Modern Warfare 3 to have dedicated servers on PC

@Ospov
I think it's interesting that things like VAC and steam, which were seen negatively when first started, is now considered the industry standard for the best of both worlds.
Perhaps, if nothing else, due to the cheap imitations that it spawned.

@xiLeShadow
so simple it just might work!

@Captain Planet Planeteer Power

I hope Activision, Bobby Kotick and IW make a killing on this game. God bless them they deserve it :)

@Altair619

Maybe they could invest that into a replacement for a decade old engine, realistic ballistic physics and a public beta so the console versions won't be hacked out cheat fests

@eat it

Call of Duty 4 was pretty good game and a lot of PC gamers loved it. However, Activision and Infinity Ward screwed up, big time, Modern Warfare 2.

They removed a lot of good features. Here is a list: http://www.mapmodnews.com/images/library/image/mw2/CoD4%20Vs%20MW2%20PC%20comparison%20chart.png

@eat it This makes MW3 that awkward uncle who tries to act cool at parties, while BF3 is that really cool cousin who you go hiking with every year but unfortunately also has a sex crime record.

@eat it

These features however are very important to PC gamers because, A LOT of games on PC have it! It almost a requirement.

Call of Duty, gameplay-wise, hasn't changed much since Call of Duty 4 so that caters to the Call of Duty fans. You don't want a series to go complete go another direction.

If Modern Warfare 3 has all those features and more, that Call of Duty 4 had, then I might pick it up (digitally). It's a pretty good arcade shooter.

@eat it

It's really a coin toss at this point. Which evil is less evil?

@eat it

No, we're no officially hating on sliding doors and pants.

@Once known as Shadsy For some reason that seems like a PERFECT description of the two...

@Gibbeynator the hated Modern Warfare 3 of the annual Cod series on the loved Steam -VS- the loved Battlefield 3 of the biannual BF series on the hated EA Origins

see you had to make the choice back in the early 2000s
BF had the map packs...excuse me "expansions" back then and COD didnt
now COD has the expansions...excuse me again "map packs" and BF has...oh wait,they still have them as well.


who knew Halo would be the more fun laid back game where you can just play for fun without fear of being hated for liking it?

@eat it

So now it's cool to like COD because the PC gamers are getting what they want? Wow

@Mr Hett
The Xbox 360 *is* 7 year old hardware. Call of Duty has a lot of stuff happening all at once at high detail. If Infinity Ward wants a solid 60fps the entire time no matter what, and they do, they have to limit some things. Resolution is a major, major hit on the hardware so, rather than deliver high resolution, low detail environments, they opted for the lower resolution, but higher detail.

@YimYimYimi

Sadly, I do not agree. No worries though, I don't play CoD on consoles anymore. I refuse to play my games @ qHD. 720p is bad enough, but it's acceptable given the consoles age. And no the console versions are not low resolution, high detail. Maybe one day, you'll play CoD maxed out on a PC, then you'll understand my complaint a bit more.

@Mr Hett I've played both. Major PC gamer. Call of Duty is pretty high detail on the console. I don't know about 720p being all that bad though. I play it on a 50" TV and it looks pretty good to me.

@bleiss People are supposed to complain. If nobody complained about anything then nobody would think to fix anything because they would think everyone's fine with it.

@afrosheen

You know that dedicated servers do not have to be first-party, right?

@Roxas560 A multiplayer beta might be the most important out of those three. You could have no dedicated servers and horrible perks but still play the game but if it has game breaking bugs like the Javelin Glitch in the beginning of MW2, then the game becomes near unplayable.

@YimYimYimi
well it is still months away from release. im keeping my fingers crossed.

@pedasn

but i'll stick with battlefield 3 anyway : )

@einhanderkiller

"Joystiq clearly does not play PC games."

It is painfully obvious to anyone who uses this website that the extent Joystiq staffers use PCs it to write their articles and to browse the web; outside of those two specific uses, they are completely and totally clueless when it comes to using the PC as a platform for gaming as well as all that it entails .

Oh, and Griffin:

"the privatization of servers could (see: will) lead to rampant cheating"

Do you even know how dedicated servers work when it comes to ensuring fair play? P2P matchmaking (as found in MW2) does absolutely nothing to deter or punish cheaters, hackers, or griefers; they cannot be kicked from a game nor can they be banned. The ONLY form of recourse rule-abiding players have at their disposal is to quit and find a different match; the unsportsmanlike players are allowed to continue as they are, unhindered, until the end of that particular game.

With dedicated servers, there's almost always an anti-cheat mechanism enabled by default (usually Punkbuster or Valve) and, at any given time, there is at least one administrator overseeing the conduct of the players on that server. Should someone elude the anti-cheat protection systems (or act like a prick), the admin can and will 1) immediately boot them from the game and 2) black list them from that server; they are effectively barred them from playing on that server until the admin decides otherwise (which could be weeks or years). There's a reason why a number of people who played MW2 almost immediately jumped ship and fled right back to the game's predecessor; MW2 was a cheater, hacker infested hell-hole despite Infinity Ward's bans (which came much too late to be an effective deterrent) while MW wasn't.

There's a reason why blogging isn't considered legitimate journalism; the glaring absence of research and fact checking that goes into your articles before they're published WOULD GET YOU FIRED anywhere else.

@jackal I don't know about that last part. Take a look at Fox news...

@YimYimYimi

Most sane people don't confuse propaganda under the guise of entertainment for legitimate journalism. Of course, most sane people wouldn't watch a network where a silver haired neo-con espouses WBC-esque religious views while hocking services for Gold Line.

@Keyelite

Actually come to think of it, Activision has been a lot better on the PC with CoD than EA has with BF (lately anyway). CoD has all of its games and DLC on Steam while EA is going crazy with their Origin shenanigans. Heck, you even get a 10% discount on the CoD map packs if you pre-purchase them on Steam.

I've always liked Battlefield more than Call of Duty, but the whole thing going on with Origin vs Steam is really turning me off of EA right now. To be honest, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I think Activision cares more about it's PC customers than EA does.

@Ospov you technically need an 'origin' account to play BF2, BF2142, and BC2. It's essentially your login info. BF3 has just changed the way you login. You don't login though the game now, but though the download manager. That isn't too bad.

Plus, with all the recent news (you will find out more tomorrow), the DICE devs really DO listen to the PC community. Comm rose is in for PC, 3D spotting has been semi-removed, LAN support, no auto-stabilization on helicopters (just like in BF2).

You could go on and on with this, but if it's about Origin vs Steam-- it isn't as big of a deal as it is made out to be.

@shimrra74

You need to stop being a little baby. You won't get BF3 because its not on steam? What the hell does that matter? Just buy the disk version and add it to your steam account. Problem solved.

@pierogi210 - lol someone is a bit pretentious. Problem is not solved I am really not in the mood to explain to a child the difference between adding a game to a Steam library to having the game part of the Steam community.