-- Disclaimer : This is a re-post from the official IW MW2 forums. I did not write this, but it is an excellent write up that deserves to be read. Also, the IW mods have been rather zealous in many cases with censoring opinion, especially well written criticism. Anyhow, again, I do not take credit for this write up, props goes to Amarules on the official IW forums --
Posting this here, so folk who were considering a PC purchase can get the real low-down , and it might also be helpful to the console fans who do not quite understand what the big hubug is amongst the PC community.
Link to the origional can be found Here ( at least until IW removes it, also their forums are lagtastic ATM so be patient )
--------------------------------------------------
Amarules
Posts: 42
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 6:54 pm
Gamertag: pityme2pac
Platform: PC
An objective Review of IW-net and the IW mission statement.
Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:13 pm
*DISCALIMER* This post concers only the online aspect of MW2 not the game as a whole and is based on personal experience and opinion**
Prior to release IW informed us of plans to launch a new PC matchmaking system named IWnet for MW2. Many people specualted as to why IW would make such a drastic change to the massively successful multiplayer of CoD4. In response to suggestions that IWnet was motivated by money, laziness (simple console port), an exit strategy out of the PC market 9through poor sales due to features) and many other undesirable reasons; Infinity Ward released the following mission statement.
[Quote=Vince-IW] "We feel the PC game is great in it's current form. We put a lot of work into IWnet in an effort to make the PC experience better for our users".
Thats it in black and white..IWnet is designed to be a better multiplayer experience. My immeadiate thought on this is "better experience as defined by whom?; the customer or the developer?"
Several factors contribute to an enjoyable online experience:
-Getting into a game (matchmaking)
-Connection Quality
-Gameplay
-playing with friends
-Variety/Options
-Control of people seeking to abuse the system (cheats/hackers/aggrevators)
-customer and community support
In spite of the negativity surrounding the launch of the PC game I decided to give IWnet the fair try it does deserve. I beleive I have now played enough to be able to give my opinions on the game to the point where those opinions are representative of the actual game based on adequate experience.
I intend to discuss each of the points listed above, always with the original mission statement for IWnet in mind. Has it made my playing experience better? Naturally I will be comparing this with and referring back to CoD4 (a game i still love and play even now 2 years after launch).
-Joining a game/Matchmaking
In CoD 4 joining a game was simple. Launch the game, refresh list of servers, sort by ping and enter a game.
The use of filters and favourites lists further enhanced this feature and consistently allowed me to be in a game within 20 seconds of launching the exe.
In MW2 the matchmaking system from my experience so far can only be described as hit & miss. I may search for a game and be instantly at a laoding screen in under 5 seconds. On other occasions I can sit and wait two minutes for a game to fill before joining a game or at worse be told im not able to connect to the host. Even then, there is no gaurantee of quality once I enter a game, hosts picked have been from all over the globe so far.
Having to configure my Nat/router settings is a major pain even though it is a simple task for me and should not be neccessary. In addition despitehaving my Upnp settings configured correctly it seems entirely random at times as to wether the game sees my NAT as strict or open. This is in my opinion far more complicated than the "complexity" of having to find a dedicated server for the new PC user.
How can you,IW, interpret this as a better onlin user experience??
-Connection Quality
In CoD 4 dedicated servers meant my ping was consistently between 40-65ms which is quite acceptable in my opinion. In addition the servers were up permanently allowing my to favourite list enjoyable rooms for later play.
In MW2 my connection quailty is a game of chance based on how the matchmaking system selects a host. Im generally on 3 bars in games, sometimes 2 bars and much more rarely 4 bars. I can feel and visibly see the affect of latency on my games at times which is very frustrating when comnig from a system where these problems do not exist.
On this point why did you replace the "ms" display of ping with console style bars. This stinks of a console port to many people and only reduce the accuracy with which PC players can diagnose their connection issues as the colours/number of bars have no meaing to us other than we can assume 4 is better than 3 and so on.
Personally I feel IW knew that pings would be higher with IWnet and this was an attempt to conceal the shortcomings of the system by making them less obvious. I can find no numerical lagometer option in the config files either which is unnacceptable.
Back to connections in game, in IWnet the new host migration feature (something unneccesary in CoD 4) seems to only work about 50% of the time. The rest of the time I am simply booted back to the main browser.
Comparing MW2 with CoD 4 , connections in MW2 are far less consistent, genearlly lower quality and more unstable.
How can you IW interpret this as a better online user experience??
PS: I havnt even mentioned that this is only when steam wants to work as this isnt strictly an issue with IWnet but is still a feature I was displeased to see in MW2.
-Gameplay
I cannot deny that the gameplay in MW2 is brilliant when it works. Graphics are great, gameplay feels good on the whole. A few small issues do exist such as lack of important features such as lean (the whole game not balanced response from Mackey was such a cop-out as its clearly not a big balance issue when everybody has the ability to use it hence equal playing field) and things like bullet damage in reg TDM modes, lack of sufficient HC modes (more on this later). Overall I enjoy the game at times, but the effect IWnet has on the gameplay quality at times makes it frustrating and dissapointing. I am very confident I would enjoy this game much more if simple services such as dedicated servers were provided.
How can you IW interpret this as a better online user experience?
-Playing with friends
I enjoyed CoD 4 thoroughly with friends. Favourites listed services meant I could always play with them instantly and lag free.
In MW2 I can play with my friends, but the issues of host selection already discussed can mean I cannot enjoy playing with my friends due to connection quality issues. You have suggested I try private servers? OK sure, well getting past the burden of having to manually invite each friend to the party everytime i log online rather than just joining a communal server, I realize Im still not gauranted a lag free game even in Private game mode. Why?..because many of the people I paly with live overseas from a very diverse selection of countries (EU, Australia, Americas) and the IW system cannot do anything to resolve this problem.
A dedicated server would not have these problems.
How can you, IW, interpret this as a more enjoyable online user experience???
-Variety/Options
CoD4 servers offer unlimited variety for admins in terms of selecting what parameters a server will run with (perks, bullet dmg, UI, weapons allowed, score limit, max ping, etc etc etc I dont need to explain this to msot people).
MW2 in comparision offers a very scant ammount of server customisation to people who wish to host private games.
Even features such as numerical lag reading are missing, people suffering from motion sickness issues (not me) cannot change FoV (although I do understand the reasoning behind this is it better for the user?) and other fundamental features of PC gaming such as lean have been removed.
On top of this while playmodes increased, I am now limited to games of smaller sizes than I would at times wish to play, and HC modes are not even available for all playmodes.
While Im here can i ask why player limits for Groundwar are higher than TDM or Domination (when both playlists use the same gametypes!!?????
Overall players in MW2 are given less choice, and to the PC user this is a huge deal as it is one of the true great features of being a PC gamer. The ability to play the game we want has been removed. Im not going to start on Mods as that would be another discussion itself.
-Control of people seeking to abuse the system (cheats/hackers/aggrevators)
CoD4 used punkbuster in conjunction with dedi's allowing for server admins to referee game servers to ensure enjoyable experience were had by all. Hackers/ cheaters when noticed were banned instantly as were people whose mission was to annoy the rest of the server population as much as possible. Having to mute players was rarely an issue.
MW2 switched to VAC, a system IW claimed would ensure a cheat free community for all. Yet 2 days after launch there are already hacks available to not only enable MW2 to be played online using an illegal download copy, but also to play it with cheats hacks such as aimbot, wallwalking etc. These features are new but I anticipate their use growing steadily as more people learn of their existence.
VAC works on a delayed ban principle and with no dedicated servers and hence no server admins these cheaters are allowed to run amok in game for possibly weeks before being detected/ punished. While they are eventually banned they are still able to stay in game and ruin the experience for every other player in game, unchecked for long periods of time. Players have no vote-ban feature and are therefore forced to choose from two options.
1) Move to another game, sacrificing all bonus points accrued so far in that game or
2) put up with the cheater and ignore them
In a few weeks people will be crying out for server admins. Whats worse is I currently see no in-game function to report these abusers of the system and so I fear most will remain a nuisance to the community for extended periods of time.
How can you, IW, interpret this as a better online user experience??
-customer and community support
During the months leading upto MW2's launch date correspodence with the PC community was poor at best. Official IW responses were few and far between. Once the backlash of the dedicated servers announcement hit 402 has made I think a total of 2 posts on IW net. One told us it was okay and we should not worry and explained things about IW net we already knew but answered none of our specific legitimate concerns. The other simply announced the min specs for play which I can't fault as useful info.
Since then we have been subject to a wave of topic censoring, mass deletions, even insulted by the devlopers with generalizations like "the pc community are pirates" when as we have seen it was the console community that were first to pirate the game, although thats not to saying some PC users are not at fault.
The community morale is at an all time low for the majority of active forum users at least (I consider the rest to be unconcerned to the point that they would buy MW2 whatever its state at release).
If you're gonig to developf or a community, their opinions must be the most important thing to the success of your game. I for one feel our concerns have fallen on the backs of IW ostriches whose heads are burried in the sand hoping simply to weather the storm until PC gamers give up in their condemnation of IWnet.
In addition we have to deal with "some" power happy moderators whose tone and actions can stray from that of a professional moderator and at the end of the day communinty moderators do not represent to official position of IW.
You need to be more proactive in the communication of feelings and concerns between your development team and the PC community.
How can you IW, say that this is a better online user experience?? I understand developing is a hard task when you are trying to please millions but some of the decisions made during MW2's development cycle can at best be considered ludicrous.
-Conclusions
Ultimately I feel you failed in fulfilling your mission statement for IWnet based on my experience thus far.
The game is great but I feel it is ultimately marred by issues that are a result of IWnet. Issues that would not exist if MW2 ran on dedicated server support (even if this was added as an alternative to IWnet).
The matchmaking system no matter how much you tweak it can never work as well as manual human selection. What PC gamers value most is choice. IW net is far too restrictive and controlling to the point where I consider it a Nazi application seeking to unify all gamers into a bunch of mindless zombies who are forced to follow and conform to every restriction you place on us.
You have decided you are a better judge of what is enjoyable than the user's themselves and with a huge playerbase expected there is obviously great diversity in tastes and preferences of playstyles ranging from the most casual to the most hardcore. CoD 4 catered for players of all varieties very well I think and with a choice of 16'000 servers there was always something for everybody.
MW2 fails completely in catering to such a diverse range of gamers and this is the systems biggest shortcoming in my opinion.
I sincerely hope you do consider strongly the possibilty of including dedicated support alongside IWnets matchmaking system that your game can cater to both casual and more deeply involved gamers indescriminately.
I will still continue to play the game as it does include promising and ejoyable gameplay at times and I'd like to thank you for the time spent on developing it so far. I also hope you will take these concerns onboard as I think they are shared by a great many people.
Yours
A paying PC MW2 customer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
