Treyarch discusses multiplayer concerns in Black Ops

Treyarch's multiplayer design director, David Vonderhaar, has responded to concerns fans have voiced regarding matchmaking, dedicated servers and the like for Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Over on Blame Truth's YouTube Channel, Vonderhaar (Vahn) has tried to reassure fans that posted wishes or suggestions for Black Ops that the team is doing everything it can to make sure the Matchmaking will work properly on all versions of the game.

While this will not include dedicated servers on the console versions, due to it being complicated, he said that because users are experiencing lag doesn't mean that it's caused by latency issues.

"The cost/reward structure of dedicated servers for console games is complicated as All Get Out," wrote Vonderhaar. "I am not talking about PC games. That's a different, and much easier, conversation. My point is simply that error you see that you think is lag, is not necessarily caused by latency, and dedicated servers won't solve every perceived error you think is lag.

''We have a few very specific ideas to improve host selection. Yet, no matter what you do until you can build a profile/library/db of who is a good host and who is not, the first couple of times someone ends up host he is going to be as good of a host as anyone else. The game can't see into the future. His connection might of been awesome at the time host selection was made.

''Generally, however, we like the "make matchmaking as fast as possible" approach. When you start adding in matchmaking criteria, such as: 'I only want to play with people who think cussing is OK,' you end up making the matchmaking process slower.

"I like the idea of allowing the user, in matchmaking preference, to opt out of joining games in progress. But, I don't think I would turn it on by default. I will discuss that with the team and see what we can do.''

Vonderhaar also goes on to discuss map preferences, how you should "lobby Josh" Olin for a "no weapon attachments" playlist, and said that
the team is working on weapon balancing that will be a cross between
"the skill of World at War weapons with the accessibility of MW2 weapons".

''The more focused (dare I say hard-core?) competitive FPS gamer seems to prefer the World at War tuning," he wrote. "I am like you. I also prefer it, but it would be arrogant to complete dismiss and ignore the other 10 million people who are not like us.''

Loads of information on the game came out of the latest issue of OXM, which you can get through here.

Game's out in November.

Thanks, NextGenUpdate.