Saltire
13-04-2000, 02:47
This discussion is going on all over these boards, so I'll be repeating myself, but by way of constructive criticism, this is the 'open' beta, and TBH I think we expected, and rightly so, a more polished product. IMO betas are for finding bugs, not fundamental flaws.
Getting to the issues that I have with this client;
1.Its a jack of all trades and master of none. Fine for newbies and casual visitors, but totally inappropriate for the regular WP gamer who already uses Gamespy, IRC, and ICQ. Peer to peer games are different, obviously, but Microsoft have a good model (again, IMO) running it entirely through the website. It has its own buddy application, but apart from that, everything runs from the web browser.
2. When browsing the gaming servers it horrified me that I receive a CONSTANT stream of data refreshing my list. What a waste of bandwidth. A refresh button would be FAR simpler. Your poor servers...
3. Why can't I add a player who is on a server to my buddy list? Is it solely going to run on WP login names? In this instance, I'd rather pay $20 for a useful system than get a useless one for free. Besides, surely everyone uses ICQ now, which works for ANY hobby, not just gaming.
4. Keyboard/shortcuts don't work. TAB, CTRL+C, CTRL+V. Even DEL doesn't work :( Also, my logitech mousewheel doesn't scroll the window.
5. Only one window to browse the forums? Obviously you don't browse them much yourself, because I ALWAYS have multiple browser windows open,and I know I'm not alone. As soon as you use standalone browsers and not the client, you're negating the purpose of USING the thing in the first place
6. The forums now have those poxy Gameplay menu buttons which are awful to download. Surely the client could have these built in?
7. The chat client; it will be totally useless for anything other than a quick chat about whatever related topic is in the top half of the client. It will be useless for tournaments where gamers use scripts and multiple open rooms to organise themselves and their clan.
Its getting late now, so I'll stop there. But I'm interested in knowing what else people are having problems with in the implimentation of this client.
Getting to the issues that I have with this client;
1.Its a jack of all trades and master of none. Fine for newbies and casual visitors, but totally inappropriate for the regular WP gamer who already uses Gamespy, IRC, and ICQ. Peer to peer games are different, obviously, but Microsoft have a good model (again, IMO) running it entirely through the website. It has its own buddy application, but apart from that, everything runs from the web browser.
2. When browsing the gaming servers it horrified me that I receive a CONSTANT stream of data refreshing my list. What a waste of bandwidth. A refresh button would be FAR simpler. Your poor servers...
3. Why can't I add a player who is on a server to my buddy list? Is it solely going to run on WP login names? In this instance, I'd rather pay $20 for a useful system than get a useless one for free. Besides, surely everyone uses ICQ now, which works for ANY hobby, not just gaming.
4. Keyboard/shortcuts don't work. TAB, CTRL+C, CTRL+V. Even DEL doesn't work :( Also, my logitech mousewheel doesn't scroll the window.
5. Only one window to browse the forums? Obviously you don't browse them much yourself, because I ALWAYS have multiple browser windows open,and I know I'm not alone. As soon as you use standalone browsers and not the client, you're negating the purpose of USING the thing in the first place
6. The forums now have those poxy Gameplay menu buttons which are awful to download. Surely the client could have these built in?
7. The chat client; it will be totally useless for anything other than a quick chat about whatever related topic is in the top half of the client. It will be useless for tournaments where gamers use scripts and multiple open rooms to organise themselves and their clan.
Its getting late now, so I'll stop there. But I'm interested in knowing what else people are having problems with in the implimentation of this client.