pc

Looks like one of our PC modders from Japan, by the name of Qrysalis on our forums, has found and re-constructed the files from our original training mission for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Ah, brings back memories. As you can tell, we decided to make it short and sweet for the final version of the game, but I do miss some of that choice VO (voice over). Nice work Qrysalis, as long as you don’t find our Brokeback Snipers / Hot Coffee moment with Price and MacMillian … then we’re all good. 

We’re making great progress on the new Infinityward.com. A mock-up of what the front page will look like above, all the pictures and text are just temporary filler at the moment while we work on design and backend functionality.  The new site will take the place of Charlieoscardelta.com and the current Infinityward.com when we’re done, but don’t expect to see it live for a while.  Next week I’m going to be working on the actual content on the site and moving it all over, populating the pages with actual info / media. Meanwhile we’ll be working on building out the forum and online store. Then we’ll go live with it.

That said, we’re finalizing the T-shirt designs and getting hi-res versions of all of them to the printers for production. I won’t spoil the surprise of which ones we’re printing just yet, I’ll save that for when the store goes live, but still continue to give us feedback on which ones you like as we’ll also be looking to make more.

PC Cheat Exploit Fix In The Works

I also wanted to note for our PC players, we’re currently working on a fix for the PC cheat exploit that many of you reported to us after the 1.6 patch. Thanks to everyone for their quick response in getting us information on it. The programmers are currently addressing it and I’ll update you when you can expect the fix to hit servers as soon as I know.

Holding onto #1 Most Played Game on Xbox Live Spot

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (based on UU’s)
1 Call of Duty 4
2 Halo 3
3 GTA IV
4 Battlefield: Bad Company Demo
5 Guitar Hero III
6 Gears of War
7 Rock Band
8 Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2
9 NINJA GAIDEN 2
10 FIFA 08

I didn’t get a chance to post this when it went live this past week, but it looks like we’re holding our #1 grasp on the Most Played Game on Xbox Live according to MajorNelson.com.  I’m sure the Double XP weekend had a lot to do with that as I saw a huge number of people playing this past weekend.

Meanwhile, we’ve been working with the Microsoft team to track down the issue some of you are having when receiving the “Must have active connection to play on Xbox Live” despite being signed into Xbox Live already. The word is, it’s apparently an interruption in connection with the Xbox Live server. It’s not your internet connection, just your session connection with the Xbox Live server. I’ve been working with users and Xbox to try to track the problem so they can eliminate it as quickly as possible, I’ll keep you posted on any progress there.

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

So where are your gaming hours being spent this weekend? I’ll be playing some Call of Duty 4, also I got my copy of MGS4 today. I’ll probably play that this weekend and see how it is. It looks amazing, while the gameplay is more slower than I normally like, I still think it’s going to be an amazing game. I’ve also been playing the new Incredible Hulk Game while I know the stereotype that all movie-license games suck, it’s actually pretty cool. Everything I’d want from a Hulk game is there. Also, if you have a Iron Man gamesave on your HDD when you play, you’ll unlock Iron Man in Hulkbuster armor as a playable character and unlock an achievement. I also created a new WoW character this past week…. now I’m not a heavy WoW player (infact, this is my first character) so I’m still unsure how much time I’ll spend on the game but I figured since everyone I know plays the damn thing I’d see what all the talk was about. I’ve owned for a while and just never installed it. So far, I see the appeal and starting to get into it, but I’d still rather pick up a fast-paced FPS over it, but maybe it’ll suck me in.

Video Blog

YES, there will be another. YES, I’ve been slacking on it, YES, I suck. I know, I’ve been meaning to do one weeks ago and just keep getting sidetracked (by playing games, mostly) and I’m sorry. The shitty thing is there’s lots of cool shit I’ve been wanting to show you guys on it too. I will get one out, soon, I promise. I’ve been hoping for this really cool game site to launch before I posted a new one, but it likes like I’ll have time to do a new one now and then another when it launches. So hopefully I don’t procrastinate on that too much longer.

That’s it for now, leave a comment and let me know what you’re playing or if you still have suggestions for the next video blog hopefully it’ll get me inspired to drop the controller and do another one! so let me know! Thanks guys, see you online.

Great news! Heads up that the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Variety Map Pack sponsored by NVIDIA will be available worldwide for our PC players next week on June 5th!

NVIDIA is making it possible for PC players to download the map pack for Free on the PC thanks to their sponsorship. In addition, expect to see quite a few promotions popping up leading up to the launch of the map packs on the 5th and beyond. I know NVIDIA has a lot of great things planned for PC users in addition to maps becoming available.

There’s going to be some PC specific previews going up online this weekend I believe that will cover how well the maps play on the PC version as well as some contests and promotions happening all next week. I’ll be posting up details on them as they get started all this week!

The Variety Map Pack includes four new maps for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare multiplayer including Broadcast, Chinatown, Killhouse, and Creek.

In addition to the map pack hitting, PC Players will be receiving the 1.6 Patch for the PC version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that will add support for the new maps, fix a server crash exploit recently reported by the community, and a few additional features / bug fixes. I will post a full patch notes list next week.

The Dtoid army is descending on the Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky tri-state area for their largest ‘No Apparent Reason Party’ (NARP) ever this weekend and I’ll be flying in from Los Angeles to join them.

With, whats growing to be nearly 1000, gamers locally and from all over the country making their way by land, sea (wait… it’s ohio..), and air to the event for no apparent reason other than to hang out with fellow like minded gamers (and COD4 fans of course); I’ve decided to come fully prepared and will be packing heat… in the form of limited edition Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare t-shirts fresh off the press. We’ll be throwing them out to the crowd during the party so be prepare yo’ snatchin hands.

Live locally or want to make a last minute spur of the moment trip across country to the hot bed of gaming activities Cincinnati Ohio? You can find all the details over at Destructoid.com, but be forewarned… those bitches crazy.

More importantly, I want to know who’s down for a trip to White Castles, Steak N Shake, and Skyline Chili this weekend? Drop me a message if you’re down.

Oh yeah… did I mention I got some awesome news coming down the pipeline at the end of the week for our PC players? I can’t say what it is now, but I’m sure most of you can see it coming a mile away. I’ll have that info for you around Friday hopefully.

Meanwhile, those of you subscribed to the video blog and those (nearly 9 thousand) of you who sent in messages and questions you’d like to see answered in the next video blog, I have a new one currently in the works that answers a lot of your questions as well as will be giving you a sneak peek at a line of new shirts we’re getting printed for Call of Duty 4 fans (and giving some away to subscribers), and one of the prototypes we already printed. I’m going to try to get that out to you guys as soon as I can (I want to capture some footage at the NARP event hopefully) to add to it, in addition to the fact that there is an awesome new Gaming site that’s preparing to launch in the not too distant future that will be playing a crucial role in the future episodes of the video blog series… details on that coming wayyy later.

Conclusion - See you all in Cincinnati, drop me a line if you’re in the area and we can hang out. Come to the Dtoid party, and be sure to check back at the end of the week for some great PC news!! Thanks everyone!!

Heads up to our PC Community, most importantly our mapping community. We’ve begun accepting submissions for the Custom Community Map Contest we kicked off a while back. We’ve worked hard to open the contest up to our community worldwide (international contest laws are a pain in the ass btw). Head over to the Official Infinity Ward forums for a step by step guide to submitting your map for the contest.

Good luck to everyone who enters and I can’t wait to play all of your maps!

Community Mapping Contest - Submission Details (IW Forums)

I wanted to keep you guys in the loop on how the Map Contest is rounding out for all the PC mappers waiting to submit their maps. We had hoped to start accepting submissions by now but regretfully (as typically happens) the legal required participants to be US only which was unacceptable for us. So we’ve been working on making it open to worldwide participants which requires quite a bit more legal / contest rule work due to the different laws and regulations in each country.

We could have launched it and made it US only but I know we have a fantastic worldwide community of mappers that would have got severely screwed if it was that way and I won’t let that happen. So that’s what’s holding things up right now. The good news is submissions should be starting THIS WEEK as we’re in the final stages of chasing down our international legal department. Once we have it all confirmed, I hope to have the submission page linked here for you so you can start sending in your custom maps for the contest.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns and I’ll answer what I can.

As for the 1.6 patch which was going through test, we found a critical bug during QA which broke kill cams when playing with mods among other things which put a hold on it and put it back in development. We’re continuing to evaluate it and looking into releasing it when the map pack potentially hits PC. I’ll keep you updated as it progresses, but right now it won’t be coming out anytime soon while we track down this bug.

We’re getting ready to announce official submission guidelines / location for the Community Map Contest. In the coming week or so we’re going to be letting you know where you can go to officially sign-up and submit your Custom Community Map on the PC. It will also have a list of all official prizing that the winning map will walk away with. We’ve secured some nice prizes so I’m anxious to get this thing kicked off and a winner announced.

I should also have some official news for you on the status of the potential map pack release on the PC along with the Community Map Contest news. So expect that news in the near future as well.

I know a lot of you use the IW forums to keep track of the contest as well as new maps being posted on there, and we’re aware it is currently down. The Activision server used to host our forums is having some problems and they’re working on getting it back up and running. Meanwhile we’ve been working on getting a new Infinity Ward website and dedicated forum  built which will replace our current one and become the source for all official news and activity. That’s several months down the road though, but just wanted to let you know something better (forum wise) is in the works.

Just a heads up that it looks like Marketplace is back on it’s feet and running as normal. You should have no problem buying or redeeming the new Variety Map Pack. If you tried yesterday when it was down and received an Invalid Code error, be sure to retry today with the same code. If you received the Error Message that your code was already used while it was down yesterday, just attempt to re-download it via the “Download Maps” option in-game or on the marketplace.

Meanwhile, we’ve been preparing for the launch of the new maps on the PS3 as well via PSN. So we should have details on that in the near future (hopefully next week). I’m in the process of setting up some Play with the Devs games as well as looking into other similar things we can just like the launch of the map packs on Xbox 360. Please don’t feel ignored if every platform isn’t mentioned in each post, a lot goes into every release (especially something as big as a map pack release), so typically when I post I’m focused at the subject at hand specifically.

Luckily though it’s getting to that time for the PS3 to be the focus for a while with the launch of the Game of the Year Edition on PS3, the Variety Map Pack hitting PSN, and setting up some launch weekend events for you guys when the maps hit.

As I said we are getting close to having official details on exact release dates and info on the GOTY Edition for PS3 hitting stores worldwide, as well as when you can expect the Map Pack to be up on PSN for download. That’s my main focus for next week.

On the PC side of things the Patch is in queue to finish internal QA for release. The Community Mapping Content has come to an end and we’ll be putting out an open call for all the maps you guys have created to be submitted as well as releasing details on the prizing and how the winning maps may be showing up. We have some awesome prizing I’m anxious to finalize and announce to you guys. I’ve been keeping tabs on the Beta / Released maps in the Mapping forums on Infinityward.com and there are some great ones.

In addition to that details are being finalized as to getting the map pack to the PC users as well. I can’t speak specifics just yet as everything is being cemented now, but it sounds like good news.

Let me know if you guys have any questions or concerns in the meantime, but it sounds like next week is going to be the most informative when it comes to what’s shaping up on the PS3 and PC side of things.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.495330&w=425&h=350&fv=] from www.gametrailers.com

Despite what the internet might tell you (including some “official” sources), the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare variety map pack has NOT been delayed until the 10th. As of right now we’re pushing certification for an on-time release for April 3rd or 4th. As of right now though, I’m being told that it’s a good chance it will be released worldwide (except for Japan) tomorrow night / early-Friday morning.

With that said, we also have a new video up on Gametrailers that show off the new maps in action, so check it out above.

For those of you asking when you should take off work, I’d take off Friday, as it looks like they should be available late Thursday night / early Friday morning, which means Friday you should be able to play all day. Also, those of you who have tokens already (either from Game of the Year edition or won them at the Gamestop event we held) you’ll be able to use them as soon as the Map packs are available on Xbox Live.

Update for those of you who bought the Game of the Year Editions:

I see a lot of questions for those of you who have the Game of the Year Editions and visited http://gameoftheyear.callofduty.com/ where all the April 10th delay date rumors spawned from. However, I wanted to let you know that I am currently working to get that changed so that it reflects the correct release date of the maps (April 4th) as well as allows users who buy the GOTY edition to redeem their code for a token as soon as the maps are available (on April 4th) instead of April 10th. I hope that clears up any confusion and I will keep you updated if anything changes, but I wanted to let you know I’m working to make sure you’re taken care of.

Since details on the maps have been pretty scattered throughout the internet, I thought I’d give you guys a comprehensive breakdown of each map in the upcoming Variety Map Pack for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare along with some suggestions on gametypes, classes, and a few more screenshots to look over; all in one location. For those of you who don’t know, these maps will be hitting in April and will be 800 MS Points (same pricing for PSN). Along with the map pack will be a few minor changes to the game, including a tweak to Clan Tags to re-allow special characters.

Individual DLC Map Descriptions:

Broadcast
Its size and alternating routes make “Broadcast” great for large team games. A large, multi-story television station with plenty of window vantage points creates the perfect setting for floor-to-floor combat. The station is surrounded by extensive outdoor areas consisting of a long parking lot, surrounding buildings with sniping hiding spots and side-rooftop access to the top and bottom floors of the television station.

Creek
A large wide open village in the woods, “Creek” consists of heavy foliage, great for sniper cover: a deep ravine offers an excellent vantage point for ambushes; an underground cave offers an alternate evasion route; and various multi-floor houses populate a patchwork of connected farmland. This extensive open map is great for snipers with plenty of natural coverage consisting of rocks and trees. There are various routes for advancement from both high and low vantage points over and underneath the hillsides. Another great map for large team games.

Chinatown
A modern revision of the classic Call of Duty “Carentan” map, “Chinatown” takes players to the foggy downtown district of a Chinatown. A night time setting, the cityscape is well lit by the full moon and the glow of brightly colored lanterns and neon lights from local businesses. This district offers a variety of open-street and interior settings, perfect for fire fights throughout the connected roads, courtyards, antique shops and markets within it. Great for all game types and players.

Killhouse
“Killhouse” is an enclosed warehouse made of plywood structures, mock-ups and speed-run courses used for training, creating the right mix of obstacles for small team games or free-for-alls with a variety of soft and hard cover points spread throughout the entire ground level