Ok, ever since playing this game, after you start the game up, it brings you to a splash screen. This screen requires you to press A to actually enter the game. Is there any purpose to this?
The screen is annoying on multiple levels. The first reason this screen is annoying is because when I specifically tell my xbox to open the game (I assume it is the same for Playstation and PC/Mobile), I actually want it to open. I don’t want it to go to some screen where I have to manually press something only for it to then start loading the game. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve started up the game when I get home, set something down/go to the bathroom/do whatever, come back to the TV and have it only be on the splash screen without the content loaded. I want the game to be ready to play after 1 press of loading the game. The existence of this screen is essentially a second guessing mechanism to determine if I really want to play the game. And, you know what? Sometimes I back out. Sometimes I’m not invested enough to continue because I will get distracted inbetween starting up the game and waiting for the first screen to load. With a second set of loading, It’s encouragement to back out if you change your mind and want to do something else. Ultimately, I can’t imagine I’m the only player who plays the game less due the the existence of this screen. It’s hard for me to imagine why the devs would have introduced this when it likely translates to less players playing the game.
The second reason it is annoying, and this is new with the update, is that half the time when my controller turns off due to inactivity it decides that it would be a great time to kick me out of the game back to the splash screen so that it can download some minor update. Either there’s a bug here, or the devs are updating the game a dozen times per day, because I’m constantly being kicked out to the splash screen and forced to re-load everything when I want to go back into the game (and it will download some stuff as well).
Please, please do away with the startup screen entirely. The first screen we should see after starting the game up is the world map.
Hey, just want to report that it’s definitely not like that for me - I play on PC, through Steam. I double-click the GoW icon on my desktop and it then first shows a blue screen with the “Gems of War” title, then automatically switches to an image of a kingdom, one troop and the loading bar and once that loads it’s on the worldmap and stays there. I have to give no other input than the initial double-click and I can let the game sit forever if I want to; all it does after some inactivity is kick into saving mode and turns the lights down until I move my mouse.
So I’m not even sure I know that screen you talk about… either you have a different screen entirely or you have an extra step between the logo screen and loading bar screen maybe?
Its always been there but the pre load AND actual load screen are getting longer every update. It used to be fast now there is a bit of a wait to ‘hit A’ and a massive wait to load the game.
Its probably a MS and Sony profile requirement unfortunate.
Every single game on the xbox has a “press a to start” or “press menu button to start” screen as far as I know. It’s annoying as hell but I can only assume it’s a coding thing or else why have it?
As to your 2nd point, if you swap controllers it will quit you out of the game only if you press the guide button (xbox) as it thinks you just switched person playing. As long as you don’t press that it won’t quit you out.
It’s bothered me since the dawn of time, it just wasn’t worth complaining about…until now, when it’s booting me BACK to the splash screen after I’ve already bypassed it once my controller goes idle.
Ah, I’ve had other games do that to me on occasion before, it hasn’t happened in Gems though when the controller has gone idle so I dunno. Could be a case of someone else being signed in if you have a Kinect and it recognises them.
The purpose of that initial splash screen on Xbox is due to a requirement from Microsoft. Since multiple users can be signed in to a single Xbox at the same time, we are required in game to choose what account we should be playing on. As we start loading that user’s data after this point, there isn’t a later point in the game where we could easily pick the Xbox user. It is an extra step, but it is unfortunately one we cannot get around, like on all other platforms (as PS4 has a different user selection process and you CANNOT sign in with 2 users at the same time without the System changing to another Home Screen, excluding Multiplayer).
This sounds like a bug. The game should be downloading some data if it changes every so often (to ensure that things like balance changes are propagated to users without having to restart the game), although it should not restart the game. If a second controller is connected, there is some code where it will log out, as there are more requirements from Microsoft that someone else cannot take control of your game (and possibly do evil stuff, like deleting saves or other bad things). It could be that the game thinks that the powered down controller is another controller, and boots you out of the game.
If you or anyone else could break down exactly what is happening (e.g. does it return back to the login screen when you turn on the controller again, or at what point exactly does this happen), any more information could help us track down the cause of why it is happening.
EDIT: I wrote this a few hours ago and didn’t hit submit. Some others above have addressed these points already.
How about checking for the already signed in user and just using that information? I’m always already signed in to my profile when I open up GoW. There’s no good reason to require you to re-select which user profile you want to use when you are already signed in as one. It should be an in-game option once you are already in the map screen to switch profiles and only then should it log you out and back in on the new profile.
Here is what is happening. I will first note that this is brand new with the 2.2 update and was not happening before that. I will log in to my profile and start up the game. I will collect tribute. Much of the the time I’m in GoW I’m not actually playing the game actively, I’m just sitting at the main screen awaiting tribute to show up. I have one wireless controller (I do have a second controller but it’s been broken for months and shouldn’t factor into this discussion). Very often, I would say maybe 50% of the time or more, once the 15 minute idle time triggers for the controller to turn off, the game will go back to the splash screen (sometimes it takes a few minutes after the controller is already off to boot you out). Once I turn my controller back on I will press A to get back into the game, and it will show the “downloading” bar and download some assets. This is the primary annoyance for why I made this post, although this has annoyed me since long before 3.2 for the reasons already mentioned above (no reason to require a second check for which user profile is logged in when you are already logged into one).