As if the loss of dedicated servers wasn’t enough for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players on the PC, our sources have told us today that the max cap of players for online play with the PC version will be 18, which is down from 32 in the previous version. 18 players, or 9 vs. 9, has been the max on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version of the previous version of Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: World at War.

From what we hear Infinity Ward is suggesting that the decision has more to do with the balance of the game, such as map size, perks, classes, and challenges than it does with an inability for the PC platform to handle the additional players.

Of course, Infinity Ward can use all of the spin that they want, but many in the PC COD community are suggesting that it all has to do with the IW.net servers that will be replacing the dedicated user/clan run servers that the game has used in the past. Many in the community are suggesting that 9 vs. 9 isn’t a multiplayer experience that they are used to at all and is not what they want.

It seems that Infinity Ward is at least attempting to quiet some of the backlash that they are getting over some of the major changes that they are introducing in the PC version, but it seems to not have much effect. Quite honestly, sources are telling us that Infinity Ward cares, but not that much due to the fact that they already know that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game will far outsell the PC version of the game.

Many COD players are hoping that the recent announcements from the team at DICE concerning the upcoming release of Battlefield Bad Company 2, which will be released for the PC, might be the best hope for the future, but the release is still several months off. DICE announced that they will not be moving away from dedicated servers and supporting community created content with their next release on the PC platform.