MW 2 - No Dedicated Servers, wtf?

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[Tymathee]

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/call-of-duty-6/1036293p1.html

All hell is breaking loose in certain PC shooter communities. The anger is stemming from a recent webcast released be BASHandSlash. EvilAvatar posted news about the emerging situation over the weekend which sees Infinity Ward reveal the first information about IWnet -- its new matchmaking service.

So why are PC gamers apparently getting so pissed off? According to the article, IW wants Modern Warfare 2 on the PC to replicate the console experience. This means no dedicated server clients will be made available, and modders wont be able to work their magic creating custom-made modes and maps.

    Robert Bowling has confirmed that the PC version of Call of Duty is essentially ruined as far as multiplayer and customization goes. Let's get a quick rundown here of what Bowling said on the webcast.

  # IW has control of the game
  # IWnet servers will host multiplayer
  # DLC will be a charged item for PC
  # No dedicated servers – WTF?
  # Matchmaking system used to play with similarly ranked players
  # VAC instead of PB
  # Semi-capable password servers
  # Semi-capable ad-hoc servers
  # Competitive play is dead – good job IW, idiots.
  # MW2 mods would not be possible
  # Full integration into Steam

While we're waiting on some form of official statement which essentially has to happen in the very near future, it would seem as though PC Call of Duty fans might not take to this news very well.

Please sign this petition. I don't know if it'll help but it will at least let other companies know that this is pure bullcrap and not to do something like this ever again. It's already influenced Dice and Bad Company to come out and say that they'd never do anything like that and I'm sure we'll see other developers chime in as well.

Petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/dedis4mw/petition-sign.html

[Malevolence]

Repost.

Furthermore:

# IW has control of the game

No retarded server mods. Good.

# IWnet servers will host multiplayer

No retarded server rules. Good.

# DLC will be a charged item for PC

Costs money, bad.

# No dedicated servers – WTF?

# No retarded servers - FTW!

# Matchmaking system used to play with similarly ranked players

Automatch. Good.

# VAC instead of PB

Awesome, well-made VAC instead of shitty computer breaking PunkBuster? Good!

# Semi-capable password servers

Er, this kind of conflicts with "no dedicated servers".

# Semi-capable ad-hoc servers

See above.

# Competitive play is dead – good job IW, idiots.

More like "there is now ONLY competetive play". That's what automatch is, a competetive ladder. Good++

# MW2 mods would not be possible

And CoD 4 mods were well-played? Oh no they weren't, except the "official" competetive mod which is going to be addressed by CoD MW2 being ALL COMPETETIVE ALL THE TIME. DUH!

# Full integration into Steam

I, for one, love steam. Good.

So let's tally the goods and bads.

Good: 7
Bad: 1
Confusing/Neutral: 4

Looks pretty fucking good to me.

[BaleWolf]

I find dedicated servers fun, as it has a community element, and this greatly saddens me...

[Baine]

It's lacking in OPFP Dragon Rising and that sucks. Need dedicated servers.

[lionel23]

You ever play Halo 3? I hate the matchmaking system in those games as you can't pick what modes of play you want or even what map to play, it's all randomly assigned by 'their service'.  I don't know how many times in a row I played 'Vahalla' in Halo 3 before I was absolutely so disgusted with it I went to play FFA games for awhile as I wanted new maps.

And people play mods for games, regardless if it's 'popular' or not, look at EIR.  We don't have thousands of players playing it, but it is still a great mod.  Now imagine if Relic did what IW is doing, then no more mods (and it's not just 'retarded' server rules if that is your big beef, but also means no custom skins for weapons or players either, no custom sound effects, HUD enhancements, etc).

Also it means no localized servers, which means you could very well and likely be put on bad servers like when I play several matchmaking style games, they lag so horribly and the game stutters as much as if playing with Computer before he upgraded his ram, heh.  In all my FPS I always bookmarked good, low ping servers with rules I like (Hardcore mode server, a standard 64+ player server over the basic 32 if you wanted basic matches, etc).  And for the zanny, pistol only matches and things like that.  You had choices and variety, with this system you won't at all.

Not sure about VAC, never heard of it, always been a fan of Punkbuster, never has given me issues and seems the standard in all games I play.

You're also misunderstanding competitive play, he meant clan matches.  They are removing clan play with the new system as it will not be able to organize and support clan matches or ladder them.  When I play with random people in games like COH or HL2, while in essence multiplayer is competitive, I'm playing for fun.  Real competitive I'd join clans in clan vs. clan matches.

And lastly, while steam is good, you ever play COH via Direct2Drive?  You know what happens when Steam goes down? You can't play the game and that's what made me and my friend sick of digitally purchased games.  Even with that nifty 'play games offline' mode checked in Steam, it will still refuse to play it, and it did that for the longest time.  Maybe Steam has fixed that issue, but last I recall that went on for 9 months.

Look at Dragon Rising to a recent example of the lack of dedicated server (looks like someone beat me to mentioning that !).  The first week or so their own servers were overloaded just like MMOs are with a central server and a lack of dedicated servers that the people behind Dragon Rising now have to patch in dedicated servers to alleviate the lag and heavy usage that are getting from players.  WOW and even I played Aion and it was so bad I had 5 hour wait times just to get into the game to play, and it took them roughly 2 weeks to 'add more servers' to reduce wait times, and they still exist (though thankfully not on mine, heh).  That's another disadvantage of going through one service like that are suggesting.

Signed petition myself, give us back dedicated servers!  

[Killer344]

You don't need to have steam open to play CoH.

[lionel23]

Yeah you do, same thing with DOW2, I try to close Steam in the background and it spits out an error saying 'You are running a steam game. Please close the game before you close steam'.  And I am referring to if you bought it through their service, hence why I always prefer retail.

[Draken]

Mal you are forgetting about clan servers, and all more organised playing, it's good for casuals but if you want to play it more professional then you will be dissapointed.

Also look at OF 2, and how it sucks without dedicated servers.

[CrazyWR]

Repost.

Furthermore:

# IW has control of the game

No customising server mods. Bad

# IWnet servers will host multiplayer

No customising server rules to cater to the type of game each person prefers. Bad

# DLC will be a charged item for PC

Costs money, bad.

# No dedicated servers – WTF?

fucking horrible

# Matchmaking system used to play with similarly ranked players

Automatch. Good.

# VAC instead of PB

VAC doesn't look all that more amazing than PB tbh-meh

# Semi-capable password servers

meh

# Semi-capable ad-hoc servers

See above.

# Competitive play is dead – good job IW, idiots.

Competitive play is still there, but only insomuch as you play for yourself.  No longer will there be any TEAM competitions, which blows.-bad

# MW2 mods would not be possible

I know of a few COD Mods that were pretty well played...bad

# Full integration into Steam

I, for one, dont want to be forced to use steam. Bad.

So let's tally the goods and bads.

Good: 1
Bad: 7
Confusing/Neutral: 3

Looks pretty fucking bad to me.

fixed

[Tymathee]

Yeah you do, same thing with DOW2, I try to close Steam in the background and it spits out an error saying 'You are running a steam game. Please close the game before you close steam'.  And I am referring to if you bought it through their service, hence why I always prefer retail.

agreed or at least D2D where you can download it and dont have to worry about some external service and dont need a CD

[Tymathee]

Repost.

Furthermore:

# IW has control of the game

No customising server mods. Bad

# IWnet servers will host multiplayer

No customising server rules to cater to the type of game each person prefers. Bad

# DLC will be a charged item for PC

Costs money, bad.

# No dedicated servers – WTF?

fucking horrible

# Matchmaking system used to play with similarly ranked players

Automatch. Good.

# VAC instead of PB

VAC doesn't look all that more amazing than PB tbh-meh

# Semi-capable password servers

meh

# Semi-capable ad-hoc servers

See above.

# Competitive play is dead – good job IW, idiots.

Competitive play is still there, but only insomuch as you play for yourself.  No longer will there be any TEAM competitions, which blows.-bad

# MW2 mods would not be possible

I know of a few COD Mods that were pretty well played...bad

# Full integration into Steam

I, for one, dont want to be forced to use steam. Bad.

So let's tally the goods and bads.

Good: 1
Bad: 7
Confusing/Neutral: 3

Looks pretty fucking bad to me.

fixed

fixed what? most bold things they fixed

[Falcon333]

Is there any good reason to get rid of the dedicated servers?

[Malevolence]

@ CrazyWR -

No customizing server mods? That's good and bad both, but if I buy a game with intention of not actually playing the game as designed then why would I buy the game in the first place? I certainly didn't buy CoH to play EiR (though it was a nice surprise) or Half Life 2 to play Insurgency. Almost nobody buys games because they have "promising mod content".

As for "customized server rules", who's to say that IW won't offer a wide variety of gameplay types? I can't even think of any blatantly custom server rules that IW would never even think to cover in their dedicated matchmaking system. As far as 99% of CoD 4 play goes, tick on team deathmatch, maybe they'll even let you tick on/off some of the more "obnoxious" guns/perks, and away you go.

Dedicated servers do still exist, by the way. Just not customized personally hosted dedicated servers, only official ones. I cannot even begin to describe how horrible most of the personalized dedicated servers in games like Left 4 Dead truly are and I am incredibly happy that most of the retarded and arbitrarily enforced server rules will be gone. Things like "no bad language". In a game rated M for specifically listed "intense and/or graphic language" that is an absolute retarded rule, but so many servers have it. It saves me the time and effort of sorting through all the crap servers to find the good ones because it takes me RIGHT TO THE GOOD ONES.

VAC is better than Punkbuster because it's not a bunch of invasive-ware installed onto your system but instead a server-side check for known cheats.

Also who said there isn't team-matchmaking? Relic even has team automatch, I'm sure infinity ward can cater to the competetive side plenty well.

Steam is good because it's integrated with everything else I use already and has given me exactly 0 problems with being down, invalidating my games, et c. et c. throughout the history of my ownership of steam products for the last two years. In fact, I have had more trouble with losing my CD for CD-check games than I have had with steam being down by a significant margin.

As to everyone who says clan play is dead, again, look at things like "arranged-team" automatch, or things like "semi-capable password servers". What the hell do you think the password is for, so you can host your all bot matches in peace?


Seriously people, don't cry like little school girls every time something isn't exactly the same it was before and actually give it more than two seconds' thought before jumping to wildly inaccurate bandwagon consensi.

[CrazyWR]

lets just say I'm highly skeptical they'll actually get it right.  As for mods, promod has been around for a couple of COD iterations and fixed a lot of stupid shit in the game.  Zombie mods also have been popular.  Sure, COD hasn't been modded out like Half-Life was, but still.  I agree people don't buy it for modded content, but simply being anti-modding is not a good idea IMO...while I understand the business practicality of it, I don't think it endears you to the community... 

Customized server rules, besides the no swearing one, which I agree about, there are plenty of servers I enjoy with customized rules, like TR servers, Sniper only servers, and so on. 

Also, some of my preferred servers for COD have been those employing mixed rotations, switching maps and gametypes as it goes.  It doesn't seem like customized rotations which include gametype switches will also be possible. 

Also, what about friendly fire?  Is that permanently off?  That leads to retarded bullet spammage gameplay and is annoying as fuck usually.  If its on, without dedicated servers(and by extension, admins), who stops the retards that come in and TK everyone for an hour?

[lionel23]

@ CrazyWR -

No customizing server mods? That's good and bad both, but if I buy a game with intention of not actually playing the game as designed then why would I buy the game in the first place? I certainly didn't buy CoH to play EiR (though it was a nice surprise) or Half Life 2 to play Insurgency. Almost nobody buys games because they have "promising mod content".

Uhhh... this is the main reason a lot of people choose to get Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Half Life on the PC over the console.... the ability to add mods which greatly extends the life of the game, as opposed to the console versions where you have to buy DLC if you want anything else or hope for in a patch... the ability to reskin and remodel things is a huge thing when I get games, say COH over Battlestations Pacific which has all their files locked out where you can't even reskin a ship.  Several full games started out as Mods, such as Natural Selection (can't wait for that), Counterstrike, and Dota (see Demigod for that one).

Also on topic, just because you don't have issues with Steam doesn't make it error-free.  I'm sure you've noticed with the Relic Authentication servers go down you can't even log into COH?  Now imagine that 10 fold when everyone is trying to flood one server that is based in Texas from across the world.  With dedicated you got your Asian servers, West Coast, Each Coast, etc.  Under matchmaking that won't be the case and it will cause extensive lag/load issues like Dragon Rising is dealing with and hence had to revert back to Dedicated servers as their own single company server farm can't handle that many people at once, from all over the world.  Unless IW plans to set up farms all around the world, I doubt this will end well for them, and the petition is over 23,000 signatures, so we all must be delusional then?  If you don't like dedicated clan servers, go play the many official ones that are open, you're not forced to join custom servers, and I do like the ones where there isn't massive swearing like 'you n*****' or that whiny 3-year old brat saying things about my mother when all I want to do is enjoy a good team game, you know what I mean?  Everyone has preferences, don't take that away from those who like that kind of thing when you may not make use of such options or don't feel you need it.

And Relic has team matching.. it only took what... 2 years?  And they said they would have it day 1?  Whose to say IW isn't going to do that also?  And I myself do take very, very good care of my CDs for posterity's sake... if I want to share them with my kids or friends, I can do that and not forget 'Oh dang, it was a digital downloaded game and I reformatted and forgot I even owned it' or some such, hence why I prefer physicals.  And also if the service ever dies, you don't really own the game, you just own the rights to download it while it is still available (see Walmart's closing of its music store or iTunes for examples on that).

And crazy has a good point too, no dedicated servers mean no server admins, and you could easily get kicked (and thus an account hit/rank lowering) for accidental TKs or you got that one abusive person who knows the limit and leaves and comes back or does damage to you just so an enemy can finish you off... official servers don't have admins running on them like dedicated which is another reason I like an in-game authority around to do something.

That's just from my experience of always playing tons of shooters going even back to Starsiege Tribes, Call of Duty, and before...  

[Killer344]

Yeah you do, same thing with DOW2, I try to close Steam in the background and it spits out an error saying 'You are running a steam game. Please close the game before you close steam'.  And I am referring to if you bought it through their service, hence why I always prefer retail.

I bought ToV trough steam (I had a retail version of CoH already), and downloaded it from there as well, just make a shortcut from \Steam\steamapps\common\company of heroes\RelicCOH.exe to your desktop.. and that's it, I have been playing CoH from there since the first time lol (just make sure Steam isn't open when you launch CoH from that shortcut).

[anthony210]

I bought Half Life only to play Counter Strike and Day of Defeat.  Ive never actually played through the single player Half Life.

Ive never played through any of the Campaigns in Company of Heroes,  in fact I played very few vanilla games before playing EiR.

I bought BF2 to play to Project Reality, and Forgetton Hope 2.  I very rarely played vanilla BF2.

The ability to mod a game extends its lifespan by a ton.  If MW2 does not allow any sort of modding the game will be very shortlived.

[lionel23]

Just FYI, me and my friend are playing DOW2, and we're getting kicked from 'matchmaking' every 5-10 mins due to some sort of DOW2 error saying 'Im sorry, but you cannot see the Steam authentication server, please ensure you have a connection to steam before playing this game' 

[puddin]

the amazing part about COh....

You can buy the original retail copy form Direct 2 drive or CDs...  Then all the expansions from steam... And never run steam... How?

Simply use your Original EXE from the retail version, It will ruyn fine. 

COH doesn;t requre you to Run OF exe or TOV EXE instead just the regular old COH exe.  and i lvoe them for it. 

If even i have to reinstall, I can Get a copy from a friend, Or anywhere, patch it up with my Online account and not worry.  Best system i have ever encountered to date for ease of instalations of games and expansions.  I wish all games were this easy.

[o4b1]

The ability to mod a game extends its lifespan by a ton.  If MW2 does not allow any sort of modding the game will be very shortlived.

100% true. Sure, one generally does not go into a game looking to play the mods, but after you get bored of the game the mods are awesome. In fact, almost all of the games I have played I have ended up playing the mod before long after the base game.