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xb360 without HD = no patching on live = rampant cheating

M

monoRAIL

Banned
Since that standard Xbox won't have a HD, and the memory card probably won't be big enough to save downloaded content, developers will no longer be able to patch in anti-cheating fixes to Xbox Live games.

Or if they do the game will be split into HD players who have the patch, and non HD players who aren't patched.

Imagine if Halo2 or Rainbow Six weren't patched and all the Freeloader/Action Replay cheaters had free reign.

It seems to me that not including a hard drive in the standard Xbox will effectively kill Xbox live. Will non-hd players be shut out of live completely - I don't think microsoft have specifically stated this but it's likely to be true (they also don't get a live headset or cable in the cheap pack).

[thread title changed to reflect general opinion] :-)
 
yeah, unless those patches fit on the memory card (which is required for live BTW) that could be an issue... one i've not heard brought up yet
 
how would players cheat in the first place? supposedly the x360 isn't gonna be moddable (haha, I know), and microsoft probably won't license any gameshark type products. only way i see people cheating are by glitching and i doubt the patches would be that huge
 
sangreal - true 64Mb is enough for a patch. But what if you've got a few save games and a couple of downloaded levels. That'd fill up your card pretty fast. Let's assume you're forced to patch to play a game on Live - you'll eventually HAVE to buy a hard drive.

Wario64 - There's likely to be modchips and unlicensed 3rd party software allowing cheats very soon after launch. And you can cheat in Rainbow 6 by exploiting glitches too - like the 'lean glitch'. This could be fixed by patching.
 
vatstep said:
I love how on that page MS is confirming that the core package will only come with standard A/V cables (which was announced and confirmed elsewhere), but this page is saying that they both come with HD A/V cables. :lol
Click to expand...

microsoft are flip-floppers!
 
monoRAIL said:
sangreal - true 64Mb is enough for a patch. But what if you've got a few save games and a couple of downloaded levels. That'd fill up your card pretty fast. Let's assume you're forced to patch to play a game on Live - you'll eventually HAVE to buy a hard drive.
Click to expand...

Or more memory cards.

Noone said not owning a HDD is a good idea. Especially for people interested in Live.

For the price of a memory card you're almost halfway to a harddrive anyway.
 
x360 without HD (and hidef cables etc) = CHAVBOX

why not throw in a burbury plaid face plate and have done with it?
 
The CHAVBOX also comes with:

G275t.jpg


(interchangeable, lime green version coming later)
 
monoRAIL said:
sangreal - true 64Mb is enough for a patch. But what if you've got a few save games and a couple of downloaded levels. That'd fill up your card pretty fast. Let's assume you're forced to patch to play a game on Live - you'll eventually HAVE to buy a hard drive.
Click to expand...

This is a retarded thread. Do you seriously think they won't patch games or will allow unpatches people to play because they don't have space on their memory cards for the patch? That's pretty stupid. It will be exactly like it is now. When a patch comes out, everyone playing a game will be absolutely required to get it. If your game isn't patched, you can't play it online. If your memory card is too full for it, you can't play online until you buy a hard drive or another memory card.
 
Some Live updates are *mandatory*. That is, if you haven't got space on your card, hd or any other memory device, maybe you won't be able to play live until you free the required space. This is my guess and hope.
 
Can you imagine if you've got a 64MB card which is mostly full with game saves and downloadable content you've paid for and you buy this great new Xbox Live game (let's say Halo 3 or Battlefield 2) and then when you sign on it tells you you have to download a mandatory update, but you don't have enough room on your memory card so you can't play. :lol Come to think of it how do PS2 online gamers deal with this or does PS2 online not have frequent updates like Live does?
 
...or companies could just fully bug test their games and not rely on being able to patch them after shipment. If there is a major bug, they can always do a recall.
 
DavidDayton said:
...or companies could just fully bug test their games and not rely on being able to patch them after shipment. If there is a major bug, they can always do a recall.
Click to expand...

It's hard to bug test an exploit in online gaming. That's why they try to avoid it with wide spread beta tests. Even then though it's not so easy if nobody figures out an exploit that is discovered after release.
 
Yeah the mandatory updates for Live are great. It only takes a minute to download and they are vigilant about fighting the cheaters which is good and necessary. Realistically theres no other way to fight cheaters and fix exploits which can ruin an online game other than to have mandatory updates.

The question I have though is if you play against someone online who doesn't have a hard drive will it slow down the loading of your game too since you have to wait for them to load the level on their core machine?
 
You better pray to your MS gods that there comes a game like Halo 3 or Splinter Cell 5 that REQUIRES a HD to boot because the moment your average Joe buys the $299 pack + memory unit and the moment he boots Madden 2006 he won't give a DAMN fuck about a ridiculously priced $99 HD.

His Madden works. He can play online, he can upload his season rankings etc.

Now imagine the screw up on MS's side when there comes a Halo 3 that won't work with HD.
That guy is severly pissed, why should he buy a 20 GB HD for $99 (WTF?) when his Madden works without one?

So either Madden should require HD for some super majic special upgradable content AT LAUNCH or the HD becomes OBSOLETE the instant a million Joes buy Madden and the $299 pack.
 
monoRAIL said:
Since that standard Xbox won't have a HD, and the memory card probably won't be big enough to save downloaded content, developers will no longer be able to patch in anti-cheating fixes to Xbox Live games.

Or if they do the game will be split into HD players who have the patch, and non HD players who aren't patched.

Imagine if Halo2 or Rainbow Six weren't patched and all the Freeloader/Action Replay cheaters had free reign.

It seems to me that not including a hard drive in the standard Xbox will effectively kill Xbox live. Will non-hd players be shut out of live completely - I don't think microsoft have specifically stated this but it's likely to be true (they also don't get a live headset or cable in the cheap pack).
Click to expand...

It'll be no diffrent on ps3 and rev as well..so we just gotta deal with it
 
Borys said:
You better pray to your MS gods that there comes a game like Halo 3 or Splinter Cell 5 that REQUIRES a HD to boot because the moment your average Joe buys the $299 pack + memory unit and the moment he boots Madden 2006 he won't give a DAMN fuck about a ridiculously priced $99 HD.

His Madden works. He can play online, he can upload his season rankings etc.

either Madden should require HD for some super majic special upgradable content AT LAUNCH or the HD becomes OBSOLETE the instant a million Joes buy it and the $299 pack.
Click to expand...
That's a shame because I think you're right on the money and that essentially means the inevitable death of the HDD in game consoles.

It's the Madden gamer that dictates the future hardware of the industry, not the typical Splinter Cell gamer who can't live without his downloadable levels and episodic content. I think secretly MS knows that eventually the core system will usurp the initially popular premium edition. That's why they tried to stack things so heavily in the premium editions favor. The mom's pop's and casuals aren't going to see any value in the expensive bundle edition of Xbox. So long as the system plays their 3 or 4 games they're not going to care about all of the weird stuff in the premium edition.
 
most game executables (which is what's required to change 95% of the time) shouldn't be bigger than 2-3 megabytes and they can build a system to patch the executable while loading it into memory instead of saving the whole thing on the memory card which would only require from a couple of hundred kilobytes. Most live games don't get more than 1-2 patches.

Can you imagine if you've got a 64MB card which is mostly full with game saves and downloadable content you've paid for and you buy this great new Xbox Live game (let's say Halo 3 or Battlefield 2) and then when you sign on it tells you you have to download a mandatory update, but you don't have enough room on your memory card so you can't play. Come to think of it how do PS2 online gamers deal with this or does PS2 online not have frequent updates like Live does?
Click to expand...

that's not a good argument. Let's say you're playing this really long RPG on PS2 and there's an emergency and you have to leave. But your memory card is full so you can't save!!! OMFG.

As I said live patches won't take up that much space.
 
ChrisReid said:
This is a retarded thread. Do you seriously think they won't patch games or will allow unpatches people to play because they don't have space on their memory cards for the patch? That's pretty stupid. It will be exactly like it is now. When a patch comes out, everyone playing a game will be absolutely required to get it. If your game isn't patched, you can't play it online. If your memory card is too full for it, you can't play online until you buy a hard drive or another memory card.
Click to expand...


I was wondering about the credibility of the thread starter, if he plays on Live, he should know that you CANNOT play online without downloading the patch, the game simply wont let you continue. If you dont donwload, you dont play
 
hgplayer1 said:
SOCOM 2 has had a couple of patches and only required the memory card in order to download it.
Click to expand...

exactly. socom 2 reserves quite a big spot on your card. OMG WHAT IF IT FILLS UP!

I guess that doesn't matter to people. Nice troll thread without knowing what the hell you were talking about, though.
 
Marty Chinn said:
Well wouldn't the only thing need to be patched is the executable? If that's so, you only need a few megabytes dedicated to it.
Click to expand...

So once you filled the mem card up with a bunch of games and files - you're fucked. Nice.

Sysgen said:
What if your HD is full? No different.
Click to expand...

Uh, yeah, over 300 times the size different.
 
Dr_Cogent said:
So once you filled the mem card up with a bunch of games and files - you're fucked. Nice.
Click to expand...

You're not fucked, you just have to go out, buy another $40 memory unit, and punch yourself in the nuts for being one of the idiots who was stupid enough to get fooled by Microsoft into buying the "Core" system. :)
 
urk said:
You're not fucked, you just have to go out, buy another $40 memory unit, and punch yourself in the nuts for being one of the idiots who was stupid enough to get fooled by Microsoft into buying the "Core" system. :)
Click to expand...

There are going to be plenty of people who get raped with this route.
 
Sysgen said:
Glad you guys can tell that 64mb and 20 gig is a big difference. GAF cadets in action.
Click to expand...

You're the one who claimed it was "no different", private pisspants.
 
urk said:
You're the one who claimed it was "no different", private pisspants.
Click to expand...

If any device is full then you free up space to fit the patch. There I spelled it out for you.

No different. Comprendo?
 
Borys said:
You better pray to your MS gods that there comes a game like Halo 3 or Splinter Cell 5 that REQUIRES a HD to boot because the moment your average Joe buys the $299 pack + memory unit and the moment he boots Madden 2006 he won't give a DAMN fuck about a ridiculously priced $99 HD.

His Madden works. He can play online, he can upload his season rankings etc.

Now imagine the screw up on MS's side when there comes a Halo 3 that won't work with HD.
That guy is severly pissed, why should he buy a 20 GB HD for $99 (WTF?) when his Madden works without one?

So either Madden should require HD for some super majic special upgradable content AT LAUNCH or the HD becomes OBSOLETE the instant a million Joes buy Madden and the $299 pack.
Click to expand...

Well, I think that is part of MS plan. They are going to use the lower priced memory cards to fool people into spending more money for less storage. The 64MB memory card is way overpriced at 40 dollars. Makes the 20 gig removable hdd for 99 bucks look like a steal. But if someone wants just the system and a memory card so be it. Perhaps they'll buy 4 or 5 more down the road for that tiny storage when they just could have bought a 20 gig hdd and be done with it.

Also, it does sound like the vast majority of systems initially shipping will be the premium pack.
 
You shouldn't need a HD at all for online, i remember TRIBES was the master of the server side patch.

Also when you buy a live account MS should give you some online storage space for saves, patches, etc.
 
Sysgen said:
If any device is full then you free up space to fit the patch. There I spelled it out for you.

No different. Comprendo?
Click to expand...

Are you trying to make a point in this thread.. or simply posturing?
 
Sysgen said:
If any device is full then you free up space to fit the patch. There I spelled it out for you.

No different. Comprendo?
Click to expand...

What? What if you don't want to lose said data?

Take of the Xbot hat for a second Sysgen.
 
LAMBO said:
You shouldn't need a HD at all for online, i remember TRIBES was the master of the server side patch.

Also when you buy a live account MS should give you some online storage space for saves, patches, etc.
Click to expand...

sorry i dont want my games having to access a lagged network to get code patches. :lol
 
I can see it now, you insert Halo 3 two weeks after release, and the following prompt appears:

"Thank you for playing Halo 3. Due to insufficient room on your memory card to patch the version of Halo 3 you bought at retail from the beta to release version, Halo 3 is currently deleting the following file to make room for the patch : TES: Oblivion, 250hr12min. Enjoy your game."
 
No prob. There will be patch. You will have to buy the HD that's all. (or many mem cards)

Don't forget the cash register!
 
monoRAIL said:
sangreal - true 64Mb is enough for a patch. But what if you've got a few save games and a couple of downloaded levels. That'd fill up your card pretty fast. Let's assume you're forced to patch to play a game on Live - you'll eventually HAVE to buy a hard drive.
Click to expand...


Sysgen said:
What if your HD is full? No different.
Click to expand...



Better?
 
Sysgen said:
Better?
Click to expand...

Sysgen, please, get a clue. What's going to fill up faster? 64 MB or 20 GB?

Secondly, 64 MB = 40 dollars, 20 GB = 100 dollars.

DOES NOT COMPUTE.

20 GB ~= over 300 64 MB cards
 
Mrbob said:
The 64MB memory card is way overpriced at 40 dollars.
Click to expand...

Not when it comes to video game memory accesories. An 8mb PS2 memory card retails for $25(Sony sells 2 for $40). A 32MB PSP card is also $25.
 
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