Epic Apologizes, Provides Temporary Workarounds for Slow Gears of War 2 Matchmaking

While developer Epic investigates a lasting fix for the slow online matchmaking that has plagued some Gears of War 2 (360) players, senior producer Rod Fergusson has apologized for the issues and provided some temporary workarounds.

"It's a complicated issue as there isn't any one problem; it's a combination of factors," Fergussion wrote on the game's official forum. He also acknowledged that the issue was "unacceptable" and noted the studio's hope to release a fix soon.

Until that update arrives, Epic suggests:

If you're experiencing long delays (longer than 2 minutes) or you're seeing your matchmaking search restarting over and over again, please try a different playlist as that indicates a possible population issue with the currently selected one.

The problem seems to be heightened for parties of 1 and parties of 4 so please try to invite at least one friend into your party before matchmaking. And of course the fastest way to play is to have a full 5 person party before looking for a match since you won't have to find any teammates beforehand. Fortunately our new "What's Up" feature makes finding Friends who're playing Gears 2 online easier.

Also, after a match, if you'd like to continue to play with the 9 people you just played with, simply press Y to look at the previous match stats and press X to invite them all to your party so you can continue to play in a Private match if they accept. Private matches, while not arbitrated, gives you the flexibility to set exactly which map and mode you want to play along with customizing other aspects of the game.

And as always, please ensure that your router is set correctly so that your NAT is considered "Open" by Xbox LIVE as "Moderate" and "Strict" NATs make Xbox LIVE matchmaking more difficult. There are many guides available online to walk you through the process of correctly configuring your router for Xbox LIVE so I won't go into the specific details here.

Along with the suggestions, Fergusson revealed the following statistics:

• Almost 3 million multiplayer matches (excluding Private) have been played.

• Almost 1 million screenshot photos have been uploaded to gearsofwar.com

• The most popular multiplayer mode is Horde.

• The most popular multiplayer map across all modes is River.

• The most lethal weapon is the Gnasher shotgun with almost 29% of all kills.