Date: 2008-11-02 11:52:02 Created: null
Xbox Live is the system for playing Xbox games online. Basically it means that you pay one subscription fee to play all your games online, and that all games support some central features, like friend list management and, perhaps most famously and importantly, voice chat. You need broadband to play, but as we all know that definition doesn't mean much anymore (I remember when people were still pushing for the expression to only cover things with a speed of 2 mbps or above). Fortunately pretty much of the whole wide spectrum it has to cover works with Xbox Live.
Prehistoric Times ...
No, I don't have Xbox Live, at least not yet. But my bundle came with a coupon to try it free for two month (sans headset of course), so I might give it a try some day soon ...
December 26th, 2003
So, from now on my Xbox is located in my own home and nowhere else. One of the first things I did was of course connect it to my network and attempt to connect to Xbox Live (just for the sake of testing, I haven't signed up yet).
We're going to update you. Press A to restart and get updated.
Fair enough, it's a Microsoft product ;-) ... Only upon restart it turned out Xbox Live "wasn't responding". Not quite as fair. Some quick searching turned up the interesting information that Xbox Live's using semi-dirty tricks that not all routers appreciate. My Netgear RP114 was one of the routers that wouldn't work with recent Live updates. And no new firmware has been released for the past two years. Fortunately, help was to be found. I soon discovered that things could be made to work by adding certain filters to the router configuration. Basically it's told to look for the data that causes the problem and make sure it can't do any harm. The instructions were easy enough to follow, it just took a bit of experimentation to get the right settings (dependent on your broadband service type) and to get the settings to save properly (the instructions were clear enough on that, but it was still easy to miss one of the needed saves).
So now I can connect and get updated, everything's nice and ready for when I start using those two free trial months. The steps needed definitely weren't for non-advanced users though, I understand that Microsoft removed the RP114 from the official list of supported routers.
December 30th, 2003
Okay, now I've got myself a Live account. Two months of free trial. Will probably upgrade to a starter package or at least a headset very soon if it's all as nice as it seems. Right now I'm downloading content for Crimson Skies, just as a pastime while waiting for Martin to get home so we can try our luck at this. I should mention that the whole signup and connection process was completely flawless thanks to last entry's router tweaking.
Oh, Mad F, that's me.
January 13th, 2004
Of course I couldn't keep myself from getting a starter pack so I could try out Live play with headset. And I have to say it really raises the experience quite a bit. I was a bit worried prior to getting the headset that I would have problems hearing people because speech seemed really quiet and skip-prone when it came from the TV. Not so once the headset was plugged in though, things work just like they should. I have done more than just plug in the headset though, in the same time period I also re-configured my network quite drastically. I demoted the router to just acting as a hub (apparently royally screwing up its IP number in the process, I changed it around and now I can't log into it anymore) and promoted my Airport Extreme base station to do the routing. The whole setup is more awkward than the old one, seems to work a bit worse for communication between the computers and isn't as easy to control either. And, most importantly, I have no evidence it affects Xbox Live to the better either. So the reasons I don't put everything back to what it used to be are the hassles involved and an unfounded worry that the router will magically make Xbox Live work worse ...
Right, now I put everything back the way it originally was. Fortunately, it all works great. I could even say it seems a little better than with the other configuration, but seems I always say that ... No worse though, that's for sure, and also what matters.
February 26th, 2005
All good things and so on ... yesterday I made the phonecall and cancelled my Live account. My Live usage has been truly minimal for a long time, to the point where I felt I ought to use it more, not because I felt like it at the moment but to motivate spending the money. All I worry about is that cancelling Live will suddenly make lots of cool Live-only stuff appear out of thin air. That's the way things usually work ... Concluding that I won't be playing any Crimson Skies at all on Live in the future somehow seems much more difficult than accepting that I haven't played at all in recent months either ... Missing out on all the potential fun and features.
You see how my brain works here.
Live is a great service, and I've had a good deal of fun with it. I don't regret getting it, but I don't regret cancelling it either. Maybe I'm just not that much of a multiplayer gamer.
And after all, if something new and irresistably cool comes along renewing isn't difficult.