This season has been filled with some stellar veterans and some new kids on the block. The season was also filled with some new kids on the block that felt they were the best. They basically started talking too much and ultimately got removed from the league. They were removed and banned for circumventing previous bans. That was one of the highlights of the season so far. Everyone got a kick out of the whole process that led up to their banishment.

On a more serious note, we are now heading into Week 8, the last and final week before playoffs start. This week Strike is the map. This map will either make or break some teams. There are so many times that are just sitting on the bubble of making it into the playoffs. I wish them all the best.

So let's just speak hypothetical here. If the playoffs were to start this week, the teams making it in would be the following (ordered from 1st place to 16th place): BadClanBravo, Afflicted Gaming, [x]eno.Geist 2, DEADBEAT DADS CLAN, Red Dawn Gaming, sic`gaming, BadClan, Team Grey Matter, -[x]-Treme$oldiers, The Double Helix, s3v3n, SilentEagles, Down By The River Services, Sneaky Dudes, =VX9= Easy Co. A, and Malicious INt3nt. Congratulations to all of the teams listed on your performance thus far. Continue to do work, and I hope to see you all in the playoffs.

Now, to get on a more precise note and talk directly about our team. This past week we were able to beat sic`gaming and move into 2nd place.

This was a tough match for us and one we highly anticipated. We worked our butts off practicing for this match because we know sic` is capable of beating anyone on any given day. Practice beat skill this time, maybe it won't next time (I hope it does though). Great game sic and look forward to maybe playing against you in playoffs.

The week before this, Week 6, we were able to overcome Sneaky Dudes on District. This map isn't one of our best maps so again we spent quite some time getting ready for the match. We had the same mentailty facing them as we did playing sic`. We know that they are just ask capable as sic` to come out and stomp you down on any given day. But again, practice be raw skill. Great game Sneaky Dudes. Look forward to maybe meeting you in the playoffs.

Words by Vince Zampella and Jason West

Source: Gameinformer »

"We're just prioritizing the player experience above the modders and the tuners," says West. He points toward the mounting feedback IW has received from PC fans of Modern Warfare who couldn't find a decent server to play on between all of the cheaters, the insular communities, and huge skill level disparities that the original game's community fractured into. "We thought maybe it would be cool if the fans could play the game," he laughs.



IW says that gameplay concerns for the majority of MW2 players are the overriding reasons for the decision. Zampella downplays the obvious piracy prevention angle (IW has cited numbers of people online playing illegal copies of Modern Warfare up to 60 percent). "The Steam stuff helps with the piracy. I don't know that the matchmaking stuff does," he notes. West takes a shot at the motives behind some of the outrage, noting that there's money to made by selling dedicated servers and adspace on them: "It's a little dubious. Some of the people complaining are complaining with their pocketbook."



Again and again during our conversation, West and Zampella hammer the point that hardcore PC players lose very little to this change relative to the returns that casual to moderate fans will see. Clans can set up private matches to do their training or what have you; all they lose is the ability to customize the game on a deeper level with mods and such. Infinity Ward sees the addition of solid matchmaking and community support like IW-run tournaments to the PC as a huge win, and not something that could be done under the old system.



Why not have both? West does not want to include dedicated servers alongside the custom-built backend, stating that it would just "bifurcate the community."

Words by Robert Bowling

Source: Fourzerotwo.com »

Matchmaking and Smoother gameplay

[..] it will automatically find you a game with the best performance, ping, and preferences based on your location and individual connection as well as matching you with players of your same SKILL. So you’re always guaranteed the best game performance for where you are and what connection you’re playing on as well as an equal game with other players of your same skill level, not rank, but skill level. It doesn’t mean you’ll just be thrown into a random game! It will put you in the game that will give you the smoothest gameplay possible without you having to manually find a server with the best ping.

Playlists and private matches

[..] However, say you’re in a clan and you want to play a Clan match with another team, or you want to practice for an upcoming tournament that has specific rules in a private game. Then you can start a Private Match (which is essentially like running your own private server) where you have complete control over the rules, who can join, boot players you don’t want, and essentially control the entire game or tweak it to your liking. [..]

Cheat / Hack Free Games

The biggest benefit of using IWnet by far is the fact that you don’t have to worry about joining a server full of aim-bots, wallhacks, or cheaters. Or relying on the server admin of the server to constantly be monitoring, banning, and policing it. Modern Warfare 2 on PC allows us to control the quality of the game much more than ever before as well as utilizing the VAC (Valve-Anti-Cheat) system to keep games clean of hackers and cheaters.



All in all, IWNET adds a load of new features that the PC version of our games have never had before and allows us an infrastructure to continue to update and improve on the game post-launch.

Source: ModernWarfare24/7