No dedicated servers for MW2 and no PunkBuster,  Star Wars: The Old Republic presents Balmorra, another Assassin’s Creed 2 Dev Diary, Star Trek Online The Future Past part 1 video.

Modern Warfare 2 will not allow dedicated servers, no PunkBuster, but we get VAC and most likely, no real custom mods/maps

WARNING: Long post ahead!

The internet is in uproar after this came out. A huge backlash on the official forums, and on forums worldwide. Let’s explain the phenomenon first. Infinity Ward will launch the PC version of the game with an internet service, IWNet. IWNet will be like trackers for torrents, it will allow players to ’speak’ to each other, and allow the possibility to matchmake by rank. Basically we’re talking listening servers. The problems with listening servers is that when you ‘make’ one, you are hosting it. Most people don’t have great connections to run 32 players games and that’s why dedicated boxes were used. Initially when we heard server migration, we tought,  ‘ok’, but we were still expecting to get our dedicated servers. Also, what it means for clans and competitive gameplay is that they will have to use Private Servers. Private Servers is still a IWNet-connected listening server running off the guy that made it, but in which you get access to modify all the game variables that the developers put in. No more. In that light, it will be most likely impossibile to run a custom map or a custom mod outside what the game offers.

Let’s get a chilled head here. For the casual player this will mean that you may experience lag. Most likely a lot of it.. since the games will be hosted locally by different people. When the host leaves, server migration kicks in and marks another guy as a host. Imagine that happening quite often and we’ll have a problem. A dedicated server was a marker, a place you went to knowing you’ll get a good ping, and maybe because it had a few tweaks and add ons here and there like a betting mod or somesuch. This will not be possibile in MW2. For the competitive people this will mean that you’ll get less control over your server, this means that you won’t have a “home” server anymore and this means that if you still want to run your dedicated box, you’ll have to buy another copy of the game for it, and set up the Private Match server on it. This will involve using a sort of Remote Admin to access the server each time.

If you want the whole discussion with Fivezerotwo, the community manager for MW,  click here and go to the 1 hour 39 minutes marker and listen in. The guys there go a bit deeper, saying that the FPS community as a whole, from the days of Doom onwards relied on dedicated servers as being the ”pubs”/”bars” of multiplayer. You had your favorite servers, you had your friends that knew to find you there, you great community spirit on them. Imagine that your favorite Team Fortress 2 server just went d0wn. It’s that exact thing. Also, the fact that it will use VAC/Steam and not PunkBuster has some people on edge. Will trying to fool around with mods and configs get your Steam account banned? It’s possible. IWNet does not equal Steam, but it’s been said it will be integrated with it.

As i’ve said, there is a huge backlash because of this, and people are cancelling preorders left and right. It’s a tad of a big bomb to drop this late in the game, and it should have come out the moment they mentioned ’server migration’, as it seems they had this in the pipe for quite a long time.  I say again, they’re not messing just with some ’stuff’, they’re changing the core way that players are playing together and how they group. It’s one thing to set up arbitrary private matches on servers before hand then going to play, and it’s totally different to spend an afternoon with people you know or your clan, on that all too familiar IP adress that you know by heart by now.

I honestly think that this was brought on by the huge wave of piracy that we saw in Modern Warfare 1. From tons of cracked servers, to the ability to have the rank availible offline in a file, to the infamous keygen which cost a lot of legit players, me included, their serial key and a PunkBuster-wide ban. They’re really solving a lot of problems with this, but at a cost.

Anyhows, to close this up.. while this doesn’t make me reconsider my preorder, i can’t help but feel a tad cheated.

Star Wars: The Old Republic presents Balmorra

New concept ard and screenshots of a new ‘playable’ planet, a manufacturing center for guns and battle droids, Balmorra. Sounds incredibily similar to Balmora, the first real city you get into in Morrowind, but that might be just be overanalyzing.

Assassin’s Creed 2 Dev Diary 4

They go a bit into the weapons you can have and the way combat will be handled. All i have to say on the matter is that i really don’t want the finale to feature me fighting fifty dudes. Kinda kills the ‘assassin’ mood, ya’know?

Star Trek: Online, The Future Past part 1 trailer

This is a part of a small historical recollection about what happened between the last ‘canon’ Star Trek movie, Nemesis, and the timeframe when the game universe is set. I really like how they’re realyl trying to stir the waters, and while keeping the same Star Trek, making it.. Star Treky. A big focus on Star Trek were themes, political, sexual, cultural, religious and whathaveyou.. and i like that they’re trying to imbue as much detail and texture into the game as possibile.  Still.. the ground combat still sucks immensly though.