Modern Warfare 2 players report matchmaking malfunction

by David Hinkle on Dec 14th 2009 3:40PM

Now that the exploding men and unrelenting rain of crates have been taken care of, it would seem a new issue has arisen in Modern Warfare 2. Specifically, a bug in the Xbox Live matchmaking assignments is reportedly dumping playlist searchers into private matches. (Nothing's worse than being teamed with the lowest ranking players, after all.)

Penny Arcade's Gabe tweeted (warning: foul language through link) that he had encountered the issue several times. Meanwhile, Infinity Ward's man in the trenches, Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling, confirmed the issue is known and that a fix is currently in the works.

[Via Gaming Union]

Source - cwgabriel [Twitter] (NSFW)
Source - Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling [Twitter]

Tags: activision, fourzerotwo, glitch, infinity-ward, Microsoft, modern-warfare-2, private-match, robert-bowling, Xbox-360, xbox-live

Reader Comments (100)

hey, I do that on PC, and to be any good with it you need your perks to be marathon, lightweight, and commando; and you also need to use a tactical knife with some kind of pistol. So they are giving up all their fire power to be stealth ninjas, maybe try it sometime? The lung is like 4-5 feet, not 10.

Try it? I wanna play a shooter...not a "stabber"....and yes it works only on smaller maps...doesnt make it any less obnoxious tho...like those double shotties.

You complain about only wanting to play a shooter... and then condemn the use of shotguns...

People like you just complain complain complain about how "gay" the other team is playing, and how unfair certain load-outs are. Like really, there is a copycat perk if you're so inclined. As well, the point of the game is to get the most kills and least deaths... so why wouldn't people be using the most effective combination for achieving that!? ... How about switching up from ACR/holographic/stopping power for once and try something else, instead of being a whiner.

I am talking about balancing issues, all games have them, and they get patched.
The dual shotguns are way too accurate and their range is rediculous, others agree with me. You were the one that brought in calling the other team "gay", what are you? 8?

meh, just seems to be the trend with IW now, failure after failure.

Yea? Well I'm reporting a "my 360 died for the second fucking time, so I can't play my copy of Modern Warfare 2, and won't get my console back until next year".

That's what I'm reporting. Until then, I'm playing PixelJunk Shooter on my PS3, and the money I was gonna spend picking up Forza 3 will probably go to Ratchet or God of War, which I'll have along side Uncharted 2 which I'd be getting either way.

Thanks again Microsoft. I'm so glad you make shit hardware. I really, really am.

At least yours is getting fixed for free. I think the laser in my DVD drive is going out. Microsoft won't fix that for free...

I hope with the next console generation, MS and Sony will either make more reliable hardware, or you folks will take pitchforks and torches to them, don't put up with it!

Oh, and I just found out a few minutes ago that the HDMI output on my PS3 is broken too. Fantastic. I'm not gonna ruin Uncharted by playing it in 480i. This is just fucking great.

Oh and my 360 was just getting freezing issues, though it would freeze on start up and was completely unplayable. I just lied about it getting the red ring. They never check the damn things, so just tell them it's a problem that's covered like 3 red lights (RROD) or 1 red light (E79 error).

except when they do check it. they fix your 360 and send you a bill.

@ nsdcx

Well first off, I've never heard of them actually checking consoles for failures before, they just claim they do. Secondly, I've already sent in my console before under false repair pretenses. I was out of the "covers everything" 1 year warranty, got the 2 red lights error (overheat) which would continue because the x-clamp for the heat sinks broke off and wasn't cooling the system anymore. I couldn't get it to get the RROD, even with the towel trick, so I just lied and told them I got the RROD anyway. They never checked it, I got it fixed, and it worked again.

And thirdly, I already read through the site. If they do check it and claim that it doesn't get a RROD or E79, you can opt to pay for repair right then and their, and if you choose not to, they send it back to you for free. I read nothing about any type of mandatory repair bill or them withholding their console from you. I'm pretty sure that's not true. And besides, in my description I noted that the RROD issue was "on and off" between freezing, which was my real issue, so they may just let it pass even if they do check it because of my description.

You know for a game that is called the best multiplayer game of this gen there sure are an awful lot of complaints about it and every week there seems to be a new glitch.

bug or not, the 9 on 9 HQ pro games i played on sunday were f'n awesome. hopefully something good comes out of this and IW either ups HQ player count or add it to ground war.

Has this just started happening? If so, does this mean that in their rush to push out previous patches, they broke this? Or has this existed since launch, and just people are first discovering it now?

I noticed this happening to me a few times about a week after launch.

It's not related to the patch.

I'm guessing people know how to deliberately trigger it so it's happening a lot more now...

"Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling, confirmed the issue is known and that a fix is currently in the works."

Does he also know about the dual shotgun problem?

I thought dual rangers was pushing it a bit, and then I ran into dual 1887s... pretty much ruins the game when a sniper is carrying those as a "secondary".

AA-12s with extended mags rape any akimbo setup.

of course if you're caught unprepared it won't help much

Not really, when akimbo shotguns take 1 hit to kill and the AA-12 takes a few shots you don't really stand a chance.

yeah, i don't know what the hell you're talking about, dual akimbos/rangers have way greater range than the AA-12 and are nearly always a 1-hit kill

I've found that the Spas-12 with the Grip and Stopping Power (Steady Aim helps too, but ADS is best) has a comparable range to the Akimbo 1887s. Plus the Spas-12 has a quicker time between shots if the 1887-user expends both barrels in one shot and misses (or kills the dude standing beside you first).

Not as "noob-friendly" sure (I think it's like 75 kills for the Spas-12 grip, versus the measly 10 for the 1887 akimbo class), but the kill is a lot more satisfying when they keep running around the same corners again and again with those T-1000 arms out.

For a game that's supposed to be the best multiplayer game out there, there sure are a lot of problems.

Then gain Gears 1 is my favorite online console game, and that game was full of bugs when it launched and well after.

LOLZ

This shit happened to me the other night.
16 player match on rust sure was crazy

This has been going on for at least 5 days now. Get your shit together Joystiq.

maybe YOU should have tipped joystiq about it you nerd

hey, fuckface, this is a blog, not a news site.

Are they really this lazy? These are the exact same issues that were prevalent in CoD 4 (and carried over into World at War).

Sucks for those trying to enjoy the game, but I couldn't care less at the moment... I'm fully addicted to Killzone 2 MP. Had it for seven months and am just now playing the multiplayer. I'll stick with split-screen MW2, more fun that way.

KZ2 Multiplayer is pretty amazing. I actually plan to go back to it once I hit level 70 in MW2. No way in hell am I going prestige.

This happened to me i kept my rank and guns while i was playing FFA with a bunch of noobs i got proper live exp and not just private match exp as well its really annoying :|

18 players free for all on rust with no ending was fun the first time, but every single match is annoying.

This isn't the only matchmaking issue with this game. How about IW also confirm and fix the problem when lobbies merge and you lose members of your party or you end up merged in a room with only one person? It's ridiculous that the matchmaking has taken a step back from COD4, especially in light of the handicapping they did to dedicated servers and party chat.

Agreed. Losing a member here or there seemed rare on MW and WaW, but it's a normal, everyday occurrence in MW2. If I'm playing with 4-6 people in a party, we do more screwing around just trying to get into a match and get it started than we do actually playing. It's very frustrating. Despite everything else, this blows me away most that they can't improve on the party system/matchmaking.

Also Agree.

This latest matchmaking glitch (First time, amusing... Fifth time being put into a never-ending Hardcore Domination game on Rust full of spawn camping boosters, not so much) is a minor inconvenience compared to the *extreme* unreliability of MW2's matchmaking lobby system.

NATs were an issue with Halo 2 party lobbies on the original XBox, yet not on CoD:World at War on the 360... How did IW manage to go backwards with this issue on their 3 billion dollar blockbuster?

My friends and I have a running joke (which is obviously on us) imagining Kanye West saying Infinity Ward doesn't care about XBL parties.

online pay service! nice! lol

Never had this problem with dedicated servers...

Oh well, since Gabe is having issues...

You know what I hate about the MW2 matchmaking? They constantly match me with people who are all 60-70 and I'm level 35. What the fuck kind of matchmaking is that?

That is because it isn't true "matchmaking." It isn't matching you based on skill, that isn't even in the parameters. It just throws you into any random lobby. I really wish that it would match you based on skill, I constantly get team mates that are at a much lower level that can't compete with the higher levels on the other team. Suffice to say they keep running out and dying, racking up the enemy team's score while I keep getting ganged on by 2 or 3 guys.

This is was all just an Activision plan to keep Modern Warfare 2 on everyone's radar. Every single week until Christmas they will reveal a new bug to keep people aware of their game :P

NSFW tag? Really? Wow... A bit excessive on the use of that tag, methinks.

Maybe, but if it wasn't there, there would be people bitching about it.

It's really fun to do when you set it up intentionally, Its up to an 18 player FFA with people that you know, and you get experience towards your Xbox Live account. But it is also quite easy to boost this way.

I'm not surprised that MW2 is turning out to be buggy. Activision doesn't care. They already made their millions and millions of dollars off us suckers, and now they're laughing all the way to the bank while IW tries frantically to clean up their unfinished game.

humm.... i dont know infinity ward, maybe a public BETA could have resolved some of these issues BEFORE the game hit retail?? How ironic that they got rid of xbox party chat because of "cheating" but these major game breaking glitches got through.

This has happend several times to me. Mostly when playing domination. I get sent to a private match where its 9 on 9 anything. Its insane. Come on IW, you cant fix one thing and get another problem. Now I cant even play domination at all since 99.99% of the time I get dumped with some kids who cant play the game right.

We told you so.

Its been messing up all morning ... Joined one game and everyone had unlimited ammo. It also keeps dumping me in a Ground War match on Rust in 3rd person when i chose Team Deathmatch.

Was i the only one enjoying the 18 player FFA?

Just the sheer calamity of it all. On the smaller maps spawn camping was rampant, but on Sub-base this was fun as hell.

Have you seen the top list in leaderboards?
There are people with kill streaks of 1200, and 30% of ratio....

And I that was proud of my 1.25%!

It's all a boosting attempt. Hijacks the game, puts it into Rust, 18 player ground war free for all with TDM spawning in Rust... for 10 minutes. Top guy gets ~200 kills, it's a horror show.

Previous 50 Comments

Modern Warfare 2 players report matchmaking malfunction

Reader Comments (100)

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:14PM stoneNboneCDXX said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:43PM Obienator said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 7:30PM amart89 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 7:56PM Obienator said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:11PM BrianH said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:13PM kenny goo said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:16PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:30PM RKN said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:17PM kenny goo said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:11PM nsdcx said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 7:11PM kenny goo said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:14PM Kleptomaniac said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:18PM dcfortythree said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:23PM ducttapeBigSexy said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:23PM logicbombde said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:24PM latin trident said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:42PM colt4by5 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:27PM logicbombde said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:19PM ThePope said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 10:01PM Puertoricarious said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 2:46AM yo Naturale said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:26PM CaramelZappa said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:32PM Jawmuncher said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:33PM zdope said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 7:32PM amart89 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 8:29PM BrianH said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:38PM Granger said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:33PM Hyperion45 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:38PM kooda said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:47PM alexmlowgmailcom said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:49PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:26PM Wickerman22 said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 3:10AM yo Naturale said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:02PM mikemaj82 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:00PM GCountach said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:04PM Gemini Ace said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:49PM NutMan said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 5:53AM snl25 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:02PM Ashitaka said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:04PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:41PM masterinsan0 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:10PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:41PM masterinsan0 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:49PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 7:37PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 10:38PM Pancakes said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 6:47AM swake88 said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 9:17AM Spookimitsu said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 11:34AM roromx said

Posted: Dec 16th 2009 9:06AM The Albatross said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

WB conjures up Harry Potter for Kinect this fall

Featured Stories

Silver Lining: I Am Alive's unfeeling world

Game Of Thrones and the paradoxes of adaptation

Super Joystiq Podcast 004: 38 Studios meltdown, Gravity Rush, Civilization 5: Gods & Kings, Dragon's Dogma

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW