An FPS pc game with no dedicated servers and no developer's console? Unheard of! Insane! Gaming blasphemy! Unthinkable! And yes, it actually happened. To one of the best games to come along in years. MW2 was the trial balloon floated by Activision and Infinity Ward (IW) in 2009. I'm sure they made a mint off this game. I doubt, however, that they'll ever make those mistakes again.
IW's decision to release MW2 with no dedicated servers and with no console was the event that informed pc gamers world-wide that we are of secondary importance to game developers like Infinity Ward. They let us know exactly where we stand. Their primary concern and primary target market is the hundreds of millions of console gamers (Play Station, X-Box, etc) world-wide. Why? Because there's so many of them and that kind of "return on investment" demands that they be catered to. Does that also mean that they completely piss off the entire FPS pc gaming community in the process? It wasn't necessary, but that's what IW did.
IWNet. That's the name of the match-making system IW introduced to replace dedicated servers. It is, may I say, a total piece of crap. I wonder if I should repeat that. IWNet = utter garbage.
The pc gaming community did not take this lying down. We organized and signed petitions. Many players boycotted the game. But I knew it would only be a short period of time before the creativity in the midst of the pc gaming community would rise up and make a statement. I told my clan-mates that it would happen and I didn't need a crystal ball to come to that conclusion. What choice did we have? IW left us no choice but to alter MW2 in every way conceivable. I'm quite proud to say, that's exactly what we did. Those with programming skills in the FPS pc gaming community got to work on MW2 and we showed IW what the game was supposed to look like. We showed IW how MW2 was supposed to be played. Trust me, they will never forget.
How was this accomplished? Mostly by young talented pc gamers from around the world who banded together and created sites, forums and then began to work together to accomplish the mission of "fixing" MW2. I'm sure more "working groups" sprung up than I'm aware of, but the two communities that have made the most progress in making MW2 playable are alterIWNet (aIW) and Four Delta One (4D1). Kudos to these guys who got the job done. Awesome work!!!
At some point during the week ending on Saturday October 16, 2010 aIW released dedicated server software for MW2. GDawgg Clan had servers running on aIW's network. It was a great achievement by them. It was also a whole truckload of fun being able to play MW2 with dedicated servers and 18 players (IWNet only allowed 8 players per match). Unfortunately, aIW was forced to cease it's operations. We were not surprised by this. Shortly thereafter, 4D1 sprung up. I don't have a timeline for 4D1's releases but I do know that some of the creative minds from aIW are a driving force behind 4D1. This community is operating a fully functional MW2 network, complete with ranked dedicated servers. Friggin awesome! The members of GDawgg Clan as well as thousands of pc gamers from all over the world applaud the work done by 4D1.
MW2 is such a kick-ass game with such great maps (Rust, Terminal, Favela), weapon innovations (MP5K, TAR-21, tactical knife, first appearance of dual-wield weapons in the CoD franchise) and perk innovations (marathon, commando, sit rep, etc). I'm sure I left out about 30 other things. Thankfully, it has been made "playable" by the collective creativity of the FPS pc gaming community.
Note: No map editor, compile tools or mod tools were ever "officially" released for MW2. However, many mods have been created for this game. I made nine mods for MW2.
