Epic making Gears 2 matchmaking fix "number one priority"

Suggests workarounds for the meantime

19 November 2008 16:23 GMT / By Verity Burns

Epic has said it has put fixing Gears of War 2's skill-based matchmaking top of its priorities after gamers reported long wait times when using it.

Senior producer Rod Fergusson addressed the issue on the official forums, saying: "We're aware that some folks are experiencing longer-than-ideal wait times while using the skill-based public matchmaking in Gears 2 multiplayer.

"We're working on some solutions but it's a complicated issue as there isn't any one problem; it's a combination of factors. Clearly, scale is one of them as we've had millions of successful matches played online so far, [but] a small percentage of players are having issues, which is unacceptable."

He added: "We're working closely with Microsoft to address the matchmaking issues, I promise you that it is our number one priority, and we hope to have an update soon."

Until Epic can come up with an official solution, Fergusson has suggested a number of workarounds to try to solve the problem. Firstly trying different playlists can reduce delays, as will having at least two people in the party before attempting matchmaking. The fastest way however, is having a full team of five.

Another way Fergusson suggests is immediately re-inviting the nine other people in the game following one finishing, and checking the NAT settings with your router.

Despite the problems, it seems Gears of War 2 still seems to be pulling in the players, with Fergusson adding that there have been 3 million ranked multiplayer matches played and over 1 million screenshots uploaded to the Gears 2 website.