infinity ward

Friday went by pretty quick today. It kicked off with our standard weekly Leads meeting, where all dept. leads sit down and talk about what’s happening in their individual deprtments; but once that was wrapped, I headed to the lobby to meet up with this years World Series MVP and Phillies pitcher, Cole Hamels. Seen above (on the right) with one of our resident baseball fanboys and animators, Chance Glasco (left).

For being the most highly sought after player in league right now, after securing the MVP award at the World Series recently, he’s an extremely down to earth guy and a most importantly a huge gamer as attested to by his wife who confirmed he’ll disappear for days only to reappear fully bearded from a week of uninterrupted gaming. A life style I can relate to.

Although, from talking to Cole, it seems those game-a-thons are few and far between, especially when preparing for the World Series. He said gaming during the season is typically reserved for the early hours of the morning after games, when him and fellow team mates jump on. So if you’re playing between 11pm - 2:30 am and hear an abnormal amount of baseball talk, then you know why.

We gave him a tour around the studio while he was here, and it was especially interesting when we were showing off some of our Motion Capture. Cole started talking about how he’s done it before, but not for a game. He uses Motion Capture to record and analyze his pitching form, so that they can determine how to further improve his pitching and prevent injuries.

It was a good visit. It’s always nice to meet fans of the game, especially if were fans of theirs. Cole admitted he’s not alone in his COD4 addiction, saying he typically parties up after games with fellow team mates like Adam Eaton or teams they’re facing that day like the legendary Ken Griffey Jr. 

Just goes to show, you never know who you’re going up against when you log on. 

(fyi: Cpt Hammer is my PartnerNET gamertag, not my secret XBL account)

Just got finished jumping into some of QA’s playtests of the new gametypes. While they’re ensuring there are no bugs to be found, I wanted to jump in and test out how fun the playlists were. Hardcore HQ is a lot of fun because it’s a lot more fast paced than normal and HQ’s are falling a lot faster. Not a lot of waiting around in this gametype. Not to mention it’s a lot more tactical when you’re not just spamming the HQ with nades. I think I’ll be playing the Hardcore Ricochet version of Hardcore HQ a lot. 

We played several games of Second Chance Search and Destroy, which essentially just adds 1 respawn per player. A small addition, but makes a big difference in the tactics you use. Plus, it wasn’t as frustrating to be taken out early in the round because you get a second chance to do some damage. No more dying early and waiting around the entire match. The only problem I can foresee with it is the occassional spawn kill if someone gets past your defenses and gets in a position to kill your second wave of respawns before you get him out. Other than that I actually prefer Second Chance over standard Search and Destroy. I found myself missing the second life when we were playing standard. There were a few UI (user interface) bugs, but those can be taken care of really easily, just need to shorten the name of the gametype. 

Still on the fence with Sudden Death Sabotage, what do you guys think of that. It essentially just turns into Team Elimination because no one has any respawns, so everyone starts camping and never goes for the bomb. In a way, I like that, because it’s a sneaky way to get Team Elimination into the game with an extra twist, but on the other hand the rounds end really quickly. I’m worried this one might not make the cut, but we’ll see how the rest of testing goes this week.

Hardcore Ricochet is the answer to my prayers. Team Killing is non-existent and you no longer have to say “my bad” to a team mate you accidently blow to hell with a badly placed grenade. If you fuck up, you’re the only one hurting for it. Not to mention you never have to worry about having a team mate shoot an RPG into the ground at the start and killing everyone in Hardcore Search and Destroy. That alone makes this entire playlist worth it to me. 

Things are looking good. I’m still working hard on that upcoming Xbox Live promotion I told you about. Getting some final thoughts from our Art Driector on the Ads I designed for it, and securing the rest of the details. 

On a more personal note, I finally got my automatic office defense system online and operating… 

… and by that, I mean big ass NERF cannon; Which I have mounted on a mobile defensive position (aka office chair) for maximum effeniency. This battery-operated, belt fed, automatic rapid-fire dart cannon is exactly what I needed to the turn the tide of the war in my favor. You see, there’s been ongoing skirmishes with the radicals in IT for quite some time now…. around the time they covered my Master Chief in Peanut Butter while I was out of town for GDC.

Dare’s a war a’comin… pik yer side!  

It was awesome putting together this bad boy late last night after work. I felt like I was 8 years old again, sitting on the floor with one of our producers assembling and test firing it. Some toys you’re never too old to get a kick out of. If the day ever comes I think other wise, kill me…. preferrably death by NERFing. 

I knew there were a lot of us out there, but just how many? Well, I received the reports this week and it looks like our COD4 online community stands at over 10 million strong (Xbox 360 / PS3)! That’s all unique players too, so 10 million different people have logged on for online multiplayer since buying the game in November. Those stats don’t include people who have never logged into MP, only those apart of the Online Community.

That’s insane. With a little over a million players logging in everyday for multiplayer, I can’t say I’m too surprised. It’s awesome to think that we’re all part of building something so massive, and when I say we, I mean me, you, all of us. Everyone who logs on to play with their friends, reads the blog, contributes on the forums, took part in the beta. You guys shaped this game and what it is today. We have one massive, powerful, community and all of you should be proud because there is honestly no other game community I’d rather be a part of. So when I say this, know that I mean it… THANK YOU!!!

We have some new multiplayer playlists in the works to breath even more life into multiplayer, in addition to that I’m working on a few other things behind the scenes that I can’t talk about just yet (in case they don’t come to fruition).

This really makes me want to have another Community Party (anyone remember the COD2 all night?). If any Los Angeles locals are interested in having a COD4 Community Meet-up / Community Party, let me know and let’s put one together!!

As you know, We’ve been playing around with a lot of different playlist variations for the last several weeks and we’ve got quite a few cool mash-ups and gametype tweaks in the wings. It’s no secret that adding new playlists (or anything to multiplayer) takes a long time. There is a lot of careful planning and consideration that goes into anything new we add to the overall gameplay experience of the game, and nothing is added unless we’re completely convinced it will add to the overall experience. So as you can imagine, we play the hell out of any new addition we even consider before we consider it “good to go”.

That said.

The good news is, we have a few playlists that can be implemented via a playlist update (no patch required) and a few that we’re determining now if they can be added; the bad news is a few of them that can only be implemented via a patch. We’re still in talks to see if a small patch is feasible within our current production schedule, so I’ll let you know as that’s determined.

Remember though, nothing is final until it’s actually released. I don’t want you guys to be disappointed if something doesn’t pass QA, but to give you an idea of what we’re currently testing and where we stand with each playlist:

Hardcore Headquarters - No Patch Required

Testing is completed for Hardcore HQ. This playlist has standard HQ rules w/ Hardcore Settings. Limited HUD, Increased Bullet Damage, and Friendly Fire Enabled.

Hardcore Ricochet Playlist - Currently Testing

We’re currently testing this playlist now to see if a patch will be required for it or not. We should know soon. This is the No Teamkilling playlist. Any damage a teamkiller attempts to do to their team mates is reflected onto themselves only. Therefore, if they attempt to shoot an RPG into the ground at the beginning of the match; the only person who will die, is the Teamkiller. This eliminates the fear of being shot in the back by some asshole, but still encourages players to play tactically and not throw random nades, because if you accidentally hit a teammate, you’re only going to end up killing yourself and they’ll go unharmed. No Teamkilling, No Random Nades. This playlist will include the variant for Hardcore Teamdeathmatch, Hardcore Search and Destroy, and Hardcore HQ.

Sudden Death Sabotage - Currently Testing

Sabotage with no respawns. Fast-paced and intense Sabotage. No more hiding with the bomb until time runs out for sudden death. Increased XP per kills to encourage Team Deathmatch mentality. Defend your objective, while attempting to secure the bomb and plant on theirs. Once you’re dead, you’re dead. No second chances. We’re currently testing to see if this can be implemented without a patch.

Second Chance Search and Destroy - Currently Testing

Search and Destroy with 1 respawn each. This completely revamps your Search and Destroy tactics. No longer will lucky frag or well-placed claymore end your chance of victory. Each player has 1 respawn, creating longer more thoughout attack / defend strategies. Eliminate enemy players, and cut off their reinforcements while you defuse.

——–

If all these get past Quality Assurance (Test) with zero bugs, then we’ll be able to implement these four new playlists rather quickly (once QA and Localization is finished). In addition, we plan on adding Killhouse to more playlists and adjusting the amount of XP you get in certain playlists. (i.e. double XP in hardcore and new playlists).

Hit the jump for the playlists we’d like to do, but would require some code work to implement.

Read the rest of this entry »

(Source: Animatrix - Final Flight of the Osiris)

(Artist: Steven Giesler)

It’s Monday again…. which means we just finished up our Monday Morning Meeting. Excluding the stuff I can’t talk about - this meeting was a rather short one. While short in length, it was big in news related to new faces around Infinity Ward.

Speaking of faces, you’re probably wondering what the bad ass head above this is; so I’ll start off with that news first and move into the smaller (literally) addition later.

As always, each M3 we ask new employees to come up front and introduce themselves. This week we have an awesome new addition to our already amazing art department in the form of a character focused artist by the name of Steven Giesler.

You’ll probably recognize Steven’s work from the animated film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within from Square, in addition to his work (see: above) from the Animatrix - The Final Flight of the Osiris. You can check out more of Steven’s work via his personal site at www.stevengiesler.com .

I’m so stoked for the future right now, because our art department is seriously all A-team and this new addition is just another strong link in the chain. Welcome aboard Steven!

Our second big (and by big I mean 7 lbs 2oz and 20.5 inches long of all gamer) came unexpectedly last night around 5:19 pm when our video guru Drew McCoy aka DKo5 (and his wife Lauren) let us know that Greg Ryan McCoy aka DKo6 had been birthith into the worldith.

Congrats to Drew and Lauren, the big day has finally arrived, and you have given birth to the local co-op partner you’ve always wanted. You finally have a reason to boost your gamerscore on crappy licensed kid games.

Thats about it for the meeting. Other than that:

Goals for the week: Nail down firm details / schedule for COD4 Playlist Updates

Monday is here again, and hence our weekly Monday Morning Meeting here at Infinity Ward, which will from here on be referred to as M3 now that we’re all on the same page. For those not aware, the Monday meeting is the first thing we do every week. It’s a great way for the company as a whole to meet up and go over what’s happening internally.

We’ll give a status on our current projects, any new employees will come up and introduce themselves, talk about their favorite games and where they came from, and what they do at IW now. As well as any IW / Call of Duty related news, rumors, updates, etc. that we think should be shared among the company as a whole.

In the case of William, you have to introduce yourself twice. Will originally started in QA as a tester for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Just like I talked about in my last video blog, it was all about being proactive and passionate. Once we ramped down the QA department at the end of the project, William has bigger plans and became an Art Intern and as of this morning, is now a Full-time artist here at Infinity Ward. Congrats!

In addition to Will’s promotion, these past few weeks has been busy for new-hires; Mario, Jordan, Simon, JT, Joe a bit ago. It looks like it’s well over-due for another Employee Spotlight feature. You can check out all the new additions and the full IW here (www.infinityward.com/team).

Other than that, we discussed future project stuff that I can’t go into detail here yet. In addition I snagged our Lead MP Designer Todd for a chat prior to the meeting to discuss the upcoming playlist updates we’re working on as I know you guys are dying for an update.

Essentially, there’s some things we want to do that go above and beyond what a playlist update allows us to. So we’re discussing the options available to us. We’re working on getting it all worked out as soon as we can and as always I’ll keep you in the loop. Trust me though, if we’re able to do what we’d like, the little bit of longer wait for it to happen would be worth it in my opinion. Regardless, if we can and it does cause a delay, I’ll see if we can go ahead and do the playlist update while we wait.

the one about the game industry (Part I) - Straight from my office. Covering a bit of game industry culture, what it’s like to work at a developer, tips on how to get your foot in the door, and secure a job in the video game industry.

Note: I know I promised this yesterday, but I ran into some compatibility issues with the Flip Mino and my movie editor that required some re-encoding. I apologize.

the one about the game industry (Part II) - Conclusion to Part I.

The biggest question I’m probably asked the most on any given day is, “What are you guys working on now?!”; Especially since it’s been nearly 9 months after we’ve shipped  (the currently #1 most played game on Xbox Live) Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, a Variety Map Pack for it on every platform, and several patches later. While I can’t quite say what it is that we’re currently working on; I did want to give you a status report on exactly what’s happening here at Infinity Ward and where we’re going as a studio.

Future Projects From Infinity Ward

We’re excited to announce that in the recent months we have decided to reup on our contract with Activision publishing. The recently renegotiated deal may not seem like much of an impact from the outside perspective, but it has laid the ground work and kick started our future project, as well as the possibility of a unique new IP by Infinity Ward, that we’ll have complete control over. We’re excited to be working on our next project, but it’s going to be quite a while before I can share any details on exactly what that project is.

Building The Community

With Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, we were heavily focused on building a community around our titles. Launching Charlieoscardelta.com to give our fans an early look at the game via the Beta, as well as stay informed on pre-production with weekly blogs, status reports, and 1v1 feedback with myself and the rest of the development teams. We’re planning on expanding on this mentality of how we do things in the future, moving out of the era of typical “PR” and moving towards an even more focused community driven future.

About 4 months ago, Grant Collier transitioned from Infinity Ward to Activision (special projects). As some of you may know, Grant handled a good amount of the PR duties for the studio with myself handling the more community / individual focused efforts. With our Community focused efforts expanding even further in the future, that PR-type position is no longer required at IW, as we’ll be spearheading more tangible, personal means of getting information out to our players. Which is why we’re so excited about the new Infinityward.com site. As we did with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, we are building a strong community around the studio which will allow our fans an even closer look at pre-production of our future titles, and keep them fully intune with the studio, the team, and the projects we’re working on at any given time. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the new site, sign up to the forums, and join in on this community effort.

Essentially, this means we plan on doing much less of the traditional PR that ends up being a one way street, and building on what worked so well in the pre-production of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, where myself and the rest of the development team has an open line of 2-way conversation with our community throughout development and after launch.

Expanding Our Team and Studio

In case we haven’t made it completely obvious via the in-game Message of the Day enough times, WE’RE HIRING! We’re aggressively looking to expand our team here at the studio and are looking for the best talent in the industry to join us here at Infinity Ward. Therefore if you qualify for any of the following positions are looking to join the #1 development studio in North America according to Game Developer Magazine, then be sure to send us an email:

Note the Marketing Manager and Unix Administrator positions above, as they are perfect examples that we’re looking for people in all areas of the industry. Trust me, there is absolutely no better studio to work at in the industry. You can learn more about the individual benefits of working here and a bit about the culture of the studio at the new Infinity Ward website, so be sure to check it out and let me know if you have any questions regarding a position you might be good for.

Hopefully this gives you a good perspective on where we stand at the time being, and what you can expect to see from us in the near and distant future.

Over nearly a year since launch, over 800,000 members, nearly 1.5 million forum posts, and I don’t know how many late nights. Charlieoscardelta.com has finally come to a close last night; making way for the new Infinityward.com community that will be the new and future home for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and more importantly all future Infinity Ward titles.

The new site features exclusive developer content, blogs, videos, and of course the brand new Call of Duty 4 and Infinity Ward community forums. If you were a member of Charlieoscardelta.com -OR- the old Infinityward.com your account should still be active on the new site. Just attempt to log in with your old username and password.

Head over and check out the new design and let me know what you think. We worked hard to being you the new site and give you a direct link into what’s happening at Infinity Ward on a day to day basis as well as get to know the team and the games we make and plan on making in the future.

Update:

A heads up on what’s happening behind the scenes. It came to my knowledge yesterday that only 140,000 of the 800,000 users were transferred over to the new site by the team. Which is about 17.5% of the users made it over to the new forum. Over the course of the night I had them re-transfer the accounts so that if you log in now, and had an old account on Charlieoscardelta.com or Infinityward.com you should be able to recover it seamlessly. For those of you still having problems, I am checking into it on a case-by-case bases to make sure you’re taken care of.

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.