I Got Published!!!! ... (Kinda')
I had completely forgotten that I had done this, so it was a pleasant surprise when I went to the mail today. First I was kinda' pissy that some checks I've been expecting for over a week now didn't show up, but at least my copy of "Official Xbox Magazine" came. I read through the first few pages (mostly ads) and then I get to the letters section.
I start reading the letters... The first one was someone complaining about the fact that Microsoft doesn't support their HD-DVD player anymore, and was what I would call the 'lead letter' as it was boxed off into its own section with its own illustration. Then I start reading the next letter, the first of the 'regular letters', and it takes me about two sentences to start thinking that it sounds really, really familiar.
ARMY OF (ONLY) TWO
In your review of the Stranglehold Map Pack DLC (issue 82), you brought up a question I didn't realize I wanted answered. Terry Terrones called Stranglehold "a game that is currently devoid of active online players," which makes me wonder: Is there a place to get hard, fast, and current numbers of online player for a given game before buying it? Say, maybe, a weekly average number of users online and an average amount of time spent online in said game?
I'd love to be able to pick up all of the games that I want to play on release day and enjoy the wave of excitement that surrounds a game's release. Unfortunately, that's not the case, and hasn't been for at least four years. I don't have Halo 3 yet; how active is Halo 2 at this point? Are people still playing MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf? The game is backward-compatible, so it's still relevant. Most of the games that I've been enjoying are months, if not years old; it'd be nice to have a way to know beforehand how active older games still are.
- Glasswalker33
We say: Because he's the man for all things related to the Xbox Live community, we went straight to Major Nelson on this. He told us that while the top 10 games of the week are always released, Microsoft doesn't go deeper than that. We'd like to see more detailed data, too, but we can understand why it's not made available: If you say the promise of online play is a factor in buying a game, you're also acknowledging that the threat of no online play is just as demotivating. We don't see any publisher willingly saying, "Yeah, like, two dozen people are still playing our game online... on-sale now!" However, this is a problem the community can tackle. Xbox Live Nation (www.xboxlivenation.com), for instance, tracks its members' Live activity, counting both how many potential players exist for a game and how many of those gamers are actively playing online at any given time. The more people that join, the more accurate the data.
In case you hadn't guessed, the Glasswalker33 that sent in the letter is the same Glasswalker33 that's typing this now. I've never written to a magazine before, and when last issue came and I didn't see the letter I figured that it wasn't going to run, no biggie. Guess I forgot how long a lead time magazines have to have. There's even a video game screen capture of the aforementioned MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf with the caption, "Hey guys, wanna play MechAssault 2? I've been looking for a match forever!" Pretty nifty.
It may not be an art show. It may not be an actual article written for a magazine, but still, I'm in a magazine that I subscribe to. That's pretty sweet.
Which reminds me, did I ever tell you that I'm in the credits of the collector's edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring? Crazy story there, well, not really that crazy, but ... ;^)
._._.
I start reading the letters... The first one was someone complaining about the fact that Microsoft doesn't support their HD-DVD player anymore, and was what I would call the 'lead letter' as it was boxed off into its own section with its own illustration. Then I start reading the next letter, the first of the 'regular letters', and it takes me about two sentences to start thinking that it sounds really, really familiar.
ARMY OF (ONLY) TWO
In your review of the Stranglehold Map Pack DLC (issue 82), you brought up a question I didn't realize I wanted answered. Terry Terrones called Stranglehold "a game that is currently devoid of active online players," which makes me wonder: Is there a place to get hard, fast, and current numbers of online player for a given game before buying it? Say, maybe, a weekly average number of users online and an average amount of time spent online in said game?
I'd love to be able to pick up all of the games that I want to play on release day and enjoy the wave of excitement that surrounds a game's release. Unfortunately, that's not the case, and hasn't been for at least four years. I don't have Halo 3 yet; how active is Halo 2 at this point? Are people still playing MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf? The game is backward-compatible, so it's still relevant. Most of the games that I've been enjoying are months, if not years old; it'd be nice to have a way to know beforehand how active older games still are.
- Glasswalker33
We say: Because he's the man for all things related to the Xbox Live community, we went straight to Major Nelson on this. He told us that while the top 10 games of the week are always released, Microsoft doesn't go deeper than that. We'd like to see more detailed data, too, but we can understand why it's not made available: If you say the promise of online play is a factor in buying a game, you're also acknowledging that the threat of no online play is just as demotivating. We don't see any publisher willingly saying, "Yeah, like, two dozen people are still playing our game online... on-sale now!" However, this is a problem the community can tackle. Xbox Live Nation (www.xboxlivenation.com), for instance, tracks its members' Live activity, counting both how many potential players exist for a game and how many of those gamers are actively playing online at any given time. The more people that join, the more accurate the data.
In case you hadn't guessed, the Glasswalker33 that sent in the letter is the same Glasswalker33 that's typing this now. I've never written to a magazine before, and when last issue came and I didn't see the letter I figured that it wasn't going to run, no biggie. Guess I forgot how long a lead time magazines have to have. There's even a video game screen capture of the aforementioned MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf with the caption, "Hey guys, wanna play MechAssault 2? I've been looking for a match forever!" Pretty nifty.
It may not be an art show. It may not be an actual article written for a magazine, but still, I'm in a magazine that I subscribe to. That's pretty sweet.
Which reminds me, did I ever tell you that I'm in the credits of the collector's edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring? Crazy story there, well, not really that crazy, but ... ;^)
._._.