I almost feel sorry for them. The publishers really aren't playing ball.

Still, it's not like it could even work technically, and maybe (maybe) the likes of EA know that.

So it's still a worthless, piece of shit "rent-a-game" platform.

I'm quite curious to know what the investors are all thinking about it now. "Wait... this is IT? Where's our mountains of money???!"

Creston

Tumbler wrote on Feb 1, 2011, 20:14:
Hmmm some weird issues with the MP side of DoW2 on Onlive. There are only 3 options for MP games, 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3. The version on steam currently has 6 options I believe including several FFA options. Plus the pool of games you connect with must be unique to onlive because it only ever found 1 game and after about 5 min of searching I was still the only apparent game on there. (said it found 1 game, which I believe was me)

I booted up the steam version to see if there was just no one on and it immediately found 10 or so games.

Hopefully they will be able to sync these games so it's all the same online community.

Nope, multiplayer will be separate for the foreseeable future with Online. It's one of the major major downsides of the service imo.

Hmmm some weird issues with the MP side of DoW2 on Onlive. There are only 3 options for MP games, 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3. The version on steam currently has 6 options I believe including several FFA options. Plus the pool of games you connect with must be unique to onlive because it only ever found 1 game and after about 5 min of searching I was still the only apparent game on there. (said it found 1 game, which I believe was me)

I booted up the steam version to see if there was just no one on and it immediately found 10 or so games.

Hopefully they will be able to sync these games so it's all the same online community.

Tumbler wrote on Feb 1, 2011, 18:17:

That's actually my problem with the service for the most part, at it's very best it's just acceptable. Console games for the most part look and play better for the most part. In timing sensitive games the controls are almost unusable as well.

I would describe my experience today at my office over WiFi as "just acceptable."

The experience playing over a hard wired network with good bandwidth is excellent. There have obviously been improvements to the service since launch because it looks awesome. I encourage more to try this for themselves, it won't look like a machine running 1080p maxed settings but it's better than I think you'll expect.

You realize 1080p on a computer was state of the art like 10 years ago, right?

I mean shit. My cell phone's display is approaching 1080p levels of fidelity.

Relevant link is relevant:
http://xkcd.com/732/

Why am I not surprised that Tumbler likes OnLive?

Where's Beamer? I bet he likes it too.

I'm complaining about bandwidth.

OnLive at 5mbps per hour is more expensive bandwidth-wise than installing those games actually. Be careful you don't run into problems with your ISP.

That's actually my problem with the service for the most part, at it's very best it's just acceptable. Console games for the most part look and play better for the most part. In timing sensitive games the controls are almost unusable as well.

I would describe my experience today at my office over WiFi as "just acceptable."

The experience playing over a hard wired network with good bandwidth is excellent. There have obviously been improvements to the service since launch because it looks awesome. I encourage more to try this for themselves, it won't look like a machine running 1080p maxed settings but it's better than I think you'll expect.

Easily solved with a cheap SSD. You can uninstall and reinstall to your hearts delight in no time flat, though I still think thats a wafer thin excuse - the equivalent of someone complaining consoles suck because of a disk swap and load times. Either way, hard drives aren't an impediment to gaming on the PC.

I'm complaining about bandwidth. With games getting larger and larger it takes longer to go from wanting to play a game to playing the game. It seems to be outpacing available bandwidth in fact. Many new games are approaching 20gb's. I think my hdd is 500GB which can hold plenty of games but OnLive offers an opportunity to have all those games instantly available the same way netflix offers all those movies instantly. I'd rather have them via watch instantly than all ripped to my hdd just sitting there waiting in case I need them.

Tumbler wrote on Feb 1, 2011, 17:37:
Time was the bigger issue there, it takes a lot of time to get games installed when they are 12GB's.

Easily solved with a cheap SSD. You can uninstall and reinstall to your hearts delight in no time flat, though I still think thats a wafer thin excuse - the equivalent of someone complaining consoles suck because of a disk swap and load times. Either way, hard drives aren't an impediment to gaming on the PC.

Be very surprised. Sans a couple hiccups related to my own network, when I tried the beta for the PlayPack Program the system worked pretty comparably to being local.

That's actually my problem with the service for the most part, at it's very best it's just acceptable. Console games for the most part look and play better for the most part. In timing sensitive games the controls are almost unusable as well.

bigspender wrote on Feb 1, 2011, 17:29:
i'd very suprised if the quality of OnLive is comparative to decent gaming pc - which is so cheap these days.

Be very surprised. Sans a couple hiccups related to my own network, when I tried the beta for the PlayPack Program the system worked pretty comparably to being local.

Wow. In the last 5 min I just downloaded OnLive on my work computer, installed it, logged in, then started a free trial of Dawn of War 2 Chaos rising. I'm on a wifi connection with decent internet speeds here at work to, I did not expect that to work at all.

Graphically it looked below what I expected but I wonder if that isn't the service adjusting to the lower bandwidth available across wifi. There was some mouse lag as well, it worked though. I was able to get online and start playing in minutes from my office. That is impressive to me. I'm going to go test on a machine hardwired to the router, these are all crappy workstations without any real horsepower, so assuming the graphics improve with a hardwired connection that is very interesting.

Hard drives are so cheap it doesn't matter.

Time was the bigger issue there, it takes a lot of time to get games installed when they are 12GB's. I have outstanding internet access as well and it still takes long enough that when I'm in the mood to play something and it's not installed it's not really an option to sit there and wait. And I don't like having everything installed...so I typically uninstall things I don't want to play...which isn't necessary I suppose.

i'd very suprised if the quality of OnLive is comparative to decent gaming pc - which is so cheap these days.

HDD install sizes are going through the roof with PC games and the hardware needed to run them is already beyond what I want to spend

Hard drives are so cheap it doesn't matter. PC peripherals typically aren't overpriced like console accessories are. As for whats a better investment, Steam has an actual dependable history as opposed to OnLive so cash conscious consumers would be better off "investing" in Steam right now.

I logged into this service recently and noticed that I was getting this service free at the time, and ended up playing the Tomb Raider Underworld game for about an hour. I thought it looked and played great. Was surprised at how well everything worked.

It's also really nice that you don't have to sit there installing anything for an hour or so before you can play it as with steam. I had played Dirt 2 a few times on Onlive and picked it up on steam when it was on sale recently. I went to go play it only to find it wasn't installed which was an hour process at least. I think it's 12GB. There was never a huge difference that I saw between dirt 2 on steam and dirt 2 via Onlive.

I really hope PC exclusive games start dropping on this service because as hardware needs increase I see this being a much better place to spend money for PC games than steam. HDD install sizes are going through the roof with PC games and the hardware needed to run them is already beyond what I want to spend so I'd love to see Shogun 2 on OnLive. Even if it was just a $4 trial period I'd give it a shot.

Edit: And Hey there, holy crap, DoW2 finally made it to OnLive with a free trial! I've been very curious to compare this game on steam/OnLive, can't wait to get home!

It's a step in the right direction but ouch that library is hurting. Have to give them recognition for finally listening to their customers though.

There's a lot of budget bin titles in that list.

...YAWN..............