Has Matchmaking Killed the Online Gaming Community?
I don’t own a PS3 so I cant comment on the matchmaking system/online situation over at Sony Towers.. but recently I’ve given the Xbox system some thought and I cant help but come to the conclusion that in some way, by moving the online technology forward, we’ve taken a step back in terms of community.
Dial back the clock to Socom on the Playstation 2. I cut my online console gaming teeth on this game when it released. Already a hardcore Delta Force player on the PC I was itching to play a decent console shooter online when the network adapter became available and Socom was Sony’s front running game promoting the online service (if memory serves me right).
Back then things worked very differently to how things are on the Xbox now. You’d logg in to Socom, select your region, then scroll down a list of ‘game rooms’ and find one to join. Or, you could host your own ‘game room’ and wait for others to join you then launch the game. I remember there being several regular rooms up most nights from the current clans at the time – OAP rooms were up most nights for instance (anyone who played Socom 1/2 in a clan in those days will probably recognise the name).
I joined the Socom party a little late and Socom 2 was almost ready for release so I never found a clan on the original, but when the sequel released it was through these ‘game rooms’ that I found the current clan I’m a member of (and have been for 5 years now).
I came across the room by chance and dropped in a few times over a couple of weeks, played a few games, enjoyed the banter on coms with the members of the clan, and eventually went to the website to check it out, found some great videos they had made in Socom 1 and applied for membership. Had Socom not supported these ‘game rooms’ I might never have come across the guys I met and maybe never joined up the clan I’ve considered my gaming home for so long.
Now lets spin the clock forward and look at Call of Duty 4 for the closest example I can think of. The Xbox matchmaking system has negated the need for private/public rooms. You pick your match type and the game auto-assigns you to the first game with space. If you want to play with your friends, you now form a party before the game and hope that you all get placed on the same team which doesn’t always happen.
The obvious drawback is it has killed off a large feeling of ‘community’ in online games. I used to logg on and check out various allied clan rooms and know I would get a fair game, without cheaters/glitchers unless you got some idiot join briefly. Now there is no such thing. Either you put all your allied clans on your friends lists or you don’t play with them… and with the limit being 100 people to a friends list it gets worse. OAP had a ton more players and that’s just one clan!
So in moving technology forward we have killed off what made online gaming so great in the first place. A strong community that catered towards clans more so than today’s system.
Back on Socom we would arrange clan matches via forums or email, then one team or the other would set a pass-worded room up that all players would join. It was easy to find, you could see all the other clan matches listed and know who was playing, you could chat in the lobby with other clan members that were not playing in the squad but hung around to see the results.
All that has gone with the introduction of Match Making.
Not only that, be we used to set up “Friends of..” rooms. A locked room that only your allied clans knew the password for. Good, clean fun games with friends… and no cheaters or glitchers!
All a thing of the past.. instead we now go through a ‘TrueSkill” system which ranks you based on various conditions (for info see here). I cant speak for all clans, but most clan members will probably agree that the average level of skill across a certain clans members can vary wildly from pants to god like reflexes. The current system is great for the solo player looking for an even match, but it shafts clans like never before…
I doubt we will ever see console online gaming return to how it was before. I think it’s a real shame that players will no longer be able to drop by regular clan rooms, or set up their own “Friends of…” rooms without bloated friends lists, or find clans the old fashioned way, or for clans to be able to post “Recruitment” rooms when they want to swell their numbers.
I dunno, maybe I have it all wrong and I just need to buy a PS3 and the new Socom. As I mentioned, I cant comment on how things currently run on the PS3, but the Xbox is certainly lacking clan support.
Where is our Xbox Clan support Microsoft? How many clans need to stagnate before you do something about this problem? I remember hearing about a ‘clan blade’ aaaages ago and yet here we are, years after the 360′s release and still no clan support from Microsoft!
Sort it out guys, before we lose everything we built up over the years!
