Why Modern Warfare 2 MP died and what’s been done about it – UPDATE!
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As a lot of people are fully aware, those of you out there wanting to get online with Modern Warfare 2 on the PSN, well, can’t.
Some people are equating this failure to connect with the recent 1.02 Trophy patch (which EU gamers are getting in a few hours by the way). Not so. The outage has nothing to do with the recent update apparently.
The culprit? You people. In your rapacious desire to kill terrorists (or be a terrorist – but we’re not going there) high demand caused the servers to go supernova. Don’t worry, they’re coming back online now. Slowly but surely.
The following bullet-pointed explanation for the multiplayer blackout has been documented by Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling, aka @fourzerotwo, on Twitter.
Here’s a synopsis of just what happened (in handy chronicle order) and what they’re doing to resolve the issue. Brace yourself as this does get a bit techy.
- Xbox Live servers are maintained and ran by Microsoft. PSN servers are ran and maintained by 3rd party companies hired to do so.
- MP doesn’t require a patch. It’s a server overload not a bug in the code. They’re working to have servers back up ASAP.
- Multiplayer will be available as soon as Demonware gets the servers back online ASAP.
- PS3 Update: MP Servers gradually coming back online. Some users may still experience issues. Also, EU Players get Trophy patch tonight.
- PS3 Update: Looks like it was the amount of connections at once that killed PSN. They’re enabling 20,000 users at a time to connect now.They can allow 20,000 ppl to sign in at once, and then allow 20k more, and then 20k more. 100s of thousands at once killed it.
- This is Sony / Demonware’s temporary solution while they work on fortifying the infrastructure.
- Demonware server died. Causing mass error messages to Sony’s server, which made it block all #MW2 connections to prevent PSN fail
- I know the two teams are working on it non-stop and won’t stop until it’s up for everyone. Already got lots of people connecting.
So, what have we learned from this debacle? Once again, Sony’s reliance on 3rd party infrastructure just doesn’t compare to the in-house solution favoured by Microsoft. We already know this of course. It’s just sad, once again, to have to be reminded of it.
Demonware are the source of the problem, if we’re looking to point fingers. That said, we don’t know what the arrangement between Sony and Demonware for the launch of Modern Warfare 2 consisted of so it’s unfair to claim they’re the sole reason the online element of the biggest game in the history of gaming went down a mere 24 hours after it launched on the PS3.
We also learn that there is some sort of throttle mechanism where a server dying can then flood the PSN with warning messages to prevent the PSN from going down. Once again, we don’t know the ins-and-outs of just what happened (and we’re sure it’s all very complicated) but this doesn’t sound, how would you say, optimal, to say the least. It’s great that there’s a failsafe to prevent the whole network going down. It just sounds like it’s a tad extreme. In other words: couldn’t they predict this was going to happen? Didn’t they know just how many people would attempt to go online in the first few days of the game’s launch?
Either way, rest assured that people are working on it. Servers are being added and, hopefully, in a few short hours this fiasco will be but a mere distant glitch.
Until the next big game is released of course, and we go through this same routine all over again.
surprised that microsoft manage their servers but not sony.
good it is back up anyway. **jumps back into mw2**
Why are we blaming Sony for this? As far as I was aware, Activision published MW2 and are responsible for server support for the game – it sounds like Sony sensibly had the PSN set up in case Activision’s arrangements crashed and burned so the PSN didn’t fail. And for some reason (maybe Bobby Kotick actually believed they didn’t sell many games on PS3?!), Activision underestimated demand for the PS3 servers. Could be wrong, but it sounds like it was Activision’s reliance on 3rd-party servers rather than Sonys. KZ2 launched fine (there were a few minor hiccups, but nothing too serious), as did Uncharted 2, and as far as I’m aware most other first or second-party Sony online games have run pretty well. SOCOM is, of course, the major exception, but that was due to /6 making a mess of things?
Also – Sony’s approach to first-party online often means we get dedicated server-hosted games (KZ2, SOCOM, Warhawk), rather than peer-to-peer (which is pretty much all you get on XBL), which does not provide as good an online experience (more lag, pauses in-game while hosts migrate, hosts migrating to the one person from half-way around the world giving 90% of players low ping in the game – these are all issues with MW2 after the patch, primarily because of it’s peer-to-peer architecture).
/rant
. Thanks for reporting the latest Brodiesian, always good to be up to speed with the g-o 
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