Jimquisition: Friends

[Jenvas1306]

I doubt that this is a problem for a majority of people, but I understand the premise.
First of all, you could allways dense in your friends-list to people you actually play with, that probably saves the problem and I think is understandable for those with whom you have no contact for a month or so.
Secondary, if the limit of 100 is to prevent widespread spamming, why not have a system to unlock a larger friendslist for those who really need it. Something that minimizes the risk of abuse.

Maybe this is not the best example for the message of not sticking to a system cause everyone does it...

 

[sneakypenguin]

100 is pretty tiny, and yes you can fill one up pretty quickly even if your not "popular". Playing 4-5 online games and suddenly thats only about 20 ppl on your list per game (not much) now assuming ppl game pretty hardcore at 4 hours a day online, suddenly its mathmatically probable that you wont even have enough online with the game you chose to even field a full team. Now they want these consoles to be hubs of social and media consumption and 100 becomes even smaller and pointless.

you won't be besties with all your friends list but thats not what a friends list is for in this gaming sphere. You use it to keep track of ppl you liked playing with across multiple games, or to field full custom games with people you know. Or just allow people to keep track of you.

100 just makes 0 sense any way you slice it.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Ok I have to ask, if you could have 10,000 friends how many of those would you actually keep up with? I mean really? Like maybe 10. 20 at most. I'm surprised if you keep up with all 100 that you've got. Having more "friends" is mostly for bragging rights, it's not as though you keep in touch with all of them or even most of them.

Let's be honest. When it comes to gaming platforms, "friend" basically means "somebody who I enjoy playing games with." It doesn't necessarily mean you want to get to know each and every one of them personally. And that's more or less how I treat my gaming friends lists - much the same way a philanderer keeps a little black book of booty calls. Sometimes I just want to somebody to play Left 4 Dead with at 2am and have some fun. I'm not much of a multiplayer gamer, and I don't even know exactly how many friends I have on my Steam account, although I'd be surprised if it wasn't over 100 (and that was a mere statement of fact, not a boast). Yes, there are only a few people on that list I have actually gotten to know, but mostly I just use my friends list as a jumping off point - I can see who's online, and I can jump straight into a game safe in the knowledge that at least one or two people in that game are people I'm going to have fun playing with (or against).

Ok let me rephrase that, are you really going to be playing with all 10,000 (hyperbole) "friends" on your list? Are you going to get around to playing with all of them even once? I don't think so. While I admit that having such a limit is more than a little arbitrary and backwards, but you have to be honest with yourself, do you really need to have all that many friends on your list? Maybe it's just me, but I hate getting friend requests from random people I don't know and have never had so much as a conversation with, and that's here on the Escapist, I can't imagine taking my consoles online and getting random friend requests there.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

ITT: Jim and some blind follower not knowing the difference between a friend and a person he has talked to/met/saw him once.

EDIT:
Maybe Jim actually just wants that people can subscribe to him and follow him like on Twitter?
Tho I think that limiting anything is stupid, I really don't see any rational reason for having over 100 friends. I don't know why no company made it so that good people are rewarded while bad are punished. If you get reported a lot, your friend list shrinks to only 20, if you get commended a lot for being nice, friendly, forgiving... your friend list capacity increases to 200, maybe even 500...

And for the problem that Jim has (he won't keep up with his 10k "friends", but he is popular so the 10k want to keep up with him), add a subscription option. They can stalk.

 

[girzwald]

I'm quite shocked the brilliant Jim of the Jimquisition couldn't come up with the most obvious answer why there is a 100 friend limit. Data storage. 100 was probably just a good benchmark because nobody, nobody has that many actual friends. Was it just too obvious so you overlooked it, or were you just leaving it out so you could scream at the big game companies with some sort of righteous indignation? While I highly suspect they could afford it, Jim, I really doubt they want to pay for you to have 10,000+ "friends" and everyone else who plays Xbox, PSN, etc to do so as well. You complain to us about whining about petty stuff. Take some of your own advice. Save your 100 friend slots for actual friends and people you want/need to keep in contact with.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Well, the gloves do give a much more authoritarian presentation of you, and they fit the red/black theme in place. Can't really speak to the 100 friend limit, as I'm not much of an online multiplayer, and am fairly happy with the 22 friends I have on PSN at the moment.

 

[Mel Theofficegamergirl]

loved the glove rant at the end, and the bit about how your mum has no friends.

As for the friend limit, I agree that it's completely stupid, but I have a theory as to why they do this. You know, like not everyone games online, and people have to purchase the ability to use features like facebook and twitter on their consoles right? Maybe they have that limit so more people will purchase those services. . .Which is stupid. That's what a computer is for.

 

[Akimoto]

Personally I can think of something else that bugs me more - EULA.

I took the time to read Apple's EULA and discovered that they no longer took responsibility for any of their apps. Furthermore, game EULA and consoles often state that we, the paying, honest customer, only bought the right to use it. Why is it not mine to own? Why are games and related consoles treated differently from, say, cars? Or my pet fish? Or my books?

Jim, save us!

 

[Ashley Blalock]

When it comes to things like video my X-Box 360 does feel downright antiqued compared to something like my little Roku box. By the time I can fire up the X-Box, dig around for the right menu, the right app, and then search for a program I could have been watching Netflix, Hulu Plus, an Amazon video on the Roku because it's always on and no crazy navigation to get to your entertainment destination. The home button on the Roku box makes it so much quicker to change from something like Hulu to Netflix.

The only thing that bothers me about the gloves is that I keep thinking Jim doesn't want to leave any finger prints when he ends up killing someone.

 

[DustyDrB]

It's a non-issue for me on consoles (I own a Wii, 360, and PS3. I only have 3 friends. All of them are on the 360 and I could really just delete them all since we don't interact anyway). If Steam did that, it would be a problem. I know I have at least 80, and that number grows as I add regulars who play on my clan's TF2 servers. So yeah, that would suck because I do communicate with the majority of those people (not regularly on an individual level, but from time to time to pass along info or provide assistance). So I could see people who play online a lot on consoles having a problem like that with the restriction.

 

[Urh]

Ok let me rephrase that, are you really going to be playing with all 10,000 (hyperbole) "friends" on your list? Are you going to get around to playing with all of them even once? I don't think so. While I admit that having such a limit is more than a little arbitrary and backwards, but you have to be honest with yourself, do you really need to have all that many friends on your list? Maybe it's just me, but I hate getting friend requests from random people I don't know and have never had so much as a conversation with, and that's here on the Escapist, I can't imagine taking my consoles online and getting random friend requests there.

Every one of my Steam friends are people I've played with at least once, more often than not I've played with them multiple times before sending/receiving a request. While I don't explicitly *need* every single one of them, I keep them around nonetheless - having a decent-sized pool of people I like to play with means it's more likely somebody's going to be online if I ever get a hankering for some multiplayer. Everybody's definition of a decent-sized friend list is going to vary, primarily depending on how many different games one plays, and how often. I don't want to have to worry about an arbitrary limit the next time I think "Hmmm, this guy's pretty cool. I think I might want to play with him some more." List management should ultimately be the end-user's prerogative (and some people will have more discipline than others in this regard).

And finally, rejecting friend requests barely rates as a bother to me. The fly buzzing around in my room right now rates as a bigger annoyance.

 

[Jimothy Sterling]

yeah, I suppose particularly for the press and journalists that is a bit different. Might get annoying if you have that many contacts.
I don't have more than 10 friends in any platform, so it doesn't affect me much...
In any case, an episode on this?? REALLY?
I can tell you had an issue filling it up with content too when you started reading out your denied friend list.... really informative.....

I get that underlying problem of companies acting in a certain way simply because its the way it's done. Conformism, and lack of a propositive attitude. That could have been a more interesting subject...
As it stands, very weak episode Jim.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Ok let me rephrase that, are you really going to be playing with all 10,000 (hyperbole) "friends" on your list? Are you going to get around to playing with all of them even once? I don't think so. While I admit that having such a limit is more than a little arbitrary and backwards, but you have to be honest with yourself, do you really need to have all that many friends on your list? Maybe it's just me, but I hate getting friend requests from random people I don't know and have never had so much as a conversation with, and that's here on the Escapist, I can't imagine taking my consoles online and getting random friend requests there.

Every one of my Steam friends are people I've played with at least once, more often than not I've played with them multiple times before sending/receiving a request. While I don't explicitly *need* every single one of them, I keep them around nonetheless - having a decent-sized pool of people I like to play with means it's more likely somebody's going to be online if I ever get a hankering for some multiplayer. Everybody's definition of a decent-sized friend list is going to vary, primarily depending on how many different games one plays, and how often. I don't want to have to worry about an arbitrary limit the next time I think "Hmmm, this guy's pretty cool. I think I might want to play with him some more." List management should ultimately be the end-user's prerogative (and some people will have more discipline than others in this regard).

And finally, rejecting friend requests barely rates as a bother to me. The fly buzzing around in my room right now rates as a bigger annoyance.

It is for that reason that I'll agree that having such an arbitrary limit is stupid, but I'll never understand the need to have a billion (hyperbole) friends on your list. Then again, like Yahtzee, I don't like to play online multiplayer so there ya go.

 

[twesterm]

I've heard people ***** and moan about this before and while I agree it's just an arbitrary number, how many people even actually notice this problem?

Your friends list isn't some PR social network thing you can use like Twitter, it's your friends list. To anyone that has actually filled up their 100 friends on Xbox, WiiU, or the PS3, can you actually look at every person and say "yeah, I know exactly who this person is."

The answer is very likely no. The 90% of the people on that list that you don't have a clue who they are are people you randomly met in a game and never talked to again, random people who friended you from MiiVerse, people that got your name because you posted it on a friend list forum thread, and any other random thing.

I'm sure there are the people that will yell "oh I have 500 friends on Steam and I know and play with them all fuhuh" and to that, I say good for you, you're an edge case.

 

[geizr]

[...]
Of course, the ultimate question, as several have voiced, is whether there is a real technical reason that the "friend's" list has to be of finite extent. If there is a technical reason, such as storage requirements, then it is reasonable that there should be a fixed size; however, the limit should be in proper proportion to the capacity of current technology, not technology of 10-15 years ago when a limit of 100 made more sense for reasons of technical limitations.

The limit is there because that enables them to cut cost and to predict and scale the hardware needed for the friends
service.

But is a limit of 100 still reasonable given the costs and capacity of today's technology and customer usage patterns, or is it overly constraining for no valid reason? This was my point in that paragraph, that the specific 100 friends limit may no longer be a valid restriction from a technology and customer-service view point, even though a finite limit may still be necessary. The same cost control and scaling of hardware could potentially be attained with a higher limit, say 1000 or even 10000, on modern hardware and software. What I gather that Jim is implying, and I have to agree with him, is that this is 2012, not 1995. The limit should be reexamined for the potential to extend to the customer the benefits of advancing technology, rather than hamper them with continuing restrictions based upon, likely, anachronistic constraints.

 

[SAMAS]

Slow news day, Jim?

But is a limit of 100 still reasonable given the costs and capacity of today's technology and customer usage patterns, or is it overly constraining for no valid reason? This was my point in that paragraph, that the specific 100 friends limit may no longer be a valid restriction from a technology and customer-service view point, even though a finite limit may still be necessary. The same cost control and scaling of hardware could potentially be attained with a higher limit, say 1000 or even 10000, on modern hardware and software. What I gather that Jim is implying, and I have to agree with him, is that this is 2012, not 1995. The limit should be reexamined for the potential to extend to the customer the benefits of advancing technology, rather than hamper them with continuing restrictions based upon, likely, anachronistic constraints.

I think the question is not so much a reasonable restraint but whether or not lifting it is a reasonable action. Let's be honest: How many people on this thread, this forum, are at or close to a hundred friends? Compared to everybody else? How many of them do you actually keep track of? How many complaints do you think they actually get about it? I mean, let's be honest, the only reason the Wii U can support two pads today is because people complained about it since it was first announced. If this was actually an issue, it would have been brought up years ago, during the original Xbox's time.

 

[Strazdas]

And what if i do provide a better alternative? will you split my throat too?

Seriuosly, consoles had 100 friends limit? didnt knew that, havent seen such limits on PC for like 5 years.

How many people on this thread, this forum, are at or close to a hundred friends?

after removing my inactives during summer i have 4 friendlists over 100 people. sure, i know COD does claim "you have no friends" when you start up the game, but that doesnt mean noone does.

 

[GrimHeaper]

To all the people who complain that you can't add more then 100 people to your friends list, I gotta ask:

Do you play with even half of them regularly? A third of them?

Baring any far extreme examples, I'm going to say, most decidedly no. You do not. So weed out the ones who haven't been online in a few weeks/months, because really, its quite an idiotic thing to complain about.

Treasure each relationship.
You are looking at the problem with having only 100 right now. You hardly played with half of them regularly.

Ok I have to ask, if you could have 10,000 friends how many of those would you actually keep up with? I mean really? Like maybe 10. 20 at most. I'm surprised if you keep up with all 100 that you've got. Having more "friends" is mostly for bragging rights, it's not as though you keep in touch with all of them or even most of them.

If you have that many friends, maybe you're popular enough that the 10,000 would like to keep up with YOU. In my case, maybe I won't have a close relationship with everyone on my list, but I still feel bad that I can't add them all. It's not nice having to reject requests, and I think anybody who ends up joining big communities online will feel the same way.

So you want live services to act like another twitter or facebook? Aren't these already on consoles? Your request seems very journalism-centric. The live services were designed to replace the sitting in a room and playing together and they are rounded enough to support larger events like tournments and simulate LAN parties. The common man's needs are already being fulfilled, and as there plenty of platforms from bloggers and their fanbases already available, I don't see the need to appropriate another system that was never designed for it in the first place.

It's the *platform holders* that want their services to rival things like Twitter and Facebook. Microsoft's E3 performance revealed it wants the Xbox to be *the* center of our entertainment and networking, but the Xbox division is woefully unequipped to do that at this current stage. The 100 friend limit is simply the tip of the iceberg.

1000 friends sounds about right to me.
100 friends realistically isn't nearly enough, more often than not they tend to be busy/different hours/playing something else/ they are playing the same game, but are busy. So maybe you will get 3 of them, maybe. Have to think about this digitally more than in a actual friend kind of way. Though you can make friends with them, I felt that was kind of the point. But I ramble.

 

[whycantibelinus]

I'm curious to know what (and if there is) a technical reason why it was coded that way originally. Considering how hard all three companies are fighting for market space I think it's weird they wouldn't jump at the opportunity to add a new feature, so I'm sure their engineers had to have had some say in keeping the limit.

I'd guess that if someone were to have 10,000 friends it would probably take up a shit load of bandwidth just to keep transmitting the goddamned notifications. kerplock, kerplock, kerplock, kerplock...thats all that you'd hear when playing and I know you can turn off the notifications but it would more than likely slow your system down by constantly rearranging your friends list to online/offline status of friends.