I think the problem is that some people cannot get over this "the worst" mentality.
Nintendo's online service is the worst of the three, sure, in terms of tech and services and etc. etc.
But that is like saying Super Mario Bros. is the worst Mario game. Of course it is, but I still love it.
And similarly many people enjoy the Wii's online service for what it is despite it being "the worst" and despite having experienced something relatively better at some point.
I recently bought an ASUS EEE PC, a very small form factor laptop. It comes with 512 meg of RAM, a 4 gig hard drive and a processor running at 600MHz. People made fun of me for taking such a step back spec-wise...but I have been enjoying the hell out of it despite not being able to play Oblivion or CoD4 or what-have-you.
Some people are just completely incapable of moving backward from time to time and saying, yeah, this is alright.
I agree with Lave, it's servicable and fun. I was giggling like a maniac trying to coordinate a co-op home run with someone, and it was totally more fun because we couldn't talk, we had to just play it by ear. We screwed up so many times but it was awesome.
It offers just enough functionality to be perfectly satisfying for most people who are not the hardcore online type.
By sheer virtue of being online it's for the hardcore? Also I'd argue it isn't sufficent or even satisfactory, it could be vastly improved in many respects as PS3s online demonstrates.
It's hardcore by the nature thats it all or nothing. If you want to dip into multiplayer on live for maybe one game a year, then it's not worth it.
I didn't mean online was hardcore, I meant the type of people who are hardcore into online business. The kind who demand everything and the kitchen sink from their games.
Most people who haven't been big into online gaming thus far are thrilled with Brawl, I think, at least from what I've read and seen.
This is something of a conundrum - without a decent online support plan from Nintendo, developers aren't going to make games with online aspects as a large selling point, but without such games, Nintendo won't have any motivation to provide decent online support.
I can understand not wishing to pay for a service if you aren't going to use it much, but considering how much I use Live I think the price they ask for a year is more than reasonable.
I agree with Lave, it's servicable and fun. I was giggling like a maniac trying to coordinate a co-op home run with someone, and it was totally more fun because we couldn't talk, we had to just play it by ear. We screwed up so many times but it was awesome.
It offers just enough functionality to be perfectly satisfying for most people who are not the hardcore online type.
By sheer virtue of being online it's for the hardcore? Also I'd argue it isn't sufficent or even satisfactory, it could be vastly improved in many respects as PS3s online demonstrates.
It's hardcore by the nature thats it all or nothing. If you want to dip into multiplayer on live for maybe one game a year, then it's not worth it.
I only use live for one game and I wouldn't have ever bought my first xbox if live wasn't there. I currently only play one game on Live and I also only own 3 games for my 360 of which only one gets any playtime and the other I'm going to resell. If live wasn't the service it was I wouldn't own a 360. One game totally makes it worth it.
It's a lot when you're only bugeted for one or two games a year.
That's not really streching very far. Especially given how much live can add to the lengh you enjoy the games you do own.
I think this is the key element, here. I bought an Xbox and Halo 2 because I could play with the PA crowd, and that one game purchase and the $50 for Live gave me many, many hours of very fun gameplay for the next 6-7 months.
The problem with Live is that you have to make sure you're still buying games and will have time for it for the full year. Heck, they could probably earn an equivalent amount by simply making it $5 a month, so you could cancel after the 3 months with your favorite game are up.
But yes, by having GOOD online, it makes a game with good online that much more fun. But Nintendo's approach is that you will simply play a game with friends, and that you live far apart. Therefore, you only need their friend code and the online play functions simply as a way to get together with your buddies.
Contrasted with the Xbox 360 and to some extent the PS3, they mostly view Live as a way of enjoying many of your games far beyond the initial few weeks. I mean, look at all the guys in the SSB:B thread that spent every waking moment burning through the game in order to unlock as many things as possible. What are they going to do at the end of the month, when almost everything is unlocked? They're relegated to playing against friends (who they will utterly own, since the friend won't have spent that much time on the game), and since the online is there to only really play against those same friends, not extend the playtime, that's it.
Whereas with an online FPS or 3rdPS or racing game, you can group up with people, play and talk together, hop on and play online against real people when you want to, rather than simply when your friends are free. That's a big boost to the longevity of a title. Call of Duty 4 is criticized as having a short single-player option, but a very fleshed out online system -- hence, the game gets much better reviews, lasts longer, etc.
Imagine if a short game like Heavenly Sword had some sort of online play, such as Co-op, or something that turned it into a sort of Power Stone. It'd go from "flashy game that's way too short" to a game that people actually bought and played online for a long period of time. So it absolutely helps a title, and the better the online play, the more it helps the title.
Microsoft "gets" the idea that people are friends with people via online means only, which is why they let people message each other even though they're in other games. If you're playing 1 game but a friend invites you to join in with another game you own, you can pop in the other game and get back to your original game later. But look at what that does to your game shelf -- it means that more of those older titles are fair game for online play at most any time. You're not limited to brand new games, and your shelf isn't full of titles that you scored 100% and now collect dust. I think that's really the crux of good online play service.
Now we just need to convince developers that you can have more than FPS and racing games online.
This is something of a conundrum - without a decent online support plan from Nintendo, developers aren't going to make games with online aspects as a large selling point, but without such games, Nintendo won't have any motivation to provide decent online support.
I can understand not wishing to pay for a service if you aren't going to use it much, but considering how much I use Live I think the price they ask for a year is more than reasonable.
See we get each other. I understand that the Wii service for someone like you is unacceptably poor. But for someone like me the Wii is far, far superior.
But like Lunker says, they only need a common Friends code attached to a Mii and most of this would be mute.
Thats the main issue, and shouldn't need to be impossible for a free service.
KorKnown to detonate from time to timeRegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
This is semi-related, because the only other thing Nintendo has jumped on with besides online, is a hard drive.
HOWEVER, I love that the Wii doesn't have a hard drive. Why, you ask? Becuase as far as I'm concerned, a Hard Drive is just an excuse for a developer not to have to finish a game.
Similarly, I'm happy without mics, because they're primarily for trash talk.
Also, I'd like to point out that using Smash Bros. as an example for Nintendo's online is kind of unfair. Its going to use an interely different structure than Mario Kart ever will.
Smash bros. online requires precision. Mario Kart online simply requires connection, especially since most items are homing or stationary.
I only use live for one game and I wouldn't have ever bought my first xbox if live wasn't there. I currently only play one game on Live and I also only own 3 games for my 360 of which only one gets any playtime and the other I'm going to resell. If live wasn't the service it was I wouldn't own a 360. One game totally makes it worth it.
Thats pretty hardcore*
But seriously. All power to you. I'm glad you like it. :^:
* the term makes me want to vomit. Undefined and divisive.
I think the problem is that some people cannot get over this "the worst" mentality.
Nintendo's online service is the worst of the three, sure, in terms of tech and services and etc. etc.
But that is like saying Super Mario Bros. is the worst Mario game. Of course it is, but I still love it.
And similarly many people enjoy the Wii's online service for what it is despite it being "the worst" and despite having experienced something relatively better at some point.
I recently bought an ASUS EEE PC, a very small form factor laptop. It comes with 512 meg of RAM, a 4 gig hard drive and a processor running at 600MHz. People made fun of me for taking such a step back spec-wise...but I have been enjoying the hell out of it despite not being able to play Oblivion or CoD4 or what-have-you.
Some people are just completely incapable of moving backward from time to time and saying, yeah, this is alright.
The problem, I think, is that this time that we're moving back to is almost 10 years ago, when PCs stopped requiring players to enter IP addresses and started integrating server browsers with more than basic functionality, and before Roger Wilco rolled around with online chat. Not being able to play CoD4 is one thing, but if you just bought a laptop that couldn't run Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri or Deus Ex, that would be a bit much.
This is semi-related, because the only other thing Nintendo has jumped on with besides online, is a hard drive.
HOWEVER, I love that the Wii doesn't have a hard drive. Why, you ask? Becuase as far as I'm concerned, a Hard Drive is just an excuse for a developer not to have to finish a game.
Last generation, maybe. The Xbox's hard drive was basically used for nothing. Sure, you didn't have to buy memory cards, but that was about it.
This generation, though, it's a different story. I LOVE, love love love, LOVE the fact that I can log into the PSN and download demos for free -- without worrying about buying extra peripherals or having enough space or any of that. The Xbox360 is the same way, and one of the reasons I'm kind of pissed that there's like 7 versions of the 360, one w/o a hard drive.
Demos is one of the things I've always missed out on, since I never cared to buy a magazine for a demo or otherwise hunt them down. But they're out there and in abundance on 2 of the current systems -- the ones with a solid online setup and with hard drives.
Your idea of patching is also a red herring, because historically the only elements of games that have received patches are those that focus specifically on the online portion. Multiplayer games get a patch to fix cheats or maps or whatnot. Yes, I dislike the idea of paying for extra maps or weapons or whatever, as much of it feels like they were "done" and wanted to wring an extra couple bucks from people. But there are also plenty of instances where a developer will see what people are doing on the current online setup and then create stuff *for the players*. It's not every game, but it definitely seems that many get DLC that's focused towards the more "hardcore" players.
But the "online stores" that the PS3 and X360 use have sold me on hard drives for current and future systems.
Regardless of what you think of the gameplay, Halo 3 is a shining example of how to do an online game. Easy to join your friend's group, easy to mute people, easy to find games to play in, easy to share user-created content, and they're doing special weekend playlists now, which encourages people to get on and play more, but while doing something a little differently.
The problem here is equal parts Nintendo's archaic privacy protection policies, and their general lack of respect for online play. I think the Japanese just don't see it as a very big deal, and Nintendo has always been in the habit of making things for a Japanese audience and exporting it overseas. Maybe by next gen they'll finally follow suit on what Sony and MS are doing this gen. I don't care about inputting numbers instead of names, but my problems with the service are the lack of communication options(public and private), the lack of gameplay options in public games, and the inability to send someone an actual friends request. In their efforts to make it simple and user friendly they've actually created an online system that is simultaneously the weakest and the most difficult to use of the three.
I don't see any point in playing online games were I have no keyboard or mic.
When I think about Nintendo's online service this image always comes to mind.
But then, really, they fail at even that basic level of communication.
so you are more about talking then gameplay? seems a bit strange.
Poor boy, you must have missed the whole arcade scene.
Bah, the Arcade scene didn't need voice chat, since it supported local multiplayer. :P
Actually I went to arcades frequently and most of the time, I wanted to play better competition. Not to talk to people. Obviously local play in anything has trash talk, but I am all about the gameplay + competition. Which is exactly what I want from online play too. In Quake I rarely chat during a game, because I am focused on the game. Plus in a game like that, voice chat is distracting and hinders your ability to hear your opponents.
Man I totally, totally agree with EggyToast except I'm the "just play with friends" guy.
What he wants from Live/PSN is what I don't want. (I would rather have had more CoD4 sinlge player for instance) But he's perfectly right.
Amen to his post. :^:
I too would like more single player in games. I don't really like being forced to play online to fully enjoy a game, so I hear on you on that. But none of my friends are gamers, or if they are gamers they're so busy that they play at bizarro times during the day.
I actually get most of my "multiplayer gaming" with co-op games with my wife. We played the hell out of Mario Kart on the GameCube, and even FF:CC. There were even a few nights when we were in the thick of playing FF:CC that I woke up in the middle of the night to hear the game's music coming from the living room. But she can't play FPS games since she gets motion sick, so if I feel like playing any of those I must rely on online gaming.
I don't like the idea of spending now $60 on a game for essentially half the content that the game ships with, so I have to look to see how good the online portion is before I can even consider it. That means I don't play a lot of FPSs, even though I'd like to. It also means, though, that if I like a game that my wife doesn't like, if I *ever* want to play multiplayer I must rely on online services.
As an example, SSB:Melee was the biggest waste of $20 for me. I got it cheap and unlocked some dudes, but no one ever wanted to play it because they hadn't heard of it -- and would rather play something they knew they were good at, even if that was Mario Kart. My wife didn't like it so it basically never got touched. Break the Targets & playing against bots is fun for a while, sure, but you can tell the game is focused towards multiplayer. As such, it was stupid of me to buy. That also means, though, that SSB:Brawl is even less worthwhile for someone like me.
Since I have someone I could play co-op games with all the time, I'd love for more games to include co-op on the same TV. But, heck, getting *that* is even less likely than Nintendo fixing their online service. My wife and I have been rocking the Pixeljunk Monsters lately, but I know we're going to beat it at some point, and then just wait for another game to come out. It's sad that a $10 downloadable game has more playtime, due to a simple 2p option, than many other games.
Maybe it's the fact that I'm an adult with an adult income, but Live is $50 for a year. That's $4.17 a month. Is it really even worth mentioning? To me it's a non-factor.
$50 out of my yearly video game budget is equal to one full-priced new video game per year. The money's gotta come from somewhere.
This is a tired argument. Why does it have to come out of your video game budget? Why can't it come out of your fast food budget? Your buy-a-random-magazine-at-the-grocery-store budget? Your see-a-movie budget (which actually costs twice as much)? Think of all the things you spend a measly four dollars a month on.
My view is I will never pay for multiplayer after I have paid full price for the game, never (hence I don't play mmos). Why should I have to pay more just to enjoy multiplayer? So many games offer great online for free, I am not paying a penny more just to play online (monthly/yearly fees). Obviously this is my view due to being a PC gamer for so long. I am still content with basic client/server browsers. As long as I don't pay anything extra after the price. This is why even with some lame decisions, I will view Nintendo's online as satisfactory as long as it fulfills the basic premise of me being able to play against people who can provide very nice competition.
Actually I went to arcades frequently and most of the time, I wanted to play better competition. Not to talk to people. Obviously local play in anything has trash talk, but I am all about the gameplay + competition. Which is exactly what I want from online play too. In Quake I rarely chat during a game, because I am focused on the game. Plus in a game like that, voice chat is distracting and hinders your ability to hear your opponents.
I like the potential for good squad-based gameplay online, which requires talking, but then you run into the "fag" portion of the internet that Fyrewulff mentions. If you don't have a group you regularly play with, finding good competition or a good team is not easy.
You have to remember that since Nintendo = Videogames, people like to sue them. A lot. Even when they've already covered their ass in places. For example, ever since the NES they had the seizure warnings in the manuals. But some dick lawyer sued them over not warning that seizures could occur, hence the warnings when you start up the DS and the Wii (and later GC games).
It's your fault, America. Fucking lawsuit happy sons of bitches.
Actually I went to arcades frequently and most of the time, I wanted to play better competition. Not to talk to people. Obviously local play in anything has trash talk, but I am all about the gameplay + competition. Which is exactly what I want from online play too. In Quake I rarely chat during a game, because I am focused on the game. Plus in a game like that, voice chat is distracting and hinders your ability to hear your opponents.
I like the potential for good squad-based gameplay online, which requires talking, but then you run into the "fag" portion of the internet that Fyrewulff mentions. If you don't have a group you regularly play with, finding good competition or a good team is not easy.
if you're a big team play guy, then yes, voice chat can help coordinating stuff no doubt about that. Yet even with voice chat, pubs rarely do team work anyway (I played a lot of ETQW, only on the rarest occasion would people work together on pub servers). For Quake, you either join a populated server, or idle in a server looking for 1v1, or get some pickups in numerous IRC chat rooms (I have never done that though, really easy to get opponents just joining a server or waiting a little bit for a 1v1).
i don't know if it's been discussed already, but Microsoft and Sony are giants in the world of general computing, and hence "internetting". one of the main reasons i think Nintendo is so hesitant to try to compete in the online space against Sony and especially against Microsoft is that Nintendo simply doesn't have the network infrastructure that Sony and Microsoft already have in place.
the modern Nintendo is first and foremost a console video gaming company, and does not have the computing and networking "departments" that Sony and Microsoft have. i hope to high heaven that Nintendo is using some of the ridiculous amounts of money they're making to invest in online technologies. but for now, they're at the point where Microsoft was in 1995, fumbling around with Encarta CDs while the new Internet-based companies were passing them by. Microsoft survived by virtue of their sheer monopoly. Sony's always been a multi-industrial zaibatsu, only relatively recently turning to gaming.
i guess i'm saying is that it's not completely Nintendo's fault here. they're still n00bs when it comes to the internet.
Man I totally, totally agree with EggyToast except I'm the "just play with friends" guy.
What he wants from Live/PSN is what I don't want. (I would rather have had more CoD4 sinlge player for instance) But he's perfectly right.
Amen to his post. :^:
I too would like more single player in games. I don't really like being forced to play online to fully enjoy a game, so I hear on you on that. But none of my friends are gamers, or if they are gamers they're so busy that they play at bizarro times during the day.
I actually get most of my "multiplayer gaming" with co-op games with my wife. We played the hell out of Mario Kart on the GameCube, and even FF:CC. There were even a few nights when we were in the thick of playing FF:CC that I woke up in the middle of the night to hear the game's music coming from the living room. But she can't play FPS games since she gets motion sick, so if I feel like playing any of those I must rely on online gaming.
I don't like the idea of spending now $60 on a game for essentially half the content that the game ships with, so I have to look to see how good the online portion is before I can even consider it. That means I don't play a lot of FPSs, even though I'd like to. It also means, though, that if I like a game that my wife doesn't like, if I *ever* want to play multiplayer I must rely on online services.
As an example, SSB:Melee was the biggest waste of $20 for me. I got it cheap and unlocked some dudes, but no one ever wanted to play it because they hadn't heard of it -- and would rather play something they knew they were good at, even if that was Mario Kart. My wife didn't like it so it basically never got touched. Break the Targets & playing against bots is fun for a while, sure, but you can tell the game is focused towards multiplayer. As such, it was stupid of me to buy. That also means, though, that SSB:Brawl is even less worthwhile for someone like me.
Since I have someone I could play co-op games with all the time, I'd love for more games to include co-op on the same TV. But, heck, getting *that* is even less likely than Nintendo fixing their online service. My wife and I have been rocking the Pixeljunk Monsters lately, but I know we're going to beat it at some point, and then just wait for another game to come out. It's sad that a $10 downloadable game has more playtime, due to a simple 2p option, than many other games.
I could have written that post. :^: Except:
1) She just my GF.
2) I haven't got a PS3
3) I'm over the moon that downloadable games get more playtime (from me) than "proper" games.
The "getting them to know it" problem I'm used to. But the GF is trusting me more and more, as I'm working out what she will like if she sticks at it much better now.
Eh. Their service sucks. Sure. But at least it's better than nothing at all. All this bitching and whining is NOT going to change their minds. It's not like they are magically going to pull up this thread and be like: "WTF? People don't like our online service!?! FIX IT NOW!"
Eh. Their service sucks. Sure. But at least it's better than nothing at all. All this bitching and whining is NOT going to change their minds. It's not like they are magically going to pull up this thread and be like: "WTF? People don't like our online service!?! FIX IT NOW!"
Not to mention that Console Online is not big enough for Nintendo to even give a shit about.
Eh. Their service sucks. Sure. But at least it's better than nothing at all. All this bitching and whining is NOT going to change their minds. It's not like they are magically going to pull up this thread and be like: "WTF? People don't like our online service!?! FIX IT NOW!"
Not to mention that Console Online is not big enough for Nintendo to even give a shit about.
But it's up to the console makers to give a shit about it. Otherwise you end up with a Field of Dreams paradox. If no one builds it, no one's gonna come. I mean, we can bitch all we want, but the real truth of the matter is that these consoles are locked systems, and we are utterly dependent on either Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony to come up with these tools. They will never be open sourced, they will never be user created. So the only option we have is to bitch and make our voices heard.
I'm not saying form a petition, or boycott or something else stupid, but if the general consensus is that "only 10% of 360 owners use online play, and that's mostly because a lot of games do really stupid things with it," that's more cause for change than "eh only 10%, why even bother, let's keep doing the same shit."
Nintendo has innovated with many things over the years. Online play is, at its heart, a way to play games. There's no reason it should be overlooked or neglected due to "low numbers," because low numbers aren't indicative of the real reason why it's not being used. Is it because the single player is a lot of fun? Is it because of a really stupid design decision? People play games for a lot of reasons, but simply avoiding the topic of online play doesn't really help anything. Maybe we need different game modes, or more emphasis on making online play a little "different" than the regular game (like my mention above of turning Heavenly Sword into a Powerstone Clone, which also would count for shit like Devil May Cry and God of War online, too).
I don't think we should settle for what we have now. We know it can get better, and friend codes are not the way forward.
To directly answer the OP's question: My opinion of Nintendo's whole online plan hasn't really changed, but my standards have. Friends Codes aren't really my main gripe with Nintendo WFC, although it's obvious a pain in the ass—my biggest complaint is the same complaint I had with PS2 online, and that's lack of persistent online awareness. The coolest part of Live (and from what I understand of PSN, it also has this to some degree) is that whenever you have the console on, you're connected online, people can contact you and you can see what your friends are doing. I don't play all that many games for the online multiplayer, but the ones that I do (like Rock Band) I'm usually willing to drop a single-player game to play, and cross-game invites let me do that all the time.
I need to find out more details about it, but the whole Mario Kart Channel aspect of MK Wii looks to be bringing part of this "what are my friends doing" experience to the Wii. I can just click the channel and I can see if any of my friends are online and playing the game, and then I can just jump in and join them. Is this a straight-up channel, as in it sits next to the Forecast and News channels? If so that's awesome, because I can just do it every single time I boot up the Wii, or whenever I go back to the main dashboard. I liked that Strikers Charged told you what friends were online and playing, but you had to be within the game itself and then separately go to the "go online" menu option, wait to connect and then see if anyone was open for a game. The fewer steps, the better.
i don't know if it's been discussed already, but Microsoft and Sony are giants in the world of general computing, and hence "internetting". one of the main reasons i think Nintendo is so hesitant to try to compete in the online space against Sony and especially against Microsoft is that Nintendo simply doesn't have the network infrastructure that Sony and Microsoft already have in place.
the modern Nintendo is first and foremost a console video gaming company, and does not have the computing and networking "departments" that Sony and Microsoft have. i hope to high heaven that Nintendo is using some of the ridiculous amounts of money they're making to invest in online technologies. but for now, they're at the point where Microsoft was in 1995, fumbling around with Encarta CDs while the new Internet-based companies were passing them by. Microsoft survived by virtue of their sheer monopoly. Sony's always been a multi-industrial zaibatsu, only relatively recently turning to gaming.
i guess i'm saying is that it's not completely Nintendo's fault here. they're still n00bs when it comes to the internet.
That still doesn't justify how they've gone out of their way to inhibit online play. Like using separate friend codes for each game, not notifying someone when you add their code, not even knowing the names of public opponents(though that's more Sakurai's fault) let alone being able to talk to them or change game settings, etc. Nintendo just doesn't care about this stuff and it's really hurting them among the hardcore crowd.
Maybe it's the fact that I'm an adult with an adult income, but Live is $50 for a year. That's $4.17 a month. Is it really even worth mentioning? To me it's a non-factor.
$50 out of my yearly video game budget is equal to one full-priced new video game per year. The money's gotta come from somewhere.
This is a tired argument. Why does it have to come out of your video game budget? Why can't it come out of your fast food budget? Your buy-a-random-magazine-at-the-grocery-store budget? Your see-a-movie budget (which actually costs twice as much)? Think of all the things you spend a measly four dollars a month on.
My fast food budget, buying-shitty-tabloids budget, and watching-movies-in-uncomfortable-seats-with-the-floor-covered-in-chewed-gum-while-assholes-talk-on-their-cellphones-and-the-only-food-options-are-overpriced-junk budgets are all the same amount, and I'll give you a hint: it's a very round number. Almost circular.
But you raise an interesting question. Why do video game related expenditures need to come out of one's video game budget? Oh, wait, that's not an interesting question; it's moronic. Why does any rational person with a hobby earmark a specific amount of money for that hobby instead of cutting into savings every time one gets a need for some instant gratification? For someone who's making "adult income", you're acting like you're still living with your parents and don't have any fixed expenses. Try living in the real world sometime, it's wild.
Just posting to say that I hate the Nintendo online experience much more than I thought I would. I mean, I can't even send an invite to my online friends.
I'm probably one of the few here that couldnt care less about my Wii's online gaming capability. My wii, like Rock Band is for when people come over and get drunk. Everything about the Wii's advertising shows crowds of people together having fun in the same room so it doesnt surprise me that they have made a pitiful attempt at online games, it just isnt what they are marketing to.
Considering its still hard to get Wii consoles I dont think they are hurting too much from this decision. Honestly I couldnt see Nintendo have a retard filled online experience like Xbox live. I will say this,, they do need to better optimize the friend code thing have all codes be recognized across all games you have.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited March 2008
Really...people keep comparing the Wii's online to Live's online and I think that's beating a dead horse. Pretty much the same as people arguing about Live's online vs. Sony's with people just talking about the price over and over again though it has nothing to do with the agrument.
So...I mean instead what if you compare the Wii's online capabilities to that of Sony's. I'm not saying it's perfect in comparison, I'm just saying that Nintendo's online infrastructure does a lot of things that make the system unnecessarily difficult to use.
I can understand to some level why it's the way it is(since it's suppose to be a family friendly console and all that). Yet, there are a couple of things that the system is lacking that could have been easily implemented(the lack of friend notification being the key one in my mind) and the lack of them just makes it look like a half-hearted attempt.
Really...people keep comparing the Wii's online to Live's online and I think that's beating a dead horse. Pretty much the same as people arguing about Live's online vs. Sony's with people just talking about the price over and over again though it has nothing to do with the agrument.
So...I mean instead what if you compare the Wii's online capabilities to that of Sony's. I'm not saying it's perfect in comparison, I'm just saying that Nintendo's online infrastructure does a lot of things that make the system unnecessarily difficult to use.
I can understand to some level why it's the way it is(since it's suppose to be a family friendly console and all that). Yet, there are a couple of things that the system is lacking that could have been easily implemented(the lack of friend notification being the key one in my mind) and the lack of them just makes it look like a half-hearted attempt.
Oh, I'm not saying it's good. It's bad. It could easily be better. But I can understand why it isn't exactly either their main focus or their area of expertise.
Considering its still hard to get Wii consoles I dont think they are hurting too much from this decision. Honestly I couldnt see Nintendo have a retard filled online experience like Xbox live. I will say this,, they do need to better optimize the friend code thing have all codes be recognized across all games you have.
This is seriously my biggest gripe. I sat around and punched in dozens of friend codes for Tetris DS. Then I sat down and punched in dozens of friend codes for Mario Kart DS. You know what? Fuck that. I don't bother anymore. Let me punch in a friend's code one time, dammit. Having multiple codes (one per game) does nothing to protect children, does nothing to encourage play with your "real world" friends, basically does nothing but create a pain in my ass.
Unlike, for instance, the whole "doesn't notify you when somebody adds you" aspect. Which honestly does serve a purpose: absent this, it would be easy for Uncle Chester to spam friend invites to 17,000 unsuspecting children until one of them finds their way to his house for a molestin'. Hyperbole, of course, but requiring you to make the friend hookup happen entirely separately means they cannot possibly bear any responsibility for who winds up on your friend list.
As for the abysmal game customization options that usually accompany stranger matches...blegh.
And to the many people who keep saying things to the effect of voice not being an important part of gaming...what the fuck? When you have a couple buddies over for some face-to-face Smash Brothers, do you just sit there silently clicking buttons? I know around my TV there is always some lighthearted trash-talk, possibly some less than savory comments about people's mothers, and the occasional end-zone style victory dance. Interacting socially with the people you're playing a multiplayer game with is part of the game, whether they're on the couch next to you or across the country/world The fact that the internet has caught up with this is a good thing, not a bad thing...you can always mute fucktards. I know Live has this stigma of being filled with 13-year-olds talking about smoking marijuana and calling each other fags (and yeah, they're there) but some of my fondest memories of my days back on Live (many moons ago) were getting into games with loads of people with crazy accents, yelling and laughing and generally having a good time. You knew it was time to go to bed when the Aussies showed up.
Of course, the problems with WFC go well beyond lack of voice. Like somebody else said, their service is bad enough that they should be paying me to use it.
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Nintendo's online service is the worst of the three, sure, in terms of tech and services and etc. etc.
But that is like saying Super Mario Bros. is the worst Mario game. Of course it is, but I still love it.
And similarly many people enjoy the Wii's online service for what it is despite it being "the worst" and despite having experienced something relatively better at some point.
I recently bought an ASUS EEE PC, a very small form factor laptop. It comes with 512 meg of RAM, a 4 gig hard drive and a processor running at 600MHz. People made fun of me for taking such a step back spec-wise...but I have been enjoying the hell out of it despite not being able to play Oblivion or CoD4 or what-have-you.
Some people are just completely incapable of moving backward from time to time and saying, yeah, this is alright.
It's hardcore by the nature thats it all or nothing. If you want to dip into multiplayer on live for maybe one game a year, then it's not worth it.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
Most people who haven't been big into online gaming thus far are thrilled with Brawl, I think, at least from what I've read and seen.
I can understand not wishing to pay for a service if you aren't going to use it much, but considering how much I use Live I think the price they ask for a year is more than reasonable.
Gamertag: PrimusD | Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I only use live for one game and I wouldn't have ever bought my first xbox if live wasn't there. I currently only play one game on Live and I also only own 3 games for my 360 of which only one gets any playtime and the other I'm going to resell. If live wasn't the service it was I wouldn't own a 360. One game totally makes it worth it.
I think this is the key element, here. I bought an Xbox and Halo 2 because I could play with the PA crowd, and that one game purchase and the $50 for Live gave me many, many hours of very fun gameplay for the next 6-7 months.
The problem with Live is that you have to make sure you're still buying games and will have time for it for the full year. Heck, they could probably earn an equivalent amount by simply making it $5 a month, so you could cancel after the 3 months with your favorite game are up.
But yes, by having GOOD online, it makes a game with good online that much more fun. But Nintendo's approach is that you will simply play a game with friends, and that you live far apart. Therefore, you only need their friend code and the online play functions simply as a way to get together with your buddies.
Contrasted with the Xbox 360 and to some extent the PS3, they mostly view Live as a way of enjoying many of your games far beyond the initial few weeks. I mean, look at all the guys in the SSB:B thread that spent every waking moment burning through the game in order to unlock as many things as possible. What are they going to do at the end of the month, when almost everything is unlocked? They're relegated to playing against friends (who they will utterly own, since the friend won't have spent that much time on the game), and since the online is there to only really play against those same friends, not extend the playtime, that's it.
Whereas with an online FPS or 3rdPS or racing game, you can group up with people, play and talk together, hop on and play online against real people when you want to, rather than simply when your friends are free. That's a big boost to the longevity of a title. Call of Duty 4 is criticized as having a short single-player option, but a very fleshed out online system -- hence, the game gets much better reviews, lasts longer, etc.
Imagine if a short game like Heavenly Sword had some sort of online play, such as Co-op, or something that turned it into a sort of Power Stone. It'd go from "flashy game that's way too short" to a game that people actually bought and played online for a long period of time. So it absolutely helps a title, and the better the online play, the more it helps the title.
Microsoft "gets" the idea that people are friends with people via online means only, which is why they let people message each other even though they're in other games. If you're playing 1 game but a friend invites you to join in with another game you own, you can pop in the other game and get back to your original game later. But look at what that does to your game shelf -- it means that more of those older titles are fair game for online play at most any time. You're not limited to brand new games, and your shelf isn't full of titles that you scored 100% and now collect dust. I think that's really the crux of good online play service.
Now we just need to convince developers that you can have more than FPS and racing games online.
Amen to this.
See we get each other. I understand that the Wii service for someone like you is unacceptably poor. But for someone like me the Wii is far, far superior.
But like Lunker says, they only need a common Friends code attached to a Mii and most of this would be mute.
Thats the main issue, and shouldn't need to be impossible for a free service.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
HOWEVER, I love that the Wii doesn't have a hard drive. Why, you ask? Becuase as far as I'm concerned, a Hard Drive is just an excuse for a developer not to have to finish a game.
Similarly, I'm happy without mics, because they're primarily for trash talk.
Also, I'd like to point out that using Smash Bros. as an example for Nintendo's online is kind of unfair. Its going to use an interely different structure than Mario Kart ever will.
Smash bros. online requires precision. Mario Kart online simply requires connection, especially since most items are homing or stationary.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Thats pretty hardcore*
But seriously. All power to you. I'm glad you like it. :^:
* the term makes me want to vomit. Undefined and divisive.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
The problem, I think, is that this time that we're moving back to is almost 10 years ago, when PCs stopped requiring players to enter IP addresses and started integrating server browsers with more than basic functionality, and before Roger Wilco rolled around with online chat. Not being able to play CoD4 is one thing, but if you just bought a laptop that couldn't run Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri or Deus Ex, that would be a bit much.
What he wants from Live/PSN is what I don't want. (I would rather have had more CoD4 sinlge player for instance) But he's perfectly right.
Amen to his post. :^:
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
Last generation, maybe. The Xbox's hard drive was basically used for nothing. Sure, you didn't have to buy memory cards, but that was about it.
This generation, though, it's a different story. I LOVE, love love love, LOVE the fact that I can log into the PSN and download demos for free -- without worrying about buying extra peripherals or having enough space or any of that. The Xbox360 is the same way, and one of the reasons I'm kind of pissed that there's like 7 versions of the 360, one w/o a hard drive.
Demos is one of the things I've always missed out on, since I never cared to buy a magazine for a demo or otherwise hunt them down. But they're out there and in abundance on 2 of the current systems -- the ones with a solid online setup and with hard drives.
Your idea of patching is also a red herring, because historically the only elements of games that have received patches are those that focus specifically on the online portion. Multiplayer games get a patch to fix cheats or maps or whatnot. Yes, I dislike the idea of paying for extra maps or weapons or whatever, as much of it feels like they were "done" and wanted to wring an extra couple bucks from people. But there are also plenty of instances where a developer will see what people are doing on the current online setup and then create stuff *for the players*. It's not every game, but it definitely seems that many get DLC that's focused towards the more "hardcore" players.
But the "online stores" that the PS3 and X360 use have sold me on hard drives for current and future systems.
The Wii just needs to be able to execute WiiWare off SD cards. Then we are golden.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
Gamertag: PrimusD | Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Actually I went to arcades frequently and most of the time, I wanted to play better competition. Not to talk to people. Obviously local play in anything has trash talk, but I am all about the gameplay + competition. Which is exactly what I want from online play too. In Quake I rarely chat during a game, because I am focused on the game. Plus in a game like that, voice chat is distracting and hinders your ability to hear your opponents.
I too would like more single player in games. I don't really like being forced to play online to fully enjoy a game, so I hear on you on that. But none of my friends are gamers, or if they are gamers they're so busy that they play at bizarro times during the day.
I actually get most of my "multiplayer gaming" with co-op games with my wife. We played the hell out of Mario Kart on the GameCube, and even FF:CC. There were even a few nights when we were in the thick of playing FF:CC that I woke up in the middle of the night to hear the game's music coming from the living room. But she can't play FPS games since she gets motion sick, so if I feel like playing any of those I must rely on online gaming.
I don't like the idea of spending now $60 on a game for essentially half the content that the game ships with, so I have to look to see how good the online portion is before I can even consider it. That means I don't play a lot of FPSs, even though I'd like to. It also means, though, that if I like a game that my wife doesn't like, if I *ever* want to play multiplayer I must rely on online services.
As an example, SSB:Melee was the biggest waste of $20 for me. I got it cheap and unlocked some dudes, but no one ever wanted to play it because they hadn't heard of it -- and would rather play something they knew they were good at, even if that was Mario Kart. My wife didn't like it so it basically never got touched. Break the Targets & playing against bots is fun for a while, sure, but you can tell the game is focused towards multiplayer. As such, it was stupid of me to buy. That also means, though, that SSB:Brawl is even less worthwhile for someone like me.
Since I have someone I could play co-op games with all the time, I'd love for more games to include co-op on the same TV. But, heck, getting *that* is even less likely than Nintendo fixing their online service. My wife and I have been rocking the Pixeljunk Monsters lately, but I know we're going to beat it at some point, and then just wait for another game to come out. It's sad that a $10 downloadable game has more playtime, due to a simple 2p option, than many other games.
My view is I will never pay for multiplayer after I have paid full price for the game, never (hence I don't play mmos). Why should I have to pay more just to enjoy multiplayer? So many games offer great online for free, I am not paying a penny more just to play online (monthly/yearly fees). Obviously this is my view due to being a PC gamer for so long. I am still content with basic client/server browsers. As long as I don't pay anything extra after the price. This is why even with some lame decisions, I will view Nintendo's online as satisfactory as long as it fulfills the basic premise of me being able to play against people who can provide very nice competition.
I like the potential for good squad-based gameplay online, which requires talking, but then you run into the "fag" portion of the internet that Fyrewulff mentions. If you don't have a group you regularly play with, finding good competition or a good team is not easy.
It's your fault, America. Fucking lawsuit happy sons of bitches.
if you're a big team play guy, then yes, voice chat can help coordinating stuff no doubt about that. Yet even with voice chat, pubs rarely do team work anyway (I played a lot of ETQW, only on the rarest occasion would people work together on pub servers). For Quake, you either join a populated server, or idle in a server looking for 1v1, or get some pickups in numerous IRC chat rooms (I have never done that though, really easy to get opponents just joining a server or waiting a little bit for a 1v1).
the modern Nintendo is first and foremost a console video gaming company, and does not have the computing and networking "departments" that Sony and Microsoft have. i hope to high heaven that Nintendo is using some of the ridiculous amounts of money they're making to invest in online technologies. but for now, they're at the point where Microsoft was in 1995, fumbling around with Encarta CDs while the new Internet-based companies were passing them by. Microsoft survived by virtue of their sheer monopoly. Sony's always been a multi-industrial zaibatsu, only relatively recently turning to gaming.
i guess i'm saying is that it's not completely Nintendo's fault here. they're still n00bs when it comes to the internet.
steam | Dokkan: 868846562
I could have written that post. :^: Except:
1) She just my GF.
2) I haven't got a PS3
3) I'm over the moon that downloadable games get more playtime (from me) than "proper" games.
The "getting them to know it" problem I'm used to. But the GF is trusting me more and more, as I'm working out what she will like if she sticks at it much better now.
2009 is a year of Updates - one every Monday. Hopefully. xx
Not to mention that Console Online is not big enough for Nintendo to even give a shit about.
But it's up to the console makers to give a shit about it. Otherwise you end up with a Field of Dreams paradox. If no one builds it, no one's gonna come. I mean, we can bitch all we want, but the real truth of the matter is that these consoles are locked systems, and we are utterly dependent on either Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony to come up with these tools. They will never be open sourced, they will never be user created. So the only option we have is to bitch and make our voices heard.
I'm not saying form a petition, or boycott or something else stupid, but if the general consensus is that "only 10% of 360 owners use online play, and that's mostly because a lot of games do really stupid things with it," that's more cause for change than "eh only 10%, why even bother, let's keep doing the same shit."
Nintendo has innovated with many things over the years. Online play is, at its heart, a way to play games. There's no reason it should be overlooked or neglected due to "low numbers," because low numbers aren't indicative of the real reason why it's not being used. Is it because the single player is a lot of fun? Is it because of a really stupid design decision? People play games for a lot of reasons, but simply avoiding the topic of online play doesn't really help anything. Maybe we need different game modes, or more emphasis on making online play a little "different" than the regular game (like my mention above of turning Heavenly Sword into a Powerstone Clone, which also would count for shit like Devil May Cry and God of War online, too).
I don't think we should settle for what we have now. We know it can get better, and friend codes are not the way forward.
I need to find out more details about it, but the whole Mario Kart Channel aspect of MK Wii looks to be bringing part of this "what are my friends doing" experience to the Wii. I can just click the channel and I can see if any of my friends are online and playing the game, and then I can just jump in and join them. Is this a straight-up channel, as in it sits next to the Forecast and News channels? If so that's awesome, because I can just do it every single time I boot up the Wii, or whenever I go back to the main dashboard. I liked that Strikers Charged told you what friends were online and playing, but you had to be within the game itself and then separately go to the "go online" menu option, wait to connect and then see if anyone was open for a game. The fewer steps, the better.
That still doesn't justify how they've gone out of their way to inhibit online play. Like using separate friend codes for each game, not notifying someone when you add their code, not even knowing the names of public opponents(though that's more Sakurai's fault) let alone being able to talk to them or change game settings, etc. Nintendo just doesn't care about this stuff and it's really hurting them among the hardcore crowd.
I wonder why he spent $250 on a Wii and whatever on extra controllers and only plays it once in a while.
People spend money in different ways
My fast food budget, buying-shitty-tabloids budget, and watching-movies-in-uncomfortable-seats-with-the-floor-covered-in-chewed-gum-while-assholes-talk-on-their-cellphones-and-the-only-food-options-are-overpriced-junk budgets are all the same amount, and I'll give you a hint: it's a very round number. Almost circular.
But you raise an interesting question. Why do video game related expenditures need to come out of one's video game budget? Oh, wait, that's not an interesting question; it's moronic. Why does any rational person with a hobby earmark a specific amount of money for that hobby instead of cutting into savings every time one gets a need for some instant gratification? For someone who's making "adult income", you're acting like you're still living with your parents and don't have any fixed expenses. Try living in the real world sometime, it's wild.
Maybe you're just too poor, you stupid goddamn hobo. Maybe gaming just isn't for you. Maybe you should just go somewhere and die.
:P
Considering its still hard to get Wii consoles I dont think they are hurting too much from this decision. Honestly I couldnt see Nintendo have a retard filled online experience like Xbox live. I will say this,, they do need to better optimize the friend code thing have all codes be recognized across all games you have.
So...I mean instead what if you compare the Wii's online capabilities to that of Sony's. I'm not saying it's perfect in comparison, I'm just saying that Nintendo's online infrastructure does a lot of things that make the system unnecessarily difficult to use.
I can understand to some level why it's the way it is(since it's suppose to be a family friendly console and all that). Yet, there are a couple of things that the system is lacking that could have been easily implemented(the lack of friend notification being the key one in my mind) and the lack of them just makes it look like a half-hearted attempt.
Oh, I'm not saying it's good. It's bad. It could easily be better. But I can understand why it isn't exactly either their main focus or their area of expertise.
This is seriously my biggest gripe. I sat around and punched in dozens of friend codes for Tetris DS. Then I sat down and punched in dozens of friend codes for Mario Kart DS. You know what? Fuck that. I don't bother anymore. Let me punch in a friend's code one time, dammit. Having multiple codes (one per game) does nothing to protect children, does nothing to encourage play with your "real world" friends, basically does nothing but create a pain in my ass.
Unlike, for instance, the whole "doesn't notify you when somebody adds you" aspect. Which honestly does serve a purpose: absent this, it would be easy for Uncle Chester to spam friend invites to 17,000 unsuspecting children until one of them finds their way to his house for a molestin'. Hyperbole, of course, but requiring you to make the friend hookup happen entirely separately means they cannot possibly bear any responsibility for who winds up on your friend list.
As for the abysmal game customization options that usually accompany stranger matches...blegh.
And to the many people who keep saying things to the effect of voice not being an important part of gaming...what the fuck? When you have a couple buddies over for some face-to-face Smash Brothers, do you just sit there silently clicking buttons? I know around my TV there is always some lighthearted trash-talk, possibly some less than savory comments about people's mothers, and the occasional end-zone style victory dance. Interacting socially with the people you're playing a multiplayer game with is part of the game, whether they're on the couch next to you or across the country/world The fact that the internet has caught up with this is a good thing, not a bad thing...you can always mute fucktards. I know Live has this stigma of being filled with 13-year-olds talking about smoking marijuana and calling each other fags (and yeah, they're there) but some of my fondest memories of my days back on Live (many moons ago) were getting into games with loads of people with crazy accents, yelling and laughing and generally having a good time. You knew it was time to go to bed when the Aussies showed up.
Of course, the problems with WFC go well beyond lack of voice. Like somebody else said, their service is bad enough that they should be paying me to use it.