[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] DusK Let us know when you start playing real PC multiplayer games. After a few rounds of those, you'll be laughing at H2V's hilariously low population along with the rest of us.[/quote] This.

That's the nostalgia, if you have a good enough computer to play it and are still using a troller h2v is exactly the same as h2x minus the ranking, but with custom maps. Halo was designed for pc, hired gun should not have been designed to port games.

I definitely agree, the golden days for halo was way back during the first 2 years of the xbox 360 release and obviously the original xbox, and yes i do know that xbox live was really terrible on the original xbox without halo 2 and i also do believe that halo 2 suits and feels right on the xbox. PC was just not designed for halo 2 and whenever i play it, it does not feel as good as it did back then no matter if the keyboard and mouse has a better sensitivity for first person shooters. Halo 2 was designed for xbox and that is what it is.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Experiment Games for Windows Live, Hired Gun and Vista happened.[/quote]fix'd[/quote] Emphasis on the first two as well.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Experiment Games for Windows Live, Hired Gun and Vista happened.[/quote]fix'd [Edited on 05.19.2012 6:31 PM PDT]

[quote]What happened to Halo 2 PC?[/quote] Vista Happened.

The Windows Tablet exists, it didn't sell well. It ran XP.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed Games for Windows Live in my opinion was a huge missed oppurtunity for Microsoft from the beginning. If they had made it fully free from the beginning and included party chat and avatars, then they'd have a pretty decent service that could compete with Steam. If I recall, when GFWL first came out, Steam did not have party chat yet. You had to rely on additional 3rd party software to get party chat. The advantage of Xbox Live at the time was that it unified all the commonly used online features of a PC. Back then, you would have Steam or XFire for friends list, then Team Speak or Ventrillo for party chat, and other services for whatever else you might've needed. If Microsoft had included a unified service with GFWL from the beginning, before Steam did, then today, GFWL might be a bit more popular than it is.[/quote]I'm a bit fuzzy on this but did party chat EVER work for GFWL? Also, Xfire had group voice chat way before GFWL started. It's just that people liked to use TeamSpeak/Ventrilo which were/are [i]much[/i] better than the Live's voice chat systems. Yes, the 2003 version of TeamSpeak was better than Xbox Live's systems. Paying for certain things wasn't even GFWL's main problem. Most GFWL games (Even to this day) have so many bugs that have no known fix that I'd give a guess that possibly ~15% of the people who buy the games are likely to have a broken game. For Halo 2 specifically, that would probably rise to ~%20. That's actually me being generous, too. There's not one thing about GFWL that is good. It was never good to begin with. You could count achievements but to be honest, is that really that big of a deal at all? I don't know many PC gamers at all that give a -blam!- about achievements. In fact, even though this is just a personal opinion, I find achievement hunting annoying. [quote]Xbox Live for PC, if it's equal to the 360 version, could be a huge hit potentially. These days, Xbox Live is more geared towards multi-media entertainment than just simple multiplayer. Basically, Xbox Live on the PC could replace Windows Media Center and become your all-in-one source for entertainment. One app for everything. Such a thing could make Steam step things up a bit. [/quote]This is the problem with that theory: Steam actually knows what it is. It's a [i]gaming application[/i]. When you're on a PC, you want multiple programs that are designed specifically for certain things. You don't want something to be okay at everything. You want multiple things that are the [i]best[/i] at doing what they do. That's why people still use TeamSpeak/Ventrilo while playing games through Steam. I'd rather Steam stick to giving me gaming features instead of integrating a music/video library. If I want that, I'll just get another thing for that. The reason this works out for the 360 is because it needs it. You can't get an alternative music/video organizer. You can't get another thing for voice chat. That leads to the ultimate cause of why this damned thing failed: The PC isn't a -blam!- console. They tried to "simplify" things but the truth is it just doesn't fit with PC culture. PC gamers hate simplicity. We want to be completely in control, we want to have multiple programs that have their own purposes, we love getting our hands dirty... Leave console stuff to the consoles and let us keep the system we love. If we wanted to play on an Xbox 360 we'd play on a -blam!- Xbox 360.[/quote] To this day, party chat still doesn't exist for Games For Windows Live. I suspect the infrastructure exists to support it since we can already receive party chat invites. But without party chat, GFWL just feels incomplete for an Xbox gamer and probably trash for a PC gamer. It should be interesting to note that recently, multimedia consumption on Xbox Live has surpassed multiplayer gaming. It surprises me that that's even possible. But Microsoft does also intend the Xbox 360 to be a true home entertainment device and for it to somewhat compete with Apple TV. You know with Windows 8, they're trying to integrate everything together like on Xbox 360. I don't know if you've tried the Windows 8 consumer preview yet, but everything gaming and multimedia related are basically organized and integrated in a similar fashion as on the Xbox 360. Personally I have mixed feelings on that. But then again, almost all of my multimedia consumption is done through the default Microsoft software such as Windows Media Player. I do use Zune Software for syncing music to my Windows Phone though, but anyways, I've never really used any non-Microsoft software for media consumption. For music and videos, Windows Media Player does everything I need it to. So in Windows 8, who knows? Maybe it will turn out to be a good thing after all. This is just speculation on my part, but it's not exactly something I just thought of either. The press seems to agree with this guess as well. It seems in the near future, Microsoft will eventually merge all of their platforms together into one. The next generation Xbox may very well be the last generation Xbox, with the Xbox-brand being used in Windows for gaming purposes much like how the Zune brand was used for music and video services. So in the future, it could just be Windows tablets.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed Games for Windows Live in my opinion was a huge missed oppurtunity for Microsoft from the beginning. If they had made it fully free from the beginning and included party chat and avatars, then they'd have a pretty decent service that could compete with Steam. If I recall, when GFWL first came out, Steam did not have party chat yet. You had to rely on additional 3rd party software to get party chat. The advantage of Xbox Live at the time was that it unified all the commonly used online features of a PC. Back then, you would have Steam or XFire for friends list, then Team Speak or Ventrillo for party chat, and other services for whatever else you might've needed. If Microsoft had included a unified service with GFWL from the beginning, before Steam did, then today, GFWL might be a bit more popular than it is.[/quote]I'm a bit fuzzy on this but did party chat EVER work for GFWL? Also, Xfire had group voice chat way before GFWL started. It's just that people liked to use TeamSpeak/Ventrilo which were/are [i]much[/i] better than the Live's voice chat systems. Yes, the 2003 version of TeamSpeak was better than Xbox Live's systems. Paying for certain things wasn't even GFWL's main problem. Most GFWL games (Even to this day) have so many bugs that have no known fix that I'd give a guess that possibly ~15% of the people who buy the games are likely to have a broken game. For Halo 2 specifically, that would probably rise to ~%20. That's actually me being generous, too. There's not one thing about GFWL that is good. It was never good to begin with. You could count achievements but to be honest, is that really that big of a deal at all? I don't know many PC gamers at all that give a -blam!- about achievements. In fact, even though this is just a personal opinion, I find achievement hunting annoying. [quote]Xbox Live for PC, if it's equal to the 360 version, could be a huge hit potentially. These days, Xbox Live is more geared towards multi-media entertainment than just simple multiplayer. Basically, Xbox Live on the PC could replace Windows Media Center and become your all-in-one source for entertainment. One app for everything. Such a thing could make Steam step things up a bit. [/quote]This is the problem with that theory: Steam actually knows what it is. It's a [i]gaming application[/i]. When you're on a PC, you want multiple programs that are designed specifically for certain things. You don't want something to be okay at everything. You want multiple things that are the [i]best[/i] at doing what they do. That's why people still use TeamSpeak/Ventrilo while playing games through Steam. I'd rather Steam stick to giving me gaming features instead of integrating a music/video library. If I want that, I'll just get another thing for that. The reason this works out for the 360 is because it needs it. You can't get an alternative music/video organizer. You can't get another thing for voice chat. That leads to the ultimate cause of why this damned thing failed: The PC isn't a -blam!- console. They tried to "simplify" things but the truth is it just doesn't fit with PC culture. PC gamers hate simplicity. We want to be completely in control, we want to have multiple programs that have their own purposes, we love getting our hands dirty... Leave console stuff to the consoles and let us keep the system we love. If we wanted to play on an Xbox 360 we'd play on a -blam!- Xbox 360. [Edited on 04.16.2012 8:59 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Wilis_kid [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed If Microsoft really wanted to sabatage PC FPS games, why not just simply not release those games? Why would they even bother making all those games cross-platform?[/quote]What? My point is they released them with the intent of making the controller look just as good as the mouse. That way they could make the controller look good and entice people to buy the 360 for its exclusives. It seems far-fetched but it honestly seems like that was their intent. Also, how are you sabotaging something by not doing something? That makes no sense... [quote]The best way they can sell the Xbox 360 controller as "better" would be to make all the top FPS games Xbox 360 exclusives. In fact, exclusivity is the ultimate marketing strategy. It's what made the original xbox famous with Halo. If they made all the games Xbox 360 exclusives, nobody would even know what using a mouse and keyboard would be like on those games. And it would force people to buy Xbox 360's if they really wanted to play those top games. [/quote]They did already do that... There's a reason why they released Gears of War (Not 2) and Halo 2 (Not 3) for GFWL. -_-' Microsoft doesn't count on one thing, though. PC gamers are smart. They're not tricked by petty schemes like Microsoft tried with GFWL. They under estimate us. [quote]Also, if i'm not mistaken, GFWL was always free from the beginning, mostly. The gold membership was only for matchmaking and gold-exclusive servers. But otherwise, you could still join any multiplayer server you want through server lists. At least that's how it was with Halo 2 Vista. My friend thought he had to pay completely for GFWL, and I didn't know any better back then, so I loaned him my Gold account from the Xbox 360 so he could play online with all features while getting me achievements at the same time. But I later found out that you could still play online with a silver account.[/quote]That's what I was saying. They tried to make us pay for features we've had (Most things on GFWL being worse) since the '90s.[/quote] Not only that, but they do it worse than the Xbox Live equivalent. So PC gamers are faced with services that are far inferior to not only what we're used to from the 90's, but also the 360 counterpart. To name a few, "party chat" is present in Steam and I have used it with members of this forum in Halo 2 Vista and Halo CE game nights and the 360 as we well know has party chat, yet GFWL does not. To me, it feels like Microsoft is trying to sell us an outdated system when we and I'm sure they, know full well should be up to par (like Steam). They should at least make it equal to the 360 Live, and keep it free.[/quote] Games for Windows Live in my opinion was a huge missed oppurtunity for Microsoft from the beginning. If they had made it fully free from the beginning and included party chat and avatars, then they'd have a pretty decent service that could compete with Steam. If I recall, when GFWL first came out, Steam did not have party chat yet. You had to rely on additional 3rd party software to get party chat. The advantage of Xbox Live at the time was that it unified all the commonly used online features of a PC. Back then, you would have Steam or XFire for friends list, then Team Speak or Ventrillo for party chat, and other services for whatever else you might've needed. If Microsoft had included a unified service with GFWL from the beginning, before Steam did, then today, GFWL might be a bit more popular than it is. I'm not sure what's going to happen to GFWL after Windows 8 comes out. In the Consumer Preview of Windows 8, Xbox Live is integrated, but I'm not exactly sure how "Live aware" it is. I think it works like Windows Phone 7 where you're not really signed into Live real-time. But judging by Windows 8, the end is nigh for GFWL. I think Microsoft's intent is to promote all of their products by piggy backing off the success of the Xbox (eg. Windows Phone 7 with its Xbox Live features). However, at least in the consumer preview, GFWL still works. Xbox Live for PC, if it's equal to the 360 version, could be a huge hit potentially. These days, Xbox Live is more geared towards multi-media entertainment than just simple multiplayer. Basically, Xbox Live on the PC could replace Windows Media Center and become your all-in-one source for entertainment. One app for everything. Such a thing could make Steam step things up a bit.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed If Microsoft really wanted to sabatage PC FPS games, why not just simply not release those games? Why would they even bother making all those games cross-platform?[/quote]What? My point is they released them with the intent of making the controller look just as good as the mouse. That way they could make the controller look good and entice people to buy the 360 for its exclusives. It seems far-fetched but it honestly seems like that was their intent. Also, how are you sabotaging something by not doing something? That makes no sense... [quote]The best way they can sell the Xbox 360 controller as "better" would be to make all the top FPS games Xbox 360 exclusives. In fact, exclusivity is the ultimate marketing strategy. It's what made the original xbox famous with Halo. If they made all the games Xbox 360 exclusives, nobody would even know what using a mouse and keyboard would be like on those games. And it would force people to buy Xbox 360's if they really wanted to play those top games. [/quote]They did already do that... There's a reason why they released Gears of War (Not 2) and Halo 2 (Not 3) for GFWL. -_-' Microsoft doesn't count on one thing, though. PC gamers are smart. They're not tricked by petty schemes like Microsoft tried with GFWL. They under estimate us. [quote]Also, if i'm not mistaken, GFWL was always free from the beginning, mostly. The gold membership was only for matchmaking and gold-exclusive servers. But otherwise, you could still join any multiplayer server you want through server lists. At least that's how it was with Halo 2 Vista. My friend thought he had to pay completely for GFWL, and I didn't know any better back then, so I loaned him my Gold account from the Xbox 360 so he could play online with all features while getting me achievements at the same time. But I later found out that you could still play online with a silver account.[/quote]That's what I was saying. They tried to make us pay for features we've had (Most things on GFWL being worse) since the '90s.[/quote] Not only that, but they do it worse than the Xbox Live equivalent. So PC gamers are faced with services that are far inferior to not only what we're used to from the 90's, but also the 360 counterpart. To name a few, "party chat" is present in Steam and I have used it with members of this forum in Halo 2 Vista and Halo CE game nights and the 360 as we well know has party chat, yet GFWL does not. To me, it feels like Microsoft is trying to sell us an outdated system when we and I'm sure they, know full well should be up to par (like Steam). They should at least make it equal to the 360 Live, and keep it free.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed If Microsoft really wanted to sabatage PC FPS games, why not just simply not release those games? Why would they even bother making all those games cross-platform?[/quote]What? My point is they released them with the intent of making the controller look just as good as the mouse. That way they could make the controller look good and entice people to buy the 360 for its exclusives. It seems far-fetched but it honestly seems like that was their intent. Also, how are you sabotaging something by not doing something? That makes no sense... [quote]The best way they can sell the Xbox 360 controller as "better" would be to make all the top FPS games Xbox 360 exclusives. In fact, exclusivity is the ultimate marketing strategy. It's what made the original xbox famous with Halo. If they made all the games Xbox 360 exclusives, nobody would even know what using a mouse and keyboard would be like on those games. And it would force people to buy Xbox 360's if they really wanted to play those top games. [/quote]They did already do that... There's a reason why they released Gears of War (Not 2) and Halo 2 (Not 3) for GFWL. -_-' Microsoft doesn't count on one thing, though. PC gamers are smart. They're not tricked by petty schemes like Microsoft tried with GFWL. They under estimate us. [quote]Also, if i'm not mistaken, GFWL was always free from the beginning, mostly. The gold membership was only for matchmaking and gold-exclusive servers. But otherwise, you could still join any multiplayer server you want through server lists. At least that's how it was with Halo 2 Vista. My friend thought he had to pay completely for GFWL, and I didn't know any better back then, so I loaned him my Gold account from the Xbox 360 so he could play online with all features while getting me achievements at the same time. But I later found out that you could still play online with a silver account.[/quote]That's what I was saying. They tried to make us pay for features we've had (Most things on GFWL being worse) since the '90s. [Edited on 04.16.2012 4:44 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by[/b]: General Heed Microsoft succeeded in achieving what they were marketing with cross-platform game. They wanted to determine a winner. And if what you say is true, then a winner was determined (though I know for a fact that I never noticed any significant skill gaps when playing from either platform). I'm not advocating either input method, I'm just saying that I didn't notice a huge advantage on either side. I think at the very least, the top console gamers are able to hold the line against PC gamers. Perhaps that was what I was witnessing.[/quote]I think the problem here is that you think of Microsoft as genuinely interest in finding out who had the superior tools for FPS gaming. Like you said, it was a giant marketing strategy and a part of that strategy was to prove that a controller was just as good as a keyboard/mouse. They wanted to take the rest of the FPS market from the PC. It's obvious. Halo was the driving force behind the Xbox selling and it was because it was a successful console shooter and Microsoft marketed their console/controller for being the key to it. They tried as hard as they could to sabotage the controls on all their first party GFWL games just to make sure people thought the mouse was worse. It's painfully obvious. From all the debates we have, it's obvious you put [i]way[/i] too much trust in the word of Microsoft. You seem to be unable to read between the lines when it comes to their true objectives. The entire marketing strategy failed because it didn't prove controllers were better, PC gamers see GFWL as a thing that often causes them [i]not[/i] to buy the game, most the games using GFWL have a ton of broken systems, it's an extreme resource hog which causes pretty much every game that's on it to be unoptimized and they failed at attempting to charge us for features we've had since the '90s. Their attempt was absolutely terrible and it failed. There's no debating that at all. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Wilis_kid It may however, happen if a large developer like Valve manages to pull it off with a triple A franchise. Only time will tell.[/quote]They need to open it where you can use a keyboard/mouse for the 360/PS3 versions of the games or simply keep it to cooperative games instead of competitive. That's the only way I really see it working.[/quote] If Microsoft really wanted to sabatage PC FPS games, why not just simply not release those games? Why would they even bother making all those games cross-platform? The best way they can sell the Xbox 360 controller as "better" would be to make all the top FPS games Xbox 360 exclusives. In fact, exclusivity is the ultimate marketing strategy. It's what made the original xbox famous with Halo. If they made all the games Xbox 360 exclusives, nobody would even know what using a mouse and keyboard would be like on those games. And it would force people to buy Xbox 360's if they really wanted to play those top games. Also, if i'm not mistaken, GFWL was always free from the beginning, mostly. The gold membership was only for matchmaking and gold-exclusive servers. But otherwise, you could still join any multiplayer server you want through server lists. At least that's how it was with Halo 2 Vista. My friend thought he had to pay completely for GFWL, and I didn't know any better back then, so I loaned him my Gold account from the Xbox 360 so he could play online with all features while getting me achievements at the same time. But I later found out that you could still play online with a silver account. But I do agree it was ridiculous that they would try to charge people for online PC gaming.

[quote][b]Posted by[/b]: General Heed Microsoft succeeded in achieving what they were marketing with cross-platform game. They wanted to determine a winner. And if what you say is true, then a winner was determined (though I know for a fact that I never noticed any significant skill gaps when playing from either platform). I'm not advocating either input method, I'm just saying that I didn't notice a huge advantage on either side. I think at the very least, the top console gamers are able to hold the line against PC gamers. Perhaps that was what I was witnessing.[/quote]I think the problem here is that you think of Microsoft as genuinely interest in finding out who had the superior tools for FPS gaming. Like you said, it was a giant marketing strategy and a part of that strategy was to prove that a controller was just as good as a keyboard/mouse. They wanted to take the rest of the FPS market from the PC. It's obvious. Halo was the driving force behind the Xbox selling and it was because it was a successful console shooter and Microsoft marketed their console/controller for being the key to it. They tried as hard as they could to sabotage the controls on all their first party GFWL games just to make sure people thought the mouse was worse. It's painfully obvious. From all the debates we have, it's obvious you put [i]way[/i] too much trust in the word of Microsoft. You seem to be unable to read between the lines when it comes to their true objectives. The entire marketing strategy failed because it didn't prove controllers were better, PC gamers see GFWL as a thing that often causes them [i]not[/i] to buy the game, most the games using GFWL have a ton of broken systems, it's an extreme resource hog which causes pretty much every game that's on it to be unoptimized and they failed at attempting to charge us for features we've had since the '90s. Their attempt was absolutely terrible and it failed. There's no debating that at all. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Wilis_kid It may however, happen if a large developer like Valve manages to pull it off with a triple A franchise. Only time will tell.[/quote]They need to open it where you can use a keyboard/mouse for the 360/PS3 versions of the games or simply keep it to cooperative games instead of competitive. That's the only way I really see it working. [Edited on 04.16.2012 10:13 AM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed Well, when you put it that way, I guess you're right. My personal definition of something being dead is if it's no longer supported by the company or if it's been shutdown. For example, Xbox Live on the original xbox is dead. But since cross-platform play still exists, it's not entirely dead yet. That's what my belief is. The initiative is really just one big marketing strategy. And I've never really seen Microsoft champion the 360 controller as the superior input for FPS games. It's not going to hurt sales of the Xbox 360 if PC gamers dominate multiplayer when going against console gamers. I'm pretty sure cross-platform compatibility did make Microsoft more money than those games would've if they didn't have cross-platform multiplayer. How many people would've bought Shadowrun for the PC if there wasn't any cross-platform multiplayer? Microsoft succeeded in achieving what they were marketing with cross-platform game. They wanted to determine a winner. And if what you say is true, then a winner was determined (though I know for a fact that I never noticed any significant skill gaps when playing from either platform). I'm not advocating either input method, I'm just saying that I didn't notice a huge advantage on either side. I think at the very least, the top console gamers are able to hold the line against PC gamers. Perhaps that was what I was witnessing. Regardless, Microsoft is not new to PC gaming. They know which control method is better. Yes they claim the Xbox 360 controller makes FPS games work on a console, but they never went around bragging that it was better than a keyboard and mouse. The fact that they had to say "it works" shows they know which input was better all along. So cross-platform gaming is a success in it's own little way. Sales-wise it may not have been a hit. But it still got PC and Xbox 360 gamers together. You know, PC and Xbox 360 gamers don't always have to compete against each other in cross-platform games. They can work together... Even in RTS games, I'm sure PC gamers will find some use for console gamers. If CS: GO was cross-platform on all platforms, Xbox 360 gamers could really use the help of PC gamers to settle the score with PS3 gamers who claim their controller is the best, better than Xbox 360, better than PC. So you see, even if one control method is superior, it doesn't have to mean cross-platform is a bad idea. In fact, it'll encourage working together. Personally I find vehicle controls are easier on a controller. Therefore, a good team in Lost Planet could have PC gamers doing most of the shooting (ex sniping) while Xbox 360 gamers focus on vehicle control (piloting mechs, etc.). Such a team would be far superior than a team of just PC or Xbox gamers. [/quote] But is that not what we've been saying before? An FPS cross platform would not work unless it was for co-operative reasons or unless the consoles are given the option to use the mouse and keyboard too like in CS:GO. The initiative has failed as Syx said because there has been only 5 or so games since it's introduction, so if developers are afraid to implement it, then it must have failed. However, i DO want it to work, and it can, as mentioned above. Cross-platform gaming has untapped potential and i think Valve recognised that, its just will developers wake up and see there are other ways of doing cross platform, not just controller vs PC FPS etc. I for one could even see Halo 4 pull off cross platform nicely, but after microsofts failure with H2V and the poor results of cross platform gaming since they introduced it, will never happen. It may however, happen if a large developer like Valve manages to pull it off with a triple A franchise. Only time will tell.

Well, when you put it that way, I guess you're right. My personal definition of something being dead is if it's no longer supported by the company or if it's been shutdown. For example, Xbox Live on the original xbox is dead. But since cross-platform play still exists, it's not entirely dead yet. That's what my belief is. The initiative is really just one big marketing strategy. And I've never really seen Microsoft champion the 360 controller as the superior input for FPS games. It's not going to hurt sales of the Xbox 360 if PC gamers dominate multiplayer when going against console gamers. I'm pretty sure cross-platform compatibility did make Microsoft more money than those games would've if they didn't have cross-platform multiplayer. How many people would've bought Shadowrun for the PC if there wasn't any cross-platform multiplayer? Microsoft succeeded in achieving what they were marketing with cross-platform game. They wanted to determine a winner. And if what you say is true, then a winner was determined (though I know for a fact that I never noticed any significant skill gaps when playing from either platform). I'm not advocating either input method, I'm just saying that I didn't notice a huge advantage on either side. I think at the very least, the top console gamers are able to hold the line against PC gamers. Perhaps that was what I was witnessing. Regardless, Microsoft is not new to PC gaming. They know which control method is better. Yes they claim the Xbox 360 controller makes FPS games work on a console, but they never went around bragging that it was better than a keyboard and mouse. The fact that they had to say "it works" shows they know which input was better all along. So cross-platform gaming is a success in it's own little way. Sales-wise it may not have been a hit. But it still got PC and Xbox 360 gamers together. You know, PC and Xbox 360 gamers don't always have to compete against each other in cross-platform games. They can work together... Even in RTS games, I'm sure PC gamers will find some use for console gamers. If CS: GO was cross-platform on all platforms, Xbox 360 gamers could really use the help of PC gamers to settle the score with PS3 gamers who claim their controller is the best, better than Xbox 360, better than PC. So you see, even if one control method is superior, it doesn't have to mean cross-platform is a bad idea. In fact, it'll encourage working together. Personally I find vehicle controls are easier on a controller. Therefore, a good team in Lost Planet could have PC gamers doing most of the shooting (ex sniping) while Xbox 360 gamers focus on vehicle control (piloting mechs, etc.). Such a team would be far superior than a team of just PC or Xbox gamers.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed If the initiative was dead, then the option wouldn't still be there for developers to make games cross-platform. Cross-platform compatibility is still part of the Games For Windows Live specifications. It's all about developer interest, and from the very beginning, not many expressed interest at all.[/quote]If there's no interest in an initiative, it's dead. It's that simple. Only 5 games over the course of 6 years. Only two shooters and both were done in a two year span with one of the sequals not having the feature back. It's dead. [quote]Microsoft was not embarassed by the results. Their ultimate goal is to make money. If sales of those games were terrible and barely anybody even tried the cross-platform multiplayer, then yes, that would've been embarassing for Microsoft. But if PC gamers destroyed console gamers everytime in multiplayer, Microsoft wouldn't have cared. That was what they were trying to promote from the beginning. They wanted to give people the chance to settle the debate. [/quote]Microsoft would have cared if it was proven that the PC platform was the superior platform to play first person shooter games on. The Xbox's success relies wholly on Halo: Combat Evolved which was considered a "revolution" in FPS gaming because, for the first time, FPS games worked well on the console. If 360 players would be matched up with PC players which would kick their asses every match, they would realize the 360/360 controller isn't what they thought it was when it came to being great for FPS gaming. Also, Microsoft couldn't have made money off this initiative. None of the first party GFWL games sold very well. The reason being was because it's an abysmal system that PC gamers threw up in their face. Any PC gamer with a decent amount of experience with the platform can tell you exactly that. It was God awful from the initial thought. PC's are always far ahead of what the consoles are doing so why the hell would anyone think it would make sense to bring the online experience of a console to the PC? We've had everything the consoles have since the '90s. In fact, we've had better stuff than what the consoles have now since the '90s. [quote]Microsoft knows what the advantages of using a keyboard and mouse are. They knew what to expect. The fact is, Microsoft succeeded, and did not shut down cross-platform gaming. Microsoft continued the initiative and to this day, the initiative still lives. That is absolute fact.[/quote]What!? How is that anywhere near fact? Microsoft [i]succeeded[/i]? What did they succeed with? If they were trying to make themselves look like absolute ignorant fools towards PC gaming, they sure as hell succeeded. They were trying to corner the market on PC gaming. Look at how many games utilize GFWL live then look at how many games use Steamworks. Did they succeed? Hell. No. [quote]Until Microsoft says you can't make cross-platform games anymore, the initiative will still be alive. Now the success of the initiative is a different story of course. [/quote]The success is a different story? Didn't you [i]just[/i] say it was a success? Also, it doesn't matter if Microsoft has it open to developers. What matters is if it's being used. It's not. No one has any interest in it at all because it's an absolutely terrible idea. No one wants to touch it with a ten foot pole at this point. It's dead.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote]with Shadowrun, it's designed so that while aiming with the mouse, you'll loose accuracy if you look around too fast, thus reducing the any advantage the mouse may have.[/quote]The main reason the mouse is better than a joystick is because it's much more accurate. Being able to turn quickly is a [i]great[/i] advantage but the real advantage is in the pin point accuracy. That's the reason console shooters rely on aim assist. It's because the joystick is absolutely abysmal for aiming. There's no arguing this at all. [quote]Developers at anytime can still make their games cross-platform. There's nothing stopping them. The infrastructure is still there and Microsoft still supports cross-platform gaming. As long as the cross-platform initiative is alive, there will still be potential for more cross-platform games.[/quote]The initiative isn't alive still. I don't see how you're still thinking it is. That's 5 games over the course of 6 years that use it and only two after the first two years. Developers don't like it and Microsoft was embarrassed by the results they found while studying it. This isn't speculation or opinion. This is absolute fact. You can't argue this. Just accept it.[/quote] If the initiative was dead, then the option wouldn't still be there for developers to make games cross-platform. Cross-platform compatibility is still part of the Games For Windows Live specifications. It's all about developer interest, and from the very beginning, not many expressed interest at all. Microsoft was not embarassed by the results. Their ultimate goal is to make money. If sales of those games were terrible and barely anybody even tried the cross-platform multiplayer, then yes, that would've been embarassing for Microsoft. But if PC gamers destroyed console gamers everytime in multiplayer, Microsoft wouldn't have cared. That was what they were trying to promote from the beginning. They wanted to give people the chance to settle the debate. Microsoft knows what the advantages of using a keyboard and mouse are. They knew what to expect. The fact is, Microsoft succeeded, and did not shut down cross-platform gaming. Microsoft continued the initiative and to this day, the initiative still lives. That is absolute fact. Until Microsoft says you can't make cross-platform games anymore, the initiative will still be alive. Now the success of the initiative is a different story of course.

[quote]with Shadowrun, it's designed so that while aiming with the mouse, you'll loose accuracy if you look around too fast, thus reducing the any advantage the mouse may have.[/quote]The main reason the mouse is better than a joystick is because it's much more accurate. Being able to turn quickly is a [i]great[/i] advantage but the real advantage is in the pin point accuracy. That's the reason console shooters rely on aim assist. It's because the joystick is absolutely abysmal for aiming. There's no arguing this at all. [quote]Developers at anytime can still make their games cross-platform. There's nothing stopping them. The infrastructure is still there and Microsoft still supports cross-platform gaming. As long as the cross-platform initiative is alive, there will still be potential for more cross-platform games.[/quote]The initiative isn't alive still. I don't see how you're still thinking it is. That's 5 games over the course of 6 years that use it and only two after the first two years. Developers don't like it and Microsoft was embarrassed by the results they found while studying it. This isn't speculation or opinion. This is absolute fact. You can't argue this. Just accept it.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed For Halo 2 PC, if it was purely a direct port that was rushed, I could see why the game prefers the controller since it's already there and perfectly working. [/quote]Now you see why so many PC gamers absolutely [i]hate[/i] the game. There was no quality work done it at all. The only thing it had more of that Halo: Combat Evolved didn't was headaches. Having GFWL wasn't a positive. Friend's list, voice chat, and joining games through friend's list is already taken care of by things PC gamers have had since the '90s. Do you know they actually tried to charge us to have those features too? As if it was some grand thing we've never had and felt was premium quality? Talk about not knowing your consumer base... [quote]As for the cross-platform initiative failing, I still disagree with that. I was there from day 1 and I still play the cross-platform games today. I played from both platforms and I never noticed any significant skill gaps.[/quote]Every single other person that I know who has played that will agree with me that it was clearly dominated by PC gamers. 360 and PC players would agree. I even played it all the time when I was over at other peoples' houses that owned the game. [quote]Technically, it never even failed. Microsoft still added a few more cross-platform games afterwards. One came out pretty recently and supposedly more are coming. [/quote]Well, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Games_for_Windows_%E2%80%93_Live_titles]here's a list of GFWL games[/url]. I see about 5 games with a cross platform feature. Here's the list: [quote]BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger [2010] - Fighting Game Game Room [2010] - Variety Game Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition [2006] - Third Person Shooter (Ought to note that Lost Planet 2 didn't have cross-platform play) Shadowrun [2007] - First Person Shooter Universe at War: Earth Assault [2007] - Real-Time Strategy Game[/quote] I don't see any shooters on that list after 2007. In fact, according to the list, that's how many have released since 2006. Only 5. [/quote] I don't really even see how the type of controller would make a difference in some of those games. Yeah Universe At War would make a huge difference in favor of the Keyboard and Mouse, but neither Lost Planet nor Shadowrun are straight up shooters. Having a controller or k/m would make virtually no difference during vehicle combat in Lost Planet. Some game modes in Lost Planet aren't even fully shooter modes. And with Shadowrun, it's designed so that while aiming with the mouse, you'll loose accuracy if you look around too fast, thus reducing the any advantage the mouse may have. So in the case of Shadowrun, yes, the mouse was deliberately gimped for the sake of balance. And I do feel balance was achieved. Yeah I know no shooters were added after 2007. But just because no shooters were added, doesn't mean the cross-platform initiative is dead. BlazBlu and Game Room were added relatively recently showing that the initiative is still alive. It's really up to the developers, not Microsoft whether to make a game cross-platform. SquareEnix, makers of a the ultimate cross-platform game (almost all platforms) said that making a game cross-platform is very expensive and taxing on their time and resources. They said game developers have to consider from the very beginning whether it'd be worth it financially to make a game cross-platform. As you know, cross-platform play was one of the selling points of those games. The developers figured it would attract a lot of people to buy the game because it's cross-platform. However, with Lost Planet, my guess is that the game didn't sell well and they lost a lot of money that they spent building the cross-platform support. Therefore, in Lost Planet 2, they decided it wasn't worth it anymore to add cross-platform support. Developers at anytime can still make their games cross-platform. There's nothing stopping them. The infrastructure is still there and Microsoft still supports cross-platform gaming. As long as the cross-platform initiative is alive, there will still be potential for more cross-platform games.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed As for the cross-platform initiative failing, I still disagree with that. I was there from day 1 and I still play the cross-platform games today. I played from both platforms and I never noticed any significant skill gaps. Technically, it never even failed. Microsoft still added a few more cross-platform games afterwards. One came out pretty recently and supposedly more are coming. [/quote] I believe Microsoft tries to hamper cross-platform gaming because it doesn't maximize profits. Requiring players to buy seperate copies in order to play with with PC gaming friends, and then their console gaming friends, is more profitable. I don't think it ever came down to question of which interface, mouse or controller was superior. People at Microsoft have thought this way since day one. Profit is the first priority. Enabling people to play any game with each other while only buying one copy instead of one for each platform cuts in to profits. If you look at Valve's Portal 2, Microsoft's policies prevented the cross-platform ability shared by PS3, Mac, and Windows versions. Microsoft gets a cut out of the DLC distributed for any game. [Edited on 04.14.2012 11:24 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed For Halo 2 PC, if it was purely a direct port that was rushed, I could see why the game prefers the controller since it's already there and perfectly working. [/quote]Now you see why so many PC gamers absolutely [i]hate[/i] the game. There was no quality work done it at all. The only thing it had more of that Halo: Combat Evolved didn't was headaches. Having GFWL wasn't a positive. Friend's list, voice chat, and joining games through friend's list is already taken care of by things PC gamers have had since the '90s. Do you know they actually tried to charge us to have those features too? As if it was some grand thing we've never had and felt was premium quality? Talk about not knowing your consumer base... [quote]As for the cross-platform initiative failing, I still disagree with that. I was there from day 1 and I still play the cross-platform games today. I played from both platforms and I never noticed any significant skill gaps.[/quote]Every single other person that I know who has played that will agree with me that it was clearly dominated by PC gamers. 360 and PC players would agree. I even played it all the time when I was over at other peoples' houses that owned the game. [quote]Technically, it never even failed. Microsoft still added a few more cross-platform games afterwards. One came out pretty recently and supposedly more are coming. [/quote]Well, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Games_for_Windows_%E2%80%93_Live_titles]here's a list of GFWL games[/url]. I see about 5 games with a cross platform feature. Here's the list: [quote]BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger [2010] - Fighting Game Game Room [2010] - Variety Game Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Colonies Edition [2006] - Third Person Shooter (Ought to note that Lost Planet 2 didn't have cross-platform play) Shadowrun [2007] - First Person Shooter Universe at War: Earth Assault [2007] - Real-Time Strategy Game[/quote] I don't see any shooters on that list after 2007. In fact, according to the list, that's how many have released since 2006. Only 5. [Edited on 04.14.2012 9:53 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Wilis_kid [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx I'd like to point out something, too. This is pure speculation but I feel the mouse control was gimped on purpose. I can't imagine it would have really been that difficult to give proper mouse support and it would make sense for them to make it seem as though the mouse was equal with the controller by gimping it. In fact, go to the control scheme options. When you go to select the controller, it talks about the 360 controller as if it was a gift from God. Look at the mouse/keyboard option and it says something like "Use the keyboard and mouse".[/quote] This wouldn't surprise me, given that it's about the same time that Microsoft was pushing Shadowrun and their cross-platform gaming initiative, which we all know failed as supposedly mediocre PC gamers beat the best console gamers out there which doomed the feature in Microsoft's eyes. Strengthening the 360 controller in Halo 2 Vista vs Mouse and Keyboard would make perfect sense to avoid the unbalance usually found with PC gamers who use a controller vs m+k[/quote] For Halo 2 PC, if it was purely a direct port that was rushed, I could see why the game prefers the controller since it's already there and perfectly working. As for the cross-platform initiative failing, I still disagree with that. I was there from day 1 and I still play the cross-platform games today. I played from both platforms and I never noticed any significant skill gaps. Technically, it never even failed. Microsoft still added a few more cross-platform games afterwards. One came out pretty recently and supposedly more are coming.

I wish more people would play H2V, it would be a lot better..

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Dr Syx I'd like to point out something, too. This is pure speculation but I feel the mouse control was gimped on purpose. I can't imagine it would have really been that difficult to give proper mouse support and it would make sense for them to make it seem as though the mouse was equal with the controller by gimping it. In fact, go to the control scheme options. When you go to select the controller, it talks about the 360 controller as if it was a gift from God. Look at the mouse/keyboard option and it says something like "Use the keyboard and mouse".[/quote] This wouldn't surprise me, given that it's about the same time that Microsoft was pushing Shadowrun and their cross-platform gaming initiative, which we all know failed as supposedly mediocre PC gamers beat the best console gamers out there which doomed the feature in Microsoft's eyes. Strengthening the 360 controller in Halo 2 Vista vs Mouse and Keyboard would make perfect sense to avoid the unbalance usually found with PC gamers who use a controller vs m+k

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Wilis_kid Regarding the FOV for Halo PC, this is because it is set to 70 instead of the Xbox's 90, which creates a zoomed effect on the PC. Why it was like this i don't know, but the game feels much better once the FOV is put back to 90 and I think most agree that this is the case with other games too. Halo 2 Vista uses the Xbox versions FOV which is what the game was designed for so the FOV doesn't look right when adjusted in the game.[/quote]I think the FoV of Halo 2 was about 75, wasn't? [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] General Heed lol just out of curiosity, those of us here who play games on a laptop, does anyone actually use the laptop's touchpad instead of a mouse for gaming? And in that case, which is the better control for shooters? Keyboard and touchpad, or a controller? [/quote]I was forced to use one once... Never again. x_x I'd like to point out something, too. This is pure speculation but I feel the mouse control was gimped on purpose. I can't imagine it would have really been that difficult to give proper mouse support and it would make sense for them to make it seem as though the mouse was equal with the controller by gimping it. In fact, go to the control scheme options. When you go to select the controller, it talks about the 360 controller as if it was a gift from God. Look at the mouse/keyboard option and it says something like "Use the keyboard and mouse". [Edited on 04.14.2012 5:04 PM PDT]