It would appear Call of Duty fans are experiencing déjà vu. Back when Call of Duty 2 released for the Xbox 360, the game had serious multiplayer problems; problems that took four months to fix. To the dismay of gamers, Call of Duty 3 has its own set of online problems, despite being made by a different developer than CoD2.
Buzz on the official Xbox.com message boards says that CoD3 players are unable to enter into ranked matches or (in some cases) any at all. Some players are unable to find any games, regardless of what skill level is entered into the system. Others join games and find themselves sitting in lobbies indefinitely. A different group find the multiplayer menu locking up on them. One theory suggests that anyone trying to join a ranked game ends up making a new lobby, which would result in thousands of one player online matches.
Console games are supposed to be simple plug and play affairs. We might expect these Call of Duty 3 multiplayer issues in a PC version, not a 360 version. Because of unified hardware and online components, console games should always ship (mostly) bug-free. We hope Call of Duty 3 is an isolated affair, but after issues with Dead Rising and Saint's Row, are we beginning to see an ugly trend in console games? The release now, patch later method is unacceptable on the PC, even more so on a game console.
[Thanks The Wallbanger]
