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Gears of War patch is live

by Richard Mitchell on Jan 9th 2007 2:30PM

The controversial patch for Gears of War is now live. Players will be prompted to download the update next time they play Gears of War. We hopped into a lobby to see the much talked about host removal, and sure enough, all the host names have been replaced with "host." For a complete list of changes, see our previous post.

While we understand the need to combat cheating, we also understand the desire for people to play with their friends. It's been beaten to death, but the fact that Gears shipped without a party system -- especially in the wake of Halo 2 -- was a mistake. This patch may serve as a temporary fix to team stacking and cheating, but Epic needs to announce its plans to incorporate team play (or officially announce that they won't) before they are devoured by an angry, chainsaw wielding mob.

[Thanks, everyone]

Tags: epic, epic games, epic studios, EpicGames, EpicStudios, gears, gears of war, GearsOfWar, gow, microsoft game studios, MicrosoftGameStudios

Reader Comments (22)

I got this patch around 11:15am EST today.

It does, in fact, do what it said it would do. I thought it would completely remove the host column, but it only changed the host name to "HOST".

LAME.

Can someone explain the problem to me? I don't play games like this much but I have played GOW online. I was invited to a game by a friend of mine, then we arranged the teams so that we were on the same team. Was this not a ranked match, is that why it was possible?

Have you guys heard of player matches? you can play with your friends in player matches.

For god sakes update with a party system for online play, this is the crappiest part of the game, let us play vs. our friends in the party system.

Joe - yes, it wasn't a ranked match.

Yeah, I play every night with all my friends in Player Matches. When Gears first came out we played Ranked for a very short time until we discovered how awesome Player Matches were. Plus you can continue playing through different levels. The fun never ends like in Ranked Matches when the match is over, it's over. You have to go start or find a new one.

they didn't get the vga fix right. otherwise im happy with my connection bars, now i can avoid laggy games.

I don't see why Epic should announce team play or a party system - it's their game, and it's good that a developer decides not to follow Halo's oh-so-grand design.

If you lie awake at night, thinking about your Leaderboard position, then play Ranked matches. If you want to play with friends - you know, having actual fun while playing and not worried about cheating - play Player matches. Quite simple.

good thing i bought rainbow six vegas last week >.>

I use a monitor with my 360, running at, you guessed it: 1280 x 1024. This patch does indeed fix the black bars in this resolution, so I can now play full screen!

It makes a lot more difference than you think. Haven't been online with it yet though so I'm yet to see the multiplayer changes (only just this second finished hunting down the COG tags).

I rarely play ranked matches and always play with friends via invites and privately held matches. For a game like this - a quick fix - (unlike Rainbow Six Vegas where every game does add "experience points" to my character), I don't care about ranked matches.

While clan matches are very desirable, you know the team at Epic had roundtables regarding what they wanted to put in the game and what was feasible by a November release. And then you've got the fans screaming "come out now!" only to scream "where's [insert request here]" later.

The screen is all screwed up over vga. The rounds won is over the top of "points". Its all messed up, good work.

This patch has seriously messed up the VGA 1280 x 1024 massively. I think i'm right in thinking people just wanted the image unsqashing, not making fullscreen and mushy. Now the view is the full 5:4 ratio instead of the unstretched letterbox everyone wanted. Please fix this asap epic! at least give the choice. as it stands after the patch, the game looks hidious and has lost a lot off the sides, which essentially is screenspace that the game was designed to be using, such as things getting cut off in cinematics as well as a narrower field of view for multiplayer and the campaign.

Yeah, I play with 1280x1024 resolution on a monitor and thought the display was fine with the "bars" in widescreen. For this game you need that field of vision. Now after starting it up it is almost unplayable to me, or ill just have to make MAJOR adjustments to how I play, which isnt very convienent. I wish thay gave an option. Any word if they will add the option in the future? Anyone sent an email to Epic?

A1exander1: have you stopped and considered that maybe Epic can't implement a party system, because it would mean changing quite fundamental in the multiplayer code?

It took Epic a few months to update GoW so that the host name would be replaced with 'Host', messed up the VGA output, and a few extras. How long do you think it would take to add a completely new multiplayer system?

I distinctly remember sitting in a matchmaking lobby in Halo 2 for 15 minutes waiting for it to find other player because one of my friends had a much lower rank than us. I also remember thinking, "I wish I could just set up an 8-player lobby and let anyone join us, screw the ranking".

Ive still seen people glitching, so they havnt fixed that.

Two problems -

Ranked matches no host - sure its fun to play player matches with your friends, but sometimes you like to put something on the line or play with someone capable of helping you out.

Connection problems - The box that pops up to display you are losing connection pops up very frequently. Since the patch I have had a connection box pop up almost every game. Im pretty certain it is not just me experiencing this.

I personally like playing online with my friends against other teams that also have their friends with them. I like the challenge of playing against other teams who know what they are doing. Playing against random people every time is just dull in my opinion. I feel you get real competition from team vs. team.

The VGA fix was not done right. The screen looks jaggy and out of focus. I preferred the wide screen though squashed look, ran cleaner and the field of view is necessary. Epic needs to fix this.

• Fixed aspect ratio distortion
you mean to tell me that the muscular little person look was a bug?!?!? i loved that look! (no sarcasm, i'm serious. everyone looks so tall and slender now, i don't like)

@nate

"Connection problems - The box that pops up to display you are losing connection pops up very frequently. Since the patch I have had a connection box pop up almost every game. Im pretty certain it is not just me experiencing this."

same here... a disaster :(

http://www.petitiononline.com/gears666/petition.html

Breaking News

Gears of War patch is live

Reader Comments (22)

Posted: Jan 9th 2007 2:48PM (Unverified) said

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Posted: Jan 9th 2007 3:36PM Wickerman22 said

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Posted: Jan 9th 2007 8:00PM darrenhupke said

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Posted: Jan 11th 2007 4:00PM SeNiLe said

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