So, the first 8 minutes of V have been posted online.  The ships look cool, the effects look ok, and I’m not entirely turned off.  I think I might just have to watch this.

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This comic describes what many of us are feeling about Modern Warfare 2.  Good show Penny Arcade, good show.

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As a PC based gamer who is into FPS games, I have been awaiting the release of Modern Warfare 2 with bated breath.  I loved the first one and played it extensively, to the point of being in a clan that hosted its own servers (that I maintained) and playing in several tournaments.

This week, Infinity Ward dropped a bomb. They officially confirmed months-old concerns that it would not ship with dedicated server support. That’s right: Modern Warfare 2 will not ship with dedicated server support, nor is there any being considered. Instead, patch distribution will be handled through Steam, while matchmaking will operate through the new Battle.net clone, “IWNet”. IWNet’s matchmaking will function almost identically to console matchmaking, accomidating for player skill, connection strength, and a variety of other factors. On the technical side of things, the game will also function like the consoles – the player with the strongest connection will host, keeping track of the game and transmitting the game state to his fellow players.

This sounds like an excellent way of maintaining a game and allowing a broad audience access to it, but it suffers from major issues.  The first, is that they have confirmed they will be using VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) to prevent cheating.  While VAC has proven to be incredibly successful in the long run, there is a history of failures with it. Many players have been banned for using game hooks that are not cheats. I am one of these players who was bit because I (presumably) used a system to allow me to control iTunes from in game.

Secondly, this is a PC game, not a console.  Peer-to-peer hosting is a good model when you can flatten out a lot of the variables; identical hardware is a primary way of accomplishing this.  This is why most console games use this model, they are run on identical hardware. From the perspective of PC, this idea falls flat. PC hardware generally runs the gamut of cutting-edge GPUs and multi-cored processors, to two or three-year old rigs that are getting a bit aged.  This means the process of matchmaking is significantly more complicated, as the number of variables skyrocket. Connection speed, hardware power, geographic position and player skill and rank must all be accommodated out of a player pool that it typically smaller then that of the console pool.

Besides the (possible) disaster of matchmaking, we also have to contend with the loss of dedicated servers and the community that comes with them.  Usually, servers are run by communites (clans for those that aren’t familiar with the lingo) that are maintained to provide a good experience to bring players in.  I have two or three favorite servers I play on most games that I play where I stick around because a community has given the game that little boost it needs to take it from the level of ok to very fun.  I would not have played TF2 or COD4 for near as long as I did if I hadn’t fallen in with fun communities.  While IW’s community manager FourZeroTwo has tried to address some of these issues in this piece earlier today, many (myself included) think he’s full of it.  A lot  of the arguments that have been put forth defending IWs choices are based on baseless claims and assumptions made about the PC gaming community as a whole, which do not ring true.  The proof of this being bullshit is the 110k+ people that took the time to sign an online petition and the stream of complaints on twitter directed at FourZeroTwo.

One of the biggest complaints of this entire train wreck is the price. Infinity Ward has decided to charge $60 for the PC version of Modern Warfare 2, without the option for either of the collector’s versions. In theory, Modern Warfare 2 had the ability to be a strong title and many gamers were willing to pay a “PC Tax” to get it.  I even preodered it from Amazon to be sure I could get my hands on it (I NEVER preorder). However, these recent realizations of what this game is going to be leave it with a dubious chance of being a strong online title, with less features then the cheaper console version. Purchasing a game with reduced features for more money sets a dangerous precedent for future titles on the PC platform.  It seems that IW and Activision are trying to take advantage of the PC gaming community by selling them what will amount to nothing more then a glorified port of a XBox 360 title at an increased price.  I for one do not see this as fair or valid marketing solution.

Now, it is soap box time: I reject the weak arguments that Infinity Ward has put forward to defend its decision. Fourzerotwo, the community manager for Infinity Ward, makes several unsubstantiated claims. The first and most dubious is the mythical gamer who can’t figure out how to use the original title’s server browser. Considering that I was able to figure it out with no assistance and was capable of running my OWN servers at the ripe old age of 17, I’m going to call bullshit. Perhaps even more perplexing, he makes the claim that the matchmaking will place you with the most stable, speediest game possible. In the strictest sense, this is probably true – Modern Warfare’s netcode was excellent and I have faith in their programmers – but it fails to account for the fact that average pings will probably be double that of a ping to a good dedicated server, across the board. In a separate editorial, IW’s Jason West and Vince Zampella explain the company’s desire to make the PC experience more accessible for the average PC user. The argument is floated by unsupported quantitative claims and straw-man arguments that are too numerous to address here, but the “politics” of the argument are certainly interesting. The cost of hardware and general headache of PC gaming caters to a more dedicated, capable crowd of gamers then consoles do, to the point where I question the actual existence of this disenfranchised softcore PCer.

So, now I put out the call to arms…don’t buy MW2.  If you have preordered it,  cancel.  Amazon and the other major outlets make this very easy, I cancelled my preorder in less than a minute.  If you’re thinking of purchasing it for a PC or a Console, don’t.  Yes, IW has screwed over the PC community, but console guys are next.  Also, join me on November 11th to download a copy from your favorite pirating medium and seed that copy as far and as wide as you can.  I plan to download every release, hack, crack, and patch possible of this game and seed it until my computer just can’t seed anymore.  Throw it up on Rapidshare, sendspace, anywhere you can host files and post the links so others can get the title, play the singleplayer campaign that is sure to be amazing, then delete it without supporting the idiots at IW and Activision.  Maybe this way, they’ll pull their heads from their collective asses and make a good game next time, for all platforms.

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