As an aside: Apple should have provided a solution. Even if not perfect, it would have solved some app store issues and rating issues. People could begin to rely more on their network of friends than top 10 lists and flawed rating systems. Plus, it would have been a nice leap over other portable gaming devices. How would Apple monetize it? First of all, it builds excitement about it's hardware. Second, it could be a promoted feature of .mac accounts (they already have a profile). Third, it could funnel users into discussions about Apple products and help keep track of customer trends. Also, because some games would have opt-in Facebook posting, there would be incidental advertising of Apple hardware. It seems so natural to offer that I wonder if that's where Apple is headed. The cool part right now is that there is some nice innovation in these third party solutions that might not have happened if Apple had jumped in right away.
So just tried the various sdk, Open Feint was the only one which didn't require some sort of verifcation from the other side. Got it up and running as per the SDK instructions, pretty easy, added my product/secret key and off we go. Looks like it has all the functionality needed and plenty of room to expand. I'll proably go with it. Personally I think this will play out like Facebook, each of the networks offer very similar functionality, it will boil down to who has the most people in the end. Once one network gets enough critical mass, it will just dominate the market due to its sheer size and momentum. -ddn
There have been many such battles in technological history: From VHS/Betamax to Blu-ray/HD DVD. And unfortunately it probably won't be the last time consumers have to choose between multiple competing products until the uptake of one dramatically overshadows the others. But then competition is always good too
@Neil, I really doubted ngmoco will ever reply. Ok, let's see what Plus+ has to offer. @geocade, thanks for your clarifications Good to have all the companies involved here, this is good for all (companies, devs and users) @ddn Which ones have you tried? I think that Scoreloop no, cause if you want just scoreboards no verification at all is needed. Also you tested the Plus+?
I give you guys credit on having it become one of the first most succsessful ones. The added features were awesome! Personally I enjoyed it, untill Plus+ (It just feels a little easier thats all. Open Feint still rocks). It does sound like, however it's going to be a while before it becomes fully realized and used to an extent untill someone else beats em to it. Going to be interesting to see how it all plays out though, thats for sure.
I've been thinking of using one of these existing services for online highscores in Slope Rider. The problem for me is that with 13 levels in Slope Rider, and two different game modes there are actually 26 different leaderboards. Do any of the existing solutions offer the ability to have more than one leaderboard per game?
Scoreloop High Score Lists / Leaderboards @monteboyd With Scoreloop you can have levels. The high scores will be shown in one list sorted by levels and then by score. You can also customize the score and level naming through a formatter. We will add game modes in the next SDK version. This will show the scores in different lists. From a usability perspective I think it does not make much sense to have 26 leaderboards. 2 leaderboards for your game modes and the levels within that list sounds a lot more useable. I generally recommend to use game modes sparely, maybe 2 or 3. In addition you could also try to calculate one global score using the initial score, the level and your mode as parameters. Obviously it depends very much upon your game. Hope that helps Dominik
Thanks for your response Dominik and sorry to derail the thread a bit on this. The thing with Slope Rider is that each level is played independant of each other and because of the different layouts you can get much higher trick points on some, and much faster race times on others. That's where it gets tricky to combine the users points from each level into an overall score. Actually it could easily be done with trick points, but with the race times it's a lot harder. But you are right that from a usability perspective it's a bit crazy, I'll have a think about how I could combine all the user's achievments into some sort of global total score.
Unless I am mistaken, the @Neil that reply in this thread should be Neil Young the head honcho of ngmoco ;-). So if its the case you cant say they they wont ever reply hehehe. Fred
@monteboyd I'm in a similar situation with my upcoming game. It's a stage-based puzzle game. From a user standpoint, it would be cool to have a competition over each stage, even if it seems a bit overkill on the back end. @everyone From a developer standpoint OpenFeint is extremely inviting and functional. It also has the advantage of being out there and having a team and architecture that allows for fast response and roll out of new features. Look how fast challenges are coming as soon as it became a buzzword. It impressed me. Seems like customer perception of OpenFeint is not as good, though. That needs to be worked on. Plus+ has made the consumer news splash. (Actually, some of the reporting on Plus+ seemed a bit irresponsible to me. Where was the two-minute research to mention alternate solutions?) I need to look a bit deeper into the other options. Btw, @Intruder_qcc I think that is what coolman was saying. Paraphrase: "I didn't think ngmoco would respond, now I'll have to check them out."
You are right intruder, Neil or any assistant to him. Many times in big or well know companies, assistants reply acting like the manager, but fits here. Don't trust in every you see, trust in facts. I doubted, cause my story contacting with ngmoco was never succesfully. So now let's give them time to show what they can offer.
Hi Jamie - see my response below... @monteboyd - multiple leaderboards even of multiple types within a game are not an issue.
Other than a brief test with OpenFeint I haven't had time to look at much code so this might be nuts, but I wonder if it would be possible to incorporate more than one of these networks into a game. This way you can give the user a choice at runtime - my only concern is that the coding style of some of these systems would preclude that possibility.
To be fair, I must say that ngmoco guys exists, they replied me telling they will be back to me in the next days with more info.
OpenFeint supports any number of customizable leaderboards for each application. Same thing with achievements (you can even customize the icon used!). Take a look at Pocket God or Sentinel 2 for two great integration examples. PG has something like 40 leaderboards and customized achievements. If you're a developer, you can signup and use OpenFeint today at www.openfeint.com. Feel free to e-mail me or find me on twitter @jasoncitron
And another one... Chillingo to launch iPhone social gaming gateway, Crystal The more the better, eh?
I've been watching this space for a while now also, and another option so far not mentioned is Cocos Live: http://www.cocoslive.net/ Support for this is supposedly built into cocos2d. (An open-source game engine for iPhone.) From the FAQ: "As of version 0.1, the only feature available is the High Score Server. Future versions will have more features." More about cocos2d here: http://code.google.com/p/cocos2d-iphone/ Anyway, this has been a great discussion so far. Thanks!
Wow, and after posting in this thread this morning, breaking news is that OpenFeint has announced they're doing away with their fees for developers entirely: http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/OpenFeint/news.asp?c=14360
