The blog
You can never guess what I've been doing...
2009-09-10 4:58 PM PDT
Or rather, it won't be that hard to figure out what I've been playing for the last week.
You see, in last weeks Xfire Charts, I discovered a "new" game. Heroes of Newerth.
And, since I really didn't know what I was, I had to go do some research. As it turns out, HoN is a new game, heavily inspired by WC3 mod DotA, and the cool thing is that it provides better graphics as well as other new features that people have wanted for a while. So all is fine and dandy with that.
But, I felt that it was my mission to really check this game out, so I scoured the earth searching for a key. And guess what, I found one (or rather, it's complicated. I've been able to play the game, and that's what counts).
And to tell you the truth, it's really quite a good game! If you, like me, quite like/liked DotA, it's not impossible that you'll really like HoN.
This video that I'm about to post is a little bit lame, it's taken from the practice mode in the game, but at least it shows you that the game is quite a lot better looking than WC3.
Xfire video of the week -
Heroes of Newerth practice mode by wempa
If you get a chance, you should really try the game. It's currently in closed beta, but I bet an open beta will come sooner or later. And, if you like this video, or any other videos on Xfire, you should really head over and join The Official Xfire Video Community now!
Hans
You see, in last weeks Xfire Charts, I discovered a "new" game. Heroes of Newerth.
And, since I really didn't know what I was, I had to go do some research. As it turns out, HoN is a new game, heavily inspired by WC3 mod DotA, and the cool thing is that it provides better graphics as well as other new features that people have wanted for a while. So all is fine and dandy with that.
But, I felt that it was my mission to really check this game out, so I scoured the earth searching for a key. And guess what, I found one (or rather, it's complicated. I've been able to play the game, and that's what counts).
And to tell you the truth, it's really quite a good game! If you, like me, quite like/liked DotA, it's not impossible that you'll really like HoN.
This video that I'm about to post is a little bit lame, it's taken from the practice mode in the game, but at least it shows you that the game is quite a lot better looking than WC3.
Xfire video of the week -
Heroes of Newerth practice mode by wempa
If you get a chance, you should really try the game. It's currently in closed beta, but I bet an open beta will come sooner or later. And, if you like this video, or any other videos on Xfire, you should really head over and join The Official Xfire Video Community now!
Hans
Xfire Release 1.114
2009-09-09 10:33 AM PDT
Hello everybody! The special date today is 09/09/09. The special thing today is that I am writing a blog post about Xfire release number 114. Normally the Xfire updates are activated between Monday and Tuesday, but this Monday there was Labor Day in the US, so the update was moved to Tuesday (Wednesday for users behind UTC+2 time zone).
The Release notes for this version seems technical. There has been a lot of work done on Live Video broadcasting feature. Now it uses lesser bandwidth requirement by default and has more available settings for bandwidth usage. Also the CPU usage has been decreased among with other little problems.
As I mentioned in the beta post, problems with logging in to @msn.com accounts in the alpha feature of using other IM networks, is now fixed. According to the Technical Support forums, though, there are still many problems with the multiple messenger support.
Multiple users had complained how their screenshot gallery had disappeared from the Xfire client. Now it appears that there was a bug that caused the list to be empty in case the user had more than 5000 screenshots uploaded. That is a huge amount! I hope other improvements will be done with this in the future, such as dividing it to pages. It would be pain to open the screenshot page of one of those users and wait for the web browser to load thousands of thumbnails.
For some people the most significant change in this release is the fix to incompatibility with Internet Explorer 8 combined with certain system settings that would make Xfire completely unusable. A big thanks for this goes to Xfire users who handed out great amount of information of their systems and that helped Xfire team to find out what is going wrong in those computers.
Known issues
Unfortunately this release couldn't get off with clean papers. I found out a problem with Xfire's video encoder right before the beta testing ended. Of course this issue couldn't get fixed for the release, but the release confirmed it to be a problem for more...
The Release notes for this version seems technical. There has been a lot of work done on Live Video broadcasting feature. Now it uses lesser bandwidth requirement by default and has more available settings for bandwidth usage. Also the CPU usage has been decreased among with other little problems.
As I mentioned in the beta post, problems with logging in to @msn.com accounts in the alpha feature of using other IM networks, is now fixed. According to the Technical Support forums, though, there are still many problems with the multiple messenger support.
Multiple users had complained how their screenshot gallery had disappeared from the Xfire client. Now it appears that there was a bug that caused the list to be empty in case the user had more than 5000 screenshots uploaded. That is a huge amount! I hope other improvements will be done with this in the future, such as dividing it to pages. It would be pain to open the screenshot page of one of those users and wait for the web browser to load thousands of thumbnails.
For some people the most significant change in this release is the fix to incompatibility with Internet Explorer 8 combined with certain system settings that would make Xfire completely unusable. A big thanks for this goes to Xfire users who handed out great amount of information of their systems and that helped Xfire team to find out what is going wrong in those computers.
Known issues
Unfortunately this release couldn't get off with clean papers. I found out a problem with Xfire's video encoder right before the beta testing ended. Of course this issue couldn't get fixed for the release, but the release confirmed it to be a problem for more...
GODJonez's Workshop - Managing games in ...
2009-09-04 5:37 PM PDT
Hello and welcome back to the wonderful technical world of Xfire with your (I hope) favorite guide Joonas aka GODJonez! This time I'll show you how to manage your game collection in Xfire.
As with most Xfire management functions, this one can also be accessed from the Options dialog. You can get there from the Tools menu:
To get to manage the games on Xfire, naturally next step would be entering the Games tab in the Options window. When you enter that tab, Xfire will run through the game detection process:
During this process Xfire checks if any of the games with "Automatically Detect" are installed on your computer to mark them as installed, and it also checks if you have uninstalled any of the games that were previously found installed. (as an advanced detail Xfire also reloads the xfire_games.ini file for this process)
Once the detection is done you can see the list of games that are currently found installed on your computer. This is where you can manage the game detection and settings for the games. I have highlighted three different areas with colored borders here, I'll be referring to the colors later when going through the parts in detail:
The violet part is the actual game list. It's divided in two categories: Installed and Not Installed. Initially the "Installed" category is expanded (arrow down) and the "Not Installed" is closed (arrow right, as in the screenshot above). You can open and close them by double clicking.
The games on Installed category are those that Xfire currently sees as being installed on your computer. If you want to change the settings of any of them, select one by clicking on the name with your mouse. If a game you have installed is not listed there, you can try changing its detection settings by selecting it from Not Installed list after opening it.
The green area holds the detection options for the selected game. Normally all games are set to "Automatically Detect". This setting makes Xfire rely on the...
As with most Xfire management functions, this one can also be accessed from the Options dialog. You can get there from the Tools menu:
To get to manage the games on Xfire, naturally next step would be entering the Games tab in the Options window. When you enter that tab, Xfire will run through the game detection process:
During this process Xfire checks if any of the games with "Automatically Detect" are installed on your computer to mark them as installed, and it also checks if you have uninstalled any of the games that were previously found installed. (as an advanced detail Xfire also reloads the xfire_games.ini file for this process)
Once the detection is done you can see the list of games that are currently found installed on your computer. This is where you can manage the game detection and settings for the games. I have highlighted three different areas with colored borders here, I'll be referring to the colors later when going through the parts in detail:
The violet part is the actual game list. It's divided in two categories: Installed and Not Installed. Initially the "Installed" category is expanded (arrow down) and the "Not Installed" is closed (arrow right, as in the screenshot above). You can open and close them by double clicking.
The games on Installed category are those that Xfire currently sees as being installed on your computer. If you want to change the settings of any of them, select one by clicking on the name with your mouse. If a game you have installed is not listed there, you can try changing its detection settings by selecting it from Not Installed list after opening it.
The green area holds the detection options for the selected game. Normally all games are set to "Automatically Detect". This setting makes Xfire rely on the...
Video of the Week - Revived!
2009-09-03 3:37 PM PDT
That's right. The Video of the Week is returning after a summer break, and I thought we'd start on a bang! (You usually go out on a bang, but here, we do things differently)
I can actually go ahead and admit that I've been playing some Xbox 360 over the last few weeks, and in particular the new Wolfenstein game. But, as a real FPS lover on PC, I absolutely hate the way you maneuver. You really need a keyboard and mouse to be able to play well. One thing that is definitely easier to do while using a keyboard and mouse is a really cool headshot. You know, the kind where you just go by reflexes.
And, I thought I'd show you one of those right now.
Xfire video of the week -
n 1 c k `,' by ► Ď Ø Ľ Ķ Ý ◄
Huh? How about that for a cool headshot! It might just have been luck, but none the less, it's awesome.
And, if you like this video and want to get tips of other ones, or if you are just plain curious to see what's going on with videos, video broadcast and video recording on Xfire, become a member of the The Official Xfire Video Community now!
Hans
I can actually go ahead and admit that I've been playing some Xbox 360 over the last few weeks, and in particular the new Wolfenstein game. But, as a real FPS lover on PC, I absolutely hate the way you maneuver. You really need a keyboard and mouse to be able to play well. One thing that is definitely easier to do while using a keyboard and mouse is a really cool headshot. You know, the kind where you just go by reflexes.
And, I thought I'd show you one of those right now.
Xfire video of the week -
n 1 c k `,' by ► Ď Ø Ľ Ķ Ý ◄
Huh? How about that for a cool headshot! It might just have been luck, but none the less, it's awesome.
And, if you like this video and want to get tips of other ones, or if you are just plain curious to see what's going on with videos, video broadcast and video recording on Xfire, become a member of the The Official Xfire Video Community now!
Hans
Finally, we're back!
2009-09-02 4:45 PM PDT
Press View entry to see the entire chart, and my awesome comments!
- August 24th - August 30th
01. World of Warcraft
02. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Multiplayer
03. Call of Duty 2 Multiplayer
04. Counter-Strike: Source
05. Battlefield 2
06. Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne
07. Guild Wars
08. Call of Duty: World at War Multiplayer
09. Silkroad Online
10. Team Fortress 2 (+1)
11. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (-1)
12. Heroes of newerth (+2)
13. Eve Online (+1)
14. Combat Arms (-2)
15. Metin 2 (+3)
16. Left 4 Dead (-1)
17. The Lord of the Rings Online
18. MapleStory (-2)
19. Diablo II: Lord of destruction (+5)
20. Counter-Strike 1.6 (+2)
We haven't had an edition of the Xfire charts for a couple of weeks and that's due to some late summer vacations, a lot of other stuff going on, and some considerable drunkenness. Or rather, let's forget about the last one. There was no alcohol involved.
Still, here we are, and the charts are back!
I think we can start by concluding that not that much has happened from where we left off. No new games to talk about, and no other major stuff going on.
It's like it usually is, with the Top 15 being basically unchanged, and the bottom having its share of the ruckus. Or wait.
What's this? Heroes of newerth at place 12? I guess it's a typo of some sort. I haven't even heard of a game called Heroes of Newerth.
*Goes to check stats*
Hmm. That's wierd. I guess I have to go google a bit. Aha, it's some sort of DotA inspired strategy. That explains a thing or two. It's still in closed beta, it seems. But hold on a sec. A game in closed beta is this near the Top 10 on the Xfire charts? Jikes!
I need to try and get myself an account or key, and check it out. This could be something epic in the happening. I'm guessing a lot of the action that Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne is getting on the charts is thanks to DotA. What if that were to be replaced with Heroes of Newerth?
I guess we have a couple of really interesting weeks ahead....
Xfire Beta release 1.114
2009-09-02 5:09 AM PDT
Hello, it's Joonas with some Xfire related news. This is kind of embarrassing, though. The previous time I said that I could be posting workshop posts weekly and what happened? I didn't post one last week. I do have a good reason for that though, or at least a good excuse... a big birthday party.
But let's not think of the past. Even if I have been away for a bit it doesn't seem like the Xfire developers have been inactive, for there is a new beta available of the next Xfire version. As always the beta can be downloaded from Xfire Beta Testing Team page.
As one could imagine, the changes this time are mostly improvements over to the new features from previous version. This means lots of work done to the live broadcasting system that was completely reworked for previous version. The system has been optimized in many ways and the broadcast quality settings have been revised.
As you can see, the quality options now have more detailed information about which kind of connections they are designed for. I don't see why they put DSL so down since at least around here you can get much better speeds with DSL connections than with cable. Of course I will try the highest setting because my ADSL upload speed is 2 Mbit/s.
On other fronts, the MSN support has been improved. On the initial 1.113 launch there were some problems with some Live accounts unable to be used in Xfire. Now those should work.
The previous releases also included favorite community servers displaying. This caused potential crashes for some people, though, but should also now be fixed. Another bug causing Xfire to become unusable was freezing on startup caused by Internet Explorer 8 on some systems. The 1.114 Beta Notes claim that this has now also been fixed.
If any of the improvements listed here applied to you, please go ahead and try the new beta version and provide feedback at the beta testing forum. Especially if you had problems with the broadcast feature or logging in to MSN accounts before, you are encouraged to try if the...
But let's not think of the past. Even if I have been away for a bit it doesn't seem like the Xfire developers have been inactive, for there is a new beta available of the next Xfire version. As always the beta can be downloaded from Xfire Beta Testing Team page.
As one could imagine, the changes this time are mostly improvements over to the new features from previous version. This means lots of work done to the live broadcasting system that was completely reworked for previous version. The system has been optimized in many ways and the broadcast quality settings have been revised.
As you can see, the quality options now have more detailed information about which kind of connections they are designed for. I don't see why they put DSL so down since at least around here you can get much better speeds with DSL connections than with cable. Of course I will try the highest setting because my ADSL upload speed is 2 Mbit/s.
On other fronts, the MSN support has been improved. On the initial 1.113 launch there were some problems with some Live accounts unable to be used in Xfire. Now those should work.
The previous releases also included favorite community servers displaying. This caused potential crashes for some people, though, but should also now be fixed. Another bug causing Xfire to become unusable was freezing on startup caused by Internet Explorer 8 on some systems. The 1.114 Beta Notes claim that this has now also been fixed.
If any of the improvements listed here applied to you, please go ahead and try the new beta version and provide feedback at the beta testing forum. Especially if you had problems with the broadcast feature or logging in to MSN accounts before, you are encouraged to try if the...
So, that's what you want to play!
2009-08-26 5:24 AM PDT
I'm not sure if you remember, but a couple of weeks ago I asked you what games you are looking forward to playing the most, and well, after counting all of the answers, I now have an answer for you!
The winner is, by a large margin:
Oh, how glorious! Pajama Sam. It really does look like a fantastic game, with the whole point and click action, and I guess that it's a good thing that we're moving away from the whole killing-people type of experience. But, I don't know if it's personally the game I'm looking forward to the most. None the less, you've had your say, and with like 75% of the votes for Pajama Sam it's not much to argue with.
Oh, no. Hold on a second now. Looking at my notebook once more, I think I might have misread something. It doesn't say PS, it says MW2. That's right.
The most anticipated game on Xfire right now is:
Modern Warfare 2
After going through the replies I got, and picking out the most voted for games, it's obvious that Modern Warfare 2 is in the top. It has more than twice the votes of the second most voted for game, which is Star Wars: The Old Republic. And almost four times as many votes as #3, which is Diablo 3.
I might be responsible for pushing people a bit in one direction, since I actually mentioned a few games in the question, which I perhaps shouldn't have. Still, Diablo 3 wasn't mentioned, and a lot of people voted for that.
I don't think it's a surprise that MW2 got as many votes as it did, and if it's nearly as good as Modern Warfare, it will be an awesome game. I'm definitely one of the people looking forward to it.
Some of the other games that were voted for were, without rank, Battlefield 3, Battlefield 1943, Aion, Starcraft 2, Mass Effect 2 and Wolfenstein (which is out now!).
What do you think, was it what you expected?
Hans
The winner is, by a large margin:
Pajama Sam's No Need to Hide
Oh, how glorious! Pajama Sam. It really does look like a fantastic game, with the whole point and click action, and I guess that it's a good thing that we're moving away from the whole killing-people type of experience. But, I don't know if it's personally the game I'm looking forward to the most. None the less, you've had your say, and with like 75% of the votes for Pajama Sam it's not much to argue with.
Oh, no. Hold on a second now. Looking at my notebook once more, I think I might have misread something. It doesn't say PS, it says MW2. That's right.
The most anticipated game on Xfire right now is:
Modern Warfare 2
After going through the replies I got, and picking out the most voted for games, it's obvious that Modern Warfare 2 is in the top. It has more than twice the votes of the second most voted for game, which is Star Wars: The Old Republic. And almost four times as many votes as #3, which is Diablo 3.
I might be responsible for pushing people a bit in one direction, since I actually mentioned a few games in the question, which I perhaps shouldn't have. Still, Diablo 3 wasn't mentioned, and a lot of people voted for that.
I don't think it's a surprise that MW2 got as many votes as it did, and if it's nearly as good as Modern Warfare, it will be an awesome game. I'm definitely one of the people looking forward to it.
Some of the other games that were voted for were, without rank, Battlefield 3, Battlefield 1943, Aion, Starcraft 2, Mass Effect 2 and Wolfenstein (which is out now!).
What do you think, was it what you expected?
Hans
What happened to GODJonez's Workshop?
2009-08-21 4:23 PM PDT
So last week I posted about the Xfire 1.113 beta on Friday even though the beta was released a couple of days earlier. And normally I have something else to post in my weekly workshop post on Friday. I guess it's time for an explanation.
The thing is, I ordered parts for a new computer over 3 months ago. Thanks to the problems with supplying Radeon 4770 cards to the market, I had been waiting and waiting and adjusting my order for quite a long time. Last week, the same day the Xfire beta was released, I got my computer parts, excluding the video card. No way I would pass on the chance to finally get my hands on the new shiny things, so I even skipped my duties to write up about the beta here on the blog.
But we are all gamers, aren't we? So getting the new computer set up for gaming takes priority. Do we have an agreement on this? Well, I hope most of you who want to participate in the Xfire Beta program already had joined the Xfire Beta team and got a notification from there directly once the beta testing was open.
Now that I have this settled in, I can get back to normal operations and provide insightful technical articles once again, once a week.
If you want to read the full story of my computer related adventures last week, see my personal Xfire blog:
Half-new computer, part 1
Half-new computer, part 2
It's in two parts because apparently there is a limit to a blog post length on Xfire blogs and I managed to hit it. So yeah, there is quite a lot to read there. Or you can just look at all the photos I took from the two days
Oh, btw, did you notice that the bug with editing community members with that search field has been fixed? That is, if you knew about the bug at all... but now you know Xfire team has just fixed one more bug to make the service closer to perfection
So see you next week with the more or less usual content.
Joonas
The thing is, I ordered parts for a new computer over 3 months ago. Thanks to the problems with supplying Radeon 4770 cards to the market, I had been waiting and waiting and adjusting my order for quite a long time. Last week, the same day the Xfire beta was released, I got my computer parts, excluding the video card. No way I would pass on the chance to finally get my hands on the new shiny things, so I even skipped my duties to write up about the beta here on the blog.
But we are all gamers, aren't we? So getting the new computer set up for gaming takes priority. Do we have an agreement on this? Well, I hope most of you who want to participate in the Xfire Beta program already had joined the Xfire Beta team and got a notification from there directly once the beta testing was open.
Now that I have this settled in, I can get back to normal operations and provide insightful technical articles once again, once a week.
If you want to read the full story of my computer related adventures last week, see my personal Xfire blog:
Half-new computer, part 1
Half-new computer, part 2
It's in two parts because apparently there is a limit to a blog post length on Xfire blogs and I managed to hit it. So yeah, there is quite a lot to read there. Or you can just look at all the photos I took from the two days
Oh, btw, did you notice that the bug with editing community members with that search field has been fixed? That is, if you knew about the bug at all... but now you know Xfire team has just fixed one more bug to make the service closer to perfection
So see you next week with the more or less usual content.
Joonas
Fancy new broadcasting system is fancy!
2009-08-20 2:14 PM PDT
Heeey, I'm back! After a "small" encounter with the flu, I'm now back on my feet and ready to take care of things again. And, now that I'm back, I should tell you of one of the newest things with Xfire. I talked a little bit on twitter and facebook about the much anticipated MSN support that's now been added, but there's another thing as well, and that's the kick-ass changes we've implemented on our live streaming video's.
One of the main improvements that comes from us switching provider of the broadcasting feature is that you no longer need a separate plug-in to watch the video's, and we all like that, you know, the whole "keep it simple"-mantra.
And, after watching a few videos just now, it seems like we've really ironed out some of the more irritating stuff with how it worked before. It's all pretty smooth now, not choppy and the quality is good!
You should really go check it out too, and why not try it out for yourself?
Why should you broadcast? It's simple! Because you own, and the world should get to see it.
Check out live video's currently beaing broadcast here!
Hans
One of the main improvements that comes from us switching provider of the broadcasting feature is that you no longer need a separate plug-in to watch the video's, and we all like that, you know, the whole "keep it simple"-mantra.
And, after watching a few videos just now, it seems like we've really ironed out some of the more irritating stuff with how it worked before. It's all pretty smooth now, not choppy and the quality is good!
You should really go check it out too, and why not try it out for yourself?
Why should you broadcast? It's simple! Because you own, and the world should get to see it.
Check out live video's currently beaing broadcast here!
Hans
Xfire Release 1.113
2009-08-18 1:53 PM PDT
The beta of 1.113 is no longer beta. It's official. As always, the official release notes are available at http://media.xfire.com/xfire/readme.html, but this time there are even Technical notes available.
As mentioned in the Beta post, this release includes community favorite servers inside the client for easy and quick access.
Several improvements and changes were made to the video recording system. Now you can upload videos right after exiting the game just like you can do with screenshots. No need to go find the video from the client and right click on it to upload anymore. Maybe even bigger change is Xfire moving the live broadcast feature using service from Livestream. This feature is still in BETA, so various things are being run through and experimented with to find out the best possible way to implement it. The new broadcast streams are also embeddable, something many people have longed for.
Many people also faced a bug that when there are lots of uploaded screenshots, they start to disappear from the client making managing screenshots that way quite impossible. This bug is now fixed, thanks to helpful beta testers providing valuable information to the Xfire developers.
The technical notes also mention support for MSN protocol. Now it is possible to add your Windows Live Messenger account in Xfire similarly as you have been able to with AIM accounts for some time. This feature is still in very early stages and has lots of problems, some small, some bigger. In fact, it might not work at all for some people. But it is the valuable input from Xfire's users that drives development forward. Good reports of what is broken really helps the developer team to fix them. And there has been a lot of data from users from during the beta period of 1.113 and it wouldn't be a miracle that there is going to be a lot more now that everyone has moved to using the new Xfire version.
Well, excluding those who already use other multi-messenger programs with unofficial Xfire plugins, instead of the real...
As mentioned in the Beta post, this release includes community favorite servers inside the client for easy and quick access.
Several improvements and changes were made to the video recording system. Now you can upload videos right after exiting the game just like you can do with screenshots. No need to go find the video from the client and right click on it to upload anymore. Maybe even bigger change is Xfire moving the live broadcast feature using service from Livestream. This feature is still in BETA, so various things are being run through and experimented with to find out the best possible way to implement it. The new broadcast streams are also embeddable, something many people have longed for.
Many people also faced a bug that when there are lots of uploaded screenshots, they start to disappear from the client making managing screenshots that way quite impossible. This bug is now fixed, thanks to helpful beta testers providing valuable information to the Xfire developers.
The technical notes also mention support for MSN protocol. Now it is possible to add your Windows Live Messenger account in Xfire similarly as you have been able to with AIM accounts for some time. This feature is still in very early stages and has lots of problems, some small, some bigger. In fact, it might not work at all for some people. But it is the valuable input from Xfire's users that drives development forward. Good reports of what is broken really helps the developer team to fix them. And there has been a lot of data from users from during the beta period of 1.113 and it wouldn't be a miracle that there is going to be a lot more now that everyone has moved to using the new Xfire version.
Well, excluding those who already use other multi-messenger programs with unofficial Xfire plugins, instead of the real...
