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Dedicated Server vs Matchmaking
randomguy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
With the recent announcement by InfinityWard's community manager, CoD : Modern Warfare 2 will be dropping dedicated servers to use IWNet, a matchmaking service provided by Infinity Ward.
In my opinion, this is the first really large PC title that was not on a console first and birthed on the PC. This is a huge blow to those who are a fan of dedicated servers. This will definitely kill the PC sales for the game. Even though they are allowing private matches for gamers, the issue of mods and custom maps for clans is up in the air. No confirmation as of yet on how this will be handled, but given the trend of other publishers who have gone the same matchmaking route, greed will speak more volumes than the gamer.
Anyhow, I figured I would make this thread to see if PC gamers still care or have the interest of dedicated servers or if they are welcoming this change with open arms. It could very well be the death of PC games. The best quote I saw so far was from Josh Pickler of planetmedalofhonor.com:
"The server community is what's made us. It's what defined us," he said, going on to say that "IWNET is getting the PC community to turn into consoles. You're trying to re-write our history."
Many gamers feel pretty helpless in the situation, mainly because the control the publisher/developer is taking over the game is completely legal. It is almost a forced DRM that I can never remove from a product I purchased for my complete pleasure. I would think this type of action would only inspire people to download more PC games illegally and play them on cracked servers so that they may actually have the same enjoyment they once were given.
Update Reference Summary Article
In my opinion, this is the first really large PC title that was not on a console first and birthed on the PC. This is a huge blow to those who are a fan of dedicated servers. This will definitely kill the PC sales for the game. Even though they are allowing private matches for gamers, the issue of mods and custom maps for clans is up in the air. No confirmation as of yet on how this will be handled, but given the trend of other publishers who have gone the same matchmaking route, greed will speak more volumes than the gamer.
Anyhow, I figured I would make this thread to see if PC gamers still care or have the interest of dedicated servers or if they are welcoming this change with open arms. It could very well be the death of PC games. The best quote I saw so far was from Josh Pickler of planetmedalofhonor.com:
"The server community is what's made us. It's what defined us," he said, going on to say that "IWNET is getting the PC community to turn into consoles. You're trying to re-write our history."
Many gamers feel pretty helpless in the situation, mainly because the control the publisher/developer is taking over the game is completely legal. It is almost a forced DRM that I can never remove from a product I purchased for my complete pleasure. I would think this type of action would only inspire people to download more PC games illegally and play them on cracked servers so that they may actually have the same enjoyment they once were given.
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"i ate your babies princess."
randomguy on
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But who would even think of such an inhumane, cruel plan?
Every time I see a server list on a PC game all I think is "why isn't this shit automated and why am I doing the legwork here?"
Haha, ever heard of Counter-Strike?
L4D is a bit of a strange beast here. You have dedicated servers... but a pre-game matchmaking lobby that then heads to an empty server.
I like matchmaking. I also like dedicated servers so I can just hop on a PA server and shoot mans with PA people.
Quick Join.
Matchmaking sure is easier as its one button and wait till you're in a match. But I don't like massing my friends list with randoms that I don't talk to. I'd rather join a regular server, drop a "whats up guys?" get some random responses because they've seen my name before too and be on my way.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but doesn't Quick Join not take skill level into account? That's what I like about matchmaking. That I can hit a button and be playing a game where I should be challenged instead of either wiping the floor with people or having others wipe the floor with me.
[EDIT] Although a combination of the two would be the best thing to do, mehtinks.
Sounds great ... if you're playing 1v1 Chess Online.
So far not had a terribly good experience with TRUSKILL in PC Games or any trouble in finding servers that are either fun with likeminded individuals or challenging with likeplaying individuals. For larger team games I guess everyone having the same skill level is less important, or you need to hang out in the [Super Pro Clan] servers.
Both systems are possible with something like Quick Join, without taking mod or community server features away.
1. It creates a viable business for Game Server hosting companies. Some are better than others, but there is an entire industry built around it.
2. Bandwidth. I don't care what anyone says, home user bandwidth in the US is crap. Sure you may have download speeds that are decent, but good upload is hard to come by.
3. Community. You cannot have have a community where people come and go as they please with match making. It often turns into a very small group of friends playing together and that is it. Besides, this brings up point #2 again, how many people can join a non-dedicated match making game on a standard DSL line? 5 maybe 6?
You will not have a 24 player match making game. Period.
/digress
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Pure servers in most server windows are labeled so in the server name, and with some games it is labeled with an icon.
I will agree there is nothing wrong with playing Vanilla, but what about all the people who think Chocolate is the greatest ice cream in the world. There is already a Quick Connect or Quick Play option in almost every game. It's existed since the 90s. Why should we have to conform for the comfort of the PC gamer when this game was born on the PC and made famous on the PC?
Currently, with the news just fresh, there are over 100,000 signatures on a petition that InfinityWard will probably wipe their asses with. http://www.petitiononline.com/dedis4mw/petition.html
Yea same. It is very upsetting to see this happening. UT3 did the only route that I would find somewhat acceptable giving console users and PC users the ability to use a level editor. This was a genius route that could have bridged the gap better than the recent greed moves, however it got lost in the shuffle by other publishers.
amen.
You're not taking the real factors to be considered in account. Read the post above me.
L4D has matchmaking with dedicated servers, custom maps, and it's still a hassle because you have to wait for it to find a game, and then cross your fingers it's not a server in Australia.
Yet MW2 is going the no-dedicated server way, so now you're gonna be dropped into matches with shit connections a lot of the time. Or what about when that guy needs to go and makes everyone disconnect. Classic.
Unless IWNet is some sort of super server service that doesn't rely on people hosting games. Then you can disregard what I said.
I didn't say Chocolate servers were bad, I'm totally on the "Dedicated > Matchmaking any day of the week" side, but I personally usually play Vanilla and appreciate an easy way to tell servers apart.
And it's not like many servers ever actually run many custom maps or run good custom maps when they do run custom maps. And mods are not and never will be as big as they used to be, so there's nothing much lost there either. Unless you mean relatively minor server-side mods, which are hardly necessary for a good multiplayer experience.
Matchmaking allows IW to engineer the best experience possible just like they do on consoles, but on the PC this time.
I can see why people like dedicated servers, but if you can just join on your friends I really don't see the fuss. "Oh no, we can't have quake sounds, sound boards, or 100 player servers, our rich history is tarnished."?
Too simple and way too smart.
We need drama and bullshit.
You can't really say that without making absolutely no sense. Gary's mod alone proves that people want custom mods and that the community is large. The idea for L4D started development as a mod before it grew past that. There were tons of zombie mods clogging up mem usage on servers before L4D even existed in the Cstrike realm. If mods are not so big, why would Epic Games create http://www.makesomethingunreal.com/ and give away money every year to the best user-created mod?
A good multiplayer experience is based on the community that plays the game. One of the largest niches of this community are the cusomization of skins, levels, and large modifications. There are still people playing mutator pack mods of UT99 to this day. It is one of the reasons you buy the game. It is why most PC games used to be packaged with a level editor.
In general though I play video games online to play with friends. We play on servers we know are non-douche servers. If you don't care what kind of game you want to play then open the server list, find a non-empty one and join. If you care then matchmaking just adds stupid and unnecessary steps.
I can say that while making sense quite easily.
A lot of people want to make mods. No one wants to play them. The vast majority of mods that actually do see release are dead within two weeks these day. So no, mods are not as big as they used to be. I doubt they ever will be again. Counter-Strike: Source's vast numbers of shitty (yeah, shitty, especially gunmod, you morons) of server-side mods are kind of the exception here and in no way show that mods in general do well.
And, likewise, a lot of people make custom maps. But who plays them? I used to see a lot more use of custom maps than I do now as well. Most of the custom maps I see played now are stupid gimmick maps.
I can agree with the quote to an extent, publishers see how much money they have made off of console gamers and want to push that influence onto the PC community. The community that defined most of their games and are the main reason why they are still played or known about to this day.
To think that a dedicated server should be defined as a server that only has quake sounds, sound boards, or a 100 players is a little melodramatic and misinformed.
I'm not quite sure what you mean here, but dedicated servers don't have to be paid for by IW. If they release a dedicated server client people will pay hosting services to host the client without IW being involved.
It will also reduce strain on their matchmaking, meaning they can scale it down a bit and save monies.
Also, I'm pretty sure if you make more money on consoles, they are more a part of the reason that the game still exists.
Mods dead? Please check your facts. Your argument is about as valid as a statement of the following:
"A lot of people want to make pizza, but no wants to eat that pizza. No one likes pizza, my lack of numbers to prove this statement make me the most valid person on the topic. Instead of trying to defend my opinion, I will boldy make statements that hundreds of thousands of gamers hate pizza."
Speaking as a previous employee of one of the major dedicated gameserver companies on the internet, I can boldy state that people still play custom mods and are still playing them today. If you would like facts to back this up, you can pick a game and add mod or custom mod to the end of that game, then click search on google.com.
Mods do exist. People do play them.
The lack of control is extremely frustrating, I have to agree with you and others in this thread that relying on people's upload connection over a dedicated line can force me to smash my monitor in frustration.
Matchmaking does make an attempt to group you with players of similar skill levels, but you never know when you'll get griefers, teamkillers, or guys who are veterans but just reset their profiles. it's a crapshoot. you're put together with random people who may or may not be interested in playing the way you want to play. they may just want to spawn camp, or glitch into things, or hack, or grief. compare this to a good dedicated server: you find a server, you play a few rounds, and you notice that people are goal-oriented. they work as a team, they back each other up, they add strategy on a level that only comes from playing with each other for a long time. if a griefer, teamkiller, or hacker comes in, they'll get kicked, and the rest of the players can enjoy the game. furthermore, the community goes beyond simple friends lists or the like. on a large server, you're going to have a rotation of players that reach 50 or so. that's far too many to add to a friends list. but you don't need to do that. the server is like a familiar bar. you don't have to invite friends out for drinks, you just go to the destination, and you know the camaraderie will be there.
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I would agree with randomguy, modding is still a huge part of the online PC community. Now people make mods that suck every so often so they die but there are huge mods that are still played and will not die.
Maybe they begin to lose a bit of popularity because whole game engines/new games are made that are based upon these basic mods. But the originals never fully die IMO.
Even look at Warcraft 3:FT which has a full custom game list every hour of every day. Things like DOTA and Tower Defense which has turned into a full new Genre of game for the console.
Dota.
The vast majority don't play mods because they aren't aware of them. ARMA2 is full of mods, mostly because the game is very friendly towards them, rarely you need to download anything, the game loads it up directly from the server.
Maps with most players in ARMA2 are the ones with mods.
http://www.makesomethingunreal.com/
Trust me, customization of something a gamer paid for is extremely popular. There are over 1,000 people playing games over 10 years old with custom mods for just this reason. A petition that is under 20 hours old has over 100,000 people signed, and a large majority of PC pre-orders for COD MW2 have been cancelled since the announcement.
*Edited....Above two posts are proof enough...DoTA
And on dedicated servers, I've never made close, long lasting bonds with anything near 50 people. Only enough that changing servers wouldn't be a big deal.