In the latest issue of PC Zone magazine there was a question & answer session with Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia and he offered a pretty clear picture that Call of Duty:Black Ops will definitely be including dedicated server support.
When asked whether the popular feature would be present in Black Ops in the new issue of PC Zone, Lamia replied, “I think dedicated servers are excellent. I don’t see any reason not to see them unless… well, I just don’t see any reason not to.”
“It seems people like them and we’re excited about what we’re doing right now.”
Lamia showed his appreciation of how much dedicated servers meant to a lot of PC gamers:
“We do work very hard to reconcile the desire to manipulate and modify those dedicated servers with offering them the persistent experience and benefits that the console system provides.”
“We’re working very hard to marry those two things, so people can run dedicated servers and also participate in the communal experience the console players get to have, given they’re all on first-party servers.”
Source: www.computerandvideogames.com