Does the average gamer understand how online gaming works?
- Thread starter Phoenixmgs_v1legacy
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Every product Sony is now charging for with Playstation Plus is an additional option above and beyond what was previously offered.Danish rage said:
They're doing some early release DLC like Microsoft have done with Gold, they're offering discounts to PS+ members (so effectively you're saving money if you were planning to buy the discounted games anyway), and there are certain games given away free while you're a subscriber to the paid service. You lose the free games if you let your subscription run out, but the ones you paid discount price for you still keep.
What they DON'T do is charge players for access to a multiplayer service which is either player-hosted (most of XBox Live and PSN's multiplayer experience) or hosted on servers not owned by the people charging for access to those servers (the rest of the games on PSN and XBox Live, except for maybe a couple of first-party titles, I say maybe because I don't know of any from Sony or Microsoft which actually have developer-provided dedicated servers).
Now stay on THAT topic and explain why Microsoft are refusing to allow XBox Live Silver subscribers access to multiplayer. They aren't the ones hosting the games, they aren't the ones providing the internet connection used at any point in the connection, they aren't providing servers for any multiplayer game not made by Microsoft (and I don't think they're providing servers for any games they HAVE made, either, for that matter), HOW do they justify refusing non-paying players this access???
PSN has more uptime than Live. I use my PS3 for everything entertainment-wise: games, TV shows, movies, music, etc. and I think there has only been one time where PSN has been down for more than a couple hours. I know Live was down for a whole day before. And, isn't good matchmaking based on the game? For example, CoD has horrible matchmaking no matter if you're playing on Live or PSN.Anton P. Nym said:
This is my whole point.obliviondoll said:
With Live, the only thing you are really getting for your money is cross-game chat, which I don't care about, I don't see what's so great about having conversation with my friends when I'm playing a game. And, they don't wanna be talking either while gaming as some of them have a 360 and they don't cross-game chat. We talk about shit when we hang out.
I bet a good portion of that Gold money goes towards Microsoft getting timed exclusives. And, that's not a value to the 360 user because you aren't getting that game/dlc any earlier, the PS3 is just getting that content later.
I really don't have any bias. I think PS+ is pretty weak. The Vanquish Challenge mode demo just came out yesterday for PS+ subscribers only, but that is a demo that's a month old; I downloaded the demo for free from the Japanese PSN store for free, you know, before the game came out. If Sony thinks giving you "early" access to a month old demo is some kind or reward or privilege, then I want no part of PS+.
It's one of those things that a studio can screw up. I mean, CoD just doesn't care about matching that way, or about game balance either so far as I can tell.Phoenixmgs said:
TrueSkill can work incredibly well, though, in the hands of a good designer. I wish more PC and console games made use of it, or similar algorithms. I find being grossly undermatched boring ("shooting fish in a barrel" doesn't excite me) and being grossly overmatched frustrating, and I suspect that's common.
-- Steve
Threads like this make me glad I sold my Xbox and now game exclusively on PC. Not that I ever cared about matchmaking; I thought it worked decently well. But dedicated servers are so much nicer for building a community.
Wow, as a mainly PC gamer I suddenly don't feel so bad about not having a console - recently I had been thinking of getting a 360 but if I have to pay to use the thing online without that money going into any sort of 'dedicated servers' being established for me to do so - forget it!
What I don't get is how X-box think this is a good idea? If, as a previous poster has pointed out, the only reason for this revenue stream is to fund 'timed exclusives'. I mean, the obvious aim with that is to make X-box a more attractive option to console buyers as it gets content earlier. However, pissing off your current users to do so hardly seems like a win-win option. That beind said, if developers weren't willing to take the money to do exclusives we wouldn't have the problem, so it's just a case of the greed flowing on and fucking the average guy in the ass. Everyone should just refuse to use the service and put a stop to it.
As Anton pointed out, I think matchmaking does need refinement. I pretty much have stopped playing shooters online. I don't suck, I'm probably average at best, but you can't be competitive against people who have played for longer and refined their skills, or who have unlocked upgrades that turn their average rifle into a laser guided ICBM. Don't get me started on grenade spam either, sheesh. So I think things like trueskill etc are important, as well as algorithims that take into account time played, upgrades unlocked etc etc.
Of course, that being said all those things are easier to implement on dedicated servers I imagine.
What I don't get is how X-box think this is a good idea? If, as a previous poster has pointed out, the only reason for this revenue stream is to fund 'timed exclusives'. I mean, the obvious aim with that is to make X-box a more attractive option to console buyers as it gets content earlier. However, pissing off your current users to do so hardly seems like a win-win option. That beind said, if developers weren't willing to take the money to do exclusives we wouldn't have the problem, so it's just a case of the greed flowing on and fucking the average guy in the ass. Everyone should just refuse to use the service and put a stop to it.
As Anton pointed out, I think matchmaking does need refinement. I pretty much have stopped playing shooters online. I don't suck, I'm probably average at best, but you can't be competitive against people who have played for longer and refined their skills, or who have unlocked upgrades that turn their average rifle into a laser guided ICBM. Don't get me started on grenade spam either, sheesh. So I think things like trueskill etc are important, as well as algorithims that take into account time played, upgrades unlocked etc etc.
Of course, that being said all those things are easier to implement on dedicated servers I imagine.
Its suprising that this isnt a well known fact yet, altough the reasons over the years I have paid for xbox live (i have a ps3 and a 360) is because the servers that you Download add-ons, updates, and arcade games on is considerably faster (I know from actual use of both networks here, this is not an opinion) as well as features such as Parties. Although since Live is having a price hike I will no longer buy Gold, even though $10 isnt much, Microsoft doesnt need 20% more money per user...Phoenixmgs said:
Apparently you don't either. I'd be curious to see you cite some sources for this information instead of all the meandering flames you direct at people that pay for a service you're failing to understand. How is it they put it? Oh, yes.Phoenixmgs said:
Sources or GTFO. ^_^
That is all.
this, I'm ok to pay someone else the cost of a cup of coffee a week to maintain all of this. I used to do it myself for a few different game servers/games. and I supported close to 100+ gamers a week. I hated it, it sucked the fun out of everything.Anton P. Nym said:
Here is the problem with your statement. You assert that, in some games, you use a p2p system and that in these games there is little to no operational expense for Microsoft or Sony. Then you lament that on one of these services you have to pay to play.Phoenixmgs said:
I'm not going to tell you not to decry such a thing - it is well within your right as a consumer to choose to support one product over another. What I will say is that your argument does nothing to support this claim.
Some games use P2P. Others use dedicated servers. Some games use dedicated servers paid for by a publisher that is neither Microsoft or Sony. But all of these games rely on platform holder servers for the delivery of certain key bits and pieces. One one platform, this and other costs associated with running the service (it isn't free no matter how little it appears to actually do when examined by a casual observer) this cost is passed to the consumer and is seen to be a higher quality service in many respects. On another, the cost is not passed on to the consumer and is generally seen to be an inferior product.
Reality demonstrates that this online service can be delivered to the player without an associated cost. If what you really want is for another service to stop charging for what is functionally identical (if marginally superior), or at the very least charge less, come right out and say it. Don't wave a meaningless argument about before you do because all it does is distract from your point.
And, please, if you do make such a mistake, do not follow it up with an utterly irrelevant argument.
All that said, I will point out that I play games regularly on the PC, the 360 and PS3. On the PC, there are plenty of games that I have to pay regular installments to keep playing, but that is all but irrelevant to the argument. Between the PS3 and the 360, I have to say that I prefer the 360 experience. Consistency and coherence of the interface is a plus. On my PS3, it is often an exciting adventure figuring out how to get people I know into a game and even when not in a game all such options are buried deep in some long forgotten menu. I could go on, but my point does not really require it. I am willing to sacrifice the price of a cup of gourmet coffee a month to play games online with friends. The choice of which platform I play a particular game on is primary dictated not by my experience with the interface or the utility of the systems involved but rather by the platform that hosts most of them. Because all but one of my friends is willing to pay this relatively trivial fee (and the other hold out holds all the platforms much like myself) to play, that means I play on 360.
Would I choose to pay less if I could? Certainly. But do I resent having to pay in the first place? Not even slightly. There is a fee that is sufficient to make me resent it but not so great that I refuse to pay, certainly. If XBL cost perhaps five times as much it would equate to a notable enough sum that I'd resent paying each and every time. But, thankfully, it rests comfortably below such a level. Other people will, of course, come to a different judge of the value the service provides and plenty of them will find that even five dollars a month is too high. That is all well and good. But don't try and wave about nonsensical numbers and examples. The reason they charge is because people are willing to pay. The reason PSN plus is doing poorly is simply because few people see a significant increase in value when they do.
Neither side operates a charity and both are trying to make money off the online infrastructure. One of them has been successful. The other is still struggling to find a way.
I would point out that your given uptime equates to .03 seconds per year. The actual uptime is far, far lower than that. If they get 99.99% uptime in a given year (less than one hour), it would be an incredible feat.Anton P. Nym said:
I actually knew that when I started playing Halo 2 in 2006 and could watch as everyones connection dropped but one person and knew that was the host. I have used this to my advantage recently, when playing a match with to many noobs, I will start a big download and lag the game out for others.
It's common network knowledge and I have a Bachelor's in computer networking. Look up what I said on Wikipedia, it's basic stuff. Then, show me any misinformation I stated.RollForInitiative said:
I really don't know much about 360 games so list any first party games that have dedicated servers. It's just that 360 really only has Gears and Halo as big multiplayer online exclusives and both games can run fine with one of the players being the host so I'm ASSUMING no first party Microsoft games have dedicated servers. So, you gotta ask yourself what is that $60 a year going towards. MAG, for example, has to have dedicated servers for the player count. I've read that Killzone 2 uses dedicated servers, and when I played Warhawk, there were dedicated servers and player run servers. Correct me if I've gotten anything wrong. It just seems to me more PS3 games use dedicated servers than 360 games when Xbox users are paying for online.Eclectic Dreck said:
Every game has servers running but if they aren't dedicated servers then they are just collecting player stats after each round. They possibly hold patch/update data but I think most of the time the PSN or Live servers probably hold this data.
On the PS3, it is pretty easy to get a party together for a game if the game supports it. I've never encountered an issue with finding the option to party up in any game. Sometimes there are issues with the game dropping people or something, but that's on the developer not Sony.
Microsoft charges you for money and you get more ads while PSN is free with very few ads. To me, cross-game chat is the only difference, and it's just not something I would use. Outside of that, Live has no key feature over PSN, you would think for $60 you'd get more than cross-game chat. PS3's Netflix is even better as you can search, on the 360 there's no search option. I don't care if Live is more successful. I don't mind paying money for a service, but I'm not paying Microsoft money to play a multi-platform title online when they incur no costs.
You missed my point entirely I think. Just because a particular game does or does not use a dedicated server is irrelevant. There are services being provided beyond the server of any particular game that is being operated by the platform holders. There are development costs associated with the services. Neither platform holder is free of a cost here is my point.Phoenixmgs said:
As I pointed out at length, one party passes the costs to the consumer, the other does not. The party that is not doing it is currently trying to convince people to pay for a higher tier of service. Except people aren't biting precisely because the ability to play with other people is the most obviously valuable part of the service.Phoenixmgs said:
Thus, with both parties trying to make money, it turns out only one of them bit the bullet and charged for the part that people are willing, however begrudgingly, to pay for. That is the reason you pay to play online. Because that is the part people will pay for.
I get your point, Live and PSN cost money to run. Online gaming is not one of the costs outside of first party titles. Microsoft shouldn't charge for online gaming when it incurs no costs (and provides no service whatsoever) for 3rd party games. Microsoft's first party titles don't use dedicated servers (correct me if I'm wrong) so online costs of their first party games should be covered by the game price. You shouldn't have to pay Gold Membership to play CoD, I could understand not being able to play Halo but then that would hurt Microsoft cause no one would pay to play Halo when they can play other games for free online. The developer/publisher incurs the cost (they run the game server) and the game price should cover online as well; a player is the host outside of dedicated servers so minimal bandwidth costs (zero costs for Microsoft on 3rd party games). And, for multiplayer games, you are paying for the multiplayer when you buy the game since the campaigns are like 4 hours. I have no problem paying for something but I'm not paying Sony or Microsoft money to play a 3rd party online game when neither Sony nor Microsoft incur any costs and they aren't providing any services.Eclectic Dreck said:
They're probably just annoyed that he price of the service increased after they already had a sunk cost in the XBox itself. I can understand that. If I moved country and it suddenly ramped up taxes by 25%, I'd be complaining.Eclectic Dreck said:
On the other hand, the PS3 I got as a -rarely used- gift is starting to actually look more valuable. Too bad it still fails to overcome the utility of my PC.
I'm not annoyed at the price hike, I don't have a 360 so it doesn't pertain to me. I made the topic because in another topic people were saying Live is better than PSN because the games are less laggy, which is just plain false because the laggy-ness of a game is all on the host (who is a player in the game) and the other players, not Live or PSN. The point of the topic was that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo don't incur any costs when you play a 3rd party online game so they shouldn't charge for online multiplayer because that is a service they are NOT providing. Microsoft is the only one charging for a service they don't provide, I'd be on Sony as hard as Microsoft if Sony charged for online multiplayer. I don't mind paying Company X for a service if Company X is indeed providing the service; I'm not going to pay Company X for a service that Company Y is providing, that doesn't make any sense.Eponet said: