New Dashboard features

[Travers36]

Was anyone else here picked to get the update early? I like a few of the things but a couple may take some getting used to. the new Netflix alone gave me a half chub as it's fantastic although I am yet to try out the Party feature. The fact that you can now rate pretty much every bit of content is also great. I'm not sure I like what they did with the achievement viewr but the fact that you can launch a game from it is good. Discuss among yourselves but feel free to include me

[eZACKe]

Can't wait till it releases. Not too excited about the avatar clothing and stuff like that, but there's a lot of little features I've been hearing about that I'm interested in.

[weezerzeke]

So you prefer your avatars unclothed?

eZACKe said:

Can't wait till it releases. Not too excited about the avatar clothing and stuff like that, but there's a lot of little features I've been hearing about that I'm interested in.

[eZACKe]

Haha of course!

Really though, I just don't care about the avatar marketplace too much. It's interesting I guess, but I'm most likely not going to spend MS Points in order to pimp out my Avatar.

[weezerzeke]

If I spend any points it will be rarely. I'm actually hoping some games come with avatar stuff.

[eZACKe]

I'd like to see avatar clothing or items become available kind of like achievements. If you do something in a game, you'd unlock a piece of clothing.

[DDTM Admin]

Just got into the preview yesterday. So far it's pretty slick.

[DDTM Admin]

weezerzeke said:

If I spend any points it will be rarely. I'm actually hoping some games come with avatar stuff.

I think you may be in luck, Weez. In the section of the guide where you can view your achievements, there's also a spot now for "Avatar Awards." I'm betting those are exactly what you hope they are.

Tried the Netflix party system tonight, and it worked great. Even on my slow connection, the movie played fine, the chat was uninterrupted, and there was no lag or slowdown in the avatar actions you can perform. Basically, once your party decides on a movie, you go to a screen that looks something like a home theatre from a moviephile's wet dream. You watch as your party's avatars enter from the sides of the screen and take their seats, and then the movie begins. Yes, the movie viewing area is smaller than it would be if you watched the movie alone, but that didn't bother me. You can chat continually as the movie plays (HolyCrap and I watched the Dead Space animated movie). At any time, you can push Y, which brings up an emote wheel in the bottom left corner of the screen. From there you can select from something like 8 different kinds of reactions to the movie. Pick a reaction, and your avatar shows the appropriate emotion on screen. Also, each type of emote has several different animations that display randomly, so you never know exactly what you're going to get. HolyCrap and I laughed our asses off early on in the movie when the main character (a female) was getting dressed and we kept emoting "love". The number of hearts and kisses blown to the screen made for hilarity of the highest order... at first. The different emotes are highly amusing right now, but somehow I suspect that they'll become less so over time as users get tired of the same old animations.

Now, here's something I've noticed that I have a question about: When you view your profile or the profile of any user who has the update, you'll see a number inside a circle in the top right of your/their gamercard. HolyCrap's number is 1, whereas mine is 2. Does anyone have any idea what those numbers represent?

[HolyCrapOuch]

I also recall a number of inappropriate emotes during that movie, i.e. when someone was getting butchered by a necromorph and one of us kept emoting joy. Maybe both of us. Methinks one of, or both of, us is fucked up. Either way, I heart the new Netflix layout.

On the other hand, the avatar marketplace is just silly. It's something on the order of 300 points for a RC Warthog for your avatar to play with, and around 80 points for branded "clothing"? Count me out. Anyone else on the same boat as myself?

LordRune said:

weezerzeke said:

If I spend any points it will be rarely. I'm actually hoping some games come with avatar stuff.

I think you may be in luck, Weez. In the section of the guide where you can view your achievements, there's also a spot now for "Avatar Awards." I'm betting those are exactly what you hope they are.

Tried the Netflix party system tonight, and it worked great. Even on my slow connection, the movie played fine, the chat was uninterrupted, and there was no lag or slowdown in the avatar actions you can perform. Basically, once your party decides on a movie, you go to a screen that looks something like a home theatre from a moviephile's wet dream. You watch as your party's avatars enter from the sides of the screen and take their seats, and then the movie begins. Yes, the movie viewing area is smaller than it would be if you watched the movie alone, but that didn't bother me. You can chat continually as the movie plays (HolyCrap and I watched the Dead Space animated movie). At any time, you can push Y, which brings up an emote wheel in the bottom left corner of the screen. From there you can select from something like 8 different kinds of reactions to the movie. Pick a reaction, and your avatar shows the appropriate emotion on screen. Also, each type of emote has several different animations that display randomly, so you never know exactly what you're going to get. HolyCrap and I laughed our asses off early on in the movie when the main character (a female) was getting dressed and we kept emoting "love". The number of hearts and kisses blown to the screen made for hilarity of the highest order... at first. The different emotes are highly amusing right now, but somehow I suspect that they'll become less so over time as users get tired of the same old animations.

Now, here's something I've noticed that I have a question about: When you view your profile or the profile of any user who has the update, you'll see a number inside a circle in the top right of your/their gamercard. HolyCrap's number is 1, whereas mine is 2. Does anyone have any idea what those numbers represent?

[HolyCrapOuch]

Have any of you tried out the Games on Demand yet?

[Travers36]

No, but I did buy a shirt...

[DDTM Admin]

Really? I can't say I haven't been tempted, but the price tag is just a bit too high for me to make purchasing digital clothing seem worthwhile.

[Travers36]

For me to pay a dollar for a Halo 3 shirt that says "stuck" SOLD!