Thursday, July 10, 2008

Ranked rooms now in the classic lobby system! + more info

You all prayed for it, and Sony/Slant Six is making it happen. Now ranked games are no longer just stuck to the auto-match/party system. Today, in Q&A #9, straight from David Seymour:

In addition to the lobby system for custom games, we have added ranked rooms to the lobby system. These ranked rooms will contain pre-set playlists of ranked games which will allow players to earn rank from within the lobby system while still preserving a fair and competitive ranking system. Adding ranked rooms to the lobbies was a decision that was made in response to the feedback given on the forums on and the blog.

Wow, I have to say that I'm really impressed. I knew Slant Six and Sony were listening, but I didn't think this was something that they had any intent on implementing. So from the sounds of it, those "Medley" rooms we all loved in the past games will now basically be the ranked rooms of each lobby. No word yet on how they will break the rooms down (whether it's by map, by mode, random, or all three) but we'll just have to wait and see. Regardless, it's a welcome addition.

But that isn't all. Some more great info came out of the Q&A - no rocket and grenade launchers in ranked games! Also David clarified that all ranked rooms will have respawns off and friendly fire on, while unranked match-making games will have respawns on, friendly fire off, rocket and grenade launchers on. Seems like a fair trade off to me. It also confirms that you will never find me in a unranked match-making game :p.

There is also some more info in the Q&A about how they will handle ranked vs unranked stats, and that they currently have no interest in ever adding vehicles (thank god). So just check out the full Dev Q&A #9 yourself.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some very great news. I personally hope we get a variety of ranked "Medley" Rooms. Hopefully they'll give us rooms based on game types, possibly themes (once later theme packs are released [ex: African Medley, Alaskan Medley, Jungle Medley, etc.]), and also give us some randomized ranked rooms, so that playlists don't get old are constantly fresh for everyone using the ranked lobby system.

Sparkles4ever said...

Big maps, tie breakers being determined by score instead of sudden death round... party system, inability to make your own ranked rooms... this game is less and less like "the real SOCOM" people claim it will be. Yeah, it's probably closer to a real SOCOM than what Zipper is making but all these stupid additions and subtractions are making it as much a "real" SOCOM as SOCOM 3 was.

Each new piece of information released on this game turns me off more and more, and I put over 500 hours into SOCOM II alone.

hockeyman1212 said...

WHATS A RANKED ROOM.