Now this is a bit of a ratings disparity.
Now personally I don’t really care for FPS games, but just looking in from the outside, how amazing does one night of gaming (the length of the single player campaign, reportedly) have to be to justify paying $60 for it, given that multiplayer has been neutered down to console levels? Seems Kotick is charging cheap-hooker prices for one night of fun; makes you wonder how many tricks are going to pay up in the next few weeks.
Hardcore Casual 
I wouldn’t say neutered. Its a new approach towards Peer2Peer multiplayer (I don’t hear anyone bitching about it in Borderlands). People get mad when they feel something is being taken away from them. IMHO, dedicated servers were not a critical core component of MW1.
Personally, I don’t believe MW2’s singleplayer is worth the price. The singleplayer is probably great, just like MW1, but the multiplayer is where the value is gained. MW1’s multiplayer was OK, but nothing great. It was a “rich get richer” system whereby the better players were always given tools to maintain their dominance while the weaker players were left out. I haven’t seen enough to tell me that has changed at all.
Down the road, at $20 or $30, the game may be worth grabbing.
I usually try to wait for the $40 dollar mark for most games unless they are an MMO. I feel that this is an acceptable amount of money to pay for a game.
I also get the xbox versions for all games except RTSs and MMOs (Only because they don’t make them yet) so not having a dedicated server is normal for me.
Plenty of people bitched about it in Borderlands, though mostly due to the shitty Gamespy software that handled the multi-player. But Borderlands doesn’t count. It’s 4-player co-op. For competitive PvP, however, going back to the mid-90’s with P2P Listen servers, yes, that is absolutely neutering the game for PC players. Mind you, I’ve pretty much become a console player other than MMO’s, so if IW manages to get good enough netcode for PC players as what we *usually* see on XBL then it *might* not be as bad considering they gimped the server population at 9v9. Look at OFDR though for a complete bastardization of P2P netcode. Talk about major –MAJOR– host latency advantage, etc. It’s almost worthless to even attempt to drive a vehicle if you’re not the host there. That’s bad enough in console-land, but totally unacceptable for a PC shooter.
But as I said on Twitter, I outgrew the COD claustrophobic clusterfuck multiplayer back in the 90’s when that’s all there was. COD multi-player is fine for the kiddies, but doesn’t cut it for me anymore.
I had planned on buying Modern Warfare 2 for quite a while already but upon hearing that “no more dedicated server” new, figured they can forget about getting my money.
Replacing 32vs32 maps on dedicated servers for 9vs9 peer to peer and removing all UGC (mods, etc) is just…..whatever seriously…..I’ll just save up until Left 4 Dead 2 is out.
CoD has always been more then just the single player part of the game. MW1 was a fantastic experience as a single player game though – if you haven’t played it yet you should. Worth more then 1 play thru? Nah. But the hours of multi-player and now coop that the new one offers – definately worth $50 (no way I will ever pay more then that).
“An entirely new gameplay mode which supports 2-player co-operative play online that is unique from the single player story campaign. Special Ops pits players into a gauntlet of time-trial and objective-based missions. Rank-up as players unlock new Special Ops missions, each more difficult. Missions include highlights from the single player campaign, fan favorites from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and all new, exclusive missions.”
“People get mad when they feel something is being taken away from them”
@ <3less
It's not being "taken way from" us. It's simply the matter of a company asking more money from it's consumers for less product. It's like fast food chains making the portions smaller and charging more for it. Eventually you look at what you're paying for and say….woh….F that. I got over the dedicated server thing because I understand why it's an inevitability. But when you have to make a cut in the games dynamics due to it, then you are asking for people to do what I and many others did and cancel their preorders.
"Personally, I don’t believe MW2’s singleplayer is worth the price. The singleplayer is probably great, just like MW1, but the multiplayer is where the value is gained. MW1’s multiplayer was OK, but nothing great."
This I agree with COMPLETELY. I still want to play this game, but it's now a 40 dollar game to me, and until it hits that price I'm not dropping my coin on it.
And waiting for a price drop is a completely valid strategy IMO. Ultimately whatever someone decides (buy now, buy later, buy never), it sends a message. If you think CoD:MW2 is worth $40, wait for that time. What agitates me is people crying the game offers less now, and still pay MORE for it than MW1. When you drop $60 for it, you are letting Kotick and the rest of the industry know that you appreciate getting less game for more money. Why would he or any other exec do anything but continue that trend?
It wasn’t bad enough that expected PC features were taken out, but to charge $60 on top of that is garbage. I feel console games for the most part are not worth that much, no way in hell I am paying that much for a PC game, ever!
I will be interested to hear how well MW2 sells on the PC in it’s first week and whether or not those who said they are boycotting the game did.
I must be a real cheap bastard, a game has to impress the hell out of me to convince me to drop $60 clams on it. Very little has done that outside of MMOs. Though, if I had owned a PS3 when Mirror’s Edge was released, I would have purchased that right away. Still, SynCaine is rigth when he advices you speak with your wallet, it’s the only language that matters.
Well, seeing as a Hooker and IW are basically the same thing at this point, I’d say you might as well go to the real hooker.
@coppertopper: You don’t just “get” the co-op mode though, you have to play the single-player campaign to unlock co-op maps. It’s not like a true co-op game where you can just buy the game and grab a buddy. You have to work for the co-op here.
The single player will be a fun little ride, like MW1. So I was just pointing out that even if its short, it won’t be dissapointing as a product since there are hours upon hours of gameplay available with the coop and mission play(?). Not $60 worth, but there are those modes available that werent in MW1.
I thought the best part of the metacritic page you linked was the disparity between the “official review” score and the user score. From “94 – universal acclaim” to “1.4,” is quite the leap. That dedicated server issue really didn’t help earn the game any fans.
The dedicated server issue is just a focal point for a hardcore and vocal minority to bitch and raise hell on the internet. If Modern Warfare 2 was developed and marketed toward a niche audience, an audience for which dedicated servers were a defining feature of the multiplayer component, then I could countenance the uproar with more respect. However, Modern Warfare 2 is about as mainstream a title as one gets in “traditional” game genres, and the changes to the multiplayer are in the service of a more casual audience. One might, and justifiably, argue that the multiplayer audience for the original Modern Warfare is the same audience that is now upset with the changes. Yet without such changes the multiplayer experience would forever remain the domain of hardcore, super-serious players which effectively locks out the majority of those who bought the game from its lasting replay value. If more people can enjoy the multiplayer experience at the expense of diluting the culture around the original’s multiplayer, then that seems like a positive and profitable trade off to me.
@Sean
COD4:MW (both versions) are themselves based on leveling up (from what I know, one reason why I don’t play them), hence if anything the more time one invests in the game, the higher advantage one has. Also the fact that the PC has always been a hardcore domain, but it was never forced. I have NEVER been in a clan and haven’t played hardcore for years yet I can go into a game like CS/CSS/TF2 and still do reasonably well (even though I won’t be domininating). Same goes for 360/PS3, if ANYONE plays more then another person, they will have the advantage… That is the nature of games and of skill.
Trying to justify Activision is a joke, we all know WHY they did it and now they will pay because they have lost most of the PC audience just because they wanted to save a few bucks because they didn’t want to port it properly (because lets face it, that is why they did it, for an easy port). Your excuse is beyond weak, MW2 is not aimed at a casual audience AT ALL (even though it is aimed at a dumbed-down audience, cough, now this esp proves that).
Either way, I really don’t at all think companies like Valve or anyone else will at all start this trend considering the negative attention this is having.
PC gamers won’t get MW2, they have no reason to, no d-servers makes it beyond bad for them (and removes all REAL competitive style it MIGHT have had). Ironically even if MW2 did have d-servers (90USD on steam IN AUSTRALIA is a JOKE), it’d still just be a glorified DLC, as many have noted I’m sure.
Again: 90USD LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, think of it this way, RRP for most games (a.k.a. the price that you CANNOT GO above) over here is about 90USD, that’s excluding the fact that stuff like EBgames (the most expansive store, better retailers would sell less then 90USD) needs money from the sale, the box and DVDs/Blurays cost money and all the other stuff (all those costs add up to about 30-50%, if not more, of the game… YES retailers make a lot of profit)… 90USD for a digital download is literally stealing your money.
I hope that terrorist scene is based at Activision’s headquarters, because I wouldn’t be surprised if nerds took Bobby hostage over this.
OH! You’re an Orc! I get it.
For my two-cents, all this controversy is way overblown. Rating a game this low based not on its merits but rather on a multiplayer set-up which one finds limiting is doing just this: it’s not rating the game itself per-se, rather it’s just a way of lodging a complaint, and seems a bit reactionary and immature.
Lowering the gamescore for it’s multiplayer set-up? Sure. Rating the game so low due to a sense of outrage? Ok.
There’s a reason the game’s getting high scores from publications and such… it’s fun. Players scoring it so low shows it’s a reaction from (a certain subset of) the fans, and not indicative of the game as a whole.
Ill take the hooker at least she will give me something that will last a lifetime.