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)

This is also happening on PS3. Our group ended up in a crazy free-for-all in Rust (private match). No good.

Yeah me too

Come on IW... either hire more people with that huge budget or tell PaPa Activision to fuck off while you finish your game. I mean what are they going to do fire you guys? Good. It should not be hard for anyone who worked on CoD4 to be picked up by any other dev team or the whole group by another publisher. EA and Ubisoft would be thrilled to have Activisions crowned jewel.

In order to make this, it's a matchmaking glitch you can do. By backing out of a 3rd person tactical search and hosting a private game, the private game becomes a ranked game, and it is an 18 player free for all on any map you want, where you spawn in front of like 10 people, shoot get a 10 kill streak and it counts towards your exp.

It's really bad. It's ruining the game and everyone is using this to rank up and whatnot. Personally, I think CoDs ruined now that everyone's boosting. At least they're trying to fix it

@ JXCgunrunna

IW has already worked under EA when they made the first Medal of Honor. I don't blame them for leaving because EA likes to ruin good games by making quantity over quality.

IW should stay where they are, with Activision.

Ha this happened to me once. Although we were dumped into a Third-Person Hardcore Free For All in Rust with at least 16 players. It was dirty.

So thats how I ended up in a Rust FFA. I thought it was just the crappy d-pad to blame.

It happened a few times to me today... I got put in a free for all third person game.
It's a little humorous a few times, but it's happening far too often now

I think this isn't the only problem MW2 users are experiencing right now. Many complaints can be read in the internet about the Unlimited ammo glitch/mod spreading like a virus. See details here: http://bit.ly/MW2-unlimited-ammo-glitch

If you go into a team deathmatch, you could end up in the situation my brother and i were in.

We ended up playing Domination for over an hour, the game wouldn't end. Then the game had a critical error, something to do with the AC130.

Crazy Stuff going on today

Well at least, this is not the bug like we have reported today. Anyway, it was still cool though! sadly, the fun will surely ends now that it has been publicized.
http://bit.ly/modern-warfare-another-cool-bug

For a game like this, any troublesome bug is likely to sour a lot of users. It's surprising that big bugs like this can still fall through the cracks nonetheless.

It took about 2 weeks (a little less) for the most recent patch to be "urged" through the certification process, so we can expect just as long, if not longer because of the holidays, to wait for a fix for this. I believe that certain developers should be able to establish "veteran" status with MS certification. This way, patches like this can be introduced in much, much less time because the developers have a good history when it comes to patches that don't break MS's hardware/system.

My friends and I were wondering what this patch would break and I guess now we have our answer.

inb4 "they should have had a beta"

Oh wait..i said it :(

This has happened to me twice so far and several of my friends are reporting the same thing. I got thrown into a domination game mode while searching in the Team Deathmatch playlist. The game score went until 750 (instead of the normal 200) and took 45 minutes to finish. Another one of my friends ended up playing FFA in the Team Deathmatch playlist and the game went on for an hour and a half (until someone got a nuke).

Wow...that's kinda hilarious. Did Infinity Ward fire all the QA people or something?

when did they hire one?

This happened to me a couple times the other night when I was trying to play Domination with some of my buddies, pretty annoying.

My friend had the same issue. It was him and 17 other people on rust. He went 1-20.
His ratio dropped from a perfect 2.00 to a 1.95
lol, he was pissed.

FFFFFFFUUUUUUU MY MEANINGLESS RATIO SHIFTED .05!

I AM SO PISSED NOW.

point well taken, but you'd be amazed at how many gamebattles/MLG teams have 2.00 as a K/D ratio requirement. for someone who plays competitively, that could be a pretty big deal.

Doubt he plays competitively with only 1580 kills.

wow, and here i thought the 18 player rooms were infinity wards answer to all the camping *sigh*, guess i shoud've known better. better play now before the camping comes back...

I knew I wasn't crazy when I told my friends I hit Domination and not 3rd person Cage Match. This seems to be a minor bug though, it only happens to us once every few nights.

Same here. I hit Domination and ended up in a Free-For-All. Didn't think anything of it and just backed out and went back and all was fine.

Joined an xbox live game earlier and everyone had unlimited ammo >.< So everyone was basically shooting there grenade launchers without running out.

Lots of bug with the multiplayer portion of this game. The issue I had with matchmaking it it didn't really work. It kept pairing me with people well beyond my rank (I was level 14 and they'd pair me with level 30's & 40's) in any game type I selected. They've been pretty good about fixing these bugs so I'm sure in a week from now this will also be an afterthought.

There always seems to be a pretty wide range of levels on any match that I've played. I don't think it's a "bug"... unless you were matched w/ all 60's, or something like that...

yeah, that's definitely not a bug. you can get matched up with anyone. me and my friends (all 2nd prestige - no prestige level 70) got matched up with 6 10th prestiges in search. guess who got raped?

them. silly boosters can't boost pure skill...

This happened to me day one of playing the multiplayer.

Is this happening on PC? I bet the hacked-in dedicated server people don't have issues with this.

The PC matchmaking works perfectly fine, 20 seconds from the time I think about playing some MW2 to loaded up and matched into a game. I still wish there were custom map and dedicated server support. :-(

but you get xp, so it's all good. I got 100000 xp from a 2 hour long domination match

These are actually matches that people are starting in order to rank up faster. There is a very specific and deliberate way of doing... complicated as hell tho... I was in an unlimited domination match where someone had 200+ kills...

I have seen the process for this glitch. How do people possibly stumble upon this stuff.

Anyways I had it happen to me twice this weekend.

But 18 FFA on rust is fun lol i got 100+ kills every match get 2 ac130's and the best part is that you get XP for it. Much better than the actual campfest of a game

Yeah abusing a way the game shouldn't be played...fun. While people like me who want a legitimate match have to be screwed by people like you who find it fun. Quit supporting something that is ruining the game.

Sad. Some of the best game modes are unplayable. Team based matches where you can kill teammates. Hosts with god mode. Icing on the cake to botched k/d and w/l ratios. And what better way to keep a community updated than through a dude's twitter account. Not the official website, not the official forums, but... twitter.

Does this have anything to do with putting similarly ranked players together? I'm tried of getting in matches with lvl 50s through 70s and I'm the only lvl 12. I had to work my way up from lvl 1 that way and let me tell you, there really is an advantage between the levels. Everyone has radars on their guns and akimbo rifles and shit and I have a fucking squirt gun that has no water in it.

Nobody told you? You're supposed to make your own 'water'...

Put pee in your squirt gun. It is far more effective.

Oh. I was just making PEW PEW noises.

Umm, definitely double shotguns are the best close combat weapons, but the famas is the best all round gun in the game. You start with that gun. Put a grenade launcher on it and go nuts.

Echoing Lov3...

Assault rifles are the bread and butter of the game (to the point of almost making the sub-machine gun class obsolete). Used well, they can kill efficiently at any range.

The Famas is the best all around weapon in this game and available at Level 1.

If you're a "spray an pray" kinda guy, try the M4A1 (full-auto, relatively low recoil and no muzzle climb [I think]) available at Level 4.

Remember: Always use the Stopping Power perk (what's the point of a kill streak perk one kill sooner if you can't kill that next guy?).

If you're a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" kinda guy... equip the Marathon, Lightweight & Commando perks ([All available at Level1!] plus whatever sub-machine gun you probably won't use to keep your mobility rate up), then blast and slash your way around the map.

Even though no one is probably going to read this due to the article being pushed back; got an above 1.00 ratio tonight. I took the advice and switched to a famas. I also got the scavenger perk which is pretty cool because it lets you basically loot other players for ammo. That includes grenades which helps.

Congrats on the K/D raise (I'm a night owl, so I saw your post).

I like using the Scavenger perk paired up with the AUG HBAR (be sure to use the grip! It practically becomes a different weapon when equipped: assault rifle-esque, if you will) and spaming fire into high traffic areas (then displacing, of course).

Congrats sidebuster, glad we could help improve your game :).

PS.I still think double shotguns should be nerfed!

I fucked up this was suppose to be a reply to Geist.

That and the endless "witch" players....just running around and stabbing people from 10 feet away. It's like Halo 2 all over again! :(

| 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 50 Comments

Sorry, you must be logged in to leave a comment.

Breaking News

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days

Vita 'UMD Passport' won't be offered in US 221 comments
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning review: A tempting fate 155 comments
Blizzard taking Valve to court over 'DOTA' trademark 115 comments
David Jaffe leaves Eat Sleep Play, layoffs hit developer [Update] 107 comments
Don't call it a remake: Final Fantasy X is a 'remaster,' to be clear 95 comments

Modern Warfare 2 players report matchmaking malfunction

Reader Comments (100)

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:46PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:54PM MrAlex said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:08PM JXCGunrunna said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:17PM Ryuk said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:53PM InTheCatBoxAgain said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:32PM Hyperion45 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:48PM joshuag18 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:53PM Brodo said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 5:56AM p dot t said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 11:59AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 4:17PM p dot t said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:46PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 12:00AM karmaghost said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:48PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:48PM Bandit5317 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:50PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:41PM robmv said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:51PM Huey2k2 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:00PM Special Agent Steve said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 6:22PM Omega2k3 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 10:00PM Puertoricarious said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 6:11PM Omega2k3 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:51PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:54PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:56PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:22PM Jame said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:55PM Johnnynumber5 is powered by cell said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:31PM Jude said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:35PM Sly C said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:55PM SpaceFox said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:56PM Geist said

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

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

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 3:59PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 11:21PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:02PM Zacxx201 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:06PM Spike Spiegel Humble Bounty Hun said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:05PM Spike Spiegel Humble Bounty Hun said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:06PM Sidebuster said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:28PM SpacePenguinBot said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:52PM Dr V said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 5:01PM Sidebuster said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 8:39PM Lov3 said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 2:29AM yo Naturale said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 2:45AM Sidebuster said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 6:00AM yo Naturale said

Posted: Dec 15th 2009 7:13AM Lov3 said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:09PM stoneNboneCDXX said

Posted: Dec 14th 2009 4:10PM stoneNboneCDXX said

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

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

Double Fine Kickstarter passes $1 million in under 24 hours, breaking yet another record

Featured Stories

WRUP: All the Reckoning

Xbox Live Indie Gems: Nyan Cat Adventure

Dark Side 'Cause It Looks Cool: The Failings of Moral Choice in Games

The most popular postsin the last 7 days

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days