You know, I'm surprised I never took a few minutes to bitch about this before. Recently, I've found myself playing less and less online. No, it's not because of the juvenile idiocy found in most modern FPS/TPS games... It's the horrid trend of forcing matchmaking into so many games. Not all of them do it but so many seem to be transitioning to that kind of system over an established server system.

You know, sometimes I like playing on the same server for hours, even if I'm getting my ass handed to me. Why? Because that's how you learn to play better. You also have the benefit of playing with the same guys for several maps, getting a feel for their style, and then maybe even *God forbid* chatting them up for a bit and then making a new friend. With matchmaking, that is all but gone.

Yes, there are downsides. Team stackers, host advantage, etc. Still, the option should be there to choose. On top of that, matchmaking seems to fail miserably, lose connection, and take forever to find a team if the game isn't populated by 14 trillion people at once.

Am I the only one who despises the current matchmaking system of play?

Oh I hate that too. I used to play StarCraft drunk as hell every single night, and I would bump into the same people in the same time zone at like 4 in the morning, and we slowly all realized we were all drunk, and played together for a whole year until I moved back to the west coast. People were just passing out during games and it was hilarious, and we'd even let each other pause the game to make more drinks. I can't do that with strangers. Matchmaking should be an option, but never forced. I think Battle.Net is still the best system.

Exactly. All my friends and I would get hammered while playing CS. We'd all hit the same server and every once in awhile, you'd see someone go AFK with a message of "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM", which means he passed out on his keyboard (literally, this happened more than once).

We all had our entire keyboards bound and you would know who was playing simply from their bind messages. It was great times. No one cared if someone went AFK (which we all did constantly) because at 3am, urination and smoking is of utmost importance and to be respected, if not revered. No one cared if someone went TMP-crazy because it was funny. No one got kicked and we all played for hours.

Matchmaking ruins every single element of that.

Oh, how I miss my bind messages...

"Pik" "Pika" "PIKACHUUUUU!!!" (three different binds, used after every kill)

"I SURRENDER!" (beginning of every round)

"VIVA LA RESISTANCE!" (after every death)

On top of about 30 more binds I had...

I don't hate it but it can get annoying. The worst is when you're sitting there just waiting and waiting to join a game though, that drives me absolutely insane.

Yeah I like the server system better... some servers were fun, others not so much... it's nice to choose the community you want to have in your games...