DeadWeezel

This is not a question that comes from arrogance or a feeling I know better, it has just been that in recent years I have seen the way people treat a beta test for an upcoming game drift away from bug hunts and more towards fevered marketing hype as if it was privileged early access to the game.

I won't ask who remembers the Halo 3 incident, because even those of us who do not see Halo as anything but a solid shooter were made abundantly aware of the beta test.  People went berserk, people bought another game just for access.
And then there was the Metal Gear Online 2 beta recently, where the first day or two did not even manage to let the majority of people log into the servers.

Oh people got very, very upset.  They were being denied their special slot!  This was the impression we got from many a gaming web log or forum, but to me that sounds like the start of a successful beta test for an on-line game.  Servers were not even close to capable of dealing with the influx of users.  That is something that needed to be fixed, and got fixed.

It used to be that in many a beta you could be suspended from participation if you failed to provide regular feedback to the developer, since the idea was to find as many problems as possible before launch.  Anyone remember QTest?  The version of Quake that was put out in 1996 for the sole reason of testing the new TCP/IP stack John Carmak had developed alongside the 3D engine?  That was a test of a game that existed before the demo did.  Since it was a beta (of a sort), a good deal of the visual and sound was not final.

It really does not matter, of course.  I was just curious.  Do developers these days, such as Bungie use the open beta tests simply to collect telemetry?  Those are some very smart people and I imagine they can automate collection of statistical data with more value than half the community of Halo players are even capable of noticing during play.  No offence to the Halo lovers here, but most of you will admit there are a good deal of people you have played against who would probably misspell their own name.

It's just a topic of interest, I wondered if anyone else had been thinking about this at all.

Absolutely not.  Hate tacked on controllers.

Come to that I hate the Wii remote.  Just cant stand holding it.

"It still blows my mind how people can still complain about the cost of Xbox Live.  It's like $4 a month. 
"

Mr Driller Online was, as Giant Bomb has said before, broken at launch.  The online component was broken.  Of Mr Driller Online.  Yeah.

And Lumines Live, I can tell you as a massive Lumines fan has game destroying lag.  I have no idea how but every game can be wrecked by something as simple as someone else on the same LAN accessing youtube.  Never got fixed.

Fact is you only find people playing games that people are playing.  This was a selection of broken and niche games, competition will be slim.

"the europe 60 gig ......the one that was recalled"

Every other console sounds different, even amongst the same model.

My EU launch 60GB unit starts off quiet but then winds up to small jet engine.  Doing nothing.
With a resource intense game like MGS4, in the hot summer weather it cranks up to Small Nuclear Device volume.  My friends post launch 40GB is silent.  All the time.

Fact is, it's usually just annoying, nothing more.  The PS3 and 360 create massive amounts of heat and need to move it out of the case as fast as possible.  This keeps the insides from frying.  The heat sync in the PS3 is huge and quite advanced, but different models have different cooling designs, and sometimes different fans.

The ambient temperature in your room makes a large difference too, as does ventilation.  Make sure you keep too much dust from going into the front and left hand side, do not keep it on anything like carpet because this will insulate and kill it.  Make sure it has enough room to eject heat from the back and right hand side, a few inches each should be ok.  If excess fluff of dust gets inside the console it can build up and prevent heat dissipation.

High end consumer electronics require a lot more care now than they used to.  But if you are only having problems with volume and not disc reading or hard lock-ups (again) then you are just dealing with a unit like mine, capable of cooling it's self down, but bloody loud.


----edit----

I know it's not important, but there is one single fan in the PS3, there are no "fan's".  Just sayin :P

I'm not anti-social.  I have never had an Xbox Live account, so I don't have any XBL friends at the moment... nor do I care to make any at this time, given my intermittent subscription status.  It's not fair to others if I have them add me as a friend and then I'm never around.

Here's the thing—Xbox Live, from what I've been told again and again—is supposed to be this amazing experience that's easy to get into and use, and is wildly popular because of it.  Yet I couldn't find people (at random) to play with.  Literally none.  Where, pray tell, am I supposed to make friends in the first place if no one is playing online?  Isn't that how you would go about it—meet people online in a game, and make friends with them to play again some other time, steadily amassing a list of fellow gamers?

I could always go onto Internet sites, like Giant Bomb, and make friends there—but that's Nintendo's bag, or so I've been told.  If this is what you're recommending to me, then I know a multitude of Xbox 360 fanboys who've got some 'splainin to do.  And I'll reiterate—I'm not anti-social, and if this is the best Microsoft can muster, I'm okay with that, but I will continue to seriously question why I should pay $50 a year for XBL when the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection (and PSN, for that matter) is free.
"

"Not to sound like a fanboy, but XBL is still better than PSN. Why elsewould they make home? the goodness of their hearts? No they wanted to make something better than XBL because the regular PSN cannot compete yet. XBL really is better service. Anyway, XBL isn't expensive. Microsoft cares little about me and even littler about you and your rant. They will not fix the demo thing nor make XBL Gold and Silver closer to equal. The more crappy silver is, the more people will want to upgrade to gold."

S'ok, been a long day.  Felt the need to join in again.  Nothing was levelled at your post.

And the long day starts again at 5am, which is upsettingly close.

G'night Bombers.

I have many friends on Live, half of which are life long meatspace associates.  And since I live outside the UK now it was good to chat to them while killing people who liked our scathing yet witty demeanour.  And I thought to myself, of my friends and cohorts...

FUCK 'EM.  FUCK THE LOT OF THEM.  They'd do the same to me!




Just sayin.  Aint all about being anti social.