And everything seemed to be going so well. Treyarch have confirmed in a post on their forums that the much-touted dedicated servers for Call of Duty: Black Ops will be limited to a single game service provider called GameServers.com:

GameServers.com Exclusive: Confirmed
We have partnered with GameServers.com as the exclusive provider of dedicated servers for Call of Duty: Black Ops. Every dedicated server for this title will be running on top quality hardware and infrastructure with excellent bandwidth. There will be a ton of official servers at launch for everyone to play on for free. If you want to run your own server you will be able to rent one at a great price (which will never go higher than $0.99/slot). They are actively adding new server locations and staffing up to meet global demand. If you don’t see your location you can suggest it here: http://www.gameservers.com/blackops/

Mere words cannot describe what a terrible idea this is for a dedicated server-based game.

The entire reason you would make a game with dedicated servers is to allow as many people as possible to provide servers for your game, all over the world. Their actual announcement post actually admits that they don't have all locations covered - only ten countries are listed in their promotional page. Australia is one of them, though given the fact that most other new, popular titles require almost all of Australia's ISPs/GSPs to run servers to meet demand, I am skeptical that they will have sufficient capacity.

This is, in my humble opinion, a real kick in the crotch for any gamer that has been looking forward to this game. It will massively reduce the number of servers available on launch. It will mean no choice in which GSP community you play on. It will mean no competition in terms of renting your own game servers. It takes the main feature that makes the dedicated server model work so well - server accessibility to anyone, anywhere that can run a server - and strips it from you.

Grrr. Treyarch, you are going so well with this title, why kick yourself in the balls now? It will still be a great game, but this won't help sadly :( Hopefully they turn around and say "Oh, here, do your own servers as well".

Just when you think Activision can't be any more retarded.

LOL

Now they will tell us there is no LAN support either.... Man producers are a real kill joy these days hey... man someone stand up and bring a good game out without the f***ing strings attached ffs

another cod game i wont be purchasing.

sadly they will still sell millions of copies

last edited by ravn0s at 11:19:58 06/Sep/10

I really hoping that Splash Damage aren't going this in this direction with Brink. Hopefully they're going to stick with the much more sane method they used with Quake Wars wherein only approved GSPs (lots of providers world-wide including GameArena/Internode etc) could run 'ranked' servers that track your persistent stats, whereas anyone that wanted to (including LAN players) could run unranked.

This seems pretty stupid, why would they give it exclusively to one company? Oh well *cancels preorder*

There is no LAN support per-say. I think they're doing MW2 style with having to be online to LAN. However, they are doing a f*** load of extras for PC. MOTD, Ban tools, Leaderboards, /record, rcon, dev console etc. Its like COD4 but better :D

This seems pretty stupid, why would they give it exclusively to one company? Oh well *cancels preorder*

You honestly can't think of a reason why this has happened?

Disclaimer: I obviously have more interest in this because our parent company still provides dedicated servers for games for a commercial ISP.

Australia has always been a great testbed for dedicated servers. We're so far away, our ISP model is so weird, and our country is so big that it means having local dedicated servers is pretty much of the utmost importance when it comes to playing multiplayer games like this one.

We have only ever wanted a completely fair playing field for dedicated servers. I am personally opposed to the idea of the 'ranked server programme' that things like Battlefield and ET:QW use, even though it is better for us, commercially, as we are one of the few providers - because I strongly feel that programmes like that result in reduction of choice for gamers.

However, compared to the ranked server programme, this system for Black Ops is basically catastrophic for everyone. There is no way one single provider, no matter how big, will have enough servers world wide for a remotely popular FPS game at launch. Australians will cop it worse than everyone, because of the comparatively high cost of hosting services - something which is typically absorbed by ISPs when it comes to dedicated server based games.

I am a firm believer in the dedicated server model because I genuinely feel it is the best thing for gamers. It means you can play where you want, when you want. In a truly open model, it means you can run your own server and do whatever you want with it. It means that even if the company that started it gets bored of providing official services, there's almost always a way for you to play that game - as long as the server software is available, someone can run a server for it.

Black Ops will have massively reduced accessibility to gamers as a result of this move - particularly in Australia. I strongly advise you to take this into account before you make any purchasing decisions for this game.

Oh wait, after reading further, they kind of have a LAN. You can create listen servers, but just have to be connected to steam. And everyone should be able to connect to some form of internet :S

Exclusivity of dedicated servers is ridiculous.

I think the preferred model should be authorised dedicated servers - i.e., licensed with a serial which is tested online. If they out-sourced the auth process to a single, third party entity then I could understand that.

Woop, they have Sydney servers!
All good! :D
Finally kicking/banning, f*** i hate how you can't do that in mw2

will they provide free servers for ladder? or are clans gona need to fork out just to have a legit league. I so wana hear what my friend who plays comp is gona say about this bull s***

I got all excited when I read the subject
epic disappointment

I am personally opposed to the idea of the 'ranked server programme' that things like Battlefield and ET:QW use, even though it is better for us, commercially, as we are one of the few providers - because I strongly feel that programmes like that result in reduction of choice for gamers.

On principle I'm opposed to this, but when you're trying to do stuff like SD are in Brink - all the persistent character stats and tracking - can you really suggest a better method?

You can't just have everyone able to run ranked servers, because that makes it impossible to police the people that will be cheating the persistent features of the game -- cheaters boosting their character stats and unlocking everything in their own servers, then joining public ones and spoiling the experience for other players.

ranked servers should be promod only easy fix

Hahah cod is such a pathetic series. Each game is s***ter than the last.

go away troll

Yar, I'll be playing the single player while wearing my eye patch.

Fail of Duty: s*** Ops

I used to like CoD, but MW2 killed it for me. The multiplayer is so s***. I like the campaigns, but that's it.

ranked servers should be promod only easy fix

what does this mean, exactly?

i love it how they reason no lan game support as a pirate deterent

companies are gettin so greedy and money hungry these days.

Well this basically means I will be downloading this game for single player instead of buying this game for multiplayer.

I hope you mean download it off Steam, because admitting to software piracy in a thread on the front page of Ausgamers would be a pretty stupid thing to do.

Next they will say they using SecuROM....

Gameserver.com currently have 14 game servers running in Sydney, so i'm guessing that will be about 7 physical servers, I really cant see how they will scale for just this game without going bankrupt.

I have vowed that I will not purchase a FPS if it does not include dedicated servers and at least a map editor. I have wasted too much money on duds like MW2 and BFBC2 with no chance of mods to revive them.

Not buying.

I'm assuming this will also mean that mods won't exist (unless the company they've forced everyone to use is willing to use mods; but they don't have to be willing to because they have a monopoly). The server company will have a hard enough time running all the vanilla servers, let alone installing mods and running mod servers.

Even if mods will still work, this really sucks. I just can't see how this company will be able to host the 10000+ servers that CoD4 had up in its prime, and that this game could have had too. At least it made my decision easier: previously the side of me that hates Activision with a passion was waging war against the side that says this could actually be a good game. The latter side has gone.

Gameserver.com currently have 14 game servers running in Sydney, so i'm guessing that will be about 7 physical servers, I really cant see how they will scale for just this game without going bankrupt.

Its prolly more like 2 physical machines for 14 game servers. If that.

COD4 was the best.

another cod game i wont be purchasing.

Yeah I said that about modern warfare 2 but ended up buying it anyway but after only playing that for a couple of months I think I really will give this one a miss. Bad company 2 still has my attention at the moment and when that gets boring I fall back to trusty old modern warfare (1).

I hope you mean download it off Steam, because admitting to software piracy in a thread on the front page of Ausgamers would be a pretty stupid thing to do.

Considering I haven't directly admitted anything and couldn't have possibly pirated anything as it doesn't yet exist to pirate. I think I am fairly safe. I pay for games that deserve to be payed for, even donate. This doesn't deserve it.

Considering I haven't directly admitted anything and couldn't have possibly pirated anything as it doesn't yet exist to pirate. I think I am fairly safe. I pay for games that deserve to be payed for, even donate. This doesn't deserve it.

Paid.

http://scrapetv.com/News/News Pages/Games/images-2/bobby-kotick.jpg

Paid.

Oh true.

Big surprise, not.

I knew it all seemed like it was going far too smoothly..

*sigh* Thanks treyarch. Just as I was getting excited for the game, you dick slap me back to reality.

I hope everyone who decided on this move dies in a horrific car fire...

kotick would make a decent ronald mcdonald.

It sounds to me a lot like this is all Activision and not Treyarch.

Why would they announce mod support etc and then f*** over the servers.

I just did a server search on COD4 for GameServers.com and it had a 281 ping.
No wonder I have never heard of them.
Oh well looks like I have saved my self another $80 on an Activision game.
Its a shame cos they put so much work into them.

Quote from the Treyarch post about GameServer
"They are actively adding new server locations and staffing up to meet global demand"


They would want to.
I looked up the Sydney server stats and they have a grand total of 78 players there on 9
different games. Nearly half are playing CS 1.6.

As a comparison at the same time Internode's Games on net have 1317 playing at the moment.
241 are playing the old COD4 alone and they once accommodated 2959 out of a possible 4222 players.
Multiply that by all the other major game servers and you get something more like what would be needed
at the initial release of Black Ops

What would be needed at the initial release of Black Ops is quite likely more than both Games On Net and GameArena would supply (if they could) for launch combined.

My prediction is this: Basically as an Australian PC gamer with Black Ops in week one, you're now either going to be (a) waiting in a join queue for a GameServers.com server to play on OR (b) you'll be connecting to a US/EU one with completely worthless latency OR (c) they'll still have some non-dedicated connection method with matchmaking like MW2 to fill in the gaps.

There's also the wildcard option (d) where hardly anyone buys it because they're all educated consumers so this one provider are able to actually meet demand - odds on that happening though?

Which one of those would you prefer (trick question).

GLHF

Wow, Activision is learning pretty quick! So they now know that that shouldn't go and outright say there isn't dedicated support, just implement it far more subtly and secretly. I agree... it did seem like it was going far too well...

They promise mod support and then this.

They are less consistent than......well..........inconsistency!

I refuse to buy another Activision game while Kotick has any position within that company.

Will not be buying.

f*** the COD series.

MW warfail 2 now s***-ops only noobs will buy this game because their blinded buy the carrot on a stick leading them to the shops.(noob: ooh new cod game lookie me i got it!!!hahahha)NOOB