Modern Warfare 2 - why it makes people angry. Read if you've ever played the game.

[MiracleOfSound]

Meet Pro-5nipez665​

[img height= 300 width=250]http://www.webdesignsunderland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/geek2.jpg[/img]
'Hi!'​

He's a fictional gamer whose face is a random Google image. He's a pretty mellow guy. Never been in a fight, bit of a nerd, kind to his friends and never loses his temper.

He has an awesomely L33T gamertag (Pro-5nipez666 was already taken).

He's been a gamer all his life and always enjoyed it and had fun with it. He's gotten frustrated by multiplayer games sometimes but never angry, and has always had the good sense to switch off and do something else when he gets mad.

But then he got Modern Warfare 2.

Cue ominous storm clouds...​

Suddenly he was spending hours in front of his HDTV raging and screaming at it, going red faced and stiff necked from tension and anger. No matter how bad it got, he still felt compelled to go back for more punishment.

But why does Modern Warfare 2 make Pro-5nipez665 and millions of other gamers rage so hard, as opposed to other games?

I decided to look into it, and came up with a few major factors:

1. MW2 encourages lone wolf style play, yet punishes players for their team-mates' mistakes.

Pro-5nipez665 joins a game of Team Deathmatch. He is doing really well, gets 5 kills with his M4 and one with his Predator missile.

Unfortunately, xxxI-PWN-U_69xxx is on his team, and is not a very good player. He dies seven times revenge rushing a camping sniper and earns said sniper a Harrier Strike. It is randomly dropped and the splash damage kills our hero. He gets a bit narked.

Wheeeeee! Awesome! OMG OMG now I'm gonna get so many kills! I own at this game! SKILL!'​

2. The map design and mechanics encourage camping and K whoring

Next our friend joins a game of Domination on Skid Row. As he runs around trying to take objectives, a guy on the other team named U-sux-my-8ull3tz has been camping in the high building over A with one man army and danger close.

Soon he has an AC130, and again Pro-Snipez is killed by splash damage. He switches to his cold blooded/stinger class, and spawns out in the open next to his team-mates into another hail of explosive fire and dies again.

This continues and he starts to get mad.

They hold the flags really well, dominating the game.

But the camper drops a nuke and the other team get the win.

'Boom! Yeah! This should get me a kill!​

3. Host advantage/lag is a bigger issue than in other games.

He joins a new game, this time on Favela. Good map for rushing, he thinks to himself as he gets out his UMP.

As he comes round a corner he sees a guy facing the opposite direction and opens fire. Almost a full clip of ammo shoots straight into the enemy, who soaks it all up, calmly turns around, aims about 5 feet to his left and blasts him dead with his Akimbo 1887s.

On the killcam our hero watches himself NOT FIRE ONE SHOT.

'FUCK!' he yells. 'That was fucking bullshit! What the fuck!'

'Man, I'm so Pro at this game with my skill-kill Akimbo shotties! I should be a MLG player!'​

4. Too many perks and weapons means things are not balanced

Next he sees a guy sprinting towards him from halfway down the hill...

'Aha!' he thinks. 'Big mistake' and opens fire - but other guy teleports 8 metres in the blink of an eye and knifes our poor hero in the face.

'FUCKING COMMANDO PRICKS! FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING ****!' he yells, and kicks the wall.

As the day continues, Pro-Snipez gets angrier and angrier, until finally he throws his controller into the wall and screams all kind of racial and homophobic slurs into his mic before rage quitting.

You know this has been you if you've ever played this game​

The next day he wakes up, has his breakfast and boots up Modern Warfare 2.

The end.

 

[Insanum]

So true. I have actually done this, in that order.

Although you forgot mythering parents on that list too.

--

Recently ive gone back to MW2 (after putting my foot through a door after trying PvP on ST:O - Which is the most broken unbalanced experience ive ever had the misfortune of playing), and ive come up against a whole new problem. I was a rank 54, no prestige, And it was matching me with virg...Sorry, "Hardcore Gamers" - Im a better gamer than your average guy, but against people that havent seen sunlight since the games release, I dont stand a chance.

Im 4,000,000 ish, in the rankings, SURELY[/I] there must be people around my level to game with?!?

 

[Ldude893]

Too true. I guess this is why Yahtzee hates multiplayer.

 

[DoctorWhat]

A fascinating and, for the most part, true analysis... Now I'm glad I haven't played MW2 in a while...

 

[MiracleOfSound]

So true. I have actually done this, in that order.

Although you forgot mythering parents on that list too.

Pro-5nipez665 lives in apartment with three of his WOW buddies, no parents to bother them!

 

[Rauten]

I don't find it as rage inducing as this (probably cause I haven't really played it that much, have it since release and still rank... 54, I think, with no prestige AT ALL), but yeah, sometimes it's that tiresome.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

A fascinating and, for the most part, true analysis... Now I'm glad I haven't played MW2 in a while...

I too left it alone for a couple of months. Went back last week and felt the pain... gonnna get to level 70 and stop for another few months.

Hopefully Commando and OMA will have been fixed by then (haha as if...)

 

[Hazy]

The conclusion was so brutally well-executed. One that hits me, as well as many others, so close to home that it's uncomfortable.

 

[Avggoe17456]

This, totally this. After I had done all the Spec Ops I wanted I sold this game, the lag online was the worst.

 

[ThePocketWeasel]

4 Incredibly correct reasons why it causes so much gamer rage.
Even though you end up raging you just can't stop playing, why oh why is this.

 

[Insanum]

So true. I have actually done this, in that order.

Although you forgot mythering parents on that list too.

Pro-5nipez665 lives in apartment with three of his WOW buddies, no parents to bother them!

I think the best line i can think of to do with CoD is this:

" Childbirth pain?!? Try getting an itchy ballsack on a 24 killstreak!"[/I]

Its so true, So VERY true. And IRL Distractions are the bane of every gamers life.

 

[Keepitclean]

That pretty much sums up the MW2 expirience. I never bought the gaem but have played it on ym friends live accounts. I never got too frustrated because I didn't really have any attachment to the game or account. Instead of rage quiting I thought 'This is fucking frustrating. I'm not wasting $80 on this rubbish'.

 

[Timotei]

I find this amusingly true. I however have the ability to shut the game off and go do something else.

Like continuing that bust of myself made out of dryer lint.

 

[Kandon Arc]

I was totally into CoD 4 multiplayer and thought that I'd love MW2. I ended up playing for about a week, and then stopped playing multiplayer. My main problems were firstly level design - all the maps seem ridiculously claustrophobic and camp happy - and the huge amounts of air power. The air strike and helicopter from CoD4 were more than enough. Also what's the point in giving anyone the power to end the game, no matter how well they're playing?

 

[Abengoshis]

I've always thought that the ability to constantly respawn makes people rage. My friend always rages on MW2 but when I go on CS:S or TF2 and go on the bomb defusal/arena modes where you can only spawn once I never rage. It gives you time to calm down. Then again I don't rage when I play MW2 anyway (which is barely ever).

 

[Audio]

I was quite surprised to see so many hackers in MW2. That also creates some colourful rage comments. ...and when i use Riot shield + throwing knife.. they dont like that either for some reason. >

 

[Cpu46]

Definitely hate the AC-130 and its devastating splash damage, which begs the question: why does MW2 spawn me miles away from my team and in enemy territory when there is no AC-130 or Attack Helicopter, but when someone calls one of them in I spawn right in a cluster of allies with a round already on its way every single time?

 

[Eagle Est1986]

Really? I really don't get that angry playing MW2, Halo 3 used to get me stupidly angry but I've not had that problem with either MW.
Sure I have a few bad matches now and then but I just work on through it and enjoy myself. I'm only playing to blow off steam in the first place anyways...

Edit: Not to say to say you haven't made valid points OP, I recognise the problems but they just don't seem to bother me that much.
And for some reason I love the fact that the multiplayer is badly balanced, I think it makes me play more tactically.

 

[wooty]

I feel for prosnipez(l33th4x0rzloll), most of those things are true and the primary reason I traded that travesty in for Just Cause 2