Sad News for COD4 MW2, no dedicated server anymore!

With the recent announcement that instead of dedicated servers for online play there would be a matchmaking service like on the console variants of MW2, there has been a uprising of discontent from fans with the announcement on the internet today. From posting on the Infinity Ward forums and other forums showing their discontent, to numerous petitions online (with over 42K signatures so far), to canceling their pre-orders and threatening to not buy the game and pirate it because of IW got rid of dedicated servers and replaced it with a matchmaking option. So with all this madness going on, why are dedicated servers something PC gamers really care and need about to go and do all this?

As a PC gamer myself, I bought the original MW for the PC and played countless hours killing people online and having fun doing it.I would start the game, look for the usual server that I would join, and when I joined I would see the usual people in there and we would play the game. With the decision to replace dedicated servers with a matchmaking service, it would not be the same.

Changing to a matchmaking service makes the PC version more like the console version. This can cause many things to be different that would be normal to other PC games that have dedicated servers. The following things are a result of this happening:

Matchmaking issues

When I start up CoD:MW or almost any other multi-player game I just click on the “Join Game” button and I can look for the usual server that I go to and play with the usual people that play on there. With the change to matchmaking, you would no longer be able to chose what server you can go to and what people you will play with. You will be playing with people that is your rank, but that does not mean that they are not noobs and non-team players or not. Every time you play, there will be a new set of people there playing with you.

Latency = Higher

Dedicated servers are run by providers that have a huge amount of upload/download speed and bandwidth. They have upload speeds of over 100 MBits/sec and with high upload speeds, it keeps ping down. With matchmaking the end user has to run the server and not everyone has 100 MBits/sec upload connections, let alone 10 MBits/sec or 5 MBits/sec. This will cause the ping to increase not a lot, but enough to make it lag and have horrible hit registration.

No more BIG games.

With matchmaking you won’t be able to set up big games because of the latency and performance issues from the user hosting the server. The users connection would not be able to handle a big server, so server sizes will be going down.

Cheating

With punkbuster being removed and in it’s place VAC, the game is now more prone to cheating. Punkbuster is a good, but annoying method to counteract cheating, instead of leaving it in they replaced it with something worse. You can see other games like Counter Strike and how easy it is to cheat when using VAC. Cheating makes the game less fun and if you can’t win it’s worthless to you.

No custom content or mods.

You won’t be able to set up a game with custom maps or mods because there are no dedicated servers to run them on. Since there is no SDK and no dedicated servers there will be no custom content. Since there would be no custom content they can nail you with map packs for a price.

Map Packs+Patches (DLC) on the PC may not be free anymore.

Game developers and publishers create DLC on the consoles because there is nothing more that users can do with what came with the actual game. In order to give them more they charge them for more. With the PC, people would create mods and maps for free for users to play with. With no custom content for MW2, Infinity Ward and Activision can now charge you for extras. Where they would be free for games that are open to the community (L4D, CS, and more), it can now be something that they can make some money off of.

Lack of Control over rules, etc.

In a dedicated server scenario, the person that is running the server can ban anyone that they want. In a Matchmaking system, everyone has to vote on whether or not the person they want kicked should be or not, it’s not the same as an instant ban against the person. You can also control the game exactly the way that you want it on a dedicated server, like rules, map configurations, mods, etc.

No clan servers

Clans will no longer have a place where they can call home. They won’t have a place where they can just go and play with their fellow clan members and just do whatever. Clans won’t be able to run private servers where they can train or practice or just play with custom rules on purpose for specific scenarios/etc. With this change it will just make things harder for everyone.

These are just some of the main reasons why PC gamers want dedicated servers over a matchmaking system. There is however a bigger picture behind why this is happening. Infinity Ward and Activison and ALL the other game developers and publishers are starting to not care for the PC gaming group. Instead of putting time and effort into the PC version of the game, they are just porting the game directly from consoles and not caring what happens to the PC version. Patches are usually released latter than the console version and so are map packs. With the dedicated servers being removed Infinity Ward is putting one of the final nails in the coffin of PC gaming as we knew it, which was open and filled with support.

Maybe in the end of the battle between PC Gamers and Infinity Ward/Activison we might get a compromise of options to have both Dedicated Servers and Matchmaking service, but hopes for that are slim. With the petition growing ever so largely, all we can do is hope that change will happen for both the game and the way that the PC is viewed as a gaming platform.

pksllayer wrote:aiyah whole clan so inactive dunno when we are even going to play la.

clearwater87 wrote:lols good to see u again destiny. stuff in sch really keeping our hands full. haha ghost.. hydriz and ace got their copy alrdy lol