Top Spin. Needs. Women.

[MattKeil]

Or at least people playing online as women.

I love this game to death, but my created female player is practically useless because nobody bloody plays as girls online. All that time spent in career mode and I sit for 10 minutes waiting for someone to join my game? Sheesh.

If you liked Virtua Tennis or just want a nice, moderately complex game of next-gen Pong, pick up Top Spin, make a chick, and come play me. :?

I can be found on Xbox Live under the GamerTag of Keldroc.

~MJK

[MattKeil]

Minor followup: What is it with online console games that the worst part of playing them is always the other players?

Tonight I ran into five people in a row who wouldn't serve like an actual player, but would tiptoe off to the far edge of the court and serve at the lowest possible power level, so the ball travels slowly and at an absurd angle. This forces you to go way off course to return the ball, giving the server an easy hit to the opposite side where you have no prayer of reaching it. They did this EVERY FREAKIN' SERVE.

Considering I've never seen Sampras do this on television, I call bullshit on this tactic. Play like men, even if you're playing as a woman.

~MJK

[Dave Long]

C'mon Matt, you should know by now that when you play online it's all about winning. Why do you think so many people cheat in everything from FPS to RTS if they can?

Without having that person in the room with you where you can launch a Wavebird at them when they act like an idiot, you're always going to have that kind of thing.

--Dave

[Jim Preston]

I agree with Dave that cheese play has been and always will be a problem with online play. However, if you really enjoy Top Spin and think its something you will play quite a bit, you may want to invest some time in the official message boards or some fan sites for players who are "str8 ballers" or don't play cheese tactics. Usually there are a few threads of people sharing gamertags who just want to play a realistic game, regardless of winning or losing. Add those guys to your friends list and keep an eye out for them when online.

[Mark Asher]

I agree with Dave that cheese play has been and always will be a problem with online play. However, if you really enjoy Top Spin and think its something you will play quite a bit, you may want to invest some time in the official message boards or some fan sites for players who are "str8 ballers" or don't play cheese tactics. Usually there are a few threads of people sharing gamertags who just want to play a realistic game, regardless of winning or losing. Add those guys to your friends list and keep an eye out for them when online.

Sounds like too much work to me. I thought the beauty of Xbox Live was pushing that one button that gets you online and ready to play.

[Pie4Foo]

Curses, GameSpot gave it a 9.1: http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/sports/topspin/review.html

Now I have to go out and buy an Xbox. Damnit!

[Rywill]

Just wanted to give Matt props for a funny subject line.

[Xaroc]

I thought the beauty of Xbox Live was pushing that one button that gets you online and ready to play.

It does but what you seem to want is completely unrealistic. You expect that there is some magic in Xbox Live that will keep you from running into idiots?

Your best bet is to add all of the people here in the Xbox Live gamertag thread:

http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2...pic.php?t=1182

Dave is just bashing because it is something having to do with the Xbox, but what else is new? The same thing happens on any online platform. People cheat and try to game any system. You just have to hope that the designers worked out most of the kinks or that the people you play with and against aren't idiots. So either never play anything online or only play with friends or just take your chances.

FWIW, I played 3 matches last night against highly rated people in Top Spin and none of them did anything cheezy like what Jim described. I would personally just quit out of a game if someone did that then go look for another. Also, I played 5 games of ESPN NHL and no cheese was to be found there just well played games.

-- Xaroc

[Dave Long]

Xaroc, you gotta cool your fucking jets, man. I didn't say shit about the Xbox in my post. Read it again, jackass. I mentioned real-time strategy and first person shooters...places I've seen cheaters and goofballs that play like fools online.

You follow me around like a goddamn puppy dog to infer things about my posts that aren't even implied. Get a life.

--Dave

[Bub, Andrew]

I have to wonder, why is this tactic cheesy? The rules of tennis say that any serve is good if it lands in the box before going out. Now, I haven't played Top Spin, but this doesn't sound like an exploit.
It does sound annoying though.

PS: I agree you jumped ye olde gun on that post Xaroc.

[MattKeil]

I have to wonder, why is this tactic cheesy? The rules of tennis say that any serve is good if it lands in the box before going out. Now, I haven't played Top Spin, but this doesn't sound like an exploit.
It does sound annoying though.

PS: I agree you jumped ye olde gun on that post Xaroc.

After several games of experimenting, it's not an exploit so much as just retarded. A lazy lob return down the line or a well-timed dropshot can shut them down when they try this serve, I have learned.

My problem with it is mostly that you've got this incredibly good and deep tennis game here and all these people want to do is the same thing over and over and over. I played one guy who went three sets, seven games per set, tiebreaker every time with me, and every single serve was this tiptoe-to-the-foul-line thing. Mix it up a bit, for Christ's sake, especially when it's obvious your tactic isn't working.

It also bugged me that a lot of them were obviously using it to make up for a lack of actual tennis skill/strategy. When I was serving (from a wide variety of serves, mind you, and always from near my starting position :wink: ), I shut them out almost every time. Doing what they were doing wasn't teaching them to play any better, it was just attempting to cover up their weak points.

Plus, you have to wait for them to shuffle over to the far side every time. That's like seven seconds gone from your life, man.

I suppose this may just come from my old arcade days in the SF2 era, when, if someone was doing something over and over and over and making the game boring, you could just elbow them in the ribs and say "Knock it off." Or, as previously suggested, throw a Wavebird at their head.

Had Wavebirds existed in 1991.

And if you'd brought one to the arcade.

Had they existed.

I'm going back to Top Spin now...

~MJK

[Xaroc]

Xaroc, you gotta cool your fucking jets, man. I didn't say shit about the Xbox in my post. Read it again, jackass. I mentioned real-time strategy and first person shooters...places I've seen cheaters and goofballs that play like fools online.

You follow me around like a goddamn puppy dog to infer things about my posts that aren't even implied. Get a life.

--Dave

I am sorry if I inferred too much from your post.

And I don't follow you around. That may be the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

-- Xaroc

[Warlord of Mars]

Matt, give the XSN tourneys a try. I'm sure people are going to be a lot more accountable there seeing as how it's quite a bit more structured than playing just any schmoe online. As for the cheesy serves, give those players negative feedback. Microsoft does pay attention to those and will ban/suspend people if there's enough to go on.

XSNsports.com, I believe. I don't have the manual/case with me right this moment.

[Warlord of Mars]

Sounds like too much work to me. I thought the beauty of Xbox Live was pushing that one button that gets you online and ready to play.

Xaroc touched on it a little, but you're expecting too much out of something that'll never happen. It takes a few button pushing to be in a match/round/whatever. But it is nowhere near as hard to get "right" like PC gaming. And the level of cheating is nowhere close to PC hacks/unlimited griefing. This is the best online structure out there, bar none.

[Lietgardis]

So, wait: video game tennis keeps real tennis' gender restrictions intact?

Do characters have gender-specific stats, or is there no reason at all to stupidly restrict multiplayer like that?

[MattKeil]

So, wait: video game tennis keeps real tennis' gender restrictions intact?

Do characters have gender-specific stats, or is there no reason at all to stupidly restrict multiplayer like that?

I had the exact same question. Turns out it's because the animation sets for male and female players are different, plus each player has individual animations, and there was no way to load all that into memory at once.

The other disappointment is that you can only play online doubles matches with two people on the same Xbox. This really sucks, because a couple of the guys I play with online are great, and we'd be almost unstoppable as a team.

Stuff to work on for next year's edition, I guess.

~MJK

[Mark Asher]

Sounds like too much work to me. I thought the beauty of Xbox Live was pushing that one button that gets you online and ready to play.

Xaroc touched on it a little, but you're expecting too much out of something that'll never happen. It takes a few button pushing to be in a match/round/whatever. But it is nowhere near as hard to get "right" like PC gaming. And the level of cheating is nowhere close to PC hacks/unlimited griefing. This is the best online structure out there, bar none.

Yeah, but when I run into the idiots in PC games, I haven't paid for the online service. If I'm paying for an online service, I expect more than matchmaking. Something like what Matt described wouldn't bother me in a PC game. I'd shrug it off. When a company wants $50 for me to use their service, I want to think I'm buying more than just access to online play. There's a reason why I was never a paying member of MPlayer or TEN.

Can you at least lodge complaints about these cheesball guys? It would be nice if there was a quick and easy way to put your black mark on them, but I guess that could be abused too.

Really, my comment was more about the idea of having to do research to find good opponents to have enjoyable games. If that's what it takes, it's not for me.

[Creole Ned]

Really, my comment was more about the idea of having to do research to find good opponents to have enjoyable games. If that's what it takes, it's not for me.

Unless you play against friends, you can probably unplug your modem now. :)

[Mark Asher]

Really, my comment was more about the idea of having to do research to find good opponents to have enjoyable games. If that's what it takes, it's not for me.

Unless you play against friends, you can probably unplug your modem now. :)

Heh. The MMOs with monthly fees are actually pretty good about the ratio of idiots to non-idiots. The other games don't ding me for $50 a year like Xbox Live wants to.

[Jason Becker]

Really, my comment was more about the idea of having to do research to find good opponents to have enjoyable games. If that's what it takes, it's not for me.

Unless you play against friends, you can probably unplug your modem now. :)

Heh. The MMOs with monthly fees are actually pretty good about the ratio of idiots to non-idiots. The other games don't ding me for $50 a year like Xbox Live wants to.

Thats a really big matter of personal opinion Mark that I don't agree with. I have run into more than my fair share of asses in all types of online games. It only takes a few jerks(or one in a small game) to make it not fun wether its a free to play FPS or a paying MMORPG game.


They don't ding you $50 a year like Xbox Live? Well no Mark they ding you $10-15 every month.

[Xaroc]

Really, my comment was more about the idea of having to do research to find good opponents to have enjoyable games. If that's what it takes, it's not for me.

Unless you play against friends, you can probably unplug your modem now. :)

Heh. The MMOs with monthly fees are actually pretty good about the ratio of idiots to non-idiots. The other games don't ding me for $50 a year like Xbox Live wants to.

I find it odd that you are essentially quibbling over less than $5 a month when Xbox Live! adds value like a unified login, friends lists, built in voice support, and what I would guess is a far more cheat free environment than most games.

Contrast this to the PS2 where games are free to play but you have to shell out $40 for the adapter, almost every game has a different interface, there is no consistent voice, and companies like EA are trying to gear up to charge people just for their games and I am guessing it will be at least $5 a month.

Throw in most PC FPSes and RTSes where games are free to play but mostly have different interfaces, no consistant voice, and rampant cheating.

Then finally there are MMOGs which on a dollar per hour value are pretty high but cost from $13-15 a month ($156-180 a year) and are not complete devoid of idiots and cheaters and require that you pay for each of them except for the EQ/PS bundle.

So overall for what Xbox Live offers, less than $5 a month seems pretty reasonable.

-- Xaroc

[Mark Asher]

I've never had a problem with the interfaces in PC games. If I want a unified interface, there's Gamespy Arcade. Most PC titles are supported through it one way or another. The only issue I have with playing PC games online are the myriad usernames and passwords I have to come up with. It annoys me, but other than being an annoyance, it hasn't really been a problem. I don't play non-MMOs online more than a couple of weeks at most, normally. Savage has been the only non-MMO in the last couple of years I've played more than a couple of weeks.

I don't have any experience playing PS2 games online. Are they difficult to play?

My only real quibble is that if I'm spending $50 for a service, I don't feel I should have to do research to find good opponents, as was suggested. That's all. As to MMOs, I've played them for well over 1000 hours and had few times where I could say another player ruined my session. I didn't play UO very much, so that might be why my experience has been more positive than others. Games beyond EQ have been made so it's hard to grief people.

[dannimal]

It doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to add an eBay-like evaluation system so that you could see the "rating" of anyone you were potentially playing. If Joe Tennis had a rating of 15%, you could avoid him.

Granted, there's no real easy way to add comments (no keyboard), and it's subject to griefers too, but it's something.

[Dave Long]

The rating stuff is definitely subject to griefers. When you have gamers doing rating, there's always going to be a sense of "he beat me, fuck him!" and they might give you bad feedback for perceived issues that just aren't real.

There's just not a great solution to all of this stuff IMO. You simply can't have great gameplay with strangers online unless the game is specifically designed around everyone being at each other's throats...kind of like deathmatch in an FPS. Provided you stop cheating there, it's still the perfect way to avoid people getting pissed because it's all about the skill.

--Dave

[Jason Becker]

"I've never had a problem with the interfaces in PC games. If I want a unified interface, there's Gamespy Arcade. Most PC titles are supported through it one way or another. "


Most MMORPG's have had some of the worst most un-user friendly interfaces ever devised.

[runesword forger]

The rating stuff is definitely subject to griefers. When you have gamers doing rating, there's always going to be a sense of "he beat me, fuck him!" and they might give you bad feedback for perceived issues that just aren't real.
--Dave

Strongly disagree. I think Ebay type systems are excellent. In fact, you can go to an weighted type system where you're not allowed to rate others until you build up your own rep after considerable play. You could even go so far as to have several different levels of "commentary" weight.

You can also have standard comments to pick from, "used poor language" or "used cheat/exploit techniques" or whatever to circumvent the keyboard issue.

I think it's asinine that online gaming hasn't used the power of the community in a more positive way.

[Dave Long]

I just disagree with that on the principle that gamers aren't usually very sociable folks. There's just too many "win or else" people out there that don't feel like they have any kind of consequences for their actions and basically...they don't.

I wish I had a rosier view of gamers in general, but really, I think the bottom line is the more your game leans toward hostility between players, the better they act in game. If everyone's supposed to have a hate on for the other guy, they take it out in the game and forget about it when they're done.

This smells like a column topic... :)

--Dave

[Mark Asher]

"I've never had a problem with the interfaces in PC games. If I want a unified interface, there's Gamespy Arcade. Most PC titles are supported through it one way or another. "


Most MMORPG's have had some of the worst most un-user friendly interfaces ever devised.

I thought we were talking about the interfaces that let players go online and start or join games -- I guess I wasn't clear, but that was the implied topic. If we're talking individual game interfaces, that has nothing to do with Xbox Live, PS2 online gaming, etc.

[Mark Asher]

I just disagree with that on the principle that gamers aren't usually very sociable folks. There's just too many "win or else" people out there that don't feel like they have any kind of consequences for their actions and basically...they don't.

I wish I had a rosier view of gamers in general, but really, I think the bottom line is the more your game leans toward hostility between players, the better they act in game. If everyone's supposed to have a hate on for the other guy, they take it out in the game and forget about it when they're done.

This smells like a column topic... :)

--Dave

A lot of the MMOs are social in nature. The vast majority of players peacefully co-exist in the games. Many go out of their way to be helpful.

[MattKeil]

The rating stuff is definitely subject to griefers. When you have gamers doing rating, there's always going to be a sense of "he beat me, fuck him!" and they might give you bad feedback for perceived issues that just aren't real.
--Dave

Strongly disagree. I think Ebay type systems are excellent. In fact, you can go to an weighted type system where you're not allowed to rate others until you build up your own rep after considerable play. You could even go so far as to have several different levels of "commentary" weight.

You can also have standard comments to pick from, "used poor language" or "used cheat/exploit techniques" or whatever to circumvent the keyboard issue.

I think it's asinine that online gaming hasn't used the power of the community in a more positive way.

Actually, Xbox Live offers exactly what you described. Well, you don't have to build up a ranking to rate people, but it keeps a list of recent opponents. You can go to any name on the list and leave feedback, which consists of preset choices like "Great session," "Good attitude," "Cheater," and "Used foul/abusive language."

Seems like a good idea on the surface, but I wonder just how tamper-proof it is when it comes to the idiot factor.

~MJK