Just tried out Onlive.

[StarCecil]

Let me preface this by saying that I only tried the PC client and I don't think the micro console will be worth a damn.

I hate it. I don't know if the problem is on my side or theirs, but I can't keep a stable connection to save my life. It's much worse than any other online experience I've ever hand and poses a huge detriment to the enjoyability of such a service.

I tried a thirty minute demo of AVP, only to have three network errors in ten minutes. Then I quit to the main screen, went to take a piss only to have yet another error while I was away. When I returned, another error.

The game itself played rather well, when it played, though the quality of the visuals changed quite a bit (from clear to fuzzy). The sound was choppy, with very audible "clips" in the dialogue. More over, as of this time, the selection of games is dismally poor.

Thirty or so, with a handful I would ever consider playing, much less buying.

Maybe after it's been around for a while it will be worthwhile, but right now... no thanks.

 

[onewheeled]

I decided to give it a whirl as well, and had almost the exact same experience.

My first game was the Borderlands trial, which constantly switched between running smoothly and absolutely flawlessly, or being all choppy and fuzzy-looking. The network errors you mentioned were prevalent for me as well, I'm not totally sure what's up with that.

But the second game I tried the trial for was a Breakout clone called Shatter, which much to my surprise, was perfect. Very little lag, no graphical hitches, no network errors... I can't explain it, but it was beautiful. It's what the entire service should be like for every game.

I'd agree that it has so much room to grow, and if it lives up to the potential, it could turn out to be a fantastic service for people that don't have gaming computers.

 

[onewheeled]

Are you guys living in any of the supported areas? I've heard that the thing's supposed to work way better, if not perfectly, there.

...I wasn't aware that there are supported areas, could you give me a link for more info on that? I'm very interested in knowing.

 

[The_Deleted]

To be fair, it's still a very young tech. It's all very well to ***** and moan about it, because, let's face, we don't actually want it. Those new box fresh games are too nice, I know. But full games are coming and if devs can get shot of the middleman to up profit, they will.
But look on the positives, maybe this will mean all these profits can go towards those innovative titles we lose in the rush to release shovelware and guarantee a profit, for the publisher as much as the developers. Maybe we can get those esoteric titles that have been fermenting in the back of a developers mind for god knows how long while he codes yet another party title.

Maybe gaming will open up and give us all those ideas that we lose in the rush to get out yet another FPS.
So yeah, we can all wallow in the negatives, we can all lament the loss of those distinctive smelling manuals, a move Ubisoft is already pulling, but OnLive and Cloud gaming is going to happen. Remember how many of us wrote off Steam?
The one thing that puts me off, is not having a physical copy implies it's not mine and spending money on the net doesn't register as paying out money. I'm getting a lot of 1's & 0's in return for a lot of 1's & 0's.
But that's my generation. Technology begats technology, and there will always be those who relish the chance to try something new and their will always be generations that follow who'll wonder what all the fuss was about.

 

[StarCecil]

snip

Don't get me wrong; as someone who has a very low-end laptop, I'm all for the ability to play the new computer games in a Cloud format. However, this seems to be more trouble than its worth. It might be just because it's young, and I'm hoping for that. I don't think it will work well as a console replacement, though, and I don't like the idea that I won't actually own the games I pay for.

 

[SNIPERFOX ft. Harry P.Ness]

same here. im staying with steam. i have a 20mbs connection and yes i counted, got 30 errors in 1 our of play.

 

[DAOWAce]

...I wasn't aware that there are supported areas, could you give me a link for more info on that? I'm very interested in knowing.

http://blog.onlive.com/2010/01/21/beta-testing-at-the-speed-of-light/

Note: They could've changed it by now, but this is back when we were doing beta testing. Got the link out of my e-mail.

 

[StarCecil]

I live in the Kansas area. It says I'm supported.

 

[Sneaklemming]

I signed up - but being in the UK they were like:


So yeh Ive not been able to try it out.

 

[onewheeled]

...I wasn't aware that there are supported areas, could you give me a link for more info on that? I'm very interested in knowing.

http://blog.onlive.com/2010/01/21/beta-testing-at-the-speed-of-light/

Note: They could've changed it by now, but this is back when we were doing beta testing. Got the link out of my e-mail.

Yeah, that's as of January, back when it was still in beta. Even still, I'm only about a hundred miles from the Bay Area data center, if even that, I don't think I should be getting that many network errors (They range from one every fifteen seconds, to maybe once every two minutes)

 

[Smooth Operator]

Ya you haveto consider Onlive requires an extremely stable and responsive connection, from what I heard it's perfect when you are in the same area as the server farm, but far from it everywhere else.
It's odd they let users outside the good areas try it, because it seems this is nothing but bad press which will cost them dearly.

It will take some time before they expand enough to cover a good percentage of the population, limiting themselves to highly populated cities would probably be their best bet to get some starting money.

 

[DAOWAce]

I'll chime in again.

I had no technical problems with OnLive, even in beta, though I have an internet connection capable of streaming multiple 1080p media streams and I was located fairly close to their DC server. (NJ)

All I have are gripes. I don't like how the image quality looks, I don't like the 150ish ms response times, I don't like how you used to have to pay a subscription to use it, I don't like how you have to pay full price for games.. blah blah.

I have a fairly decent PC, more powerful than the ones they seemed to be running the games on, though I don't know how their setup was (could've been one server PC running multiple games). Some games stuttered due to having to load data from the hard drive and it was streamed at 720p at medium settings. I could do 1600x1200 at max in almost every game back then, so it was pretty much just a downgrade in every aspect. Not to mention you don't have access to advanced ini tweaking for any of the games.

I may check it out again when they add 1080p streaming support (unless it's already added) because the compressed look of the image was really awful.

As it stands, the service is great for people who are on a budget and do not have a powerful PC (or PC at all). Otherwise, while it may be a convenience, it's not worth looking into.