Activision I don't Want to Buy Your Damn Map-Packs!

[Blatherscythe]

I have recently purchused Call of Duty: World at War because it was cheap and I have more interest in WW2 than current day wars. I played some campiagn, killed a shit load of zombies and now I have come to the multiplayer. It's fun, kill streaks aren't too bad, guns being what they were in WW2 means that no one has a HUGE advantage and grenades aren't as powerful or bouncy as the other COD games. Of course that is when I can actually play it, I realized this game had no more dedicated servers when a guy jump across the map, took a clip from my MP40 to the face and then levitated into the air and blew me up with a rocket. I have probably sent more complaints to Xbox Live about cheaters in last 2 days then in the whole 3 years I've had my Xbox. But I can deal with hackers, I am happy in the knowledge that they will be out 300$ if my complaints of modded Xbox's get them a well deserved swing of the ole banhammer, besides it's par for the course with an abandoned game like COD:WAW and I don't care about K/D ratios anyways. What pisses me off the most is the fact that I'm usually bumped back to the menu because I don't have this map, I'm not even playing on the map-pack play-list and this happens most of the time.

In fact, my cousin informed me that this still happens in Black Ops, where you will be kicked back to the menu for not having the map-packs. It's ridiculous. I thought that maybe they would have lowered the price for the maps or made them free because the game is so old and has barely 15,000 players, but no, 2500 Microsoft Points for the cheapest bundle. Is Kotick really that much of a jackass? This behaviour has actually made me less interested in the map-packs, I think it's inexcusable to be so unfriendly to new players by constantly sending them back to the menus and force them to spend another minute of host migrations to allow them to play the game they payed you for.

What are your thoughts on this behaviour?

 

[MLChanges]

I don't think I've ever bought a map pack for an FPS. out of the 60+ Xbox360 games I own I've only bought the DLC for Fallout and maybe one or two for Oblivion.

 

[triggrhappy94]

Screw map packs. I don't get booted to the lobby menu very often for them though.

The only map pack I've ever gotten was the Flash Back map pack for Gears 2, and that came with the game

 

[Smooth Operator]

Ya they want you to buy those maps badly, because they like money alot more then your support, and you can be assured those hiccups are intentional to remind you of extra maps.

You can't really do anything about it apart from not buying these games.
That bullshit DLC wont go away because there is a swarm of casual players just waiting to give Activision more money for anything they put out, I just want to see how far they can push it before people get wise.

 

[Blatherscythe]

Don't pay for the maps? Don't complain if someone wants to play the maps.

*shrug*

That's just it, I'm not playing on the play-list for the map-packs.

 

[Blatherscythe]

Ya they want you to buy those maps badly, because they like money alot more then your support, and you can be assured those hiccups are intentional to remind you of extra maps.

You can't really do anything about it apart from not buying these games.
That bullshit DLC wont go away because there is a swarm of casual players just waiting to give Activision more money for anything they put out, I just want to see how far they can push it before people get wise.

If anything, doing this makes me want to not buy the map packs just to spite them.

 

[LooK iTz Jinjo]

I refused to buy the Halo Reach map packs during the couple of months that I played it and every time I loaded the game it would come up with a message saying "You don't have the map packs, do you wanna buy 'em? Do you wanna buy 'em? BUY THEM NOW!" I got this message like 4 times before I could even load a game.

 

[Polock]

Its supporting a company really. How much do you really want to play those maps? If you care, you will purchase them.

Or you could play a game like TF2 on the computer, and get an infinite list of user supported maps, where the players who made the maps actually get paid for making said maps.

Your call I guess.

 

[Twilight_guy]

If it kicks you for not having the map then that's poor design. It should either not include maps you don't have or have some warning for needing to buy the map pack if they want to advertise it.

 

[Leon Pendragon]

Don't pay for the maps? Don't complain if someone wants to play the maps.

*shrug*

That's just it, I'm not playing on the play-list for the map-packs.

I still don't understand.

You don't want to pay for a service, some people do. When the people who do pay for that service wish to engage in it, you don't get to.

*shrug*

I think his point is that it constantly gets in the way of him playing the content he DID pay for. And how do the justify selling map-packs for a 4-6 year old map pack at their launch price anyhow? They purposely make it a pain in the butt to try and twist your arm into buying them too,it's pretty ridiculous.

 

[Xannieros]

I hate map packs in general ever since Halo 2&3. You had to buy them to play on things like team deathmatch. There is no queuing system for people without them. You get stuck with less content if you don't buy them. Same thing happened on CoD Modern Warfare 2, but they fixed it. To where you could queue for either map pack games or standard ones.

The way I see it is, a full game. Campaign and Multiplayer (With many Maps) is worth around $59.99. A map pack (With 2-4 Maps) is valued around $14.99. Should the maps be really THAT expensive? Even $10 seems like too much for content/price.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Its not that much of a problem..... I own Black Ops and the first strike DLC, but before i bought first strike i was only booted out of lobbies maybe 3 - 4 times. Besides its not like its hard to find another match within roughly 40 seconds

 

[Jekken6]

the price of the map packs are too expensive. they're AU$15 on PC, but a $10 or less cost would be more suitable. a little under the quarter cost of the entire game, for 5 maps

 

[Rednog]

Don't pay for the maps? Don't complain if someone wants to play the maps.

*shrug*

That's just it, I'm not playing on the play-list for the map-packs.

I still don't understand.

You don't want to pay for a service, some people do. When the people who do pay for that service wish to engage in it, you don't get to.

*shrug*

I think his point is that it constantly gets in the way of him playing the content he DID pay for. And how do the justify selling map-packs for a 4-6 year old map pack at their launch price anyhow? They purposely make it a pain in the butt to try and twist your arm into buying them too,it's pretty ridiculous.

No, they can play the game they played for all they like. Just don't expect the entire userbase to want to play the old maps because you don't want to pay.

Question: Have you actually experienced the issue the guy is talking about, otherwise you're kinda spouting nonsense.
I've actually had to deal with this problem, since I just got around to popping in my copy of World at War, the problem is the people playing the maps aren't the ones to choose what map they play on. It is an automated rotation of the entire map playlist, including both maps that come with the game and all the DLC maps. Because of this you have to perpetually enter and leave lobbies like a maniac just to get into one that actually has the upcoming map as one of the ones you own. What makes this extra difficult is since the game is based on match making and not server browsing (where you could actually look for the maps you can play) you get matched with the same people who are going to play the map that you cannot, so you have to wait like 30+ seconds before you can match make again or you'll just keep entering the same match that you can't play.
Last time I tried it took me maybe 5 or so minutes to actually get into a match whose map I could actually play. It is insanely frustrating and it is kind of annoying that 3arch couldn't fix the system so that it would only match you with other people who are playing the maps you have, instead of it being an absolute crapshoot.

 

[Charconian]

Wha? I don't even...

Yeah guessing you don't care if you bought a game at full price, enjoy it for a bit but than these maps you don't want to pay for come around. SO you don't buy them. Now you can't enjoy your game as much or even at all just because you don't feel like paying for another 1/4 or (if multiple map packs) 1/2 of a game. So you just throw away your 60$.

*shrug*

 

[subtlefuge]

Your only vote as a consumer is your 15 bucks. Don't buy them and they will respond to market pressure.