Let’s Make Xbox Live A Better Place

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 5:00 pm in General Gaming, Rants, Xbox Live · Comments

It’s too easy to point your finger at Microsoft and criticize, but we do it anyway ‘cos it’s fun (and it’s mostly deserved). Over the course of writing this blog, I’ve aired some opinions in regards to how I feel Xbox Live could improve, of which there are many areas in need of a tweak or two. Xbox Live has come a long way since its inception, but there are still some issues I feel Microsoft should address.

Microsoft Points
Sony have most definitely outdone Microsoft in terms of their console’s currency system. Whilst Sony’s marketplace is disguised as PlayStation Network, it acts in the same way as Xbox Live Marketplace, offering gamers a chance to purchase arcade games and game add-ons. Microsoft charge everything via Marketplace through Microsoft Points, whereas Sony supports whatever your local currency may be. Okay, okay, so it’s pretty typical of Microsoft to not want to make things as simple as possible, therefore something we should come to expect.

Furthermore, and more so annoyingly, Microsoft Points are only available in bulk. Now, Microsoft Points wouldn’t be as much of an issue if they were in fact offered in a more accessible format. I’ve selected DLC too many times, only to be notified I’m 50-odd Points short. However, I can only buy a bundle of 500 Microsoft Points at the very least. Let’s break this down! 50 Points is equal to 40-odd pence, and 500 Points is equal to just over £4.00. That’s a big price hike when you’re only needing a few, spare Points. I guess you could say one feels ripped off.

Feedback/Reputation
I wrote about this on one of the older iterations of my blog, so I’ll refrain from repeating myself too much to avoid pissing off old-school readers. My main concern was how useless the feedback system is, not to mention how easy it is to mis-use it. Two years later, nothing has changed.

When I first started playing as CandyStoreRock, it was Skate I took to the Multiplayer streets with. EA were having server issues (O RLY?), meaning the game was buggy at best. I got booted from games all the time, consistently losing my connection because the EA servers were experiencing problems. Because of this my reputation took a dive, and I was unfairly sitting at 3 stars for a good 6 months… All because I was “quitting early”. On the other end of the spectrum, when you do come across a genuinely foul player - of which there are many - leaving them bad feedback doesn’t produce any results. There’s no punishment to the player in question, they won’t be penalised for their misconduct. And with no ’sentence’ looming over their head, there’s no incentive for them to quit being a dick.

Points I’ve written about fairly recently include:

Xbox Live age filter - Playing Skate 2 with pre-pubescent kids isn’t fun, especially when their childish insults are directed at you for no reason. If an age filter was introduced, I’m pretty sure I’d be avoiding anyone under the age of 16. If there ain’t grass on the pitch, you’re not playing.

Separate DLC Achievements - A suggestion made in the comments of my post regarding Achievement caps. Not important to everyone seeing as GamerScore isn’t the be all and end all, but a worthy solution to something that gets my goat.

And while the brunt of this post has been what Microsoft has done/is doing wrong, I also want to point out something I commend them on. Games on Demand - a fantastic inclusion to Marketplace, giving us a list of Xbox gems at the tips of our fingers. But guys, you shouldn’t have gone and made them so expensive. Well… I guess you can’t praise Microsoft too much ;)

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12 Responses to “Let’s Make Xbox Live A Better Place”

Dave

# August 26th, 2009 at 8:28 am

Ash, great post again. I had a feeling there would be a post about points ;)

I do wish they would follow Sony’s way of thinking, or even just let you choose how many points you want. Even though they make updates to the system, I doubt this will ever change…

As you know I mentioned to you about the enforcement team in your last post about feedback/rep, I’m not sure how they look at the quitting early side of things. When you leave feedback you don’t see any results but then you should never be matched with that player again, so that’s a result in one way.

If you file a complaint you don’t see what happens, but there is a good chance something will happen to them. Maybe Major Nelson could Pop by and explain some more!

Sam Brown

# August 26th, 2009 at 8:31 am

I concur. I find it interesting that the Games on Demand are listed in pounds and not MSP, for instance Burnout Paradise is £19.99 (annoyingly it’s the same price in dollars, $19.99 - scam much?) - why the DLC isn’t currency based I really don’t know.

Rick

# August 26th, 2009 at 9:30 am

The MS Point system is one of the biggest causes of frustration for me on the Xbox, but the reason they do it is to make more money. If you only need 40 pence worth of MSP but you have to give them £4 worth they know they have that money and that you will spend it eventually — perhaps on giant Q-Tips… blergh!

Arnold Sideways

# August 26th, 2009 at 9:53 am

The points do have some advantage, and that’s you can buy them from retailers. I’m not particularly keen on having my credit card details stored in too many places, and since I don’t pay for Xbox Live subscriptions I’ve never had any need to input my card into Live. It also means you can buy them someone as a present. You’re right though, you should be able to buy them in smaller chunks, but that’s probably a business decision based on fees credit card companies charge when making transactions.

The rep system has never really worked. I’m surprised they haven’t removed it. The only real benefit from it is like Dave said above, if you give someone negative feedback the matchmaking system will avoid them in future. However, that only applies to “player matches” (stupid name - why can’t they just call them social or unranked matches, “player matches” means nothing). In ranked matches it doesn’t avoid them.

I can’t really see anyway to enforce an age filter. If you ask the player their age and they know about the filter, a 13 year old will just lie and say they’re 25. You can’t really expect someone to submit their birth certificate or passport just to play a game. It would be a great thing if it were possible or if people were honest, but that’s not going to happen. Maybe if the internet comes up with a standardised unified age verification scheme for your identity, but even then, what stops kids playing under their older brother’s identities etc?

Toby

# August 26th, 2009 at 9:58 am

Great Points well made RD

The points thing is a major gripe for me as well they need to make it so the points can be used like currency or even 1 point = 10p etc.

Nick

# August 27th, 2009 at 3:47 am

You speak our minds, Ashley.

I am a 360 owner but honestly ever since I heard about a $300 PS3 Slim I’ve been drooling over it. My impression is that Sony has seemed to cut through a lot of the crap Microsoft loves to complicate our lives with. And Microsoft has never been a company that tries hard to pretend to care about their customers while they take our money (Apple does a better job of this). Ho well.

And I LOVE the idea of an age filter. Seriously. I stopped playing most games online because I just can’t stand obnoxious teenagers/tweens/kids.

Arnold Sideways

# August 28th, 2009 at 9:30 am

I was just looking at my achievements on the guide last night, and it actually seems like they’ve made a half arsed attempt at doing something about the DLC achievements issue. Looking at my achievements for Fallout 3, it says I have 61 of 64, and there’s no mention of anything to do with Mothership Zeta and Point Lookout, the DLC that I haven’t bought yet. Yet if I back out and look at the overall list, highlighting Fallout 3 now says I have 61/72. The same goes for Tomb Raider Legend, which had Anniversary as DLC content, yet since I haven’t bought it, there’s no mention of any extra achievements for it when I look in the guide. The only time I see them is on xbox.com.

Rockers Delight

# August 30th, 2009 at 3:20 pm

Dave: I agree, I doubt anything will be done in regards to the Points. Microsoft are money grabbers, and making the moolah is their main intent - not to keep their (stupidly loyal) customers happy.

Sam: Ugh, this really pisses me off. Of course it’s not just with Microsoft, but games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero. The price isn’t changed accordingly, therefore we get ripped off.

Rick: Exactly. I just wish in this one instance, they would have had their customers best interest at heart. I still can’t understand what that Q-tip is doing in Marketplace.

Arnold Sideways: Aah, I’ve never bought Points from a retailer, and Microsoft have my card details anyway from my annual subscription to Live. But I can see that as one advantage. Still, it would help if they were available in smaller amounts :-/ Also, I had no idea they were listing the DLC Achievements separately since the update. And that’s a lot of Fallout Achievements you have ;)

Nick: You’re absolutely right. Microsoft don’t have their customers best interests at heart, IMO.

Adeusz

# September 2nd, 2009 at 2:55 pm

Hi all,
I got another revolutionary idea about Xbox live what I’ve seen on 360surface.net. The page gives badges to the users based on their achivements (such as FPS, Sandbox, Hack & Slash etc). I love the Halo 3 badge system which has a huge mistake: it does not summarize the badges within the game (only on bungie.net). It would be a great impovement to give badges to the avatars based on their achievements. It would surely supported the purchases as lot of gamers would seek after lets say the shinier FPS badge and would bought the missing games (even if that is poor)
Watch the page 360surface.net and you will see what I’m talking about. That system with some refinements could be fun.

Sorry for my poor English.

Arnold Sideways

# September 2nd, 2009 at 5:46 pm

@Adeusz: You’re right, some sort of physical recognition on the avatar would be cool, a bit like the way in WoW you see top-level characters in epic gear walking around knowing they must have done a lot to earn them. It would also be good to have higher level achievments that weren’t necessarily tied to one game, like “100% achievements on 10 games” or something similar. I seem to remember some talk of non-game achievements before, but I’m not sure what happened to them.

@Rockers Delight: Fallout 3’s one of those games I’m determined to 100%. Thankfully it doesn’t have any ridiculous achievements that stop me from even trying like some games do.

Chris Radsby

# September 3rd, 2009 at 10:42 am

Nice post, I agree a 100%. Games on Demand is a great idea actually, though very overpriced. It should be cheaper considering that they wouldn’t have to deliver the products to retailers.

I believe the problems with most games online is that the developers themselves only let players play on their servers. Hosting games isn’t actually around anymore, very rare. I think the first Gears of War had it, and it was pretty great when you could actually choose which server to join and which people to kick from your game. All the pre-pubescent kids would be non-existent.

Scott

# September 10th, 2009 at 9:32 pm

See, personally i hate PSN… ok, the use of real money is nice but my god the interface and system as a whole is clunky as hell and really awful to use.

Not to mention the lack of demos etc for games on PSN in comparison to XBL.

I really wanted to try demos for Pain, Flower and a few other games that are PS3 exclusive but i can’t try them. I have to buy the whole damn game and i don’t want that.

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