Game Informer were first in line with the responses from Infinity Ward, with this peculiarly unpleasant article by Adam Biessener. The Game Informer writer says of the general outcry about the news that MW2 would not support dedicated servers for online play: “Predictably, nerds across world took to the Internet with a wailing and a gnashing of teeth that would make the Left 4 Dead community proud.” Or perhaps we – nerds or otherwise – were justifiably upset about a change to a proven way of doing things, a change no-one seems confident will be to our advantage. The article goes on to quote Infinity Ward’s Jason West saying “”We’re just prioritizing the player experience above the modders and the tuners… we thought maybe it would be cool if the fans could play the game.”
There’s a more detailed breakdown of what IW are proposing over on Robert Bowling’s blog, which makes for a clearer response. I’m a little dubious about the anti-cheating claim, however, since dedicated server admins have gone a long way to self-policing the community, and I feel like IW’s claim that they’ll be able to deal with it might be a little bold.
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What a pathetically unprofessional excuse for journalism. Who hired that cunt?
I must concur, and share your sense of wonder.
Same, that was the worst most biased article I’ve ever read.
I must admit arrogantly dissing your reader base like that does seem a bit much. Still now we at least know he’s not worth reading.
I’m willing to bet that the majority of the Game Informer’s user base is not PC gamers.
I’m willing to bet that the majority of the Game Informer’s user base is not PC gamers.
Yeah, I’ll second that. I get Game Informer because I have an edge card. Though I don’t think Gamestop sells used PC games and I only buy console games from there, because they have few pc games there. And I buy my pc games from the… pc… internet place.
I have to agree.
“stinky nerds rage about their precious gaming habits, meh, meh, meh… the cool PR dude who laughs a lot totally has counter-arguments! Oh boy, I wish I was cool and relaxed like him!”… That borders a gaming journalist’s equivalent self-flagellation.
It’s a trend. I don’t really see the difference between this and the treatment of the L4D2 boycott, though (“lol, stupid nerds want valve to treat them well! NOBODY UNDERSTANDS THEY ARE A BUSINESS FOR MAKING THE MONEYYYS!!!”). But at least this time, most gaming sites don’t chime in with the nerd-bashing and capitalism-praising.
Hey! Leave off our Jim, he’s doing his best!
VAC gives out delayed bans.
I thought this was common knowledge
That was supposed to be a reply…
BOYYYYYYCCOOOOOOOOOTTTT!!!!
The sad part is that the “explanation for confused nerds” doesn’t explain a thing. It’s the same information people already knew, only with some verbal PR sugarcoating over it. I wonder how stupid they think PC gamers are?
Very, apparently, since they seem to think that we’re too stupid to be able to cope using a server browser and choosing a game that we want to join ourselves, rather than it being done for us (with questionable results…).
The thing is they don’t care – not at all. They purposely waited to release this information and it was probably only done because they caught wind that it was going to be leaked. The dismissive aftermath of this bad decision proves the case even more, they don’t care. They know people will buy it for the SP and those that don’t will not really make much of a difference to sales in the long run.
Thanks for saving me 60$ Infinity Ward! Shame about the probably great SP campaign I’ll miss. Oh well. I’ll grab it on the cheap in a few months.
That seems to be the consensus of opinion from most PC gamers I know (save the lucky ones with Press accounts). Wait until it hits the bargain bins/Steam weekend and get it for the single player. Though of course if the PC sales tank, no doubt IW will have the guts to acknowledge that the lack of take up is a result of bad decision making at their end.
@Kadayi – No, it’ll be piracy. It’s always piracy. “Our PC sales are for shit compared to console? It’s certainly not because we treat our PC base like a bunch of lepers! It must be the pirates!”
Yeah, they will blame piracy for sure. Even if the direct cause can be found in their game.
No dedicated servers is a no-go these days. Haven’t they learned anything from the commotion itself at all? Probably not.
just like all the other content they released for it? a whopping half campaign. 2 vs campaigns that should have launched at the start, and a laughable survival mode that simply regurgitates the old content.
You’d rather they have delayed the game altogether, to finish tweaking those campaigns for versus?
Now, now, it’s not a “half” campaign.
It’s 2/5, or 40% of a campaign. It’s also some of the worst L4D content I’ve ever played, and I’m including community content there.
But it’s ok, PC gamers don’t care about being lied to. You just can’t tell them what you’re doing up front like IW has, THAT gets them all riled up.
I, for one, *like* being able to complete a versus game in less than 46097618924768901 hours.
Hey, any content is better than no content. Especially when you don’t have to pay for it.
Are people foolish enough to be lured into buying games because of promises? I think you might want to look at yourself in the mirror before hurling abuse at Valve.
It sure it ad hominem in here
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND I forgot Delet-o-tron is really good about getting rid of namecalling fast.
Delet-o-tron might want to get these two comments by me.
“Are people foolish enough to be lured into buying games because of promises?”
Yes, the expectation should always be that developers are lying. When they lie, there should be no consequences, it’s simply the default state of the industry. There’s nothing wrong with this, and no change of any kind should be encouraged.
Seriously, what’s wrong with you people? How is it an entire conversation about a really bad move for PC gaming by IWnet has morphed into “my boycott is more important than your boycott?” I can sort of understand not caring about a developer lying, but I can’t understand the hostility toward people that do.
Vinraith, the answer to your question would be that the internet makes you stupid.
Most of the folks upset about L4D2 got over it at an early stage.
However, inclusion of dedicated servers has become something that is expected of most multiplayer games, whereas future DLC isn’t such a bad loss when they’ve given you the tools to make your own.
@Psychopomp
I can appreciate the value of a short campaign for versus. I’m not a fan of the mode myself, but what little I’ve played certainly did take forever. Can we agree that it would have been awfully nice, if they were going to release short, versus-centric campaigns, for them to have released several? I’d have been happy to see such a thing as PAID DLC, it doesn’t have to be free, it still would have been a nice content addition to the original game.
@Psychopomp
Amen. Far too often I’m an example of that myself.
@Stupoider
It’s not my intention to draw an equivalence. I don’t particularly care about adversarial multiplayer shooters, but even I can see that the implications of what IW is doing are genuinely frightening for the platform as a whole. I just don’t understand why, by the fifth post on the first page, we’ve gone from “we can all agree that what IWnet is doing is wrong” to “this important, unlike those other things that have upset people lately.” I’m particularly annoyed by the Empire reference, because I think the precedent of a strategy game locking out modding is a pretty horrifying one, and it applies to a genre I care a LOT more about than FPS games.
I’ll never complain about getting new stuff.
Also, Crash Course was made for versus. It doesn’t work as a regular campaign, at all.
“It doesn’t work as a regular campaign, at all.”
Amen to that, too.
The problem wasn’t the length of the Versus campaigns; the problem was that you had to stay for the whole thing to get a decent game and that it automatically returned to a dead lobby that almost never picked up again once completed, rather than rolling seamlessly over to another campaign.
Valve misunderstood the problem. The original Versus mode(originally called ‘Campaign’ before the focus changed) that attracted me to it to begin with was that there would be 20 people on a server, 4 random people spawned as survivors and the rest were zombies(‘boss’ zombies being special spawns) who had to do as much damage as possible to the survivors. When a survivor died, the highest scoring zombie then spawned in a closet as a survivor to get rescued and only survivors could score ‘real’ points, by surviving and helping the others survive to a safe room. This suited drop-in and drop-out play just fine.
.The solution was to make drop-in and drop-out a more streamlined and easy choice(it makes rage-quitting less devastating to a game). Valve instead provided the solution to a completely different, non-existent problem to do with campaign length, by introducing a short and very poorly designed campaign that even if planned long ago looked, played, walked and talked like a duck delivered in response to people demanding a duck.
Gorgeras: As far as I’m aware, L4D’s competitive play has always been 4v4, with 4 additional spots for spectators.
Along with the demerits sytem, it was changed and removed at some point, but featured in previews I’d seen.
Why can't they do both?
FTA:
<<<Why not have both? West does not want to include dedicated servers alongside the custom-built backend, stating that it would just "bifurcate the community.">>>
That smells like bullshit. They don't want to bifurcate the community so they're telling half of them to fuck right off?
well put
spot on, apparently
What a complete and utter turnip.
I just bifurcated my sandwich for lunch and not surprisingly both sides were tasty.
Seems pretty obvious to me, someone doesn’t want to develop/publish on the PC anymore I guess.
No special editions for the pc, only for consoles.
Price hiked up.
Dedicated server removed from the game.
You know I really was considering getting this game. I had never played any Call of Duty before and I thought I might try this shiny new Modern Warfare II. Not anymore! Thank goodness.
What I really want to see after this debacle is for Activision or IW to try and blame the inevitably poor PC sales on Piracy. I think at that point I would support a movement to officially kick them off of the PC. Go on, get out. You’re not welcome any more. You’ve stuck your fingers in the dip one too many times.
PC GAMERS! CHILLAX!
The reasons IW give for the changes make sense. There are loads of problems with the dedicated server model, and these changes MAY make online games a more accessible, pleasant experience for MORE people.
I think a lot of the backlash is from ‘hardcore’ gamers who WANT their online experience to be baffling and off putting BECAUSE its part what being a hardcode PC gamer is all about.
I for one am looking forward to see how these changes work, who knows? Maybe it will be a better experience then trawling through a browser list trying to find a server without stupid mods/full of twats/redirecting you to an empty server, etc, etc.
To everything you just said: No.
Psychopomp. second.
And:
“I think a lot of the backlash is from ‘hardcore’ gamers who WANT their online experience to be baffling and off putting BECAUSE its part what being a hardcode PC gamer is all about.”
Defines the stupid notion people seem to have about ‘hardcore’ gamers and why they like what they like in games that is not necessarily mainstream.
1. You’re not HARDCORE for working out how to use a server browser.
2. Favouriting servers is your friend.
3. There’s no reason why they couldn’t have had dedicated servers and a quick join button that finds the lowest latency server with the gamemode/maps/whatever you want (or just use filters) if y’know, streamlining and a better user experience is what they were actually after.
Strawman arguments are stupid arguments from stupid people.
“Maybe it will be a better experience then trawling through a browser list trying to find a server without stupid mods/full of twats/redirecting you to an empty server, etc, etc.” So you basically don’t want dedicated servers because it would make it easier to navigate servers.
No.
You must be trolling.
Funny, because I’m not going to hold this against him in the future.
I believe the only proper response to this, is “u mad?”
@chopnsauce: On the off chance you’re not trolling, please reflect on the fact that you’re presenting a false dichotomy. What you’re praising is the possibility of a good, robust matchmaking system in place of the traditional server browser…which is fine. There’s absolutely no inconsistency between dedicated servers and a good matchmaking system. In fact, both matchmaking and the traditional browser will work better with dedicated servers than with peer hosting.
IW is trying to spin this entire issue as “dedicated servers vs. robust matchmaking”, which is intellectually dishonest. It’s disappointing to see so many people swallow that hook, line, and sinker.
Forgot the picture : http://moesucks.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/u-mad.jpg
@suibhne
No, I’m not trolling.
I don’t see how matchmaking and dedicated servers can coexist. Part of the point of matchmaking is that the server level of the service is invisible, why would anyone want to run a server that they can’t get directly onto to play and is just part of a matchmaking ‘cloud’?
People should stop talking about IW like they’re part of some evil empire. And open up to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, IW are just trying make a better service for multiplayer???
“I don’t see how matchmaking and dedicated servers can coexist.”
There’s a little game called L4D…
“I for one am looking forward to see how these changes work, who knows? Maybe it will be a better experience then trawling through a browser list trying to find a server without stupid mods/full of twats/redirecting you to an empty server, etc, etc.”
This, right here, is the problem. They CLAIM that it will be a better experience. They’re tossing out the server browser that we know and love for something that (as far as I know) has pretty much failed miserably every time it’s been tried on the PC (L4D being something of an exception, but I’ll come back to that). Maybe it will be better. We don’t know. However, unless there’s a demo (I haven’t heard any news of one), we don’t get to try it out. We either buy the game (and possibly hate it), buy it and love it, or we don’t buy/cancel preorders until we see what the heck is going on. Sure, make what you think are improvements. But if you take away something that is proven to work and replace it with something that has been proven not to, you had better have a demo or a good return policy in place. We’re supposed to make a leap of faith on something that has failed previously. Of course we’re all skeptical.
People keep citing L4D as having a good mix of dedicated servers and matchmaking. It does have its issues, however. The biggest one is that people using matchmaking (unless they do a local listen server, which sucks (take note), or an official dedicated, which also usually sucks) can get thrown into any dedicated server. Which can mean server-side mods, perk-mods, level changers, etc. Anything goes. It’s also much harder than it should be to pick a specific server that you want to go to from a lobby. Certain tweaks would go a long way to fixing these issues. A lobby browser ( a real ones, thank you, like those used for old RTS’s), for instance. You’d be able to name your lobby (alerting anyone to the expected mods on the server you’d be connecting to), show expected ping, etc. You’d be able to CHOOSE your game.
What this is doing is taking choice away from us. Which is bad.
@Chopnsauce: L4D has done just fine with dedicated servers and matchmaking. Its matchmaking system has issues, but none of them has anything to do with dedicated servers.
This really isn’t rocket science. Off the top of my head, I can think of multiple ways for dedicated servers and matchmaking to co-exist. For example, it makes perfect sense to have matchmaking alongside a traditional server browser, to cater to all sorts of gamers rather than excluding one crowd or the other. (You could even approach things like L4D and make the server browser a more “advanced” feature.) Alternatively, you could have a “server browser lite” by initially funneling everyone through matchmaking but also allowing players to “favorite” servers they liked so they realiably could revisit them. Another option would be for dedicated servers to be available behind the scenes, enabling all clan activities even without a traditional server browser. This could exist behind a matchmaking system, so that dedicated servers would always and only be private, or those dedicated servers could be “donated” to the matchmaking cloud when not otherwise in use (and it would obviously be in IW’s interest to promote this somehow, because those dedicated servers would offer a significantly better multiplayer experience than the peer hosting they’re currently targeting).
I think there’s a lot to like in Bowling’s outline of where IWNet is going with matchmaking. There’s nothing wrong with matchmaking systems, as long as they’re not the only option (in which case they destroy community). The big problem here, even beyond the fact that IW wants everyone to matchmaking and only matchmaking, is that their entire system is predicated on peer hosting which is technically unable to provide a game experience matching dedicated servers, on many different levels.
This isn’t inevitable. For example, both Bad Company 2 and Section 8 provide dedicated servers for their console versions, so consoles can have the same excellent multiplayer performance that PCs have enjoyed for years. This strikes me as rather nice, warm, and fuzzy, along the lines of “a rising tide lifts all boats”. IW, by contrast, apparently wants everyone at the lowest common denominator.
Being a pc gamer is to me, about having freedom and control.
This is neither. I’ve never had trouble finding a server without mods in any game ever.
I am willing to see if the new model is playable, but will it be as good? I doubt it because it has already failed in a few ways, not least the death of mods.
Aaaaaamen!
So if I were to, say be in a community (like RPS, PoE, etc) I can’t join a server hosted by them anymore? And there’s no server HUB for us to all meet at?
Fuck. This. Game.
My bottom line is that I enjoy dedicated servers because of the informal communities that grow up around them. Because I enjoy getting to know the guys who kick my ass on a regular basis does not mean that I want to ‘friend’ them just to experience that.
Bingo.
I like the regulars on the servers I game on, but not enough to want to be friends with them.
Simple solution ladies and gents, vote with your wallets. Get the game anyway, just don’t pay for it. I’m sure the singleplayer will be enjoyable enough to keep me entertained for a couple of afternoons. Let piracy rates show them what we think of them.
If you take a moral stand, you can not lose a moral argument.
If you change the argument to What You Can Do and What You Can’t Do VS What They Can Do, your chances of losing increase by a margin akin to a sugar puff suddenly finding itself outnumbered by spoons at a hundred-to-one.
You’ll finish it in a lunch break.
“Of Mice and Men is no bigger than a pamphlet, it’s trash!”
The only thing piracy rates will show them is that IWnet is necessary to combat “rampant piracy on the PC platform,” to talk devspeak.
Voting with your wallet is good, but it means not getting the game at all, not going “oh well, I won’t pay for it but I still want to play it so I’ll fuck PC gaming over!”
@ Gorgeras: I never said anything about taking a moral stand. I’m looking at it from the simple standpoint of “you try to fuck me, I’ll fuck you right back.” I’m part of the market, the market fucks businesses, not the other way round, they are the ones investing in a product hoping me (and people like me) will hand over money for it, in a competitive market I lose precisely nothing not buying their game, I lose even less pirating their game.
@ Alexander Norris: Like it makes a difference. Piracy rates go up, devs talk that crap and fuck the PC. Sales drop instead, they instead present it as “serious decline in the PC videogame industry” and do their best fuck the PC anyway.
And I’m pointing out the error: you have a tiny chance of turning the market to your side, where you win by market values. You have a major chance of winning the moral argument if you don’t play an illigit copy of MW2.
Don’t underestimate the power of sentiment; the moral argument is the one that matters.
The way I see this, there’s no moral argument to win. It’s not like they’re breaking promises (or perceived ones), they’re just royally screwing their own games success and longevity. Anyways, I’ll bet a whole bunch of ‘everyday pirates’ were going to get this game just for the multiplayer access, and now they won’t have to because it’ll be a mess of laggy, disconnecting servers. It’s quite amazing to me how successfully IW are accumulating lost sales in their fight against pirates.
Yeah I’m not really seeing this “moral argument” or if there is one that it has any relevance. This is industry, money matters a lot more than morals to these people. Anyway, turning the market to my side isn’t necessary. There are plenty of pissed off PC gamers at IW for making huge steps back for PC games, will they all pirate it? Of course not. But I do recall a theory stating that if you occupy a certain mindset on an issue, it isn’t unreasonable to assume there are many others. I can’t be the only person who pirates games to enact some small punishment on the unscrupulous developer or publisher behind them.
If this campaign gains momentum, it would be really funny:
http://www.infinityward.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=129314
“Send in Soap to clean-up the mess…”
My turn to spit into the ocean.
How much business does Activision do outside of North America ? While my experience is anecdotal, I was under the impression that consoles thrive in NA/UK and the rest of the world a) doesn’t care about multiplayer fps b) rather plays on PC. They basically killed the chance to have a decent match anywhere where there isn’t enough people in the same area to play. I would be very interested to see MW2 sales figures for each european country.
US/UK is rather console dominated. Western Europe has a much stronger PC presence, particulary Germany and Scandinavia. Eastern Europe and Russia are practically PC dominated. Asia outside of Japan is PC dominated, but as to their gaming tastes, I believe they differ quite a lot from ours.
And yes, matchmaking is really a shit idea if you live anywhere where the new and shiny IWNet won’t have a strong prescense, i.e. probably everywhere outside the US and parts of Europe.
Petition is located here, over 126,000 signatures.
http://www.petitiononline.com/dedis4mw/petition.html
126751 Signatures Total
That whole Game Informer article makes me want to punch somebody in the face. What a bunch of stupid cunts.
Maybe giving the phone here is not a good idea. But I know no one will call, since most people is timid.
What a twat.
Still, what bothers me most about the article is not its general unpleasantness, but the fact that it uses “nerd” as a derogatory in a major gaming publication. A sad sign that “mainstream” gaming is losing sight of its roots.
TotalBiscuit: choice for its own sake isn’t necessarily a good thing. Some people will find it frustrating to have a confusingly-presented list of servers, many of which are running mods or are empty. Some people love it. Both points of view are valid, and Infinity Ward should include dedicated server support precisely because they’re both valid.
The type of people with PC’s that can run MW2, aren’t the type of people that are going to be confused by a server list.
Besides, there’s no reason they can’t have matchmaking *and* a server list.
Aside from money, of course.
“… Some people will find it frustrating to have a confusingly-presented list of servers, many of which are running mods or are empty. Some people love it…”
Seems the few million who play Counter-Strike find it pretty easy to use.
Having never been a fan of the COD multiplayer none of this should bother me. But it does. A lot.
Why oh why are our favoured development companies doing this to us?
@Frosty
Why on earth do you favor Infinity Ward or Activision?
It just occured to me that this mess is the true legacy of the L4D boycott. Those lovely angry internet men have given weasley developers and their suckups an excuse to write off any complaint from their users as insane ramblings.
Well done, guys. Hope you’re proud.
You can’t possibly be serious. I mean, there’s not caring about being misled, then there’s getting hostile at those that DO care about being misled, and then there’s this new low: blaming all the woes of PC gaming on those who have the gall to complain about being misled.
Congratulations, you’ve actually lowered the bar of internet debate, who knew it was possible?
Haven’t you heard, Vinraith? Giving a damn about something is so 1990. It’s 2009, man! Nihilism is coming back, and it’s the new shit (or whatever it is that teenagers say these days).
Mind you, I guess it’s a lot easier to understand why Western political systems are so ineffective, illegitimate, unrepresentative and corrupt when people’s default reactions to protesters is “lol who caers gief me moar thingz to by”
And this is the new “militant nihilism” where we get angry at people that DO care. Brilliant!
As if “weasley developers” needed any excuse to write off user complaints. Still, with the “anti-boycotters” demonstrating so clearly that fans will not just forgive indiscretions on the part of their favorite developer, but actively attack anyone that doesn’t, is it any surprise that IW thinks they can get away with anything they like? Finger pointing goes both ways, but isn't very productive in either.
“and it’s the new shit”
ARE YOU MOTHAFUCKIN’ READY?
Who is you, and wheres Dominic White?
:-)
Ha, and you thought the comments were safe now. NOT SO FAST
I don’t see the correlation there, Mr. White. Without touching the L4D2 boycott stuff, the indignation that many of us felt at being misled by Mr. Newell re: speed and amount of updates that would be forthcoming for Left4Dead is completely justified. Being pissed off that we can’t mod our game the way we want or have a virtual place to call home that we can meet and kill some of our finest friends we will probably never meet face to face is also quite distressing. The only recourse I have, as a singular consumer, is to voice my displeasure with such tactics and choose to not purchase either product.
This new-fangled matchmaking may be what some people want, but I’m not one of them. I want servers I can choose from until I find a few that make my rotation. Without that, I will not buy the product. Something totally different is promising something and then failing to deliver on that promise. That practice may be acceptable to some people, but I am not one of them. I will choose to not purchase the sequel when the original promise was not fulfilled. If the promise was never made and I chose to buy it based on my assumptions, I would make an ass out of myself. When someone else lies and they make me the ass, I make them pay the only way I can, via the pocketbook.
Thusly, these are the first games created by Valve and Infinity Ward I will not be purchasing. If one of my godsons gives me a gift, so be it, but I’m trying to educate them that what these people did, even if they make great games, is wrong. It may not mean much, but it is disappointing to see companies I believed in that were, and to some extents still are, making great interactive experiences, who either don’t care what I want or lie to me about what they are willing to give me in order to secure a pre-order. I see no reason to reward such behavior.
help the send Infinity ward them soap campain -http://www.infinityward.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=129314 forum thread
digg – http://digg.com/pc_games/CoD_Modern_Warfare_2_with_No_Dedicated_Servers_SEND_IW_SOAP
and there adress is 15821 Ventura Boulevard Suite 590
Encino, CA 91436
I dunno how old you guys or if you've even been to an aracde physically but . . .
To me playing an FPS game is like going to a public arcade. The first time I go to a server I meet people I've never met before, get to know them and the way they play and if I like it I keep coming back (not because of the game itself, but because of the server , the people on it and the type of maps they play)
Similiar I used to go to the same arcade because I liked the people there, I liked the way they played when fighting against them in Street fighter 2 or later Tekken and the sort (NBA Jam anyone? )I made friends from total strangers and got to know them but ONLY saw them when I played games :P
So, this, to me is akin to going to an arcade then randomly being teleported to another location on the planet to play with a bunch of other people that were randomly teleported to the same place who I'll never meet again (and probably won't like any of them)
Also another factor I'm not sure if anyone else mentioned this but. The fact that a server is dedicated means someone owns it or is running it. That person can either be cool, or an A-hole. That means if I find a place with cool admins than the other people playing and acting like idiots will be banned and I know I can enjoy the game more. If the game is totally random anyone in it can act a fool for as long as they want and there is NOTHING I can do about it except load up another random game and probably find another griefing idiot who keeps shooting me or blocking me in rooms :P In a dedicated server world this wouldn't happen because I'd play on a server I know has good Admins and they would ban the F@#$@#.
I’ll put my quarter up on the screen to secure my place in line.
On another note, taking away the choice from a gamer as to who they want to play with is insulting their intelligence.
I'd much rather the match making system simply keep track of someones skill level with a Win/Loss ratio or Kill/Death sort of thing and I can decide on my own who I want to play. Maybe I don't want to play someone who is equal to my skill maybe I WANT to play someone better so I can learn!
I a server full of idiots who can't play the game going to teach any of them how to play better I ask you? And what of that one dude who is AWESOME at FPS games and just hasn't played this one yet? 17 people on the server are idiots 1 dude is new to the game but has a lot of FPS experience he's going to pwn you any way even with your precious match making.
I'd much rather have a system like Diablo 2 or Starcraft with Battle.net where you can see the other players profile and decide from that if you want to play with them. A server browser where I can see the average skill level of the other players would be enough, not random match making that decides who I play with for me O.o
Well my money is now going to dragon age instead. I was really psyched for this game until this news! I’ll borrow it or something to play te singleplayer. The multiplayer can, as much as I love it, wait til the game’s much cheaper or they sort their fucking shit out.
Terrible move with terrible motives that they knew would cause a lot of anger. Good work activision/IW
Myself and my clanmates, our money has now been diverted to Borderlands instead of MW2 – despite hundreds of hours of competition in CoD4. And we’re keeping fingers crossed for Bad Company 2 next March.
Personally I think people should stop calling it MW2 because Mech Warrior 2 deserves the acronym much more than Modern Warfare 2.
Also I'm confused by the name itself, when did we start making sequals to sub-titles? Shouldn't this be Call of Duty 6? I hated this when they made Final Fantasy X – 2 and I hates it even more now. (It made more sense for Final Fantasy X 2 since it carried on the story from Final Fantasy X but still)
Unless this game picks up where the last one left off I don't care for the naming of it. If it does well, I don't know what fun it would be to play Soap at this point, I won't say any more incase anyone else didn't finish playing CoD 4 yet.
I still think it is kind of strange how attached I got to the characters in CoD 4 when the game was so short. I didn't even get that attached to the characters in Republic Commando.
“when did we start making sequals to sub-titles?”
Since Rambo III.
Yeah, I totally agree. The sub-title sequel thing is ridiculous. STOP THAT ISH!
I have to say though, its not all bad, as at least they acknowledge the underlying technology isn’t “sequel worthy” in probably all of such cases. Meaning, you can avoid some of those sequels if you already have the previous one.
Modern Warfare 2 obviously doesn’t use the Unreal 4 engine or something, so I’m guessing there’s a method to the madness of this silly sub-title sequel naming.
It’s MW2 and nod CoD6 because it IS a direct sequel.
It’s MW2 because IW don’t want to be associated with Treyarch made games.
In fact, if it hadn’t been for the uproar about the Modern Warfare-only title, they would have tried to get away from the Call of Duty brand all together as well.
I think IW should announce a $50 paid DLC that enables dedicated servers. That would make sense according to their current business plan.
Also, I wonder whether a PC review site/mag will balls up and give the game a lower score for this. Probably almost every site/mag will just give this 10 +- 0.5 out of 10 anyway.
Have their ever been any mags that were objective? Rhetorical the question is, let me answer that one for extra clarity.
Heck f’ing no!!!
I don’t think reviewers are going to ignore it completely, but it won’t influence the score for sure. Games hyped like this because of a previous success usually get treated somewhat differently from brand new games. To me it seems reviewers are scared to rate such games low.
It will be interesting to see the variation in scores on Metacritic though.
In fact it is actually Call of Duty (in small letters): Modern Warfare 2, since a study found that that half the people surveyed who were aware of the Call of Duty brand, were aware of the Modern Warfare brand.
A point to be made.
Many folks have PreReserved Servers in expectation of this games release. Some reserver 5 or more servers at the tune of $300+ American dollars EACH. out of their own pocket. There is nothing complex about setting up servers for them. They know how to do it. They have been doing it for years in many cases. These reserved servers are a NONREFUNDABLE purchase. Which puts many people out in the cold. Right now, there are about 20,000 COD4 PC servers out there. Each privately owned (or leased) and operated by someone. Just like the 100K servers that used to host Quake3. Obviously, some folks at Inifinity Ward are still eating Captain Crunch for breakfast thinking it’s genuine a balanced meal instead of fixing bacon and eggs. What I mean is they took the all to common “milktoast” route. They just called you simple, stupid and not on the ball enough to do more than pick up a mouse or a controller and and click a couple of times.
In their Q2 Finance report, the mention 2 DLC map packs over the next year and a half to keep that $60 price tag right where it’s at. It’s about the money people, not “options”.
HERE’s THAT link:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/154118-activision-blizzard-q2-2009-earnings-call-transcript?page=9
BTW Jim, nice simple article. No fluff and right to the point. Nothing false in it or missleading. IW mad and ass of themselves with poor media control. Ive spent the last several days tracing sources and reading many many articles. They blew it from a business stand point.
Haha, 144 reviews on amazon give it 1 star.
Booby is angry at this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUpZVnceJx4
(note: this video is not a angry hitler, something else)
That video is.. amazing to me. in a good way. in a true way. haha
IW are wanting us to give IWnet a try and if you don’t like it after then complain.
They have invested a lot of money into IWnet as they have the rest of MW2. IW have always made top quality games and they are not going to suddenly give us a half-ass add-on.
So that just leaves us to say how much do we trust IW.
Me I don’t know I’m going to wait and see. It’s a question of is anyone brave enough to throw away £30 – £40 or more on a game that could well be the best game they have ever played.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/23/twilight-clans/
Yea, good Lord, it is funny how he calls us names and so on. That is like some 16y/o noob who just got banned is going off and calling everyone names just to make himself feel important.
He really sucks at his job- i didn’t know you could get paid to write crap like that.
I'm sticking to Indie games for the next 6 months as I am sick and tired of developers treating us all like cash cows; instead of selling us games they now sell us "services" wrapped around games in a tediously transparent attempt to tie us down and sell us more stuff we don't want (the Apple business model).
Apparently you can complete the single player MW2 in about 5 hours. So all this hype is for 5 hours of single player game and a multi-player that people don't really want to play because it's too restrictive? Are we gamers that stupid these days? Didn't us PC gamers used to be the smart ones, when did we turn
Yeah; this is mainly aimed at consoles, isn't it? IW have tried to give it a nice PC coating but it's mainly aimed at the console market 'cos that's where the cash is and their online gamers are a lot easier to manage.
Just get online today and you will see what is all about, they have the most beautiful stuff that you have ever seen, check it out, you won´t regret it.
wat?
Shoes that are really beautiful and stylish, and plenty more boutique related products. So what are you waiting for? Just get online today and you will see what we are talking about.
So, what is GHD IV Styler Stockists all about? We are basically a comparison site for GHD Hair Straighteners – or should i say genuine GHD Hair Straighteners.
Actually he’s spot on.
ive been playing modern warfare 2 since it came out and this matchmaking system is nothing but fail. the game itself is amazing, but this has got to be the worst mistake IW has made with their IWNet.
i get dropped out every other round, theres horrid lag spikes (today it crashed an entire game, and made me and my friends get dropped out of steam connection all together), you end up playing the same map up to 3 times cause theres no way to choose what map to search for when starting a game, you cant put more then 9 PEOPLE IN A PARTY AT ONE TIME, you cant change game types…
….AND THERE ARE HACKERS.
A lot. I dont know what they’re doing over there at IW but i run into at least 5 aim botters or wall hackers, even some fire-rate hacks (auto pistols, snipers, no recoil, ect.) a day, and there’s not an option to vote kick or anything. im forced to either deal with it or leave, losing points.
Whats bias is IW’s explanation: Gamers over Modders. Player experience over modding and tuning.
…Modders ARE gamers? Modders make what they make to give players a new love and fresh look to something already awesome, and people that host dedicated servers put what the players want to play, the settings they want to play, otherwise the server dies (trust me, i know. helped watch over my clans server in CoD4, keeping hackers out and kicking unruly visitors). I never modded a day in my life with any of the CoD titles, but id rather play a duke nukem map remake then Crash (a CoD4 online map) and everyone i know in real life or online that play games will agree me. Mods are good, they keep games alive long after the release date.