Activision president defends MW2 PC News

What do us gamers know huh...

LIES AND MORE LIES!!!

By "improvement", you mean "refinement", by "refinement", you mean" EVOLUTION". Such is hardy the case here...

another day, another bit of news on mw2

what's the deal, in a nutshell?

Ignorance is bliss hey Activision.

Heh heh. It's all a bit like when companies say stuff like: "This branch has been closed for your convenience. Your nearest branch is now 30 miles away" because it allows them to offer a "much better level of customer service".

The customer is always right

Any suit worth his salt should surely know that?

So this decision to remove dedicated servers from MW2 on the PC is no doubt the real reason for the drop in the number of players online from 32+ to a mere 18 then? Is that improving "that consumer experience overall by a significant margin" too? ;)

But Mogs, you don't know what you want, however Activision do.

@bad09 - Find a couple of servers with a nice comunity and bookmark them. You'll never have to worry again. With IWnet you're rolling the dice everytime you want to play in terms of ping, friendliness of players, etc.

Besides I don't see how the experience you describe is any different form having some homophobic teenagers yapping on Live

News Flash: Evil corporation unapologetic about fucking cutsomers in uncomfortable places... President claims that lack of decicated servers "Improves consumer experience overall"... while rolling around in his big Scrooge MacDuck style 'Money Bin'.

Is annoying to read a adult man longly related to the gaming industry making so many mistakes or lying deliberately is his words.

We now known that IWNET ping is at least 100 ms, doubling the lag that most of dedicated servers offer to COD 4 players. We know that the supported players is only a fraction (18 at max). We now that lean have been removed, custom free maps disabled, console command will be absent and a lot of some other nice features from COD 4 totally destroyed.

You deserved the well earned kick in the a** that the PC community will provide to your game.

@ Wickedbug

But there you go, you said it yourself. "Find a couple of servers". I don't need to fumble like that on live.

Now sure I agree Live has it problems to especially with the yank teens but if you take Halo out of the picture it's not that bad! :) Overall Live as been the best thing to happen to online gaming IMO, if IW want to bring that ease to PC then I say give 'em a chance. (Although personally I'm not spending my own cash on their game - Acti price hike and all that).

Now I'm off before I get lynched!

The move to IW net is purely to combat piracy and companys no better than to start pointing the finger at there own customer base, hense all the pr bs. This isn't going to go down well but we only have are selves to blame. Most people don't see piracy for what it is, thieft. Now we are all paying the price and it will only get worse because it has gone way to far for companys to continue with the " piracy is a crime please don't do it" campaign.
I know people will always find away to crack it but people will always try to rob banks, doesn't mean we should just let them walk in.

You tell a lie often enough...

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Top Shopto pre-porders on the right. PC version conspicuous by it's abscence.

Sticking to CoD4 then huh? Or maybe back to BF2 with its dedicated servers of 64 players!

'"But we're not overly concerned about it," he added.'

In other words, tough shit.

There is no reason why IW shouldn't have tried to cater to both necessities - providing the option for both dedicated servers and Live-style Quick Matches.

From personal experience - I don't like having to faff extensively looking at servers, but after giving myself a very basic education in server-finding (such as can be summarised in a small help-box) it's all fairly simple. You put in a few limitations on what you're searching for (through tags or tick-boxes or whatever filters there are) and then look at the server names. It is trivially easy to find a server first-time that will likely cater to you, especially if the hosts of the server are allowed to display extra information about the server.

In this way, for example, BF2 is extremely civilised as a community - various server rules are clearly displayed when you're selecting server, the particular server quirks are made known, and you can find any kind of game you desire. A few favourite-clicks later, and everything is dandy.

Sure - being able to hit 'play random game' which then matches you with people that want to play the same stuff as you would be great, but it doesn't have to come at the expense of the above.

"The move to IW net is purely to combat piracy" probably.

like THAT's gonna fight piracy!
pirates, as always, will have a much better user experience. namely, someone will crack and patch the game, and millions of pirates will play hosting the games themselves, never once having a contact with IWnet.
legitimate buyers will see, switch over, and the great modding will commence.

@bad09

I see your point, but it's not really that much trouble. You can filter the server list for ping, player cap, game mode, etc and in less then 5 minutes (wich is less then most matchmaking systems take to find you a game) you would have found a nice server and perhaps a community you could be a part of.

We've been doing that for over 10 years on the PC and it works great. Why remove this? Why not add matchmaking as a new feature on top of sever browsing?

IWNet will improve things, he said, and the benefits of switching to it rather than sticking with one system for the PC and one for consoles will "far outweigh any negatives that seem to be surfacing".

That's the key point here. For the developer it's better because they no longer have to make a separate multiplayer version for PC which can handle higher player count and use of dedicated servers. So for IW it's a better situation.
For the PC gaming community however it's a step backwards.

Every time someone from Activision/IW open their mouths they do the impossible and sound like even bigger patronising cunts.

@ Wickedbug

Well you are right there, choice is always a good (As EA found out with the FN4 controls silliness). If it could be done they should really have the option for both.

He doesn't seem to bothered though so I doubt they'll change their mind. Besides it probably is down to PC piracy that they went down this route. Just judging by the torrent sites I guess the illegal downloaders outnumber the people actually upset about the loss of servers by quite a bit.

Ironically isn't the 360 version the first to hit torrents? I'm sure I read it's already out there.

These are direct quotes from Robert Bowling, Infinity Ward's creative strategist on this site during the hands-on :-

"We'll be playing every night, watching the lobbies, checking Twitter and hearing the feedback, as well as going directly to our community and just asking: what do you think? What do you want?"
"You can be sure we'll be focusing our attention on what people actually want."

They are taking the ****ing piss. Total marketing spin and fluff worthy of scumbag politician. I cancelled my pre-order and I'm going to phone everyone I know who may buy this game and offer to burn them a warez copy because developers who piss all over the community that has supported from day one deserve to go bankrupt.

I don't think there decisions are down to piracy, being a pc user i agree that pc games do get pirated to hell and back.
Online multiplayer games with cd-key verification hold their own tho' i would say the likes of:-
Quake 2, Q3, Q4, bf2, bf 2142, cod 4 & cod:waw
have all sold very well on the pc platform.
100% of people i know who play or have played the games listed above have paid for a legit copy including myself.

"far out-weighs the negative$$$$"

F**k you Mr President of Activision. F**k you.

hahaha to think 10 years ago I was on 32 player dedicated servers playing Half Life death match. Back then I thought servers were going to get better and better with more players and options. Look where we are heading now, dismal matchmaking, laggy games and no online communities. I dont know but I like having choice, I like being able to choose the maps I want to play. I like to choose how many players I play with, I like being able to be part of a server community. Oh well no MW2 for me.

@Bad09

I don't think it's about the piracy at all (the 360 version is already on torrent sites) but more about cutting costs (ironic since the game is more expensive) and controlling the DLC. So for map packs have been free on the PC (most likely because they face competition from custom maps) and I doubt will be see much free content coming our way.

I couldn't care less if only MW2 does this, my fear is that it may start a trend of removing key features from PC gaming. So for we have DICE saying they will have dedicated servers and ID saying they might drop dedicated servers for Rage wich is worrying

It's all going to be ablout trying to sell overpriced DLC, online games rarely get pirated because the user experience is generally better with purchased titles.

Everyone knows this is about worsening the PC gamers experience in order to make more money, I'm not sure why they feel the need to tell such transparent lies.

Alright, EG. It's up to you. We see this kind of shambles very so often from developers or from console manufacturers. But then in the next interview EG get, the subject is lightly touched on, the interviewee gives some marketing spiel (usually involving the words 'experience' and 'value') and that's the end of it. This time, give them a fucking Paxman-style grilling OK? Don't wimp out!

@JahB:

You call COD 4 PC sales as "lass than stellar" but the fact is that the game sold between 2.5 and 3 millions of units, that is one of the most successful launchships in the latest years (think about the 3.5 in the The Wrath Of Lich King", the expansion for the most player game ever).

So, what they did will not "protect" their game in PC from piracy, but make the game unnapeal to purchase because the nerfed mp.

@ Wickedbug

Well you could be right about controlling DLC, but seeing as I now rarely waste my money on the great scam of this gen, DLC (especially the COD charity "have a couple of maps" packs), it's not a problem for me!

I dispear about todays gamers, they seem to complain about everything... it was better in the days of the Spectrum :)... all these petitions and angry mobs, there are so many more serious things going on in the world today.

Seriously though, I dont understand all the anger etc, if you dont like what they are doing, dont buy, if you do, then go and buy.

The 'free' map pack on PC wasn't even made by Activision / IW. Nvidia made it. There is no problem charging for DLC on the PC, EA have been doing it for years.

@actionfitz
"Evil corporation unapologetic about fucking cutsomers in uncomfortable places"

Like the back of a Volkswagen?

So the only benefit of buying this on PC over console is the possibility of improved graphics

I wonder if there will even be any SP mods

B-B-But Mouse Controll! Text Chat! GRAPHICS SETTINGS!

Clearly you are getting the superior experience! Activision says so!

@Gaol: PC gaming will evolve... It will kick the COD franshise out of the game. Players will be spending their founds in games, the only change will be that not in the Infinity Ward ones. All those clans founding the 14.000+ servers in COD 4 will stay in COD 4 or changing towards new games, but not to MW 2.

We see this before, with fans refusing to bought the latest Unreal Tournament game.

He hasn't actually tried it, now has he? Damn suits...

I predict an update to the PC version a month after it is released where there shall be changes to the multiplayer. Also, if sales are bad on the PC they will reduce the price 2-3 months after release (or they might do it anyways, to create another sales jolt into their pockets).

Also, customer isn't always right. He almost never is. But you should make sure that the customer feels that it was his decision all along.

Hitler defends Third Reich, claims improvement over Weimar republic.

100ms ping isn't an improvement on the dedicated server system.
Less max players, while possibly more balanced, isn't offering as much choice as the dedicated server system.
No custom content decreases the longevity of the game when compared to the dedicated server system.
Host advantage isn't an improvement over the dedicated server system.
Lack of a cohesive community isn't an improvement over the dedicated server system.

We're being asked to pay a tenner more for an inferior system.

Yes, matchmaking is near instantaneous. Yes, it's arguably more balanced. So tell me everyone, when was the last time you played using a matchmaking system that actually matched you against equally skilled players? The last 3 games I used with matchmaking ended with me staring at my screen, nonplussed as I got matched at a Trueskill of 15 against a team of Trueskill 38.

At the end of the day, you could have implemented both methods, expanding choice to the benefit of the customer. You chose not to. Man up and admit your actions are entirely self-serving and the furore on this will subside a little; half of the dirt slinging is just people that can't stand being lied to. Like me.

its a game?

lol any comment that doesnt slag off activision gets negative rating. I love it!!

LOL what a dick/moron.

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
MW2PC is improved customer experience