Community: Message List

Re: Are map packs going to be free?

donotreply@activision.com — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:49:18 GMT

Diddemz wrote:

What is all this nonsense about "if it is tied in with steam the DLC is going to cost money". Does anyone even know the history of steam games. Valve has a great record of providing developer and free content to there playerbase. Even CS:S received a huge update recently and it was of course free >.>, steam has some issues but free content is one of the things they have done continuously. It was Infinity Ward and Activision deciding that the map packs we're going to cost, not steam >.>

I get the feeling all the people bitching about steam are 30 mil Steam ID's who only used it starting with MW2. I can understand not wanting a 3rd party app for a game but the other accusations of steam are just ill informed and wrong.

JD has confirmed that Black Ops will not be tied-in with Steam. But if it was, it would have been a clear indication that they were going to charge for DLC. Why else would they tie the game in with Steam? Steam can be used as a market place to buy DLC and have the account tied-in with the purchase, and still use dedicated servers.

This is why people were saying if Black Ops had been tied in with Steam it would indicate they were going to charge for DLC.

Re: Will COD BLACK OPS use STEAM OR GAMES FOR WINDOWS LIVE

donotreply@activision.com — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:40:33 GMT

_SanitY_ wrote:

why do people want steam or GFWL? they are both pointless. We don't NEED either.

If they are going to charge for DLC they will need SOMETHING. They wont just hand out DLC files as they will be easy to pirate. They need a system that checks if you have bought the DLC or not. Games for Windows Live is an easy way for them to do that (not saying they will use it, just pointing it out). It's free, and if Black Ops is a Games for Windows game like World at War was, then using the GFWL market place on top of that will be a walk in the park as far as setting things up for DLC.

Re: Will COD BLACK OPS use STEAM OR GAMES FOR WINDOWS LIVE

donotreply@activision.com — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:37:14 GMT

JD has confirmed that there will be no tie-in with Steam:

http://community.callofduty.com/thread/100265021

You will be able to purchase Black Ops over Steam, but Steam is not required to play it.

Re: Pay to Play?

donotreply@activision.com — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 20:06:12 GMT

Ngamok wrote:

If I remember correctly, there will be an option to do P2P and Dedicated Servers as well.

The matchmaking is for CoOP/Zombie mode only. Multiplayer will use dedicated servers only.

Re: name of engine?

donotreply@activision.com — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:10:17 GMT

nydde wrote:

I dont know if you have played the MoH beta, but I did and i really tried to like it. It looks like
cod the maps are cod like, but it makes the hole thing that we are talking about so clear, if anyone
want to try cod with a diffrent engine try MoH.

And for me its totally unplayable, and it all comes down to what u said avatar movment. And things
like hit detection but mostly avatar movment. All "quake" games if you play them alot the mouse and kb
will just be an extension of your body to the game. And thats whats make them great.

Yeah, I have played the MOH beta and I agree - it tries to be COD but cant get it right. It cant get away from the clunky avatar movement like BC2.

I too tried to like MOH, wanted to like it, but couldn't for the same reasons I hated BC2 - poor avatar movement and poor hit detection.

Re: name of engine?

donotreply@activision.com — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:38:19 GMT

nydde wrote:

I agree to all of that, my point is that the id tech 3 engine that they started out with is
one of the huge part of how the engine handels to day still and what makes it great in practical tearms
(gaming on it)

And the same go for halvlife and CS 1.6, the id tech is one of the huge part of what made thos games great.

John Carmack is brilliant at making game engines for multiplayer.

Do you realy think that the cod series would play anything like it do if they
had used the UT engine from the start? If they had remade that engine over the
years to a "new" engine. Ofc not.

Yeah, totally agree with you. It is the underlying avatar movement code of the original Quake engine which gives all games based on it that fluidity.

And I also agree with you that Carmack is a genius at game design.

Re: code

donotreply@activision.com — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:28:57 GMT

grantia wrote:

I need a code for the game to install. but my father has thrown away. You can send new one? you will help me a lot if you give him.

Erm, games not been released yet Pal, so there is no way you've thrown anything away.

And anyway, there is no way you're going to get a new CD key by asking for it in this way.

Re: name of engine?

donotreply@activision.com — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:58:31 GMT

nydde wrote:

Yes. So what? 4.0? IW engine? you have to specify m8

Me or him never said it was not modified, and no it was not a mod. The bought the engine not the game(q3)
again id tech 3 nothing els.

And yes after the years ofcorse they changed alot maby "everything" but when chaning in an engine part
from part from game to game you will still have the "idea" or consept of the original engine left in
the game the backbone or soul if you will, the arcutecture.

And that is what you can feel if you play the game, download quakeLive and play it. The game is very
diffrent from cod but you can feel its the "same" engine in the way you move the way it responds.

------------------

When Gabe Newell left Microsoft and formed Valve, he licensed the Quake 1 engine from id Software and re-wrote 70% of it and made the Half Life engine (technically called the Gold Scr engine). Since its arrival, the Half Life engine has been called "a new engine". No one disputes it, yet 30% of Gold Scr's code is still Quake 1. But people dont call it "a heavily modified Quake 1 engine". This is because of the changes Valve made to it - so many in fact, that the original engine no longer exists.

There is an old conundrum called "The Ship of Thesus", and is a paradox that raises the question of whether an object which has had all its component parts replaced remains fundamentally the same object. If Valve and IW have taken their core engine bases and so totally replaced the old ones with brand new ones, is the core base still the same? I think not.

In other words, Valve took the Quake 1 engine and modified it to such an extent, it is no longer recognisable as the original.

Similarly, IW did the same - they took their Quake 3 Arena engine base for vCOD and so totally modified it by replacing so many of its core aspects, it is no longer recognisable as the original engine.

BTW - IW never "bought" the engine they used for vCOD. It was always a licensed Quake 3 Areana engine from id Software.

Re: name of engine?

donotreply@activision.com — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:46:36 GMT

w3st420 wrote:

Just to clear some things up:

1: This engine has NOT been made from the ground up. It is a *heavily* modified Q3 engine from (not sure the original date) vCod so definitely from at least 2003. It won't fully utilize dx10 or dx11 mostly because when the engine was made they didn't exist. Also why do you think it still has the frame glitches (com_maxfps 1/x when x= a whole number) that make you jump higher? Because the engine wasn't developed from the ground up. They just recycle and add to the engine after each release.

2: They won't upgrade it because why change a multi-million dollar franchise that is making more money now than ever?

Shouldn't be called the IW engine or whatever, it's a modified q3 engine. Oh and whoever that was, you actually believe anything 402 says? Wow.

---------------------

IW have always claimed they built the COD2 engine "from the ground up":

Eric Riley wrote:

We built our engine from the ground up for Call of Duty 2, knowing that we were developing for the next generation of console technology. Above and beyond what Call of Duty (1) had, we have normal and specular maps, feathered particles that allow us to get a real volumetric effect from our explosions and smoke grenades, soft shadows, heat shimmers, screen blur, dynamics for the gear on characters, improved facial animation and higher polygon counts all around. Infinity Ward is always focused on gameplay though, so weâ€™re always careful to maintain a great frame rate, and to make sure that we can still deliver huge, epic battles.

http://iwnation.com/forums/index.php?s=c9b6b8102dcea37f8f4991503dcf7763&showtopi c=27100&view=findpost&p=256611

The simple fact of the matter is, the very core aspects of the COD2 engine are unlike anything seen in the Quake engine before. Even the simple shift from Quake 3's Gouraud shading method to COD2's Phong shading method means that the core of the Graphics Renderer is very different, as the two methods of rendering light and shade are as different as apples and oranges.

Even if this was the only advancement IW had made, it would have made the COD2 engine very different from the Quake 3 engine as the 2 methods of shading are incompatable, but of course there is so much more that is different between the COD2 engine when compared with the Quake 3 engine that one has to say - the COD2 engine can do so many things that the Quake 3 engine can't do, you have to call it "new".

As for finding dvars/cvars in COD2 that can also be found in Quake 3 engine-based games, if you know anything about software engineering you would know that you can take a whole bunch of settings from one program and put them in a completely new program without affecting the uniqueness of the new program.

The dvars in games such as Quake, Doom 3, Call of Duty, or any Source-based games are in a simple txt file called a "header" file (.H file format). You can take a .h file from one game engine and put it in another no problem at all. That doesnt mean the underlying engine which utilises them is the same.

Doom 3 is a new engine, correct? Yet it has an almost identical cvar listing to Quake 3/Quake 3 Arena (which are 2 seperate engines actually). In fact com_maxFPS is one of them. Doesnt mean its a Quake 3 engine as its base though.

The Source engine still has 30% of Quake 1 engine code in it. Still doesnt affect the uniqueness of its status as a "new" engine. In fact, it also has many cvar listings left over from Quake 1. Doesnt mean that Source engine games are "really" based on the Quake 1 engine. You cant, for example, say that Half Life is a Quake 1 engine game.

I see this type of spurious argument used around the net quite often when people talk about game engines, and its almost always from people who dont know about software engineering, or know very little about it.

Re: name of engine?

donotreply@activision.com — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:36:02 GMT

nydde wrote:

The name of the engine from the start is the "id tech 3" engine
And it has been the engine from the start of cod. They just kept
on building on it and improving it.

And its the engine that id made for quake 3 arena.

Certainly, IW used the Quake 3 Arena engine (not the Quake 3 engine - thats a different engine and many make the mistake) for vCOD, but IW made their own proprietary engine for COD2. At the time it didnt have a name, but is now considered to be the IW Tech 2.0 engine.

The COD2 engine was further developed for COD4, and Treyarch used this engine for WaW with many modificaitons. Black Ops is based on the modifications Treyarch made on the engine they used for WaW - that is, the COD4 engine.

Technically, the COD4 engine is named the IW Tech 3.0 engine:

The 10 Best Game Engines: IW Engine:

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/100/1003728p2.html

Re: How do I uninstall resurgence pack?

donotreply@activision.com — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:12:56 GMT

You cant get around the problem. Its the account with Steam which is flagged as having purchased DLC, so even if you reinstall, the account still says you purchased it, and will auto download the DLC files and matchmake you with other DLC customers.

the only way I can think of to do it is if you were to create a new account with Steam, but I dont think you can re-use your CD key with MW2. I think once its tied to an account, thats it.

Re: Why is Treyarch promoting Dedicated so much?

donotreply@activision.com — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:10:33 GMT

@smoothaz -

The information we (and I do mean "we") had recieved at CustomCod at the time (3 months ago) was believed to be true at the time of posting and was "as posted". However subsequent to that post being made (and lets face it was an old post - 3 months is old in COD community terms), we discovered that the info was NOT correct - hence why it was removed.

There is an ocean of difference between lying and making a mistake. It was wrong, it was corrected. That is not lying. Its being human. As Alexander Pope famously said: "to err is human, to forgive divine".

I see no victory in your last post, as the info was as wrong as you are right now. I admit I did not recognise the words at first because I havent seen them for over 3 months and the germ of the post you quoted was not mine anyhow (they were our inside informant). However, the important difference between your position and mine is this, we recognised our mistake and corrected it, but you wont.

You talk about "adults", but you fight like a child. You have flamed almost everyone on this forum, but are incredibly blind to it and accuse others of being the flamers. As I said elsewhere, your hubris defies belief and is the hallmark of a distrubed mind.

BTW - you have previously called me "Billy Nomates", but from the feedback Ive been getting, thats you isnt it? You have no credentials around the COD community. You are a non-entity, a nobody. Nobody knows who you are. You are a Billy Nomates. Which is why I called you Joe Lonely. Very apt, considering, dont you think?

I do enjoy our jousts smooth. You always come out the loser. Particularly knowing as I do how wrong you are in this particular matter and how devastated you are going to be in a week or so when Treyarch announce the MP lowdown, and the nature of the dedicated servers they have been developing - as "open" as they were in WaW. You talk about me not being magnanomous and being able to say "sorry", but I think the reverse is actually true. I really cant see you being a man and stepping up to the plate and apologising.

Re: MW2 Invasion remake for CoD4 !

donotreply@activision.com — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:50:09 GMT

InternalRivalry wrote:

Look in the mapping files.

mp_invasion.

Its already been done by infinity ward lol, it was just never released.

Never released? What are you talking about? Its one of the stock maps called - not surprisingly - "Invasion".

Or have I completely misunderstood what you are saying?

Re: WHY?

donotreply@activision.com — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:45:44 GMT

Another wash day thread? Wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat.

How many of these types of threads trying to get IW to respond does it take before any of you get the message? We've had 8 months of the same threads all going in the exact same direction - nowhere!

Complete waste of time. Moderators please delete.

Re: Why is Treyarch promoting Dedicated so much?

donotreply@activision.com — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:16:32 GMT

vTOwnage wrote:

Theres a 24 year age difference between us, I think you should be a lot more mature than me. Also to note, its kind of creepy you know my age. At least I'm mature enough to report this post before an all out flame-war starts again.

How is it creepy that you told me how old you are? Is it more creepy than you telling me your real name?

If you are going to report a post or posts in order to prevent a flame war, its customary NOT to contribute to the flaming yourself. Or didnt you know that?

As to your accusation, if I am immature, I am in good company in the COD community. Some of the best flamers I know are about my age or older:

BritishBulldog1 - 58 and a champion gold medal winner for flaming
smoothaz - 58 and also a champion gold medal winner for flaming
Mike_Nomad - 68 and an 18 carat gold flamer of the first order
Wizz - 49 and a flamer of the first order.

So you see - Im in good company.

Re: Why is Treyarch promoting Dedicated so much?

donotreply@activision.com — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:09:44 GMT

vTOwnage wrote:

You sure don't act like a 50 year old.

Stirring the pot isnt considered mature for a 26 year old, is it? Mr Pot, meet Mr kettle.

BTW - smoothaz is 58 years old. What sauce is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Re: Why is Treyarch promoting Dedicated so much?

donotreply@activision.com — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:02:38 GMT

smoothaz wrote:

Demon..It is no secret that everyone feared that Treyarch would ship their next title with something similar to IWNet , yet they have confirmed that the game will have dedicated servers . However, it is little known that the fears over TreyNet were not unfounded ... I can reveal that Treyarch were indeed originally planning on a P2P matchmaking system for the PC until the enormity of the backlash to IWNet was seen and heard. Thats when they also did an about-face and decided P2P would kill the PC game.
They have all seen the adverse reaction to IWNet and now they have all been forced to rethink the strategy and go for dedicated servers.

That is the biggest pile of Bullshit I've heard you utter so far. Link or source, or it didn't happen. You will not be able to provide either, as you dont have any insider sources at Treyarch as you have no credentials in the COD community, and there is certainly no postings on any websites otherwise I would know about them, or some of my staff would (I am a Director of a COD modding community with over 15 staff members always on the look out for COD news. Sparky McSparks, who actually works for Treyarch is one of the staff members there:

http://www.customcod.com/index.php ).

More importantly, however, PCDev is on record as saying - they had dedicated servers from day 1 and they have never deviated from that plan. That flatly contradicts you.

If you have to make up stuff to support your arguments, you really have lost the fight. I would suggest you retire now gracefully before you make yourself look like an even bigger prick than you already have (whoops! too late! LMAO).

Re: Why is Treyarch promoting Dedicated so much?

donotreply@activision.com — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:20:17 GMT

@smoothaz -

Im going to be brief. Seek professional help Pal. You are clearly not well. No one can be as blind to their hypocrisy as you are without being mentally unwell. I am no psychiatrist, but if I were allowed a guess I'd say you suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, type A. It explains perfectly the staggering hubris you display.

BTW - I suspect that "smoothaz" is a new username for you correct? When I google "smoothaz" I get little returns for COD forum postings. It doesnt have any history. So what previous one did you use? What are you trying to hide from? I dont expect you to answer this because I believe you ARE hiding, and your past forum posting is something you are trying to escape from. Pointing out threads on other forums you have participated in is not going to be something you want people to know about.

Re: PC users, what exactly was IWnet?

donotreply@activision.com — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:08:02 GMT

smoothaz wrote:

Not when your responding to the post immediately above your own.Then again commonsense was never one of your strong points

Kawz is correct - it is common forum etiquette to quote a post you wish to reply to irrespective or whether or not its the one preceeding yours. You never know if a post is going to be just above yours. Someone might post ahead of you while you are composing your own post. Hence, you quote the post you want to reply to so everyone knows where they are.

I am an administrator at 4 gaming sites, 2 of them for well over 4 years, and in all that time I have never heard of a rule that says you dont quote who you are replying to if its the post preceeding yours. You, on the other hand, are a forum noobie. You are not affiliated to any forums I know of, and you only just joined this site 2 months ago. Best to leave the patronizing of forum etiquette to those who are more experienced than you, eh?

Re: Why is Treyarch promoting Dedicated so much?

donotreply@activision.com — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:52:01 GMT

smoothaz wrote:

kawz wrote:

Without any concrete knowledge on the subject, we're just speculating of course, but it doesn't take much to put 2 and 2 together.
IF Activision is directing the game development, and THEY told Infinity Ward to do what they did, why then were dedicated servers on the table for Black Ops from the very beginning. Wouldn't Activision tell Treyarch the same thing, if they're endgame was to control every aspect of the PC title? One would think so, but we know that's not the case.
[i]
.

Maybe because they are not stupid...the game wouldn't sell on P2P such is the fury of gamers atm.

Besides putting two and two together,they can still easily control all aspects of the game utilizing dedicated servers.If they retain server files & modtools and only allow the gamer to use TGSP's.They host the game for you giving you limited Admin control.

job done...all content comes via them.

----------------

You missed Kawz's quote from Treyarch saying that they had dedicated servers planned from day 1 of development:

pcdev wrote:

We decided to have dedicated servers for this title from the very beginning of the project. We have not wavered from this for a moment.

CoD Black Ops PC has dedicated servers. Definitely.

According to your scenario, Activision only changed their minds about P2P in the wake of the backlash from the PC community to the news about IWNet - which happened 10 months approx after Treyarch had started work on Black Ops (news about IWNet first appeared in October 2009 - Treyarch had begun work on Black Ops the December before). My questions to you are: is this what you are saying? Are you saying Treyarch worked 10 months on a game with a P2P system in it, only to switch to a dedicated server model after the backlash from the PC community to IWNet? If so, how do you explain Treyarch's claim that they have been working on the game with dedicated servers in it from day 1? Are you saying they are lying?

Personally, I cant see how you are not saying this because, according to your scenario about how game development happens at both Infinity Ward and Treyarch, it is Activision that pushes all the design buttons. If they forced IW to go with IWNet because of some grand business scheme to fulfil, they would have done the same with Treyarch. In which case, according to your scenario, Treyarch would have been forced to use a P2P system the moment they started working on Black Ops as well. In which case, from your scenario, PCDev's statement that they had dedicated servers planned from day 1 would be a lie.

I would point out to you that your scenario is fatally flawed anyway, in that we cant see any evidence of Activision "forcing" design decisions on studios. Even IW themselves did not invest in IWNet until mid Septemeber 2009 - a whole year after development on MW2 began. Before mid September 2009, IW were "undecided" about whether to use dedicated servers or go with the matchmaking system we now know as IWNet:

http://www.fpsadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18475

As you can see from the link above, rudedog had that interview with Jason West September 15, 2009. At that stage, they had still planned on dedicated servers with Linux server bits and mod tools to follow after launch, but they were also - mid September - looking "very closely" at Steam for matchmaking. So, in other words, still undecided whether to go with dedicated servers or IWNet.

Now, if Activision were forcing IW to follow a business plan to "lock down the game" as you claim, how come this wasnt forced on them from day 1 of development? How come the decisions were still up in the air with just 3 months to go before launch if Activision are calling the shots?

Let me qucikly anticipate a reply you might possibly make: you might argue back and say that the dedicated servers IW were thinking about were those which used "trusted" Game Server Providers. In other words, no way to run a dedicated server other than to rent one from them. However, this scenario is obviated by Jason West saying to rudedog that Linux server bits were on the list, but wouldnt make the lauch date (nothing new there anyway - they are always late). You dont issue Linux server bits if there is no way to run a server yourself. So, no evidence of using the BC2 model at all.

In all, I think you should stop playing amateur game developer. You really arent very good at it. It is clear that both Treyarch and Infinity Ward call the shots regarding game design decisions. Other than the title fo the game, and the release date, Activision lets the studios make the game the way they want to make it. Whatever next? Will you be saying that Create a Class 2.0 is Activisions idea? Or that the inclusion of the new crossbow in Black Ops was an idea Bobby Kotick had while on the John taking a crap?