Topic: Your Online Experience with Brawl

[Crimm]

Nintendo World Report is conducting a survey on the Super Smash Bros. Brawl online experience.  Have you brawled online?  Tell us your thoughts here or via the mailbag (if you don't want to register).

The more detail you can give the better, and try to focus on your own experiences.

Thank you

[Nick DiMola]

Generally speaking, it's terrible.

I rarely connect to random people on the internet. Friend matches are typically laggy, even when I play just one other person. Most of the friends on my list are still unconfirmed when I know they added me already.

Between button lag and visual lag, the game has been more or less unplayable for me online.

[DAaaMan64]

I have yet to ever plan an online match or played a friend match with conditions I would tolerate in the long run.  I have played almost all of the online Wii games out there, and never experienced anything like this.

I have given my Wii a static IP and unlocked all ports up and down.

I have actually never slide-showed but it has gotten too unreasonable slow. I would personally consider, any button lag that lasted longer than a second or two to completely invalidate a match and I am never played a match without it.

The best matchs I have ever played have been with Pro. Stage seemed to make very little difference, although items definitely seem to.

This sucks, Die Nintendo!

[Smoke39]

I've played several team matches "with anyone."  They connected okay, but were always pretty laggy once we started playing.

I played a few matches with one of my friends, which were also pretty laggy.  The last time we tried to play with each other our games wouldn't even recognize that the other was online so we couldn't connect.

I've pretty much given up on it.

[vudu]

Maybe I'm just easy to please, but I'm fairly happy with it.  Yes, the process is stupid and yes games are generally laggy.  But I'm still able to get online and play friend matches so I honestly can't complain too much.  Brawl is hella fun even if we have to put up with this crap.

In short:

Brawl:  A
Online:  D+
Brawl Online (not an average):  B

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

After tweaking my router/Wii, my 1on1 USA matches play GREAT (near negligible button lag).

My "With Anyone" matches play Almost Great (noticeable but manageable button lag).

My 3p INTERNATIONAL Pietriot matches have been Passable, surprisingly (minor slideshows or barely tolerable button lag).

My 4p Friend matches have been 5min slideshows to play a 2min Timed Match.  The game outright stops for 10sec+ at a time.

On two occasions my game locked-up during onrine brawling.  The last time my Wii locked up was during a loading sequence in Rayman Raving Rabbids during Wii's launch season.

[batmaniswatching]

I've had a great time with it.

I play every week or two with a group of people around New England. Relatively small area, but I've personally experienced little to no lag in those matches.

The 'with anyone' feature is a little tougher, with lag happening every now and then.  But it's an occasional problem, at worst. 

I've especially loved spectating matches online, and those come in nice and fast, though I wish that far fewer of those matches were at final destination or other basic levels.

On the other hand, I really wish there was more customization available for online matches.  In particular, I feel like there's no way to really ramp up the amount of items falling during these matches (though this is a problem in non-online matches as well) to make the item battling totally insane, which is sometimes fun.  All in all, the brawling feels less absurd than in previous versions of the game.  I don't know if this is because I've not been sitting with the people I'm playing with and laughing, but it just feels more like fighting and less like madness (madness being my preference). 

[Smash_Brother]

It's a total crapshoot.

Sometimes I'll connect to a player with virtually no lag. A week later, the lag to the same player will be horrendous to the point of being unplayable.

The worst part of it is the fact that you basically wind up learning two movesets for each character, the one you get with lag and the one without. It makes sense to be using certain moves in lag-filled matches where the move has a better chance of landing due to random luck or your opponent not being able to react in time whereas local matches have a completely different ruleset for when it comes to deciding what moves to use.

I would gladly pay $5 a month for hosted servers and lag-free battles. Nintendo said in the past that online wouldn't be good unless it's profitable, and I agree with that. Maybe this is their way of demonstrating to us how bad free service truly is so when they roll out "Mario-Net", we'll all be ridiculously happy to pay for decent online SSBB matches.

[sycomonkey]

Haven't sucsessfully had one yet.  Don't know many people with the game, online exchanges haven't resulted in anything, and random matchup is still broken.

Thankfully I didn't buy the game for online play.  Honestly, I only ever even attempted it out of a sense of mild curiosity.  The level editor is a more compelling feature than online play.

Now, if this was an action-RPG or RTS or something, yes, I would be pissed about the ghettoriffic online experiance.  But for smash, this is only a mild dissapointment.  Considering how late Nintendo is on the internet bandwagon, I'm surprised it ever works at all.

[Another_Mortal]

My Online experience has been great for the most part. I usually spend half of the time playing with Friends then I switch to With Anyone. When I battle against Friends, the match only lags at the beginning of the battle then it establishes itself and we play with almost no button lag. It really doesn't matter with how many people I play because it all ends up the same. Also, I have friends who live far away and we play with almost no lag, and the quality of connection I have with these people is colored Orange. With Anyone is somewhat different. Sometimes it takes time to find players to fight against and it's somewhat frustrating. There are times where I play a match with no lag, and there are times where I play with lag. The worst thing that has happened to me Online is that in the middle of the match, my connection is disconnected from the match and I have to search for players to fight against. Overall I enjoy Online battling and hope that Nintendo manages to fix some of the issues we are encountering.

[LOL] This is my frist post.

[Halbred]

Editor RESPONSE!

Horrifying. Out of the eighteen or twenty people on my friends list, only four have registered. The rest are "awaiting registration." That includes ALL of my fellow NWR editors. Unbelievable. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to get "With Anyone" matches going, and I've never experienced crippling lag.

What pisses me off the most is that you can't play solo games while your Wii is online in the background. That is, you can't be playing through Subspace, and then a message pops up saying "Hey, So-and-So is online! He wants to play!" No, there's none of that. It sucks ballz.

It's a good thing that Smash is so good outside of the online shenanigans.

[stevey]

Varies depend how crappy the other player is but for the most part

25% perfect
67% specs of lag usually at the beginning of a match and goes away quickly after
7% choppy
1% horrific

Out of 12 Hours and a couple hundred matches. 

I'm pleased at it, and give it an A-

(BTW, I'm not using a static IP, port forwarding, or Lan cable. )

[Plugabugz]

Terrible. Every time i try to switch it on i realise i'm playing red steel again.

[Shecky]

I've played about 30+ matches with local friends (local to the area, not NWR members) and have had zero problems, and those matches were spread over time, were not talking a single session.

Matches against NWR folks have been good overall, however I've had times where the lag got really bad... so like S_B said, it can be hit or miss.

With anyone, never works for me... ever.   Ok, I've had 7 matches in about the 30+ attempts, and those were also hit or miss.  Spectator mode always works, but the folks I spectate are total losers of a match 80% of the time.

[TAYREL713]

I play pretty much nightly. Never random, always friend codes. Only when a particular buddy in Boston (I am in Cleveland, OH) gets on does it bog down, he thinks it's because he uses Comcast as his ISP. I can't call it. I have played now hundreds of matches on line from people as far away as California, and as close as a county away (my night job coworkers). I use Cox Cable as my ISP. Before I got the game I moved my wireless router around and took the high gain antenna off my desktop and placed it on the router itself. The router is set to channel 1. Hm mm, what else can I tell you, I have had great fun playing this game on line, it's only the second game after Madden that I have played on-line with the Wii. I understand people having issue with the Wii's on line offerings. Like I have never had issue with the Shop Channel while I read all the time about peoples downloads taking forever. I use a Zyxel router if that matters.

[jllr30]

Smash Brothers is a great game, but not on line.  I wish they had added an on line feature like Medal of Honor Heroes where you can find people or rooms with good connections.  The anyone feature rarely connects to others and when it does, it is mostly laggy. I have been disconnected a lot and other on line games I have played have ran pretty well. Will Nintendo rectify this situation or are we pretty much screwed as far as on line goes. Makes me worry about Mario Kart Wii.

[Monteblanco]

None of my friends have the game and I wasn't able to connect to a single match so far. My sole online experience with the game was limited to watching a few matches.

[Djunknown]

Mine's been fairly positive. When people in my house aren't actively sucking my bandwidth, I've gotten in some decent matches with 2-4 people. Some of the NWR regulars and staff can vouch for this. Its not really the distance, but just the quality of the connection.

Strangely, I cannot get basic brawl to work. I host a game time and time again wait for 15-30 minutes but no one comes in. I have not done anything to my router (port fowarding), so that could be the culprit.

[Kairon]

Not being able to play Brawl online (excepty for one or two very laggy miracles with only very specific people) is debilitating. I want more than anything in the world right now to play my brother, my best friends, maxi,m GP, and other people from the forums. I feel like I'm dead when I repeatedly try to play matches with other people and it disconnects me.

All I can do online is send and receive stage/replay data and watch spectator mode.

[Sonuis]

I'm able to play incredibly laggy matches with the Brawl service and rarely connect using the "With Anyone" service for brawls.  I can watch matches though.

Then again, I am using a -Satellite- ISP, so it may be a bit off on what really goes on for me.

[pSYCO-gAMER321]

Not great at all. I'm quite puzzled that even the fastest connection speed lags. Hell, there are plenty of people playing games from Live or PSN, but they hardly lag compared to Brawl. Online structure is simple to start out, but then you'll notice it gets bad. Once in a while I get a good connection, but out of no where, chugs chugs chugs! Sorry, but Nintendo, you really need to work on the online connectivity. I play Resistance with 16 people online and does not lag as bad compared to 4 random online play on Brawl.

[Sundoulos]

I've mostly been playing the "Play With Anyone" matches, as I haven't been fortunate enough to be brawling online to play with friends, for the most part.  Unfortunately, those time that I have been on, those on my friends list are usually in other matches already.  I wish that Nintendo allowed a simple ping or an invite so that you could get the attention of those on your friends list.

Anyway, I've probably played somewhere around 200 matches online at this point.  Of those, I've only had two instances where the lag was severe, and probably 10 - 15 matches where lag was noticeable but not game-breaking.  Normally, when I have experienced lag, the problem seems to lessen if I play multiple matches within the same group. 

The biggest problem I have had is during the match-making.  Sometimes, it's taken my Wii FOREVER to actually connect with people, and on occassion I've lost my Wii online connection during the waiting room sequence.  This may be due to my ISP being flaky during peak use hours, though.  I've experienced this problem with other games in the past.

[Deguello]

My online experiences with Brawl have actually mostly been great.  Only once did I get the "slideshow" lag, but I just rolled with it until it just stopped.  Playing with Djunknown was relativley lag free and lovely, and I've even had random people fights be lag free.

[Gylldas]

I actually had my first friend battle yesterday with Djunk. We did have some lag but we also had four players for most of the time. Of course when that number narrowed it smoothed out. I'm no pro at the game but I found it quite playable.

With anyone has been hit or miss for me. Most of my games have been pretty good except for the rare occasion I get kicked. I've only had it slideshow on me about three times out of many many brawls. As already mentioned above most of my friend list is still awaiting registration so the matchmaking process is my main gripe right now.

[SeaBass]

lol well my online experience has been pretty satisfying. i believe the online will gradually get better, actually. probably because the servers were overloaded, and since brawl is such a popular title, the servers will still be full for quite some time.

anyways, my "with friends" connection is practically flawless and there is no button lag. "with anyone" is a little bit slower and there is occassional button lag. when i first got the game on launch, the lag was unbearable (server overlaods i tell you!) but now its great

oh and for all you saying that your friends are marked as "awaiting registration", they're just not adding you lol. and if they said they did, THEY LIED!

[Morari]

THIS POST HAS BEEN CENSORED FOR YOUR PROTECTION

--Bureau of Internet Morality

[Saturn2888]

Aw crud, I do have a forum name. I sent mine into the mailbag. If Stephen or someone could e-mail it back to me, I'll post it here since I think it's informative.

[Saturn2888]

Double posted by accident. I cannot delete it.

[mantidor]

I haven't been able to even try it because of the fail codes. Mine was wrong because of the odd font the game uses and now I doubt anyone will take the time to try to register mine again, is it really that damn hard to just use the wii console codes in a game? it's so stupid to make game's specific codes besides the wii code. Luckily I barely care about online, but if Nintendo wants to try it they should at least make some effort to do something decent.

[NWR_Lindy]

SSBB = Slide-Show Bros. Brawl

My online experience has been terrible.  I don't have enough derogatory adjectives to describe how bad Brawl's online is.  The friend codes are annoying in the first place, but on top of that they don't even work.  Not even half of the 17 people I have added have gotten past the "Awaiting Registration" phase.  Jonny Metts has me added on his end and I show up as registered on his side, but he's still in "Awaiting Registration" on my side.  But what's comical is that he can send me match replays and custom stages...but he's still in "Awaiting Registration".  It's idiotic.

My lag is terrible...matches are totally unplayable.  Even good matches get killed when a person with a laggy connection gets added, and I can't even remember the last time I played a match without losing connection.  Sure, I'm connecting over wireless and the signal isn't at its strongest (maybe half-strength) where the Wii is located, but come on.  My laptop sure as hell isn't dropping my connection all over the place, and it's likely pushing more data over the network than Brawl.

Fortunately, I have plenty of REAL online games - Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, Warhawk, Resistance: Fall of Man, etc.  Don't worry Nintendo, I'll be fine.  Unfortunately you already have my $50, but I'll remember that next time.

Hey Nintendo: You guys make good games, but your online service makes you look like f**king clowns.

[phyredfenix]

It's been hit or miss.  Actually more misses than hits to be honest.  The lag is unreal, every 2 seconds the game pauses.

[vashkey]

Frankly, it's rather lame.

For one, theres no voice chat.  With this in consideration, theres almost no reason at all to play.  You'd be better off playing against the CPU, as there is no lagg.
Personally, I normally experience lagg in every other match.  It's far to common.
I find it stupid that you can't even use customized taunts during public matches.  And I have no idea as to why you can't even see the names of your oponents.  There are no ranking or user boards either, so really there is pretty much no reason at all to be playing Brawl online in public matches.

Friend matches are a bit better as you have more variety.  More modes of play and you can use your customized taunts and see the name of your oponents.  But it still seems rather stupid that voice chat is not supported.  And it's ridiculous that you need to share a second friend code in order to play with your friends.

Really, I was done with the online multiplayer after a week.  There just not enough incentive to go back.  Brawl should only be played locally.

Hopefully Nintendo has learned somthing and their next online title, Mario Kart, wont suck as much.

[Kairon]

You can't use customized taunts during anonymous matches because Nintendo doesn't want anyone being exposed to derogatory language unless they've already "sanctioned" listening to that language via friend code entries.

[Flames_of_chaos]

I like that Brawl has no voice chat because I faced too much agony with voice chat in Halo 3, Shadow Run on the 360 and COD4 and Resistance:FOM on the PS3. When I play Warhawk it's surprising how not a lot of people use voice chat.

Back to topic: The online in brawl isn't the best thing in the world but it is far from the worst. I think its even cool that there is a spectator mode and you can bet on players(ZOMG nintendo is teaching kiddies that gambling is fun!)

[NWR_pap64]

Back to topic: The online in brawl isn't the best thing in the world but it is far from the worst. I think its even cool that there is a spectator mode and you can bet on players(ZOMG nintendo is teaching I am a terrible poaster. s that gambling is fun!)

Its far from the worst, yes, but could have been MUCH better. Even if we were warned to expect lag with players living very far from each other it is VERY surprising that even players that are living right next to each other are getting slideshows for battles.

Worst of all, Nintendo's solution is to "wait it out". That will not happen as the game is still selling by the thousands and every day there are new players joining the ranks.

Logic dictates that when there are way too many people playing at the same time you take action and try to remedy this. But Nintendo has looked the other way.

Not only that, Mario Kart Wii looks to deliver as much more satisfying online experience. I remember Sakurai said that doing  leaderboards was hard and couldn't make it in time. Yet, MK Wii is going to have one and MORE.

Brawl is the product of misplaced priorities. Its great that they got 4 player battles with all items, all stages and all options available, but Nintendo should have been better prepared and deliver at the very least a clean online experience.

[Jiggy37]

I can generally get pretty decent battles with most of the people on my list (which is full; the 64 person limit really, really annoys me). Not lagless, though I've had maybe eight of those out of my two hundred matches or so, but the lag isn't horrible. Still, there's inconsistency. By this I mean that it's entirely possible that one day I could feel no lag while the person on the other end feels heavy lag, and the other day the situation would be reversed. Because of that, it's been difficult to get a handle on which people I play against are legitimately the best and worst. Whether I win or lose, or by how much, I'll never know how strongly a match result was influenced by the lag, and that makes me sad. I've started to lean pretty heavily toward free-for-alls and three-way matches for just that reason; if I can't get any conclusive results, might as well just play for a good time and random laughs. (I still turn off the items, though, even more often now than before since there are so many exceptionally powerful ones.)

But I will say that despite having it generally "fairly good," I've also had my share of uber lag, ranging from the stuttery pause-every-six-seconds battles to the "65% speed" brawls to the 1.5-second button input delay matches to one particularly noteworthy Rumble Falls friends match where the screen literally froze up for--without exaggeration--a good minute before all four of us resumed normal playing. Bizarre stuff.

[Smash_Brother]

Not only that, Mario Kart Wii looks to deliver as much more satisfying online experience. I remember Sakurai said that doing  leaderboards was hard and couldn't make it in time. Yet, MK Wii is going to have one and MORE.

MK Wii will likely have the same lag issues.

Someone on NWR tried a game of online Strikers recently and the lag was unplayable because the Strikers servers and Brawl's servers are all Gamespy servers, and MK Wii's servers will ALSO be Gamespy servers, still congested with the lag of Brawl.

[IceCold]

Goddamn Gamespy.

[Ndolger]

Absolute garbage. I don't have a bad connection, and I have never had a problem playing any other online game...ever. For god's sake I had less lag with online games during the DREAMCAST ERA.

I have port forwarded, static IP'd my Wii with absolutely no results. I cannot play a game with my friend who lives 5 miles away without 2 second lag. It is unplayable. Online was supposed to be the crown jewel of this game, and it's so bad CHU CHU ROCKET looks at it and laughs. And it's not just lag problems. The interface is retarded, there is no communication.

Would it be so hard to implement a lobby function? Where I might be able to you know...let somebody know I'm planning on starting a game without having to physically call them on the phone? How about Nintendo actually put to use the USB Keyboard support they added for this so many months ago. It's REALLY not that hard to do. The lack of any ranking system also makes it pointless. I was so hyped about online and it's been such a let down.

"With Anyone" is a laughing stock. Yes, let me play a 2 minute match...so thrilling. Wait don't let me see their name it might offend me. Wait don't let me know if I'm even playing a computer, I might cry if I see someone D/C. POKEMON lets you see someone's name for crying out loud.

Friend Codes has been beaten to death but I won't go there...other than to say they're stupid.

It makes me furious when I think we could have had a much better online experience if only Sakurai would have dropped Subspace Emissary for the casual crowd and have actually put forth effort into a mode that people would be playing 5-6 years down the line. What? You plan on playing SSE for a half a decade? Oh sorry to have offended you...

[NWR_pap64]

It makes me furious when I think we could have had a much better online experience if only Sakurai would have dropped Subspace Emissary for the casual crowd and have actually put forth effort into a mode that people would be playing 5-6 years down the line. What? You plan on playing SSE for a half a decade? Oh sorry to have offended you...

That's what we've been saying ALL ALONG!

Although I doubt the SSE mode was created for the casual in mind (it DOES have multiple difficulty settings), Sakurai did want an expanded single player mode in the game, something Miyamoto was against.

Its great that we get all of these extra single player options, but imagine how polished and fantastic the game would have been had the focus been on the multiplayer options.

[Dirk Temporo]

I can't connect to my best friend in Washington, who was the main reason I wanted online play in the first place.

[Nephilim]

I played with people with friend codes and wasnt that bad, only time it lagged was one time that i forgot to turn utorrent off

[Kairon]

It makes me furious when I think we could have had a much better online experience if only Sakurai would have dropped Subspace Emissary for the casual crowd and have actually put forth effort into a mode that people would be playing 5-6 years down the line. What? You plan on playing SSE for a half a decade? Oh sorry to have offended you...

That's what we've been saying ALL ALONG!

Although I doubt the SSE mode was created for the casual in mind (it DOES have multiple difficulty settings), Sakurai did want an expanded single player mode in the game, something Miyamoto was against.

Its great that we get all of these extra single player options, but imagine how polished and fantastic the game would have been had the focus been on the multiplayer options.

And let's not forget the strange circumstances of Brawl's development. I mean... they had an RPG company help them make this game?!? No offense to Game Art, but they're not HAL or EAD.

[Plugabugz]

Not only that, Mario Kart Wii looks to deliver as much more satisfying online experience. I remember Sakurai said that doing  leaderboards was hard and couldn't make it in time. Yet, MK Wii is going to have one and MORE.

MK Wii will likely have the same lag issues.

Someone on NWR tried a game of online Strikers recently and the lag was unplayable because the Strikers servers and Brawl's servers are all Gamespy servers, and MK Wii's servers will ALSO be Gamespy servers, still congested with the lag of Brawl.

Aren't the servers regional? So would this mean me playing Mario Kart Wii or Strikers with my friend up in Manchester would be severely affected by several hundred thousand people in america, playing Brawl?

[optimisticlimbo]

My experience has been a complete gamble online.  Having to be online at the same time to just register each other is dumb to start with.  The only good matches I've had were with my friend in New York (I'm in Central PA)  Even then it can be a coin toss if the system will give the OK that we're both online.  I only ever played 'With Anyone' successfully at 3am, the day of launch.  I believe that's because the system hadn't been hammered into oblivion yet.
I agree that MK Wii will suffer the same fate as Brawl, it's not like they've been quick to add more servers.
I would like to note that the only reason 'Spectate' works is because you're just being sent replay data.  Besides the fact that it's not laggy, it's what the check box for allowing Spectate states.
Fortunately, I didn't buy this game for online.  Local play is fantastic, and since my gf will play Brawl, unlike Melee, I always have someone to play.

[Mario]

I've played Americans from Australia with a little bit of lag, but definitely playable. One match I had was a real slide show, but the rest have been above my expectations. I'm using the Nintendo WiFi USB connector and it gives me a reliable connection.

[Smash_Brother]

Aren't the servers regional? So would this mean me playing Mario Kart Wii or Strikers with my friend up in Manchester would be severely affected by several hundred thousand people in america, playing Brawl?

Do you mean Manchester, England or Manchester, New Hampshire?

Either way, if people are playing Brawl over the same servers as they're playing Strikers, you'll be lagged to hell, yes.

[vherub]

This is a sad thread to read. Don't have brawl, but have strikers. Didn't play too much online but don't recall it being that laggy.
What really worries me is mario kart. I'm really looking forward to online matches, and if they have as much trouble as brawl, it will be a broken feature.

[decoyman]

My online experience has degraded to slideshows, even with a friend who lives just a few hours away. I'm on a high-speed cable connection, so that shouldn't be any issue. Maybe I'll try some of these other things (static IPs, etc.) that people are suggesting. Regardless, I haven't played online in about 5 days now since it's been so disappointing.

May my sacrifice of bandwidth usage help some others, or something!

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

BWii plays fantastically onrine.

[ThePerm]

at first it was laggy and rarely connected, it was so laggy i haven't tried it in a while, so laggy that nwr had to do a survey.

[EasyCure]

Hows my online experience with Brawl?

I'll let you know after i finally play some online matches in Strikers.

But seriously, it hastn't been great. At first I wanted to hold off on replying to this thread because I'd only recently been able to connect to the WFC service enough to brawl online. I felt that I didn't have enough online experience to properly make an opinion on the matter. Now I'm realizing that Brawls offline frustrations are part of its online experiences.

Before I go into detail with my experience with brawl, I'd just like to backtrack a little and mention that before Mario Strikers Charged launched I had purchased the Wii LAN adaptor straight from Nintendos online store (before they were easily available at retail locations) in preperation for not only that game, but for Brawl as well. I thought that on day one, with Strikers, I'd be easily able to connect to the servers and play against the lot of you reading this. I was wrong. I've stopped playing the game because of how unreliable its online service is. I don't have many friends nearby to easily come over and play so I thought playing against "friend-code' friends as well as anonymous gamers would be fun and be worth the $50 price tag. I might as well of bought the original Strikers for half that if it was just going to be sitting there collecting dust.

Now to Brawl, the game I just KNEW would have awesome online becuase it was Nintendo's goal all along, their promise to the fans. I was also wrong. I really wanted to believe that the games delay was to ready up more servers for the flood of gamers that'd be connecting to eachother for some awesome matches, but that wasn't the case was it? Attempt after attempt, after attempt and I couldn't brawl with friends or strangers, close or far. So I spent $50 on a game and something like $35 on a LAN Adaptor (not to mention the great length of cable to connect my router to said LAN adaptor) to spectate matches that SUCK?! I could start ranting about how I should return the game and the system and use it as credit towards an xbox 360 or something, but I won't.

I will say this, howerver, that after weeks of trying to brawl online and constantly being disconnected from the service, I've tracked down a used Wi-Fi USB adaptor for my PC to see if it would change my luck, and... it has. To my surprise its outshining my direct high-speed cable connection and I've been able to face off against some people on my friends list (2 so far), and with minimum lag I might add (varying on number of players and levels of course..) so atleast things are just starting to turn around for me. It just annoys me that I spent the money shipping the LAN adaptor to me from Nintendo and I won't even be using it anymore. This is, by the way, after returning a used wi-fi adaptor from a best buy a few months after wii's launch because I was unable to use it at the time. Now its discontinued! So even if I didn't want or need this for my Wii but wanted to use it to get my DS online (which I actually do since I've never played that online) I wouldn't be able to without effort in tracking one down because Nintendo decided to cut this option.

So in away I still cant comment much about my actualy ONline experience with brawl, because I haven't had enough time with it, but I sure as hell can tell you its been a crazy ride just to get where I am. Too many headaches and too much money have gone into this. Even if I was able to get online right away and didn't spend so much on all the extra equipment, I would still call the service bad, because Nintendo doesn't show any signs of wanting to fix it. Their "wait it out" approach is just disgusting. I can play Brawl now but its killing Mario Strikers Charged's online gameplay (awesome slideshows), and when Mario Kart Wii comes out.. whats going to happen then? I get the feeling more people will be playing Brawl over Mario kart, so maybe I should just take a "wait it out" approach with that game.

I'm with S_B when he says he'd gladly pay a fee for a GOOD online service from Nintendo, because I would too. I think alot of us would over what their giving us now. Sure its free, but thats no excuse and I'm tired of it being thrown around as one. The only reason I bought Mario Strikers Charged over the original title (which I never owned but loved playing at a friends house) was because I could play it online. The reason I dished out another $50 bucks for Brawl is because I could play it online. If i knew I wouldn't be able to use those online features, I'd stick to playing Melee for 10mins and getting bored at not having another person to play with. I didn't pay for the graphics or the new items or modes, I payed for the online capabilities, so why isn't any of that money going to building a better online structure and keeping it "free" for us? Like I just said, I didnt buy Brawl for its graphics or sound, hell even Nintendo said it doesn't want or need to compete graphically, thats part of the wii's package right? Well I might as well be playing GC games like Melee on the system. I can't play them online and I'm using the same controllers anyway

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I'm using WiiBoat + Chuck the Nun and a wireless connection.  I AM SOOOO NEXT-GEN

[Omix]

Hi to all,
I REALLY love the ONLINE feature of Smash Brawl.

When i play with friends i usually have no lag. Yesterday i played with a friend in my same country (Mexico), played like 30 games and there was never a lag.

When i play with ANYONE, it lasts like 5 minutes to get someone to play. After the first 2 or 3 games, a new person, or even 3 persons at once, comes. if you don´t leave the group, you won´t have to wait any longer and everything is going on perfect !!!

My expirence is telling me that depends of the users conections, the lag of the game, because when you kill the 'slow-user', then the game comes fast and everything is normal.

I really enjoy playing with FRIENDS and ANYONE !!!

My internet conection is: 1.5Mb

[TAYREL713]

It is as if we are playing two different games and it makes me wonder how is that possible. Most of you seem to have had a really bad on-line experience and I am the complete opposite and we all seem to be doing the same thing so how is it I can have such a positive experience, and others so craptacular?

[Deguello]

What's interesting here is that the people with good experiences don't care about the problems of people with bad experiences.  It's almost like last generation when people complained about Xbox Live being very laggy on some games, and it was usually met with "your connection sucks" followed by "sucks to be you."  Of course, being a pay service usually leads to more anger as lag there is a denial of service based on a contract, but what's interesting nowadays is that a free service that appears to be good for most (remember, content people rarely complain) and the few its bad for are vocally vocal about how much it sucks, usually only to hear the wind answer their cries.

I guess they may now know what it feels like to be on the other end of "sucks to be you."

[Armak88]

Online has been pretty hit or miss for me. It hasn't been as bad as some of the people here have been saying though. I don't have problems connecting and my personal friends all connect to me fairly well. One friend has a crappy router so I find his connection to be a laggy, but my other friends are pretty good. Then every once and a while things slow right down no matter who I'm playing.

Am I happy with it? Yeah, i guess. Could it be better? of course it could. But the way I see it I can play my friends when driving to their house isn't an option and the lag is only unplayably bad every once and a while. I've even played against some NWR forum members with very little lag, even though I live in Canada and I'm pretty sure they live in the US.

PS. I wish they had the option for voice chat calling my friend on the phone every couple matches is lame

[juanm_12]

Very Very bad, i have played every once in a while online matches with anyone but are very laggy and unplayable, i was expencting something more quick and fast paced like mario kart ds...

[Shift Key]

What's interesting here is that the people with good experiences don't care about the problems of people with bad experiences.

Where do the PAL users fit into this equation Deg?

I'm using WiiBoat + Chuck the Nun and a wireless connection.  I AM SOOOO NEXT-GEN

Did you hack the WFCGIBSON with one hand while crushing the spirit of opponents in Brawl with the other?

PS. I wish they had the option for voice chat calling my friend on the phone every couple matches is lame

Skype says hello. And the discussion about integrated voice chat has been done to death - move on.

[Nephilim]

What's interesting here is that the people with good experiences don't care about the problems of people with bad experiences.  It's almost like last generation when people complained about Xbox Live being very laggy on some games, and it was usually met with "your connection sucks" followed by "sucks to be you."

But that was server baised, it was easy to look down on someone with a 500+ping, as they are either downloading or on 56k.
Alot harder with wii, as its either you, them or matching server at peek.

[planetidiot]

I couldn't get on the first few times.  When I finally did connect, I found out the game doesn't remember your control preferences unless you specifically pick your name on the character select menu so the match didn't go well.  The next time it was laggy and unplayable.  I've come to admit to myself that I don't really like the game.  The controls are terrible and I just don't get the hype surrounding it.  This coupled with Nintendo's much-hated friend code system and servers that can't handle the traffic has me wanting to sell the game.  I haven't played it since about a week after it came out.

A much better game would have been a 4 player online version of the Mario Vs. Luigi game on The New Super Mario Bros: Tight controls, easy to pick up and ridiculously fun. 

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Last night's AUSTRALIA VS. CALIFORNIA SMASH PIETRIOT EXTRAVAGANZA was EPIC.

Of course, Berto and I were playing around midnight PST, while the rest of the country and the 12yr old Smashing majority is asleep, but it was remarkable we maintained a stable connection with Mario and Infernal Monkey from ACROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN (i do believe they're playing Yankee Brawl).  Lagged? oh of course.  Playable?  hell yeah

Actually, this session played just as well (if not better) than most of my 4on4 or 3on3 Yankee-exclusive matches (complete halts).

Goes to show how sensitive the game is to peak-period WFC traffic, your personal network integrity, and how well your ISPs play with each other.  If not, it's an interesting case study.

[Halbred]

Question:

One of my friends is online. I join his game. I select a character. A little message pops up that says "the rules have been changed." I'm disconnected. I curse and scream, but try again.

This time I succeed...in getting to the Sandbag waiting area. The fight never actually begins, and when the timer hits zero (nobody else is apparently fighting, even though...my friend has set up a game) I'm disconnected again.

So, I guess my question is...WTF?!?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

The first time, you were manually rejected.

The second time, I don't know, cuz you didn't provide enough detail on the disconnect message.

[vudu]

Its far from the worst, yes, but could have been MUCH better. Even if we were warned to expect lag with players living very far from each other it is VERY surprising that even players that are living right next to each other are getting slideshows for battles.

You don't even own the game yet.  I find it amusing that you have so many opinions about playing a game you've never played.

[FoxxMcCloud]

My matches were ok with minor lags here and there.

I have crappy internet so i was expecting it to go slower but, hey, I'm not complaining.