Developer: The Call Of Duty Engine is a "Porsche"

[NerfedFalcon]

Nintendo Wii, anyone? The best HD you can get is 480p, and that's if you have the special cable. Despite that, it still has some incredibly good-looking games. That most people who care about Call of Duty will slag without having played given the first opportunity as 'baby games with baby graphics for babies.' Yeah, like your regenerating health obsession is any better.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

why change something thats not broken? why does everyone want innovation?
what is with people always wanting more out of things that don't have a problem? everyone is obsessed with graphics and engines. thats all i ever see gamers complain about. can't we all just sit down and just enjoy the game for what it is? a GAME? ok graphics are important yeah, but it isn't the sole purpose to play games.

You, sir, hit the nail on the head, but you're using the argument to defend the side it's attacking.

I will admit to liking several things that don't change a lot from game to game: Mario, for instance. Thing is, Nintendo released Mario's games further apart, and they don't do DLC, online passes, or anything else that would keep them from being niche. But hey, they still make money, and the gameplay is fun if not varied. And it doesn't imitate anything except its own past successes.

Now, with Call of Duty, on the other hand, the obsession is with graphics over gameplay. Every post I've seen about it is about its graphics, its map packs, and the fact that it'll be a $100 (I live in Australia; markups are on everything here, and it is actually $100 on Steam) multiplayer pass for Modern Warfare 1.2, and since all your friends are moving on, you'd better do it too, bucko! It also apes Halo with its regenerating health, something that worked in the context of science fiction, but not for a 'realistic' game, puts in 20 guns that all do exactly the same thing, says 'good enough' and throws it out.

I liked Modern Warfare 1, which is the only Call of Duty I've played, but neither Modern Warfare after that interested me at all.

And the thing about Battlefield is that it's trying to be 'Call of Duty, except not published by Bobby Kotick'. That means that in betraying its original fans to try and get some Call of Duty fans instead, who will ignore Battlefield in favour of Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3 will be the better-selling of the two biggest gray, 'realistic' shooters of 2011.

[/thesis]

 

[42]

why change something thats not broken? why does everyone want innovation?
what is with people always wanting more out of things that don't have a problem? everyone is obsessed with graphics and engines. thats all i ever see gamers complain about. can't we all just sit down and just enjoy the game for what it is? a GAME? ok graphics are important yeah, but it isn't the sole purpose to play games.

Why not change what is good? Then WHY make a sequel?!?

Why innovation? Because they want more of our money!

This meagre improvement should be a $40-50 game and DEFINITELY should include all maps with that price, not another 4 map-packs at $15 a piece.

COD(insert number between 4 and 27) should not mean just another opportunity to give Bobby Kotick $60 + $15 + $15 + $15.

Graphics aren't the sole purpose... but derivative graphics and models DO knock about $10-15 off the value of the game.

what I'm saying is that not everything has to be updated to look prettier. I'm not complaining about the companies advertising about their innovations, I'm going off against the gamers who constantly obsess over how good a game looks. ok CoD has a few areas it could improve on, but this might sound strange but i'm actually one of those rare creatures that buy it for it's single player campaigns. :O i know. anyway you don't know true expense until you've lived in australia.

why change something thats not broken? why does everyone want innovation?
what is with people always wanting more out of things that don't have a problem? everyone is obsessed with graphics and engines. thats all i ever see gamers complain about. can't we all just sit down and just enjoy the game for what it is? a GAME? ok graphics are important yeah, but it isn't the sole purpose to play games.

You, sir, hit the nail on the head, but you're using the argument to defend the side it's attacking.

I will admit to liking several things that don't change a lot from game to game: Mario, for instance. Thing is, Nintendo released Mario's games further apart, and they don't do DLC, online passes, or anything else that would keep them from being niche. But hey, they still make money, and the gameplay is fun if not varied. And it doesn't imitate anything except its own past successes.

Now, with Call of Duty, on the other hand, the obsession is with graphics over gameplay. Every post I've seen about it is about its graphics, its map packs, and the fact that it'll be a $100 (I live in Australia; markups are on everything here, and it is actually $100 on Steam) multiplayer pass for Modern Warfare 1.2, and since all your friends are moving on, you'd better do it too, bucko! It also apes Halo with its regenerating health, something that worked in the context of science fiction, but not for a 'realistic' game, puts in 20 guns that all do exactly the same thing, says 'good enough' and throws it out.

I liked Modern Warfare 1, which is the only Call of Duty I've played, but neither Modern Warfare after that interested me at all.

And the thing about Battlefield is that it's trying to be 'Call of Duty, except not published by Bobby Kotick'. That means that in betraying its original fans to try and get some Call of Duty fans instead, who will ignore Battlefield in favour of Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3 will be the better-selling of the two biggest gray, 'realistic' shooters of 2011.

[/thesis]

you're right about that. and i am right with you there man, the price markups from american prices suck. Australian game prices are too high.

 

[samsonguy920]

So what you guys are basically saying, is you are both too lazy to create a new engine from scratch, and too cheap to license one of the new engines out there. And you have to use buzzwords to justify your argument.

Yep, we've been down this avenue enough times. Lemme know how that whole inadequacy anxiety is working out for you.

 

[MajorDolphin]

Does anyone expect a co-developer to say "engine is a Pinto"?

 

[Mr. Omega]

I don't mind the CoD series. They're a solid series of fun, fast-paced, frantic shooters. They're fun to play, easy to get into, and such.

What I mind are the business practices associated with CoD. And while the claims are exaggerated, and practically none of them are exclusive to CoD, CoD has a very very large chunk of them conveniently wrapped up in one package.

As for the engine matter, the whole focus on how things don't look different enough is slightly justified, but the guy is saying "don't judge us by our graphics", and I can respect that. I'm not one to condemn a game based on graphics (I own a Wii, after all...), but today's gaming community seems to think slightly subpar graphics is enough to condemn a game and that slightly shinier graphics is enough to praise something as super-special-awesome.

That being said, the game better PLAY damn well. And Black Ops had a LOT of issues. And even if we are just going by MW2 standards, there weren't as many issues, but some were bigger. So sure, I won't ***** about the graphic looking the same. I WILL complain if the grenade launcher didn't get a serious nerf between MW2 and MW3.

Ironically, and I KNOW this is going to get me flamed, I actually think Battlefield 3 is a bigger embodiment of things that are wrong with the industry today. Not as a big as one as Homefront (you'd have to be TRYING if you want to be as much as a symbol of what is wrong with gaming to as Homefront), but I do think that BF3 is a bigger sign of the problems than MW3.

 

[Korten12]

Originally a heavily modified Quake III engine (yes, that's the correct number of Is there)

That's a fail in both Roman Numerals (3 being the highest number composed entirely of Is) and ID Tech engine knowledge! (Quake IIII IV used the same engine as DooM III)

(It's not particularly impressive either - Source is written on top of the Quake I engine ^_^ )

However, just as pathetic is Activisions own attack campaign against EA/DICE. Every time DICE shows off something rather impressive about Battlefield 3, Activision immediately comes out with some "expert" who starts talking in a "laid back" and often offended-like tone about how "refined" and "perfected" Call of Duty has become. It reeks of desperation and clearly shows Activision literally has no valid points with which to defend the game. Consider their, "After five games and over half a decade we've FINALLY got the engine to run at around 60 frames per second on the 360! Yet Frostbyte 2 only reaches 30!" (hyperbole, but valid none-the-less)

Thats 60FPS....with no vehicles, destructible cover, physics of any kind small maps and only 18 players. BF3 gets 32 players, vehicles, destructible cover, huge-ass maps and a ton of other things. He also forgets to mention many PC's will still play the game at 60FPS anyway.

So yeah...you run at 60FPS. But what have you accomplished with that 60FPS?

A smoother console version? Yeah sure, the pc version runs at 60 FPS, but CoD sells more on consoles which is what really matters. 60 fps does feel soooooo much better to play compared to 30 fps.

It is also quite noticable, and makes the game feel more fun to play when I don't have to worry about the frame-rate dropping.

 

[Daverson]

Originally a heavily modified Quake III engine (yes, that's the correct number of Is there)

That's a fail in both Roman Numerals (3 being the highest number composed entirely of Is) and ID Tech engine knowledge! (Quake IIII IV used the same engine as DooM III)

(It's not particularly impressive either - Source is written on top of the Quake I engine ^_^ )

But...he's right. The current COD engine is built upon the Quake 3 engine. So, him saying Quake III is correct.

Also, Source is a proprietary engine. (mostly) Effectively built from the ground up by Valve over the course of about four years. I believe you're thinking of Source: Gold. The engine Half-Life 1 used. And, that engine was a heavily modified version of the Quake II engine.

I didn't say it wasn't built on the Quake III engine, just that saying "that's the right number of Is" in the sense that it's an old engine is a tad nonsensical. (Unless he was implying we might think they'd built it on top of the QII engine?! D= )

(Source was built directly on top of GoldSRC, that's why it so easy for Valve to port the original HL to the source engine ^_^ , I guess it does seem a bit pedantic, since you could say QIII is built on top of QII, which is in turn built on top of QI, but id did the work there, so I wouldn't =p )

 

[Bvenged]

Cut & paste. There I said it; problem?

I played CoD 2 the other night. Wasteland (from MW2) is actually a CoD 2 map in the trenches of france. Other than textures, it's identical. Also; when you melee in CoD 2 you strike with th ebutt of the gun, yet it's exactly the same sound effect as CoD 8. That's why I am so inclined to say Cut & paste. Deal with it.

You can add as much as you want to CoD, Devs - but there are still massive segments of the game cut & paste from prequels each time for the past 2-6 games. It's disgusting because you haven't really made a new game for years, now.

I'm off to pay budget price for Anniversary, it adds about the same amount of content to it's prequels as CoD has, but at budget price; and at least the multiplayer is constantly being refined. Not just left to rot.

 

[Zeh Don]

Being that a guy from Sledgehammer games, instead of Infinity Ward, is defending Infinity Ward's latest title I'm just going to say this:
I hope you've kept your resume up to date, because the last people who talked like that are still waiting for their court date to get paid for the work they did.

 

[XPRESSXPERT]

Surely this means that the engine is backwards then?

 

[Paragon Fury]

Originally a heavily modified Quake III engine (yes, that's the correct number of Is there)

That's a fail in both Roman Numerals (3 being the highest number composed entirely of Is) and ID Tech engine knowledge! (Quake IIII IV used the same engine as DooM III)

(It's not particularly impressive either - Source is written on top of the Quake I engine ^_^ )

However, just as pathetic is Activisions own attack campaign against EA/DICE. Every time DICE shows off something rather impressive about Battlefield 3, Activision immediately comes out with some "expert" who starts talking in a "laid back" and often offended-like tone about how "refined" and "perfected" Call of Duty has become. It reeks of desperation and clearly shows Activision literally has no valid points with which to defend the game. Consider their, "After five games and over half a decade we've FINALLY got the engine to run at around 60 frames per second on the 360! Yet Frostbyte 2 only reaches 30!" (hyperbole, but valid none-the-less)

Thats 60FPS....with no vehicles, destructible cover, physics of any kind small maps and only 18 players. BF3 gets 32 players, vehicles, destructible cover, huge-ass maps and a ton of other things. He also forgets to mention many PC's will still play the game at 60FPS anyway.

So yeah...you run at 60FPS. But what have you accomplished with that 60FPS?

A smoother console version? Yeah sure, the pc version runs at 60 FPS, but CoD sells more on consoles which is what really matters. 60 fps does feel soooooo much better to play compared to 30 fps.

It is also quite noticable, and makes the game feel more fun to play when I don't have to worry about the frame-rate dropping.

Anything above 30FPS doesn't actually help gameplay in any significant way, and only hinders what lower powered machines can handle.

Think of it this way - you get 60FPS.

I get a god damn tank.

 

[Zerbye]

In a Porsche, the engine takes a backseat. How much better an analogy can you get?

 

[Polock]

Well then.

Wait for game to go on sale in two years. Buy it for the single player campaign.

TF2 Multiplayer is more fun IMO.

I think everyone in this thread has to calm down a bit..

 

[Joshimodo]

Anyhow, how exactly is COD holding the industry back? Is Activision somehow forcing other devs and publishers to copy their franchise? Did Infinity Ward pass a law that said no one in the FPS genre could innovate? Did Flying Wild Hog get silently taken out by assassins hired by Kotick for making a game that isnt like COD? Hardly. You probably mean that other devs are to scared/greedy to make anything else but COD clones since COD sells so well... In that case, how the fuck is it CODs fault?

How is it holding back the industry back? Really?

It's setting an awful example. It's become the most successful gaming franchise on the planet in a very short amount of time, yet has done nothing since. It's sitting on a brand name instead of pushing the industry forward.

Take the other recent superpower in FPS games, Halo. First game standardised a slew of FPS trends. The second innovated console-based online services. The third brought in a social media experience with user-created content such as maps, game modes and video/screenshot file sharing.

Call of Duty has done nothing of the sort, apart from introducing the perk/killstreak system.

Your post was ridiculous - Forcing other devs? Assassinations? How old are you? Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of how entertainment businesses work, especially gaming, knows that successful titles set a bar to reach. Investors and business sides of the industry see what games are successful and want to achieve that, end of. The developers are tasked with doing so, but are effectively channelled to clone whatever game is popular in one form or another.

The problem is, as I stated, CoD doesn't change it up. It's not pushing the medium, it's not advancing the industry, and it's not using the masses of money it's earned. Because of this, it's stagnating a lot of the mainstream industry just by being unambitious. They know it'll sell millions just by being a CoD game, so why bother?

That has a tremendous effect on the industry. Yes, you could argue that it's the investor's fault, not CoD's, but they're just businessmen. Activision has made more than enough money on the brand to warrant pushing the boundaries and making it WORTH the money it's earned.

 

[duchaked]

I was hoping they would at the very least use the Infinity Ward (RIP) engine because Black Ops was somehow uglier than MW2...very sad

tho I'll admit I'm quite excited in playing through MW3 (RedBox...)

 

[duchaked]

Well then.

Wait for game to go on sale in two years. Buy it for the single player campaign.

TF2 Multiplayer is more fun IMO.

I think everyone in this thread has to calm down a bit..

I'm planning to Redbox the game lol

don't need to rent it from Blockbuster (if I could find one that is) and have to pay for a full week when I'd only need maybe one night to finish the campaign heh

 

[Treblaine]

why change something thats not broken? why does everyone want innovation?
what is with people always wanting more out of things that don't have a problem? everyone is obsessed with graphics and engines. thats all i ever see gamers complain about. can't we all just sit down and just enjoy the game for what it is? a GAME? ok graphics are important yeah, but it isn't the sole purpose to play games.

Why not change what is good? Then WHY make a sequel?!?

Why innovation? Because they want more of our money!

This meagre improvement should be a $40-50 game and DEFINITELY should include all maps with that price, not another 4 map-packs at $15 a piece.

COD(insert number between 4 and 27) should not mean just another opportunity to give Bobby Kotick $60 + $15 + $15 + $15.

Graphics aren't the sole purpose... but derivative graphics and models DO knock about $10-15 off the value of the game.

what I'm saying is that not everything has to be updated to look prettier. I'm not complaining about the companies advertising about their innovations, I'm going off against the gamers who constantly obsess over how good a game looks. ok CoD has a few areas it could improve on, but this might sound strange but i'm actually one of those rare creatures that buy it for it's single player campaigns. :O i know. anyway you don't know true expense until you've lived in australia.

Let me make this perfectly clear if you didn't "get it" already

-I Don't expect HIGHER FIDELITY graphics every iteration, nor closer toe Crysis quality or whatever. It can look worse for all I care, lower res textures and simpler lighting and shading... just as long as it is NEW!

-What I expect is NEW graphics! The same level of quality and detail but NEW looking weapons, new looking animations, NEW looking enemies. In other words to BE a new game, if they expect to charge the price of a new game.

Juggernaut was a brand new thing for MW2, yet in MW3 he is just a copy/paste job, AI and everything just in different circumstances, there are a few new weapons but the overwhelming majority look to be from almost identical source as MW2.

"anyway you don't know true expense until you've lived in australia."

it will ALWAYS be more expensive somewhere else. It is an UTTER FALLACY to dismiss my genuine concerns about price by saying "hurr, someone has it worse". I don't know how much disposable income you have or just how FEW games you buy/play each year, but Activison is asking for as much money as I could pay for TWO new game that have come out in the past 6 months.

I will NOT narrow myself so much. MW3 does NOT deserve to take the place of two new games.