Hook me up.
February 20th, 2007 by xamountWhile the 1.8 release certainly added a number of features, super-attentive GameTap users might have noticed the disappearance of one as well. Starting with this last release, Instant Match has gone into hibernation. Based on usage patterns and just plain seeing it in action, we determined that the Instant Match implementation we’d launched with wasn’t working.
Now we have an opportunity to potentially improve the feature. So. What would you like to see? Without getting into too much detail and biasing your ideas: the initial idea behind Instant Match was to quickly and easily help people find someone (anyone, actually — and without having to directly challenge an indentified player) to play a particular Challenge! game with. Please give us your suggestions, and/or fill out the poll below.
February 20th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I would always try instant match-up, but I don’t think it would ever really work. That’s probably one of the main reasons I stopped playing challenge games. It just takes too long to find someone to play with. That, and the fact that I always gets stuttering in the games, especially in Bust A Move (the best challenge game). Both the video and sound would have hiccups.
February 20th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
for me, challenge games online are only remotely analogous to playing a game with friends in an arcade. there, you get the subtle tactics of leaning a little too far to the right or left, verbal taunting, and other forms of gamesmanship that cannot be replicated online, such as crowds of avid spectators, management coming by and telling you to quit being so loud, etc, etc, etc.
“challenge” is also a nonsequitor in terms of dual-player games such as the 1942 series, where you work together and at most try to get the most points.
the ideas for running tournaments and the like could bring a bit more life into the multiplayer arcade aspect of things, but for me, it would still be missing an ambiance that can’t really be replicated. add to that the hurry-up-and wait for a random opponent of questions system and bandwidth, and it never manged to snag my loyalty, i’m sad to say.
February 20th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
The few times I’ve used the instant match, I didn’t have much of a problem getting into a game fairly quickly (within a minute or two).
However, I much prefer gaming with people I know, so I generally do the direct challenge thing.
I also wanna second the “challenge” term being a little misleading for some games… it makes people focus solely on score instead of working together on said games (which is part of the reason I stopped playing with random people).