National broadband provider Internode has called a cease fire in the ongoing battle between video game fans and the publishers of the popular Call of Duty franchise of games, setting up a deal with GameServers.com that will see local servers delivered for the game’s newest Black Ops iteration.
Server-side support for the multiplayer aspect of the Call of Duty games exploded onto the gaming scene as an issue during the release of the last game in the franchise — Modern Warfare 2 — when the game’s publisher Activision confirmed there would be no dedicated servers for the PC version of the game — which is due to launch on November 9.
This time around, things have changed, with Activision and its Treyarch subsidiary confirming the existence of dedicated servers for the new game, and Internode coming to the party last week to bring those servers down under.
“games.on.net and Internode are proud to partner with GameServers.com, exclusively offering Australian servers for 2010’s biggest game, Call of Duty: Black Ops,” the ISP said in a statement issued ths week.
“By hosting these servers directly within Internode’s award-winning, high-performance network, Aussie gamers can rest assured their Black Ops experience will have the lowest possible latency, and the smoothest connection available.”
Internode customers will enjoy unmetered access to the servers, although gamers from any ISP will be able to use them — and Australians will even be able to rent local Black Ops servers directly from GameServers.com and have them hosted by Internode.
“We are extremely excited to partner up with Internode to help ensure a proper deployment of Call of Duty: Black Ops into Australia,” said Anthony Quon, COO, GameServers.com. “This partnership is built around the premise of being able to bring Black Ops closer to the players and with Internode’s network infrastructure, we feel very confident in the success of Black Ops in this region.”
Matt Lyons, Server Administrator for games.on.net, said: “This partnership between games.on.net and GameServers.com is a win for everybody, especially the Australian gaming public. By working with GameServers.com we are able to provide Call of Duty: Black Ops servers free to the public and accessible Australia-wide. This will ensure rock solid performance for both GameServers.com and Internode customers.”
Image credit: Screenshot of Call of Duty: Black Ops trailer
That is awesome news! ^__^
+1 for Internode
While having local servers is a step forward from MW2s rahter broken system, I still have a rather big big problem with the direction that these companies are taking as a whole.
It seems like they’re doing their level best to nickel-and-dime gamers at every opportunity. It’s as though they’re starting to try and push the XBox style of paid services on a platform where generally these things haven’t been controlled by game publishers before.
While I can certainly see some benefits to having it run by official partners that insure a certain level of quality and service, to not have proper, unaffiliated dedicated hosting is just wrong and comes off as nothing more than the publisher seeking to eek out as many dollars as they can from consumers who want to be able to have their own space in which to enjoy the multiplayer aspects of a game.
Yeah exciting news but there charging for dedicated servers Which = FAIL not many people want to pay 120 a year for a bloody server that’s a massive fail i wont be buying it even though im a COD freak
From what I’ve read, if you are wanting to run a ranked dedicated server you have to pay, not you have to pay to play on a ranked dedicated server.
Kiddie servers for kiddie gamers with kiddie admins.
Why doesn’t internode invest some time in games which done revolve around 13yro.
Yeh Internode when are you going to build servers for WoW, my raid wiped last night cause my healing was to slow.
Yeah, right. Cos that’s Internode’s fault.
As my gamer daughter reminds me, the average age of gamers in Australia is well over 21.
Also, Call of Duty is specifically an adult game.
First of all, Internode totaly rock. Always have. But cant say as much for Activision. What do they do with all the millions they make if they cant afford a few servers of their own for an entire country? And in the end they would be the loosers. I think they are trying it on with the aim that a nice company like Internode will do it for them free of charge. Greedy tightasses
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