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 TF2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TF2. 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
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
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
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Patches, Time and Vegas
Tomorrow I leave for Las Vegas to celebrate mine and my parents' birthdays. Posting will thusly be a little bit shorter, and since I need to get to work packing and sleeping, this will also be a rather short blog.
The Battlefield forums have a real history of trolls and flamers (look it up) always looking for something to complain about. DICE wisely remained out of the war on their own forums, knowing that if they chimed in, the flames would only grow hotter and the trolls tougher. With the recent patch to BC2, long awaited, they addressed many issues the community had, while instituting a whole slew of new ones. There are those who are just happy the patch came out, myself among them, and I hope that the issues stay in minority of players and are addressed quickly.
Of course, however, there are those who are still complaining, some even more vehemently than last time. The question becomes: what do you want from them? Either they get as much done as they can and release, testing again and again for any bugs they can find, or they release small patches with less testing which may cause even more issues than a sweeping patch. DICE has no way to win here, and I pity them. To a point. I do think that if they release a large number of small patches over a short period of time would, in the long run, be a better policy. Feedback would be quick and the testing crew is several dozen times larger than DICE could ever hope to field. Valve follows this model, to a degree, addressing two to four issues at a time and occasionally putting out a sweeping patch that changes the game dramatically. What I've come to realize is that big patches carry with them far more danger than small patches. This is obvious. With the huge difference in computer power from person to person, as well as different operating systems, graphical software and so much else, going big or going home brings more problems than it's worth. Every major update to Team Fortress 2 brought with it so many problems, glitches and exploits that in a thousand years the Quality Assurance people at Valve had any hope of finding.
That being said, there will always be people who want to not see the forest for the trees, as they say, and they'll complain about something. I suppose that's just a fact of life.
C'est la vie,
Xiant.
The Battlefield forums have a real history of trolls and flamers (look it up) always looking for something to complain about. DICE wisely remained out of the war on their own forums, knowing that if they chimed in, the flames would only grow hotter and the trolls tougher. With the recent patch to BC2, long awaited, they addressed many issues the community had, while instituting a whole slew of new ones. There are those who are just happy the patch came out, myself among them, and I hope that the issues stay in minority of players and are addressed quickly.
Of course, however, there are those who are still complaining, some even more vehemently than last time. The question becomes: what do you want from them? Either they get as much done as they can and release, testing again and again for any bugs they can find, or they release small patches with less testing which may cause even more issues than a sweeping patch. DICE has no way to win here, and I pity them. To a point. I do think that if they release a large number of small patches over a short period of time would, in the long run, be a better policy. Feedback would be quick and the testing crew is several dozen times larger than DICE could ever hope to field. Valve follows this model, to a degree, addressing two to four issues at a time and occasionally putting out a sweeping patch that changes the game dramatically. What I've come to realize is that big patches carry with them far more danger than small patches. This is obvious. With the huge difference in computer power from person to person, as well as different operating systems, graphical software and so much else, going big or going home brings more problems than it's worth. Every major update to Team Fortress 2 brought with it so many problems, glitches and exploits that in a thousand years the Quality Assurance people at Valve had any hope of finding.
That being said, there will always be people who want to not see the forest for the trees, as they say, and they'll complain about something. I suppose that's just a fact of life.
C'est la vie,
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
Friday, June 18, 2010
The Heavy Update and More E3 News
Having made a great deal of noise about the Medal of Honor beta, not putting up first impressions of it seems to me to be a betrayal of words. And it is, but I do of course, have a reason (some might call it an excuse). First off, the beta didn't actually go live on Steam when everyone expected it to, though it did go up on the appointed day. That said, it was already rather late by the time I finished downloading, and as I considered booting it up to try it out, a friends of mine, TheDakon, who plays Battelfield and TF2 with me on occasion, already had it going. I asked him how it was, but soon realized he spent perhaps three minutes in the actual game. When I pressed him as to why, his response was quick and to the point. Because the beta had just gone live, everyone and their dog was in game trying it out, and the Steam servers were overloaded, as were the EA servers hosting games. Furthermore, several key functions were malfunctioning, so I decided, rightly I hope, to wait the until initial rush ended and the start up kinks began to work themselves out. I know that the consoles are also having trouble with occasional freeze-ups and other game-cracking things, so my patience, I'm sure, will be rewarded in the end.
With that out of the way, I think I'll get to talking about TF2 some more, this time on the Natasha. Because he heavy loves his guns, he names them, and Natasha is his updated weapon (he calls the regular gun Sasha). Sasha's main selling point is its bullets' ability to significantly slow down the movement speed of its targets. Every bullet causes the enemy to move at 75% their total speed for a little more than half a second. That being said, because four bullets come out of the heavy's gun per one unit of ammunition spent, this makes the falloff much more dramatic, so much so that it seems like you come to a near complete stop at all but long range. The tradeoff, for all valve update weapons have a tradeoff of some kind, is a reduced damage output, to the tune of 25%. Again, with the amount of ammo the heavy puts down range with each pull of the trigger, he still takes out enemies very quickly, put up against a heavy with Sasha, the one who wins is either whoever shot first or whoever has a medic. All things being equal, the Sasha heavy wins.
Natasha went through several update phases, as most times, when Valve updated the gun it would lose the slowdown quality. Valve fixed this only recently. As for me, I don't use Natasha as a rule, though I don't play heavy that often (the servers I play on often having a goodly number of skilled spies). However, when I encounter one, I find my teeth grinding, since I feel, and I think others do as well, that the slowdown is too much and makes heavy a much easier class to play, almost cheaply so. Plus, with even the moderate damage reduction, in crowded areas the heavy loses out to the constant assault of rockets, bombs and bullets quicker than with Sasha. His effectiveness dropped, the medic usually goes with the soldier or the demoman or, if he wants to just clear a room, a pyro, while the heavy sits back and eats a sandvich.
Thinking about it, I'll stick to a single class update weapon, since there's cool news coming out in the industry right now that some might not know about. First is Infamous 2, the game where you have electrical super powers the likes of which send ordinary citizens fleeing in terror and cars effortlessly flung into enemies. Infamous (the original) became a favorite among sandbox game enthusiasts for the ease of getting into the game, the story and unique method of its telling and, most of all, the superpowers, something not often seen in a complete sandbox. Cole McGrath, the main character, always seemed the reluctant hero, forced to battle forces for the reason that no one else would. Assuming you played the good side of things, Cole truly did follow Joseph Campbell's Hero's journey, with a few modifications. It was a story of growth and transformation from ordinary person to true hero. By the end of the game, Cole, while still somewhat reticent about his status as super hero, has no reason not to follow the destiny he begins to see before him, and while the city of the game's setting might be safe, there is a whole world that needs saving. With his powers only in their infancy, what Cole comes up with next is anyone's guess.
All that aside, there is one piece of trivia that bugs me a little bit about InFamous 2. Cole's voice actor and character design are completely different. In the first InFamous, Cole' voice was gravely and his head shaven. In InFamous 2, his hair is full and black and his voice is more southern, more relatable. While Sucker Punch, the makers of the game, have purely practical reasons for doing this (their vision of Cole's voice and the actor didn't match up, and the actor couldn't make it to face modeling from where he lived) I find it against the spirit of the game. The voice and appearance of the first game acted as a strong indicator as to both the kind of person Cole is but also shone a light on his internal conflict. His voice, a low, rough sound, mirrored his mental state and reluctance to hear the call to action. His yellow apparel and rucksack showed his link to humanity while still subtly separating him from it. He remained somewhat above and beyond the normal person, while still maintaining his humanity. With the blue t-shirt, the southern voice, Cole is now still more human that he was before, and seems much more casual with the whole idea of having his powers. Now, I don't want Cole dressing up in tights and a cape, but retaining some degree of separation, at least for me, should have been tops on the list. Cole is no longer part of the population. He is a man apart, a man above and beyond so many. I think his appearance should reflect that. His reluctance should be fading as the world heats up in danger and chaos, but I know that to be a room with Cole, a man within whom a huge electric charge always sits, would be uncomfortable to say the least. I don't, therefore, want to feel like I could let him into my house and have a drink with him. If he is to be the savior, make him seem, first visually, the savior.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
With that out of the way, I think I'll get to talking about TF2 some more, this time on the Natasha. Because he heavy loves his guns, he names them, and Natasha is his updated weapon (he calls the regular gun Sasha). Sasha's main selling point is its bullets' ability to significantly slow down the movement speed of its targets. Every bullet causes the enemy to move at 75% their total speed for a little more than half a second. That being said, because four bullets come out of the heavy's gun per one unit of ammunition spent, this makes the falloff much more dramatic, so much so that it seems like you come to a near complete stop at all but long range. The tradeoff, for all valve update weapons have a tradeoff of some kind, is a reduced damage output, to the tune of 25%. Again, with the amount of ammo the heavy puts down range with each pull of the trigger, he still takes out enemies very quickly, put up against a heavy with Sasha, the one who wins is either whoever shot first or whoever has a medic. All things being equal, the Sasha heavy wins.
Natasha went through several update phases, as most times, when Valve updated the gun it would lose the slowdown quality. Valve fixed this only recently. As for me, I don't use Natasha as a rule, though I don't play heavy that often (the servers I play on often having a goodly number of skilled spies). However, when I encounter one, I find my teeth grinding, since I feel, and I think others do as well, that the slowdown is too much and makes heavy a much easier class to play, almost cheaply so. Plus, with even the moderate damage reduction, in crowded areas the heavy loses out to the constant assault of rockets, bombs and bullets quicker than with Sasha. His effectiveness dropped, the medic usually goes with the soldier or the demoman or, if he wants to just clear a room, a pyro, while the heavy sits back and eats a sandvich.
Thinking about it, I'll stick to a single class update weapon, since there's cool news coming out in the industry right now that some might not know about. First is Infamous 2, the game where you have electrical super powers the likes of which send ordinary citizens fleeing in terror and cars effortlessly flung into enemies. Infamous (the original) became a favorite among sandbox game enthusiasts for the ease of getting into the game, the story and unique method of its telling and, most of all, the superpowers, something not often seen in a complete sandbox. Cole McGrath, the main character, always seemed the reluctant hero, forced to battle forces for the reason that no one else would. Assuming you played the good side of things, Cole truly did follow Joseph Campbell's Hero's journey, with a few modifications. It was a story of growth and transformation from ordinary person to true hero. By the end of the game, Cole, while still somewhat reticent about his status as super hero, has no reason not to follow the destiny he begins to see before him, and while the city of the game's setting might be safe, there is a whole world that needs saving. With his powers only in their infancy, what Cole comes up with next is anyone's guess.
All that aside, there is one piece of trivia that bugs me a little bit about InFamous 2. Cole's voice actor and character design are completely different. In the first InFamous, Cole' voice was gravely and his head shaven. In InFamous 2, his hair is full and black and his voice is more southern, more relatable. While Sucker Punch, the makers of the game, have purely practical reasons for doing this (their vision of Cole's voice and the actor didn't match up, and the actor couldn't make it to face modeling from where he lived) I find it against the spirit of the game. The voice and appearance of the first game acted as a strong indicator as to both the kind of person Cole is but also shone a light on his internal conflict. His voice, a low, rough sound, mirrored his mental state and reluctance to hear the call to action. His yellow apparel and rucksack showed his link to humanity while still subtly separating him from it. He remained somewhat above and beyond the normal person, while still maintaining his humanity. With the blue t-shirt, the southern voice, Cole is now still more human that he was before, and seems much more casual with the whole idea of having his powers. Now, I don't want Cole dressing up in tights and a cape, but retaining some degree of separation, at least for me, should have been tops on the list. Cole is no longer part of the population. He is a man apart, a man above and beyond so many. I think his appearance should reflect that. His reluctance should be fading as the world heats up in danger and chaos, but I know that to be a room with Cole, a man within whom a huge electric charge always sits, would be uncomfortable to say the least. I don't, therefore, want to feel like I could let him into my house and have a drink with him. If he is to be the savior, make him seem, first visually, the savior.
Thanks for reading,
Xiant
The Demo Update and Portal 2: A Briefing
Again, apologies for the late hour. Life gets in the way, and habits need to form. Because tonight is still yet later than last, this will be the shortest blog so far, and I feel awful for it. Tomorrow will be better.
On that note, the Demoman's only actual ranged weapon from his update. The Scottish Resistance. The newest weapon, along with the Direct Hit, discussed two blogs ago, it is perhaps the most tactical weapon in the entire game. Remote detonation of sticky bombs with just the press of a button, long a staple of demoman strategy, does not apply with the SR. Valve's design philosophy for their updates seems to be, "How can we make our players play differently, and play smarter?" Their case in point is the Scottish Resistance. Because you have to be directly facing, and in some cases looking directly at, groups of SR bombs to detonate them, placement and detonation takes a great deal of memory and battlefield finesse, something most demoman players, so used to the original launcher, either do not possess or do not wish to learn. This, coupled with the increased amount of sticky bombs allowed on the field of battle at a time, makes the SR the hardest weapon to use effectively. Something that I'll touch on in the future, rocket/sticky jumping, is also made a good deal harder, since the SR requires directional detonation. Therefore, the demoman must look down to detonate the SR bomb, whereas with the regular launcher he need only click a button.
As for myself, while I play demoman only to wear the really sweet hat and get a few laughs, I don't particularly care for the SR. I tax my brain enough with the strategies of TF2, especially playing demo, that I don't need to think any more than I already do. On forums I've seen people say that a skilled SR user can singlehandedly hold down any objective with little trouble. This argument, however, turns stale if you take a moment to look at any class played skillfully. Search YouTube or PLDX.com and see that scouts, soldiers, snipers, demomen without the SR, pyros even, defending the objective with nothing more than their starting weapons, and allowing their team to push back.
While I can't say too much about Portal 2, having seen only scant details (along with everyone else save Valve), I noticed this during the examples of play I did see. Note here that this is more a personal interpretation and critical stance on the game, rather than a review, but it bears speaking to. In Portal, and its sequel, there are sentry drones voiced by the voice of the main villain, indeed the only character to speak at length during the first game at all. These bots add some black humor to the already horrendously dark and funny game by trying to murder you with twin machine guns, then saying, if you defeat them, "I don't hate you." In the original Portal, they seemed little more than drones sent by your nemesis to test and, more than likely, kill you. There were moments, and these were mere moments, where their pleas to be put down before being deactivated seemed somewhat genuine, but, of course, you know better.
In Portal 2, on the other hand, there are many more ways to torment and destroy these sentry bots. Fling them into a high energy wind tunnel, down a bottomless shaft, send them into an infinite loop ending only when you decide to laser beam them to death, or just do it yourself. Fun and merciless as this is, as I watched the demo being played, a disturbing side of me began to feel pity for these little machines. Put in front of us only to serve a very simple purpose, I looked back and realized that their statement "I don't hate you." Is a true one, fully honest and devoid of deception. Programmed with only one action and response, they are innocent casualties in the war between the player character and the antagonist. What makes this yet more powerful for me is that their responses to the laser beams and the wind tunnels now seem to involve pain and distress at their situation. Not robotic any longer, they seem to truly lament the state you put them in for your own survival, and just a little bit, I feel for them as less robot killers but instead beings whose feelings and bodies are tortured only for my and my captor's amusement. It is a sad state, I think, one worth lamenting, if considered in this way.
With this, I leave you.
Good night.
Xiant
On that note, the Demoman's only actual ranged weapon from his update. The Scottish Resistance. The newest weapon, along with the Direct Hit, discussed two blogs ago, it is perhaps the most tactical weapon in the entire game. Remote detonation of sticky bombs with just the press of a button, long a staple of demoman strategy, does not apply with the SR. Valve's design philosophy for their updates seems to be, "How can we make our players play differently, and play smarter?" Their case in point is the Scottish Resistance. Because you have to be directly facing, and in some cases looking directly at, groups of SR bombs to detonate them, placement and detonation takes a great deal of memory and battlefield finesse, something most demoman players, so used to the original launcher, either do not possess or do not wish to learn. This, coupled with the increased amount of sticky bombs allowed on the field of battle at a time, makes the SR the hardest weapon to use effectively. Something that I'll touch on in the future, rocket/sticky jumping, is also made a good deal harder, since the SR requires directional detonation. Therefore, the demoman must look down to detonate the SR bomb, whereas with the regular launcher he need only click a button.
As for myself, while I play demoman only to wear the really sweet hat and get a few laughs, I don't particularly care for the SR. I tax my brain enough with the strategies of TF2, especially playing demo, that I don't need to think any more than I already do. On forums I've seen people say that a skilled SR user can singlehandedly hold down any objective with little trouble. This argument, however, turns stale if you take a moment to look at any class played skillfully. Search YouTube or PLDX.com and see that scouts, soldiers, snipers, demomen without the SR, pyros even, defending the objective with nothing more than their starting weapons, and allowing their team to push back.
While I can't say too much about Portal 2, having seen only scant details (along with everyone else save Valve), I noticed this during the examples of play I did see. Note here that this is more a personal interpretation and critical stance on the game, rather than a review, but it bears speaking to. In Portal, and its sequel, there are sentry drones voiced by the voice of the main villain, indeed the only character to speak at length during the first game at all. These bots add some black humor to the already horrendously dark and funny game by trying to murder you with twin machine guns, then saying, if you defeat them, "I don't hate you." In the original Portal, they seemed little more than drones sent by your nemesis to test and, more than likely, kill you. There were moments, and these were mere moments, where their pleas to be put down before being deactivated seemed somewhat genuine, but, of course, you know better.
In Portal 2, on the other hand, there are many more ways to torment and destroy these sentry bots. Fling them into a high energy wind tunnel, down a bottomless shaft, send them into an infinite loop ending only when you decide to laser beam them to death, or just do it yourself. Fun and merciless as this is, as I watched the demo being played, a disturbing side of me began to feel pity for these little machines. Put in front of us only to serve a very simple purpose, I looked back and realized that their statement "I don't hate you." Is a true one, fully honest and devoid of deception. Programmed with only one action and response, they are innocent casualties in the war between the player character and the antagonist. What makes this yet more powerful for me is that their responses to the laser beams and the wind tunnels now seem to involve pain and distress at their situation. Not robotic any longer, they seem to truly lament the state you put them in for your own survival, and just a little bit, I feel for them as less robot killers but instead beings whose feelings and bodies are tortured only for my and my captor's amusement. It is a sad state, I think, one worth lamenting, if considered in this way.
With this, I leave you.
Good night.
Xiant
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Ambassador and the Scout, Soldier Update weapons
Hello. Xiant again. With introductions out of the way and the basic structure of the blog established I'll get right into things. Today's topic is the update weapons for the spy and the scout and soldier. Once I finish with the nine class update weapons, I'll talk about the regular starting weapons, along with whatever else I can think of. I'll sprinkle in my thoughts from E3 tomorrow as well.
Also, I just pre-ordered Medal of Honor, and I'll get my hands on the beta on Thursday. Hopefully I'll remember to stop playing that and put something down here.
So, the Ambassador. Back when the Spy vs. Sniper update went live and the community first learned of it, the site stated that the first shot, if an accurate headshot, was a mini-crit, which did 46 damage, making anyone at least a three-shot kill. Afterwards, the update said the gun had a long cooldown period when accuracy became a real issue. This made the gun a tactical, wait-and-see weapon. At close range it was deadly in the hands of someone with a steady hand and an dead eye. Initially released, the Ambassador was a fairly balanced weapon, with a few key flaws. First, it shot through engineer buildings and there was a much smaller accuracy falloff, making distance mini-crits, a deadly thing even at the relatively low damage. Things got really hairy when Valve increased headshots to full criticals, at a whopping 102 damage. At the time, Valve did nothing about the others faults, so not only was the weapon now overpowered, but it had the ability to 1) shoot through before round gates, 2) shoot through engineer buildings, 3) make multiple critical headshots at even moderate distances. Released on May 21st of 2009, it wasn't until June 23rd at the gun reached its current state. Now, the gun acts like the regular revolver in all senses and only crits when the accuracy falloff ends. This makes the gun more balanced, but if you search around YouTube, finding Ambassador only gameplay for ludicrous scores isn't hard to come by.
As someone who took full advantage of the Ambassador before all the patches, it was a real let down to not be able to get right up next to snipers and know that you had two accurate crits to the head. It takes more skill now, and I admit I don't use the gun much, if at all. Sure, I'll put it on to change things up a bit, or just for yucks and giggles, but that's all.
As for the Scout's new primary, the Force-a-Nature, which wasn't nearly in need of fixing as the Ambassador, I think it's one of the most annoying weapons in the game. The only two above it are another Scout weapon and the Sniper upgrade, which I'll get to probably after Medal of Honor beta play winds down. Basically all Valve needed to do the FaN, as it's known, is tweak the effect it has on enemies and the ability it confers to scouts. In short, it knocks enemies backwards or allows the scout a third jump beyond if he fires at the ground. At first, the third jump worked no matter where you aimed, then they patched it.
I mentioned, though, that I hate the weapon, and I do. It's useful used intelligently, like anything in the game, but remains, to my opinion, a little over done. With its increased bullet count per shot and speed of shooting, scouts with any modicum of skill have the ability to kill almost any class in the game, even if it takes them two double barrel shots (since the FaN only has two shots per magazine). With the new item Crit-a-Cola, now even the really heavy classes have something to fear, since Mini-Crits, plus FaN, plus jumpy scout equals annoyance followed quickly by death.
Lastly, a weapon I'm more fond of but don't currently possess, since I crafted it a while back (more on that later). The Soldier's Direct Hit. Now here is a weapon with use casually and at the pro level. With increased rocket speed but reduced explosion radius, you must hit the enemies directly to be effective. Coupled with mini-crits to airborne enemies and also increased damage on a direct hit, even demomen or other soldiers have much to fear from a competent Direct Hit user. Originally, the DH had an even smaller explosion radius and air explosions were indifferent to how the enemy got into the air. Now, the enemy must be made airborne by some explosion to be mini-critted. Because of this, soldiers using the DH now cannot spam rockets in the hopes of kills. More skill isrequired.
It's getting late now, around 11:30, and my brain needs rest. Therefore, I'll continue this discussion of Update weapons tommorrow, perhaps with an errata of this post with more info about updates.
Good Night!
Xiant
Also, I just pre-ordered Medal of Honor, and I'll get my hands on the beta on Thursday. Hopefully I'll remember to stop playing that and put something down here.
So, the Ambassador. Back when the Spy vs. Sniper update went live and the community first learned of it, the site stated that the first shot, if an accurate headshot, was a mini-crit, which did 46 damage, making anyone at least a three-shot kill. Afterwards, the update said the gun had a long cooldown period when accuracy became a real issue. This made the gun a tactical, wait-and-see weapon. At close range it was deadly in the hands of someone with a steady hand and an dead eye. Initially released, the Ambassador was a fairly balanced weapon, with a few key flaws. First, it shot through engineer buildings and there was a much smaller accuracy falloff, making distance mini-crits, a deadly thing even at the relatively low damage. Things got really hairy when Valve increased headshots to full criticals, at a whopping 102 damage. At the time, Valve did nothing about the others faults, so not only was the weapon now overpowered, but it had the ability to 1) shoot through before round gates, 2) shoot through engineer buildings, 3) make multiple critical headshots at even moderate distances. Released on May 21st of 2009, it wasn't until June 23rd at the gun reached its current state. Now, the gun acts like the regular revolver in all senses and only crits when the accuracy falloff ends. This makes the gun more balanced, but if you search around YouTube, finding Ambassador only gameplay for ludicrous scores isn't hard to come by.
As someone who took full advantage of the Ambassador before all the patches, it was a real let down to not be able to get right up next to snipers and know that you had two accurate crits to the head. It takes more skill now, and I admit I don't use the gun much, if at all. Sure, I'll put it on to change things up a bit, or just for yucks and giggles, but that's all.
As for the Scout's new primary, the Force-a-Nature, which wasn't nearly in need of fixing as the Ambassador, I think it's one of the most annoying weapons in the game. The only two above it are another Scout weapon and the Sniper upgrade, which I'll get to probably after Medal of Honor beta play winds down. Basically all Valve needed to do the FaN, as it's known, is tweak the effect it has on enemies and the ability it confers to scouts. In short, it knocks enemies backwards or allows the scout a third jump beyond if he fires at the ground. At first, the third jump worked no matter where you aimed, then they patched it.
I mentioned, though, that I hate the weapon, and I do. It's useful used intelligently, like anything in the game, but remains, to my opinion, a little over done. With its increased bullet count per shot and speed of shooting, scouts with any modicum of skill have the ability to kill almost any class in the game, even if it takes them two double barrel shots (since the FaN only has two shots per magazine). With the new item Crit-a-Cola, now even the really heavy classes have something to fear, since Mini-Crits, plus FaN, plus jumpy scout equals annoyance followed quickly by death.
Lastly, a weapon I'm more fond of but don't currently possess, since I crafted it a while back (more on that later). The Soldier's Direct Hit. Now here is a weapon with use casually and at the pro level. With increased rocket speed but reduced explosion radius, you must hit the enemies directly to be effective. Coupled with mini-crits to airborne enemies and also increased damage on a direct hit, even demomen or other soldiers have much to fear from a competent Direct Hit user. Originally, the DH had an even smaller explosion radius and air explosions were indifferent to how the enemy got into the air. Now, the enemy must be made airborne by some explosion to be mini-critted. Because of this, soldiers using the DH now cannot spam rockets in the hopes of kills. More skill isrequired.
It's getting late now, around 11:30, and my brain needs rest. Therefore, I'll continue this discussion of Update weapons tommorrow, perhaps with an errata of this post with more info about updates.
Good Night!
Xiant
Monday, June 14, 2010
The Quest Begins
Hello, internet, they call me Xiant on Steam, and I'm watching G4's coverage of E3 2010. Currently they're talking about the Ubisoft press conference. As a goal of mine is to eventually reach the fabled halls of big name video game scriptwriters, I thought that a good place to start would be here, in the vast reaches of cyberspace, with my writing about the industry. At some point I might begin to write a script here when my traffic reaches a certain point, but first I just wanted to get started. So here we go.
With this blog, separate from my more personal ones, I'm going to talk about news, reviews and my interpretations of video game stories. Also, I'll give a sort of running commentary on the state of multiplayer games as I know them. This last bit is the topic of today's, the first, blog. The game of choice for today is my game of choice, Team Fortress 2.
Now, TF2, as I'll write it for convenience's sake, came out almost three years ago, but has changed immensely since then. Back then, there were only a few maps, Dustbowl, 2Fort, Gravel Pit, Turbine, Hydro and Granary. The nine classes (scout, soldier, pyro, demoman, heavy, engineer, medic, sniper and spy) all had only three weapons and their class's abilities to combat the enemy team. Players needed to adapt to the situation in ways today's player would likely find different and perhaps still more challenging. Medics had no ability to call out ten second non-stop critical hits; demomen couldn't lop off people's heads; the scout couldn't go invincible for six seconds; and, my favorite class, the spy had ten seconds of cloak with a thirty second recharge time. Map knowledge was paramount, especially for the spy, since if you uncloaked in the wrong spot, you were dead. Quickly. No one likes a spy.
Since then, over 120 updates have completely changed the game, giving each class save the engineer (forthcoming) three new items to play the game differently and more complexly (or cheaply, some argue). Since I talked a little more about the spy, that'll take up the rest of this entry.
I began my entry into the spy not long after I got the game, once I found my bearings. At the time, the December 11th, 2008 update was still a couple months away. For those new, or newer, to the game, it was that update that allowed spies to pick up ammo boxes and fallen weapons to restore the cloak meter. Valve got a great deal of flak for this update, since spies of even superficial skill, with enough map knowledge, to stay invisible indefinitely, picking their spots to uncloak. Or, if they knew the location of a full ammo box, they could camp (unless a pyro has half a brain and starts flaming the ammo locations) as long as they liked.
The main argument beyond this, however, is that the spy was now so much easier to play. The tactical cloak uncloak was "out the door" so to speak, and optimal use of space no longer mattered. As long as there was ammo, you could uncloak wherever you wanted. To an extent this became true. Spy did lose some of its difficulty and more people started playing. Of course, the spy at this point remained a class that took a good, if not great, amount of skill. Uncloaking was perhaps harder since players with map knowledge now patrolled the ammo locations and began timing dropped weapons disappearing. Spies picking up ammo or dropped weapons became a dead giveaway. A team with competent pyros just needed to spray a couple puffs near where the spy just was or might be and suddenly twelve to sixteen players converge to send the spy into the ground. The spy was not invincible, and the play style changed to adapt to the new update.
Then came the spy update, which changed everything. Again. Two new invisibility watches created two new play styles, for better or worse. with the Cloak and Dagger, campy spies became vogue, since standing still now recharged the cloak. Map knowledge and troop movement knowledge still applied since you needed a safe place to wait for recharge. Also, since the C&D (as I'll now call it), used cloak faster, you had less time before good players knew exactly where you were and converged on you to end whatever your plans were. By the time of this writing, the C&D is the least used watch of all of them, I think, because of the stigma against camping and the reduced moving cloak time. However, the other watch they introduced, now the most used of all of them, is yet more stigmatized, and does essentially make the spy, physically one of the weakest classes, invincible for about 6 seconds.
I speak, of course, of the Dead Ringer (DR for short). With only 10% damage for 6.5 seconds and fake death to throw off your enemies, a full health spy can take several critical rockets, stickies, pills, even several backstabs (whose damage can go into the 1000's). However, after Valve allowed spies to recover DR energy with ammo as well, since this was not original feature, the DR became what has come to be called "easy mode." Valve attempted to remedy this by capping the cloak energy gained from ammo and reducing the amount of cloak energy left when you decloak (since it takes a full cloak to activate the DR).
With the advent of the DR, spying reached a new, low level of difficulty, (though none of the classes are really "easy" to play well). As a consequence of the DR's ubiquity among all levels of spy play, and the length of time a spy remains on fire even after having the DR activated, made every single player, pyros especially, paranoid beyond anything before. Now spies who did not use the DR have a much more difficult time, since spy death went way, way up on the list of priorities. Higher, even, than it had been before. Regularly cloaked spies, since the DR forces you to stay visible until it goes off, fear the paranoid pyro (or soldier, or demo or anyone with skill).
As for myself, since I play on large, 32 man servers on maps primarily made for 24, I use the DR if only because the choke points doing really allow for a good way around the enemy team to behind them. Better spies than I, of which there are many, will of course get behind anyway and have a great time. Lesser spies than I, of which there are an equal number, can do the same and have just as much, if not more success, with the DR. I can use the regular watch to great effect, but I'll admit I'm a bit rusty, since I play soldier and demo and medic more these days.
My opinion on the matter is this. The DR is now an overpowered crutch that lesser spies use to get good scores and gain infamy on the servers they play on. However, I will say this in the DR's defense: every watch at the spy's disposal has a use depending on the situation.
The end story to TF2, not just the spy, is that combat, how you play and the weapons you use are situational. For the spy specifically, the DR has its uses in crowded areas when there are nigh-impossible ways behind enemy lines. The C&D is good for wide open map with metal just far enough away to be inconvenient for the regular watch. The regular watch itself is good for almost any map with enough metal and/or hiding spots for stab-and-go tactics. Which ever watch works for you is the watch you should use. Whatever style of play you enjoy will dictate which watch you want to use.
In the end though, Team Fortress 2 is a game. Have fun with it. Don't over think it or put too much stock in it.
For tomorrow's post, I'll talk more about the spy, specifically his ranged weapons. Since there's not quite as much to talk about there, I'll branch out into some (maybe all) of the update weapons for the nine classes. The post after that will talk strategies I've discovered over the years. If I decide to get the Medal of Honor beta before all that's done, my initial impressions will appear here instead, with the finish to follow.
Thanks for reading, those of you that have, and I'll see you tomorrow.
Xiant
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