Oh, hey. Is this thing on?
So if you’re into this whole video gaming thing you’ve probably heard about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 not having dedicated servers on the PC. The basic concept behind dedicated servers is that unlike most console games, where one of the players hosts a network game and everyone else connects to that one player, a dedicated server acts as the host of a game and all the players connect to that server. Why would you want this?
Back in the late 90s, when broadband internet was still an emerging trend and nowhere near the relative norm it is today, PC games allowed you to play both peer-to-peer and on dedicated servers. Anyone who’s ever actually played a peer-to-peer game in those bad old days remembers why it’s a horrible idea: because the player who is the host has zero ping. That means everything the host player sees—where other players are and where they’re shooting—is exactly where everything is supposed to be, while for everyone else, there’s a certain amount of lag. The host player can aim right at a running person and hit them easily; other players in the game will shoot at where they think the player is, but will hit nothing.
Of course, it’s not the late 90s anymore; connections have improved, and so has the state of client prediction. But the same basic principles apply. Now add to that some of the other reasons why dedicated servers are so beloved—they often sit on fat network pipes, as opposed to the crappy cable modem or DSL pipe most individuals have; they can have custom maps, mods and rulesets; they serve as community focus points where everyone knows your name—and you might start to see why everyone is in an uproar over the sudden removal of dedicated servers.
Personally, I don’t have any major interest in custom mods or maps, and I’ve never played on a server so much that I got to know the regulars that frequented them. I don’t have any inherent issues with matchmaking. But the lag issue, ingrained in me after years of playing multiplayer games on a 56k modem, is still a big deal for me—especially when you consider that PC games tend to allow more players in a match than consoles do. Moreover, the way Infinity Ward has treated the issue has been nothing short of abysmal. They’ve mostly failed to address directly the various concerns the PC community have brought up, instead parroting the same flimsy reassurances over and over: we’re doing this to simplify the process, you won’t see any performance decrease, and you’ll have just as much control as you used to when you had dedicated servers.
Myself, I’m at a bit of a crossroads. Infinity Ward has shown that they’re not really interested in PC gaming anymore; despite claiming that they’ve invested a ton of time into the PC version of Modern Warfare 2, the fact remains that they almost slipped a major change past the PC community and have since remained unrepentant even as people cancel their pre-orders and explain in many different ways why this is a Bad Idea. So I’ve cancelled my pre-order of the PC version. But I’ve also taken the step of doing exactly what I suspect Infinity Ward and Activision would want me to do: I pre-ordered the 360 version instead, even though it cost $5 more than my PC pre-order.
Why on earth would I do this? Because I’m reasonably sure that Modern Warfare 2 will be worth the money, and if they’re so interested in pissing off PC gamers and pampering their console brethren, I may as well join the pack. After all, I have two consoles and a hefty PC for a reason—so I wouldn’t have to sit things out whenever a game came out for the console I didn’t own. If Modern Warfare 3 or whatever doesn’t come out on PC, that’s not a problem for me. And for PC gamers who don’t have that option, I feel as though there are still plenty of options for the PC shooter fan—between old chestnuts like the well-supported Team Fortress 2 and newer entries like Borderlands and Left 4 Dead 2, it certainly doesn’t seem like PC gaming is in its death throes. And with Battlefield developer DICE taking every opportunity to implictly and explicitly slamming Infinity Ward for their decision, I doubt the dedicated server will be disappearing from the PC landscape anytime soon, even if Activision and Infinity Ward wish it would.