why does call of duty get so much hate?

[Signa]

Oh, and congratulations for failing to evolve the discussion, and instead pretend I can't understand simple English. Yes, OBVIOUSLY I don't know what personal taste means, and so I'm arguing with you. That must be it.

Alrighty, here's a little demonstration: without using a single subjective example and without including any opinion at all, explain why Twilight is objectively bad. You've stated it numerous times, so surely you can prove it, yes?

This should be good.

Ok, I cheated a little and discussed this with my co-workers. First off, I know full well you've given me a fool's errand, because it is impossible to define something objectively when it's based off of something as subjective as art.

I was going to start by trying to define what art is, because that basis is the crux of my argument. However, I think going into that is pointless because your argument seems to hinge on the fact that personal taste will change the way art is perceived by a person, and therefore "bad" art can not be bad because someone else might actually like it. As I see it (and ultimately why we are even having this argument), a person can still enjoy bad art. In fact, I consider myself somewhat of a connoisseur of bad art. MST3K is one of my favorite shows, and unbelievably so, I voluntarily subjected myself to 8 hours of Lil Mama's Lip Gloss on repeat for professional reasons. Personal taste no longer applies to me in defining bad art, because I actually enjoy a lot of it, because it is awful.

So why is Twilight bad art you ask? Because art is constantly imitating itself. Twilight itself is nothing more than a copy of other works from Dracula (vampires) and Romeo and Juliet (forbidden lovers). What happens to Twilight in 20 years? 50? 200? People will remember it as nothing more than a fad during this time period. There won't be other works building off of the idea of sparkly vampires. At least not ones that will be taken seriously.

So you might think I'm basing my argument off of other works of art; a subjective measuring system? No, not really. The reason why those arts have survived the test of time is because they were in fact, good. If art can't be bad, then it can't be good, because neutral-to-good isn't really a scale. If it can't be either bad or good, then all art from those periods would still be around today in some form being copied or studied. If I knew of some examples of other works that were released along side Shakespeare's, I'd list them here. But I don't know any, and the reason for that is they just weren't good enough to be remembered, or in other words, bad art.

Spoiler: continued ramblings tangential to main point

Which brings me to why art is subjective in the first place. It's subjective because of the interpretation of the viewer (personal preference, part of your argument) AND the intent of the creator. You and I could be walking in an art museum discussing art, and if we came across the cliche box of shit, we both could have opposite reactions. You might recoil in horror while I might say "what an interesting piece on rampant consumerism in America!" The thing is, unless it was part of an exhibit, chances are that box of shit was just a bum taking a dump and we walked into it. Just because I found artistic expression in a box of shit doesn't make it art, nor was it good art to begin with. As art, an empty box would have made the same statement on consumerism while still adding an extra level of depth by showing the emptiness of such pursuits. At least if an empty box was art, making it smell like shit isn't going to make it better.

With Twilight, I'm not convinced that Stephanie Mayer had any sort of expression in mind when writing her book. One of my co-workers said he heard that she was told to start writing when she was depressed and Twilight is what happened. That at least excuses a lot of the masturbation accusation I made earlier, but what happened was no more intentional than a bum crapping in a box. It was something that had to happen, and the fact that people liked that turd was just coincidence. But because that coincidence happened, we are now forced to acknowledge it as art, despite the reason it was made in the first place. I'd be willing to grant it similarities to a child's finger painting, where an amateur artist created something amateur for the sake of creating something, but unlike a finger painting, Stephanie never evolved her style. A child might take those blobs of color and turn one into a tree-shaped blob, and eventually make a happy tree with Bob Ross. Stephanie was happy just smearing as much paint around because every time she did she was handed a lollipop for it.

So now that I've said all that, will you do me the favor and explain back to me how a subjective opinion makes good art? I know I said you can't have good if you have no bad, and you said there is no bad art, but there must be something you have seen that made you say "This is FANTASTIC!" What was fantastic about it, and why was it better than not fantastic?

 

[LilithSlave]

I would hope that it is because other people are as sick of military first person shooters as I am. At this point, the name has become generic. I would hope the same folks who say they've gotten sick of Nintendo games would have the same to say about Call of Duty.

Though that's not why I dislike it so much as just being the fact it is a first person shooter. Though I do at least hold a higher opinion of Portal than Call of Duty.

 

[Kestrel-6]

CoD is boring and pretentious.

Don't get me wrong, you can have lots of fun with MW2, four controllers, and a large screen TV, but online, there are quiet people, people who brag about 'Prestige' (Look at me, i have played longer than you, i'm better than you!), people with ANNOYING voices, campers, riot-shield abusers, 'xXNoScOpErZXx' that pull insane shit just to look cool, and spawn-campers.

Then there is variety. Some classmate from last year said "Black Ops is the best game ever" I asked what the differences are, and he replied, wait for it... "You can paint your gun gold". Come ON. And when epople say different guns, oh, you mean full auto guns 1,2,3,4 and 5. burst fire guns 1 and 2, and semi-auto (usually the epic FN-FAL) gun 1. the Scopes always look the same (I have shot the Australian Army Steyr, and the sights look a fair bit different than a white dot on the AUG...)

Then there are the killstreaks. Killed three people? Kill 4 more? killed 11, kill another 30! What? sorry? Someone blew you up in an AC130? Start again, bucko...

In fact, Ubisoft dropped on the annual cash bandwagon too, with Assassin's Creed. (Valve needs to do this with HL, at least we'll see Ep 3 before the sun goes supernova...)

Kudos, Activision. I tip my hat to you. and fill it with some money that you roll in.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

First off, I know full well you've given me a fool's errand, because it is impossible to define something objectively when it's based off of something as subjective as art.

It is objectively bad

You spent half a dozen comments telling me you can define something as objectively bad and can even place into categories of bad, but now you back-flip? I can only imagine your co-workers have shown you some light.

So now that I've said all that, will you do me the favor and explain back to me how a subjective opinion makes good art? I know I said you can't have good if you have no bad, and you said there is no bad art, but there must be something you have seen that made you say "This is FANTASTIC!" What was fantastic about it, and why was it better than not fantastic?

A subjective opinion doesn't make good art. Nothing is good or bad, right or wrong and no art (or anything else, for that matter) is good or bad art. Individuals simply assign those terms to objects and things as their personal, subjective and bias opinion sees fit. Just as individuals define for themselves what is good and bad, so too does the larger community, and this is why certain things are seen as widely good or widely bad (murder, famous artworks, popular music, Hitler, etc., etc.); humans are very alike and 99% of us are so genetically similar that we may as well be clones. In fact, the only reason we as a species survive is community and social engineering. For instance, murder is commonly believed to be 'bad' because if it wasn't, we'd all be dead. Stealing is 'wrong' because no one wants their shit stolen. No one want to be lied to, so lying is bad. Everything you believe and every opinion you posses is formed by your environment and your genetic makeup. So it is really no surprise the vast majority of us agree on what is good and what is bad. It doesn't actually 'make' the things in our world good or bad, mind. No more than thinking yellow isn't a colour makes it vanish. These are all just labels we put on things.

Your biggest mistake was assuming there was any such thing as truly good or bad. Without us, the words and their meanings wouldn't even exist.

 

[TomLikesGuitar]

I don't know enough about the pros and cons of the IW engine vs. its leading competitors, but I do know that CoD is laggy, glitchy, poorly balanced, and has a low skill ceiling. That does not a good multiplayer shooter make by the commonly accepted standards for multiplayer shooter quality.

Lag is generally based solely upon internet connection, and as far as I can tell, I see no indications that the IW engine (or Treyarch's W@W engine) does anything to induce any sort of lag. If you are experiencing lag it is most likely a fault on the system you are playing on (be it console or PC).

Glitches exist in Call of Duty games just as they do in nigh every single engine that has ever existed in the programming of video games, but Infinity Ward especially does an exceptional job of debugging their games, and there are very few glitches. I actually can't think of a single one that I would consider game-breaking (which is really the deciding factor in calling an engine "broken"). If one ever did exist, I can assure you it was patched relatively quickly by the IW team.

As for balance and skill ceiling... neither of these actually have anything to do with the engine at all. I don't really see how there is a balance issue, but anything that could affect balance can be altered by the developer at a whim without changing anything about the engine. That is actual what makes current game engines so amazing. Things that used to require you to go back to source can now be fixed with the click of a mouse. The same can be said of the factors that affect a potential "skill ceiling".

Both are subjective, though, and many people would disagree with you.

Personally, I believe the game is just as balanced as any game that has to struggle to maintain balance, and is even more-so than many others like it.

As for the skill ceiling... I have a friend who gets on the top of the leaderboards every. single. game. I personally like to play other games, so I play CoD about once a week. I've been playing all sorts of games for my whole life, so I usually don't do much more than go positive, but he is constantly getting better and better KDR's and whatnot and has shown no signs of stopping. A skill ceiling indicates that there is a point that everyone will reach where they can no longer get any better at the game, and yet I find 99% of players to be leagues worse than him (I'd place myself in about the top 30%.).

But like I said, neither are exclusive to the engine itself any more than Team Fortress's balance and skill ceiling (which I believe to be much worse than CoD's) are exclusive to the Source engine; both are subject to how the player would like their game.

Also, while beer isn't the best analogy, Miller is the best beer for many people because it fills their personal preferences of taste, cost, and consistency/availability. I prefer Yuengling, which is a different taste, costs a bit more, and is (VERY slightly) less available. In both cases, the beer is doing it's job perfectly and isn't definitively, objectively bad in any way.

I have no shortage of money, but I will choose Yuengling over any other expensive pansy beer in the world because I think it's the best beer. I have a friend who will choose Coors over any other beer in the world and he is in a better economic state than I am.

Thus is the beauty of subjectivity.

EDIT:

So why is Twilight bad art you ask? Because art is constantly imitating itself. Twilight itself is nothing more than a copy of other works from Dracula (vampires) and Romeo and Juliet (forbidden lovers).

1. Romeo and Juliet was NOT the first story with that basic story arch.
2. Millions of entertainment mediums have done Vampires, but it is naive to compare something like Nosferatu to something more modern like Let the Right One in.
3.

Spoiler: It's all been done before.

 

[SiskoBlue]

6 years of study and 15 years in the business

Huh, that's funny.

Because making broad generalizations about social phenomena without any empirical evidence to back it up and trying to analyze people over the internet is the sort of thing I associate with, well...

Ha, that poster is completely true, I hate psych students. I'm not analysing you, I don't know you from a bar of soap. What I was doing was calling you out for using a debating tactic of suggesting my opinion is based on false evidence (wikipedia), you don't show any reason why you think this. Like the way fascists and religious nuts prove their point but saying it in a way that implies everyone agrees and knows what they said to be true.

See, this is what gets to me on the internet. I expressed an opinion, I didn't make any suggestions about anyone, and you debated the points of that opinion. All good. But then you go and use a cheap tactic disparaging me when you know nothing about me. Why go there? Somebody else made the exact same counter-argument as you and I left that as is because he didn't suggest anything about me, he just made his point.

You on the other hand didn't do that. And your next counter point? Again, not really debating the point of whether the hatred of some popular things is inherent in the thing, or as a result of its popularity. Nope, YOU just go straight for insult. And it must be true because he used a meme pic. The whole purpose of the debate completely lost because you've got a chip on your shoulder about something. What a sad state of affairs.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I don't know enough about the pros and cons of the IW engine vs. its leading competitors, but I do know that CoD is laggy, glitchy, poorly balanced, and has a low skill ceiling. That does not a good multiplayer shooter make by the commonly accepted standards for multiplayer shooter quality.

Lag is generally based solely upon internet connection, and as far as I can tell, I see no indications that the IW engine (or Treyarch's W@W engine) does anything to induce any sort of lag. If you are experiencing lag it is most likely a fault on the system you are playing on (be it console or PC).

It's a fault of the host system and the lack of dedicated servers. Basically Activision has no idea what a multiplayer shooter needs to function properly.

Glitches exist in Call of Duty games just as they do in nigh every single engine that has ever existed in the programming of video games, but Infinity Ward especially does an exceptional job of debugging their games, and there are very few glitches. I actually can't think of a single one that I would consider game-breaking (which is really the deciding factor in calling an engine "broken"). If one ever did exist, I can assure you it was patched relatively quickly by the IW team.

Generally not the case. MW2 had several glitches that fundamentally imbalanced multiplayer, and didn't do much about them for quite a while.

As for balance and skill ceiling... neither of these actually have anything to do with the engine at all. I don't really see how there is a balance issue, but anything that could affect balance can be altered by the developer at a whim without changing anything about the engine. That is actual what makes current game engines so amazing. Things that used to require you to go back to source can now be fixed with the click of a mouse. The same can be said of the factors that affect a potential "skill ceiling".

Yeah, I said those weren't engine issues. There're core game design issues.

Also, while beer isn't the best analogy, Miller is the best beer for many people because it fills their personal preferences of taste, cost, and consistency/availability. I prefer Yuengling, which is a different taste, costs a bit more, and is (VERY slightly) less available. In both cases, the beer is doing it's job perfectly and isn't definitively, objectively bad in any way.

I have no shortage of money, but I will choose Yuengling over any other expensive pansy beer in the world because I think it's the best beer. I have a friend who will choose Coors over any other beer in the world and he is in a better economic state than I am.

Thus is the beauty of subjectivity.

And, much like your coors-drinking friend, I will continue to buy my jeans from the first place in the mall I see where jeans are sold for a reasonable price. That does not mean that there are no commonly accepted standards for the quality of beer, jeans, games, or anything else, that just means that for any product, you will find quite a few people who don't care about the commonly accepted standards for that product and just buy what they're familiar with, what's most convenient to find, and what's advertised the most.

 

[Atothex]

Amen, brudda.

 

[Signa]

First off, I know full well you've given me a fool's errand, because it is impossible to define something objectively when it's based off of something as subjective as art.

It is objectively bad

You spent half a dozen comments telling me you can define something as objectively bad and can even place into categories of bad, but now you back-flip? I can only imagine your co-workers have shown you some light.

So now that I've said all that, will you do me the favor and explain back to me how a subjective opinion makes good art? I know I said you can't have good if you have no bad, and you said there is no bad art, but there must be something you have seen that made you say "This is FANTASTIC!" What was fantastic about it, and why was it better than not fantastic?

A subjective opinion doesn't make good art. Nothing is good or bad, right or wrong and no art (or anything else, for that matter) is good or bad art. Individuals simply assign those terms to objects and things as their personal, subjective and bias opinion sees fit. Just as individuals define for themselves what is good and bad, so too does the larger community, and this is why certain things are seen as widely good or widely bad (murder, famous artworks, popular music, Hitler, etc., etc.); humans are very alike and 99% of us are so genetically similar that we may as well be clones. In fact, the only reason we as a species survive is community and social engineering. For instance, murder is commonly believed to be 'bad' because if it wasn't, we'd all be dead. Stealing is 'wrong' because no one wants their shit stolen. No one want to be lied to, so lying is bad. Everything you believe and every opinion you posses is formed by your environment and your genetic makeup. So it is really no surprise the vast majority of us agree on what is good and what is bad. It doesn't actually 'make' the things in our world good or bad, mind. No more than thinking yellow isn't a colour makes it vanish. These are all just labels we put on things.

Your biggest mistake was assuming there was any such thing as truly good or bad. Without us, the words and their meanings wouldn't even exist.

Well that all makes sense. I was wondering if I was arguing with a Nihilist. I've tried that philosophy before, and while there are some very logical conclusions, it's too depressing to let it rule my life. Well, I maintain that things are better than you said they are. Go ahead and enjoy your neutral art, I'm going to keep liking both good and bad art.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

First off, I know full well you've given me a fool's errand, because it is impossible to define something objectively when it's based off of something as subjective as art.

It is objectively bad

You spent half a dozen comments telling me you can define something as objectively bad and can even place into categories of bad, but now you back-flip? I can only imagine your co-workers have shown you some light.

So now that I've said all that, will you do me the favor and explain back to me how a subjective opinion makes good art? I know I said you can't have good if you have no bad, and you said there is no bad art, but there must be something you have seen that made you say "This is FANTASTIC!" What was fantastic about it, and why was it better than not fantastic?

A subjective opinion doesn't make good art. Nothing is good or bad, right or wrong and no art (or anything else, for that matter) is good or bad art. Individuals simply assign those terms to objects and things as their personal, subjective and bias opinion sees fit. Just as individuals define for themselves what is good and bad, so too does the larger community, and this is why certain things are seen as widely good or widely bad (murder, famous artworks, popular music, Hitler, etc., etc.); humans are very alike and 99% of us are so genetically similar that we may as well be clones. In fact, the only reason we as a species survive is community and social engineering. For instance, murder is commonly believed to be 'bad' because if it wasn't, we'd all be dead. Stealing is 'wrong' because no one wants their shit stolen. No one want to be lied to, so lying is bad. Everything you believe and every opinion you posses is formed by your environment and your genetic makeup. So it is really no surprise the vast majority of us agree on what is good and what is bad. It doesn't actually 'make' the things in our world good or bad, mind. No more than thinking yellow isn't a colour makes it vanish. These are all just labels we put on things.

Your biggest mistake was assuming there was any such thing as truly good or bad. Without us, the words and their meanings wouldn't even exist.

Well that all makes sense. I was wondering if I was arguing with a Nihilist. I've tried that philosophy before, and while there are some very logical conclusions, it's too depressing to let it rule my life. Well, I maintain that things are better than you said they are. Go ahead and enjoy your neutral art, I'm going to keep liking both good and bad art.

Oh god. You continue to misunderstand concepts. For starters, I'm not a nihilist. Secondly, I didn't say you can't think art is good or bad (I think Shakespeare is as boring as grass growing and is often touted by those wishing to appear smarter than they are, for example). I said art (and everything else in the world) isn't objectively good or bad. I have my reasons for thinking lots of things are good, great, awesome and the reverse. The difference between us, being that I understand my opinion of them doesn't translate to objective rule.

 

[Signa]

First off, I know full well you've given me a fool's errand, because it is impossible to define something objectively when it's based off of something as subjective as art.

It is objectively bad

You spent half a dozen comments telling me you can define something as objectively bad and can even place into categories of bad, but now you back-flip? I can only imagine your co-workers have shown you some light.

So now that I've said all that, will you do me the favor and explain back to me how a subjective opinion makes good art? I know I said you can't have good if you have no bad, and you said there is no bad art, but there must be something you have seen that made you say "This is FANTASTIC!" What was fantastic about it, and why was it better than not fantastic?

A subjective opinion doesn't make good art. Nothing is good or bad, right or wrong and no art (or anything else, for that matter) is good or bad art. Individuals simply assign those terms to objects and things as their personal, subjective and bias opinion sees fit. Just as individuals define for themselves what is good and bad, so too does the larger community, and this is why certain things are seen as widely good or widely bad (murder, famous artworks, popular music, Hitler, etc., etc.); humans are very alike and 99% of us are so genetically similar that we may as well be clones. In fact, the only reason we as a species survive is community and social engineering. For instance, murder is commonly believed to be 'bad' because if it wasn't, we'd all be dead. Stealing is 'wrong' because no one wants their shit stolen. No one want to be lied to, so lying is bad. Everything you believe and every opinion you posses is formed by your environment and your genetic makeup. So it is really no surprise the vast majority of us agree on what is good and what is bad. It doesn't actually 'make' the things in our world good or bad, mind. No more than thinking yellow isn't a colour makes it vanish. These are all just labels we put on things.

Your biggest mistake was assuming there was any such thing as truly good or bad. Without us, the words and their meanings wouldn't even exist.

Well that all makes sense. I was wondering if I was arguing with a Nihilist. I've tried that philosophy before, and while there are some very logical conclusions, it's too depressing to let it rule my life. Well, I maintain that things are better than you said they are. Go ahead and enjoy your neutral art, I'm going to keep liking both good and bad art.

I didn't say you can't think art is good or bad

Oh great, now you're flip-flopping on me too. Sure, I can think whatever I want, but as you said in your first post, art can't actually be bad. Ok, whatever. I thoroughly enjoyed the exercise in discussing this. I came to some enlightening conclusions.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

First off, I know full well you've given me a fool's errand, because it is impossible to define something objectively when it's based off of something as subjective as art.

It is objectively bad

You spent half a dozen comments telling me you can define something as objectively bad and can even place into categories of bad, but now you back-flip? I can only imagine your co-workers have shown you some light.

So now that I've said all that, will you do me the favor and explain back to me how a subjective opinion makes good art? I know I said you can't have good if you have no bad, and you said there is no bad art, but there must be something you have seen that made you say "This is FANTASTIC!" What was fantastic about it, and why was it better than not fantastic?

A subjective opinion doesn't make good art. Nothing is good or bad, right or wrong and no art (or anything else, for that matter) is good or bad art. Individuals simply assign those terms to objects and things as their personal, subjective and bias opinion sees fit. Just as individuals define for themselves what is good and bad, so too does the larger community, and this is why certain things are seen as widely good or widely bad (murder, famous artworks, popular music, Hitler, etc., etc.); humans are very alike and 99% of us are so genetically similar that we may as well be clones. In fact, the only reason we as a species survive is community and social engineering. For instance, murder is commonly believed to be 'bad' because if it wasn't, we'd all be dead. Stealing is 'wrong' because no one wants their shit stolen. No one want to be lied to, so lying is bad. Everything you believe and every opinion you posses is formed by your environment and your genetic makeup. So it is really no surprise the vast majority of us agree on what is good and what is bad. It doesn't actually 'make' the things in our world good or bad, mind. No more than thinking yellow isn't a colour makes it vanish. These are all just labels we put on things.

Your biggest mistake was assuming there was any such thing as truly good or bad. Without us, the words and their meanings wouldn't even exist.

Well that all makes sense. I was wondering if I was arguing with a Nihilist. I've tried that philosophy before, and while there are some very logical conclusions, it's too depressing to let it rule my life. Well, I maintain that things are better than you said they are. Go ahead and enjoy your neutral art, I'm going to keep liking both good and bad art.

I didn't say you can't think art is good or bad

Oh great, now you're flip-flopping on me too. Sure, I can think whatever I want, but as you said in your first post, art can't actually be bad. Ok, whatever. I thoroughly enjoyed the exercise in discussing this. I came to some enlightening conclusions.

That wasn't a flip-flop. Don't try that shit.

Why is this a new concept for you? Did you grow up to this point in time honestly believing you could "work out" how good or bad other people's favourite bands were? Their taste in art? What video games they like? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your perception of good and bad doesn't translate to some universal truth.

Go ahead, next time you wanna think something like Twilight or Call of Duty is objectively bad, try to come up with just one reason why that is true, with pure science--no opinion and no subjective bias. You said it yourself: "You can't objectively judge something as subjective as art." Have your own tastes, believe in your own idea of what makes art good or bad (we all do), but don't for a second try to tell others they're not free to do the same, or that they are any less right than you.

 

[Nuku]

Because it isn't very good, has an obnoxious fanbase, and is (arguably unfairly) blamed for a lot of problems with modern shooters?

this.

i don't "hate" the CoD games themselves, i'm just amazed by a big part of the fanbase douchbagging around that have to bash other genres of games because it's not like CoD, this is 1 reason why i won't play it, i "dislike" the community it has (for a big part, obviously not all of it)

I'm not disliking the game for it being popular and that it sells so well, i just don't understand why lol.

 

[poiuppx]

I think it's a mixture of elements. The main problem for my money's worth is not Call of Duty or the various franchises under that umbrella. You can usually count on them to be enjoyable in some fashion or other, be it SP, MP, or both.

But the issue is, people saw Call of Duty, got dollar signs in their eyes, and never figured out the whys and hows of its success. There is a reason I'd be willing to go back and replay Modern Warfare, but not, say, Haze. There is a reason I'd go back and give Medal of Honor another play but not, say, Jericho. They're all FPS games, but some handle their characters, set pieces, and conflicts better than others.

 

[TomLikesGuitar]

It's a fault of the host system and the lack of dedicated servers. Basically Activision has no idea what a multiplayer shooter needs to function properly.

I disagree, as I never seem to have lag problems.

Now, a game like Minecraft has fundamental problems with the way it loads the map that induce lag based on number of connections, but in this case we aren't talking about the game, we're talking about the servers. So don't hate the game because you think the servers are bad. (Note: I like Minecraft.)

Generally not the case. MW2 had several glitches that fundamentally imbalanced multiplayer, and didn't do much about them for quite a while.

I'm genuinely curious as to what these glitches were, and also any glitches for Black Ops or MW3.

Yeah, I said those weren't engine issues. There're core game design issues.

Your issues are exactly what makes many people love the game.

I have a friend who hated portal 1, and wont even try portal 2 (all he does is play Minecraft). He told me he hates portal because he thinks the puzzles are poorly explained. I try to tell him that that's what I love because the game is conducive to poorly explained puzzles and that the satisfaction of solving one makes it worth while.

The things he hates about it are the very things I love about it. However, if he said it was a bad game, that would be unfair. It's just not right for him.

And, much like your coors-drinking friend, I will continue to buy my jeans from the first place in the mall I see where jeans are sold for a reasonable price. That does not mean that there are no commonly accepted standards for the quality of beer, jeans, games, or anything else, that just means that for any product, you will find quite a few people who don't care about the commonly accepted standards for that product and just buy what they're familiar with, what's most convenient to find, and what's advertised the most.

I think we're comparing very different things and I'm getting a little lost.

If you stick to entertainment mediums, even books, you will find that many people stick to familiarity and marketing. Tom Clancy books are an excellent example. Does that honestly give anyone the right to say that Tom Clancy books are bad, or that Tom Clancy books are responsible for making the medium stale? It's not like if there were no Tom Clancy books there would be this sudden influx of massively grossing innovative books, much like how if there were no CoD games, there wouldn't be a huge influx of massively grossing innovative games.

The majority of people want to sit down, pop in a game they are familiar with, and shoot some people. They are not like you and I. They don't want to spend hours reading in game lore like I do (and it is likely that you do as well). So I will absolutely agree that Call of Duty panders to the masses, is stagnant, and outsells games that it shouldn't...

But it isn't a bad game series by any definition of the word.

 

[Vivid Kazumi]

I don't know enough about the pros and cons of the IW engine vs. its leading competitors, but I do know that CoD is laggy, glitchy, poorly balanced, and has a low skill ceiling. That does not a good multiplayer shooter make by the commonly accepted standards for multiplayer shooter quality.

Lag is generally based solely upon internet connection, and as far as I can tell, I see no indications that the IW engine (or Treyarch's W@W engine) does anything to induce any sort of lag. If you are experiencing lag it is most likely a fault on the system you are playing on (be it console or PC).

Glitches exist in Call of Duty games just as they do in nigh every single engine that has ever existed in the programming of video games, but Infinity Ward especially does an exceptional job of debugging their games, and there are very few glitches. I actually can't think of a single one that I would consider game-breaking (which is really the deciding factor in calling an engine "broken"). If one ever did exist, I can assure you it was patched relatively quickly by the IW team.

As for balance and skill ceiling... neither of these actually have anything to do with the engine at all. I don't really see how there is a balance issue, but anything that could affect balance can be altered by the developer at a whim without changing anything about the engine. That is actual what makes current game engines so amazing. Things that used to require you to go back to source can now be fixed with the click of a mouse. The same can be said of the factors that affect a potential "skill ceiling".

Both are subjective, though, and many people would disagree with you.

Personally, I believe the game is just as balanced as any game that has to struggle to maintain balance, and is even more-so than many others like it.

As for the skill ceiling... I have a friend who gets on the top of the leaderboards every. single. game. I personally like to play other games, so I play CoD about once a week. I've been playing all sorts of games for my whole life, so I usually don't do much more than go positive, but he is constantly getting better and better KDR's and whatnot and has shown no signs of stopping. A skill ceiling indicates that there is a point that everyone will reach where they can no longer get any better at the game, and yet I find 99% of players to be leagues worse than him (I'd place myself in about the top 30%.).

But like I said, neither are exclusive to the engine itself any more than Team Fortress's balance and skill ceiling (which I believe to be much worse than CoD's) are exclusive to the Source engine; both are subject to how the player would like their game.

Also, while beer isn't the best analogy, Miller is the best beer for many people because it fills their personal preferences of taste, cost, and consistency/availability. I prefer Yuengling, which is a different taste, costs a bit more, and is (VERY slightly) less available. In both cases, the beer is doing it's job perfectly and isn't definitively, objectively bad in any way.

I have no shortage of money, but I will choose Yuengling over any other expensive pansy beer in the world because I think it's the best beer. I have a friend who will choose Coors over any other beer in the world and he is in a better economic state than I am.

Thus is the beauty of subjectivity.

EDIT:

So why is Twilight bad art you ask? Because art is constantly imitating itself. Twilight itself is nothing more than a copy of other works from Dracula (vampires) and Romeo and Juliet (forbidden lovers).

1. Romeo and Juliet was NOT the first story with that basic story arch.
2. Millions of entertainment mediums have done Vampires, but it is naive to compare something like Nosferatu to something more modern like Let the Right One in.
3.

Spoiler: It's all been done before.

what about the author basing bella off herslf?twilight is bad based alot of things inlcuding being a self glorified fanfiction filled with a crappy romance plot and mary sues

 

[TomLikesGuitar]

what about the author basing bella off herslf?twilight is bad based alot of things inlcuding being a self glorified fanfiction filled with a crappy romance plot and mary sues

What about it?

Dante Alighieri based a main character of his Divine Comedy off of himself, as did Victor Hugo in Les Mis and Chaucer of The Canterbury Tales. All of these are well known as some of the greatest literary pieces in all of history.

Self-insertion doesn't make a book bad in any way what-so-ever. I know you want to hate Twilight really badly, but it's not worth the hate. It does exactly what it set out to do perfectly. That sort of book doesn't pander to the likes of you and I, but to call it objectively bad shows a poor understanding of objectivity.

 

[Muspelheim]

I don't really hate Call of Duty, but... No, I don't like it, and I can't help but wonder how many people only play it and games like it instead of doing some exploring in new genres.

The main reason I don't like it is simply because it feels so insipid. It puts me down on some war-themed shooting gallery, and have me pick of blabbering foreigners before proceeding down the corridor to the next spot where cackling enemies appear out of the ether.

Furthermore, the story. Blimey... It's as if Fox News got together with Tom Clancy and stuffed their eyeballs full of coke.
First of all: America is one of the least likely nations in the world to be invaded. Not only does it have a gun under every pillow and a titanic army, it is also flanked by the planet's two largests oceans. Unless the Russiarabichinese united themselves with the Martians, I can't see how on earth that could happen. No, Red Dawn is and was never a realistic scenario. But let's get to the meat of it. No Russian.

The game expects me to find it a justifiable action to gun down civilians to not blow my cover in one minute, then expects me to be outraged when the Russians repay the service later on. Right after I've defended Burger King from marauding bolshevik stormtroopers, no less.

I did like some bits from Modern Warfare 1 alot. Like the credits-sequence, where you, Al Presidente, is being driven off to be shot, while still having some interactivity to it. Or Shock and Awe, because it came out of nowhere. It's rare with a scenario in an FPS where you're given such a stark portrayal of powerlesness. Or me favourite; Solid Snaking it through Pripyat.
But none of that ever made it into the rest of the series, the only attempt at recreating it was to lock the protagonist down to be killed ("omgwtfsee what a TWIST we did thar?!") after every blarmed level, which fell flat with none of the proper buildup like in MW1. And even if those good moments had been recreated in spirit correctly, they'd still have been utterly burried in more of Glenn Beck's personal wank material.

I'm sorry, but until Call of Duty stops treating me like an absolute idiot who can't be trusted with either challenge or independent thought, I'm not going to think very highly of it.

The multiplayer is quite fun in concept, however. I'll admit that.

 

[Squidbulb]

A. There are people who would rather play COD than games that have more artistic value

Excuse me while I vomit for a moment. What kind of weirdo plays games for "artistic value". When you put it like that, you sound like a pretentious twat.
Anyway, onto my main point.
Call of Duty is by all means a good game, it works well and doesn't appear to have any major problems. I'm just not a fan of that kind of game.

Though that's not why I dislike it so much as just being the fact it is a first person shooter. Though I do at least hold a higher opinion of Portal than Call of Duty.

Did you just compare Portal to Call of Duty?m It's not like they're similar in any way, apart from both being first person.

 

[Signa]

First off, I know full well you've given me a fool's errand, because it is impossible to define something objectively when it's based off of something as subjective as art.

It is objectively bad

You spent half a dozen comments telling me you can define something as objectively bad and can even place into categories of bad, but now you back-flip? I can only imagine your co-workers have shown you some light.

So now that I've said all that, will you do me the favor and explain back to me how a subjective opinion makes good art? I know I said you can't have good if you have no bad, and you said there is no bad art, but there must be something you have seen that made you say "This is FANTASTIC!" What was fantastic about it, and why was it better than not fantastic?

A subjective opinion doesn't make good art. Nothing is good or bad, right or wrong and no art (or anything else, for that matter) is good or bad art. Individuals simply assign those terms to objects and things as their personal, subjective and bias opinion sees fit. Just as individuals define for themselves what is good and bad, so too does the larger community, and this is why certain things are seen as widely good or widely bad (murder, famous artworks, popular music, Hitler, etc., etc.); humans are very alike and 99% of us are so genetically similar that we may as well be clones. In fact, the only reason we as a species survive is community and social engineering. For instance, murder is commonly believed to be 'bad' because if it wasn't, we'd all be dead. Stealing is 'wrong' because no one wants their shit stolen. No one want to be lied to, so lying is bad. Everything you believe and every opinion you posses is formed by your environment and your genetic makeup. So it is really no surprise the vast majority of us agree on what is good and what is bad. It doesn't actually 'make' the things in our world good or bad, mind. No more than thinking yellow isn't a colour makes it vanish. These are all just labels we put on things.

Your biggest mistake was assuming there was any such thing as truly good or bad. Without us, the words and their meanings wouldn't even exist.

Well that all makes sense. I was wondering if I was arguing with a Nihilist. I've tried that philosophy before, and while there are some very logical conclusions, it's too depressing to let it rule my life. Well, I maintain that things are better than you said they are. Go ahead and enjoy your neutral art, I'm going to keep liking both good and bad art.

I didn't say you can't think art is good or bad

Oh great, now you're flip-flopping on me too. Sure, I can think whatever I want, but as you said in your first post, art can't actually be bad. Ok, whatever. I thoroughly enjoyed the exercise in discussing this. I came to some enlightening conclusions.

That wasn't a flip-flop. Don't try that shit.

Why is this a new concept for you? Did you grow up to this point in time honestly believing you could "work out" how good or bad other people's favourite bands were? Their taste in art? What video games they like? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your perception of good and bad doesn't translate to some universal truth.

Go ahead, next time you wanna think something like Twilight or Call of Duty is objectively bad, try to come up with just one reason why that is true, with pure science--no opinion and no subjective bias. You said it yourself: "You can't objectively judge something as subjective as art." Have your own tastes, believe in your own idea of what makes art good or bad (we all do), but don't for a second try to tell others they're not free to do the same, or that they are any less right than you.

You know what, I'm done with you. You've been insulting from your first post where you attacked that guy on the first page. You say that murder and Hitler aren't objectively bad, and then you misquote me to discredit me, question my upbringing, and my question my comprehension of the English language. Like I said, I enjoyed the exercise in dealing with you, but you've lost as far as I'm concerned. I'm not going to waste my time if your outlook on life is as neutral and bleak as you suggest.

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