On Halo 2 Achievements

What the hell is an achievment and why would I want one? Is it like in school when you got a gold star from the teacher for being good, and then if you got 10 stars you would get a cupcake?

"If you're currently an Xbox Live gold member, then you needn't worry about signing up or paying for a separate service, because we're told that the Xbox Live membership is universal with your Games for Windows Live membership. And if you don't have Xbox Live, signing up for Games for Windows Live will also set up your Xbox Live account. The two are basically one and the same. There will be two levels of Games for Windows Live, silver and gold. Silver is the free, limited service, while gold is the full, subscription service"

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halo2/news.html?sid=6166892

Also known as... PLEASE BUY WINDOWS VISTA.

Love,
Microsoft

As cool an idea as Achievements are, they really don't do anything for me personally, and I certainly wouldn't buy a subscription to something I didn't want JUST for extra Achievements.

Not saying I don't like Live; I have it, and I use it occasionally for SF2 and Doom. But honestly, paying for extra achievements? Pah-shaw.

Hah hah, pay to get achievements? Shirley you jest.

So the difference between Silver and Gold for Windows is that only with Gold can you get multiplayer achievements? There has to be more to it, right?

I wonder how much confusion and heated arguments will rise around the subject "you need gold to play online".

Is Gold on Vista a seperate purchase from Gold on 360? If it's a seperate purchase, it's going to be a tough sale for me. I'm already paying 50 a year on one platform, I don't see myself paying 100 bucks a year.

Wait, what? Gold costs cash monies on Windows Live? I must have missed that!

No thanks Microsoft!

Like it was said before, this isn't needed for PCs. I can care less about being able to play against those with 360s, as it probably wouldn't be fair regardless because of the mouse and keyboard vs. gamepad problem. The day I pay for multiplayer games on PC other than MMOs is the day that gaming is not what I fell in love with anymore.

As much as I adore live for the xbox (though I only have a silver account, because I cannot currently justify the price), and would like to see it on the PC, I do think a couple of considerations are to be made.

The way that console games typically work, as far as setup goes, is slightly different than how most PC games work. PC games usually utilize a server / client model, whereas most console games seemingly appear to resort to some method of peer-to-peer (though I suppose there is some sort of server stuff going with the communication, can anyone lay out exactly how it works?). This allows PC users to enjoy matches with a much larger number of players, but it also comes at a cost. Community run servers usually have to be set up. In one sense, it would be great to do away with these, mostly because they cost lots of money, and bandwidth, so if Live for Vista could allow for some sort of automatic server system, while still allowing a large number of players, I would be most welcome of going for gold.

However, I would not be particularly interested in having to pay for community servers. Likewise, if the model will only allow an xbox live-esque system (And I don't dislike it, but in many ways, this would mean somehow downgrading what we currently have), with smaller games, I would also be somewhat reluctant at purchasing an account.

Seeing that PC-to-PC play will most likely be free in Shadowrun (though no word on what model it will utilize), I do get the feeling that the way the system is going to work has not be decided entirely upon.

yet another reason to avoid vista