antra786

AmaraSulla

freespeech

thejakeman has died of dysentry

thejakeman has died of dysentry

The lag is not Nintendo's problem only, take in account your type of connection, the traffic that there might be, and mostly, the ISP, I have encountered ISP's when I was on the 56k modems which wouldn't let me play Quake2 like it was meant to be, while others, man, those were the best saturday night I spent while in junior high and nowadays the things hand't changed much.

cjlopez

On the other hand as a Wii owner.... Wii online blows harder than a thai hooker on crystal meth.

slapBOXmaster

Eschguy

haracas

Molls92

ecamacho

spade135

agenttrav

Cheba

Bidule

syp

just copy xbox live, seriously - there will be rejoicing in the streets

awesomerobot

Sunjammer

BTW, I am serious, I know how sarcastic you guys can be on here and might think I am trying to be funny.

plankton88

Aitrus233

LuppyLuptonium

Methinks I'll stick to the PC for all of my online gaming needs.

Pezdispenser

Klaymen

This situation is unfortunate. But a random blog article loaded with humor and sarcasm, as good as those two elements can be, is not the solution.

Ninja-Z

kingofallcosmos

Figroti

Sunjammer

But I haven't had any real lag issues aside from playing with people with bad connections. The forum I frequent had a Smash Bros tournament a few days ago, and while we did have to communicate over IRC, the matches themselves went off without a hitch. And if any of my friends are on looking for a battle, I'm usually able to hop in without any difficulty.

I've also very very RARELY had an error message that kept me from getting online, and these were cases where the problem was on my end. Compare this to my die-hard 360 fan friend who routinely needs to go through a tedious process of logging in, joining a game, being disconnected, logging out and logging back in EVERY TIME he wants to play Halo 3 online.

I'd like Nintendo to expand the in-game functionality of their online service. But the service itself is perfectly capable.

GhostWhoWalks

Jac21

@kingofallcosmos: Agree with the vast majority of what you said, but:

Expect more as a consumer. This is only going to be old news when something actually gets resolved. RRoD was an issue until recently because Microsoft had not been actually fixing the problems. It seems that at this point, they are probably at least on the right track, but if people didn't expect more, then RRoD would continue to be an issue and the XBots would still be blaming it on people having dirty houses.

I read in there you don't have a 360, so I won't hold it against you for thinking this, but RROD continues to be an issue, as people I know personally (twothousandhate on XBL, tell him KingBullitTrain sent you if you want to ask him, he is good at Halo 3 mostly), have purchased new ones at retail in the last 2 months and had it happen within a week. Mine died entirely about a month and a half ago (wasn't even RRoD), and while it didn't take too long to come back it was still hard. Another friend had his 4th replacement RROD the day before Smash came out, AND he has a Wii that couldn't read Smash. Talk about bad luck.

So yeah, I agree we should demand more. I just think Nintendo is the least likely of the three to respond to that type of pressure, the only way to change the way Nintendo does things is just not give them money, and I don't think we sent any kind of negative signal by buying 1.2m copies of SSBB ;)

For now, I'll keep offering to help anybody who asks to config their routers/modems, and I propose that instead of just griping (Thats not aimed at anybody in particular, we've all done it), we instead work on the one thing we can directly affect, and try and make the situation better.

Heck, given what people were able to accomplish with Mario Kart on GC, has anybody tried to set up a "Shadow" smash service yet? I assume it would require some hacking and right now probably a mod chip, but I'm curious, that would help verify where the problem was, with the game itself or the Wii system ;)

DaiMacculate

KM91

Now the only reason I hate XBOX live... is because you have to pay for it. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm already paying for internet aren't I? Why the fuck would I want to pay AGAIN, to play on it.

And never mind the fact that If I want to use my wireless internet (the only one available to me right now) then I'd have to pay well over a hundred dollars for the friggin wireless adapter for the 360.

Know how much I got a wireless adapter for my PC for? $30. That's it. and it's been working pretty good for a few years now too.

Seriously... consoles... get it together.

mordennight

On a slightly unrelated not, the present console generation continues to disappoint me. The PS3 with its overpowered hardware, but almost no good games. The 360 which boasts a large game library and good online support, but has unresolved technical issues. The Wii which, at times, seems like it was made for gamers ten years younger or fifty years older than me. The Wi-Fi issues are just a testament of this catering to casuals. To me, it seems that the console wars are over and everybody lost.

schizosid

kylenalepa

Sunjammer

Thrillhaus

excel_excel

Maybe my rhetoric just plain sucks, but my point has never been that it's not okay to complain about something, it's just a good idea not to sound... dumb while doing so?

@Mr.SithNinja: We sure did! They throw the bait out and i just gobble it up every time.

There's something about the Wii "debate" that really lights me up, because it tends to read like a bunch of senior citizens pissed off about their grandson's tricycle's lack of street cred. For a topic with so many strong opinions there's an incredibly frustrating lack of reflection among them, and even more frustrating is the lack of realization that one man's opinion does not a fact make. I have absolutely no problem on this planet with anyone disliking something, but i think it's just plain ass to pronounce your dislike laced with apparent disrespect and even disgust for those that don't agree with your opinion.

It's a bit like calling someone's baby ugly really, or kicking their dog. There's just no reason to go into a debate with a loud fart and a fuck you.

Sunjammer

Kickinstuff13

But then again Smash is a much more popular game and should have online working properly

excel_excel

mrplow8

Kempatsu

Quick question though. How has there not been a Smash Brothers DS game yet? Shouldn't this have happened a while ago?

YCS

YCS

Personally, I believe that you should expect more. Expect that your console won't break under normal usage. Expect that you will get standard features.

Many of us have been playing games for a very long time (since the 2600 for me) and have seen that games evolve. What was acceptable in the NES era was not acceptable in the SNES era. I loved Faxanadu, but it had an outrageously long password system. Acceptable on the NES, but if Final Fantasy III/VI had used a password system on the SNES, that would no longer be acceptable. I did not have the online components for the GameCube and PS2 and I did not want to pay for online play with the XBox, but last gen was not about online. This generation is, and executives for all three companies said so when the systems were coming out.

The 360 raised the bar for everyone, mainly because Microsoft wasn't concerned about throwing money at it. The other two companies benefit from this because they don't have to be the innovators, just the copycats who take those lessons and make them work for their systems, maybe even with improvements. The PS3 isn't there yet, but no one criticizes Sony because they are clearly working on making it a great online system. There is no reason to believe that Nintendo is even considering working on improving their systems and that is a betrayal of the trust of their loyal consumers. I bought mine at launch and week after week Nintendo said that online was coming soon and we all bought into it. They said to exchange friend codes, so we did, knowing that it would pay off when we had a robust groupin our address book. I traded Miis with people and wrote messages and then I waited. And waited. Here we are, a year and a half later and we have this to show for it. I don't care about the lag because they can work on improving that over time, but they aren't going to be adding the voicechat with your friends. There are so many features that we should not just want but expect and people just lap up what they throw our way. I am lucky that I am mostly a portable gamer because I don't have either of the other two current gen consoles.

Expect more as a consumer. This is only going to be old news when something actually gets resolved. RRoD was an issue until recently because Microsoft had not been actually fixing the problems. It seems that at this point, they are probably at least on the right track, but if people didn't expect more, then RRoD would continue to be an issue and the XBots would still be blaming it on people having dirty houses.

Nintendo isn't going to be releasing these games again. If Smash Bros comes out without features that we should expect, they aren't just going to magically appear. They have one shot to get it right, and they didn't. Mario Party 8 should have had online play, but it didn't. Metroid Prime 3 had multiplayer removed (the previous two Metroid games had multiplayer) and people were glad because they felt that the multiplayer wasn't good. Rather than actually improve the multiplayer, they scrapped it. BWii came out with online multiplayer, but co-op is meaningless with no way to communicate with your teammate. Oh, and for all of those people who say that you should have your friends next to you, BWii does not have offline multiplayer which is a great thing to learn when your friend comes over to hang out. Maybe we should stop blaming the blogs for reporting on flaws; Nintendo is the one with something to prove, not Kotaku.

kingofallcosmos

ANOTHER item about how you bash the commenters and posters of the article because you don't like what is being said? Didn't we just do this?

Mr.SithNinja

Irreparably bad FTF! ( for the Fail )

Mr.SithNinja

ThisCharmingMan

MattB

MattB

Oblivion has online? o.O

@Sunjammer: "@Mark Wilson: And because we're in an unfortunate situation, it's yours and Kotaku's job to lead the brigades eh?"

Personally, I think it is. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft don't give a damn about people whining on Digg. You will find whining about everything and anything (including good stuff) there. They also don't care so much about us anonymous nobodies whining here on this blog.

But when well known bloggers from a site that reviews their consoles, games and accessories whine, it can have much more of an impact. From my perspective, that's a great service to gamers. Somebody has to keep these bastards honest.

Doshu

t3knomanser

notyavgkat

That being said, yes Nintendo needs work on this online service and FAST. Now when I first played I didn't see any problems at all (I got mine after a few weeks after launch to put it in perspective). But yesterday I witnessed the bog of lag lagoon which totally ruined play both on With Anyone and With Friends.

I don't think it's irreparable but it's bad and inexcusable at the current moment. I'm confident Nintendo will right these wrongs. The friend codes are no big deal to me but that boggy play is horrible.

Incredibly bad is my choice.

John Lucas

johnlucas

But playing on a couch with friends is more fun anyway.

Hrist

tme2nsb

Aflack: Likes slushies

Sunjammer

M

texicali74

I dunno about that. It's not as though the internet is flooding with commentary about the Wii's awesome online play. You're throwing gasoline on a fire that's already pretty much out of control. You're making fun of a clown.

Some of the first stuff i wrote about the Wii when i first got it online was something along the lines of "what the fuck is this shit", and pretty much every blogger with one that has had the pleasure of sampling online gaming on more mature networks said the same. For chrissakes, even M-play was better in the late 90s.

My point is, everyone that matters knows the Wii's online play is crap. The problem right now is, for me, that something so unabashedly weak about the system is dragging it down far harder in the public eye than it needs to. If anything the Wii is comparable to a PS2 or Gamecube with a jaunty hat, and "comparing its online service to the 360" is the new "comparing its graphics to the 360".

Regardless of the sheer amateurish bullshit Nintendo has managed to construct as their online "service", the system is still a total blast to play, for me at least. If you want to start a constructive debate on how to actually make the best of the fundamentals in place, that'd be great. Instead, I don't really know what exactly you intended with a news post that amounts to "hey guys, is this shit or what? let's hear how shit it is from all of you! Yeah! Let's get bashing!" It reads more like some junk i'd throw up on my blog than something that goes up on the "Best Worldwide Resource for Video Games".

Sunjammer

PissedPS3Fan

Oblivion and Battlefield suffered the same problems at launch, it's not Nintendo console specific.

snowdog

MightyKAC

TheIrishNinja

I don't know a single person with a Wii who has tried their online (so don't have my friends "friends codes"), and don't own a single Wii game that has any online.

Doshu

bezka91

Sunjammer

Nirual

Mark Wilson

ajay42

Wii's online does suck, but not because of lag. It sucks because of lack of features and stupid friend codes. If you're having trouble connecting or excessive lag, then it's probably your connection. Because it works fine for me.

mrplow8

Meta-Knight

Tull

Although i should apologize for my mistake. I am an english major for God's sake >__<

KreacherOfBloodandRank

Possibly, like I said I played 'with anyone' twice :P Yush, the random game setup sucks something fierce. I'd be willing to bet your setup is fine, and that most others' aren't.

I'm kinda lucky I'm part of a nice community of players online. It's a smallish group, but enough to play some games each day, should I like. My Friend Roster is far from full, but it works well enough for me ^-^

One way to tell if lag is on your end, at least as it seemed to me; if the game is seizing when you're trying to block, or move too much, then it's at least you. If not, it's likely them.

It's all very trial and error, yes, but I'm also the sort of person who has fun with my car breaking down at midnight (in the fixing it, and having a nice, relaxing night of stars above sorta way).

diablodevil2

DaiMacculate

Yeah as The Engineer mentioned I've been trying to offer router help to people, which does improve Smash somewhat, but:

1) Most people don't have any router setup knowledge, which means the vast majority of "random" players don't have their Wii correctly exposed for Smash. Even if you fix your setup, you'll still be lagged by others.

2) Even with the router tweaking, the experience is less than functional for most players.

I personally have had only marginal lag in most matches since doing it, but yeah, obvious the net code for smash is lacking the proper level of optimization, though as others have noted few if any online fighting games have gotten it right yet ;)

I still feel its early to call Nintendo's online system a complete failure, its very flawed at the moment but they are making progress. What will be interesting is to see if they do Metroid Hunters:Wii or something similar, if they can implement better online given that net code principles for FPS games are much mature than most fighting games. If they approach a game like that, and still fail, then I'll have no qualms calling it a failure ;)

DaiMacculate

Maybe I'm just lucky.

Huckleberry

thefais

gophzero

SuperStingray

I need to try and use friends codes. Maybe that will solve the problem.

sentury111

Many in the video game industry (especially nintendo) seem to adopt the philosophy of "If it aint broke, dont fix it." The only way they will know they have a problem is if the gamers tell them.

KreacherOfBloodandRank

Lessthan_tom

Maybe if we don't vent about these issues Nintendo will fix them out of good will.

Mark Wilson

Leanid

featherblade360

Only after realizing that their profiles were not supposed to say "Awaiting registration" did i realize that they had to add my friend code as well.

Are we so uncivilized that we have to do this as such? what is wrong with the "friend request system" that nintendo seems to scorn it. Live does it. hell it even offers it to non-subscribers and it works.

So now i have to go through my list of 20 or so friend codes, try to remember whose code is whose, and send out individual messages and copies of my friend code, asking them if they want to "throw down"

thats homework, sirs!

KreacherOfBloodandRank

no other console online experience matches it.

honest.

:P

Onizuka-GTO

tk.

MidnightScott17

darthmatt

eugaet

TheEngineer

Tellyn

Mario Strikers

Guitar Hero 3

SSBB

I play all 3 online, no lag... No issues getting games... And I have standard cable service.

nytestalker

nutmilk

fenderfuel08

Bad:
-Friend codes for the Wii.
-Friend codes for the game
-The fighter genre is particularly harmed by lag
-With anyone is absolutely terrible.
-Why is there that stupid timer on With Friends?
-No kind of chat or voice support, so communication has to be done through another channel. When you have to leave the Wii and get on a computer to talk to your friend, you know Nintendo messed up bad.
-For whatever reason, Brawl uses different TCP/UDP settings than other Wii online games, leading to a mess of port forwarding.
-Only 64 friends. If you were planning to counteract the atrocity that is 'with anyone' by building up a large friends list, this is a blatant middle finger from Nintendo.

Good:
-Well... at least online exists.

shadydentist

I won't deny the inherent flaws in Nintendo's online system, and Microsoft has gotten a much better grasp of the idea than both its opponents will ever hope to achieve, but all the times I've played, its taken around a minute for three players to show up and only two or three isolated incidents nobody appeared. Extreme lag was a problem in two games to date, but the rest functioned well with a few shots of lag that otherwise stayed clear of the game. Usernames would have been nice, at the least, but the promise of voice chat seems to promise future games with the problem wiped out.

I understand that many people want the system to change, and from the looks of it that is what Nintendo is up to. I say wait until Mario Kart Wii comes out and judge the online play there. If it's still, as you say, a lag fest with nobody to play with, then you have every right to grab torches and pitchforks and storm the tower, but to devote an entire article to mocking the system? Where was the poll asking people how many RROD they had with the answer range being 5 to 20? Where was the poll asking how many good games are for the PS3, where all the answers are synonyms for 0? There's a fine line between sarcasm and shameless vies for page views, and I'm afraid this looks to have crossed the line. It's on the level of Joystiq (and I mean that very negatively).

When you first posted about online play, it was genuine concern. Now, I look at the constant barrage of articles showcasing the Wii's potential flaws and I see the comment page climb to 200-300 and page views increase exponentially. Feeding bait to the internet cynics and flamers is stepping very low, and I wish Kotaku wouldn't have to take such steps.

Ninja-Z

Naelok

The Check Mii Out/News/Weather/VC/etc channels are nice, and work well, but for actual online gaming with friend codes etc... I view it the same as the Dreamcast, GameCube, or PS2 - there may some day be a game or two that uses online features, but for all intents and purposes there is NO online gaming with it.

fuchikoma

xivmini

*sigh* my sad attempt at humor

kw4k

OH WAIT I MEAN IT'S TERRRRIBLE

aaa

A third person with a good connection, and there was no lag added. Moral is, set your stuff up right, and it'll work fine. Yea, it sucks that it's not as automatic as everything else is anymore, but I personally think it's worth it to play a fun game with net friends.

diablodevil2

Yeah, I'm annoyed, but at least they fix it for free and it forces me to get some use from my Wii & PS3.

jslay012

Smutking

Grey_Fox

Shteve

diablodevil2

Brawl was an exception, but otherwise my Nintendo Boycott still stands.

8bitcity

It can't be me. I got a 16 MB connection, use a Dlink DGL-4500 and still, get errors doing anything online. X360 and PS3 go online fine. Laptop is fine, PC's work fine. Wii doesn't.

Nintendo needs to get their act together.

sentury111

Chiru

Hiro0015

Chiru

And obviously I'm not speaking for everyone, just myself, so don't rush to jump on me and say just because I haven't seen issues doesn't mean there aren't any, like everyone always does with the Xbox RROD problem. Which I haven't seen either. But I digress.

I know people are seeing problems with both.

smcallah

When I first started 2 weeks ago, probably every other game had crippling lag. Recently, it is only like 1 in 10 games that is bad. BTW, I am in Boston; don't know if it differs by region....

jslay012

When I meet people with a Wii its not like we each know our 100 digit code so my friends list is empty. Sad Face

TehBoj

Trowble (XBL/PSN)

Trowble (XBL/PSN)

Seiven

unit

IntelSilver

KirbyMorph

I think what makes most people angry is the problem seems entirely fixable by updates. An update with gamertags and removal of Friend codes.

"Hey, ya wanna try brawl online tonight?"
"Yeah!"
"Get out your ledger and a pencil and I'll give you my
Wii string of numbers. Got that? Okay, Now record this huge string of numbers for Brawl."
"I don't wanna play anymore."

MJDeviant

Playingother games though such as Strikers I've had no problems with the online service at all, sure the FC crap and lack of interactivity with friends is annoying but then again, we all know that.

Makeda

Still, getting the connection set up was a giant hassle, and after I reset the router, I had to do it again. So I haven't played anything online in a while.

This is probably the worst thing going for the wii right now. I still play it, but I use my PC for online games.

PaulMorel

PlasmaMachine

Conclusion: the rest of the world loves to bitchplain.

Wooduck51

Facemeat

iao_

Quite like the simplified online play, all you do is click and join, with no fucking about, and works effectively most of the time. Trying to play with friends however, what a pain, too much hassle.

Lokku

Oh, and "In before Shukaku telling us how we're playing SSBB wrong."

Jest

nokahoma

I get mad slowdown and lag issues when I play online and it kills the experience. I don't know why Nintendo couldn't have built a better online network considering this is their second go at online play, the first being the DS network where mario kart worked well online.

Nintendo needs to do more research and remember their mission statement to change the way games are played... and try and bring that change to online gaming as well.

mangomonkeyboy

It's really disappointing. The game itself is fun, but online multiplayer...it's unplayable. I mean, I can brawl with friends, but I have no idea how good I am because half the time I'm half the time everybody's "flinching" around on the screen because of timing issues.

TRT-X

Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc

It's not about whether nintendo is great or not, or sony, or whoever else. Every company that's contributed to gaming is great-and they've all thrown great things into the ring. But whenever one company dominates the market and feels their success, they start going insane. Wii's online is that kind of insanity. Along with their routine of overcharging for their classic games. I mean seriously... 16 bucks for a piece of plastic that you put your controller into? It's lameass. But because there isn't a wii competitor, they don't feel the pressure pull their head out. It encourages this kind of inanity.

deathbunny

But Smash? There's some lag, to be sure, but the game is frenetic in nature, so even the slightest lag can throw off an entire game. I play as Sonic, as well, who absolutely needs exact precision in order to be able to compete due to his speed.

So basically, for me, the problem in Smash is not finding players, friend codes, or an excessive amount of lag. The problem is when there's even the slightest disconnect between when I press a button to attack and when the attack actually begins, which throws off everything and makes Brawl online unplayable to me. As much as I don't want it to be the case because I love this effing game, Brawl online is, right now, inherently flawed and thus unplayable at all.

BuckTwenty

Drei

Am I the only one not plagued by lag?

Chiru

goetzathome

Granted, I'd prefer fighting games to be played with friends in person, but I'm hoping this gets improved somehow.

Saint Anima

Gadgetron

brent_w

liquid_kore

Someone needs to confront Reggie and ask him the tough questions, but the gaming press is too reactive rather than proactive.

And Nintendo can win me back with voicechat enabled online multiplayer virtual console games. I don't want them to change the ROMs, just their emulators. I am fine if they want to restrict it to friends only (although having a way to let your friends know that you want to play would be nice) if they would just add this feature. I can't believe that I could play SNES games online with the XBand in the early mid-90s, but I still can't play online with the Wii.

kingofallcosmos

Wipeout pulse online>>>>>>>>>>>>>Brawl and probably mario kart online

White-Sharingan

Americo

SkutSkut

TheMysteriousStranger

So far, the only name I've got is Nintendo.

Maldron

I know I can't expect the same level of performance from a free service, but this makes the PSN look flawless by comparison. With no previous online games or servers in place to handle a game of this magnitude, it just make the "Big N" look as amateurish and "toy like" as the console it self.

Mr.SithNinja

Tons Of Fun

Nintendo, please let me pay you extra money to make this suck less. The game connected to the crap online rules, just hook it up!

StartingAces