14 DAY TRIAL // Regardless of much of the flack Infinity Ward took from taking out dedicated server support from its Modern Warfare 2, it looks like, instead of learning from other people's mistakes, developers blindly go head-first into the same iron-studded walls. DICE thumped its chest that its PC multiplayer for Bad Company 2 would be an old-school experience, but ended up restricting dedicated server files and removing mod tools from the game.
Rebellion announced that its upcoming AVP might also not support dedicated servers and, now, 2K Marin has revealed that Bioshock 2 is going for matchmaking. Dedicated servers have worked brilliantly for ages, so we can't help but wonder what it is that has suddenly changed.
In the game's Multiplayer Q&A that it just posted, as far as dedicated servers and LAN play went on the PC, Marin answered that, "Short answer, no and no. [...] Bringing Multiplayer to Bioshock was a daunting task between the tech (there was no multiplayer support in the codebase from the first game) and the expectations of the community."
"Either you try to do everything and so nothing feels finished or you focus your efforts to do a smaller number of things really well like an accessible online experience. We chose to spend the time we had creating a solid game foundation and unfortunately that did not include LAN play or dedicated servers."
As far as the possibility of crowd management on the server was concerned, it also revealed that, "There is no kick option as we felt like it often leads to more unfair kicking than fair kicking." While it says that it too is familiar with unfair and unrewarding multiplayer experiences, brought on by cheaters, exploiters or grievers, 2K Marin's suggested solution is to "report it, leave that game, and we'll try to smooth out the online experience as best as we can." The studio should be a lot more careful about what it asks, as gamers might just do that, and leave Bioshock 2 alone, on the shelves. Luckily for the developer, the multiplayer was never a big side of Bioshock, but if it plans to do it, it could at least do it right or scrap it altogether.
The studio also detailed its matchmaking system, mentioning that, there, we'd be able to secure private matches that didn't appear on the leaderboards and that we'd be able to recruit our friends into parties, as the game would keep us on the same team, as long as we desired it to. Further on, the game will look for other people to pit us against, searching for similar player skills and pings, so that we don't end up all on one side, waiting for a challenger to arrive.