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No Dedicated Servers For CoD: Modern Warfare 2

Posted by Soulskill on from the might-want-to-think-this-over dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling (aka fourzerotwo), in an interview with BashandSlash.com on October 17th, announced that one of the mainstays of PC multiplayer gaming, dedicated servers, won't be in IW's upcoming sequel to Call of Duty 4. Instead, players will use the unknown 'IW Net' for matchmaking purposes. No dedicated servers means no player mods, no player maps, no organized competitive play, no clan servers, etc., and strips away what makes PC gaming different from console gaming. Many vocal gamers have canceled their pre-orders, and a petition to reverse this decision is already past 86,000 signatures."

44 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. Hell hath no fury by MrMista_B · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hell hath no fury like a gamer scorned.

  2. Doubt the petition will have much effect. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As much as I agree with the petition and the sentiment behind it. I doubt it will sway Infinity Ward or Activision to do anything about this. While 86k signatures is alot, and this will surely cost them some sales I doubt it will have any effect on the profits made from the console versions.

    If the sales of the PC version tanked it would also give them a good reason to drop the PC platform all together which is understandable from a business point of view.

    1. Re:Doubt the petition will have much effect. by V4L3R4 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We're pretty much boned, too late to change anything, guess I'll download it from that piratebay thingie. This is the problem with ActiBlizzard, they know people will pay for WOW many times over, they have all the money they will ever need, now they just like to see how much they can get away with. Sadly, this is one of those times, bend over loyal customers

      --
      I've seen the future, stock up on alien-zombie repellent, I kid you not
    2. Re:Doubt the petition will have much effect. by nutshell42 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      So you, a habitual pirate by your own admission, wanted to make an exception for just this one game until, surprise surprise, you found that excuse you needed to steal it instead.

      Cry me a river.

      --
      Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
    3. Re:Doubt the petition will have much effect. by DrXym · · Score: 5, Informative
      If the sales of the PC version tanked it would also give them a good reason to drop the PC platform all together which is understandable from a business point of view.

      It's not understandable if it tanked through their own hamfisted restrictions. PC gamers like dedicated servers. It means clans have somewhere fixed to play, they can make mods, they can moderate who gets on, they can run game matching front ends etc. More importantly, it means the players can run servers beyond a game's commercial life.

      It doesn't stop Infinity Ward running their own official servers, or offering some form of single sign-on, or medals / points / rewards, or even selling DLC, or even preventing piracy. They could provide their own server as a value add, and I'm sure the service would be popular. But I see no technical reason for taking away a feature that many people want, especially since the code already exists.

    4. Re:Doubt the petition will have much effect. by icebraining · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Mod parent up! His right in the spot:

      More importantly, it means the players can run servers beyond a game's commercial life.

      When MW3 arrives, they'll pull the plug on these servers to force everyone to buy the new game.

      I still play UT99, ten years after release. I won't but games with planned obsolescence. There is no good reason to do this except screwing the costumer.

      --
      Dilbert RSS feed
    5. Re:Doubt the petition will have much effect. by sopssa · · Score: 2, Informative

      Nobody likes steam, their DRM is marginally better. You know what'd be the best? No DRM! What an idea!It's just they're the only one with a remotely acceptable solution (and not entirely, at that). Everyone else is even worse dinosaurs of a past era.

      I'm not too sure about that. Steam has always worked great, and I actually prefer buying from it because of the easiness of it. On top of that you get the additional community features of steam with every game. And it's a lot easier to just download your games again if you ever delete them or go to other computer / friends place. I now a days actually prefer Steam version over physical versions (and no you dont need to be connected to internet to play them - just a few days my internet was broken for the whole day I played some of the games just fine)

    6. Re:Doubt the petition will have much effect. by secretcurse · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's exactly right. Battlefield 2 was a perfect example of this. If you wanted a ranked server that would report your stats back to EA, your server company had to pay licensing to EA. If you wanted a clan server that wouldn't report stats, anyone could download the server software. You could choose to run an older version of the game, or mods, or whatever you wanted. So, people can play BF2 on custom servers forever if they'd like, but if they want to take advantage of the official ranking system they have to give EA some more money. That's about as win/win as it's going to get between a gamers and suits.

      --
      I'm using all of my mod points to mod ancient memes down. Please join me.
    7. Re:Doubt the petition will have much effect. by TheVelvetFlamebait · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We're pretty much boned, too late to change anything, guess I'll download it from that piratebay thingie.

      which will accomplish... what exactly?

      Will it fix the problem of no dedicated servers? Nope.

      Will it send the message that gamers want dedicated servers? Not really. It more sends the message that PC gamers will take any unrelated excuse to pirate, and by extension, lessen the chances that the developers will bother with the PC platform in the future.

      Will it stand up for our freedoms and help prevent oppression by multimillion megacorps? Hardly; dedicated game servers aren't exactly a human right.

      Well, I'm beat. Surely they're the only reasons that people pirate?

      --
      You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
  3. Re:Won't it ... ? by santax · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Something tells me they want to use 'distributed power'for this. In other words... they want to use the customer bandwidth... And not invest in their own. But look at the bright side. With no possible way to team up with friends and clans on their servers I don't feel very much pressed to buy the game. Now, where is that piratebay-thingie.

  4. Here's the petition by cjfs · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the petition.

    1. Re:Here's the petition by cjfs · · Score: 2, Informative

      I would like to know the last time one of those online petitions actually worked.

      Hmm... it appears never.

      On a more upbeat note, slacktivism is our word of the day!

  5. Re:petition by 4D6963 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There you go

    --
    You just got troll'd!
  6. Battlefield by Picardo85 · · Score: 2, Funny

    For the sake of the further growth of the battlefield community i surely hope they don't introduce a serverbrowser nor dedicated servers :) That'd give DICE such an advantage on the PC.

    1. Re:Battlefield by V4L3R4 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "To answer a lot of questions; Will BFBC2 PC have dedicated servers the user will control? YES!" "And console (PS3, Xbox360) also has access to host Dedicated servers through BFBC2 Private Matches, eliminating "host with the most" issues." http://twitter.com/OfficialBFBC2 DICE seem to have timed these perfectly, was already a first day buy for me, might pre-order now. Suck it Infinity Ward, you just failed, hard

      --
      I've seen the future, stock up on alien-zombie repellent, I kid you not
    2. Re:Battlefield by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 4, Funny

      So you're going to switch to DICE and EA?! DICE, who makes legendarily buggy games? EA who would gladly kick your grandma for a buck?

      Oh yah, much better option.

      --
      Comment of the year
  7. No fun by 4D6963 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It appears that there will be no community mods or maps for MW2.

    FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

    Mods/custom maps were half the fun of CoD4 on PC. Paintball mod on the Simpsons map (mp_simpsons) was awesome, and most custom maps I've played were pretty awesome, several of them could even have been official maps.

    --
    You just got troll'd!
  8. Over 88,000 Already... by carterhawk001 · · Score: 4, Informative

    If everyone who signed the petition canceled their pre-order and/or boycotts the game, that's already over $5mil in lost sales. I'm guessing that through word of mouth that number will certainly go up.

    1. Re:Over 88,000 Already... by Forthac4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If everyone who signed the petition canceled their pre-order and/or boycotts the game, that's already over $5mil in lost sales. I'm guessing that through word of mouth that number will certainly go up.

      Assuming people have the balls to actually cancel their pre-order and not buy the game. There are a lot of people who bitch and moan about game companies decision's concerning their games, but very rarely do these people seem to do the most effective thing to tell the game company that they don't like it, which is to NOT BUY THE GAME. Its like the people who complain about securROM yet who still buy the game and just send a letter(or so they claim) to the company. They don't give a shit about any of that letter crap, once they have your money they could care less, and if you continue to buy their games you're just perpetuating the problem. Vote with your wallets people.

    2. Re:Over 88,000 Already... by mikael_j · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Are you seriously suggesting that the sales of the PC version are likely to be 1/1000th of those for the various consoles? You do realize that this would mean that if the console versions together sold 10,000,000 copies there would only be 10,000 copies sold of the PC version. I find that highly unlikely....

      If we assume that the aforementioned 89,000 complaints is the entire PC market for the game then that would, by your logic, mean that they will end up selling 89,000,000 console copies. Why would they even be making a PC version if the market looked like this?

      /Mikael

      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
    3. Re:Over 88,000 Already... by GF678 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Assuming people have the balls to actually cancel their pre-order and not buy the game. There are a lot of people who bitch and moan about game companies decision's concerning their games, but very rarely do these people seem to do the most effective thing to tell the game company that they don't like it, which is to NOT BUY THE GAME. Its like the people who complain about securROM yet who still buy the game and just send a letter(or so they claim) to the company. They don't give a shit about any of that letter crap, once they have your money they could care less, and if you continue to buy their games you're just perpetuating the problem. Vote with your wallets people.

      It's actually worse than that. A lot of people will end up pirating the game and make it clear on forums or whatever that they pirated the game as their way of "protesting". But all that does is two things:

      * It shows that those complaining can't really be that serious as they aren't prepared to do without, which makes one's position much less credible, and
      * It gives publishers another data point when talking about game piracy numbers.

      If you really truly have an issue with a particular software company, and you feel that the only way to make an impact is to not give them any money, then you also have to accept the fact that making a credible stance HAS to also include not using their software, even for free. Otherwise, you're part of the problem.

      Having said all that, sticking to these principles can be rather difficult. Particularly when one is young and was brought up on having tons of pirated content on their hard drives. :)

    4. Re:Over 88,000 Already... by Spazztastic · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Imagine the lost sales if Valve had blocked mods on half-life and we never received counter-strike, I know that is an extreme example of mods driving sales, but they do to a point anywhere.

      Well I think the big thing is that Half Life was made incredibly popular by the mods that were made for it. I played Counter Strike before I even knew what Half Life was. Once I played it, it was definitely an amazing game, but it still is what got me indoctrinated into the series.

      I can honestly say for a fact that I was planning on buying this game (Fuck preorders, I'm not that hellbent on getting it), and now I won't because of this. I'd run a dedicated server on my spare computer in my house and my friends would play. Now we're gonna move onto a different game because of this. There's $50 gone for them.

      --
      Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
  9. This will end well by r6_jason · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Look at the difference between L4D and TF2, if you are going to do stuff like that match maker in L4D, don't even bother with dedicated servers, I do not wish to provide welfare servers, as such was the case w/ L4D, w/ no way to see return players who may have an interest in seeing the server grow and donating to keep it going. PC FPS gamers are a different bunch then console FPS gamers. I do suspect that this has more to do w/ the game being modded then anything else, not too sure why that would do that, it is one of the bigger drawls for PC FPS games. Comment written as an admin at teaminterrobang.com a TF2 community.

    1. Re:This will end well by icsx · · Score: 5, Interesting

      L4D's lobby system fails in so many ways, even today after multiple updates.

      1. You get assigned to a lobby where someone (lobby host) is from Australia and you from Finland. ERR, thats a 370ms latency right there

      2. You join into a game that is already going. ERR, that's a 150ms latency there between you and the server which hardly is playable as you cannot predict the zombies hits properly.

      3. Lobby assigns you to a modded server where there are some shitty mods going on, the option "back to lobby vote" is disabled. Shit outta luck there. Too bad that the modded servers and 3rd party servers are in same pile (which SUCKS).

      4. You cannot select a server where to go, unless you revert to console commands and are a lobby host or use direct connect to particular server through console.

      5. Custom maps are a joke. You have to pre-download them and it takes too long time due to maps (campaigns) being over 100 megs, even 300. Once you download them, imagine 30 KB's a second. Thats 1 hour right there. At the point where you get it downloaded, no one is even playint it anymore. Next time you play, same thing but you get to download whole new campaign. At the moment i have 5 Gigs of custom campaigns downloaded from which i have played 3 out of over 20 campaigns.

      On the good old CSS/TF2 system, you could just connect to a server and download the campaign from there directly and fast, if the server used a fastdownload host. I guess there was a reason for this, so the slow downloaders would not reserve a spot but Valve should have had the custom maps available over Steam.

      6. You end up on a gameserver that is running within a server that is overcrowded aka overloaded aka running too many goddamn gameservers. Even Valve does this with L4D. The official L4D servers were running only 10-20 ticks per second while the optimal is 30. This is caused by the overhead CPU usage in panic events, such as finales and small fight scenes. At that point the CPU usage peaks up 100-300% compared to regular usage. Imagine 30 servers running fine and then all having panic event at the same time. Sheesh!

      7. There is no community in L4D. I have one server in top 150 played L4D servers in the world (valve rank, which you see when entering the gameserver). It has served over 26531 players at that time from which 99,99% are people who see:
      - Good server running
      - Wonder how they could go there through lobby again

      Valve builds a system where players keep in touch through Steam so they get together through random system and them meet up on some server ,add eachothers to friendslist and so on. This is perfectly fine but what Valve now forgets is the communities that actually run the servers. There should be a way to pick a server from the list and if its free, lobby assign to it. How hard can it be?

      8. No one is actually looking after the players at the servers. There are stats about ragequits, teamkills, and such but not for the server owners. All they can do is look at the logs if someone killed the whole group in some random game and left the server. That sucks, really. And who reads those logs, there are tons of text for crying out loud!

      9. The lobby search fails with filtering. If i put difficulty level to Any, i get multiple servers. If i go back, select filter to Expert, i see none or only 1, 2 campaigns with expert on, even though previously with setting any, i saw over 10. If i go back and set it to any again, i see them again, all of them.

      10. A lot more stuff that i just can't now remember.

      Lobby works to a certain point, perhaps for games like this but needs work - a lot.

  10. I was pretty excited about MW2 until.... by John+Pfeiffer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My comment on this on Kotaku about sums it up.

    YAY! Now I can't escape horrible lag and the unwashed masses by playing on a reliable, closely-moderated server full of people who aren't mentally-defective monkeys! Fucking awesome.

    Seriously, what the hell? I've always loved clan servers. You find a good one with the gametype and map(s) you want, get in there, play well, and you start developing rivalries and camaraderie with the regulars and even gang up on the occasional asshat griefer/defective who joins. They even tend to have several servers running different maps/gametypes that the same subset of people play on. For the uninitiated, this is called A COMMUNITY. Look it up.

    I don't want to be thrown into an endless stream of random assclowns with the exceptions of the 2-3 people on my buddy list, and I don't want to 'friend' every goddamn person I wouldn't mind playing with again. Not to mention the fact that this kind of hosting setup is going to mean the game plays like shit 80% of the time, with no guarantee of stability or performance.

    I knew MW2 was too good to be true. I worried they'd find some way to completely fuck it up. Oh well, at least we'll have the singleplayer... Unless they suddenly require us to play with a fucking 360 controller.

    Infinity Ward: If I wanted a game console, I'd buy a fucking game console. kthx

    --

    Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
    1. Re:I was pretty excited about MW2 until.... by TOGSolid · · Score: 2

      Well said good sir. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising just recently made this exact same retarded decision and payed for it with tons of canceled preorders and crap sales. At least the torrent speed for it was really good thanks to everyone not wanting to actually pay money for a game with gutted multiplayer.

      The real joke to all of this is that I never play multiplayer games on the consoles for the sole reason that the multiplayer is always, without fail, completely terrible. Now they want to bring everything I hate about consoles to the PC. It's like they actually want us to pirate their crap.

  11. So P****d off right now... by thatbloke83 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I read this over the weekend and went mental. This seriously upset me. I'm off to a massive LAN in the UK in 3 weeks and there's talk of Activision being there to sponsor/promote an MW2 tournament to be held there. (the LAN runs from 13th-16th November, just a few days after the game launches). If they are, they are getting 1500 gamers in their faces telling then to take their shitty console game and FUCK OFF. I'm seriously tempted to run around with people spotting people playing it and removing it from their PCs. We'll stick with CoD4. This also affects the Gamer Server Providers too... alot of them have had preorders for MW2 servers up for a while and now they will have to cancel and refund every single preorder, all becuase some stupid asshat wants to turn my PC into a games console.

    1. Re:So P****d off right now... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I'm seriously tempted to run around with people spotting people playing it and removing it from their PCs

      Oh, so you're one of THOSE people. Nice. Not suprised Activision has little or no regard for the opinions of your type.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  12. This makes me sad by frakt · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I was looking forward to buying and playing MW2, but not so much anymore. Now how will we be able to find a match that isn't ruined by idiots? I really liked having a couple of favorite stable servers with good admins and no idiots. I liked coming back to the same server every day, to compete with the same players I played with last time. I hope, but guess it's too late for them to realise their mistake and change this :\

  13. Damnit Activision by GF678 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There's no technical reason for the lack of dedicated server support. It has to have bene a purely business decision, so fuck you Activision. Why are you doing this?

    I've heard some developers/publishers say that PC gamers complain a lot. When they pull shit like this, can you really blame 'em?

  14. Good news ... by whpsh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... I'll save $60. I'll have more MMO time. I'll be able to examine other FPS options, hopefully from IW competitors. Bad news: The dedicated servers (2xDell 2950s) I was prepping to serve this game + mods + maps in our data center just got flushed. Infinity Ward (like SOE) gets a big ban stamp from the gaming community. And apparently they've disabled forum registration on their site just to keep the mad folks off of it. But maybe I'm a singular case. If I was the IW CEO, everybody between me and the person that came up with this idea would be fired. Business should have zero tolerance for stupidity, and apparently they've got it in spades.

  15. The halflife of Half-Life by zipherx · · Score: 2, Informative

    Seriously, even the former COD World at War, had sucky dedicated support, as they officially only made a windows version, the linux server was community created.., and i never got it to work. I mean, why can they not learn from the most success full games out there (half-life!) that had a half-life on about 10 years be course they made really good linux server support, created a really nice open mod system and generally was some jolly nice lads.

    Somehow I have a feeling the pc gaming industry is trying to screw themself over.. with steam leading the way followed closely by Activision.
    I have a cyber cafe in denmark, we have been in the pc gaming business since '97, and it is getting worse and worse to make new games work properly. Steam is playing a big part here, as we have a cafe license from them, and are locked in.. well fine, it works okay. But new games coming out on steam like "Dawn of War 2", we can not make work with our cafe steam accounts. No we have to make new accounts etc.. it is just so messed up.. arrrrrrrgggg

  16. Bullet Meets Foot..... by IHC+Navistar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do game companies follow software companies and do stupid stuff like this?

    It all seems to follow one general timeline of events:

    1) Make top-selling product.
    2) Reap millions.
    3) Follow up top-selling game with sequel, with plenty of fanfare.
    4) Reap more millions.
    5) Follow up sequel with yet another sequel.
    6) Make horrible, blatant mistake that customers tell you NOT to do.
    7) Defy customers and release product anyways.
    8) Lose millions.
    9) Keep product franchise on life support with mediocre sequels.
    10) Franchise dies.
    11) Lose millions more.
    12) Blame customers, second-hand sales, piracy.
    13) Be replaced by other company's products.

    Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
       

    --
    Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
    1. Re:Bullet Meets Foot..... by LongNosePete · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This isn't a problem with the console vs. pc gamer market. As much as I hate to say it, this is a misguided response to piracy.

      The Call of Duty Devs know exactly how many stolen / cracked copies are around for COD:MW, http://kotaku.com/344848/piracy-makes-call-of-duty-4-devs-sad. So their thinking (behind closed doors) is if you lock down the servers so people can't pirate / mod / customize servers you make more money.

      Reality piracy != sale. All of those people who crack / share cd keys are not going to go ahead a buy a copy of the game. Especially if it is crippled so only pirates can mod / play on outside servers.

      So Lather, Rinse, Repeat 6-13.

  17. Stop being lazy. Clicking "sign" is meaningless. by The+Nipponese · · Score: 3, Insightful

    On-line "petitions" probably carry 1/100th (if not 1/1000th) the effect of a hand-typed, printed, and signed letter. This applied doubly so to letters to politicians. If you really give a damn, put in the effort. It will make a difference to your cause.

  18. Re:Suits me just fine. by Aim+Here · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Errr, IW aren't providing a network to play on. The network is just a matchmaking service.
    There's nothing wrong with that per se, but it shouldn't be the only option for a game like CoD.

    Instead of the server admins, you're at the mercy of whichever user happens to click the 'host' button instead of the 'join' button. If they disconnect in a hissy fit because you fragged them, game over. If they've got a shit connection, or their roommate fires up bittorrent, expect big pings as 32 players flood this poor sap's connection past breaking point. Oh, and say goodbye to mods too, and by extension, the next TF2 or Counterstrike.

    In short, the convenience you think you're getting in exchange for your freedom and the existence of a gaming community just isn't there at all.

  19. Re:Quake 2/3 anyone by thisnamestoolong · · Score: 5, Informative

    How did this get modded up? Both Quake 2 and 3 had dedicated servers. This is the REASON that we were able to set up clan servers and the REASON that online play got so fierce and competitive! We were able to set up our own servers, with whatever rules we so desired.

    I am sure that there will eventually be support for private servers, but this will almost certainly require the DRM to be cracked, which, as we all know, is a violation of the DMCA. This leaves you open to prosecution from the bastards at IW, which is hardly a reasonable solution. Not only that, but making these options illegitimate ensures that there will be no unified community like we saw with Quake 2, nor will we see that richness of user generated maps and mods. I was planning on buying this game on the release date, but this omission has led me to decide that I don't need to play MW2 that badly -- I will simply take my gaming dollars elsewhere.

    --
    To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
  20. Open source games by sopssa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How do you plan to financially support Open Source games? Coding, arts, music, running servers and so on cost *a lot*. Add to that the fact that even open source applications usually lack in GUI design and it doesn't really sound like a good plan.

    Linux, open source apps and standards get financing for development because they help companies in other aspects. Nokia opened up Qt because they are a hardware developer and having a community developing Qt too helps their bottom line. I just can't see that happening with games, it barely helps other companies revenue who could support it (except maybe NVIDIA and ATI, but they're not going to throw millions of development money in to random, uncoordinated projects, especially when game industry is already working good)

    And even any indie developer (we have many here on slashdot) can tell that developing even indie games cost in range of $100,000+

    There's a reason why all the open source games you see are still something like TuxRacer and LinCity. You are not going to develop something like Modern Warfare 2 that way.

    1. Re:Open source games by Khyber · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "How do you plan to financially support Open Source games? Coding, arts, music, running servers and so on cost *a lot*."

      Considering the fun ones, like Scorched3D, and the like, DON'T COST A GODDAMNED THING BUT TIME - no need to support open source gaming FINANCIALLY.

      Hell, I'll just whip up some music and offer it for free. You seem to not understand the nature of open collaboration.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  21. Hmmm, Register Link at IW Forums is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Just went to voice my opinion on the Infinity Ward Forums. The link to the registration page is dead. Points to "/register" instead of the real registration page..

    Simple mistake or way of avoiding new folks from voicing their concerns??

    Go here to make a new comment in the petition thread.

    http://www.infinityward.com/forum/ucp.php?mode=login

    Click Register.. End up here:

    http://www.infinityward.com/register/

    Anyway, I think this is the right page:

    http://www.infinityward.com/registration/register.php

  22. Re:Quake 2/3 anyone by Satanboy · · Score: 2, Informative

    dedicated server means - "a server run as a service not as a client"

    if you are talking about company run servers, then specify this

  23. Re:Won't it ... ? by citizenr · · Score: 2, Informative

    thats the problem, they made PC version a copy of Xbox one

    --
    Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
  24. Re:Um, yay! by Arctech · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You're not understanding the difference between "dedicated" and "official". You don't have to have a server sanctioned by the game's publisher to run a dedicated server, it's just a machine with its processes and bandwidth dedicated only to hosting one particular game for whatever clients might be connecting. It has nothing to do with whether the publisher is still supplying support for the game. Offering dedicated servers means that you have more choice in joining a game with lower latency, compared to joining local clients connected to Joe Schmoe's Home ISP, which in addition to running bandwidth to 2 or more computer clients serving traffic to youtube, twitter, facebook, and God knows what, is now also trying to host multiplayer game.

    In other words, what is being proposed does nothing to address your complaints, and will be presenting you with an inferior gameplay experience in terms of ping time and latency. Not even mentioning the fact that if the person who hosts the game decides to drop out, *POOF*, they're goes everyone's session. You think you dislike joining official servers? Wait until the service of your game depends on whatever "bastards who just got the OK from their mom to play" gets to be in charge of hosting your games.

  25. Re:Won't it ... ? by scuba_steve_1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dead on. I am in a COD Clan, which I will not mention here. We were in existence as far back as MOH Spearhead...and later hosted servers for COD UO, COD2, COD4, and now, WaW. We typically support (modded) servers long after others have left the game...and are currently still running servers for COD2 and COD4 in addition to WaW.

    We buy our games on release day. Actually, we pick them up on release day...we buy them well in advance. We have about 150 clan members and another 100 or so associated regular players...in addition to our guests. We don't pirate...and we run PB...so they are free to check what they want for our members, regulars, and guests.

    We pay over $400 a month for a dedicated physical server (on which we host multiple game servers). We also pay for a separate host for forums, map redirects, and a Vent server.

    In the past, we have also run BF2, BF2142, MOH Airborne and other titles, but CoD is our primary game...and we were really looking forward to MW2. No longer.

    We run only games that allow us to host our own server. We finally were able to swing that with BF and that's why we ran it. For us, the community is *at least* as important as the game. We want a single place (or set of servers actually) where our members, regulars, and guests can join us. We also want control over the maps, mods, and admin. We run a mature server and do not tolerate immature players, cheaters, or folks who lack sportsmanship.

    Frankly, I have limited expectations for this petition...or any type of boycott. That said, my clan is out. There is no way that we support a game that doesn't allows us to host it. i.e., a game that ignores the importance of our community. We have had a fairly sizable number of members cancel pre-orders...and now have switched our attention to BF3. It's a big leap for us (sad, but true), but as the dude says, this will not stand.

    The clan abides,.