Giant Bomb's stance on the PC version of Modern Warfare 2

 Wow does the giantbomb panel realize that Valve does everything they mention but still allows its community to run their own dedicated servers?  
"You can't achieve player persistence with dedicated servers."  They claim....
Well then... how does Valve do it with TF2 (Hats, unlocks, achievements, class updates, new maps)? They should have thought it out more before they came to that conclusion.

What exactly is he saying? I haven't listened to it yet.

wait what are you saying? You're words are all over the place...

you are right about all this.

"  Wow does the giantbomb panel realize that Valve does everything they mention but still allows its community to run their own dedicated servers?  "You can't achieve player persistence with dedicated servers."  They claim....Well then... how does Valve do it with TF2 (Hats, unlocks, achievements, class updates, new maps)? They should have thought it out more before they came to that conclusion. "

A dedicated server can help xp boosting. That's fo sho chocobro.

I love me some giantbomb, but hearing these guys talk about PC games is just plain embarrasing. I'd rather they just flat out admit they have no clue what dedicated servers are about and move on to topics they do have knowledge about. 
 
Alas, can't have it all, there's other websites / podcasts for that, and their console coverage is awesome as always.

its all BS answers and statements solely because they are trying to give confidence to the ignorant consumers that will go to their websites, and wonder why people are in an uproar about it. 
If you look at the forums , there are plenty of ignorant people posting believing they are now enlightened with some BS idea as to why "this is better". Its not, anyone with common sense would know better.
 
if you need to know how bad multiplayer will be, go try your luck with farcry 2 multiplayer on PC. I think it took about 1 weekend  before it became impossible to create a full match. All forced automatching.

" I love me some giantbomb, but hearing these guys talk about PC games is just plain embarrasing. I'd rather they just flat out admit they have no clue what dedicated servers are about and move on to topics they do have knowledge about. "

I really don't get how these "hardcore PC gamers" (as they seem to like to call themselves) complain about matchmaking and how it's somehow UNPLAYABLE. Have you ever even played a console game? Not everything is always going to be perfect for you. Is choosing your game from a list really that important? Can't we just fucking play games and shut the fuck up?

PC Gamers hate this because it's another sign of PC Gaming's inevitable death. You want to hear ignorant gamers who are out of touch? Try listening to the IGN PC Podcast "Command Prompt," and hear their take on PCs vs Consoles. "Games are made on PCs they are not made on consoles, this shows that PC gaming will never die, in fact it will not be long before there is a resurgence of PC gaming and it will soon overtake consoles and be the dominate platform in the market." 
 
If it wasn't for Blizzard and Valve, PC Gaming would already be dead.

" @Ping5000: Exactly. It doesn't matter to you and it doesn't matter to me. So, how many people does this actually matter to? 

If hardcore PC gamers think Giantbomb and the staff don't know anything about PC games, why the hell are they on the website, complaining about it, and making topics about issues that they think this website doesn't concern?

" PC Gamers hate this because it's another sign of PC Gaming's inevitable death. You want to hear ignorant gamers who are out of touch? Try listening to the IGN PC Podcast "Command Prompt," and hear their take on PCs vs Consoles. "Games are made on PCs they are not made on consoles, this shows that PC gaming will never die, in fact it will not be long before there is a resurgence of PC gaming and it will soon overtake consoles and be the dominate platform in the market."   If it wasn't for Blizzard and Valve, PC Gaming would already be dead. "

" @Bones8677 said:

" PC Gamers hate this because it's another sign of PC Gaming's inevitable death. You want to hear ignorant gamers who are out of touch? Try listening to the IGN PC Podcast "Command Prompt," and hear their take on PCs vs Consoles. "Games are made on PCs they are not made on consoles, this shows that PC gaming will never die, in fact it will not be long before there is a resurgence of PC gaming and it will soon overtake consoles and be the dominate platform in the market."   If it wasn't for Blizzard and Valve, PC Gaming would already be dead. "

 But... PC gaming isn't dead. It's never been on the verge of dying. It' just that console gaming has become more widespread since the 90s, and there's not a 70-30 PC-to-console player ratio. "

I'm assuming everyone is just talking about the gaming side of PCs right? It's versatility as a tool is a totally different story, I mean how else would you trash talk on forums.

Dude, take a look at the kind of games that come out for Consoles, now take a look at games that are coming out for PCs that aren't MMOs or RTSs. And aren't ports from consoles. Face it, once developers figure out how to effectively put MMOs, and RTS on consoles, PCs will be dead. "

The whole point behind this thread is to bring to light the face that you don't need to get rid of dedicated servers in order to achieve what Infinity ward is claiming is unobtainable without getting rid of the dedicated servers.

 The reason TF2 stats are able to be kept is that it is a valve game and the stats are kept through Steam, the only service that you can play TF2 through.
 
Therefore, in order to track that persistence is MW2, IW would have to make their own third party service that you are required to log into to track stats.  However, I don't think that they needed to get rid of dedicated servers.

IW can control dedicated servers if they wanted, hell it'd be a way to make more money. Have them test mods before they are released publicly and prevent maps and exploits so people can't speed level or whatever. Ideally IW dropped the ball on this. Dedicated competitive PC gamers want the servers solely because of scrimmages and matches, non competitive people (like myself currently as i quit playing competitive games in 2005) want a regular place where they can play with people within a certain skill level, map preference and gamestyle as those they are with and are with regularly that aren't on friends lists or whatever.

" Valve don't need to get rid of dedicated servers because you have to play Valve games through Steam in the first place. They already have that whole backend in place and use your steam account to store things like achievements, unlocks etc. "

" @funcmode: You're correct. But if Infinityward is making a "huge investment", as they claim, in the PC version with IW.NET then why don't they just build a backend similar to that of Steam? Seconly, if this game supposedly has Steam support then why can't they just use what Valve has already developed as a platform? "

" @Bones8677 said:

Dude, take a look at the kind of games that come out for Consoles, now take a look at games that are coming out for PCs that aren't MMOs or RTSs. And aren't ports from consoles. Face it, once developers figure out how to effectively put MMOs, and RTS on consoles, PCs will be dead. "

There are more than just those genres on a PC, man. There are PC-exclusive FPSes, Adventure games, casual Popcap-style games. Just because consoles share the same genres as PCs hardly constitutes that "PC gaming is dying." "

" @TonicBH said:

" @Bones8677 said:

Dude, take a look at the kind of games that come out for Consoles, now take a look at games that are coming out for PCs that aren't MMOs or RTSs. And aren't ports from consoles. Face it, once developers figure out how to effectively put MMOs, and RTS on consoles, PCs will be dead. "

There are more than just those genres on a PC, man. There are PC-exclusive FPSes, Adventure games, casual Popcap-style games. Just because consoles share the same genres as PCs hardly constitutes that "PC gaming is dying." "

could you name a significant one other than crysis? "

" @TonicBH said:

" @Bones8677 said:

Dude, take a look at the kind of games that come out for Consoles, now take a look at games that are coming out for PCs that aren't MMOs or RTSs. And aren't ports from consoles. Face it, once developers figure out how to effectively put MMOs, and RTS on consoles, PCs will be dead. "

There are more than just those genres on a PC, man. There are PC-exclusive FPSes, Adventure games, casual Popcap-style games. Just because consoles share the same genres as PCs hardly constitutes that "PC gaming is dying." "

could you name a significant one other than crysis? "

" Perhaps Activision dissuaded them from going the all-steam route and instead they opted to take this path. They wouldn't want to build a backend like Steam because Steam is primarily a content delivery system, it just so happens to have the benefits of being able to track achievements and unlocks (etc) because of the way it was built.  Also, as far as I can see the game won't have Steam support, as that would split the users between Steam and IW.NET (or at the very least make the system very complicated) which would totally undermine IW.NET's purpose in the first place. IW.NET does use Valve's Anti-Cheat though. I think that's all they've confirmed, but I could well be wrong about the steam support.   They could have obviously gone about this whole thing without getting rid of dedicated servers though, that much is true, I guess they're just control freaks. "

@RsistncE:
If you dont want to buy the game don´t play it. There is never a reason to condone nor to excuse piracy.

Aside from the obvious reasons for not encouraging stealing, if Activision sees their title do badly in retail but get pirated to shitz they will just tighten the grip even more and go even further in making honest buyers feel like they are being criminalized (like we see with the way-too-strict DRM we saw in RA3 and Spore among others). They would NOT get the point and it would NOT achieve what you think it would.

Only if the game does not sell well and does not get pirated because of these choices will activision be unable to push the blame unto someone else (ie the consumers).

PC gaming isn't dying. It's just becoming more of a niche. 

Remember the Sega Genesis? Did you or a friend ever have the Sega CD or 32x, that ugly mushroom parasite thing? They were made to squeeze every last drop of life from the platform. Blizzard and Valve are their modern day reincarnations. When people say PC gaming is dying, they're talking about the overall lack of blockbuster games in varying genres. Of course Solitaire and Minesweeper are never going away.

Activision should of had Steam support and achievements, dedicated servers and all that comes with it for the PC version. They didn't. So bugger them.

" Remember the Sega Genesis? Did you or a friend ever have the Sega CD or 32x, that ugly mushroom parasite thing? They were made to squeeze every last drop of life from the platform. Blizzard and Valve are their modern day reincarnations. When people say PC gaming is dying, they're talking about the overall lack of blockbuster games in varying genres. Of course Solitaire and Minesweeper are never going away. "

" The whole point behind this thread is to bring to light the face that you don't need to get rid of dedicated servers in order to achieve what Infinity ward is claiming is unobtainable without getting rid of the dedicated servers. "

" @Red: why do you care? true skill will beat equipment any day... "

" @TonicBH said:

" @Bones8677 said:

Dude, take a look at the kind of games that come out for Consoles, now take a look at games that are coming out for PCs that aren't MMOs or RTSs. And aren't ports from consoles. Face it, once developers figure out how to effectively put MMOs, and RTS on consoles, PCs will be dead. "

There are more than just those genres on a PC, man. There are PC-exclusive FPSes, Adventure games, casual Popcap-style games. Just because consoles share the same genres as PCs hardly constitutes that "PC gaming is dying." "

could you name a significant one other than crysis? "