multiplayer

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!!

Thanks to everyone who commented, sent in emails, or contacted me via other means; including the epic presentation I received via the mail this morning containing an entire breakdown of a new game mode complete with a full-size fold out poster (thanks Ian!!).

I received a lot of great suggestions and feedback regarding new playlists you guys would like to see, and this weekend I’m going to be hosting a series of private matches in Call of Duty 4 to test them out. So if you haven’t already, be sure to drop me a message on Xbox Live / PSN as I’ll be cleaning off room on my friends list and inviting anyone interested to help out this weekend.

Some of the gametypes we’re going to test out this weekend are:

Bare-bones Team Deathmatch

No more excuses. No more blaming Martyrdom or Juggernaut for your lack of skills and kills. Bare Bones Team Deathmatch eliminates the excuses and takes it back to basics with standard Team Deathmatch with no perks, no kill streak rewards. Just you, your skill, and your weapons.

Hardcore HQ

Hardcore HQ requires a lot more than just spamming the HQ position with nades and running in guns blazing. Hardcore HQ encourages more tactical gameplay and communication to win with increased damage, no HUD elements, and friendly fire on.

Multi-bomb Search and Destroy

Multi-bomb Search and Destroy starts every member of the attacking team with a bomb. So everyone has the opportunity to plant if they’re good enough.

Hardcore FFA

Even faster paced Free For Alls, where every bullet counts and playing smart is key for a solid k/d ratio. Standard Free for All rules, with Hardcore mode enabled for extra damage, no HUD, and no health re-gen.

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That’s the plan for this weekend. I’ll be setting up private rooms all weekend long and inviting everyone online and interested into the lobby to test them out. If we all like them, then come Monday when I get back to the studio, we’re going to work on adding them as new playlists.

If all goes well, I’d like to make this a weekly weekend event with you guys, where we log on every Saturday to try out new stuff you guys come up with, what we like stays, what we don’t goes! So log on this weekend to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, send me a friend request or a message letting me know you want to play, and let’s get some games going testing these out. See you online this weekend!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM8cz-RYy2s]

I spent most of my time, this past extended weekend, playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare multiplayer with a lot of you from the community. The cool thing is, like most games that have been out for a while, the community starts creating their “own versions” of gametypes or completely making up new ones that they play in Private Match. So I spent a good deal of my time online this weekend in private matches with several readers of this blog, playing some community made gametypes. Such as one of our games of “Michael Myers” that one of the players in the game apparently recorded last night that can be found above.

If you’re not familiar with the Mike Myer’s gametype, it essentially boils down to hide and seek. Hit the jump for a full description of how to play it, but that’s not the point of this post.

The point is. Talk of new playlists has sprung up again here at the studio, and I’m pushing to get another playlist update for the game, hopefully adding some gametypes or revamped playlists. This weekend really got me thinking about what we can do. Essentially anything you can make up in Private Match (by tweaking settings / rules) can be used as a new playlists / gametype. Something as making more hardcore gametypes hardcore, or something more complex like a completely new mode.

That said, I’m looking for a group of people who’d be interested in getting together for some private matches and trying out some community made gametypes, or throwing in ideas for rule sets / settings that could make for some interesting gameplay. We obviously have some ideas already of what we’ve like to do, but I’m interested in playing all the community Gametypes that you guys have already come up with and seeing how fun they are. I’ve played Zombie (that’s a given), and quite a few other, but if you have any cool gametype you and your friends have come up with in COD4, let me know. Let’s play it.

Drop me a message online and I’ll make some room on my friends list, and we’ll get games going this week / weekend to try some of them out, or leave your gametype ideas / suggestions / rules in the comments!

For how to play “Mike Myers” or “Manhunt” as well as a summary of how our games went this weekend, hit the jump.

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The new Variety Map Pack for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which is scheduled to be released on Xbox Live in the first week of April (3rd or 4th), was sent off to certification at Microsoft today. The map pack is going to be bringing four new maps to the game with the addition of Creek (seen above), Broadcast, Killhouse, and Chinatown (seen below) which is a modern-revision of the classic Carentan from past Call of Duty games.

Along with the new maps next week, we took this opportunity to slip in a change to the Clan Tags in the game along with a few other minor fixes. We heard your cries and will be tweaking the Clan Tags with this DLC patch (which adds support for the new maps). The new Clan Tag update will re-allow you to use special characters in your clan tags, but still prevents the exploit which allowed images (like Left Thumbstick and button images). Thanks to everyone who sent us feedback related to Clan Tags since the feature patch!

While the maps will be hitting Xbox Live the first week of April, PS3 users will STILL be getting the map packs, however it’ll be a little later (21 days later approximately) before they’ll be available on PSN for the same price. Right now plans for the PC version are unannounced but we are working to bring PC users the same content in the future, however logistics are being worked out on how to make that happen.

We also have a cool DLC Hands-on event going on in California, New York, and London I’ll be posting more about today.  Sorry for the slow blog posting week, I’ve been slammed preparing for the release of the DLC, press, and upcoming events for it so I apologize if it’s taken longer than normal to post, or get back to your comments / emails!

The weekly battle for the “Most Played Game on Xbox Live” continues this week with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare still holding the #1 spot for 4 weeks straight and managing to keep Halo 3 from retaking the throne. I had a chance to talk with quite a few of the Bungie guys at GDC this past week, mostly at the Microsoft party, and I could tell that neither one of us were going to slip off the top of the charts without a fight.

With the release of our Feature patch and DLC coming closer and closer every day, and plenty of new playlist ideas being thrown around for Call of Duty 4 multiplayer I know we can keep the fight going for a long long time. I love these weekly number checks because it provides a great opportunity to give you guys a weekly update on how things are going here at the studio with those updates, so with that said…

I got word that the Xbox 360 Feature patch could be ‘very very close’, I can’t tell you exactly when because they haven’t passed on that information but apparently certification went fantastic and I was given the Green light to take care of some things that I have to do before it goes live to you guys, which means good things. I’m not going to get any hopes up, but I hope to be seeing some new Kill Cams by the weekend if we’re lucky. Don’t hold me to that though, but I have a good feeling about it.

The Ps3 Feature Patch has officially made it’s way off to Sony and has been going through the certification process, this one should be a rather quick turnaround hopefully so I’m not expecting too much delay on this at all. I will keep you updated as much as I can on it’s progress.

Hit the jump for DLC talk…

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I recently talked with IGN’s Hilary Goldstein regarding the development of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare; taking a look back at what could have been, why we chose to make it how it is, and changes that you may see in the future to the game. We touched on a lot of great subjects from vehicles in multiplayer to how the team finds inspiration for missions and future DLC maps.

Bowling revealed that there were once vehicle mission in the game and even Humvees in multiplayer. He went on to explain what was coming in the next patch and explained the process for creating multiplayer maps.

Check out the full 4-page interview at IGN here: IGN: Call of Duty 4 Post-Mortem

This week we’re seeing the result of Round 2 for the fight up the Xbox Live charts for the prestigious “King of Xbox Live” spot and according to Xbox’s Major Nelson, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has once again taken the #1 spot of the most played game on Xbox Live for the week of 1/28 away from Halo 3.

This battle for the #1 spot has been causing a surge of “Call of Duty 4 vs Halo 3″ articles and forum debates, and I don’t think the question is necessarily as easy as “which game is better”, because that’s all just opinions. Both amazing games, the question I have is who will stay on top, and do I think we can stay on top?

So can we stay on top? Yes.

Why do I think that? Well…

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DOWNLOAD HD VERSION HERE

Check out the sweet kill at I get at the end…… sweet justice.

With Last Stand, you’ll get one last ditch effort to continue the fight before you bleed out, or take another lethal hit. When you customize your class with Last Stand, or choose a default class which has it, anytime you’re taken down, you’ll fall to the ground and instantly pull out your side arm.

While in Last Stand, you’ll be firing your side arm from the ground with one hand. Putting up one final last stand against the enemy before you bleed out, or they put one final round into you.

To give you a little glimpse into exactly what it’s like to be in Last Stand, we jumped into multiplayer and took a screenshot and some video of the perk in action.

Embargoes Down, Features Up:

If you weren’t already aware, press embargoes ended this week resulting in massive amounts of first-look coverage hitting the interwebs. We posted a large list of them in the SitRep, if you haven’t already checked out the new details on Single and Multi player, then get to it!

Gameplay Videos Abound:

The reveal trailer hit us with some pretty heavy moments from the single player campaign of the game and you guys hit the forums demanding more. Well, you know us, we aim to deliver, and I have a feeling you’re going to be getting exactly what you asked for. In fact, I know it, because we’ve been working hard to edit together some amazing first person gameplay footage for release. You’ll be seeing it pop up on the internet in the near future, spliced in with interview footage we’ve taken over the past few weeks at various press meetings.

Once the videos hit the web, be on the look out! I’ll be sure to post up links to them on the forums, as well as post the videos in the SitRep, so keep your eyes peeled, it’s acomin’!

Perks in Multiplayer:

Probably one of the most talked about new features in Multiplayer since we revealed it has been Perks in multiplayer. From the talk on the forums, I can tell you guys are dying for more information on what these include and exactly how they work, so to help you better understand exactly what makes these Perks so awesome, we’re going to be revealing Perks every week.

Hopefully these introductions to Perks will get you prepared for some Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare multiplayer and thinking about what load outs are going to work best for your style of ownage. For instance, let me tell you a bit about the general idea behind Perks first and unlockables in general.

Preparing your Load out:

In online multiplayer, you’re going to gain XP as you play. This doesn’t just come from kills, although you get XP from kills, it also comes from a lot of different areas. One of my favorite introductions to the MP is Assist points. So you don’t only get kills for taking targets down, you also get them for wounding them, even if your squad mate takes them down. So make every round down range count, as even flesh wounds are going to play towards your team’s victory.

There’s also a new thing called Challenges, which are broken up into many different categories based on the type of challenge they are, but essentially as you complete challenges for doing amazing things in multiplayer (i.e. Blindfire: Get a kill while flashed), then you’ll get even more XP. As you can see, the multiplayer team has spent a lot of time making sure you can rank up at a nice pace and not spend your entire gaming time on trying to obtain an impossible rank. As you rank up you unlock new item after new item after new item, and when I say Item, this is more than just new weapons. This includes Weapons, Perks, custom Camo schemes for your weapon, etc.

Ahhh… I knew if I rambled long enough, I’d make it back to Perks. So here’s the low down. These things aren’t meant to overpower, their balanced to death just like we balance all the different weapons. So that skill is still the biggest deciding factor in a game. What these do is change the way you fight on the battlefield. Every time you enter an MP match you’re never going to know what you’ll come up against thanks to the massive amount of combinations and custom load outs available through custom classes.

Perks are used to customize your character online to better fit your personal style of combat. Now you can’t just hit the ground with every awesome perk available, and become some sort of unrealistic super soldier. That’s not what this is about. The perks are broken up into three categories. This helps balance out the Perks a lot.

I personally like to have several custom classes saved on hand at any given time. How I do it is to create a class per gametype. So I have a Capture the Flag class designed towards speed and getting out alive. I call it the Flag Runner. I’m talking a nice light Submachine gun, with perks focused on getting me in and out with the flag quickly, opposed to putting down targets.

I also have one set up for Team Deathmatch, which is the exact opposite. The Submachine gun is gone and I’m going in with an assault rifle with three perks focused on brute force and making a mark in a fire fight.

As I said, you’re limited to three perks total, so you have to choose wisely on what’s going to fit your play style the best.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Covers Hitting Europe

Over the past two weeks, some international magazines have come out with their CoD4:MW cover stories, and in them, unveiled some hard facts about the game’s Single Player plot, game play, and even little tid-bits regarding multiplayer.

In fact, so much information is starting to hit that we’re planning a little FAQ to put all the rumors aside. The report will put all confirmed information regarding CoD4:MW in one place. With the help of your feedback, we should be posting it up in the next few weeks.

In addition to international covers, the official press release for CoD4:MW came out last week out from Activision, giving even more insight into some of the game play you can except. As Jason West put it, “…one moment you are fast-roping from your Blackhawk helicopter, after storming into the war zone with an armada of choppers, the next you are a sniper, under concealment, in a Ghillie suit miles behind enemy lines, the next you are engaging hostiles from an AC-130 gunship thousands of feet above the battlefield…”

For those of you who know what an AC-130 is, I know you’re stoked about that statement—for those of you who don’t, drop by Youtube and do a quick search for AC-130 to get a taste of what we’re talking about.

Testing some COD4:MW Multiplayer @ Home:

I’m addicted…. And hear me out, because it’s not my fault nor am I alone. Starting last week we’ve implemented something I think a lot of developers should do, if they don’t already, and that’s Take Home Multiplayer Testing.

Everyday after work, we’ve all been copying the latest Multiplayer builds of the game to our boxes, heading home for the night, and jumping on Multiplayer at home for MP scrims that last until 3am sometimes 4am. I can’t get enough of it, and I think the same goes for everyone else in the studio.

The reason it’s so great, besides the obvious of being able to play multiplayer well into the morning every night, is Take Home Testing allows us to do a type of ‘testing’ that is far more ‘gamer-fied’ (I made that up) than the testing for bugs and balancing that the QA team does everyday of the week. It allows us to play the game in the same mindset as if we were playing any other game—half naked on our couch, surrounded by pretzels from a jumbo tub from Costco, 23 half-drank Dr. Peppers……. Basically, it lets us play it like we would normally play it.

Doing this lets us run into situations and scenarios that randomly play out everyday in MP matches online. So we’re developing from a fan’s perspective—balancing, tweaking, and re-examining how Multiplayer is done. The amount of feedback we’ve been gathering thanks to these casual take home MP scrims is amazing. Its been resulting in constant weapon balancing, Multiplayer map tweaking, and general overall tweaking of all things MP.

In closing

It’s been a busy two weeks here recently, as more and more info, confirmed and unconfirmed, is coming out about the game. We’ve been working on a lot of behind the scenes videos we’ll be posting up here as they’re completed and will be archived in the new Video section that will be hitting CharlieOscarDelta.com with the over-hauling that’s coming in the near future.