Share your Xbox Live experiences!
 

Well, I know some of us have been lucky enough to be picked for it. I know's there are threads about people getting picked but haven't found one devoted to sharing your online experiences.

I have to say so far I have found it to be enjoyable. Re-Volt is not my favorite game and would of perfered a real racing game over a toy car. NFL Fever 2003 has been a blast online but I keep encourting network congestion issues. I haven't been able to complete a game yet. here's a little longer article on the xbox online experience at http://www.game2extreme.com/news/art...?articleid=699

<-----Gamertag

So far I've had a blast playing both games that came with the beta! The only problem has been that the headset bothers me after a hour or so of playing. I found a decent headset solution, which I posted the other day.

I had been playing NFL Fever which IMO still is suck, but it's fun to play with another LIVE person. I've played 4 games, and completed every game that I have started. I wish they would let us download an updated roster

I have played Re-volt on and off, and lately I've been playing it more. I finally downloaded the evil toyoca and actually won a couple of races (got my blood pumping). Lately, I have been playing with a bunch of people that are fun to talk to. They play at the same level as I do, which makes the races closer, and a lot more fun. I wish the name of who was speaking would appear at the screen, so that you know who your talking to. It seems that everyone is driving the Evil Toyoca or the UFO.

I'm not looking forward to the downtime, starting tomorrow, but we are in a beta. ;)

-Lucky

I posted this on another forum, but what the heck.

I ordered my Xbox Live kit on Friday morning. Even though I selected 3 day shipping, it arrived yesterday (before my tracking info email arrived).

Some random thoughts....

The included memory card is a nice extra. You can copy your Live info to the card, bring the card to a friend's house and use your Live account on another Xbox. It suprises me that they included it.

I don't really see the need for the carrying case, but hey, it's free.

Initially I thought the headset design sucked. At first glance, it just seems like it's going to be horrible. It's actually a pretty good design, although I haven't had it on for any extended period of time.

2 discs are included: NFL 2003 Online Beta and the setup disc, which also includes ReVolt.

Setup was fairly painless. It takes a while to enter all of your info (credit card, address, etc) using the controller.

ReVolt pretty much stinks, but it gives you an idea of what's possible with Xbox Live.

The voice chat feature is very impressive. The quality is as good, if not better, than a cell phone conversation. Once everyone realizes that the stupid voice masking is a useless gimmick that makes it impossible for anyone to understand you, everyone will be able to talk to everyone else in a game. In the couple of games I was in, there was always one person who sounded like a Disney character on helium. No one else could understand a word they were saying.

I tried playing NFL Fever, but I couldn't find anyone else to play.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Sony's online philosophy, but Xbox Live's "all in one package" approach is nice. I don't have any friends yet (waaah :( ), but that appears to be a nice feature. SOCOM on the PS2 is great, but the clans are useless and it's pretty much impossible to find someone without coordinating ahead of time. The 'friends' feature will probably be a big plus for Xbox Live.

I'm using ISDN and my router needs 2-3 seconds to establish a connection. I noticed during my setup and during ReVolt that I was getting a lot of 'Xbox Live cannot be reached' errors. It tries to send/receive without any timeout period. I'm not sure if I can change this, but when I was playing with NFL Fever it didn't seem to be a problem. SOCOM always waits a few seconds before it gives up and says that it can't connect. There's a PPoE section in the setup section. I'm wondering if I can somehow use that to force the Xbox to wait a couple of seconds before it times out. I can always change my router settings to add to the disconnect delay.

In early October beta testers will receive Whacked and Moto GP. I don't know much about Whacked, but the more games the better. Currently ReVolt doesn't really offer a compelling reason to play online. It's almost like a chat room with a mini-game going on in the background.

I feel the same way about Xbox Live that I feel about the Xbox itself: Lots of potential, but nothing incredible at this time. Of course, this is just a beta test. They aren't going to give away their cash cows and the intent is to work out the bugs and slowly ramp up to a full volume of users. Once the online retail games are released I'm sure Xbox Live will really shine.

If you didn't get accepted into the beta program yet, don't worry too much. You aren't really missing anything other than the chance to reserve your GamerTag and dream about the potential of what looks like a pretty sweet online console experience.

GamerTag: Gromit

Call me a dumbass, but how do I take the cover off the memory card? i don't want to break it, but I've tried most of the squeeze and pull variations out there and the bugger won't budge.

thanks,

Tuan Jim (who should be online tonight after a friend helps him set up a router).

YOu won't be on tonight since the server is suppose to be down for 48 hours. What really sucked was when I got home last night, the server was already down. I called tech support and they told me it was up and down all night and highly unlikely it would be back up. I guess that means more than 48 hours of down time all together.

That bothered me too. I tried squeezing the top, but it didn't seem to be the best way to do it. I got it off by gently squeezing and just pulling.

I'm pretty sure I can at least get on to test the connection, or is that only limited to people who are already set up? I thought the email mentioned sticking your disc in and letting it run for a few hours, but maybe that'll only work for current testers and won't let anyone new sign on till later.

Tuan Jim

Just got online and played some Fever before my opponent's connection died.

my tag is: Tuan Jim

This is really freaking sweet. was there a thread where everyone else was listing their tags?

Also, I couldn't find the answer to this anywhere -- do I need to press a button to talk in Fever or can I just talk regardless? Man, I had a 99 yard return ;p

Tuan Jim

I want to preorder this for my nephew, but I want to give it to him for Christmas. Does the one- year subscription begin when you purchase the kit (Does the store take info?) or will it start when my nephew installs it around Christmas?

Tomorrow I'm buying the cable and going live. The only problem is I have never played Fever before, so I am going to get my ass handed to me. Oh well, practice makes perfect I guess.

It starts when you sign on

Great! Thanks

In case people haven't figured out yet, my gamertag is cyberock

See ya online!!!

-eek-

There's really not any way to post how to remove the cap on the memory card without it coming across that way. :)

<---GamerTag
Just yank it off. Don't worry about the small pieces of orange plastic flying everywhere....:lol:

OK my gamertag is "The Surgeon" lol corny, but I like it. Anyway I have it hooked up, but I can't find anyone to play against. So any of you can put me on your buddy list and set it up for either Fever or Revolt, because I want to try this damn thing out already.

I was playing ReVolt last night for a couple of hours and it was a lot of fun...mainly just talking to other people though. I would like to play Fever and try out the cross game invitation...my user id is Junky(for some reason it would not let me use Junkie, I was thinking that maybe Microsoft filtered this name out??).

anyone got an answer for my earlier question? In fever do you need to press a button down to talk or can you just talk? I'm also wondering if the voice masking was actually working. The guy on the other end sounded relatively normal.

I believe the max volume is reached by turning the knob away from you (clockwise) -- anyone else know)?

Tuan Jim

The knob is turned clockwise to raise the volume, and so far I think everyone is using the same damn voicemask in fever lol. I turned mine off, so I just use my normal voice.

1. It's quite simple...If the light is green (on the communicator) the trap is clean:lol:old ghostbusters joke then you mic is on and you can talk freely, If you press the button once it'll turn red and the mic has been turned off! You can still hear them, but they cannot here you. I turn mine off and on during gameplay, for example: if my wife is talking to me.

2. Voice masking works fine, but the novelty has worn thin for most, and very few actually use it all the time.

3. He probably didn't have voice masking turned on.

-Lucky

Man, I'm having a blast but I still can't complete a single Fever game w/out the connection dying. dangit, I was up 34-8 at the top of the 4th quarter this afternoon. This is getting irritating, but that's why it's a beta. They just better have this fixed by Nov. 15 or they'll be in for a world of hurt.

Also is anyone else hearing an echo of themself when they talk into the mic? My opponent is hearing me live, but I'm hearing an echo of myself with about a 1.5 second lag. Kinda weird.

Tuan Jim

You know what's weird? Fever runs TERRIBLE on Xbox Live for me at some times. Yet I borrowed my friends NFL2K3 and I ran a whole game with 2 friends against three guys in Cali with no lag, and none, I mean NO, stuttering in voice. It was like we were playing them with linked systems. That's weird right?

I think Microsoft is working hard to make it so the Xbox Live network has no lag... Halo online (without Live support) will often be laggy. I don't know why Fever would run terrible... maybe they're working the bugs out or else there's a problem with the net code.

The two games I completed yesterday were nearly lag free. The actual game of Revolt I ran was lag free, but my disc was spinning up and down for minutes on end before getting me into the race -- interestingly, if I didn't actually create the race myself, but just joined, the race would start before I even loaded. Pretty irritating.

Some guys at teamxbox.com were saying that it actually works to boil the disk for a few seconds to fix load issues. Dunno if that's just a running joke over there since I haven't made it to the site recently or what, but considering how much hassle that disc is giving me, I'm thinking about it.

Tuan Jim