There was a news article on G4TV.com recently calling for the immediate monetization of the Call of Duty multiplayer game mode. They cite "a betrayal of shareholder trust" as the main cause of this call to action (I won't make that pun. No!) On a purely business level, which is really how Bobby Kotick and the analyst in question are looking at the situation, this is a no-brainer. Do it, make more millions (as if Activision Blizzard needed more money), and work on the next way to milk your fanbase. It is good sense to monetize something with as large and fanatical a userbase as Call of Duty, in any of its iterations. What Kotick and our analyst, one Michael Pachter, fail to understand is what that fanbase really is. They are, by and large, ages 12-21 (sometimes younger and older, but that's the average). The lion's share of this population not only relies on their parents for their systems and games, but also the money for absolutely everything else in their lives. With games now reaching what I think is the line where they increase in price again, to sixty five or even seventy dollars, is it wise to charge people to play a game when they can't even pay for their own lunch? I don't particularly think it is.
Now I'll grant you that the parenting in the Call of Duty community is less than stellar. *Soapbox time* The game is rated M, for users seventeen years of age and up. You can't walk in and show a brand new, just out of driver's school license and expect to walk out with Black Ops, or Reach, or any game with rating higher than T. Yet still the parents do it for their kids and let them interact with adults who have every right to be playing the game and saying what they wish how they wish. The children then begin to say these words and use the vernacular, not knowing its full meaning, and end up being lesser human beings because they think saying "Fuck" seventeen times makes them macho, and putting a swastika as their emblem is funny, when to millions upon millions of people it is a sign of the worst memories mankind can muster (We haven't forgotten the Holocaust, kiddies. Parts of Europe are still trying to come to grips with it, more than sixty years later).
*exhale* That being said, most of these kids and young adults, myself included, won't have the funds to pay whatever Kotick shoves at us on a consistent basis. And yes, I know that there would be plenty of kids who could sucker their parents into opening their pocket books yet again, but what I'm trying to get at here is principle. There is not a single first person shooter franchise with a multiplayer side that charges for the use of that service. Battlefield? No. Medal of Honor? No. Halo? No (Microsoft charges you. Not Bungie). Team Fortress 2? No. Counter Strike? No. Assassin's Creed? No. Red Dead Redemtion? No. You certainly can pay for certain parts of the game, the DLC, but you don't have to.
I titled this post "Take a tip from Gabe" for a reason, and I'm finally getting around to what I mean. As some of you may know, Team Fortress 2 was, for a long time, a game with items. You found these items through achievements and eventually through an item drop system (that was exploited and properly patched). Valve always fostered goodwill with its community through these patches, tweaking the game to balance it and make sure that nothing made the game unplayable for a large population. The humor inherent in the game and the fun nature of Valve's interaction with the community meant that, when they recently made certain items obtainable through purchase (and others usable only through purchase), there was a bit of a rumble, but not an explosion. The community was supportive of the new system, and especially those five people who made it work so well, the Polycount winners. Everyone cheered when they saw the items that won, and there was much congratulation, pats on the back and friend requests. Everyone felt that, in the long run, these people had earned every cent of the money they earned, and no one seemed to care that Valve probably takes a huge cut from every purchase made, giving I'd guess only 10-15% of the total profits to the creators. This is the tip Kotick needs to understand: goodwill between the creator of the game, its publisher and the community will fully allow you to charge for Call of Duty multiplayer. If you weren't a total jackass and actually tried to know who you were selling your games to, you'd understand that they want to be talked nice to. Everyone does. If you provide a stellar product, as Treyarch has (with Activision's support), and support it with everything you have over a consistent period of time (as Valve always has), you can make large changes with little fear of reprisal.
But, Mr. Kotick, you have not done this. You see only the dollar signs in the name Call of Duty, Bungie, Warcraft, Starcraft. You are a lucky man that the people in charge of these games love them. Even with this, however, putting in a fee for playing Call of Duty multiplayer will probably not ruin your company, but it will shake the industry like never before. You will lose what I'd say is a full half your Call of Duty player base, your stocks would stumble, and you would be faced with a choice you may not want to make (not to mention a possible fight with Microsoft over the money in multiplayer subscription). Take a tip from Gabe, Mr. Kotick. Become Bobby to those you sell games to. Know what their needs are, what their limits are, both within the game and in their pockets, and foster some goodwill. You'll do better in the long run.
Xiant
Showing posts with label Call of Duty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Call of Duty. Show all posts
Friday, December 10, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Battlefield Marketing: Why Vietnam is Timed Perfectly (Also, Valve!)
This came to me last night and I felt I had to post it before I forgot about it. As I've said, I watch a lot of YouTube, but not just Call of Duty. I play(ed) and watch Battlefield Bad Company 2 from commetators like DCRU Colin, StoneFaceLock, Swordsman75, jayekaiser, mistuhed and Benjisaur among the more prominent. In the past months prior to Black Ops's release, there were rumblings of discontent with the state of the Battlefield scene, and for good reason. EA DICE released almost no truly "new" content. They updated maps for different game modes, but the maps themselves never really changed. For the first two or so months of the game's lifetime, this was a complaint to be sure, but not a damning one. As things went on, though, it trotted closer and closer to that point of no return, when even the dedicated Battlefield players withdrew for what they considered greener pastures (Black Ops and, to a lesser extent, Halo).
What I think DICE was well aware of, even back in the March release of BC2, is that their game was not Call of Duty 4, the game that needed no infusion of new content to remain both relevant and prominent for two years and longer. This led them, or at least it led Electronic Arts, to the following strategy based on their knowledge of their game. They knew they had about six months worth of game life ahead of them if they did nothing, and seven or maybe eight if they released different map types but not new maps. Their calculations put the end of their game's relevancy right at the release of Black Ops and the huge rush that the game would surely (and did) bring. They knew also that Battlefield wouldn't die out entirely, but it would begin to fade. However, the second tier to their plan was the coming Vietnam expansion, placed about a month and a half after Black Ops release of November 9th.
The timing of this expansion, and the Map Pack 7, which actually brought new maps, is next to perfect, and ingenious regardless. By allowing the giant push and affair with Black Ops to fade and then shoving a boatload of new content at their faithful consumers, DICE extends the lifetime of Bad Company 2 until the release, or at least the Beta, of Battlefield 3. To encourage their followers to play even more, and this is perhaps the most effective marketing that isn't Team Fortress 2's constant update system and Portal 2's announcement. By asking their players to use 69 million support actions (heal, ammo box, repair, revive, spot) in order to receive a fifth map for Vietnam, they've assured a huge amount of time spent in other things in game. Vietnam has been rumored for several months without a release date, and now that it has a firm December 21st (18th on PC) release, you can bet the dedicated BC2 players will not only be helping their teammates a whole lot more (something that was certainly lacking in the games initial stage), but that Vietnam will get even more orders.
I put Valve in parentheses in the title for a reason: they already do this kind of thing, and the industry is only now catching on. TF2 released and was immediately patched quite a few times in the months following its hitting Steam. Valve has always been dedicated to making their games as playable as possible for as long as possible. But they didn't stop at just game tweaks. They did what more developers need to do, at least from a business standpoint: add new content at all times and take full advantage of their community's own map/content making ability. TF2 as a game on release wasn't really much. Few maps with only two or three game modes and nine classes when a fairly set playstyle, I would have placed a lifespan of around six months at the very most, even with constant game code tweaking and bug fixing. Valve, as usual, knew how to make their game continue thriving for three years and counting: class updates. Placed around four months apart, Valve had 36 months, or three years if they only updated the classes and added nothing else. They also added new maps, game modes, in-game systems to acquire class items (hats included), community maps becoming official, contests and more. This does not even take into the fact that they haven't yet finished the Meet the Team videos and remain coy on both what those clips will contain and which gender the Pyro is (we want to know, dammit!)
I'll end by saying what I've always said outside of this blog to my friends. The video game industry is reactionary to Valve. They innovate, and everyone else clammers to catch up, even Bungie. DICE and EA took the right rout with the release of BC2 Vietnam, and when Battlefield 3 comes out, I think there'll still be players trudging the rice paddies long into the future.
Xiant
What I think DICE was well aware of, even back in the March release of BC2, is that their game was not Call of Duty 4, the game that needed no infusion of new content to remain both relevant and prominent for two years and longer. This led them, or at least it led Electronic Arts, to the following strategy based on their knowledge of their game. They knew they had about six months worth of game life ahead of them if they did nothing, and seven or maybe eight if they released different map types but not new maps. Their calculations put the end of their game's relevancy right at the release of Black Ops and the huge rush that the game would surely (and did) bring. They knew also that Battlefield wouldn't die out entirely, but it would begin to fade. However, the second tier to their plan was the coming Vietnam expansion, placed about a month and a half after Black Ops release of November 9th.
The timing of this expansion, and the Map Pack 7, which actually brought new maps, is next to perfect, and ingenious regardless. By allowing the giant push and affair with Black Ops to fade and then shoving a boatload of new content at their faithful consumers, DICE extends the lifetime of Bad Company 2 until the release, or at least the Beta, of Battlefield 3. To encourage their followers to play even more, and this is perhaps the most effective marketing that isn't Team Fortress 2's constant update system and Portal 2's announcement. By asking their players to use 69 million support actions (heal, ammo box, repair, revive, spot) in order to receive a fifth map for Vietnam, they've assured a huge amount of time spent in other things in game. Vietnam has been rumored for several months without a release date, and now that it has a firm December 21st (18th on PC) release, you can bet the dedicated BC2 players will not only be helping their teammates a whole lot more (something that was certainly lacking in the games initial stage), but that Vietnam will get even more orders.
I put Valve in parentheses in the title for a reason: they already do this kind of thing, and the industry is only now catching on. TF2 released and was immediately patched quite a few times in the months following its hitting Steam. Valve has always been dedicated to making their games as playable as possible for as long as possible. But they didn't stop at just game tweaks. They did what more developers need to do, at least from a business standpoint: add new content at all times and take full advantage of their community's own map/content making ability. TF2 as a game on release wasn't really much. Few maps with only two or three game modes and nine classes when a fairly set playstyle, I would have placed a lifespan of around six months at the very most, even with constant game code tweaking and bug fixing. Valve, as usual, knew how to make their game continue thriving for three years and counting: class updates. Placed around four months apart, Valve had 36 months, or three years if they only updated the classes and added nothing else. They also added new maps, game modes, in-game systems to acquire class items (hats included), community maps becoming official, contests and more. This does not even take into the fact that they haven't yet finished the Meet the Team videos and remain coy on both what those clips will contain and which gender the Pyro is (we want to know, dammit!)
I'll end by saying what I've always said outside of this blog to my friends. The video game industry is reactionary to Valve. They innovate, and everyone else clammers to catch up, even Bungie. DICE and EA took the right rout with the release of BC2 Vietnam, and when Battlefield 3 comes out, I think there'll still be players trudging the rice paddies long into the future.
Xiant
Saturday, December 4, 2010
The Rage Factor
I watch a little too much YouTube, but one bastion of insight and, for me at least, solace and solitude, is the commentator SeaNanners. He's one of those people who seems to never be angry, though, like all of us, he is human, and anger is certainly an emotion he feels. I'm not subscribed, but when I came across the video Rage-Nanners, I had to watch it. The nice people, with calm, distanced personalities, who rarely get angry are, to me, far more frightening when they are angry that those who are upset more often than not. But enough about me and my thoughts on SeaNanners. I want to talk about rage in gaming, as he did.
I have my fair share of anger, but I find that I spend more time enjoying my experience than I do with a pit in my gut and a scowl on my face. What causes these rage sessions, though? It's a game. There's no attachment to reality, the people you play you'll likely never see again, never meet face to face, the objectives a useless means of spurring players to different play styles. The answer is a simple one, but before, I want to make an analogy. Games are like sports, and indeed are quickly becoming a sport unto themselves. You don't go to a sports game and not see at least one guy in the stands, and on the field, angry at something at some point. There is an inbred need to compete inside us and all thinking animals (indeed, all of evolution is essentially a game of who's better at what), and when we begin to fail at something, even a little bit, there is a frustration that builds. It's a subtle thing, really. When we have an expectation of ourselves, as everyone does with enough experience in something, and we thusly do not meet that expectation (perceived or real), we feel that we've cheated ourselves. Why, we ask, can't I hit that guy/catch that ball/ find that flag/get that grade? What is it I'm doing that makes me unable to achieve my goal?
I think it's these questions that are the real cause of the anger we feel. From my own experience, I put this forward. With Black Ops being my first Call of Duty game, I had no expectations of myself. I knew I'd suck, and I knew I'd suck with impunity. I was completely fine with it. My good games were those where I had K/D over 1, or even right at 1. The whole experience was new, there was nothing there that made me want to know what it was I'd done wrong, or even I was doing anything right. I chalked up a lot of my kills to luck of the draw or the stupidity of both me and my opponent (and that I managed to be just a touch less stupid). As with most things, with time came skill and, by extension, expectation. I began to see where my limits lay, what I could and couldn't do, and, like a typical human, I wanted to push those limits. The anger came when I couldn't own up to even the most basic of the limitations, false limitations, really, that I'd set for myself. My K/D, in my mind, should always, always, be around 1.5. I can generally get two kills before dying, because I know what players are doing, how they move and where they plan to go based on my time in game. It is when that knowledge either fails, situations present themselves that block my ability to reach my goals or my team is outright shit that I begin to get truly angry. The questions come, and they come in waves. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why? I ask myself with no clear answers because there are none, because the situation I've found myself in lends itself to an unexplainable deluge of failure, and because my rage-clouded mind can't process more than the sum of my anger. It doesn't help, of course, that like SeaNanners, I am very much a perfectionist, whose expectations of himself and his attitude towards himself are far higher, and far worse, than some others.
In the end, though, it remains a game, and if you fight through the frustration, you can have a good game. If that's not your game, put down the controller and have fun in the sun, surf, snow or rain (or some combination thereof). I know I need to do that more.
Xiant
I have my fair share of anger, but I find that I spend more time enjoying my experience than I do with a pit in my gut and a scowl on my face. What causes these rage sessions, though? It's a game. There's no attachment to reality, the people you play you'll likely never see again, never meet face to face, the objectives a useless means of spurring players to different play styles. The answer is a simple one, but before, I want to make an analogy. Games are like sports, and indeed are quickly becoming a sport unto themselves. You don't go to a sports game and not see at least one guy in the stands, and on the field, angry at something at some point. There is an inbred need to compete inside us and all thinking animals (indeed, all of evolution is essentially a game of who's better at what), and when we begin to fail at something, even a little bit, there is a frustration that builds. It's a subtle thing, really. When we have an expectation of ourselves, as everyone does with enough experience in something, and we thusly do not meet that expectation (perceived or real), we feel that we've cheated ourselves. Why, we ask, can't I hit that guy/catch that ball/ find that flag/get that grade? What is it I'm doing that makes me unable to achieve my goal?
I think it's these questions that are the real cause of the anger we feel. From my own experience, I put this forward. With Black Ops being my first Call of Duty game, I had no expectations of myself. I knew I'd suck, and I knew I'd suck with impunity. I was completely fine with it. My good games were those where I had K/D over 1, or even right at 1. The whole experience was new, there was nothing there that made me want to know what it was I'd done wrong, or even I was doing anything right. I chalked up a lot of my kills to luck of the draw or the stupidity of both me and my opponent (and that I managed to be just a touch less stupid). As with most things, with time came skill and, by extension, expectation. I began to see where my limits lay, what I could and couldn't do, and, like a typical human, I wanted to push those limits. The anger came when I couldn't own up to even the most basic of the limitations, false limitations, really, that I'd set for myself. My K/D, in my mind, should always, always, be around 1.5. I can generally get two kills before dying, because I know what players are doing, how they move and where they plan to go based on my time in game. It is when that knowledge either fails, situations present themselves that block my ability to reach my goals or my team is outright shit that I begin to get truly angry. The questions come, and they come in waves. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why? I ask myself with no clear answers because there are none, because the situation I've found myself in lends itself to an unexplainable deluge of failure, and because my rage-clouded mind can't process more than the sum of my anger. It doesn't help, of course, that like SeaNanners, I am very much a perfectionist, whose expectations of himself and his attitude towards himself are far higher, and far worse, than some others.
In the end, though, it remains a game, and if you fight through the frustration, you can have a good game. If that's not your game, put down the controller and have fun in the sun, surf, snow or rain (or some combination thereof). I know I need to do that more.
Xiant
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Longer Delay (Much) and News
This blog let me down, not by any fault of yours, but of my own ambitions. I'd read all the things saying, "You need to stick to it, through the hard and the easy. When it gets good, you'll understand why you worked so hard for so little." Like a typical human, not just an arrogant bastard, I believed them and promptly forgot. I started getting a few who thought what I had to say was interesting, and that rekindled my fires, but then I started posting less and less. It got to a point where I'd reached what was, for me, a cap in viewership, and something inside just wouldn't let me justify continuing. So I let this thing sit idle for full on four months. It was not until tonight, sitting in my editing class and talking about the future (what a thing to do, right?) that something inside me wanted to return, start up the engines again, and get somewhere. And so I write this. What's to talk about, now that I've explained (uselessly) my absence? Well, Halo Reach came out, Medal of Honor all but fell flat, and Call of Duty: Black Ops ensnared the highest preorder stats in GameStop history and got millions (several of them, myself included) playing for inordinate hours. In retrospect, getting that XBOX 360 Slim for Reach was a great idea. I'd never have found out I'm a rusher who enjoys getting in the face of his enemies. In sum, I'm a CoD guy. Halo's too slow, and Battlefield is too sluggish (there's a subtle difference there, but I won't go into that).
So, Black Ops. I'm not going too deep right now, nor will I in the future, just to say that 1) it's my first CoD game, 2) the weapons, for the most part, don't have an overall dominate member (save the G11, perhaps) and 3) Domination is the best game type in the whole game.
I'll put this into perspective using the only other game I've put a lot of effort and time in: TF2 (yes, I'm returning to that too). I've played every game type in TF2, save Arena, because I don't like not getting back in the action, and I can say Payload is the best. The map design, both from Valve and the community, is not at the par of Capture point, but the concept of payload as a game mode is the best one. To qualify, with Payload, more than most CP maps, and similarly in Domination, you know, immediately, exactly where your enemies are. On Payload, your HUD says X players on the cart, and vocal queues tell you to get to it. With Domination, you have a flashing flag and a vocal queue. Those are guaranteed kills if you can get the drop on your hapless foe. While it can certainly become a deathmatch and constant rush for flags, by and large there's one team who takes it to the other team and just keeps hammering. Objective game modes are, I think, my excuse to not play deathmatch modes because I'm not confident enough. There's something to that, and I understand that about myself. My gun skills aren't to par for sheer gun on gun combat, and my mind doesn't work fast enough, most of the time, that I don't need some indicator of where exactly I should be going to get my killstreaks. If I played more, I'm sure that'd change some. The larger reason, or at least so I tell myself, is that I can never find one single bloody person to kill in TDM. I run to where the action is, and I'm a second too late. Ten kills later on the board and I'm still freaking looking for my second kill. If anything, I like some kind of assurance that someone will be somewhere at some point and that I have some chance of killing them. In TDM, for me at least, I'm always exactly where that is not, and if by some chance I happen to be, some situation with contrive to get me out of that groove. IT's usually an RC car.
Let me be clear, however. My most played game mode in Reach was Team Slayer, so my gun skills aren't bad enough that I must stick to objective game modes. I play games to enjoy myself, and I do not enjoy my time in TDM like I do in Domination. And let me be clear that I've gotten several Chopper Gunners and enough kills for Gunship and Dogs (though I don't really ever equip them. That'll change) Hell, I've rushed spawns at gotten upwards of fifteen kills, topped the leaderboard in captures and defenses and had K/D over 5. I can turn on Beast Mode when something inside me really wants to. But I remain the average, above at times, gamer.
That's all for now. I've got other writing to do, and a begging session with That VideoGame Blog
So, Black Ops. I'm not going too deep right now, nor will I in the future, just to say that 1) it's my first CoD game, 2) the weapons, for the most part, don't have an overall dominate member (save the G11, perhaps) and 3) Domination is the best game type in the whole game.
I'll put this into perspective using the only other game I've put a lot of effort and time in: TF2 (yes, I'm returning to that too). I've played every game type in TF2, save Arena, because I don't like not getting back in the action, and I can say Payload is the best. The map design, both from Valve and the community, is not at the par of Capture point, but the concept of payload as a game mode is the best one. To qualify, with Payload, more than most CP maps, and similarly in Domination, you know, immediately, exactly where your enemies are. On Payload, your HUD says X players on the cart, and vocal queues tell you to get to it. With Domination, you have a flashing flag and a vocal queue. Those are guaranteed kills if you can get the drop on your hapless foe. While it can certainly become a deathmatch and constant rush for flags, by and large there's one team who takes it to the other team and just keeps hammering. Objective game modes are, I think, my excuse to not play deathmatch modes because I'm not confident enough. There's something to that, and I understand that about myself. My gun skills aren't to par for sheer gun on gun combat, and my mind doesn't work fast enough, most of the time, that I don't need some indicator of where exactly I should be going to get my killstreaks. If I played more, I'm sure that'd change some. The larger reason, or at least so I tell myself, is that I can never find one single bloody person to kill in TDM. I run to where the action is, and I'm a second too late. Ten kills later on the board and I'm still freaking looking for my second kill. If anything, I like some kind of assurance that someone will be somewhere at some point and that I have some chance of killing them. In TDM, for me at least, I'm always exactly where that is not, and if by some chance I happen to be, some situation with contrive to get me out of that groove. IT's usually an RC car.
Let me be clear, however. My most played game mode in Reach was Team Slayer, so my gun skills aren't bad enough that I must stick to objective game modes. I play games to enjoy myself, and I do not enjoy my time in TDM like I do in Domination. And let me be clear that I've gotten several Chopper Gunners and enough kills for Gunship and Dogs (though I don't really ever equip them. That'll change) Hell, I've rushed spawns at gotten upwards of fifteen kills, topped the leaderboard in captures and defenses and had K/D over 5. I can turn on Beast Mode when something inside me really wants to. But I remain the average, above at times, gamer.
That's all for now. I've got other writing to do, and a begging session with That VideoGame Blog
Monday, August 9, 2010
A little of Me and Training in FPS Games
Yesterday I said I'd talk a little about my gaming habits and the little side business I started. I plan to make good on that promise. First, let me clear the air by saying that, yes, video games were the first games I ever played, but my introduction into pen and paper games was all but a foregone conclusion by 1997 when Final Fantasy VII came out and I, on a lark, rented it and loved it. I collected every game since (though I never played XII. Too much changed) and I haven't looked back on that. Fifth grade I started playing social RPG's and all through high school I continued. By college GenCon became my only outlet, and I think I can sneak in a change to that pattern here in the near future. I also dabbled in CCG's or collectible card games, namely Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh (blame the horrid anime, I suppose). Though nothing ever came of it and I've played all of one unofficial and one official game of Yu-Gi-Oh and MtG respectively, I amassed quite a collection of cards. Due to my quickly fading interest in card games entirely, I thought I might make a little extra cash selling them on eBay, at this fine location. The stock is currently very small, but I have a booster box in the mail and a plan in my head to increase and diversify stock on a grand scale here shortly.
Regardless, that isn't the main point of tonight's blog. Instead, I want to talk about training in FPS games. When you play these virtual soldiers, in Call of Duty, Battlefield and Medal of Honor, you use almost any weapon you want and your avatar knows the ins and outs of every one. For the record, this isn't realistic, but it's a game, right? Sure, let's go with that, but take into account the years of training that goes into each soldier on the battlefield. Then think about the special operations teams and the intensive molding and shaping they go through. Now think about Medal of Honor's advisers: Tier 1. These guys, according to the site (and I have no choice but to believe them, since I'm afraid of the guy with the epic beard and assault rifle), go through more training than even the best Spec Ops team. Their numbers fluctuate within a few hundred, with a classified exact number, and you wonder what they do that other soldiers do that others don't. Translating that into a game world seems almost like a moot point when you think about it, since soldiers in the big FPS brands already use every weapon they can pick up, every piece of equipment on the field and every vehicle they get their hands on. Everyone is Tier 1 in CoD4, MW2, Bad Company 2 and Halo. But that isn't true, because in the world of the game, it is a matter of simplicity and ease of use to have soldiers proficient with all weapons and equipment. This leads me to a point I noticed in the Medal of Honor of beta.
The weapon you choose is the one you stick with, and you cannot pick up enemy or ally weapons to use in place of your own. In an earlier post I said that DICE needed to implement this, but I retract that statement. Thinking about it again, I recall the Rifleman's Creed. In essence, the weapon you receive from your country is the one you stick with, through thick and thin, in the worst conditions, through repairs and cleanings, peace and war. Because both EA and DICE are going for the most realistic depiction of modern war in Medal of Honor, that they restrict which weapons everyone uses means they consider the training, time and emotional attachment that soldiers spend and accrue in their service. Think about a soldier on the battlefield watching his best friend die, then avenging him with the weapon he and the fallen knew back and forward, divided only by the set of hands holding it. Would the surviving Marine or Ranger or Seal or Tier 1 operative not wish to use that gun and only that gun in all mission to follow? I would think he would, in memory of his friend, and to show those who took his life what it means to feel the hot steel of vengeance.
And with that cheesy metaphor, I leave for another day.
Xiant
Regardless, that isn't the main point of tonight's blog. Instead, I want to talk about training in FPS games. When you play these virtual soldiers, in Call of Duty, Battlefield and Medal of Honor, you use almost any weapon you want and your avatar knows the ins and outs of every one. For the record, this isn't realistic, but it's a game, right? Sure, let's go with that, but take into account the years of training that goes into each soldier on the battlefield. Then think about the special operations teams and the intensive molding and shaping they go through. Now think about Medal of Honor's advisers: Tier 1. These guys, according to the site (and I have no choice but to believe them, since I'm afraid of the guy with the epic beard and assault rifle), go through more training than even the best Spec Ops team. Their numbers fluctuate within a few hundred, with a classified exact number, and you wonder what they do that other soldiers do that others don't. Translating that into a game world seems almost like a moot point when you think about it, since soldiers in the big FPS brands already use every weapon they can pick up, every piece of equipment on the field and every vehicle they get their hands on. Everyone is Tier 1 in CoD4, MW2, Bad Company 2 and Halo. But that isn't true, because in the world of the game, it is a matter of simplicity and ease of use to have soldiers proficient with all weapons and equipment. This leads me to a point I noticed in the Medal of Honor of beta.
The weapon you choose is the one you stick with, and you cannot pick up enemy or ally weapons to use in place of your own. In an earlier post I said that DICE needed to implement this, but I retract that statement. Thinking about it again, I recall the Rifleman's Creed. In essence, the weapon you receive from your country is the one you stick with, through thick and thin, in the worst conditions, through repairs and cleanings, peace and war. Because both EA and DICE are going for the most realistic depiction of modern war in Medal of Honor, that they restrict which weapons everyone uses means they consider the training, time and emotional attachment that soldiers spend and accrue in their service. Think about a soldier on the battlefield watching his best friend die, then avenging him with the weapon he and the fallen knew back and forward, divided only by the set of hands holding it. Would the surviving Marine or Ranger or Seal or Tier 1 operative not wish to use that gun and only that gun in all mission to follow? I would think he would, in memory of his friend, and to show those who took his life what it means to feel the hot steel of vengeance.
And with that cheesy metaphor, I leave for another day.
Xiant
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Long Delay Explanation and Customization
So yeah, I've been away for a looooong time (by my standards), and there is a good reason for it. I'll go into more depth tomorrow, but for now I'll simply say this. Video games are not the only games I play. I also play pen and paper roleplaying games, and in my home town (stalk me if you must) GenCon Indy just went down and I had some great fun with pre-Con gaming Wednesday night. Thursday took my time, as did Friday, and so tonight, since I'm not making the drive tomorrow, is the first night I've had completely free to blog. I've also started a side business selling trading cards (I don't play. There isn't enough time between sunrises), and I've tried to get my stock completely up on eBay, which, believe it or not, is very, very time consuming. All told I've had perhaps two or three hours to myself, and this usually comes at the end of five or six, so I put it on the back burner. With the Con over, for me at least, I'm ready to get back into things. Let's jump in, shall we?
Modern first person shooters nowadays are big on one thing: customization. Sure there are gametypes and map packs and different play styles, but customization, for me at least, drive a game's replayability. In BC2, for example, there are so many different ways to play every single class, and no one "right" way (though there is always a wrong way, but that's for another post). If you want to play an assault class, but aren't the guy who goes hog wild with the kills and low death numbers, sit back and provide cover for your friends, be sneaky and get behind the enemy, provide a safe place to spawn your mates in, then get out. Throw down ammo packs and keep everybody covered while they rush in to arm the objective. Their eyes are on one thing, and yours need to keep them safe. If you want to do the opposite, slap on lightweight and magnum, a shotgun and some C4 and you've got yourself a mobile death machine. Hell, I saw a guy with lightweight and body armor knifing only, because he could.
What I'm getting at, of course, is that games, especially FPS's, grow boring rather quickly once everyone discovers the routes to run, the weapons and perks/specs to use and the tactics the other team is likely to employ. It becomes a repetitive grind/yawn fest where everyone just goes through the motions until the timer goes "buzz." What makes any game fun for longer is the ability to change it up. Call of Duty is perhaps the best example of this, and I'll explain my reasoning for not going with my series, Battlefield. The Call of Duty engine is relatively static. The maps are not destructible, and only the rare car explosion and window smash break the steady flow of troops around the environment. Call the physics system simple, but with the massive weapon selection, even the most mundane game remains something to enjoy months, even years in the case of CoD4, after release. Players try out new things, from weapons to perk setups to map routes and even douchey tactics to get just a week more out of the game. Slap on an RPG only 360 spin match (Seen it. Hilarious) and you have something fresh to enjoy.
Going back to Battlefield, and why I stray from speaking about it in the same way as Call of Duty. Putting aside the fact that they run on different engines, cater to different players and use different play mechanics, there is one reason sometimes using the same kit until you don't grow bored of it ever is that the matches are always, always, different. Certainly the routes that troops take are probably the same, but the tactics employed are always in motion. In Call of Duty, it's essentially kill kill kill, take objective, kill kill kill. Forgive my presumption, as I don't actually play, but that's how I see it. In Battlefield, there is almost always a different way to approach a situation. Putting aside vehicles for a moment, the maps themselves are large and varied enough that a single objective has at least three ways to attack it at any one time. Combine this with the four different classes, their almost infinite variety of setups, and the constant motion of class balance, and you might play one game on one map and then the next game is completely different, simply by the virtue of a few new players and few new play styles. It doesn't take much.
I think Call of Duty suffers a little bit for this fact. Because there is no class system, as character skins are determined solely by weapon choice and not role played, there are only so many ways to go about doing something. Again, certainly there probably hundreds of ways, but not the thousands of Battlefield. Add to this a non-dynamic battlefield, smaller maps with sometimes no between-player support, and those hundreds of methods exhaust themselves fairly quickly. In the end, in Call of Duty, with a very specific set of weapons, attachments, perks and killstreak setups making the killing the most efficient in game play, eventually it becomes fairly standard, and you return to the grind described in the beginning of this post. I may be being a bit contradictory here with my belaboring the Call of Duty stuff, but my earlier comments only last for so long, as I've said. I think that, in the end, it comes down to a player and his desires from a game that determine his, and only his, replayability. What I've tried to say, in a very roundabout way, is that the overall replayability of a game measures itself not by a single player or small group of players, but only after a few months of play and discovery. If, in that time, a very small set of tactical choices become the norm, the game has a lesser replayability than another.
Whew. I guess I needed to get this out of me, huh?
Cheers,
Xiant
Modern first person shooters nowadays are big on one thing: customization. Sure there are gametypes and map packs and different play styles, but customization, for me at least, drive a game's replayability. In BC2, for example, there are so many different ways to play every single class, and no one "right" way (though there is always a wrong way, but that's for another post). If you want to play an assault class, but aren't the guy who goes hog wild with the kills and low death numbers, sit back and provide cover for your friends, be sneaky and get behind the enemy, provide a safe place to spawn your mates in, then get out. Throw down ammo packs and keep everybody covered while they rush in to arm the objective. Their eyes are on one thing, and yours need to keep them safe. If you want to do the opposite, slap on lightweight and magnum, a shotgun and some C4 and you've got yourself a mobile death machine. Hell, I saw a guy with lightweight and body armor knifing only, because he could.
What I'm getting at, of course, is that games, especially FPS's, grow boring rather quickly once everyone discovers the routes to run, the weapons and perks/specs to use and the tactics the other team is likely to employ. It becomes a repetitive grind/yawn fest where everyone just goes through the motions until the timer goes "buzz." What makes any game fun for longer is the ability to change it up. Call of Duty is perhaps the best example of this, and I'll explain my reasoning for not going with my series, Battlefield. The Call of Duty engine is relatively static. The maps are not destructible, and only the rare car explosion and window smash break the steady flow of troops around the environment. Call the physics system simple, but with the massive weapon selection, even the most mundane game remains something to enjoy months, even years in the case of CoD4, after release. Players try out new things, from weapons to perk setups to map routes and even douchey tactics to get just a week more out of the game. Slap on an RPG only 360 spin match (Seen it. Hilarious) and you have something fresh to enjoy.
Going back to Battlefield, and why I stray from speaking about it in the same way as Call of Duty. Putting aside the fact that they run on different engines, cater to different players and use different play mechanics, there is one reason sometimes using the same kit until you don't grow bored of it ever is that the matches are always, always, different. Certainly the routes that troops take are probably the same, but the tactics employed are always in motion. In Call of Duty, it's essentially kill kill kill, take objective, kill kill kill. Forgive my presumption, as I don't actually play, but that's how I see it. In Battlefield, there is almost always a different way to approach a situation. Putting aside vehicles for a moment, the maps themselves are large and varied enough that a single objective has at least three ways to attack it at any one time. Combine this with the four different classes, their almost infinite variety of setups, and the constant motion of class balance, and you might play one game on one map and then the next game is completely different, simply by the virtue of a few new players and few new play styles. It doesn't take much.
I think Call of Duty suffers a little bit for this fact. Because there is no class system, as character skins are determined solely by weapon choice and not role played, there are only so many ways to go about doing something. Again, certainly there probably hundreds of ways, but not the thousands of Battlefield. Add to this a non-dynamic battlefield, smaller maps with sometimes no between-player support, and those hundreds of methods exhaust themselves fairly quickly. In the end, in Call of Duty, with a very specific set of weapons, attachments, perks and killstreak setups making the killing the most efficient in game play, eventually it becomes fairly standard, and you return to the grind described in the beginning of this post. I may be being a bit contradictory here with my belaboring the Call of Duty stuff, but my earlier comments only last for so long, as I've said. I think that, in the end, it comes down to a player and his desires from a game that determine his, and only his, replayability. What I've tried to say, in a very roundabout way, is that the overall replayability of a game measures itself not by a single player or small group of players, but only after a few months of play and discovery. If, in that time, a very small set of tactical choices become the norm, the game has a lesser replayability than another.
Whew. I guess I needed to get this out of me, huh?
Cheers,
Xiant
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Camping
Taking a break from FFXIII and back at BC2. What seems to plague a good many Rush games is the idea of camping. Being a progressive objective gametype with an offense and defense, camping is always going to be a factor, especially on defense. Heck, that's what defense play can be, though good defenders actually move around the map rather than posting up with an ammo and health pack and spamming with nades and noob tubes. Where it really becomes an issue is on the offensive side. You take a single base and then suddenly someone decides its best for the team to sit on their duff and watch the defense push back. This notion seems to be contagious, as the entire team soon follows suit. Perhaps the most amusing part about this syndrome is that, when the game is all but lost, someone finally sees that there is an opportunity, but by then, it's too late. Then the game switches, and the rage quitting begins.
It certainly has its place in FPS games. There are times when you must camp, as is the case with Rush and defense, or in Call of Duty when you just need that last kill or two, or, if your team is good enough to spawn trap, sit back and watch the kills rack up. Certainly there are time when, tactically speaking, camping is probably a better proposition than rushing. However, I take the OpTic crew's ideals that I'd rather lose by rushing than win by camping.This is, of course, more applicable in CoD due to the faster nature of that game series, but it applies in BC2 as well. The name of Rush is rush for a reason. The attacking team needs to rush intelligently and fiercely, then take a quick breather and repeat the process until the game is won. The strategy a team uses must revolve around the environment, how players react to air support and other vehicles, what they destroy and what they leave standing, but rushing teams need to do just that, rush. I've played just one too many Rush games where a team pushes the enemy back then takes just that instant too long and finds themselves unable to push again. The momentum shifts and something in the minds of the players changes, forcing them into a regiment of "sit in a corner and kill when you can." I understand that, at the end of the game, K/D padding is something to think about, but, again, I've been in games when it is literally the very last ticket that allows the attackers to blow up the M-Com and they then have 75 brand new tickets to push once again. It really only takes a few tickets to decide a round. It's those games that are the most enjoyable, the ones where every second could spell the end of the entire base. Games where both teams sit and take pot shots at each other are boring, and spawn trap games are both frustrating and endlessly boring.
I understand the camping mentality. I do. It almost guarantees a kill or two, and smart campers move around a couple spots intermittently, farming their kills as they go. It is an easy, if uninteresting, way to get points and keep an objective safe. Some players do it to troll the enemy team and make them mad, others do it because they don't yet have the skill to do anything else. Others do it just because they're lazy. All three reasons have their place, I suppose. You'll find fault with any of them. The trolls need to get a life and find another way to make their lives enjoyable than making the random person on the internet mad (who hasn't done that? Think of a more productive thing to do). The lazy people probably have better things to do, and I'll admit laziness is a good excuse. The skill factor comes with time, but to really get better, you need to get out of that corner and try other things. I can only bush wookie for so long. I switched to the VSS auto sniper and C4 and I feel like a fuzzy assault guy with boom boom blocks. I'll admit that I actually prefer the VSS play, most times. The bush wookie has his place too. If he takes out defenders when they're doing their job and covers his allies and throws motion mines, then he's doing a good job.Camping for them is a job. That's what a sniper does, and wt some recon guys do and do well enough to shoot up the scoreboard. What I don't condone is joining a team halfway through the round, banking a mediocre score with a few headshots and motion mine assists and finding myself at the top of the scoreboard. If, within 3 kills and 5-6 assists I am doing better than the 15 other people on my team, something's wrong. Either people aren't hitting shots or they aren't really doing anything. It's sad, really.
Camping sucks done wrong, and when it's done right it's still rather annoying.
Xiant
It certainly has its place in FPS games. There are times when you must camp, as is the case with Rush and defense, or in Call of Duty when you just need that last kill or two, or, if your team is good enough to spawn trap, sit back and watch the kills rack up. Certainly there are time when, tactically speaking, camping is probably a better proposition than rushing. However, I take the OpTic crew's ideals that I'd rather lose by rushing than win by camping.This is, of course, more applicable in CoD due to the faster nature of that game series, but it applies in BC2 as well. The name of Rush is rush for a reason. The attacking team needs to rush intelligently and fiercely, then take a quick breather and repeat the process until the game is won. The strategy a team uses must revolve around the environment, how players react to air support and other vehicles, what they destroy and what they leave standing, but rushing teams need to do just that, rush. I've played just one too many Rush games where a team pushes the enemy back then takes just that instant too long and finds themselves unable to push again. The momentum shifts and something in the minds of the players changes, forcing them into a regiment of "sit in a corner and kill when you can." I understand that, at the end of the game, K/D padding is something to think about, but, again, I've been in games when it is literally the very last ticket that allows the attackers to blow up the M-Com and they then have 75 brand new tickets to push once again. It really only takes a few tickets to decide a round. It's those games that are the most enjoyable, the ones where every second could spell the end of the entire base. Games where both teams sit and take pot shots at each other are boring, and spawn trap games are both frustrating and endlessly boring.
I understand the camping mentality. I do. It almost guarantees a kill or two, and smart campers move around a couple spots intermittently, farming their kills as they go. It is an easy, if uninteresting, way to get points and keep an objective safe. Some players do it to troll the enemy team and make them mad, others do it because they don't yet have the skill to do anything else. Others do it just because they're lazy. All three reasons have their place, I suppose. You'll find fault with any of them. The trolls need to get a life and find another way to make their lives enjoyable than making the random person on the internet mad (who hasn't done that? Think of a more productive thing to do). The lazy people probably have better things to do, and I'll admit laziness is a good excuse. The skill factor comes with time, but to really get better, you need to get out of that corner and try other things. I can only bush wookie for so long. I switched to the VSS auto sniper and C4 and I feel like a fuzzy assault guy with boom boom blocks. I'll admit that I actually prefer the VSS play, most times. The bush wookie has his place too. If he takes out defenders when they're doing their job and covers his allies and throws motion mines, then he's doing a good job.Camping for them is a job. That's what a sniper does, and wt some recon guys do and do well enough to shoot up the scoreboard. What I don't condone is joining a team halfway through the round, banking a mediocre score with a few headshots and motion mine assists and finding myself at the top of the scoreboard. If, within 3 kills and 5-6 assists I am doing better than the 15 other people on my team, something's wrong. Either people aren't hitting shots or they aren't really doing anything. It's sad, really.
Camping sucks done wrong, and when it's done right it's still rather annoying.
Xiant
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Story in Multiplayer Games
This idea came to me when Valve, the creators of Team Fortress 2, began giving a story to that game. On the face of it, a solely multiplayer game like Team Fortress 2 or Blacklight Tango Down don't really need a story. Team Fortress Classic didn't, and there aren't that many actual wholly multiplayer games out there. Sure, games like CoD, Battlefield and MoH are mostly multiplayer, but there's a story behind the maps you play on. If you had the audacity to play the single player and enjoy it, you'd recognize some of the maps as set pieces from the game. Not so for fully multiplayer games. The maps you play on were built, ostensibly, for players with no regard for background or flavor. As long as they functioned for death match of CTF or territory control, who cares?
That misses the point, though. Every game out there has an art style unique to it and it alone. What informed the decisions the artists and level designers made was not simple ergonomics. There are ideas and stories that go with any one of the maps you can think of. The dark, war-torn world of Blacklight and the strange pseudo America of TF2 came into being because someone thought there was something to say with the environments, the way buildings stood, their colors, the color of the water and the sky, the action around the maps. All of this has some tale to tell, but no one seems to care, so long as the maps are balanced and fun to play.
When Valve began implementing a cannon to TF2, I was ambivalent, but I realize now how important all they're doing is. Sure, we don't stop playing to examine the environments around us in these games, but maybe we should. If we don't, all the work hundreds of people put into making those environments is for nothing. You end up with a map like Orange_X3 and all its variants. There is nothing to say about these maps. They are functional. That's all.
But there's life in the real maps, just like their is in a book or a comic or graphic novel. The question that follows, therefore, is why we appreciate multiplayer games versus why we appreciate the work of art that is literature? If we value one far more than the other, as is actually the case, why is so much work put into the games to make them feel like there are words to write about them when almost no one plans on writing? What if we didn't read books, but merely used them as page turning simulators without the simulator. Every page is blank. It's just turning pages. That's the same idea as bland multiplayer maps. When you play them, you're just going through the motions of play. There's no consideration to the artistic value of the surroundings.
We enjoy a lush setting for books and movies and art, why not for games? They're games, we say. There's nothing in them, let alone multiplayer games. Valve, in their unending quest to break boundaries, sees that there is a value in the story that surrounds a game where no one cares about the surroundings. Stunning vistas no one looks at carry just as much, if not more, weight than those examined in detail. They are all the more sweet to enjoy when you finally look at them, or when someone decides you should take a little time and view them.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
That misses the point, though. Every game out there has an art style unique to it and it alone. What informed the decisions the artists and level designers made was not simple ergonomics. There are ideas and stories that go with any one of the maps you can think of. The dark, war-torn world of Blacklight and the strange pseudo America of TF2 came into being because someone thought there was something to say with the environments, the way buildings stood, their colors, the color of the water and the sky, the action around the maps. All of this has some tale to tell, but no one seems to care, so long as the maps are balanced and fun to play.
When Valve began implementing a cannon to TF2, I was ambivalent, but I realize now how important all they're doing is. Sure, we don't stop playing to examine the environments around us in these games, but maybe we should. If we don't, all the work hundreds of people put into making those environments is for nothing. You end up with a map like Orange_X3 and all its variants. There is nothing to say about these maps. They are functional. That's all.
But there's life in the real maps, just like their is in a book or a comic or graphic novel. The question that follows, therefore, is why we appreciate multiplayer games versus why we appreciate the work of art that is literature? If we value one far more than the other, as is actually the case, why is so much work put into the games to make them feel like there are words to write about them when almost no one plans on writing? What if we didn't read books, but merely used them as page turning simulators without the simulator. Every page is blank. It's just turning pages. That's the same idea as bland multiplayer maps. When you play them, you're just going through the motions of play. There's no consideration to the artistic value of the surroundings.
We enjoy a lush setting for books and movies and art, why not for games? They're games, we say. There's nothing in them, let alone multiplayer games. Valve, in their unending quest to break boundaries, sees that there is a value in the story that surrounds a game where no one cares about the surroundings. Stunning vistas no one looks at carry just as much, if not more, weight than those examined in detail. They are all the more sweet to enjoy when you finally look at them, or when someone decides you should take a little time and view them.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Pros are Human
This is something I myself have never experienced, having no YouTube name, but I've heard quite a bit about. When we(the masses) watch high level video gameplay on the internet, our first instinct is, wrongly, that the results we see are the norm. A high K/D in a few games of CoD, BC2, MoH, TF2, anything where that kind of data makes an appearance, means, at first glance, that these are games that happen all the time. These YouTube commentators always, always, go 75/2 in MW2, 30/3 in BC2, 43/1 in MoH. It's routine for them and there is no frustration involved in getting these games. They are just naturally good and everyone who thinks they do anything less than 10.0 K/D is just a noob with no skills.
It isn't true, no matter what your thoughts on K/D, no one goes for any period of time without something to grow frustrated about. No one has a K/D of 30 all the time. If you look at the stats these very commentators post on their pages, the answers are right there, it's just that no one looks. Would SeaNanners have a measely 5.0 K/D if he always went 30/2? Would Sandy Ravage, who I'll talk about shortly, have a 3.20 CoD4 /3.50 MW2 (XBox 360) or 4.10 (PS3) K/D if those 78/4 gameplays he posts happened every night in almost all the games he played? No, it would be much higher.
On the topic of Sandy Ravage, I watched his live stream today, and I can say that he is just like the rest of us. Not every game is a complete domination (regardless of gametype). He died, he used Painkiller, he had trouble and he quit when he became frustrated with the game or someone in it. Granted, he did win quite a bit of the games he joined, but not all of them. Some you simply can't win, having joined too late. Quite a few of the games too were close calls, with only a point or two between victory and defeat, and Mr. Ravage spent a fair amount of time either looking for players or dying. It wasn't the AC130 fest or the Spas-12 fest that he puts up on YouTube. The reason is simple, and the real point of tonight's blog.
These players are human. They make mistakes, they have bad days, bad rounds and bad weeks. SeaNanners stated in one of his videos that he simply became to angry to continue, which for many of his viewers is all but inconceivable. But the emotions are there, the mistakes are there. No man is a god at anything. These people are good at what they do, sometimes even great or exceptional, but they are not perfect. Ask any of them about going negative. They will have stories for you. Oh, the stories they will tell.
And that leads to the title of the post: the Pros. Yes, what they can do is amazing, and what they show off at tournaments is beyond the ken of 99.9% of regular players. The reason? These guys practice, and they do it a lot. They don't go into public matches, generally, keeping to the competitive circuit as much as possible, keeping their skills sharp by playing against equal or better players and learning, yes learning, from them. Even the best players always learn as they continue playing. A new tactic on how to approach an old enemy, a new technique to surprise an unexacting foe, a new way to use the environment, itself known to a pixel, to the betterment of the game.
This does, of course, lead the the question of frag videos and top ten/five videos. Why aren't there more of them put out? The answer to this is simple as well: those moments are rare at best. Sure kills like those you see on PLDX might be somewhat regular, but the chains of kills, the exterminations, the total destruction is something that happens once in a while, not every day for any single player. The events must line up in just the right order at just the right time and that player must have just the right setting for his epic action.
All this, of course, comes with experience. In established games like Halo 3 or CoD4 or MW2 or TF2, where most maps played competitively are well known and well explored with known troop routes and objective locations and weapon drops times (down to the second), you'll get some really good stuff. That's because the players know what to expect and they play, both sides, knowing exactly what will happen. They've done it before. Many, many times.
One last thing to remember is that every single gamer that has ever lived has been a noob at some point. No human who ever lived jumped into a competitive game with no prior experience with any sort of gaming apparatus and completely owned, that I know of. Any stories I hear I will not believe, simply because of the way humans are. We must learn before we can grow. No human looked at a book at could read at a college level. No musician never heard music and could simply play. Not even Mozart. He copied his sister after listening and watching, not completely cold. The same goes for competitive gamers. They don't just head into Counter Strike or whatever and start dominating. There is always a learning curve that, once surmounted, allows for great feats.
And still, no one does perfect or even excellent at every game. It simply isn't possible.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
It isn't true, no matter what your thoughts on K/D, no one goes for any period of time without something to grow frustrated about. No one has a K/D of 30 all the time. If you look at the stats these very commentators post on their pages, the answers are right there, it's just that no one looks. Would SeaNanners have a measely 5.0 K/D if he always went 30/2? Would Sandy Ravage, who I'll talk about shortly, have a 3.20 CoD4 /3.50 MW2 (XBox 360) or 4.10 (PS3) K/D if those 78/4 gameplays he posts happened every night in almost all the games he played? No, it would be much higher.
On the topic of Sandy Ravage, I watched his live stream today, and I can say that he is just like the rest of us. Not every game is a complete domination (regardless of gametype). He died, he used Painkiller, he had trouble and he quit when he became frustrated with the game or someone in it. Granted, he did win quite a bit of the games he joined, but not all of them. Some you simply can't win, having joined too late. Quite a few of the games too were close calls, with only a point or two between victory and defeat, and Mr. Ravage spent a fair amount of time either looking for players or dying. It wasn't the AC130 fest or the Spas-12 fest that he puts up on YouTube. The reason is simple, and the real point of tonight's blog.
These players are human. They make mistakes, they have bad days, bad rounds and bad weeks. SeaNanners stated in one of his videos that he simply became to angry to continue, which for many of his viewers is all but inconceivable. But the emotions are there, the mistakes are there. No man is a god at anything. These people are good at what they do, sometimes even great or exceptional, but they are not perfect. Ask any of them about going negative. They will have stories for you. Oh, the stories they will tell.
And that leads to the title of the post: the Pros. Yes, what they can do is amazing, and what they show off at tournaments is beyond the ken of 99.9% of regular players. The reason? These guys practice, and they do it a lot. They don't go into public matches, generally, keeping to the competitive circuit as much as possible, keeping their skills sharp by playing against equal or better players and learning, yes learning, from them. Even the best players always learn as they continue playing. A new tactic on how to approach an old enemy, a new technique to surprise an unexacting foe, a new way to use the environment, itself known to a pixel, to the betterment of the game.
This does, of course, lead the the question of frag videos and top ten/five videos. Why aren't there more of them put out? The answer to this is simple as well: those moments are rare at best. Sure kills like those you see on PLDX might be somewhat regular, but the chains of kills, the exterminations, the total destruction is something that happens once in a while, not every day for any single player. The events must line up in just the right order at just the right time and that player must have just the right setting for his epic action.
All this, of course, comes with experience. In established games like Halo 3 or CoD4 or MW2 or TF2, where most maps played competitively are well known and well explored with known troop routes and objective locations and weapon drops times (down to the second), you'll get some really good stuff. That's because the players know what to expect and they play, both sides, knowing exactly what will happen. They've done it before. Many, many times.
One last thing to remember is that every single gamer that has ever lived has been a noob at some point. No human who ever lived jumped into a competitive game with no prior experience with any sort of gaming apparatus and completely owned, that I know of. Any stories I hear I will not believe, simply because of the way humans are. We must learn before we can grow. No human looked at a book at could read at a college level. No musician never heard music and could simply play. Not even Mozart. He copied his sister after listening and watching, not completely cold. The same goes for competitive gamers. They don't just head into Counter Strike or whatever and start dominating. There is always a learning curve that, once surmounted, allows for great feats.
And still, no one does perfect or even excellent at every game. It simply isn't possible.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Medal of Honor Map and Weapon Design
No intro today. Just content.
The maps in the Medal of Honor beta don't need, at first glance, much improvement from their current state. For what they are, they could very easily be final game maps (as well they might). There are a couple things I can say about them, since if there weren't, I wouldn't have much of a topic tonight would I?
Beginning with the Helmand Valley map, I think overall this map doesn't need a whole lot of actual physical changes. Of those it does need, the first is easier access for the one and only tank the map provides (barring the rare two tank game). The bridge has two boxes that impede tank movement completely which cannot be destroyed by Bradley bullets of any kind (something outside of any reality). While there is an alternate route for tanks, the way you have to drive the tank doesn't allow for a lot of quick, calculated movements and it's awkward to say the least.
As for infantry, the map doesn't really favor either side too much. While the attackers certainly have an uphill climb on their hands and limited troops, the decreased respawn time and multiple routes behind the defenders lets them put up an offensive that, if coordinated correctly, is impossible to stop. I'll talk about the respawn tomorrow with gameplay, but now I'll say that it needs tweaking. Also, while I'm on the topic of alternate routes, I have to say that the map is, if anything, too big, with far too much open space. First, with so much damage from weapons and so little health per soldier, pot shots take down enemies in no time. Second, if the shooter has any accuracy, even the best shooter won't last too long unless he spawns right in the action on someone who managed to make it to the front without dying. The map size also comes into play with the number of players per side. Even at twelve at maximum, a coordinated assault by three or four attackers from one of the many flanking positions compromises the defenders just long enough for the plant and the push forward. This, combined with the close together spawn points of the defenders and the tendency of spawn killing among many players leads to a very one sided game regardless of respawn times. Again, this depends almost solely on coordination or the skill of a few players, but it's not fun for the defenders in most cases.
The other map in the beta Kabul City Ruins, is all infantry, and its design reflects this. Close spaces and long corridors with specific sniping positions, easily accessible by anyone and rotating spawns, all combined with short respawn times keeps everything fast and hard. A couple parts of the map need fleshing out or removal, like the stairs to nowhere or the blocked off sniper house stairs, though this probably won't be an issue in the final product. Players quickly deduce the major lines of troop movement on the map and capitalize on them, but with the chaos of battle, and this map really rewards that, keeps things interesting. Adding to the strategy in the map design is the verticality. With different levels of play, whoever has the high ground has the advantage and teams who use it almost always win. That being said, with the multiple ways to said high ground and very short respawn times, barring a spawn trap, advantage shifts.
There are some negatives about this map, though. The above mentioned quirks aside, what breaks and what doesn't isn't always clear and the predicability of where the main conflict happens is something that might monotonize the game. While I don't think that destructable environments are really necessary here, since the map is far too small for that, something needs to happen to free up more of the map for play. For example, there is an entire middle hallway, quite large, in fact, that gets very little playtime, simple because it is so open. If parts of it received cover, even a little bit, it might take some of the load of the other three areas of major combat.
As with all things, the combat in the game relies on the weapons, and from where I see it, there are only six weapons in the game, with grenades being equipment. The rifle, the spec ops, the battle rifle, the pistol, the rocket launcher the bolt action. Stat wise the two factions are identical barring attachments, so I'll talk along these general lines. The rifle (M16, AK-47) is perhaps a little overpowered. Low recoil, especially if burst fired, and equal damage at all ranges makes it a universal death machine. Damage falloff, at least a little more than there is now, would be nice for it. Don't take it so far as the spec ops (M4, AK-74u), but more is better. As for the spec ops, these are probably the best balanced, though still a little over the top. The damage falloff isn't what it should be for a carbine, even at the longest ranges. Still, at all but across map, it's basically a rifle with a different name. The battle rifle (SVD and M21), with either scope, takes a little more skill to use, but because of the instant-shot-from-gun-to-hit and one hit kill headshots, accurate shooters with quick trigger fingers make quick work of almost anyone at long ranges and even quicker close up. The recoil on these is much more, almost too much, leading to wild shots sometimes. Still, it balances the weapon more for its power. The pistols (M9 and Tariq) are pocket rifles with much smaller magazines. The damage is a bit less, but not by much, and three to four shots kills. With across map accuracy, pistol play, while not quite so easy as rifle or spec ops play, is still possible. Rocket launchers, which I put the rifle grenade into, are a little weak, but with straight line shots and instant kill hits or close-by hits make them really powerful in the hands on someone who knows how to use them. The slow reload time and lack of ammunition, however, severely, and properly balance them, so they are perhaps the best balanced weapon currently. The bolt actions are great for either game mode, thought he play style differs tremendously between them. The accuracy and power balanced by the need to hold your soldiers breath makes running and running a little hard, but they are still not to be trifled with. At the longest ranges, a center mass body shot probably should be a one hit kill or close to it, but that's just me and my knowledge of sniper rounds at almost any range, especially bolt action. The only thing I have to say about grenades is that their blast radius needs a little boost and that you need to be able to throw them farther. Not as far as Call of Duty, but father than you can right now.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
The maps in the Medal of Honor beta don't need, at first glance, much improvement from their current state. For what they are, they could very easily be final game maps (as well they might). There are a couple things I can say about them, since if there weren't, I wouldn't have much of a topic tonight would I?
Beginning with the Helmand Valley map, I think overall this map doesn't need a whole lot of actual physical changes. Of those it does need, the first is easier access for the one and only tank the map provides (barring the rare two tank game). The bridge has two boxes that impede tank movement completely which cannot be destroyed by Bradley bullets of any kind (something outside of any reality). While there is an alternate route for tanks, the way you have to drive the tank doesn't allow for a lot of quick, calculated movements and it's awkward to say the least.
As for infantry, the map doesn't really favor either side too much. While the attackers certainly have an uphill climb on their hands and limited troops, the decreased respawn time and multiple routes behind the defenders lets them put up an offensive that, if coordinated correctly, is impossible to stop. I'll talk about the respawn tomorrow with gameplay, but now I'll say that it needs tweaking. Also, while I'm on the topic of alternate routes, I have to say that the map is, if anything, too big, with far too much open space. First, with so much damage from weapons and so little health per soldier, pot shots take down enemies in no time. Second, if the shooter has any accuracy, even the best shooter won't last too long unless he spawns right in the action on someone who managed to make it to the front without dying. The map size also comes into play with the number of players per side. Even at twelve at maximum, a coordinated assault by three or four attackers from one of the many flanking positions compromises the defenders just long enough for the plant and the push forward. This, combined with the close together spawn points of the defenders and the tendency of spawn killing among many players leads to a very one sided game regardless of respawn times. Again, this depends almost solely on coordination or the skill of a few players, but it's not fun for the defenders in most cases.
The other map in the beta Kabul City Ruins, is all infantry, and its design reflects this. Close spaces and long corridors with specific sniping positions, easily accessible by anyone and rotating spawns, all combined with short respawn times keeps everything fast and hard. A couple parts of the map need fleshing out or removal, like the stairs to nowhere or the blocked off sniper house stairs, though this probably won't be an issue in the final product. Players quickly deduce the major lines of troop movement on the map and capitalize on them, but with the chaos of battle, and this map really rewards that, keeps things interesting. Adding to the strategy in the map design is the verticality. With different levels of play, whoever has the high ground has the advantage and teams who use it almost always win. That being said, with the multiple ways to said high ground and very short respawn times, barring a spawn trap, advantage shifts.
There are some negatives about this map, though. The above mentioned quirks aside, what breaks and what doesn't isn't always clear and the predicability of where the main conflict happens is something that might monotonize the game. While I don't think that destructable environments are really necessary here, since the map is far too small for that, something needs to happen to free up more of the map for play. For example, there is an entire middle hallway, quite large, in fact, that gets very little playtime, simple because it is so open. If parts of it received cover, even a little bit, it might take some of the load of the other three areas of major combat.
As with all things, the combat in the game relies on the weapons, and from where I see it, there are only six weapons in the game, with grenades being equipment. The rifle, the spec ops, the battle rifle, the pistol, the rocket launcher the bolt action. Stat wise the two factions are identical barring attachments, so I'll talk along these general lines. The rifle (M16, AK-47) is perhaps a little overpowered. Low recoil, especially if burst fired, and equal damage at all ranges makes it a universal death machine. Damage falloff, at least a little more than there is now, would be nice for it. Don't take it so far as the spec ops (M4, AK-74u), but more is better. As for the spec ops, these are probably the best balanced, though still a little over the top. The damage falloff isn't what it should be for a carbine, even at the longest ranges. Still, at all but across map, it's basically a rifle with a different name. The battle rifle (SVD and M21), with either scope, takes a little more skill to use, but because of the instant-shot-from-gun-to-hit and one hit kill headshots, accurate shooters with quick trigger fingers make quick work of almost anyone at long ranges and even quicker close up. The recoil on these is much more, almost too much, leading to wild shots sometimes. Still, it balances the weapon more for its power. The pistols (M9 and Tariq) are pocket rifles with much smaller magazines. The damage is a bit less, but not by much, and three to four shots kills. With across map accuracy, pistol play, while not quite so easy as rifle or spec ops play, is still possible. Rocket launchers, which I put the rifle grenade into, are a little weak, but with straight line shots and instant kill hits or close-by hits make them really powerful in the hands on someone who knows how to use them. The slow reload time and lack of ammunition, however, severely, and properly balance them, so they are perhaps the best balanced weapon currently. The bolt actions are great for either game mode, thought he play style differs tremendously between them. The accuracy and power balanced by the need to hold your soldiers breath makes running and running a little hard, but they are still not to be trifled with. At the longest ranges, a center mass body shot probably should be a one hit kill or close to it, but that's just me and my knowledge of sniper rounds at almost any range, especially bolt action. The only thing I have to say about grenades is that their blast radius needs a little boost and that you need to be able to throw them farther. Not as far as Call of Duty, but father than you can right now.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
Monday, June 21, 2010
The Sniper Update and Medal of Honor
Hello again. Today's topics, the Huntsman and more Medal of Honor, mark the end of my forays into TF2 for a while. Since I've already covered the Ambassador in the first blog, at the time of writing, the Sniper is the only class left. Therefore, I'll talk more about the beta from here on out, and I'll try to bring you some more news from the industry that may be hard to find or that I find interesting. I'm also going to start playing Final Fantasy XIII with some regularity so that I can get a new genre of game into the loop, namely the Roleplaying Game.
The Huntsman then. I'll admit my feelings on the matter are somewhat contradictory, and I hope you'll forgive me for that. When released, this weapon is perhaps the least patched of all of them. Recently they added the ability for arrows to remain on fire when not drawn, and various small fixes to the hitbox and arrows sticking enemies to walls. Damage wise and accuracy wise Valve did nothing. However, my main complaint about it is this, and it is here that the contradiction comes into play. The headshot hitbox for the Huntsman's arrow is huge, so much so that a sniper can aim within what would amount to a foot in game to either side of the head and still get the headshot.Add to this that one need only aim the arrow, release it and await the headshot, hide and repeat the process basically warrents spam. Find a chokepoint in the maps, for all good maps have at least one, then just shoot wantonly into the crowd on the objective (this applies to payload and CP maps, not necessarily CTF) If your aim is high enough and you (easily) about being shot, you'll either damage an enemy and maybe get an assist, or, more likely, a headshot.
With this in mind, when facing a Huntsman sniper of superficial skill, for that's all it take to be a Huntsman sniper, as an class save a fully buffed heavy and you have a recipe for quick death and very annoying killcam. Things get worse when the arrow comes from across the map without losing any of its damage. The Huntsman damage is over 150 for a quick release headshot and 360 for full charge. That automatically takes out scouts, spies, snipers and medics. More than half charge and you take out soldiers and demomen and pyros. Full charge takes out fully buffed soldiers and drastically injures heavies at any stage of overheal, killing them outright without a medic with them.
All this leads to a very large amount of hate for the weapon and frustration aimed directly at anyone with the lack of skill to use it. I myself hate the huntsman except, of course, when I'm using it. Granted, I don't actually use it when I want to really try. I'll play soldier, spy or demo for that. It's a relaxant not really caring or putting any real effort behind play. It's just enjoyable, and thankfully on the servers I play, people are generally good spirited about the whole thing, but I will hear a little hate if I'm failing and they know I could do better as another class. Three snipers and spies on a team of only 16 is still a little much.
Shifting gears, I want to say something about the Medal of Honor beta that really bugs me: random crashes. I know they happen on all systems though not for all people. I am one of the unfortunates. On the one hand, they do stop me from going long into the mornings, but I can't help but wonder at the times they pick. A great killstreak, one last kill for the next scorechain...crash as I get the kill. This is a beta, I understand and accept that. Indeed, I'm less angry about the crashes because it's still in beta. I know DICE and EA are working to fix it, since it seems to be gamebreaking for some people. I'll wait and see.
More on topic, the weapons in the beta. The startup weapons for each kit are actually each pretty good. The AK for the insurgent basic soldier and the M16 for the coalition; the AK-74u and M4 carbines for the spec-ops who takes out tanks with rocket launchers; the SVD and M21 for the sniper kits. The basic soldier's (called the "rifleman") weapon has very little recoil and can kill across map. Both are fully automatic, unlike the M16 from MW2, which is a three round burst. The 74u and M4 lose damage over distance, as a sub-machine gun should and keep the low recoil. The startup rifles for the sniper kit have a great amount of recoil but kill in fewer bullets at all except max range. Headshots are one hit kills with the rifles, though, which is nice.
Overall, the weapon selection is really nice, each balanced against its counterpart. If the final game makes quite a few changes (big and small), which I'll get into tomorrow, I know that this could very well unseat Modern Warefare 2 or Black Ops from its lofty seat. With both MoH and Black Ops coming out very close to each other, whoever gets the better exposure and the best showing wins. So far, the former goes to MoH. Whatever the Treyarch team is doing with their own beta, they need to get on it now, because the MoH beta is about to take off like a shot. June 17th was the beta for those who already had Bad Company 2. With the influx of new players come tomorrow, word of mouth will only spread faster.
We shall see.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
The Huntsman then. I'll admit my feelings on the matter are somewhat contradictory, and I hope you'll forgive me for that. When released, this weapon is perhaps the least patched of all of them. Recently they added the ability for arrows to remain on fire when not drawn, and various small fixes to the hitbox and arrows sticking enemies to walls. Damage wise and accuracy wise Valve did nothing. However, my main complaint about it is this, and it is here that the contradiction comes into play. The headshot hitbox for the Huntsman's arrow is huge, so much so that a sniper can aim within what would amount to a foot in game to either side of the head and still get the headshot.Add to this that one need only aim the arrow, release it and await the headshot, hide and repeat the process basically warrents spam. Find a chokepoint in the maps, for all good maps have at least one, then just shoot wantonly into the crowd on the objective (this applies to payload and CP maps, not necessarily CTF) If your aim is high enough and you (easily) about being shot, you'll either damage an enemy and maybe get an assist, or, more likely, a headshot.
With this in mind, when facing a Huntsman sniper of superficial skill, for that's all it take to be a Huntsman sniper, as an class save a fully buffed heavy and you have a recipe for quick death and very annoying killcam. Things get worse when the arrow comes from across the map without losing any of its damage. The Huntsman damage is over 150 for a quick release headshot and 360 for full charge. That automatically takes out scouts, spies, snipers and medics. More than half charge and you take out soldiers and demomen and pyros. Full charge takes out fully buffed soldiers and drastically injures heavies at any stage of overheal, killing them outright without a medic with them.
All this leads to a very large amount of hate for the weapon and frustration aimed directly at anyone with the lack of skill to use it. I myself hate the huntsman except, of course, when I'm using it. Granted, I don't actually use it when I want to really try. I'll play soldier, spy or demo for that. It's a relaxant not really caring or putting any real effort behind play. It's just enjoyable, and thankfully on the servers I play, people are generally good spirited about the whole thing, but I will hear a little hate if I'm failing and they know I could do better as another class. Three snipers and spies on a team of only 16 is still a little much.
Shifting gears, I want to say something about the Medal of Honor beta that really bugs me: random crashes. I know they happen on all systems though not for all people. I am one of the unfortunates. On the one hand, they do stop me from going long into the mornings, but I can't help but wonder at the times they pick. A great killstreak, one last kill for the next scorechain...crash as I get the kill. This is a beta, I understand and accept that. Indeed, I'm less angry about the crashes because it's still in beta. I know DICE and EA are working to fix it, since it seems to be gamebreaking for some people. I'll wait and see.
More on topic, the weapons in the beta. The startup weapons for each kit are actually each pretty good. The AK for the insurgent basic soldier and the M16 for the coalition; the AK-74u and M4 carbines for the spec-ops who takes out tanks with rocket launchers; the SVD and M21 for the sniper kits. The basic soldier's (called the "rifleman") weapon has very little recoil and can kill across map. Both are fully automatic, unlike the M16 from MW2, which is a three round burst. The 74u and M4 lose damage over distance, as a sub-machine gun should and keep the low recoil. The startup rifles for the sniper kit have a great amount of recoil but kill in fewer bullets at all except max range. Headshots are one hit kills with the rifles, though, which is nice.
Overall, the weapon selection is really nice, each balanced against its counterpart. If the final game makes quite a few changes (big and small), which I'll get into tomorrow, I know that this could very well unseat Modern Warefare 2 or Black Ops from its lofty seat. With both MoH and Black Ops coming out very close to each other, whoever gets the better exposure and the best showing wins. So far, the former goes to MoH. Whatever the Treyarch team is doing with their own beta, they need to get on it now, because the MoH beta is about to take off like a shot. June 17th was the beta for those who already had Bad Company 2. With the influx of new players come tomorrow, word of mouth will only spread faster.
We shall see.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The Medic Update and Medal of Honor
So, yes, I finally dove into the MoH beta tonight. But more on that later. First is the medic update. With the engineer update still to be released, and with the changes the medics update weapon underwent, I'll stray from speculation as to what the shotgun revealed in the Mac Update video actually is.
The medic's update weapon is called the Blutsauger, or Bloodsucker/Vampire in German, when released, was probably the most powerful weapon one could think of for the medic. Not only did it allow the medic to retain his slow health regeneration, but it also healed him as he did damage with it. Of course, that the medic even needs a close range weapon should be a non-issue, seeing as their job is to keep the killers alive. One must also put into play that the medic update was not even named the Medic Update. Rather, it was the Gold Rush update, the first major update to the game, and they tagged along the medic's weapons and achievements with it.
The main drawback to the Blutsauger came at the cost of random critical hits when fired. Offset by the massive +3 health boost per each needle, at ten needles per second, this really didn't hinder it. Add to this that in competitive gameplay random criticals are turned off, and suddenly the Blutsauger became the go-to weapon for medics the world over (in TF2, of course). On September 15th, 2009, Valve changed the Blut's effect on the medic and the medic's abilities themselves. Without the Blut equipped, he now recovers from 4-6 hp per second, but with the Blut only 1-3. At first it may not seem like such a big deal, especially with random criticals reinstated, but playing a Blutsauger medic, and I can say this from experience, is almost detrimental to your health. The increased health regeneration saves precious seconds to reach a health kit or get behind allies. Plus, since the damage output for both the main syringe gun and the Blutsauger is the same, it really comes down to what you want to sacrifice and your confidence with your needle aiming. Watch competitive medic play now and you'll see a mix of syringe run and Blutsauger play, though the former is now the more prevalent.
Enough about that though. Let's talk Medal of Honor. Let me start out by saying that, no, it is not a Modern Warfare 2 clone, nor is it Battlefield: Bad Company 2 repackaged. Rather, it is a little bit of both with some major tweaks from both. On the MW2 side, there is the decreased map size, the high intensity action and the fast, sharp gameplay. On the BC2 side, there is the excellent sound design, weapon animations and team based, tactical play that must occur for a team to win hands down. There is also the kit selection system that limits you only as much as the beta is allowed to contain, even though customization is still quite varied. The little something extra is the realism that comes in MoH. Calling in a mortar strike is quick, but what is really rewarding is seeing that walkie-talkie calling in a UAV, or the cell phone detonate the C4. Also, the battlefields are real places, created with the utmost care for balance and game enjoyment. The weapons too look and feel like real weapons, and the sounds they make sound like the actual gun. Also, there's a tank. And tanks are always awesome. Granted, the bullets and cannon of the tank take way too many hits to kill right now, but given the confined space of the map (currently there's only one) in which a tank gets used, that's okay. They also need to be harder to destroy, though not to the extent of BC2. I killed one with my gun's grenade launcher, so something's wrong there.
Speaking for myself, for what else can I do, I think I'll grow to lie MoH because it is not MW2. The killstreaks, while not named such, are decidedly not MW2 killstreaks. Getting 11 kills will not let you pilot a chopper with explosive rounds or a giant plane with guns the size of houses. You get one missile that you guide yourself or a strategically placed mortar/rocket strike that then goes out of your control. There is not the constant fear of joining a game to nuke-boosters or hackers (as yet), though camping still plays a little part. I saw one of those today. Killed the little bastard too. Excuse me. Can't stand campers. The support streaks also help: new ammo types and UAV recons and others keep the game balanced without causing player to hunker down in houses and wait out the storm. If there is any CoD game I could compare MoH to in any way, its CoD4. Minus the helicopter and add some more awesome (yes, I said it), there is a real comparison to be made.
But that is a story for another time.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
The medic's update weapon is called the Blutsauger, or Bloodsucker/Vampire in German, when released, was probably the most powerful weapon one could think of for the medic. Not only did it allow the medic to retain his slow health regeneration, but it also healed him as he did damage with it. Of course, that the medic even needs a close range weapon should be a non-issue, seeing as their job is to keep the killers alive. One must also put into play that the medic update was not even named the Medic Update. Rather, it was the Gold Rush update, the first major update to the game, and they tagged along the medic's weapons and achievements with it.
The main drawback to the Blutsauger came at the cost of random critical hits when fired. Offset by the massive +3 health boost per each needle, at ten needles per second, this really didn't hinder it. Add to this that in competitive gameplay random criticals are turned off, and suddenly the Blutsauger became the go-to weapon for medics the world over (in TF2, of course). On September 15th, 2009, Valve changed the Blut's effect on the medic and the medic's abilities themselves. Without the Blut equipped, he now recovers from 4-6 hp per second, but with the Blut only 1-3. At first it may not seem like such a big deal, especially with random criticals reinstated, but playing a Blutsauger medic, and I can say this from experience, is almost detrimental to your health. The increased health regeneration saves precious seconds to reach a health kit or get behind allies. Plus, since the damage output for both the main syringe gun and the Blutsauger is the same, it really comes down to what you want to sacrifice and your confidence with your needle aiming. Watch competitive medic play now and you'll see a mix of syringe run and Blutsauger play, though the former is now the more prevalent.
Enough about that though. Let's talk Medal of Honor. Let me start out by saying that, no, it is not a Modern Warfare 2 clone, nor is it Battlefield: Bad Company 2 repackaged. Rather, it is a little bit of both with some major tweaks from both. On the MW2 side, there is the decreased map size, the high intensity action and the fast, sharp gameplay. On the BC2 side, there is the excellent sound design, weapon animations and team based, tactical play that must occur for a team to win hands down. There is also the kit selection system that limits you only as much as the beta is allowed to contain, even though customization is still quite varied. The little something extra is the realism that comes in MoH. Calling in a mortar strike is quick, but what is really rewarding is seeing that walkie-talkie calling in a UAV, or the cell phone detonate the C4. Also, the battlefields are real places, created with the utmost care for balance and game enjoyment. The weapons too look and feel like real weapons, and the sounds they make sound like the actual gun. Also, there's a tank. And tanks are always awesome. Granted, the bullets and cannon of the tank take way too many hits to kill right now, but given the confined space of the map (currently there's only one) in which a tank gets used, that's okay. They also need to be harder to destroy, though not to the extent of BC2. I killed one with my gun's grenade launcher, so something's wrong there.
Speaking for myself, for what else can I do, I think I'll grow to lie MoH because it is not MW2. The killstreaks, while not named such, are decidedly not MW2 killstreaks. Getting 11 kills will not let you pilot a chopper with explosive rounds or a giant plane with guns the size of houses. You get one missile that you guide yourself or a strategically placed mortar/rocket strike that then goes out of your control. There is not the constant fear of joining a game to nuke-boosters or hackers (as yet), though camping still plays a little part. I saw one of those today. Killed the little bastard too. Excuse me. Can't stand campers. The support streaks also help: new ammo types and UAV recons and others keep the game balanced without causing player to hunker down in houses and wait out the storm. If there is any CoD game I could compare MoH to in any way, its CoD4. Minus the helicopter and add some more awesome (yes, I said it), there is a real comparison to be made.
But that is a story for another time.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
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