Would you sacrifice online gaming for three pieces of avatar gear?
Microsoft needs a few guinea pigs for something called “Xbox Live Labs,” a program that runs network tests as you use your Xbox 360. In a recent reveal blog post, Major Nelson states that Xbox Live Labs is simply an initiative to perform tests and increase performance--none of the data will be used to find out who you are or anything.
There’s a catch and a reward for giving Microsoft a hand. The catch is that you won’t be able to do any online gaming or activities that require downloading while you’re running Xbox Live Labs. The reward is a zero point "Thank You" achievement and three pieces of avatar gear that make your little dude look like a mad scientist. See?
If this sounds like something you’d like to do, just head over to the “Community” channel on Xbox Live and then the Live Labs panel inside it. Tests will start at some point today and will run until March 27.
Microsoft needs a few guinea pigs for something called “Xbox Live Labs,” a program that runs network tests as you use your Xbox 360. In a recent reveal blog post, Major Nelson states that Xbox Live Labs is simply an initiative to perform tests and increase performance--none of the data will be used to find out who you are or anything.
There’s a catch and a reward for giving Microsoft a hand. The catch is that you won’t be able to do any online gaming or activities that require downloading while you’re running Xbox Live Labs. The reward is a zero point "Thank You" achievement and three pieces of avatar gear that make your little dude look like a mad scientist. See?
If this sounds like something you’d like to do, just head over to the “Community” channel on Xbox Live and then the Live Labs panel inside it. Tests will start at some point today and will run until March 27.
Meh, I'm alright. What exactly are they testing if they don't want you online? I would think they would be interested in the average gamers internet connection or something.
" Meh, I'm alright. What exactly are they testing if they don't want you online? I would think they would be interested in the average gamers internet connection or something. "
They'll probably send large packages back and forth to test different network solutions. They did also say it could slow down your internet connection significantly so I'm assuming they're trying to optimize and improve the download servers and xboxlive MP servers or something like that.
So Microsoft is using users, who most likely pay to use their service, to test things and while they are doing that users cannot use the service? Good to see the increased XBox Live subscription money is going directly into some guys pockets instead of improving the service.
" I wonder how long lab takes to do all this crap. "
I'm completely amazed that this article lacks what might be one of the most important details about this test. It's 6 hours total to do everything. There's a 30-minute test that must be continuous, an hour point, and a 6-hour point. I believe that after the 30-minutes you can stop and resume at your leisure. You definitely can after the 1 hour point. Your 360 doesn't need to be on for 6 hours straight. You can do three blocks of 2 hours, 4 blocks of 1.5 hours, etc.
" Meh, I'm alright. What exactly are they testing if they don't want you online? I would think they would be interested in the average gamers internet connection or something. "
This article is poorly written. They merely warn you that performance will be degraded during the test because it's using a lot of bandwidth. You can do whatever you want while the testing is happening, just not on your 360 because it's in use.
" So Microsoft is using users, who most likely pay to use their service, to test things and while they are doing that users cannot use the service? Good to see the increased XBox Live subscription money is going directly into some guys pockets instead of improving the service. "
How else are they supposed to perform widespread tests on a massive number of unique situations? I am so sick of people like you acting like they know everything. It's perfectly optional, and it helps improve the service. It's not like you're giving up precious gaming time to make them money, it's to improve the fucking service that you pay for. You could easily set this to run over night and it'd probably waste as much of your time and do as much harm to your 360 as an hour long gaming session. Instead of being arrogant, maybe you should try looking at something for more than two seconds. Or better yet, don't do it! That's why it's optional.
Four more hours left to go on this for me! After the 30 minutes test, you can stop and start it anytime you wish and resume your progress. It's totally optional and not a big deal at all.
" Wait, they're monitoring network settings and shit, but not letting you do anything that would affect them? I don't know if that makes sense or not. "
They are interested in what your connection can do, not what you are actually doing with it.
way to offer awesome rewards MS! I would think 10K points would have been cooler and like a free 3 month subscription for helping. Seeing as Sony's network is 100% free, this would be a drop in the bucket for MS to do. For Shame!
But wouldn't that be a good way of figuring out what it can do? For example, if I try to download something, but I can't, Microsoft now knows that my connection can't download shit.
@Video_Game_King: I'm no network specialist, but I think it would be easier to account for if all the network stuff was done with precisely known quantities.
" @Video_Game_King: I'm no network specialist, but I think it would be easier to account for if all the network stuff was done with precisely known quantities. "
Microsoft is following sound testing properties. They're controlling all the variables by locking down your connection to one setting, which gives them better data. If you change your NAT type in the middle of a test, it's bound to affect the outcome in a negative way.
That said, the fact that this is opt-in-only could prove to invalidate the data anyways,so...
" Four more hours left to go on this for me! After the 30 minutes test, you can stop and start it anytime you wish and resume your progress. It's totally optional and not a big deal at all. "
After 30 minutes and the first "achievement" I quit the program because I had to go out. I tried it again later, and it started from square one again :| Probably just my, but if you want to run the thing for the full six hours, you're probably better off doing it one shot to be safe.
@MysteriousBob: Well, I dunno about you but I would have thought that worldwide tests would be best, I can forgive them if they choose to roll our tests out a little later, I'd be incredibly annoyed if we didn't get this at all though
It's the principle that matters, I'm not interested in avatar clothes, hate the stupid things, but I'm sick and tired of us getting nothing, Catherine? US release, Persona 3 Portable? Still not out here and doubt it ever will be, various competitions? US only, subscription to gameinformer, the only gaming magazine really worth buying? nearly $100 for a 2 year sub, 4x the price the US has to pay. The list goes on and on. We either have to pay extra for the same stuff, or we never get it.
Sorry for the rant, but it's just grown really tiring reading new articles, getting myself excited or becoming even mildly interested about something, only to find out it's US only each and every time.
My 360 was manufactured on November 26th, 2005. Every RROD-free second is precious, so I don't think I'm going to leave it on to run network tests...¬_¬
I'm actually interested in participating to help improve Canadian access but it looks like a localized program that excludes Canada as per usual. I can understand Netflix and Last.fm not showing up because of rights issues but FFS if you're network testing in North America borders are not barriers!
Seems cool, I mean I'm not going to bother but I feel like they could probably do this in the background somehow without some people knowing... To a degree at least. So the fact they're publicly telling us and offering us something for pretty much doing nothing is cool.
On a side note: Their points reward scheme thing is really cool too, they just deposited like 130 MS points into my account for doing what I'd normally be doing in February. Not much but still, free's free right!
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