Modern Warfare 2 Surpasses $1 Billion Mark; Dedicated Servers What?

The Opposable Thumbs blog is running an interesting article contrasting everything Activision did "wrong" in creating and marketing Modern Warfare 2 with the game's unqualified success. Despite price hikes, somewhat shady review practices, exploit frustrations, and the dedicated server fiasco, the game has raked in over a billion dollars in sales. "There was only one way to review Modern Warfare 2: on the Xbox 360, in Santa Barbara, under the watchful eye of Activision. Accepting the paid trip, along with room and board, was the only way you were going to get a review before launch. Joystiq noted that this broke their ethics policy, but they went anyway. Who can say no to a review destined to bring in traffic? Shacknews refused to call their coverage a 'review' because of the ethical issues inherent in the situation, but that stance was unique. The vast majority of news outlets didn't disclose how the review was conducted, or added a disclaimer after the nature of the review was made public. This proved to Activision that if you're big enough, you can dictate the exact terms of any review, and no ethics policy will make news outlets turn you down."

Comments

MW2

[sopssa]

I think the game is great, especially multiplayer with its leveling, perks and the amount of customization you can do to your characters game style. Even those who complain about things are still playing it full force.

It's also nice that you can just jump in to the game (without friends, or with them in same lobby - you always get to same side and see each others with different color on radar and name). No need to hunt for different servers which can be crappy. Yes, there are host migrations and other stupid things sometimes, but the easiness to just jump in to the game outweights them. I'm not a serious gamer and neither are majority of people.

When the cheapest way to get a product is $60, of course you're going to beat sales of something that costs $15 or less.

This doesn't make sense. You aren't going to beat a great and popular movie that costs $15 with a mediocre or bad game that costs $60. The higher priced product also has to be good, which MW2 definitely is.

But who cares? The majority of gamers will experience the game on consoles, and PC gamers don't need things like a console for tweaking the game or support for mods.

No they don't. Me and almost all of my friends play it on PC because of keyboard and mouse. And to tell the truth, I rather don't see so much tweaking and mods by the users and get all stupid doom and quake sounds or no gravity when I join the server. I like the game the way IW made it.

Why spend all this money on flying journalists to a resort in Santa Barbara? Because it works. Activision refuses to comment on the review situation, and the Metacritic score for the game stands at 94 percent.

And the game actually being great has nothing to do with it?

I don't spend that much in games, but I've spent days playing MW2. It deserves the scores it got, it's definitely the best game of 2009.

Re:MW2

[Barny]

Yeah, nothing beats the great game play, well, except for "double shotgun dude" running around a map and dropping a nuke to finnish it, makes for a great game, unless of course he is cut short on his rampage by the host dropping from game, that just RULES :)

Back to TF2 for me, strategy + fun + dead stable == win.

Oh and the $120AU price tag was criminal.

Re:MW2

[sopssa]

"double shotgun dude" running around a map

Model 1887 was balanced a month ago.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

You payed 120 dollars for this game?

I only payed 78 :|, you really don't know how to shop around, do you?

Re:MW2

[levicivita]

Agree with you on the superiority of PC input control vs. consoles. I also agree that there is something to be said for being able to jump into a game without going through thousands of options. However I disagree with everything else you state. I say this as someone who though MW was one of the top 5 games of all time, and one of the top 3 multiplayer games of all time. For me MW2 has been an enormous disappointment and I refuse to purchase another Infinity Ward game in the future.
1) The single player mode in MW2 is a marginally updated version of MW, more like an expansion pack. The textures have higher resolutions, and they have a few gimmicks like the ice climbing scene, but that's about it. There's no 'wow' moment like when you controlled the AC130 for the first time in MW (the Predator drone in MW2 is too similar to the AC130 to be considered innovative). There's no new groundbreaking revolutionary ideas.
2) The multiplayer is entirely compromised due to hacking. I originally also thought that the lack of dedicated servers was not an issue, since I also never really played on the modded servers. However, as 50% of MW2 games end in a tactical nuke, I've learned that the key benefit for dedicated servers is that the server admin polices and bans cheaters. And if a server got overrun by cheaters you could just flee to another one that was better managed. Clearly the automatic anti-cheating provisions do not work - hackers can always side step whatever protection the game has, much like computer viruses constantly evolve and find new ways to side-step the anti-virus protection. What's happening is simple: they're looking for ways to monetize the multiplayer franchise (think WoW), and that starts with controlling it.
In summary: single player is too short and not innovative enough, and multiplayer is overrun by cheaters and too restrictive for the end user. The COD franchise is being monetized ruthlessly by the parent company - good for their shareholders, bad for the gaming community. Interestingly, the PC community has responded the strongest to these issues (look up the GameSpot average user rating for COD6 on the PC - it is mediocre - and compare it to COD4). The console community has been much less capable of independent critical thought, partially because cheating is probably much less of a problem. Perhaps they're just trying to kill the PC version - they may think they can make more money off consoles.

Re:MW2

[sopssa]

Well, it wasn't overly overpowered. When you have a perk or custom character build system like this theres always something that becomes the-best-build on the internet. There's many different sites and forums where people discuss such for World of Warcraft too.

You usually lose lots of other abilities. For that 1887 build you had to use stopping power and other perks, and couldn't run as fast as the "ninjas" with knifes. Or you couldn't be an explosives guy. The great thing about that is that its basically a different classes system, but without classes - you modify your build exactly as you want. That's what makes it fun.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

And to tell the truth, I rather don't see so much tweaking and mods by the users and get all stupid doom and quake sounds or no gravity when I join the server. I like the game the way IW made it.

This is true for so many games. I'd almost always rather have the game the way the developers made it because the a huge number of user mods for multiplayer games end up being total, annoying, unbalanced, non-fun, mind-bogglingly stupid crap. Anyone who has played a moddable online game has certainly encountered these sorts of modded servers at least once before leaving the server faster than a rat can get off a sinking ship.

Of course there are the mods that do improve games, and then there are the astonishingly rare creme de la creme mods which manage to become full blown games in their own right.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there are host migrations and other stupid things sometimes, but the easiness to just jump in to the game outweights them. I'm not a serious gamer and neither are majority of people.

dedicated servers allows the community to police itself very much like open source software does. The fact you are not a serious gamer does not mitigate this fact, for you or for anyone else. Upgrade treadmills suck, and that's the only reason for lack of public dedicated servers. Also, arguing from popularity is fallacious. You should know better.

No they don't. Me and almost all of my friends play it on PC because of keyboard and mouse. And to tell the truth, I rather don't see so much tweaking and mods by the users and get all stupid doom and quake sounds or no gravity when I join the server. I like the game the way IW made it.

A blatant misrepresentation of the history and impact mods have had on the games they modify and the communities that support them.

Re:MW2

[sopssa]

Yes, thats the best added benefit of dedicated servers. However, I haven't really seen such blatant cheating around. There's sometimes an occasional one, but then everyone bitches at him and he leaves. Maybe geographical location has something to do with it, I don't know (as the matchmaking gets those players closest to your physical location)

However, as 50% of MW2 games end in a tactical nuke

I disagree here tho. I've played MW2 hundreds of hours and I've seen tactical nuke two times, and on the other time the guy did it 10 seconds before round end and said on chat he though it would be a fun ending.

That being said, I don't really play deathmatch or such where the cheaters most likely hang around. Domination, capture the flag and hardcore HQ are more fun.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

The client side model has allowed online play tobe infested with texture hacks and aimbots.
There are even hacks to level up other clients to lvl 70 instantly, causing VAC to ban poor users who were unlucky enough to have connected to it.
There are still plenty of glitches (change to care package and you run at warp speed, ruining capture the flag, and making you damn hard to hit)
last patch did virtually nothing, and the last decent patch which stopped the aimbots was over a month ago.
The client hosting model is utterly poor - it's crippled by bad latency detection where the host can run around like god where everyone else is rubber banding. Game lobbies can take 5 minutes to stabilise, and you can drop out at any point. If the lottery selected host leaves, then the host migration tends to fail, so stopping the game. Myself and friends have literally spent 15+ minutes trying to either connect to games as one or more of us gets suddenly dropped waiting to start.
This is cookie cutter coding at it's finest - what works for the xbox doesn't work at all for the pc.
The irony is that IWnet was touted as the next best thing and unhackable. Shame, as I see one blatent aimbotter every 5 games on average...

Re:MW2

[sopssa]

There are still plenty of glitches (change to care package and you run at warp speed, ruining capture the flag, and making you damn hard to hit)

This was patched in yesterday's patch:

Updates to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Care Package, Emergency Airdrop, and Sentry Gun marker grenades sprint speed normalized
Sentry Guns: Improved placement detection, preventing cases of Sentry Guns inside geometry
Model 1887: Bling using Akimbo and FMJ combination now has same range and damage as non-Bling Model 1887s
Improved player collision removing cases of getting into geometry and 'elevators'
Mouse latency tweaks for more mouse movement consistency
Fixes to prevent various texture and XP hacks

Re:MW2

[Barny]

I didn't, I got mine on steam, but there were a lot of suckers who didn't.

I did get my $60 or so of play out of it, but compared to TF2 for replay value per dollar spent, very very fail.

Re:MW2

[JohnnyComeLately]

I agree with you. At first I was getting my butt handed to me by knife yielding asshats, but if you're any good you figure out tactics to defeat them, such as claymores at choke points and choosing your fights with long line's of sight. I built several classes so that whatever map comes up, I've got a way to maximize my capabilities. At first I saw no use for One-Man Army, but I enable it on 60% of my classes so I can switch (I'm 1MA Pro now). E.g. I rarely use a RPG, or Stinger, so I'll run around with a short-range primary weapon, or assualt rifle. If I'm on a team that seems to be ignoring (and dying) a Harrier, I'll find a nice hiding spot, switch to the class with the Stinger and take it out. Only problem is I'm screwed in terms of switching again until I die, but that's usually not a problem. I still occasionally run into very gifted "ninja's" but on Hardcore Team Deathmatch and my tactics, it's now the exception. I laughed at guys who relied on the double shotty. You'll get me the first time, but I usually figure out their game and they become easy pickings (like riot shield noobs).

Re:MW2

[Tukz]

But who cares? The majority of gamers will experience the game on consoles, and PC gamers don't need things like a console for tweaking the game or support for mods.

No they don't. Me and almost all of my friends play it on PC because of keyboard and mouse. And to tell the truth, I rather don't see so much tweaking and mods by the users and get all stupid doom and quake sounds or no gravity when I join the server. I like the game the way IW made it.

Actually, it's not the tweaks and mods I want from a "dedicated server".
It's the community that tend to hang around on the same servers.

That, and admins who'll kick tards and the occasional cheaters.

I agree on your other points though, I like MW2, and I'm close to my second prestige.
So I've played it a fair share, thrown my fair share of nukes and I'm not even abusing any setup.
M16A4, Silenced and EOTech, Bling pro, cold blooded pro, ninja pro. Silent and invisible.
(Was just to show I'm not some 1887 akimbo dude, or shield knife tard etc)

I rarely run into cheaters or tards. Only the usual "noobtube tards".
But then again, I very rarely venture into TDM, and I play mainly "Ricochet HC HQ".

And I only play HC. Maybe that's the difference. The tards hang out in regular TDM or Domination?

Re:MW2

[KamuZ]

I agree with you post. In fact for example in a game like World of Warcraft when they finally added a dungeon tool across realms, you can just log in, enter the queue and in 5-10 minutes you are in the Dungeon you want (or Random).
No more looking in LookingForGroup for hours or if you log in early morning when there is not much population, you are still lucky.

When someone works everyday and want to have some fun, these kind of tools makes sense as you don't waste half an hour trying to choose a server.

Unless of course you are part of a clan and everyone always there waiting for you, well, i can see the point about dedicated servers.

Re:MW2

[Tukz]

You didn't "HAVE" to use Stopping Power. Or any other perk for that matter.

1887 Akimbo is a serious problem in Hardcore game mode, where only one shot will kill from you a 1887.
I tried it a few times, just for kick and with my insta aim (old UT player), I could literally just pick em off one shot at a time within reasonable range. You fire on 1887, and while you are firing the next 1887 on the next guy, the first 1887 is reloading.

And it's insanely accurate. Even in Hardcore where you don't have crosshairs, it's not that hard to know where you are shooting short to mid range.

It's not that much if a problem anymore though, now that I've got 200+ hours under my belt, I tend to pick em out even before they get too close to me with those sticks and it's not that common any more.

Thumpers is a lot more common and pisses me off a great deal more, but that's another story...

Re:MW2

[levicivita]

OK, I suspect most people who play COD multiplayer play deathmatch. That's where the nuke rate is about 50%. It is ridiculous.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a heavy PC gamer (level 70 prestige 2 on MW2), and played CoD4 competitively.

There are only two problems with the IWnet scheme, especially from the competitive gaming perspective:

1) Latency. This is simple, IWNet doesn't artifically impose any latency on the host of the game, meaning that whilst all others may experience high latency, the host has an effective ping of 0. This gives about .1-.2 seconds of advantage to the host, which is usually the difference between success and death in games like MW2.

2) Competition. The servers are more or less unregulated, comp servers don't exist and neither do mods. Instantly ths drives all the ProMod and PAM4 players from cod4 to frustration, and yes you *Can* play competitively on MW2, it's nowhere near as balanced as it was on the old dedicated server model.

Re:MW2

[AstrumPreliator]

Even those who complain about things are still playing it full force.

I just find this sad personally. I think it was a bad idea for them to not include things like modding and dedicated servers and I haven't bought or even rented the game for the console. Note that I always knew the game would be a blockbuster hit, I just disagree with the route they're taking. It saddens me that people who said they would not buy the game did anyway. People need to grow a backbone.

It's also nice that you can just jump in to the game (without friends, or with them in same lobby - you always get to same side and see each others with different color on radar and name). No need to hunt for different servers which can be crappy. Yes, there are host migrations and other stupid things sometimes, but the easiness to just jump in to the game outweights them. I'm not a serious gamer and neither are majority of people.

The ability to jump in and out of a game is always good. Personally I always found communities I enjoyed through trial and error and generally stuck around. Until just recently I even helped run a rather large one in my free time.

I see it as a trade-off. With the type of system in Modern Warfare 2 you don't really get the same communal feeling as you do with dedicated servers, you just don't. I know the whole friends list thing tries to rectify this, but it's not really the same. However, it's very easy to start the game and start playing without having to deal with empty servers and poorly run communities. I personally value strong communities that I can help out. It's really just a matter of taste.

This doesn't make sense. You aren't going to beat a great and popular movie that costs $15 with a mediocre or bad game that costs $60. The higher priced product also has to be good, which MW2 definitely is.

To my understanding consoles have a licensing cost when you develop games for it where as the PC does not. I don't know how much truth there is to this, but a lot of people felt the extra $10 for console games was because of this and they questioned why the PC version needed a $10 price hike. However, I'm sure MW2 was ludicrously expensive to produce, so it may have been required.

No they don't. Me and almost all of my friends play it on PC because of keyboard and mouse. And to tell the truth, I rather don't see so much tweaking and mods by the users and get all stupid doom and quake sounds or no gravity when I join the server. I like the game the way IW made it.

This is where I'm going to disagree a lot. First of all you don't need to use a mouse and keyboard, you could have easily just used a controller on a 360 for the same experience. You prefer playing games with a mouse and keyboard, the same way that a lot - but by no means the majority - of people prefer to have custom content and the ability to generate it themselves. Just because you and your friends don't personally enjoy such things doesn't mean other people don't either. It's a personal preference and you really have no right saying what everyone should like.

Second it's not just minor game tweaks[1]. It's a whole range of things. Custom maps[2], models, sounds, gametypes, small modifications, and total conversions. You may think nothing interesting comes from modding but I'd disagree. Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Red Orchestra, Killing Floor and Insurgency to name a few. The first two morphed into commercial games with very, very large player bases, the two after also went commercial.

I actually enjoy playing unmodified games as well. My all time favorite multiplayer FPS, Starsiege: Tribes, was exceedingly modifiable. People are still modifying it to this day. Even with all of the mods I still prefer playing base. However, I play a lot of custom maps and a few custom gametypes. Some of the best competition maps for that game were custom content. I'd also like t

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

back in europe lots of people are behind nat, and finding host with a decent ping is extremely problematic, pc have lots less of users starting with.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you managed to type a post that I _almost_ understand ...
HC? TDM? Richoret? "Shield knife tard"?

WTF?

Re:MW2

[Tukz]

If you don't even know what TDM is, aren't you reading the wrong news category?

Re:MW2

[caladine]

You forgot the aimbot hackers that are in 1 in 4 games. That, by far, is the most irritating part of the multi-player experience. While it's easy to tell (thank you kill-cam) it's just irritating after getting connection to host errors 3 games in a row.

Re:MW2

[gknoy]

HC: Hardcore. (1-2 shots kills you, usually)
TDM: Team deathmatch
HQ: Headquarters
S&D: Search and destroy

The former is a mod on the difficulty level, the latter three are different flavors of game type. I enjoy search and destroy because the rounds reset when everyone dies, and you never have people spawning behind you.

Re:MW2

[Trahloc]

Tribes 1 mods make everything you said irrelevant. They're might be few exceptions but there are most definitely exceptions.

Re:MW2

[deniable]

I'm guessing he doesn't have to deal with a digital PABX.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

So because you like it the way it comes, all of us can't play it any differently? Last I checked, the main draw of mods was the choice. Having them wouldn't affect you.

Re:MW2

[TheRealGrogan]

That game sucks. It's all campers and noob tube launchers, glitching, sprinting, knifing cocksuckers, air strikes, helicopters, FUCKING LAG and the annoyances of its multiplayer matchmaking system. These people don't know the meaning of the word sporting. The object is to get 25 kills so you can end the match with a nuclear strike. Oh boy, what else did you get for your fucking birthday?

They have ENABLED these lamers to rack up the kills with all the crap in this game. It's utterly ridiculous. The glitches that some of them exploit are still not fixed either.

I should NEVER be exposed to those pukes... if it were a real Call of Duty game I'd be playing on servers with like minded people.

Sales means nothing to me. Like I give a shit. People are just mindless herbivores. The numbers of online players on the PC is dwindling. It was all the hype for a month or so, but now it's getting harder to find a game and when you do, it's just annoying assfucks anyway. I only played it to get level 70 so I'd have all the weapons choices for private matches with friends. As it turns out, I have one friend that plays it and our schedules rarely are compatible. Everyone else I know is boycotting it.

Now, I have had a few very good runs playing with good people, but they don't last long. 2 or 3 matches and then something always happens to break up the group and it's back to annoying twats again.

The single player modes are very nice though. The campaign gets worn out after a few runs through, but the special ops missions are better than playing with the public.

This is the last game I am paying for, ever. I am very bitter about this game and the general trends that I am seeing from game vendors towards PC gaming.

Re:MW2

[Ash Vince]

You forgot the aimbot hackers that are in 1 in 4 games. That, by far, is the most irritating part of the multi-player experience. While it's easy to tell (thank you kill-cam) it's just irritating after getting connection to host errors 3 games in a row.

Not everyone who pulls of insane shots is using an aimbot. I have never played COD online, but I have played AA2 and AA3 a shitload. I have been banned from plenty of servers for dropping the admin at long range with a crap gun. If you always try for the insane shots, you quite often find you start pulling them off.

Re:MW2

[Nathrael]

Strange. Counter Strike: Source is a quite modable game, yet there are plenty of Vanilla servers around. There also are dedicated servers, and thanks to server admins and voteban, I never really had any problems with cheaters or racist little twats naming themselves after prominent fascist leaders spouting KILL ALL JEWS nonsense either.

Ther being said, I boycotted MW2 from the moment they said there weren't going to be any dedicated servers on and stuck to it (and I initially considered pre-ordering it), and seeing all the MP prophecies fulfilling themselves, I'm glad I did.

Re:MW2

[Laser_iCE]

Geographical location? Well then why the fuck do I still join US games when I'm in Australia?

Re:MW2

[haystor]

In CoD, after you die, you get to see the other guy shoot you in the kill cam. When they're aimbotting, there is no transition from one point to the next. The crosshairs instantly jump directly onto you when the shot is taken.

The wallhacks which target people through walls are a bit harder to spot. The one I looked at on youtube puts a nice yellow box around every player. I suspect there are at least as many people using wall hacks as aimbots. You'll see on the kill cam where they're looking at the entire battleground, move over a player that can't be seen from distance, then zoom in and take a shot.

It isn't merely about people being really good, it's about doing the impossible. I defy you or anyone to move your mouse across 50% of the screen for an accurate headshot so quickly that it doesn't travel on any point in between. Now do it 25 times in a row - all headshots, no misses. Oh, and do it without regard to which weapon you're using.

I can understand about dedicated servers and presenting the game to the average player but there needs to be a votekick or something available.

Re:MW2

[sopssa]

Maybe theres no enough players at that time, I notice this usually early in the morning. Otherwise its almost always people from same country or nearby countries.

Re:MW2

[haystor]

I believe I've run into a lot more in the hardcore modes where the opponents don't get to view the killcam after they die.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what he fucking said you utterly stupid "I don't read anything I reply to" asshat.

Re:MW2

[Laser_iCE]

I've tried playing at all hours of the day, and I constantly join US hosted games, even with the majority of the other players being Australian, it still manages to fuck us over. The best way to play in an Australian hosted game is to get enough people in our lobby and start our own game, but even then it's sometimes picked the single US player out of the other 7 of us.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

also tubes are less effective on hardcore, as most weapons instantly kill, so noobtubers tend to hang around standard mode where you need a solid 5-6 round hit from most weapons to kill one, while a granate is a sure kill giving you the time to fight back even when catch by surprise.

Re:MW2

[queazocotal]

mouse + touchscreen-stylus?

Re:MW2

[sopssa]

You see in some gamemodes, but theres a few where you can instant respawn (like domination) and don't see the kill cam.

However, theres also some idiots who think someone is cheating because "they cant do that!" while in fact they're using the perks. It's even worse when they continue yelling "cheater! cheater!" for rest of the game, so yeah, not everyone actually is cheater even if people think so. There are lots of good players too and idiots who think they're cheaters.

Re:MW2

[DemonBeaver]

I remember being utterly unable to play CS for more than a minute without getting kicked out for "cheating"... was about the time I quit.

Re:MW2

[Denihil]

mmmm, tribes 1.... a bit offtopic, here, but remember that mod on T1 when you could have a interceptor pack, and you could go around running into people in your craft? And like, pop out, pop back in, and your ship was at full health? mmmmm good times, good times....now THAT was a mod...

Re:MW2

[TyFoN]

I think the game is great, especially multiplayer with its leveling, perks and the amount of customization you can do to your characters game style. Even those who complain about things are still playing it full force.

I was one of the complainers and I still haven't bought it, so they lost the $$ from me.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

"double shotgun dude" running around a map

Model 1887 was balanced a month ago.

The balancing only affects standard Akmibo 1887s, running Bling Pro with Akimbo+FMJ attachments bypasses that. Using that setup retains the old range and damage of the pre-balanced 1887s, but it is scheduled to be fixed in the next update.

Re:MW2

[Kjella]

Used to be same in Unreal Tournament, I have a friend who was MEAN using the sniper rifle, going for headshots every time. He could get himself vote-kicked off any server in less than five minutes, two on the touchy ones. So he was already being misidentified as an aimbot, and once the instant-aimbots were banned a new generation turned up who were more like an extremely fast and accurate player with luck. There's no real way to win that battle.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

I was accused of cheating by a stupid camper which was always in the same spot again and again and again. It happens, some people just don't get that there may be other *genuinely* smarter than them.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

I defy you or anyone to move...

Learn the language you speak, it's embarrassing.

Re:MW2

[Custard Horse]

I heard that you can hack a Nintendo DSi (but not the DS) to play MW2 to achieve the apparent aimbot occurrence described. I wonder if there is truth in that...

Re:MW2

[paziek]

There are some hardcore cheats. Like for example this Domination game http://i45.tinypic.com/rausfn.jpg
Those 2 dudes were using AC130 105mm cannon like a machine gun and they obviously didn't leave after people complained, they just laughed. Sometimes when u respawned u were already dead, not that funny on my side. I hear this was actually some kind of bug in game, that was patched, but I guess not good enough? Anyway, ticket with steam support is pending for 2 days now, wonder if they have at least some kind of logs of what happens in those games... Whats best is that they claim they don't accept cheaters reports, cause their anti-cheat system is flawless or sth and they rely only on that @_@

As for the aimbots, I can never be sure. Sometimes I think its inhumane what they are doing, but when I see my co-worker play, I start to doubt that and just blame it on my lack of skill. If they are using aimbots, then usually u can't really tell, unless your some kind of terminator.

I can also confirm, that in domination nukes aren't that frequent. Perhaps 5% of games, and sometimes just for the fun at the end of game. I also saw people using nuke when they were actually loosing! I guess just for the achievement.

Re:MW2

[madskyllz]

50% of MW2 games end in a tactical nuke? Where is your source of info for this stat?

Re:MW2

[Ash Vince]

It isn't merely about people being really good, it's about doing the impossible. I defy you or anyone to move your mouse across 50% of the screen for an accurate headshot so quickly that it doesn't travel on any point in between. Now do it 25 times in a row - all headshots, no misses. Oh, and do it without regard to which weapon you're using.

On AA2 and AA3 I am damn good at turning round and dropping people based purely on the sound of where they are firing from. If you miss me with your first shot, do not expect to get a second shot in before I spin and drop you. If you are on noisy ground like sand or metal, you will not even get that first shot off as I hear your footsteps first. This is not using an aimbot, this is 10 years of online gaming, a very loud damn good headset and enough coffee to give an elephant a heart attack :)

Compared to some of the people I play with I am a noob. When you play any game enough to get to know the best clans out there and join them on TS, you will usually realise that what looked like hacks is actually just far too much practice. Quite often decent players have noob accounts they use when they are drunk or just mucking about. That noob who just joined the server and owned everyone might not be a hacker, he might just be some drunk guy who has far too much time on his hands for online gaming.

Re:MW2

[sopssa]

Exactly this was also fixed in yesterdays patch (along with running-with-care-package-marker)

Updates to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Care Package, Emergency Airdrop, and Sentry Gun marker grenades sprint speed normalized
Sentry Guns: Improved placement detection, preventing cases of Sentry Guns inside geometry
Model 1887: Bling using Akimbo and FMJ combination now has same range and damage as non-Bling Model 1887s
Improved player collision removing cases of getting into geometry and 'elevators'
Mouse latency tweaks for more mouse movement consistency
Fixes to prevent various texture and XP hacks

Re:MW2

[kevinNCSU]

That game sucks. It's all campers and noob tube launchers, glitching, sprinting, knifing cocksuckers, air strikes, helicopters, FUCKING LAG and the annoyances of its multiplayer matchmaking system.

emphasis mine. So you don't like people who set up in good fire positions and defend an area (camping) and you don't like people who run around (sprinting) because none of that is sporting? I assume what's left then is walking slowly towards you and firing in rank? Are you sure modern warfare is the genre you're interested in?

Re:MW2

[g0bshiTe]

Good I'm dead sick of running into Double Shotgun Guy and getting nailed by him from 60 yards.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

Bling 1887s didn't get rebalanced. They are exactly the same as pre-balanced 1887's.

also, nothing says modern warfare like running around with knives and 130 year old shotguns!

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

However, as 50% of MW2 games end in a tactical nuke,

I call that BS! I have played over 60 hrs since it came out and I only saw the tactical nuke used 3 times.

Re:MW2

[Dinatius]

While I'm not disagreeing with you, there are absurdly good players at any game out there, there is also a wide range of people that actually do hack. In the case of the entire call of duty series there is a group that has turned it into a business of selling hacks. Here they are.

There are definitely people that call out good players as hackers, but it's usually pretty obvious to me who is a good player and who is a hacker. Quite a few them don't even have any problem admitting they are using hacks, commonly saying things like "If you don't like me using them then leave the server".

The ranking system built in to modern warfare 2 is also a bit of a give away right now. It takes a significant amount of playtime to get to "Level 70" in game. Once you reach level 70 you can go into prestige mode which starts you back at level 1. Most of the players that are Level 70, prestige 10 (essentially level 700) are hackers. Not at all of them mind you, there are some people out there that seem to have legitimately put in the ridiculous amount of hours to do that legit.

TL;DR Hacking is extremely prevalent in MW2

Re:MW2

[g0bshiTe]

The true horror is VAC-system (at least for this type game). I came by a hack, coming from a history of Administering game servers for MOHAA up through COD4 I'm not anti-hack, I am solidly against them getting used in servers that aren't listed as "Hack Servers" which in the old days you could find. So coming across this hack which spans about 7 games, most were games that use PB a few used VAC. I tried to submit this to VAC to be added, this was before Christmas, still awaiting a reply. In the mean time I also shot an email to PB, reply the next day, week later those cheats don't work in PB enabled servers anymore. Thanks alot IW. Oh btw VAC and it's dev's can suck my ass. I don't care what the forums say, yes that thing can ban for a false positive. For the record, no my Steam account is in good standing.

Re:MW2

[teh.f4ll3n]

6 years of playing InstaGib modes have not passed unnoticed... I have stopped playing shooters online after people started kicking me for cheating. The only game i'm still able to play normally is Nexuiz - people there seem more skilled than any other mainstream game and don't bitch when being 1-shotted 3-4 times in a row from a distance of half the map (zoom is there, but i rarely use it).

Re:MW2

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I think the game is great, especially multiplayer with its leveling, perks and the amount of customization you can do to your characters game style. Even those who complain about things are still playing it full force.

Leveling *SUCKS*. It's almost not fun. Perks are broken. Completely. Spawn deaths from aircraft fire suck. Particularly when you're no where close to the Javelin or the Stinger in levels and your only choice to knock one of those things out of the sky is a missile that seems to lose against aircraft counter measures. Which brings me to weapon unlocks...

Skill progression is great, don't get me wrong. But I'm really disgusted by an FPS game that demands I baby it so I can get the best weapons and gear. If I show up late, I'm taking a *lot* of rounds from higher level players before I can really make progress in the game.

MW2 is a fucking mess. Bugs everywhere, game balance is horrible and it's just not worth playing. Not only that the character customizations *suck*. I came from playing Metal Gear Online pretty hardcore, and I'm taken back by just how stupid and generic the player characters are. If I'm going to grind levels can I atleast have a character that's my own? Is that too much to ask from a billion dollar megahit?

Re:MW2

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Model 1887: Bling using Akimbo and FMJ combination now has same range and damage as non-Bling Model 1887s

Then what's the point? You're blowing a perk on nothing. IW should just admit they were wrong about not having an open beta for this shit.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

what is with everyone thinking that every new game in a series has to reinvent itself. when you have a good product you don't change it. also if 50% of MW2 ends in tactical nukes its because your on a PC where people cheat. that doesn't happen on the console version. ps with dedicated servers you would still have cheaters.

Re:MW2

[joocemann]

There are also those of us who complain about things and AREN'T playing it in full force.

Re:MW2

[ottothecow]

That's why you find a dedicated server where you can build up a rapport with the people who run it (can't be done in MW2).

I play TF2 and DoD:s on a pair of servers that I have started playing on basically exclusively. They have some stricter rules (no swearing, etc..some of the peoples kids also play on the server) which might take a bit of getting used to--not that I am a 12 year old potty mouthed style gamer but the occasional "holy shit that was a nice shot" still slips out. The rules discourage the total asshats from playing for long.

We have some pretty talented players...and occasionally strangers to the community will start to get really worked up about hacking and such. Knowing the admins means you don't have to argue with people accusing you of cheating...and you don't have to worry about being votekicked for being too good. At the same time, cheaters and asshats are dealt with quickly.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

You just wrote a beautiful justification for DRM-controlled platform, applications, and inputs (i.e. XBOX 360) which also happens to explain why I no longer play multiplayer games on a PC.

Yes, using a mouse is wonderful thing, but dealing with all of the issues inherent to a platform where people can run anything from an aimbot to a kernel debugger (and always wondering whether that guy that shot you is cheating) is not my idea of a good time.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where I'm going to disagree a lot. First of all you don't need to use a mouse and keyboard, you could have easily just used a controller on a 360 for the same experience. You prefer playing games with a mouse and keyboard,

No, I don't. I "prefer" it because playing with a controller makes you look like you're a 5 year old playing his first FPS. Mouse and keyboard is superior to controller in every way for first person shooters. There is no denying this. While you can play decently using a controller, for sure, the same player using kb and mouse will do much better if he has the same amount of practice.

Re:MW2

[FileNotFound]

Umm. Lets gets one thing straight first.

Counter Strike IS a mod.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

Thumpers + Noob tube with scavenger and danger close. Unlimited mega-explosions.

Absolutely insane in hardcore.

Re:MW2

[sopssa]

Now don't get me wrong. I do love games that are extremely moddable and with community. The recent days I have played Blockland, which has almost fully community driven multiplayer and addons. Every server has a its own characteristic, map and gameplay. And I've enjoyed it greatly. Even started making my own map and scripting a gameplay on it because that game actually is what I always wanted as a teen, a place where you can create things, destroy things, shoot, and create your own game.

It's a great community too. Small, but good. But that's the thing most likely. Community driven things work better when they're small. MW2 is a huge game. While we would definitely see great things from customizations, I would think it would most likely be in the cost of overall fun that it is now.

Re:MW2

[chickenarise]

Ugh, if you are going to use "former and latter" please use them correctly. These words only refer to 2 items, there is no former or latter for a 4 item list. It appears you are trying to sound smart, but end up making yourself look bad.

The first is a mod on the difficulty level, the last three are different flavors of game type.

FTFY

Re:MW2

[igadget78]

You forgot the aimbot hackers that are in 1 in 4 games. That, by far, is the most irritating part of the multi-player experience. While it's easy to tell (thank you kill-cam) it's just irritating after getting connection to host errors 3 games in a row.

Not everyone who pulls of insane shots is using an aimbot. I have never played COD online, but I have played AA2 and AA3 a shitload. I have been banned from plenty of servers for dropping the admin at long range with a crap gun. If you always try for the insane shots, you quite often find you start pulling them off.

I remember playing Halo multiplayer maps and screaming bloody murder at the pricks cheating in the game. Then one saturday morning I turned on the TV and saw the Major League Gaming championships (www.mlgpro.com) and watched as these teams pulled off the most psychotic crap you've seen on non-modded hardware and at that point I realized that I just sucked at FPS's.

Re:MW2

[Hurricane78]

Any sufficiently great skill, is indistinguishable from cheating.

Learned that in Quake 1 times! And those who do not learn from history... you know the rest.

Re:MW2

[nametaken]

What you learned is that none of these games are any good at putting equally skilled people together.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem is you. You obviously take games too seriously and have noskills.

Re:MW2

[PopeGumby]

If you paid AU$120 for the game, you didnt shop around enough.

If you pay more than AU$100 for ANY console game, you don't shop around enough.

Re:MW2

[Barny]

Nope, I have a touch screen and it just doesn't work like that, a touch screen emulates your mouse (because the game doesn't have any other input), so if you touch or stylus on one side of the screen, its like moving your mouse to the left, your screen pans left at a constant rate until you point to the dead centre of the screen again (it thinks your mouse is still moving left so long as your stylus/touch is on that side).

In short, FPS are unplayable with touch screen unless the game has something built in to support it (think rail-shooters).

RTS games however are a great place to take your stylus for a spin, company of heroes, sins of a solar empire, dawn of war 2... all work well with stylus + keypad (I use a cybersniper WASD pad).

Re:MW2

[Tukz]

Adding Ricochet:
Friendly fire enabled, but all friendly fire is directly dealt to yourself. Flashbangs and stun grenades included.

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

I think the perks and levels turn it more into an MMO where unlocks dictate your effectiveness and less into a proper competitive FPS. For example you become significantly more effective at anti-air duty if you have a Stinger (lv30). The constant rewards also turn it more into a pavlovian treadmill.

Yes, there are host migrations and other stupid things sometimes, but the easiness to just jump in to the game outweights them.

Seriously? I find it much easier to just click on a server and go there than to have to wait for it to find other players with a fairly high chance of the connection attempt failing (it has a variety of error messages for that) with the most egregious for me being "server is full". That happens when you use a group, sometimes it makes some of the people in the group join and not others and the full server message just makes no fucking sense because it had a list of players together before the game even started (and no, it will not refuse to start a 5v7 game and team changes are disabled).

What I also hate is the inability to tell it that no, I don't want to be host. My connection gives me 2-3 bars (ping isn't displayed numerically) at most and when I'm chosen as host everybody else gets that. Since I don't want to ruin other people's games* I have to quit to force a rehost (it won't rehost automatically until the majority has only one bar). Not fun to run into other unfit hosts either, no way to fix that besides flaming the host until he leaves or just leaving and hoping it finds a different game next time.

And to tell the truth, I rather don't see so much tweaking and mods by the users and get all stupid doom and quake sounds or no gravity when I join the server.

I once ran into a server that had everything modded up. Most of the time it was fast running, at some point the gravity got set to zero and then the game mode changed to "Global Thermonuclear War" (a kind of king of the hill mode).

*=Also when I'm host all player movement appears jumpy, even for me. Not fun when you can't tell which way the other guy just took cover.

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

Just shoot the DSD dead with whatever weapon you have at hand, it's not hard. I don't see them living for more than 3-4 kills because they have to get fairly close to their target for a kill which means revealing their position. Revealed positions usually mean counter-fire or eating explosives. Maybe they could get something done if they camped an area where ranged fire isn't an issue but then they'd just eat explosives. The model 1887 isn't the only weapon that kills extremely fast and most of the time it comes down to individual reaction times and pings.

Oh and Last Stand works great against DSDs, the shotgun blast always puts you into it.

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

Depends on how subtle the aimbot is. The one botter I've seen had instant 360 rotations and sniper fire, a player walks into his line of sight and he instantly snapped 90 to the right and did a headshot with a sniper in the same frame. You don't even have the FOV to spot people at that angle!

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

I don't know all the different prestige level signs, what does the prestige 10 rank symbol look like?

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

I'm sorry but there is no amount of skill that can let you aim and fire at the head of a player who was not inside your field of view within one frame.

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

The nuke wins the game for whoever triggered it so it actually makes more sense to throw it while you're behind than while you're ahead. Of course I don't see nukes often, most people don't live long enough to trigger one and even the ones who do don't always have it in their killstreak list.

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

FMJ does not improve the range or damage of any other weapon (the ingame weapon stats are completely wrong, giving damage values that have no relation to the actual game), it was simply a bug that made the 1887 revert to pre-patch stats if you used bling instead of regular akimbo.

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

I like the atmosphere of HC but the damage balance is all kinds of screwed because the weapons were balanced for the regular game, not HC. Many damage reductions that usually balance things have no meaningful effect in HC. Also I don't like the gametypes that are available for HC, wish there was HC Domination (though that sounds kinky).

What annoys me is when people whine how grenade launchers and last stand are for noobs (or worse, camping, I'm playing domination the most and whining about camping there is just plain retarded) yet somehow they see knife running as perfectly normal. Stop whining, I'm deadlier with semtexes than any grenade launcher anyway (love the arc, got quite a few NLOS kills by dropping them right on domination flags when I saw the capture indicator).

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

Even worse is when people whine about campers in freaking domination (capture and hold territory). If you've got a problem with snipers either countersnipe them or make them eat grenades (a semtex is a valid and useful way to get rid of a sniper in a known position and thanks to killcams their position is usually known). They don't seem to realize that they are the ones repeatedly running into the camp spot though...

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

your only choice to knock one of those things out of the sky is a missile that seems to lose against aircraft counter measures.

To be fair flares affect every missile equally (unless you are very close to the target), the problem with the AT4 is that its damage is too low (which is ridiculous if you think about it, that thing is designed to penetrate tank armor and planes have paper thin armor) and it only comes with one shot when the Stinger comes with two (when the AT4 needs two shots to down a plane and the Stinger only one).

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. experience just does that. There is a map on mw2 called quarry, and at start knife runners come out of the same corner always at the same time. Listening + Experience = instakill, sometimes even trough the wall they flank if you time it right.

Re:MW2

[Tukz]

I don't mind people using Thumbers or M203's.
That's not it.

No, I mind the people who shoot them in spawn direction at round start, or run around with it ready to fire it in your face and hope you didn't react in time to shoot first and kill him in the process.

Or the guy who's just shooting it down every corridor "just to be safe", disregarding hitting his own people.

Re:MW2

[Ash Vince]

I'm sorry but there is no amount of skill that can let you aim and fire at the head of a player who was not inside your field of view within one frame.

Yes there is. Most of these games render every player as the same height, so the head will always be a fixed distance from the ground they are standing on. If you know the map well you know where they going to be taking a shot from and just have to judge how far to turn the mouse so you end up pointing at them. You start by using muscle memory in your arm to spin the mousen enough to do a 180, then start using that to get other angles nailed as well. If you acknowledge that a perfect 180 is possible every time (It is, I promise you) then the rest is just more practice.

Buying a new mouse or changing to a different game might throw you for a while and you have to relearn, but once you have relearned this several times you will start applying it to new games within a matter of days. Some of us have now been play first person shooters for nearly 20 years when DOOM LAN parties were all the rage. I know DOOM did not use the mouse, but even mouse based shooters have been around for at least 10 years, and I fairly sure I wasted too many of them :)

Re:MW2

[gknoy]

Thanks, I didn't know that! I salute you, informative pedant. :D

OK, that was a bit snarky, but I really am glad you posted that. I learned something I didn't know before.

Re:MW2

[gknoy]

Interesting. I generally dislike that feature, though I like friendly fire to be enabled. I've already screwed my team in S&D if I accidentally kill a teammate, I'd rather not further reduce our numbers from a stupid mistake. Of course, that depends on having an admin who can/will kick people who are TKing on purpose.

Re:MW2

[Anonymous Coward]

However, as 50% of MW2 games end in a tactical nuke,

Does that correlate with your 25 deaths? Stop running into the same camping nest.

Re:MW2

[Tukz]

No, you are misunderstanding.
You teammate doesn't get affected by it.

YOU take ALL the damage, get blinded/stunned or whatever you hit your teammate with.

He won't even notice it.

Re:MW2

[KDR_11k]

This was on Derail (I saw him do it on a slope that would mean he would not be level with other players and it wasn't just against knife runners and most of the enemies were outside of audible range too. Plus there literally was no delay or transition, I don't know what the query rate of mouse input in MW2 is but if you can move the exact distance on the target's head and click the button between two polls you're a fucking robot.

If you suspect it's audio cues you can try putting on Ninja Pro (silenced footsteps) and see what happens.

Re:MW2

[tomhudson]

Digitizing tablets let you go instantly from one point to the other. I currently have a 12" wacom set to cover twin 26" 1920x1200 screens, and there is no delay in going from extreme left to extreme right. Great for when I can't find the cursor - instead of wiggling the mouse and hoping I see it, I just touch the pad about where I want it to be.

On dictated terms

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time you have to be female, 36c and agree to extensive cavity search to review the product.

vote with your money

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Buying the game gives as signal that you agree with Blizzard-Activision's actions. $1 Billion revenue says that Blizzard-Activision did an excellent job.
The following screenshot is a clear indication a lot of people can't stick to their principles: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/images/mw2_boycott.jpg

Re:vote with your money

[bloodhawk]

No, buying the game means I liked the game. I could not give a crap about how they con or bribe the reviewers, I don't care if it is made by sony, MS, blizzard or adolf hitler for that matter. If the game is fun (and it is) and is well made (it is) then I am more than happy to pay for it regardless of how they treat the scumbag media.

Re:vote with your money

[sopssa]

It shows that people just joined the bandwagon before they even tried the game or knew how the changes would work out. It's easy to click a button on a internet site that says "boycott!" and then go back to eat a pizza while watching the countdown timer for release date.

Re:vote with your money

[Anonymous Coward]

"Buying the game gives as signal that you agree with Blizzard-Activision's actions. $1 Billion revenue says that Blizzard-Activision did an excellent job."

Exactly what everyone has done!

Re:vote with your money

[Anonymous Coward]

I voted with mine. Simply didn't buy it. Didn't sign any petition or crap like that - just didn't (and won't) buy the thing.

Might not mean a whole lot with their sales still being high, but that's $60 not in their pocket.

Re:vote with your money

[blahplusplus]

"The following screenshot is a clear indication a lot of people can't stick to their principles"

It's not an indication they can't stick to their principles, we're talking about gamers here, they just wanted to draw attention to the fact that they wanted dedicated servers. Sure it says boycott but like immature gamers really meant it, anyone who is not retarded could have predicted the outcome.

Fact is gaming companies are increasingly douchebags who on hit titles can get away with it because lets face it , most people have not played the last 15 or so years of FPS games from doom on.

And people are just easily wow'd.

MW2 is a good game but that's not saying much, it's not hard to make a good FPS today since game developers have got the FPS down to a science.

Re:vote with your money

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever seen a non-hypocritical boycott? I haven't, as soon as they think no-one's looking...

Re:vote with your money

[sopssa]

MW2 is a good game but that's not saying much, it's not hard to make a good FPS today since game developers have got the FPS down to a science.

If it's not that hard, why aren't everyone making billions of dollars of single FPS games? Sounds like an easy way to get madly rich, if true.

And if you actually compare MW2 to other games, you see it has a lot that other games are missing. Intense single player campaign, fun co-op missions to play with a friend, and a great multiplayer with lots of gamemodes and leveling and class building system. I would really like to see such in more games, but frankly there isn't any or they're done poorly.

Re:vote with your money

[blahplusplus]

"Intense single player campaign, fun co-op missions to play with a friend, and a great multiplayer with lots of gamemodes and leveling and class building system"

Everything that has been in almost every FPS since doom, minus the class building system that didn't come till later (mods) like Quake and fps thereafter.

I remember playing Doom 2 and Duke 3D co-op on lan and it was just as good as anything MW2 can throw at you. The only real difference is the graphics tech has changed a lot since then, the core game is fundamentally the same.

Re:vote with your money

[AstrumPreliator]

I'd actually like to point out that that picture is somewhat misleading. The first few pages always show who is currently in game (and admins I believe who are offline in that picture), the next few pages show those who are online but not in any game, and the remainder of the pages show those who are offline. If you took that group as a sample, a rather large sample, then 19/833 ~ 2.8% are playing CoD:MW2. Even then this percentage isn't a true representation of how many people out of the group ended up buying the game. Like I said, that picture is a bit misleading. I'd be interested in the percentage of people who bought the game after boycotting it though; I'm willing to bet it's quite high.

Re:vote with your money

[sopssa]

It still shows that almost all who are playing a game in that boycott group are indeed playing mw2. While not giving exact true percentage, it does show it quite good.

Besides, it's quite likely most of the boycotters ended up buying it anyway.

Re:vote with your money

[Psaakyrn]

How did you know it's fun and well made before you bought the game?

Re:vote with your money

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know it's fun and well made before buying it?

Re:vote with your money

[B1oodAnge1]

If it's not that hard, why aren't everyone making billions of dollars of single FPS games?

Because not everyone has the millions of dollars required to convince all the retards that their game is groundbreaking and new.

Good games don't make money, well marketed games make money.

Unfortunately the two are nearly wholly unrelated.

Re:vote with your money

[Rogerborg]

Dude, they spend $130 million dollars on advertising it. That's how you know it's a quality game.

Re:vote with your money

[Kjella]

If Modern Warfare 2 had been another Daikatana, no amount of hype would have saved it. Everybody would like to bitch about something, for example right now I've been playing Dragon Age: Origins. Ok, so there's a dude in camp hawking DLC who should have had a dollar sign instead of a quest sign over him, but it's on an inconvienience level less than pretty much any bug and I've found none of those. So the angle isn't freeform but I never felt it very limiting. I seem to remember a time when bugs were like really bad and could make your game unplayable or crash outright or whatever. These days I hardly ever find anything that'd go past 3 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Re:vote with your money

[Anonymous Coward]

The Room would like to speak to you.

Re:vote with your money

[Opportunist]

No, actually an over the top ad budget means that they know themselves that the product stinks and need to overhype it to compensate for it.

For reference, see Vista.

Re:vote with your money

[Opportunist]

The main problem with that is that such "boycott" calls become meaningless if they're joined by people who do not follow through with it. If you don't plan to do it, don't sign a petition. You actually hurt the cause more than you help it. Yes, it could well mean that half a million gamers cry boykott, but that won't make an impression of 400k of them later ignore their plea. What will game makers think? "Let them cry, as long as they buy..."

Re:vote with your money

[Anonymous Coward]

Other games are missing red screens!!! I want to see a bit more red before I buy. MW2 got that right! Every 5 seconds or so, your screen is red and blurry. Way to go! Other games are also missing a level where you shoot at targets which don't shoot back. Seriously, in my opinion, MW2 is a sucky game. I'm going to go back and play MW1 again...

Re:vote with your money

[ToxicBanjo]

How about how they treat their base? PC gamers made IW what is and they turn around and stab us in the back. Over 1 billion in sales... could have been 2 billion easy if they had of done the PC side correctly. They are so short sighted. Now it's the most pirated game in history and their con was that IWnet will lessen piracy and cheating... laughable. Fuck IW and Activision, I'll never buy another product from either of them.

Re:vote with your money

[mdwh2]

The only real difference is the graphics tech has changed a lot since then, the core game is fundamentally the same.

Yes, but that "real difference" also makes the difference between a game being easy to write (today, a Doom or Quake style game could be made much easier due to hardware acceleration and freely available 3D engines, neither of which existed for ID), and a game being hard to write.

Since MW2 has vastly improved graphics, I don't think you can suggest it was not hard to write. I once had fun playing space invaders, but no one's going to make money today with a space invaders game.

Re:vote with your money

[mdwh2]

But these games today do cost a lot of money to write in the first place, too, even before you include the marketing.

Re:vote with your money

[blahplusplus]

You've missed the point completely, my point is for someone who is not new to gaming modern FPS games are long in the tooth.

Of course game makers want to sell the most units to the mouth breathing game population. MW2 is an ok game with high production values, but almost all of its "Greatness" comes from all the work that went into the graphics, the same game could have been made with crappy graphics and in another time been equally as fun, my point is that FPS games have been churned out forever, why one sells over another has mostly to do with aesthetic appeal and not gameplay (CoD is all US army/soldier military crap), that would appeal to the lowest common denominator in the gaming community. Esp the increasingly cliche hollywood/action movie crap, I thought some of the action movie stuff was pretty tacky. Trying to carry the game with flash over substance, by way of distraction.

For new gamers I'm sure it's the bee's knee's and I don't fault anyone for liking it, but for us that are older it's "meh".

Re:vote with your money

[teh.f4ll3n]

No-no-no! The majority of MW2 players are 13-15-year-olds (if I'm off here it's not by a mile), who simply don't understand the meaning of the word "boycott". They joind in thinking it would be a great idea for dedicated servers to be available, but when you actually explain what the word means they go "huh? i never agreed to that! I wanna play!".

Re:vote with your money

[subsolar2]

Buying the game gives as signal that you agree with Blizzard-Activision's actions. $1 Billion revenue says that Blizzard-Activision did an excellent job. The following screenshot is a clear indication a lot of people can't stick to their principles: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/images/mw2_boycott.jpg

To be fair steam sorts players by in-game first then online then offline, so the screen-shot is somewhat misleading. That said there were a fair number of people I know that said they would boycott it (including my son) that ended up buying the game. I have no idea what the percentage is, but probably two orders of magnitude less than the people that did say they would boycott and bought the game just because of the hype.

Re:vote with your money

[icebraining]

I signed the petition before the game was released. I knew the game was built around the same engine as CoD4, so it probably had dedicated server support. So it was worth a try.

They didn't include it, so I didn't buy the game.

Re:vote with your money

[Blakey Rat]

It's not an indication they can't stick to their principles, we're talking about gamers here, they just wanted to draw attention to the fact that they wanted dedicated servers. Sure it says boycott but like immature gamers really meant it, anyone who is not retarded could have predicted the outcome.

So they're not hypocrites because you're expectations of the group are so low, you didn't expect them to follow-through anyway?

Fact is gaming companies are increasingly douchebags who on hit titles can get away with it because lets face it , most people have not played the last 15 or so years of FPS games from doom on.

The more relevant fact in this case is that MW2's sales on consoles far, far, far outstripped their sales on PC. Frankly, even if the boycott had worked, Activision wouldn't be out much-- heck, if they do the math, they might actually come out ahead if they don't bother with a PC port in the first place for the next version! (Once you add in support costs, bad press from the server thing, etc.)

MW2 is a good game but that's not saying much, it's not hard to make a good FPS today since game developers have got the FPS down to a science.

Yah, that's why Shadowrun was so great. Oh wait, it sucked balls.

Re:vote with your money

[spirit of reason]

The appeal in CoD for me was very much gameplay-related. Thus far, MW (not MW2) struck the best balance between realism and the arcade for its niche. Though each of them had flaws, its standout points were reasonable recoil, map designs that usually provided ample cover, and a pace that wasn't ridiculously fast (Unreal Tournament) or slow (Ghost Recon). In short, it seemed like the beginning of a FPS series that would encourage squad-level tactics without taking you far from the shooting.

Sadly, that balance shifted immediately towards the arcade side with the very next game (CoD 5), making its gameplay just like every other.

Re:vote with your money

[ravenshrike]

Not really, it just means the FPS scene is turning into the Madden scene.

Re:vote with your money

[westlake]

Dude, they spend $130 million dollars on advertising it. That's how you know it's a quality game.

Estimates for MW2:

$50 million in production. $150 million in marketing. Modern Warfare 2 Costs Millions To Make, Outsells Harry Potter Movies & GTA IV

Estimates for Avatar:

$250 million in production. $250 million in global marketing. A Movie's Budget Pops From the Screen

Re:vote with your money

[bloodhawk]

unlike some I am happy to wait for at least a day after release so I can try before I buy.

Re:vote with your money

[KDR_11k]

I bought it at a budget price because I felt I need first hand experience to actually talk about it. I won't be buying MW3 though and neither will many others. Will hurt Activision even more because they're expected to show growth, not decline.

Re:vote with your money

[KDR_11k]

Too bad there is no option to return the game once you've witnessed how it works in practice, eh?

Doesn't say much

[OverlordQ]

After all, take a look at all the Madden games for console, people pay $60 for a game every year which is exactly the same except somebody replaced a few textures and swapped out the names. All this shows, in my opinion, is that people buy the hype.

Re:Doesn't say much

[sopssa]

It's not about hype really. The bitching about yearly sports games is what I have wondered for long actually. The people who buy them want the new rosters and player stats and somewhat improved graphics and gameplay. I mean, there's only so much you can improve in a sports game thats based on real sports league. And actually the games have been improving over the years, just look at NHL 2005 compared to 2010.

Sure, it's not a totally new game, but people don't complain that they don't drop NHL in real world after one year and invent a totally new sports. And it's not like its that much off from those players who don't like to play sports games (like me).

McDonald's sells more than Red Robin or Wendy's

[mykos]

But it doesn't mean their burgers are better.

Just sayin'

Re:McDonald's sells more than Red Robin or Wendy's

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it does. You don't understand what better means, however. Better could mean taste, speed, availability, nutritive value, cost, environmental impact. There are uncountable different ways of determining better for an individual human being in four space. I do not think a global mapping exists other than the number sold. If you decide to buy a mc Donald's burger, you must have decided its better than any of the alternatives for some reason. So on that basis, yes they are better.

Re:McDonald's sells more than Red Robin or Wendy's

[mykos]

Not sure how this is offtopic. I'm commenting on the correlation between sales and quality in the topic title. It's unfortunate that I have to spell this out for someone.

Re:McDonald's sells more than Red Robin or Wendy's

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I ate a McDonald's burger, it was because the only alternative was starvation. If there'd been a Wendy's nearby, I'd have eaten there. If there'd been a real restaurant, I'd have eaten real food, not any sort of burger.

And somehow you take this to mean that I think McDonald's burgers are "better"?

Using words to mean whatever you like is all very well, Humpty, but you can't expect to communicate if you insist on twisting language like that.

Re:McDonald's sells more than Red Robin or Wendy's

[Anonymous Coward]

He specifically said their burgers aren't better. That has nothing to do with speed, availability or environmental impact. It means taste and possibly nutritive value. The others you have to compare with "McDonalds" against "Wendy's".

Re:McDonald's sells more than Red Robin or Wendy's

[Anonymous Coward]

QUIT with that just sayin' shit

I propose an alternate title for this entry

[devjj]

"How Activision Used Modern Warfare 2 to Screw the Gaming Media (and PC Gamers) to the Wall."

Human interaction is overrated

[precariousgray]

No dedicated servers, no community: this likely failed to affect sales due to the fact that we are becoming more and more disconnected as a society. Who needs continuity when you can have countless one-night stands with a multitude of willing digital combatants? Is that an AT4-HS rocket launcher in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Re:Human interaction is overrated

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude your insular concepts are outdated. Now your dumped with "pubs" but you have the option to game with people from your friends lists or party up with random "pubs" for extended, consistant gaming. And surprise, playing "pubs" is the best way to meet new players for populating your friends list.

Re:Human interaction is overrated

[precariousgray]

I was not aware that simply having to keep track of one IP address, versus a list of 5,000 different players and "communities" was an insular concept. Thank you for making me aware of this, "dude."

Re:Human interaction is overrated

[Opportunist]

Be sensible. Who goes to a FPS game for "social interation"? The social interaction is done through crosshairs. It's nice to play against the same people again, to see the same people again (or not so nice if they're known cheaters) but then, whether it's them or someone else, the difference is mostly that I might know from their play style what to expect from them. You might send a salutation through chat when you see them, but that's basically it.

Why I want dedicated servers isn't the social interaction. It's security. And I'm not even talking about the can of worms associated with your machine accepting connections from unknown peers. I want to play cheat free. I want to succeed or fail due to my ability (or lack thereof), not because I have some unfair (dis)advantage. For the same reason I do not enjoy servers that give their "premium" users some sort of advantage over the rest.

Re:Human interaction is overrated

[Anonymous Coward]

Be sensible. Who goes to a FPS game for "social interation"? The social interaction is done through crosshairs. It's nice to play against the same people again, to see the same people again (or not so nice if they're known cheaters) but then, whether it's them or someone else, the difference is mostly that I might know from their play style what to expect from them. You might send a salutation through chat when you see them, but that's basically it.

The only reason I continue to play TF2 is for the social interaction of my gaming team. They're a fun group of guys, and the combination of an enjoyable game, our server's settings, every team member having basic admin access (kick/mute/silence) make the game fun. But the real reason people keep coming back is the community. We bullshit back and forth, we know people by name, and everyone's personality adds to the enjoyment far beyond the game itself. We run all-talk on all of our servers as well, because this interaction is so ingrained in our community.

Sure, people stick around because we run clean servers. However, once they start playing, they tend to keep playing TF2 long beyond when the game might otherwise have gotten stale, because the people they play with are good conversation. -AC for moderation

Re:I got a copy for free!

[devjj]

Here's the thing... Activision is going to point to the high piracy rates of the PC game and use it as justification for why PC gamers don't need any special treatment. When the majority of the people buying your games are on consoles, from the publisher's perspective the developer has to go out of its way to accomodate the wants of people who aren't. I don't agree with it. In fact, I am quite livid about it; but pirating the game and then boasting about it is not going to convince Activision to give you what you want next time around. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if Activision scrapped the PC version altogether.

Dedicated Servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, it still made a ton of money without dedicated servers... but it would've made even more with them. That's where I'm a bit confused. I am a professional game developer -- mostly console games -- and developing for PC compared to them is definitely a PITA. But I cannot see the businessmen above me saying "oh, that's enough profit, we don't need any more". A few good programmers could've hammered out dedicated servers pretty quickly, avoided a ton of bad press, and gotten even more sales.

The price hike I can see as reasonable. Yea, the going rate for games is $50. The budget required to make MW2 was probably more than 120% of your average game's.

The review situation I don't really see an issue with at all. So they offered free hotel rooms.. Uh... Ok? Is any reviewer worth reading really going to give the game a better score because of some free room service? To me it just seems like a good way to prevent leaks on such a high profile game.

Steam fail

[QuantumG]

A mate of mine, who just wanted to play a game he bought in the store, had so much trouble with the Steam activation process that he called me over to check it out. I thought "oh dear, another silly friend who can't work his computer".. then I discovered all the shit I had to do to get Steam to work. Opening ports on his router? Just to activate? Are you fucking kidding me? We eventually got the game to activate, then it wouldn't let us log into Steam, so the game wouldn't play.

"Incorrect password" .. no it's not you stupid piece of shit. Ok, fine "I forgot my password" ..
"we're emailing you a reset code" .. "umm.. I haven't gotten it" .. "I forgot my password" ..
"we're emailing you a reset code" .. "ahh, this time it showed up" ..
"ok, change your password, enter your username and reset code, and a new password" ..
"ok, reset code accepted, you are now logged in to the website" .. awesome, I'll just try this password on Steam now shall I? ..
"Incorrect password" .. "Motherfucker, I changed the password, I know what it is, I'm cut&pasting it from the notepad I used to change it!" ..
"Incorrect password" .. "Grrrr... Ok.. I'll wait 15 minutes, it probably takes a while to get from the web interface to the Steam interface"
[15 minutes later] "Incorrect password". Grrrrrr... fine, back to the website, "Change password"
"You are not logged in, please login to change your password." Ok... maybe it timed out, username/password, "Login"
"You are logged in" WTF? You admit that I know the password on the website but you refuse to accept it in Steam? Fine, "Change password"
"You are not logged in, please login to change your password." What, THE, FUCK? You just said I was logged in, YOU SAID IT. Now I wanna change my password I can't? Fuck you. "I forgot my password".
"We're sending you a reset code.." Sure you are.. wait... wait.. "Hey man, wanna watch a movie or something?" .. 20 minutes later.. "Hey! The reset code showed up!",
"ok, change your password, enter your username and reset code, and a new password" ..
"ok, reset code accepted, you are now logged in to the website" .. Back to Steam we go ..
"Incorrect password" .. fuck you Steam, fuck you in your stupid ass. "New Account"
"Ok, to create a new account you need to choose a username" .. I'll just enter the same username as before..
"That username is taken, we recommend these alternative usernames ..." Fine, whatever, that one with 69 on the end, sounds great.
"Please supply a password." Cut&Paste from this notepad, twice, now tell me it's wrong.
"Password acceptable, here's your new account!" Great, I'd like to play the game now please.
"The game must be activated, please enter your activation code." Sure, no worries, here ya go..
"Activation code duplicate error. You can not continue with your activation."

FUCK YOU STEAM.

Re:Steam fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Modern Warfare 2 retail had nothing to do with steam?

Re:Steam fail

[QuantumG]

Activation is via Steam..

Re:Steam fail

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like you're the friend who can't work his computer. I am not a fan of a lot of things Steam does, but being hard to use is not one of its problems.

Re:Steam fail

[QuantumG]

Uhhh.. excuse me? I think my experience says the opposite. Even if you have *no problems* getting an account setup, the fact that you need to fuck with your router to activate a game is ridiculous. Shit, the fact that you need an internet connection to play a single player game is ridiculous.

Re:Steam fail

[paziek]

I've put DVD inside, installed it and typed CD-Key. Hey, that was it! Hooah!
And: I have router. Router is connected to NATed LAN. The retail game I bought was in polish. I already had steam account, that I made without any issues whatsoever.
AND you know what? When I come to work and there was time when I was really bored, I gave it a try - launched steam and in "My Games" there it was - MW2, just pressed install and it downloaded and installed game no problem!

Those issues you encounter are your own fault. You expect steam/game client to work its way thru default HTTP port or what? If you are blocking your own traffic on firewall, then expect shit to happen. If you don't, then I don't know what you are doing on /.

Re:Steam fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that needing to have an internet connection to play a single player game is ridiculous. You don't need to do anything with your router unless you block all ports by default, in which case you should expect to need to open ports for any new program you install which needs to access the internet. The fact that you were trying to login to a website to do anything with Steam is what makes me question your competency. Anything you do with Steam should be done through the client, and you can't paste anything into the password field.

Re:Steam fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I find that funny, since I use Steam, have half my game collection in it actually, and I have NEVER opened ports in my firewall for it.

Works great.

Oh, and the copy and paste doesn't always work, you get retarded glitches (I noticed this in Firefox but I think I did have it happen in Steam once) when copy and pasting caused the password to be pasted as ******** instead of the actual password. You should type it out instead of pasting, there can also be a propagation delay when changing passwords; trying it immediately doesn't always work – make sure you exit the client [Watch for the tray icon] and restart it just in case.

Shit, the fact that you need an internet connection to play a single player game is ridiculous.

It's a DRM system, what did you expect? Sunshine and kittens? Shouldn't have bought it if you didn't want to put up with that shit; hell, I never bought RedAlert3, Bioshock or Spore even though I was vaguely interested because of the retarded 5 activation limit from the Securom system.

Re:Steam fail

[QuantumG]

Like all other software? Why, yes, yes I do expect to be able to play a retail game on computer in a network DMZ.

Re:Steam fail

[Professor_UNIX]

What ports did you need to open on your firewall? In which direction? I've played a dozen games so far on Steam and none of them have required me to touch anything to do with my firewall settings. Even the awful GTA IV works fine other than wanting to launch the fucking annoying Rockstar Social Club piece of garbage all the time before playing the game.

Re:Steam fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Comcast router. That thing is restricted tighter than your asshole wishes it could be if you were fresh meat in your first day in prison.

I didn't have to do a thing to the router to activate a game through Steam. You're full of shit.

Re:Steam fail

[paziek]

On my box it was written, that game requires steam account in order to activate. So I made sure it works for me before I bought it. Just because your are used to certain things, doesn't mean that they will stay the same. And so are retail games - sometimes they could require online activation, not necessary via website. Hell - I even had to activate online my Sound Blaster control panel.

Re:Steam fail

[QuantumG]

This would be because your router is wide freakin' open.

Re:I got a copy for free!

[bersl2]

Cool story bro.

Meanwhile, those of us who actually don't care to be treated to the kind of shit Activision pulls not only don't buy the game but aren't even interested in most of this new-fangled crap from big studios to begin with.

Really, from here on out, I don't expect to buy games from too many large companies anymore. I might put money forward when Valve gets off their ass and finishes their next HL "episode", but everything else is more likely to be bought from a small company or downloaded as free (legally) or played from my existing library. So I guess I fall into the "curmudgeon" stereotype. Whatever. I am happy with my present gaming experiences.

FAIL!

[johnek]

This could have been the best game ever created. I absolutely hate it but I still play it. They should have taken the best of both worlds. Given inexperienced players the matchmaking system, and give veteran players dedicated servers. Infinity Ward sucks my ________! This game could have been the most popular of all time!

Re:FAIL!

[sp1nny]

I absolutely hate it but I still play it.

You do realize that makes no sense, right?

Re:FAIL!

[woopate]

This could have been the best game ever created. I absolutely hate it but I still play it.

And you still give your money to Activision, telling them you do not hate it, or their heavy handed tactics.

Although, admittedly, there is little anybody can do to negate anti-piracy efforts. By neither purchasing or pirating a game, all you do is reduce the number of pirates, which, to Activision, means success. To pirate the game increases the number of pirates, justifying in their mind the actions they have taken against pirates (and legitimate users). To purchase the game, well, that's voting with your dollar, and telling them they are doing a bang-up job with everything they do.

Actually, if you e-mail them without pirating or purchasing their game, explicitly detailing why you did not purchase or pirate their game, with proper language and a respectful tone, maybe eventually enough people will do so to convince them to change their ways.

Re:FAIL!

[johnek]

Agree 100%. It is that good of a game, but it could have been the best game ever!

Re:FAIL!

[DemonBeaver]

Or they keep doing what they're doing because they earned ONE BILLION DOLLARS!

I went with the not buying and not pirating plan. I played it at a friends house, and it didn't seem all that special to me... oh well, back to playing STALKER

Re:I got a copy for free!

[phanboy_iv]

Good riddance. They have in all but name anyway, that's kind of the point here.

Not that piracy is the way to go, not at all. But frankly I wish all the big devs who've said with their actions that they really only want to copy/paste high-priced titles designed around another platform's strengths and weaknesses simply leave the playing field altogether and let smaller, more motivated devs take over the PC gaming space. Like in the early days, when we had whole dynasties started by handfuls of motivated developers.

Marketing budget > dev budget

[AwaxSlashdot]

CoD:MW2 had a budget of 200M$. From those 200, only 70 were spend on the development of the versions for all the different versions : PC, XB360 and PS3. 130 were used for marketing. It tells us that the actual game as less "value" than the way it is marketed.

But what of the long term value?

[trawg]

I consider myself a hardcore PC gamer. I pretty much switched to playing multiplayer FPS games almost exclusively after Doom came out; I just love the genre and the competition of playing against real people. I loved it so much it ended up becoming my job; me and some friends founded a company to provide multiplayer gaming servers for other people in Australia (which went on to become the biggest online game service provider in Australia, blahblahbalhablah).

As a Ye Olde Time PC gamer, I remember the days of games like Doom, Quake, Half-Life, and Unreal - when you could drop AUD$80 on a game and know that you were going to be able to play that game for years, because it had freely downloadable and publicly available dedicated servers, meaning anyone could run a server anywhere in the world, at any time, with any settings. Not only that, the games were generally moddable - which meant the game experience would always be changing.

This model brought about things like Counter-Strike (probably the most successful multiplayer FPS ever), Desert Combat (directly responsible for the development of Battlefield 2), Day of Defeat (one of the first of manymanymany WW2 shooters). It brought about Team Fortress, which has since turned into Team Fortress 2 - another staggering success story. (Lucky Valve are still on the ball.)

There's been a clear paradigm shift recently though. I feel that it began with Battlefield 2, and more games are following the new model. Yes, there's a clear focus on console gaming. But more significantly, I feel, is the focus on trying to really sell brands over and over again as fast as possible.

With few exceptions (Blizzard, Valve), game developers and publishers don't want you to be playing the same game for three or four years. They want you to upgrade to the new hotness so they can get another chunk of cash out of you.

I didn't buy MW2 - I'm completely and utterly uninterested in it if it doesn't have dedicated servers, and I put my money where my mouth is and didn't buy it even though I've heard its pretty awesome. But it's hard for me to come out and say what IW are doing is clearly wrong - because obviously it's commercially successful. I do feel it's not in the best interests of gamers - I think we'd get much more /value/ if they went back to the old model. But MW2 has set a precedent, and I'm sure MW3 is already on the drawing board and not very far away.

Re:But what of the long term value?

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense but you're a bit biased considering what your company does, mind you, I agree with you.

Re:But what of the long term value?

[Anonymous Coward]

Day of Defeat (one of the first of manymanymany WW2 shooters)

Medal of Honor was pre-dates DoD

Re:But what of the long term value?

[Pie Pan]

I remember the days of games like Doom, Quake, Half-Life, and Unreal

I know I'm nitpicking here, but Doom didn't have online play at all (only modem and serial), and Quake wasn't really playable on the dialup connections of the time until QuakeWorld.

I agree entirely with what you're saying though. What I don't understand is why we can't have a hybrid system - have two multiplayer options, one for IWnet and one for the old client-server model. If you just want a quick blast online, you pick IWnet. If you want a clan match or just a bit more control over who and where you're playing, pick dedicated servers.

Then again, I'm pretty sure I know why they wouldn't bother with this - Infinity Ward and Activision knew from the beginning that any "boycott" over the lack of dedicated servers wouldn't happen, and even if it did, a fair chunk of their revenue probably comes from the consoles. PC gaming is becoming a niche market unfortunately, and it's making developers lazy because it's not as profitable as the consoles.

Re:But what of the long term value?

[jaggeh]

wolfenstein pre dates medal of honor

Re:But what of the long term value?

[hellop2]

"I know I'm nitpicking here, but Doom didn't have online play at all (only modem and serial), and Quake wasn't really playable on the dialup connections of the time until QuakeWorld." It's not correct to say that Doom didn't have "any online play at all". Doom had multiplayer local network play. And back in 1995 or so, there were several online services that you could dial up to and then run DOS games like Doom and Quake with at least 4 players.

Re:But what of the long term value?

[sgtrock]

Google 'iFrag' and 'history' some time. iFrag allowed me to play Doom ][ over a 9600 dialup connection. Mind you, any time someone pulled out the Pulse Cannon my connection froze from the lag. Still, I have very fond memories of some very frantic 4 player DM maps. :)

Re:But what of the long term value?

[dskzero]

I remember the days of games like Doom, Quake, Half-Life, and Unreal

I know I'm nitpicking here, but Doom didn't have online play at all (only modem and serial), and Quake wasn't really playable on the dialup connections of the time until QuakeWorld.

You're actually pretty wrong. There were several services to play Doom online, and well, QuakeWorld was the thing that made online FPS gaming viable.

Re:But what of the long term value?

[ShakaUVM]

>>I didn't buy MW2 - I'm completely and utterly uninterested in it if it doesn't have dedicated servers, and I put my money where my mouth is and didn't buy it even though I've heard its pretty awesome

Ditto. Modding is what makes online games fun.

I'm also utterly uninterested in online games without dedicated servers, especially when the new trend is to shut down the company servers as soon as a new version is out (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/01/ea-shuts-down-25-game-servers-including-madden-09.ars).

Re:But what of the long term value?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doom, Quake, and Descent were playable online through software like Kali which allowed you to run IPX over a dial-up connection with a DOS PPP Packet Driver:

http://www2.worldvillage.com/wv/gamezone/html/feature/mayhem/mayhem2.htm

Re:But what of the long term value?

[Anonymous Coward]

Take Valve off your exception list, sadly. Left 4 Dead didn't last long before it got a sequel which was basically everything that was promised in the original.

Re:But what of the long term value?

[DarthVain]

You forgot about Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory! Not only was it perhaps my favorite FPS of all time, it was free!

Counter-Strike was kinda interesting if only because so many freaking people played it at any one time. Never really played Battlefield 2.

Anyway I think the difference is on focus. The old school games the developer wanted to blow your freaking ass out of the water with every new game is how awesome it was usually graphic centric, with some game play additions. They wanted to actively TOP their old game, or show how much better their game was to all others.

Now as games are more expensive and require massive financial backing, more seem to be developed by committee, and are more beholden to parent companies and the like. Many are produced in large conglomerates that produce many games, not just a single title or series (or a few). These do not want to compete against other games. They also do not want to compete against their old games. They are not trying to make a game that will WOW their customers, or be especially fun. They are trying to sell the most games they can possibly sell, while spending the least amount of money, while trying to sell all their other games, etc... Just a company trying to maximize profit. Clearly anyone that knows anything knows that this is done through MASSIVE advertising campaigns. You don't actually have to make a good game anymore, you only have to convince people that it is. This isn't new by any means, and it doesn't hurt if you also happen to make a quality game also. I just see this becoming more and more prevalent, particularly with the rise in console penetration, and the continued amalgamation of game developers into megacorps. I see no reason why this trend will not continue either. There are always sweet exceptions to the rule, but the are more and more rare now I think.

Re:But what of the long term value?

[cheatch]

With few exceptions (Blizzard, Valve), game developers and publishers don't want you to be playing the same game for three or four years. They want you to upgrade to the new hotness so they can get another chunk of cash out of you.

This is a very good point! I've boycotted MW2 because of this. Take out the dedicated servers, reduce replay value, get everyone hooked onto the next game, spend 3/4 of your budget on marketing. No Thanks.

Re:But what of the long term value?

[PaganRitual]

World War 2 itself pre-dates Wolfenstein. HA PWNED

It's actually worse than doing nothing

[Sycraft-fu]

What it says is that you are specifically not to be listened to. Had they actually boycotted it and not bought it, it probalby wouldn't have had to much of a negative impact on overall sales, but it would have at least given Activision pause. Companies always want to make more money and they'd have wondered "How much more could we have made, had we given people what they asked for."

However what this does is send the message that even if people want something, you can safely ignore them, they'll buy your shit anyhow.

I'll never get people like this. As you say, people need to vote with their dollars. If you don't like something, don't buy it. I don't own Modern Warfare 2 because it looks like the single player isn't worth much and they crippled PC multiplayer. So, not for me. What's more, there are TONS of games out there of all kinds. It isn't like this is the only shooter around. If a given game doesn't give you what you want, get another. Heck my problem is not too few games to play, it is too little time to play them. I've got games I'd like to get but haven't the time to play them.

This behaviour always amused me in MMOs. People would whine and scream about how bad the game was and organize "protests" where they'd all show up in an area and submit GM tickets and such. Of course, they kept paying. My thing is always "If you aren't having fun, why are you paying?" They seemed to be under the false impression companies cared how they got your money. They don't, they just care that you pay. If you pay to be angry and protest, ok fine whatever.

Just spend your money on shit you like, and don't spend it on shit you don't. You'll find things work out much better that way.

Re:It's actually worse than doing nothing

[Opportunist]

That's basically what I did. I wanted MW2, more than most games this year (or last, rather). I didn't buy it and I don't play it. I want dedicated servers because I KNOW that cheating will be out of control without, and nothing ruins my game experience more than cheaters. Activision didn't give me what I wanted, so I didn't buy. Simple as that.

Some of the recent changes in EvE are not to my liking so I canceled my sub and retired a 6 year old character. I might resub when they change it to suit my tastes again, if they don't, a 6 year old char will sit there and look pretty. Just saying "I won't play" doesn't change it, what matters is that you don't pay.

Re:It's actually worse than doing nothing

[jaraxle]

Just saying "I won't play" doesn't change it, what matters is that you don't pay.

This is what gets me in just about every MMO that has balancing issues and players feel that their class is somehow disadvantaged compared to everyone else. I'm glad to hear that at least you try to stick to your principles, but for every person who actually cancels a subscription due to a game moving in a direction they don't agree with, there are at least 1000 others that will continue paying.

Typically their mantra is "If you don't fix class X then I will stop playing my class X and play my class Y instead." How does that possibly enact any change when your subscription is still being paid and the game developers are still receiving your money? It doesn't.

I'll play but I won't like it seems to be a fairly common sentiment among gamers, and anyone who decided, for instance, to boycott MW2 for whatever reason and actually stuck to their guns is in the minority.

~jaraxle

Gaming press was already pretty pathetic

[interkin3tic]

You can shove the gaming press around

That much has got to be pretty obvious to the whole industry already. Game journalism is corrupt and/or done by complete idiots.

Obligatory penny arcade reference. There's more unquestioning repeating of press releases than there is in political journalism. In that case, there seemed to be more controversy that reporters were doing more than advertising.

Look in any gaming magazine and you'll be hard pressed to find anything below 7/10, even for games that are terrible. The whole numbering scheme itself is absurd to begin with, there's not a universal set of criteria by which to judge how good a game is, and you can't quantify game quality. Some reviews even go down to decimal points. This game is a 9.25? Where did that 0.25 come from? Partial credit for something? It seems to me that the only reason for a number is that video game publishers have noticed a strong correlation between a number from a review and the number on their profits, and have also noticed that magically reviews don't actually go down even halfway down the scale when they pay for advertising on those game journalism websites or magazines.

And it's pretty obvious that the reviews are paid for. The reviewers got room and board paid for? Not as bad as Eidos, at least this doesn't appear to be firing reviewers who don't give the score you paid for.

Re:Gaming press was already pretty pathetic

[DrXym]

That much has got to be pretty obvious to the whole industry already. Game journalism is corrupt and/or done by complete idiots.

If you want to see how corrupt gaming journalists are, just wait for the Next Big Game to turn up and witness what happens. The bloggers breathlessly describe how awesome their all expenses paid trip to Next Big Game HQ was, the magazines shout about their Exclusive First Review of Next Big Game, and the gaming sites are plastered with huge tailored background images and side banners for Next Big Game.

Why do journalists go along with it? Because they'll be blackballed if they don't. They won't get the exclusive (p)reviews, they won't get the all expenses paid jollies, or the backstage passes to trade shows, or the marketing junk, or the free games. And their employers won't get the advertising revenue. The likes of Rockstar are notorious for putting savage pressure on review sites to ensure the highest possible score.

Yes there are some reviewers and review outfits which have a better reputation than others, but in general games journalism is as close to payola as you can get.

The best thing a gamer can do is ignore pre-embargo reviews and hang on a few days for a more honest consensus to form.

Re:Gaming press was already pretty pathetic

[LatencyKills]

You read reviews from the big three (I'm not even going to say who they are, but you know them, the sites with big flashy game banners), yes, you're getting bought and paid for advertising. Big surprise. But there are lots of other sites out there, including the one that I've been writing at for almost a decade that are different - no salary, no game-related ads, just people who love videogames and want to share a means of separating quality from crap with readers. Incidentally, Activision called us with the MW2 review offer, and we turned it down flat. Sort of ironic, because on the whole I've found it a pretty good game (though I can't say anything about the game at review time).

Re:Gaming press was already pretty pathetic

[interkin3tic]

Incidentally, Activision called us with the MW2 review offer, and we turned it down flat. Sort of ironic, because on the whole I've found it a pretty good game (though I can't say anything about the game at review time).

Well what one do you work for?!? I'll start reading!

Anyway, sorry if you feel I was painting the entire field with the same brush, I didn't mean to. Same way that whenever anyone points out what's wrong with CNN, Fox, and lazy journalism, they say "journalists" when in fact there's plenty of independent, healthy investigative journalism going on, just not at the big american corporate news sources.

Re:Gaming press was already pretty pathetic

[interkin3tic]

Why do journalists go along with it? Because they'll be blackballed if they don't. They won't get the exclusive (p)reviews, they won't get the all expenses paid jollies, or the backstage passes to trade shows, or the marketing junk, or the free games.

Or just outright fired, like Jeff Gersham, but I think you've hit the major thing that's wrong with game journalism: not many people seem to get into it to expose the truth, they seem to get into it mainly to do their hobby as a career, get free stuff, etc. When the goal of "journalists" is only to get a paycheck and get free handouts, there is never going to be anything resembling integrity.

I mean, that's no big deal since we're talking about video game reviews, just saying it's interesting to me how really screwed up that industry is.

This article forgets something

[ZeroSerenity]

Namely is the game fun and entertaining? The answer to that is a resounding yes. If a game is the above it can be forgiven for lots of flaws and that is why the game has passed the $1 Billion mark in cash.

No Servers - No Community

[imakemusic]

The main thing I miss about having dedicated servers is the lack of community. When I played Day of Defeat I could spend hours on one server playing with same people, having a good time and getting to know them. I knew if I connected to a certain server I'd have a good game. MW2 on the other hand is like a lucky dip. Yeah, sometimes it's great but you have no control over who you play with unless you go to the hassle of adding friends on Steam or whatever. Maybe it's just me.

People get what they want

[ET3D]

It's not the hype. It's just that the discriminating buyers are the minority. Most people want crap, or what "elitists" think is crap. Kind of like soap operas, which many people consider junk, yet are extremely popular. Or reality shows. Or big budget effect movies. Companies just do what most people are okay with. A minority of people want dedicated servers, so there's no big need to implement them. Having a patch a few days late doesn't matter to most, either, I'd bet. Most people are willing to live with minor setbacks.

Re:Marketing budget dev budget

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesnt matter how much they spend on marketing, if the game is a dud, it wouldnt have any value.

idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a great way to undercut all the review system bs would be for a review site to simply wait until release date for their reviews. That way they could do a REAL review, and could potentially acquire lots of loyal followers.

Only really a decent game for consoles

[Aceticon]

A little look at the user reviews in Amazon for the PC version (here) and by contrast the XBox version (here) is quite enlightening.

Basically if you've played Online FPSs in the PC in the last 10 years (with large matches, low lag, effective banning of cheaters and user maps and mods) this game will seem mediocre to you at best: people complain of lag (due to no dedicate servers), unpunished cheating (like aimbots) and pestering behaviour (teenagers playing music in voice), no user extendability (as per choice of the maker: no user mods or maps, only paid for - DLC - extensions) and second-hand market killing measures (online activation mandatory on the PC).

This means that this game should be really be seen as two separate games "Modern Warfare 2 XBox" and "Modern Warfare 2 PC" with the first being quite successful (thanks in in no small part to hype and slick marketing) for the target platform and audience and versus the competition in that platform (console games tend to be simpler and played by a younger audience) and the second being very mediocre from the point of view of that target audience and versus the competition in that platform.

It's thus not surprising that you have two almost completely opposite sets of reviews, since the game really has two faces ...

Re:Only really a decent game for consoles

[sp1nny]

There's one problem though.. Amazon was the target of a concerted campaign by 'PC Gamers' who feel spurned by Activision and they dragged down the Amazon average review score as a sign of 'protest'. If you're looking for proof, go to the Amazon site linked in the post above, and filter the reviews by 1 star rating. Most of those reviews are written even before the game released. And half the reviews written after it's release basically complain about problems with using Steam and/or installing the game. Anecdotal though it may be, I've seen that most people who actually play the game end up enjoying it and saying as much. It is nowhere near as bad as some people want to make it out to be.

Re:Only really a decent game for consoles

[Pojut]

But it's also nowhere near as good as deserving $1 Billion in sales. Like I said in a later post in this thread, I enjoyed the hell out of playing both of them, but I think people play it up too much. There are far more deserving games for this level of recognition (Muramasa: The Demon Blade being just one such example), but that will never happen.

For all of its intensity and depiction of war, why does the MW series control like Quake?

Re:I got a copy for free!

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have scrapped it on the PC. That decision I would have respected. However by releasing a stinking pile of crap on the PC, they've lost me as a customer on all platforms. I have not and will not buy MW2 nor any other IW game on any platform. I'll gave my money to a company which actually cares about releasing a quality product.

Gamers

[Anonymous Coward]

88 comments so far - and about 80 of them are about how wonderful the fucking game is, about 8 on the ethics of journalism - if you include the posts that said the article left out how great this game was.

Activision has you suckers pegged dead right and you have no independent press serving you because you deserve none.

Goodie for the rest of us - you people also get to drink, smoke pot, drive cars and make babies - fucking me me me me me wankers that you are.

Re:Gamers

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry that some people just want to have some fun and have other things to do in life than endlessly bitch about some game. In fact, if you tried it you could see behind all that hatred that its a really fun game.

After you leave your mothers basement, you may realize this.

Maybe he likes real breasts?

[George_Ou]

No, some of us heterosexuals prefer natural breasts. If you've ever felt fake ones, especially after they're a year old and the woman has built up quite a bit of tissue scaring and/or it's shaped in a really hideous way where you see a breast on top of a breast, you'd understand.

A true natural C cup is actually pretty impressive especially if it's shaped well with good skin. Now I won't complain if it's a natural D or above, but it becomes very rare and it may not be shaped well e.g., saggy and/or woman is a little too chunky.

Re:Maybe he likes real breasts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for your description, now I'm aroused while at work

Re:Maybe he likes real breasts?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good he described boobs and not pizza. Otherwise you could be off eating right now.

Re:Marketing budget dev budget

[sopssa]

That's merely Activision's decision tho. Infinity Ward had $70 million to develop the game (actually Activision tried to give them more, but they declined). Since it is actually a great game, Activision saw that it would be good to spend that on marketing. Putting $130 million in marketing budget of a crap game would not only be really risky, it would be outright stupid.

What Activision wants to spend on marketing is irrelevant to game quality or Infinity Ward.

Re:Marketing budget dev budget

[Kjella]

It tells us that the actual game as less "value" than the way it is marketed.

And is it really without results that go beyond the mere technical qualities of the game? Many games are fun because you do them with your friends or classmates or workmates. So why don't they end up playing some other FPS or whatever? Because you sell them on the idea that MW2 is the game to play.

Pound that marketing message into people's heads and eventually you will get it bouncing off each other "How about MW2?" "Yeah, heard about that - sounds cool" "Did you see that trailer?" "I've preordered already" and suddenly they all have a copy and then it really doesn't matter to you that there's some other FPS out there that is just as techincally good. You buy MW2 because that's what the people you know play, then the people you know buy MW2 for the same reason and the ball keeps rolling.

Think of it more like social media, what's the value of facebook or youtube or whatever? I can set up the same kind of site, but it's nearly worthless by itself. Games stand more on their own, but ignoring the social aspect and the network effects would be most foolish.

Just to be clear

[Uranium-238]

MW2 has only grossed $1bn+, not made that much, since a fortune was spent on the advertising and the game design was also pretty expensive. http://kotaku.com/5449597/the-billion+dollar-video-game-vs-the-billion+dollar-movie

Re:Marketing budget dev budget

[Anonymous Coward]

CoD:MW2 had a budget of 200M$. From those 200, only 70 were spend on the development of the versions for all the different versions : PC, XB360 and PS3. 130 were used for marketing.
It tells us that the actual game as less "value" than the way it is marketed.

uhmm.. what? so if the iPhone is marketed for 3x more than it tok developing it (problably way more than 3x), then the iPhone is somehow of less value than the way it is marketed? To whom?

Oh, that amount will go higher soon!

[Opportunist]

When people have to replace their banned copies.

Why banned you ask? Well, we don't have dedicated servers, people hosting games local. What does it tell the /. crowd? Right. That cheating is far from impossible. And, wonder over wonder, the cheats are in.

This week the call of a worrying friend reached me. He joined a MW2 game, was wondering why everyone was 70 with 10 honor levels on top of it. Two kills later he knew why: He was 70 himself (instapromotion from about 50). He quickly quitted, fearing a ban, but, well, the "damage" is done (damage being relative, after all, who doesn't want to reach 70?).

Now one of three things can happen. First, Activision bans everyone who increased his level with invalid means. Meaning, that that Damocletian sword is looming over everyone's head because you can't just "avoid" cheat servers. You join a game and bam, you're a cheater. Second, they can do nothing. Which essentially means that the leveling aspect of the game is essentially gone to waste because you pretty much have to create a level 70 character to compete sensibly. Unless you enjoy being the target dummy for the army of 70s running circles around you. Or they can only ban those that started the cheating (provided they can find out who modified the server and who didn't with at least some accuracy). Then you still have a buttload of 70s running around, because for every cheater you can have a game full of players who, willingly or accidently, blew up their level.

Pest, cholera or typhus, free choice.

And that problem will not vanish. As long as you don't have control over the game servers, you cannot control cheating.

Re:Oh, that amount will go higher soon!

[implowry]

Unless you enjoy being the target dummy for the army of 70s running circles around you.

This is why leveling in FPS sucks. Why handicap someone just because they are new to the game?

Re:Oh, that amount will go higher soon!

[Anonymous Coward]

And the fun part?

The people running the hacked servers are not using legitimate copies of the game.

The general process is as such:

1. Run a hacked version without a legitimate cd key
2. Get onto the matching servers with a legitimate player
3. Have the legitimate player leave
4. Hacked lobby exists, Advertised under IWNET's official matchmaking system

So, basically, it's the legitimate players who hold all of the risk in this hacking scenario. Thats where all of the 24 player, friendly fire, 1,503*10^7 experience point kills come from. I got bitten too. I got a double kill on one of those servers just as I joined. So, now I'm probably fucked if they execute one of your three options.

Hopefully, if they ban people with large amounts of XP, they compare the XP against the hours played. If you have at least, about, or around 48 played hours per prestige, you are less than likely to be a XP hacker.

Now shield boosting and headshot boosting, that's whole different debate altogether.

Re:Oh, that amount will go higher soon!

[iainl]

If a person who has grinded their way to level 70 is overpowered against another of a lower level but with more skill, then the game is already terminally broken. If anything, this hack will 'fix' it.

Re:Oh, that amount will go higher soon!

[Opportunist]

Multiplayer games have never been balanced between new players and old players. Even before levels became the fad. Old players know how the game handles, they know the maps and their quirks, they know the weapons, their strengths and weaknesses, they know what class plays well against which, they know everything better than new players.

Re:Oh, that amount will go higher soon!

[Lunzo]

I've played against people who have hacked to reach level 70 & top prestige. Without exception they are terrible at the game, so it doesn't bother me too much.

What does annoy me are the people using aimbots. They ruin the game you just joined. I've also seen people griefing by team-killing in modes where friendly fire is on.

Re:Oh, that amount will go higher soon!

[PaganRitual]

And then this deliberate levelling adds another level of default advantage to the actual learning advantage that comes from doing anything for longer than someone else. The difference is that, using the old model, if you're just plain good at, say, FPS in general, you can still come in fresh and get some kills and provide a challenge for existing players. Nowadays coming in 2-3 months after release means that your relative skill is no longer an issue, people are artifically boosted to the point where it's unfair from the start. But lets face it, if there is one thing that the current generation of gaming kids loves, it's endlessly killing people with no chance of themself being killed. Now it's just officially sanctioned instead of requiring cheats. But of course cheats still exist on top of that. So it's just easier to play the older games where the retard-cheat mindset people have moved on from long ago.

Re:Oh, that amount will go higher soon!

[smellotron]

...you pretty much have to create a level 70 character to compete sensibly.

Practice, practice, practice. The key is that most players learn to rely on the red-dot or holographic sights. While you're initially at a disadvantage using a gun's built-in iron sights, it can pay off to become independent of your gear. I'm rarely scoring at the top of the list, but even at level 20 I can give the 70's a solid run for their money, and I don't feel like I lose any enjoyment from the lack of bling.

Re:Oh, that amount will go higher soon!

[Opportunist]

It depends on how it's executed.

TF2 offers you bonus items when you play for a while. Those items offer you a minor edge under certain circumstances, but the always also include drawbacks. A medic can get a life leech cannon instead of his usual needle shooter, but it will do less damage. The heavy MG gunner can get a gun that slows his target, also for a decrease of actual damage. It is similar for the different guns that BF2142 offered you, they gave you more damage for fewer shots, or more accuracy for less damage and so on.

That is actually not so much a problem, since all these items offer you variety and the ability to react to certain specific situations better. They don't make you an unstoppable killing machine. And as long as level goodies stay in this category, they're a nice little something.

Where you're right is bonus items that are heaps more powerful than the "noob" equipment, where it becomes merely a very frustrating experience to play. But games that opt for this model rarely stay long.

Re:Oh, that amount will go higher soon!

[Opportunist]

Cheaters are by default terrible at a game. If they weren't, why bother cheating?

Cheating eliminates the satisfaction in a game, at least it does for me. It's a given that I win when I cheat. So winning is not satisfying. How could it be, you didn't accomplish jack. You're not better than the other guy, you just won because of a tool that gave you an unbeatable advantage.

OTOH, if you cheat and STILL lose... boy, that must hurt!

Blech

[Pojut]

I loved both Modern Warfare 1 and 2, don't get me wrong...but IMO the buzz surrounding them is way over the top. They were good games that broke some new ground in terms of intensity, but when you get down to it they were still shooting galleries wrapped up in a fancy package.

I think Ben Kuchera said it best at the end of a recent Ars article: "Modern Warfare 2 can be a fun game. The single-player is short, but intense. It's not a $1 billion game in our opinion, however, and the precedents set by its release and success aren't pointing towards good things for the industry. Of course, after selling all those games, why should Activision care?"

Re:Blech

[sopssa]

They were good games that broke some new ground in terms of intensity, but when you get down to it they were still shooting galleries wrapped up in a fancy package.

What, you thought they were going to save humanity or be the cure for cancer?

Re:Blech

[Shrike82]

I think Ben Kuchera said it best at the end of a recent Ars article

You mean the one in the summary? The actual FA? You've taken not RTFA or summary to new heights my friend...

Re:Blech

[Pojut]

No, but I expect a game that nets $1 Billion to do at least something that has never been done before. Something.

When a first person shooter that brings nothing new to the table sells 4.7 Million copies on its first day, yet a game like Muramasa: The Demon Blade sells under 200,000 copies over the course of 3-4 months, there is something seriously wrong with the culture.

Re:Blech

[Pojut]

...wow. Egg on my face.

No exaggeration or sarcasm. That really is embarrassing, lol -_-;;

Re:Blech

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anybody want to play that Demon Blade game? Looks like a typical side scrolling action game. We've had those for 20 years. What exactly is it doing that is new?

Oh, I see, you're the Indie Movie Snobs cousin, Indie Game Snob.

Re:Marketing budget dev budget

[dissolved]

The ratio of development:marketing is not how you measure how "good" something is.

Seems like they were determined to hate it...

[dissolved]

From reading the article it just seems like the author(s) were determined to find fault in it, no matter how good the game is. I got MW2 in December, it's a good game and I don't care if they think the reviewers were "shoved around". I played it myself and enjoyed it, there's my "review", I don't need a website with an agenda to tell me how to spend my money and what to play online.

This proves it

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit tastes great. 10 billion flies cannot be wrong.

I doubt it's that great

[Stormwatch]

I haven't played MW2, but found the first MW, contrary to the hype, to be a rather weak, terribly linear, and ridiculously short game with just a few great moments. So I can't believe the hype for the sequel unless I hear it's completely different. But in fact I heard it's ridiculously short again, so, no thanks.

when we read there were

[nimbius]

no dedicated servers, it should be noted this product launched during an unprecedented economic recession. for this to go past the 1bn mark is nothing short of astounding.

I think at the time, given the climate and what the management knew, they made a conservative decision that none of us should blame them for. restricting dedicated servers is just belt-tightening, and it never implied the servers were a foregone conclusion.

Re:when we read there were

[coolsnowmen]

So, with all their extra cash, think they could put a dedicated server or two in?

sad

[Anonymous Coward]

That a game glorifying combat is so overwhelmingly successful. It's as if America's youth is voting for war, violence and aggression.

despite how the game was or what it earned...

[DragonTHC]

It was never about money for me. I had the money to buy it if I chose.

It was about what we lost in the process. This precedent allows the publisher to charge $59.99 for every game the publish in the future.

It also allows them to ignore customer complaints like they were selling a commodity.

We lost ground. If you don't think you're a part of that we, you're so sadly mistaken. You're a part whether you like it or not.

Our platform was traditionally the only one which allowed full control of the game. That is no more. There will be no further innovation by the community.

Since our gaming platform has been overwhelmed by the casual, uninformed player, we lose more and more ground. The PC used to be the game proving ground, now we get leftovers if we're lucky. We must settle for console ports a year after release.

So fuck you all! I hope your nintendo thumbs cramp up and provide you with intense unending pain!

Re:despite how the game was or what it earned...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

That's because if I'm going to spend endless hours tweaking registry settings, and modifying INI files i might as well get my MCSE and get paid for it and do something productive with my day.

If I want to throw down in some Street Fighter IV, I can either pop in my disc into my PS3 or futz and hope my PC isn't having issues.

Re:despite how the game was or what it earned...

[Anonymous Coward]

The PC is no longer the main target, piracy ruined that. PC gamers will always get a port of anything non-exclusive. It's unfortunate but that's reality.

Re:despite how the game was or what it earned...

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed!

Fuck all you Densan mofo's! - Oh and enjoy the REAL wars making your Kleptocratic Rulers more and more wealthy every day on your dime!!

And Never Forget - We Have Always Been at War with Eastasia!

F-Tards Über Alles!

Re:despite how the game was or what it earned...

[brkello]

Just because you are retarded with a PC doesn't mean we should all suffer from the locking down of games. This isn't a PC vs. console debate. This is the destruction of what has always been good about games on the PC. I have consoles too. I like to sit down and play a game as well. But I also play games on the PC where I want dedicated servers and the ability for the community to make mods. So stop being so defensive of your platform of choice, this isn't about that so grow up. This is about losing something that was good for the consumer.

Re:despite how the game was or what it earned...

[brkello]

Not true. There still will be games that are target for the PC first. If Blizzard and the Civ series start porting from consoles, then we truly will be doomed.

I like it

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Who gives a crap what anyone else thinks...

I play it on the ps3 though, and while I really want to scream cheater at some of those 12 to 15 years old bragging about killing everyone, as far as I know, there are no real widespread cheats for the console...

The difference I guess is at the end of a game.. where I just got my ass handed to me, I am a gracious loser, but I love to point out to the winners that while I did lose, I accept the fact and move on, they are however douchebag winners...

Although I have been getting better lately, with some of the perks.. and a tactical knife.. I annoy the crap out them :)

And nothing of value was lost.

[TOGSolid]

I really doubt most people would care in all honesty. That'd be along the lines of someone coming in an saying "Oh yea, well no more moldy cake for you!"

It's kinda sad at how few gamers actually have the ability to uphold a boycott. I still, to this day, have not played MW2. You bet your ass I put a +1 on the piracy counter and then promptly deleted it though.

Noob Tubes FTL.

[Anonymous Coward]

the single biggest complaint I have with this game is the noob tubers. Every game type would be fun to play if they were not in the game. Until you can join PUBLIC games (screw private matches) and not worry about this, the game is junk.

No dedicated servers = no way to build a community

[sgtrock]

I used to run a series of game servers as a hobby back when I had a lot more free time to play. (Read: before kids. :) )

I still have a handful of L4D servers up, although I've seriously considered taking them down since my friends have largely moved on to L4D2. For me, the most enjoyable part of running those servers was being able to build up a community. We had a few really top notch players and a bunch of really good ones as regulars. I was pretty free about passing out kick/ban privileges to players who showed themselves to be capable of good judgment. That in turn led to full servers nearly 24/7 and a very active offline group, too. It was incredible fun.

Now EA, Activision, and the like (even Valve with L4D and L4D2!) have decided to make moves that eliminate any ability to do something similar. It is much, MUCH tougher to establish such a community than it has been in the past.

My kids are finally getting to the point that I can start thinking about getting back into some of my old hobbies. I would LOVE to run a gameserver or six and start building up a community again. When I look around at my options, what do I see? CounterStrike is still by far the most popular FPS out there. The top 20 are dominated by HL and HL2 engines with a sprinkling of older Unreal and Quake options. It's beginning to look as though by the time I'm ready to do this in 3 to 5 years, I'll still have the same choices because the big game vendors are doing their damnedest to eliminate independent player communities. That's a HUGE shame. :(

Backlash

[Piata]

I expect there to be a large backlash with this game. Everyone I know that got it, didn't like it. Especially the PC players. The next Modern Warfare game will likely do half the numbers of this one, if not less.

Re:Backlash

[KDR_11k]

I don't think you're alone, there was a massive drop in the value of Activision stock shortly after MW2 came out, most likely people cashing out while Activision is at the apex of its flight.

Stop pretending your platform is superior.

[sonic_assault]

95% of the criticism I've heard about this game comes from, drum-roll please... PC Gamers I've logged nearly 130 hours of MW2 on PS3 and 50 on XBox 360 since it came out (Obviously I don't have a girlfriend).I've never had any problems with aimbots. Maybe one out of a hundred matches have had a connection problem, which which was rectified by moving the host. I've encountered only five or six games in which glitching was actually an issue. I've never had any confusion or problems getting together with friends due to the centralized server. The game play is great and the levels are amazingly well thought out. Stop blaming the game. The fact is that for all the graphic superiority and mouse/keyboard functionality, the PC has it's own flaws that degrade the game to the point where you aren't satisfied by it. Also, do you really think that having private servers would help? Or have private servers been putting a pretty enough band-aid on the PC gaming experience that people haven't noticed it's not quite what it's cracked up to be?

Re:Stop pretending your platform is superior.

[bleh-of-the-huns]

You might not have issues, but I most definitely do. The host based gaming sucks, I get dropped all the time, I get host migration errors constantly... about every 3 or 4 games, and if the host player decides to leave mid game, I usually end up getting punted completely.

The issue of course if how my network is setup, standard NAT, nothing special. Their solution of enabling pnp on my router is a joke. Since my router is actually an openbsd box running pf, there really is no solution. Yes I opened up a bunch of ports and setup port forwarding (there is no way in hell I am going to do static nating for my ps3 which is another one of their solutions.

They need to resolve the issues, I do enjoy the game, but its hard to play with a good group of random people when I occasionally come across them for more then a few games before I have to join the match making queue again.

Re:Stop pretending your platform is superior.

[PaganRitual]

I presume the "Informative" bit of this post's karma is that we are now suitably informed that you know nothing of PC gaming, and that you're one of those horribly painful people who will claim that there can't possibly be a problem for anyone because you personally haven't experienced it. That's fantastic, thanks for posting.

PC did multiplayer first, it did it better and, when not getting hand me down console port versions of games and their multiplayer structure, still does it best. Complete control is in the hands of the gamers, and because we're not one-button-online-play requiring retards and in posession of the intelligence and attention-span required to create and administer our own servers, it was great and provided the flexibility to not only simply play the games but to create new experiences out of the base game. Now the console kiddies come along with their only experience of multiplayer being Multiplayer->Find Server->Join, to whom a 'mod' is sticking Gears of War faceplate on their 360, and in their limited view of the world think that this is how it's always been done, and dribble the type of bullshit above about how people who they don't understand don't know what their talking about and how things they've probably never experienced are crap.

You have truly blessed us with your insight, kind sir, and I thank you for taking out the time to do so.

The fact is that for all the graphic superiority and mouse/keyboard functionality, the PC has it's own flaws that degrade the game to the point where you aren't satisfied by it. Also, do you really think that having private servers would help? Or have private servers been putting a pretty enough band-aid on the PC gaming experience that people haven't noticed it's not quite what it's cracked up to be?

Clueless. Truly clueless. What flaws are you talking about anyway? I wanted to just quote that line out of context but even context here it makes no sense as you haven't actually prefaced or cited it with anything that would make sense.

Re:Stop pretending your platform is superior.

[Turiko]

Actually, PC gaming is superior for as long as the xbox/ps3 system isn't put onto it. If you play a decent COD4 server, you'll find that any hackers, cheaters, etc. will be handled with very fast.

Compare that to MW2, and because of the system (which is broken by design on any open gaming system), the game is a lot less enjoyable.

Also, i don't know where you read it, but i haven't seen anyone blaming the game for these issues - only IW and their server system. I also saw a few people saying MW2 hardly adds onto COD4, but still, that has nothing to do with the PC gaming experience.

Re:Stop pretending your platform is superior.

[brkello]

Get over your dumb PC vs. console debate. This has nothing to do with it. When you are on a console, you are locked down and that's fine with you. But on the PC, you expect there to be dedicated servers to build a community and remove annoying people and hacks. You expect the ability for others or yourself to create mods. You don't have those expectations on a console. IW is taking away something that has always been good on the PC. And they have been successful while doing it so that more companies may follow their lead and destroy the main reasons (other than kb + m) that makes PC gaming more compelling.

In the news of the DUH today

[Anonymous Coward]

Horribly mediocre me-too FPS made for casual gamers who dream of shooting TERRISTS sells tons of copies to idiots.

Who knew?

Gaming is dead. Modern gaming is a goddamn mess of endless clones of the same fucking FPS games, garbage "RPGs" that are really god-awful soap operas, bad 3d games with horrible controls and camera, and even games that are supposed to be a return to simpler days (NSMBWii) have fucked up the controls so badly as to be unplayable to anyone that REALLY played the old games (there is a VERY noticeable delay in jumping, for example).

The sad thing is that so-called "gamers" these days are still feeding the industry shit-tons of money because they don't know any better. Take some time away from these garbage new games and play some classics, people. You'll see.

Anybody try those xfps 360s? (keyboard for 360)

[zero0ne]

Has anybody tried THIS for the 360 and MW2 yet?

I feel like I have run into a few people using these based on the way the cursor moved, and they look AMAZING.

I feel that it would be cheating though

Re:Anybody try those xfps 360s? (keyboard for 360)

[zero0ne]

FYI:

This is better.
(though XIM 2.0 requires a PC still; XIM 3.0 wont once it gets released)

Re:Marketing budget dev budget

[mog007]

That's not exactly uncommon in the entertainment industry. Most of the time a movie isn't considered to "break even" until it's gotten double the cost of production, which implies that the marketing budget is given the same size as the production budget.

Dedicated Issue is secondary

[sleeponthemic]

Whilst your results may vary, I see a lot and I mean a lot of brash cheaters using aimbots (ie, killing 4 people in completely different parts of their view in the killcam of your death) and the main issue for me is that we have not at least given an option to kick the cheaters. In my experience, the cheaters often hang around. Why? Because as steam have said, they are not interested in your videos of people cheating, they will detect them (or will not).

The lobby is often unreliable and is a problem, but really, adding in the capacity to kick a cheater through high majority vote will drastically decrease the more game breaking issue - cheating in the first place.

There are a lot of people who probably play and don't see brash cheaters, leading them to think that people are just complaining. If you see a person's target warp around and kill 4 people in a heartbeat, that's brash cheating, not a good player taking you down.

World at War

[JimboFBX]

I've been addicted to World at War on my xbox 360, I've had it since last xmas and just now got around to playing it online without having someone invite me to play it. I rented MW2 and beat it and didn't see much point in buying it since WoW is basically the same thing except it has the element of having tanks and anti-tank battles, more bolt action rifles, and doesn't that have stupid heartbeat sensor (the aim assist blows though... finally turned it off since it was more detrimental than good). Haven't seen a cheater either ever since they fixed the falling through the floor issue (or maybe nobody left playing knows about it?). The single player is actually kind of long too, at least in comparison to MW2. I still haven't beaten it after about 7 or 8 hours, and no stupid spots where literally I'm surrounded on 8 sides by people.

And all the cool real guns in MW2 are in counterstrike. That game is still fun, amazingly.

What?

[AP31R0N]

"Dedicated Servers What?"

Complete sentence? Question not ask anything? English, you speak it?