COD Ghosts Multiplayer Reveal

[Teddiursa of the Sky]

I hear what youre saying, I've got a few friends who are BF fans too. It's just a matter of preference, I'd enjoy either game as long as I'm playing with my friends, but I'll explain why COD Ghosts is more fun to me.

Alright, fair enough.

For me BF is too slow. I know that's a personal thing, but I enjoy the intensity of a face paced arcade style FPS. Having an amazing graphics engine is cool, but only necessary if I'm watching a movie and not playing a game, especially in an online environment. Realism isn't absolutely necessary to me, it's just window dressing.

I have to disagree here. It is expected of a triple A title to use a graphics engine that is less than 7 years old. I expect game developers to at least use some recent tech if they refuse to bring some new development to the table. Both Treyarc and Infinity Ward strutted about for as long as they could with poorly-updated Unreal-based engines. The improvements throughout the different builds consisted of primarily texture rendering updates and not much else.

To be honest, the innovations seem more like tweaks. They've made the graphics engine smoother, and more realistic, they've made the maps' dynamics change by player action, they now have massive "wars" allowing up to 64 players on the field at the same time. Those are all really cool, but those kind of additions are expected of a game with multiple sequels.

Battlefield has made massive technological leaps. Let's just forget about their Destruction engine tech and simply look at their sound design alone. Their environment is fully interactive with sound. As opposed to the static sound found in Call of Duty, Battlefield implemented a generation system in which objects generate their own sound and, in turn, interact with the environment. That is innovative. Their animation program implements technology from FIFA games called "ANT", creating extremely fluid transitions in animations (such as walking, running, reloading, etc.). With Frostbite 3, they have rebuilt the ANT system from the ground up to accommodate even more movements. Those are hardly "tweaks", they are genuine innovations that will keep the immersion consistent and the gameplay enjoyable. They are literally creating new graphics technology, which EA is starting to use for their other titles as well.

Cod has tweaked their game too, the graphics are crisper (though nowhere near the level of the Frostebite engine), they've enhanced the sound, to make it more "enveloping" (again probably nowhere near the power of BF), they've also added dynamic maps (and yes I'm aware that BF announced them first, but the gap between the two announcements aren't large enough to suggest that Activision is "copying" EA). And BlOps 2 had massive server issues also, with so many different kinds of lag "balancing" the skill between good and bad players. The Lag was just more prevalent in BlOps 2 because of how fast paced the game was. Hopefully that changes with the new dedicated or cloud servers the systems will be using and that goes for both games.

COD has implemented antialiasing to cut down on screen tearing (something that nearly every other title has had for years) and they are still using static sound. Their technology department is not only lacking. It is non-existent. After the boys over at Unreal showcased their forth engine, I actually considered taking a look at Call of Duty's new engine. After I saw some footage from a few T.V spots, I was saddened. I fear for dedicated servers because they will have to make up they money they spend hosting them somewhere (which means more expensive DLC content or subscription-based play).

But COD has also added a ton of new things, things that feel more like new additions for an FPS than simply tweaking. They've replaced the dolphin dive with the knee slide, making it have more of a tactical use. They've also added a lean function, where you hide behind the edge of a wall, and then when you Aim down sights you lean out to take a shot. They've added 7 new game modes, changed create a class to create a soldier, adding character customization (which in turn supposedly alters the way the AI uses your soldier), as well as adding an ability to use the soldiers you've created in multiplayer modes alongside of you. Adding 1V1 possibilities while still running a full "squad".

They tweaked the animation of the dolphin dive to a knee slide. They have the same relative functions: To make a quick, sporadic dart to cover. Ah, the lean function. Brings back memories of Medal of Honor. Can you describe the game modes that they are adding? How are they entirely different from anything we have ever seen in an arcade shooter? The AI uses your soldier? So every player be running with a fully-manned AI squad or is that exclusive to the private matches they offer (essentially adding additional AI commands to weapons so that the bots from Black Ops will finally do their job for once).

Those are tweaks.

When it comes down to it though, I don't like to compare the two. BF is a Tactical Sim, it's like Zero Dark Thirty, the reality is what captivates you. COD is more arcade style, like a Michael Bay Film or any other cheesy action movie. I don't really care which one I play as long as I'm playing with my friends, thats what makes the games, both of them, fun to me.

I just want to say that BF is not a simulator. ARMA is a simulator. Battlefield simply places more emphasis on teamwork and objectives than Call of Duty... in which, despite its claimed team-based play, the community cohesion is transparently futile.

[Wookie Mistake]

Alright, fair enough.



I have to disagree here. It is expected of a triple A title to use a graphics engine that is less than 7 years old. I expect game developers to at least use some recent tech if they refuse to bring some new development to the table. Both Treyarc and Infinity Ward strutted about for as long as they could with poorly-updated Unreal-based engines. The improvements throughout the different builds consisted of primarily texture rendering updates and not much else.

I just want to preface this by saying that I actually appreciate the coherent argument that you've been laying out, as opposed to the "fanboy" perspective that a lot of people tend to give, from both camps. The thing I hate most about people that "talk down" about COD is the lack of realism. Those people are the same people who "talk down" about the serendipitous nature of movies and mean it. I have the same argument with COD "fanboys" who say BF is boring, and takes too long, it's not boring per se, just slower than I'm used to and most of those fanboys are just expressing the short attention span of our current generation.

As for the graphics engines, I'm not totally disagreeing with you here, an up to date and, at least modernized engine would be much appreciated, but for me it's not the end all be all of an FPS especially one where online interaction is the main attraction. In fact some of the fun for me is the overall cheesiness of the game physics. I have no problem with the Unreal Engine, as opposed to the Frostbite3 engine, because in essence the mechanics are the same, point shoot and try to win a gun battle.

Battlefield has made massive technological leaps. Let's just forget about their Destruction engine tech and simply look at their sound design alone. Their environment is fully interactive with sound. As opposed to the static sound found in Call of Duty, Battlefield implemented a generation system in which objects generate their own sound and, in turn, interact with the environment. That is innovative. Their animation program implements technology from FIFA games called "ANT", creating extremely fluid transitions in animations (such as walking, running, reloading, etc.). With Frostbite 3, they have rebuilt the ANT system from the ground up to accommodate even more movements. Those are hardly "tweaks", they are genuine innovations that will keep the immersion consistent and the gameplay enjoyable. They are literally creating new graphics technology, which EA is starting to use for their other titles as well.

It's possible that our expectations are different. All that visual and aural advancement is extremely cool, and like you said it will give as close to an immersive and realistic feeling, as is possible with the tech today. But to me, it isn't strictly necessary, not for an online environment where encounters narrow your field of focus. Immersion is important when it comes to a game that focuses on the story, but I'm immersing myself in the writing not the graphics.

Until A.R. technology comes around how realistic someone runs, walks, or eats a hotdog is just eye candy to me. Granted it wouldn't be too difficult for Activision to "steal" some of EA/Dice's graphics to make an engine at or near the quality of the Frostbite 3 engine, but why would they? Not only is COD not broken, it's still one of the best selling game franchises of all time, not just FPSs but of all genres. For me it's a matter of Fun factor being more important than the immersive experience. So all those technological leaps don't mean much to my definition of enjoyable gameplay. To me the fun is playing the game, not the fact that they can make 2d as close to 3d as is possible.

COD has implemented antialiasing to cut down on screen tearing (something that nearly every other title has had for years) and they are still using static sound. Their technology department is not only lacking. It is non-existent. After the boys over at Unreal showcased their forth engine, I actually considered taking a look at Call of Duty's new engine. After I saw some footage from a few T.V spots, I was saddened. I fear for dedicated servers because they will have to make up they money they spend hosting them somewhere (which means more expensive DLC content or subscription-based play).

Dedicated and cloud servers are going to be used by XB and PS, not the individual creators, at least as far as I'm aware. How XB and PS uses them though, I'm not sure, but they've been saying that it's going to help at least mitigate some of the lag for both games and other online games.

Innovation is a relative term to me, I don't feel like I'm actually in either game's environment, If i want to immerse myself in that kind of environment without actually killing people, I'll just play some paintball. So none of it is truly "innovative" but the major advancements you're talking about are peripheral to me, the main questions I ask myself when I buy a game is, "Is it fun?" and "Would I want to play it over and over again" I always make fun of my friend, because he complains about how the guns' recoil, muzzle flash, et al. aren't realistic. To me it's just whatever, I enjoy both games, but I play COD more because more of my friends on XB play COD

They tweaked the animation of the dolphin dive to a knee slide. They have the same relative functions: To make a quick, sporadic dart to cover. Ah, the lean function. Brings back memories of Medal of Honor. Can you describe the game modes that they are adding? How are they entirely different from anything we have ever seen in an arcade shooter? The AI uses your soldier? So every player be running with a fully-manned AI squad or is that exclusive to the private matches they offer (essentially adding additional AI commands to weapons so that the bots from Black Ops will finally do their job for once).

Those are tweaks.

True the relative function is the same, but it also has a more offensive function, at least I hope LOL. Hopefully it'll reduce the amount of jump shots, the knee slide can become a very effective offensive strategy for corner popping. But I agree it is more of a tweak, but I was never a big fan of dolphin diving anyways except when I'm kill camming. As for the lean, it may be something that MOH had but it hasn't been used since, though interestingly both BF4 and COD Ghosts are going to implement leaning again.

They've only talked about a couple, new game modes, blitz and cranked, though the infected game mode is supposed to be a part of the main playlist also.

Blitz is like CTF except instead of running a flag back, you hit the cap and teleport back to your team's spawn scoring a point. They showed some gameplay of it during GamesCom today. It looks interesting.

Cranked is basically TDM on crack. Which is unnecessary IMO, COD is already fast paced, but Cranked makes it ridiculous. Basically if you get a kill, you get perks that boost your speed, and reaction time, but a 30 second clock starts running down, and if you don't get another kill within that timeframe you die. The name i'm pretty sure is based off of the Jason Statham movies, where he needed to keep his heart rate up or die.

But the Gamemode or series of Game modes I'm really looking forward to are the Search & Rescue set. Where If you die, you leave a tag, and if your teammate recovers the tag you'll respawn, but if an enemy grabs the tag, you're out for the round. It looks like you can play S&R type game modes for most if not all of the Objective game modes.

Squads will be a seperate gameplay list, where you can play anyone online in certain game modes, but instead of playing with randoms you can play with the soldiers you created. Very cool in theory, but it depends on how well it actually works. It's not just for Training matches, they actually earn XP towards unlocks and leveling.

I just want to say that BF is not a simulator. ARMA is a simulator. Battlefield simply places more emphasis on teamwork and objectives than Call of Duty... in which, despite its claimed team-based play, the community cohesion is transparently futile.

I may have misspoken (lol my fingers automatically typed pokemon instead of spoken) about it being a sim, but it just seems like everyone's argument about why BF is better than COD is the realism. They never outright say it's more fun, they just imply that the realism makes the game more fun. True BF does put a big emphasis on teamwork and tactics, but to me it's almost to a fault. I can't OMA in most games because it's too difficult, in fact if I OMA i usually get a lot of anger. Call of Duty is on the other end of the spectrum. Everyone OMA's way too much, but if you run team tactics you have a higher chance of success, it's just everyone want's to seem like a boss and OMA.

Again, I hope I'm not offending you in anyway, since that isn't my intent, I prefer COD over BF, but not to the exclusivity of one over the other.