Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

[Redfish]

Son of a M#%!% F@$^@ BIYATCH!!!


I gettin a PISSIN CONSOLE!! Fk this Sht....  *kicks MW2 outta amazon cart*

[woodyear99]

Lol @ Batman vs Pirates

I also agree with NGW and Redlum on this one. I mean come on everyone saying that IW etc. don't care about the gamers they only care about the money. At the end of the day they definitely do care about money, it's a business, the game development, months/years of planning, shareholders all require them to create great games that SELL accordingly. As was stated before yes people can vote with their wallets and such a backlash may just continue focus on more console development as opposed to PC.

Lets not forget that the gaming environment we now live in is alot different than say 10 years ago when consoles were much less powerful and had significantly less features. In today's world consoles now have many of the same features pc's have eg. online play, voip, hard drive space etc. Also with increased market penetration consoles are finding their way into more and more living rooms, this is a marketer's dream, being able to beam ads/promotions directly into the living room. It is therefore no surprise that developers now find this controlled platform more profitable when publishing games.

I'm not saying that the PC gaming platform will die but as technology has improved such IP protection measures will continue especially server based authentication etc. and can you blame them? I mean it is a sizeable portion of their revenue.

[Spazosaurus]

It would be interesting to see the numbers of legit copies too, for both mw and then mw2 in the future, see if their assanine plan works. p2p listen connections for pc fps. *LONNNNNGGG watery steups* This eh wow.

Im not going to resort to acquiescence on this matter. Too many pirates? Find another damn way to protect your creation. You mean they cant find a way to authenticate user before they start the multiplayer aspect of the game then users can go on to connect to whatever dedicated server they want?

Nah man that is downright lazyness. They actually discouraging people from buying the damn game for the pc. They dont need to spend $$ on a good pc if it brings nothing different to the table than what consoles already provide.

Dedicated servers and mods, that's all we want. I'm also very disappointed in those people who seem to be fine with this and just go "oh well, good thing ah have a console" and "das life and  das business"


When will it end? They making the game for US. Dont we get a say? Do you just have to sit back and take whatever they dish out?


Good lord.

I for one not paying $60 to be frustrated by lag anytime I want to play with my friends. i'll leave that to other more patient, malleable people.

[Berzerk]

well its truth oui infinity ward did mention several moons ago that they were shocked at the high level of piracy for COD4 on pc. So in all fairness this was in the making.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50748


Seriously considering going only console oui, upgrading pc not going to make any sense, especially with the second hand treatment being shelled to the pc as a platform nowadays. Steam notwithstanding, the consistant delays, and hand me down versions of some of the games just making it a moot point for me.


In all fairness though, I have to give props to Valve and Relic for the tremendous support they are still showing to PC gamers, the amount of additional free content they shower us with for titles such as left for dead and DOW 2. is definitly a boon to the industry.

[Arcmanov]

Kinda long read, but this blog sums up the entire basis for PC gamers' angst towards what IW has now chosen to implement.


...and Laertes...that 'Crysis' comment doesn't make any sense.  From day one we all knew that Crysis would be a PC-only game, so how does that figure into this discussion?



Why no MW2 Dedicated servers is bad


Latency
Dedicated servers are usually always provided by big game hosting companies, with massive bandwidth DSL connections. They have direct access to the internet backbone providing upload speeds in excess of 100 MBits/s. Now lets scale that back to the average user, lowest tier access to the internet with low priority connection, upload speed generally around 0.5-1.0 MBits/s. I don't know about you but that is not at all good when compared to what game server hosts provide, a 99% reduction in bandwidth. I realise this won't result in a 100 times worse connection, but it will definitly increase ping, if you are in the same state or country you will likely get a ping of 100-250 milliseconds, different state or country? 250-1000 milliseconds seems about right. This would result in awful hit registration and lag. This alone would make competitive play extremely difficult and public play very unpleasant.

Host drop out
The host of the game leaves for whatever reason, and so bang goes the game. I know IW will likely put in some feature that makes another player in the game a host, but this will most likely be not very good and may not work all the time, and in the best scenario would result in a delay in play. This is unacceptable, it disrupts and destroys gameplay and would destroy competitive play. Unless you have a poor server, the game will always be on with no disruptions.

Performance
This links in with Latency and host drop out. Big server companies pay lots of money for specialist server and networking equipment, and their sole purpose is to provide a server for you. The server they give you has one purpose alone, to host games, not host games and play them at the same time and whatever else goes on in the average PC. This will affect gameplay, if the host cannot handle hosting the game either due to poor hardware and/or poor connection, the whole game will lag (don't believe me? go play a company of heroes game against a 1 bar performance person), also RTS experience has shown that you don't even need a dodgy host to lag the game, all you need is someone with a PC that has a poor spec and it ruins the game for everyone.

No community
How can there be a community if there is no central point to access a game. It has been revealed there will be no server browser, and as there are no servers there will be no IP addresses to give out. So how can you advertise a game/match to the general public to play? Like on a clan website or whatever. And once the host is gone, the game ends, so you can't invite people to the same match again or keep it running. Whereas with a dedicated server you can advertise the IP, and people can come and go as they please, and you can create a community of gamers around that server. You cannot have regulars to a match if it ends when everyone leaves.

Lack of control
You most definitly won't be able to customise a match like you can with a dedicated server, so you will lose a lot of control. You won't be able to ban people, kicking you may be able to but it won't be the same either way. You also won't be able to get the gameplay exactly how you like it as there will be no config files, no more server cvars, no more mods, no more maps, basically no third party stuff at all. Competitive gameplay can forget it, as there most likely won't be enough configuration options available, and competition mods like promod just won't be able to exist.

No Mods, maps, hence no modding community
You won't be able to use third party maps or mods as there are no dedicated servers to put them onto. No competitive mods, no competitive gaming. Can't install mods? Then there will be no point in making them anymore so a whole group of people just die out.

No scrims/competitive matches
As there is no server browser, or IP address to give out, how do you advertise your server in general to strangers who are not on your friends list? You can't, it will be very awkward to add somebody to your friends list so you can invite them to a server if they a stranger, this means getting scrims/matchs over IRC will become impossible: not everyone will want to advertise their ingame name or have people adding them as friends just to play a match, there are no server IPs so advertising for a match will require some creative thinking. Basically it will become such a big farse to get a scrim it will become impossible.

Destruction of server ecosystem
This is more of a business and financial point, which can make it even more important. No dedicated servers = No server hosting companies. There are lots of games still out there that use dedicated servers, but big releases bring in lots of money for these companies, so they will lose a lot of business and hence money, this will affect everybody, not just CoD players. If server companies go bust because of this every PC gamer will suffer, CoD fan or not. Also dedicated servers are the foundation of many gaming communities, without servers, they become pointless. Even more money will be lost because of this, as there is no central way of joining up in a match without a server IP for strangers/general public (remember matches are not 24/7 like game servers), these communities will just disappear.

VAC is bad - Cheating
I know punkbuster is extremely annoying, but it is simply better at catching cheaters than VAC. Just look at the Counter Strike games for an example, it is extremely easy to get away with cheating when using VAC. Cheating destroys the gaming experience for everyone and makes the game not worth playing.

Matchmaking
As there is no server browser, you can no longer choose which match to play on. The game chooses for you, whether you like the match it connects you to or not is tough, as you cannot browse directly for a game you like. Sure there will most likely be filters, but the experience is diminished, and it will be a farse waiting for the matchmaker to find, and then connect you to a game. Also mentioned in the fateful interview, is that you will be paired up with people of the same rank. Rank is not an indicator of skill, any n00b can rank up to level 55 without any skill at all. You won't be able to choose who you play with/against, and you won't be able to judge their skill on their rank.

No more big games
You won't be able to have big games without a dedicated server because of the Latency and performance issues mentioned above. The average person's connection just won't be able to handle it, even small games will suffer without the bandwidth of a dedicated server company.

No competitive gaming
Competitive gaming has been mentioned throughout this posting so for additional reasons you should have read this article better. As there is no competitive gaming there will be no more clans or gaming communities as we know it, simply because competitive gaming relies on dedicated servers in almost every aspect. Without a dedicated server you will not be able to customise the match as greatly as you would with a server, IW will most likely not create a competitive gaming mode (why would they? If they did they would'nt have removed dedicated servers in the first place), no server browser or server IPs would make it very hard for strangers to get into the match, there will be no spectating or CoDTV so there will be limited coverage of major gaming events, cheating would be massive anyway as VAC is a poor anti-cheat  solution so why bother playing competitivly? As there can be no server mods for obvious reasons, gameplay cannot be changed in the way that promod can change it, for the better, another reduction of control.

Symptom of a larger problem
All in all, the removal of dedicated servers is the symptom of a much larger problem: lack of support for the PC platform. By removing dedicated servers IW is making the PC experience more like the console experience is nearly everyway. If I wanted a console experience I would have brought a console, not a gaming PC. There is no reason for the PC gaming platform to exist if there are no differences between the console version of the game and the PC version, sure you have the keyboard and mouse, but that is all you have that is unique and special about the PC now. MW2 is basically just a straight console port, with most of the effort going into the console version of the game (Proof: the map packs came out on console before PC, so more effort is going into console), this results in a lesser experience for PC users, and also more issues later on, like bugs (they still havn't fixed the bugs in CoD4), and as we are a forgotton platform we will not recieve a patch until much later than the consoles receive one. The lack of support for the PC is growing, and the actions by IW may affect every new PC game devoloped by Activision, and even the industry in general. This trend needs to be reversed fast, or the day's of playing games on the PC may be numbered.

[W1nTry]

Hmm i'm on Live... how does this affect us console men?

[Spazosaurus]

Nice find Arc. Brilliant.

Laertes, im not disappointed in colsole gamers for not fighting for pc. Why would they. They have grown accustomed to the workings of games for consoles and either dont appreciate, care for or need the additional benefits that come with a traditional PC experience. I just want gamers who even occasionally enjoy a good pc multiplayer experience and care 5% about the future of pc gaming to wake up and realise just what has been lost and to not throw their hands in the air and go "oh well, that's life"

[Arcmanov]

Hmm i'm on Live... how does this affect us console men?

It doesn't.  MP will be done the same way as for COD4...as a P2P connection to another gamer (as host), through Xbox Live.
This time around though, host migration will be active, so when the host drops out, the player with the next best connection
will automatically become the host.

[TriniXaeno]

awesome, I hear you....it may sound like some of us are "selling out" but trust me, I love the PC platform.

LOVE IT.

I'm the first to say that Halo 2 @ 1920x1200 on the PC is a better experience graphically and ergonomically (mouse, keyboard responsiveness) than Halo 3 ODST @ a crappy 1152x640 that passes for HD on the xbox360. Nothing short of a scandal.

Great for a console gamer who hasn't been graced with the awesomeness that the PC can achieve.

that said, we have to smell the coffee, and it's mixed with gun powder and gold coins from a deadman's chest.

Piracy is killing the PC star. It is the pink elephant in the room that we do not want to discuss.

You think they don't know about all of the inefficiencies of the console platform? You think they aren't aware that competitive gaming on windows is going to take a dive without dedicated servers? Quite simply, if we don't care about them and pirate the living day lights out of their code, they aren't going to care about us. Karma is a b!tch.

The $$ speaks for themselves.

Hard core gamers are the ones most likely to pirate in the first place. They'll have the skillset and know every top torrent site by heart.

IW is willing to bet that even if the legit, original game buying competitive gamers (all 1000 of them) decide to strike, it won't make a big enough dent in their pocket.

Remember, the casual players (who couldn't be bothered with the hassles of piracy) will just buy the game regardless. Once the reviews hit the stand and the scores are through the roof.

Paradigm shift iwmc.

Question for the Live players.

Slightly sarcastic question for the console boffins amongst us: Seeing that Halo doesn't have dedicated server support on xbox live, would you say that the competitive gaming scene is dead there as well??

no need to answer.

Lihixxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx iwmc

Come on guys, she's hot but we all knew she would be trouble and no good would come of it.

[Arcmanov]

LOL...nice pic.

NGW, I can accept what you said there (albeit grudgingly), but looking at this from a purely technical standpoint (which I tend to do), it will not work.

Its funny you should ask that question of XBL, however rhetorical it may seem, but it really has no bearing on this particular issue.  XBL users never had to deal with dedicated servers.  They've happily accepted the status quo over the years because it works as is.

If piracy was the main reason for this 'paradigm shift', and it (IW.net) ends up exceeding all expectations and actually WORKS, then, I, Jeremy Kurt Archie, aka Arcman, promise, right here and now that I will EAT my words/criticism, and I will run out and feverishly purchase TWO copies on Steam, and gladly gift one to a deserving gamer, and I will sing IW.net's praises to the heavens (and anyone who will listen).

...but mark my words...IF it fails hard, then i'll NEVER purchase another Infinity Ward product again.  I can PROMISE you that.  Such is the seriousness with which I treat this issue.

As consumers, we have to take a stand too.

[Nephilim]

..and I will run out and feverishly purchase TWO copies on Steam, and gladly gift one to a deserving gamer...

Dibs?

[Berzerk]

second dibs?

[TriniXaeno]

lol @ men taking dibs.

Arc, I feel your pain but remember if it does fail on the PC side it will still surely succeed on the consoles.

That in itself will be an act that many developers will follow.

Now more than ever, their bottom line is crucial.

Personally, I can only hope the next gen consoles bring bloody native keyboard and mouse support and high res (TRUE high res)

Speaking of which, anyone knows what is the native res on MW2 on 360? Save me the google-fu

much obliged.

[Arcmanov]

More LOLz @ 'dibs'.

IF it reaches to that, don't worry...I'll think of some way to decide who gets it.

* puts ketchup and mustard on standby *

[Nephilim]

1v1, shipment, hardcore, 1 kill win...do it.

[rb]

Speaking of which, anyone knows what is the native res on MW2 on 360? Save me the google-fu

much obliged.

Both Modern Warfare games are 600p native resolution on console.

[W1nTry]

600p.... is that even a resolution? not self 720p which is upscallable to 1080i? Cause then i'd expect noticeable pixellation like in Halo 3 which is not 720p native....

[Crixx_Creww]

lolz @ that sorry console rez teeheehee

[W1nTry]

lolz @ that sorry console rez teeheehee

Never noticed anything on my HD, so I doh see what so funny

[Redlum08]

why do people get so worked up on resolution when playing the game supposed to be fun and enjoyable...the game not there to sit in front your eyes so you can wander around and admire how real it looks, when you can easily just go outside and get the ultimate HD experience by going out in nature instead of sitting in front the TV or PC Monitor with 1900 x 1200 pixels...come nah man, resolution is meaningless when all you want to do is have a good gaming session..
When playing on a console, it looks good! when playing on PC it looks good! resolution comparison is taking things a bit far. The game working good? yes? so why complain about it? Nit picking just prevents you from having a good time...