Modern Warfare 3

[Hendo]

I started off on Hardened (one down from Veteran) and decided I just wanted to experience the game as it was intended - ie, being funnelled down a path and watching the explosions happen, without the annoyance of death to see through the cracks.

I'm enjoying multiplayer but I still don't feel like I know the maps yet.

There was some leak the other day, that basically the code within the game references some old maps from previous games, so they're either in there already or the plans are in place. I miss a load of those classic CoD4 maps.

[Hendo]

Elite is kind-of working I think (or maybe it's just that America isn't up yet) and I'm trying to make sense of it all.

Slag them off all you want, but they've put so much stuff into it that it's really bewildering and I can't see the woods for the trees.

You can bring up any map and it'll give you the heatspots of where the most deaths are, either for your specific game or everyone's.

You can bring up any weapon in the game and it'll give you a specific video on it and how best to use it. All sorts of stats throwing around the place.

These are some of the basic things you can view in Elite and also change and send back to the game itself:

Basic stats and how long before I prestige

Last match played (as much as I suck, that's actually quite good for me )

What my current classes are (I only use "MAIN", I ignore the others for now)

As that won't be obvious to anyone not playing the game, I favour the more team-helping stealthy approach.

I've got a silencer and a heart-beat sensor on my assault rifle, a rocket launcher for taking down helicopters.

I'm using Blind Eye, Hardline and Stalker Pro perks and I favour the Support killsteaks which means they don't reset when I die and they mostly help out the team rather than just me.

I'll be completely honest though, it hasn't pulled me completely back in like Black Ops did. I think as I've bought the map packs in advance I'm pretty much forced into sticking with it to get my money's worth, which is no doubt the idea.

If they put some classic maps in there and open some of the wager matches from Black Ops to match-making then I'll be much more in.

[Hendo]

Played a bit more today, gone up from this:

to this:

Also changed one of my perks to Assassin Pro so I'm a truly stealthy bastard.

[retroed]

Assassin Pro is pretty much essential. I'm performing far better now that I have it. We have similar setups, going stealthy and using the support class. It works well.

I'm enjoying MW3 a lot online. It feels a lot tighter than Black Ops, the net code seems far smoother and the hit detection is fair. I read somewhere, rllmuk probably, that disabling Theatre mode helps with your connection and reduces lag, so I have disabled it. Also, only going into games with <50 ms ping instead of 75 is meant to help considerably, too. Either way, it definitely feels better than Black Ops I think.

Elite is working really well now, and I like it. I received my 2hrs double XP bonus as well, along with my Elite/Founder emblem and titles.

Here's my current stats:

My last game:

and my current loadout (Skorpion has silencer now, though):

[Hendo]

I was using that fake crate for a while but people are getting pretty wise to it. However I did find that knowing someone is round the corner and then pretending to crouch by it and open it makes people think it's real. I probably die in the process but I still get the kill.

I think I swapped my Support stuff around now so I have UAV, rocket thing for taking down helicopters and then the little UAV helicopter for spotting enemies which is a great way of getting points. You get points for every enemy you spot and then you get points when someone else kills them.

[Sambob]

Had a good hour or so this morning and really enjoyed it, then played later on and was really frustrated, think I need to stick to the hardcore modes. The things I hated we're the fact that there are clearly 'best guns' that you are effectively punished for not using, or for trying to use anything other than those guns. People are starting to treat the exciting newer modes such as kill confirmed as any other type of game mode, camping and frag throwing and not bothering to collect the tags, just whoring for kills. I got double emp'd and he full set of air support'd in one game, luckily I was on a decent team and we dealt with them in turn and still managed to win, which was amazing but having a good team happens very rarely and I've had games where I've scored double the next highest players score, and not particularly because I'm playing well but because they are poor.

Would love some of the new maps to have some variation in height too, I feel that the maps at the minute only support one type of gameplay, medium/close range shooting where guns like the ump or that pp thing are the only ones to use.

[Hendo]

The game itself is starting to properly pull me in now, I'm preferring Kill Confirmed as my mode of choice.

Made a couple of new load-outs, my main with assault rifle, one with a shotgun and one with a sniper, which to be honest, I'll rarely use.

[retroed]

I am balls deep into this now, loving it so much. I've been hammering Kill Confirmed this evening, and managed to creep my K/D up a little bit to 0.81. Slowly getting there.

The last game I played I went from level 42(and a half, roughly) to part way through 44! No double XP running either. No idea what was happening, being masterful with my CM901 and support streaks I think, and I got that satisfying guitar riff four times in quick succession. I was grinning from ear to ear. Sometimes games just go exactly as you want them to, and it felt great. My CM901 is almost at maximum level (31), so I'll be rocking gold plated goodness very shortly. I have unlocked the G36C now, so might give that a try once I've maxed the CM901.

I can't wait for the first map pack. Bring it on.

[Hendo]

o/

Me too, took a while but it's got me.

[hinn888]

[retroed]

Level 52 now. I almost have my gold CM901, then it's on to the G36C or ACR I reckon.

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[Hendo]

Nicked from rllmuk:

Rumoured from Kotaku, the first batch of DLC maps revealed for MW3;

Morning Wood

Concrete

Italy

Park

Overwatch (MW2 Spec Ops map)

I want me some classic CoD4 maps.

[Sambob]

I havnt even done the spec ops or horde type modes on this yet, should get onto that really. As much as im liking the game, the maps really dont stick in my memory, to think that they had a shit ton of stats for how to build levels and whatnot theyve not blown me away, possibly the worst initial set of all the games. Hopefully the next lot do better, some classics would be nice. the odd numbered games, 5 and 7 have probably had the best maps overall, can still remember some awesome games on the level in world at war where its got that massive church spire that you can snipe from. More like this are needed.

[dante76]

Just in Germany for the campaign, currently playing on veteran, and I don't mean to brag or anything but its piss easy. I've done some of the levels without dying. I can't think of a single Cod game that Ive cleared 7 levels in 2 hours. Disappointing.

[Sly Reflex]

I finished this last night. The in game clock says it took me 4 and a half hours. I should have put it on a harder as it was a bit easy. There were some bits that were really good, and I want them to become a standard for all games. To counteract that, there are fucking shed loads of stuff that shouldn't be in a multimillion dollar game in the space year 2011.

Possibly the biggest thing I like about this is how smooth it is. 60FPS should be the benchmark all game devs aim for, it's nice on the eyes and from a reactionary point it helps your game.

The voice acting is the next best thing about this game. It feels right, they are not over the top or to characterised stereotypically. They are as you would expect a person in the military to talk.

The little touches, the different animations on different guns, along with real manufacturers marks on rifles and such are a really accurate detail. There were also part when certain characters and that were bleeding out or getting carried and they were leaving trails on the floor. The night vision stuff is lovely too.

The game wasn't centred around the USA saving the day. Other countries are militarised and you got a good mix of seeing different units fighting. I'm not saying I want to play as British in every game, but I certainly don't want to play as American. That's just a lazy way of doing things and I'd rather sample a cross section of military movements (either good or bad) than be stuck in one faction.

The bad things really annoyed me.

Consistency. Why can I shoot through a glass window in one room, then in the next room they become bullet proof? Why is it that I can kill someone through a brick wall, but my bullets wont penetrate a wooden crate? Please bear in mind I'm using the same gun when noticing these discrepancies. I just don't get it.

I hate the fact that if you are shooting an enemy that has to be taken down by a scripted event that they are invincible. I know it happens in other games, but in something as fast paced as this it really goes against the grain.

The scripting is absolutely horrible. BF3 suffered from the same thing, but this takes it to a whole new level. It's basically a game of follow my leader, you're not free to go look around or do your own thing, you basically have to cross lines to trigger the next part of the game. Some parts even make you stand on some exact point which is super fucking annoying. I mean I could understand it if it was purposely asking me to carry out some task but a lot of the time it isn't.

Level design is lazy as fuck. Not just in the way the levels are designed but the way they are filled with cover and that. Stuff like doors and litter on the floor look like shit, it's super low res. I've been checking different areas and honestly the textures on them are fucking garbage. The game looks ok in general, but then you notice these textures and it just breaks whatever immersion you had within the game. I mean, how fucking hard would it be to put a handle on a door or actual papers on a desk instead of just texturing them on?

The gunplay is super lenient. Right at the end after rescuing the person you are sent to rescue, you come out to a fuckload of enemies. I stood at the top of the cat walk and spammed LT RT RT. I didn't touch any other functions on my controller. It was way easy, perhaps this wouldn't have been possible on a harder setting. It's a bit shitty that it just snaps to the nearest enemy.

The AI is fucking retarded. There was a few sections where I managed to get behind lines and were able to stand there or just completely bypass them without firing a bullet. The friendly AI would often block me in or push me out of the way so it could do a scripted event. If I ever see "Friendly fire will not be tolerated" again, I'll fucking shit in an envelope and send it to the person who coded the AI. Is it really that hard from them to make it so that they don't walk in your line of fire?

Sound mixing was arse. We've come a long long way as regards 5.1, and this games sound is firmly planted circa early 360 era. Since when did this become acceptable?

The ragdolling on corpses is shite. In general all the animation felt 'off', as if they were skating over the land instead of on it. This surprises me as in previous games it's been something that was good about the game.

The set pieces were a bit naff. I think the highlight was the airplane section and the end. The other parts seem very forgettable.

To say that it isn't the perfect game is an understatement. It's still an enjoyable one I guess. It's nowhere near a top ten of this gen. It's ultimately a throw away title for me in that regard.

I still need to try the Spec Ops stuff if anyone wants to try those? I really enjoyed playing those in MW2 so maybe these will lift my thoughts up on the game.

[Sambob]

Anybody tried the new game type? Its pretty good but almost a bit too frantic to work.

Called Drop Zone its effectively team king of the hill with the hill moving every 15 seconds, the twist being that whilst holding the hill you get care packages dropped into it. The problems I have with it are that most locations are either too crowded or too open, so its either impossible to stay alive in the area because you are just getting picked off with long shots or constant rocket/grenade launcher fire or its impossible to get to the drop zone when its held by two or more people. Its not a terrible game mode, it just doesnt really have the same sort of substance that a lot of others do. Its good fun to be able to get some of the care packages you would not normally ever see though, but it feels a bit meaningless at times when you are doing really well in your bombing plane because nobody really gives a shit about staying alive, they are just charging towards the drop zone to get a care package and then die and rinse and repeat.

They seem to have updated most hardcore game types to be ricochet as well now, which is probably a good move. It might punish some people unfairly as im constantly killing team members because they are too fucking stupid to look where they are going and run in front of me when im shooting an enemy, so I can see that I would lose out in that instance, but on the flip side there will be fewer idiots just grenade launcher spamming. Ideally the modes would have been ricochet from the start.

[retroed]

Not tried that mode yet. Will have to give it a try soon, as it sounds interesting.

It's still Kill Confirmed, Team Deathmatch, and Mercenary for me. I haven't really touched any of the other modes. I am level 65 now, and have finally got around to switching out my trusty CM901 to the ACR 6.8. Other than that, I'm using the identical setup as before. There have been a few updates recently, ones of note include the nerfing of the akimbo FMGs, which are hugely annoying, and the Type 95 has supposedly been weakened too. They are also meant to have fixed the host/lag compensation as well. It seems to be running nice and smoothly, and fair, for me at the moment. The maps have all grown on me too. They're not quite CoD4 standard, but I am liking them more the more I play them. I'd say it's the best COD game since 4, personally.

First DLC pack coming to Elite members towards the end of January.

Dear Call of Duty® ELITE Member,

As the year draws to a close, we're ready to share news about the premium features and season of digital content coming in 2012. We want you to be the first to know the release date for your first Call of Duty Modern Warfare® 3 ELITE content drop, and our vision to create an incredible nine month season of new Call of Duty®: MW3 content.

Check out a special Roll Call video with guest Robert Bowling of Infinity Ward for exclusive first details on the content you'll be playing in January.

- The Call of Duty ELITE Team

[Sly Reflex]

http://spong.com/article/26084/Modern-Warfare-3-DLC-Schedule-Kicks-Off-24-January

Activision has declared that its Modern Warfare 3 DLC schedule kicks off for members of the Call of Duty Elite service on 24th January. The first add-on to be released will be a map pack with two new battlegrounds - Liberation and Piazza.

With a press release that assaults the eyes with an abundance of capital letters and grandstanding vernacular, the publisher has boasted that at least 20 "content drops" will be made on Xbox Live between the kick-off date and September, and will feature maps, Special Ops missions, new games modes and more.

Downloadable content will be available first for Premium members of the Call of Duty Elite subscription service, and will also land on Xbox 360 before other platforms. No release dates were given for PlayStation 3 or PC versions of the DLC service. Seems a bit rubbish, if you're a paid Elite member without an Xbox.

Five download packs will be made available on three occasions in January, February and March, according to the press release, with the first two consisting of new multiplayer maps. Here's a brief description of what each of the new maps coming at the end of the month will involve.

"Liberation is a vast, militarised landscape, ripe for long-range sniper and LMG fire, with mounted turrets on either end that lend power to anyone brave enough to expose themselves in exchange for deadly firepower. Piazza is the idyllic Italian getaway that is anything but, where tight corners and branching pathways pose great risk at every turn. Close-range combat dominates in Piazza, where attacks from behind, above and below are an ever-constant threat."

I read the "20 content drops" part as "20 way to bend over the loyal CoD fanbase for even more money". I guess it's good news for those who got that Elite thing though. There's actually only a few people that play this now n my friend list, maybe about 8 people or something. It's not as popular as the past games.

[Hendo]

Elite app is out on iOS, Android version on the way.

[retroed]

I Prestiged.

I carried over my ACR 6.8 and Assassin perk using two of my prestige tokens. Up to level 7 on my second playthrough, and still loving it. Looking forward to Piazza and Liberation in ten days time.