In case you all didn't know, Infinity Ward has just released the multiplayer patch for Call of Duty 2.
Among the major fixes are lag reductions, host private games, post game lobby, map and game modifiers. Normally 2o2p would do its own review of the new updates, but we found an awesome review of the patch right on the Xbox forums by AustinS2K2003. Read on to find out about all the difference. Could G.R.A.W. have a real competitor now?
From Xbox Forums:
Well I've read everyone's thoughts on the patch and after playing last night I thought I'd kill some time at the office by writing up my thoughts and putting them into a review of the patch.
First allow me to start off by saying I have DSL-Premium from SBC which is something like 512 up and 3000 down. My 360 is connected to my DSL connection via a wireless 802.11b connection. The 360 is using the MS wireless adapter and the 802.11b is a limitation of my DSL Modem. In any case last night I signed on to live and downloaded the patch. First thing to check out is what was in it. I'll break it into 3 categories - in-game, hosting options, and lag.
In Game
For me and you lag is the biggest problem with the game. I detailed my connection for a reason. Pre-patch anytime I got into a match which had me as the 'host' or the first player in game the game would lag like crazy leading me to just leave lobbies when this happened. Last night I hosted a game which varied in size from 6-8 players and the pings were not more than 100-150 for all players in the match. This is a proof positive comparison that the lag issues are addressed and corrected. I can host games now which is awesome - last night I hosted about 2 hours worth of matches with the same group. We went round after round and had a great time!
Unable to Join Game Session
Ok so now to the bad. It seems with this patch when you join a player match you continue to get 'Unable to Join Game Session' error. This seems to only happen when joining a player match from a menu. While this is annoying ranked matches seem to work fine so I'm not too concerned about it. In my case if I want to get a player match going I'll now host, invite friends and have them invite friends. Sure it makes it a bit longer to setup a game but because of the 'party' feature once you get a group you're set for a while. If you don't have a big friends list I recommend joining a few Ranked pre-game lobbies to get some online folks onto you 'Last Encountered' list, and the create a match and invite them. If I can host a match most anyone on a semi-decent broadband connection can do so. To me being able to enter a random player match isn't a big deal anymore because of the other items introduced
Final Thoughts
Overall the patch is really good - the lag issues are solved which was a big deal, but the other additional features are nice touches and it all made it worth the wait. Last night I had the most fun I've had playing COD II in a while if not ever; I even got some of the guys on my list who haven't played since GRAW came out to join our game last night. Now if only we could get 16 in a match, have truskill leaderboards, and maybe have some new maps...we'd have almost everything we need. It's a shame it took IW so long to get it out - hopefully they learned lessons which will enable them to work faster in the future but at least they fixed what they should have and even though the 'Unable' message comes back in player matches consistently everything else pretty much negates that.
Thanks to AustinS2K2003 for the awesome over view. Check out this link to the forum post.
From Xbox Forums:
Well I've read everyone's thoughts on the patch and after playing last night I thought I'd kill some time at the office by writing up my thoughts and putting them into a review of the patch.
First allow me to start off by saying I have DSL-Premium from SBC which is something like 512 up and 3000 down. My 360 is connected to my DSL connection via a wireless 802.11b connection. The 360 is using the MS wireless adapter and the 802.11b is a limitation of my DSL Modem. In any case last night I signed on to live and downloaded the patch. First thing to check out is what was in it. I'll break it into 3 categories - in-game, hosting options, and lag.
In Game
- A different and smaller font for kill notices.
- When playing CTF the flag icon now appears and follows the green arrow of the team member carrying the flag. An indicator has also been put in place which shows where your flag's 'home' is.
- Kill Counts or Score now appear as xx/xx or 49/50 which shows you how a team is progressing against the target. I'm not sure how this would work in Deathmatch.
- The Gamertags of your enemies appear the same as your teammates - now you know whose ass you are kicking!!
- Added the option to fully configure and host matches - FINALLY!!!!
- Added the party feature which returns you to the same lobby at the end of the game - this is THE ***.
- The ability to change the map, gametype and modifiers in the pre-game lobby is a good must-include feature that wasn't missed
- The ability to exclude a map from your preferred maps is great - I HATE Brecourt and will never have to play it again!!
For me and you lag is the biggest problem with the game. I detailed my connection for a reason. Pre-patch anytime I got into a match which had me as the 'host' or the first player in game the game would lag like crazy leading me to just leave lobbies when this happened. Last night I hosted a game which varied in size from 6-8 players and the pings were not more than 100-150 for all players in the match. This is a proof positive comparison that the lag issues are addressed and corrected. I can host games now which is awesome - last night I hosted about 2 hours worth of matches with the same group. We went round after round and had a great time!
Unable to Join Game Session
Ok so now to the bad. It seems with this patch when you join a player match you continue to get 'Unable to Join Game Session' error. This seems to only happen when joining a player match from a menu. While this is annoying ranked matches seem to work fine so I'm not too concerned about it. In my case if I want to get a player match going I'll now host, invite friends and have them invite friends. Sure it makes it a bit longer to setup a game but because of the 'party' feature once you get a group you're set for a while. If you don't have a big friends list I recommend joining a few Ranked pre-game lobbies to get some online folks onto you 'Last Encountered' list, and the create a match and invite them. If I can host a match most anyone on a semi-decent broadband connection can do so. To me being able to enter a random player match isn't a big deal anymore because of the other items introduced
Final Thoughts
Overall the patch is really good - the lag issues are solved which was a big deal, but the other additional features are nice touches and it all made it worth the wait. Last night I had the most fun I've had playing COD II in a while if not ever; I even got some of the guys on my list who haven't played since GRAW came out to join our game last night. Now if only we could get 16 in a match, have truskill leaderboards, and maybe have some new maps...we'd have almost everything we need. It's a shame it took IW so long to get it out - hopefully they learned lessons which will enable them to work faster in the future but at least they fixed what they should have and even though the 'Unable' message comes back in player matches consistently everything else pretty much negates that.
Thanks to AustinS2K2003 for the awesome over view. Check out this link to the forum post.
