Yep, it's that time again. Another bunch of enraged gamers who believe a petition over a silly thing will change a developer's decision. Infinity Ward revealed that dedicated servers would not be a part of Modern Warfare 2 on PC, opting instead for console-like matchmaking. Since PC diehards are obsessed with ending the tyranny of home consoles, they went completely insane at the news, and now over 50,000 nutjobs have signed a petition.
"Get Infinity Ward to review their decision not to allow fully dedicated servers for their forthcoming game release CoD:MW2. Remember that this Call of Duty was made popular by PC Gamers who have supported the series throughout," states the petition, driving home the entitlement complex that must accompany all gamer petitions.
"WHAT THE f**k!!!! This is such bullshit. This is taking XBL putting on PC and saying have fun. If IW.net sucks ill say bye bye to MW2 and hello CoD4," rages one PC gamer.
Activision games are not making friends among the PC community, are they? With Blizzard dropping LAN in StarCraft 2 and Infinity Ward ditching dedicated servers, it seems that Activision is making serious attempts to merge console and PC experiences together. I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing, and it's certainly not the most evil thing Activision has ever done. However, as you can see, PC fandamentalists want nothing to do with anything even remotely console-esque. This is probably going to continue bitterly onward.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
8:40 AM on 10.19.2009
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I like that with matchmaking I can just jump right into a game, and for the most part the game will be competitive.
Activision knows the bulk of their user base is on consoles, so that's why they're abandoning this. I don't expect a PC built company like Valve to abandon their PC superiority anytime soon.
"I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing, and it's certainly not the most evil thing Activision has ever done"
No, maybe not the most evil, but it IS a bad thing. No dedicated servers; possibly no FREE dlc updates; $60 games rather than $50; and if any of you play World at War on the PC (I have both PC and 360), you'll know how AMAZING servers are compared to the 360.
I can see the benefits of xbox live but I have also been waiting for an hour to get into a Halo 3 match without dropping the connection when normally I can see a server to which I have 2000ms and don't even attempt to play on it.
If they would stop shielding the auto-aimers form the console ( removing auto-aim on cross-platform matches of course ) or at least have the choice to cross plataform play then I wouldn't mind so much since I could see a bunch of friends that play on Live and finally prove to them that the game cheats for them.
Its the combination of charging 10 more than any other PC game and intentionally crippling the game to promote their own experiment which will impact the experience greatly that makes MW2 a no-deal as of right now.
Why not have both though? Sometimes I like joining a server that bans grenade launchers, or has a specific wacky mode/game style on it. Or sometimes I like joining a server that has 24/25 people, so I know I'll be the last one in.
With WaW, I have about 20 servers that are up 24/7 that I can join without fail: I also see a lot of the same people in them, which helps build a sense of community that you'll never find with random matchmaking. I also forgot a very staple component of PC gaming is also lost: modding (thanks Sadistic).
To sum it up, the l4d2 petition was retarded because Valve is charging us the same money for way the hell more stuff. Activision is charging us 10 more dollars for less features. I wasn't planning on getting mw2 for a while because while cod4 was a good game, it wasn't amazing to me. Now I'm less inclined to check it out.
A few years ago, did you see Valve launching titles day and date with consoles?
Support is dying because PC gamers love piracy and that's the facts.
Matchmaking, you couldn't come faster.
And seeing that Activision has it's claws rooted in this situation, I don't see them giving in neither. Which is good.
It's because PC gamers don't like being treated like console gamers.
"It's because PC gamers don't like their games being dumbed down, and more expensive like console games."
Fixed. There's millions of advantages for owning a console, but for FPS/RTS games, forget about it. Imagine Warcraft III on a console: there would be no DotA.
If you think liking a certain type of game makes you somehow smarter than others(whoopie you like rts games, you must surely be an intellectual heavyweight), you need a life.
From what I've read, this will apparently take almost all control of the servers away from players, which seems like a huge step backwards. Now, I'm not 100% sure of this, but apparently this also means you won't be able to use custom maps and game modes, either? That's a load of crap.
At the very least, they could put in the ability to find servers like you used to. It's either laziness on their part or some plan to combat piracy, like they're also doing with the lack of LAN on Starcraft 2 (something that is also stupid).
I agree that signing a petition is fucking stupid, but this isn't just PC fanboys going "waaah consoles are closer to us now :(".
You say you hate fanboyism, but yet you seem to assume all PC gamers are fools. Please prove me wrong :)
There is no reasoning with people who think that playing with analog sticks because it's more comfortable though, as dedicated servers are purely for the enthusiast, not the casual console gamer breed.
B. I used to be a hardcore PC player because I didn't have a good console to play the games that I wanted to. Then my PC went to shit, and now I'm playing on console considering I now have a PS3. I can see why everyone is getting pissed, but it's just another one of those "I can't get my way, so I'm going to make a petition about it" type of situations. Quite frankly, I also like the matchmaking multiplayer. With Jim bringing up Starcraft II not having LAN, I'm a little annoyed at that, because I'd enjoy going to LAN parties and not having to connect to Battle.net. But again, there's nothing that can really be done. Infinity Ward has to have a reason, besides to merge console and PC, that they aren't having dedicated servers.
Here's my other issue. As Jim has said in many Podtoid episodes, a lot of the people signing the petitions will be the first in line when the game is released anyways. Thus, defeating the purpose of signing the petition.
I don't think console games are "dumbed down", I think the CONTROLS are sometimes dumbed down, but many people would argue that if the y key on your keyboard has a useful function then you have too many fucking buttons, but the games themselves are great.
Equally, PC gamers have fanboys too. Except wheras console fanboys think their consoles are better than the opposing party, PC fanboys think they themselves are better. But anyway, yeah, I like to think I'm not a fanboy.
Dedicated servers provide better pings, better stability and when running public servers on them you generally eventually grow some sort of community around the server.
But that is not even the most important part to me. What's really important is that this signals the end of modding on Call of Duty, the professional Call of Duty scene, and clan gaming as we know it.
Personally, while I really enjoy playing Call of Duty public for a while, getting teamkilled by martyrdom grenades as you round a corner gets really frustrating after a while, and just as I did with CoD4, I was planning on doing most of my Modern Warfare 2 gaming on PCW matches with mods to improve game balance and competetiveness. Is competetiveness a word?
Right now, that seems like it will be impossible, which is why Modern Warfare 2 is going from my must-have game this year, to "I won't ever pay for this."
What really makes me fume on this is that they announce this just over THREE WEEKS before launch - a lot of my less informed friends would not have heard of this news before they bought the game if I hadn't told them, and they would have wasted their money on a game lacking the features we were planning on getting it for in the first place.
have you ever played in an e-sport league? Ever earned money for playing in a professional clan? owning a clan public server of a game and meet new ppl? new friends?looking for the best server to fit your ping? so..plz...
"PC gamers love piracy"
Khmm.... I laughed a big one here. C'mon don't tell me that the BOX games are more clean than the PC ones. From 10 of my friends i can tell you there is 7-8 of them who uses the warez version, the other ones buy 4-5 games a year. Big business realy. Piracy is there with the consoles too, the mayor difference in them is the fact that the casual player needs to do more to get a game for his/her BOX to run. It isn't a big tradition as it is on the old PC.
You're completly missing the point. While I love visercal console experiences like Gears of War, there's also a time and place for RTS and PC games.
Do I want and RTS game like Halo Wars, where I have to pay $7 for a few game modes? Or do I want Warcraft III on PC, where I'll get a lifetime of free community based mods and support. What Activision is saying is "enjoy the pay content, because we're taking out FREE mods".
Do you not get this? It's not a rapier battle of genre wits or e-peens; it's simple facts. If you enjoy some cross-platform PC games (Left 4 Dead comes to mind), and you aren't playing them on both platforms, you're missing out. How can anyone look me straight in the face and say "no sir. I do not want free Left 4 Dead mods and levels that infinitely increase the replayability of the game, for $10 cheaper than other platforms. I WANT to pay $7 for DLC rather than get it for free."
This whole thing is taking away the things that make the PC an "open" platform. I think it's a bad move for all of gaming. As consoles become more and more like PCs I would have expected things like modding and custom content to become more common on them. It just seems like a backwards step.
I could care less about control preference (it's up to the individual), but how is a console version of a game with a lack of mod support, and no dedicated servers where you can control every single facet of the entire game not a dumbed down version?
I'll admit that 90% of my game collection is console based. But if I see "Game A on Console" and "Game A on PC", and the PC version has free DLC and is cheaper, I'll go for that one: or sometimes both, if my friends don't game on PC.
@Face
Great write up. Valve recently said that they want their console games to be more like PC games, so I agree that it's odd that Activision wants to go the other route.
Oh wait it's not odd: less free user mods = a need for DLC = more money.
will the matchmaking system allow me to play online tournaments with <50 ping?
will it allow me to have a decent competitive mod without the bullshit perks that if used at pro level completely ruin the game?
if it does, than its fine, if not, its dine too, 1 less game i need to buy.
Lets face it 50,000 will be a very small proportion of what this game will sell and we all(including activision) know 49,000 of those people on there will buy the game anyway.
Don't get me wrong it's a fairly crappy thing they've done after putting the price up, but is anyone surprised?
It's a big break from tradition and the problems this is going to cause with latency and home broadband connection speeds will be big not to mention the impact on community created content.
The whole paid DLC argument doesn't hold any water with me. You're not entitled to DLC and neither are you obliged to buy it. After you've paid for the game thats all you should get and if you do get any bonus content thrown in later then you should be thankful to the hard working people who created it rather than acting like you deserved it.
While I agree that petitions, let alone any "online petition" are generally a waste of time the reason behind this one is much more valid, in my opinion, than say those signing the L4D2 list.
My reason being is that having a dedicated server not only gives a much, MUCH more reliable gaming experience but it also grants a level of control and customization that you won't find on a matchmaking platform of networked play.
If anything it is able to provide a more level playing field where latency is concerned.
p.s. props to Jim for spinning this as a "PC Gamer fandamentalists" tinfoil hat story. It'd be nice to see the blurb of info attached to something a bit more substantial.
While not every petition is based on a sound claim, most are reasonable. You cannot put down fans who are highly disappointed in something they were planning to invest in. No LAN option for SC2 is a choice that makes no sense at all, to be honest, especially when that was a huge thing for SC1 and made it a classic, and match-making for PC gamers is completely opposite of what PC gamers are used to and, more importantly, what they like. This is why in-game and third party server lists have been around since multiplayer made it's entrance to PCs.
Oh, but never mind the logical and open minded response that I've shared, Jim. You're always going to be the egotistical person basher than you've always been. You enjoy your high horse there, mister, we'll all be here on ground level when you fall.
Won't play this game but it sucks to see some of their decisions.
Magnalon says a lot of teh smarts.
Mods are a lovely extra, of course, but again - they couldn't really work on consoles. As for the controls thing, I didn't mean "oh lol m&k>controller", I meant my mouse alone has more buttons than a 360 controller, so the controls have to be more concise, but again, that;'s not necessarily a bad thing.
Actually, Jim posts such obvious flame-bates for the hits. It's his job and he's damn good at it. That's why he keeps his job.
Hits = money and Flame-bait = hits, basic math really.