Raptr, a social tool for gamers launches beta today
primesuspect
Beepin n' BoopinDetroit, MI Icrontian
Yesterday evening I got word that Raptr launched a public beta.
Raptr aims to be the final social gaming application on your desktop. It connects you with like-minded gamers, friends, and competitors which allows you to share information about your gaming habits, achievements, scores, and more.
[figure]
[caption]The Raptr games list window[/caption][/figure]
This is similar to Steam, but Steam can't, for example, allow you to see when your Steam friends start playing Call of Duty 4 on the PS3 and then later switch to Castle Crashers on the Xbox 360.
Raptr ties in as many gaming services that they can get their grubby little hands on. Amidst yesterday's launch, I was able to punch in my Wii, Steam, Xbox Live, and PS3 network information. It also has fields for World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero, and Xfire.
I've added a few friends, such as Icrontic's Bryan Miller (Cyclonite); as soon as he fires up any game on any of those networks, I can see that. I can also send him a public "shout" since the Raptr client ties in with the Raptr website, or private message him.
The first thing I liked about Raptr was the fact that it scanned my system for, and found, every game I own. It even let me know that Age of Empires III was outdated, and started downloading the patch for it. This could prove to be huge. Trust me, keeping up with patches for my kids' systems with all their games means I can spend hours on gamershell.com and other patch sites.
This is definitely a beta. I had some weird Adobe Air XML error when I tried to manage the patches that were downloaded for Age of Empires. Also, I didn't realize that the download speed defaulted to 30K for patches - they took forever (you can change it in the options panel). It downloaded 11 patches to bring my game up to the latest version 1.12, even though I had 1.11 installed already and only needed the tiny 1.11 to 1.12 patch. Updates seem really slow, and I had trouble finding a few of my friends and ended up browsing through every single user to find them.
All in all, I see a lot of potential with a service like Raptr. I can usually tell right away whether or not a new app/service is going to click with me, and my initial reaction is "yes, this will click." It clearly needs some polish, but since this is a beta, there remains a lot of potential for fixes.
Raptr aims to be the final social gaming application on your desktop. It connects you with like-minded gamers, friends, and competitors which allows you to share information about your gaming habits, achievements, scores, and more.
[figure]
[caption]The Raptr games list window[/caption][/figure]This is similar to Steam, but Steam can't, for example, allow you to see when your Steam friends start playing Call of Duty 4 on the PS3 and then later switch to Castle Crashers on the Xbox 360.
Raptr ties in as many gaming services that they can get their grubby little hands on. Amidst yesterday's launch, I was able to punch in my Wii, Steam, Xbox Live, and PS3 network information. It also has fields for World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero, and Xfire.
I've added a few friends, such as Icrontic's Bryan Miller (Cyclonite); as soon as he fires up any game on any of those networks, I can see that. I can also send him a public "shout" since the Raptr client ties in with the Raptr website, or private message him.
The first thing I liked about Raptr was the fact that it scanned my system for, and found, every game I own. It even let me know that Age of Empires III was outdated, and started downloading the patch for it. This could prove to be huge. Trust me, keeping up with patches for my kids' systems with all their games means I can spend hours on gamershell.com and other patch sites.
This is definitely a beta. I had some weird Adobe Air XML error when I tried to manage the patches that were downloaded for Age of Empires. Also, I didn't realize that the download speed defaulted to 30K for patches - they took forever (you can change it in the options panel). It downloaded 11 patches to bring my game up to the latest version 1.12, even though I had 1.11 installed already and only needed the tiny 1.11 to 1.12 patch. Updates seem really slow, and I had trouble finding a few of my friends and ended up browsing through every single user to find them.
All in all, I see a lot of potential with a service like Raptr. I can usually tell right away whether or not a new app/service is going to click with me, and my initial reaction is "yes, this will click." It clearly needs some polish, but since this is a beta, there remains a lot of potential for fixes.
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Edit: rawr... now it works...
I thought of a good analogy while I was explaining to Zan why someone would want this service:
Raptr is to gaming services what Tillian is to IM clients.
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h200/gate28/nofriends.jpg
I provide a link to stop from spamming this thread with a full size screenshot of my desktop.
raptr = Gate28
Also, how on earth do I get my xfire friends to show up? It would be dandy if i could use it to chat with xfire friends
^ this.
Bet you couldn't have guessed.
Everyone else's?
Seems to be a trend with names here....
IF you game online with consoles, then Raptr does some pretty sweet stuff there.
And auto patching all of your non-steam games is a huge plus.
What they should do is combine the UI for all the major download services in some meaningful and easy to use manor. That would be a huge hit.