Modern Warfare 2 Letdown

It's been just over 3 months since the highly anticipated release of Modern Warfare 2 (called MW2 for short). In this sequel Infinity Ward (IW) decided to not have a public beta test as they did in the first game. The reasoning was that they wouldn't need to do a tiresome public beta if an internal "professional tester" beta was deemed sufficient.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/101/1015777p1.html

Within a few short weeks issues started arising at an alarming rate. The host issue that plagued the first modern warfare was more apparent than ever. Unlike many other multiplayer games, Infinity Ward goes the less expensive route and does not have their own servers for players. As such, a certain Xbox live subscriber will be given host rights and therefore also given about a 2 second lead time ahead of everyone else.

This issue wasn't addressed and still plagues the game to this day. It's openly known that the host gets superior reaction times, damage output, wins in all tiebreakers, etc.

Even more troubling, players were only using certain equipment loadouts even though there are hundreds if not thousands of options. This points to an unbalanced game. First came the Dual 1887 shotguns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2IZd26F43I

Observe how the person doesn't even have to aim the guns in order to score instant kills. Just point in the general area and boom.

It's funny to think that not only could the Terminator not reload as fast as these guys are reloading two guns at the same time, but also humorous that in over 120 years of gun making technological improvements, the 1887 shotgun is better than any gun ever created in history.

After this slipped through the professional testing at IW, the cheaters stepped in. The first widely spread cheat was the javelin glitch. Essentially a player would arm himself like a suicide bomber and run around the board. When he would die a massive explosive would happen, killing people in a wide area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0-nYVHyQWc

After a few weeks of this glitch ruining the integrity of the game, and a complete embarrassment for the quality control process at Infinity Ward, they managed to rush a patch through Microsoft.

Let's give IW a get out of jail free card for that, sometimes a few bugs make it through no matter what the testing process.

However, more cheats followed. Specifically the one that has ruined more games for more people is the care package glitch. With no one way to find out specifically who is actually performing the cheat, it is a major game changer the likes that has never been seen in multiplayer games before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Y6kuRHAqY

You can't tell who is performing it unless you see it for yourself, so reporting it is very difficult.

You might be able to tell by stats, but if the player is sharing all his care packages with his teammates, their stats go up and his do not. So, merely picking who is in first place doesn't really say who is cheating for certain. He could share some, and not others, and keep everyone relatively equal on the stats.

The other cheat is the unlimited emergency airdrop, which is also referenced on Youtube above. Four care packages at once, for as long as the match lasts.

The third cheat is the speed glitch when using certain care packages. This isn't the best video to show how fast you run, but it will do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQMNzTkw_vE

Notice at the 1:45 mark that not only does it make you run faster, you also are hunched over, making targeting you that much harder. Most users of this cheat will add commando pro and start the killing spree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxtXK6sYBcA

I am glad that IW is at least willing to address these issues with a patch. But after 90+ days of allowing cheaters to destroy the credibility of their game, stating that their QA process was superior to the previous testing methods, and much more, I have to admit I am done with this game. While I am a huge fan of IW and the Modern Warfare series, something has changed at Infinity Ward for the worse.

Apparently I am told a patch was pushed out today that addresses some but not all of these issues. For me, 3 months to fix obvious blatant cheating is too long for a game that sold 7 million copies its first day.

Modern Warfare 2 was widely successful because of the game play balance, graphics, pacing, and wealth of options from MW one (COD4). I won't be as naive for MW3. Infinity Ward is obviously a company that now has turned to making more of a profit from its fans at the expense of making quality games that are fair and balanced.

Lets say that even with all the various options chosen for MW2, night vision goggles, new Xboxes, etc, that there were "just" 60 a copy in revenue from MW2.

Before costs, sales of Modern Warfare 2 at that price accoung for 720,000,000. That's right, 720 million dollars. A company with that kind of revenue stream has no excuse to allow these types of cheats in their game, let alone have a quality control department that allowed them to slip through testing in the first place.