As many have likely discovered matchmaking is horribly broken in Black Ops. Trying to take a party of any size into a game is a night mare of drops and split parties and disappearing lobbies.
 
Last night we discovered something, and it may only have been coincidence but it's worth testing. Four of us joined an XBox Live Party, not an in game party. Two of us made it into a game together, as space became available we sent invites to the others in our party. I expected that the four of us would be split between two teams sometimes, but the entire evening (15 or so matches) we were all on the same team.

As many have likely discovered matchmaking is horribly broken in Black Ops. Trying to take a party of any size into a game is a night mare of drops and split parties and disappearing lobbies.
 
Last night we discovered something, and it may only have been coincidence but it's worth testing. Four of us joined an XBox Live Party, not an in game party. Two of us made it into a game together, as space became available we sent invites to the others in our party. I expected that the four of us would be split between two teams sometimes, but the entire evening (15 or so matches) we were all on the same team.

Don't you wanna be on the same team if you're partied up? I haven't had any issues with matchmaking so far.

Wait. So in matchmaking they put friends on the same team to help combat boosting? Holy shit innovation. 

The matchmaker has always been broken since MW2. 
  
Now that I think about it, I think that's one reason why I hated MW2's matchmaker. It was shit and made COD4's matchmaker look glorious. 
 
On a side note, at least it's no Gears of War 2 matchmaker. Man that shit was rough.

I had some difficulty getting into matches on days 1-3, but now it seems to have been corrected, at least to any extent. I still experience dropped lobbies and occasionally even get dumped into private games when I was looking for a ground war player match.

occasionally even get dumped into private games when I was looking for a ground war player match. "

I have only had 1 problem with the matchmaking after 5+hours so far online.

Not having the problem.

I play it alone so haven't had much bother aside from one private match glitch thing,
 
I think MW2 had something similar, I once joined a game in progress from my mates profile and we stayed in the same team for about 20 matches

I have been having problems with players getting dropped from the party. It takes a group of 3 people a good 15 min to get into a match. Constantly joining and sending invites... It sucks. Last night I only had about 45 min to play, by the time we got into a game I was down to about 20 min. I thought they were fixing this.

So I busted my own theory tonight. there were three of us in a Party, and we got split between teams in one of our games.

" @Meteora: But MW2's matchmaking was fast. And why people quit, it re-filled the games quite quickly. I played an entire game the other day 1v4 because my team quit. Reinforcements never came. I did win though, so I was kinda psyched. "

" I have been having problems with players getting dropped from the party. It takes a group of 3 people a good 15 min to get into a match. Constantly joining and sending invites... It sucks. Last night I only had about 45 min to play, by the time we got into a game I was down to about 20 min. I thought they were fixing this. "

Doesn't matter about the whole "filling up game with replacements" either. That has always been a feature since at the very least Call of Duty 4 (never played previous CoD multiplayer). "

I see nothing wrong with that. That's the way party invites are meant to be. If you want to be on separate teams then just join each others games. Don't invite anyone.

" @Meteora: @Meteora said:

Doesn't matter about the whole "filling up game with replacements" either. That has always been a feature since at the very least Call of Duty 4 (never played previous CoD multiplayer). "

I'm confused. I know it's a feature... but it doesn't seem to work in Black Ops . I have many many games where most of a team (or both) has quit, and the game doesn't get re-filled with players. You end up playing until the time runs out with few kills because you were looking for like one guy. "