Mike Nomad
10-29-2009, 08:03 AM
A letter to IW found in their forum, a long read but highly informative and entertaining.
The Greatest Open Letter To Infinity Ward, Ever
Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:06 pm
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?”
–William Shakespeare
Dear Infinity Ward,
I sirs submit to you that the quote above, being over 410 years of age, perfectly expresses the current state of mind possessed by most PC gamers, which was brought about by your recent actions with your upcoming title, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ”. The reasons for this state of mind are many and growing; our main concern however is your chosen removal of the support of dedicated servers which have been a key feature of PC gaming since the inception of the cable internet service. It must be noted that our dynamic duo has very rarely required the writing of such a scathing retort; this being only the third time such a document was produced. However your conduct has spurred our text based awakening once again.
Let us begin this journey into your malpractice with the option that you have chosen which is to silence the cornerstone of PC gaming, dedicated server support. While most in the community are aware that there are other means of coordinating online play, none have proven especially superior to the dedicated server style, especially not the method of peer to peer or matchmaking services (as you have not included any details about IWnet, both choices are highlighted).In removing such a beloved and almost standard medium to facilitate a favored game to friends and newcomers, you have effectively stamped out an entire cooperative. We remember the invaluable teachings of Sun Tzu in attempting not to underestimate one’s enemies; by this concept, we must infer that you had countless meetings debating the potential consequences and benefits of your most unwelcomed decision.
You claim that one of the most prominent reasons for removing dedicated servers is due to the level of difficulty one must face when trying to run one of these dedicated servers, never mind the fact that there are literally tens of thousands of already created servers for “casual games” not cultured enough in the areas of server maintenance and networking. While it is correct that multiplayer often relies on dedicated servers, not every person playing must own their own dedicated server. This refutes your insinuation that there is some sort of impassable curve required to enjoy a game with your friends over a wide area network. If you have in fact not played any games that rely on dedicated servers, the processes are rather simple. Allow me to explain the steps involved: You left click “Multiplayer” on the title screen and then utilize a classic double click on the name of a server that meets your standards. If that server is enjoyable, you can return anytime with the reasonable expectation of equally enjoyable game play.
We understand that you are running a business and must think of your own profits; however you must understand the impact of removing an entire industry from your new venture. A simple Google search for the term “game servers” reveals 13 individual results on the first page alone for companies whose sole purpose for existence is the creation and upkeep of dedicated servers for games such as yours. Let’s take for example a game that is literally a decade old yet still popular, the ever venerable Counter Strike version 1.6. The total number of active servers for this title is 20,000, but for the sake of fairness and generosity we will assume that only half of those are actually maintained by a dedicated server-hosting firm. At an average cost of forty dollars per month, this yields an annual gross income of almost 4.8 million dollars for this title alone that is considered ancient by modern gaming and graphical standards. Multiply this figure by the 62 other titles that most companies will offer servers for, and you can see the exact amount of damage your decision is going to cause if all of your new releases work on this IWnet system. This of course does not factor in the cost to your company to run your own servers in support of IWnet.
It is more appropriate to view the dedicated server system not as a list of current games running, but more like a list of virtual concrete clubhouses that a player can visit. It is an undying address that one may return to time and again to expect a comfortable level of play and a list of other dedicated users. In these servers, new and long lasting relationships are formed, clan and league business are discussed, and a regular, friendly user base is established. Your proposed IWnet system will remove this time tested design in favor of a rotating list of games playing forcing users to play with a list of complete strangers, never allowing enough time to get friendly with one another before its time to rejoin a separate set of new players. Perhaps this ‘speed-dating’ style of robotic movement has worked well for other relationship issues members of your company have experienced, but I assure you it is not the style most gamers outside of consoles are used to tolerating. We prefer slow dances and flirty games of grab ass followed by an awkward goodbye or two in the morning, just as our forefathers before us.
The next complaint filed by your company in yet another petty attempt to supply a reason to disband dedicated server support is that there were far too many cheaters roaming the servers of the first Modern Warfare title. To some uneducated minds this may seem like a fair compromise, however anyone with a slightest hint of cognitive thought will realize that this just means that you’re choosing not to fix the problem by acting like a child losing at chess and tossing the entire board to the floor proclaiming victory. I find it wise the US military has chosen not to adopt your approach lest they level every building in Iraq under the grounds that the insurgents will have no where left to hide, infrastructure be damned. Cheating has been successfully quelled in the past by a number of developers by use of their own or, even more popular, third party solutions. The ever popular Punkbuster was mentioned in your reasoning as a system you shied away from in favor of Valve Anti-Cheat. I’m not sure you spoke with any Valve representatives but I assure you that Valve Anti-Cheat is only slightly if not equally effective at routing possible unsavory charlatans. It should also be noted, no other company has had to abandon dedicated servers in order to utilize Valve Anti-Cheat. We fully support your inclusion of Valve Anti-Cheat but we are not as ready to believe that this will provide a, “cheat/hack-free environment.”
Many people believe that there is nothing more annoying than a perfectly formed metaphor. In keeping with that spirit let me entertain you for a moment with one relating to this situation. You enter a restaurant that you ate at one month prior and really enjoyed. You attempt to order food and the waitress stops you right there and explains their new philosophy on eating. Instead of making the complicated choices such as what appetizers and sides you want you simply pay before you eat and they bring you what they say you will enjoy. She explains that this makes it easier for people who aren’t familiar with the goings on of a commercial restaurant to still order a meal. It also eliminates people cheating by getting better food than everyone else or somehow constantly having more food. It goes one step further to stop people from enjoying the restaurant without actually paying. You are separated from your family because they weren’t in your “party” and instead forced to sit with individuals you have never met but in fact share the same food interests, eating ability, and average time to complete a meal. No one else makes the, “whatever main course you came there for” and they know this fact and blatantly exploit it by banking on the hope that you are too hooked on their product to overlook their lack of service. Guess what normal people do. They get up and leave. There is a simple business rule that holds true for every profitable venture that requires other people’s money with the exception of the government, religion, and the police. That practice is “the customer is always right.” You should remember that you aren’t a foreign dictator, you aren’t selling gold but somehow still malleable tits, and you certainly aren’t the shit in the business world. You make videogames. I think it is rather clear that you are in the entertainment business. Allow to make one further logical connection. Entertainment is fun, good. Now please explain how being lied to and only three weeks prior to release, after years of anticipation, having the proverbial carpet pulled right out from under us is fun.
Another issue brought to light by the dismissal of dedicated servers is the potential connection speed issues that arise with any peer-to-peer matchmaking service. If this is indeed your intention than I would like to make sure that the knowledge that international multiplayer capability will be almost impossible has not slipped your grasp. A person in South Africa cannot reasonably hope to connect to a pool of users with his own rank that reside in the United States. In a standard dedicated server system, a group of friends could purchase a server to run within that international region to use for online multiplayer capability and other alienated users nearby can join with a reasonable connection speed. Even if it is deemed not possible for these users who have what you might call on your side the ‘unfortunate situation of being born in a country with lower population or a smaller GDP’, these people can rely on the fast T3 Internet connections enjoyed by server hosting firms boasting 44mpbs connection speeds or faster. Instead now with IWnet they have to deal with connecting to some God knows where home PC with an average cable line that’s more than likely running fourteen or so windows in the background as well as a number of messaging services that leach bandwidth. I would just like to mention that the average cable home connection is about 6mpbs; that is a 24% decrease in speed. Despite this fact, and we’re sure that you’ve tested this even though its nigh impossible to correct, the host of the match will always have a 0 latency rating. People might shout for joy until they realize that if you’re not the host, you’re at the mercy of the game creator as he slaughters you with his superior connection speed because his shots will always register first regardless of situation.
There has been some claim as of late that your company has somehow become out of touch with the community it serves. We had hoped that this wasn’t true, that was of course until the price hike, exclusively new to the PC market only. In a world where someone making $7.25 an hour already needs to decide whether to eat for a day or buy your product, we doubt the extra ten dollars you’re imposing upon them is somehow justified by the new and unimproved service you’re providing. Perhaps if you hadn’t felt the need to produce not one, but two different premium packages no one can afford you could have passed those savings onto your fans. Then again, perhaps the $149 blow molded plastic Chinese made mannequin heads and severely gimped night vision goggles will be easily traded for rent when the housing market falls further into a rut.
Before we leave behind the current issues we have found with your new product and discuss the issues of your actual conduct regarding said drawbacks; there is just one final point we would like to touch on. Do you remember when you first came up with hardcore mode and how giddy it made everyone feel? Now does anyone at your company actually recall the reasoning for creating such? As it turns out, it was because the fans created modifications using mod tools that Infinity Ward actually encouraged the use of. Being this the case let us pose this query, how do you intend to continue to make such wonderful fan inspired game play when you have hogtied all of these customizers with the IWnet system? I suppose you’ll just stuff these new changes down the throats of your fans just as roughly as everything else you’ve decided is good. A secondary, and very important, problem with eliminating modding and custom mapping is that at home league and competitive play is now just as tears in rain. We’re not sure if any of you actually join servers on the games you so lovingly create, but leagues rely on strict dedicated server modification to ensure completely neutral and unbiased play.
All of this aside, and trust us it could have been any situation you had to respond to, nothing you’ve done so far in the area of disaster response has been the most prudent or fair choice. When asked why you had this new system in place, you simply replied that people would enjoy it without even bother to explain how the system is implemented even when confronted with the facts we are simply echoing in this document. After the controversy was fully realized and a petition, that as of this writing is rapidly approaching the 170,000 signature mark, was produced your response remained the same as the first time ‘you’re going to like it trust us’. We like to imagine a room full of gentlemen with capes and top hats, twirling pencil thin mustaches and laughing hardily as they have gold coin fort building competitions. Then came the inevitable, you must have realized your terrible mistake and called for, and I quote, a “Media Blackout”. How are we as consumers supposed to approach such a grouping of terms? Such language is normally reserved for a South American dictator nationalizing some large money making industry.
Let’s say you worked in another industry, this example can be applied to most but we like to think power management is good for dramatic effect. You’re the director of a council in charge of new power plant production and you decided a nuclear power plant sounds just dandy for a nice urban sprawl location. Unfortunately for you the populace has been reliant on an incredibly productive solar power from a nearby grassy glade for almost a decade, and you’ve promised them nothing will change. Immediately a petition arises, its starts with the hardcore solar energy nuts but quickly spreads to anyone that doesn’t want to live within breathing radius of a nuclear power plant. Your response is swift, a press conference is held and Robert Bowling is sent out to issue a statement: “Don’t worry you’ll like it, it’s not what we said originally but it’s far better. Trust us, we know what you want and you’re going to like it. I won’t tell you how it works and only give you and easily refutable reason why we’ve chosen it, but you’ll like it.” The outcry is however great, with no resident of the city actively supporting the measure and many point to its unsafe highly populated location and warn of the dangers of a leak or meltdown. You are persistent however and immediately demand a media blackout because the populace has decided to speak their mind. Doesn’t sound so reassuring in that context does it? We hope that helps put in the perspective of the common man being as you’re so high up on that horse of yours.
We write this not to incite a riot from the PC community or any other gamers who feel wronged by the actions of Infinity Ward and Activision. We write this not to incur the inevitable and incessant attempts to berate our feelings by educated and uneducated individuals alike. We write this not to even bring about some prolific change in the minds of the aforementioned developers that so many of us hope for but know will never come. No we write this because it will be heard and even if unanswered and ignored it will enter the minds of those who brought about its inception. For one small moment out of a marginally important person’s day, our words will compellingly and vigorously interrupt.
“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,”
–William Shakespeare
Obstreperously,
Jason Parras (GroundControl) and Chris Coraggio (Major Tom)
SOURCE (http://v4v.us/forums/v_lounge/letter_to_iw_found_in_their_forum_long_read_but_en tertaining)
The Greatest Open Letter To Infinity Ward, Ever
Wed Oct 28, 2009 5:06 pm
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?”
–William Shakespeare
Dear Infinity Ward,
I sirs submit to you that the quote above, being over 410 years of age, perfectly expresses the current state of mind possessed by most PC gamers, which was brought about by your recent actions with your upcoming title, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ”. The reasons for this state of mind are many and growing; our main concern however is your chosen removal of the support of dedicated servers which have been a key feature of PC gaming since the inception of the cable internet service. It must be noted that our dynamic duo has very rarely required the writing of such a scathing retort; this being only the third time such a document was produced. However your conduct has spurred our text based awakening once again.
Let us begin this journey into your malpractice with the option that you have chosen which is to silence the cornerstone of PC gaming, dedicated server support. While most in the community are aware that there are other means of coordinating online play, none have proven especially superior to the dedicated server style, especially not the method of peer to peer or matchmaking services (as you have not included any details about IWnet, both choices are highlighted).In removing such a beloved and almost standard medium to facilitate a favored game to friends and newcomers, you have effectively stamped out an entire cooperative. We remember the invaluable teachings of Sun Tzu in attempting not to underestimate one’s enemies; by this concept, we must infer that you had countless meetings debating the potential consequences and benefits of your most unwelcomed decision.
You claim that one of the most prominent reasons for removing dedicated servers is due to the level of difficulty one must face when trying to run one of these dedicated servers, never mind the fact that there are literally tens of thousands of already created servers for “casual games” not cultured enough in the areas of server maintenance and networking. While it is correct that multiplayer often relies on dedicated servers, not every person playing must own their own dedicated server. This refutes your insinuation that there is some sort of impassable curve required to enjoy a game with your friends over a wide area network. If you have in fact not played any games that rely on dedicated servers, the processes are rather simple. Allow me to explain the steps involved: You left click “Multiplayer” on the title screen and then utilize a classic double click on the name of a server that meets your standards. If that server is enjoyable, you can return anytime with the reasonable expectation of equally enjoyable game play.
We understand that you are running a business and must think of your own profits; however you must understand the impact of removing an entire industry from your new venture. A simple Google search for the term “game servers” reveals 13 individual results on the first page alone for companies whose sole purpose for existence is the creation and upkeep of dedicated servers for games such as yours. Let’s take for example a game that is literally a decade old yet still popular, the ever venerable Counter Strike version 1.6. The total number of active servers for this title is 20,000, but for the sake of fairness and generosity we will assume that only half of those are actually maintained by a dedicated server-hosting firm. At an average cost of forty dollars per month, this yields an annual gross income of almost 4.8 million dollars for this title alone that is considered ancient by modern gaming and graphical standards. Multiply this figure by the 62 other titles that most companies will offer servers for, and you can see the exact amount of damage your decision is going to cause if all of your new releases work on this IWnet system. This of course does not factor in the cost to your company to run your own servers in support of IWnet.
It is more appropriate to view the dedicated server system not as a list of current games running, but more like a list of virtual concrete clubhouses that a player can visit. It is an undying address that one may return to time and again to expect a comfortable level of play and a list of other dedicated users. In these servers, new and long lasting relationships are formed, clan and league business are discussed, and a regular, friendly user base is established. Your proposed IWnet system will remove this time tested design in favor of a rotating list of games playing forcing users to play with a list of complete strangers, never allowing enough time to get friendly with one another before its time to rejoin a separate set of new players. Perhaps this ‘speed-dating’ style of robotic movement has worked well for other relationship issues members of your company have experienced, but I assure you it is not the style most gamers outside of consoles are used to tolerating. We prefer slow dances and flirty games of grab ass followed by an awkward goodbye or two in the morning, just as our forefathers before us.
The next complaint filed by your company in yet another petty attempt to supply a reason to disband dedicated server support is that there were far too many cheaters roaming the servers of the first Modern Warfare title. To some uneducated minds this may seem like a fair compromise, however anyone with a slightest hint of cognitive thought will realize that this just means that you’re choosing not to fix the problem by acting like a child losing at chess and tossing the entire board to the floor proclaiming victory. I find it wise the US military has chosen not to adopt your approach lest they level every building in Iraq under the grounds that the insurgents will have no where left to hide, infrastructure be damned. Cheating has been successfully quelled in the past by a number of developers by use of their own or, even more popular, third party solutions. The ever popular Punkbuster was mentioned in your reasoning as a system you shied away from in favor of Valve Anti-Cheat. I’m not sure you spoke with any Valve representatives but I assure you that Valve Anti-Cheat is only slightly if not equally effective at routing possible unsavory charlatans. It should also be noted, no other company has had to abandon dedicated servers in order to utilize Valve Anti-Cheat. We fully support your inclusion of Valve Anti-Cheat but we are not as ready to believe that this will provide a, “cheat/hack-free environment.”
Many people believe that there is nothing more annoying than a perfectly formed metaphor. In keeping with that spirit let me entertain you for a moment with one relating to this situation. You enter a restaurant that you ate at one month prior and really enjoyed. You attempt to order food and the waitress stops you right there and explains their new philosophy on eating. Instead of making the complicated choices such as what appetizers and sides you want you simply pay before you eat and they bring you what they say you will enjoy. She explains that this makes it easier for people who aren’t familiar with the goings on of a commercial restaurant to still order a meal. It also eliminates people cheating by getting better food than everyone else or somehow constantly having more food. It goes one step further to stop people from enjoying the restaurant without actually paying. You are separated from your family because they weren’t in your “party” and instead forced to sit with individuals you have never met but in fact share the same food interests, eating ability, and average time to complete a meal. No one else makes the, “whatever main course you came there for” and they know this fact and blatantly exploit it by banking on the hope that you are too hooked on their product to overlook their lack of service. Guess what normal people do. They get up and leave. There is a simple business rule that holds true for every profitable venture that requires other people’s money with the exception of the government, religion, and the police. That practice is “the customer is always right.” You should remember that you aren’t a foreign dictator, you aren’t selling gold but somehow still malleable tits, and you certainly aren’t the shit in the business world. You make videogames. I think it is rather clear that you are in the entertainment business. Allow to make one further logical connection. Entertainment is fun, good. Now please explain how being lied to and only three weeks prior to release, after years of anticipation, having the proverbial carpet pulled right out from under us is fun.
Another issue brought to light by the dismissal of dedicated servers is the potential connection speed issues that arise with any peer-to-peer matchmaking service. If this is indeed your intention than I would like to make sure that the knowledge that international multiplayer capability will be almost impossible has not slipped your grasp. A person in South Africa cannot reasonably hope to connect to a pool of users with his own rank that reside in the United States. In a standard dedicated server system, a group of friends could purchase a server to run within that international region to use for online multiplayer capability and other alienated users nearby can join with a reasonable connection speed. Even if it is deemed not possible for these users who have what you might call on your side the ‘unfortunate situation of being born in a country with lower population or a smaller GDP’, these people can rely on the fast T3 Internet connections enjoyed by server hosting firms boasting 44mpbs connection speeds or faster. Instead now with IWnet they have to deal with connecting to some God knows where home PC with an average cable line that’s more than likely running fourteen or so windows in the background as well as a number of messaging services that leach bandwidth. I would just like to mention that the average cable home connection is about 6mpbs; that is a 24% decrease in speed. Despite this fact, and we’re sure that you’ve tested this even though its nigh impossible to correct, the host of the match will always have a 0 latency rating. People might shout for joy until they realize that if you’re not the host, you’re at the mercy of the game creator as he slaughters you with his superior connection speed because his shots will always register first regardless of situation.
There has been some claim as of late that your company has somehow become out of touch with the community it serves. We had hoped that this wasn’t true, that was of course until the price hike, exclusively new to the PC market only. In a world where someone making $7.25 an hour already needs to decide whether to eat for a day or buy your product, we doubt the extra ten dollars you’re imposing upon them is somehow justified by the new and unimproved service you’re providing. Perhaps if you hadn’t felt the need to produce not one, but two different premium packages no one can afford you could have passed those savings onto your fans. Then again, perhaps the $149 blow molded plastic Chinese made mannequin heads and severely gimped night vision goggles will be easily traded for rent when the housing market falls further into a rut.
Before we leave behind the current issues we have found with your new product and discuss the issues of your actual conduct regarding said drawbacks; there is just one final point we would like to touch on. Do you remember when you first came up with hardcore mode and how giddy it made everyone feel? Now does anyone at your company actually recall the reasoning for creating such? As it turns out, it was because the fans created modifications using mod tools that Infinity Ward actually encouraged the use of. Being this the case let us pose this query, how do you intend to continue to make such wonderful fan inspired game play when you have hogtied all of these customizers with the IWnet system? I suppose you’ll just stuff these new changes down the throats of your fans just as roughly as everything else you’ve decided is good. A secondary, and very important, problem with eliminating modding and custom mapping is that at home league and competitive play is now just as tears in rain. We’re not sure if any of you actually join servers on the games you so lovingly create, but leagues rely on strict dedicated server modification to ensure completely neutral and unbiased play.
All of this aside, and trust us it could have been any situation you had to respond to, nothing you’ve done so far in the area of disaster response has been the most prudent or fair choice. When asked why you had this new system in place, you simply replied that people would enjoy it without even bother to explain how the system is implemented even when confronted with the facts we are simply echoing in this document. After the controversy was fully realized and a petition, that as of this writing is rapidly approaching the 170,000 signature mark, was produced your response remained the same as the first time ‘you’re going to like it trust us’. We like to imagine a room full of gentlemen with capes and top hats, twirling pencil thin mustaches and laughing hardily as they have gold coin fort building competitions. Then came the inevitable, you must have realized your terrible mistake and called for, and I quote, a “Media Blackout”. How are we as consumers supposed to approach such a grouping of terms? Such language is normally reserved for a South American dictator nationalizing some large money making industry.
Let’s say you worked in another industry, this example can be applied to most but we like to think power management is good for dramatic effect. You’re the director of a council in charge of new power plant production and you decided a nuclear power plant sounds just dandy for a nice urban sprawl location. Unfortunately for you the populace has been reliant on an incredibly productive solar power from a nearby grassy glade for almost a decade, and you’ve promised them nothing will change. Immediately a petition arises, its starts with the hardcore solar energy nuts but quickly spreads to anyone that doesn’t want to live within breathing radius of a nuclear power plant. Your response is swift, a press conference is held and Robert Bowling is sent out to issue a statement: “Don’t worry you’ll like it, it’s not what we said originally but it’s far better. Trust us, we know what you want and you’re going to like it. I won’t tell you how it works and only give you and easily refutable reason why we’ve chosen it, but you’ll like it.” The outcry is however great, with no resident of the city actively supporting the measure and many point to its unsafe highly populated location and warn of the dangers of a leak or meltdown. You are persistent however and immediately demand a media blackout because the populace has decided to speak their mind. Doesn’t sound so reassuring in that context does it? We hope that helps put in the perspective of the common man being as you’re so high up on that horse of yours.
We write this not to incite a riot from the PC community or any other gamers who feel wronged by the actions of Infinity Ward and Activision. We write this not to incur the inevitable and incessant attempts to berate our feelings by educated and uneducated individuals alike. We write this not to even bring about some prolific change in the minds of the aforementioned developers that so many of us hope for but know will never come. No we write this because it will be heard and even if unanswered and ignored it will enter the minds of those who brought about its inception. For one small moment out of a marginally important person’s day, our words will compellingly and vigorously interrupt.
“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,”
–William Shakespeare
Obstreperously,
Jason Parras (GroundControl) and Chris Coraggio (Major Tom)
SOURCE (http://v4v.us/forums/v_lounge/letter_to_iw_found_in_their_forum_long_read_but_en tertaining)