Gone are the days where simplicity is a factor for low ping gaming session with your friends sitting right next to you. Where simplicity lies ONLY in the authenticity of a CD-key, which is enough for you to play on official servers.
Recently, newer games require internet connection for authenticity and just to play with our buddy sitting next to us in the same room. I don't see why it is necessary to connect to the internet and suffer high pings just to play with our buddies in the same room while LAN offers the most simplified yet the fastest connection speed which is better than the most fastest internet connection in the world. Internet connection should not be a necessity, it should be a feature and let's just hope that this will serves as a lesson to new and upcoming game developers out there. Do not take away what is already good. PC gamers demands it because they are better at this than most of the console players.
Let me give you an example. 2 or 3 years ago, Apple decides to turn their Macs from PowerPC to Intel base. Most of us Microsoft users know that Intel offers a better performance than the PowerPC and some of us know that PowerPC might not survive the market as Intel and AMD are leading the way, being the only 2 most competitive processor brand in the market. Apple finally realized that they have nowhere to go but to change their platform to Intel which also benefits their market because with the Intel processor, BootCamp are made possible where you can have 2 Operating System in one machine. It's good because Apple has the most stable software platform and Intel with most parts from custom build PC like the Graphic cards offers better performance. My main point is, most of us PC users or in this case, PC gamers, know what's best for us. We don't give a damn about casual gamers not knowing how to maintain a server because we can just Google those crap out and we can rent a service just to do that for us. Even casual gamers prefer to play on LAN than going online just to suffer shitty latency and keeping them from actually enjoying the game.
Here lies my most anticipated and yet something that I might going to regret and the odds are 99.9% that I'm going to regret getting myself a copy, Modern Warfare 2.
Infinity Ward shook the entire PC community by taking away the support for Dedicated servers and Mod for Modern Warfare 2 which, in the entire FPS history on PC platform, love and lean towards to because of their capability to support a lot of players in dedicated servers and to balance the game for competitive play in Mods for games like Modern Warfare 1. And to make matters worse, we look like those pathetic Xbox360. JUST LOOK AT THE FRIGGIN PICTURE BELOW!!!
Colored bar for Ping indication? Please. We aren't like those idiot console players who can't even do a simple math. Give us back out digits!!!
Now, I'm not here to complaint and cry about that as I am a reasonable man who understands that not everything is perfect and that the universe is always there to bitch to you in every possible way in life which, we all call, Karma. Instead, I'm gonna state some facts that Infinity Ward are making a huge mistake giving the PC community the shitty IWnet.
Before I continue, many PC users are angry and just throw their angst towards the developers instead of trying to make them understand by giving out facts and teaching those dumb console players about the superiority of PC. Instead, their attacks got backfired by the flames of console players throughout forums and articles. I have taken a lot of reading and hiatus just to write this by the way.
Now, lets look at the meaning for dedicated game servers. I have here a quote from Wikipedia which I entire agree about the statement which are highlighted.
"Most games use a dedicated server application. This program collects data from players and distributes it to other players. This is more efficient and effective than peer-to-peer arrangement, but it requires a separate computer to host the server application. The additional computer is a server.
Network bandwidth, in particularly upstream bandwidth is often one of the major limitations in hosting game servers. Home broadband Internet connections rarely provide the necessary upstream bandwidth to host dedicated game servers with more than 4-10 clients.
In the past, this is how the majority of game servers were hosted. This was the only option. The player would buy the game, and most households only had one computer, so the player would use this one machine host his or her server and play the game on, often simultaneously. The stress on the computer was enormous, and game performance was proportionately poor. Even if the bandwidth on the newest broadband Internet services could keep up with the load, the computer itself was still behind in computing the data needed. Process data for 3D graphics, game physics, sorting and distributing network data to the other players on one computer, places considerable demands on servers.
A professional server is a computer to read data and transmit vast amounts of data as fast as players need it. A handful of game hosting pioneers realized the need for such systems. They purchased rack mounted server machines and colocated them within datacenters to host their games. They paid between $200 and $700 a month for this luxury, and the teams that could foot such bills were few and far between, but these setups significantly improved the gameplay. Within a few years online multiplayer gaming became a huge success. Prices have lowered dramatically and subscribers increased 1000 fold."
Here's my understanding about dedicated servers. It's an entire machine, running dedicated-ly, just to host a game. Without any other background programs like MSN Messenger, Anti-virus, or even Firefox running behind the stage and lags the whole game. Now with IWnet taking over, it's actually using our computer to act as a server. Meaning that you are hosting the game, with the extra shit you're running which is typical for most user and basically, brings you to the Hell of Lag-ness where you'll eventually stutter in-game or keep bouncing here and there and stuff which you would usually experience when there is a serious lag.
And to put the cherry on top of that, after reading some reviews, I fear that IWnet is what I suspected it to be, a failure. The migrating host feature which turns out to be one of Infinity Ward's FAIL list plus the ongoing sufferings of high pings and bad latency with the peer-to-peer connection. Looks like their "big investment" doesn't give any good returns instead, having Nerd Rage by some hardcore fanboys shooting through their bullet proof vest continuously with infinity ammo.
Besides that, they have it integrated with Steam and Valve Anti Cheat for secure and hackless gameplay which VAC already defeats the purpose. Now, I have no objection that Infinity Ward would release their games on Steam. Steam is a very good digital distribution software and I myself am still using Steam and liking it. But using VAC and IWnet together? I've played on few servers with VAC and I still sometimes see players playing hack on the servers. "Big Investments?" Hehe. You tell me.
As for no mod support, IWnet doesn't have any feature where you can ban weapons like RPG, n00b tube and any imbalance guns for competitive play. It is impossible to make a Mod to get Modern Warfare 2 to the competitive scene because on the multiplayer side it is all just for fun because console players are n00b and they tube. Due to that, Infinity Ward has lost their market on the competitive scene. Last I read, the i38 tourney were having problems with the Modern Warfare 2 tourney due to IWnet fucking shit up.
I guess this is what the market tends to lean towards to. With all these "features" like IWnet, matchmaking and no mod supports, it feels like those feature are some console kinda shit and they are giving all these privilege to console mainly the outdated, incapable and pathetic Xbox360 that cannot run any First Person Shooter above 100 Frame Rate Per Sec, giving only shit, to us and shutting us PC Gamers.
Here's a question. Do you see any Xbox360 version of Crysis on sale in the market???
So, to sum it up, I'm still going to get myself an official copy of this because I'm a masochist.(Haha!!! Booyah!!!)
But to all those who have been raging about it, quit crying you emo punks and start working on or looking for hacks. That is what we are better at than console players so we better get to it. As of now, I've just acquired a pirated copy, been playing a few missions already and waiting hacks for LAN play.
-JJ-
