More Shadowrun, no TrueSkill matchmaking
We reported yesterday that Shadowrun will feature a party based matchmaking system, flying in the face of Epic's claims that Microsoft does not allow the feature. It looks like we might owe Epic an apology. 360Arcadians revealed in an interview with Knuckles Dawson, who had a chance to actually play Shadowrun, that the game will not use TrueSkill. TrueSkill is Microsoft's in house matchmaking system, and according to Knuckles, it was tossed by FASA -- creators of Shadowrun -- because it does not allow friends in ranked matches. FASA has opted instead to use their own matchmaking system.
Gears of War uses TrueSkill, so it looks like Epic's reasoning for not including a party system is valid after all. The interview also contains lots of information about Shadowrun. If you're interested in Shadowrun, you should definitely give it a listen.
