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Games Entertainment

Call of Duty 2 Causing Server Unrest 61

Posted by Zonk from the players-are-revolting dept.
Despite the excellent gameplay, Call of Duty 2 is causing a lot of internet unrest among the players who want to participate in the online multiplayer component. GamePolitics reports on a thread from the official site. From the site: "Server admins - those mysterious men (and women) behind the curtain who keep online gaming venues humming - are fed up with the PC version of Call of Duty 2. So fed up that they are planning a 24-hour shutdown of COD2 servers on Deember 16th if publisher Activision and developer Infinity Ward fail to address their complaints, which include the lack of an anti-cheat system."
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Call of Duty 2 Causing Server Unrest More

Call of Duty 2 Causing Server Unrest

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  • Er... "Deember"? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Nicolae ( 760587 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @06:40PM (#14133634) Homepage
    Can't say I'm familiar with that month. How long away is it, again?

  • Affects only servers run by gamers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jim Hall ( 2985 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @06:52PM (#14133748) Homepage

    For a while there, I thought this was a strike being organized by some company that ran CoD2 servers, ala XBox Live. If that was the case, this would be Bad News(tm) for Call of Duty. Then I read TFA, and realized that wasn't the case.

    Here, the "strike" is being organized (if you can call it that) by an upset gamer who runs a server, calling on others who run similar servers to take down their servers for a day. Still pretty bad PR for CoD2, but only if 99% of the game servers out there take part. Unfortunately, I suspect this will have about as much impact as those "Don't-Buy-Gas Day" boycotts I see via email from time to time (trying to force Big Oil to drop the price of gas at the pump.) That is, it will generate some press buzz, but in the end I doubt the company whose attention they are trying to attract will pay them much attention.

    That said, cheaters really suck, and it kills the online gaming experience. I stopped playing online FPSs entirely because of cheaters.

    • Re:Affects only servers run by gamers (Score:4, Informative)

      by Azarael ( 896715 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @07:02PM (#14133828) Homepage
      You have a point there, but the power to boycott rests in a fairly small number of hands. CoD probably has less than 2000 servers and it wouldn't take that much to take a pretty large chunk out of those. Also, I'd say that the majority of game servers are directly run by clans and user communities and as a whole they are a pretty close-knit bunch. That being the case, I can easily see this catching on and gathering momentum.
      • Is there much comunication between servers in CoD?
        I play TFC (an old HL mod) and because it's an older game with a small yet strong player pool, there tends to be a larger comunity feel. While I only play in about 2 servers, I know many top players via online comunities like http://www.fortress-forever.com/ [fortress-forever.com]
        • i haven't played that in soo long (just got back into starcraft... one thing at a time). is there still a largish group of players? oh, and do they still do neotf games?
          • Yes there are NEOTF Servers still. I believe NEOTF is a live project so there are updates on NEOTF. I actualy play mostly on a NEOTF server. It's the Old Timers [O-T] servers. The servers are ton of fun. I like them personaly BC plenty of people use mics so you get to know who your playing with. Their website can be found at: http://www.oldtimersclan.com/home.html [oldtimersclan.com]. Don't let the name scare you away. There are MANY people who play in there who are not quite that old.

            But let me tell you that playing w

        • I can't say for sure in this case, but I do know that word really gets around in some of the other game communities I'm involved in. I know if something like this happened in Enemy Territory, that about 50% players would probably hear about it within a day or two. Once word gets out into a few big game forums, people will start passing the word on.

          The other big issue, which is also one of the biggest problems I see with fps players, is that they take everything ultra seriously. As soon as players get a whi

  • Coolio (Score:1)

    by ylsul ( 94641 )
    I guess this doesn't include the 360 COD?
    • Nope-

      No problems with the Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty. Everything works fine.

      Cheaters get booted.

      Live is good.

      • Re:Coolio (Score:2, Informative)

        by magicRob ( 815117 )
        Everything works fine, apart from the silly 8 player maximum for Xbox 360 on live...

        • Re:Coolio (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          and the fact you can't invite people to a game after it has started.

          • Re:Coolio (Score:3, Informative)

            by Morgon ( 27979 )
            And the complete lack of dedicated servers, which make multiplayer games above 4 users next to worthless with the amount of lag.
            Oh, and the fact that they want to use ranked games, using some dipwad's home internet connection.

  • It's Kind of Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Azarael ( 896715 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @06:56PM (#14133783) Homepage
    The people who make fps multiplayer gaming possible belong to user communities. You can only get these people so pissed off before they just stop supporting your product. Sure, as some of the posters in the links say, Infinity Ward already has their money, but the next time the release something they may see the consequences. Also, you can't totally blame this on the rush to release the game for the 360. I'm pretty sure that it took a couple of months for Punkbuster to be added to CoD as well.

  • Draconian measure? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lead Butthead ( 321013 ) on Monday November 28, 2005 @09:56PM (#14134714) Journal
    "Your license to run the server are hereby revoked. You must uninstall all copies of our software formerly licensed to you. To obtain refund, please submit original UPC code from the box along with original receipt of your purchase. Allow six to twelve weeks of processing time."

  • Again? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Mr. Freeman ( 933986 )
    This seems to be happening in a lot these days.
    A similar situation is happening with valve software, players of the online valve-developed games are becoming fed up with the constant stream of updates that don't actually seem to fix bugs.

    Now another developer is releasing more software that's bad enough to generate word of a 24-hour boycott.

    Laziness is slowly making it's way into software companies. Eventually, I use this term loosely as it may take 5 years for anything to happen, people will stop buying g
    • "Laziness is slowly making it's way into software companies. Eventually, I use this term loosely as it may take 5 years for anything to happen, people will stop buying games until the developers fix them."

      How is this new? Complex PC games have always required patches to work properly (with exceptions, of course). This is not "slowly making its way," it's "rearing its head yet again." The difference is that a major aspect of gameplay is controlled by people outside the publisher, who are being lobbied t
  • Make the PC version identify itself as the console version. That ought to thwart any attempts at enforcing the use of a cheat detector, so long as the communication is the same in every other way.

    Disclaimer: I generally don't play games.
  • The publisher already has the money. How will a strike hurt them? When all servers are gone people will move to an other game (maybe even of the same publisher).

    • Re:Already cashed in (Score:3, Informative)

      by BenjyD ( 316700 )
      Because a large multiplayer user base acts as a continuous advert for the game, attracting new players and keeping sales up throughout the shelf life of the game. Popular multiplayer games spawn fansites, mods, clans and competitions which all act to introduce new players to the game.
      • Exactly. I would have never bought Socom 3, nor would the other 48,000 people who were playing the game simeltaniously only a few days after it came out, if it wern't for the popularity of the online gameplay in Socom 2.... which I had only heard about via its online popularity.
  • So I just played the original COD a while ago. I never played it online at all. I got COD2 and thought it was a fantastic single player experience. I have no plans to play online.

    I don't know what the issues are. The only things I've seen are it isn't as good as the expansion and there is no punkbuster.

    I found the single player experience to be pretty exciting. The game is a visual treat as you fight through a bunch of great looking maps with your squad. They call out gun emplacments and germans alike as yo
    • That's the problem with a fight like this. There are people that buy it for the single player, and people that buy it for the multiplayer. The group that this motion is targetting are both companies and those that play the multiplayer. If you play singleplayer, and find it great and find that this whole matter is trivial, good for you. This shouldn't effect you one iota as they are clamoring for multiplayer changes which you don't use anyway.
  • I played COD for a long time, then moved on to COD:UO. I loved the addition of vehicles and other added aspects. I have since been playing Battlefield 2 exclusively and was thinking of moving to COD2, since the expansion for Battlefield 2 isn't quite my taste.

    But then I started actually reading people's opinions of COD2, and I am probably not going to get it now. I play games almost exclusively online, so single player campaigns mean nothing to me.

    How is the online play of COD2 compared to Battlefiel

    • Depends, it's extremely quaketastic. If you liked COD:UO gameplay, you will be disappointed. If you liked COD, you might be ok with it. Things that have changed since COD:UO and COD2. No tanks, No portable emplacements, crappy sounds, SMALL maps, recoil reduced, nade indicator. If you ever wondered what it would be like to play Q3 with WWII weapons, here is your chance. (I know it's not exactly like Q3 gameplay)

      My personal recommendation is to pass on this one.

  • Oh please! I wish they would stop bitching, and just get on playing with the game. Give Activision and IW a break! I love the Call of Duty series so much, that I don't care about the selfish opinions that others are doing. It took them years to make a great sequel to a great shooter.
  • Hmmm... if I recall correctly most Anti-Cheat systems are often created by third parties. The only first party anti-cheat systems I know of are VAC and PunkBuster. Unreal uses Anti-TCC which wasn't created by Epic Games. Blizzard doesn't really use anything other than something for WoW (which foils the Sony Rootkit :P). What other games are there out there that have server side anti-cheat software?

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