I've known about Xfire for quite a while now. I've had an older version installed on my previous machine for quite some time now, but never used it. I never really had a big network of gaming friends that I really wanted to keep in touch with, and the ones I did have weren't using Xfire. Back then, Xfire wasn't what it is today. It's no longer just an advanced instant messenger. Things have changed, and I recently became an xfire user as you can see from my mini-profile below:



So what changed my mind and got me using xfire now? Things have changed about me, the online friends I have, and the games I play. But more important than that, xfire has improved in many ways. The xfire site itself has become a social gaming network on its own, just like sites like gamerDNA, Raptr, and Rupture are. I can't fully compare Xfire to those sites as it wouldn't be fair since I don't know the full feature sets those companies bring to the table. But Xfire goes way beyond a snazzy social gaming web site, because of its client that you install on your machine.

The Xfire client has an amazing feature set, and I was blown away to find out that the Xfire client does so much. These things might not be new to you, but as a recent Xfire convert I was very impressed with all it can do above and beyond instant messaging across different games:

Friend Tracker
I have more online friends that are spread out across more different types of games than ever before. Its pretty cool to see if they are online, what they are playing and be able to join them really quickly. They can even IM me and say "Hey, log out of World of Warcraft you nub! We need some keep defense in Warhammer!" or something to that effect. You get the point I'm sure. It goes a step further, by incorporating the social network aspect of showing what friends of your friends are playing too. Now, if I can just get my all friends to use it...

One-Click Join
This is not such a big deal for mmo players, we usually have 1 server we ever use on a daily basis. But, this rocks for the few times I'll fire up Team Fortress 2. It should reduce the number of times I'll hear on ventrilo, "Hey what's that server named again that you are on? I don't see it listed...".

Server Browser
Again, the server browser comes more into play with non-mmorpg's, but still excellent to have.

Xfire In-Game (IM While You Play)
Being a new user, I don't have many Xfire friends since I haven't yet convinced any of my existing online friends to use it. However, it looks pretty simple...you IM someone and they get a screen overlay on whatever game they are playing that will allow them to reply.

Voice Chat
I have more questions than opinion on this feature, unfortunately. I've definately not tested this, nor seen it work, nor heard or read much about it. Anyone know if it works? How well? Is it a viable replacement for Ventrilo? More research must be done! Inquiring minds want to know.

File & Patch Downloads
It uses P2P for patch downloads. My assumption is that this might just be faster than the way some companies choose to serve up huge patches. If anyone has experience with this, let me know if it is worthwhile to get your patches through Xfire or not.

Profiles with Automatic Stats
Well, just look above at the mini-profile. You can embed that in your forum signatures, on your blog, anywhere that takes HTML or BB code. As you can see, my Warhammer guild is probably gonna be pissed that I've been playing WoW about 3-4 times as much!

Over 1000 Games Supported
Chances are it works with your game. I've had it running with both WoW and WAR and its been flawless. I do however need to test it more with WAR, as that game is newer and has been known to have crashing issues. I wonder if the IM overlay might freak it out and make it crash? Someone send me a tell tonite when I'm in WAR and lets see!

So that's the official feature list. All good stuff imo, however 1 important feature wasn't shown on the home page that I could see. Xfire gives you the ability to capture screenshots and video from whatever game you are playing and makes it trivial to upload it to the Xfire site. You can point it to any folder on your hard drive and it will capture videos and save the raw video there (so you can upload them to multiple places if you wish) and will upload them from that folder (after compression of course) to the Xfire site with ease. I have captured a few videos with it and I must say it is fantastic. It gives a great overlay on screen to show you critical information and has all (or most) of the features that Fraps has. This feature was the kicker for me, since you may know that I tend to throw together a gameplay video every now and then.

I still have some more testing to do with all the features, but I have done enough to know that Xfire is going to be a permanent item in my gamer toolbox. Do you like Xfire? Is it worth using to you? Holla back.