Uncategorized

(Random Cell Phone Pic From Desk)

Alright, maybe it didn’t cause the earthquake, but while I was in production earlier today discussing the Playlists we have in QA at the moment; The whole damn building started to shake. Turned out to be a 5.4 ( downgraded from 5.8 ) Earthquake that hit Los Angeles this morning. Don’t worry though, the only casualty as you can see from the cell phone pic above, is good ole’ Altair.

Speaking of the playlists. The original plan was to hopefully have them out by the weekend if QA went well., regretfully through we’ve found some critical bugs in the new playlists today that is making a weekend release look bleak. Regardless of QA, they playlist descriptions are still in translation, so we’ll have to wait on that no matter what. I’ll keep you guys updated on how continued QA goes and the progress of working around any issues that may arise.

Official status of the playlists is still, “In Testing”.  Good or bad news, I’ll keep you posted.

(Random Cell Phone Pic From My Desk)

Things going on today:

- Internal QA on the new multiplayer playlists for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Test found a small bug with Hardcore HQ where Friendly Fire wasn’t enabled. Addressing that. Investigating solutions for the No Perks bug that doesn’t disable slot 1 perks. Overall, it’s going really well though.

- Sending in the new Playlist’s descriptions to production for translation and localizations. Doing this now, so hopefully it’s done with localization by the time the playlists are through QA so there are no unneeded delays.

- Preparing for a friendly Call of Duty 4 tournament with a few other devs (EA dev team, Neversoft dev team, Treyarch dev team) later tonight. We will not be merciful.

Update: Round 1 of the tournament done. We played best out of 3 games of Domination. IW = 3 wins / Neversoft = 0 wins. Undefeated so far. EA Dev Team next.

- Banning a few IPs & users from commenting / posting on the blog. If all you can post is rude, disrespectful, and insulting comments, then you’re not welcomed here. The internet is not a free pass to be an ass to people you don’t know.
In non-work related news, I found this cool new program fro the Mac called Delicious Library 2. Which essentially is used for organizing your movie / game collection. Using the built in iSight camera, you can scan the barcodes of your games and movies, and it adds it to your library w/ full details, cover art, and allows you to see what you paid for it when it released and what it’s worth today. As well as “check it out” to friends and keep tabs on it so you can remember who borrowed what. Pretty cool for any one who has a large movie or game collection. It also let’s you publish your collection to the web or access via iPhone. I can’t believe I never heard of this before now. I’m in the process of organizing my collection with it, you can check out the progress of it here. Just finished scanning in all my NES games last night.

(Update: Full game collection added, complete with cover art for every game.)

Anyways, As soon as the new playlists are translated and done with Quality Assurance, I’ll be sure to let you guys know when you can expect them! Thanks!

1:06 AM - Just a heads up that we’re in the midst of launching the new Infinityward.com site. You may experience errors or problems when attempting to go to InfinityWard.com or the forums until we’ve finished. It should all be good to go by the time the workday starts tomorrow morning though. I’ll keep you posted with the progress.

6:11 AM - At the moment the old site and forums are still up (although in Maintenance Mode) until we fully launch the new site. We’re building out a non-flash / non-database driven static version as a back-up before we re-launch it.

7:18 AM - I just launched an Interim Forums on the old IW site while we finish up stress testing the site before the re-launch to give us somewhere to talk in the meantime. Charlieoscardelta.com should be re-opened for the time being as well until everything is back up.

7:30 AM - Back to Maintenance Mode on the Interim IW Forums, Charlie.com should still be up.

8:30 AM - Doing final testing on the site before we re-launch it. Making some community suggested tweaks to the new forums (adding subforms per platform).

8:38 AM - Changing over the DNS. So the new site should be popping up for everyone gradually (based on where you are, and when your DNS gets propagated to.).

6:35 pm - We’re on the main server and everything is running all systems GO. I’ve been awake for over 24 hours + with no sleep, and we’re finally done. WOOT WOOT!! I plan on passing out around 7 pm and sleeping till morning.

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.515031&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26] from youtube.com posted with vodpod

Since this is the first, I feel it deserves a bit of an introduction. I’ve decided to kick off a video blog on the site, with the first episode lovely titled “The One About Nothing” being posted above. The concept behind the new video blog is to allow you guys a more visual look into game development or anything else you want.

As I said in the video, let me know what you guys want to see. I know there has been a lot of request to see some footage inside Infinity Ward as well as other things and I’m hoping this little video blog will allow us to do that. Ever wonder what a development kit looks like? how it works? Or what the game looks like in the eye of a designer? Ever want to see inside the studio or check out the offices?

Also feel free to ask questions about anything from the game, to how to get into the industry, to what a daily life in development is like. I think it’d be a cool way to get you guys more connected with the development of our games and the industry in general for any fans or potential future game developers. So let me know what you think and how we can make this work as I’d love to start doing them on a regular basis.

Be sure to check out it’s direct link:

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

and Subscribe to the Channel to stay connected with future videos if you like the concept. Meanwhile, head over to the YouTube page to comment or leave your comment here on what you’d like to see more of in any future videos. Thanks guys.

Heads up, that the new DLC maps from the Variety Map Pack are now integrated throughout the other playlists, in addition we’ve removed the Variety Map Pack exclusive playlists and heavily seeded the new maps in exisiting ones. Which means you have a higher chance of playing new maps in exisiting playlists. With that change, also came the end of Double XP.

So what was the average rank you guys ranked up during double XP? Anyone do any entire prestige during it?

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.998950&w=425&h=350&fv=object_ID%3D902590%26downloadURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fxbox360movies.ign.com%2Fxbox360%2Fvideo%2Farticle%2F859%2F859870%2Fcod4_chinatown2_031408_flvlowwide.flv%26allownetworking%3D] from fourzerotwo.vodpod.c

As promised this past weekend, a full preview of the upcoming Variety Map Pack for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare went live today on IGN, TeamXbox, and Gamespy. Along with four new exclusive gameplay footage videos. You can check out the Creek video above courtesy of IGN, and a Chinatown video below courtesy of Gamespy. For videos of Killhouse and Broadcast be sure to check out the full articles on the sites below.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.998947&w=425&h=350&fv=object_ID%3D902590%26downloadURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fxbox360movies.ign.com%2Fxbox360%2Fvideo%2Farticle%2F859%2F859870%2Fcod4_theravine_031408_flvlowwide.flv%26allownetworking%3D] from fourzerotwo.vodpod.c

The IGN, TeamXbox, and Gamespy crew were here last week and spent the entire day playing through the entire Variety Map Pack. So what did they think? Be sure to check out the full articles on their respective sites but here are some excerpts from each:

IGN Says:

Of the four maps that we tried, Broadcast was probably my personal favorite. It seemed to do a good job of providing players with different outlets to try and get the upper-hand. I never found myself pigeon holed into going the same route over and over and the skylight certainly provided us with plenty of harrowing moments.

He’s def right about the alternating routes. Broadcast is all about the alternating routes and is a huge map. We received a lot of demand to play in the TV station from single player in multiplayer, so we took that and ran with it, but don’t expect a copy / paste from Single Player as this level has been completely reworked. We kept the signature large center room everyone loved in SP and fully opened up the rest of the station. So you can explore multiple floors, shoot from window vantage points for floor to floor combat and make your way throughout the entire station as well as outside area with surrounding buildings (one with a great sniper spot to shoot inside the TV Station) and side rooftops.

Gamespy says:

The first map we checked out was called Creek, and it’s one of the largest Call of Duty 4 maps to date. Creek is an asymmetrical map that features a multi-building village on one side and a farmhouse on the other. Despite the trees and bushes that dot the landscape, it’s actually possible to see a fairly long distance, making this a great map for those players who love to snipe. Separating the two landmark areas is a dry riverbed that lies in a valley between a gently sloping hillside and a steep cliff with switchback trails cut into it.

TeamXbox Says:

Chinatown has the look of an inner-city neighborhood. Again, mixing the outdoor areas of the street and alleys with the two-story indoor areas of the building makes for a very nice mix of close quarters and long-range style fighting.

Again, be sure to check out the full articles as they go indepth on everything you need to know about the upcoming new maps. In addition it looks like we’ve finally been able to narrow down pricing and a closer release date for the map pack with it hitting in early to mid-April for 800 MS Points with similar pricing for PS3.

Update: I just noticed one of the articles mentioned Hardcore playlists would be condensed. That’s not accurate. We will not be removing or condensing any Hardcore playlists, if anything we’ll add more.

  Next week is going to be a busy one, I’ll be at GDC from Tuesday - Friday in San Francisco. Most of my time will be taken up with press interviews and I’m sure DLC is going to be a big subject for conversation. To prepare I’m going to be playing the hell out of all the early concepts and versions of the new maps we have playable over the weekend. We’ve been play testing them recently, where we play normal matches so the designer of that level can see how it plays, see if it’s too easy to plant on A in S&D or too hard to defend B on Domination, or there needs to be a window here, or cover point there. Play and tweak, play and tweak.

I’ll update more in a bit, gotta get home for a IW vs. Gearheads of War match we were challenged to in Domination on CoD4 tonight. I’ll let you know how badly we beat them.

ScrewAttack released a new video today counting down their picks for the Top Ten games to buy BESIDES Halo 3, complete with an impromptu cameo by yours truly at the end…. hope that doesn’t give away who #1 is.

Have you seen Resident Evil: Extinction yet? If not, do it. I saw it this past weekend and I have to say that it is probably my favorite of the three RE films. The movie’s been getting some pretty nasty reviews from the critics, but I can tell you from a gamer standpoint it’s a damn good video game flick.

First, lets just say, I’m a sucker for:

1) Movies based on video game series.
2) Zombies.
3) Movies based on video game series with zombies.

If that sounds like you, then go see it.

There’s plenty of ‘holy shit’ moments throughout the film to keep you drawn into the movie and yet again ends on a potential sequel cliff hanger. At this pace, I’m more than happy to see a new Resident Evil film every few years just as I’m more than happy to play a new Resident Evil game every few years. I can’t get enough of kicking Umbrella’s ass.

Speaking of Resident Evil, I’ve recently been playing through Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition over the weekend. I’m about half way through (just got to the castle) and am really fucking loving this game. It’s the first game in a while that really builds suspense when you’re playing it, having you on the edge of your seat constantly checking your flanks and your six. If you haven’t played it, then I suggest you pick it up. I regretfully missed it’s first outing on the GameCube (I know, blasphemy eh?) but was sure to pick it up when it hit Wii a while back and am just now getting to play through it all.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis has always held the spot as my #1 favorite RE title, as there was nothing like the feeling of going through a long hallway then hearing in the distance behind you Nemesis burst through a wall / door and knowing you only have one Rocket left in your inventory. Talk about a ‘holy shit, time to hail ass to the nearest door’ moment. After playing through Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition half way, I can already say it may just take the thrown from Nemesis as my favorite Resident Evil; I won’t officially say that until I beat all of RE4 though.

I’ve also been playing:

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on Veteran
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare MP Beta
• Halo 3 on Legendary
• Metroid Prime 3 Corruption

In work related news:

• Level Cap is rising this Friday. Got word today that the Title Update for the Beta wouldn’t pass cert until the weekend the beta ends. Looks like it got pushed back by MS due to so many Retail titles going through certification despite being there for a month.
• This upcoming weekend / next week I’ll be heading to San Francisco for a press event.
• Lots of CoD4:MW PC testing happening (min specs, mod support)
• Still not ‘officially’ gold, wait for official PR announcement before we celebrate.

Was MIA this weekend for the most part, but wanted to give a heads up to this past weekend’s Major Nelson Podcast.

I took some time to talk to my good friend Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb, the Director of Programming for Xbox Live, on his show this weekend. We talked a briefly about the Call of Duty 4 MP BETA touching on some important topics such as people Account Sharing to get into the beta, stats we’re tracking behind the scenes, as well as touch on various other topics.

[Listen Here]

In other news: As I said last week, your token should be in your Charlie.com profile by now, if it is not, don’t be shy in letting me know in the comments, but MOST IMPORTANTLY put your email address in the comment with it so I can check the list and get you your token if need be. Thanks everyone.