Gears 2 multiplayer patched

By Oli Welsh Published 28 November, 2008

Long matchmaking delays eased.

Epic has released an update for its 360 blockbuster Gears of War 2, intended to help with the long waits some players were experiencing in multiplayer matchmaking.

The skill-based Public matchmaking system was the one struggling to cope with demand, especially for single-player and four-player parties.

In a thread on the official forums, senior producer Rod Fergusson detailed the steps Epic has taken to speed things along: reducing the number of matchmaking servers to increase the number of possible matches, mostly. The effect of some adjustments will be felt immediately but, Fergusson warned, some may take a few days to "play out".

Also included were fixes to stop the loss of some stats data on gearsofwar.com, and a solution to the problem caused some players to be unable to start the game's campaign if Xbox Live was unavailable.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mmmmmm #1 3 years ago

    Thanks for testing it for me everybody, now I might buy it.

    \o/

  • S.J.Rogers #2 3 years ago

    Your Welcome...

    Its NOT cool to be late.

  • Xerx3s #3 3 years ago

    "The skill-based Public matchmaking system was the one struggling to cope with demand, especially for single-player and four-player parties. "

    Oke, so the servers are overstressed.

    "reducing the number of matchmaking servers"

    Eh. 0_o

  • CreepinJesus #4 3 years ago

    Is this like the update that Bungie did for Halo to improve matchmaking speeds? If it is, then I'll got put the kettle on...

  • agparrot #5 3 years ago

    Coincidentally, last night was the first time I decided I'd try a bit of Horde, after our fantastic L4D sessions, so I will never know what all the fuss was about! Thanks DcP for popping my Horde cherry.

  • agparrot #6 3 years ago

    @Raajaa

    its still BS thought because its lags so bad. Get on a US server and prepare for lots and lots of insta-gib when you get blasted by a shotgun once (having emptied a clip into the guy holding the shotgun). F-A-I-L

    I think unfortunately, at its worst, this accusation can be levelled across most of the Live service - when things are busy, and when the servers are skewed in favour of the US, this happens on pretty much most popular games.

    /casts sideways glance at Lost Planet: Colonies.

  • zuljin #7 3 years ago

    Wooow! Trying it out again tonight, this'd better work! *shakes fist*

  • Benno #8 3 years ago

    resistance is a bit crap though isn't it

    you can play with 1000s of players online in vanguard, doesn't make it any good does it

  • SpyroViper #9 3 years ago

    Resistance.. To me, the controls like aiming and the animations look and feel a bit outdated.

  • half #10 3 years ago

    I haven't been able to get onto multiplayer since it launched. I spent a hour or more, not sure lost track of time and could not get into a match. So I gave up. But I will definitely be trying tonight.

    Oh Like 'Benno' says, I agree Resistance is a bit crap, especially the gameplay. I was not impressed, makes me want to kiss my Halo 3 disc instead :)

  • Thunderbolt #11 3 years ago

    I quite enjoy the Horde mode but with delays removed this will be even better

  • Laroxus #12 3 years ago

    They forgot the patch some other annoying issues
    - quit match without having to resort to XBL+Y
    - map filter
    - gametype filter

    Meh

  • chrisjm #13 3 years ago

    'They forgot the patch some other annoying issues
    - quit match without having to resort to XBL+Y '

    good! nothing worse than being on the side of quitters

  • oliath #14 3 years ago

    The constant lag is becoming a joke.

    More frustrating is that i was able to have great fun immediately afterwards on resistance2 with 60 players online at a time has absolutely no lag whatsoever.... so its definitely xbox live at fault.

    I also have COD5 on both platforms.... guess which one has the WTF moments with the knife and other odd lag issues.... xbox live.

    Not trying to start a platform war by the way as i really don't care about that.... just pointing out some facts.

    For a service you have to pay for, they could at least give us a region filter or something.

  • phantom516 #15 3 years ago

    Has made no difference at all , still can take ages for matchmaking and then the laggy us servers screw everything up. why is there no un-ranked public matchmaking like there was in gears on, you just picked a game with a low ping and joined in. Sort it !

  • Pirotic #16 3 years ago

    Still takes ages, still kicks you out when the host leaves (something they patched out of the original), still no way to leave a game which has 20 second lag short of signing yourself out and waiting for it to reload the title screen. :(

    It's a great game, but quite how they managed to make the multiplayer worse than the originals I'll never know.

  • Xerx3s #17 3 years ago

    "I also have COD5 on both platforms...."

    I always find these claims highly dubious.

  • StealthAcolyte #18 3 years ago

    Too slow, already sold it. Such a poor game compared to Gears Of War 1.

    Apparently the reason Xbox live lags is that they use there own servers whereas with the PS3 they use dedicated servers so that you get less lag.

  • digiwalsh #19 3 years ago

    In steam etc, I can filter servers by region.

    Why oh why then can't I go into my xbox system preferences and change if I want to play globally, or be prepared to accept a longer wait in matchmaking in lieu of a European host?

    This is my number 1 pet hate about Live. in fact, since they addressed the part chat issue, it is now the only big issue for me.

  • Number1Laing #20 3 years ago

    I'm not convinced they fixed the problem, I got some long-ass waiting times after I updated the game, though I guess 5-6 minutes is an improvement over 15 to Epic?

    But once I got into a game, my pickup team was facing a group of all 3 striped experts, and one guy on my team said there is an exploit for teams to face groups of much lower rank than themselves. Not sure I believe it, this being Live and all, but if Epic matched a pickup against a team of all top 10,000 players, then their matchmaking code is shit.

    I'll also toss in the fact that the multi feels pretty clunky and slow - surely GoW1 wasn't like this.

    Yea.... GoW2 multi is pretty disappointing to say the least. Horde mode makes up for some of it.

  • ArchiRag #21 3 years ago

    im finding matchmaking a hell of a lot quicker now.... but theres a shit load of bugs/exploits that are needed to be addressed.... invisible team anyone?