It ”hasn’t been decided yet” if dedicate servers will be ranked or unranked. Local region matchmaking has been improved, ‘especially for Australian gamers’.
”Yeah, so in Modern Warfare 3 you have the matchmaking that we introduced in MW2 so you have the party system, the lobby system, all that stuff,” said creative strategist Robert Bowling of Infinity Ward, the studio that created the blockbuster franchise.
”That is standard fare for it, but you also have a server browser so you can search, browse, filter, rate, and favorite dedicated servers or set up your own dedicated server so you have full control over ban lists, game setup rules, all that stuff that we know our PC players said they wanted coming out of Modern Warfare 2.”
Another issue the developer learned coming out of Modern Warfare 2 was matchmaking and how relying solely on ping just wasn’t working for everybody.
”We always do a lot of work in that, especially speaking specifically to Australian gamers, we took a ton of feedback coming out of Modern Warfare 2 on how we could optimize matchmaking for local regions like what it prioritizes, because you can’t prioritize across the board, saying this is how matchmaking works for everybody,” continued Bowling.
”That inherently isn’t fair because everyone doesn’t have the same sort of connection. An Australian player playing with a US player isn’t the same as a US player connecting with a US player,” he said.
”So we’ve changed the way things are prioritized so it’s not just based on ping. It should allow people in Australia or another country to have a better experience, rather than being at the will of one American host who comes in and takes over everything.”
Judgement is still being reserved whether dedicated servers will be ranked or not. ”That’s something that hasn’t been decided yet. It’s something that we’re working out,” added Bowling. Ultimately it’s about ”giving more options, more control” to players.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC November 8th. Are server browsers a deal breaker for your PC multiplayer habits, videogamer?
