the head and steals my food.

Of course if your standards are low enough, you can be quite happy with just about anything that's thrown at you.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[wolrahnaes]

I agree there should be a function to move saves between accounts, though I can see why the achievement system could be thrown entirely out of whack by that as well, so there could be reasons it's not there.

Copying a save is never going to happen for any game with an online component as it would make it too easy for everyone to just copy the same save and have all the stuff you're expected to unlock.

On the whole though, the system makes it very very easy to make a new account from the same screen where it asks you to log in before playing and it's trivial to move your account around between boxes if you play enough to care. Take this one game you and your friend worked on as a lesson in how gamer profiles work, take 30 seconds to create yourself one, and never have to worry about it again.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[IronChef]

GFWL is so bad that I really wonder how it ends up in other publishers' games. What does Microsoft offer or threaten with to get a publisher to infect their game with the hateful GFWL? Can some Microsoft Games Studios biz dev guy post the secret?

Like others have posted, I won't buy a game that includes it.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[KDR_11k]

What, they're making games where you can actually dodge bullets on the PC? How come all I ever get is stupid hitscan bullets that you can only hide from, not dodge?

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[KDR_11k]

When I googled the error I got it turned out my MTU was set too low (1300 for some reason) in the registry and GFWL was somehow the only thing that was unable to cope with that.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[KDR_11k]

Yes but why do companies who aren't Microsoft go through the trouble of implementing something that hurts their customers and only benefits Microsoft? It's not like MS can charge license fees for PC games and from what I can tell using GFWL makes you dependent on things like MS's QA teams to release your patches and whatnot. I've seen multiple devs state they can't do beneficial thing X because GFWL doesn't let them.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[IndustrialComplex]

Take this one game you and your friend worked on as a lesson in how gamer profiles work, take 30 seconds to create yourself one, and never have to worry about it again.

What do you mean never worry about it again? I DID have my own profile. The problem is that you can only unlock the content of the game in the SINGLE PLAYER game. So to unlock for both accounts you BOTH have to go through the same process in the single player game just so you both can have access to the same game during multiplayer.

It shouldn't require 2 playthroughs to play a splitscreen game on the same xbox.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[IndustrialComplex]

I agree there should be a function to move saves between accounts, though I can see why the achievement system could be thrown entirely out of whack by that as well, so there could be reasons it's not there.

Copying a save is never going to happen for any game with an online component as it would make it too easy for everyone to just copy the same save and have all the stuff you're expected to unlock.

1. Just copy the achievements to go with the savegame file. It's not like it's a currency transfer. If people's achievements get screwed up give them the option to reset them.

2. The game I was playing was Mass Effect 2. So there is no reason to care about online 'cheating'.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[KDR_11k]

The patching is the biggest issue in my opinion, Steam lets you run the main client in the background and have it download stuff while you do other things on the PC. GFWL requires you to run the game (and I think you can't even minimize it without interrupting the download) while it's downloading the patch as if your computer had no other purpose than displaying the title screen of a game while you wait for a gigabyte or two to pass through your crappy consumer internet connection. The game keeps running but you cannot play it because closing the GFWL overlay aborts the patch download. I srtill wonder why in hell's name publishers voluntarily cripple their games with that garbage.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[KDR_11k]

GFWL has a lot more shittiness than that. Steam is annoying when you have a bad internet connection, GFWL is annoying even when you don't.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[KDR_11k]

Then tell Steam to add a link to SC2 or WoW to its game library, if you start the game through that you get the Steam overlay and can access the Steam IM through that.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[QuantumBeep]

You didn't mention the important-stuff-obscuring part. I'd complain about that too.

On the other hand, don't confuse "high standards" with being a spoiled brat.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[KDR_11k]

I suppose you never encountered a large patch? GFWL cannot patch in the background like Steam, it requires the game to stay open while the patch is downloading, wasting system resources that could be spent on something to pass the time until the patch finishes (like another game).

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[KDR_11k]

Wasn't Ensemble (developers of the previous AoEs) dissolved after making Halo Wars?

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[morari]

Steam is annoying regardless of your internet connection. I've been kept from playing more games simply because of Steam's servers being down or busy than anything else. It's usually fixed by the next day, but I'm often at work by then and can't play any longer.

The only thing of value that Steam adds is a unified friends list. The sales are nice, but honestly, games are already overpriced and I shouldn't be paying the same for a download as I would for a boxed, physical copy anyway.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Xian97]

The only game I have tried through Games for Windows Live is Warhammer 40K Dawn of War II and it has yet to ever be able to connect - it always returns error 0x81051911.

Actually the error number I get is 0x80151911. That's what I get for trying to post half awake at 5AM

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[mrchaotica]

I don't know what Bioware's up to, but I think Steam is different... since you're buying the game from them and getting it download-only, setting up an account is less invasive, since you had to do it to make the purchase to begin with.

You have to register with Steam for Valve games even if you get them from a box on a shelf.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, I'm a member of the Games for Windows - LIVE team. Thank you for your comments; I would like to correct some of the statements that you made regarding Offline accounts in GFWL:

1. You can create an offline account without ever having to create a Microsoft Passport account or sign up for Windows Live, the option is in the GFWL Guide.
2. This is not how it works. You can sign in with that account in an offline mode (when no internet is available), play your game, get achievements, save progress, and when you sign-in to LIVE (online mode) you are able to progress from where you left off.

What you may be confusing is that there are 2 types of accounts:
1. Offline Profile (Local Profile / Offline Only Profile)
2. Online Profile (LIVE Enabled Profile / Xbox LIVE account)

But, there are also 2 sign-in states for the Online account (which is where some confusion might come from), just like Xbox LIVE on the Xbox 360
1. Signed-in Online (connected to LIVE through the internet and able to talk to the LIVE servers for multiplayer etc)
2. Signed-in Offline (no internet connection is available, but you are still using your profile and can get access to your Downloaded Content, game saves, and achievements).

You cannot continue progress from an Offline Only Profile and then continue with an Online Profile as they are 2 different accounts. You absolutely can continue progress from an offline to an online state with your LIVE Enabled Profile.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Reapman]

Funny.. my sole experience with GFWL is quite similar. There was 5 of us sitting at a LAN party. All on the same switch, same network. Three people could connect to each other but not see the other two (yes i know the 4 player limitation, we were trying to troubleshoot the issue). The other two could see each other, but not the first three.

Wait a few hours, and it would basically shuffle who could see each other, but never was there a point where four people could connect with each other. Ya we turned off all firewalls etc.

I don't understand how Microsoft could make this apparently awesome online service with their 360 (I dont own an XBox), but f* up this big for the PC.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Xian97]

When I googled the error I got it turned out my MTU was set too low (1300 for some reason) in the registry and GFWL was somehow the only thing that was unable to cope with that.

Thanks KDR, I hadn't tried that. I had checked my DSL modem and it was 1492 but hadn't checked the NIC in my PC. I set my MTU to 1492 on my NIC, same as my DSL modem. For some reason Windows 7 had it as 1300, the same as yours. Once I did that I was able to connect to GFWL.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[arth1]

1. You can create an offline account without ever having to create a Microsoft Passport account or sign up for Windows Live, the option is in the GFWL Guide.

I can find no mention on how to do that on the Windows LIVE support web site -- in fact, the support pages seem quite insistent on that you have to have a LIVE account with a blessed e-mail address. Some pages even mention an additional requirement of also having to create a gamertag, whatever that is.
And no guide was included with either of the games either. Is that guide a document only accessible to those with an account, perhaps?

As for the rest, with the need to distinguish between online online accounts, offline online accounts and offline accounts, you lost me in the complexity before I even started. If it should be that difficult to play a game, all I can say is "stuff it where the sun doesn't shine" -- it's just not worth it.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Samah]

I bought BioShock 2 without realising it used GFWL. It was my first experience with GFWL, and hopefully my last.
I will never buy another GFWL game.

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[roc97007]

> I don't understand how Microsoft could make this apparently awesome online service with their 360 (I dont own an XBox), but f* up this big for the PC.

That's because xbox is their cash cow whereas Windows is...

No wait...

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[reallyjoel]

You just had to throw in a cars analogy.. =)

Re:GFWL, no thanks

[Man Eating Duck]

I didn't even think about it, I've probably been on Slashdot too long. At least it is somewhat appropriate :)

Wow i must be tired

[Adambomb]

Am I insane or is the woman superimposed on the right hand side of the [weirdly purely flash] Flight site topless with propellers for nipples?

or both?

Re:Wow i must be tired

[Anonymous Coward]

You just made thousands of Flash- and Microsoft-hating nerds knowingly enter a pure-Flash Microsoft site.

Truly well played!

Re:Wow i must be tired

[Sockatume]

When I load up the page on a 1280x1024 monitor, I have to scroll to the right to see that. Maybe that was snuck in as a joke during testing because it was "off screen" during QA.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[Anonymous Coward]

Doubtful. Not many people use screen resolutions that low or in 5:4 aspect ratio any more.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[mangu]

topless with propellers for nipples?

You've been reading too much Slashdot. Now go and play outside, it's a lovely day.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[Canazza]

she's wearing a shirt, it looks like propellers because she's semi-transparent

Re:Wow i must be tired

[Anonymous Coward]

Not many people use screen resolutions that low

You'd be surprised.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[CeruleanDragon]

You just made thousands of Flash- and Microsoft-hating nerds knowingly enter a pure-Flash Microsoft site.

Truly well played!

Could've been worse/better, could've been made requiring Silverlight to load the pic. :)

Re:Wow i must be tired

[stimpleton]

I think she walked into a propeller, its taken a chunk out of her chest and reduced her top to tatters. Seriously, I sent a minute squinting trying to make it out, as logic tells me it cant surely be the case. So I'll give MS the benefit of the doubt and say its the effect of the semi transparency.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[Spad]

Half the people I know still use 1024 on 19"+ monitors because otherwise "the screen is too small" for them to read.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[mestar]

I cannot answer your question confidently, further study will be needed.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[u17]

The resolution might seem low to you, but in fact if you look at the number of pixels, it's not worse than other commonly used resolutions. For example, 1280x1024 is 1.31e6 pixels, while 1600x900, a 16:9 resolution, is 1.44e6 pixels, only a 10% improvement, where just by looking at 1600/1280 you'd expect it to be 25%. If the current trend continues, soon we will have 2048x1 resolutions with an amazing cinematic aspect ratio and the fewest possible pixels.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[realityimpaired]

Pasties, under a semi-transparent shirt.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[PopeRatzo]

Am I insane or is the woman superimposed on the right hand side of the [weirdly purely flash] Flight site topless with propellers for nipples?

That's nothing. Stare at the picture of clouds opposite the weird lady with propeller-nipples. Keep staring.

After a while, you can clearly see a naked man bending over with his junk hanging out the back.

Uh, nevermind.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[coastwalker]

These wide screen monitors might be great for games like flight or for viewing wide screen movies but they sure as hell suck for large spreadsheets and documents. I think that they are part of a plot to destroy western civilization. Its almost impossible to get a monitor more than 1200 pixels high these days.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[tepples]

Half the people I know still use 1024 on 19"+ monitors because otherwise "the screen is too small" for them to read.

Have they tried increasing the system DPI (Control Panel > Display > Settings > Advanced > General > Display > DPI setting)?

Re:Wow i must be tired

[multi io]

There's something wrong with her ribcage it seems. What's that strange bulge on the left there? Looks like she has a 50 lb. liver tumor or something.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[Chris Mattern]

Hint 1: View documents two pages at a time, like opening a book. Generally this fits a widescreen aspect ratio like a glove.

Hint 2: Buy a screen with a rotatable stand and run in portrait mode. Just about any modern video card will support this.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[petermgreen]

despite it's weird aspect ratio 1280x1024 was a common resoloution for both CRTs and LCDs for quite a while and in places with slower replacement cycles is likely to still be common.

Afiact it's only fairly recently that 1280x1024 has been replaced as the common low end desktop option by various widescreen formats (I think 1440x900 is the most common though I have seen some desktops as low as 1280x800!).

even according to steams hardware survey ( http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ ) which is likely to be biased towards gamers (who tend to be on shorter replacement cycles) 1280x1024 is still the single most common resoloution.

and most low end laptops are on 1280x800 afaict (generally web pages are intended to be scrolled vertically so width is more important to web designers than hight).

Re:Wow i must be tired

[IndustrialComplex]

Have they tried increasing the system DPI (Control Panel > Display > Settings > Advanced > General > Display > DPI setting)?

It works, except when it doesn't, and when it doesn't you have the option of messing with your resolution, or tweaking each program individually (when they don't support it)

Then you end up with a frankenstein of system settings some of which seem to apply, and then Oh my looks like this program started paying attention to the DPI and is now all wonky.

It's just easier to use a lower resolution even though adjusting the DPI is the 'correct' way to do it.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[arth1]

That's nothing. Stare at the picture of clouds opposite the weird lady with propeller-nipples. Keep staring.

After a while, you can clearly see a naked man bending over with his junk hanging out the back.

Um. while I disagree with your description, there appears to be a second image in the left hand panel (in addition to the prop plane). Step back around 10 feet, and squint. Once you see it, you'll breathe chicks.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[arth1]

That's her right elbow.
I'm more worried to see that she's wearing sport jocks, and appears to be a rather well endowed tranny.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[delinear]

If they're using a term like "the screen is too small", then probably not.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[arkane1234]

I donno, I'd think a wide screen monitor would be great for spreadsheets since most end up being too wide for the screen and you have to scroll left & right.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[mobby_6kl]

Then there are the normal people like myself, who have a much higher resolution monitor but don't maximize the browser window or even keep it much wider than about 1024 pixels.

Re:Wow i must be tired

[coastwalker]

I appreciate the content of all the replies arguing that everything is fine. I still think that the craze for video formats as being discussed over the Flight flash site is damaging to productivity.

Corporate purchases are always at best value. Currently this means displays that you cannot rotate and the cheap 1080p capable 1080 high monitors that are displacing 1200 deep monitors.

Everybody at my work place has dual or even as many as four letterbox monitors hooked up to their PC's. More distressingly managers have a single display attached to a laptop. What is this shrunken view of the world with no depth doing to their psychology?. So we are coping as best we can.

The other thing that has happened is the new office interface, where acres of vertical space is being wasted with persistent icon bars instead of drop down menus. Try transferring information between a Word document and a Powerpoint slide, its painful. I challenge anybody to do this without constant scrolling (not to mention the thousands of hours spent fiddling with Word and Powerpoints propensity to autoformat everything in a way that you did not input - probably the greatest cause of high blood pressure in modern civilisation. I find notepad a useful intermediary - and where do you put that?)

We spend half of our lives kicking Far Eastern manufacturers to improve work place ergonomics with Lean, Just in Time and 5S whilst our own productivity is drowning in useless clutter. On style and video driven shrinking screens where we can no longer see the all the information - its a joke!

I started on text only character displays and the improvements have been fantastic since then. Right now we are in a slump where we have lost the plot.

Just go and ask the stock traders whether they think a single 1080p monitor displays enough history to make them competitive. Or maybe that's why so many people are drawing food stamps rather than contributing to the economy - something has gone seriously wrong and I suggest that your daily grind in front of sub optimal screens is contributing to it.

So things are getting worse, even whilst the number of pixels on the screen are growing. The computer revolution is going backwards because of poor monitors!

We will get past this, right now a trick has been missed. We could have better monitors but consumer video formats are preventing us from achieving greatness ;-)

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[dingen]

Actually Minesweeper has been part of Windows since it was released in 1990's "Microsoft Entertainment Pack" and Hearts was included in 1992's Windows for Workgroups 3.1 as a demonstration of the "for Workgroups" part of the name.

So that's 20 years for Minesweeper and 18 years for Hearts. I don't know when Freecell was first released. It was part of win32s, but I can't find out when the first version of that thing shipped.

hmmm, lol?

[Thanshin]

The big question is whether Microsoft can make Games For Windows Live relevant in a market where Steam has taken hold, or if it's too late.

He must have a different definition of "relevant" than mine to make that a "big question".

AOE MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless it's persistent (which it isn't), how can they claim that it's a "massively multiplayer"? You might as well call any online game a "massive multiplayer" if:

a. It has a game lobby
b. Many people can play online at once.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play my favorite MMO, Counter-Strike.

Re:AOE MMO

[lowlymarine]

Wikipedia, apparently:

A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO) is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet, and feature at least one persistent world.

Re:AOE MMO

[TheThiefMaster]

Counter-strike doesn't have a lobby...

What about Diablo II? Server-side persistent characters, servers can't be hosted by players (at least officially), both PvE and PvP play...

No, the true definition of an MMO is very large numbers of players being in the same game world at once. In a strategy game that could be ownership of small territories on a large world map. In an RPG it means literally many characters in the world.

Re:AOE MMO

[Sockatume]

I think the confusion lies in the definitions of persistence. One meaning refers to the world's continued operation when the player is absent, as in WoW, which is the sense you use. However it can also refer to the persistence of player actions, such as the way Halo keeps track of the positions of dead enemies and weapon drops indefinitely. WoW is quite clearly not a very persistent game in that sense, otherwise it'd be a ghost town knee-deep in corpses, which explains the AC's confusion.

Re:AOE MMO

[Fri13]

I think it would be very nice to get change to host a AoE2 game with very very big maps, so that there could be hundreds of players at same time and still have so much space that you could get lost.

The maps should be over 2000x bigger than what there was no possible to have. And then have possibility to make allies and other diplomacy things in-the-fly.

After a few weeks there could be seen a so big armies and kingdoms that the management comes very hard if you have multiple enemies from different directions.

And if servers would run all the time without possibilities to save, you could keep your kingdom up and running as long as someone would be taking care of it as well. That would need you have friends playing as well for who you trust and you could give control. Otherwise your kingdom would just get conquered by enemies and crushed while new players would join to game in middle of it and start own kingdoms.

It would be real capitalised world with trades and wars... Kingdoms would be like companies, what could vanish at any time.

Maybe the real game would be.... who can stay a wake longest!

Re:AOE MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've read, your capital city continues to grow while you're offline. Though unlike games like Travian, you can't be attacked, or otherwise penalised, while offline. So yes, it's persistent.

Re:AOE MMO

[Xtifr]

Hmm, since we're quoting Wikipedia, I think it's actually appropriate for once to say "[citation needed]". Ordinarily, on Slashdot, this is a stupid and/or snarky way to say "I disagree", but in this case, I don't necessarily disagree. I'm just not quite sure where or how this supposedly "official" definition of a brand-new term came from. Especially with those {{POV-check}} and {{Refimprove}} tags at the top of the WP article.

Re:AOE MMO

[kellyb9]

Eh... I'd prefer a flight simulator MMO anyway.

Re:AOE MMO

[Monkeedude1212]

I think they mean to claim that a massive multiplayer not in an MMO but an MMRTS - which would be more than say 16 people in a game, which is usually the current limit due to map restrictions mostly.

Re:AOE MMO

[Monkeedude1212]

Unless it's persistent (which it isn't), how can they claim that it's a "massively multiplayer"?

Actually, they claim it is persistent. A persistent RTS.

Re:AOE MMO

[Xocet_00]

According to the gameplay video on the site linked in the summary, the game does have a persistent world. Check at the 1:03 mark, where the words "PERSISTENT WORLD" are plastered across the screen.

Re:AOE MMO

[zzsmirkzz]

If they called it a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game (MMORPG) I would agree with you on the persistence angle, but since they don't your argument bears no logic. Massively Multiplayer means you can connect and play with a massive amount of other players, period. Whether or not you can play them all at the same time or not is another question. Whether the world is persistent is a third (although pretty related to the second).

Re:AOE MMO

[arkane1234]

"multiplayer" - many people playing an instance of a game together (e.g. American Army, Counter Strike)
""Massive multiplayer" - A world that exists when all users log out, and they log back in to the same existing world with the same objects and whoever may have straggled into that world while they were not there. (e.g. World of Warcraft)

That's persistence.

That's something they are good at

[Cigaes]

At least, reboots are something Microsoft are very good at.

Re:That's something they are good at

[Anonymous Coward]

Rebooting a dead horse.

Re:That's something they are good at

[Jeff DeMaagd]

That's the only way for a reboot to make sense in the context of a flight sim. The story line isn't very long, maybe unless you tie it to a war, each edition covering a year of said war, with missions and craft specific to that year.

Games for Windows

[Sockatume]

My understanding, based on an editorial in Edge earlier this year, is that GfW just plain flat-out doesn't work. Not in the sense that its limited user base makes for poor multiplayer or that it has insufficient publisher for its downloadable games service, but in the sense that it does not reliably allow you to download games or play online.

Re:Games for Windows

[Klinky]

What else should we expect from the same company that brought us PlaysForSure, which doesn't always "Play For Sure".

Re:Games for Windows

[jimicus]

What else should we expect from the same company that brought us PlaysForSure, which doesn't always "Play For Sure".

Come on. That name was a blatant attempt to introduce FUD into a marketplace where previously there had been none. In this case, the FUD was "How can I be sure my MP3 player will play tracks I buy?"

Given the number of legitimate online music stores that operated at the time, the correct answer to that would have been "What are you talking about? You can't buy music online anyway!"

Re:Games for Windows

[TheRaven64]

It was a typo when they dictated it for marketing. Harold Shaw was the program director. The name was meant to be Plays For Shaw - it works for him, but it might not work for you.

Reboot is such a poor word

[cronius]

The term "reboot" is used to describe something "done again", but I think it's a pretty stupid word to use as it's not descriptive at all. Does my OS or hardware somehow radically change whenever I reboot it? Maybe Windows users experience this, I don't know.

When I first heard the term years ago I immediately disliked it. It feels like someone that don't work with computers as a profession thought that it was "cool" or "trendy" to use "pc terms" outside their original context, so "reboot" was the victim of the day.

< /rant >

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[srothroc]

The way I see it is that "reboot" and "restart" are pretty much synonymous, so outside of the computer context, people say that they're "rebooting" a show or series. The difference in that area, for me, is that "restarting" implies that there's some kind of continuity -- for example, the modern Doctor Who show builds off of the old one and shares continuity. A "reboot," on the other hand, is a ground-up revamping. It still probably annoys you though.

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[fbjon]

The software can radically change with a reboot.

Rebooting a show or series is like pressing the reset button: everything is cleared from the table and begun anew, but still with the same hardware basis. However, what happens in the boot sequence? Which OS do you choose in grub? Is there a live cd in the drive? You might end up somewhere completely different compared with before the reboot, even though the underlying principles are exactly the same. Similarly with shows and series, the subsequent seasons and games = boot sequence.

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[Spad]

Reboot: To start over from scratch. These days it's not entirely accurate what with these new-fangled "hard drive" things, but go back a bit and that's exactly what a reboot did.

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[drinkypoo]

Reboot: To start over from scratch.

Only if you have a computer without persistent storage...

I doubt Microsoft has started over from scratch, but I guess time will tell.

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[cronius]

Reboot: To start over from scratch. These days it's not entirely accurate what with these new-fangled "hard drive" things, but go back a bit and that's exactly what a reboot did.

This is interesting. I was not aware that it was an old expression (predating PCs, which you're implying). But after checking with the free online dictionary, I'm not sure it is, since it's not mentioned outside of a computer context (correct me if I'm wrong).

The term "booting a computer" comes from the term "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" meaning that you're helping yourself / being independent (accomplishing some task). A computer booting thus means something in the line that it's starting up and loading the operating system without external aid.

Transferring that meaning to rebooting "some game" meaning anything else than "shutting off the game and starting it again"... just doesn't work for me. I can't see how that is supposed to mean "creating an entirely new game from scratch."

Yeah, still a little rantish I guess..

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[cronius]

The software can radically change with a reboot.

Rebooting a show or series is like pressing the reset button: everything is cleared from the table and begun anew, but still with the same hardware basis. However, what happens in the boot sequence? Which OS do you choose in grub? Is there a live cd in the drive? You might end up somewhere completely different compared with before the reboot, even though the underlying principles are exactly the same. Similarly with shows and series, the subsequent seasons and games = boot sequence.

I guess you could look at it like that: When I reboot a computer you "never know what you're gonna get," but I'm not really buying it. Rebooting isn't viewed as something inconsistent or earth shattering: You expect a consistent result when rebooting a computer. Sure you could boot another OS, but that OS was there all along, it didn't just appear. You could boot a live CD but the old OS would still be there. Rebooting is a pretty safe, normal event that is related to consistent results without anything unexpected happening. "Rewrite" or "remake" or even something computer related like "reinstall" on the other hand is much closer to the meaning that the term "reboot" is being used as here (IMO).

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[cronius]

You are so caught up in the physics of re-booting that you ignore the reason people re-boot. Because something has changed. And in the Windows world, this often includes new software, new drivers, new... stuff that is an improvement.

Sure, so if the term was used in the meaning of "incremental change" it would be a (slightly) different story, but it's used as if to mean "complete rewrite" which isn't what I expect would happen whenever I reboot my computer.

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[internewt]

You are right, reboot is a shite term. It's clearly just marketing bollocks.

Reset would be a much more accurate, but reset kind of implies that it (a TV series) was done wrong in the past. If the old series' DVDs are still on the shelves, you don't want to do that!

Taking a word from the world of tech means there isn't much baggage of extra meaning to most people that "reset" does have. Apart from to geeks like you and I who hear shit like "Batman has been rebooted", and cringe.

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[Patch86]

When you reboot a computer (especially an old one without much by way of persistent memory) you are losing all your session-specific data, and restarting your programmes from their original parameters. Assuming you don't feed in exactly the same inputs, the new session will produce markedly different results.

When a TV show is "rebooted" you are getting rid of everything that has happened so far and restarting based on just the original premise.

Seems like a good enough analogy to me.

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[arkane1234]

Does my OS or hardware somehow radically change whenever I reboot it?

Only the day after patch tuesday ;)

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[arkane1234]

Rewrite sounds better, to me.

Re:Reboot is such a poor word

[YouWantFriesWithThat]

he wasn't talking about a pre-computer definition of reboot.

on the first computer i ever used there was no hard drive and it booted off of floppies. when you rebooted it with the same disk in the drive it would reload the program or OS back to scratch and all of your changes were lost. for example, if i was using symphony spreadsheet and i reboot the computer it would reload symphony with a blank spreadsheet and all previous changes would be lost.

reboot is really an industry term in entertainment that has leaked into common use. it means to start a series over again from scratch and abandoning all the changes that writers have made along the way. to use an example from comics, it means placing batman in a totally different conception of what gotham city is and redesigning the batmobile, his outfit, enemies, etc.

in this case it means that they are going to revisit all the design and gameplay decisions and use the core idea of the game without all of the baggage of the previous versions.

MS not serious about the PC

[blahplusplus]

... they are not committed to the platform since they adopted xbox as their strategy for entering the gaming market. Only in hindsight did they realize the damage they did for the relevancy of their platform as a whole. The nerd in me hopes linux and linux apps finally comes of age and the only reason people will keep windows around is for certain games and more and more real work will be done on linux or within the browser.

Re:MS not serious about the PC

[tenco]

Games are not the problem. Support from hardware vendors is the problem. I use Win 7 on my netbook because I don't trust the OSS implementation of SHE (i like to get the full 11 h out of my netbooks battery, not 6 h) and I want a stable WLAN connection (read: ndis wrapper).

microsoft ants please?

[togermano]

I wish they would remake microsoft ants..... Loved that game!!!! It was discontinued after microsoft got rid of MSN GAMING ZONE and this also took down the age of empires 1-2 gaming servers. But you can still play all three amazing games thanks to voobly client software. http://www.voobly.com/

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[Kjella]

So that's 20 years for Minesweeper and 18 years for Hearts. I don't know when Freecell was first released. It was part of win32s, but I can't find out when the first version of that thing shipped.

A little bit of digging shows it was later included in the Entertainment Pack 2 which was released in 1991 according to Microsoft's support lifecycle pages. It could not have been earlier than 1990 since that's when Windows 3.0 came out so 19-20 years old. Since it missed EP1, probably 19. And I can't really believe I bothered to go looking.

Games for Windows Live

[ciderbrew]

Seeing "Windows Live" on the box has stopped me buying games more than once. Even games I’ve really wanted to play. Eventually, I bought them for the ps3 when the price dropped as I feel less attached to that bit of kit.

I do not want a console like experience for my PC. I view that as many steps and many many years backwards. I hope Windows live for the PC fails! I do not like DRM (of any sort) and do not like being tracked as I play, especially by Microsoft. In reading this site for years I’ve slowly grown the tinfoil hat and get upset at the mention of DRM?!? I maybe way off the mark and the only thing that happens is a bit of first time activation.
However, I don’t trust them not to change terms and I cannot be bothered to read up on it. At its basic level it’s only a game. As a paying customer, I do not like being, or feel like I'm being criminalised. I’ll but it, you leave me alone.

To me, a console experience means I’m sitting on a sofa, rather drunk, playing games that are far too easy; but made impossible by the awful controls. When I want to play something with a bit of meat. I’ll fire up the PC, sit upright and get stuck in.

In summary then, “Windows live” no thanks.

Re:Games for Windows Live

[drinkypoo]

It's particularly sad that PC gaming once meant free of hassle, except perhaps for a CD check. Now it means rootkits and spyware. I have to make sure a game is not sold by Blizzard, is not Steam Powered, and is not part of Games for Windows before I know that I can actually just install and play the game that I paid for.

Re:Games for Windows Live

[cptdondo]

Or you can just get flightgear http://www.flightgear.org/ , which lets you fly against others, or fly planes, UFOs, even a Deux Cheveaux.

Re:Games for Windows Live

[ciderbrew]

Finding out what type of rootkit is used a problem too. It needs to be printed on the box.

Re:Games for Windows Live

[bluefoxlucid]

It's particularly sad that PC gaming once meant free of hassle, except perhaps for a CD check. Now it means rootkits and spyware. I have to make sure a game is not sold by Blizzard, is not Steam Powered, and is not part of Games for Windows before I know that I can actually just install and play the game that I paid for.

Yeah I miss the days of Doom and Duke Nukem. Install the game (copies to hard drive), modify my autoexec.bat and config.sys (did this once and added a menu), reboot into Game Mode when I play so I have more than 520kb of conventional (I got up to 740, which is good because Wolf needed 720K and that required some tricks since video sat around 640k). Other than that, sometimes I had to figure with a Setup.exe program or make sure SET BLASTER was right. When I'm done I can reboot into regular mode so Windows has its EMM386.sys and Himem.sys and everything loaded properly, and so my CD driver loads.

It was so easy back then. Nowadays you pop a game in, Windows crashes. You fight with it, it installs, runs, crashes. Update your video card driver, it works but no sound. Update your sound card driver. Fiddle with DirectX. Change some graphics settings and sound suddenly works (WTF?). Now try to uninstall the game and the uninstall fails. Now try to listen to an Audio CD and find out your CD drive is disabled because the uninstall corrupted some weird DRM. Also you have 50 viruses now since the DRM opens a hole in your firewall and lets people remote in and it has bugs and you're now a giant stretched anus waiting for hackers to put it in your ass.

I always loved my NES though. Sometimes I had to reboot it if I unseated the cartridge, but other than that it was just insert cart into deck and press play. Then Sony came up with these CD things for games and it all went down hill with load times and shitty games due to not enough primary storage. The Nintendo 64 could have a 64MB cartridge, which means you could have a 2MB program, 6MB of sound files, and 56MB of level map and textures and models and God knows what else and have it all in one GIANT level (the cartridge is on the memory bus, so everything is effectively "in RAM"). The Playstation had 640MB of storage, but you could load like 2MB into RAM at a time... smaller levels, less detail, load time, etc. And then CDs get scuffed or dirty and read 6 or 8 times before things load, or just fail and the game is dead...

Re:Games for Windows Live

[CronoCloud]

The Playstation had 640MB of storage, but you could load like 2MB into RAM at a time... smaller levels, less detail, load time, etc.

Which is why some PSone games loaded level data on the fly, as needed, as intended. Compare the Spyro games to Mario 64. Some PS2 games do the same thing, ever play EQOA, you'll never see a load screen past boot up unless you directly TP somewhere. You could walk/swim from Fayspires to the Kappa fortress on Odus and never see a single load screen.

Re:Games for Windows Live

[PincushionMan]

You do realize that those 64 MB cartridges were 64 MegaBIT not MegaByte, right? That comes out to 8 MB. It also wasn't executing in the cartridge, it was executing in the RAM. Yes, there is a lesser load time ROM vs CD-ROM. As for the RAM, it used Rambus RDRAM - 4 MB shared between the video, audio, and OS, whereas the PSX had discrete allocations of the 2MB of RAM to the various subsystem. As for 720K needed for Wolfenstein? What are you smoking!? Yes, with QEMM you could get up to 720K or so with a Hercules monochrome graphics adapter. But even Doom could run on an IBM Model 25 (16 MHz 386 SX) with 'just' 520k of free memory and only 1 MB of total memory. Wolfenstein was way lighter than that. Besides that - if you did free up that much memory, QEMM would disable graphics mode. Kind of defeats the purpose. You couldn't just use dos,high to load portions of the DOS kernel high to get 720-740k, you had to use QEMM. I will concede the point about Windows games. They have a finite shelf life. A shelf life which depends on any number of random Windows and DirectX DLLs. That said, it is just as equally difficult to get a Linux Loki game running these days as well. Even roll your own Linux systems have trouble, e.g. Gentoo and Unreal Tournament (I think it is still kicked out, waiting for a 4.51 patch or something).

Re:Games for Windows Live

[bluefoxlucid]

Wolf would crash complaining it needed 720k. Hell it was in the manual. I don't know what Wolfenstein wanted.

I thought the N64 ran 512Mbit carts. In fact I'm pretty sure it ran 512Mbit carts.

The "Unified Memory Bus" is a fancy way of saying "DMA," and Nintendo 64 was the first modern console to implement it. That 4MB did supply DMA-style access for video and audio subsystems; it also had an expansion option for a total of 8MB with a $20 expansion pack that came with a few games anyway (I think Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask included it for free?).

Factor 5 stated that Indiana Jones' textures, level, and even program code didn't fit in RAM; a lot was streamed directly from the cartridge during execution.

As for particulars, I can't find reference; I do know (from reading the SNES developer's manual-- I can't get the one for N64) that the SNES hangs the ROM directly on the address bus. In fact, if the cartridge contains hardware looking for access to low addresses, it can sniff and log all memory access and keep a shadow copy of RAM and all CPU registers in additional hardware INSIDE the cartridge. I had assumed the N64 used a similar design, rather than creating some odd I/O subsystem like ATA to talk to a controller acting as a block device to read the cartridge. Direct mapping has always been faster.

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[kevinmenzel]

Only not actually 20 years for any of them, as they all got remade for Vista, and thus the versions now in Windows are entirely different than those launched 20 years ago, or 19 years ago, and have been for quite some time. Those of you still on XP can, I think, even find places to download the new versions which have been stripped of compatibility checks. The new apps use WPF to achieve a certain level of resolution independence as well, so they look quite nice on larger screens...

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[dingen]

And I can't really believe I bothered to go looking.

I win.

rename

[Tom]

Well, at least when I go by the availability of the website, it should be renamed to Age of Empire offline, because it apparently is.

And I dimly remember that "Flight" (or maybe "Flight!") is already taken as a name for a computer game. Not that anyone at MS would care.

Re:rename

[game kid]

And I dimly remember that "Flight" (or maybe "Flight!") is already taken as a name for a computer game. Not that anyone at MS would care.

Why would they? Is Microsoft Flight taken? If the original dev team sue for being too close to "Microsoft Flight Simulator" they'll just brush 'em off with hand-held fans improvised from leftover product key stickers and maybe call it Windows Flight if they're nervous. A little pair of blue birdies tells me they'll find ways of keeping names without keeping names and whatever does transpire will be an overblown blip on the news radar (as most blips on the news radar are these days).

Damn the trademarks, full marketing machine ahead! OOo la la.

Urban Assualt

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they make UA2? The game was a faliure because it was ahead of its time.

Roland985...

Their own fault in the first place.

[ledow]

I never stopped playing AOE (specifically AOE2:Conquerors). I *DID* stop playing it online because MS just sucked the life out of the multiplayer aspect by locking it to a single vendor for online matchmaking and then destroying that facility when they got bored of AOE.

So, what's here for *me*, someone that wants to play AOE but was forced by Microsoft's enforced-obsolescence to stop playing it online unless I wanted to faff about with third-party software or entering IP addresses? I won't believe it won't happen again, and I don't believe that a new MMO "reboot" will be anywhere near as good as the AOE2:Conq. And are we talking about a monthly subscription model or can I actually *OWN* the game (or at least my copy of it) forever?

In the meantime, playing the classic version over a private VPN it is.

Re:Their own fault in the first place.

[Nimey]

I still enjoy playing Age of Mythology now and again. I don't bother playing online, though, since I'm not very good and will only wind up getting beaten.

Re:Their own fault in the first place.

[Nemyst]

Plus that new game looks like a travesty. Have you seen the cartoonish graphics and what looks like quest markers!?

Re:Their own fault in the first place.

[BobMcD]

In the meantime, playing the classic version over a private VPN it is.

Why?

Re:Their own fault in the first place.

[Confusador]

Seconded. My biggest concern about IPV6 is that it's going to add another layer to the hacks that I have to do to get Conquerors to run. If this is any good, and I can own the thing so that I'll have a chance of still being able to run it in ten years, and I can get it to run in Wine... *sigh* I should just give up now, I know, but it still has me more excited than Starcraft 2 ever did.

Re:Their own fault in the first place.

[ledow]

Less hole-punching.

In Soviet Russia,

[smitty97]

You reboot Microsoft! Wait, that happens all over the world, not just Russia

Twice 960x1200

[tepples]

These wide screen monitors might be great for games like flight or for viewing wide screen movies but they sure as hell suck for large spreadsheets and documents.

Then put two 960x1200 pixel windows side-by-side on your 1920x1200 pixel monitor. Windows 7 has Snap for this, and even Windows XP lets the user click one window's taskbar button, Ctrl+right click another, and Tile Vertically.

I think that they are part of a plot to destroy western civilization. Its almost impossible to get a monitor more than 1200 pixels high these days.

This was as true in the days of 1600x1200 as it is now.

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[AC-x]

Check out the FMV from the new photo-realistic 3D version of Minesweeper

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[Aceticon]

For a really old one, there's Nibbles which came with MS-DOS.

It was one of the example programs that came with QBasic. Text based, including shared-screen-shared-keyboard multiplayer. Surprisingly addictive in multiplayer mode, it didn't play correctly in more modern, faster machines (due to an easy to fix bug with the delay calculation code) and was last seen packaged with, I believe, NT 4.0

Plenty of hours wasted on that one during colleage when we should've been doing course work ...

Aww, shitty games :(

[bluefoxlucid]

When I read this I was hoping for another 3000 levels for Chip's Challenge and a deeper, more story-driven engine.

Re:Proof??

[bluefoxlucid]

Any idiot can torrent a cracked game and play Dr. Mario on their PC trying to clean out all 800 viruses.

Hacking an Xbox requires a few minutes of thought and reading some instructions.

Marketing is exempt from dog food

[Cornelius the Great]

You notice when Microsoft is trying to reach out to a large audience and advertise one of their own products, they don't force Silverlight down our throats?

Re:Marketing is exempt from dog food

[kgwilliam]

It isn't the consipracy theory you make it out to be. A lot of public MS sites are designed and built by external design agencies, and not all of those agencies have Silverlight dev experience. A lot of MS teams will contract out to a design agency and not put a restriction on the technologies used on the website as long as that agency produces good work at a good price.

Re:Marketing is exempt from dog food

[Confusador]

Did they change the page? I'm not going to try to load it from work, but this morning when I tried it all I got was a big Silverlight logo instead of the trailer.

Links Golf

[ProfanityHead]

I think MS made a huge mistake selling Access Software which they bought for its Links Golf game. They sold it to Take Two in '04 and it's basically been laid to rest by them.

Looking at the PC golf scene now is a pitiful exercise in frustration. EA quit making PC versions of Tiger Woods golf after the '08 version. Golf gamers only have console versions for now where if MS had kept the Links franchise alive I suspect it would be dominating right now.

EA does have Tiger Woods Online which runs from a plugin to your web browser but they did what many companies do and released it from beta long before it was a real product. A quick look at the forums for TWO pretty much tells the story: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/forums/show/3732.page

Will the default airport still be meigs field?

[Joe The Dragon]

Will the default airport still be meigs field?

Re:Will the default airport still be meigs field?

[Dagowolf]

There is no Meigs Field in FSX, just like in real life. FSX default airport is Friday Harbor in Washington.

Re:Will the default airport still be meigs field?

[tompaulco]

Will the default airport still be meigs field?
It hasn't been Meigs field ever since a terrorist in Chicago, under cover of darkness, illegally bulldozed large Xs in the runways of the real Meigs Field, trapping many planes that were based there, closing an important reliever to Midway and O'Hare airport, and causing airspace safety issues due to the closing of the traffic control facility based there, in violation of contractual agreements in which the FAA gave the city money (money which came from all U.S. Taxpayers) for development and upkeep of the airport. As a result, hundreds of jobs were lost, and the millions of dollars of income for the city each year from the airport is now gone.
The criminal has yet to be apprehended and charged with his heinous crimes, however, his whereabouts are well known, but he holds the police force in the palm of his hand, as he is the current mayor of Chicago.,

Re:Wasn't flight simulator team laid off?

[Cornelius the Great]

Not entirely, but it becomes much more expensive to start up a new project. Getting rid of ACES only to start over from scratch doesn't seem like a wise business decision. Still, I don't think Flight is a true reboot of MSFS- it may just be a simpler game wrapped around a simple flight engine (like Pilotwings), dumbed down for a wider (and more attention-deficit) audience.

I wouldn't be surprised to see if Microsoft does the same with Age of Empires- AOE and AOK, (and to some extent, III) were all fairly complex as far as tech trees and counter strategies, especially compared to more mainstream RTSes like C&C and Starcraft.

Coincidently, Microsoft "lost" the Ensemble team who did the original AOE games in a similar way it "lost" the ACES team, yet similarities end there. MS is contracting the former Ensemble devs (under Robot Entertainment) to do AOE Online, but it appears Flight is being done in-house.

Re:Wasn't flight simulator team laid off?

[Robert Zenz]

Nope, but firing the devs which spend a significant part of their live creating and designing the game is a little bit...how shall I say...dumb, especially if you want to make a sequel.

Re:Who would trust Microsoft?

[Robert Zenz]

It is just ironic that Microsoft is very lousy software company but world biggest.

No, it isn't. They made the right marketing decisions at the right time...most kids now are getting hammered into there brain that Windows is the same as a PC and that the Edit-Toolbar of Word is everything you'll ever need in an office job. Also, try to buy a PC without pre-installed Windows out there. The situation has improved a lot lately, but it's still pathetic.

TrainSim?

[DriveDog]

Killing off FlightSim took TrainSim with it, no? Will this mean the return of it? With GFWL, can we look forward to rogue locos pulling out of sidings just as our trains approach?

Re:Flight Simulator? But they fired everyone

[rwa2]

That's what I thought... they probably just bought and rebranded another small company's flight simulator, as they often do when it's too hard to innovate for themselves.

Also, maybe the term "reboot" will be more appropriate for when they fire the new development team again later this year? ^_^

games for windows live . . . ugh

[Satanboy]

I bought Batman Arkham Asylum and had numerous problems with Games for Windows Live.

GWL slowed the loading of the game, gave weird errors, and there was even a problem getting a patch due to this running in the background.

I haven't bought a game with GWL since.

I boycotted Steam for 5 years after having a bad experience 1 time, I'll probably give GWL that much time to correct their issues as well.

BTW:
Steam still has MAJOR faults that nobody really mentions on gaming sites very often such as server lists not populating and authentication problems as well as that little banned issue they ran into a while back with Modern Warfare, so all of these services are really a pain in the ass when it comes down to it.

do a google search for "server not responding steam" and see what you find ;-)

Re:games for windows live . . . ugh

[Dagowolf]

BTW: Steam still has MAJOR faults that nobody really mentions on gaming sites very often such as server lists not populating and authentication problems as well as that little banned issue they ran into a while back with Modern Warfare, so all of these services are really a pain in the ass when it comes down to it.

No joke. Add the random disconnects, the painfully slow server response times, inability to better choose your server, PITA local server setup, etc. Steam isn't perfect, but at least it isn't the permanent connection DRM that Ubisoft is using on Assassin's Creed 2

Re:games for windows live . . . ugh

[Slider451]

I have Batman Arkham Asylum on PC, too. Purchased through Steam. I was surprised and disappointed to see GfWL popup and force me to register and login ON TOP of my existing Steam logon. What's the point? I am seriously annoyed at the possibility that I won't be able to play or, almost as bad, not save my progress if I can't logon for some reason. Fortunately it hasn't given me any problems for the months since I purchased it. The game is a lot of fun. But this dual-level DRM is unacceptable. Steam works well for me and is the only way I have purchased games for nearly two years. But I will avoid GfWL-laden products in the future.

Seems like just yesterday...

[theJML]

Seems like just yesterday that they canned the whole group that made Flight Simulator...

That lasted a long time. What was it like 9 months ago?

This 'Flight' better be pretty awesome. X was pretty nice once they patched it to use multiple cores and now you can find it cheap on sale. If 'Flight' doesn't add anything beyond graphics (which were awesome on X if you could crank them, including multiple positionable monitors/views) then there's no reason to upgrade.

Re:Seems like just yesterday...

[Sporkinum]

What I would love to see them do with flight, is integrate the high quality graphics they have in Bing Maps. It's fun to mess around with the built in flight sim in Google Earth, but their flight engine is not very good. Microsoft would have one awesome application if they combined FSX with Bing Maps.

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[javaxjb]

I'm disappointed they didn't go back to the true roots of PC gaming: Donkey. You didn't even need to add a game controller.

AOE: shrewd move

[computerchimp]

good business sense.
Starcraft sequel comes out and Microsoft rides the (free) wave again hoping to snap up some RTS players new and those that get a bit tired of Starcraft.

AOE was a good game had a lot of potential for tweaking left; I wish they polished it up more. I'll still buy/play it.

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[sorak]

They could have a massive, scrolling map, with the main character being a 3d rendered image of a guy with a metal detector. You then use the cursors to scroll around, all while obnoxious techno music plays in the background. And you could get crazy achievements, like "blown up on first round".

I'm surprised no one has done it yet. Those are probably the dumbest ideas I've ever had, without drinking. I'm surprised no one has done it yet.

Not according to the trailer

[dreamchaser]

According to the trailer it is persistent.

28",2048 x 2048, 1000:1 contrast, is the way to go

[new500]

Nope, easy to get one of these: http://www.eizo.com/global/products/atc/sq2801/index.html i just would be amazed if they cost less than $10K plus $100K "procurement fee" but seriously, if someone dared to mass produce a spec even close to that, even for several grand, i'm pretty sure they'd sell fairly briskly.

PW not MMO

[yoshi_mon]

Ok to be fair I saw nothing at the AOE Online site where they called what they were doing an MMO. Rather they made it a point to call it a Persistent World. Further since Ensemble Studios is not even a division of MS anymore I wonder if anyone from any of the original AOE I & II games had a hand in it. From the brief video it did not look like it to me.

A little off topic but I lost interest in the AOE series when AOE III came out. They really changed the game too much and what made AOE I & II so much fun was lost imo. I moved on to RON which still to date is the best RTS overall. SC II is decent but while there is a level of complexity in microing your units there is nothing that I've seen that matches RON's strategy with all its different resources, rare resources, ages, territories, and so on.

They Key Difference Appears To Be...

[EXTomar]

The key difference between GfWL and Steam, Battle.net and other PC systems is that except for initial hiccups at launch Steam and Battle.net and those systems work as advertised. However, Games for Windows Live has not where people today have problems with the service getting a handful of games with a handful of users to work glitch and problem free.

DRM is a pesky issue that isn't going away. People should be leery about how these things are implemented but if you want people to hate it then do it half ass like GfWL.

Re:They Key Difference Appears To Be...

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Sorry, but "work as advertised"? None of those systems are advertised on the box to be even present or how they should work.

Re:Wasn't flight simulator team laid off?

[Gavin Scott]

It sounds like they're re-developing it from scratch, so this will be an entirely new game rather than yet-another update to the old FS.

Honestly I think this is a great thing, since FS was an ancient code-base that always had its share of really annoying behaviors. It was kind of like a mainframe application from the the 1960s, not something designed after the dawn of the age of GUIs.

If they do a halfway decent job of it I think the simulator community will be really happy about this.

And honestly was there any question in anyone's mind that they wouldn't do this eventually when you heard about the shutdown and layoffs of the original FS group?

I for one am excited about this news.

G.

what about ski free? make a new one ski free 3D!

[Joe The Dragon]

what about ski free? make a new one ski free 3D!

Free to play

[Etheric]

This demo video says that it will be a free game.

Was hoping for...

[insnprsn]

I read this and instantly started hoping for a Freelancer reboot, oh well I'll have to settle for community mods Long live DiscoveryFL

Re:Was hoping for...

[Philomage]

Seconded. Though I'm a FLU guy myself.

loved AOE back when

[bjk002]

When I first read MMO I envisioned one huge HUGE map with hundreds of players simultaneously controlling small little armies of little dudes running around with hammers and ballistas and siege-craft of every color imaginable crawling across the map annihilating each other...

Now THAT would be cool enough to warrant tolerating GFWL

What?

[Tolkien]

I thought they had shut down development of Flight Simulator! Maybe an exec was a fan and wanted the next version anyway?

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[Miseph]

I always preferred the gorilla game. I don't recall the name, but something about launching explosive bananas between buildings is just awesome.

Re:How are they going to "reboot" Flightsim?

[tompaulco]

I don't know if it will be any good or not, but I sure hope it is. I have had Flight Simulator ever since it was Sublogic Flight Simulator, and there is such a dedicated following of people developing third party scenery, airplanes, flight plans and the like. I enjoy flying around in the virtual world with planes in current livery's and on current flight schedules flying around with me. Every generation has gotten better in terms of graphics and functionality. I don't know what to expect for this next iteration, especially if it is basically a restart, but I have at least hope for even better than FSX.

Re:A company with plenty of truly innovative ideas

[brasselv]

The innocence of youth :-)
The post above was wrongly moderated as troll, I suspect because someone thought it was meant to be serious (it's not)
I guess not everybody was around when MS came out with the lovely crap called Bob 1.0

Bob received the 7th place in PC World Magazine's list of the 25 worst products of all time, a spot in Time Magazine's list of the 50 Worst Inventions and number ten worst product of the decade by CNET.com.

(After that, not even Steve Ballmer at the top of desperation would think of resurrecting any "Bob 2.0")

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[Kvasio]

I don't know when Freecell was first released. It was part of win32s, but I can't find out when the first version of that thing shipped.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCell_(Windows)#History
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Entertainment_Pack#32-bit_versions
3. http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/History/The-History-of-Microsoft-1991/

So MEP vol 2 was released on 30 September 1991.

Re:What about Hearts, Freecell and Minesweeper?

[dingen]

Freecell was released with Win32s before MEP vol 2 came out.