we should petition for dedicated servers

For ANYONE from the COD house to EVER whisper any thoughts that it costs too much to run dedicated hosting servers - they are full of shit.

In 2011 the Modern Warfare 3 title grossed $775 MILLION dollars worldwide.

To put that in perspective - that's equal to the original Star Wars movie has grossed from '77 to present! It's also more than The Matrix Reloaded grossed.

You cannot tell me it costs more to write, produce, make a video game than it does a Hollywood blockbuster. And even if it did they'd still have money left over. There is absolutely no excuse other than "hey we'd rather be richer then make the game play better so go fuck yourself".

What sparked this rageapathic rant? Oh I don't know... playing BF3 for 5 seconds and getting into a match instantly - having chat work without sounding like the first shuttle launch - not emptying 100 rounds into a guy with a solid bead on him for 5 seconds to turn around and get shot in the head only to watch the killcam to see my soldier was still in the shitter expelling the pigs n a blanket he ate for breakfast out his ass vs. having his rifle ready or even firing a shot.

That is all.

I agree 100%, sadly, the assholes at Activision will probably never give in.

Activision will bleed the COD series dry like they did the Guitar Hero franchise

jemenard wrote:

Activision will bleed the COD series dry like they did the Guitar Hero franchise

omg so true +1

As long as we coming coming to play, they will keep pumping out the crap.

+100. Preach it brother.

I feel your pain brother, seriously.... But i did some thinking about this subject. Even with dedis you would still be subject to the same matchmaking albeit on a much smaller scale, which is one benefit of the listen servers we have now. You have a larger base to find matches.

The bandwidth is higher on a dedicated server, but you also have to consider the cost implications as companies using dedis in one area do. they save money by lowering bandwitdh to something on par with the majority of home users for each lobby. The more lobbies you run off one dedi the lower the costs, and to do that you split the bandwidth between lobbies the only limitations to this come from the processing power of the server and the available bandwidth. These companies go for absolute max number of lobbies on a server as they know what their minimun needs are in regards to smooth gameplay.

A game like Battlefield 3 (an obvious comparison that will likely come up in this thread), does NEED them on console. With maps of that size, massive player numbers per game, and vehicles, how could anyone host that game? The majority of players could not.

AND the kicker here.... they didnt have to put much into it and it still "works". The cost of doing it would be astronomical. They would have to put serveral servers in every major city in the USA for starters. And look a the rest of the world...

It wasnt really cost effective for them to do so.

Trust me, I fully understand how server infrastructure works and the costs associated with it. The issue isn't that maintaining servers costs too much, it's that setting them up costs more than activision is willing to pay.

There's no reason whatsoever that they can't do dedicated servers. The cost, while significant, is not nearly what activision would have you believe. With sponsorships (who wouldn't want their brand name attached to the highest selling franchise of all time?) the cost would be mitigated by quite a bit. Hell, they could even tie the ability to play on dedicated servers to the Elite service, or even charge the players directly for them to help mitigate costs (black ops on pc did this and it worked).

It's not an issue of can't, it's an issue of won't.

[quote="Kylaeris"]it's that setting them up costs more than activision is willing to pay.

quote]


Thats kinda what i said, heh.

They "wont" because they had no need. Would the cost have always been mitigated by sponsors or sub fees? And once said servers are set up, how expensive or not would it be to set them up for Black Ops 2 or whatever the next game is gonna be? Wouldnt they need new servers to handle that as well? Or would MW3 just not be able to play on them anymore to make room? Think about COD4. Can you still play MP on it? They had dedi servers. I have no idea if you can, thats why i ask...

Just seems to me that the system in place is more cost effective for them. Even though we are not fans of it...

Yes, they always could have mitigated the costs through sponsorships, etc, but as there was no real demand for them on consoles before there was no need to even consider it. There is now.

Once the server infrastructure is set up, it wouldn't be an issue at all to set servers up for black ops 2. They could either migrate some of the mw3 servers to the new game, or just add more hardware. The call of duty franchise is growing, but most of the new sales come from people who already play COD. If they're playing one game they're not playing the other, so the bandwith requirement wouldn't increase by all that much.

That makes sense bro. I wish it was like that too. I agree with and will sum up what BlackDeath said, i think its lame that i have a wicked awesome connection, but it gets "dumbed down" to compensate for others that dont. Most of my deaths are from this shit and i am sick of it.

I suppose that initial set up cost of getting the infrastruture going is what they dont want to invest in. Makes me wonder why. Obviously, they have logistic personel that dont see it as feasible. I guess thats why they are there making the bank and guys like us are where we are. Still playing the game.

Hehe, actually, if it wasnt for the great guys i have met in this clan i wouldnt still be playing

Here's the sick part: if they decided to charge for dedicated servers, say like $60 a year, I'd pay it. If it meant I could truly see what I'm capable of with this game, I'd do it. And I bet a lot of others would too. That would mitigate a lot of the cost they whine about with setting up servers in remote areas.

Id never pay a red cent to have dedicated servers. Paying to play a game online will never be something i do and thats one reason ill never own an Xbox. Its bad enough to shell out $$$ for DLCs and garbage like Elite.

Coming from the MMO/PC world Im used to monthly fees. But sadly we will never see dedicated servers on cod servers.

fucilli_jerry wrote:

Here's the sick part: if they decided to charge for dedicated servers, say like $60 a year, I'd pay it. If it meant I could truly see what I'm capable of with this game, I'd do it. And I bet a lot of others would too. That would mitigate a lot of the cost they whine about with setting up servers in remote areas.

I second this. If I was getting the same connection experince on MW3 and I am on BF3 I never would have left. There are issues with BF3, but consistant connection is not one of them. I was playing with Nixon, Darrker, Crossfire, and Freak. That hits all 4 corners of the country. If I got lag it was small and predictable.

I think the idea of a sponsor for the server farms in that game. I would rather Mt Dew and Doritos use marketing dollars for supporting dedicated servers than advertising for dbl XP codes.

I think if I spent anymore on COD or to play online I would be in the Dog House. I do agree tho I think sponsors would cover alot of it.

CrazyNixon7 wrote:

Id never pay a red cent to have dedicated servers. Paying to play a game online will never be something i do and thats one reason ill never own an Xbox. Its bad enough to shell out $$$ for DLCs and garbage like Elite.

I'm with Nixon on this. Paying extra for online play just won't fly in my family. If anything, they should just build it into the cost of elite or the game or something. Hell put some advertising in game and I'm ok with it. But I won't pay a recurring fee.

Every one bring good points. But I think we will not see dedcated servers til there is a legitimate cod killer mdade probly nect consule generation. Its there ace in the hole and I dont think they will use it till they have to.

You are probably right that we will never see it in the world of PSN.

But like some , I use to rent a dedicated server when playing in the PC world (Counter Strike, BattleField, Desert Combat, etc).

And, I would gladly pay to be able to do that again.

Having a dedicated server seems like the fairest way to treat everyone joining a game, instead of sticking someone with host and then punishing them.

Out of a large clan we had about 5 older guys split the cost each month and the rest rode for free.
Didn't bother me then, and it would not bother me now to do that.

I guess the point is moot.

But I would pay to have less lag, and not feel bad about those that would not or could not.


.

I was just thinking of another reason it was nice having our own server.

We monitored cheating pretty closely and banned anyone caught.

THerefore our server(s) became known to be a good place to play if you were legit.

It attracted a better, more mature crowd because the banhammer was laid down swift and fair.

It would be nice to ban those boosters and lag switchers that we catch.

I only know one person that had a dedicated server connected directly to the fiber optic line. That was for Ghost Recon and Rainbow six Vegas2. I don't know what he paid but it wasn't cheap. He was competing for money. I think he made 60 - 80k one year along with winning a car. Matt "Ballistics" Powers.

Kylaeris wrote:

It's not an issue of can't, it's an issue of won't.

ding ding ding

The cost is shit compared to what they're hauling in. I'll give you a very high level breakdown - don't want to put anyone to sleep with all the tech details.

Ok you setup some major hubs nearby where uunet and others feed the backbone of the net so data circuits are cheaper the closer you are. You can fill up a rack of chassis and blades for under 100k a fucking ridiculous OC3 data circuit (thats 100 T1s) 155mbit up/down and costs about 15k to 20k a month. So lets throw a ridiculous number out there like 5k/month for power, floor / building lease, etc. So per major city or hub you're into it for about 150k.

Let's build 100 of these all over the world - ok now we're looking at 1.5 million start up and 2 million a month in circuits. MW3 hauled in over 750 million dollars. If they had some ridiculously low margin like 10% (which is extremely unlikely) they could still host this solution for 3 years before they'd begin to lose money.

Now a more realistic margin is probably 50 to 75% which means they could still make money hand over fist regardless of spending 25m a year for this super infrastructure.

BlackDeath wrote:

Kylaeris wrote:

It's not an issue of can't, it's an issue of won't.

ding ding ding

The cost is shit compared to what they're hauling in. I'll give you a very high level breakdown - don't want to put anyone to sleep with all the tech details.

Ok you setup some major hubs nearby where uunet and others feed the backbone of the net so data circuits are cheaper the closer you are. You can fill up a rack of chassis and blades for under 100k a fucking ridiculous OC3 data circuit (thats 100 T1s) 155mbit up/down and costs about 15k to 20k a month. So lets throw a ridiculous number out there like 5k/month for power, floor / building lease, etc. So per major city or hub you're into it for about 150k.

Let's build 100 of these all over the world - ok now we're looking at 1.5 million start up and 2 million a month in circuits. MW3 hauled in over 750 million dollars. If they had some ridiculously low margin like 10% (which is extremely unlikely) they could still host this solution for 3 years before they'd begin to lose money.

Now a more realistic margin is probably 50 to 75% which means they could still make money hand over fist regardless of spending 25m a year for this super infrastructure.

And yet, they made $750 million without spending a single dime on the dedicated servers. The true question is how many additional copies would they have sold if they had spent the $25 million for a year of dedicated servers. (I'm assuming a year between releases). I don't think anyone would have been swayed into getting MW3 specifically because of the servers.

So really, there is no incentive to spend the $1.5 million setup and $2 million/month when their return on that wouldn't make up for it. Thus, no dedicated servers.