No dedidicated servers for MW2

[Calneon]

Speechless...

Black Saturday?

A day of infamy?

It's hard, very hard, for me to write objectively right now, but here is a summary of what we heard on BASH 123. If you missed it...we will have it on demand in a few minutes.

The raw version of BASH 123 can be found here. This is a long cast; however, I've edited down the salient bits with Rob Bowling here:

The Director's cut: BASH 123

Fourzerotwo was on our BASH webcast this morning and he had a few surprises for the PC community.

Here are the snippets:

*
We're doing a lot on the backend to make the game accessible for everyone.
*
There is no delay for the PC version of MW2
*
There's prestige mode
*
Jason West at the MP event, said that he was dead on, on the matchmaking servers. We've been building a system on the backend called IW.NET.
*
You are completely reliant on IW.NET. There are no server lists. There are no dedicated servers.
*
You have private matches where you can customize the game
*
You cannot put MW2 on a dedicated server.
*
This is the first time we've ever done something like this and the team has huge plans for what IW.NET develops into.
*
Customizing your game...you have quite a few options in a private match
*
You're getting same game (as in Console), plus matchmaking and private match.
*
Server admin point-of view, NO DEDICATED SERVERS

I've summarized some of my own thoughts from the cast here:

General

* IW partnering through Steam is what you will see in the future. Matchmaking is not through Steam, but IW.NET is run in conjunction with Steam.
* GSP's will no longer be renting out servers.
* No PunkBuster. VAC will be used as an anti cheat.
* Retail distribution: Pre-orders will get a disk. Or you could order from Steam.
* DLC may now need to be paid for - not confirmed.
* Piracy was only a small reason for going to IW.NET - not the whole reason.

Clans:

* No more clan servers. Private matches, replace clan servers.
* Listen servers will connect to each other.
* IW.NET/Steam will replace the community server admin

Competitive Gaming

* Competitive gaming has changed forever.
* It might be possible in the future for IW engineers to load a "competitive" setting on IW.NET, but it is far from a guarantee. It might also never happen.

Modding

* Modding the game is now very much in question. Fourzerotwo had no info on modding. However, it appears that there will be no mods or maps for MW2.
* Modding in SpecOps? Unknown.


Today our game has changed for ever.

I'll leave this post with Josh Peckler's comments from planetmedalofhonor.com:

The server community is what's made us. It's what defined us.

IW.NET is getting the PC community to turn into consoles. You're trying to re-write our history.

Rob Bowling, community manager (Gamer / Geek / Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward...as he says on his Twitter page) at Infinity Ward was kind enough to join our panel on BASH today. He let us in on the news that IW was taking Modern Warfare in a new direction. The online game on PC has changed. Dedicated servers are out. IW.net is in.

This is a game changer and many of you may not be too happy. I for one will be willing to listen and try it out. It’s all I can do.

For the folks in our community that mod and map, the future does not look as bright as the past.

Thanks to Rob, PST*Joker from mycallofduty.com, Rudedog from fpsadmin.com, Garetjax from codtv.tv, Josh from Planetmedalofhonor.com, MatTks from @weplaycod (Twitter) and weplaycod.com, iBleedv20 at omnilinkit.com and the hordes in our chatroom and ventrilo.

I’m glad the day is over.

Source

Lost all respect for Infinity Ward if they stick with this, and won't be buying the game. PC had a much superior system than consoles and they're trying to say that consoles were superior and they 'upgraded' the PC system.

Bullshit.

I'll probably pirate it for the singleplayer.

[Colonel Mitch]

Lost all respect for Infinity Ward if they stick with this, and won't be buying the game. PC had a much superior system than consoles and they're trying to say that consoles were superior and they 'upgraded' the PC system.

Bullshit.

I'll probably pirate it for the singleplayer.

To be fair for the majority of people who just want to buy it to play it online against other people, I cant see this making any difference.

Ill still buy it and realistically I cant see this impacting on my enjoyment in any way, if anything it should make it easier and quicker to get in game on a non retarded server.

[D_K_Head]

heh, i'm with you phant, this sounds a lot like accepting all the shortcomings of L4D...


remember when no dedi servers were avalible, and we tried hosting locally? THAT worked wonderfully... oh, and remember the sheer FUN we had with matchmaking? yeah, this'll be fucking epic.

They've just alienated the only crowd that dosen't consider them to be a cheap, modern knockoff of halo. Way to go, assholes.

[Calneon]

To be fair for the majority of people who just want to buy it to play it online against other people, I cant see this making any difference.

Ill still buy it and realistically I cant see this impacting on my enjoyment in any way, if anything it should make it easier and quicker to get in game on a non retarded server.

You seriously don't see the massive negative effects this will have?

[VoX]

Complete wankers. Another example of developers fucking PC over in favour of Consoletards. More money for them I suppose.


At least they're using a less fail anti-cheat system, punkbuster is worse than EA and IW put together.

[Chalex4]

So they're basically screwing over clans/communities big time. No longer can any clan member just hop on their server with the same IP & settings as always - that sounds really lame in my book.

So how will these servers actually be hosted then? Does IW.NET have enough servers world wide that will give everyone a 25ms ping? I feel sorry for the modding/mapping communities too .

[Colonel Mitch]

You seriously don't see the massive negative effects this will have?

If its anything like L4D then yes, i do. But if it works like it does on consoles i cant see it being a big problem

[Calneon]

So how will these servers actually be hosted then? Does IW.NET have enough servers world wide that will give everyone a 25ms ping? I feel sorry for the modding/mapping communities too .

It's peer to peer...

[Calneon]

If its anything like L4D then yes, i do. But if it works like it does on consoles i cant see it being a big problem

Left 4 Dead matchmaking was fine, I don't see what everyone had a problem with it. You still had dedicated servers so you could join your own clan server.

With MW2, clans cant have their own server, there will be more lag like on consoles, there will be no mods so no competitive scene, list goes on.

[Chalex4]

I thought it was peer to peer when I read it, but I've always had bad lag that way so assumed I misread it. Unfortunately not .

This will probably be one of those things that's patched later on.

[D_K_Head]

because, ya know, local servers really do work wonders for gameplay.

[Vicious Horizon]

FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Wankers.

Utter wankers.

How can they fail this badly? This is worse than me.. even I wouldn't put a matchmaking system in a PC game >.<

[D_K_Head]

well, this is what happens when you let consoletards run both the PC section. They find a way to cut down on port time, and this is it. It'll either be fixed in a patch, or it really will become the most pirated game in existance (so far)

[Chalex4]

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2369799

There's an interview later on in that podcast with someone who is working on MW2. To be honest, he doesn't really sound like he gives a shit .

[Calneon]

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2369799

There's an interview later on in that podcast with someone who is working on MW2. To be honest, he doesn't really sound like he gives a shit .

Yeah that's where the news came from. There were many rumors so the IW community manager decided to come clean with everything on a podcast with many high profile CoD community people.