Topic: Fuck G4WL and fuck MS.

[Pugnate]

I got Arkham Asylum today and G4WL keeps crashing within minutes of launching. It has been four hours and I have tried every bloody thing to get it working. Worse is that there thousands of other people reporting the same issue, but the MS employees are clueless.

I know Steam can be bad, but it is like gold compared to G4WL. What a piece of shit.

Fuck you MS... and dare I say it... fuck PC gaming.

[Xessive]

That's ridiculous, man. G4WL sucks royal ass. This is exactly the same issue I was having with Gears of War when I first got it. I had to wait about 2-3 weeks for the patch that would fix it.

Have you tried downloading and installing the latest update for G4WL? That seems to have rectified most of my problems with it.

[Quemaqua]

That seems pretty analogous to my experiences with Steam, yeah.  I haven't had many problems with G4WL, but I definitely hate it.  It's been more generally stable for me than Steam, but the functionality is practically nonexistent.

But seriously... fuck PC gaming because some shitheads can't properly develop their product?  That's going a bit far.  Condemn the problem, not the kingdom.

[MysterD]

I got Arkham Asylum today and G4WL keeps crashing within minutes of launching. It has been four hours and I have tried every bloody thing to get it working. Worse is that there thousands of other people reporting the same issue, but the MS employees are clueless.

M$ is too busy caring about their X360 money train.

I know Steam can be bad, but it is like gold compared to G4WL. What a piece of shit.

I hate to agree w/ you -- but I agree.

Fuck you MS...

Don't blame ya there...

and dare I say it... fuck PC gaming.

That's exactly what M$ wants -- they want you to go w/ The X360, since basically Valve (with Steam and all the 3rd party publishers flocking to it) has a big portion of PC gaming market cornered right there all alone. Them and of course Blizzard w/ their WoW cash-cow.

I'm sorry, Pug -- but there's a lot of great PC products that are not associated w/ G4WL and Steam. Down w/ DRM -- and praise to companies like say CD Projekt RED!!!


EDIT:

That seems pretty analogous to my experiences with Steam, yeah.  I haven't had many problems with G4WL, but I definitely hate it.  It's been more generally stable for me than Steam, but the functionality is practically nonexistent.

I think G4WL is a waste, in its current state. I've never had much issues w/ it, 'cept for when I couldn't get G4WL going b/c an update closed the port G4WL requires to have running to actually open. I luckily never ran into the GoW issues of losing saves many others unfortunately ran into.

Same goes for Steam, as well -- with me not having too many problems w/ it. Steam has its annoyances, for sure -- but my biggest problem I had w/ it was when Steam was down for maintenance, I couldn't play L4D online w/ other gamers online -- even though it worked just fine in SP mode offline.

Personally, I'd rather support Impulse than Steam, D2D and G4WL.

But seriously... fuck PC gaming because some shitheads can't properly develop their product?  That's going a bit far.  Condemn the problem, not the kingdom.

Agreed.
Kudos to UbiSoft releasing Prince of Persia (2008) for the PC w/ NO DRM!

And now, I must go back and try some more of the Risen DEMO.

[iPPi]

Heh, I'm kind of grateful that my PC's video card is dying so I don't game on my PC anymore so I don't have to go through these problems.  As a result, everything I get is for consoles nowadays.

[Cobra951]

Aside from diversions like Popcap, I'm out of the PC-gaming loop entirely now.  I remember a time when I'd be craving better hardware, irresistibly.  Now, I hardly give a shit.  I want a new PC, but only because I fear my old thing failing on me entirely.  If I end up getting one through some financial miracle, it will probably be a laptop, with little consideration to gaming capability.

That sucks, Pug.  There's no excuse for that shit at all.

[MysterD]

Aside from diversions like Popcap, I'm out of the PC-gaming loop entirely now.  I remember a time when I'd be craving better hardware, irresistibly.  Now, I hardly give a shit.

I like following new hardware and all -- but I only go for it when necessary; i.e. when all the new games I want, I can't even boot up b/c I don't meet the requirements and/or most of the new games I want won't run well on my PC at what I feel is my standard (1024x768 with everything on Medium and some setting of Shadows MUST BE on). On video cards, every so few generations, I do the upgrade -- as long as I'm still above the processor requirement for the game. When it's time for me needing say a new processor, I think it's time for a new PC -- usually, that's like every 4-5 years for me.

That sucks, Pug.  There's no excuse for that shit at all.

Agreed 100% about his G4WL and Batman: AA issues. Freakin' Microsoft.

I tell you, all games that have G4WL support -- there should an EXE supporting G4WL and ALSO a separate EXE that comes w/ the game that doesn't force G4WL at all on you at all.

[gpw11]

Yeah,  I never had a problem with Games 4 Windows Live! before this game and I even preferred it to Steam (well, probably still do).  Then I lost my saves and don't really want to invest the time playing through the first half of the game again. 

[Quemaqua]

Yeah,  I never had a problem with Games 4 Windows Live! before this game and I even preferred it to Steam (well, probably still do).  Then I lost my saves and don't really want to invest the time playing through the first half of the game again. 

How did you lose your saves?  I remember everyone having that issue with Fallout 3 because the saves go on different profiles for online and offline.  Start a game offline for yourself then later sign online and play the same game, your saves will have magically vanished (same goes for the other way around).

[gpw11]

Yup, that was basically it, although I may have been at fault partially. 

When I installed the game my DSL was down for a bit so I started an offline profile and had all my saves attached to that. Note that this wasn't actually attached to my g4w profile and that may have been where I went wrong (all my saves are linked to a separate "Player 1" profile).  Wasn't a problem until all of a sudden said profile basically just disappeared.

To be fair, I'm guessing this is what the problem was since I haven't really looked for the saves or even tried to play again since the night they were gone. All I know is I'd usually start up the game and my save would be there...except for that one night, and it didn't come up when I signed into the profile.  I couldn't even get into my G4WL profile to check, but none of my acheivements were listed on the site so I'd assume that I wasn't just mistaken....wait a second.  I'mma gonna go check this out.

[gpw11]

Yeah, I dunno.  My saves aren't in there under "profile 1" and I suppose they COULD be in there under my main G4WL profile, but I can't get into it for whatever reason (which I've never had a problem with...I've even logged on with this game I believe).  My saves, however probably aren't in that profile as my achievements aren't linked into it. God knows what the fuck is going on, and my only real option is to replay the game.  Fuck that, I'm not dealing with it right now.

[Quemaqua]

But I don't understand... shouldn't the actual saves still be there somewhere?  Can't you just figure out a partial filename and do a /s search on the drive and figure out where they are?  Or did it overwrite or kill them somehow?

[Pugnate]

It just deletes them. G4WL did that to me in Gears of War. I obviously had no idea...

[MysterD]

It just deletes them. G4WL did that to me in Gears of War.

That's bullshit.
Someone tell Microsoft to fix their damn G4WL Platform!

Yeah, I dunno.  My saves aren't in there under "profile 1" and I suppose they COULD be in there under my main G4WL profile, but I can't get into it for whatever reason (which I've never had a problem with...I've even logged on with this game I believe).  My saves, however probably aren't in that profile as my achievements aren't linked into it. God knows what the fuck is going on, and my only real option is to replay the game.  Fuck that, I'm not dealing with it right now.

I never really looked into the G4WL Live folder and all -- but, are there any Saves Folders that get slated as "Hidden" by the system?

[gpw11]

But I don't understand... shouldn't the actual saves still be there somewhere?  Can't you just figure out a partial filename and do a /s search on the drive and figure out where they are?  Or did it overwrite or kill them somehow?

I haven't really checked into it all that much.  They could be there, but I have a feeling that when I updated to 1.1 something bad went down.  I also could be mistaken and they could be linked to my gpw11 profile (offline mode I guess), but I can't get in through that game specifically...when obviously I could before. All my other internet connections work but I get a network timeout error through that game and don't think I have any other G4W games installed that I can test with. I could probably reinstall Mass Effect or something, but fuck that's a lot of work.

I was never paying the closest attention to what profile I was in when I was saving because...well, I've never had to before.  As such, I'm not 100% sure what the problem is.  Either I was in a completely offline profile and my saves and/or profile is just gone OR I was attached to my GPW11 gamertag and my saves are gone or I can't use them because for whatever fucking reason I can't sign in.  I just think it would be fucking retarded if I can save on that profile online but can't access the saves offline (although I'm 90% certain I wasn't online when I was first playing because my DSL was constantly down).

So, not knowing the problem, it seems like it would be a massive bitch to try to find the solution.  I have never had a problem with any other Live game, and I really do regret this. The solution could be really, really simple, but I don't feel like dedicating the time to it when this very well could just happen again tomorrow. And if it is a connection problem (which is what G4WL told me), then what the fuck can I do?  I tried it in DMZ mode and everything...nothing.   

[Pugnate]

That's bullshit.
Someone tell Microsoft to fix their damn G4WL Platform!
I never really looked into the G4WL Live folder and all -- but, are there any Saves Folders that get slated as "Hidden" by the system?

The thing with Gears of War was that it allowed only one save slot per profile, so if you suddenly took your offline profile online, you would lose all your saves. Or if you wanted to show a friend the beginning of the game, without warning, it would just delete your slot.

In Batman, I guess they learned, as the game has 5 save profiles... so the accident is less likely to happen.

[gpw11]

Yeah, that works out perfectly, except all 5 slots are linked to a profile, so if anything happens there you're still fucked.  I don't know if it's some measure of piracy control, but it obviously wouldn't be effective since you can just make an offline account.  It just seems needlessly convoluted over what we've had before. Like I said, this could be at least partially my fault...but it's still bullshit.

[Pugnate]

No, I don't think it is a piracy control. I think they wanted a unified thing with the Xbox, except it is needless on the PC. I think they were trying to make it more simple, and ended up with something idiotic.

[MysterD]

I think they wanted a unified thing with the Xbox, except it is needless on the PC. I think they were trying to make it more simple, and ended up with something idiotic.

The fact that Microsoft STILL hasn't fixed G4WL issues such as the GOW saves issue really shows what they think of PC gaming; especially since they linger into Batman: AA -- and the fact that ain't published a PC game in quite some time (over 2 years), too.

Thanks for helping try to sabotage PC gaming just so your X360 can sell more copies and games, Microsoft -- intentional or not. As if we ain't got enough problems on the PC already -- specific games work better w/ specific hardware; DRM galore mania; console games getting not-so-hot PC ports; Intel not pushing the T&L video card feature onto their processors (which would've cost them around $7 per processor some years back); games lacking support for a "Software mode" so casual PC gamers can actually play PC games (like PC games used to do in the old days); etc etc.

[Pugnate]

iWell I figured out what the issue was. Looks like the problem seems to be happening to those who had gears of war installed and their game got corrupted during an uninstall. While I never had problems with the game myself i had read about the vast majority having one issue or another.              The only problem i had was when i tried to uninstall the game as that was when it crashed and left in nomans land. After it crashed during the uninstall, it was still registered in windows and just could not be removed.         I had tried all sorts of registry cleaning software but without luck. In  the end I had decided that it was not worth it and decided to move on.                              So after doing some research now, it turns out that this was a very common issue where gears not only corrupted itself but the gfwl client as well. Currently there is a 50 page thread on the problem on the official forums. It is just ridiculous.

edit:

The above is the first and last time I post something from my mobile.

Anyway looks like the only guaranteed solution is that I reinstall Windows... which is just retarded.

[MysterD]

Pug, that's really just ridiculous as can be.

And we all wonder why so many "casual gamers" and hardcore gamers nowadayse don't wanna deal w/ PC gaming anymore. Microsoft and many other corporations need to treat the platform w/ the respect it deserves.

Of course, only a matter of time until M$ finds a way to fuck the X360 platform up (even more so), as well...