The blog
Xfire beta release 1.112
2009-07-21 1:05 PM PDT
Good evening, it's Joonas here, as you might have predicted. Hans already mentioned about upcoming Xfire update and possible beta release, so here I am, pleased to announce that the beta of the next Xfire version, 1.112, is now publicly available for testing by anyone who wants to do their part in making sure the full update next week will have no big bad problems.
This new release does not have any big changes in the visible side, but more than that under the hood. Some problems with logging in to AIM accounts have been fixed and a problem with COD2 showing memory errors with Xfire also has a fix in place.
One of the most influential problems in Xfire's history, incompatibility with Internet Explorer 8 on some computers, now has a possible fix built in. So if you are one of those whose Xfire has been crashing or not working properly since updating to IE8, I really recommend you to test Xfire 1.112 beta so that you can give direct feedback to Xfire if the new version fixes the problem or not.
Other updated things are related to video capture and broadcasting. Apparently there have been huge changes in low level regarding these, since the new broadcast method is not even compatible with the current one. According to the release notes there have been fixes to recording and encoding videos too. Personally I hope this means fixing of the sound desync and speed problems.
Too bad I am currently on an inferior laptop that can barely run Counter-Strike 1.6 and even that without Xfire In-Game, so I cannot really test the new beta myself. For that I would be glad if you'd test out the beta and bring your experiences as comments here.
The official Beta news post is at Xfire Beta clan and the release notes for 1.112 beta releases can be found from the beta forums.
Thank you for helping us help you help us all.
Joonas
This new release does not have any big changes in the visible side, but more than that under the hood. Some problems with logging in to AIM accounts have been fixed and a problem with COD2 showing memory errors with Xfire also has a fix in place.
One of the most influential problems in Xfire's history, incompatibility with Internet Explorer 8 on some computers, now has a possible fix built in. So if you are one of those whose Xfire has been crashing or not working properly since updating to IE8, I really recommend you to test Xfire 1.112 beta so that you can give direct feedback to Xfire if the new version fixes the problem or not.
Other updated things are related to video capture and broadcasting. Apparently there have been huge changes in low level regarding these, since the new broadcast method is not even compatible with the current one. According to the release notes there have been fixes to recording and encoding videos too. Personally I hope this means fixing of the sound desync and speed problems.
Too bad I am currently on an inferior laptop that can barely run Counter-Strike 1.6 and even that without Xfire In-Game, so I cannot really test the new beta myself. For that I would be glad if you'd test out the beta and bring your experiences as comments here.
The official Beta news post is at Xfire Beta clan and the release notes for 1.112 beta releases can be found from the beta forums.
Thank you for helping us help you help us all.
Joonas
It's peanut butter schedule time!
2009-07-21 9:39 AM PDT
I just went and reactivated my Age of Conan account, since they're giving you 14 days for free if you've played the game before. Pretty sweet, actually. According to http://bit.ly/wONiC there's been a lot of new content added. Like new level 80 dungeons, a new 50+ area, some 70+ missions and stuff. Not shabby.
The problem is, of course, that my guild has sort of disbanded. I need to try and find another one to get the most out of the 14 days, I feel. Doing hard dungeons with random people really isn't the most fun you can ever have.
The cool thing is that the free 14-day offer matches pretty nicely with the Video Capture Contest we've got going on now. You could download the game, make the video tonight and start gathering up votes, and you might have a shot at the prizes!
And, while you download the game, you can check what we have to offer in the near future in the schedule that's below!
July 10th - July 24th
Age of Conan Video Capture Contest
The event is ending in a couple of days, but all is not lost. If you hurry up, you still have time to participate. We've got some really nice prizes from OCZ for the lucky people that win. It's stuff worth like 2000$, so we're not talking about some t-shirts and paper bags here.
Muscles. Tan. Conan.
July 27th
Xfire Release 1.112
I couldn't find anything about a beta of next week's release yet, but I'm sure that as soon as that's up, Joonas will be back with a load of information regarding what stuff will be included in the next release.
It usually arrives on Tuesdays, so I guess you might get that post later tonight.
Doobi-doo, Xfire, I love you!
July 28th - August 7th
Sudden Attack Play 2 Win
I made a post to Facebook (<--- you can click that to become a fan of Xfire on Facebook) earlier today, and this is what I said.
I think it pretty much sums up the awesomeness of this Play 2 Win contest. It...
The problem is, of course, that my guild has sort of disbanded. I need to try and find another one to get the most out of the 14 days, I feel. Doing hard dungeons with random people really isn't the most fun you can ever have.
The cool thing is that the free 14-day offer matches pretty nicely with the Video Capture Contest we've got going on now. You could download the game, make the video tonight and start gathering up votes, and you might have a shot at the prizes!
And, while you download the game, you can check what we have to offer in the near future in the schedule that's below!
July 10th - July 24th
Age of Conan Video Capture Contest
The event is ending in a couple of days, but all is not lost. If you hurry up, you still have time to participate. We've got some really nice prizes from OCZ for the lucky people that win. It's stuff worth like 2000$, so we're not talking about some t-shirts and paper bags here.
Muscles. Tan. Conan.
July 27th
Xfire Release 1.112
I couldn't find anything about a beta of next week's release yet, but I'm sure that as soon as that's up, Joonas will be back with a load of information regarding what stuff will be included in the next release.
It usually arrives on Tuesdays, so I guess you might get that post later tonight.
Doobi-doo, Xfire, I love you!
July 28th - August 7th
Sudden Attack Play 2 Win
I made a post to Facebook (<--- you can click that to become a fan of Xfire on Facebook) earlier today, and this is what I said.
I think it pretty much sums up the awesomeness of this Play 2 Win contest. It...
Super amagad charts edition!
2009-07-20 2:31 PM PDT
Press View entry to see the entire chart, and my awesome comments!
- July 6th - July 12th
01. World of Warcraft
02. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Multiplayer
03. Call of Duty 2 Multiplayer
04. Counter-Strike: Source
05. Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne
06. Battlefield 2
07. Call of Duty: World at War Multiplayer (+1)
08. Silkroad Online (+2)
09. Guild Wars (-2)
10. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (-1)
11. Left 4 Dead (+6)
12. Eve Online
13. Combat Arms
14. The Lord of the Rings Online (+3)
15. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
16. Team Fortress 2 (-5)
17. Counter-Strike 1.6 (+3)
18. WarRock (+42)
19. Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (+19)
20. Diablo II: Lord of destruction (+6)
Yeah, well. The charts might be a bit on the wrong day, but there's a perfectly good reason. Or, rather. It's not that good. It's something about a bachelors party, lot's of beer and the effects thereof. But, let's leave that. It's really not appropriate here!
Instead, we'll move on to the facts at hand. This is what happened last week (or rather, the week before, since it's a new week). Quite a lot of movement, as you can see.
Some notable changes include the maaaaajor jump of WarRock. A whopping 42 positions in one week. I think it's a record, and as usual, I have absolutely no idea why it acted like this. Was there a new update? A special promotion? I hope you have the answer!
Also, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures did quite well. We're running an event in it right now, where you are supposed to record a cool (or lame, if you want to) video inside the game, and upload it. If enough people vote for your video, you'll win some of the absolutely awesome prizes we've gathered up for this one. You can read all about it here: Conan goodness!.
The poor performer this week was Team Fortress 2, that lost a couple of positions again.
Apart from that, as you can see, there's a bit of movement, but nothing really critical. I'll be back tomorrow with this week's schedule, and on Wednesday with...
GODJonez's Workshop - Your Privacy
2009-07-17 3:24 PM PDT
A subject that pops up every now and then in Xfire's forums is regarding users' privacy at Xfire. Of course Xfire does have an official Privacy Policy document full of legal text that no mortal can understand. (and not all immortals can read it either, but that's out of scope for this blog)
But what can you as an end user do about your privacy? To use Xfire you must register an user account, an electronic profile that is about you personally. Good thing is that Xfire lets you control quite much of what information of you is stored and made available publicly.
Privacy options in Xfire client
Let's start by looking at the privacy options Xfire gives you. The options are located in the Xfire program's options, under Tools menu:
When you select the Privacy tab you are presented with many options:
The first category is Game Status. The options under it are:
Show my friends - if you uncheck this checkbox, then your gameplay status is not set at all, making nobody see what games you play. Since it makes it so that Xfire doesn't even set the game status, it means that not even the Xfire server knows what game you play. The side effect therefore is that your gameplay time is not recorded either.
Show on my profile and miniprofile - this controls whether your profile and miniprofile are public or private. If you uncheck this box, then none of your data is displayed on your profile. Note that this does not affect displaying of uploaded screenshots, videos or blog posts; the whole point of uploading screenshots and videos is displaying them to other people. If you don't want them visible, don't upload them. For blogs there are more specific privacy options available, so this setting does not affect them.
Show my game server data - this checkbox controls whether friends can see which server you are playing on. When it is enabled (default setting), the server IP address is published to your friends, so they can query server information and one-click join to the same server you are playing on....
But what can you as an end user do about your privacy? To use Xfire you must register an user account, an electronic profile that is about you personally. Good thing is that Xfire lets you control quite much of what information of you is stored and made available publicly.
Privacy options in Xfire client
Let's start by looking at the privacy options Xfire gives you. The options are located in the Xfire program's options, under Tools menu:
When you select the Privacy tab you are presented with many options:
The first category is Game Status. The options under it are:
Show my friends - if you uncheck this checkbox, then your gameplay status is not set at all, making nobody see what games you play. Since it makes it so that Xfire doesn't even set the game status, it means that not even the Xfire server knows what game you play. The side effect therefore is that your gameplay time is not recorded either.
Show on my profile and miniprofile - this controls whether your profile and miniprofile are public or private. If you uncheck this box, then none of your data is displayed on your profile. Note that this does not affect displaying of uploaded screenshots, videos or blog posts; the whole point of uploading screenshots and videos is displaying them to other people. If you don't want them visible, don't upload them. For blogs there are more specific privacy options available, so this setting does not affect them.
Show my game server data - this checkbox controls whether friends can see which server you are playing on. When it is enabled (default setting), the server IP address is published to your friends, so they can query server information and one-click join to the same server you are playing on....
Who's this Conan dude, and why bother?
2009-07-13 5:26 PM PDT
Whaddawhat?
Are you seriously asking who Conan is? Seeeeriously? Like totally 100% seriously?
I can't believe you.
You haven't seen Arnold Schwarzenegger running around in leather underpants carrying a big ass sword?
Oh well, here's a picture of the fantasticness that is Conan the Barbarian.
Luckily, the game based on the same story isn't quite as 80's, and not quite as visually unappealing.
As it happens, the reason why I'm bringing up Conan is that we actually have some stuff going on in the game right now. We're tasking you with making an awesome PVP and/or Death video from inside the game. And, if people like it, you can win some of the $2000 bucks worth of stuff that we're giving away.
You can read more about it a little bit further down this post.
July 20th
Xfire insider newsletter
I can't for the love of god figure out who this insider is, and why he/she is spreading secret stuff about Xfire. But you can be certain, that once I catch that person, I won't be merciful. Any information leading up to the capture of the Xfire Insider will be well rewarded!
Wohoo, outsider!
July 10th - July 24th
Age of Conan Video Capture Contest
It's time for another video capture contest here on Xfire. You know, where you record a cool video on a theme, submit it and get people to vote for it? And usually, when we pull of a contest like this, we have awesome prizes.
This time around, we also do.
We have like $2000 worth of computer hardware from OCZ, one of the most respected brands out there. They are probably most famous for their kick-ass high speed memory modules, but they also make awesome power supplies and SSD units (you know, the new kind of harddrive, only awesome'er).
And we thought, why put this stuff in Hans' computer, when we can give it away to our users? Or actually. That's what I suggested. For some reason, it didn't float with my boss, who mumbeled something like "Don't let Hans handle the shipment of this stuff..".
Just go...
Are you seriously asking who Conan is? Seeeeriously? Like totally 100% seriously?
I can't believe you.
You haven't seen Arnold Schwarzenegger running around in leather underpants carrying a big ass sword?
Oh well, here's a picture of the fantasticness that is Conan the Barbarian.
Luckily, the game based on the same story isn't quite as 80's, and not quite as visually unappealing.
As it happens, the reason why I'm bringing up Conan is that we actually have some stuff going on in the game right now. We're tasking you with making an awesome PVP and/or Death video from inside the game. And, if people like it, you can win some of the $2000 bucks worth of stuff that we're giving away.
You can read more about it a little bit further down this post.
July 20th
Xfire insider newsletter
I can't for the love of god figure out who this insider is, and why he/she is spreading secret stuff about Xfire. But you can be certain, that once I catch that person, I won't be merciful. Any information leading up to the capture of the Xfire Insider will be well rewarded!
Wohoo, outsider!
July 10th - July 24th
Age of Conan Video Capture Contest
It's time for another video capture contest here on Xfire. You know, where you record a cool video on a theme, submit it and get people to vote for it? And usually, when we pull of a contest like this, we have awesome prizes.
This time around, we also do.
We have like $2000 worth of computer hardware from OCZ, one of the most respected brands out there. They are probably most famous for their kick-ass high speed memory modules, but they also make awesome power supplies and SSD units (you know, the new kind of harddrive, only awesome'er).
And we thought, why put this stuff in Hans' computer, when we can give it away to our users? Or actually. That's what I suggested. For some reason, it didn't float with my boss, who mumbeled something like "Don't let Hans handle the shipment of this stuff..".
Just go...
GODJonez's Workshop - Website update
2009-07-10 2:52 PM PDT
Three weeks ago I posted about Xfire Website update and concluded the post with mentioning that German translation was updated. So a natural way to start telling about the new things in yesterday's update is by telling that the German website translation has been even more improved since the last time. See http://de.xfire.com/ for the German version of this website (go back to http://www.xfire.com/ to see the good old English version again).
This time the changes on the website are mostly based on the Clans & Guilds feature. We have now favorite servers for clans and new registration page as well as a bunch of bug fixes regarding the system.
As the clan administrator you can add and remove game serves for the clan under Administration. There is now a new link "Edit Servers" that brings you to a page that looks like the one in screenshot above.
The top part lists the currently added servers and gives you the possibility to remove them. The bottom part lets you type in the information for adding a new server to be listed for the clan.
The optional Label for the server is what will be displayed as the server's name in the list. If you leave it blank, then the label will be automatically queried from the server if possible.
The servers are displayed on the clan's front page under the clan forums:
Note that the server names are clickable. One can view detailed information about the server such as the settings used on the server, who are currently playing on it and you can even view Xfire screenshots taken on that particular server! See Newsbies Only TF2 Server for an example of how it works.
Of the bug fixes done to the clan system, most of those were to do with Internet Explorer not working as expected in all situations. So now IE users should be able to better use the Clans & Guilds feature on this website.
Another big change on the website that is not related to clans is a removal of extended game statistics module from profile pages. The kill/death statistics...
This time the changes on the website are mostly based on the Clans & Guilds feature. We have now favorite servers for clans and new registration page as well as a bunch of bug fixes regarding the system.
As the clan administrator you can add and remove game serves for the clan under Administration. There is now a new link "Edit Servers" that brings you to a page that looks like the one in screenshot above.
The top part lists the currently added servers and gives you the possibility to remove them. The bottom part lets you type in the information for adding a new server to be listed for the clan.
The optional Label for the server is what will be displayed as the server's name in the list. If you leave it blank, then the label will be automatically queried from the server if possible.
The servers are displayed on the clan's front page under the clan forums:
Note that the server names are clickable. One can view detailed information about the server such as the settings used on the server, who are currently playing on it and you can even view Xfire screenshots taken on that particular server! See Newsbies Only TF2 Server for an example of how it works.
Of the bug fixes done to the clan system, most of those were to do with Internet Explorer not working as expected in all situations. So now IE users should be able to better use the Clans & Guilds feature on this website.
Another big change on the website that is not related to clans is a removal of extended game statistics module from profile pages. The kill/death statistics...
Oh crud.
2009-07-09 2:22 PM PDT
Press View entry to see the entire chart, and my awesome comments!
- June 29th - July 5th
01. World of Warcraft
02. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Multiplayer
03. Call of Duty 2 Multiplayer
04. Counter-Strike: Source
05. Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne
06. Battlefield 2
07. Guild Wars
08. Call of Duty: World at War Multiplayer
09. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (+1)
10. Silkroad Online (-1)
11. Team Fortress 2
12. Eve Online (+2)
13. Combat Arms (+2)
14. Battlefield Heroes (+15)
15. The Sims 3 (-2)
16. The Lord of the Rings Online (+1)
17. Left 4 Dead (-1)
18. Prototype (-6)
19. MapleStory (-1)
20. Counter-Strike 1.6 (-1)
Fine, fine. I admit it. I've been a bit of a jerk with the whole Prototype vs. The Sims 3 situation. But, hey, what do you say we forget all about it?
After all, we're talking two totally different games, and they shouldn't be compared to each other. It's not fair. So, without analyzing what happened to the two games this week, we'll move on to other stuff!
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Silkroad Online are fighting a fierce battle for spot #9, and oh boy is it exciting! Imagine the two giants going head to head in a struggle for the glory! Awesome.
One game that obviously made a huge impact on this week's charts is Battlefield Heroes, which, by my way of counting, jumped a whole 15 positions. But well, it's sort of a matter of discussion. You see, the Battlefield Heroes we had on the charts back in April was actually the beta version. From what I gather, this is the full game. CORRECTION: I hear it's open beta. Thanks Tecfan!
Still, it's been on the charts before, so it should definitely be viewed this way.
One interesting thing is that there seems to be a few less hours played this week compared to last week, going by the numbers I have access to, it's like a 2,7% decrease from last week. Could it be that the weather has been a little bit nicer?
Hans
Xfire Release 1.111
2009-07-07 4:13 PM PDT
It's here, Xfire version 1.111!!!11!1onehundredeleven!
A week ago Xfire released a beta version of Xfire 1.111 and now after spending a (I hope wonderful) Independence Day weekend holiday they have released the new version as an official update.
As mentioned in the beta post, the new Xfire version contains some improvements to Xfire's In-Game interface. The most notable change is new tab for Chat Rooms:
You can now easily access all of your saved chat rooms in the game by going to that tab and selecting the room to join. The room will then appear as an active chat in the Chat tab.
Some people reported on Xfire's Technical Support forums that Caps Lock was not working when typing to Xfire's In-Game chat window. Even if you had Caps Lock enabled, the text you typed was the same as if you did not have it enabled. Now in Xfire 1.111 it is fixed so now your cruise control for cool is even more usable.
My personal favorite in the new version is the ability to cancel voice calls you start by mistake without needing the recipient to answer the call first or let it time out.
You can just simply press the Call button again to cancel the call. Previously the button would go to disabled state while the "phone was ringing", giving you no chance to cancel the action other than closing the chat window and losing all the ongoing text chat with it. Good thing Xfire has chat logging, though.
As it has been the trend lately, this version also has some improvements and fixes to the AIM support added a few months ago. Since I don't personally use that feature very much and the official release notes do not specify what exactly is new in it, I can't go into detail here either. If you know something about it, please post in comments.
The official release notes with the changes and list of new supported games can be found from the usual address: http://media.xfire.com/xfire/readme.html
Apparently Xfire has not forgotten its international user base since the notes also mention updated German...
A week ago Xfire released a beta version of Xfire 1.111 and now after spending a (I hope wonderful) Independence Day weekend holiday they have released the new version as an official update.
As mentioned in the beta post, the new Xfire version contains some improvements to Xfire's In-Game interface. The most notable change is new tab for Chat Rooms:
You can now easily access all of your saved chat rooms in the game by going to that tab and selecting the room to join. The room will then appear as an active chat in the Chat tab.
Some people reported on Xfire's Technical Support forums that Caps Lock was not working when typing to Xfire's In-Game chat window. Even if you had Caps Lock enabled, the text you typed was the same as if you did not have it enabled. Now in Xfire 1.111 it is fixed so now your cruise control for cool is even more usable.
My personal favorite in the new version is the ability to cancel voice calls you start by mistake without needing the recipient to answer the call first or let it time out.
You can just simply press the Call button again to cancel the call. Previously the button would go to disabled state while the "phone was ringing", giving you no chance to cancel the action other than closing the chat window and losing all the ongoing text chat with it. Good thing Xfire has chat logging, though.
As it has been the trend lately, this version also has some improvements and fixes to the AIM support added a few months ago. Since I don't personally use that feature very much and the official release notes do not specify what exactly is new in it, I can't go into detail here either. If you know something about it, please post in comments.
The official release notes with the changes and list of new supported games can be found from the usual address: http://media.xfire.com/xfire/readme.html
Apparently Xfire has not forgotten its international user base since the notes also mention updated German...
Summer, summer, summer!
2009-07-06 11:25 PM PDT
It looks like this blog post might be a tiny bit empty today, since there really isn't anything in our calendar just now. But I know for sure that there are things coming in the very near future, so I wouldn't be too alarmed.
On Twitter I asked our followers if they consider summer to be no-gaming season, or the all year gaming high. I tend to play a lot less than I do during winters, which I guess can be tracked back to the fact that many leagues and such have breaks during summer. But what's it like for you? Do you play a lot during summer? And, on what do you play? Your laptop? A handheld console? A kazoo?
Oh, and here's a funny animated gif!
As soon as I can talk about the new stuff, I'll let you know, 'kay?
Until then, I hope you'll enjoy your summer!
Hans
On Twitter I asked our followers if they consider summer to be no-gaming season, or the all year gaming high. I tend to play a lot less than I do during winters, which I guess can be tracked back to the fact that many leagues and such have breaks during summer. But what's it like for you? Do you play a lot during summer? And, on what do you play? Your laptop? A handheld console? A kazoo?
Oh, and here's a funny animated gif!
As soon as I can talk about the new stuff, I'll let you know, 'kay?
Until then, I hope you'll enjoy your summer!
Hans
GODJonez's Workshop - Xfire + Windows UA...
2009-07-03 1:39 PM PDT
Starting from Windows Vista Microsoft has included a component called User Account Control to Windows operating system. The purpose of UAC is, contrary to popular belief, to make software developers create programs that do not require administrative permissions for normal operation. The other function of UAC is to let the user know when a program might be trying to do something that can change the system settings and give an option to prevent it from happening.
Xfire does not require administrative permissions for its normal operation and does not ask for it unless needed. Of course full Xfire updates do require elevation since installing or updating programs is altering the system and therefore requires administrator permission. Even still, for most people who have UAC enabled, Xfire does ask for permission on every launch.
The reason for Xfire asking for administrative permissions even when it is not updating is to be able to support games that require administrator permissions. If Xfire detects even one game installed on your computer that runs as admin, Xfire will ask you for admin permissions to be able to support the game in question. Normally you get a message from Xfire listing the games that were found to need elevation, after which UAC will kick in and ask if you really want to let Xfire elevate itself.
Even though you can select to never display the list of games requiring elevation, there is no option to tell Windows to not ask every time if Xfire is allowed to have full access or not. Of course disabling UAC will get rid of the message but will also disable one of the most core security features of Windows at the same time, so you do not want to do it.
Here I give you instructions on how to make Windows automatically start Xfire as administrator without prompting the UAC dialog every time. Note that you might still get the UAC dialog when updating Xfire, however.
Starting Xfire with administator permissions without UAC dialog
The trick I show you here is to use Task Scheduler to...
Xfire does not require administrative permissions for its normal operation and does not ask for it unless needed. Of course full Xfire updates do require elevation since installing or updating programs is altering the system and therefore requires administrator permission. Even still, for most people who have UAC enabled, Xfire does ask for permission on every launch.
The reason for Xfire asking for administrative permissions even when it is not updating is to be able to support games that require administrator permissions. If Xfire detects even one game installed on your computer that runs as admin, Xfire will ask you for admin permissions to be able to support the game in question. Normally you get a message from Xfire listing the games that were found to need elevation, after which UAC will kick in and ask if you really want to let Xfire elevate itself.
Even though you can select to never display the list of games requiring elevation, there is no option to tell Windows to not ask every time if Xfire is allowed to have full access or not. Of course disabling UAC will get rid of the message but will also disable one of the most core security features of Windows at the same time, so you do not want to do it.
Here I give you instructions on how to make Windows automatically start Xfire as administrator without prompting the UAC dialog every time. Note that you might still get the UAC dialog when updating Xfire, however.
Starting Xfire with administator permissions without UAC dialog
The trick I show you here is to use Task Scheduler to...
