Gears of War Updated, New Maps Wednesday

Microsoft's biggest seller for 2006 (2.7 million sold in eight weeks) is certain to be a series we'll see around for a long, long time. In the immediate future, though, the game is getting a much-needed update today, with new maps available this Wednesday. The new maps are multiplayer only, and are entitled 'Raven Down' and 'Old Bones'. From the update: "Fixed rare situation where players could get stuck after chainsawing in multiplayer. Reduced Grenade Tag melee distance (Z: thank you!). Enabled 'Strict' NAT check on host to prevent possible connection issues. Optimized server browser queries to return results more quickly and prevent scroll bars from hiding quality of service icons. Reduced number of possible revives in Execution to match Warzone. Removed host name from Ranked match server browser. Disabled security cameras in Ranked matches." It's great that the game is getting an update, but that innocuous looking 'removed host name from ranked match server browser' means it is now even more difficult to hook up with friends for a Ranked match. Boo, Epic. Boo.

pc version

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, wake me when theres a port to a real game machine.

Server Name

[lantenon]

"Boo, Epic. Boo." The point is so that you can't have four people in the same room on the same team in a ranked match. Boo? Cry me a fucking river. If you want to play on the same team with your friends, play an unranked match, where the lag that this scenario introduces won't allow people to artificially inflate their rank.

Sarcasm

[earnest murderer]

It's great that the game is getting an update, but that innocuous looking 'removed host name from ranked match server browser' means it is now even more difficult to hook up with friends for a Ranked match. Boo, Epic. Boo.

Well, I suppose that leaves little doubt of what kind of player [gamerandy.com] Zonk is.

Re:pc version

[spyder913]

As much as this guy is getting marked troll, I would prefer to play most FPS games on my PC because mouse/keyboard. Plus my wife is usually using the big TV.

However FPS games on the Wii may finally change my mind.

Re:Friends and ranked matches are discouraged

[benfinkel]

I'm the anonymous coward from earlier in this thread, figured I'd go to the effort of setting up a real account. I'm embarrassed to admit I never played Halo 2 so I'm unfamiliar with the system but a co-worker here was just describing it to me and it sounds pretty perfect. As for griefers and boosters, I can't imagine that they're that big of an issue. If you DO end up in a match against them, you'll whomp on them, they'll lose rank, little of of your time will be wasted and you won't lose any rank for beating them. As far as ladders and other absolute rankings go, there are way to combine Trueskill with win/loss and a little bit of booster monitoring to avoid anyone cheating the system at the upper tiers. "Bragging Rights" can't really be discounted by cheaters. If you feel your accomplishments mean less because a cheater achieved them via shortcut then you are only doing yourself a disservice and giving the cheater exactly what he wants. I think my biggest problem is that setting up blind matches like this really punishes the majority of us who want to play fairly and cleanly with our friends. They're making the game less fun (and really, this ain't The Olympics, it's a game) especially for the regular players and I doubt they're going to influence the boosters much in any way.

Re:pc version

[Erwos]

Gears of War isn't an FPS. It's third-person shooter. Also, the control scheme doesn't really seem to lend itself so well to the KB+M, but that might just be my mis-impression.