11th March 2004, 6:54 PM
Yes, with PC games they tend more often than not to cater to the narrowband crowd whenever they can, reducing lag as much as possible (and when lag is down to playable on narrowband, that also helps broadband users get even cleaner connections where there are lots of people). XBox is the exception regarding exlusion of narrowband, not the rule. In fact I remember people complaining about that sort of thing.
big guy, I see your point there, however the thing is I just want to play Nintendo's fun multiplayer games online, so I demand it (you don't need to put a dash in online ya know :D). They could provide a free service, ya know? Yes, I am in agreement with you regarding monthly fees. I myself have never once played a MMORPG because of the fees involved. FFXI MIGHT be the first I play, but even then it's iffy. However, I still love online gaming and there are PLENTY of completely free online games. Generally the only ones that have a fee associated with them ARE the MMORPGs. The rest have cheap enough server costs that the game sales more than make up for the cost of running those servers, especially when you get another company to run those servers. Now, the one exception I made to my rule was XBox Live. The reasons are simple. It's a really cheap YEARLY fee, so it's easy to pay, and it's cheap enough that I can easily get that much together in a year. Also, it isn't just for ONE game, but for access to online features in a LOT of games, more importantly, a lot of games I WANT to play online. So, it was a very good deal there.
To be honest, I think a sort of cable company system should be worked out with ISPs. All the online game companies could group together to get their services paid for via the fees people pay on their ISP providers. On our end, it would work like tihs. You get yourself an ISP provider. They ask you "would you like to get access to the online gaming consortium & sons for an additional fee of $5 a month?" or something like that. You say yes, you're pooling your money in with everyone across America for access to this service. Games all request access to this sort of thing, and the ISP, after determining that you paid for the access, passes you on to the service. There are problems of course. It's on the internet, so it's BEYOND easy to get around actually paying the fee. Just find someone who will pass you on to these servers by just sorta sending you through another router, in a way your ISP wouldn't detect is going on. The protection is that this service would have security to detect what's connecting to it of course. The other problem is how much would everyone need to pay to keep all the companies in this consortium or whatever up and running with their various game servers. $5 adds up, but likely not by enough... In the end, my little plan may just not be practicle, but some sort of solution should be thought of eventually so that both the servers are paid for and the people aren't paying ridiculous fees for all sorts of games. (Also, I'd eventually cancel the service when I stop playing the game for a long time, meaning my character will be deleated FOREVER, which is by far the most frustrating prospect.)
ABF, I didn't mean to suggest that Starcraft is an unpopular game, not at all. In fact my point there was how many people still play it, just like your's was. My point was that it isn't THE most popular online game right now, and is in fact far from it, yet it STILL has a LOT of people playing it online, basically meaning lazy's assumption that you can only find matches on whatever game is the flavor of the month is inaccurate, to say the least.
big guy, I see your point there, however the thing is I just want to play Nintendo's fun multiplayer games online, so I demand it (you don't need to put a dash in online ya know :D). They could provide a free service, ya know? Yes, I am in agreement with you regarding monthly fees. I myself have never once played a MMORPG because of the fees involved. FFXI MIGHT be the first I play, but even then it's iffy. However, I still love online gaming and there are PLENTY of completely free online games. Generally the only ones that have a fee associated with them ARE the MMORPGs. The rest have cheap enough server costs that the game sales more than make up for the cost of running those servers, especially when you get another company to run those servers. Now, the one exception I made to my rule was XBox Live. The reasons are simple. It's a really cheap YEARLY fee, so it's easy to pay, and it's cheap enough that I can easily get that much together in a year. Also, it isn't just for ONE game, but for access to online features in a LOT of games, more importantly, a lot of games I WANT to play online. So, it was a very good deal there.
To be honest, I think a sort of cable company system should be worked out with ISPs. All the online game companies could group together to get their services paid for via the fees people pay on their ISP providers. On our end, it would work like tihs. You get yourself an ISP provider. They ask you "would you like to get access to the online gaming consortium & sons for an additional fee of $5 a month?" or something like that. You say yes, you're pooling your money in with everyone across America for access to this service. Games all request access to this sort of thing, and the ISP, after determining that you paid for the access, passes you on to the service. There are problems of course. It's on the internet, so it's BEYOND easy to get around actually paying the fee. Just find someone who will pass you on to these servers by just sorta sending you through another router, in a way your ISP wouldn't detect is going on. The protection is that this service would have security to detect what's connecting to it of course. The other problem is how much would everyone need to pay to keep all the companies in this consortium or whatever up and running with their various game servers. $5 adds up, but likely not by enough... In the end, my little plan may just not be practicle, but some sort of solution should be thought of eventually so that both the servers are paid for and the people aren't paying ridiculous fees for all sorts of games. (Also, I'd eventually cancel the service when I stop playing the game for a long time, meaning my character will be deleated FOREVER, which is by far the most frustrating prospect.)
ABF, I didn't mean to suggest that Starcraft is an unpopular game, not at all. In fact my point there was how many people still play it, just like your's was. My point was that it isn't THE most popular online game right now, and is in fact far from it, yet it STILL has a LOT of people playing it online, basically meaning lazy's assumption that you can only find matches on whatever game is the flavor of the month is inaccurate, to say the least.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)