I would be okay if there were dedicated servers as well as matchmaking (as long as there were all the other stuff like custom map/mods too), but this is hurting what makes it a PC game and turning it into a closed system like Xbox Live or PSN.

Imagine if we had to use matchmaking to play Team Fortress 2 on the PC, especially in the full 24-32 player games. I don't know about anybody else, but I mainly just play in a handfull of servers and I usually see the same regulars often. From the details the one guy gave of IW.net, you're losing all of that community and I don't like it.

While I was already on the fence of getting the game (though renting it on consoles for the story at least sounds better than nothing), I think I might just have to look into this petition. I know people usually scoff at these and the people who make them, but the current IW.net is trying to destroy what makes PC gaming what it is. What if they start charging for IW.net or ramp up the prices of any DLC (why they're getting rid of custom mods/maps).

Yeah.. matchmaking destroys the community. As for dedicated servers, I usually visit the same 3-5 servers that plays TDM/DM to warm up before competetive games. And i stick to these servers because the skill level of players on them are usually quite high.

And if one is full, i can just connect to another within seconds. Matchmaking will take longer and remove any posibilities of individual prefrences and destroy the community that PC gaming brings.

As for competetive gaming, theres just no way it can co-exsist with IW.Net.. since it won't allow mods and game tweaking changes that mods like PAM brings. PAM is the biggest necessity for competetive play. COD4 saw great changes in how the scope were to be used, they removed the running animations from a 1st person view. They implemented pauses, start up times, changes is cvars etc to prevent graphical tweaks that can be used to take advantage of bugs. All things to enhance a good competetive play style that has been used and further enhanced since the first Call of Duty game. A game, and a franchise, that was made popular by the PC community, like the petitition says.

The removal of dedicated servers will remove practise servers, jump servers, custom map servers, aim servers and i dont see how tournaments and sites like Clanbase can work with IW.Net since they all require certain informations for matches to be official. IW is turning COD into a console game. And how is the competetive scene among console games? Crap by comparison. Utterly crap.

Updated.. and the petetition is now at 165.000 signatures. http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?dedis4mw

Backandslash.com also have a podcast talking about the Aftermath of the announcement of no dedicated servers. And someone saw a playtest with 12v12 and the Host ping was steady 20, while the others had an average of 75-80, and some peaked at 200.

Which right there shows that competetive play will be hurting alot.