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Post by Steve Farrelly @ 08:20am 22/10/09 | 67 Comments
I'm as clueless as to what exactly "IWNet" means as well, but it was thrown out of Infinity Ward HQ recently when community manager (and outspoken CM, at that), Robert Bowling, confirmed there would be no dedicated server support for the PC version of Modern Warfare 2, but said an entirely new multiplayer matchmaking system would be used instead.

"[In the past] when you wanted to play a multiplayer game on PC, you'd have to scroll through a Server Browser which listed every available server which was hosted by individual server admins," he explains on his Blog. "Each had their own private rules, mods, or ways of playing the game. Most players would also use the server browser to find just the best quality game (based on PING).

"With IWNET matchmaking, it takes all that into account for you. All you have to do is select the playlist (pre-set gametypes with custom rules) that fits the style of play you are in the mood for. When you do, it will automatically find you a game with the best performance, ping, and preferences based on your location and individual connection as well as matching you with players of your same SKILL."

You can read the rest of the description of the new system right here - but it sounds promising so far (if this is what has to replace the DS option). Let us know what you think.



modern warfare 2dedicated server





Latest Comments
Foxbane
Posted 08:32am 22/10/09
wow ausgamers are slow iv known about it for 3days already
ravn0s
Posted 08:50am 22/10/09
sounds promising so far


maybe for a console gamer, but for pc its the worst thing imaginable.
Chucky
Posted 08:51am 22/10/09
I was wondering when this news would pop up on ausgamers. Surely there is a forum thread lying around though. And yeh the news originally came out on the 17th/18th
`ViPER`
Posted 08:57am 22/10/09
I said this in the other thread, but I still cant remember anytime when someone has complained about having to manually pick servers with pc games, infact this is exactly what PC gamers generaly want to do. They have certain servers that they hang out on for a number of reasons, they know alot of people that play these same servers, they know they are going to be fast because there isp hosts them, etc.

Why not just give people both options?
Chucky
Posted 09:02am 22/10/09
btw

it f*****g sucks
Steve Farrelly
Posted 09:10am 22/10/09
I think offering both options (so noobs don't feel threatened) would be a better way forward. If the petition keeps gaining momentum, they might buckle
taggs
Posted 09:13am 22/10/09
Infinity Ward: "We'll get rid of that nasty server browser for you gamers, it's all very confusing isn't it? Aren't you glad we came along and made everything easier for you?"

PC Gamer: "No, we like the server browser."

Infinity Ward: "... Uh, no you don't"
Eds
Posted 09:18am 22/10/09
wow ausgamers are slow iv known about it for 3days already


OMG, how do i become as awesome as you!
Freewheelin
Posted 09:45am 22/10/09
its just f***ed any chance of a decently run competition.

not having complete control over servers(the private server s*** isnt the same) will be terrible.

if any disputes arise from any competitive game theyll be impossible to resolve since noone will have access to logs etc.

itll also be a godsend to griefers. their management system would have to be pretty damned special to cope with all the tools out there in any decent way, and im sceptical it will be any good at all, if it exists at all
D34N0
Posted 09:56am 22/10/09
I agree with Viper, I usually hang out on the same servers, so know the ppl, know the rules and etiquette. It's going to be hard to hook up with the crew like before.

But my biggest problem with the new system is the fact that it appears to be P2P only.

If you create a private server for you and your mates to join, it's all loaded up on your connection. It's your upload speed which determines how smooth the game is going to run. For Aussies, that's not cool at all. It greatly limits the number of players you can have join at any one time.

We're 8yrs away from having a decent internet connection. So until then....
infi
Posted 10:00am 22/10/09
how are we supposed to have ladder matches... f*****g...
rec
Posted 10:29am 22/10/09
The game is dead for competitive play.

No one wants to play a p2p clan match. One player will always have an advantage, and the rest will be getting choke because no one elses upload speed will be able to cope with 9 other connections to them.
Carson
Posted 10:58am 22/10/09
This is f*****g stupid. I also agree with Viper. I generally hang around on the same servers when I play as once you find a good server there's no reason to go to another.

It'll be no big surprise if the pc mp community dies fast due to this.
HashBrown
Posted 12:27pm 22/10/09
How can you stand to write for a website that attracts this audience

Edit: Disregard this, you linked to bowling's article trying to spin it as a positive move. You deserve this thread.

and stop calling it P2P because it's f*****g not~

VV Lollin VV

last edited by HashBrown at 12:27:59 22/Oct/09
AussieBattler
Posted 12:25pm 22/10/09
Are yes it is "P2P", where have you read that any servers are invovled in hosting the match???? It's like Xbox 360 and PS3, P2P.

The only way I can see any form of competitions being run. Take a dedicated server, shove a graphics card in it. Boot it up and turn on private matches. Then somehow you will need invite everyone in. That is some sort of solution.

IW = GREEDY!
trog
Posted 12:45pm 22/10/09
How can you stand to write for a website that attracts this audience

Edit: Disregard this, you linked to bowling's article trying to spin it as a positive move. You deserve this thread.
dude, you know f*****g nothing about us if you think anyone here thinks this is an even remotely good idea.

The reason I hadn't posted this news already was because I was waiting to see what happened after the dust settled; after the first reports I couldn't believe they'd be so stupid and/or arrogant as to do this, so I was waiting to see their response. Now they've responded and confirmed it, we've got something up about it, but I still have more to say on the issue and am drafting an article about this, the point of which will be to call PC gamers out to see if they have the actual balls to not buy this game.

For those that don't know, some of the guys at AusGamers have been working professionally providing game servers and services for Australian users for almost 10 years on GameArena. We have been doing it as a hobby for longer than that. There are few groups of people in the entire world that know as much about this sort of stuff as us. I don't say that to sound like a jerk; it's just a simple fact and this sort of stuff is a big deal to us, so when we talk about it we want to make sure we're explaining the important stuff clearly and concisely.

Despite more than 10 years of trying to explain to PC gamers what a dedicated server is and why they're especially important for Australians, I don't have high hopes that there will be enough people willing to take enough of a stand on this and not buy it. And at the end of the day that is the only thing that is going to make the slightest bit of difference to what developers do in the future.

Basically the dedicated server model has been circling the drain for a while now (along with PC gaming as a whole, really) despite all the best efforts of our team and those like us to try to explain to developers why its in their best interests, and the clear and obvious examples of the massive success of PC games that take advantage of the dedicated server model. Developers and publishers want to "own" the whole game end-to-end now, including ladders, communities, etc - so they can be the ones raking in the revenue. I can't fault them for that, and it's obviously their right - but it's just not going to be the best experience for gamers given all the differences around the world.

The situation is going to be much much worse for Australians - whether IW's proposed system is p2p or not is almost irrelevant. If it is p2p, we'll be boned because all our home connections have poor upstream, making them unsuitable for hosting large servers (and experience indicates people typically want to play on the biggest server size possible). If it isn't p2p, then we're boned because they won't be able to justify the extreme expense of hosting themselves (unless they end up making an agreement with an existing GSP, which is quite possible anyway, but would be really lame for all Australians that aren't on that ISP that want to play it unmetered).

Again, we'll have more to say on this later. The best thing you can do now is go to the IW forums and talk about how you're not going to buy this game unless it has dedicated server support.

Here is a form letter I wrote years and years ago to send to publishers. It's not entirely relevant to this scenario, but something like that would be a good start.
Flocker
Posted 01:04pm 22/10/09
Jesus trog, I meant because he linked to a blog post full of lies and spin and implied it was useful information. I said in my thread on the morning of the 18th that you wouldn't like it because I know of your past cry for dedicated server support in big titles.

and it's player hosted, but it's not strictly "peer to peer" because it's a distinct server-client relationship. I was just being a f***** about it.

I'm mad as heck too

last edited by Flocker at 13:04:54 22/Oct/09
FraktuRe
Posted 01:02pm 22/10/09
I would vote for trog to be president of the earth.
Dan
Posted 01:04pm 22/10/09
Honestly, the most telling point of it for me is the amount of international developers and PR staff that we've chatted to off-camera, asking them if their upcoming game will include dedicated server support and they don't even know what i'm talking about.

Some of these people, while not being network programmers, have still been development leads, other technical staff or people of influence. It's obvious that this just isn't as big a deal for developers in the US where their greater community is all < 100ms away from each other and bandwidth is "unlimited". But for Australian's it's really the difference between enjoying a game's multiplayer component or thinking that it's complete balls.
Callous
Posted 01:04pm 22/10/09
It's one big joke. My clan and many others the world over are boycotting that said excuse for a game. Bring on Battlefield3. At least DICE are supporting pc gamers. F*** IW.
trog
Posted 01:08pm 22/10/09
Honestly, the most telling point of it for me is the amount of international developers and PR staff that we've chatted to off-camera, asking them if their upcoming game will include dedicated server support and they don't even know what i'm talking about.

Some of these people, while not being network programmers, have still been development leads, other technical staff or people of influence. It's obvious that this just isn't as big a deal for developers in the US where their greater community is all < 100ms away from each other and bandwidth is "unlimited". But for Australian's it's really the difference between enjoying a game's multiplayer component or thinking that it's complete balls.
yep totally. Before BF1943 came out I asked the executive producer or whatever he was about the server situation. He knew what I meant, but had no idea what they were doing - at all. They're clueless.
Jesus trog, I meant because he linked to a blog post full of lies and spin and implied it was useful information. I said in my thread on the morning of the 18th that you wouldn't like it because I know of your past cry for dedicated server support in big titles.

and it's player hosted, but it's not strictly "peer to peer" because it's a distinct server-client relationship. I was just being a f***** about it.

I'm mad as heck toolast edited by Flocker at 13:04:54 22/Oct/09
who the hell are you!@#
greazy
Posted 01:10pm 22/10/09
Hashy has too many accounts on here.

But how popular are these games? Can Infinity Ward lead by example? I'd hate to see more games not having dedicated servers.
Flocker
Posted 01:10pm 22/10/09
The guy making new accounts to evade a 18000 second postlimiter!@#
trog
Posted 01:12pm 22/10/09
The guy making new accounts to evade a 18000 second postlimiter!@#
don't do that, I'll just ban them. I've dropped your post limiter, inexplicably thinking maybe you deserve one last chance at being sociable; but this is the last time
HashBrown
Posted 01:17pm 22/10/09
Let's get angry over videogames together
slyin
Posted 01:17pm 22/10/09
not buyin dis gayme yo
ctd
Posted 01:30pm 22/10/09
he point of which will be to call PC gamers out to see if they have the actual balls to not buy this game

Good luck with all that. Most of the people that buy cod6 will not have the faintest clue about this stuff.

Maybe some cod fanboy will start a boycott steam group in the hope of getting a free holiday + cod6 test session.
AussieBattler
Posted 02:01pm 22/10/09
There is already a petition online: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?dedis4mw. I believe there is a steam group already up.
LOTUK
Posted 02:04pm 22/10/09
I just keep seeing flashes in my nightmares of "Server full. You are 476th in the queue..." :(
Dan
Posted 03:19pm 22/10/09
The tragically s***** thing about this particular game is that the singleplayer campaign is likely to be awesome enough on it's own to make most shooter fans want to buy it.

It's just a real shame, because solid multiplayer is where the longevity is any truly great shooters.
AverageCowboy
Posted 06:29pm 22/10/09
Yeap... this is what we call a classic case of some serious f*****g bulls***... And I was looking forward to this game so incredibly much. Pity I'm a gamer who's dedicated to his community enough to the point where there is simply no way I could even possibly THINK of- conceive, even the idea alone- the thought of purchasing this game, let alone ACTUALLY going out and physically buying it, as a result of this. If it weren't for all the expensive hardware staring me in the face, I might actually throw up.

F*** you Infinity Ward you nanny-minded, money-worshiping pieces of s***.

Think I'll keep my hundred bucks or so, spend it on a company who actually supports and listens to their target audience and market.
whoop
Posted 07:16pm 22/10/09
I just had a thought, isn't this kind of how quake live works? I know you can select the specific server you join and aren't forced on to a particular server but it also uses this match making business doesn't it? Be good if MW2 did the same but what's to stop people playing really really badly on purpose & getting matched with a bunch of noobs, then just going all out & owning everyone?

I wonder how you report a hacker too.
Bah
Posted 07:28pm 22/10/09
I just had a thought,
Did it hurt?

And no, quake live has dedicated servers, just that randoms cant run them.
And you can pick your server on ql, it will just tell you if you are likely to get owned or not.
Morbid-Ghost
Posted 09:42pm 22/10/09
As soon as it was confirmed I decided not to buy this. While PC Gaming may not be dead because of one usually good developer turning the cards and f*****g us over big time. The PC Sector for MW2 is definitely f***ed. Obviously not worth the money as I don't think there will be enough replay value in the Single Player alone to keep this game afloat. I'll stick to my COD 4 thanks.
Khel
Posted 10:11pm 22/10/09
I'm willing to give Infinity Ward the benefit of the doubt for now, everyone is calling this the death of PC gaming without ever seeing the thing in action or really having all the details. Infinity Ward are hardly new guys on the scene, I'm sure they know whats good for their game and their community, and whats not good and will make it crash and burn. I sure they're not going to purposefully sabotage their own product.

For now, I'm willing to hear them out and wait and see what they've come up with, I don't really believe the marketting hype about it being some huge step forward and redefining PC multiplayer gaming or whatever else they promised, but I'm not ready to hammer a nail into the coffin of cod or PC gaming either.
Hashy
Posted 10:54pm 22/10/09
Infinity Ward have more in mind than fostering the hardcore niche and lowly Australian markets.

It might hurt sales, mostly because of the public backlash, but they'll make it back in DLC. They're steering the market the direction they and most other developers want it to go.
Bah
Posted 11:24pm 22/10/09
Yeah who wants the hardcore market, they buy one game and play it for 2 years, you want the guys that play your game for a few months then are chomping at the bit for the next piece of s*** you can shovel their way. (unless you can get them paying as they play)
Dazhel
Posted 12:11am 23/10/09
am drafting an article about this, the point of which will be to call PC gamers out to see if they have the actual balls to not buy this game


Hopefully those that were going to buy will realise that a big part of value in the game drops away without dedicated server support. Sounds like a pretty bone headed move on the part of Infinity Ward to ignore one of the biggest community building aspects of a PC gaming product.
Example: L4D is pretty borked without "openserverbrowser" in the console.

Props for pushing this point hard and I hope the message gets heard that PC gaming as a community loses out when this sort of consolification shenanigans happens.
Raider
Posted 01:15am 23/10/09
grats on killng any competition play, tbh i thought IW were smart.. they make a good franchise, known for competitive play and good story and then they go.. oh we'll f*** off competitive play and cater to casuals who in end play about 5% compared to the hardcores.

GOOD BUSINESS PLAN CHUCKEF****
Tollaz0r!
Posted 07:14am 23/10/09
I was quickly reading their forums and noticed that almost every thread was a backlash to this IWNET idea.

Hopefully they are getting a clue and will respond to the wishes of their audience.
`ViPER`
Posted 08:15am 23/10/09
Yeah who wants the hardcore market, they buy one game and play it for 2 years, you want the guys that play your game for a few months then are chomping at the bit for the next piece of s*** you can shovel their way. (unless you can get them paying as they play)


I think you nailed it, the developers dont want people playing a game for 2-3 years, what value do they get from that. They want people moving onto a new game after 6 months, probably even less.

Why make a game that is so good with online support and dedicated servers etc, how does that make them extra money?, the majority of sales would be in the first few months, and probably f*** all after a year.

However, if they can get control of the way people are playing online, they can then start to charge for it. Something along the lines of you get to play for free for the first year if you buy the full game, then they start to charge after that. Or even worse, they charge from the start.
Khel
Posted 10:27am 23/10/09
Wow, they're charging $90 US for the game on steam. What. the. f***.
$ack
Posted 10:31am 23/10/09
Anyone know if you can 'Join a server your friend is on?'
ravn0s
Posted 11:02am 23/10/09
Wow, they're charging $90 US for the game on steam. What. the. f***.


wow they just keep giving us more reasons not to buy it.
SCOGGEX
Posted 11:59am 23/10/09
f*****g lol dips****. I wont buy this turd.
infi
Posted 12:11pm 23/10/09
i pre-ordered it before this bulls*** news came out. single player should be awesome fun anyways.
Hashy
Posted 12:46pm 23/10/09
Yeah because the COD series has such a rich tradition of compelling singleplayer campaigns
`ViPER`
Posted 12:47pm 23/10/09
Yeah because the COD series has such a rich tradition of compelling singleplayer campaigns


umm yeah it kinda does.
infi
Posted 12:51pm 23/10/09
Hashy, the COD single player has been pretty much the standout single player franchise in FPS.
Hashy
Posted 12:59pm 23/10/09
This might be a revelation for you but you guys have f*****g awful taste.
infi
Posted 01:04pm 23/10/09
This might be a revelation for you Hashy but you have no credibility. So keep spurting your insane ramblings cos no one gives a s***.
Hashy
Posted 01:06pm 23/10/09
*progresses unnaturally down a linear corridor of respawning enemies* "...it's just like in the movies"
ctd
Posted 01:10pm 23/10/09
Hashy, the COD single player has been pretty much the standout single player franchise in FPS.

lol?
infi
Posted 01:13pm 23/10/09
well suggest a better one then.
slyin
Posted 01:20pm 23/10/09
i pre-ordered it before this bulls*** news came out. single player should be awesome fun anyways.


all i hear is "i dont have the balls to cancel my pre-order"

well suggest a better one then.


half-life.... one
Hashy
Posted 01:24pm 23/10/09
Doom
infi
Posted 01:29pm 23/10/09
a pre-order is a contract. they already have my money dips***.

i don't think i have ever finished half-life anything.
Hashy
Posted 01:31pm 23/10/09
*preorders and pays in full amount for the season's biggest release, as published by the biggest publisher in the industry, just in case they're sold out*
ravn0s
Posted 01:36pm 23/10/09
a pre-order is a contract. they already have my money dips***.


you preordered from cdwow yes? you can cancel any order pending despatch at any time and they refund all your money.
slyin
Posted 01:40pm 23/10/09
a pre-order is a contract. they already have my money dips***.


again, edits in "i dont have the balls"

tell me where you pre-ordered from so everyone can avoid that place in future.

*edit: dips***
infi
Posted 01:40pm 23/10/09
CDWOW is only $61.95, you may pay full amount but I don't :D

I just wrote to cancel the pre-order, I will see if it flies.
Cumslinger
Posted 01:42pm 23/10/09
*saves $10 on purchase* ~~ *waits 2 weeks for it to arrive*

edit: who the f*** changed my name

last edited by Cumslinger at 13:42:44 23/Oct/09
infi
Posted 01:50pm 23/10/09
how do you buy your games, in between your bouts of guzzling cum? i guess you get them all free from the makers because they yearn for your approval
Tollaz0r!
Posted 10:12am 24/10/09
Khel
Posted 10:31am 24/10/09
I gotta agree with infi, Cod4's single player was pretty f*****g awesome, I was looking forward to Modern Warfare 2's single player quite a bit. But yeah, f*** it, I'm not getting it now.
step
Posted 10:35am 24/10/09
Hooray for piracy!
rec
Posted 01:13pm 25/10/09
Khel; if you're going to buy it, don't pay AUD $98 via Steam. Using the UK Steam store you can grab it for AUD $62; http://www.gamers-underground.com/forum/games-general/31856-steam-modern-warfare-2-%2462-aud.html
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