This past weekend, some seemingly unnoticeable changes were made to Modern Warfare 2‘s matchmaking system. This modification now takes into account the player’s country as well as region, reducing the chance of being put into a laggy game with someone halfway across the world. Announced via the Xbox Live Operations Blog, this update is also set out to fix some of the matchmaking problems in Australia.
“When you search for a match, our servers sort through the many thousands of available matches to find the “best” potential games for you. We’ve changed how we determine “best”, and your country is now an even more significant factor than it was before.
“As a gamer, you want to play in a lag-free game. This means that you need to be playing with gamers who are “near you” on the Internet. This is why games like MW2 ping potential matches to determine how close they are and reject them if they’re too far away. If you live somewhere that’s geographically isolated – like Australia, for example – most of the world is not near you. The speed of light just isn’t fast enough.
“On behalf of that Australian gamer we’re now trying harder than ever to find a session in their country for them to join. Of course, this requires there to be games hosted in Australia with open slots at the moment they’re looking – but we’ve maximized the odds of those gamers getting together”.
Glad to hear that the few still at Infinity Ward are still working hard on improving the multiplayer experience, even if they are taking baby steps. Though, with location now a factor, there is a possibility that smaller countries will have a tough time finding games. Hopefully something is in place to prevent this from happening. If not, expect to see some complaints around the internet.
