As you all know, Gears of War is one of the best shooters ever made. But it's ranked matches system is deeply flawed. There is no party system. This was bad enough, but a patch was recently released by Epic Games which removes the host name from the list of ranked games, so there is pretty much no way you can play with your friends. Gears of War is supposed to be a TEAM game. Not INDIVIDUAL. You are supposed to work as a TEAM. I don't know about you, but I don't enjoy playing with people who either don't have mics or jerks that don't want to work as a team. If Gears was about INDIVIDUAL competition, it would be free-for-all. I really don't enjoy it when my entire team runs out and gets killed, and it is me against four people. As for player matches, I don't like them. Player matches are MUCH different than ranked matches. I play ranked to get a rank and play competitively. Some people may say "It's only a number on the leaderboard." Yes, it is only a number on a leaderboard. But I enjoy getting my rank up, and I have a lot more fun when I am playing for a rank and when I have an ultimate goal (Seriously). Playing a player match just isn't the same as a ranked match. This is a petition to Epic Games, asking that they add a party system to Gears of War. This would eliminate "stacked" teams, since teams would get matched up with teams, and singles with singles. Halo 2's party system is a great model to follow, Epic. Thank you