My broadband connection was on the blink this morning, which affected me less than it would usually would have because I had a dentist appointment, so I didn’t think too much of it. I heard on the radio when driving to said appointment that the whole island was affected so that made me feel a little better, and everything came back about an hour after I returned.
However a friend of mine works at one of the local telecoms companies (and which is also the broadband wholesaler to the others – kind of like our local version of BT) phoned me at lunchtime to ask if my connection was back, since he hadn’t seen me on Skype (I’d actually just forgotten to turn it back on). He informed me that the reason for the technical difficulties was a massive spike in internet traffic caused by everyone playing Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 
Yes, it seems lots of people decided to take the day off today to play the new release; even in our small juristiction over 100 people queued outside the local HMV at midnight to get their copy early, so it seems that many more people bought it at 9am and went home to fire it up. Given that the game had a day 1 patch (at least for PS3 for a trophy bug, I don’t know about 360) I presume that plus lots of people jumping online all at once was a bit much for the system to handle.
It appears I’m the only person in the world who isn’t obsessed with COD:MW2 
November 10th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
But what about the PC players and the lack of mods and dedicated servers? I was interested hearing your perspective on that situation.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Since I’m not really following the game I don’t care that much in the specific case. But in a general sense it’s just the next step for AAA developers concentrating on consoles rather than the PC, and not seeing any point spending money on PC-specific features. Sad but inevitable – as soon as iD, the former champion of top-end PC development, said they were leading on consoles from now on, the writing was on the wall.
I don’t mind that much though – some like Valve still support the PC well and big developers ignoring the PC leaves some space for indies to make a name. The openness of the PC template is still inexorable in the long term, the business model of creating locked-in, custom and incompatible console hardware will not survive indefinitely – arguably it’s already faltering. Content is king, not platforms. Arguably the co-existence of the many incompatible platforms is the biggest waste of developer time known to man – how many man-hours are wasted on creating / tuning a basically identical looking engine several times that could have been spent on content instead? If you suggested to a Hollywood studio that they should film and edit a movie in 3 different formats at once, they’d tell you to go take a running jump.
It’ll all normalise in the end, technical hurdles are less and less a valid excuse for creating these islands of compatibility. Game developers are almost all cross-platform now, so the platform divisions increasingly serve little purpose (except when devices are genuinely different such as iPhone). I still say it’s a historical anachronism that will eventually evapourate in a puff of common sense. No-one needs 3 ‘primary’ gaming platforms. And the ‘competition’ argument I hear all the time is rubbish – there’s plenty of competition in the market for other devices which use standard media formats (DVD, CD, MP3). As soon as the player hardware becomes indistinguishable – and can you really tell the difference between COD:MW2 on 360 and PS3? – there is simply no reason for there to be more than one content format. The traditional model of content creators subsidising platform holder’s hardware development is all but dead – it just doesn’t make sense any more. Content creators might subsidise delivery & service platforms (like Steam, XBL, PSN), since that is relevant regardless, but not proprietary hardware – that just makes their lives harder.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I have to admit I am far more interested in Dragon Age: Origins that Modern Warfare 2, though I’ll probably play around with MW2 once the price comes down a bit on steam (if that ever happens)
November 10th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
^
That would’ve made for another great blog post on its own.
You’re not the only person in the world who doesn’t care one bit for COD:MW2. I didn’t know the game was coming out until a couple of days ago and since then I’ve been wondering what all the hype is about. To me, it’s just Generic FPS Game #287631. I’ll believe it when people say it’s a good game, it’s just nothing for me to get psyched about.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Hear hear Nico. I was sucked in with the hype around most of the previous COD’s – same old tedious linear FPS. Not rubbish, but certainly nothing new.
I’m not even looking at this one unless it gets consistent fantabulous votes from users (and I don’t trust magazine reviews anymore either, not since the gash that was Far Cry 2).
November 10th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
FPS shine in multiplayer mode .. that’s the only reason I played COD so much – for me no single player experience, no matter how good or innovative gameplay, comes close to playing against other people.
That’s why I don’t play consoles at all .. there is just nothing there but single player or some crippled version of multiplayer.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I cared about the game until my Dragon Age: Origins (on PC) arrived. I have plenty to do in this game and I have even left Uncharted 2 in my rack catching dust for it
. I can’t imagine how this game plays with a controller being so mouse and keyborad oriented.
I may still get COD at a later date since I like FPS games in general, generic or not. The presentation of COD:MW2 is just phantastic and the gameplay isn’t to shabby either.
November 11th, 2009 at 3:35 am
@warmi The MW2 PC multiplayer experience is exactly that same as the console. Same player limit, same forced match making system, and the same exclusion of mods.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
You’re not the only one – I don’t have either MW, one or two!
November 12th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Call of What?
You’re not alone! I like a lot of games (been pretty into Borderlands lately myself) but the CoD franchise has never interested me that much.
November 19th, 2009 at 5:34 am
I have to say I’m quite enjoying MW2 on my xbox. It’s a polished shooter and the co-op missions are a good bit of fun.