Quote:It's hard, very hard, for me to write objectively right now, but here is a summary of what we heard on BASH 123. If you missed it...we will have it on demand in a few minutes.

The raw version of BASH 123 can be found here temporarily.

Fourzerotwo was on our BASH webcast this morning and he had a few surprises for the PC community.

Here are the snippets:



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We're doing a lot on the backend to make the game accessible for everyone.
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There is no delay for the PC version of MW2
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There's prestige mode
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Jason West at the MP event, said that he was dead on, on the matchmaking servers. We've been building a system on the backend called IW.NET.
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You are completely reliant on IW.NET. There are no server lists. There are no dedicated servers.
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You have private matches where you can customize the game
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You cannot put MW2 on a dedicated server.
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This is the first time we've ever done something like this and the team has huge plans for what IW.NET develops into.
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Customizing your game...you have quite a few options in a private match
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You're getting same game (as in Console), plus matchmaking and private match.
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Server admin point-of view, NO DEDICATED SERVERS

I've summarized some of my own thoughts from the cast here:

General

* IW partnering through Steam is what you will see in the future. Matchmaking is not through Steam, but IW.NET is run in conjunction with Steam.
* GSP's will no longer be renting out servers.
* No PunkBuster. VAC will be used as an anti cheat.
* Retail distribution: Pre-orders will get a disk. Or you could order from Steam.
* DLC may now need to be paid for - not confirmed.
* Piracy was only a small reason for going to IW.NET - not the whole reason.

Clans:

* No more clan servers. Private matches, replace clan servers.
* Listen servers will connect to each other.
* IW.NET/Steam will replace the community server admin

Competitive Gaming

* Competitive gaming has changed forever.
* It might be possible in the future for IW engineers to load a "competitive" setting on IW.NET, but it is far from a guarantee. It might also never happen.

Modding

* Modding the game is now very much in question. Fourzerotwo had no info on modding. However, it appears that there will be no mods or maps for MW2.
* Modding in SpecOps? Unknown.


Today our game has changed for ever.

I'll leave this post with Josh Peckler's comments from planetmedalofhonor.com:

The server community is what's made us. It's what defined us.

IW.NET is getting the PC community to turn into consoles. You're trying to re-write our history.

' Wrote:I you were at Americas Army 3 release day. It took 30minutes-1 hours to just to start the download the rest of the game. Steam Servers were overworked.