Comments on: Dawn Of War 2 Multiplayer: Games For Windows Live

By: jalf

jalf — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 04:28:38 +0000

@Burrito: The problem with GfWL is that it sucks technically. The interface is horribly slow and complex to manouver (really, try inviting a friend to your game with Steam and then with GfWL, or try joining a friends game. Heck, just try friending someone), it is bound to a fairly useful key (home – useful as a hotkey in a lot of games, and has a pretty well-defined function in chat windows as well. And it just became unusable because Microsoft wanted to take it over)
Matchmaking in DoW2 takes an eternity, and matches you up against people from all over the world with no regard for skill level. The problem is that it’s a badly designed attempt to do what Steam did 3 years ago. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table, and even the “old” features it brings to the table are sub-par.

By: Burrito

Burrito — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 03:57:11 +0000

i have a 360 live account so i have gfw as well and i dont see why ppl bitch about you get premium service for a cheap yearly feel what the big stigma is?

By: Tristan

Tristan — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:04:48 +0000

GfWL was actually an agreement THQ made with Microsoft. I think its a shit sandwich Relic is forced to eat in this case. Playing the beta at the moment, and boy does GfWL lack so much of what we take for granted with Steam. Theres no game lobby for one… and no push-to-talk…. and no list of game lobbys containing friends. I can’t believe there are times I am wishing for Gamespy…. Game is really fun tho, no more stupid macro.

By: samuel

samuel — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:14:30 +0000

I have dawn of war dark crusade and dawn of war these games a awesome everyone should play it has deomens in choas and there on computer too.

By: Zzgashi

Zzgashi — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:53:58 +0000

I have Gears of War for PC and I really really don’t like the way Live worked there. I had to jump through far to many hoops just to get an account. The updater was crap. And it could never remember my login information. The Achievements were grindtastic and added nothing to the game.

By: El_MUERkO

El_MUERkO — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:52:38 +0000

as long as it has a ‘create lan game’ button i dont give a rats ass

/hugs Hamachi

By: Alec Meer

Alec Meer — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:44:34 +0000

Uh-oh

By: Keith

Keith — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:43:23 +0000

@Darkieus

Sheesh. Good response. “I don’t like this, so I’ll *steal* it”. Way to go. Why not, y’know, just *don’t buy it*.

By: Darkieus

Darkieus — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:55:02 +0000

I’m against this in every way. I’ve already signed numerous petitions against Microsoft’s Games for Windows Live.

I hope this doesn’t happen in the future, I already plan to stop being a legit customer to anything with the ‘Games for Windows Live’ brand on it if this continues. I -will- turn to piracy.

By: Jonathan L

Jonathan L — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:56:03 +0000

You know to register to GFW you have to go through the XBOX LIVE website.. I remember having to go through this process for playing Gears of War online on the PC.. The horror.

By: Anthony Damiani

Anthony Damiani — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:30:33 +0000

Well, OK, so they’re not charging for anything. The optimistic interpretation of this is that Microsoft has wised up that PC gamers are not a receptive audience to the model they used on the Xbox, due to the history and the numerous alternatives available. If this marks the new direction for GfWL, it could go a long way towards rescuing an already damaged brand.

I’m certainly paranoid enough to entertain the pessimistic interpretation– that this is some kind of nefarious bait-and-switch tactic– but I don’t really think it’s plausible.

It would seem like a serious liability for Relic to do something like that (or allow Microsoft to do it), since they’ve been slowly building some considerable brand equity. Given that THQ has publicly stated that they are rethinking their strategy of more numerous, lower quality games I don’t think they’d be eager to tarnish one of their studios that has been earning a reputation for quality.

Plus, the ongoing attempt to monitize everything– I can see management being convinced that selling little model bitz is a good idea. That alone could be enough to explain why they went with this architecture rather than a proprietary one.

By: cyrenic

cyrenic — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:30:34 +0000

It probably wasn’t hard for Relic to take the money to use GFWL, but they’d be sacrificing way too many sales to go Vista only, so I think it’s pretty likely we’ll see it on XP as well.