f13.net

So, MW2 Prestige Edition (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00267S2A0?ie=UTF8&tag=f13-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00267S2A0) comes with a functional set of night vision goggles. Cause, you know.

Of course, I pre-ordered one.  :awesome_for_real:

Did you preorder with the affiliate link? Or do we have to cancel and use it?

Modified your post, haha. But now you have to click prestige, hur hur.

So, Amazon has two PC editions, the 'standard' and the 'hardened'. Is one more badass than the other? Had a troubled youth? what?

Awesome.  Now kids can pretend to be Buffalo Bill closing in on Clarice.

Meh, thanks for fixing that. 24 hours with no sleep makes me loopy.

Now you can check on your kid without waking him up.

Alternatively, if he does wake up - BOOM, INSTANT NIGHTMARE FUEL.

Sorry, this item is not available in
Platform: PC
Edition: Prestige

 :oh_i_see:

WTF?

Also, their new naming convention is confusing me. I spent a good couple of minutes scratching my head going "I don't remember a CoD game called Modern Warfare coming out".

All they did was remove "Call of Duty #" away from in front of the title. Probably not their best idea. One of my friends who is a HUGE CoD fanboy didnt even know this game was coming. But for people here it shouldnt be to tough to figure out.  :headscratch:

Although I think its probably good, cause thse two names would have no been good:

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare (with the 1st one being Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)

Call of Duty 6: Haji and Ivan are back.  :why_so_serious:

They could've gone with Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2.

I can see them wanting to better distinguish between their WW II games and their modern-day games but switching naming conventions part way through the series is just confusing, to me at least.

What, like Zombi?

So....no goggles with PC version?  WTF?

Then again, I don't understand why (when given the choice) anyone would choose to play this on a console rather than a PC.  That's akin to retardation.

PunkBuster  :uhrr:

Do you have a point to make?

A sane company would have just gone ahead and thought up a name other than Modern Warfare.

CoD6: Whatever the fuck

Would get my vote.

That it's a very archaic program and can be counter intuitive sometimes.

Don't be a punk.

 :awesome_for_real:

I hate your face.

Fine.  I don't think it changes the fact opinion fact that this is a game that should clearly be played with a keyboard and mouse.

My face is Thor's vengeance given flesh.

The visual is disturbing.

Punkbuster has a history of kicking me out of games for the most obscure of reasons, eg. for running Fraps. I prefer a pad for fps's, but even if I didn't, I'd run away screaming from any game containing PB.

I see a bunch of words strung together, but I do not understand their meaning.  I presume you mean a maxi-pad.

"lol"

I feel unclean.

 :ye_gods:

I can't believe you guys would turn down some sweet, chunky pad lovin'.  :heartbreak:

If that was intentional, you're an asshole.

I wish it were. My brain itched when I typed it, but it was only afterwards that I realised what I'd done.

Edit: dear lord, I just re-read the thread title too. Epic...

Modern Warfare 2 is already seeming to get an early victory here with Bioshock 2, Bayonetta, and Spilnter Cell: Conviction among other games, all being pushed back from their previous Nov-Dec release dates into next year.  As things stand right now, after the small flood of games in October, MW2 pretty much has the rest of the Holiday season to itself, unless Assassin's Creed 2 manages to make it out by the end of the year.

None of those other games mattered, Modern Warfare 2 achieved victory simply by existing.

They mattered in that I would have rather played any of them instead of MW2.

Reality often does not account for taste. I'd obviously rather play Conviction. Bayonetta and Bioshock 2, not so much.

Good. I could use less distractions for a must-have title.

Some multiplayer footage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBJcOy6iuUc).

Unboxing the prestige edition. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMSS12iY1X0)

At the end of the multiplayer footage, are they implying there's a 3rd MW coming after this?

Well there is, obviously.

Customized Killstreaks gave me a huge nerd boner.  :drill:

Arise chicken, arise...

New trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JBFCZ6dfuE

False advertising. I didn't see any grenade indicators.

That footage reminded me of this: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=287

Ok, I'll bite... How?

Don't get me wrong. Funny comic, but yeah, how?

Because I mostly imagine the game being played by drunk frat boys. 

No, that's Halo. This one will be played by teenage spazzes who parents show their love by ignoring them in favor of letting a M-Rated video game occupy their time.

I want my fucking chocolate milk! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENU5u8JB-Cs#t=2m44s)

I can't corrected.  Either way though.

There were no frat boys playing CS, it was mostly asians who say niggah too much, at least where I'm from.  I've avoided all this WW2 bullshit so I can't say what's changed but on the TF2 servers I liked there were no frat guys or kiddies.  But I played alltalk servers with mods who will ban people for anything they feel like.  I think the problem is playing fps games on console, hell playing online multiplayer on console is probably asking for it no matter the genre.

You always make the bestest points

Were you saying MW2 is WW2? Cause, that's what I found funny.

No I was saying I haven't played all those WW2 games, so I don't know what their frat boy ratios may be.  I did buy the one futuristic Battlefield game and I will play this because it looks good.  I am aware that MW means not historic recreation, which is the only reason I'm posting in this thread, game looks good.

PC edition now $60. (http://www.destructoid.com/modern-warfare-2-gets-10-price-hike-on-pc-152049.phtml)

This is even more funny in light of the four-packs for Borderlands and L4D2 at $33.75/person.

 :awesome_for_real: I'm so happy I've never cared about Call of Duty series.

This may be the first game in years that I will have torrented, rather than buying the original (Instead of just bitching about them and threatening to).  :why_so_serious:

Especially since the MP has little to no interest for me.

Update.

According to this interview (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2369799)* as mentioned on NeoGAF, Robert Bowling of MW2 has confirmed will not support dedicated servers. It will be matchmaking only based on IWNET, and private matches. There will not be a server list.

It's discussed at 1hr and 41mins.

I'm not sure how this will affect me yet. But it's got a number of folks in a tizzy. I would be curious to learn the reason behind this decision. Yea, the games sell a hell of a lot more copies on consoles. However, how many console multiplayer sessions are going on at any given time vs PC multiplayer? With CoD4 still clocking 12k+ servers at any given time, and nothing but bitching from console FPSers about matchmaking, I am thinking the balance is skewed like this:

Sales: Console > PC
Loyalty: PC < Console

Maybe they think turning off the controls players get on dedicated servers mean more people will by DLC packs or something. But they would get that on the console installed base anyway. PC DLC buyers are probably an incremental addition only.

* Ustream. Never been there before, but it's annoying

No dedicated servers? What the fuck else does one do in this type of game but play on dedicated servers? I haven't done anything else, aside from the few hours of single player. I don't understand. I'm upset. I'm frightened. I had counted on this game... :eek3: :cry2:

Holy shit, that's the most retarded thing I've heard in weeks. What the fuck is wrong with them? Don't they know ANYTHING about how communities work in PC shooters? Oh God. In a tizzy, alright.

This is exactly the type of thing I've come to expect out of console-first development of games.  Seriously.  :uhrr:

The guy doesn't seem to know a whole lot about a change to the very nature of PC multiplayer shooters which pisses me off even more.  Ugh.

Welp, they just lost a sale.

While you can create 'private' games where you customize the rules and then invite people, but it sounds like the entire subindustry of having a leased server only running CoD of your clan's flavor is essentially over.

I guess it may be possible to 'host' a private game on your 'pc' which is really a connection to IW, but its not clear how the game would be visible to the average player, as it is now. Can someone who's played on the IW console matchmaking comment?

Huh. I guess it's a good thing I didn't preorder this game.

This will be the first FPS ever that I will not buy.

OK definately not buying this now. Way too much bullshit happening around this game. The MP holds little interest for me but I would still have fucked around with it on servers of my choice. Definately going to get hold of an "evaluation copy" instead and go through the 6-8hour SP campaign, then uninstall.


http://www.mcvuk.com/news/36018/Activision-breaks-silence-on-pricing
http://www.destructoid.com/modern-warfare-2-enjoys-huge-uk-price-hike-costs-54-99-140062.phtml
http://www.destructoid.com/modern-warfare-2-gets-10-price-hike-on-pc-152049.phtml
http://www.n4g.com/News-411473.aspx

Of all the crimes EA is guilty of, dicking around like this and deciding any given game was worth more than THE ACCEPTED MSRP FOR A GENERATION ($49.99 for PC for all eternity / $59.99 for the current gen of consoles) are things they never ever did.

This is pure money-grabbing and shameful to watch.

Ditto, it just means a few extra days of whoring in TL / Borderlands before L4D2 goes live.

L4D2 will have to pry those loot generators from my cold, dead hands - which I suppose is someone ironic.

I'll be buying the MW2 Console, so if anyone wants a copy of MW2 for $60 CDN, let me know.

Well, with this and Dragon Age trying its hardest to faceplant, I'm down to one single day 1 purchase this season. Borderlands needs to hurry the fuck up.

Meh, it's a 3 week break between em and with TL having no online atm, it's a moderately sized sharp stick in the dick of that one.

Should be just about right time wise for me.

Any idea if that's the same in the US? I can understand price parity between console and PC games, especially when the latter has the opportunity to come with more stuff. However, when the "more stuff" for COD6 are the very things IW has taken out (dedi servers and mods), now it's just trying to create an equivalency for gamers who know better.

I still plan to play it, but I'll wait for the price cut now. I only really care about the MP, and if that launches gimped and remains gimped, I might skip it. Which is fine. More time for Borderlands.

Not so interested in L4D2 though. The first was fun in short spurts, but it didn't really grab me.

This is indeed one of the most retarded decisions regarding PC FPS games yet. I'm not buying this one either now. After the pricing fiasco I was undecided, but this definitely helped make up my mind.

ArmA 2 or BF:BC 2 then?

None of those were in the CoD league for me. I have no stats but to back that up, but that is how I feel about them.

ArmA2 has third-party websites providing server lists. No clue about BF:BC2.

Yes. US$60 for the PC version. PC games are usually cheaper because of the lack of licence fees etc that go to <console maker>, so it's just gouging.

Battlefield Executive Producer (http://twitter.com/L_Twin/status/4964309159)

I may have some serious bones to pick with DICE about parts of their online experience, but that comment still made my day.

If only I liked BF over CoD. :-)

I liked Bad Companies MP more than I did CoD4.

That's silly. Bad Company was a goddamn mess all around (except the voice acting and script, which were awesome). Also, Bad Company was console only whereas you could play CoD4 on a PC. Therefore you are wrong. You know better, NiX. YOU KNOW BETTER.

So MW2 will have even worse match making than Left 4 Dead? Am I actually reading this right? Would someone be able to even use Xfire to keep a server list?

Sorry, I should stipulate: PC (as schild mentioned). I don't do console FPSes. I'm holding out for the day they let me use my keyboard and mouse on the X360. Hunger strike until then!

MP wasn't a mess. It's coming to PC. Suck the fine patch of hair between my anus and testicles. :why_so_serious:

It was and my point still stands.


No.

How was it? Are we thinking of the same game? I don't think we are and as such you should reconsider my offer in regards to the licking of the soft succulent patch of hair.

It is quite succulent...

Official statement regarding the dedicated servers (http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2009/10/20/modern-warfare-2-dedicated-server-response.aspx)

:facepalm:

 :uhrr:

I like how none of the issues raised with CoD 4's online play in the above article are addressed by getting rid of dedicated servers.

The biggest issue I have with this change and something also not addressed in the above article is the craptastic performance you get with non-dedicated servers on both the networking and CPU side of things.

Most players don't have enough upload bandwidth to handle being a dedicated server except with a limited number of players. And even if they do have a nice connection, given the asymmetric nature of broadband connections if use any significant portion of their download bandwidth at the same time their upload bandwidth will go to shit. The console version of CoD 4 is limited to 18 players max according to the specs because of this issue (anybody know if you can go above that?) while on the PC, 32 max is the norm and there are very popular servers that are 50+.

And even if you believe that smaller games are better I would argue that forcing a move to smaller servers is actually less newbie friendly as your newbie-ness will stick out more with fewer players (i.e. each player becomes more important the fewer there are) and the other players are more likely to tell you to stop crapping up their game and get the fuck out of there.

The other problem is that quad-core setups are still a relatively small part of the gamer community (currently at ~20% in the latest Steam Hardware Survey). On a dedicated server the CPU is, well, dedicated (more or less) to running the game server while on a non-dedicated setup the CPU has to split time between handling client duties and running the game server. If you only had a dual-core CPU and you were the host you could force your client and server to use only a single CPU each but how many hosts would actually let their frame rates suffer (assuming they even knew that they could do this) so the other players could have a better playing experience?

This basically reads to me as: "we never could figure out how to effectively monetize the hardcore, so screw 'em". It costs them nothing to release even an incomplete API. But it does mean continuing the tradition of having clans do for free what IW and Acti would prefer to collect money on.

I am quite sure we'll see a "modders pack" down the road as some sort of year 2 DLC, maybe even with an operator's annual licensing fee. It amazes me that after all this time this hasn't already happened. Only reason I can see is because console games completely dwarfed PC games, so the whole need to think along these lines became irrelevant.

As much as this aggravates me as a gamer, I think this was a risk worth taking as a business. So they piss off a few thousand freeloaders (not freeloaders in reality, but seen as such by them I'm sure). And? Game's probably going to sell well north of 10mil copies by Feb anyway, with 90% of that on console. Those truly aggravated by that will just make MW2 maps and weapons as a mod to COD4 anyway.

This is very true.   Most unskilled players I know avoid small servers like the plague.   I can't fathom what they are thinking either.   Going back in PC history having bigger servers with more players was a huge selling point for FPS's.   The average unskilled player was far more likely to enjoy himself on a 32 man server.

IW can spout whatever nonsense they like but if MW2 really is shipping with peer to peer that's going to mean 16 people max with horrible lag.  The amount of heat they will catch from casual gamers over that will be epic. 

I love how they try to insinuate that this is driven by money grubbing server providers. Irony itt.

And they will not care, because as mentioned, 90% of the sales are going to be console.

Even the very worst numbers I could find say COD4 PC was at least 15% of sales.  They never released official by the system numbers though.   The amount of time COD4 spent on top of the charts suggest it must of sold at least a few million copies on the PC which would put it closer to 20~25% real sales.   In addition apparently all numbers reported ignore digital sales.  I'm also a bit curious if they fudge their numbers a bit by including used copies as original sales.   Doing so would pad the total and possibly look better to investors.

Either way it doesn't actually matter.   Even your "outta my ass" 10% is a pile of money so big that heads will roll if it tanks on the PC.

I'm disappointed. I'm usually attending 2 LAN parties a year, on which we've played W@W and MW1, and I''m sure the people arranging the LAN party were looking forward to MW2, but I suppose that's not going to happen.

Oh well. At least they won't put in online activation and activation limits. :awesome_for_real:

Possibly the highest online petition I've ever seen (http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?dedis4mw)

Details from IW's Robert Bowling. (http://www.fourzerotwo.com/?p=745)

TL;DR:

• Server Browsers SUCK!  We'll automagically pick a game with your preferred game type, appropriate skill level, AND best ping.
• Private Matches running off your computer still let you play against other clans, it's cool!
• Party System and Friends List, FEATURE MOTHERFUCKERS!
• Valve Anti-Cheat, WOOOOOOOOOOO!

For any serious play, the Private Match statement is complete BS.  I'm dubious (and that's being generous) that the matchmaking, especially in a party, won't just send me to servers in Taipei three-quarters of the time.  And Valve Anti-Cheat needing this mythical IWNET is him just lying through his teeth.

:uhrr:

Let us not forget that on the 360, peer hosted matchmaking has always resulted in a high number of unplayable games due to lag, mismatch or idiot players. Up to 20% in my experience. 

He mentioned Valve, which refers to PC. You don't count.

I think his point was we are apparently going to get peer hosted on the PC.  Thus we are screwed.

Yeah, as far as I can tell they're just bringing console matchmaking over to the pc and marketing it as progress, when in reality it's shit.

Don't take me seriously, I agree, we are doomed. I don't plan to buy it after that revelation.

I like how they're painting PC gamers as some kind of hardcore fringe fanatic, on the level of those people who refuse to acknowledge FO3 as a real Fallout game. I disabled the matchmaker in L4D because I thought it was stupid. I like choosing, they should have made it an option.

That's exactly the vibe they are giving plus that the kind of PC gamers who are bitching about this are too small a market to really care about. So basically, if they thought this would piss anyone off (and I have my doubts that they thought about it at all), they don't think they need to care.

I too want to choose. And I won't be getting this one until I can. Too many other better games already out (and a few coming) to spend money on. But then, I'm in that market they don't care about anyway :-)

That petition has legs. In 24 hours they've gained another 20K signatures.

Well, fucking shit.  If they want to marginalize the PC player, then why can't they god damned get a mouse/kb solution working on the fucking PS3 or something?  I'm mean, I'm not married to the idea of playing this on the PC per se, I just don't want shit controls.  Console controllers are beyond worthless for shooters.

I don't know what to do about this game now.  I'm sure the single player will be nice.

Mail them half the money and pirate the game.

About the closest thing you can get right now would be the Frag FX v2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_btqgh9JjU

For me, one of the most annoying aspects about console shooters is that most of your opponents (and teammates) are most likely going to be hobbled by shitty controls.

This whole situation is the gift that keeps on giving  :awesome_for_real: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMfTR8PBrsE).  I never did jump into Call of Duty, but peer pressure at work and some genuine interest had me thinking about picking up Modern Warfare 2 and finally seeing what was so great about the series.  That's no longer the plan, but it doesn't even matter: Activision and IW have already done everything in their power to entertain me with their current shenanigans, with the internet picking up for the encore, and entertained I am. :why_so_serious:

Or only do half of that.

 :why_so_serious:

This is the one time I'll do that and not put it on my "list of devs to support because I'm a cheap douche"

hah hah, the steam forums for the game aren't loading

For ANY game.

Probably due to the borderlands snafu.

IW using Steamworks (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25787)


Besides patching and achievements, what does Windows Live actually have on Steam, even, what, two years on? I only ask because they mentioned it in the article.

Windows live is the worst thing ever.

EVER.

And it has nothing to do with Steam. It's just shitty McShitShit. Achievements will be done through Steam it seems, as will patching. Unlike Fallout 3, which is the fucking devil for using Windows Live.

Games for Windows Live is pretty damn terrible.  Windows Live (http://download.live.com/) is actually where MS has added software that's pretty nice (Writer, Movie Maker) without getting into more anti-trust trouble.

Fuck, you can disable that?  I never played enough L4D to know, how do I do that?

http://www.geeks.co.uk/7282-activision%E2%80%99s-bobby-kotick-hates-developers-innovation-cheap-games-you


 :oh_i_see:



I'd like to know how this is done as well.

Options -> Keyboard/Mouse -> Allow Developer Console

Open it up with your ` key and type 'openserverbrowser'. It should show you the option to autocomplete it before you finish typing 'open'. I think I was a bit hyperbolic, since I definitely do make use of the matchmaker. It's just that sometimes I don't care what server I get into, so long as it "fits" a loose framework, and sometimes I do care to have it exact.

This matchmaking service, if it is as robust and as great as they claim it to be, will be a wonderful solution to a problem that didn't exist for me. They make several reasoned and good arguments as to why matchmaking will be a nice feature to have, but not so many that explain why dedicated servers need to be removed for it to happen.  :uhrr:

God bless you, Infinity Ward.  You never stop giving. (http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/Gaming/Call-of-Duty-Modern-Warfare-2-Live-Chat-Session-Transcript/td-p/67692)

There are some choice statements in that chat, such as...
 :why_so_serious:

God dammit, I was going to post that same chat quote but I was pre-empted. Curse you and your custom text chat ability!

That's gonna be awesome! Possibly Wicked Awesome! Mouse control in a PC game!??!! IW is really innovating with MW2 - I can't wait to give them my money!

 :why_so_serious:

I'm glad I already decided to not buy this.

The other gem from that was that games will have the same size limit as 360/PS3 at 9v9 :awesome_for_real:.

I guess you have to do that when you like... kill dedicated servers or whatever.

It's better this way. Trust them, they are professionals.

9 vs 9? I thought it was a joke when I read it on fark. The maps must be smaller than a WW2OL depot spawn building.

I picture you saying this with the utmost importance and seriousness. :awesome_for_real:

Looks like DICE wins this round! Unless they royally fuck up BC2.

I wrote about this on the previous page. Home Internet connections don't have the upstream bandwidth to support large numbers of players.

To give some actual numbers f I had to guess I would say the median DSL connection here in the US has an upstream bandwidth of 768 Kbps while the median cable has 1 Mbps. If we assume Infinity Ward has done a good job of keeping client-side bandwidth requirements down to analog modem levels (i.e. 56 Kbps) then 18 players would require 17 * 56 Kbps = 952 Kbps upstream bandwidth which a 1 Mbps upstream cable connection barely has enough bandwidth to support.

Servers in hosting facilities, on the other hand, typically connect to the Internet at 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps, which is how they are able to support many more players.

Isn't the 9v9 limit only for the "ground warfare" mode? Someone had said that, somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure what that mode is. Just that it was going to mirror the 360/PS3 limits on game type. So 6v6 for everything else, 9v9 for that one in particular.

A COMMUNITY BIFURCATED WILL NOT STAND

I know sh*t about this, so do you mean that they have an equivalent 10/100 Mbps connection or their lines can support up to 10/100 Mbps upload. Consumers can get themselves 100Mbps lines in some places, no?

Only in a few places, unless you put down a couple hundred a month, at least, for business service.

I think he means they can support up to those speeds. As for consumers getting them, the cost for that high of an upload would be a bit much just to host a server for a shooter.

At a hosting provider your Internet connection is "symmetric" so the upload and download speeds match and traffic in one direction doesn't affect the traffic in the other, unlike the asymmetric connections that's are usually used in consumer-level broadband connections.

In the US the fastest consumer broadband connection is Verizon's FiOS at 50 Mbps down/20 Mbps up. You can, if you have the money, pay for a "business-class" connection and get whatever the phone company is willing to install to your home but that sort of connection is rare.

Ah, thanks as always Trippy.

Are symmetric connections technically much more difficult than asymmetric ones? I.e. is it harder for ISPs to handle uploads than downloads?

50/20 sounds stupidly generous, in London the best non FiOS is 21/3, and you can get FiOS supposedly with around 50/3.

Not necessarily, it's just that >90% of consumers only care about the downstream bandwidth, so the ISP's want to reserve as much of the available bandwidth of the physical connection to downstream traffic, leaving less for upstream. So it's mostly about marketing and pricing. Also most ISP's discourage or explicitly disallow any kinds of servers on consumer class connections, since they want to sell more expensive deals for those purposes.

My cable connection for example is marketed as 110mbit/s, only in fine print you can see that the upstream is only 5mbit/s. But as 110mbit/s seems so high compared to most other available deals, they can charge 55 euros/month for it which they probably couldn't if they splitted the bandwith to 55/55 and marketed it as 55Mbit connection.

We aren't going to seriously trot out this discussion again, are we?

Look, all online games are heavily optimized and if you make small sacrifices you can get very good vector information for dozens and dozens of objects for amazingly low bitrates.

This whole "no dedicated server" issue has a lot of dumb associated with it, but bandwidth requirements of a 9v9 game is not one.

Oh dear. I just went from "will buy for the SP experience" to "won't buy it, ever" after reading how it's going to be playing.

Not balanced for lean? Not balanced for lean? Really? How the fuck does that feature unbalance anything? Or could it be that console users can't deal with such advanced features?

This should ruin it nicely for some of the guys making videos, I think.


And I just love that answer. Completely avoiding answering the question in any way, shape or form.

If I were going to buy MW2 for MP, I would've been doing that just for one very particular LAN party, which I've been taking part twice annually of the last few years. At this LAN we've been 15v15 as a standard practice, and it's a hell of a lot of fun, and we usually do not have internet access on that LAN party. This means the guys arranging the party has all the latest patches on a central machine, and dedicated machines for servers. If I'm reading this correctly, you will HAVE to connect to IW.net to get a list of friends to match up to, instead of just taking an IP and connecting to it and there you go. And some player is going to have the added strain of being the server.

The only reason I can think of that's behind this whole debacle is, console gamers are (yet again) ruining it for PC gamers. And if I'm not much mistaken, a fair bit of PC gamers aren't going to buy this game because of this, which IW will probably look at and say "oh well, them thar damn pirates are at it on the PC again" and/or "I guess the PC market really is dying".

Nice. Thanks, IW.

Well duh, you fall over if you're not balanced for lean. It's a perfectly good reason for not leaning.

You might believe that but you would be wrong.

Holy shit? No lean now? Sure I can see why they say "balance problem", because there's enough primo locations in CoD4 from which to grief. But they could have, ya know, designed the maps around those occasions, or fixed them once discovered. Instead, they just remove the feature because the console controllers don't work well enough or some crap?

I'm sure the rest of you are just "add it to the list" on this, but for me, this was the breaking point. Which is fine. I've got more than enough to see me through until all the Q1 games.

I can see internet rage for what it is, and I'd guess their projected PC box sales are somewhere below 5% of total or something. But the more this nonsense comes out, the more I wonder if they'll really hit the kind of numbers in general they were touting earlier this year. Ya know, the kind that caused everyone else to scatter into the Q1 range I'm eagerly awaiting. No matter what they say, this is still CoD6, so your audience is CoD4 and CoD5 players first and foremost. And even just looking at the comparable console features, this is less of a game in continually more important ways.

I still intend to play through the SP campaign.

As a follow up to Darniaq's post about the Steam bundling, the magnificent minds at D2D, Gamersgate and Impulse will be completely dropping and boycotting MW2 from it's sales until the Steamfront software is removed.

From RPS.. (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/11/06/digi-retailers-drop-modern-warfare-2/)

Who cares, those other services are ass comparatively. For a game as meaningless to me as CoD4-2, I hope it sells 10M copies and Valve keeps Steamworks in it and none of those other companies get a piece of the pie and it leads to their eventual demise. Arrogant fools.

My point exactly, but we don't do stopped doing green.

Did people really care that much about MW1's multiplayer?  The singleplayer was fantastic but I never saw any reason to give a shit about multiplayer, and the same goes for MW2.

I cared. But I used to play CS competitively back in my youth.

The Modern Warfare multiplayer was fantastic.

I will not be buying MW2. The whole situation is bullshit.

This. Both parts.

Dude, are you serious? MW's entire point was the multiplayer. The SP, considering it was a CoD variant, wasn't awful, but it wasn't exactly Deus Ex.

I'm starting to wonder if the devs over at IW are not the same dev pool that did MW1.

How many times did you play through the single player campaign? I think I went through it twice, as the multiplayer experience has definitely become the selling point of this game.

I played through it once, and still enjoyed it.  I honestly don't know anyone in real life who played the multiplayer, we all bought it for the single player.

To each their own.  *shrug*

(http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/3432/nbfltower.jpg)


Butcher the PC version of the game by removing key features present in every other FPS released in the past 10 years?
Check
Butcher the multilayer of the PC version?
Check
Restrict digital sales to steam only to help combat that evil, evil piracy?
Check
Charge an extra 10 dollars for an inferior product to punish those who pirated games in the past?
Check

and..... they expect people to suddenly stop pirating games because of the reasons above rather than pirate it more?

This game keeps on giving, fuck these clowns.

When do we get to have a thread about the growing anti-mod community bullshit that started relatively recently?  These companies are so full of shit with their, oh you can't host a server or mod anything or make your own maps.  But don't worry we're going to have DLC available from day one so you can pay more. 

(http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/battlefield_5F00_bad_5F00_company/Check_5F00_Blog01.jpg)

BTW the whole bandwidth thing isn't the big problem with peer to peer.  The problem is mostly about server location and the fact that their stupid matchmaking is going to start throwing people together from all over the place.   Dedicated servers are put near backbones whereas even some schmuck with amazing cable service is on the ass-end of a long line of routers that is the equivalent of internet BFE.

That letter could've been hilarious. But then, Edward is from Jersey.

I read through some of the articles linked from that. Randy from Gearbox really needs to shut the fuck up.

All 7 hours of it?  :grin:

I'm wondering where games went from providing 40+ hours of entertainment, to less than 10, and this was considered fine.

The reviewer for gametrailers.com complained that Dragon Age: Origin is too long. This was considered a negative aspect of the game in that it took at least 40 hours to finish.

Get with the times d00d, MW2 single player campaign is 5 hours long.

Sweet leaping jesus. "wah wah wah lots of arcana wah wah wah lots of dialogue wah wah wah ye gods it takes so long!" "only party due to the game's borderline absurd length. which might feel novel at times, but ultimately feels out of place at this day and age"

"At this day and age" my arse.

I'm getting the feeling that in maybe 5 years time, games will require pads, and if we're going to spend more than 2 hours to finish our latest $150 game, we're going to be outraged at the lack of progression.

Played through the SP.

Five hours. A solid five hours? Hell fuckin' yeah. But still five hours nonetheless.

This game was made for the MP. I played at least five hours running around in the MP. Having it gimped on the PC side is still pretty lame.

I usually don't do FPS mutliplayer, hell I don't do FPS most of the time anyway.  I still bought COD4 on the PC and Xbox for multiplayer.

Clownshoes this game is.

Bro of mine that bought it said the MP was unplayable due to hosts in other countries making the game lag to hell.

(http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/2025/wincg.png)

(http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7496/90882ouryouthloveluxury.jpg)

Great meme usage, a rarity.

(http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo192/capsjackson/mw2-install.jpg)

They really went all out for the PC installer.

Just be happy you have mouse support and ingame keyboard chat.

(http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo192/capsjackson/mw2-install2.jpg)

I think I could actually download this faster.

I bought the First Modern warfare (finally, I know) just the other week on a 50% off steam sale.  Not worth the money.  I burned though the majority of the game in one god damn sitting.  That should be a crime.  The fights were very cool and all (well, the American parts were with the massive combat going on.  The SAS parts were just standard squad based FPS battles).  I guess I'll fuck around with multi-player some, but fucking christ I can't believe the game was that short.  This one is suppose to be even shorter?  That makes me not want to touch it even ignoring all the other amazingly stupid shit I've seen noted in this thread.

Hey, they author on the PC. It's their development platform.

Shit is really hitting the fan on the IW forums. Looks like the PC forum is unmoderated and, well, people aren't happy.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2938963/mw2m.png)

Something you probably already read about, but fits this thread:

No dedicated servers for Rage, Carmack believes dedicated servers are something of a remnant of the early days of PC gaming. (http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/2009/11/dedicated-servers-and-rage-news-you-probably-dont-want-to-hear.html)

Until we know more what Rage's gameplay is like in multiplayer, it's irrelevant what Id is planning on doing with it. Many games work fine without strictly dedicated servers, even on PC.

Edit: gramah.

Competitive FPS games work without dedicated servers?

No, and thats the fucking point. Fuck IW with a rusty fucking lead pipe.

Yes, but the "dedicated servers are a thing of the past" stand is what worries me somewhat. Not that I've seriously played any shooter as multiplayer competitively after Quake (1) and Unreal Tournament (1) , but anyway.

I've been reading up on this today and it's looking to be some epic fail train.

1) Apparently 9vs9 is restricted to something called ground wars mode.  All other modes are 6vs6 max  :ye_gods: :uhrr:.
2) NAT is apparently screwing up hosting (wtf is this the 2002?).   Meaning a lot of potential good hosts can't even host.
3) Lag is rampant as expected.  The only speculation I could find on their "green bars" though suggested that even the best rating shown in game is like 100ms or less.  So there probably isn't even a way to see if your ping is good.

What the hell is 6v6 Call of Duty? That's not even a little bit like what Call of Duty should be. I'd like to know, seriously, what designer thought this was a good idea.

I didn't say that, although I agree that dedicated servers are a thing of the past. It's just that IW decided on the worst imaginable alternative (bar no multiplayer at all) and promoted it as an improvement. Dedicated servers have their place, but essentially they shouldn't be the go-to solution for multiplayer games anymore. What Quake Live, for example, is doing is working and it's working well. That's way beyond what IW is doing with MW2, however.

I'm not pro scrapping dedicated servers, they should be an alternative, they just shouldn't be the -main- alternative for playing online. For one, dedicated servers often aren't available day 1; the administrators don't get the software any earlier than the players, which would be needed. Secondly, patching of dedicated servers can slip for days or even weeks in extreme cases. Tertiary... well, piracy. It's inpractical from our perspective, but it's hard to argue against. Dedicated servers are great for tournament play and PCWs, but they aren't terribly reliable or useful otherwise. PCWs can be solved other ways, it just takes some effort from the developer.

My point is, that publishers and developers are taking on more responsibility for hosting the multiplayers servers is in concept a good thing (because it IS their job in the end), it's just that IW has completely fucked up in their effort to do so in nearly every way. Evidently they're completely clueless asto how multiplayer FPS'es work on PC and pulled core functionality without offering any kind of meaningful replacement. A less clueless developer could have done something useful and released dedicated servers some weeks/months down the line.

Oddly enough, that's big enough for what leagues run (3v3/5v5 mostly) but 100ms+ pings with host advantage would be a joke.

We've been down this road, leagues are for jackoffs. I already knew that, but it's not at all what CoD should be. They AND Activision are doing it wrong. And I still want to know what designer came up with this shit, or at least greenlit it.

Don't knock leagues where 40+ geeks are stowed into a single room, told to join a CoD server and just slugging it out... after consuming "a bit" of booze.

It's absolutely hilarious.

I actually read that some of the 6v6 maps feel a bit too big.  They probably planned more and just couldn't have it because of lag.   I did read in that Dev chat that they thought CoD4 wasn't balanced for 32 player servers though either  :uhrr:.   I guess all along they felt 16 player servers were large or some shit.

Well, knowing ID is pretty much a one-trick-pony. If there's multi, there will be little doubt as to what the gameplay will be like.

Maybe. Rage is not all corridor shooter though. We'll see. :-)

One of the default, newbie level 1 loadouts, is a FAMAS with iron sights, and then a fucking SPAS12 with a silencer. A silencer on a shotgun? Really?

Less noise to attract zombies.

Note the emphasis is on play and not buy?
 :why_so_serious:

Of course I did, I just didn't make a big deal out of it. I was just poking fun at how ridiculously short the SP campaign sounds like it'll be.

5-7 hours of SP, MP which sucks, and it's more expensive than most games released today. I'm still wondering when that became okay and accepted, particularly the length of gameplay. I seem to remember that 20-30 hours was the accepted minimum from most games not even 5 years ago. Are console gamers really that ADHD, or are they just ripping off everyone?

Well it did work for Anton.

Single-player length has never been a huge issue for me, as long as the price is right and the experience is enjoyable without a lot of bullshit.  Portal is the oft-mentioned example, but one I'm thinking of right now actually is Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force.  The single-player was decent star trek-flavored FPS for the time, and the unmodified multiplayer was, in my opinion, even better than Quake3:Arena(this was before the Team Arena xpac).  I was able to get all that for $40, brand new day-1, and not once have I looked back on it with a lesser opinion.  Imagine how much better of a generic FPS Halo 1 would have been if they didn't decide to mirror the levels to double the game length.  Imagine Diablo 2 without Act3.

Not that I am in any way defending MW2, mind you, since...well, you know. :oh_i_see:

It depends to an extent on how good the SP for a game is, and also the type of game. I often play games for an hour or less in a sitting. Most of the time, really. If something is a 10-hour experience for the person who sits down and just grinds it to finish it, it might take me, dunno? 14 hours taking my time to see it all properly, and then that 14 hours might be an hour a day for 2 weeks.

A game has to be really fucking good or deep/broad in content to keep it going for a lot longer and keep it interesting. Like that Wolverine movie game. It's decent fun, and I'm probably halfway(??) through it. If It turned out I was 1/10th of the way through I would probably not ever finish it unless I forced myself to grind it, because you can have games which are a bit of fun but just go on for too long and the repetitiveness kicks in bigtime until you wish it would just finish already (Far Cry 2, Assassins Creed). OTOH, I've put something like 90 hours into Saints Row 2, and am on my second playthrough (co-op the whole way this time).

Basically, I'd rather have 10 great hours than 20 bland hours. I'd also rather have 10 great hours then the game is over than 10 great with 10 more bland. Ever Play Doom 3? That game goes for about a thousand hours. Or it felt like it. The first could were fun, and then it just dragged on forever. CoD4 SP was short, and not a great game (more like an amusement ride on rails) but it was a hell of a lot better than D3.

Of course, 20 great hours is a better solution, but we can't always have that...

I got home at midnight and finished the campaign in one sitting at 6 am. I'm thankful it was as long as it was. The game was a ride from start to finish and I'm off to multiplayer.

Dedicated servers not a huge deal for me since I'm on console. Right now I'm having a helluva lot of fun; their target audience, I guess.

Maps will take some getting used to... there is a lot of ambush points all over the maps but nothing really strikes me as "AW JESUS FUCK NOT CREEK".

I've never read these guys  (http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/pc/games/158267.Call-of-Duty-Modern-Warfare-2/reviews/134131.Call-of-Duty-Modern-Warfare-2/) before, but this review appears to affirm every PC owner's fears..

You can dual wield shotguns. That alone is all kinds of retarded.

So, did anyone actually get their Night Vision Goggles?

Seems spot on, but I don't like the sense of entitlement mentioned there. Really sort of a pet peeve for this topic. I'm right there with all the other PC gamers in being aggravated with the changes, and I won't be buying this as a result. But in no way do I think the PC users "deserve" some sort of special treatment for having propel this franchise to success. IW doesn't care. Acti doesn't care. Their PC dev team probably does, but they don't drive the business, just execute against the directives. So in the end, anyone who ascribes emotional entitlement to their ranting is, well, just another MMO troll I guess.

The only time "in this day and age" actually works is when talking about the fact that PC is not the lead launch platform for any mega title. It's an incremental sales tick for anything with a console launch, at best. Bending over backwards for PCs only makes sense if you're an MMO.

Xbox 360 is sweeeeeeet!   :Love_Letters:

I played CoD4 1st on the xbox, then later on on the PC, I'll have to admit I enjoy the smaller games on CoD, plus I get to play all the maps and not the same map over and over and over, like some servers like to do.

I'm not sure why they went with a 9v9 max on the xbox and ps3, xbox has been able to support larger teams (25 vs 25 for frontlines: fuel of war...of course that was a so so game).

Part of this is the PC issues, think about how fucked up it is sometimes to get the FPS and games installed on a computer, setting up voice chat, all the other crap, then think how easy it is to set up the Xbox 360.  Then having to find a server and actually be able to play all the bells and whistles from the game (24 hour wake, dedicate wake 24 hour, hour 24 wake, ....god damn it! i wanna play some other maps!).

I'm not exactly thinking I'm entitled to more "because I'm a PC user", but I do get frustrated when games are obviously designed on the consoles and migrated to the PC. I was playing ArmA II for a while, then I figured I'd try out OpFlash: Dragon Rising, and the first thing that pissed me off was no lean. ArmA II was a PC-centric game and takes advantage of it, OpFlash obviously wasn't, and doesn't.

And shrugging off the "no lean" with "the game wasn't balanced for it" sounds to me like an exceptionally cheap throwaway reason for not including it. I'm thinking the reason they have is "aww but it would give the PC users an unfair advantage in MP vs the console users", which leads me to believe that there are OTHER measures in the mix to allow for a mixed PC/console environment as well. In short, the PC version is gimped not because of technical reasons, but because the consoles are crap for FPS games.

And this "the consoles are crap for FPS games" isn't strictly because of technical reasons either, since what we're talking about is f.ex MS saying "you can use a keyboard to chat in Live, but you can't use it in games. Why? Because that would make it too much like a computer". But providing guitars, steering wheels, flightsticks, drumsticks, dancing pads, etc etc etc, that's fine! It's a shitfest which provides both console gamers AND PC gamers with shittier games than what they could have been.

If they would only provide FPS/RTS/etc friendly control systems, and didn't keep on making super sucky UI design choices (yay radial menus!), then I'd probably be on the consoles like flies on shit. Doesn't even have to be a proper keyboard, a 20 key pad of some sort would probably suffice.

Not holding my breath, though.

CallofDutyHacks.com already has an Aimbot out. Though, the preview video at EvilAvatar.com is run by someone who doesn't seem to be very fast on the trigger. Still, I'll avoid PC and its hacks, TYVM.

aimbots piss me off, but not nearly to the extent as aim-assist on consoles. Shitty controls give way to "helper code" which just leads to lazier games. I know its my opinion, but some games just don't work for me on a console - though gaming companies seem fine with designing with the intended use by consoles and pc ports are more an afterthought patch job. For me its like playing a game of backyard, friends and family volleyball game while starting for your college's team - its fun to goof around, but there is a time to get serious and get into it. meh... disappointed with this whole MW2 mess and prolly will wait for it to drop into the bargain bin before picking it up to play the single player game only.

I, too, have managed to avoid giving them my money so far.  The pressure is significant, though.

Seems that for PC gaming, you need to port forward as well if you're going to host a game. From the Steam message boards sticky thread:

I still don't understand this argument.  It's still crap on consoles too.   Maybe you notice it a bit less since aiming with a gamepad isn't as fast but you still can't have decent size games.  You still have good players who are good with a gamepad walking all over you with their zero ping host advantage.   If you are good you still end up waltzing around a corner and blasting someone in the face only to find out the pings let your enemy get the drop on you and blow you away.

What's the point of domination 6vs6 too?  We might as well have capture the flag 1v1.  That's not even bringing up other possible interesting modes that just won't be fun without more people.

I'm beginning to think that IW drank their own Kool-Aid during MW2's development: (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/11/11/)

I think the issue is less PC gamers feeling a sense of entitlement about FPSes than about seeing all the advantages that the platform has for this type of game get completely ignored because consoles don't have them. Effectively IW has gimped the PC edition for the sole reason that consoles don't have access to those same advantages (and in things like input system, console companies seem to have intentionally gimped their consoles as well) that really gets people annoyed. It's almost hard to tell which is worse, developers deciding not to bother releasing for the PC at all or releasing games for it that ignore everything that a PC can do when they release. In this case it's worse because you've got a game that used to a PC franchise that suddenly isn't a PC game anymore so you've got the disappointment of a crappy sequel combined with that clear lack of polish.

There are enough choke points and overwatches in the maps that anything more than this would be hella difficult. Some of the domination maps are big, I understand; that's why I play them on Ground War with 9.

Yes, Dedicated Servers would be nice, but you create an expectation that they'll always be around like Battle.net, and when the next version of COD comes around I'm sure they'd like to put those servers they are paying for to use for that instead of an outdated client base.

I'm not disagreeing per se, but I'm not going to fight for them to put in something that will burden them with significant costs when its apparent that's what this is: A cost-cutting, simplification measure.

So if I can't have the most possible pluses, I'd like to downplay the negatives, rationalize, and move on to enjoying what I can.

You don't even know what this argument is about, do you?

I guess not?

Is host advantage really that severe to get your panties into a bunch?

Having one player with a multiple-tenths-of-a-second advantage in an FPS is kind of significant, yes.

I guess I didn't grow up with LAN parties and their 0 ping, if I assume what your perspective is. I've always had people with radically different pings because I've never been cream of the crop, dedicated or no, and then we're assuming that the host even knows how to take advantage of that host advantage.

I still have fun though.

Yesterday, I suddenly had the itch to play some classic Day of Defeat.  Not the source version, mind you, but old-ass Half Life 1-era DoD.  After ten minutes of browsing, I had found a low-latency server full of people having a good time.  Admins were present and quick to act, once after I had sworn for accidentally teamkilling to remind me it was a G-rated server, and the other time to ban a player for intentionally killing other teammates.  Nobody was calling each other faggots/gay and throwing around racial epithets at each other, and the vocal girl playing at the time wasn't being harassed.  This was all done with a game that is over 9-years old, had started out as a modification, and has an equally-active successor with shiny graphics.

Thought it was relevant, somehow.

(http://i36.tinypic.com/fac0g0.jpg)

One of the best games ever, srsly.  :heart: :heart: :heart:

I think one of the things we have to take in to account is what kind of gameplay you're looking for. Console shooters are designed such that your ping is less important, you've got auto-aim etc. PC gamers need that twitch!  :awesome_for_real:

I think the bottom line is IW has been making some of the best PC shooters and now they've given up, and it's obvious what's wrong. And then activision wants you to pay more for it. Heh.

Though, yeah. Fun. Important.

Doesn't mean there's any reason to argue that it's still ok for the developer to pull this BS on console and pc gamers both.  It might not affect you and you might not care but if that's the case then all the more reason to just not say anything or agree with your fellow gamers.   It's not like you'd somehow have less fun if they had done it properly.

First they came for dedicated servers and I did not speak out.  :why_so_serious:

Honestly whats the problem with allowing dedicated servers? Having the option for admins to service the users, provide 3rd party statistics, generally to mod it for fun, and if you choose there are some real communities based around them. I really cannot understand when you can look at how well TF2 works. It generates sales (as you require a license to run the server), removes some of the pressure of running dedicated servers and staffing costs.

Wasn't interested in mw2 (hated COD4 multiplayer) but it seems to have some really random decisions.

You also apparently haven't lived through gaming nerds obsessing over monitors which give them 0.01ms quicker responses, turning off all graphical features in q3a for 0.01fps more, using mice which has 200000000fps refresh rate on their lazorz, just to get "an edge".

Not that I'm one of those, I like to think I'm somewhat chill in that regard, but I can barely even play mass effect on the 360 because the gamepad pisses me off so much as a control system, and that's with autoaim. It's always either too slow, snaps to the wrong person, or overshoots and forces me to circleaim around the target in a vain attempt to actually hit the fucker.

Hell, even watching a video recorded from a console is painful, in the same way "racing movies" are painful to look at because all they do is speed the cameras up, run along side eachother and put a soundtrack on top where they're shifting up gears constantly.  :uhrr:

And what the hell would be so costly about letting people CHOOSE whether or not to host their own dedicated servers OR use IWNET? It's not like making a dedicated server is rocketfuckingscience. Hell, it's apparent that every client has the functionality to act as *A* server, it's just the interface bit that's missing, so that'd be what? a week's worth of coding? tops?

Pull this shit on console, fine. Everyone involved with console development is obviously not in it to make the best gaming experience in all regards (and this starts with the hardware vendor specifically disallowing keyboard/mouse in games), and now obviously to games developers who seem to start to think PC gamers just want in on their latest creation and worship the ground they walk on, and definitely don't want to be able to do what we've been able to do to every other PC game since Doom was created, i.e. mod it or host it the way we like it without anyone's outside approval.

But if we take a step back and see what the changes the last iteration of this franchise has been.

• Removed moddability
• Removed dedicated server option
• Removed futureproofing as a direct result of the two points above
• Removed lean as a tactical option
• Removed option to kick people from the server
• Reduced the amount of possible players on a server from 32v32 to 6v6 (or 9v9 on one gametype or whatever it was)
• Reduced the amount of SP game you get
• Removed much of the skill requirement during actual play, relying instead on autoaim to do the job for you
• Removed ability to record games (because that hasn't been an option in all the other versions, and is just so difficult to add
• Better graphics, woo!  :awesome_for_real:
• Random choosing of who is hosting, and also who has 0 ping
• "matchmaking service" which is required to play, so an offline LAN party with a few friends is impossible (I believe, or is there actually a "scan local net" option on any of the platforms?)
• Pay more for the privilege

Ahh, the smell of progress.

Actually, fuck it. I'm so ticked off by this blatant consoleitis I'm not even going to buy their game when it hits the bargain bins. I'm assuming that's about as productive as taking a piss to heat myself up, but I'm starting to realize that games aren't just going to be more and more console based (and thus suck complete ass through a straw on the PC as a direct result), and no amount of petitioning or pleading, begging, cocksucking or actually even supporting them by buying their games will change any of this, because there are so many buying the games for the console and going "meh, so you can't lean? so you can't host your own dedicated server? so you can't mod the game? enjoy what you have instead, ya whiner!".

So yeah.  :heartbreak:

Oh god, what is wrong with this game? You run around all over the place while people are shouting, then some bad guys pour out of every door and/or from behind every rock to shoot at you while standing out in the open. Repeat ad nauseam.

It's more "cinematic" that way :awesome_for_real:

I could give a shit about dedicated servers - I still can't even play the game because I bought it on Steam like a dumbass. Thanks Steam, for giving me a reason to not buy games from you in the future!

I don't remember an autoaim option on consoles for multiplayer, unless you're talking about when your camera moves automatically in the direction of an enemy directly in front of you to indicate you are facing someone. My squad ran by a ghillied, prone sniper hid exceptionally well on Wasteland, but I followed what the game was trying to tell me (after I got within about 10 ft) and knifed his ass.

I was so exhausted last night I didn't play, but I'll doublecheck.

I understand their perspective and position but don't disagree with your complaints.

That's what people don't like. To compensate for thumbsticks being sucky for precision aiming the game will centre your crosshairs on your opponent for you when you get near them. In cases like the ghillied sniper it makes hiding pretty pointless and people who've been brought up on PC shooters find it annoying because the only reason it's there is that pads don't work as well as kb+mouse for aiming.

And there they were - talking about how they improved that kind of shit from CoD4.


Lorekeep - autoaim on console is the way that "near enough" to a target is "good enough" to be accurate when shooting. And that many games will actually track the targets slightly once you've targetted them. Something you don't get on PC due to the pixel-perfect pointing of the mouse vs the non-pixel-perfect pointing of the thumbstick.

This is not a new concept to console shooters - I can't believe you don't know what this is.


AcitCat - don't Day1/preorder PC games. (ones not made by Valve, anyway) There's always something. Though now and then we need something like this (or Borderlands' consolitis) to remind us.

Someone at work sent this out.

(http://www.thenonentity.com/lol-mw2.jpg)

Sure am glad I have a ton of good games to play atm so I won't be tempted to buy this. The only thing I liked about MW's multiplayer was the class/leveling system. I liked the customizable aspects, and the leveling was easy enough that it wasn't a grind. I wish DICE would copy that part and remake BF2 with that system. That would be the best MP FPS of all time.

Edit- LMAO @ the image above.

Well, believe. I've seen games that lock your mouse cursor on a distant opponent ala Borderlands and starts tracking without aiming, or other games where you can switch targets by rapidly clicking the Aim button. There are different levels of Auto-Aim assist. I'm trying to pinpoint which one he's talking about.

I was browsing Multiplayer options and thought I didn't see an AutoAim option similar to Single Player which had a clear option for it.

To be fair, I have never played any console game in MP, as I was expecting it'd be just more of the same controls as the SP game. If there's no auto-aim in MP, then sweet mother of jumping jesus that must be annoying to play, at least if you're used to mouse/keyboard. I'm just assuming MW2 would have autoaim, but I'd rather stab my eyes out than buy MW2 for the 360 (let alone the PC), so I'll wait for your analysis. :P

I endured Mass Effect on the 360 because of rawr hot blue aliens done Kirk style, and it's a bioware RPG, so the story rocks.

The problem with our boycott attempts is that this is still going to end up being one of the biggest entertainment releases of all time, isn't it?  No way IW or Activision or whothefuckever is going to here our complaints over the sound of all that cash being added to their bank accounts.

And it took me a second look to get the funny of the above image...but that about sums it up.

Edit:  IW, not ID.

I went and joined and noticed the same thing instantly through Steam then went back and looked closer that image.  What a bunch of fucking tards.

Way to stick it to the man there, sports. :uhrr:

What better reason to go to the Boston tea party than to have a delightful cup of tea?

I don't like Call of Duty gameplay. It's a series of scripted events to run through. It doesn't feel like a game.

Sometimes you can suspend disbelief and pretend it's a real shooter environment with infinite variables and freedom of movement, but it's not. All the games in this series are a series of tunnels to run through, with triggered events that don't feel real once you know how they work.

The scriptwriting and cinematics are always fantastic, so you can buy it for that, but once you see through the design method, there isn't much fun in the gameplay.

How is that unlike almost any other game out there?

Yeah, you've got to have an eye for the pixels.

Lot easier to bitch when the source of your affection isn't available.  :awesome_for_real:

'Call of Duty' sells $310M in N Amer, UK in 24 hrs (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iDIHbHEerjliasIxBPLzPZRlVD0wD9BU7VM80)

(http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/media/ALeqM5igBt5zH89kqda3E6b2PqyHyUxRgw?size=l)

I bet it took a lot of effort to squeeze into that.

You'd think he wouldn't need the strategy guide, he seems hardcore.

Was it his getup or the rolls of fat that gave away his hardcoreness?

He looks like a talking fist sticking out of an oven mitt.

 :facepalm:

He's not balanced for lean.

/thread

I weep for the future of gaming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHsWZp5pWCo&feature=player_embedded

 :oh_i_see:

I think you knew it when you wrote it, but that's one of the funniest damn things I've ever seen around here in a long ass time.

HAH.

Oh wow. Look at how much better the multiplayer experience is. I feel like they've really progressed and evolved the game to a higher stage of excellence.

I do hope they will continue with this tactic, for it is surely a winning tactic.

Or as lorekeep so succinctly put it, "HAH".

Thank you for that Ras. Made my crappy day a bit more funny.

I hope all you haters realize the single player experience in MW2 is one of the best ever for any videogame.

Fuck the multiplayer though.

Time to invoke the "You like Lily Allen" clause.

And I love single player in CoD, but they're not getting my money because they are retards.

I never "got" playing shooters in single-player.  It may be a result of growing up playing Tribes 1 (and subsequently RtCW/ET, BF1942, DoD, UT2k4, TF2) but I always went straight at the multiplayer and never looked back.

Call of Duty and Half-Life are two examples of games that turned single player campaigns of shooters into compelling stories.  Serious Sam they are not.

The most fun I ever had with single-player fps was with Doom 2.  :why_so_serious:


When I find myself in moments of doubt, wondering why I'm wasting so much goddamn money on videogames, assholes like this guy are the things I'm thinking about.  When I was crazy addicted to pen&paper games, I was rightfully ashamed.

You should seriously try it out, I didn't feel like giving activision my money yet I strangely got to play it anyway on my computer.  It's CoD times 100, the only epicless moment is the arbitrary "Do your best at the range" mission, other than that your engaged in the most awesome shit done in a video game yet.  It's God of War epic in a FPS.

Cod 4, 5, & 6, don't have any type of aim assist or cross hair centering, nor does Halo 2 or 3, at least for the Xbox 360 they don't.

You all are showing your age, my son and his friends (13 year olds) can jump from the mouse-keyboard to the game controller, and still do some crazy stuff.

I wish they would have made the team size bigger (25 vs 25 seems to be the most xbox 360 can handle right now), and the CoD has done better than the BF series on the Xbox 360 so far.  

You sir are off your rocker. Time to refill your meds.

I played a few missions into single player to refresh my memory of all things Modern Warfare. Then I hit multiplayer and hours flew by as if I was caught in some time vortex.

It is improved over the already addictive Modern Warfare. It seems at every turn you are earning some random achievement. You are constantly rewarded for just playing. I love the little titles and badges you can earn - just a nice little way to customize your faceless character online.

Of course the gunplay is as tight as ever. I really really enjoy how deadly the game is - 9 times out of 10 if you see the enemy player first you've got him down. It's a game of environmental awareness and quick trigger fingers.

I love the new care package drops and how you can steal them.

So far I really dig the new maps.

Graphics are noticeably improved. Not a huge leap but nice.

I never cared about the dedicated server thing. This new system is perfect for someone like me that just wants to hit one button and get into a match with randoms asap. It just works. In over 3 hours of online play I only got into one game that was laggy. Within less than a minute I was out of that game and into another. The lower player caps, which I was initially wary of, are not an issue at all. The game just flows very well with the player counts and map layout.

Overall I am really pleased and the game is everything I expected.

Too much froth.  MW2 is just about pressing forward and looking at the pretty.

You don't have a problem, therefor; nobody has a problem. IWNet was a well thought out idea, and it was executed flawlessly.



The campaign itself is fun, despite how ridiculously short it is; but I can't shake the feeling that I'm playing through an interactive movie rather than a game.

Do I give a shit if someone else has problems? It works great for me and that's all I care about.

I've been saying this for the last few CoD games - it's not a game, but an experience you play through.

But that's the problem. As a PC gamer we can do more (I'm not going to say whether it's better, on the PC you can undoubtedly do more) and IW is not giving you the opportunity to do that. Most people who play shooters on the PC probably play them for a reason and anyone who plays multiplayer has a better idea of what they want. The fact is we don't have a choice. It doesn't matter whether or not it works for some people, that's obviously a given! IW has fucked over everyone who wants the flexibility, though to be fair even saying that feels wrong as these options have existed in games for god knows how long and for good reason.

MW 2 MP is stripped down and they're charging us more for it.  :ye_gods:

I found the COD 4 SP stupidly tedious. I played it through on the 360, and if I wanted a 'challenge' I had to deal with all the game's retardness, like infinite AI spawns and magically homing grenades. I got past the chernobyl level by running around like a headless chicken and hoping my invisible sniper friend would own everyone. Luckily my brother is a console idiot and he pays for these games  :awesome_for_real:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vOMuAhz6rE

I suppose I should've seen this one coming.  :awesome_for_real:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

I'm guessing it's already too late, though.

Edit: Or, alternatively, I'll re-quote something relevant to "works great":

 :oh_i_see:

Does it have local splitscreen multiplayer?

Can't see how they could get that much better honestly. Not when this is the third in the series for the same default hardware (X360 and PS3). If this was just a PC title, I'd expect some sort of leap from CoD4 to supermaxxed Crysis maybe.


I totally fess up to that. I hate controllers. They work for me when it's obvious (pointing a wii-mote like a gun) or it's some arcade-like port (most early XBLA stuff). But otherwise, I'm too accustomed to k+m and will always defer to that as long as someone is willing to make a game for it.

But I do get the privilege of pointing out that at least the keyboard and mouse don't need to get redesigned every generation. It already works. :-)

My beef really is just with dedicated servers, map size and lean. Any one of those things alone wasn't a deal-breaker, but all three together is.

Call of Duty: Continental Army. You'll just stand in formation with other players on your team across a field from the enemy team, also in formation. Then fire your muskets until one side is dead.

On the upside, players upped to 64v64!

A whole field? Muskets are more the width of my front lawn  :grin:

I did have the lag out issue and Host Migration doesn't appear to be working on console. I.E. I've had three server timeouts that resulted in being booted back to the lobby and one instance where a temporary lag out resulted in me being killed.

It seems IW copied a bunch of user made maps from a mapping competition they had for CoD4, and used them for CoD: MW2.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1023649

Is this as bad as I think it is?

So they not only take a shit on the PC community, but they steal the custom made maps they created as well.

Is this some budget measure? "Hey guyz , let's focus all of our efforts on the criminally short single player campaign, half ass the multiplayer, and charge ten dollars more for the actual game... Oh, and let's not bother making any multiplayer maps; we'll just swipe some custom maps from the community we just shat on."

Are they just doing everything in their power to piss people off at this point?

I would bet the contest had the best intentions but then they wimped out on actual recognition. Or that person quit. Or someone in legal got worried. Whatever it was, I'm sure there's fine print somewhere that says IW owns all the output of whatever their engine creates, so they're within legal rights to do whatever the heck they want.

Oh, I don't doubt its technically legal, but its just fucking lame as all hell.

This is like the gift that keeps on giving.  Except we all know that Activision won't learn anything from any of this given the money hats they just got a few days ago.

No auto-aim option in multiplayer aside from the prescribed method of the game adjusting your view slightly when you are not aiming and an enemy runs through your crosshairs.

You are wrong.   CoD4 definitely has aim assist on the 360.   Someone in this very thread was explaining the aim assist in MW2 as well?  Plus the hit boxes have been made bigger to make up for gamepads.  Making the hit boxes too big is just as bad as auto aim.

I'll agree there are people who are good with game controllers but that has never had anything to do with age.  Even the best game controller users can't do whip turns, precision aiming and other such things which are essential to high end play.  The controller just doesn't support such things.

I mean no offence guys, but comparing mediocre FPS-players (i.e. the general "us") playing semi-realistic shooters isn't a good way to illustrate the superiority in control of KB+M.

It's beautiful. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GehmWYuc68g)

They've really never recaptured the magic of The Edge, even though overall I liked Q3A better than Q2.  I was pretty good in both, but of course never at this level.

The Edge isn't The Edge without Q2's capability of weird strafe/circle/ledge/ramp/double-jumps. The double-jump Purri does at speed from the YA lift up to GL is just money.

I feel fairly secure in saying that Activision is behaving worse than EA ever did.  Oh, well.  I'll still be able to mock their next sorry-ass Tony Hawk game.

Yeah, I've always felt there has not been enough emphasis on these types of "advanced movement" in more recent FPS games.

Compare that with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4P2xcMToFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwtMbTs72VI

Progress. :awesome_for_real:

What is so good about millisecond twitch mouse control? I mean for those of us who are not adhd addled amphetamine addicts.

First of all, amphetamine is not required to enjoy "millisecond twitch mouse control". Secondly, I personally enjoy it because it feels more natural to be able to snap my aim and/or focus/POV anywhere I so choose, without having to wait for the extremely slow panning speed to catch up with my intention.

When was the last time you panned your head slowly towards something you wanted to inspect quickly?

Also, the solution to that, autoaim or make hitboxes bigger? yeah, take out skill from the equation, that's a great solution there. Also, autoaim never aims at the wrong guy, ever.

Goddammit, I knew I shouldn't have suggested taking skill out of the equation as a solution! I also recant all my posts on autoaim. You have laid me bare!

"Twitch" is impressive because it makes a physical sport out of shooters. You need physical aptitude to succeed, whether it is an unusually steady hand or a lightning-fast one. Either you have the fundamental talents or you've spent many, many hours honing your skills, it's not something you can simply spreadsheet and be done with. It's the one area (not exclusive to shooters) where computer games stop being solely an intellectual pursuit and become an instinctive one, because it happens too fast to involve any higher brain functions. It requires practice, practice, practice. It's no coincidence that Fatality is world champion in half a dozen titles; he has simply got the mojo for shooters.

Ummm...  Who really gives a shit?  Once you're past the age of 14 shouldn't you really stop caring about whether or not you can beat someone else in a video game?  Of course, I'm the single player kid, so I never really saw the allure of playing with others.  Much rather do things my way, at my own pace.

Probably the vast majority of gamers that have penises, really. And even lots that don't.

Obvious bait post. Or, are you serious about not having any idea how multiplayer video games work?

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/Blade111/mw21.jpg)

 :awesome_for_real:

Oh, I'm serious.  I don't even like playing coop with other people.  Video games for me are very much about my enjoyment.  I don't want to deal with other people, ever.

Right. But your prior post implied you spoke for the majority of the CoD market. Which is not the case :-)

And I say this because I just tried to speak for all Raiders recently :wink:

Oh, no.  I'm aware that people actually care about this shit, I'm just pointing out that those people are douchebags.

People playing with other people are douchebags, got it. :awesome_for_real:

 :awesome_for_real:

This thread got stupid.

So how is it then, is anyone who's older than 14 and are doing anything competitive a douchebag, or is it just "lol people are taking games seriously"?

That is a factually accurate description of the Xbox Live clientele. I only play games with a "mute all" button in multiplayer.

Just finished it. Presentation is unbelievable, story makes no sense and the gameplay is practically the same (imho not that good).

Oh yeah. Lean IS unbalanced. AI likes to use it a lot  :awesome_for_real:

This is the main reason I've not been burned by multiplayer. I don't play with the crack adelled voices on XBL. That makes me an elitist PC snop, but I'd rather have fun than be annoyed all the time. I have about a 5% success rate on multiplayer console games, and that's not enough to keep me coming back.

Mostly this is because the people I play with never jumped to consoles either. If I fell into a group of console gamers I imagine it'd be different.

Seriously. Thankfully MW2 does have a mute all, which I found quickly after my second game when some dumbass would like sing a little song whenever he killed someone. Douchebags are not limited to XBox Live that's for sure.

Same impression I had.

Also...

What haunts me at night is the knowledge that those douchebags are probably having more fun playing the game than I ever will. This is further backed up by seeing drugged out ravers being absolutely FASCINATED by a pair of lights. When you ae incredibly stupid and immature, your ability to experience fun rises dramatically.

So far, MP on PC seems like a no-go. I've tried finding big maps and it's just no fun. Bad connections, can't snipe for sh*t, and games are way too short.  Maybe I just prefer things a bit more tactical.

Sadly as f13 gets older we're bound to see more of this shit.  Playing games with other people is stupid! Rawr! Get off my lawn!

Look, XBL is a fucking cesspool and every time I watch anyone playing online on 360 and I can hear other games I want to kill myself.  Somehow other then people voice griefing a server (amazingly handled easily by admins on dedicated servers) I've never once had a problem on PC games.

With all the other crazy choices made, I wouldn't be surprised if MP was grudgingly added because they had no choice. If I were running a business, I'd rather NOT have people banging on my never-going-to-be-good-enough network and instead be playing solo and buying DLCs :-)

Hmmm... if only there was some way they could let people play multiplayer without the needing to use IW's network...



Oh well!

I have never seen such a disparity between user reviews and the industry reviews.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/modernwarfare2 (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/modernwarfare2)

Gaming reviews - 8.9/10
User reviews - 1.7/10

What is this crazy moon-technology you speak of? Surely it is impossible!

Most of them consider MP either lulz or just something you do once the single player is done. MW2 reviews really well because of the usual reasons why such big titles review well: graphics, approachability, sound, immersion, etc.

Further, all of these are the pre-release/launch reviews playing either just SP or under very contrived conditions. Reviews go through phases. If a game doesn't hold up after launch, you'll start seeing that in a few weeks as the next round of harder-core reviews come in. But by then it won't matter, because at this time of year, sales are about the big hyped launched (where the score is usually higher for big-hyped launched) and gift-giving (where scores generally don't matter as the game has already been pre-ordered).

More likely reviewers had a really great environment to test MP in, barely tested it at all, saw the new features and based everything off of the single player. Also, HATS. MADE OF MONEY.

Heh, you beat my edit :-)

For all the people bitching about the PC version and knowing full well what they are getting for their money, a lot of them bought the game anyway. Do as I say?

I see no reason that the multi won't hold up for a long time to come. Unless people just wholesale stop playing for some reason, the matchmaking has worked extremely well for me so far and judging from the volume of players I can't be the only one having a positive experience.

Multi on what platform? There are still 11k active servers in CoD4 (as of two minutes ago). That's down from the 14k of a few weeks ago, but not the precipitous falloff a sequel with improvements would expect.

But who cares about PC?  :awesome_for_real:

I'm not touching it.  I am the only one that sees all the fucking spam for every single thing that happens and is reminded of Fox News?

New version in two years that Activision wants Infinity Ward to put out. :)

So, uh, people have hacked the console back into the game. They have been able to tweak stuff. Such as:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rqLUDfl26Y&hd=1

Low-gravity, XP tweaks, gun tweaks, killstreak tweaks, fov tweaks, etc.

And it totally applies to your IWnet profile, XP-wise.

Heh.

Is there a dedicated server tweak?

Wat

So you mean there's a way to tweak the game to give more XP, and IW's servers just gobble it all up?

If that's really the case, then what the holy fuck are they thinking? Haven't they learned by now that PC-gamers can and will tweak/fiddle/etc?

And if it really IS that silly, how are they going to deal with this? If it is like I fear, "you cheat on XP, you get banned", then I'll have to wonder how easy it'll be to grief people. For example, setup a server with fucked up killstreaks which gives you 100x normal XP, and everyone who joins are suddenly banned for "cheating". Alternatively, i you want to get to the top of the board, just buy 2-3 games, host on that account until it gets banned for cheating and reap the XP rewards.

Brilliant.

If people stopped giving a shit about numbers and started giving more a shit about having a good time...

Hmm, I think I am arguing against being a fucking nerd.

--

Looking at what Infinity Ward is doing with multiplayer, do you think it's an attempt to delegitimize the game as an E-Sport? Sort of focus on delivering consistent, paid multiplayer experiences and forget the minority that might seek to play this on a competitive level? I know if you hit it big like StarCraft and get an entire country playing your game it reaps the benefits, but the new age with dozens of multiplayer games coming out each year makes it impossible for something to come along and be "that one game" that people will play over and over and over.

Additionally, making a super compelling multiplayer game that people can play forever is like making gum that never loses it flavor. You're hurting yourself in the long run if you don't figure a way to monetize it.

Edit: I actually understand the importance of people being able to tool around with games and hack it and tweak it and do whatever the hell they want. Tomorrow's programming wizards have to come from somewhere, and this is a surefire sign of their passion.

Come on Lorekeep, you got to remember people find different things fun! (Otherwise nobody would play MMOs...)

That's the real issue here. IW is forcing people to have fun their way. Personally I'm not too concerned about things like consoles, but I sure as hell want dedicated servers. And lacking the ability to lean? What's the point of having cover?

Being able to customise has always been a huge thing in any PC game, and it's continued to get more important as developers and publishers put more shit out on PCs. Thousands of players can make games better in ways that developers can't. Think about mods, UI customization, etc. How many people use the vanilla interface in WoW? I imagine that when it first came out pretty much no level 60 used the original, way too gimped.

"Sorry Delta Force, you dinged a Brazilian mud farmer with a stray round back in the favela. Better go back and do it again."  :facepalm:

But seriously, "No Russian"? Best level I've ever experienced in a SP campaign, bar none. And those soft-hearted fuckers at IW even give you an option to skip it.   

I really need to dig out the old CoD1/2's to see if the SP in that isn't more how I think it should be, because I was Not Impressed. It was too short, too hectic, too unbelievable at times (oh really, so that snowmobile just happened to be able to jump over that one gap, that's convenient. etc etc etc). It didn't really work as a game, and it didn't really work as an interactive movie. At least not for me.

MW2 is a good example of why the games industry needs to emply real storytellers. Juvenile shit like this is just horrible.

Really? You mustn't play very many games then. The SP levels in MW2 are short, rushed and are hardly memorable and that is compared to the first game which was only slightly above average.

I was honestly reminded of the old arcade games where you either scrolled sideways or went forward on a set path like in some sort of zombie game I forget the name of. Only with better graphics.

Actually, there is good story telling out there. Valve does it, Bioware can do it. But the IW folks do not care about this, because they know their demographic isn't exactly putting down the James Joyce to play a round of CoD.

House of the Dead!

I think that it is worse than you think. The folks at IW know that their demographic is a bunch of knuckle dragging mouth-breathers who will buy your shit if you make a cool looking commercial for it.

I guess I would agree with short and rushed ... but fighting in the suburbs was pretty memorable, even if the story explanation defied even a very generous suspension of disbelief. The Brazilian levels were pretty cool too. The game does have a better variety of environments to fight in compared to the last game.

There's storyline canon in the sense that the overall summary of what happened is the storyline that HAPPENED (Roach and Soap escaped on snowmobiles), then there's the "game" where the designers throw in cool elements / rewards / cinematic moments to make the experience more entertaining that really shouldn't be viewed as strict canon (MASSIVE SNOWMOBILE LEAP WITH EXPLOSIONS!).

Warcraft is similar. All of its canon is based on the scenario summary and not necessarily the details. It isn't until it's detailed in a book (which usually has the effect of being extremely lame once retold) that you find out what "really" happened without the "game" mucking things up.

--

Storyline bad? In what ways? I found it entertaining. Maybe I'm not looking too deeply into the details since it's, you know, fiction. Actually it could be that the aforementioned Warcraft has lowered my standards exponentially.  :why_so_serious:

New sig, yay!

Current Players     Peak Today           Game
 
     75,608    95,552         Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer
     73,984    94,653         Counter-Strike: Source
     61,383    74,348         Counter-Strike
     32,128    44,493         Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
     15,907    21,869         Football Manager 2010
     12,074    18,732         Team Fortress 2
     8,826    14,303         Left 4 Dead
     8,158    10,380         Condition Zero
     7,474    10,548         Left 4 Dead 2 Demo
     7,394    16,459         Dragon Age: Origins
     7,121    11,023         Empire: Total War
     6,408    9,014         Football Manager 2009
     4,516    6,887         Day of Defeat: Source
     3,178    6,265         Garry's Mod
     2,492    3,744         Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
     1,913    5,357         Borderlands
     1,784    2,509         Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
     1,763    2,937         Killing Floor
     1,268    2,067         Half-Life 2
     1,261    1,892         Day of Defeat
     1,121    2,562         Torchlight
     666    1,710         Mass Effect
     609    747         TrackMania Nations Forever
     578    886         Overlord II
     538    870         America's Army 3
     522    868         Overlord
     475    741         Football Manager 2010 Demo
     463    868         Red Orchestra
     457    733         Overlord - Raising Hell
     455    648         F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
     437    790         Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
     429    539         Saints Row 2
     425    710         Half-Life 2: Episode Two
     424    886         RACE 07
     417    680         Insurgency
     397    698         Crysis
     383    662         Zombie Panic! Source
     338    543         Portal
     320    528         Plants Vs Zombies
     316    492         Tropico 3 - Steam Special Edition
     291    499         Half-Life 2: Episode One
     285    408         Half-Life
     279    400         NBA 2K9
     253    342         Age of Chivalry
     253    312         Condition Zero Deleted Scenes
     250    378         Grand Theft Auto IV
     206    342         EVE Online
     187    339         Call of Duty: World at War
     174    364         Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor
     173    423         Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
     169    303         Audiosurf
     165    249         Battlefield 2
     163    326         Darkest Hour
     163    228         RailWorks
     162    311         Team Fortress Classic
     158    306         The Last Remnant
     157    258         Mount and Blade
     154    267         Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
     145    228         EVE Online Demo
     144    268         Company of Heroes
     139    339         Fallout 3
     134    186         NBA 2K10
     133    230         Unreal Tournament 3
     132    293         Rome: Total War Gold
     132    218         Crysis Warhead
     127    210         Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition
     124    231         Champions Online
     122    205         ARMA 2
     119    193         Titan Quest: Immortal Throne
     118    200         Hearts of Iron 3
     117    222         Aion - Collector's Edition
     115    181         Batman: Arkham Asylum
     107    145         Medieval II: Total War
     106    188         Street Fighter IV
     103    157         TrackMania United Forever

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

So, yeah. Suck it.

wut

I don't understand. Suck what? Are you trying to make a point? It's popular. Shocking.

Also, I am not surprised that this sold well.

You know, I see stuff like this in left 4 dead, and it seems people like running, popping up to spray some death, then run around some more.

It makes me wonder why no one has tried to bring back Tribes.  God, I loved that game.

Alright then. Picks up gauntlet.


Nowhere would I claim that it's a revolutionary tactical experience - it simply has the type of atmosphere and ambiance that I have not seen captured elsewhere. I would say that it's most similar to the widely-loved Stalingrad level of Call of Duty 1, which I might remind you was similarly short and linear, and yet stands out from the rest of the levels in most people's minds for the same values as I have elaborated on above. And it even has a twist ending.  :heart:

Having watch the video, frankly that level didn't seem particularly appealing to me simply because there really didn't seem to be much of any gameplay challenge there. In the Stalingrad or D-Day levels you're facing heavy enemy fire, atmosphere is established well because you're part of something epic. In this case, it's not epic. It's a sordid little blood bath and I can only see it being enjoyable if mowing down helpess individuals is itself fun. Hell it seems half the security guards actually stop to give you a chance to surrender. It isn't until the SWAT teams arrive that you face any kind of challenge at all and even that didn't seem particularly impressive. It's controversial sure but it's in no way cinematic nor does it establish much of an atmosphere, certainly not in the way previous Call of Duty games have because there's nothing epic happening.

No Russian might be.. affecting as a self-contained experience, but the context surrounding the 'event' is completely, absolutely, unforgivably preposterous. The singular justification for an invasion of the continental United States? Yeah okay. The entire motivation is slipshod and nonsensical -- as are the consequences. It is therefore a failure as a sum of its parts, and doesn't say very much more than literal murder pornography.

Did you guys miss the part where the Ultra-nationalists took over Russia and five years have passed since then, and that this was just the match to the powder keg that had slowly built up over the years?

I think they put all the pieces in place necessary to accomplish what they wanted to get out of this sequel: a shoot-out between two armies using a Taco Bell for cover.

I mean, it's gotta be better than another abandoned European bloc building.

Lots of reports coming in that the pirate version has been 'cracked' and dedicated servers are set up which you can connect to. The gameplay experience on these servers is apparently (obviously) superior to the random-player-hosting. Oh, and some servers re-enabled lean.

So... the pirate version has a better MP experience.  :oh_i_see:

As much as I smile over that, these bastards are legitimizing IW's point.

Eh, what point would that be?

Paying customers need to be screwed because pirates?

No, I am saying pirates are douche-bags. The industry never needed to get to this point if it wasn't for pirate douche-bags enabling developers to be douche-bags. It's a damn vicious circle.

The fuck it is needed, they're making a shit product that punishes only the paying customer. Pirates are having dedicated servers. I cannot. Hypothetically of course, because I'm not touching this turd of a game.

GAH

Piracy for piracy's sake is different from piracy that corrects some arbitrary/ill-informed/complacent decisions. Or, Blackbeard vs Robin Hood  :grin:


That's just Steam accounts. Go check the server list in the MP game. Tallying that would make CoD4 #4 in that list.

This doesn't disprove your point about Steam complainers being the same people playing it. But it also indicative of the game in general.

I don't think it's quite the simple, the work around floating around now requires you to be logged into steam; meaning you have to have a legit copy to use the work around ("at your own risk")... for the time being at least.

Of course, this is was my half assed google search yielded, don't hold me to this.

I'd say if anything it saved my opinion of Infinity Ward being capable of producing something a little more morally complex than another "hooray America!" shooter. An invasion of the United States by Russia is ridiculous for many reasons (today at least), but I still thought Red Dawn and World In Conflict were entertaining spectacles, and they focused on the exact same premise.

If you think a subtle exploration of the concept of blowback and the moral ambiguity of a CIA cover operation gone wrong is nothing more than "murder pornography", I think you're just not reading deep enough into it.

A 'subtle' exploration of CIA blowback? Really?

Really?

The 'blowback' as envisioned is contrived and completely ridiculous because it's not realistic in any way to plan an airport massacre with the expectation that this will first stick entirely to an American CIA agent and second trigger the invasion of the fucking Eastern Seaboard by the entire Russian army. This thought process has zero connection to the real world and the entire scenario therefore has zero significance beyond its representation of the explicit killings of hundreds of helpless civilians in cold blood. Which, again, is affecting for its sheer brutality, but says nothing about our modern geopolitical condition, or the ethics of realpolitik, or anything of the sort.

Guh. If this was utterly without pretension it would be another thing, but it astounds me, absolutely astounds me that anyone can defend this scene on "the artistic merits" or "as a trenchant critique" or "in the wider context of the plot". No. The plot is fucking retarded. The technical verisimilitude of the event is impressive, if you could call it that, but it is not an artistic creation. What is wrong with these people? I say fuck gamers as a whole for this bullshit self-indulgence on the pretext of "advancing the artistic sensibilities of the medium". Ajhhhgggkk. Good God I can only imagine what is coming next.

The invasion starts on the east coast?  Russians are going to go half the way across the world to invade the US when they could practically just jump across the Bering Strait (especially now that Palin is no longer keeping watch)?  Is that for real?

You fight them on the outskirts of Washington D.C. first. Maybe they invade other places as well? I don't know. I quit after I started calling predator strikes down on Russian paratroopers at a North Virginia strip mall.

Game.

I can't imagine a nation would ever falsify a terrorist act against itself in order to provide a pretext for war.

In all seriousness though, as I already said, Russian troops landing at DC is ridiculous. Russian ultra nationalists staging an attack upon their own country in order to drum up support for war is actually (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident) quite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remember_the_Maine#Sinking) imaginable, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings) and not half as transparent as some of the historical precedents I can think of off the top of my head. I mean, who would ever think that anyone would ever believe the Mukden Incident?

I'm hardly calling MW2 a masterpiece of modern storytelling. I'm simply saying "No Russian" was strikingly atmospheric and enjoyable, and a triumph of plot and ambiance over the repetitive crap that's usually handed out.

I found it curious that they gave you the option to 'skip' the level and not do anything. I can understand you finding the level atmospheric, but enjoyable? The first half of the level is shooting civilians and watching them die.

I honestly don't see how it's a triumph of plot unless the absence of any real gameplay=plot. The level is basically an interactive cutscene and while that's not entirely new in CoD games at least others make a show of you being a participant in some grand cinematic battle. This one starts off as just massacring civilians (which you don't even need to take part in, your squadmates are capable of doing it all on their own) and seems to move on to some arcade shooter type section with you shooting and grenading Russian SWAT guys. Die Hard II has a fuckton more artistic merit than this. I'm not utterly opposed to the thing but frankly it seems gratuitous and I imagine is there far more for the sake of generating controversy and interest than any real importance to the plot.

Does not compute.

MW2 (And the CoD franchise really) is THE definition of repetitive crap handed out each year to the frothing masses.

What about the Madden series of roster-update games?

He's the token guy who rails against everything popular because it makes him seem discerning and interesting. There is no talking sense with him.

Wat? He's right. CoD does repeat the same crap over and over. Heck, in MW2 it was blatantly apparent with how many people died the same fucking way and each time you were helpless from the ground. Cliche and we've seen it all before.

As for the Madden comment, don't be a retard. It's football.

War, war never changes

I enjoyed Modern Warfare 2's story and execution.

You guys didn't.

I'm willing to leave it at that!

Yeah, was playing this at a friends.  Single player is bland.  Wasn't impressed with the game at all, beyond the graphics.  I might actually take the time to pirate it and fuck around with pirated(IE Good) multi player, but the game itself is pretty derivative and boring.  Definitely not buying it.

Installing COD1 and COD2 now, which were "game of the year" in 2003 and 2005 I believe, with 24 and 27 "epic single player missions". Let's see if there's been any improvement over the years apart from graphics.

I'm thinking no.

Also, aww how cute. 2 CDs.

Not being in World War II. I consider that a monumental achievement for the franchise.

That'd be your opinion. I am curious why you think WW2 is such a bad setting though. The setting doesn't really matter that much to me, apart from the fact that the rifles in WW2 were more of a single shot deal, with a few (slightly inaccurate) automatic weapons so they make combat slower and harder.

So anyway, CoD1 doesn't want to start in 7 it seems like, something about a buffer overflow. CoD2 does start, so I'll postpone fiddling with getting CoD1 working for now.

Anyhow, played 2-3 missions quickly, and the thing that struck me was that it felt like a proper battle, and I could lean and take advantage of cover (oh my god what innovation), and I was reminded why I could happily start up a CoD2 SP mission and just run it again, and again. Kind of like SpecOps, I suppose, only by the time I got to MW2's specops (I went for the SP missions first), I was a bit fed up with it. I might try again in a few days, but not holding my breath.

I didn't feel like I'd stepped backwards, even though there were a few issues that I noticed (like being unable to shoot enemies which are jumping over obstacles for example), but everything felt more visceral and skill-based. When I shot someone, it felt like I'd done that, not that I'd just sprayed tons of bullets in a direction and scored a hit. And if I missed, it gave me a proper "ohshitohshitohshit" feeling, because I had literally a 1-2 second delay between each shot, so I had to make them count. And the ebb and flow of battle seemed to feel more logical in CoD2 so far, more of the "take it easy, you're actually a soldier in an army, not a 1 man rambo machine whom is supposed to run around going 'YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA' all the time", which was more a feeling I got from MW2.

The only thing I got from the favela level in MW2 was "holy fuck this is a clusterfuck" and "hey, why the fuck can those guys duck and shoot over cover while I can't?!", which again didn't make me feel like I was playing at my best.

If you liked this, fine, good for you. I felt like I went up a notch on the quality scale when I went back to CoD2, not down a notch (well, except graphics, but in a twitch game, any graphics beyond "good enough" doesn't really matter), and that makes me a sad sad puppy. I expect improvements in sequels.

The hate for the WW2 setting is from the fact that everybody and there mother was making nothing but WW2 games for awhile.  Setting isn't bad, it just got stale.

Without going in to something massive de-construction of the game, I think the most obvious point you could say about MW and MW2 is the best bits happen when you're not in control. IW still has their flair, for example the bit where you end up staring at a guard's ghostly, dying eyes after you kill him. The game really plays like a James Bond movie with a couple more allies.

This. Omaha Beach as the new Hoth, etc. At least CoD5 went the Pacific Theatre but I'm fucking tired of killing Nazis and I'm fucking tired of being in Europe.

At least with the fighting in places like the North Virginia Strip Mall, I felt like they were trying to say something with the fact you were fighting it out in Americanized versions of bombed-out commercial centers. Having the military guys take these locations extremely seriously ("RAMIREZ! TANGO BEHIND THE BURGER HUT SIGN!") felt a little humorous and entertaining beyond normal level design, more so than anything else I experienced.

Rio de Janerio and the favellas also felt very cool and interesting in its vibrant, obviously Brazillian color scheme and design. Good urban fighting.

I didn't find the other WW2 titles as good as CoD1/2, so I didn't really play them much. Guess that's part of the reason I'm not "oh my god another WW2 shooter, /wrist"

It wasn't a bad setting, but it felt smallish, claustrophobic and very chaotic. Although to be fair, that's what fighting in a favela looks like it is like as well (having watched a documentary on BOPA I think they were called). But this doesn't change the fact that the AI was still leaning while I wasn't (which pissed me off as I too wanted to use cover effectively), and that to me ruined most of the experience.

I guess you're just more set on how things look than I am, while I'm just more set on how things play, and in that regard I personally think they've taken a step or two backwards with MW2.

The play always felt solid to me, especially when compared to other turds. I may have impeccably low standards. But my attention on particulars in a single player campaign isn't as strong compared to a multiplayer competitive or sandbox (Dawn of Discovery) environment. Effective cover has a different meaning in multiplayer vs. single player where the AI can usually pinpoint any exposure, even if you were leaning. But yeah, there could be better cover systems, but I work with what I'm given in most cases.

I imagine there was a lot of internal pressure to do things a certain way given how this franchise is being developed and pushed towards a more yearly release schedule instead of consistent, quality releases that are farther apart and garner more respect for the developers and their games. Just look how the name played out. "It's Call of Duty 6!" "No, it's Modern Warfare 2! *cheer*" "We need Call of Duty on there. *whine*"

What makes you think I hate popular games? Some of my favorite series (God of War, Final Fantasy, Halo, Uncharted, Resident Evil) are the most popular gaming series out there.

And from someone who plays literally, and NiX can attest to this, every shooter out there MW2 just feels rushed with nothing memorable about it.

The Price reveal was pretty memorable to me. But you'd have to be invested in the characters for that.

http://www.modernwarfail2.com/2009/11/17/unlocking-hidden-mw2-game-types/

Apparently, the planned DLC comes already bundled with the game. Unlocked via the console hack. It just gets better and better the more time passes.

Erm. I'm starting to wonder if they've come down with a bad case of the stupids.

Lawsuit under the pretence of breach of the DMCA in 3, 2, 1 ...

Ok, yeah, that's pretty fucking terrible.

Add that todays small patch did nothing what so ever except disable the console-hack.........guess fixing XP-'sploits etc ain't all that important.

A trojan is plaguing IW.net users, apparently spreading through a host vulnerability. This thread is supposed to have better info, but I can't get it to work: http://www.infinityward.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=181646

I got to the link. Had to get an age verification cookie first, tho.



Finished the thread. Its only detected  by Avira and its probably a false positive.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-duty18-2009nov18,0,5238209.story

They're estimating 1 billion in revenue, 20+ million units sold (up 14 million from MW1), and they still felt the need to fuck PC gamers over. delicious.

Also, it seems like they're contemplating making CoD an MMO. Probably without lean.

Finally finished the single player campaign last night. As the credits rolled I almost felt exhausted. But the good kind of exhausted, like after exercise or sex. The haters can hate all they like, for a pure linear action FPS, the game absolutely delivers.

 :ye_gods:

Amen, let the others play Dragon Age or some shit.

 :ye_gods:

 :uhrr: even.

MW2 SP is pretty much scripted events you sit and watch, and that exhausted you similar to exercising or having sex?

Either you've never exercised, or you've never had sex. My money is on both.

In the "Game vs. Interactive Movie", the game definitely slides more towards the Interactive Movie side of the scale, but it does so remarkably well and a lot better than, say, Metal Gear Solid ever did.

When I think of a single player "Game" though I think of something like Dawn of Discovery or Civilization. Pardon the Whoopi moment, but something "Game Game". First Person Shooters have a very difficult time being "Game Game" and therefore mostly slide into Interactive Movie territory.

It's nothing like the high you get after particularly strenuous exercise (like how I feel after running a 5K and finishing... that head rush) but it satisfies on the levels of entertainment I've come to expect.

Seems we are both talking in hyperbole.


Yeah you want to talk "scripted events you watch" just look to Metal Gear, MW2 is nowhere near that level.


It is a cinematic experience in many ways, but a thoroughly interactive one.

Two different people are using your account.  The first user should gain ownership.

I don't see why you think those can't coexist. It's "interactive" as opposed to a Metal Gear cinematic experience where you watch cutscenes for hours. That's non-interactive cinematic. But of course it's still a FPS so you interact with the world via bullets, you don't have dialogue options with Soap to try and get his "I like you" meter high enough to suck you off.

How is it interactive though? Falling down during the climbing sections? Wasn't me. Stabbing someone in the back with a knife? Wasn't me, I pressed the button a second ago. The ridiculous ski jump? The only thing interactive there is believing gravity has stopped working.

I can see this is going to get into a semantics debate about the definition of interactive.

Let's just say that to me it felt interactive enough that I never felt I was just a spectator. Well, except for the beginning of No Russian.  :uhrr:

Seeing all the praise for the SP mode in this thread makes me weep for the future of my shooter genre  :heartbreak:

Really people you are impressed by this? I have never played a game that forced me to rush as much as MW2 did. For all the 'grand spectacle' they try to throw in they don't let you actually go at your own pace and enjoy the settings.

Yeah it does maintain a fast pace. But I also loved Far Cry 2, which is about the exact opposite. That game had a lot of haters too. There is certainly room for a lot of different playstyles in the FPS genre, I don't think you have to worry that every FPS game is suddenly going to be a mad dash through a shooting gallery.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to drag this into semantics. As an experience I still think it's a pretty enjoyable 5 hours long. Apart from Chernobyl I'd say the first MW was a much superior experience. Gameplay wise I think it's still lacking, but the cinematic elements in MW are better than pretty much any single game I've seen.

Are you arguing that a particular genre of game must always be designed with the same pacing and experienced in the same fashion as every other game of its type?  :uhrr:

You'd probably hate Left 4 Dead 2 then, which, by the way, my first experience with can be described as "muh." (Call of Duty, by comparison? Hooah!)

If I were to compare MW2 to another game, I wouldn't even talk about the old CoD franchise. I've spent the last few days playing the old CoD2 game (still haven't bothered with getting CoD1 running), and there is no way I would liken MW2 to that. The closest game I would think of was Metal of Honor, and I always thought of that series as inferior to the CoD franchise. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is, it just FEELS inferior.

If I want an "interactive" movie, I'd go for the good old MGS, nothing beats it (except maybe its sequels, but haven't played those yet). If I wanted something a bit more more interactive, I'd go for the good old HL1. If I wanted pure frantic war, nothing really comes close to what I've been replaying in CoD2 so far. Maybe the favela map, although even there I didn't really get the "I'm one guy in a squad trying to fight my way through here" feeling, I felt most of my comrades buggered off to do something else while I had to butcher a ton of people, rambo style.

And in my view, all three of them wipe the floor with MW2 in their own way, except for graphics.

Having played those games, and add to that the fact that the price is $10 more than normal PC games, means that my expectations are going to be up there. Not just in graphics, but in gameplay as well. When taking that into account, the fact that I finished MW2 in one sitting, without even trying to speedrun it too much, means I'm left disappointed and wanting more.

Add to that the fact that there are core controller options which are just missing compared to previous iterations, and the fact they (the developers) said that "the game isn't balanced for lean", yet the AI was leaning and shooting over ridges, just made me feel like everything was stacked against me and I was artificially limited. Conversely, you are somewhat limited in CoD2 as well with regards to where you can go, but it feels more natural, for some reason. They've just done a better job there, a job they've largely forgotten how to do the last 4 years, in my opinion.

Well for one thing I think the whole "waves of baddies come at you" shooting-gallery CoD style does feel more natural in the WWII setting. Trying to take that kind of huge-battle madness into modern scenarios often comes off feeling forced and a little ridiculous at times.

The waves of baddies is gone from MW2. There are a fixed number of assailants you are dealing with.


Did you pay attention to ANY of the story / scenario developments taking place in that level? Shit.

Thankfully. There are still ridiculous amounts of enemies though.

And they do often still come in waves, it's just not an endless supply of dudes emerging from the ether.

I'm recognizing that our definitions of "ridiculous" is different in this context and won't argue the point.

Well, gameplay wise it works. I just mean it often feels unrealistic. Not that realism is the goal, but, whatever.

You mean it feels like a game?

Hah exactly I guess. I dunno, some things tread a fine line of suspension of disbelief for me.

My business partner insisted that I try some of the single player. MW2 is a fucking shitty shooter. I have no hope for the future of the genre.

Explain so I know whether you're comparing this to some other shooter type that you have an infatuation with or that your opinion actually counts for something.

It is my opinion, and it has no more or no less weight than your fucking opinion.

Dude, all these haters don't like it because it's so popular. There's no point in arguing with them, they're just saying it sucks without backing it up.

I've stated why I think it sucks.  Too much bling, not enough substance.  I don't see why I would play it over CS:S besides omg new shiney.  All the fucking bullshit that pops up every time anything happens is obnoxious.  It looks good and I can see some fun in it but oh wait, only tiny games with not many people and I can't even frequent a few great servers that form their own cool community?   No fucking thanks.

I also hate it because its so popular but I mostly hate it because its at the forefront of the war by developers on the tried and true model of private servers as small communities and modders adding free content models of the fps genre.  That and like I said earlier it reminds me of Fox News.

If your fucking opinion is that it's a shitty shooter because it's not Serious Sam or Rainbow Six or some other game that has a completely different design and presentation, then I can safely discount your opinion, in my mind, while still respecting what it is you like and debate the individual elements of those shooter types.

This genre isn't one all-encompassing style that every game must adhere to. It has many different flavors. Don't eat chocolate ice cream when you hate the chocolate flavor and then say "Chocolate is a shitty flavor." It's fucking chocolate. People who like chocolate probably love that chocolate. Go eat some other flavor of ice cream you actually like.

Now if you loved chocolate and you thought it was shitty (and had the sense of fucking mind to back that shit up in an intelligent deconstruction), that'd be worth putting out there.

</analogy>

Point taken and understood. I do wish for larger games and tend to gravitate towards Ground War which has the right amount of people for the maps. 6v6 is a little lame.

Shiny can be nice. Opinion though, but I know what you mean.

This summarizes how I feel about MW2 basically more than any other series of words in the English language.

That's just creepy to think about because I know you're right.

Just to be perfectly clear, the level I was talking about was "takedown". We began with a few (4? 5? something like that) guys, and we had to fight our way through a lot of people in close quarters. Fine. I saw them once in a while, but suddenly I was left all by myself to fight through the exact same number of enemies, while "cutting off a guy". So I keep chasing someone, sometimes seeing him for a few seconds, and SUDDENLY the rest of the team is in the right place, throwing themselves out a window and landing on a car. It just feels off, and not really something I would expect from professional soldiers. If a BOPA (or whatever it is they're called, I forget exactly what country this was in, but it was some documentary about a police force in a very violent country) soldier ran off into the favela alone, 9 times out of 10 he got raped. You don't do that, and I don't want to do that in a game, it breaks the believability for me, and that gets me cranky.

Excuse me? What the hell have I been typing lately? Have I been saying "it sucks because it's popular"? Is that really all you're getting from my posts?

Edit: oh, and while I remember it, I had to go back to see just which level it was I thought of when I said "the favela" and "going rambo". I kept throwing grenades and knifing the walls the first 5 minutes because I tried to lean. I DEMAND LEAN IN MY FPSes, god damnit.

OK, what you described was a much better breakdown of the level and your thoughts than the overarching analysis from the quote; something I can respect and comment on.

If you progress through the level at a slow and careful pace (required on Veteran), the adrenaline and intensity of what the designers were trying to relate does fall to the wayside. The illusion of what's going on is easily dispelled on multiple playthroughs as well. You're seeing the "game" part of the game. If you removed the storyline context, it's just you, a bunch of narrow corridors, and lots of ambush points and unusual vectors of attacks for your assailants to take advantage of. I think they did the best job they could with that type of level design to deliver the story (the "invincible NPCs important to the story having perfect timing" is one of those movie magic things). A lot of storyline and sense of urgency they wanted to relate took place through comm chatter where you couldn't see the action taking place. I AM interested in hearing your thoughts on how they could have improved the level.

Edit: I imagine it has something to do with you physically taking down the guy; I was pretty happy doing the leg shot on the first one though. What struck me as funny about that level is I played it on Hardened and Veteran and didn't die to the first guy shooting at us in the car, but on Recruit (Easiest), I was killed because I didn't duck.

Actually, I'm not sure if that would be sufficient. It would bring a very satisfying end to the level, to be sure, but it doesn't help with my feeling of abandonment that I felt which was just aggravated by the sudden reappearance of my teammembers.

I understand that urban warfare is chaotic, but when we're 4-5 people in a squad, we shouldn't really separate and run around randomly around in the first part of the mission (where end up just seeing them occasionally). Also, 4 of them shouldn't run off to cut off the guy while I go it alone to chase him into the trap (which isn't predefined in any way shape or form). If I'd gotten at least 1 guy to accompany me, that would've removed a fair bit of the disbelief I felt.

Although, to be honest, I didn't really like this particular type of mission in MW1 either (the one where we had to chase the son down), but at least I felt that I had my squad with me at that time, and they didn't just suddenly disappear on me.

The second part of the mission (I can't be arsed to start MW2 up again just to find the name) where you end up running for your life to jump onto the ladder hanging off of the chopper, in comparison, was a lot more fun in my view because we stayed together as a group, and we were *focused*. Although the last bit of that mission did grate a bit, because it felt a bit like it was thrown in there because someone had an idea.

Edit: meh, keep forgetting things. Anyhow, another thing that would've made that level better would be able to lean around corners. Last I checked, urban warfare was about utilizing the environment better than just running behind a corner. The no lean deal just makes it so much harder to fight effectively, and when it's a feature I expect in ALL the previous CoD games, and it's not there, I get cranky.

...And this is just pulling the SP game apart, I haven't even begun on the MP part, and given the comments from the developers, I don't really feel like it either.

Just to say specifically what happened: You start out with 5 people (Ghost, Soap, Roach, Meat, and the fifth guy I forget). Your driver is killed when you get Rojas's #2 cornered and he shoots at the car. All five of you run after Rojas's #2. You can stay with the group or you can run ahead after him. The point is you're all running to try and keep up with a fleeing person (this is before you know what your opposition, the local Militia, will be) in a downtown urban area. Whenever you round that corner, the script starts, and you're given the opportunity to take the shot. You do, next phase.

Next phase starts with Soap and Ghost doing some creative interrogation. Meat, Roach, and #5 head to the Favellas to track down Rojas, the main target. During the encounter in the shacks, Meat and #5 are gunned down; you're the sole person to make it through the Militia onslaught. You end up in a crowded, twisting area of back alleys with Ghost and Soap assisting you from locations you aren't able to access. It's one giant hill but due to its design (in canon), but you can cut him off and drive him up to the top of the hill.

That crowded, twisted area would probably be hell to have a second, AI partner with, and also would work against what they wanted to have here: a bunch of ambush points and unusual vectors of attack. If you had an AI buddy, he'd be able to point out these locations before you got to them.

Though there are more members to your task force (evidenced by the next mission's start, Exodus), you only start with the five.

Your knowledge of the scenario is comprehensive. You should do a similar write up for each level in the game!  :grin:

I played through the campaign three times. First for the experience on Hardened, second for the achievements on Veteran, and third on Recruit for the Intelligence. I paid attention cause I care.  :why_so_serious:

Is this argument done now? That way we can post the hidden 'Get the nuclear bomb' multiplayer mode.

There is no way any armed force would ever only have 9 people guarding a nuclear device.

 :facepalm:

Dude, budget cuts. It's a savage political commentary on the effects of Obama's fiscal policy.

:awesome_for_real:

All evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/pubs/ib45.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/01/AR2008120102710.html

And a little bit closer to home

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/06/airforce_moseleywynne_060508w/

So while technically 0 is Not 9, it's scarily not all that far fetched.

Shit like the last page of this thread is my irrational reason for why I hate this game.  Say what you will but the community back in the Quake1-2, Tribes1-2, HL1DM, TFC days seemed so much less internet armyman bullshit.  Admittedly I was much younger so rose colored specs and all that but it started going downhill with CS and then took a major turn for the worse when the WW2 bullshit started.

(http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc110/jakonovski/dontworry.jpg)

I've skimmed the thread (don't want spoilers and not getting this except maybe as gift), so apologies if this was mentioned: PC version is 3% of overall retail unit sales (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/easy-victory-for-modern-warfare-2-in-uk-charts)*, and in week one, the number of units outpaced MW1 (http://www.infinityward.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=183344&start=20#p3035514), according to an official post on their forums:


* Retail sales do not include digital download. I'd guess more units were sold on Steam et al than at brick & mortar.

I don't think that's a good argument. A better one would probably be whether PC growth outpaces or is lesser than the growth in console games. I'd be inclined to say it's growing slower for obvious reasons.

Oh, yes, on that I totally agree. But I don't think they were arguing as much as clarifying what could be misinterpreted as MW2 PC doing worse than MW1 PC. If that were true, their forums would implode into a black hole faster than the LHC. But they sold more retail SKUs in week 1 of MW2 than week 1 of MW1. That's before accounting for digital download (which they aren't reporting).

Oh ai, I hear ya. How many people really care about the issues of MW2? The more interesting question will be how MW3 fares.

Actually, I think we should care about the issues of MW2, because I think this is just the way things are headed. No FPS game is ever going to come close to playing the way it would do on the PC, because the controllers are just way more limiting on the consoles. So we have issues such as autoaim, larger hitboxes, "lean is hard, so the game won't be 'balanced' for it", etc etc etc, in at least most of the consoles games, to pander to the controller's weaknesses. Add to that the gamer mentality, and things are just going to get worse.

Speaking of gamer mentality, just to put it into perspective, I absolutely demand leaning in FPS games these days. I went back to CoD2 just to remind me what the series used to be, and every time I've had to go back to MW2 I've been throwing handgrenades and knifing the wall infront of me instead of leaning. This is because I expect leaning to be there. Compare that to a console fan I was talking to about MW2, who basically said "Lean? I never use that, it's just silly". Same goes for the length of the SP, and value for money.

And if that's what IW and the rest of the game developers/publishers are going to listen to, then MW3 will just be more of the same, and we'll all end up just paying more for less.

"Care" implies our opinion beyond our dollars is going to matter. High end PC gaming continues to die. Fewer people are willing to pay the price of a console just for a video card. The next console generation has not arrived, and if and when it does, it most likely will be defined by graphics alone. Because PCs haven't continued incremently pushing the boundaries that consoles need to leap to every few years. Because people aren't willing to pay that price for the video card, and therefore developers aren't willing to develop for it.

Then you add in the universal belief of piracy first/sales a distant second. Then you add the complexity comparison between one/two consoles versus every-PC-is-unique.

FPS games don't need to be solved for PCs. They need to be solved for consoles. And console controllers need to that solution until either keyboards/mouse become ubiquitous on consoles or the only market that matters adopts controllers. The former is not likely to happen and the latter pretty much already has.

So yes, the games will be gimped to support the LCD that is controllers. But this is how the market works.

Speaking of keyboard for consoles, there is at least an officially supported keyboard for the 360:

(http://www.slipperybrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/xbox-keyboard-controller.jpg)

I believe it's just prohibited by policy by Microsoft in anything remotely resembling a game etc. MSN Live, fine, games, boo hiss.

That's the thing that annoys me the most actually, it's prohibited for policy reasons, not technical reasons. "It would make the console too much like a computer" I believe it was. That right there is going to fuck the consoles over for FPS/RTS games (at least in my view) for years to come.

This is a huge point.

Especially these days when PC is really only superior for FPS, Strategy games and MMOs. Everything else either plays just as well, or better on consoles.

Y'all are looking at graphics and PC's greater capabilities while seeming to ignore the user accessibility and conformity that consoles provide.

I don't think anyone here is unaware of the strengths of the console, or doesn't understand why it is dominant.  Personally, I still prefer to game on PC, for I find it perfectly accessible, and enjoy being able to customize my experience.  I'm bummed out that the market is steadily marginalizing the PC, but I know why it's happening.

Personally I couldn't care less about the graphics. I'm happy with CoD2's graphics, and you can't say the consoles haven't passed that by miles years ago. Although the one thing I liked about my last upgrade was how I've suddenly been able to run 3 games windowed at the same time without any slowdown. But I digress.

If only they would get their thumbs out of their asses and give us proper controllers for the games, I would so be on a console. I am so sick and tired of developers/publishers whining about pirates, and going for copy protection systems which are inconveniencing legitimate users more than illegitimate users, online activations etc etc etc. So much so I'd happily tell the PC to go fuck itself. But they won't, so I won't.

Actually, there's another issue which I saw with mass effect when I played through that, and that was the problem with not being allowed to install the game to the HD, so I was constantly having to stop to allow the game to load textures etc in, and the elevators in the spaceship was GODAWFUL slow. And the noise from the DVD drive ...

So while yes, consoles do have conformity going for it, there are a ton of artificial restrictions which just end up annoying me and making the experience a less pleasant experience than what I would've wished.

I'd like to see the list of what plays so much better on a console.

Sports games
Racing games?
RPG's with console menus
Platformers

Am I missing a bunch?

Don't forget Guitar Hero and similar.

Whatever that genre is. Party games?

Everything except RTS and FPS and Diku with 50,000 skills play better on a console.

Period.

I don't see why we should compare what it costs to natively run a game at ~1080p and above with 4-8x AA to what it costs to run it at ~600p 2x AA.

Sims?  I don't me The Sims, I mean, Simulators (like Flight sims).  I guess thats not exactly a huge market though.  I like being able to hook up a legitimate joystick to my computer. 

I also find a mouse better for navigating a UI than a controller every will, even something like the wii remote where you literally point and click its a bit more finicky. 

Maybe my years of computer use have made controllers just feel odd in my hands period, especially since I've never owned an xbox or playstation system at all.  Anyway, a keyboard is always going to be my preference because generally if a game has few enough buttons to fit on a controller, the game probably isn't complex enough to hold my interest (with very few exceptions) past "this is fun to play with my girlfriend every so often" which is why we own a wii in the first place.

But I digress.

I know I'm in the minority if gamers who want something like that.  The fact of the matter is that the money lies with the games like MW2, so thats what we will continue to see.  People don't want complex, they don't want depth, and they certainly don't want the sorts of games I like to play.    Hyperbole to a degree.

Simulators are too split. For every one on the PC, there's a counterexample on the console.

More than that, sims are easy to convert to console just by making the controller jump to everything clickable (hold down R trigger and move analog stick to jump to items, hold down L trigger to jump to housing - walls, etc). I'm SHOCKED Sims 3 wasn't on consoles - trivial conversion (but I suppose content generation and such would be near impossible).

Sims. That's a big market.  :roll:


Who's comparing at that level of depth? To get an FPS to look and play great on a PC is going to cost you more money than it would on a console. Unless your components fall off the back of a truck. Most people instead just make the compromise (a PC that is "good enough" for certain types of games, or their favorite games played with "good enough" levels"). These same people have consoles.


I agree with schild here, but I don't think this actually the point. It's not what's played better in side by side comparison. That way lies too much personal bias. Rather, it's what changes companies have been willing to make to established tenets in order to radically increase the number of units they can sell at retail and to reduce the overhead of porting to a zillion PC configurations. It doesn't matter what genre you point to. Any one of them can be gimped/LCD'd/side-proved to the console in some way.

That's why I said elsewhere that about the only genre that's PC exclusive is MMO. But even those don't require top end PCs to run (the non-misguided successful ones, anyway). And this won't last forever.

Only PC enthusiasts will know the different. And we're a dying breed. The rest will just accept the games they get at face value. Any feature you can think of can be designed around for the purposes of more unit sales. And if not, the entire convention gets tossed out the window. The most recent example is dedicated servers, lean, and small maps. And the amount of PC people bought it anyway :awesome_for_real:

tl;dr: it's not about what genres work on consoles. It's about what changes those genres will get to work on the consoles.

Frankly I could care lately about what players better on what platform. I'd like to be able to toss in a game without much theatrics and get right to the meat with an experience that is tailored to the medium rather than so varied based on individual setup as to create a headache.

But some of you prefer to have the customization, the accessibility, the options to know how to take your game above and beyond what can be provided by conformity.

Either way is fine with its own pros and cons, but we're moving towards which is the minority and which is the majority, and that brings out the supporters / haters for each side to try and make their side look better.

Like politics!

Nonsense, all of it. There is absolutely no reason you can't have both accessibility and customization. Left 4 Dead (and many other older titles) have an option called "quick game". I doubt I have to explain what it is.

See, it's not that - I am a PC enthusiast, and I hate what IW/Activision did to CoD6, but the simple fact is that the genres that Hoax listed above were superior on computers a long time ago. And that computer was the Amiga, (or the Spectrum) - not the PC, and it had joysticks. While PCs can run a lot of stuff Just Fine and now use a 360 pad, it requires a whole lot more than the simple plug and play, and a lot more $$ to get a PC to the same spec as a console.

I'd add one more to the list of PC>Console games, and that'd be western RPGs - though that gap appears to be closing.

But yeah, it's a personal anecdote, but I'm playing Borderlands on the 360 because I wanted to co-op with my wife, and when her PC couldn't run it, a fuck it and 2 copies of it for the 360 cost a hell of a lot less than a PC upgrade or new rig. I'll get L4D1 and 2 on 360 soon, for the same reason.

Are your video card drivers up to date? Do you have a good enough video card? Is the game even compatible with your video card?  Do you have enough hard drive space? Is anything running in the background that could possibly impact the performance or stability of the game?

Before you get to that Quick Game option, there are a lot of other problems that may crop up that games need to take into account, like the one Gabe relates here (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/11/18/). Compatibility is a huge issue with PCs.

I want an experience that is consistent with other users are experiencing and the developer's expectations and not based on the balance of my check book and IT knowledge. This is in no means saying "Fuck PCs," except to say some publishers / developers might be on the same wave length.

Or perhaps the pad really is a good way to control an FPS for the vast majority of people? Kb&m is the obsession of maybe a hundred thousand super-nerds. Nothing more.

I said that because you'd only go after a $300 graphics card if you wanted to get that much above what graphics a console delivers.  $100 cards in ~$500 systems can easily do the job.

Will it be a "good enough" system?  Yes, but that's only because the ceiling on PC graphics is so fucking high in the first place.

I have only one thing to say about that, and that's "bullshit".

Those who say it's good enough quite simply do not know any better. If MS and Sony were to put out a specially created mouse/keyboard deal which wouldn't be allowed used in anything other than games (kind of like a fucking guitar for guitar hero), and people were allowed to use that for more than 10 minutes, then they're either weird, or they WOULD prefer that method to a pad. Period.

And I'd like to see you play an RTS on the console with a pad.

I do understand how it can be a headache occasionally, but quite frankly the amount of times I have any problems on my PC is very small.  As long as you do the smallest amount of maintenance and keep everything up to date, you don't have many problems.  Again, I may be jaded by years of working with PCs that doing that sort of thing comes natural to me, and even something like having to do the .ini changes for Borderlands to get acceptable PC performance was at the absolute worst a minor nuisance.  But I understand how a lot of people would look at a .ini file and despair cause they have no idea what the hell any of it means, and admittedly, the console versions are just "pop it in and play."

But of course, the fact that I CAN edit that stuff in the first place remains one of the reasons PC gaming is my style.  Then again, when I got into gaming, it was a scene that was pretty much only populated by computer hobbyists in general, when almost anyone who played games at least new a tiny bit about coding.  Nowadays, gaming is obviously much different.

Also, re: Controller v. KB/M.  I think the point he was making tgr, is that most people JUST DON'T CARE about that extra efficiency that comes with a keyboard and mouse.  They like to sit out their couch and recline with a controller and fuck around and shoot things.  The controller really is good enough for that kind of attitude towards it. 

Oh hey, look, another PC is dying to console thread.  Haven't seen one of these in a couple of days.

I'll just say the same thing I always say in these threads.  Consoles have ALWAYS (2600 vs AppleII, C64 vs NES?) been better for gaming than PCs and yet, 30 years later, it's still here.

Define 'better'

Were. Back in the days when people were wondering for how much longer anyone would bother making games for the Mac instead of just focusing on the PC. Since then, almost all genres have been changed in their migration to console.


I covered this already. When people have only one way to play, they adapt to it. And if its successful, developers refine the games even more for it. Kb&m is not an obsession for super-nerds. It's the default scheme for PC gaming enthusiasts. Every game has to make the compromise, most of them need to work better on controllers than they do kb&m, and the crap that is the Borderlands UI is one of the results. Or the planar one-dimensionality of CoD maps vs, say, UT. Or the kind of RPG that ends up on a console versus the kind on PC. Or how old school RTS games just aren't going to work on consoles (it's been tried) so there needs to be a paradigm shift in what "RTS" means for consoles. And so on. As more MMOs give consoles a shot, they certainly won't have six action bars full of icons, and probably won't require anywhere near 25 person raids.

You're assuming there's some emotional personal motivation here. I'm just stating how it is. I am a PC gaming enthusiast, know it, and accept I'm the minority of the market.

Edit: formatting

I'm still going to say that they just don't know any better, and that a lot would probably use KB+M if they could use it. Console users are used to pads because there isn't any alternative, so they've adapted to this and thus want to continue playing FPS games with a pad. I'm used to KB+M, I'm used to more precise control, I enjoy that, and I want to continue with more precise controls. For me, playing an FPS with a pad is frustrating because it's so irritatingly inaccurate and slowmotion, and it's doubly frustrating to see flightsims, racing sims, and even guitar hero etc have specialized controllers to make the experience better.

Actually, the worst bit is the fact that FPS/RTS gamers aren't getting the choice to use a more efficient controller, and whenever the desire for such is voiced, it's shoved aside with "only super-nerds want that", "it's unbalancing", "you're just a cheater" or even worse, "it'll make the console too much like a computer", and it's all bullshit. Especially the last bit could be easily circumvented by making a specialized controller with, say, 20 keys or whatever, which is forbidden by policy from anything other than games. Voila, not a computer.

I do want to move over to the console because it's so much simpler than a PC, DRM isn't so damn intrusive, graphics are good enough, etc etc etc, but I see no point in doing so if it means I have to grit my teeth every time I can't pan quickly enough or the autoaim selects the incorrect target because the pad isn't as good for FPS/RTS games as I want it to be. And I really don't see why they're being so stubborn about this, because they can make the console my default one-stop gaming machine, they just don't seem to want to.

Unless, of course, choice is bad because variety is hard, and console games aren't supposed to be "hard-core". Pfft.

This has little to do with IWnet, or Modern Warfare 2 in general, it's an issue that affects all computer games.

Incidentally, updating your video drivers is pretty infantile; as is reading a simple "requirements" tab. I'm not sure what being "compatible with a video card" is supposed to mean. Drive space is about as plentiful as stupidity in the modern world... Ok, well the background application thing can actually be annoying to people who aren't computer literate.

Yeah. I was strictly a console gamer for most of my life. Of course I started with consoles as a kid, and even when computers started becoming more common in households, we were poor and couldn't afford one. When I first moved out I was still poor and consoles were just a more cost-effective way to game. So I was weaned on controller for FPS games too. I played Doom first on the fucking Jaguar for god's sake, and later on the Playstation. I played Starcraft ON THE N64. So yes, you can adapt to a controller when it's what you've always known. When I first got a PC for gaming (PlanetSide made me a PC gamer) mouse/kb was actually incredibly awkward. But I of course learned, and gradually saw the light of how much more precise that control method was.

So, I will always feel comfortable playing a FPS with a controller - but when the option is there I will usually pick up the PC version, depending on the game.

One of the big bonuses of PC gaming is you can be discreet and still get the full experience. Everyone rolls out the "consoles are for kicking back on the couch" routine, but when you are married with kids that is fine for a little while, but my wife will only tolerate a warzone in her living room for so long. With the PC I can go off in the corner and throw on my headphones and get just as immersive an experience with better graphics and more accurate controls while wifey watches Jon & Kate. Everyone wins.

You clearly never owned an Amiga.  :awesome_for_real:

I played my first FPS games using the PS1 pad - Medal of Honor, Doom, Doom Unlimited or whatever the semi-sequel was. It wasn't until later that I got a Mac with Quake 1, and then later a PC with Everquest and then other FPS games that I learned to use WASD. I've been re-learning how to play shooters on the 360 via Borderlands, but even so, the KBM is the better control option.
(I also played Warcraft 2 and Diablo both to completion on the PS1, before I owned a PC).

But really, whether you agree or not, don't be such a jackoff about the way you say it.

Yeah, "better" was a poor choice of words.  The sentiment I was looking for was 'more popular'.

You're wrong.

Perhaps the "best" way doesn't currently exist.

I could see a righthand analog thumbstick/joystick to replace WASD along with a mouse for aim/look.

Of course, that makes it difficult to add jump, reload, etc, etc. You could even have a modifier button to tack lean on to the joystick's L/R movement. Thsi is, if games these days could be balanced for lean, which is clearly too difficult.


Given the choice though, it's the same argument as we've had before, and my preference is the same one I typed about last time...

http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F8GFPC100-Nostromo-Speedpad-n52/dp/B0000DC643

It's a shame this device's successor turned out to be a giant piece of crap (The diagonals on the Dpad doesn't work for movement), and that the above is not manufactured anymore... Or to list something more relevant - http://www.splitfish.com/

Yeah, actually you just reminded me that I bought some silly looking thing years ago to use when I was first getting into FPS games. It was made for RTS games, I think. going to see if I can google it.

here it is - The Microsoft Strategic Commander!
(http://x913.up.seesaa.net/image/STRATEGIC1.jpg)

It didn't move very well, was a bit stiff and clunky, but I'd hoped to use it to smoothly FPS around. I guess in theory a better-designed one of these could be a replacement for WASD.

Weren't you going to review the splitfish at one stage? Or was that someon else here?

I commented in the thread about it, the buttons were too analog-stiff and totally unusable (imo) compared to short throw mouse buttons. They should've gotten rid of the pressure shit like regular dualshock buttons have and just stuck with mouse buttons with no pressure. In other words, it was terrible.

Haha, I think I was channeling some old flame wars on the subject. Anyway, the only thing kb&m has is the speed and accuracy of aiming. That can be a gameplay boon or bane, depending on what you want to accomplish (eg. it would be easier to just carry a golf ball into the hole, but what would be the point). Moving with the pad on the other hand is much smoother, and it incorporates rumble. As a non-gaming downside, kb&m is rather unergonomic. Really, the blood circulation of your hands is sooo much better when using a pad.

Wait, in what situation in an FPS does having slow, smooth movement actually present an advantage of over quick and responsive? The ergonomic thing may be true, you definitely suffer with kb+m after a few hours if you don't have it a chair and desk at the right height for your body (chair too low and you blood flow will suffer). I disagree on the pad being just better though, using them for a long time cripples my thumbs but with a nicely set up desk I can (though not too often) play games for hours without suffering horrible pain or blood flow loss.

He's making stuff up at this point.

Moving with the pad is much smoother? how?

Rumble? What kind of boon is that possibly going to bring over, say, absolutely nothing at all?

non-gaming downside, kb&m is unergonomic? what? Is that why I've spent most of my days at a kb&m without getting any issues whatsoever (apart from when I sit like a complete asstard, but that's my fault)?

I'm questioning whether I want whatever it is you're smoking, it sure is affecting things. Or, as schild says, you're just making shit up.

Analog stick instead of digital buttons? It should be obvious that it's going to be smoother. Rumble is always underestimated until it goes missing. Remember the "we don't need rumble" fiasco by Sony?

Ergonomy really shouldn't even be in question. You might use kb&m just fine, but the world is full of people for whom protracted use causes problems.

You guys are such silly absolutists. Most people aren't lifelong pc gamers.

So you can walk forwards or sideways at less than full speed. I can count the times I've done that on 0 hands. Yes, that's such a useful feature that we're going to force everyone to use a pad. Great idea. Or, hey, even better idea. We could allow those who think that's such a huge feature they need a pad, to use a pad. How's that?

Rumble? For what? "tactile feedback that I'm firing a gun"? I know. I pushed the button. "tactile feedback I'm in a huge-assed explosion"? Er, yes. My sub just gave me feedback to that effect, along with my monitor. I don't need a controller to hop around on the table or in my hands to know that. I don't see why it shouldn't be available for those who might be so inclined to have a giant double-edged vibrator in their hands, however, for whatever use they make of that. More power to them.

So they have issues with kb&m, I'd be willing to bet they were either sitting incorrectly or had underlying issues prior to starting to use a kb&m. Fine, let them use a pad then, if they manage to sit and use it in a more ergonomical fashion. It'd be their choice.

If you haven't noticed yet, there's a key word there: choice. I have none if I want to move my gaming to the consoles, and for that they can die in a fire.

I'm going to assume you're ignoring the repeated statement from me saying I'd happily move over to the consoles if they had controllers I didn't think sucked ass through a straw. They currently do not.

Edit: oh btw, pot, meet kettle. You can call him black now:

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that console keyboards & mice just wouldn't sell, because people specifically want a games console, not an office tool. There's nothing wrong with using a pad, and the frankly hardcore preference for lightning fast aiming just isn't there.

Here's a thought. How about it was thrown out there as an option, and we let the market decide?

I like that idea. I like it a lot.

It hasn't worked for Dreamcast or the PS3, so I don't think they want to try. But it'd be cool, yeah. I'd love to be able to type properly.

(http://www.slipperybrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/xbox-keyboard-controller.jpg)
Look. There it is, only it's disallowed to be used in games by policy (except maybe to chat with).

And just to debunk the "console users don't want it", I want it (and as I've said before, it doesn't even have to be a standard KB, it can be a CUSTOMIZED FPS/RTS/whatever controller made specifically for games), and I'll bet it'd be a hell of a lot more useful than, say ...
(http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/guitar_hero_package.jpg)
Yeah, that's hitting such an absurd amount of games right there. But it's still there, so people can take advantage of it if they so choose.

Choice. It rocks.

Last I looked, there was a rather great demand for consoles to support keyboards and mice, one such indicator was the great joy heard around the net when Unreal for ps3 was to support them. I personally think the K&B is best for me, but I grew up on PC shooters, not console. Judging by how many devices that have come out that try to switch the controls one way or the other. If we started seeing more integrated support for K&B I think controllers would start slipping.

In the current generation of consoles (not sure about the xbox) the hardware fully supports it, its the software, and if the developer is inclined to balance the handicaps built in to the controller aiming, with the free form mouse aiming that determines if a game supports it.

There is also a new version of the splitfish.

Well, considering the sales of UT3 for PS3...

Oh god, these are just so useful in all the other games out there, I can totally use it in fight night 4:
(http://www.whattheyplay.com/media/images/features/in-the-family-room-buzz-69/spotart/image_1.jpg)
(http://medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/screenshot_181963.jpg)

Oh dear, this is usable in flight sims, but surely console gamers can't possibly be hardcore enough to want this, surely the pad is sufficient:
(http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/1688/1181960827.jpg)

Oh dear, this is usable in racing games, but surely console gamers can't possibly be hardcore enough to want this, surely the pad is sufficient:
(http://gearmedia.ign.com/gear/image/article/747/747438/e3-2006-microsoft-announces-new-360-accessories-20060509113247181_1164240404-000.jpg)

Is it sinking through to you yet? Or should I look around for more examples of custom controllers to enhance the experience for these 100k super-nerds?

Maybe that is because WHO THE HELL WOULD PLAY UT3 WITH A CONTROLLER when the PC version is where its at?

This isn't Halo.

Who's stopping the reign of kb&m then? Seriously. With the plethora of funny controllers available, why isn't kb&m thriving?

Didn't the PC version sell really bad too?

There has not been a CONSOLE franchise created yet that supports it. All FPS games that support mouse and keyboard are PC ports. What platform do you think fans of that PC franchise are going to pick?


You seem to be missing the point here.

No, I just wanted to point out that UT3 can't be an example of anything, because it failed so hard on every platform. But I do believe that the lack of console kb&m is due to market realities, one of which is that a gamepad is truly good enough for fps games.

Maybe because microsoft is forbidding its use in games?

And before you whine about this, this is what MS has managed to put out:
(http://medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/screenshot_176920_thumb300.jpg)
It's for use in MSN live, not for controlling games.

There are "adapters", but they aren't officially supported so god knows if they work.

Wikipedia says 1 million units total. I suppose you can call that "really bad" in this day and age, if you expect all games to sell like MW2 did. There's a cluephone ringing somewhere near you. Pick it up.

In your opinion it is, in mine it isn't. You'll probably retort yet again with "[you're] just one of those 100k super-nerds", to which I'll just say "Um. No."

How many it sold is a bit irrelevant to the discussion. Also, "Failed so hard"? Its sold more than 5, and less than 3 million. I would like to "Fail so hard" please. It is still, not part of the point.

But I guess its sales figure invalidates any point I was trying to make.  What was I thinking. Oh, I was thinking there was a great amount of joy when it was announced that it would support a mouse and keyboard.

Looks like I was under false impressions regarding UT3, all the bad press fooled me I guess.

Regarding console manufacturers forbidding kb&m in games, why is that? If it really is costing them sales, why do they do it?

Fair enough. Don't include b&m console sales  :why_so_serious:

Ah, ye olde k/m vs controller thing. You can plug a 360 controller into your pc, go ahead and use it on your pc online with a shooter.

That's one potential reason for disallowing it on consoles: they don't want to introduce a performance disparity through multiple controller methods.

Can we go back to this? Explain how moving the analog stick is so much smoother then a mouse? This is my major problem with consoles is the analog stick acceleration is completely silly. 1-2"mm movement from dead center is slow and anything past that you enter stabbed rat speed.

Fuck if I know, last I heard was MS was saying "it would make the console too much like a computer". It certainly isn't because it's hard to make a keyboard/mouse usable on the console.

Yep. That's why there are steering wheels and flightsticks, because surely that doesn't give anyone an "unfair advantage".

Just face it, any reason to disallow mouse and keypad/keyboard support in FPS/RTS games is just a piss-poor one, and has nothing to do with "making the gaming experience better".

You don't move with a mouse do you? Good pad players combine the two analog outputs of movement and aiming to achieve mouse-like accuracy. It takes some practice but after my Halo3 obsession in 2007 I saw the light.

In my experience they don't. The only place where I've seen it matter is Forza hot lapping.

 :uhrr: Generally most mice have a good 2" of throw to them from center giving you a nice linear progression, a stick has a quarter of that and insane acceleration to compensate. Not only is it boosted but to compensate auto aim is heavily used. Your original point is that the stick is "much smoother" which I want explained.

Anyone that uses Halo as an example of how gamepads are a better form of control is barking up the wrong fucking tree.

Keyboard is digital, analog stick isn't. Can't make it more simple than that.

I'm actually interested in reading how auto-aim in multiplayer works after once again aiming at a target downrange only to have another enemy run perpindicular across my line of fire and throw off my aim on the original target.

Good thing I don't aim with my keyboard?

Heh.  At some point the analog potentiometer output gets fed through an A/D and then it's entirely up to the sampling frequency and resolution of the A/D as to how accurate it is.  A given high performance mouse may or may not have a higher sampling frequency and resolution so saying something like "analog sticks aren't digital" is only partially true and isn't really relevant.

Aka competitive play. Realm of the "100k super-nerds".

If you really think that has any effect whatsoever on normal gameplay, with the resolution you get on the left stick on the 360, then you've got a very weird way of playing the game.

Or you're grasping at straws. I'm betting on straws.

So what your getting at is that player movement is smoother with the stick, so that offsets the impairments with the targeting movement?

Don't know why he would say that, as player movement is a function of the engine and its parameters, and less of the input device.

Yeah, I'm aware that I'm a supernerd. Who else would buy a plastic playwheel for their racing game? As far as movement with a stick, I really do prefer it. Maybe I'm playing badwrong but there you have it.

Why bring up aiming when I'm talking about moving? I was wondering how long it would take for people to realise I didn't mean aiming, but moving. Schlepping. Shuffling your feet. Dragging your carcass.

 :uhrr:

I admit, I am easily confused, but I dont think I was this time.

Maybe people who just prefer to steer their car with, oh I dunno, the most natural/best controller for the job?

It really isn't even close to supernerd country. I was poking fun at your ridiculous "oh mouse/keyboard is only something supernerds want/use" comment.

Good for you. I fucking hate it, I think mouse/keyboard is the better controlling system. You don't see me saying "toss the gamepad out, it's for fucking lamers", because I'll just choose to not use a pad.

Have you even played FPSes on anything other than consoles? And actually analyzed how you move around?

How many situations do you really need anything between walking or running in FPSes? More importantly how fine a control do you really have on a pad that means you can switch through all those fine gradations of movement speeds to really make use of it? Best I can see is by sacrificing the ability to aim to a significant degree gamepad users can choose to slowly sidestep at the same time as moving forward/slowly move forward while side stepping while kb users have to move in directions at the same speed. Which is like arguing that giving up fuel consumption, safety and engine capacity for some flat open storage space makes your truck a better vehicle than an estate car which can't pile stuff as high at the back.

You only need two speeds in an FPS - sprinting at full speed, and walking to the point where you don't make footstep sounds, and even that speed is optional in some games.

But... but... SMOOTHER!

 :awesome_for_real:

I know, I know, I play badwrong and liking a gamepad is objectively wrong.  :heartbreak:

No control scheme is an end unto itself. Dick waving notwithstanding, comfort and feeling you're better in control is everything. For me it happens to be analog movement and better ergonomy. I don't like fast aiming, I played enough Counterstrike ten years ago to learn my place.

You're saying that I'm lying to save face or something? Why would I lie over a video game squabble?

Really? That wasn't what you said when you began this discussion:

Err, what's hte problem there? So many millions play console FPS's that I'm trivially proven right on the first sentence. The second may have been a weeeee bit too provocative, so apologies if it truly offended. I mean as I said, I'm fully aware I'm a super-nerd too when it comes to other things.

You may wish to check the series of reply's.

I will help.

I used a trackball (http://www.rebeltech.co.za/images/Logitech%20Cordless%20Trackman%20Trackball.jpg) for many years playing FPS games. Sooner or later I started to game with an actual mouse and realized that AIMING WITH MY THUMB WAS INFINITELY MORE DIFFICULT. And mind you, this was without the help of autoaim.

Yeah, you interjected that after a reply I made to Fuser who was confused. I said aiming is faster and more accurate with a mouse ages ago:

Boy, if a console came out with FPS games that allowed KB/M support, even the most mediocre PC FPS player would wipe the friggen floor with the console players.

There's a reason why console gamers and PC players cant play on the same servers, and that is because they would be absolutely DESTROYED.

Here we have the argument ad penis pendulum.

Let me interpret it for you, then. "the pad is good enough for most people, and keyboard/mouse is just something supernerds use, so who cares about that fringe group?". That is how you came across until the last few hours.

And now it's time for my pizza.

You can claim to like the control scheme of console FPS all you want, no-one is saying you can't have that opinion. There are clearly many people who are of that mind.

However, claiming that there is skill parity between console FPS control and PC FPS is an untrue statement. Sure, there may be a level of skill required to be good at console FPS, but the bar is infinitely higher on the PC end. Being able to use a device to precisely point to where you want to point without having to wait for arbitrary acceleration values makes all the difference in the world. Sure, the movement can be analog side can be smoother, but realistically, the first person shooter is all about the shooter part. Player movement is just a vehicle for getting into positions to do more shooting, and to avoid being shot at.

I'm not very diplomatic, am I?  :oh_i_see:

No, you are just a trolly moron.

Yeah, me and 83% of other posters.  :why_so_serious:

No, it is just you. Everyone else is disagreeing with you.

Not to steal the limelight from our new friend jackshitski here, but does anyone know if one can set up a game for tactical shooting gameplay matches? In other words, disable run, prevent the MW2 equivalent of vehicles/airstrikes/etc? Essentially, I might reconsider if I can have access to crouch-only tactical games.

I'm pretty sure you can't. You have to play the game the exact way IW intended.

It's not balanced for not having airstrikes/aircrafts/etc..

Is everyone who buys a racing wheel for a driving game a huge driving geek? People want more control and fidelity. It doesn't matter if I can hit a racing curve perfectly, I want to feel like the control pad is not limiting me, I want more feedback, I want more accurate controls. Is it wrong that I hate my rock band drum kit? The kit is broken, my bass pedal is going to snap soon and I can't get past a 50 note streak. But I can still play the game. Nothing stops me from wanting a better, truer and more accurate experience

See, for me the problem isn't console vs pc. Its the fact that IW can get away with a substandard FPS in the console market. If the console market had an established acceptable baseline for FPS play, then I'd just shrug, buy a console and join the zerg. Even if I couldn't use a precious keyboard and mouse.

What would be an established, acceptable baseline for FPS play on a console?

You act like merely professing a liking of gamepads is a mortal offense.  Pfft.

Can we get a ruling on understatement of the year qualifications?

I do admit getting a bit carried away there, but he chose to emphasis disagreement. The fact that we disagree is not the problem, is it? But that's enough of that subject.

Well, for starters, no auto-aim bs. That's just the epitome of lame, but it seems to be the tip of the iceberg.

The whole point, in my view, of multiplayer FPS is to be challenged by people. This requires a steady nerve, good hand-eye coordination, attention to environment and any other number of things that in PC FPS games makes a difference, especially with practice.

My impression from reading this thread and others on the subject is that to a large extent, in a console FPS environment, your gameplay is so cribbed that there's no learning curve. You can only get so good before auto-aim and sloshy console controls simply equalize the field in some sort of 'everyone is a special little soldier' egalitarian drooling retard fest. I may be wrong, but that's the impression I get.

Its like the IL-Sturmovik game that came out lately for console. Its not a flight sim. Its an abomination unto the lord.

Bad Company had the option to turn aim assist off. It didn't change the game either way in my experience.

Did you turn it off?

Yes, I played online for about a dozen hours before noticing it, then I turned it off and it didn't feel any different, nor did my performance change.

And how much bigger were the hitboxes compared to the PC versions?

I have no idea. What does it matter?

:oh_i_see:

No, seriously. Bad Company was very much a team based game, one of the few console shooters where even PUGs would advance as a coherent unit towards an objective, calling arty strikes and laying down support fire with MGs. They ruined it with the ridiculous amount of hits you needed to take someone down, but for a while it was glorious.

You can continue to believe that but you would be wrong. A game with mouselook allows for virtually instantaneous turning and aiming (only limited by your framerate and how fast you can flick your hand/wrist), something that's simply not possible on a gamepad even when using both sticks at once to speed up your rotation.

On the moving point, moving with a joystick is fine and in fact in many ways it's better than WASD. There was a person in my QW clan that used a joystick to move, for example. With WASD your middle finger (among others) is "overloaded" as it's responsible for both moving forwards/backwards and selecting nearby number keys/function keys. With a joystick or better yet a throttle controller with a hat under your thumb you only have dedicate one digit to movement instead of 3.

Shadowrun will forever be proof that mouse + keyboard >> controller. They launched with mixed multiplayer. It was patched out in less than two weeks because the PC gamers spanked the console players so hard. That was even with the console players getting aim assist.

I say we end this once and for all. TF2 has console controller support. Hop into a PC game and let's see how it goes.  :awesome_for_real:

People were getting pissed off with you Jakonovski not because you claimed that pads were a fine option for playing FPSes on (which they aren't but hell personal preferences and all that. Not rage worthy) but because you seemed to claim that pads were in fact better for console FPSes than kb+m and proceeded to produce horrible arguments for this. Noone wants to argue that you shouldn't be allowed to use a pad if you want to, they're arguing that they simply don't allow the same level of gameplay and so FPSes on consoles tend not to push the boundaries in terms of gameplay simply because with things like aim assist there really isn't much point trying to make the environment a big factor in map design, etc. (so no hiding in bushes of camouflage).

If you like using game pads for FPSes then keep on keeping on. I don't but bleh.

Look, I'm a KB&M guy, but I do find that the analog thumbpad really does work well when playing tactical shooters. I don't miss it when playing a FLS on PC, but when it's available on console games (to allow slow creeps, etc) I do use it. I had a play around on GRAW2 360 last night, and it definately adds to the atmosphere. (finished GRAW2 on PC too a long time ago, but it's a different game - not a direct port).

Same deal with rumble really, I don't miss it when playing on the PC, but I like it when it's well incorporated in a console game. Pads lend themselves to it well.

I'd wager that MS would prefer to sell you a $60 360 controller or a custom 3rd party controller that they get a financial cut of rather than have you just connect a logitech KB&M. The same reason they've just nuked the use of 3rd party memory cards (and possibly hard drives). This is our proprietry hardware, motherfucker. You pay us.

Something like that.

Oh, it's not costing them sales - not sure where you got that one from. It's not allowed as an option, so people arent used to it as an option, so they live without it. Some even fanboy the decision to disallow the choice on the internets, which is right up there with console-manufacturer-tribal-fanboism.

Given that I KB&M isn't the only reason I dislike consoles, this wouldn't totally switch me to consoles anyway even given the opportunity BUT, if I was on the edge, if I had to pay 60$ for a keyboard and mouse that worked with my xbox, I probably would, if it was the last barrier keeping me from wanting to go to consoles.  Hell, games cost 60 bucks a pop now for Xbox, so whats 60 more to play an entire genre?  If you buy something like rockband you're practically buying a whole separate system worth of hardware anyway, whats 60 more bucks for the "Microsoft 360 Mouse and Keyboard proprietary hardware" or whatever the fuck they would call it.

See:
Halo, series.

I'll be the first guy to say I was being overly sarcastic here, those features do exist on the pads, and some people probably do appreciate them a lot. I haven't really seen the point of either of them, the first (analog movement) because the FPS games on the PC have mostly solved this for me (and let's be honest, it's been solved sufficiently that I haven't bothered looking for alternatives yet), the second (rumble) because it just doesn't feel logical in most cases.

When it comes to movement in most today's FPS games, you semirun when you go back/forward/sideways, and shift usually makes you run during those same maneuvers. If you want slower speeds or you want to move just a tiny bit, crouch is there, as is tapping the keys. Yes, it's less precise than what a pad would enable me to do, but the accuracy I could get on the 360's pad just wasn't granular enough for me to think of as a must-have feature. Add to that the fact that 99% of the time I'm either standing still or moving full speed ahead anyways, and the remaining 1% is easily solved by quickly tapping the key, and I just haven't cared to even look for an alternative.

As for rumble, I remember trying a racing game with a pad, and I was seriously annoyed by the rumble. Now, give me a steering wheel and I'll be the guy in the corner, frothing at the mouth explaining that force feedback (not rumble, which is just randomly shaking the steeringwheel back and forth and gives you fuck-all information) is as close to a must-have feature as you could get, since it gives you information on what level of grip the front tyres have, how much you have to countersteer to catch the slide, etc etc etc. Give me a controller that looks like a gun and I'd probably want it to have recoil. Or if there was a swordfighting game, getting tactile feedback on sword striking sword would probably have me running around in circles going squee all day long. But just plain rumble? in a pad? I haven't seen any examples of that doing anything other than be annoying. But again, that's my opinion.

The main thing to note, however, is that I do embrace the idea of people having the choice of those features, if they so desire. I may not, and I'll vehemently argue against those who say I must have or must use certain features in a game, or it'll be "unbalanced", but if they just say "I prefer", then we're into personal preference, and more power to them if they pull it off.

I was going to mention Shadowrun in my previous post.  I guess I should have, but being accused of measuring epeen by someone who has likely never observed FPS game play on two seperate systems and compared the styles and motion gave me a good laugh.

Also, to whomever mentioned the forced equalization in console FPSs due to input limitations and autoaim, bravo.  That is an excellent point.

Autoaim = noobville.  If you need it to make your FPS work, you should revist your design.

Telling a pad player that you could totally destroy them with kb&m is kind of like telling you could totally use a gun to shoot someone who practices swordfighting. Completely. Pointless.

You know, I've been playing XBox360 games for, like, years, and I can't honestly recall if the controller has rumble or not. It seems I wouldn't notice either way.

I made an adjustment or two, see if you can spot them!

Plastic swords are very smooth, though.

Finally we can lay this sad, sad line of discussion to rest.  Indeed, it should never have existed in the first place, but for the vagaries of the anonymous and uniformed.

Oh how very witty. Wait, it's not.

I was simply pointing out that your analogy was poor, so I replaced it with a better one.