It was recently brought up to me that I'm being a little bit closed-minded about the situation here, and I can understand where that person (no hard feelings bro), is coming from. That said, I would like to illustrate exactly why I'm coming across as closed-minded and unhappy about the switch to matchmaking.

MATCHMAKING:

Pros: - Matched up against players of your own rank.
- Guaranteed to always be pitted against new players you haven't seen before.
- Great if you just want to jump right into a game without setting up options.

Cons: - Very little "community" focus as you rarely see the same person twice.
- Customization is very limited.
- If servers goes down, everybody gets kicked offline, no exceptions.
- Foreign residents might be left out in the cold if Infinity Ward doesn't install servers...everywhere.
- Forces paid DLC.
- No modifications allowed


DEDICATED SERVERS:

Pros: - Complete control by the server as to how the game will be played.
- Admin control to ban/kick cheaters and assholes.
- Modability.
- 99.9% server uptime, even when IWnet goes down for maintenance.
- Creates communities, which is entirely impossible with matchmaking.
- Ensures that the game can still be played long after IWNet servers have been shut down.
- Choice over what map, gametype, player count, custom options, and ping you want to play with.
- Can favorite servers.

Cons: - Takes a fair deal of trial and error to find a dedicated server that suits your needs.
- Never guaranteed to be matched with players of exactly your same skill.
- Server browser can be unfriendly to some.




Both systems have their place in the gaming world, but dedicated servers have been essentially a requirement in PC FPS games, as it's by far the best option available. I would have no issue seeing matchmaking side-by-side with dedicated servers (you know, so the player can choose how to play), but I cannot look at matchmaking as an acceptable replacement, especially seeing the systems that already exist. I don't think there has been a single PC game with matchmaking (other than Left 4 Dead), to actually succeed. Operation Flashpoint is dead, FEAR 2 is dead, it just. doesn't. work.

I'm open to the possibility that IWNet will be constructed in a way that makes up for dedicated servers, but there is NOTHING that Infinity Ward has said or done to reassure me that this is anything more than a Halo 3 matchmaking knock-off.


Hope that explains things better.