From
DW24/7:
We find out why it is nearly impossible for Call of Duty to support dedicated servers for console gaming, plus other MW3 info.
During Call of Duty XP I got the chance to sit down with Infinity Ward’s Executive Producer, Mark Rubin. He was a huge help in answering the community’s questions, and below are his transcribed answers. Please keep in mind that he was not able to answer some of the questions due to the fact that select Modern Warfare 3 information can’t be revealed until launch.
One of the major things we discussed was why dedicated servers have not yet made their way to consoles for the Call of Duty series. This question has been asked a million times, and it’s something you constantly hear the community talking about. The short answer is simple: It’s a big technical and expensive issue.
According to Rubin:
It’s easy for someone to say, ‘I want servers on console’. I don’t think everyone understands exactly what they are asking for. What that would mean, would be opening up data centers in every single city across the world because this is such a huge game of 30 million plus people. We have more than 33 million people playing Modern Warfare 2 all over the world and even more play Black Ops.
There is a statistic which states that one in every four households in the UK own a version of Modern Warfare 2. Similarly, one in eight households owns a copy of Black Ops in the United States and sales in this region broke 13.7 million copies at the beginning of March, 2011. Rubin provided even more detail about the situation which really put things in perspective.
So now we have to open up data centers in every city in the world, that has severs. And we are not talking five or six severs, and we aren’t even talking ten to twenty servers. We are talking about more severs than all of World of Warcraft in every little data station. Each one can only have three to four games on it at a time, at most. It just becomes this nightmare of trying to spend four billion dollars on trying to create a server structure.
If we were a small game, servers on console might be something more achievable. We might be able to do a west coast server, central server and east coast server and that might be fine. But for us, if we actually did that, if I put a server in each region and you are somewhere in between you are going to connect to that sever and have horrible latency. In our game latency is important and you should be matchmaking with people close to you. So the actual thing here is that our style on console works better than dedicated servers from a latency standpoint. We know this is true; we have tested it from a numbers standpoint. The reality is that people think that is what they want, but they don’t understand the actual challenges.
Obviously, if you live near one of these data centers you will have an amazing connection, but for a majority of people that would not be the case. With Call of Duty sales growing larger each year the developers focus a lot on improving the way matchmaking functions. Rubin confirmed that search preferences, such as local matchmaking, would be returning to Modern Warfare 3. Also the ability to migrate host at any time during the match can occur regardless of if the host player leaves the game or not. If his ping starts to drop the switch will occur. Plus once you are back in the lobby, after a game ends, the system goes through and reselects a new host. It doesn’t just roll over with the same player next game.
During our interview we were able to get a few other community questions answered. Another topic we covered was the improvement of the spawn system in Modern Warfare 3. Rubin stated that there were significant improvements to the way spawns functioned, and Infinity Ward has the ability to tweak spawns post-launch via updates and hot-fixes.
There are multiple things that come into effect when you have spawning. There is obviously the shape of the map that determines how spawns feel and work. We have always in the past tried to make the maps so spawning works better, but it is one of those things that is just a difficult thing to just get right. It’s a constant learning process and it’s sort of trial and error. Usually when we are testing these modes we are testing where the spawns are, and we are making sure you aren’t getting spawn-trapped or spawning on top of yourself. Because the game is so fast paced and I can hit the button and get right back in the game, spawning is obviously a huge hurdle to get over.
Will you never see someone spawn? We can’t promise that, but we have reduced it as much as we can and there have been improvements to this game. One of the big improvements we did for this game was in Modern Warfare 2 we sort of got you too close to the battle. You spawned almost right inside the battle sometimes. So we have eased it out a little bit and tweaked those numbers, and you will find spawning is much better than last game.
In addition to being able to hot-fix spawn locations, Mark Rubin stated that over these past two years they have been focusing special attention on developing the ability to tweak key aspects of the game post-launch. This includes the ability to balance weapons, maps, spawns, game modes and more. Infinity Ward didn’t have these hot-fix and post-launch tweak abilities for Modern Warfare 2.
One final question we asked about was the knifing mechanics for Modern Warfare 3. Knifing is still a one-hit instant kill, but we inquired as to what changes were actually made and if there were any possible mechanics that got scrapped during development.
We have paired it down significantly from the last game. It’s not the knifing fest it was in Modern Warfare 2. There is no lightweight and no commando perks. Knifing now is more if you come around the corner you can tag a guy really fast, or you can sneak up behind and finish him that way. As for a new mechanic, it has been talked about but we never got far enough into a good solution to replace it. That is really where we are at. It might be something we look at though because, to be honest, I’m not a fan of knifing.
Mark Rubin was also able to confirm a few other various details about multiplayer. Mod Tools for the PC version of the game were still in determination. Also, the maps shipping with Modern Warfare 3 are all new to the series. However, he stated the potential to bring back maps from previous games is there.
With a only less than a month away until release, Modern Warfare 3 will be here before we know it!
Make sure to check in with my
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I know I am excited for the release--the news just keeps getting better and better! TC
