Angled Whiteboards

Remember a month or so ago when I talked about doing “something in beta that was so cool, so currently impossible, and so not announced yet”? That something was sitting in front of my Mac Pro at home, navigating to Joust on the website, firing up the Lite Player, and playing a number of multiplayer Challenge! games against an unwitting public.

Consider the Mac version officially announced (and dated!). I’m all set to crush (and be crushed by) some Mac folks starting June 28th.

A minor (but oh, so welcome) update to the official GameTap Forums just went live: new activity in watched forums/threads is now emailed straight to your inbox. Say you really wanna keep up with a particular thread but know that you might not be up in the forums every last second to see if there’s something new. Just click the “Watch this Thread” link:

And BOOM: any replies will be sent your way. Want to make sure that any thread you start or reply to is automatically watched? That’s easy, too. Head to Your Watches and update it with the appropriate radio buttonry:

Oh me, where to begin? May 31 will bring lots of great new titles and features, including a whole new website where you can actually do stuff.

First, you might as well get used to referring to the GameTap you know and love as the Deluxe Player. In the past, we’ve talked about design changes that you saw in the Deluxe Player. Now we get to talk about design changes you’ll see there AND on the web AND in something new, the Lite Player.

We’ve been awfully quiet the past few months, working on a complete website/Deluxe/Lite experience that integrates a ton of features you’ve asked for. Features like user ratings, related games, user profiles and avatars, forums, enhanced search, shared playlists, quick game launch, and more.

On May 31, the tap opens to full blast - all these features (and more), plus free games, retail games via digital distribution, brand new games free for subscribers the very same day they go retail [read: Tomb Raider Anniversary, to begin with], GameTap TV on the web.

So, today you’ll see plenty of coverage out there talking about free games for people who don’t subscribe. (All you subscribers - another new term - you’re GameTap Gold!) What does that mean for you? How about more challengers in popular free Challenge! games [Metal Slug and King of Fighters series, anyone?], more folks mixing it up in the new forums, and a generally expanded community of like-minded gamers. And only you get unlimited access to all the games in the catalog, whenever, wherever. It’s 24/7.

It’s way cool. (And it’s been a crazy few months!)

The latest GameTap update includes a feature that was delayed from 1.8 (#7 - video refresh rate), a new smallish feature straight out of the suggestion box, and a lot of bug fixes.

From the suggestion box

I don’t ever want to register my high scores. There should be a way to get GameTap to stop asking me after each time I play a game.

Okay, we thought, that’s cool. You don’t want to post, you should be able to tell us one time and we won’t ever ask you again - you just zip right on to the next game. On the other hand, there are lots of you who want to post every score you make and you ought to be able to tell us that once too.

See, leaderboard posting was built to support multiple people playing the same game on the same machine (you and your bud playing a leaderboard game in two player mode - both of you make leaderboard-eligible scores, you ought to both be able to take credit, right?) Anyway, that’s why our high score posting form always asked for a screen name and a password before posting. (I use that feature to UNCHECK the embarrassing scores I don’t want posted )

So, where do you find this new option? It’s right where you need it, both in the form where you post your scores (A) and in the Leaderboard tab in My GameTap (B).

And the resulting popup? There you can select:

• Never post any leaderboard scores (and we won’t ask until you change your mind)
• Always post all leaderboard scores to whoever is logged on (and we won’t ask until you change your mind), and
• Always ask what scores to post and to whom (and we’ll ask every time)

You’ll still see the notification that you made a high score (and have the button to manually open the popup to post or change your settings), but we won’t interrupt you with a popup unless you’ve told us you want us to.

So those are the two new features in this patch, what about the bug fixes? Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find all nice and fixed:

• Map button 0 on controllers not in the officially supported list (batzradio found this bug, thanks batz!)
• No more scratchy sound in arcade games
• A handful of Windows games that wouldn’t run on dual core machines now will (Tomb Raider AOD, Silent Hill 3, and some others)
• And a bunch of other Vista related things

Minor update to the GameTap client today - the only real user-facing change you’ll see in it is in My GameTap/Playlists. Before today, if you moved or copied a game into a different playlist or if you deleted it entirely, we jumped back to the top of the list. (ugh) Now, if you do any of those things, your position in the list remains the same. As for the rest of what’s in today’s update? Just a few bug fixes.

It’s a big week for GameTap - version 1.8 is out today, delivering Vista support. But that’s not all - the rest of the update is wrapped around performance, usability, and a few requests from you via the Suggestion Box. To say nothing of Myst Online: Uru Live coming out of beta. And another stealth release AW exclusive easter egg from us.

So, what’s in 1.8? A few weeks ago, we posted a picture puzzle preview - a few of you guessed what the features were (and got a lot of them right). Here’s the skinny:

1. My Favorites becomes My Playlists - now you have the ability to create your own playlists on the fly. Add games to one or more lists and name them whatever you like. Use the new and improved Heart icon on the Infocard or in My GameTap/Playlists.
2. Manage all your downloaded games right up front in My GameTap/Playlists. See what’s downloaded, sort by name, size, or the last play date. Jump straight to the game or delete it from your cache to make room for more.
3. All new game download progress indicators, including a bandwidth meter. Plus, see the download size before you even begin. And, of course, download up to three in the background while you play another.
4. And, speaking of downloading in the background, now the download dots animate to show progress. See at a glance without a hover how much is left to go. And when it’s done, a nice little slide-up alert.
5. Take control of GameTap Home - page through the promos at your own pace or set the slide show going.
6. Don’t know what to play? Go to Search and spin the wheel with Gotta Getta Game. Try it, it’s surprisingly fun (and you might find some hidden gems).
7. Set your refresh rate. This feature got pulled at the last minute because it’s still buggy in Vista. Coming soon to a monitor near you.
8. And, back to game downloads - now you can pause and resume your game downloads indefinitely (meaning when you pause it, it stays paused until you resume it or cancel the download). Sweet!

But wait. There’s more. Here are a few things we managed to tuck in to the corners:

• Audio settings remembered between sessions
• Bypass the intro video - just hit ESC
• Mouse scroll through the subcats in the rings (thanks to Slack3r78)
• Delete a game from your cache right from the Infocard
• “Don’t show me this again” for certain notification popups
• Enhanced game system requirements, known issues, and possible solutions
• Animations that inform - Home animates up to its button in the top toolbar and background downloads animate down to the dot
• Enhanced hover/focus feedback on the promo posters in GameTap Home

And one last thing, for people installing GameTap for the first time. Now you can choose a different location for games and content. For those of you with GameTap already installed (aka pretty much everyone reading this blog), we’ll have some instructions for you soon on how to manually back up and move your games.

All in all, it’s a big week. We can put a checkmark next to dozens of feature requests made in the suggestion box and get busy on the next ones.

Enjoy!