Modern Warfare 2 uses Matchmaking, No Dedicated Servers..

[Mattiethomas]

In a webcast this morning, Robert Bowling revealed the existence of IWNet, a matchmaking service Infinity Ward will operate beginning with Modern Warfare 2. But it ends dedicated servers, and fundamentally changes the culture of the game's PC community.

Bowling, the Infinity Ward community manager, said IWNet makes multiplayer more accessible to the PC community on Modern Warfare 2, replacing the need for dedicated servers that are hosted and managed by players. But the hardcore PC crowd to whom he was talking, on BASHandSlash.com's webcast, did not take the news in a completely positive light.

"The silence you hear is because we've got a community right now structured in such a way that it relied on having dedicated servers," one of BASHandSlash's moderators told Bowling.

"You're definitely reshaping the way the community has been set up," another said later.

"Definitely," Bowling acknowledged.

Thanks for shooting your own PC community in the foot Infinity Ward.

More at Kotaku

[Code-Red]

Its not so much Matchmaking I hate, its just that I can't select which map I'd like to play. I wish there could at the very least be filters on matchmaking, so I could completely avoid shitty map lobbies.

[Nico0020]

I hate that matchmaking is slowly being pushed on us. Dedicated servers are going to be a thing of the past with a P2P architecture the way of the future. Which is sad.

[Code-Red]

I hate that matchmaking is slowly being pushed on us. Dedicated servers are going to be a thing of the past with a P2P architecture the way of the future. Which is sad.

If you look at dedicated server games vs matchmaking games on XBL, the matchmaking games usally keep people playing longer throughout the games life. Hell, look at Call of Duty 2, its still got tons of people on their at all times daily. More than three times the amount of COD3.

[Mattiethomas]

Hell, look at Call of Duty 2, its still got tons of people on their at all times daily. More than three times the amount of COD3.

That's because CoD3 sucks the big one.

[Stryfe]

Isn't this the inevitable reality of playing online for free? That is assuming there isn't a monthly fee...

Server bandwidth costs more than ever.

[Nico0020]

I know this is about the PC, but some comments on matchmaking on live.

Shadowrun is one of the only games on Live that I know lets you put filters on your matchmaking. Although those filters only go so far. You can tell it you PREFER not to have certain gametypes or maps, or combinations, but that doesn't mean they will not pop up. If they give you filters I could stand matchmaking a bit more. The veto option in Halo3 is nice also, but can also work against you. Thankfully there are a few game makers out there, like Epic, who still host servers for their games on live, or allow you to host your own. UT3 lets you set your box up as a server and leave it on. They also have their own dedicated servers running for the game. It's interesting how they did it. They set the games maxim connections to 17, where as you can only have up to 16 players in a game. So their (or your) server, or box or whatever counts as the 17th player. So far this is the only 360 game I have played that lets you do this.

[Lartrak]

Server bandwidth costs more than ever.

Might be relevant if the companies that produce the games hosted all the servers. But they don't. It's almost all the community.

I might add that for home users enough bandwith to host a good cheaper is LESS now than it used to be, not more. You can get 1 Mbps+ uploads fairly easily now, that used to be extremely expensive.

[Ex-Cyber]

I get the feeling that this is really about implementing various sorts of DRM (anti-warez, anti-cheat, anti-mod, anti-old-patchlevels), but that's probably because I'm really cynical and/or paranoid about DRM.