I don’t know whether to laugh or cry right now. I was certainly crying when I read about this yesterday on Shacknews.
“We’ve been building up this system on the backend called IW Net, to allow matchmaking for our PC users just like you have on the console,” Infinity Ward community manager Robert ‘fourzerotwo’ Bowling explained on podcast BASH 123.
“You’re completely reliant on IW Net and there’s no dedicated servers or server list. You rely on IW Net for your matchmaking and finding games, but then you also have the private match, much like the other platforms, where you can go in and…customize the game rules, all via private match, and invite people to the server that way.”
“The mentality is making it much more accessible to the PC community as a whole and making it where it’s a lot less cost burden for our community members.”
I’m really trying to understand the logic. How is it better for a community when you are REMOVING THE COMMUNITY? Dedicated servers are a way to build a place for people to come to every day and play with the same people — the same COMMUNITY. Making it like a console matching system is going to only silence the in-game community created by dedicated servers.
Admittedly there will be some neat features of this system on the PC. One of the more annoying aspects of the dedicated server system is being unable to find a dedicated server that I enjoy playing on. Sometimes the communities would become so tight on the dedicated servers that being a newcomer was quite an alienating experience. Sometimes dedicated servers = cheaters. This IW Net may allow me to get in and play a game a lot quicker.  Is that worth the loss of dedicated servers? Right now I do not believe so.
Integrating MW2 with Steam is nice. I like Steam. Why not just integrate the dedicated server system with Steam like TF2? Do not tell me that this IW Net is any more community friendly than Steam’s community tools — nothing is more friendly to a community.  You can have your cake and eat it too if you just use your brain. Don’t insult us by telling us you’re making it more “casual friendly”. We know you’re not that stupid, so don’t think we are either.
I have signed the Online Petition (lol, a petition.. I know, worthless). This Parody of Kotick holding the dedicated servers hostage sums up how I feel (WARNING: Gory at the end which is why I didn’t stream it.)
It will be real interesting to see how this is received.
The dedicated servers are one of the best reasons to play on the PC…well that and a keyboard and mouse!
I hate this so much.
Turning this game into a crummy console port? No servers to choose from? No server communities?
So much bullshit.
Read this a couple days ago and lost a bit of my excitement for it. I may just end up buying it for a console now to play with some other friends. I much prefer PC though. Some of my fondest gamnig memories come from COD:MW dedicated servers.
MW1 and WaW on the PC had servers that would jack the XP per kill up by like 500%, so people would be leveled out in days.
It just felt less solid.
I agree though, good thing I planned on playing the 360 version.
Matchmaking is such a joke. Oh well i canned my Pre-Order like alot of other people. They took away everything that makes PC gaming far superior when it comes to the MP experience for FPS. Just like they took away my pre-order
When I play TF2, I generally look for the busiest server with the map I want to play.
With CoD:MW2, I will have to deal with annoying hosts and their biases. The games will have less people which isn’t a good thing, especially if you don’t like the people you get stuck with through matchmaking. You better have a large assortment of friends playing the PC version or don’t bother buying it.
I play NHL10 on the PS3, I gotta say it’s really annoying to deal with the console putzes. The hosts are idiots and people keep popping in and out of the game’s lobby and then some of the people who stick around during launch leave shortly after. If MW2 is anything like that, then I won’t bother with it. On top of that you get to listen to people’s dogs bark, listen to people with the swine flu or tuberculosis, and hear them blame everyone but themselves when they lose. I wish there was an “ignore all” shortcut.
People say there is going to be a max of 16 players in their new, flashy match making system.
Eat that adoring fans. Right in the kisser.
There are 3 things that a match making system needs to do. You need to find a server with:
1) Low ping
2) Players of similar skill
3) Your friends if you are trying to join them
If their match making system does all these things, there is no reason to make people squint at hundreds of server listings in that tiny size 8 font.
Left 4 Dead does not have a (readily accessible) server browser, and I felt that it did 1) and 2) well. It was irritating to get into a game with friends sometimes though. If they added a “we are inseparable” option for friends who are trying to get onto a server together, this system would be perfect.
It’s nothing to do with the community, it’s to lock down the multiplayer so that people are forced to buy official DLC rather than make their own maps/mods for the game.
It’s exactly the same theory as the rebirthed Battle.net from Blizzard.
As much as I know MW2 will be awesome, I hope this truly makes it fail on the PC, I hope that no hardcore competitive community will grow around it so that this IWNet bullshit will be gone by the next rendition.
Anybody who has done any competitive PC MW multiplayer knows that this is an absolute kick in the teeth, money grabbing scheme. If people adopt it, it’ll only get worse.
I canceled my preorder.
I read this the other day and immediately canceled my two pre orders @ Amazon. I’ve signed the petition as well as read IW’s response to that petition. I play these games for the rich multiplayer experience they offer and find a community of friends I like to play with.
They think piracy was a problem with MW1….. I have a feeling they’re pushing more people that direction with the stance they’ve taken with this release.
I’m sick of the PC piracy argument. They promote the XBox 360, but every game released on that console gets pirated.
I think the mistake is that every PC gamer recognises that PC gaming’s edge is how customisable it is.
If you take multiplatform games such as CoD4, WaW, TF2, L4D etc and compare the console version with the PC version, the PC version always has vastly more content such as custom maps, custom mods, all sorts of weird and wonderful additions that the community can create.
The reason the MW2 thing is such a huge deal is that the original had an incredibly robust and tuned mod that was used in pretty much every competitive arena. By comparison, Infinity Ward did very little in the way of updates for the PC version, all we got were the new map packs, for free, which you may see as a great thing, but clearly with this move MW2 will have paid map packs on the PC.
The worry is that if that 3rd party mod was considered a neccessity to make MW a truly fair competitive game, and that IW have no track record or intention to tune their multiplayer in the same way, that MW2 will be terrible for those people.
The wider concern though, which is the more important thing, is that all of these games companies creating their own closed platforms spells literal doom for PC gaming, since we lose the edge I mentioned before.
It’s -nothing- to do with piracy, the idea that the majority of people who were intending to pirate MW2 will suddenly now change their minds is retarded, I doubt anyone, including IW/Activision, actually believe that.
After thinking some more on this news, IW’s motivates become very clear. Especially considering who the CEO of their company is.
Look at is this way:
Traditionally, once a PC game is released to the public and has sold copies, you’ve lost your only window to make profit off of that title.
In the PC market, charging for down loadable content is unheard of. Everyone knows this. You’ve made money off the sale (hopefully) and you have to pray that its going to sell enough copies to generate profit.
With the intervention of this insidious IWNet, IW has a chance to keep making a profit on this game, long after release.
Basically, they have invented a down loadable content platform that all players must use to play their game. They have all the controls and are holding all the cards. They can manipulate the online experience in any direction they please.
If they want to charge $5 for the new maps, they can. It’s their service and you can’t play unless you abide by their rules. If they want to start putting advertisements into the game, they can. They can sell rotating advertisement space in any place and on any server they want.
This is just the beginning. With this bear trap in place, they can control the direction of this game long after release and keep making money off of it.
And off of us.
This sounds very strange. I couldn’t imagine playing TF2 anywhere else expect on the server that I use regularly.
Epic fail. I certainly won’t be purchasing it now.
I’m not too sure how that will play out. I think you have a great point about the community and going back to servers you know, but on the other hand the new way could work as well. Can you add friends? Make clans? If you can do all that, I suppose you can build your community that way, and play on the fly by finding your friends and joining there games. We’ll have to see how it plays out.