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Spamming on Xbox Live? 45

Posted by Zonk from the feel-the-burning-love dept.
jayintune writes "2old2play has an interesting article about spamming on Xbox Live. The new 360 version of Burnout Revenge rewards players with Live Achievement points for spamming members of their friends list with links to Burnout player videos. The catch is that you need to own the game to view any of these videos."
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Spamming on Xbox Live? More

Spamming on Xbox Live?

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  • Might fly in Hawaii, not anywhere else, though.

  • Groan. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Friday March 17, 2006 @03:32PM (#14943980) Homepage Journal
    Can we not implement a single goddamned form of person-to-person communication without it getting spammed?

    Well, if it's going to happen on Xbox Live, it may as well be Microsoft spam.
    • I understand there are some interesting things going on regarding "in-person talking", which looks like it might have some promise.
      • I remember the last time I tried that. We were walking down 7th Avenue in Manhattan, holding a quiet friendly conversation which was broken only by the leaflet distributors at every corner informing us of clothing sales and nude girls, the large angry man with the megaphone proclaiming how Whitey was evil, the Scientologists inviting us to please come see their stress-reducing movie, and the friendly Nigerian price who wishes to deposit sixty millions of American dollars into my bank account.

        ...ok, I made

  • The Summary is Incorrect. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Blackwulf ( 34848 ) on Friday March 17, 2006 @03:37PM (#14944037) Homepage
    No, I'm not new here, I know what I say will not make a lick of difference, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

    You do NOT need to spam your friends list to get the achievements in Burnout 360. The achievement is awarded BEFORE you get to the "Want to tell your friends?" screen. There are three options: Tell nobody, Tell ALL of your friends, or Tell SOME of your friends. For some reason, people assume to hit the middle option, even when the top option is the default.

    I have gotten those achievements without sending a single message to a single person on my friends list.
    • Hmmm... at what point will someone with a hacked 360 figure out how to setup replacing the video with your own video from another source just before it's sent to all their friends?

      Imagine the possibilities...
      • From what I can tell of what you download, it's just like how it saves a replay in Burnout. So it's not actual video, but rather data on what objects go where that is then rendered in the game engine.
      • Not possible.

        The message only tells you to go look at the videos of for new clips. The actual video is stored on EA's servers.
        • And why is it not possible, pray tell?

          Answer: It is possible. EA has a server that's going to hold millions of videos of Burnout replays...possible too. You don't know either way.

          EA's server might just hold a file that tells the console what goes where in the game engine and at what point in time.
          • To view a video, you need to look up a friend in the "Clips" section of the game's UI. Then you get a list of up to three videos that the other user has shared. When you view one, it's downloaded to your HD, and then played - through the game, using the game engine. You can actually change the camera view while watching this video. So it's not just a recording that can be replaced with any other video. It's game replay data.

            That's why it's not possible.
    • wish I had karma points to bump you up. *sigh* Good post.
    • Well, since we are complaining about the summary being incorrect, let's go for the double point score. RTFA. The article is about an achievement for getting people to view clips by inviting them to download them (ie. spamming your friends list in hopes that more people view your clip and you get points...).
      • The wording is correct. There is a feature in Burnout to view the shared clips of people on your friends list, and of the last 20 players you played online in that game. All the message does is notify you that there you've shared a clip.

        If you got that message from me (nobody has, but let's pretend), you would then have to go into Burnout, go to the Xbox Live menu, select My Friends Clips, find my gamerpic in the list of friends in your friends list, THEN you could see ALL of the clips I had shared, wheth
    • Hey, what about those of us that don't have any friends? I feel so neglected.
    • What might happen if these people try to elect a president?

      :)

  • Gak (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MilenCent ( 219397 ) * <johnwh@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Friday March 17, 2006 @03:41PM (#14944088) Homepage
    This is the first crack in the uniform murmur of approval for the Xbox Live Achievements feature. Word is that Microsoft actually demands that all games include some Achievements, implying that some kind of editorial process is in place. That these kinds of achievements made it by seems to indicate that it's either not a very good process, or the guidelines in place are not well thought out, or that they merely confirm the existance of Achievements without looking at what they are.

    • Re:Gak (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Grimrod ( 901886 )
      Check out the latest Computer Games Magazine. I've got an article in there called "I Like To Score" that has all the details of Gamerscore right from MS themselves. Basically, it's up the publishers how to handle it. There are minimum and maximum numbers you can work with whether the game is on disc or on Live Arcade, but there's not a whole lot else that they restrict.
    • I don't think you full understand what the achievements in question really are...

      I actually own the game, there are 2 achievements that deal with replay clips:

      1. Share a replay clip online. Basically you play a level and you can save up to 30 seconds of the replay into a clip and share it online. it goes onto the EA servers somewhere and once it's there other people can view it. NO WHERE does it require you to even mention it's existence to anyone. Simply that you create it and put it on the servers w
    • I agree. I love Achievements as much as any other 360 owner, and I'll admit to sharing my clips and recommending them to a friend in order to get the "freebie" achievements. (After all, I got one of the "spams" myself from a friend) But it is rather dubious and if I were an editor/tester for EA (or whoever is in charge of this), I'd wag my finger and say this is a bad idea.

      Then there are also those games which reward hundreds of points for doing very little. Most EA sports games, unfortunately, are set this
      • Well, I'm unsure that that much control needs to be exerted over the achievement process. We know that Microsoft mandates that each game give out at least a certain number of points, and since there are many different kinds of games, it stands to reason that too strict a control over what kinds of achievements can be granted can be harmful.

        What I'm saying is, in the long run there are probably more than a few companies who would be willing to use the feature as a means of promotion more than an aspect of t

  • Clue... (Score:3)

    by Malor ( 3658 ) on Friday March 17, 2006 @04:28PM (#14944470) Journal
    Folks, a high gamertag score is NOT an achievement. It's just bullshit marketing.

    Don't buy the hype. "Ooh, my number is bigger than yours! I'm better/smarter/faster!"

  • That's why (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Friday March 17, 2006 @04:57PM (#14944720)
    Xbox Live has the option to "ignore member" and also lets you remove people from your friends list. Anyone willing to spam me isn't my friend.

  • You need to own a game to see a replay?! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zangief ( 461457 ) on Friday March 17, 2006 @05:35PM (#14945034) Homepage Journal
    Sheesh! What other bullshit will they come up with next? Maybe they will get this crazy idea that you need to own a game to play it!

    (People are getting to sensitive about stuff. Yes, they could distribute a wmv of the replay instead, but blah, somehow I don't feel like downloading 15 megs of my friend last crazy crash.)
  • This is just what the world needs: more spam. How is this good in any way?
  • Yes, I wish he'd stop doing that.

    How many articles have we seen from Zonk recently that are basically XboxLive ads?

    Or should that be Spamming on /. about Xbox Live?

  • I was wondering how long it would be before someone invented Console SPAM..!! YAY microsoft and ea for making my dreams a reality.... someone shoot me now so I can die happy or something like that.. what's next OO I know lets do bulk mailers for prostetic repro organs........ /cry

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