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Okay so, three whole days later, the novelty of playing games online has worn off somewhat and I'm beginning to look at Xbox Live more critically.
Mech Assault, Unreal, Ghost Recon; Given them all a fair amount of time over the past days and I'm disappointed by one integral feature of Xbox Live. The Communicator. It's a great peripheral, comfy, easy to use, works well e.t.c..... if only more people actually used it. Because very few do during team games I've been in, and all it takes to win against such a team is for the other side to communicate that bit more. Occasionaly I come across someone who can say something more that "sup" "I got you" "lets go" e.t.c. but it's somewhat like listening to the news headlines, soundbites. The much vaunted voice masks are virtually ignored, with many being ultra annoying anyway - such as brat, child, the girl one and whisper. And there is no way in a game to tell who is talking, or in the lobbies either. Whats more you can only talk to people once you join a game, there's no way of doing so whilst you're looking for a game, no central lobby like there is on PC game sites.
Forming clans e.t.c can only be done elsewhere, doing so just on Xbox Live is going to be difficult to do effectively.
Many of the safeguards promised by Microsoft just aren't there - there are kids on it who just mainly annoy everyone not on their team, people try to host too larger games for their connection which then crashes out, some people have massive lag, there's already cheating on the rankings systems, frequently people drop out of games when they're losing because they don't want to effect their ranks. Downloadable content isn't available until January either. As for the feedback system, which would supposedly deter numerous things; 1)you cannot see people's feedback 2)leaving it would take ages 3)with no clear way of knowing who says what in a game. Sure, you can mute people, but that doesnt solve the problem does it, just ignores it. Optimatch also seems to do little more than pick the game settings you want, not similar skill levels.
Sure, this is still the Testdrive, but I'm not entirely convinced this is the big leap forward I thought it was going to be. Possibly the stumbling block is that people don't want to constantly talk, or that the fact there is no clear way of knowing who is talking discourages it. The fact America has had it so far in front of us mean, as others have pointed out also, that they will forever be ahead of us, and there is more of them than us !
Whist at £42.99 for the first year with the other stuff it's good, for the second year MS are going to have to really look at it to make it a must buy for the second year. As it is it's a novelty at the moment, and it needs some really strong online only games to really transform it.
I'm happy with it, kinda, after all broadband has other uses, but I have this nagging doubt about it's long term success.
~~Belldandy~~
Mech Assault, Unreal, Ghost Recon; Given them all a fair amount of time over the past days and I'm disappointed by one integral feature of Xbox Live. The Communicator. It's a great peripheral, comfy, easy to use, works well e.t.c..... if only more people actually used it. Because very few do during team games I've been in, and all it takes to win against such a team is for the other side to communicate that bit more. Occasionaly I come across someone who can say something more that "sup" "I got you" "lets go" e.t.c. but it's somewhat like listening to the news headlines, soundbites. The much vaunted voice masks are virtually ignored, with many being ultra annoying anyway - such as brat, child, the girl one and whisper. And there is no way in a game to tell who is talking, or in the lobbies either. Whats more you can only talk to people once you join a game, there's no way of doing so whilst you're looking for a game, no central lobby like there is on PC game sites.
Forming clans e.t.c can only be done elsewhere, doing so just on Xbox Live is going to be difficult to do effectively.
Many of the safeguards promised by Microsoft just aren't there - there are kids on it who just mainly annoy everyone not on their team, people try to host too larger games for their connection which then crashes out, some people have massive lag, there's already cheating on the rankings systems, frequently people drop out of games when they're losing because they don't want to effect their ranks. Downloadable content isn't available until January either. As for the feedback system, which would supposedly deter numerous things; 1)you cannot see people's feedback 2)leaving it would take ages 3)with no clear way of knowing who says what in a game. Sure, you can mute people, but that doesnt solve the problem does it, just ignores it. Optimatch also seems to do little more than pick the game settings you want, not similar skill levels.
Sure, this is still the Testdrive, but I'm not entirely convinced this is the big leap forward I thought it was going to be. Possibly the stumbling block is that people don't want to constantly talk, or that the fact there is no clear way of knowing who is talking discourages it. The fact America has had it so far in front of us mean, as others have pointed out also, that they will forever be ahead of us, and there is more of them than us !
Whist at £42.99 for the first year with the other stuff it's good, for the second year MS are going to have to really look at it to make it a must buy for the second year. As it is it's a novelty at the moment, and it needs some really strong online only games to really transform it.
I'm happy with it, kinda, after all broadband has other uses, but I have this nagging doubt about it's long term success.
~~Belldandy~~
Page:
Early days...
Just email MS with a list of possible improvements and something might happen.
As for the communicating, that'll pick up as people get used to playing.
Just email MS with a list of possible improvements and something might happen.
As for the communicating, that'll pick up as people get used to playing.
Okay so, three whole days later, the novelty of playing games online has worn off somewhat and I'm beginning to look at Xbox Live more critically.
Mech Assault, Unreal, Ghost Recon; Given them all a fair amount of time over the past days and I'm disappointed by one integral feature of Xbox Live. The Communicator. It's a great peripheral, comfy, easy to use, works well e.t.c..... if only more people actually used it. Because very few do during team games I've been in, and all it takes to win against such a team is for the other side to communicate that bit more. Occasionaly I come across someone who can say something more that "sup" "I got you" "lets go" e.t.c. but it's somewhat like listening to the news headlines, soundbites. The much vaunted voice masks are virtually ignored, with many being ultra annoying anyway - such as brat, child, the girl one and whisper. And there is no way in a game to tell who is talking, or in the lobbies either. Whats more you can only talk to people once you join a game, there's no way of doing so whilst you're looking for a game, no central lobby like there is on PC game sites.
Forming clans e.t.c can only be done elsewhere, doing so just on Xbox Live is going to be difficult to do effectively.
Many of the safeguards promised by Microsoft just aren't there - there are kids on it who just mainly annoy everyone not on their team, people try to host too larger games for their connection which then crashes out, some people have massive lag, there's already cheating on the rankings systems, frequently people drop out of games when they're losing because they don't want to effect their ranks. Downloadable content isn't available until January either. As for the feedback system, which would supposedly deter numerous things; 1)you cannot see people's feedback 2)leaving it would take ages 3)with no clear way of knowing who says what in a game. Sure, you can mute people, but that doesnt solve the problem does it, just ignores it. Optimatch also seems to do little more than pick the game settings you want, not similar skill levels.
Sure, this is still the Testdrive, but I'm not entirely convinced this is the big leap forward I thought it was going to be. Possibly the stumbling block is that people don't want to constantly talk, or that the fact there is no clear way of knowing who is talking discourages it. The fact America has had it so far in front of us mean, as others have pointed out also, that they will forever be ahead of us, and there is more of them than us !
Whist at £42.99 for the first year with the other stuff it's good, for the second year MS are going to have to really look at it to make it a must buy for the second year. As it is it's a novelty at the moment, and it needs some really strong online only games to really transform it.
I'm happy with it, kinda, after all broadband has other uses, but I have this nagging doubt about it's long term success.
~~Belldandy~~
Mech Assault, Unreal, Ghost Recon; Given them all a fair amount of time over the past days and I'm disappointed by one integral feature of Xbox Live. The Communicator. It's a great peripheral, comfy, easy to use, works well e.t.c..... if only more people actually used it. Because very few do during team games I've been in, and all it takes to win against such a team is for the other side to communicate that bit more. Occasionaly I come across someone who can say something more that "sup" "I got you" "lets go" e.t.c. but it's somewhat like listening to the news headlines, soundbites. The much vaunted voice masks are virtually ignored, with many being ultra annoying anyway - such as brat, child, the girl one and whisper. And there is no way in a game to tell who is talking, or in the lobbies either. Whats more you can only talk to people once you join a game, there's no way of doing so whilst you're looking for a game, no central lobby like there is on PC game sites.
Forming clans e.t.c can only be done elsewhere, doing so just on Xbox Live is going to be difficult to do effectively.
Many of the safeguards promised by Microsoft just aren't there - there are kids on it who just mainly annoy everyone not on their team, people try to host too larger games for their connection which then crashes out, some people have massive lag, there's already cheating on the rankings systems, frequently people drop out of games when they're losing because they don't want to effect their ranks. Downloadable content isn't available until January either. As for the feedback system, which would supposedly deter numerous things; 1)you cannot see people's feedback 2)leaving it would take ages 3)with no clear way of knowing who says what in a game. Sure, you can mute people, but that doesnt solve the problem does it, just ignores it. Optimatch also seems to do little more than pick the game settings you want, not similar skill levels.
Sure, this is still the Testdrive, but I'm not entirely convinced this is the big leap forward I thought it was going to be. Possibly the stumbling block is that people don't want to constantly talk, or that the fact there is no clear way of knowing who is talking discourages it. The fact America has had it so far in front of us mean, as others have pointed out also, that they will forever be ahead of us, and there is more of them than us !
Whist at £42.99 for the first year with the other stuff it's good, for the second year MS are going to have to really look at it to make it a must buy for the second year. As it is it's a novelty at the moment, and it needs some really strong online only games to really transform it.
I'm happy with it, kinda, after all broadband has other uses, but I have this nagging doubt about it's long term success.
~~Belldandy~~
Page: