*spin-off* Always on/connected... stuff

Cjail said:
EDIT
Ok I checked an you can turn off notifications even on Xbox.
Notifications are a non-issue.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it works exactly the same for notifications & changing online status.

Rangers said:
I agree. It's ridiculously overblown. Not bothersome at all. If anything I think it makes the dash feel more alive and vibrant as well. Ads are everywhere, you turn on TV you get commercials.

Most of what gaffers et al decry as "ads" are really content promotion. Hey, you're on a game console, here's this week's new XBLA game. That type of thing. I dont really consider those ads, per se, as any console will and has always done this, and must really otherwise you wont know what's available.

I guess the one thing that could be considered a little annoying is the one video ad in the right hand corner on some panels, that has automatic audio play if you move over it. That's the one thing I'd say could be considered a little intrusive even though it doesn't really bother me.
Click to expand...

I agree with these same sentiments regarding ads on Xbox. Totally overblown by people who don't really use the system. Though I do check out the video ad from time to time. Just glad they don't turn the audio on automatically. And it's in a place where you can't really accidentally turn it on. You really have to seek it out. The ads I have the biggest problem with are the Hulu ads. I use PlayOn to play them on my Xbox instead of subscribing to Hulu Plus. There used to be a few quick ads, but now there are at least 3 full length ads & the frequency seems to be just as much as live TV. Oh well, I can't complain too much with a free service. LOL ;)

Rangers said:
I can agree on this. This is why I dont really like or use the whole "friends" thing on XBLA. When I'm playing a game, that's what I want to play. The whole "hey, stop what you're doing and come play this other game with me" thing is intrinsically undesirable to me.
Click to expand...

Oh wow. Never realized this. If I have a friend that want's to spend time with me, then I'm going to prefer that generally over anything I do by myself. Kinda a surprising to see somebody on this forum that prefers the Xbox system, but not a fan of playing online with friends.

Tommy McClain
 
Phil said:
I don't know about you - but when my phone rings, it's because someone wanted to reach me for something, usually something specific, hence there is some importance to the call.

I get a lot more frequent invites from my extensive friends list because they see me online and it's easy to send an invite. If he joins in great, if he doesn't - no big deal. My friend list also contains a lot of people I've met online - the only reason for them sending me invites is to play something with me. When my phone rings, it's usually for other reasons than gaming.
Click to expand...

You are missing the point.
The point is that begin always connected/online doesn't equal "anyone can disturb you" because we can turn off notifications or even our phones when/if we don't want to be disturbed.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If Durango is between the display and the receiver, how do you amplify the sound generated by Durango to your 5.1 speakers?
 
Scott_Arm said:
What?

I cannot follow what you're trying to say. Pausing your game will be virtual? What does an online connection have to do with a scratched oblivion disc?
Click to expand...
I meant that if you leave the game paused for a while, when you come back you could find that you aren't paused anymore because the connection to XBL was lost, which again means that pretty much your only real choice to play a game would be having a connection more than having a console you paid for.

The scratched disc analogy wasn't a comparison at all, perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough.

Regards

-Cose
 
dobwal said:
Its a moot point but...



Killing authentication servers may also involve not requiring the need for the hardware to authenticate. Its shouldn't be assume that killing authentication requires killing functionality.
Click to expand...
A moot point, adding to that that yours is a very difficult question, without knowing how Microsoft would solve the problem in the long run. Companies like EA have been setting the precedent in that sense, and they usually killed servers when new games came out.

DeF said:
That kind of tricks lower my perception of purchase value. I think similar psychological effects are at work
Click to expand...
As this fellow forumer mentioned before, it's all psychological, at least for me.

Buying an always/only online console or game, feels to me like they are just letting you play the game and nothing else, it's not "your" game, and it doesn't feel like "your" game.

I had that feeling when playing Diablo 3 first, it felt like my PC wasn't creating the graphics nor the world.

I disliked the game itself so much, and this fact also decreased my emotional attachment to it to the point of hating it, when in fact Diablo was a franchise that I liked so so much...

Aside from that, online can be very fun sometimes, sure, but I also always admired craftily built AIs.

From the Reaper Bot of Quake 1 -Steven Polge, the author, was later hired by Epic- to the Barbarian AI in Age of Empires 2, which is capable of luring boars to the Town Center. :oops:

Additionally, some guy has programmed an AI days ago which can play NES games, and teaches itself how to play them, with pretty impressive results. :oops::yep2:

http://kotaku.com/this-guy-wrote-a-program-that-teaches-itself-to-play-ne-472451152

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cyan said:
A moot point, adding to that that yours is a very difficult question, without knowing how Microsoft would solve the problem in the long run. Companies like EA have been setting the precedent in that sense, and they usually killed servers when new games came out.
Click to expand...

Its a moot point if Durango truly does not require online connectivity for game function. However, I may have jumped the gun.

I not fully aware of how EA kills their service and when. But under the assumption that they maintain service until a new sku is launched then it just a matter of presentation.

Most people would probably be less negative about EA online service if every game that makes use of that service came with a guaranteed minimum length of online service or an outright online service expiration date.

If you buy the game at launch you get 12 months of service of which is subsidized by a portion of the $60 of the revenue that EA actual received from sale of game. You pay more the longer you wait to purchase until the retail price starts to drop, where as you are basically paying a smaller fee to access the online service for a shorter period of time.

EA is a business and if you are paying normal retail prices for a game that provides a pretty decent off line experience, how long do you expect them to offer the online service for your game. If you are heavily into Madden online, you basically paying $5-$7 a month until the service dies, while walking away with a still operable and decent offline experience after EA kills the servers.

Killing the primary functionality of a console because its no longer profitability to maintain authentication server is a wholly different circumstance.
 
From what little I skimmed, I don't think the users are saying they don't want Always-online. If you read through their complains, they are talking about problems they encountered with these existing systems.

These issues can be technical or political in nature.

The vendors won't be able to satisfy them if they don't listen properly. Downplaying them is fine or even smart, but those folks are not necessarily stubborn, old-fashion or wrong.
 
Cliff Bleszinski: Technology doesn't advance by worrying about the edge case.
Click to expand...

Cjail said:
This is true, for the good or bad.
Click to expand...

Not quite true. There are technologies invented to solve edge case issues. In fact some of these may become mainstream in the future. It depends on whether these so-called edge cases will blow up (positively or negatively) later on. Sometimes, we suffer regression because people underestimated edge cases (See recent nuclear meltdown incidents). Always-on is a nebulous concept. While GAF meltdown may be trivial, not all always-on solutions will be successful.

Technology is technology. It is neutral. Doesn't really care about edge cases or otherwise. That's subjected to interpretation.


[Bailing from this thread...]
 
Boke said:
Always online is fine. A system that won't even play a single player game without a connection is not.
Click to expand...
Single player games can still make use of the internet. The perfect case for Durango is cloud-based speech recognition. Kinect can access a massive server system for speech recognition, and skeletal tracking, using massive distributed learning across every user, producing far better results than can be achieved with a console. That speech and body recognition could be a part of every game. It'll only work if you are connected to the internet. Nothing stupid about requiring an internet connection in that case.

It all depends on how the limitless data possibilities of online are used, but a lot of folk arguing to the contrary are seeing the future are current game design stuck with internet validation, which IMO is short-sighted. Anything that's 'sociable' or 'persistent' or requiring some fancy storage will benefit from an online connection, and that could be every game. Heck, MS could mandate every game provide such features to differentiate from every other gaming box out there.
 
patsu said:
Not quite true. There are technologies invented to solve edge case issues. In fact some of these may become mainstream in the future. It depends on whether these so-called edge cases will blow up (positively or negatively) later on. Sometimes, we suffer regression because people underestimated edge cases (See recent nuclear meltdown incidents). Always-on is a nebulous concept. While GAF meltdown may be trivial, not all always-on solutions will be successful.

Technology is technology. It is neutral. Doesn't really care about edge cases or otherwise. That's subjected to interpretation.


[Bailing from this thread...]
Click to expand...

I think what he is saying is that edge cases don't inhibit technology advances suited to improve mainstream uses. Like the fact that smartphones have limited battery capacity and aren't design to accommodate someone who wants to hike across the appalachian on a single charge.

Likewise, technology allows the servicing of edge cases by creating solutions to accommodate those edge cases like portable battery charger with bigger battery capacity.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top