Angled Whiteboards

19 Responses to “New this week.”

1. Exe Says:
   June 6th, 2007 at 11:52 am

   Thank you. Gametap is much more 64bit Vista friendly and I have resubscribed after only leaving for one month. You made this retro gamer VERY happy. I will continue to pimp your great service as I have done for over 9 months now

2. Aaron Says:
   June 6th, 2007 at 12:24 pm

   It is? I’m not saying it’s not; I’m at work, and all I did with GameTap last night was cry when the new Computer Lab animation would run (though every other one worked fine, “Alien Language” just showed where it should’ve showed .)

   Expand, please? Is the install/config playing nicer? Or are games actually launching now?

3. M.Nicolai Says:
   June 6th, 2007 at 2:09 pm

   Are new games on Tuesday now or is this an abberation caused by Ms. Croft?

4. xamount Says:
   June 6th, 2007 at 2:31 pm

   Aaron, both the Deluxe and Lite Players should launch while running 64 bit Vista (or XP). Any games that are playable in the Lite Player may also run.

   M.Nicolai, this week’s Tuesday release was indeed an abberation caused by a gun-wielding Ms. Croft. GameTap Thursdays will resume on June 14th.

5. Aaron Says:
   June 7th, 2007 at 4:59 am

   Hey, fantastic, it DID let me play a handful of games in x64 Vista! Certainly not full support yet, but it’s a promising move, and I’m quite happy! The sooner I can ditch my multi-boot, the better.

6. buster42 Says:
   June 7th, 2007 at 1:29 pm

   I’d love to know why I should play Castlevania, so when is it stop going to be a placeholder video?

7. oldbushie Says:
   June 7th, 2007 at 3:46 pm

   I’m loving the new look of Gametap 3.0! By the way, any idea if/when subtitles for Gametap TV will be implemented? I submitted it as a suggestion months ago but never heard anything.

8. xamount Says:
   June 8th, 2007 at 2:22 pm

   Thanks, oldbushie. As for subtitles implementation, all I can say is that it’s on the list of potential future enhancements. And while I certainly understand the value, I have to admit that we’ve only seen it in the Suggestion Box a couple of times (literally). If you know of other GameTap users that would benefit from subtitled GameTap TV, make sure they log their suggestion!

9. Barry Says:
   June 11th, 2007 at 2:22 pm

   I’m having big problems using the forums while I’m logged in there, so I’m gonna post this here:

   I can’t tell what games I can purchase as a gold member. Most of the games listed on the “Buy” page are actually available to me at no additional charge on GameTap Deluxe, but I’d like to know what all my options are If there’s a way to do this, I haven’t found it, but admittedly, the website doesn’t currently cooperate with my browser (Firefox, and yes, I’ve allowed Javascript and cookies ).

   It would also be useful for nonsubscribers so that they know that, say, game X is available if they subscribe, but they’ll have to separately purchase game Y even if they do subscribe. If there’s a way to do this already, let me know

   BTW - I really like the new site design. It’s got some wodginess in it, but it says “beta” right there at the top, so it’s okay

10. dinah Says:
    June 11th, 2007 at 3:16 pm

    Hi Barry. So glad you like the new site (even with its current beta wonkiness). First, can you tell me about the problems you’re experiencing with the forums on the site? Do these problems only plague you when you’re logged in there? (This is a new one that just cropped up yesterday).

    Now, to answer your question about what you can buy vs play as gold. As gold, you can play anything in the vault catalog. And anyone (gold or not) can buy the games in the Buy section. Your question is really “What’s the overlap?”, right? One way (and it’s laborious right now) is to go to the Game Browser. (you can find it in Play, or by searching on an empty field in the top nav from anywhere other than the forums). Depending on where you came from, the default view is different. If you came via Play or one of the Browse Catalog buttons, your view is games you can play as Gold. If you came via an empty search field, your default view is All Games.

    In the game browser, there’s a dropdown on the right side at the top of the filters. You can choose “All Games”, “Retail Games”, and “GameTap Catalog”. If you have “All Games” selected, you will see duplicate entries for the games you can both play as part of the gold service AND buy.

    Later this year, we’ll be reworking some of the top level filters in Browse/Search to help clarify results like this.

    Hope this helps a little. And please do write back about what is happening to you in the forums. You can either post it here, or email me at dinah@angledwhiteboards.com. Thank you.

11. Barry Says:
    June 11th, 2007 at 5:12 pm

    Yep, that’s exactly what I was asking.

    I’ll give it a shot later, but I think a lot of your Gold subscribers will be reluctant to buy a retail game if there’s some uncertainty as to whether or not it’s also available as part of Gold membership. I know there will probably be games I’d love to buy and play, but I would feel pretty strongly negative about it if it turned out that I blew my money on a game that I already had access to.

    As for the forums problem, when I’m logged out, it works just fine. The moment I log in, it displays like this:

    http://sokar.cwru.edu/images/gametapforumproblem.png

    The image is cropped. The point is that this is all that gets displayed. I can then go back to the Gametap home page, hit logout, and access the forums just fine again.

    Thanks much for the help

12. dinah Says:
    June 12th, 2007 at 7:32 am

    We *think* the forums issue was fixed last night. Can you try and report back?

    And the games in both places - we currently have an open defect to fix - If the game is available to both buy and play (as Gold), the game page itself should have a button “Also available to buy/play” on it. Once we have that, I think your primary concern is assuaged? (I’d be frustrated too, if I bought a game I could play for “free”)

13. oldbushie Says:
    June 12th, 2007 at 1:36 pm

    Thanks for the response, xamount! I’m glad to hear it’s at least on the potential enhancements list, and I do understand it’s not a top priority since the games are the main attraction of Gametap after all. As for the other things that did get implemented, the rating system is well implemented and I like how it’s much easier to search for the really good games now.

14. Barry Says:
    June 13th, 2007 at 2:47 am

    The forums are working now when I’m logged in. Nice work

    As for the “Also available to buy/play” thing, that would pretty much cover it, although I think “Also available to play” is sort of ambiguous as to what that means, since playing is what all games are for. Maybe “Included with Gold membership” and “Available for Purchase” (or something similar) would make more sense.

    Thanks much!

15. Barry Says:
    June 13th, 2007 at 2:58 am

    Doh… Actually, I spoke too soon

    I can log in at the GameTap homepage just fine, and I can thereafter view the forums just fine. But when I go to reply to a thread or start a new thread, it comes up with a separate login screen at this URL:

    https://account.gametap.com/storefront/loginWall/login.do

    When I log in, it patronizes me with a cheeseball login message , “Login success. Good job.” at this URL:

    https://account.gametap.com/storefront/three/login/loginSuccess.jsp

    And that’s it. If I go back to the forums and try again, I get the same result. Logging out at the main page and then logging in this way (instead of using the login form in the upper left of the homepage) does actually show me as being logged in if I go back to a previous page and hit reload, so the login part is working. It’s just that something goes wrong when I try to use the forums.

    On a side note, would it be possible to let us display a different name as our name on the forums? I’d rather just have it show “Barry” there rather than my TapID.

16. dinah Says:
    June 13th, 2007 at 8:40 am

    What? You don’t like that message? j/k

    I’ve sent your stuff over to our forums guy, because what you’re seeing is different from the problems others saw.

    As for showing a different name, you can add Barry to your tagline, or you could create a subaccount named Barry and post under that. But your TapID is your handle in the forums.

17. dinah Says:
    June 13th, 2007 at 9:17 am

    Barry - you don’t by any chance have your profile hidden, do you? Hiding your profile means you want to remain private (and it blocks your ability to post on the forums, play in challenge games, publish playlists, and other things that rely on having a public TapID and persona). Can you email me your TapID at dinah@angledwhiteboards.com, please?

18. Barry Says:
    June 13th, 2007 at 4:28 pm

    Doh, that fixed it. Pretty clearly, there should be some notification to the user that this is the problem, since sharing your profile is on GameTap’s end and isn’t something like a disabled cookies issue.

    Thanks much I’ll try to keep my customer support stuff over on the forums now that this is resolved

19. dinah Says:
    June 13th, 2007 at 10:20 pm

    My pleasure, and thanks for helping troubleshoot this!

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