530°

5 Things MW3 Did Wrong

Resounding success has become irrevocably native to the Call of Duty series, with it we see each game in the franchise tipped for game of the year, days after their release. This year is just like any other, where the latest game in the series, Modern Warfare 3, has already cemented itself in the record books; as in the first week alone it has reportedly sold over 20 million units already- six and a half million of which were sold on the first day.

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fraggednation.com
xxxAnubisxxx5267d ago

The spawning has never really bothered me... I think they did a really good job with it. If anything, I'd complain about the maps being too circular... I'm always getting shot in the back

StanLee5267d ago (Edited 5267d ago )

The biggest problem with Modern Warfare 3 is that it feels like a step back from Black Ops. Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer games state that it's a sequel to Modern Warfare 2 but to fans, it's the game that follows Black Ops. Black Ops made improvements to the Call of Duty formula that had made the gameplay better and they've simply been ignored and omitted in Modern Warfare 3. The entire package feels lazy.

Berserk5267d ago

I couldn't agree more about the annoying maps, worst ones in the Cod series. And don't get me started about the Quick scoping. How the hell can a sniper defeat a shotgun 1vs1 when its close combat!!!
Still my King of multiplayer games.

Vlaitor5266d ago

@Berserk
I have to disagree with you, nothing personal but quick-scoping as been defined since the first Call of Duty. It's been here and there since and Black Ops removed it to put a more "easy friendly game" without really taking the problems out of the equations.

Hear me out please.

Call of duty 4 revived the COD2 community with all it's competitive and addictive multiplayer. When WAW came out some people bought it but we mainly stayed on COD4 due to the back to the past effect. People had enough of M1 Garand and Thompson at this point. Cod1 and 2 was milked and the community said no to this comeback. However, Quick Scoping was still there, and people weren't complaining about it.

Then came MW2, then the shit started happening... Single player was top of the notch but multiplayer took people by the hand with ridiculous perks and retarded over powerful Kill Streaks. It did manage to do extremely well with sales because it was an overall Great experience and I played it like hell, with some frustrations... Quick Scoping, still in effect.

After that is BO, another stretch of Treyarch to try to ditch out Activision best seller. What they did was absolutely ruthless. Last Stand up to 30 seconds, OP ballistic knives, Martyr Dom, Explosive Crossbow, OP killing Streak (I am looking at you Chopper Gunner) and removal of Quick Scoping. Sure I forgot some keys here but you got the point. By adding all of those elements player were sent into a really arcadish playstyle. Almost no competitive occurred and the community tried but failed at delivering an overall experience for the Veterans of the gendra. However, for the new commers and the MW2 lovers... It was a blast.

With MW3 we have some great comebacks but also some bad new features. I think it's stretch with the ideas of BO, defined by the features of MW2 with a gameplay of COD4.
-Quick Scoping is back for the skilled players
-Last stand and martyrdom ditched out (except death streak but that's not annoying at all)
-Shotguns have way more reach (thanks god)
-MAPS are a real mess, people shotting in the back of others all the time.
-Server list is back
-No more 10000 challenges complete after 3 kills.

I think we are going in the right direction with this one. Great design and Value for bucks. I hope MW3 will live long enough to stand it's root unlike BO and WAW.

Sorry for my poor English, have a nice one !

bozebo5266d ago

"I'm always getting shot in the back"

This ^ is why I have gone of CoD.

Give me MW1 or CoD 2 maps any day. And no, I don't want to pay for them again... lol

chriski3335266d ago

One huge problem is they didn't take time to make a new game they just recycled mw2 with the same problems

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DBLDeathDealer5267d ago

Yup, agreed with the layouts of the maps. I do think the spawn points are part of that problem though. No questions asked.

arnyftw5267d ago

I didn't know of about the knifing in this game. Hmm I preferred Black Ops. No quick scoping, you can only knife at point blank range and stuff like that. The knifing was glitched but atleast it wasn't commando.

gamingdroid5267d ago

I would like to see the videos of these issues.

Pikajew5267d ago

1. Release and overshadowing so much better games.

DaveM5267d ago

I totally agree, they always dominate the 4th quarter, so much so that other games are left to gather the scraps. One of my previous articles talked about this...

OC_MurphysLaw5267d ago

I would argue that this year that is not the case. Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Batman Arkham City, and BF3 all have put up big numbers for their first weeks sales. Zelda I am sure won't be affected...

Smaller games like the Need for Speed game, Assassins Creed R or Saints Row the 3rd will have decent numbers just not great numbers and to be fair their metacritic scores show they don't deserve blockbuster numbers.

SockMaster5267d ago

Poor Netcode and hit-detection, dying when you round well around the wall, it makes me rage so much!

DaveM5267d ago

I was really tempted to put this in instead of head glitches, but I knew I'd get the "your connection is crap" excuses. When really the latency issues on the game are a joke.

Klaykid1235267d ago

Fully agree. PS3 version is awful. Unbearable lag and fps drops (Can't tell which!) and I have FIOS with a 4 bar connection on EVERY game. There is a 4 second lag on every game I play!

ian725266d ago (Edited 5266d ago )

I agree with very bad lag in MW3, Its worse than all the other COD's. Blops, MW and MW2 have a lot less lag than MW3. Thats the main thing wrong for me. It is the game not my connection (20mb/s fibre optic), as every other COD is not half as bad as this. Needs patching. (PS3 version)

bozebo5266d ago (Edited 5266d ago )

I noticed that CoD4 had the best hit detection (didn't play the earlier ones enough online to comment, but they were probably fine too).

Played it a lot on 360 and on PC.

The strange thing is, even with dedis Blops had crap reg on PC whereas there was a visible improvement with the reg between P2P and dedis with CoD4 that I played a lot (about 30 days in-game time :O).

MW2 had "OK" reg on PC, which was P2P. But I would say it was worse than CoD4 was on 360.

It's interesting. These days the 2 games with the best hit detection (on PC anyway) are CS:S since they fixed some issues recently, and CoD4 still. BF3, BC2, Crysis 2, new CoDs etc. have totally dire hit detection.

Halo always had very nice hit detection because it is client side (it would be nearly impossible to land a plasma grenade otherwise lol) which works well for non-twitch shooters. I think BF3's hit detection is client side too on all platforms, but it will ignore your actions if you have died before the server knows about them (even though you did something while still alive on your side) - this is more unfair than the usual server-side hit detection methods that most games use because you die so fast, unlike Halo where it works well.

Anyway... I don't think it's latency that is the problem - but animation and interpolation (and/or extrapolation). There was always a huge latency in the killcam since CoD4. There is no way they can program that out of the game without breaking the laws of physics.

Where players are shown on your screen is not where the network data entering your console says they are, it has to make predictions. Then when you shoot, the server has to make other calculations to assess what you did and what all possible targets did before doing the raytrace that decides the outcome of the individual bullet. And there is also no way to synchronise animation properly, so the hitboxes will always feel wrong. Also, the resolution of network updates is extremely important. For an example, CS:S updates 66 or 100 times every second (they removed support for 100 for some reason recently :S). I will bet that MW3 only updates 10 times a second, which is pathetic for a FPS (but it has to to fit under the XBL bandwidth quota when somebody is hosting the game, otherwise they may not use the XBL service. The only game that goes over the BW quota is Halo when in forge or theatre multiplayer because they are not critical multiplayer gameplay areas). Unfortunately, that is because of MS's specs from original XBL that have not been updated since - even though most people have vastly better internet now that could support better P2P communications.

Also I noticed that the technical quality of the newer maps since MW2 are horrible (they are very badly optimised) and will be adding massive amounts of extra CPU and GPU load. The devs clearly have no idea how to correctly make a multiplayer map. The simple fact that you can collide with individual steps and bounce off them is one example, the correct way to make player collision for stairs is to use a ramp like most (well made) games do. That means there are only 2 polygons (or one quad) to raytrace for physics interaction rather than hundreds, or thousands. I wouldn't be surprised if the general technical map quality is causing unpredictable performance issues (ie, Artists make the maps, not the technically aware developers - they probably work for respawn now).

It takes a huge amount of work to tweak the hit detection so it feels right, and with the guaranteed massive sales either way it makes sense that they wouldn't bother - they just assume that the old code that IW made in 2007 will work well enough with the new game. And if it doesn't; they still get their paycheck.

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30°

Activision may be working on a secret Call of Duty game, and Warzone Mobile could be the key

A new Call of Duty game that isn't Modern Warfare 4 may be coming, and the surprise re-emergence of Warzone Mobile could be crucial to it.

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pockettactics.com
240°

Microsoft Reportedly Sacrificed $300 Million in Sales With Call of Duty on Game Pass

Microsoft reportedly lost over $300 million in Xbox and PC sales by putting Call of Duty on Game Pass, raising concerns over the subscription model’s long-term impact.

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twistedvoxel.com
maximusprime_194d ago

There are some reports that in March 2023, Microsoft told a court, "Game Pass prices will not increase as a result of the [Microsoft-Activision] Merger."
If true, massive hypocrite .

DaCajun194d ago

If this one franchise is the reason for the game pass price increases, then just leave it off game pass and not make people who don't play COD foot the bill for a game they will never play, like me.

Talk about stupid business decisions.

S2Killinit194d ago

Honestly fuck em dude, they are constantly trying to monopolize the industry instead of just competing.

jeromeface194d ago

MS is full of them.. want another one? wait a couple weeks.

Elda194d ago

Exactly. Keep putting their regular games on GPU day one but big budget games that are very popular like COD should not release on GPU day one, maybe 9 months or a year later once they profit from sales.

RauLeCreuset194d ago (Edited 194d ago )

I don't know if this is a stupid decision. Hear me out. I saw someone comment that it was time to cancel GP and MS would do a 180 like usual. It may be too late this time. It's the history of those other 180s that gives me some doubts about them doing it again or this being a stupid decision versus a cold calculation.

Despite never being the dominant brand, Xbox has at various times tried to push wildly unpopular changes on their customers when they thought they were in a position to get away with it. The 180s came because they overplayed their hand. Customers had options. They lost customers to PS because of the Xbox One launch plans. Anyone who moved to PS4 and stopped gaming on Xbox was a total loss for Xbox.

Customers still have options. The problem for GP subscribers is that most of those options are better for MS than continuing to offer GP as it was before and at the old pricing. Their fans cheered on their acquisitions. Some petitioned regulatory authorities to let the ABK merger happen. Congrats. They are now a dominant 3rd party publisher. Those other options gamers could threaten them with before now work to Xbox's favor.

Other than quitting their games entirely, which now includes ABK, Bethesda, and whatever else they gobbled up, what are upset GP subscribers going to do about it? You can suck it up and eat the price hike. They win. You can cancel GP and buy Xbox games instead. They come out ahead. You can switch to PS, Nintendo, or Steam. So? You'll be paying more for their games their than you were paying for GP, and are they really that committed to continuing to manufacture hardware (in the traditional sense) anyway?

Edit: Making matters worse is that this is likely being driven by pressure from MS, which has increased scrutiny of Xbox since the ABK acquisition.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 194d ago
rakentaja194d ago (Edited 194d ago )

The price would have increased anyway, which was already planned, with or without COD. They didn't lie about anything. You just misunderstood the answer.

PhillyDonJawn194d ago

Yeah they can take CoD off a lower GP. Id take that in a heartbeat.

1Victor194d ago (Edited 194d ago )

@maximusprime:” There are some reports that in March 2023, Microsoft told a court, "Game Pass prices will not increase as a result of the [Microsoft-Activision] Merger."
If true, massive hypocrite .“
.
.
The problem is that you can buy a bakery and tell the community you won’t raise the prices because of the purchase then turn around and raise the prices then say it’s because the ingredients prices when up and be technically telling the truth.
.
Unless the courts would had a agreement in paper that the prices wouldn’t go up for example 5 years there’s no way to enforce it
Edited for typos

Krablante194d ago

It’s worse than that, it’s flat out lying to the courts

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pwnmaster3000194d ago

If this is true, this might be a case of taking a big risk gone wrong.
Is that why they always say revenue and not profit??

My question is, even though they lost 300 million in sales, were they able to offset it.
We might never know.

DarXyde194d ago (Edited 194d ago )

I don't know about you all, but, while that is a lot of money, that's less than I would expect. The totality of game pass users on two platforms playing Call of Duty results in just 300M?

Am I crazy to say that feels like an unusually low amount of revenue?

ocelot07194d ago

It is but for pc gamepass only works on the Microsoft store. Majority of pc gamers don't use any other storefront other than steam. So they wouldn't of sold much on the Microsoft store anyways.

That leaves Xbox one and Xbox Series. $300m does seem low.

rudero194d ago

Well, being that Microsoft is the lowest out of the platforms that sell the game..
Buying Activision, in long term, made up the loss of game sales of said game. By a mile.
But, being cod is tanking as of right now, will be interesting to see if Microsoft can actually save a franchise rather than destroy it.

crazyCoconuts194d ago

They just raised the price of GamePass knowing they would piss off their customers.
You now know - they didn't offset it.

victorMaje194d ago

I’ve been saying for years, you just can’t trust MS period.
1 simple rule, don’t trust MS, act accordingly.

rakentaja194d ago

The price would have increased anyway, which was already planned, with or without COD. They didn't lie about anything. You just misunderstood the answer.

niiopi194d ago

Which is an even bigger reason as to why you can't trust them, they play with semantics instead of being honest and straight forward. Your comment doesnt help their case by putting the blame on the consumer for what and how they said what they said.

PapaBop194d ago

Good, I had hoped Microsoft would be better for Activision and Blizzard than Kotick running the show but that would be expecting Microsoft to be competent at managing studios.

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120°

Paramount Confirms Call Of Duty Movie News

After rumors the past week; Paramount has confirmed a deal for a Call of Duty movie.

Garethvk226d ago

Don't give them ideas..I dont need slow motion running and explosions. It would be like JJ Abrama and his lenses flare.

Christopher226d ago

Write generic soldiers doing military stuff movie, slap Call of Duty on it, voila! Totally worked for Until Dawn.

Garethvk226d ago

Someone speculated it could be an unused G.I. Joe script.

Christopher226d ago

That would be chef's kiss. The perfect fusion of dumb and dumb.

Garethvk226d ago (Edited 226d ago )

They should call DC for the abandoned Sgt. Rock script if they are going to be lazy. Issue is do they go WW2, Modern Warfare, Black Ops, etc.. They could do Ghosts, Advanced Warfare, or Infinite.. ot use my Idea; Civil Warfare..muskets that fire one shot and takes time to reload..bayonet charges, cannon volley reward streaks.

thesoftware730225d ago

Until Dawn was surprisingly a enjoyable movie. I won't shout from the rooftops about it, but it was a nice Friday night out with the wife surprise...very fun and neatly done movie.

Garethvk225d ago

What I saw of it while covering WonderCon looked interesting. They did not screen for the press so I will see it when it streams.

Christopher225d ago

Eh. It was mediocre. My problem with it, as it relates to this topic, is that it had absolutely nothing to do with the game. It was a 'trapped college people' horror movie with the game name slapped on it.

thesoftware730224d ago

@Christopher

**Spoiler**

Not to ruin it, but do you recall the end? they set it up for the next movie, strongly implying the next movie will be based on the game.

franwex225d ago

I recall reading a treatment for a call of duty film about ghost and was pretty impressed. I’m not sure if it was real or not. I haven’t been able to find it.

Garethvk225d ago

Hopefully it will be good. Paramount wants new franchises.

Profchaos225d ago

It's either going to be a generic ww2 movie or Nikki Minaj will fight through bevis and butthead to kill a drone leader

There is no inbetween

Garethvk225d ago

Skydance is in charge now so it could be closer to their work like Mission Impossible.

SoloGamer1225d ago

its gonna suck just like the games

Garethvk225d ago

Yet they sell really well and have legions of active players.

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