DrUnKtAnK
07-16-2002, 10:28 AM
http://www.xbox.com/LIVE/xboxlive-friendsfeature.htm
Some new news on XBL and the friends feature...
One of the greatest features of Xbox Live is how easy it is to find friends for a game online. After all, playing with your friends, whether they're across the street or across the country, is one of the main reasons you want online gaming. But it's not much fun unless you know they're online.
The Xbox Live Friends list is exactly what it sounds like: a list of your friends who are Xbox Live subscribers. Actually, it's a list of their Xbox Live Gamertags. Once you set up your Friends list you'll see the same list no matter which game you use.
"When we began to design Xbox Live, it became obvious that Friends would be our biggest feature, second only to Voice." says Noah Heller, Program Manager for
Xbox Live Community, "We made it easy to add friends, invite friends, join friends, and see what friends are up to. And every Xbox Live game supports it."
As soon as you go Live with any Xbox game, you'll be able to see which of your friends is online. And because Xbox Live is a centralized system, it doesn't matter which games your friends are playing. Noah adds, "Imagine this. You can tell that Tom's almost done with his capture-the-flag session in his first person shooter. Rachel's carving up the virtual slopes to get in the mood for this weekend's trip to Tahoe. And Bubba…well, Bubba's wrestling in the metal cage arena again."
The Friends list does more than tell you which games they're playing. It can show you their progress within a game and if there are empty slots you can join. Some games will go the extra mile and include cool stats like frag counts, current score, time remaining, and player details. Let's say FuzzyNinja's health is down 50% and he's surrounded by aliens. What do you do? Do you join FuzzyNinja's game and help him out of tight spot? Or is FoxyBabe's game looking more, shall we say, promising? You can send him an invitation to join the game, if you're feeling guilty about bailing.
What does getting an invite look like? The moment a friend sends you an invite through our system, a small notification icon flashes in the corner of your screen for a few seconds. You can ignore it or pop over to your Friends list, select "Join", and you're good to go.
"By itself, the Friends list is a pretty killer feature," says Noah, but when you throw in the fact that it works across different titles? The fact that I can select a friend, choose join, insert the disk, and BAM, I'm there playing? That just rocks."
You can also set up private games from your Friends list. Select your crew and they'll show up, hopefully in time for picking captains at the playground. Or you can ignore your friends completely. Want to play Xbox Live but don't want your study partners to know? Don't want to get dragged into boring games with your newbie friends? We let you hide so you're invisible to others. Warning: this only applies to the friends list, it won't make you an unstoppable ninja. Trash talking without voice masking can give you away as well, so watch yourself.
All of these features are there for you, with just one or two button mashes on the controller. It's just a part of getting you to feel like you're a part of a family. You will be – you've always got Friends with Xbox Live. You can check up on each other, send each other invites, and play the same games whenever you like. That's the way we set it up, to make the games that much better. After all, what are Friends for?
Some new news on XBL and the friends feature...
One of the greatest features of Xbox Live is how easy it is to find friends for a game online. After all, playing with your friends, whether they're across the street or across the country, is one of the main reasons you want online gaming. But it's not much fun unless you know they're online.
The Xbox Live Friends list is exactly what it sounds like: a list of your friends who are Xbox Live subscribers. Actually, it's a list of their Xbox Live Gamertags. Once you set up your Friends list you'll see the same list no matter which game you use.
"When we began to design Xbox Live, it became obvious that Friends would be our biggest feature, second only to Voice." says Noah Heller, Program Manager for
Xbox Live Community, "We made it easy to add friends, invite friends, join friends, and see what friends are up to. And every Xbox Live game supports it."
As soon as you go Live with any Xbox game, you'll be able to see which of your friends is online. And because Xbox Live is a centralized system, it doesn't matter which games your friends are playing. Noah adds, "Imagine this. You can tell that Tom's almost done with his capture-the-flag session in his first person shooter. Rachel's carving up the virtual slopes to get in the mood for this weekend's trip to Tahoe. And Bubba…well, Bubba's wrestling in the metal cage arena again."
The Friends list does more than tell you which games they're playing. It can show you their progress within a game and if there are empty slots you can join. Some games will go the extra mile and include cool stats like frag counts, current score, time remaining, and player details. Let's say FuzzyNinja's health is down 50% and he's surrounded by aliens. What do you do? Do you join FuzzyNinja's game and help him out of tight spot? Or is FoxyBabe's game looking more, shall we say, promising? You can send him an invitation to join the game, if you're feeling guilty about bailing.
What does getting an invite look like? The moment a friend sends you an invite through our system, a small notification icon flashes in the corner of your screen for a few seconds. You can ignore it or pop over to your Friends list, select "Join", and you're good to go.
"By itself, the Friends list is a pretty killer feature," says Noah, but when you throw in the fact that it works across different titles? The fact that I can select a friend, choose join, insert the disk, and BAM, I'm there playing? That just rocks."
You can also set up private games from your Friends list. Select your crew and they'll show up, hopefully in time for picking captains at the playground. Or you can ignore your friends completely. Want to play Xbox Live but don't want your study partners to know? Don't want to get dragged into boring games with your newbie friends? We let you hide so you're invisible to others. Warning: this only applies to the friends list, it won't make you an unstoppable ninja. Trash talking without voice masking can give you away as well, so watch yourself.
All of these features are there for you, with just one or two button mashes on the controller. It's just a part of getting you to feel like you're a part of a family. You will be – you've always got Friends with Xbox Live. You can check up on each other, send each other invites, and play the same games whenever you like. That's the way we set it up, to make the games that much better. After all, what are Friends for?