A View From the Road: Unreasonably Dedicated

[SomeGuyNamedKy]

I decided a while ago that I would not buy this game for the PC or the Xbox until IW proves to me that IW.net is a significant improvement over dedicated servers. It's not like I hate IW now, I just want to make sure that bringing this system is a step in the right direction.

 

[The Great JT]

Here's my stance on this:

I don't care about Modern Warfare 2.

 

[metalhead467]

Thank you, this is exactly what I've been saying all along!

 

[Lyri]

I like the article, however I can't really agree with it because it's only based on the MW2 protest. There's more to cover than the dedicated server issue and even then it stretches a little further than "we're not getting them".

As someone who used to play competative CoD4 alot, dedicated servers where the back bone of the scene.
Clans could have their own server, which they could lock and invite people into for friendies or ranked games or just have a practice session.
I'm curious to see how the competative scene will take to MW2 right now, simply because of the fact they can't do what was once so easy.
Without tools for modding too, basic comptetative setups like PAM are now out of the window.

As a CoD player, I'm not bothered about loosing the servers but as a competative player, my opinion would switch one hundered and eighty degrees the other way.
Had this article been based on something else, perhaps I'd agree a little more.

 

[dududf]

Just thought i'd post this, for people who still think this is "just about the dedicated servers"

Thanks that picture just saved me a long rant.
_______

Funk I'll be blunt.

Would you be annoyed that a game on, lets just say 360 came out and they didn't use all of the tools on hand, and expected you to like it?

That's how PC gamers feel, we are perplexed as to why companies are not USING the tools at hand, instead every game feels like a downgraded port.

Just imagine every game you play as a crappier version even though, from a tech perspective is a superior console.

It's just madness, and people don't understand that our out cry is not justified. Think next about games, now that a big step to killing PC games has been taken? A game that (for the life of me I can't remember, it was mentioned in a escapist post) has taken away ( or mostly considered taking away) Dedicated servers, because Activision took the plunge.

PC gaming is going to die very much quicker do to Actvision, when in maybe 15 years time we will be joyed when Wii sports 982 plus is ported to the PC for 500 bucks ( Obvious exageration)


>_>

Oh yeah and mouse and keyboard For the win! :]

 

[HentMas]

Spoken like a true gamer, well done, it was about time PC gamers realize that "THEY HAVE A REASON"

after all it is a company, not some fanboy pleaser

and yes, i love my PC and my Consoles just the same.

 

[paketep]

I think the rage comes not so much of a sense of entitlement over dedicated servers as for the fact that INFINITY WARD LIED BLATANTLY TO US, and waited until the last moment to throw the shitbombs, not to mention that they stole ideas from mods and don't even give them credit. That's where the attitude comes from.

And, frankly, I can't say I disagree. fourzerotwo has been a little *****, and when reasonable questions in a calm manner have been presented to IW, they've responded by either "that breaks the balance" or "this is going to be better, so STFU".

Piracy?. Please, someone did an study this week, and pirates are only about 3-4% of the people playing COD4 right now in the net. Plus, you see the amount of piracy there has been for the 360 with MW2 this last week. ¿Are they getting punished for it?. No. The piracy argument has been BS for a long time.

Micropayments. That's what they want, and they'll say whatever thing that passes through their minds to justify it. They work on 3 or 4 maps, easy as pie, they put them out there at $10, and a million consolers buy them. Lots of profit with almost no work. Why not force PC gamers to do the same and buy them?. Also, if we don't let them make maps anymore they'll have even more need of new content. Mods are out, too!.

I'm not buying MW2, and I'm NOT losing the attitude. I feel it's more than justified. Perhaps it isn't, but in that case, fourzerotwo is doing a pisspoor job as PR head, sorry, creative strategist.

You know, if you think about it, he IS doing a really pisspoor job.

 

[oneplus999]

As much as I like the sentiment, I don't know why you'd bother writing a two page article on it.
-imagesnip-

Please don't do this.

Thank you for illustrating my point.

 

[Ancientgamer]

Funk, entitlement doesn't mean what you think it means.



Entitlement isn't even a word that applies in consumer culture. The entitlement argument could be an argument against piracy, but for someone who's shelling out $60 for the game, they are perfectly entitled to say we want a good game. If the dev was making it for free, and we complained, that would be entitlement.

In summation, you say dedicated servers are a good thing, but we paying customers are not entitled to them.

Gamers don't deserve good games

This isn't fucking altruism funk, the devs are getting payed for this, we give them our money, we are entitled to the best game they can make. That's the basic concept of capitalism.

 

[JeanLuc761]

Personally, I don't see how it's 'entitlement' to ask a company not to start *taking away* features from a game. If PC gamers were complaining about consoles getting a feature in a sequel that was only available to the PC in the first game, that would be entitlement. When did it become 'entitlement' to complain about things being taken away from you? They got you to buy the original using that feature. Maybe you never would have bought the original game in the first place without that feature. This smacks of the whole 'first taste is free' mentality.

Couldn't have said it better.

Funk, I have to disagree with this article. Admittedly, PC Gamers like myself have been talking up a storm about Modern Warfare 2 these past two weeks, and yes, some of us whine more than we should. What I don't like, and Jandau said it well, is that the way you wrote the article makes it sound like PC gamers are the only ones who complain when something negative happens.

What it comes down to, and this is something I've been saying a lot lately, is that it is foolish and wrong to try and treat the PC audience the same as the console audience. Quite simply, they are entirely different consumer bases and as such have different expectations for their platform. For example, consoles have proven time and time again that matchmaking works just fine...for them. It has also been proven time and time again that matchmaking doesn't work on PC nearly as well.

This isn't "entitlement," these are standards.

As for the notion that console gamers should be aspiring to the same standards that are set by PC's, I think that's a bad idea. If you want what the PC has, get a PC. Ironically, the more consoles become like the PC, the more consoles lose their individuality and therefore their purpose. If you've got a console that can do everything a PC can...you don't have a console anymore; It's a PC.

 

[ratix2]

first off, i find it funny that when pc gamers show this sense of entitlement everyone gets on their high horse about it, yet when console fanboys do it nothing is said. how about giving a similar discussion to the microsoft or sony fanboys? after all, they are MUCH more vocal than pc gamers are and they argue over even more trivial things than this.

now, im not saying that all the people (a small number of pc gamers by the way, but just as with console fanboys that small group is MUCH more vocal than the vast majority that just doesent give a damn) that said "iw owes us the world" are right or anything, but i fail to see the need for this article when nobody ever says anything about console people who do THE EXACT SAME THING.

second, while the pc version does sell fewer copies than console versions, the fact is cod4 sold well over 2 million copies, which at $50 a copy works out to over $100 million, which ISNT a small sum of money by anyones, save maybe bill gates and warren buffet, account. when you can make an extra hundred million by doing nothing other than making a simple port yet adding in things like dedicated servers, modding tools and the like, all things that cost LESS to implement than iw.net i might add, doing anything to the contrary is a stupid decision, especially when it causes this much of an uproar with the very dedicated and long standing community that the call of duty games have on the pc. this community i might add is the entire reason why cod1, 2 and 4 all still have very large, active communities.

my point here is this, this entire article is bashing those who have acted like assholes about the mw2 pc situation, but we NEVER see anything of the like for the console fanboys. where was the article denouncing ps3 gamers for all the bitching they did when square announced ff13 would come to the 360 or when konami announced mgs:rising for the 360? where were the articles when the 360 people were bitching about gears coming to the pc? they werent anywhere. why is it these articles are only necessary when pc gamers get a stick up their asses, but nobody ever says anything when console gamers do the same things?

the situations in both cases are exactly the same. here we have a small number of pc gamers crying "iw owes us the world", but that small group of people were much more vocal and said much more in more places than the people who were just pissed off but didnt fell that iw owes them anything other than a game that functions like pc games have since quake. its the same with console gamers, a very small but very vocal crowd, while the vast majority couldnt give two shits.

seriously, some people are just assholes with a large sense of entitlement, while most just want to play good games. why does everyone feel a need to chime in when they dont agree with this small group?

as everyone is so keen to say when it comes to console fanboys, just ignore them and get one with your lives.

as a final note to avoid anyone saying this, i dont give a shit about the mw2 thing. cod4 sucked in my opinion and ive had no interest in mw2 ever, so dont come chiming in saying im just another pissed off pc gamer with an over active sense of entitlement.

 

[Valiance]

snip'd image

Yeah, this pretty much sums it up.

Not like I was going to buy the game anyway, but this is the kind of thing people don't realize. It's not the "Oh, it's not better than the console versions. That's bullshit."

It's "You had already given us this, this, this, and that for the past 8 years in various other games, and now you take it away. Why?"

It just seems like developers look at history of console games when looking for standards for their new games. Which is fine, when developing for consoles. When looking at a PC version of something, they should look at other popular PC franchises when looking for features to include.

Personally, I don't give a damn about this game at all, so I don't mind. I get the feeling that people will have an entertaining multiplayer experience anyway, even without the features that they want. I get the feeling that this game will take off and sell fine anyway, and in the future, maybe we won't have dedicated server support for anything. That's kinda terrible, but hey, maybe there will be an interface that's good enough that the players will manage to enjoy anyway.

Long story short, I just mean to say that all this bitching is going to do nothing. Things will change anyway.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

The issue I have with their statement that "we want one experience across all platforms" is that, instead of raising up the console platforms by allowing dedicated-server functionality and ability to utilize custom content (which, quite frankly, consoles have been theoretically capable of for some time now), they are lowering the PC platform by ignoring its strengths and making the game perform functionally similar to the console versions.

Imagine that Microsoft finally released Project Natal for the 360, and it was a complete smash, making for some revolutionary abilities in games. But then the company working on your most anticipated game of the year decided not to support Natal, because "it would cause too much difference between the platform versions". It's their right, sure, but wouldn't it upset you (if you owned the 360 and Natal) that the company refused to support something you valued for that reason?

John, I both agree and disagree with your article (yes, I can do that). I agree that there are too many PC gamers screaming "YOU HAVE TO DO IT OUR WAY" while plugging their ears to any opinion to the contrary. It's annoying and it drowns out those of us who want a more reasonable discourse; almost every time the discussion comes up, it turns into an Internet shouting match, with "correctness" apparently judged by who can type the longest caps-locked insults with the most exclamation points at the end.

However, to say that we PC gamers shouldn't question a game that's "not better enough"- I can't agree with that. PCs have unique strengths that should be leveraged by any game made specifically for them. It might cost a little more to develop this way, yes, but maybe companies can save up money for that by not hiring Patrick Stewart to voice three dozen lines. Is it irrational to expect that a game released for the PC should take advantage of everything the PC has to offer? I don't think so- in fact, I would expect the owners of any of the current-gen consoles to want the exact same thing.

Micropayments. That's what they want, and they'll say whatever thing that passes through their minds to justify it. They work on 3 or 4 maps, easy as pie, they put them out there at $10, and a million consolers buy them. Lots of profit with almost no work. Why not force PC gamers to do the same and buy them?. Also, if we don't let them make maps anymore they'll have even more need of new content. Mods are out, too!.

I made much the same point myself [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.152746?page=2#3668030] not too long ago, and this is what I see as the end goal of many developers. Why bother supporting tools for user-made Mods when you can hook a captive audience with whatever content you choose to dribble out? It's either buy the DLC or sit there staring at the same old game over and over.

Oh, and to all those who say "just shut up and don't buy the game": If we don't tell the publishers why it is we didn't buy their game, how are they supposed to know?

 

[L33tsauce_Marty]

I still don't see why they can't just have BOTH. I mean come on really? We'll see how the PC version sells, and since I don't have any money to dish out on it I'll just sit back and see what happens. Either way, this will be interesting.

Edit: So basically what I got out this article after reading it again is basically either we become the dev's *****, or say fuck you and they will hate us and stop supporting the PC.

 

[Fenixius]

Mr Funk, would you kindly comment on some of the responses in this thread? PC games, while they can be bad, still have the capacity to be clear, consise, and nonoffensive in their comments. I would like to know your reaction to many of the posts here, especially those of Cheeze_Pavillion and dududf's responses.

Remember that the most powerful protest tool at your disposal is your wallet. If it infuriates you so much, don't buy the game.

Wow. If that's the best tool we have, then we're weak indeed. According to this, I've refused to buy any number of games which have been wildly successful. I can't think of one game that would have been significantly more successful at retail if I had purchased it.

I won't be purchasing Modern Warfare 2 on various principles and other more mundane reasons, but it will still sell like mad. Hell - not a single non-PC gamer will buy StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, and it will still achieve monstrous commercial success.

 

[Boron00]

Did everyone in the last 2 months forget that we are CONSUMERS, and as CONSUMERS we can demand higher quality. I understand the whole thing that some people are being kinda rude, but the fact is, as a community we demand quality, and as consumers we have that right to demand more. John Funk seems to get most of our beliefs, but come on we are not entitled, while some idiots might be saying our ideas in a wrong way it might seem like that, we just want quality games, with quality features. If you strip away those features we just get a bunch of Halos and mediocre games, and a console that is the Xbox 360. Dedicates servers are our soul. Xbox is good and all, but they are different, and that is all good and dandy, just don't try to invade my community, destroy it, and then say we are privileged. We just want what makes the PC community, the PC community. If modern warfare wants to cater to the Xbox that is fine, but stop trying to push their ways onto PC gamers.