Hi guys,

because looks unclear to someone the meaning of "forcing another controller in the game", (see here) I think the Evil checklist should be amended to clarify that is not ok to let play a LIVE session from a non signed in controller simply borrowing the first gold profile available from any connected controller. If a profile is logged on a non playing controller, use that profile is actually worse than forcing the controller itself: it makes anybody able to use someone else's profile to play.

thanks,
Pino

PinoEire:

Hi guys,

because looks unclear to someone the meaning of "forcing another controller in the game", (see here) I think the Evil checklist should be amended to clarify that is not ok to let play a LIVE session from a non signed in controller simply borrowing the first gold profile available from any connected controller. If a profile is logged on a non playing controller, use that profile is actually worde than forcing the controller itself: it makes anybody able to use someone else's profile to play.

thanks,
Pino

I disagree completely with your interpretation.

The rule is made so that if you are signed in on something like a guitar, and pick up a controller that is not signed in you can still play.

According to your interpretation if you pick up a controller not signed in you should not be able to play unless you sign out your profile from the guitar or whatever other device is using the profile. This would be frustrating to the user.

LocoPuyo:

According to your interpretation if you pick up a controller not signed in you should not be able to play unless you sign out your profile from the guitar or whatever other device is using the profile. This would be frustrating to the user.

I promise you that is way more frustrating having my profile used by anybody picks up any controller.

PinoEire:

LocoPuyo:

According to your interpretation if you pick up a controller not signed in you should not be able to play unless you sign out your profile from the guitar or whatever other device is using the profile. This would be frustrating to the user.

I promise you that is way more frustrating having my profile used by anybody picks up any controller.

I don't see how you find it frustrating.
I find it quite convenient. The majority of people don't have multiple gold accounts. There are plenty of occasions where you will have a guitar or controller pugged in and charging which takes your profile when you start your xbox and want to play with the controller you picked up without having to go through the extra process of signing out the other controller and then signing in on the one you're using. And if you really wanted to use a different profile you can simply sign in and use it.

Bottom line: if I'm not playing then my profile is not to be used, not without my consent. I'll stop here and wait for the MVP to wrap up this matter.

Cheers,
Pino

PinoEire:

Bottom line: if I'm not playing then my profile is not to be used, not without my consent. I'll stop here and wait for the MVP to wrap up this matter.

Cheers,
Pino

If you aren't playing why is your profile signed in to begin with?

I'm not 100% sure what 'using a profile' actually means... its not like the game can actually do anything with it can it? Its not going to buy a game or mess with achievements (actually i seem to remember rock band giveing me achievements even though i was playing on a different controller).

Note that playing any XBLIG requires at least one cotnroller is logged into live to start a game. Doesn't have to be the one in front of you so seems like Microsoft are quite happy to do that.

Right now I can't see any reason that doing this would apply to any of the fail rules, at least not in a general case. Of course jsut like all the other recent discussions you guys would rather spend your time arguing edge cases that don't matter until you've wasted hundreds of hours of everyone's time and then whining about decisions after you forced them to be made. So unless you can show me a game thats doing somethng bad with a profile you should probably take the hint and just move along....

Well Andy,

let's just say that I sign in to allow my child to play with some Indie game for children but I've set the Parental Control to avoid my children go LIVE. So I sign in and take my wireless controller with me in the studio. My child cannot steal my profile for it's password protected and is using a wired gamepad.

Now what if a game works around the Parental Control and allows my children to go LIVE? As a parent I'll be quite angry and disappointed. An Indie Game as work around the Xbox Parental Control? I don't think so.

I leave the matter with you, but think carefully about this. Allowing it means to create an actual work around to the Parental Control.

Cheers,
Pino

I admit to not knowing all the subtle bits for parental controls. but when I have set it up, I get a warning on the screen that tells me that having a parental controlled account logged in will restrict all the accounts - or something like that.  Tomorrow I could playtest some games, I could help some beginners or I could sit down, make several child accounts and spend an hour testing out this scenario so that I can update the evil checklist with a case that won't affect most people. So have you actually tried this, found an indie game that does what you are claiming? Does the same thing happen with most DVD based or XBLA game?

Of course if you leave your kid in front of a console playng unrated games (and all indie games are unrated) then you might have other problems to worry about once they work out how to quit one game and start another... and which kids games have live play in them anyway?

As a parent I decide for my children what they can play (my wife and I are THE rating system) and I buy the titles, not allowing the children such a liberty. The game in question is a nice one and a child may enjoy it and... it has LIVE sessions. Many classic shooters have LIVE sessions and the same is true for a lot of nice puzzles.

This is the second game trying this, the first has been Oichokabu Online which I failed for this too. All the other games that I tried (XBLIG and XBLA) manage this properly: they ask the player to sign in with a valid LIVE Gold account.

The warning dialog box does exacly that: it tells the user that he will have a limited access, but in this case the creator bypasses the problem because the LIVE session is created from a different controller (not playing) working around the limit. I've been able to create a LIVE session from a non signed in controller because the creator has cheated the system creating the LIVE session using credentials belonging to a different controller.

Actually using the credentials belonging to some other (not playing) controller (and displaying those credentials asin use in the game) to me is not different from forcing another controller to partake the game so I'm very sorry if this bothers you or you feel that this is a very edge case. For sure it's way less an edge case than trying to pull the MU in that particular quarter of second, still nobody seams bothered by that. Are the US parents not using Parental Control at all to make this issue an edge case? I hope not, maybe you are young so you tend to overlook the parent's everyday job. If we allow this behaviour the next step could be a messenger like indie game with built-in input boxes and search fields to cheat the system in full... I imagine the box art's slogan: "your parents limit your LIVE account? don't worry... there is another way...".

Sorry for wasting your precious time.
Pino

PinoEire:

The warning dialog box does exacly that: it tells the user that he will have a limited access, but in this case the creator bypasses the problem because the LIVE session is created from a different controller (not playing) working around the limit. I've been able to create a LIVE session from a non signed in controller because the creator has cheated the system creating the LIVE session using credentials belonging to a different controller.

I don't understand what motivated you to say "the creator has cheated the system" though I don't know whom you're referring to.
I hope that you are not talking about the creator who made Oichokabu.

Previously, the game had an issue that in the offline mode every connected controller could control any player participating the game.
The creator fixed it later. Then I think it's reasonable to assume that he hasn't fixed that for the online mode even though I don't know
if it is really necessary to do so.

Whomever you are talking about. It's not a good idea to claim that a creator is cheating based on your belief about something which
should be added to the checklist.

This issue reminds me of the discussion over which social entity among family, school and community should shoulder the role
of ensuring children's safty and educating them about delicate topics.

But I use a simpler example. When the school takes kids on a picnic, the school is responsible for their safty. When the parents
take their kids on a picnic, you know who are responsible.

As to the topic brought by Pino, who is taking the kid on a picnic? If the parent setting is configured properly, the location in question
is not accessible for kids themselves.

Runway 360:

If the parent setting is configured properly, the location in question is not accessible for kids themselves.

Unless the software is working around the settings.

PinoEire:

Runway 360:

If the parent setting is configured properly, the location in question is not accessible for kids themselves.

Unless the software is working around the settings.

The issue is not about the software working around the settings. It is about some parents working around their duties and shifting them
to the peer-review process.

Everyone interested in this issue should read Chapter 6 of the Xbox Live Terms of Use. While it says that Family Settings helps
you limit your kids' access to contents, it doesn't change the fact that you are wholly responsible for supervising usage by minors
for whom you are a guardian. It also says "You acknowledge that use of Family Settings, Parental Controls, or both, is not a substitute
for your personal supervision of your minor children or minors for whom you are the legal guardian."

What shoud we learn from this?

Well, when you are absent and your kid is left in the living room, Xbox 360 does its best to not allow your kid to access to
materials in the Xbox Live Indies Game which could be offensive. It's perfectly done since no kid can start Xbox Live Indie Games
by him/herself.

Launching an Indies Game, which is not generally supposed to be played by minors without parental supervision/consent, having your parent
account logged on, which confirms you are present in the living room as a parent. Doing the both while your kid is sitting next to you holding
his own controller confirms one thing:

You are presenting your kid with materials which Xbox 360 has done its best not to do so, and you are wholly responsible for what is likely
happen.

On a side note, controllers are not so strictly tagged with profiles as you might think.

Deej:

If I had it my way, all users that pull a memory card whilst they know an IO operation is being performed would be lined up, and beaten in the face with MS-DOS 6 manual until blood trickles from their ears.

Agreed. It would be nice if the Framework could capture any IO operation and display a "Please do not remove memory unit ... " message for us, but the developer should at least display one since it doesn't. I wonder what a disc based game like Halo would do it you did this?

I'm surprised this has gone this far.
This seems to me to be a very, very simple problem to fix and by fixing it another layer of hopeful professionalism and quality is added to the Indies channel over all. Intuitive games that all work the same way when it comes to things like profiles and controllers work better for everyone. That's why Microsoft has its gigantic list of TCRs which every pro-Xbox developer is forced to adhere to. That, indeed, is why we have the Evil Checklist. In my opinion the tighter the checklist is the better we all look when games function exactly the way people expect them to.

Now don't get me wrong, I entirely understand LocoPuyo's frustration - being bounced out of review again is really irritating but we need to get some perspective on this situation.

Microsoft provides guest accounts so profile-less players can play on LIVE using someone else's account. That's what they're there for.

I'm 99% certain that as a pro-developer we would not get away with this as it stands. I think the parental controls problem would crop up and also the problem of someone doing something bad to cause the signed-in player's rep to go down would be mentioned.

I don't think the argument is about "should we fail or pass", it's about maintaining an accurate list of those things for which we fail.  I'm not saying that ignorance offers mitigation, but the whole point of the checklist is to make life easier (HA!) for devs AND reviewers. 

I'm a little confused as to what the argument is about - I thought we just had to respect the profile of the controller in use.  That's why you pass playerindex to marketplace methods.  If the active profile has Y-Invert set, and that controller starts my game, then Y-Invert is active.  If they don't have the rights to Marketplace, then they don't get to invoke the market screen.  I (my game) doesn't care what other profiles are logged on, I only care about what rights the profile giving the orders has.  It's not my problem what "parental control" method is in force in the environs of the xbox - that's for the "head of the household" to worry about.  It IS my problem if a profile has been restricted, and I must respect those restrictions in my code.  Is that wrong?

Regards,
Mike

DrMistry:

I don't think the argument is about "should we fail or pass", it's about maintaining an accurate list of those things for which we fail.  I'm not saying that ignorance offers mitigation, but the whole point of the checklist is to make life easier (HA!) for devs AND reviewers. 

I'm a little confused as to what the argument is about - I thought we just had to respect the profile of the controller in use.  That's why you pass playerindex to marketplace methods.  If the active profile has Y-Invert set, and that controller starts my game, then Y-Invert is active.  If they don't have the rights to Marketplace, then they don't get to invoke the market screen.  I (my game) doesn't care what other profiles are logged on, I only care about what rights the profile giving the orders has.  It's not my problem what "parental control" method is in force in the environs of the xbox - that's for the "head of the household" to worry about.  It IS my problem if a profile has been restricted, and I must respect those restrictions in my code.  Is that wrong?

Hi Mike,

IMO you are doing just what I expect from any game, and doing otherwise should be a straight fail... well... I thought it was, but I see that the matter is not clear at all.

Cheers,
Pino

If a game is using a signed in profile for a control I don't have in my hand, I personally consider that a fail as well. But I'm not the final decider on such things :)

Best practice doesn't seem to have any hard-and-fast pointers on this, which makes me think that the common-sense approach is the right on.  He who pushes the button calls the tune, provided they have permissions.  You can piggyback guests on a LIVE session created by a profile with sufficient rights, but i would guess it's naughty to "borrow" perms from another controller.  Seems fair enough to me!  MS have always been in favor of the "single sign-on" approach, each signon being a distinct user OR FUNCTION (e.g. admin accounts) to which the requried permissions are assigned.  System functions must then respect those permissions for actions which that signon attempts.  Profile "fudging" is bad news anyway IMHO.  I don't want kids saving junk to MY profile any more than I want them playing games which I deem unsuitable for them.

Regards,
Mike

When people start saying they would fail something as a matter of opinion then you really have to question if it is right to fail something based on that opinion.

Crashes, hangs and slowdowns we all can agree are reasons to fail a game. (except for Code 7 errors)
Gameplay preference shouldn't be something that a game is failed for.

If a game doesn't meet your standards or work the way you want it to, ignore it and move on.

Creating XBOXLive games was suppose to be a fun and easy process. It is until you come down to peer review where opinions and interpretations of rules start failing a game.
I understand that everyone wants quality games to be put on the marketplace and wants them to be respected, etc. The evil checklist is invaluable for making sure a game does not have any errors that a customer has to deal with, but should it be used to police games based on opinions?

 

Agreed. Failure should be based on properly interpreting the requirements that Microsoft has published, not on someone's opinion. There are a couple of statements in the requirements that are a little vague. One of those is that the user can't be "confused" by what the game does. This is one of those areas we have to be smart and balance the requirements placed on the dev versus what qualifies as confusion to a normal user of xBox games.

Right, the line "or other problems that would frustrate or confuse a player." that is in the game defects Microsoft text.
That just leaves things up to interpretation, which only helps to compound the issue. But the Not so Evil checklist for things we don't fail for also handles the gameplay confusion
"IN GENERAL - confuse and frustrate is related to technical issues. If the instructions, control scheme or the gameplay is confusing or frustrating but its as the developer intended then just ignore the game."

That's why we're discussing it, so that it's a matter of record and not opinion, but really in any event you have to produce a solution that isn't confusing.  If your game could be interpreted as confusing or frustrating, then you're asking for trouble.  You should make NO assumptions about the "normal user of xbox games", in the same way as the gamer will make NO allowances for you being an indie dev rather than a AAA or XBLA producer. 

The requirement for an indie game to function within the rules is absolute, and the requirement of the game to be comprehensible to anyone who can pick up a controller, find your game and start it is (in my opinion) implicit.  I will stick my neck out and say that 95% of the time when a reviewer says "this is just confusing, please change it" and the dev ignores that advice, it's nothing to do with a desire to stick to any particular design idea, but a lack of talent, patience and professionalism on the part of the dev.  If you find yourself in a position where people are telling you your game is just incomprehensible, or utterly counterintuitive, you've written a bad game.

I just don't understand how you can think this has anything to do with interpretation.  I agree with Pino - you're effectively using someone else's profile in an arbitary way, and I would lay dollars to donuts that an XBLA or AAA game attempting such a thing would be torn to shreds.  You sign in to a controller, and that profile assigned to that controller sets your access rights.  Gaming the system is asking for trouble in a whole load of ways.  At best its lazy, at worst its dangerous.

Regards,
Mike

I think people are beginning to get off topic / not understanding the issue at hand so here is a quick explanation.

Game has Xbox Live multiplayer play.

For local play the game uses whichever profile is on the controller in use.

For XBL Multiplayer, if the controller in use has a Live enabled profile it uses that one, if the controller has no profile, or a non XBL profile it will check if anyone is signed in with a Live enabled profile and use it.
You play an Xbox Live multiplayer game, there is no player information saved, no avatar used etc.


Argument for use:
More convenient to the player.
Guitars, charging controllers, etc. take the profile you use when you turn on the xbox and you just want to play with the controller you picked up without the hassle of switching profiles.


Argument against use:
Your child could be playing while you have your controller signed in with the only Live enabled in the other room and you don't want your child to play on Live.


This isn't a case of the developer being lazy as some are hinting at, it's actually a case of the developer doing a little extra to make it more convenient for the player.
The argument isn't about "should games be upheld to this amount of quality", the argument is should you be allowed to play Live multiplayer with a different controller than the one that has the profile signed in.


I myself think you should be able to play live with another controller. 99% of the time the case is going to be the first and it is going to be a convenience. Very rarely is it going to be the case of a parent leaving their child alone and hiding the signed in controller.
No one has brought up any other argument against yet, and I'm not for inconveniencing 99% of the audience to make it more convenient for a select few.