Why use Live?! Advantages?

Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2004 11:07 pm

I hae never used live! But after a few laggy games here and there and really enjoying playing online with my xbox I thought about it.

BUT, it seems there may be no need? I mean, just how much BETTER is live than Kai??

I assumed you wouldnt get any Lag with Live! This is not true! As I have read on Penny-Arcade many times they bitch about lag just as much as we do Smile

Sure, you get gameing extras as downloads, but are they REALLY worth the extra $$$??? Rolling Eyes

As for online chat etc, we can get that with Ava and some other apps, also, most decent games have headset support enabled in SysLink, so who needs that!

I have slowly put myself OFF getting Live! Smile

Also, with Kai+Ava the exterience is amazingly better Wink

Once the bugs are ironed out this will be a kickass system Smile

But.. As a NON Live! user - Am I wrong?

IS LIVE BETTER?
Do you use live? and Why?? What advantages do you REALLY get that make it worth the extra $$$???

Please Smile

do tell

Team XLink Moderator Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 309

I don't mind saying I use LIVE, but its like the "other" service I use. I can't always find a full game on kai, when I want to play. So I use LIVE. A few games I was interested in did not support System Link, ala Full Spectrum Warrior, and I am afraid the upcoming EA line-up. So I don't think there is a reason to make a choice. They are both decent services each with some upsides and some downsides. So for me KAI is my first love for sure, but sometimes I fool around with LIVE for a change. Wink

Also for me 50 bucks for a year was just worth checking out.

Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2004 11:43 pm

Live and xlink are a bit diffrent, on live you can play a diffrent person every 15 min where with xlink you can hang with the same game for 8+ hours and never worry about some random idiot coming into your game and killing your own teammates

the other thing that is nice and naughty at the same time is the fact MS games like PGR2 allow voice on live where they *removed* it from syslink mode.

booo on them
I buy live games all the time but like i have said many times, if they start stripping voice and other cool features from syslink mode, the less likely i am to buy a game, so their loss!

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:07 pm

The thing is with Live at least you can kick these idiots out of your room or at least ask the host to and in my experience so far they are usually few and far between.
Whereas in xlink in pgr2 for example if you get these people that try and plow into you at every turn not using the brake you cant do a thing as most people play in the main arena, so you cant kick them. You can either continue playing with the idiot in the game, or have to restart the game where the idiot might rejoin anyway.

The whole point of system link is that is that you are playing with your mates pretty much next to each other so there is no point in putting voice features when you can just talk to them normally, and I guess they wont add voice features as the people who want to play games over system link online is a really small market compared to the amount of people who use live.

As to the lag issue your still going to get lag your still playing with people dotted all over the world but there will be less lag then with xlink as it uses the system link game which wasnt meant for online. And to play games usign the system link online you need to fork out for broadband and unless your on a tight budget, 40 pounds for a year of live isnt that bad.

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:11 pm

Create your own private arena and you will be able to kick anyone you want Smile

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:17 pm

ye, unfortunately most people stay in the main arena, they dont join sub-arenas really, in pgr2 anyway.

Team XLink Administrator Joined: 25 Apr 2004 Posts: 1871

Jeffo wrote:

ye, unfortunately most people stay in the main arena, they dont join sub-arenas really, in pgr2 anyway.

well the trouble with PGR2 is it very feature poor in sys link mode.
you cant even ask them to refrain from stopping ramming you as it dosent even support voice.

The main reason i see for Live! over Syslink is that in Live you get all of the online features of the game, not a watered down version.

some publishers try to put as many features into the sys-link than in the live.

Thank god for Ubi-Soft.

I havent ever used Live but I have that much fun on Xlink kai I dont see any reason to bother installing the disc.

I have Live but i'm just waiting for the right game for it, no point signing up for 12 months if im not going to use it. Smile

Kai Enthusiast Joined: 07 Jun 2004 Posts: 285

The main reason I prefer tunneling over XBL is the type of lag. On XBL, you start teleporting and in a busy / bad server it can be unplayable. I made an RS3 video a while ago in a laggy server, just me teleporting all over the map Laughing

..whereas on tunnels, (I assume it's with all games, most of my experience is with Halo) it just makes the same run slower / maybe jerky and such. Much easier to deal with and more fun to play in. The downloadable content is a bonus, but I can live without it. I canceled my XBL account a while ago and haven't noticed at all, I rarely played on it... (got one ready to activate on Nov 8th though Wink

)

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:07 pm

Well an advantage of live is for example the head set (most KAI users dont use/have one) which can really be fun (especially with ppl you know) and from my experience (playing mostly Top Spin) also less lag. And of course you ALWAYS find opponents and IF you want to play against the best of the best you have go live.

The main advantage of Kai is the community. Nearly no cheaters/cheesers (speaking about TS again) and its a big advantage that you actually HAVE to type to communicate with each other. The problem with LIVE is that you HAVE to rely on the headset and often ppl/cheaters simply ignore you if you yell at them or turn the headset off. Such ppl have a harder time on KAI because everyone in the same room reads the complaints about someone or something and therefore knows about the unfair behavior. KAI has more/better "communication" (chatting before playing) than Live thus a friendlier atmosphere.

Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:37 pm

What's good? Well you can sign up and get me free games hehe Twisted Evil

Quote:

Microsoft offers free games for Live referrals
>> From gamesindustry.biz:

A new promotion from Microsoft in the USA is offering Xbox Live users a choice from a selection of free games in return for referring their friends to the online gaming service before the end of July.
New subscribers to the service need to register their details and those of the friend who referred them on the new [ http://xboxlive-friends.com ] website to qualify for the offer, which only applies to those who have signed up for a 12 month subscription.

The referrer can then select a free game from a short list of online titles - Links 2004, Top Spin, and Rallisport Challenge 2 - which will be delivered to them a few weeks later. The offer only applies for one month, however, so claims need to be made before July 29th.

Just PM me asking for my email that is attached to my live account if you just feel like signing up and giving a guy :me: a free bonus Wink

hehe

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2004 6:37 am

they both have their good things and bad things...A good thing about xlink is older games that are system link that arent Live u can still play online (Like Halo) the bad thing about xlink is not that many people know about it so sometimes u cant find a game. like Crimson Skies and Counters Strike i can never find a game.