Xbox Live™ Gaming Hits Europe

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The service gamers have been waiting for, Xbox Live, is the first comprehensive, online game service fully dedicated to fast-action broadband gaming experiences. Gamers with an Xbox, a broadband connection and an Xbox Live Starter Kit will be able to come together online on Xbox Live to connect, play and talk with each other during their game sessions.

With Xbox Live, players can now connect with each other across Europe, North America, Canada and Japan, chatting with old friends and meeting new ones to share game experiences online, no matter where they are or what time of day it is. With a broad line-up of sports, action, racing, first-person shooters and role-playing games set to roll out in the coming months, Xbox players will be able to test themselves against a wide variety of opponents on a unified service.

More than 50 Xbox Live-enabled games are scheduled to launch in 2003 and beyond, including Star Wars: Galaxies, Counter-Strike, Midnight Club 2, MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology 2, Halo 2 and Project Gotham Racing 2. More than 60 game publishers are currently working on Xbox Live-enabled games.

News source: Team Xbox

Fixed improper disconnections from the game lobby. You should no longer see the "Lost connection to Generals online" error when your connection is still active.
Fixed language filter stability.
Added a new command line for mod developers that lets Generals run user-created content. Simply add the "-mod" command line after the generals.exe target path, followed by the name of any user-created .big file or user-created directory. The correct path would like this: "C:Program FilesEA GamesCommand and Conquer Generalsgenerals.exe" -mod MyGeneralsMod.big. All user-created content must be placed in the "Command and Conquer Generals Data" folder within your "c:Documents and Settings" directory.
Fixed the missing artwork for the "random private" rank in Generals online.
Fixed the rank hack where some players appear to have a higher rank than they should.
Increased the allowed time for game to negotiate matching between players.
Fixed some instances of the "serious error" crash.
Added a new 4 player Multiplayer Map: Rogue Agent
Implemented the following balance changes:

• Tunnel Network build speed increased from 5 seconds to 20 seconds.
• Marauder hit points increased from 430 to 490.
• Stealth Fighter hit points increased from 120 to 140.
• Explosion damage done by Chinese Nuke Tanks when they are destroyed is reduced from 25 to 10.
• Nuke Cannon changed so it moves the same speed when damaged, not faster.
• Aurora speed increased from 90 to 120 after it drops its bomb. Damaged speed increased from 60 to 120.

#1 Laffer USA on 15 Mar 2003 - 15:03

Wait so we play with these people from Europe and Japan. I don't speak Japanese. But I'm sure a lot of these UKer's at Neowin are happy.

#2 dpitman on 15 Mar 2003 - 20:35

Xbox live is amazing, everyone who has broadband should get it! Play more! you only live once

#3 DJ^TuRKiYe on 16 Mar 2003 - 01:17

Don't forget if you have Splinter Cell, The new level Kola Cell is available for download!

#4 GamblerFEXonlin on 16 Mar 2003 - 04:11

being able to talk with the ones you play against or cooperatively is super. I just had a blast playing doom2 with my friend, we used DoomLEgacy to get it to work in XP with sound and TCP/IP networking. I set it up so the monsters [b]respawns[/b], coop and no friendly damage. Difficulty was hurt me plenty (we tried with nightmare but it gotalmost impossible on level 3). Anyway we got to a place with lots of pink horses that thorws green plasme or something and it was like kill them and they respawn in the room next by, then dont let them in here! They got to the place where we respawned and it takes 1000 shots with the pea shooter to kill 1 so we had to try to run past them and get the plasma in another room that was hilarious. The thing was, we could scream at each other and it was a great challenge; that is what I think is very fun. If you have network and friends I reccommend getting doom2 and play coop with respawnning monsters.

#5 jkuy9 on 20 Mar 2003 - 17:21

I have had XBOX Live since December 2002 (I live in the UK) and I have been very impressed with it from day one. The only annoying this was signing up as I had to enter all my details using the controller and an on screen keyboard. Not awful just a little annoying, it would have been nicer if you filled it in on the net and then it gave you a UID# and you just put that into the XBOX and it downloaded all your information automatically. Perhaps in the future? All my mates have been impressed with it (2 bought XBOX's just for Unreal and Mech Assault!) even though before they were PS2 addicts! I am not starting a PS2 Vs. XBOX war, they are both great consoles. I wish I could get GTA on my XBOX

Only thing that makes me miss my PS2 I am on 1Mbit Cable Modem (NTL) and I am using a LinkSys Router and I have had no problems at all (I used ICS for a few weeks before I got the router, which was also problem free) and there is very little lag. Tip for people who are getting a little bit of lag, remove your headset from the controller as it will save a few K/sec in bandwidth as it will not request the voice data. Well done Microsoft! Just don't shoot yourself in the foot in a year and charge people a fortune for another year's subscription. I think something like £30/year is a decent amount. Anything more than £50 (the cost of the full kit) and I will not pay, and I doubt that many others will either.

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