almighty has a 360!! Thoughts and game sugestions

If you are a power user, Live is definitely worth it. For me, I don't game online often enough, but I still really enjoy doing it occasionally. Here, Live does not suit me. It would be better if party chat, invites and such were behind the pay-wall, but online gaming in itself wasn't, and ditto for apps. I do expect there will be a change here next gen.
 
Sure, it's free, but that doesn't automatically make it better.

Don't know how to configure a Teamspeak server and don't know anyone that does? Well, you're out of luck.

The person running your Teamspeak server is on vacation and the server goes down (it's happend to me quite a few times), then again your out of luck.

Pray that the person hosting the voice chat server has adequate bandwidth with low latency or get ready for a stuttery horror show of an experience.

Want to get some awesome team player in some random game into voice chat? Does he have Teamspeak? Probably not. Ventrilo is far more popular. But assuming he has Teamspeak. Now you have to relay the server information to him. Then you have to hope he knows what to do with it or walk him through it. In text chat. In an online game. Not fun. I used to have to do that all the F***ing time as one of the leaders of a best guild on a server in an MMO. Start doing that multiple times a day, practically every day, and it becomes very attractive to have a universal solution even if you have to pay for it.

And even when everything is working fine. You always...ALWAYS run into people with crappy mic's, crappy headphones, mic volume set too low so you can barely hear them, or set to high so you have to boot them off the server (if you have the rights to do so) or have to mute them. The experience is so irregular that it can get mighty annoying when you should be playing.

Voice chat should just be there. No fuss, no muss. That's what Xbox Live Gold gives you.

This isn't about defending Microsoft. I have never gamed on Xbox Live Gold with other people. This is all about 15+ years of experience with voice chat on the PC and how incredibly infuriating and annoying an experience it can be.

Free is great. But free isn't always better. I'd be more than happy to pay money for a good voice chat experience. Hence, why serious guilds usually pay for professional hosting services, and then spend large sums of money for quality headsets and mic's. Hmmm, well, there just went any potential savings you'd have...

Hell, most of the guilds I've been in would pay money just to not have to constantly give out connection info to our voice chat servers anytime we meet a new person in a game that we'd like to be able to have in voice chat.

And that's, of course, ignoring that Xbox Live Gold brings many other things to the table that just aren't available universally on PC.

I really can't stress enough that this has nothing to do with defending MS, but everything to do with how annoying voice chat can be on PC with regards to gaming. And how I'd be more than willing to pay 10 USD a month for a universal voice chat system that removes all of my gripes.

Hell, I'd just be happy if everyone was using the same freaking voice chat software, so you don't run into the dreaded, "I have X voice chat client installed, but not the Y voice chat client that you are using." conversation.

Regards,
SB

I see the problem and I understand you. But I guess you know that Xbox Live party chat is not the solution to your problem either. You describe a rather special case with MMOs: How many people can join a Xbox Live party chat at once?

But I agree that a standard voice chat is of great benefit and helps making things easy in a lot of cases. I may not be that much dependent on this due to my gaming habbits (typically playing with the same bunch of people and not that often with strangers) but I still wonder if standard voice chat needs to cost money.

What are the other benefits that Gold offers? Online play? That is free on PSN and Steam (maybe not for your MMO, that could be the reason why you are more used to 'pay for play').

I may be d'accord to pay extra for party chat as an optional feature, but my opinion is that online play should be somehow free. I know it is difficult, because those services are closely connected to each other in Live. But one is allowed to dream, right?

Well, it seems that there are just different opinions about this, I do not want to derail the thread any further at this point.
 
I just dig out Kameo...great game! Even the graphics are still nice.

I completed Kameo when it first came out and still to this days its only next generation console game that I've completed.

Although the game has aged very well texture wise the game really shows its age when it comes to polygon count and lighting.

The lack of AF is pretty distracting as well.
 
I completed Kameo when it first came out and still to this days its only next generation console game that I've completed.

Although the game has aged very well texture wise the game really shows its age when it comes to polygon count and lighting.

The lack of AF is pretty distracting as well.

Yeah, polycount is s bit low...but overall still nice to look at imo.
 
You're missing the point. The point is to play games with friends who live in all sorts of different countries so gaming in person is not an option. If they're all gaming on the next Xbox then I too will be gaming on the next Xbox. It does fuck-for-all to get a Wii-U/PS4 or other console even if their online experience is free when my friend's wont be gaming on those.

I understood perfectly your point but you didnt get mine.
 
That seems pricey for just chat service you must have deep pockets :D

Considering the headaches I've had with it over the past 15 years whether in a FPS like Quake/Quake 2/UT or MMO's like EQ, EQ2, VG, Eve Online, etc. it'd be worth it for me.

Yeah 10 USD would be on the high side. But that just exemplifies how much I think it's worth to be able to have universal voice that anyone and everyone can easily drop in and drop out of.

The quantity isn't what matters as Billy Idol thought I meant (not his fault since I focused on the MMO voice chat experience), but the convenience.

Being able to have something universal that people can drop into and drop out of at anytime without ever having to...

1. Ask them to pop into our voice chat.
2. Determine if they have Ventrilo (what we usually use)
3. If they have Ventrilo go to step 7, otherwise continue.
4. If they don't have Ventrilo, instruct them how to get it an install it.
5. If they don't know how to configure it, instruct them on how to configure it.
6. If their mic isn't properly calibrated, instruct them on how to configure it.
7. Tell them what the Ventrilo server address and connection info is.
7a. Tell them again if they don't get it right.
8. Pray that they don't have a wonkey setup where you get "helicopter noises" while they are talking, or too low/too high volume, or any other problems.
9. Finally get to play.

It's annoying in general after you've gone through this a few hundred times. It's even more annoying if you want to do it in a team based FPS where by the time you get some people setup, the match is over and you may never see that person again.

So while 10 USD a month would be on the high side (I know Guild leaders who pay upwards of 50 USD or more a month for a quality voice chat server host), it would be worth it to me just not to ever have to deal with the above ever again.

Don't even get me started on problems that come up for games that have native voice chat support. Grrrr.

Regards,
SB
 
And still my thread is being used as an Xbox live thread...

Thanks guys...

Don't be surprised, every thread about 360 on the net eventually comes down to "Xbox Live sucks/PSN is equally good but I've never used Live" & "360 has no games" arguments...you'll get used to it. :p

Back on topic Kameo was indeed a great game, I have to replay this beauty at some point....Nuts & Bolts also looks incredible IMO, Rare created some really impressive looking games on the 360.

I also have a 14 days Xbox Live Gold trial that I don't need, check your PM's. ;)
 
Don't be surprised, every thread about 360 on the net eventually comes down to "Xbox Live sucks/PSN is equally good but I've never used Live" & "360 has no games" arguments...you'll get used to it.
While every console thread that mentions PCs ends up becoming a thread about PC prices and value. And every thread that takes a technical look at what developers do either becomes a "this platform is best" 'debate' when they've done a good job, or "stupid lazy devs don't know how to use the system properly" when the game's no so hot.

Every. Single. One.

:p
 
about voice chat.
doesnt all pc games already have built-in voice chat? Surprisingly, BF3 dont have text chat (only voice chat) in co op mission :/

but i have never experienced "Full Xbox Live"* so i dont really know what feel good there.

Xbox Live Gold in here is very limited.
- almost no apps
- laggy games
- Kinect voice command disabled dashboard-wide :/
 
My favorite 360 game is Red Dead Redemption, give it a shot you won't be disappointed. The 360 version is much better than PS3.
 
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