We chat with a local competitive gamer who's come up with an early plan to sidestep the lack of server functionality in Infinity Ward's MW2.
It's official - Infinity Ward has definitely overtaken Valve as the most unpopular developer with PC gamers. Thanks to its decision to not include dedicated server support in Modern Warfare 2, fans have ranted, raged, created massively popular petitions, and even, in this case, come up with a neat way to circumvent the move.
We sat down with Atomic forum regular, funky_monkey (Brian Tait in real life), for his opinion on Infinity Ward's decision, it's impact on competitive playing, and his cunning plan...
Atomic: What's your background with the local Australian gaming scene?
funky_monkey: I've been gaming for about eight years online on PC, and before that it was hours spent on console gaming. I've been hammering away on FPS games competitively for close to six years as well. I've spent some time as a shout-caster for Gamestah, have been involved in heaps of close battles for finals and played countless seasons for GA and CGO, all playing FPSs. I'm in a clan called 'Drunkards in Combat', or DIC for short. Gaming in an established clan allows me to build ties with other strong clans and get a more personal relationship with gaming.
A: So I guess you've played a lot of Modern Warfare then. How important is being able to set up a dedicated server in terms of community and clan interaction?
f_m: It's very important! Dedicated servers have been known to make or break a multiplayer game. If we go back a while to Medal of Honor: Airborne, on release it had no support for dedicated servers. As much as it was a fantastic game, the online community shafted it and went back to other WW2 or Modern Warfare types of games.
Games that support dedicated servers will normally live on for a long time and don't require the devs (let's take IWnet as example) to continue to provide the service, as it's done by the community. It also allows you to have a massive range of game modes, all with differently tweaked settings. Having the ability to create a server forcing what weapons can be used, and how the game is played, is what keeps a game going!
Most of all, having dedicated servers allows the gaming community to take the game seriously and then create ladders & competitions for it, giving it a longer life - it's amazing you can still find COD and COD2 ladders going around in AUS! Neat, eh? Without this all of the above would not be possible and a game can die very quickly.
A: So is that one of your big issues with IWnet? That it relies not on a passionate community, but on dollar driven companies?
f_m: I have lots of concerns using a system like that. We've been informed about this IWnet system but what issues will it bring with it?
It would have to be driven by company dollars so what would happen if the company went down? How\where is this system going to operate. Would this be hosted in the US? If so how will they accommodate the Australian\NZ and Asian gaming communities?
Will there be a time limit on how long it will be active? Will IW be able to say we don't support this game anymore, so there will be no more hosted servers?
The Call of Duty series has always had a strong fan base behind it. I also think that most of us are a little disappointed in the move that IW is taking. A passionate community will start to rebel (and in this case it's obvious it's already happened) when they feel that their involvement in a game is being taken away. When this happens it normally makes the game die fast.
Look at Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, which has just been released. It's also a great game, but Codemasters has said no dedicated servers. So far there's no competitive gameplay\ladders in the works, and the community has dropped it.
At the end of the day if you don't give the community what they want, why will they want to support you?
Issue: 107 | December, 2009