What's this I hear about Windows Live?

[tigersty1e]

So Windows is planning on charging PC gamers to play multiplayer games?

I know some games have it and some don't, but is Microsoft strategy to bring Live into our world and charge us?

 

[Maximilian]

Silver membership is free, gold charges monthly. I dont actually know what half those things are that gold offers and how it differs from silver apart from the cross-platform thing, so someone else should clarify what TruSkill matchmaking etc is.

Differences between Gold and Silver memberships

Games for Windows ? Live Silver Membership Features

* Single gamertag
* Common gamer profile
* Common gamerscore
* Single player achievements - All titles have achievements, though some share the list with the Xbox 360 version
* Private chat via text and voice
* Common friends list and online presence
* PC only multiplayer including browsing a list of active PC games

Games for Windows ? Live Gold Membership Features

* All Silver membership features
* Multiplayer matchmaking with friends
* TruSkill matchmaking
* Multiplayer achievements
* Cross-platform gameplay

 

[Fenixgoon]

windows live sucks. nuff said.

i own and play Gears of War online, FWIW

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Wow, that's horrible. They charge for cross-platform play and playing with friends?

 

[Dumac]

Wait, can you use your 360 Live account for this? I was never sure about that.

 

[Arglebargle]

Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante
Wow, that's horrible. They charge for cross-platform play and playing with friends?

Silver sounds better to me. Hey, I'd consider the cross platform play to be a negative....;-}

 

[ZzZGuy]

I don't know, it sounds rather tempting to pay for one month to beat some console players over the head with my mouse, "hacks, cheap, cheater, n00b, loser, i love you, ect ect..." ahhh, the smell of pwnage in the morning.

 

[Red Storm]

Originally posted by: Dumac
Wait, can you use your 360 Live account for this? I was never sure about that.

Yes, your 360 Live account would work. If you have an X-box Live account, you automatically have a Windows Live account.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: ZzZGuy
I don't know, it sounds rather tempting to pay for one month to beat some console players over the head with my mouse, "hacks, cheap, cheater, n00b, loser, i love you, ect ect..." ahhh, the smell of pwnage in the morning.

Pay to Pwn.

 

[Stas]

Keep it up, guys. Once enough people buy into paid multiplayer, no more PC games will come out with free MP. Good job.

 

[thatolchestnut]

Lol this has the potential for epic fail. The only reason people use the Xbox live service is that you're really forced into it. Before Xbox live existed I remember using gamespy (hooked xbox up to router and played multiplayer in Halo 1). Most people will just find alternate routes of playing the game online.

 

[TheVrolok]

It seems like it's just MS trying to give PC gamers a way to play with console gamers. It does indeed sound entertaining to play a FPS against some consolers and just school them with the superior mouse/kb controls ... but I'm not paying for it.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: TheVrolok
It seems like it's just MS trying to give PC gamers a way to play with console gamers. It does indeed sound entertaining to play a FPS against some consolers and just school them with the superior mouse/kb controls ... but I'm not paying for it.

The only GFW Live game I've played is Gears of War....and honestly even on a PC the game plays better with a gamepad than a mouse and keyboard. Aiming included, since the aim is artificially gimped and has huge spread.

Higher resolution/framerate still helps over console though.

 

[MarcVenice]

What a bunch of whining. I don't have exact figures, but 100's of thousands, if not a million or more people pay for Live Gold for the Xbox 360, why would it be so ridiculous for pc-gamers to do the same ? I own several Live titels btw, like halo 2, shadowrun, Juiced 2: Hin, Viva Pinata, and some more I probably forgot. With some games you also get a free months Gold trial. And if you don't like, you just use Silver, which basicaly let's you do everything you need. You can still play with friends, it's just a little hard to organize though.

 

[I4AT]

Isn't cross-platform play for supported games only though, such as Shadowrun? Or do all "Games for Windows" automatically have it?

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
What a bunch of whining. I don't have exact figures, but 100's of thousands, if not a million or more people pay for Live Gold for the Xbox 360, why would it be so ridiculous for pc-gamers to do the same ?

We don't need Live to play MP or download demos and media. XBOX players are locked in.

 

[ja1484]

Live For Windows is, for lack of a better term, an atrocity. It is a terrorist act. It's been a LONG time since I've seen such an unnecessary, clunky, poorly integrated interface. It's free, but I don't let people on the street give me free feces, and I don't want Microsoft to give me this shit either, free or not. It's like getting Ebola for free. Who would be enthusiastic?

With Gears of War for windows, I had to create a Live account before I could save my SINGLE PLAYER PROGRESS. Never mind the game doesn't even have a proper quicksave function - to save progress at all. If my connection is down for some reason? No progression.

I don't think Microsoft understands that PC Gamers don't want to interact with those console-only troglodytes. They're unevolved pedestrians, a lower caste. They are like chimpanzees. I think Microsoft also understands that they can drag us kicking and screaming onto live for at least a portion of the titles we want to play, because they have a monopoly.

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
What a bunch of whining. I don't have exact figures, but 100's of thousands, if not a million or more people pay for Live Gold for the Xbox 360, why would it be so ridiculous for pc-gamers to do the same ? I own several Live titels btw, like halo 2, shadowrun, Juiced 2: Hin, Viva Pinata, and some more I probably forgot. With some games you also get a free months Gold trial. And if you don't like, you just use Silver, which basicaly let's you do everything you need. You can still play with friends, it's just a little hard to organize though.

It's pretty well known that people who cross platform across the PC and consoles are pretty well rounded, clear-thinking gamers. Console only "enthusiasts" are obviously mentally deficient.

Furthermore, on the Xbox/360, Live is *integrated* into the titles. Live for Windows reminds me more of a Remora, that parasitic fish that latches on to sharks and whales and sucks their blood for sustenance. It's there, like a tumor, badly out of place in a product that doesn't need it. The PC was doing better than Consoles with Multiplayer before Live came along, and it's still doing better than Live for Windows does now. The only argument I can really put in Live's favor is that it does make the multiplayer experience on Microsoft's console platform damn good, close to ideal. If we could get that kind of consistency on the PC, it would be nice, but considering the diversity of developers and publishers with no one controlling the hardware, I don't see that happening. As it is, the de-facto standard of each game producing its own server/client system in one package is ideal. If you have something that can process the data fast enough, you have multiplayer. Other than that, you're not restricted.

 

[OhSnap688]

Are they that desperate for money?

 

[Nebor]

In Universe at War, a gold account is required in order for you to access several of the online game modes, including ranked matches, and conquer the world mode. There are "medals" that can be unlocked that give you advantages (+5% build times, +10% vehicle damage, etc.) by playing in ranked games. So what that creates is a group of people (gold members) who have innate advantages in multiplayer over silver members, just because they pay a monthly fee.

Man, I thought paying $50 for the game would let me play how I wanted with my friends.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: Nebor
In Universe at War, a gold account is required in order for you to access several of the online game modes, including ranked matches, and conquer the world mode. There are "medals" that can be unlocked that give you advantages (+5% build times, +10% vehicle damage, etc.) by playing in ranked games. So what that creates is a group of people (gold members) who have innate advantages in multiplayer over silver members, just because they pay a monthly fee.

Man, I thought paying $50 for the game would let me play how I wanted with my friends.

Ha! Foolish peon!

Tycho over at Penny Arcade (nee Jerry Holkins) has been over this a number of times. Essentially, Microsoft is in a chicken-egg scenario with Live. You can find the upshot here:

Text


The pricing doesn't make much sense, where the same product on different Microsoft platforms has an inexplicable ten dollar differential. That's a matter outside of the game itself, as the pricing is connected to a larger issue. I don't think they really know what they're doing with Live as a multiplatform service. If you haven't investigated it first-hand, either because you don't have Vista installed or you don't care (both valid choices!), you might be surprised to learn that in order to use Live on Windows, you must actively be running a game. There's no shell-level access to the functionality. How did this happen? Do these people still work there?

I've spoken with people over there on multiple occasions about what it would take to get me excited by Games for Windows Live, and I have told them that they need to burn it to the ground and found a new service on its smouldering ashes. It's only exciting for me insofar as it has the power to improve my console experience, offering dedicated servers and giving me access to my system and my friends list remotely. What gives the service its strength on the console platform is its ubiquity - all games share a base functionality. In the splintered fiefdoms that rule the PC as a gaming platform, one more friends list - one eschewed by developers! - is one too many. They started at the endpoint, that there should be a way to express their platform dominion in the PC gaming realm, and then they worked backward. It's not PC native, and it feels so. It has the delicacy of a midnight raid.

They need to approach deeply tribal PC gamers with reverence and with wisdom. At the very least, all fees for the service must be rescinded. And we'll continue from there.


and here:

Text


There have been a few stories recently about Microsoft going back on their pledge that no games would require the Hard Drive, most of which redirect toward a site called "Xbox Family" which I've never heard of, but it sounds about right to me. As far as I'm concerned, this is only the necessary correction after two long years of caustic error. Of course, don't believe this is some bold inversion of prior policy. If you're dropping the strategically correct product, the rule never applied to you in the first place.

FInal Fantasy XI - as delivered on the Xbox 360 - undermines the entire platform with its aberrations. Not only did it require a hard drive - and this was well over a year ago - it also allows online multiplayer without a Live subscription. So the idea that we are just now entering some untracked new realm is worth its weight in LOL'd. There are no "exceptions to the rule," there are only deeper rules. So if GTA IV comes out... whenever it comes out, and there's a sticker on the front that says you need a hard drive, this shouldn't surprise you. Frankly, I'm overjoyed, but I own a hard drive. They can't let things continue as they have, their industry partners won't stand for it - and they can't allow stories like this one or this one to persist.

The only thing now is to see if it's a full solution, the gate swung wide, or another half-measure like Live Arcade's incremental increase.



And other places.

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
What a bunch of whining. I don't have exact figures, but 100's of thousands, if not a million or more people pay for Live Gold for the Xbox 360, why would it be so ridiculous for pc-gamers to do the same ? I own several Live titels btw, like halo 2, shadowrun, Juiced 2: Hin, Viva Pinata, and some more I probably forgot. With some games you also get a free months Gold trial. And if you don't like, you just use Silver, which basicaly let's you do everything you need. You can still play with friends, it's just a little hard to organize though.

Whining? Perhaps. Maybe because, by in large, computer multiplayer gaming has always been free. (minus the MMOs and a few other exceptions here and there) Our free MP is part of the computer advantage and something that has just always been easier on a computer that has more tools/ability than a console. We didn't buy a console to get roped in to a subscription MP service, we bought a PC for the freedom (among other reasons). I don't even want to hear any rationalization as to why PC gamers should have to pay for online gaming; take a look at Battle.net, been around for YEARS and has always been free. Probably part of the success of the Blizzard franchises.