The importance of good matchmaking

I love Gears of War 2. I play at least once a week online for five hours or more with some friends and aside from Halo 3 I have more fun with Gears 2 that I have had with any other console multiplayer game. This only makes my attempts to play a public match using Gears of War 2 matchmaking more depressing. Gears 2 has been a mess of poor matchmaking and shoddy netcode since it was released in fall 2008, but some recent patches were intended to rectify the issues and slant the matchmaking system more towards the one used in Halo 3.

Earlier this week I attempted to play some public matches hoping the public matchmaking system wasn't the hellhole that it used to be. It placed me in a game with nine players whose minimum level was 47 out of 100. Since the majority of my online Gears of War 2 experience has been in private matches, my level is 3. Taking into account that the private matches don't factor into that score, I felt confident that I would be able to hold my own. Perhaps this would have been true if not for the lag. At one point the game ceased to respond to my input and when I gained control again I found that my death count had risen by three. Needless to say, (but I'll say it anyway), I was frustrated. After the game I checked out the gamercards of the other people in the match and not one of them is located in the same country as me. In fact, the majority of them are located in Mexico, (I'm in Canada).

An experience like that is unacceptable and can ruin a game. A matchmaking system has two purposes: to find other players of comparative skill and to find a game or other players that will yield a decent connection. If the system cannot achieve either of these goals, then creating and finding servers should simply be left in the hands of the players. Anyone, even blind monkey can find or set up a better server than the matchmaking system in Gears of War 2.














The king of good matchmaking.