I hope this isn't the future of PC multiplayer

[Zychotous]

I haven't even played the beta, but once I saw the windows live xbox interface, I was already wary. I truly hope this isn't the future of PC multiplayer gaming, if so it might be time to find a new hobby. I am both an avid PC gamer, and console gamer, and I've always been under the mindset that PC and console gaming ARE NOT interchangeable, and should never become integrated. I have different expectation for each. I don't think I need to go into detail about how many potentially great PC games have been ruined by lackluster ports.

The great thing about PC gaming is the ease of use for multiplayer. Even though I love my xbox 360, I'm not sold on Live. I think its ridiculous that I have pay to play my games online. They aren't MMOs so why should I have to pay a fee to play them online, when I could play online for free on a PC. Now if this practice crosses over to PC gaming, well that's just entirely unacceptable. Not to be overly dramatic, but if this the new trend, then PC gaming really is doomed.

[darkmecha]

The great thing about PC gaming is the ease of use for multiplayer. Even though I love my xbox 360, I'm not sold on Live. I think its ridiculous that I have pay to play my games online. They aren't MMOs so why should I have to pay a fee to play them online, when I could play online for free on a PC. Now if this practice crosses over to PC gaming, well that's just entirely unacceptable. Not to be overly dramatic, but if this the new trend, then PC gaming really is doomed.


Amen , nuff said, maybe Starcraft 2 will be more in line with us PC users after all we do play on the most high end platform. Really cant add anything more to what you said...

[BrockSamson]

I dont have a xbox live account.

Do I have to pay to play UaW?

because if thats the case, they can kiss my a$$

[Dethklok]

Yeah. If you are going to whine about $50 a year, then gaming isn't for you.

Also to answer darkmecha's question. You have to pay because much like MMO's, you are paying for a service. People who are working to make the Live experience better everyday need to get paid also. Not to mention to cost of servers, maintenance, patching, etc etc.

[BrockSamson]

Yeah. If you are going to whine about $50 a year, then gaming isn't for you.

Also to answer darkmecha's question. You have to pay because much like MMO's, you are paying for a service. People who are working to make the Live experience better everyday need to get paid also. Not to mention to cost of servers, maintenance, patching, etc etc.

na, thats retarded. They are just looting the consumer for all they can.

Why should I pay $50 for a game then continue to pay "$50 a year". This game ISNT EVEN AN MMORPG.

I aint gonna pay it because its wrong. And if this is they way the future of gaming is going...then to hell with it. I wont be :):):):):) and stand for it.

[Zychotous]

Yeah. If you are going to whine about $50 a year, then gaming isn't for you.

Also to answer darkmecha's question. You have to pay because much like MMO's, you are paying for a service. People who are working to make the Live experience better everyday need to get paid also. Not to mention to cost of servers, maintenance, patching, etc etc.

Hey lets charge people for stuff that should of been in the game in the first place. Oh..wait..they already do. Is there a point where it stops? or will it eventually have to pay for the weapons and ammo too? "oh I'm sorry, that will be 50 cents per round, and that plasma rifle will be $2.99" It has nothing to do with not being able to afford it. I don't care if it was $5 a year, I still wouldn't pay it. Why should I when I could play it on PC for free, and then use that $50 I saved to buy another game.

To your second part. Again look at PC gaming. PC gamers have been playing games online far longer then the consoles, and none of them require to you to pay for this so called "service". It was simply "Hey guys, I got the greatest idea, People have been playing multiplayer games online for free for ages, we should start charging them to play."

[BoldarBlood]

paying for a normal MP mode? NEVER! i will just buy an other product from a diffrend company.

for real: for what should i pay? to have the possibility to play against consoleplayers, who wont have a chance anway with their crappy gamepads? no pc gamer would do that (ok, maybe if he has left the half of his brain in a carcrash or so...^^).

i really, really, reeeeeeally hope this game will be a flop on the market.

[Baraga]

I dont have a xbox live account.

Do I have to pay to play UaW?
No. You do have to get an account to play multiplayer, but silver accounts are free. Only the gold account has a fee.

[cvgordy]

To answer everyones questions...

Microsoft Charges for Xbox Gold Subscriptions BECAUSE they provide a SECURE service to developers and players. The servers are 100% secure... there are NO cheats.. NO hacks... all stats are tracked and they offer 100% up-time.

I fully agree and I do not.. and will not pay for a live account. HOWEVER they have reasons for why they charge.

People don't understand that BLIZZARD IS WITHOUT A QUESTION.. the best game developer in existance... Battle.net is GOD. I'm sorry to those sony/eq/EA fanboys out there....

But you cannot argue that the free battle.net service that has been offered since what.. Diablo 2/starcraft? Is :):):):)ing awsome... AND as far as paying for MMO's... you pay for updated content... They give you new stuff to do.... and you pay for it...

You also pay for secure (hopefully) cheatless servers and characters... but gold hax and such still get around once in a while...

Anyway my whole point is this.... You are paying for a SERVICE... now.. the LIVE service is offered free of charge for PC gamers... at least for the most part... with games like Starcraft/Diablo 2/Half-Life/Counter Strike.. and so on...

[BoldarBlood]

But you cannot argue that the free battle.net service that has been offered since what.. Diablo 2/starcraft? Is awsome... AND as far as paying for MMO's... you pay for updated content... They give you new stuff to do.... and you pay for it...

You also pay for secure (hopefully) cheatless servers and characters... but gold hax and such still get around once in a while...

Anyway my whole point is this.... You are paying for a SERVICE... now.. the LIVE service is offered free of charge for PC gamers... at least for the most part... with games like Starcraft/Diablo 2/Half-Life/Counter Strike.. and so on...
BLAAAAAAAAaaaaa...

EVERY other RTS has an ingamebrowser without any cost. where have you been the last 11 years? i dont see a "service" which those games doesnt have. even if there would be an additional "service", i even dont want it, if i have to pay for!

[Stormsinger99]

Microsoft Charges for Xbox Gold Subscriptions BECAUSE they provide a SECURE service to developers and players. The servers are 100% secure... there are NO cheats.. NO hacks... all stats are tracked and they offer 100% up-time.


Not to be rude, but you're dreaming... There is no such thing as 100% security, nor is there ANY service that offers 100% uptime. Even if there were, it certainly wouldn't be coming from Microsoft.

[Nom4d]

First off, Bawwwww all my Multiplayer options in UAW are greyed out. Now on to the subject at hand.

As far as I'm concerned the Live service that has been built into this game is obsolete and redundant. For years MP games and especially RTS'es have been able to deliver a solid and cheat free enviroment without any type of Paying service in the middle. Now yes yes, I know that the silver accounts are free, yada yada, but that would make this whole Live thing about the login part. Hmm, well appearantly game devs have been able to code login systems for many years now for all kinds of security and tracking purposes, so surely they don't need Microsoft to do that for them. So my thought on this whole Live thing is that MS is paying Sega a shatload of money to try and bring this faulty system to the PC masses through all kinds of games, even if it's not needed at all.

Now if you take a glance at "Steam", as far as I'm concerned, they got it right. One time login, all of your games through an easy console and now they even have achievements. You don't have to pay to play any games there and they even have their anti-cheat protection inplemented with no additional cost to the consumer. They care for us gamers, at least enough not to tear me a financial new one.

As another example of anti-cheat software you have Punkbuster and nProtect Gameguard. Also free software that comes with games that is especially designed to stop cheating.

In conclusion, as it stands now, I see absolutely no reason why Games for Windows Live has any buisness being in this game. And to extend that statement a bit, I don't see what the eff it has to do on my PC anyway. We were fine 2 years ago, and we would definetly be fine without Live now.


PS: I fully understand Live on Xbox as that is just the way to connect to games and is an actual service in the form of providing a connection to a lobby where people can play together, but keep it off of my PC.

[SarGara]

Lets face it, in this day and age of gaming chances are you arent going to be playing UaW for a year only online multiplayer, so comparing this to an MMO isnt really valid.

- Offline Mode
- Online Fee
- Other RTS's around without fees

The above basically mean UaW multiplayer = dead before its even launched.

This will just turn into one of those "its worth a download" titles where people wont bother buying a valid copy with a valid cdkey becacuse they will have no intention of going online and paying a 2nd fee. Its for these reasons that "private servers" are so popular amoung MMO titles.

[Blightless]

The silver account which allows you to use the custom match feature is free. If all you want is to be able to hook up and play a game with some friends, then you don't need to pay to upgrade. The things you get from gold are

1) Ranked matches (OMG I need to know how much I r0z0rz the b0x0rz(
2) Quick matches (I'm too lazy to manually search for a match that suits what I want to play
3) World conquest??? (not sure on this one)
4) Play against 360 players.

Theres a couple other perks to gold, but thats the main stuff.

As a silver member you can however still make a custom game, and search for customer games, you still have your friend list. So you get the bast service for free, and you pay for the frills and gimmicks.