Looks like MW3 will not feature dedicated servers (Kotaku).

[Still Life]

We've also learned, unfortunately, that this latest Call of Duty still won't support dedicated servers, instead relying on the hosted servers found in previous iterations of the game. Dedicated servers were removed from the Modern Warfare games starting with Modern Warfare 2. (Modern Warfare 3 appears to be using DemonWare for player authentication, just like with Call of Duty: Black Ops.)

Activision was contacted prior to this story's publication and declined to comment.

http://kotaku.com/5805959/the-modern-warfare-3-files-team-perks-no-nukes-new-killstreaks

I didn't like IW.net. It was a clunky system, which didn't work as advertised. Furthermore, the level of support shown by IW meant that there were serious issues with latency, hackers, glitches, compounded by the poor balancing of the multiplayer component.

Don't get me wrong. I got lots of fun out of MW2, but it was definitely an inferior product to its predecessor and to its competition, BF:BC2.

What does the forum think?

 

[Crowser]

Shame - Dedicated servers on consoles would have sold this game for me. The fact that PC gamers don't get them either is absurd. I never realized how awesome they could be on consoles until the Gears 3 beta came out... holy damn no lag on my xbox was an eye opener

 

[Still Life]

Shame - Dedicated servers on consoles would have sold this game for me. The fact that PC gamers don't get them either is absurd. I never realized how awesome they could be on consoles until the Gears 3 beta came out... holy damn no lag on my xbox was an eye opener

I played on PC. While you will always get the occasional lag on a good dedi server, a good set-up runs smooth 90-95% of the time. In MW2, I had chop in 60-70% of the games I played to varying degrees of severity. That, and host advantage cheapened the experience considerably.

 

[Xannieros]

Looks like MW3 is not worth the money to me. Lag and frequent disconnects/reconnects with hosts was downright annoying in MW2.

I'm sticking with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 until Battlefield 3 comes out.

 

[Blazing Steel]

Does that include the new Elite service? I wouldn't be surprised if the Elite service came with dedicated servers.

 

[Acidwell]

The problem with the MW2 setup is that it doesnt allow a few people continue playing when most have stopped, I can play cod 4 whenever I want with the servers but I can't play MW2 because I can't find people who can host.

 

[Loonyyy]

Thanks for the info. Except for the pointless note of the Bad Company 2's supposed superiority at the end. Slightly off topic, but as a fan of both games, a long time Battlefield and Call of Duty fan, I can honestly say that while the IWNet was a dissappointment, at least it didn't manage to out and out fail like BC2. Which managed to lag with dedicated servers, had a clunky slow server browser, broken favourites list, annoying login feature and was generally broken. Bear in mind, I enjoyed the gameplay for BC2 more, there was certainly more variety, but the opportunity to play it to the full still has not appeared.
TLDR: more excellent news reporting, less fanboy opinions.

 

[Still Life]

Is this gonna turn into another one of those "Boycott MW" things and then like 75% of the people who are "Boycotting" it end up buying it anyways?

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I personally never joined the 'boycott MW2' groups, as I had every intention of purchasing the game. I did sign the petition for dedicated servers, but I was willing to give IW the benefit of the doubt. MW2 was OK, but a huge waste of potential, which makes the disappointment all the worse, really.

With so many great games set to be released this year, and the market over-saturation of COD, I just can't justify the cost to myself, especially when the online experience doesn't look to improve or innovate drastically in any capacity.

 

[Snork Maiden]

What does the forum think?

CoD has been dire online (compared to it's competition) since MW1. If you're playing with friends, it's also still a hell of a lot of fun, and the new CoD is without a doubt the game all my (less gamery) friends will purchase. When I play BlOps I'm constantly bemoaning that it's a lot more frustrating than Reach/BF:BC, but I'm also having a heck of a lot more fun despite this since I'm playing with friends.

 

[Still Life]

Thanks for the info. Except for the pointless note of the Bad Company 2's supposed superiority at the end. Slightly off topic, but as a fan of both games, a long time Battlefield and Call of Duty fan, I can honestly say that while the IWNet was a dissappointment, at least it didn't manage to out and out fail like BC2. Which managed to lag with dedicated servers, had a clunky slow server browser, broken favourites list, annoying login feature and was generally broken. Bear in mind, I enjoyed the gameplay for BC2 more, there was certainly more variety, but the opportunity to play it to the full still has not appeared.
TLDR: more excellent news reporting, less fanboy opinions.

Relax I wasn't fanboying. I do honestly feel that BF:BC2 was a superior product when all things are taken into consideration. It had some issues at launch, but they were quickly ironed and the game has generally had a lot more support than MW2. Getting into games is a breeze, and the occasional minor hiccup doesn't come anywhere close to being as tedious as playing MW2.

 

[lostlambda]

I'll still buy it but i was really hopping to get dedicated servers

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Shame - Dedicated servers on consoles would have sold this game for me. The fact that PC gamers don't get them either is absurd. I never realized how awesome they could be on consoles until the Gears 3 beta came out... holy damn no lag on my xbox was an eye opener

This is why I want to buy 10 copies of Gears 3. I want Gears to pave the way for Dedicated servers on consoles.

Is this gonna turn into another one of those "Boycott MW" things and then like 75% of the people who are "Boycotting" it end up buying it anyways?

Ah 75% is a bit low unfortunately. Some of us do put our money where our mouth is.

OT: Well this has completely killed any chance of me buying the game. I didn't buy MW2 due to no dedicated server and I won't buy this one due to no dedicated servers. I wasn't even up for buying it anyway after Black Ops as BO really did stink when it came to imbalances and awful maps. I know they wanted to keep the maps small for low player number on consoles but they really screwed the pooch there. The maps ended up as a cluster fuck when you had a full server and snipers were a completely redundant weapon. They could have just used dedicated servers and let them have a higher player count. CoD maps were already on the small side in CoD 2 and CoD 4.

After seeing how they "gimped"(IT IS CALLED NERFING COME ON YOU ACTUALLY WORK IN THE INDUSTRY) "No Scoping" which was a shit idea. They should have just reduced the aim assist on consoles when using snipers or have it turned off until you can in scope for a few seconds.

I could go on with my continued disappointment with the series after the landslide "success" that was MW2 but that would just be a bigger rant.

 

[MurderousToaster]

I remember hearing that Robert Bowling called out the stuff Kotaku had received from "inside sources" as being untrue. Aside from that, I don't trust Kotaku.

Also, since this is claimed "insider info" and therefore quite sketchy, this could be referring to the console versions of the game - and the console versions having no dedicated servers is a bit of a foregone conclusion. It also would not make any sense for the PC versions to not have it - Black Ops did, and it'd just be a plain bad move to not include the same feature in another game in the series.

 

[Still Life]

I remember hearing that Robert Bowling called out the stuff Kotaku had received from "inside sources" as being untrue. Aside from that, I don't trust Kotaku.

I found a lot of the info released on Kotaku to be surprisingly consistent with the official information released so far. Though, I think you make a fair point.

It also would not make any sense for the PC versions to not have it - Black Ops did, and it'd just be a plain bad move to not include the same feature in another game in the series.

It didn't make sense for Modern Warfare 2, yet Infinity Ward did exactly that: remove dedicated server support. Also, Infinity Ward stated that the intention was for IW.net to be further developed and implemented in future COD releases.

Therefore, no dedicated server support for MW3 is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make for the PC community.

 

[Aesir23]

I really couldn't care less about dedicated servers since I'll just be playing the singleplayer campaign.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

In some announcements from IW, they stated most of that article was bull sh*t, and I hope they're right.

Atleast they confirmed stopping power.

 

[Still Life]

Atleast they confirmed stopping power.

Ugh.

One of the things Treyarch did right was remove Stopping Power.

 

[Wintermoot]

Is this gonna turn into another one of those "Boycott MW" things and then like 75% of the people who are "Boycotting" it end up buying it anyways?

I think so
it won,t surprise me one bit!

 

[Serving UpSmiles]

I've seen how good dedicated servers are on consoles, it's pretty much lag free, something I've always wanted for the spec ops mode, becaus BOTH of the players have to have a solid green connection to play.