Well, you don't take the time to connect your 360 to your network connection, then only use it once. Besides, when you create your system profile, you can create it as an Xbox Live account. Then it automatically logs in on each start, and gets leaderboard data and friends info and all that. You don't have to actively do anything - it's just there.
Thus it's very unlikely that someone hooked stuff up then "used it once".
But then you end up with friends online, and start playing with them regularly, and stop dealing with the random hordes when you don't want to. Meaning you get to do exactly what you said should happen - you host a game, and play with your friends. I do it all the time on XBL.
And as some services have ranking systems designed to match you up with players of similar skill, you don't even have to worry that random idiots will be a ton better.
Live costs all of $50 a year. That's the price of a single game, and averages out to just over $4 a month. That's pocket change for most people. If you can afford a game console and multiple games, you can afford Live without problem. The money complaint is very minor.
As for the rest of your items?
- Online messaging doesn't have to be allowed. You can set your privacy options so nobody will see you online or can contact you.
- Leaderboards can be ignored.
- A few people submitting "cheating" feedback because of a good score isn't going to get you banned, and even if you did get banned from Live, you'd still be able to play all of your games.
- Voice chat can be disabled.
- Playing with friends online? Check. The integrated friends list means not only can you play one game with friends, but you can easily find each other no matter what game you're playing. You can even voice chat with a friend while playing totally different games, or the same game but each in single player mode.
- Free? Well, you can't expect to get all the features for free. Even the online PC experience isn't as simple and straightfoward. And you should realize that the voice chat means you effectively have unlimited long distance to any friend on XBL for just over $4 a month.
You're still free to not use it and not be interested, but I didn't see any of your reasons that were very convincing as to why not to use it. Heck, I wasn't that excited about it before I got on with a two-month free trial. I never expected to pay to keep it. But then I used it.
Out of the 1.5 million+ Xbox 360's that have been sold worldwide so far, about 50% have connected to Xbox Live. Compared to the rate of use on the original Xbox, this is HUGE. Of course, the fact that XBL now can be used for free (without multiplayer play) has helped this a lot, I'm sure, but that means that half of the 360's out there will be uploading scores and times to leaderboards, browsing the Xbox Live Marketplace for cheap little fun games, download trailers and demos, getting patches, and keeping track of their friends' achievements and scores.
Sure, it's not a primary selling point to most people. But once they start making use of it, things change. And with the way it connects to PCs using Windows Media Connect or Media Center, so people can stream music and movies, such people might as well just connect up to XBL anyways.
I think this generation is going to really bring the online service into the foreground when it comes to consoles.
Let's see... because doing this MIGHT cause other players to harass and discriminate GLBT folks, Blizzard will head this all off by discriminating against GLBT folks.
So now you're allowed to go around calling other people and things gay, but refer to yourself that way, and you're in trouble.
I look at it like this - they couldn't put together a system like they have with just incompetent people in charge. And considering they do ATMs that are secure and have all the features people ask for in electronic voting machines, they've proven that they CAN do it right if they want to.
The fact that they didn't do it right implies, to me at least, that they didn't WANT to do it right.
But that's silly of me. What purpose would it solve to have voting machines that don't have paper trails and are hackable?
For tagging music files with properly spelled artist names and song names and the like, I find the MusicBrainz tagger to be quite useful. It's also got the advantage of being editable by the users, and easier to clean up than other places.
However, you'll get no genre info there. That's something that's just really, really hard to do well. Especially because of the overlap that some artists have between genres, and how specific someone wants to be. Is VNV Nation EBM? Futurepop? Or just Electronica? How about Dead Can Dance? I think they've hit a dozen different genres over the years, how do you pick one?
For the most part, I've tried to just give up on genre entirely. It rarely says anything of value anyway.
PDZ is missing a LOT of things that I had come to expect after playing Halo.
You CANNOT play with a team of friends in ranked mode. All ranked team modes require playing with random other people. And considering that 6 out of 8 game modes are team based, that's a serious shortcoming.
No party system.
Only 2 teams per game, and your team is always green, and the other team is always red.
Game types with weapons spawning on the map only allow 5 different weapon types total. Non-weapon items like armor take up spots in this, too.
The pregame lobby is a UI mess compared to Halo.
The gameplay itself is decent, and it's been growing on me of late. And you can get together parties of friends, like that Activision disaster known as COD2.
The way I've always put it is that PDZ would be a great game... with about 6 more months of development work to finish it. Now, it feels like it's working hard just to be decent.
Funny, the 360 hasn't even hit the 3 month mark yet. Besides, it's hard to compare launch numbers because the 360 did it differently. There were plenty of 360's made for Europe and Japan, and at least Europe is also completely sold out. But the sales numbers that are mentioned don't include there, they only compare in the US. I think I've heard that over 300k have been sold in Europe - this would mean 900k in three months - at least on track to match the DS.
Halo 2 brought the same level of quality to online play as it did to all the other parts of the game. Someone said above that Halo didn't have any one area that was exceptional, but that EVERYTHING in the game was well done, with Bungie's attention to detail and making sure even the small parts of the experience are well done. Well, I think Halo 2's online play is the exceptional part. I haven't found a single game that has anything close to as good of an online experience. Period. Matchmaking based on rank, the party system, the customizability of game types, etc. They set a new standard - now if only other companies would follow it.
None of this crap about finding a server to join - they understood it was about playing the game, not pretending you're setting up a server/client network. You don't to deal with games with combinations of newbies that are cannon fodder and extra-amazing players that run away with the win - ranking systems, even in the training matchmaking lists, that put you up against people with similar rankings to make it more likely that you'll have a challenging - but fair - game. No getting stuck with random teams if you have friends that are on - that's a HUGE thing that I am seriously missing in other games (PDZ).
Halo wasn't about pushing the edges of FPS with wild innovations, but putting together one of the most solid FPS games ever made. And it is.
Yeah, that one was a pain. The key is to not use any bombs until you hit 500k, then start playing very conservative and bombing at the first sign of trouble. You should have enough bombs to last, and since your multiplier is getting nice by that point, the second 500k is a lot quicker.
I started playing for that achievement, and was able to get it in about an hour of play.
Old arcade high score tables aren't quite the same. So what, I got the high score on a game for a day. The next day, it might be wiped. Or even on the games that store the table over power down - that only means that anyone who plays that specific machine would see.
Xbox Live has leaderboards, so when I know I've made #77 on Hexic, I can know it's against more than a small crowd, but everyone on Xbox Live. And achievements are so easily comparable between friends and the like, that I don't think there's much similarity there at all.
BTW, if you're in need of XBL friends to play with, there are plenty of places to find groups of people to play with - and I don't mean the masses of teenage idiots. 2Old2Play is good for the over-25 crowd, and there are actually some decent threads on the Xbox.com forums.
Heck, for that matter, toss me a FR (PMS GibGirl). I have enough people sending me FRs for various reasons that I cycle some people through quicker than I'd like, but depending on what you play, I may be able to get you into some games to meet some other people. Once you start meeting the right people on Live, your friends list will snowball and you'll have plenty to play with.
Of course, this all presupposes you have a Gold-level account.:)
I actually rented King Kong through GameFly just to play through it one evening and get the 1000 gamerscore. I'm actually going to pick up NBA 2k6 for the same reason - all 1000 points are easily achievable in only a game or two.
And I don't mind padding my gamerscore where available, because I still have plenty of noteworthy achievements to show that I do have my gaming prowess. My Grand Pearh Pooh-Bah achievement last night in Hexic is significant, and the Survive 1,000,000 in Geo Wars is a VERY HARD one to get - and I have it.
Whoever came up with the idea for achievements and gamerscore really needs to get a raise. This is huge - and not just for the increased competitiveness to gaming I'm sure it's going to bring, but I suspect it increases attach rate and helps out with game rentals, too. It's also wonderful being able to actually see which people run off at the mouth about their gaming skills and can't back it up, and those which can. You say you're good at DOA4? Let's see the grade achievements to prove it.
(Currently at 3185 and growing. Should hit 3200 tonite with another chapter of Condemned.)
Hehe, there's a reason that I pick certain outfits over others in DOA4. I really like using Christie's bondage outfit (and for that matter, Tina's black cat one).
The bouncing can be highly entertaining, even for us gals.:)
Re:Big Brother and the iTunes Company
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: 1
I tried Pandora, and it seems to be very hit or miss. I entered one of my favorite Enigma tracks once, and ended up with a lot of disco music being played afterwards, which I DID NOT like.
Pandora is also restricted to only playing and comparing from music that the have in their DB. I've found a number of things I like they don't have. Last.fm, because of the way it works, doesn't require them to have the music for streaming to be able to use that artist for recommendations.
Finally, Pandora doesn't have a memory outside of each individual station. I'd like it better if it tracked my preferences long term so it would know that certain artists I just don't want to hear, no matter which music I select that they may sound like.
That said, I have found some interesting new things through Pandora.
Re:Big Brother and the iTunes Company
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
So what's the problem here? The problem is that I don't like it. I don't want a computer program diagnosing me at a hospital even if it is built on solid Bayesian probability models and I don't want a profile of my musical tastes being generated on a company's database. My taste in music is my business and I don't want other people knowing that my most listened to album is Tom Dooley and Other Hits by The Kingston Trio.
It's not like recommendations by a program are a life or death decision like the hospital program you mention, and it's not like they can make you like the music just because they recommend it to you. The worst thing that happens? Their recommendations system is poor and you realize they're useless and start ignoring them.
BTW, music tracking can be very useful for those of us who actually want to expand our musical horizons. Last.fm is all about tracking a user's music and creating profiles, and guess what? Best thing I ever did as far as music goes. I've found a ton of new stuff and am enjoying music a lot more than I used to. Something I'd miss out on if I was too busy creating tinfoil hats to protect me from evil companies that can control my mind cause they know what I listen to.
To be fair, I agree that it's not a good thing for them to be sending music data like that without at least informing the user what's happening and asking if they want it turned off first. If they made users turn it on, and told them it would send data when active, I can't see how anyone could complain about the feature.
Re:Extremely easy to disable, and more info
on
iTunes is Malware?
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· Score: 1
I think all that Apple should have done is pop-up a little window when installing iTunes 6.02 - or even running for the first time - that would inform the user that there is this feature that they can enable to suggest new music for them, and that it will send the name of the selected song to Apple to get the recommendations. Be up-front about it, and then nobody can give them crap about it. After all, if you don't like it, you never turn it on, right?
And heck, I think some Slashdotters are downright paranoid if they're worried about what's going to happen because some company figured out what music they're listening to. I'm like you - I use Last.fm to INTENTIONALLY track every single song I listen to. Because the recommendations there are amazingly useful - I've found entirely new types of music that I like, stuff I never would have considered otherwise.
I believe there's an option to turn off voice output entirely.
If not, you can always direct it to your headset, then not wear the headset. Presto, no having to listen to people!
BTW, make sure to use the feedback system - it actually does make a difference. You'd be surprised how many people get voice banned for some period of time for their behavior - it's quite opposite from the impression people get that there are no consequences to getting negative feedback.
Just keep at it. This game is addictive hard-core old-school shooter action, where you just have to hone your instincts and don't have much time to actually THINK.
I'm bummed... I hit 2.42 million on the 1st, and I'm really don't expect to see that score show up on the leaderboards when they're done with it, but my barely 2-million score.
Oh well, either way, I'm sure I can top it soon anyway.
*sigh* I miss being #7 on the leaderboard for GW...
Xbox Live does a LOT more than just match players together.
It maintains a friends list, one that lets you see which friends of yours are online, and what they're doing at the time.
You can voice chat with any friend at any time - even when in different games, or when one of you is watching a movie.
It - if implemented in the game - tracks stats for your play across games. It also keeps a ranking for you in the game, a ranking that is used to match you up with players of similar skill levels to make the game as fun and interesting as possible. Oh, and there are leaderboards for all games too, so you can see how you rate against other people.
Xbox Live isn't just a service to match up players. I've played a number of online games on the PC over the years, and I can say that Live does more, and does it more seamlessly, then any PC game. Heck, Halo 2's matchmaking/ranking/playlist system is significantly better than any other online setup I've seen for any game on any system. They essentially made the idea of "browsing" for a server to be an obsolete concept.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you don't take the time to connect your 360 to your network connection, then only use it once. Besides, when you create your system profile, you can create it as an Xbox Live account. Then it automatically logs in on each start, and gets leaderboard data and friends info and all that. You don't have to actively do anything - it's just there.
Thus it's very unlikely that someone hooked stuff up then "used it once".
But then you end up with friends online, and start playing with them regularly, and stop dealing with the random hordes when you don't want to. Meaning you get to do exactly what you said should happen - you host a game, and play with your friends. I do it all the time on XBL.
And as some services have ranking systems designed to match you up with players of similar skill, you don't even have to worry that random idiots will be a ton better.
Live costs all of $50 a year. That's the price of a single game, and averages out to just over $4 a month. That's pocket change for most people. If you can afford a game console and multiple games, you can afford Live without problem. The money complaint is very minor.
As for the rest of your items?
- Online messaging doesn't have to be allowed. You can set your privacy options so nobody will see you online or can contact you.
- Leaderboards can be ignored.
- A few people submitting "cheating" feedback because of a good score isn't going to get you banned, and even if you did get banned from Live, you'd still be able to play all of your games.
- Voice chat can be disabled.
- Playing with friends online? Check. The integrated friends list means not only can you play one game with friends, but you can easily find each other no matter what game you're playing. You can even voice chat with a friend while playing totally different games, or the same game but each in single player mode.
- Free? Well, you can't expect to get all the features for free. Even the online PC experience isn't as simple and straightfoward. And you should realize that the voice chat means you effectively have unlimited long distance to any friend on XBL for just over $4 a month.
You're still free to not use it and not be interested, but I didn't see any of your reasons that were very convincing as to why not to use it. Heck, I wasn't that excited about it before I got on with a two-month free trial. I never expected to pay to keep it. But then I used it.
Out of the 1.5 million+ Xbox 360's that have been sold worldwide so far, about 50% have connected to Xbox Live. Compared to the rate of use on the original Xbox, this is HUGE. Of course, the fact that XBL now can be used for free (without multiplayer play) has helped this a lot, I'm sure, but that means that half of the 360's out there will be uploading scores and times to leaderboards, browsing the Xbox Live Marketplace for cheap little fun games, download trailers and demos, getting patches, and keeping track of their friends' achievements and scores.
Sure, it's not a primary selling point to most people. But once they start making use of it, things change. And with the way it connects to PCs using Windows Media Connect or Media Center, so people can stream music and movies, such people might as well just connect up to XBL anyways.
I think this generation is going to really bring the online service into the foreground when it comes to consoles.
Let's see... because doing this MIGHT cause other players to harass and discriminate GLBT folks, Blizzard will head this all off by discriminating against GLBT folks.
So now you're allowed to go around calling other people and things gay, but refer to yourself that way, and you're in trouble.
Quality ideas here.
RTFA.
Nowhere is there any claim that they're ending Xbox support at the end of the year. NOWHERE.
Welcome to Slashdot, where we make up crap about Microsoft, then attack them for it.
I look at it like this - they couldn't put together a system like they have with just incompetent people in charge. And considering they do ATMs that are secure and have all the features people ask for in electronic voting machines, they've proven that they CAN do it right if they want to.
The fact that they didn't do it right implies, to me at least, that they didn't WANT to do it right.
But that's silly of me. What purpose would it solve to have voting machines that don't have paper trails and are hackable?
For tagging music files with properly spelled artist names and song names and the like, I find the MusicBrainz tagger to be quite useful. It's also got the advantage of being editable by the users, and easier to clean up than other places.
However, you'll get no genre info there. That's something that's just really, really hard to do well. Especially because of the overlap that some artists have between genres, and how specific someone wants to be. Is VNV Nation EBM? Futurepop? Or just Electronica? How about Dead Can Dance? I think they've hit a dozen different genres over the years, how do you pick one?
For the most part, I've tried to just give up on genre entirely. It rarely says anything of value anyway.
PDZ is missing a LOT of things that I had come to expect after playing Halo.
You CANNOT play with a team of friends in ranked mode. All ranked team modes require playing with random other people. And considering that 6 out of 8 game modes are team based, that's a serious shortcoming.
No party system.
Only 2 teams per game, and your team is always green, and the other team is always red.
Game types with weapons spawning on the map only allow 5 different weapon types total. Non-weapon items like armor take up spots in this, too.
The pregame lobby is a UI mess compared to Halo.
The gameplay itself is decent, and it's been growing on me of late. And you can get together parties of friends, like that Activision disaster known as COD2.
The way I've always put it is that PDZ would be a great game... with about 6 more months of development work to finish it. Now, it feels like it's working hard just to be decent.
Funny, the 360 hasn't even hit the 3 month mark yet. Besides, it's hard to compare launch numbers because the 360 did it differently. There were plenty of 360's made for Europe and Japan, and at least Europe is also completely sold out. But the sales numbers that are mentioned don't include there, they only compare in the US. I think I've heard that over 300k have been sold in Europe - this would mean 900k in three months - at least on track to match the DS.
Halo 2 brought the same level of quality to online play as it did to all the other parts of the game. Someone said above that Halo didn't have any one area that was exceptional, but that EVERYTHING in the game was well done, with Bungie's attention to detail and making sure even the small parts of the experience are well done. Well, I think Halo 2's online play is the exceptional part. I haven't found a single game that has anything close to as good of an online experience. Period. Matchmaking based on rank, the party system, the customizability of game types, etc. They set a new standard - now if only other companies would follow it.
None of this crap about finding a server to join - they understood it was about playing the game, not pretending you're setting up a server/client network. You don't to deal with games with combinations of newbies that are cannon fodder and extra-amazing players that run away with the win - ranking systems, even in the training matchmaking lists, that put you up against people with similar rankings to make it more likely that you'll have a challenging - but fair - game. No getting stuck with random teams if you have friends that are on - that's a HUGE thing that I am seriously missing in other games (PDZ).
Halo wasn't about pushing the edges of FPS with wild innovations, but putting together one of the most solid FPS games ever made. And it is.
Yeah, that one was a pain. The key is to not use any bombs until you hit 500k, then start playing very conservative and bombing at the first sign of trouble. You should have enough bombs to last, and since your multiplier is getting nice by that point, the second 500k is a lot quicker.
I started playing for that achievement, and was able to get it in about an hour of play.
Old arcade high score tables aren't quite the same. So what, I got the high score on a game for a day. The next day, it might be wiped. Or even on the games that store the table over power down - that only means that anyone who plays that specific machine would see.
Xbox Live has leaderboards, so when I know I've made #77 on Hexic, I can know it's against more than a small crowd, but everyone on Xbox Live. And achievements are so easily comparable between friends and the like, that I don't think there's much similarity there at all.
BTW, if you're in need of XBL friends to play with, there are plenty of places to find groups of people to play with - and I don't mean the masses of teenage idiots. 2Old2Play is good for the over-25 crowd, and there are actually some decent threads on the Xbox.com forums.
:)
Heck, for that matter, toss me a FR (PMS GibGirl). I have enough people sending me FRs for various reasons that I cycle some people through quicker than I'd like, but depending on what you play, I may be able to get you into some games to meet some other people. Once you start meeting the right people on Live, your friends list will snowball and you'll have plenty to play with.
Of course, this all presupposes you have a Gold-level account.
Sorry, I'm already taken, and you'd have to fight my partner for me. Trust me, she's a feisty one, it won't be easy. :)
I actually rented King Kong through GameFly just to play through it one evening and get the 1000 gamerscore. I'm actually going to pick up NBA 2k6 for the same reason - all 1000 points are easily achievable in only a game or two.
And I don't mind padding my gamerscore where available, because I still have plenty of noteworthy achievements to show that I do have my gaming prowess. My Grand Pearh Pooh-Bah achievement last night in Hexic is significant, and the Survive 1,000,000 in Geo Wars is a VERY HARD one to get - and I have it.
Whoever came up with the idea for achievements and gamerscore really needs to get a raise. This is huge - and not just for the increased competitiveness to gaming I'm sure it's going to bring, but I suspect it increases attach rate and helps out with game rentals, too. It's also wonderful being able to actually see which people run off at the mouth about their gaming skills and can't back it up, and those which can. You say you're good at DOA4? Let's see the grade achievements to prove it.
(Currently at 3185 and growing. Should hit 3200 tonite with another chapter of Condemned.)
Hehe, there's a reason that I pick certain outfits over others in DOA4. I really like using Christie's bondage outfit (and for that matter, Tina's black cat one).
:)
The bouncing can be highly entertaining, even for us gals.
I tried Pandora, and it seems to be very hit or miss. I entered one of my favorite Enigma tracks once, and ended up with a lot of disco music being played afterwards, which I DID NOT like.
Pandora is also restricted to only playing and comparing from music that the have in their DB. I've found a number of things I like they don't have. Last.fm, because of the way it works, doesn't require them to have the music for streaming to be able to use that artist for recommendations.
Finally, Pandora doesn't have a memory outside of each individual station. I'd like it better if it tracked my preferences long term so it would know that certain artists I just don't want to hear, no matter which music I select that they may sound like.
That said, I have found some interesting new things through Pandora.
So what's the problem here? The problem is that I don't like it. I don't want a computer program diagnosing me at a hospital even if it is built on solid Bayesian probability models and I don't want a profile of my musical tastes being generated on a company's database. My taste in music is my business and I don't want other people knowing that my most listened to album is Tom Dooley and Other Hits by The Kingston Trio.
It's not like recommendations by a program are a life or death decision like the hospital program you mention, and it's not like they can make you like the music just because they recommend it to you. The worst thing that happens? Their recommendations system is poor and you realize they're useless and start ignoring them.
BTW, music tracking can be very useful for those of us who actually want to expand our musical horizons. Last.fm is all about tracking a user's music and creating profiles, and guess what? Best thing I ever did as far as music goes. I've found a ton of new stuff and am enjoying music a lot more than I used to. Something I'd miss out on if I was too busy creating tinfoil hats to protect me from evil companies that can control my mind cause they know what I listen to.
To be fair, I agree that it's not a good thing for them to be sending music data like that without at least informing the user what's happening and asking if they want it turned off first. If they made users turn it on, and told them it would send data when active, I can't see how anyone could complain about the feature.
I think all that Apple should have done is pop-up a little window when installing iTunes 6.02 - or even running for the first time - that would inform the user that there is this feature that they can enable to suggest new music for them, and that it will send the name of the selected song to Apple to get the recommendations. Be up-front about it, and then nobody can give them crap about it. After all, if you don't like it, you never turn it on, right?
And heck, I think some Slashdotters are downright paranoid if they're worried about what's going to happen because some company figured out what music they're listening to. I'm like you - I use Last.fm to INTENTIONALLY track every single song I listen to. Because the recommendations there are amazingly useful - I've found entirely new types of music that I like, stuff I never would have considered otherwise.
I believe there's an option to turn off voice output entirely.
If not, you can always direct it to your headset, then not wear the headset. Presto, no having to listen to people!
BTW, make sure to use the feedback system - it actually does make a difference. You'd be surprised how many people get voice banned for some period of time for their behavior - it's quite opposite from the impression people get that there are no consequences to getting negative feedback.
Just keep at it. This game is addictive hard-core old-school shooter action, where you just have to hone your instincts and don't have much time to actually THINK.
I love this game.
Go do that with a PS2. Tell me what happens there.
BTW, I'm not responsible for when you scratch a PS2 disk doing so.
I've had a number of people tell me the PS2 does the same thing. I don't get why this was never an issue for that console, however.
I'm bummed... I hit 2.42 million on the 1st, and I'm really don't expect to see that score show up on the leaderboards when they're done with it, but my barely 2-million score.
Oh well, either way, I'm sure I can top it soon anyway.
*sigh* I miss being #7 on the leaderboard for GW...
Xbox Live does a LOT more than just match players together.
It maintains a friends list, one that lets you see which friends of yours are online, and what they're doing at the time.
You can voice chat with any friend at any time - even when in different games, or when one of you is watching a movie.
It - if implemented in the game - tracks stats for your play across games. It also keeps a ranking for you in the game, a ranking that is used to match you up with players of similar skill levels to make the game as fun and interesting as possible. Oh, and there are leaderboards for all games too, so you can see how you rate against other people.
Xbox Live isn't just a service to match up players. I've played a number of online games on the PC over the years, and I can say that Live does more, and does it more seamlessly, then any PC game. Heck, Halo 2's matchmaking/ranking/playlist system is significantly better than any other online setup I've seen for any game on any system. They essentially made the idea of "browsing" for a server to be an obsolete concept.