Players Only Able to Rent Black Ops Servers

[Unrulyhandbag]

Well, it's better than nothing, right?

Also, why do PC gamers have this massive sense if entitlement?

so having a multiplayer that WORKS is entitlement? PC multiplayer needs more devices than console multiplayer to work properly. it isn't entitlement, its called necessity.

Well, it's better than nothing, right?

Also, why do PC gamers have this massive sense if entitlement?

Because we had it before, why can't we have it now? Free I mean. Is Nickel and Diming the saying you guys use?

we never had it for free; either you supported your own server at your own cost you paid a third party to host your server - exactly what we see here- or you joined the heavily populated and often slow servers provided by the games maker.

Cutting out one of the options is a fair compromise and wouldn't have bothered anyone a few years ago so long as they had lan options. If this proves worthwhile then maybe there's a chance console gamers can finally step into the realm of decent speed gaming with server based communities and proper 'clans' with some level of moderation rather than just following a friends ID into another player hosted lag fest.

And peer based on-line is something PC games have rarely seen since quake first used it.
Watching it becoming the de-facto for console users was bad enough but to have it pushed into the PC market where the users have been used the later versions of multiplayer is pretty unpleasant. It's not a false sense of entitlement to want better for everyone when we've already been using better for years.

 

[Jfswift]

That's pretty cool actually. It addresses a major issue I've had with MW2. I'd be okay with renting a server (it's what I was doing on PC before with TF2 and I had no issues there.)

 

[Colonel Alzheimer's]

You are being naive.

Valve is a corporation. Corporations exist to put money in the pockets of share holders, or in Valve's case, since it isn't public, to put money on the ones that run it. Namely the owners.

Valve's recent business model has worked for them not just because of their great games or because of the free content they've churned out, but because of Steam and how it is growing and growing, poised to monopolize its market in a few years' time.

With all the perks that Steam provides, you can be sure that at least someone has had a meeting at Valve where they have discussed how to monetize its services.

Doesn't mean they will but neither doesn it mean they won't, eventually.

I'm not trying to deny that Valve exists to make money; as you said, it's a corporation.
However, the way that they make money is through loving fans. The people who will buy every single Valve game because they know and trust the company.
Steam is significant as well, but if you ask the average consumer what Steam is, there is a decent chance they won't know. The reason Steam makes so much money is because Valve's fans go there to buy their games, because they know and trust Valve. It's educated consumers that keep Valve profitable, so if their image sucks, Steam won't make nearly as much and their games won't sell as well. Basically, if Steam was run by Activision, Steam would be way less profitable. Valve recognizes that educated consumers are the reason Steam has grown, and they are the reason it will keep growing.

It will keep growing, yes, but you overstate whatever it is you think the guys at Valve are thinking.

While what you say rings true, that doesn't give me one reason to believe Valve won't shift gears if it becomes possible for them to do so and keep making money.

If Valve comes to believe that they will make more money by fucking up their image and charging their customers for every little thing, then yes, I believe they would go for it. However, I can not foresee this day ever coming. And if it does, that day will certainly live in infamy as the day video games died.

 

[Denizen]

Shell out the purchase price and pay extra for a private server! - That's What PC Gaming is All About! Right?!

Don't need community support for mods and plugins, that's too much freedom. And they don't need dedicated server support, that's our thing, making them feel that they rely on us by restricting freedom. Oh and once they're used to what little we do give them, they'll consider whatever advances we do next as a priviledge - Brilliant!

 

[Breaker deGodot]

Well, it's better than nothing, right?

Edit:

Also, why do PC gamers have this massive sense of entitlement? Not just to dedicated servers, either.

But they feel entitled that all games MUST be better to play on PC than anything else.

Because they (myself included), feel that since the PC was the first great gaming device, it should also be the best nowadays. Silly, but true.

 

[SimuLord]

Bring me the head of this "David Aninowsky". No, really. As the Talon Company mercs put it in Fallout 3, "I want this one's head on a fucking plate!"

Total dick move.

 

[Bob_F_It]

Methinks Activision really wants to monopolise the dedicated servers so they can squeeze some payment at the point of use. A really cynical person would say that the absence in MewTwo was to force people to go cold turkey and accept anything, namely this.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Whoops.

 

[AngryMongoose]

Forcing people to use second parties is always bad; can admins at least run their own mods and maps?

 

[koriantor]

Meh, I don't game on PC anyways, and I agree with a few other people here (emphasis on few) that it's not really a big deal.

*Looks for his flamesuit*

Your avatar is what I looked like after reading this...

I kid, I kid.

If you don't game on PC, then I guess I can see where your view comes from. I do game on PC and I have a mixed view on it. I am upset there isn't total control over the dedicated servers, and I think they're missing some of the point why we want them. However, I don't play CoD because I think it's an incredibly overhyped game and the multiplayer is just too... slow. I grew up on UT and Quake dangit! Who needs to aim down the sights when I can just point and shoot?

So I sort of have your viewpoint. I don't really care about it because I don't really intend on playing it. The only multiplayer games I play are Starcraft (1 and 2), and TF2 (and every once in a while WoW), none of which I fear losing their fun.

On a side note, I hate the PC gamer stereotype that we're elitist jerks that are entitled to everything. We're not, there are just a few very loud ones that are. (on a side note from that, dedicated servers have been a staple forever and a day. Why would you want to change the standard that's proven to work and be fun?)

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Because we had it before, why can't we have it now? Free I mean. Is Nickel and Diming the saying you guys use?

we never had it for free; either you supported your own server at your own cost you paid a third party to host your server - exactly what we see here- or you joined the heavily populated and often slow servers provided by the games maker.

Actually that was a mistake on my part, you're right about the payment bit.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Also, why do PC gamers have this massive sense of entitlement? Not just to dedicated servers, either.

But they feel entitled that all games MUST be better to play on PC than anything else.

I would like stuff to be better on PC since I mostly play on it, and I'd be happy with even just getting the same stuff with the PC extras (console, mapping/modding, etc.) that don't really work well on consoles, but we are constantly getting shafted.

OT: Never hosted my own server anyway, but this is still pretty dumb. I know people that would host CoD4 to show others levels they made, but now they'd have to pay for it? Lame. Glad I quit with the CoD series after World at War...

 

[teqrevisited]

Just Activision's way of controlling what little choice they're giving.

Not a big surprise.

 

[Cherry Cola]

I miss the days when "multiplayer" for me meant taking my super soaker and checking if the kids in the neighborhood were up for a water fight.

I'm not really bothered by this though. It seems like a functional system. Though I never play multiplayer on my PC so I wouldn't really know.

 

[Gaderael]

This seems like an alright solution to me. I mean, you're paying someone when you're setting up a dedicated server, so in this case Treyarch have given gameServers a monopoly on the servers. If they have servers in different countries, then lag shouldn't be an issue. As someone else stated earlier, hopefully server renters will be able to upload custom content to the servers as well.

Also, if there is already an underlying framework for dedicated servers in the game itself, I don't think it would taking the hacking community too long to come up with a patch that make the game point to your own server instead of Treyarch's servers.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Activision - One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Well, it's better than nothing, right?

Edit:

Also, why do PC gamers have this massive sense of entitlement? Not just to dedicated servers, either.

But they feel entitled that all games MUST be better to play on PC than anything else.

games are played ALOT better on PC, i say this as a PC and mainly XBOX 360 gamer, im a bit new to PC gaming but i can already see there is a massive difference and PC is much better.

 

[Luke5515]

While this is not exactly good, it's a step in the right direction.

 

[elvor0]

This isnt that bad really, I havent checked the prices yet, and yeah the old style would've been great, but I would imagine we're still able to do what we used to do with them? We're just only able to rent them from one place now

Oh, who gives a fuck anyway? I'm fed up with Call of Duty and what it represents today, and I'm even more tired of the dicksmurfs at my school who play the game. This game would have to do something besides rave reviews to get me to buy it. Hell, they could dispense crack cocaine cut into a fine powdery golden dust, and I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

Its not exactly the game thats the problem, MW2 set the president that every game would be stuck without Dedicated servers, "RAGE" has already decided they aint having any, activision may have realised the potential backlash and changed this now, but its the no dedicated servers PRECIDENT that is the problem