The release of Crysis 2 Mod SDK has opened up many possibilities for multiplayer, unfortunately the game itself does not seem to integrate well with it...

I ask that the following features be added at some point:

1. Listen servers
While the dedicated server tool is publicly available, it is not particularly easy to use and can make setting up quick games a bit of a hassle. It's also difficult to try out custom maps, as you currently cannot simply start a game on whatever map you want and are expected to either find a server playing the map you want or set up a dedicated server to play on. The original Crysis and Crysis Wars had an ingame menu where you could simply pick your map, set up game rules and start a non-dedicated game right away, Why doesn't Crysis 2 have this? Even though dedicated servers have more control and handle the game better, some people simply want to poke around custom maps alone or play a quick game with friends. I think it would make multiplayer much more popular if people could do this, currently it is easier to find a populated Crysis 1/Crysis Wars server than a Crysis 2 one.

2. Ingame download of maps/assets
Another feature from the first Crysis missing in Crysis 2. When you try to join a Crysis 2 server that uses a map you do not have, you simply get a popup telling you to go find it on the Crymod site. This is not helpful, it will show this even for maps that have not been released on Crymod and does not give any other information, the server owner cannot even make it show a custom download link. I ask that this be changed so that the map can be downloaded from the server and then you join when the download finishes, as seen in Crysis 1 as well as many popular online games like Counter Strike and Unreal Tournament. If the server owner does not want people to do this they should have the choice to disable it, e.g. if the map is too large or requires other things to be downloaded to work, in which case they can send a custom popup to the client with information such as download links or similar.


If there is a reason for these features being absent please tell us why! In my experience Crytek is very good about communicating with their customers and listening to feedback, so I hope this is given consideration.

Thank you for your time.

In short ... it's not Quake. Cryteck cheaped out.

Auto-download? Maybe... But, I don't want to have 50 custom maps installed! I like to control the situation...