Modern Warfare 2 PC will not have dedicated servers

[starfury]

And PC gaming irrelevant? No we are still facing the issue we were three years ago. It's called Activision/Blizzard and the fact they pull down over a third of a billion dollars from World of Warcraft in subscription fee's alone each quarter. Plus their points store, plus their race changing and faction switching fee's and all the other things that Blizzard is cooking up to have WoW make them more money. Can you name any other game that still manages to sell twenty thousand copies a month minimum so many YEARS after it's release? The last online guess says that the revenue WoW has made to date has already topped five billion dollars by itself between game sales, subscription fee's and microtransactions. And that's millions of PC's who may play that as their only primary game because if your playing WoW, why go out an drop 60$ on the new MW2? That's not a matter of record but it's a matter of an educated guess or two and observed player trends that hardcore games(Of which there's about two million tops in the US) have a decent chunk or so missing because economic times are tough and WoW is cheaper than spending 100$ a month on a new game every two weeks. Then your digging into the "occasional gamer" market also with WoW. Yes there are those members who also buy other games but it's hard to justify another game when you have something like World of Warcraft. Lots of people gets sucked into that "I'm paying for it, I might as well play it" and it depresses PC gaming sales.

For Xenu sake, Blizzard has not sold but one game and expansion for that game for five years now. Yet had 1.1 Billion in Revenue for 2008. It's a serious depressing force on the remainder of the market.

There was also the other Titan the Sims Franchise and their many expansions for each one, they are only other major games to jockey with World of Warcraft daily for the NPD top ten charts, both are fairly low-tech compared to something like MW2 and either can't be pirated for mutiplayer or catered to the audience which doesn't know how to or care to learn.

[weemadando]

Well, the argument is moot as I've bought the PC version anyhow because I'm that fucking keen to play the campaign. And really, if it means that I'm only stuck in a server with 17 toolboxes instead of 31, then I'm not greatly fussed either.

We'll see how the server management thing goes.

[Ace Pace]

That implies that said FPS developers lose money on developing for the PC, rather than simply not making as much money per dollar invested. If they didn't spend the money on PC development, what else would they invest in to earn more money?

Possibly. I've seen statements to that indication on Gamasutra that the entire PC market is also simply a royal mess to deal with and developers prefer the nice systems that consoles export, with all the downside of say, doing CELL programming.

[Edward Yee]

Well, the argument is moot as I've bought the PC version anyhow because I'm that fucking keen to play the campaign. And really, if it means that I'm only stuck in a server with 17 toolboxes instead of 31, then I'm not greatly fussed either.

We'll see how the server management thing goes.

WAR weemadando! Seriously, it's nice to see someone who won't (unlike me ) hide behind the excuse of mouse control; I definitely intend to give the PC version a shot myself, pun intended.

[weemadando]

Don't get me wrong, mouse control is a reason, but it's also the fact that I've always played CoD on PC and despite having the bitching home theatre, it would feel like a betrayal.

That said, I may well rent the 360 version to get ePeen enhancement points at some stage, but I suffer from suckitude when trying to FPS on 360 usually.

[Edward Yee]

Don't get me wrong, mouse control is a reason, but it's also the fact that I've always played CoD on PC and despite having the bitching home theatre, it would feel like a betrayal.

That said, I may well rent the 360 version to get ePeen enhancement points at some stage, but I suffer from suckitude when trying to FPS on 360 usually.

I think I've given CoD4 a try on the 360 as well, single-player only for both PC and 360, and I've found that for FPS games with a thumb-operated analog stick I just cannot line a shot up fast enough even for a slower-paced game like Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (whose controls on the other hand can get frustrating for a "desperate" close-quarters encounter such as shooting someone coming around a corner), and even though I don't have a "pride" problem with using aim assist, doesn't it result in the point of aim snapping to the nearest target's center-of-mass? That would be a problem if I'm trying to deliberately hit something further away than a closer target or going for a head shot.

LOL at the ePeen enhancement comment. At least in World of Warcraft, some actually give in-game tangible rewards, even if those are of the vanity sort themselves. Do Xbox 360 Achievement Points/gamer score even grant that? Note that there are no online-only Achievements, just clear the campaign and Special Ops mode on all/Veteran difficulties.

[weemadando]

OK, I'm 2 hours in and I really need to say something about the airport mission.

It's really chilling. The way they've scripted it and channelled your experience is quite something. I was forcing myself to shoot high to make it look like I was doing something to keep the Russkies onside. It's one of the few times when a game has elicited a genuine emotional response in me. Even to the point where after the initial scenes I felt vaguely ill about it all.

Should it have been taken out? No, no, no, no, no.

This is probably one of the best examples of gaming forcing a player to consider their actions and the outcomes, in both a real sense and in terms of your character. This way lies some truly amazing concepts and things in teh future.

[ray245]

This is probably one of the best examples of gaming forcing a player to consider their actions and the outcomes, in both a real sense and in terms of your character. This way lies some truly amazing concepts and things in teh future.

Yeah right, as if we are allowed to make actual decisions in that mission. Is it that hard to kill the terrorist with the heavy machine gun they gave you instead of killing the civilians?

You know, when you and them are stuck in the lift, you can just fucking shoot them dead.

[Edward Yee]

I was forcing myself to shoot high to make it look like I was doing something to keep the Russkies onside.

My little fanon 'theory' is that "insufficient bloodlust and homicidality" is what gets the player character compromised and 'made' by Makarov, and that the ending is a burst of improvisation.

[PeZook]

CoD was always good with this stuff. It hurts replayability a lot, since when you play through a game (or even just a single sequence) a second time, it becomes boring as hell, but it's always a blast for me the first time round.

Seriously, look at CoD4: it had sequences you couldn't lose (AC-130? Hello! ), or ones which were little more than a slightly interactive movie (All Ghillied Up). I had a similar experience to Weemadando all the way back in CoD1 with the first two Stalingrad missions: they even made me forget for a minute what a terrible butchery they made of history. I actually screamed after the comissars got your unarmed ass in a group and blew the whistle. And the final assault on the Reichstag...man. Absolutely ahistorical, but made of awesome.

"Wait! Keep low untill our tanks come through!"

*T-34s crash through a wall and start assraping German positions*

"Forward, comrades! To the Reichstag!"

"DOWN WITH FASCISM!!!"

The entire CoD series is a pretty generic shooter except for those singularly AWESOME moments of glory. I guess it works pretty well, too, seeing how many damn copies they sell of the same formula.

[ray245]

CoD was always good with this stuff. It hurts replayability a lot, since when you play through a game (or even just a single sequence) a second time, it becomes boring as hell, but it's always a blast for me the first time round.

Seriously, look at CoD4: it had sequences you couldn't lose (AC-130? Hello! ), or ones which were little more than a slightly interactive movie (All Ghillied Up). I had a similar experience to Weemadando all the way back in CoD1 with the first two Stalingrad missions: they even made me forget for a minute what a terrible butchery they made of history. I actually screamed after the comissars got your unarmed ass in a group and blew the whistle. And the final assault on the Reichstag...man. Absolutely ahistorical, but made of awesome.

"Wait! Keep low untill our tanks come through!"

*T-34s crash through a wall and start assraping German positions*

"Forward, comrades! To the Reichstag!"

"DOWN WITH FASCISM!!!"

The entire CoD series is a pretty generic shooter except for those singularly AWESOME moments of glory. I guess it works pretty well, too, seeing how many damn copies they sell of the same formula.

That's the reason why I love the soviet mission so much. Few games managed to give you a sense of scale when you are fighting in a war.

The disappointing thing is, ever since they removed base Assault game mode from COD:UO, I couldn't feel that sense of scale in multiplayer.

[weemadando]

This is probably one of the best examples of gaming forcing a player to consider their actions and the outcomes, in both a real sense and in terms of your character. This way lies some truly amazing concepts and things in teh future.

Yeah right, as if we are allowed to make actual decisions in that mission. Is it that hard to kill the terrorist with the heavy machine gun they gave you instead of killing the civilians?

You know, when you and them are stuck in the lift, you can just fucking shoot them dead.

Perhaps you missed the whole point about how this was an operation to get you deeper into his organisation to find his backers. Shooting him in the head wouldn't have helped a bit.

My little fanon 'theory' is that "insufficient bloodlust and homicidality" is what gets the player character compromised and 'made' by Makarov, and that the ending is a burst of improvisation.

Quite possibly, but the end of that sequence is a real kick in the pants. Especially after what that character just went through.

[Alyeska]

Would you guys mind keeping the spoilers out of the thread?

[Ford Prefect]

My little fanon 'theory' is that "insufficient bloodlust and homicidality" is what gets the player character compromised and 'made' by Makarov, and that the ending is a burst of improvisation.

Spoiler

Remember, no Russian. The entire op was a set-up, and Makarov intended to leave Allen bleeding out for the FSB to find from the beginning.

In any case, the sequence is chilling. Shepherd does say 'you're going to lose a piece of yourself' to Allen and I was thinking 'well, yeah, Makarov is a monster I guess', and then you're stepping out of the elevator and there's all those people lined up ... it was effective as an 'oh shit' moment. The decision to make it impossible to run until you get onto the tarmac was a good one; the sweep of the airport is slow and methodical as a result, somehow working to make it feel more brutal. The intensity of Modern Warfare 2 is much greater than any of the previous games, as far as I'm concerned. The pacing is fucking fast, the action is layed on thick and it has plenty of variation. Also Soap has bad hair but is pretty awesome.

[PeZook]

Spoiler

"Pretty awesome"? It's a guy who killed off half a brigade of Russians, fought his way into a fortified missile silo, escaped, almost ate a missile and then killed the fuck out of the main bad guy (who himself survived a .50 cal to the face) when half-dead in CoD4.

And all he had for backup were two useless buddies

[Steel]

Why the fuck is there no way for me to install this without steam downloading incredible quantities of shit? What is the point of having 2 DVDs if once the steam section of the install starts everything else needs to be downloaded? If it needs to download the full 16GB the back of the box says it needs I'm going to be hogging my houses internet for 2 hours. Fuck knows what people on dial up do. This is leaving aside the issue that apparently the steam servers were too busy to even activate the game the first two times it gave an error message.

[Alyeska]

When I said no spoilers, I intended none at all. This isn't the "General release" thread. Its about the problems PC gamers have had. Can you please create a new thread for the release of MW2 and discuss things in there? It is appreciated.

[ray245]

Spoiler

Perhaps you missed the whole point about how this was an operation to get you deeper into his organisation to find his backers. Shooting him in the head wouldn't have helped a bit.

Spoiler

Look, if the game is really allowing you to live with your decisions, then they should have let to experience what will happen when you decides to kill those terrorist instead. I find it annoying that I am forced into doing something I do not enjoy in a game.

[Alyeska]

Please stop posting spoilers.

[ray245]

Please stop posting spoilers.

Ah, Sorry. Missed your previous post.

[Medic]

When I said no spoilers, I intended none at all. This isn't the "General release" thread. Its about the problems PC gamers have had. Can you please create a new thread for the release of MW2 and discuss things in there? It is appreciated.

Exactly, this is essentially a G&C themed Venting thread...

Why the fuck is there no way for me to install this without steam downloading incredible quantities of shit? What is the point of having 2 DVDs if once the steam section of the install starts everything else needs to be downloaded? If it needs to download the full 16GB the back of the box says it needs I'm going to be hogging my houses internet for 2 hours. Fuck knows what people on dial up do. This is leaving aside the issue that apparently the steam servers were too busy to even activate the game the first two times it gave an error message.

... for shit like this.

Nice. It's nice to know that due merely to being attached at the hip now to Steam, just getting the game up and running (for single player only!) is a pain in the arse. To echo a player on CoD4 last night: Modern Warfail 2.

But to answer your query Steel (and then not really): cause it's Steam. I don't know what in tarnation it might be installing, but that's why I've aborted and uninstalled Steam and related games on my system. (I was running out of space too, but there you go) If you don't log-on and play a Steam related game in like, 6 months, HOLY-SHIT you're in for a massive >100MB download. Between leaving Korea a few years ago, vacations, temporary duty and other things resulting in no-internet downtime, I've learned to hate Steam whenever I reconnect.

[General Zod]

But to answer your query Steel (and then not really): cause it's Steam. I don't know what in tarnation it might be installing, but that's why I've aborted and uninstalled Steam and related games on my system. (I was running out of space too, but there you go) If you don't log-on and play a Steam related game in like, 6 months, HOLY-SHIT you're in for a massive >100MB download. Between leaving Korea a few years ago, vacations, temporary duty and other things resulting in no-internet downtime, I've learned to hate Steam whenever I reconnect.

After the debacle of World at War, I've come to appreciate Steam for streamlining updates if nothing else. I decided to see what updates I needed for WaW after a clean install, and holy fucking Christ. I had to find and install some 10-15 1-2gb patches, manually. The small ones were only a couple hundred megs; needless to say that is one of the most painful updating experiences I've ever dealt with.

[Medic]

But to answer your query Steel (and then not really): cause it's Steam. I don't know what in tarnation it might be installing, but that's why I've aborted and uninstalled Steam and related games on my system. (I was running out of space too, but there you go) If you don't log-on and play a Steam related game in like, 6 months, HOLY-SHIT you're in for a massive >100MB download. Between leaving Korea a few years ago, vacations, temporary duty and other things resulting in no-internet downtime, I've learned to hate Steam whenever I reconnect.

After the debacle of World at War, I've come to appreciate Steam for streamlining updates if nothing else. I decided to see what updates I needed for WaW after a clean install, and holy fucking Christ. I had to find and install some 10-15 1-2gb patches, manually. The small ones were only a couple hundred megs; needless to say that is one of the most painful updating experiences I've ever dealt with.

Actually that happened to me too. I didn't have a landline the whole time at Ft. Sam Houston (February to July this year) and so when I went to patch WaW I literally ran out of HD space.

[Alyeska]

I can't believe the positive reviews I am reading for the PC version of the game. Completely ignore the controversy surrounding it. I think Activision is buying good reviews.

[Sea Skimmer]

You think? Of course they fucking are, and every other game company does that too to the point of buying up review companies and gaming magazines and trying to keep it hush hush to the readers. This is why I long ago stopped reading 'professional' reviews. I don't even care anymore about the game anyway, since I've now played through the single player on console (this works out so well for Activision too, I can still easily play the game and yet they get not a dollar from me) all I can say is look, Modern Warfare 1.5 made harder by adding more enemies rather then making better missions. Its absolutely nothing like the advance call of Duty 4 was over the previous games and yet they want more money then ever for it. Activation is very much the new EA of asshole gaming companies.