I want to know why we cant play online for free cause some people keep getting disconnected most of the time they could keep everything the same on how it is like you would still have to buy points, addons, movies, etc... but they shouldnt have it where you have to pay to play, how would you feel if you paid for 3 mouths of gold but you only got to play for 4 days because xbox live keeps kicking you off. I would like to hear everyones opinion about this, so please people tell me what you think if they did that for us.

I think it's fair enough for the best and largest gaming community worldwide, but my main reason for not begrudging payin for live is that someone's gotta pay it.
What i mean is ps3 and wii dev's have to pay the server for their online service and this reflects on there game prices . Ie a new ps3 release in an identical game to 360 is usually a fiver more expensive,,, why... cos dev's have to pick up the server bill.
For the sake of having better versions and exclusives of games i am happy to pay the yealry subscription.
i also am against second hand games from game shops. As the devs dont see any of this extra sale cash and this is effecting the gaming industry. Let's be fair we want the best graphics/gameplay available, but they need millions£££ for this. This will ultimatley lead to online only purchasing of games----but not for a long time!!
Support the dev's

Personally, I have no issues paying $50 a year for Live. That $50 is a drop in the bucket when you consider what it gets you (ability to play online, early access to game demos, acess to 1 vs 100, etc.)

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You'll find me either on MW2 or AC2.

you have a good point, but my main issue is that not everyone has a constent connection so lets say they dont make it free but put a different kind of time limit on it. Lets say you buy 1 month and usually once that month is over you have to get another month, but what if they change it to where you have to buy the hours instead of the month that way nomatter how long your kicked offline you wont run out of hours unless you use them. If they did it like that i would buy alot of hours.

I bet there are people out there that want to play but dont have the time and money to pay for 1 whole month and only play for 2 or 3 days so they just dont bother buying any, but if they made it by hours alot more people would be on because they could get on anytime they wanted.

I just know that everybody would rather have it like that then what they have now, heck if they did it like i said i would buy my friends hours!

The thing with connections has more to do with that persons internet service and not Xbox Live. You'll find that more people have more issues with either their home network (including network setup and/or hardware such as routers/modems) or with their actual ISP. This is not to say that Xbox Live hasn't had service interruptions or that it hasn't had poor performance (which it has), but for the vast majority of the time lag/connection drops/communication errors (can't connect to host errors) are usually caused by that persons own internet setup or service. 

As for buying "hours." Alot of people wouldn't do that. Once you get into a true pay to play service then you're going to see alot of people walking away. Plus, it's not going to help those people who have connection issues. If that person buys a months worth of "hours" but can only play for 40 hours then they still lose out just the same as if they pay for a monthly subscription, but can only play for a week. Also, when you start breaking down service into smaller pieces the price goes up. Just look at the current subscription levels. It's cheaper to buy one year of Live upfront than it is to buy it in three months for a year or to pay monthly for that year. 

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You'll find me either on MW2 or AC2.

well there is no thing as a perfect connection everybody that i know that play gets kicked off for a day or 2, if someone has a perfect connection and never gets kicked of please tell me what service do you have and what equipment are you using so i can let everybody i know so they can switch to it as well as i.

Again tho, pay nd play would affect the Dev's, some people like gold just so thy can chat to there mates while plyin dif games.... and how would demo downloads work.... would it be equal for all or p an p only download some but not all content?
I like free things too but all ready begrudge payin 45 for a game,, i usaully wait a week or 2 and get it from play.com for at least a tenner less.. 
somethings in life are worth it and live at under 40 a year , yeh i think it's fair cos of prev reasons..

all downloadable content would still be the same all im sayin is that instead of someone havein 1 month gold it would be 100 hours gold and it would only run out if you played online as in while your playin a match. OK answer this if you bought 3 month gold and you played for the first month but then your xbox fried and you sent it off to get fix and it took them a month to send it back well you just lost 1 whole month of play and you cant get it back! OK again if  you bought 100 hours of gold and you played for 30 hours then your xbox fried and you sent it off and it took them 1 whole month to send it back you didnt lose any hours because you use the hours when you want to.

 duviee71 wrote:

well there is no thing as a perfect connection everybody that i know that play gets kicked off for a day or 2, if someone has a perfect connection and never gets kicked of please tell me what service do you have and what equipment are you using so i can let everybody i know so they can switch to it as well as i.

Why don't you start off by telling us what kind of equipment you have setup for your network. What type of cable/dsl modem do you have? Router brand/model? Wired/wireless hookup to the xbox? Are your gaming ports open on your router? Is your NAT open/moderate or strict? <you can check that by going into system>network connections>test connection on your xbox. Post the answers back here and we may very well be able to help you further.

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You have been banned from posting on the forums until 11-11-2009 4:11 AM.

Wow.

first of all id like to thank you for attempting to help me out. linksys wireless-G broadband router, wired, yes all the ports that need to be open are, strict.

what if they kept the monthly gold but also added the hours for the ppl that only play 1 or 2 days out of a month, that way they could make everybody happy?

I also have PS3 (hopefully Xbox mods won't be pissed at me for mentioning that) Which has free on-line. However even though Xbox 360 is not free. It is way better in terms of on-line. You get want you pay for. So $50.00 for a year is a good deal. Sometimes my internet connection craps out, that happens on both consoles during on-line play. I have a shitty internet connection. So it is not the fault of microsoft. If MS were to go free the quality would go down for on-line. It would be nice, not gonna happen. Xbox 360 is the best for on-line. I'll just have to get a bettter connection to the internet. Most times it is good and few major difficulties playing On-line.

on the xbox website it tells you everything that needs to be done like open ports and ive done all of that, my internet has a great connection but when i try and connected it it wont let me connect for some reason, ive been told by some ppl that vista keeps you from connecting to xbox live and who is the maker of that again. there are hacked versions of vista that ppl put out there so that it will connect to xbox live but its hard to get a good one.

I wouldn't have a problem paying for online, if MS, hit 2 criteria. 1: Fix the damn RROD 2: Time was based on how long you are online, not how it is now.

Your NAT should be 'open', that is where your issue lies. Please look here for further help on getting your NAT to open . Good luck.

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You have been banned from posting on the forums until 11-11-2009 4:11 AM.

Wow.

 duviee71 wrote:

on the xbox website it tells you everything that needs to be done like open ports and ive done all of that, my internet has a great connection but when i try and connected it it wont let me connect for some reason, ive been told by some ppl that vista keeps you from connecting to xbox live and who is the maker of that again. there are hacked versions of vista that ppl put out there so that it will connect to xbox live but its hard to get a good one.

Vista or any other computer OS has nothing to do with you connecting your Xbox to Live. That is done through your modem and router. I have Vista Premium and have no problems what so ever. And you really want to stay away from 'hacked' versions of any software as one it is illegal and two it usually causes more problems than solutions.

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You have been banned from posting on the forums until 11-11-2009 4:11 AM.

Wow.

ive done everything that ppl have told me to do and ive had ppl come over and do what they think my nat has always be strict, its never been open and it makes me mad cause no one can get it to open. ive had different service providers and it has always been strict. i would rather pay for hourly cause right now i have the 3 month but ive only been able to play for 3 weeks cause xbox live keeps kickin me off and this isnt the first time, all my other service providers had the same problem so i highly doubt that its my equipment or my providers. i just think microsoft has more to do with this than all of ya'll think, i mean maybe my xbox doesnt want to connect an microsoft made it. im not sayin that microsoft sucks or anything its just they have flaws that need to be fix.

i know a couple ppl that have a ps3 and they have never had a bad connection but when they hook an xbox they suddenly have a bad connection, and ya'll say that microsoft has nuthing to do with it!

Did you even follow the steps in my second post? Who is your internet service provider? If you're following the steps you should have no problems opening your NAT. Either you are not doing something correctly or one of your devices is not working properly. Trust me, it isn't your Xbox restricting your NAT. It is your settings on either your modem, your router, or your isp's end.

Again, who is your ISP?

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You have been banned from posting on the forums until 11-11-2009 4:11 AM.

Wow.

embarq

Embarq is dsl. Run speedtest.com and post your results. It is possible you aren't getting enough speed from your isp to maintain the connection or packets may be getting dropped.

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You have been banned from posting on the forums until 11-11-2009 4:11 AM.

Wow.

GREED

downlaod speed 1684kbps, upload speed 822kbps thats from a server from dallas tx

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Just out of curiosity, what would you be willing to pay for 100 hours?  Would 50 cents an hour be a fair price? If you go to one of those gaming arcades, they usually charge $5 or $6 per hour to play any game they have in their library.  Would the 50 cents / hour be a reasonable fee to you?

Now do the math, at 50 cents per hour for 100 hours, that adds up to $50. That's more or less the cost of a full year of  24/7/365 online gaming from Live. I've had Live for a few years now and I can only think of maybe 10 days at most, where the Live service was unavailable. Most times I wasn't able to connect, it wasn't a Live issue, it was an Internet / hydro related issue.

Lets say you are only willing to pay 25 cents per hour. Lets then say you game online for 4 hours a week.  So  your grand total for 16 hours of gaming is $4 per month. Multiply that by 12 months and you're at $48 (approx). You're still back up to the almost cost of the current yearly subscription fee.

Any way you look at it, I think in the end, the current pricing for Live is extremely fair value. I know how it can suck when you're in a great match with great players, then all of a sudden you disconnect and its extremely annoying. Unfortunately that's the risk. At least with the dashboard you can see your recent players and try to reconnect.

I can appreciate what you're hoping for which is a moderate Live Subscription for a lesser cost, but any way you add it up, I think we're still getting a great deal as it is now.

That's my 2 cents on the subject for what its worth.

See ya!

 duviee71 wrote:

what if they kept the monthly gold but also added the hours for the ppl that only play 1 or 2 days out of a month, that way they could make everybody happy?

50 is probly to much for 100 hours im no good with math to figure out wats the best price. it would probly have to match the monthly price in some way, im not real sure like i said i suck at math.

 duviee71 wrote:

I just know that everybody would rather have it like that then what they have now, heck if they did it like i said i would buy my friends hours!

Do you realise how expensive that would be for some? I use live for several hours a day, every day. For people like yourself buying hours would be sensible but being a more active user it would be a hell of a lot cheaper to buy the yearly subscription.

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Tested:
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I am a Microsoft TV Ambassador

Well I can do some math for you just to put it in perspective,

If you live in Canada, a year subscription for Live is approximately $59
If you factor that over 365 days in a year, you're currently paying approx 16 cents a day.

If you live in the U.S., I believe the approximate cost for a year of Live is $50
If you factor that over 365 days in a year you're paying approx. 13 cents a day.

I'm pretty sure there's no monthly or hourly rate that will beat that kind of deal.

You said you wouldn't pay 50 cents per hour for an hour based account. If you look, with the current structure you're paying less than 20 cents for a FULL DAY!

Again, just my 2 cents!