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An Open Letter to Epic Games

gamerandy.com — Gears of War is an incredible Game. It is, without a doubt, the killer app that the Xbox 360 console has been waiting for since its launch a year ago. However, there are some flaws that make cheating possible. This letter was written by the official Gears of War forum members, and was discarded by Epic. Lets see if we can make them listen.

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  • Nobi-Wan, on 10/12/2007, -56/+13Some people take gaming a *little* too seriously.
    • mrFREEZE, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Thing is, they've been doing this since Unreal. They know that if they implement a super strict anti-cheating protection, they won't sell as many units. People complained back then and back then they were ignored as well.

      It's not that people are taking gaming "too seriously". It's just extremely frustrating to pay $$$ for a console (or PC) and then spend more for their games only to find yourself in a server with one or two (or more) assholes ruining the game for everybody. You can't even use the game you paid for.
    • xinul, on 10/12/2007, -15/+5agreed the same people complaining about this will also scream bloody murder when their next project (unreal) is delayed because they wanted gow polished. Game isnt perfect get over it and accept it for what it is. The real problem is the the xbox live community most of which are 12yo they are the ones exploiting it
    • UnderLoK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Epic has some of the best anti-cheat guys to ever grace UT on their staff (they used to make 3rd party AC for UT).

      Put Dr. Sin on it... Case closed...
  • Jameseybuddy, on 10/12/2007, -15/+12I'm with Andy and mcatrage. Would you be satisfied paying for a car that wasn't complete? Maybe missing a spare tyre? Why should games be any different?
  • bballguy2757, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I think that since Mark Rein said "No need to start another thread like this," there is probably already an update in the works to add a lobby system. I don't think they would just ignore the whole fan base after asking for feedback.
    • northerncomfort, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10It's nothing new- gamers complain, developers listen and start to fix the problem, gamers keep complaining. Developers fix the problem, and gamers play happily until they find something new to complain about.
  • jcaashby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Did the letter have to be so freakin long....I think what he was tryin to say could have been condensed by half and got the same point across....EPIC we love your game but here is a list of improvements that we feel will improve MP immensly. THX
    • mt066, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Yeah it's great that they're trying to do something, but I'm not going to sit here and read all that.

      I'm not too worried about the game as a whole though. As a general rule, anything that explodes into popularity like this is bound to have a backlash.
    • dioscaido, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Agreed! I got to the fifth paragraph and I *still* couldn't tell what the point of the letter was, other than telling Epic how awesome they are.
    • jedikv, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4that's no letter, its an article
  • oktob3r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9http://duggmirror.com/gaming_news/An_Open_Letter_to_Epic_Games/
  • jeet404, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I hope they listen and get the update in fast. Gears of War is a awesome game but needs some tweaking to stop the cheaters and make the Ranked match lobby better. I mean it takes me about 3 tries before I can join a game successfully.
  • Lixie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5From what I understand Microsoft's TrueSkill system requires that rank matches have randomized teammates.

    What these people are asking for is the ability to join ranked games with friends as teammates. That's what I've gotten from this article.

    Can't these people just join unranked matches with their friends? Or is there something I'm missing.
    • gloomlord, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8That's not actually correct. TrueSkill _only_ requires that friends not be able to join on opposite teams (which, for the record, you can currently do in Gears of War because of the way their server listings work). There is nothing within the TrueSkill requirements that states friends can't play together on the same team.

      Despite Epic trying to say that this was the reason for the current lobby system was confusion on their part and a misunderstanding of the Microsoft TrueSkill requirements (which, it seems, Epic is now aware of).

      In short: The Gears of War ranked lobby system with server lists as it exists now _is_ a TrueSkill violation, but the requested party system would not be.
    • gloomlord, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9To further comment on your question: Yes, players can play with friends in unranked games, however there is no system in place to allow them to join games together, there only options are to either host a game themselves (which could suck for a lot of reasons, particularly because it takes upwards of 20 minutes for other players to fill up the slots) or have one player hunt for a game and then try to send invites to his buddies, then try to talk the host into letting them all on the same team.

      All and all it is a hassle to play with friends, and that's the heart of this letter.
  • knid, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1Let's not.
  • pogfreak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Trueskill is lame. Blizzard is the only company to nail online multiplayer matchmaking in War3 (PLEASE give us a starcraft patch to add this!). There needs to be two separate groups:

    -Arranged teams (prearrange a team with your friends, play other arranged teams)
    -Random Teams (*everyone* is put on a random team)

    Random Team could use the true skill system, arranged teams should use its own system to rate the team as a whole (completely ignore the individual). You do this because:

    A) people like playing with their friends rather than strangers
    B) prearranged teams will always be more competitive than random teams. period. always. forever. Unless you make it 100% impossible to not prearrange a team, people will figure out how to get in ranked games with their friends and they WILL DOMINATE the teams that are made up of random people. Instead of fighting this you must foster the insane competitiveness that these games breed and let arranged teams play arranged teams. This keeps exploiters out of random team and allows the highly skilled teams to have better matches all around.

    Its not rocket science. I'll give epic a pass for now since gears is so good and Im sure they had to crunch like hell to get it out in time, but I hope this stuff is improved in a patch. For bonus points, standardize the rules for ranked games (bleed time, round number, maybe even shrink the map pool).
  • knodi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You referring "leaderboard" stacking as cheating? by now you should know every online game with leaderboard has this problem.
  • seancanada, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4lol i thought it said epyx games

    not many kids will get that one.. :
  • KickyG, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2guys, i love video games as much as the next uber nerd, but its a game. the games great. really great. sure it has its flaws. is it necessary to write this huge long letter? digg me down if you want, but i just don't feel this is necessary. i'm sure they've heard all of this before.
  • riplikethat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Nice post. BTW, fanboys piss me off.. but thanks to Digg, I am learning to control my temper. So these days, everytime I see 4-9 'Wii Will Change Da World' or 'Gears of War changed my life" on every Digg page, I count from 1-10.. then I use my Wiimote making smashing gestures at my monitor.. fortunately, Wii sensors are useless on my PC monitor.

    Oh crap, off-topic. But yeah, open letter will definitely work.
  • autok2, on 10/12/2007, -7/+5How about an open letter to who gives a *****.
  • carapi, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Yeah, because Epic is afraid of Gamerandy.com!

    Hey everybody! I write a diary and put it online. IT is filled with whiny little rants complaining about everything! I'm special!
  • lostboytexas, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3isn't Gamerandy.com the place where they have circle jerks while playing WoW????
  • Hortos, on 10/12/2007, -10/+6Ok for the last time! The PS3 can do 1 type of calculation faster than an Xbox 360. In all other ANYTHING it behind due to the fact it has one PPC core whereas the 360 has 3. The 7 SPEs aren't a factor in the vast majority of anything happening in a game. And don't get me started on them using off the shelf NV47s with half the ram of the PC card as their graphics solution, as opposed to the much faster and more powerful custom ATI solution in the 360. 8800GTX twice as fast as the PS3 not twice as fast as an Xbox 360.
  • tankko, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/72/14

    'nuff said
    • cuddd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5That article is irrelevant. I completely agree that the hardcore can ruin games in development but this is not at all what that game is talking about. That letter doesn't ask for any game-play changes whatsoever, just a streamlined way to start the game. The core game-play itself is great, that's the point. People just want a way to play the game as it was intended, as a team. Honestly, why build a game completely dependent on team play, the not put TEAM matchmaking into it?
  • WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2It is so sad that anyone is writing any letter to a game company.

    Go outside, play in the snow (if you have it). Go real hunting, I killed a Doe earlier, so my count is up to 15 deer (low I know for 7 years of hunting).
  • moegocanes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1If you've been to their forums you will know that Epic doesnt care who cheat in their games. They like to preach that they do but they really dont. Take any of the Unreal 2K series for example.
  • AryzonaBay, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Interesting that Epic said they couldn't do a party system for ranked games because of TrueSkill and Microsoft requirements. Why is it then possible to do this (ala Halo 2) in Saints Row?
  • tcrescibene, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Why would Epic give a *****? Cliffyb and Mark are laughing all the way to the nail salon.
  • Tantrum, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm kind of getting bored with Gears after 2 weeks. Played through the shortest campaign mode on all difficulties in under a week. Now i have to deal with a broken Ranked lobby system to get the rest of the achievements. I always end up in stacked rooms so of course i can't get many kills because i'm playing with a stacked team. So last night i had to resort to getting some friends together specifically to boost for achievements. I'd really rather get them legit but because of all the stacking and cheating I can't. So i think i'll be done with gears pretty quick and moved onto some other game. Gears was a great attempt but it's just not polished, has too many multiplayer problems and just doesn't have what it takes to go the distance.
  • Qbakies, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Now that they have sold a million copies and have a 95% on gamerankings.com to hang their hats on they don't have to do anything except release a couple of new maps over the season to fulfill thier initial promises. There is no reason for them to put all that effort into improving Gears lobby system when they can just fix it for Gears 2 which is gauranteed to be a hit.
    • BrandonDoot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0True, this is why reviewers for online games should really hold off for a week or two and let the community form and any egregious issues like these find there way to the surface. GamerAndy wrote the editorial on the 12th, no one could wait till E-Day and actually play with real people before they slapped together a review??

      If problems like these had shown up I'm sure that average would have been knocked down to 85% or so.
    • cuddd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I disagree. Gears 2 is guaranteed to be a success only IF they fix this. Not fixing it sends a clear message that they don't care. Its true that the game is wildly successful and they've made so much money already that they don't need to fix it. If they want to make Gears 2 a guaranteed success, however, they'll fix this now and prove that they're worthy of delivering on Gears 2.
  • dajuggernaught, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I dont personnally kno if i'll be getting throught but while im here and diggy what andy wrote i figured that maybe theres a better approach to all this.

    lets approach the uber-star that is CliffyB. CliffyB is the man. he is the reason we love playing gow. him and his crew did this with total consideration of the fans and what its like to have fun playing video games. what I want though is for Cliff to do something about the multiplayer. I kno you dont have to, but if anyone is gonna really care about us lil'ol fans its gonna be him. I dont want to put pressure on him but I feel as if he is the only person that connects to us and will understand us. halo2 isnt one of the greatest games ever because of the gameplay although it is up there, its because you can call up all your friends and set a time to join up, warm up and then hit up some ranked matches to see what your made of. its awesome the fact that no matter how many modders and cheaters are on halo2, something that is seriously wrong with the game, ppl still dont kare and they play the game anyways. they bitch about it but they still play it. think of what halo2 could be if there were no modders or cheaters. all the ppl turned off to the game because of standbyers, modders, and general a**holes that ruin the game would be playing (thats a whole lot of ppl plust the ones that play it already)and we wouldnt have anything to bitch about. that game can be gears of war. if you implement the lobby fixes, and make a noticable ranking system to give players a goal, then it can be that game. it can be the greatest multiplayer in console history! atleast until they mod the 360. so CliffyB if you have any pull in the epic studios, if you have any say in whats done to the game, if you love your fans and your game, the game that your crew and yourself fought to make, then fight for this the way you fought for our beloved chainsaw bayonet and our curbstomping goodness. you dont wanna go all the way to just finish second although i hope it wont happen...

    thanks cliff.

    p.s. if anyone that reads this and feels that this may help post it, email it, link it, repost and make sure that cliffy reads this. remember CliffyB may be the only person at epic that cares about what we say. and kudos to andy
  • AsherW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What the *****. The guys sends EPIC an email, they reply with a link to a forum post saying they're going to fix the game, and he still has a 2 page bitch.

    Grow the ***** up, and go back to school.
  • f34r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The lobby problems are in fact a pain and what truly does let down a truly next gen experience multiplayer wise. This needs to be sorted Epic and FAST!
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