Halo 1 & 2 for PC
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  • Subject: I feel like the only one...
Subject: I feel like the only one...
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I feel like I'm the only one that actually LIKES Games for Windows Live. To me, it's a brilliant edition. It works fantastically on the Xbox 360, and it works every bit as well for the PC. Why, might you ask, do I think this way?

Feedback and reputation.

Avoiding or preferring players is amazing. Seeing someone's reputation precede them is better. Being able to tell which players are -blam!-s or cheaters is the best part.

Seriously, how many times have you wished you could do SOMETHING to someone that called you a racist name on a PC game? Sure, the server admin could ban him, but chances are he wouldn't. Now, with Windows Live, you can avoid them altogether and their reputation (over time) drops, and people know to avoid that person. It's brilliant!

Sure, paying 50 bucks a year is a big deal to PC gamers. I understand that completely and, to be honest, it pissed me off at first as well on the Xbox years ago. However, being a long-time vet of Xbox Live, it's become worth it. It's not that much money when you look at it (Come on, an ENTIRE YEAR for only 50 bucks. Less than ten bucks a month.) and the features you get for Gold are worth it. I understand it's a bit late for PC gamers, what with voice chat becoming an integral part of most PC games nowadays, but it really is worth it. Maybe not now to most of you, but when there's a ton of Game for Windows Live games out there, you'll see how awesome it really is.

Anyway, enough of me praising MS. I know I'll be flamed to hell on here because of this post, but I don't care. I enjoy Live, and hopefully those of you that don't now, will someday.

  • 06.04.2007 12:19 PM PDT
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I enjoy XBL as well, and when my laptop comes in, one of the first things I will try is Windows Live. I fully expect it to be about as enjoyable as XBL.

  • 06.04.2007 12:21 PM PDT
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I too have been enjoying it also, though i haven't used my headset yet. Your right 50 bucks a year isn't bad. I used to have XBL when we first got our XBox but i canceled it cause i don't really play console but i think that when my free month expires I'll subscribe to gold.

[Edited on 06.04.2007 12:25 PM PDT]

  • 06.04.2007 12:25 PM PDT
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F-f-f-f-fling yourself.

I love it too. I think all the people that actually LIKE this game just don't post their thoughts like the people that want to complain :P

I just wish there was a way to find servers that host Juggernaut games, or games on unpopular maps; I want my achievements!

  • 06.04.2007 12:43 PM PDT
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It's not that we don't like Live, it's that we have to pay to get the same features we had like 4-5 years ago.

  • 06.04.2007 12:51 PM PDT
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if you have to pay to play they should just give the game away

  • 06.04.2007 1:43 PM PDT
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I like the game but hate Windows Live.

As I stated elsewhere, for consoles, Live! was groundbreaking. It was the first, real multiplayer support. Sure, Dreamcast had the option, but it really didn't make much use of it. So Xbox Live was really the foundation of console multiplayer - and it's still the benchmark to which other companies are compared.

But Windows Live isn't really anything new or exciting. It takes features that we've been using for years and tries to package them in a pay-for-service setup. Sure it adds pc-to-console crossplatform multiplayer (if games support such a feature), but, in the end, GFW-L is just Microsoft trying to reinvent the PC gaming wheel - to their favor.

That said, I can't argue the point that it's a good anti-cheat system. But us PC gamers have had to deal with cheats and anti-cheat programs for so long that (I'll temporarily assume to speak for a lot of older PC gamers) a lot of us are skeptical about whether or not Live can actually prevent cheating on PC. It's a whole different beast trying to monitor PC gaming than it is to monitor X360 gaming.

This ties into another problem I have with Windows Live. While it may be beneficial to deter cheating, it will be detrimental to community modding. Right now it hasn't really impacted it, but the ability to make whole, game changing, community mods - often the reason games live on after the original game has long past its prime - will be difficult at best because now there's this whole "Windows Live" barrier that could be used to prevent community mods from running online.

IMO, this is Microsoft trying to take an excellent idea from consoles and applying it to a different venue where it doesn't need to exist. Mark my words, if Games for Windows Live gets established, the next thing you'll know, instead of being able to download community made maps like we used to (and can in H2V, at the moment, Live not withstanding), you'll be shopping for Microsoft Points to download the latest "officially supported" map packs. I don't mind doing that on my X360. But keep that crap off my PC.

[Edited on 06.04.2007 2:04 PM PDT]

  • 06.04.2007 1:58 PM PDT

_____________(__||____||__)___
-------------___-.~,~~:_____:______|================[_]=
|_______/ /_/```-------|__|

JUMP FEET FIRST INTO HELL!!

i love xbox live i dont have halo2 vitsa yet so i dont know what to think about games for windows live expect im glad that i can whip pc gamers on my 360 with shadowrun and im going to get that once halo3 beta is over.but here are a few things i read about games for windows live that i think some of u would agree and disagree with http://halo2pc.org/ .also i dont think MS is trying to make money off of games for windows live thats y u have a silver account so u can still do what u have been doing for years on the pc and that is play online for free.i think they really want to bring pc gamers and xbox 360 gamers together and what ever money they get with games for windows live is just a big by product of there main goal to to close the gap between pc games and 360 gamers.
i.e.SHADOWRUN



[Edited on 06.04.2007 2:28 PM PDT]

  • 06.04.2007 2:21 PM PDT

Power of Will is a Weapon. Never Die!

I enjoy Windows/XB Live as well. I enjoy the achievements and they add an extra gameplay element to games. I enjoy the leaderboards on the XB Live arcade games. Reporting cheaters and retard gamers is nice. The friends list across both platforms is nice and it's easy to communicate with friends across both platforms. With a mouse and keyboard, the Live interface is actually more enjoyable to use on the PC.

As for paying for all of this, I think it's resonable. Use Halo PC for example, using Gamespy. All Gamespy offered was matchmaking playlists, nothing else. If you wanted friends lists, tournaments and other premium features, didn't you have to join Gamespy's premium service, The Founder's Club, or whatever it's called. I think that's like $40 per year. So what free PC online gaming service offers all that XB Live offers?

  • 06.04.2007 2:22 PM PDT
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Posted by: MajorHavoc
So what free PC online gaming service offers all that XB Live offers?


None. But:
Gamespy did only offer matchmaking free, yes. They did not, however, monitor your game files, your mods or your installation.

For me, this is what it boils down to. Games for Windows Live will eventually be a spitting image of Xbox Live, with Microsoft monitoring the games which run Games for Windows Live. Yes, this is beneficial to prevent cheaters and it's nice being able to communicate with X360 friends who are online, but it will come at a price.

It will eventually stifle community modding because Microsoft will be able to employ the banhammer as they wish. If Microsoft decides that a new Games for Windows Live game will NOT be allowed to have any modification outside what they want to deliver "officially" (and charge you for via Microsoft points), they'll be able to keep anyone from modding that game.

A hypothetical, if you will, to explain my belief further:
Let's pretend for a minute that Unreal Tournament 2004 is a "Games for Windows - Live" game and let's say that Microsoft decides that community mods/maps won't be allowed to be played online. Since Microsoft monitors the Live service, they could do that. Community Bonus Packs 1, 2 Volume 1 and 2 Volume 2 wouldn't exist - OR, they would exist and Microsoft would "sell" them to you at the cost of 400+ gamer points per pack.

THIS is why Microsoft is pushing Games for Windows - Live, make no mistake. It's not because they're interested in closing the gap between X360 and PC gamers. Rather, it's about control, the ability to use that control to force gamers to buy MS points to keep buying content for the games and, in turn, generate recurring profit instead of making profit only from the original point-of-sale of the game.

Again, I don't mind this on consoles. But for PC games, where games have been supported for years by their community, by folks who make maps or whole game mods, this "new" model, this new level of control, stinks.

As for friends lists, last I checked, xFire was free and functioned really, really well as a friends list. It even shows friends cross platform.

[Edited on 06.04.2007 3:21 PM PDT]

  • 06.04.2007 3:14 PM PDT
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Posted by: DS SuiXide
Feedback and reputation.

Avoiding or preferring players is amazing. Seeing someone's reputation precede them is better. Being able to tell which players are -blam!-s or cheaters is the best part.

Seriously, how many times have you wished you could do SOMETHING to someone that called you a racist name on a PC game? Sure, the server admin could ban him, but chances are he wouldn't. Now, with Windows Live, you can avoid them altogether and their reputation (over time) drops, and people know to avoid that person. It's brilliant!


Hurray. So now when the clan members who scream "TURN THAT OFF NOW!!" and "OMG YOU CHEAT!!" and then kick and/or ban me can go look me up and give me lots of negative feedback, get all their clan members to do the same so that everyone thinks i'm a cheat and totally ignore me.

  • 06.04.2007 3:19 PM PDT
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I just wish there was a way to find servers that host Juggernaut games, or games on unpopular maps; I want my achievements!

Just wait till I get my clan server up and running... most of the gametypes will be user-suggested, so unpopular maps will be IN! Believe me, I'm sick of Lockout and Coag as well.



Hurray. So now when the clan members who scream "TURN THAT OFF NOW!!" and "OMG YOU CHEAT!!" and then kick and/or ban me can go look me up and give me lots of negative feedback, get all their clan members to do the same so that everyone thinks i'm a cheat and totally ignore me.


...and then decent people like me just leave you 'too good' feedback because, well, it'd be true! I only leave cheating feedback to people who really cheat, eg. standby, use map glitches, BXR, superbounce, etc...

[Edited on 06.04.2007 4:17 PM PDT]

  • 06.04.2007 4:14 PM PDT
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Live is overpriced and misused. The ONLY feature that we should pay for is cross platform play. Anything beyond that is just a scam to make money off of what we have been getting for years. If MS is charging us $50 a year for feature we should have for free, they had better include a lot more features then what is currently offered. And at $50, any future MMO produced under Live should be free month to month.

  • 06.04.2007 4:27 PM PDT

What it is.

Too bad HG have ceased to remove the button glitches making them, technically legal to do. As for the super bounces, Bungie mentions that they are in the game but aren't considered cheating, but an annoyance. using super bounces to get out of a map though, now that's cheating. Good thing we dont have to worry about standby or modders with H2V thanks to dedicated servers.

[Edited on 06.12.2007 5:27 PM PDT]

  • 06.12.2007 5:22 PM PDT
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Here's what I've come to realize. People say that live sucks because it lacks features that xbl doesn't have and that it would be better without it. On the other hand, if we took it out entirely they'd be more pissed. Just showing what kind of an ignorant fool they are.

  • 06.12.2007 5:38 PM PDT
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People pay $60 a year to play World of Warcraft and that's just ONE game. With live you're getting online for every game that comes out plus the extra features that were touched on in the first post.

  • 06.12.2007 9:11 PM PDT
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Posted by: HungryMuffin
People pay $60 a year to play World of Warcraft and that's just ONE game. With live you're getting online for every game that comes out plus the extra features that were touched on in the first post.


First, your math is horribly wrong. WoW was, assuming a monthly recurring subscription, 14.99 a month. That's $179.98 for a year of WoW.

For that fee you get a constantly updated client, major content patches (there were twelve major content patches before the expansion, almost every one of the twelve added new content), and you pay for servers and access to them.

Games for Windows Live gives you... "extra features" like an easily abused "reputation" system? "extra features" like nothing happening to people you report for violations of terms of service? "extra features" like the inevitable pay for new content downloads (this is already in the works for Shadowrun for GFWL)?

None of this needs to exist on PC. We've been playing games for a decade (or longer) easily without them.
We have xFire, Trillian, Teamspeak and Ventrilo for friends lists and VoIP.
Most multiplayer games had their own integrated online game browser (or offered a comparable third party solution).
Oh, and best of all, the community gave us new content, free. Sometimes even the publisher would give us new free content, too.

Microsoft is trying to turn PC gaming into recurring profit. I, for one, refuse to spend Microsoft Points on future PC game "content" because it comes at the expense of the community as a whole. It would be like having to pay a fee for the Desert Combat mod for BF42. No thanks.

  • 06.12.2007 9:40 PM PDT
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I agree with DS. I personaly like Live. Just because 360 has so many better games to offer than pc. Okay has HL 2 (360 has that) PC has MMORPGs which is a big plus. Plus a lot of strategies. But it misses out on fast-paced RPGs (Assasins Creed (i know it's probably coming out for pc) but this ain't the only example) also it has more and better versions of FPSs ( GRAW for Xbox has so many more options than GRAW for PC ) also games like Gears of War rock the hell out of most of the competition. Also achievements are fun.
I know pc gaming has a lot of programs to do stuff like matchmaking and etc. Xfire is a good one and i like it but nothing is centralised. I'd pay not to have to run a -blam!-load of programs just to chat with Vegas clan, chat with friends on Xbox 360 and voice chat. Sure XFire does voice chat but it ain't good so i have to run Ventrilo which annoys me.

  • 06.12.2007 11:54 PM PDT
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The game is good, they just took out matchmaking which was the dumbest thing ever.

And making it vista only is another reason why people aren't encouraged to buy it, i think most people actually like halo 2 though.

  • 06.13.2007 12:38 AM PDT
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Well Vista is bound to become the most common OS. XP fans should just pack up and change. MS ain't going to change Vista just cuz gamers who like XP (which i hate) don't like Vista. Vista is foremost a business and personal use OS. Not a pure gaming OS nor is XP.

  • 06.13.2007 3:49 AM PDT