DamienMagi

That way I don't have to remember every person I met online and was fun to play with... I have a note saying why I added them (yeah, I have trouble with this...).

I'd like to group friends as well. i.e., people I know in person, people from this or that IRC chat, people from this forum, people I just met playing Xbox Live.

MinkOWar

Gagamus

navstar

Yeah, my list is about 70% friends, family, friends of friends, and co-workers. The remained are decent folks with the same sense of humor and taste in games as the rest of us. I couldn't imagine playing with mostly "strangers".

GorbyGipper

I think I have 20-30 people. Anything more is not worth the bother.

GorbyGipper

About 25 friends were from burnout revenge. But we've all moved on to different games. I'll probably be playing with them again once burnout paradise comes out (gotta get my takedowns back :D ).

Another 25 are from halo 3. I spend most of my time in team slayer, and pickup games kinda suck (because there's always that 1 retard on your team, no matter how high your rank is). So I befriended a lot of people that did good for a few matches. That way, I can be assured that if at least one of them is online and in halo, I can party up with them and be assured that at least 1/2 of our team slayer group is decent.

About 15 people I know in person. Including a handfull that never got a 360.

Then, there's a few from call of duty 2/3/4 and some from halo 2.

lordargent

yashichi8bit

On my friends list right now I have 12 people that I knew long before Xbox Live went live. These are close friends too.

Adam In Texas

It's so funny because all of these features we've talked about are integrated into Phantasy Star Universe's internal friends list system (Guild Card List), including the priority one.

Live needs to catch up.

Billkwando

0starter0

What I would love to see is some way to origanize your friends. It would be able to group them by say, who your "real" friends are, groups for members of different forums/sites on your list, group by what game you play with them, etc.

megahurtz

kthx

~Dai

Daishalish

Hickeroar

The thing is you wouldn't NEED clan support in games, if Microsoft implemented the friends list better. Tagging, grouping, multiple lists, whatever. There are SO many ways to do this properly I can't understand why it's not done already.

Clans are game specific. A well implemented friends list can be so much more.

Pixelantes Anonymous

Streeks1984

fezir

Yeah, clan support would help, as would the ability to put a note (for your own use) on each player's gamercard, so you remember what game you met them on and who they are, like "The guy on Bomberman who kept holding up weird signs and showing us his Bowflex". It makes it easier than just remembering who ChinatownNYC is (though his hilarity helps).

Billkwando

Of all those people there is only 1 person who has more than 30 friends and he doesn't have near 100 either.

If you have 100 people on your friends list, chances are there's a good chunk of them you can probably remove because they haven't logged on in ages or you haven't played with them at all since you've added them.

I'm sure there are some people out there who actively keep up with 100 people on Live but those people are going to be few and far between.

I'd much rather MS get going with having actual clan support in Live games (it was available on Xbox 1, WTF happened?) than worry about adding a feature 99% of users wouldn't use.

Actually, clan support could solve both problems as they could have a separate friends list for clan members, freeing up slots on your main friends list.

skullivan

It's all well and good to make snide comments, but in this case you answered your own question.

You add them because you like them. You delete them because you run out of room.

We all have friends and family we don't see regularly. If you had to live on a desert island, and you had to choose 100 people to take with you, would you take the 100 people you could actually reach, or would you say "Oh well, I can't reach 10 of my best friends right now because they're away at school, so as a show of solidarity I'll just take 90 people instead of picking 10 of my other friends.

It's an outlandish example, I know, but what real-world situation could you compare it to? Where in life are you limited in how many friends you can have?

That and the fact that many of us have numerous multiplayer games that we like to play, is it so strange to befriend 5 or 10 people for each game? I have at least 20 Live games that I like to play online. What's 20x5=? Not enough, that's what.

With all the crying about homophobes and assholes on Live, is it that strange to want to keep track of a few nice people for each title, even if they're not "friends" you would invite over for Thanksgiving dinner? I don't think so.

@Sollus:
@TheDollHouse:

Yeah, because other people can see how many friends you have on Live. *smacks forehead* You don't actually have live, do you?

What's ironic is I take the people I know the best off of my list FIRST sometimes, because at least I know I can find them again

@Aragashi: Exactly. I have my friends who play fighting games (KOF, FFS, VF5, DOA, GGX, CvS), my friends who play shooters (H3, TF2, R6V, PD2, GOW), friends who play Steel Battlion: LOC (who're VERY hard to find), friends who play Phantasy Star Universe (which has it's own internal "friends list" thank God), plus a few people who are annoying but I'd feel bad if I took them off, and the list goes on.

Being on live for 5 years, your list WILL fill up, and there will be people you don't want to remove (Stank Kind and KARITAKON, I'm looking at you, beta guys).

These people who defend the 100 cap are either trolls, antisocial, or just don't know what they're talking about......or maybe you're just so unpleasant as a person that you're bitter that 100 people wouldn't want to be around you?

Billkwando

belo

beeporama (brian.j.parker)

I happen to belong to that same gaming community and find the 100 limit to be, well... limiting. Part of the reason I am a member of this community is so I am not forced to play with or against the racist, homophobic, unparented kids and/or classless adults on XBL. To make my limited gaming time as enjoyable as possible I need to keep people on my list that I know I can play with and have a great time.

The community I belong to has well over 1,000 members. We have a strong following for most games. Halo 3, CoD4 & NHL 08 are easily my most played games and the ones that I dedicate my friends list to. I have 20 people in NHL 08 alone that I play with in a league! Think for a moment how small of a following a game like NHL 08 has versus Halo or Call of Duty.

Sure, most of these people are not my "friends," but they are people I enjoy gaming with. The more people I have on my list, the less chance I have of signing online and being forced to play against the ignorant idiots on XBL. Would I have 1,000 people on my list? Probably not, but I would have a significant amount.

I don't need to see 500 friends all on one long list. Why not give us a way to have several different friends lists? One for each game (clan support maybe?) would be great and pretty easy to do. If the folks that programmed XBL for the 180 figured it out, why can't the programmers for the 360?

SGStretch

cannolikiller

As for those who question whether they are real friends or not. First, what does it matter as long as you enjoy playing games w/ them. Second, I have gamed w/ each and every person on my friend's list and have had conversations with them either on Live or via forums. I know when they have become a father or a mother, I know when a relative or friend has past away so yes I consider them friends.

inajeep

The friends lists' 100 people limit is severely limiting to anyone who belongs to an online gaming community or just plays a lot of different games. I do both. My list is always full.

The friends list should really be called "my gamer network" or something along those lines to avoid the stupid comments from the peanut gallery about "do you really have that many friends"? No, I don't have 100 "online" (or offline) friends, but I have about 300 people I game with online regularly. Or I would, if my friends list would allow me to add all of them.

For Microsoft to go around claiming how awesome of a community XBL is, they sure are doing a piss poor job at giving us the tools to build those communities on XBL. That's why all of us who game a lot are organizing in online gaming communities outside of XBL. For various reasons, one of them being that the friends list is completely inadequate in serving the needs of anyone whose gaming circle is large.

The 100 people limit is completely ridiculous and Microsoft's excuses for claiming how they can't fix it are even more ridiculous. So what if individual XBox games got it hardcoded to 100? Deal with it on the server side!

If an XBox is asking for the friends list, only return 100. Start from anyone whose online, if that's less than 100, then you're fine, just fill the rest of the list using some sort of an algorithm (alphabetical, last active, random, whatever). If the list of friends online is more than 100, start by displaying anyone who is online using the XBox, then by whose online doing the same thing as you are (playing the same game, in the dashboard) and continue down the list again by using some sort of an algorithm (random, last active, alphabetical, geographical vicinity, whatever).

All we hear from Microsoft is excuses. Get it done and stop blaming your bad design decisions on the original XBox for screwing us over now. Design around it!

Pixelantes Anonymous

Most people that I know who are hovering at the cap don't actually have 100 friends, they just have 100 people "networked," so that they can avoid screaming children in pickup games.

Markus

Wokisan

SAKY

BRandomS

Plsk1n

For those of you with 100+ friends on you list, do you actually consider them all friends? As in, do you talk to them about problems in your life, open a private chat with them whenever you game, just to hang out and talk? If they wanted to talk to you, would you drop w/e your doing just to listen to them, and try to help? If not, there not really your Friends now are they?

Xerxes 8933A

That there's a limit at all is rather disheartening. You can never have enough people to play games with.

Burguois

Roller

DiskoDanyo

Real life : 18
Yahoo chat : 9
Website 1 : 6
Website 2 : 2
Clan : 22
Old clan : 2
Friend of friend : 4
XBox Live random adds : 10

(It should be pointed out that some of these people have migrated from one of the other groups to the Real life group.)

I am by no means the most active gamer out there, nor am I in a particularly huge and active clan. In fact, I chose my clan purely because they didn't demand any big time investment from me. I am getting close to the 100, so surely it isn't enough.

CheekyLee

Supposedly, along with what is mentioned above, the problem lies in the fact that there isn't enough memory and bandwidth to accommodate a larger friends' list.

Of course, the obvious answer is to have 100 or less friends that you can track constantly as it is at the moment.... but you should be able to add more friends who are not monitored!

The non-monitored friends feature would not be available to the xbox people, only to the 360 lot. Also, users would be able to switch friends between monitored status and not.

Easy peasy.... now, where's my $10,000 commission fee?

:)

Duoae

DoomedSeraph

kleggnutt

4dSwissCheese

face

Ken Edwards

TheIrishNinja

supercrap

I gotta delete people off all the time...what can I say I'm popular.

lol.

kgetz3

DARTH_TIGRIS

That's pretty funny. I have had to remove people from my friend list because it hit the 100 mark and after reading your post I thought about it and realized that only 4 of the 100 are real life friends. Good call. If Patcher ever retires, Plunkett will surely take his place.

Sloopydrew

I think back when my brother and I played on the same account. Most of the "friends" were people we just had a good round with while playing R6.

My friends list is about 30 right now. But only 5-6 do I constantly play with.

exkon

Deltakiral

GOLD5

We've got over 35-40 RL friends on there, and we keep those of course....

MySoul7

deathwombat

TheIrishNinja

InsidiousTuna

TheIrishNinja

do wish there was more space, then i could finally add gabe & tycho!

TheIrishNinja

I love meeting new people online. Most people I play with are fun and entertaining and even though I don't really know them well, I would like to play with them again.

Microsoft is greedy. I paid a lot of money for a 360 and should get the most for my money.

www.bradrealtalk.blogspot.com

TheDirector19

From another perspective, is the inclusion of a cap really such a bad thing? After all, with the knowledge that a user can only register a certain number of friends, that user is more inclined to make more informed decisions about who he or she wants to play with, thus creating a more user-oriented playing experience. In this way, the focus of a game is more about coordination between friends and not just random nameless teammates.

MutePaladin

Samos42

InsidiousTuna

cheesecake000

adamonfire

SonicNirvana

Kj719

It's also good for getting reviews.

"Oh. Assassin's Creed. How is that?"
"Could be better."

Aragashi

I haven't had my PS3 connected to the internet since school started, but I head back home tomorrow, hopefully to an inbox full of friend requests from Kotakuites. The name's InsidiousTuna- do your part.

InsidiousTuna

giant_historical_crabs

So basically, if it wasn't for all these randoms adding me, I would have had alot less fun on certain games. I will reach the cap eventually and I hope it's increased by the time I get there.

Libo

justhesh

seasponge

Explains alot, really.

jasu78

Boxelder

Dakobah

He was a friend before I got a 360.

So, basically 0 Live friends.

justhesh

Salacious_Sloth

MURDERFACE

yeah, I suck. The people I play games with are usually at my house anyways.

dantemustdie

Kj719

HigglyPiggly

FIRST!!!

Razlo

robotplague

jasu78

Stormrider

e^x

If anything, this is saving people room who might have thousands and thousands of friends, and teaching them to be resourceful.

Mit

killarclown

Razlo

damn friend whores!
more like aquantiance lists or people i bumped into on the street lists...

crobar

Sollus

D4RKH3ART

okenny :)

TheDollHouse

D3Anon

TeknoVagrant

The only time you might ever need a lot of friends is for people who are in clans that span several games. Otherwise, no...

Sparx

drifter13

Something like 100 sounds like a Database issue. My guess is that they hardcoded in the friends limit based on the fact only wanted a two digit number (think y2k like :P )

I'd MUCH rather see a Clans feature for XBLA.

huginn

The PS3 has this same problem, though the dependency of hardcoded 100 from Xbox 1 obviously does not exist on the PSN.

For a much better explanation, download the LIVE is 5IVE Major Nelson interview. I cannot remember which member eof the team he was talking to, but one of them explained the reason why.

Sure it might not be a problem with most, but it is a problem for enough people, including several Microsoft employees, that it is a matter we are bitching about.

Ken Edwards

Razlo

ReiBeatAll

HawaiianActor

Samos42

Kj719

Samos42

Truepatriot

My PS3, however, I am surprised it hasn't told me to stop yet. I keep adding more and more people that want to get on the Kotaku-ite's Warhawk clan, so every message just gets added as a friend.

It's pretty huge right now.

PapaBear434

goldwings

Crazyeyez15

ManjiKengo

debloon

kyosen

Katorok