Originally published  4/22/2007

Since Microsoft’s recent updates to Live have not really featured any additions for gamers, maybe they’ve run out of ideas.
 
The Friends List is great, but with the advent of so many XBLA games and the proliferation of online support in a lot of games, there’s an Xbox Live feature I think could benefit a lot of people: online availability.
 
How would it work? Using the “Games” interface where all of your owned/played games are shown, if you press “A” to get to the normal Achievements list, a bar would appear at the top (and be locked when scrolling through the Achievements) showing the number of available hosts for each game mode. The refresh rate would be maybe less than 30 seconds, but even 30 seconds would be useful if there are server scanning issues. This would be very helpful for people looking for open co-op games, one-on-one fighters (I’ve often seen people complain they never can find someone for Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat) and especially less-played/more obscure games.
 
I’m sure most people would prefer a summary and the game level if this type of feature existed, but by putting it at the “one game at a time” level I don’t think this would tax the XBL servers as much.
 
Two complementary features would be nice but are more difficult so while I will describe them I’d be happy with just the above to start.
 
Game Requests: Choose a game you would like to play and other players, while scanning their game list, would see the ones with requests. If you felt like playing you would accept the request which would then notify the original user. An example: you felt like playing a co-op match of Assault Heroes, and after sitting around waiting for a while you decided you’d rather be playing, you pull up the Dashboard, go to your Games list, select Assault Heroes and choose “Post Game Request”. After that maybe you pop in GRAW 2 and continue working on the single-player. Another user, not necessarily knowing what they feel like plying, pulls up their game list and sees an icon next to Assault Heroes and clicks it. From here they click “Show Available Requests” and get a list of GamerTags. The first user’s GamerTag is shown and can be clicked on for the normal messaging (such as to ask what game mode the other user wants and whether they plan on being host) or they can click “Accept Request” which then pops up a notification/auto-message on the first player’s screen and the two can then meet.
 
Dashboard Game-Themed Lobbies: The original Xbox had a chat feature at the Dashboard which allowed for more than one-on-one chat. It was still Friends-based so the change here would be to auto-create rooms themed to specific games. For example: you’re looking to chat about Earth Defense Force, a game with no online component, but you’d like to get opinions about it. Or maybe you’re a fan of the game and think other people with similar interests would be fun to hang out with while taking a break. You’d go to your “Games” list and choose Earth Defense Force and select “Join Chat” or “Open Chat” or “View Available Rooms”. Each chat room would support a maximum of 16 players. If no room existed yet, a new one would be created automatically. Otherwise you could browse rooms (with the host and number of players listed). From here you’d get a normal lobby, maybe a themed background, and it would be open chat similar to the Halo 2 lobby system. This would be great for getting people together, deciding on what you want to do next and even killing a little time.
 
Anyway, I’m always looking for new ways to take advantage of the Xbox Live network which I’ve been using for years, so any feedback or other ideas are always welcome.

Originally published  4/22/2007

Since Microsoft’s recent updates to Live have not really featured any additions for gamers, maybe they’ve run out of ideas.
 
The Friends List is great, but with the advent of so many XBLA games and the proliferation of online support in a lot of games, there’s an Xbox Live feature I think could benefit a lot of people: online availability.
 
How would it work? Using the “Games” interface where all of your owned/played games are shown, if you press “A” to get to the normal Achievements list, a bar would appear at the top (and be locked when scrolling through the Achievements) showing the number of available hosts for each game mode. The refresh rate would be maybe less than 30 seconds, but even 30 seconds would be useful if there are server scanning issues. This would be very helpful for people looking for open co-op games, one-on-one fighters (I’ve often seen people complain they never can find someone for Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat) and especially less-played/more obscure games.
 
I’m sure most people would prefer a summary and the game level if this type of feature existed, but by putting it at the “one game at a time” level I don’t think this would tax the XBL servers as much.
 
Two complementary features would be nice but are more difficult so while I will describe them I’d be happy with just the above to start.
 
Game Requests: Choose a game you would like to play and other players, while scanning their game list, would see the ones with requests. If you felt like playing you would accept the request which would then notify the original user. An example: you felt like playing a co-op match of Assault Heroes, and after sitting around waiting for a while you decided you’d rather be playing, you pull up the Dashboard, go to your Games list, select Assault Heroes and choose “Post Game Request”. After that maybe you pop in GRAW 2 and continue working on the single-player. Another user, not necessarily knowing what they feel like plying, pulls up their game list and sees an icon next to Assault Heroes and clicks it. From here they click “Show Available Requests” and get a list of GamerTags. The first user’s GamerTag is shown and can be clicked on for the normal messaging (such as to ask what game mode the other user wants and whether they plan on being host) or they can click “Accept Request” which then pops up a notification/auto-message on the first player’s screen and the two can then meet.
 
Dashboard Game-Themed Lobbies: The original Xbox had a chat feature at the Dashboard which allowed for more than one-on-one chat. It was still Friends-based so the change here would be to auto-create rooms themed to specific games. For example: you’re looking to chat about Earth Defense Force, a game with no online component, but you’d like to get opinions about it. Or maybe you’re a fan of the game and think other people with similar interests would be fun to hang out with while taking a break. You’d go to your “Games” list and choose Earth Defense Force and select “Join Chat” or “Open Chat” or “View Available Rooms”. Each chat room would support a maximum of 16 players. If no room existed yet, a new one would be created automatically. Otherwise you could browse rooms (with the host and number of players listed). From here you’d get a normal lobby, maybe a themed background, and it would be open chat similar to the Halo 2 lobby system. This would be great for getting people together, deciding on what you want to do next and even killing a little time.
 
Anyway, I’m always looking for new ways to take advantage of the Xbox Live network which I’ve been using for years, so any feedback or other ideas are always welcome.