One of the most interesting parts of Infinity Ward’s decision to disallow dedicated servers on the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 is the reason they gave for doing it. The biggest reason “fourzerotwo” gave for the decision was accessibility – that so-hard-to-attain thing game designers are sacrificing so much for these days.
Infinity Ward downplayed piracy as a reason, possibly accepting that piracy in gaming is impossible to completely erase. Everyone accuses them of doing this because they want to lock out mods, the prevalence of which has blocked them from charging for DLC on the PC.
Regardless of how much of it you want to believe, the majority of Infinity Ward’s promotion of IWnet so far has centered on community features that they consider friendlier to the end user than dedicated servers. Taking their argument at face value, user-friendliness is essential, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to take away real functionality in the pursuit of it.
In his first official response, “fourzerotwo” said that Infinity Ward got a lot of complaints from “casual” Call of Duty 4 players on PC who didn’t know how to navigate a server browser. Despite claims that these “casual PC gamers” don’t actually exist or that even little kids can surf server browsers, I won’t call IW a bunch of liars.
A while back Nintendo was giving us a similar observation about this untapped mass audience that couldn’t handle the videogames we’d been playing for years. People doubted their existence as well and were proven wrong, so I’ll take Infinity Ward’s word here.
The possibility exists that in Call of Duty 4’s penetration into the mass market, some of those not-so-hardcore buyers trickled onto the PC (or mac) version. If so, they’d have been met with an online system completely different from anything they’ve previously known. Even after picking out one of the possibly thousands of servers shown to them, they might have no idea about ping, local rules, hackers, etc.
In the face of this a matchmaking option would sound like a good solution, but I still think its wrong for Infinity Ward to introduce that as the only option. This blog isn’t going to turn into “dedicated servers vs matchmaking,” but I think dedicated servers have too many advantages to be thrown away completely. If it were up to me I would’ve found some way to try to make that existing system and its advantages look friendlier to the inexperienced user.
According to “fourzerotwo,” IWnet will allow users to simply pick some settings and automatically find a game. For those unfamiliar with multiplayer on the PC, server browsers already let you basically do that plus one step.
You usually have the ability to sort and filter servers by ping, game type, and whatever parameters a game might have. That by itself usually narrows your choice to a few servers or at most a few dozen. After you’ve found one, as I described in my previous post, you can bookmark it.
If that interface does prove too jarring for a lot of players I think it would’ve been possible for Infinity Ward to add in some front end features to help out new players with server browsers. A help bar wouldn’t hurt; neither would a guided tour of the server browser. If Infinity Ward wanted to go to such lengths to overhaul their online system they could have simply overhauled the browser menu itself.
If the menu interface that comes with dedicated servers wasn’t the problem, then it might have been the kinds of environments that you get on dedicated servers.
Dedicated servers are privately run by gamers, many of whom may impose strange conditions, mods, or flat-out rule their corners with iron fists. I have heard a lot of people complain about how hard it is to find “vanilla” experiences or good map variety on playlists in games like Counter-Strike.
When these powers are used correctly however, they can lead to an environment that feels altogether better-maintained and more cohesive than what you get on console matchmaking. As I mentioned in my previous post, in Call of Duty 4 I was lucky enough to find a server that essentially played a vanilla game and was moderated with reasonable rules against griefing, language, and racial slurs. The moderator was often right there on voice chat which enhanced the feeling of security and gave a solid reason not to be a dick.
The cool thing about dedicated servers is that many of them are run by organizations. Again, I was easily able to jump into Team Fortress 2 because members of 1up.com’s own forums were able to set up (or rent out) a server which created a multiplayer environment full of people I was at least acquainted with on one level or another. Some of my friends play on servers they’ve reserved with people from work. There’s even an entire business around renting out servers. I imagine that Infinity Ward could have somehow taken advantage of that system instead of writing off dedicated servers as an exclusively hardcore set of insular communities.
In my opinion what Infinity Ward is doing is in some ways paramount to Nintendo’s handling of online compared to its relative environment. I completely understand the reasoning behind Nintendo’s friend codes and on one level endorse it. I just think their execution is misguided.
Nintendo is trying to offer an online system that is usable by people who have virtually never picked up a video game. I doubt those people would put up with the screaming kids or expert players on Xbox Live.
It’s already been determined that the best way to deal with “online hardcore-itis” is to simply play with those on your friends list. I imagine that it was Nintendo’s aim to create a system that favored playing with friends over playing with random people. The proper allegory would probably be an instant messenger or using a telephone – you only do it with people you’ve met elsewhere.
Where Nintendo misstepped however was in making the process of assigning friends feel needlessly locked down and, like Infinity Ward, simplifying the system to the point of removing functionality that core gamers deem essential. Both companies chose to satisfy the mass market at the cost of the core market and not in addition to the core market.
