# Modern Warfare 2 **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 31, 2009, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835 "2009-10-31T12:39:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/81 "2009-11-11T19:17:35Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I wonder how long they can keep this series going and keep it realistic. They’ve probably dipped into the WWII well as much as they possibly can over three games now, and now they have two titles with modern weapons, etc. Can a Crysis-style evolvement be next? A nano-suit or something to spice things up? I think they’ll be able to do a couple of more modern games. Especially since they left it kinda open ended. I just hope that they won’t do WWII anymore. I know they will, but I am so tired of that. A WWI game could be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![yendis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ed8c4c/32.png) [@yendis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yendis)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/82 "2009-11-11T20:20:45Z")
If they did WWII they would have to either go for the generally ignored campaigns, Invasion of Poland, Battle for France, invasion of Greece, but the lack of US involvement is a hindrance there. Or a Wermacht campaign, WWII from the german side. A rumour going around about CoD 7 is that it will be Cold War based, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/83 "2009-11-11T20:35:12Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Any chance you could write them a thoughtful, strongly-worded letter explaining this position? Is there any chance at all that this issue is flying over the top execs heads and they don’t realize how bad they are fucking themselves and everyone else over? > > I yearn for the days of COD2. Those six discs were some of the most fun single-playing experiences I’ve ever had. Now _that_ was a long campaign. Not some six hour shot in the dark with awesome graphics and its over. That’s what I hated about COD4. I loved the single player game mode so much, I never wanted it to end. It was wicked cool. Heck, even my 7 year old son loved playing it. We don’t know if it’s going to be this bad. **Senor Beef** , is it as bad as you thought it’d be so far? ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/84 "2009-11-11T20:40:31Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Maybe I’m just being nostalgic. Is COD3 even worth getting? I’ve heard terrible things about it, yet part of me wants to own the whole catalog. Shit, I don’t have COD5 yet, either, which I need to buy. > > I wonder how long they can keep this series going and keep it realistic. They’ve probably dipped into the WWII well as much as they possibly can over three games now, and now they have two titles with modern weapons, etc. Can a Crysis-style evolvement be next? A nano-suit or something to spice things up? COD 3 was a pretty solid game. On the consoles, its multiplayer system was really good. They had a much better lobby system than Infinity Ward. Also, it handled host changes almost immediately, which is better than any other game handled it. COD 5 is a good as well. I think it got a lot of flak because people saw going to World War 2 again as going " backwards". The multiplayer maps were better than Infinity Ward’s offerings in COD 4. The submachine guns are a little overpowered (a little too accurate at too long of a range), but multiplayer is a very good experience overall. What next? Vietnam? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/85 "2009-11-11T23:02:00Z")
> [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > COD 5 is a good as well. I think it got a lot of flak because people saw going to World War 2 again as going " backwards". The multiplayer maps were better than Infinity Ward’s offerings in COD 4. The submachine guns are a little overpowered (a little too accurate at too long of a range), but multiplayer is a very good experience overall. Don’t forget the Nazi Zombies. I love that game mode, and was sad when Left 4 Dead wasn’t something similar. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/86 "2009-11-11T23:24:27Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Maybe I’m just being nostalgic. Is COD3 even worth getting? I’ve heard terrible things about it, yet part of me wants to own the whole catalog. Shit, I don’t have COD5 yet, either, which I need to buy. > > I wonder how long they can keep this series going and keep it realistic. They’ve probably dipped into the WWII well as much as they possibly can over three games now, and now they have two titles with modern weapons, etc. Can a Crysis-style evolvement be next? A nano-suit or something to spice things up? I haven’t played 3 because I don’t have a console(I have a perfectly good PC and quite a few PC games I haven’t touched). However, what little I saw of it at a friends house didn’t do much for me, particulary when I saw a mandatory Quicktime event in the first level. COD5 is a mixed bag. It’s good, but not as good as COD4. Despite being played out, the Russian levels interested me a lot more then the Pacific levels(mostly because of the “End of Days” feel to them). COD games (except the MW games, and even MW2 only makes a few references to MW’s story) are pretty stand alone so it doesn’t really matter. As for realism, it looks like they’ve pretty much moved from “War Movie” realism to “Micheal Bay Action movie” realism. MW was pretty plausible, while MW2, not so much(mostly because that’s how they felt they could top MW). ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/87 "2009-11-12T00:11:42Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > I tried multiplayer last night. The game is barely out but there was already a guy who was level 39. That’s insane. Yeah, I saw a level 26 last night and was amazed. On the first day? > [@RandMcnally](#): > > I just hope that they won’t do WWII anymore. I know they will, but I am so tired of that. I have to admit that I was very much this way when COD:WaW came out last year. A friend talked me into picking it up and, once I did, I could barely put it down for a couple of months. I was pretty impressed that they were able to squeak a little more out of WWII and still keep my interest. I’m not all that confident that they could do it again, but I’d be willing to take a look if they did do another WWII game. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/88 "2009-11-12T00:17:55Z")
> [@interface2x](#): > > I have to admit that I was very much this way when COD:WaW came out last year. A friend talked me into picking it up and, once I did, I could barely put it down for a couple of months. I was pretty impressed that they were able to squeak a little more out of WWII and still keep my interest. > > I’m not all that confident that they could do it again, but I’d be willing to take a look if they did do another WWII game. My favorite level had to be the Reichstag as the Russians. Anywho, I started a thread for the game, now that it’s released [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11768400#post11768400) so that way it can be talked about without having to wade through all of the PC v Consol stuff. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/89 "2009-11-12T02:14:57Z")
> [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](#): > > We don’t know if it’s going to be this bad. **Senor Beef** , is it as bad as you thought it’d be so far? I’m not sure what you’re asking. FGIE is referring to the outrage/executive response, which is “that bad”, yes. If you google “modern warfare 2 dedicated server” you can see hundreds of different forums and blogs where the reaction is universally negative. When the IW publicity guy 402 announced it on his blog there were 4000 negative comments within hours until they locked it. Everywhere is the response is universal and strong. If you mean the gameplay, I don’t know. I haven’t played it. I’m waiting to see how the response is amongst people who share my views. Some early reports are “eh, this isn’t too bad, not as bad as I expected” while others are “it took me 20 minutes just to get into a game because every time I tried it gave me a disconnect error, and then when I finally made it it was laggy for 5 minutes before the host left and I was back to square one” ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/90 "2009-11-12T03:27:52Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > I’m not sure what you’re asking. FGIE is referring to the outrage/executive response, which is “that bad”, yes. If you google “modern warfare 2 dedicated server” you can see hundreds of different forums and blogs where the reaction is universally negative. When the IW publicity guy 402 announced it on his blog there were 4000 negative comments within hours until they locked it. Everywhere is the response is universal and strong. > > If you mean the gameplay, I don’t know. I haven’t played it. I’m waiting to see how the response is amongst people who share my views. Some early reports are “eh, this isn’t too bad, not as bad as I expected” while others are " **it took me 20 minutes just to get into a game because every time I tried it gave me a disconnect error, and then when I finally made it it was laggy for 5 minutes before the host left and I was back to square one"** If any of this is true, its literally inexcusable for a software developer to put a game out there on any platform that costs as much as this one does and delivers so little on the multiplayer end in the year 2009 with the technology that’s available. If it’s really this bad, the game is a complete ripoff. Unfortunately. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/91 "2009-11-12T04:13:33Z")
In a developer chat thing, someone asked… how will we handle hackers who made it through the anti-cheat if we can’t adminster/ban/kick people? To which their response was “our anti-cheat will stop them”… Well, unfortunately, [not looking good](http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3176882) so far. They switched anti-cheats from punkbuster to VAC which I’m not sure if it’ll be an upgrade or not. This video does not indicate that there will be rampant cheating - it’s quite possible VAC is detecting all the early cheats, figuring out how they work, and they’ll do a mass banning once they’ve gathered data. Then agian, I’m not sure they care. COD4 was actually almost entirely hacker free, which I suppose mean punkbuster did a good job. But that wasn’t the only factor. Having an actual administrator around to observe and ban people when they slipped through the anti-cheat protection meant that you could do something about the odd hacker here and there. In the new multiplayer model, from what I hear, you can’t even vote to kick a player. You can’t do anything about them. Punkbuster also had a cool feature where an administrator could request a screenshot from someone’s screen… and it would be obvious if they were using a hack like this. And I think server administrators banded together to create a list of confirmed hackers, sharing a common banlist, so that when one guy’s CD key became banned/verified on one server, all other servers who used that list would also ban him. So if you played on well-administered servers, it was pretty much entirely hack free. I think I might’ve seen a dozen players I thought might’ve been hacking over hundreds of hours of gameplay. If MW2’s anti-hack protocol isn’t perfect, then there’s nothing you can do about it. ---
**Author:** ![yendis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ed8c4c/32.png) [@yendis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yendis)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/92 "2009-11-12T07:09:36Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > snip… > > If you mean the gameplay, I don’t know. I haven’t played it. I’m waiting to see how the response is amongst people who share my views. Some early reports are “eh, this isn’t too bad, not as bad as I expected” while others are “it took me 20 minutes just to get into a game because every time I tried it gave me a disconnect error, and then when I finally made it it was laggy for 5 minutes before the host left and I was back to square one” I played again for a couple of hours after posting and there are a lot of problems with matchmaking. You either find a game straight away or wait at least five minutes, and you get dropped into a laggy game at least 1 out of 3 tries. I got put in a game with a bunch of Germans, they had full green bars I had one red square, lagged like hell. Nexth match its mainly South Africans and 1 guy from the UK, the SA host leaves and the game switches to the UK player, he gets best ping the rest of us, 7 people, get red or yellow ping so we all leave. It then took over five minutes to find another match. So having played further I can say that the matchmaking is better than other PC games but it is still far worse than dedicated servers. Best advice, bring a book to read while [IW.net](http://IW.net) tries to find a game. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/93 "2009-11-12T07:22:02Z")
Better than what other PC games? None of that I can think of that anyone would actually play use that bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![yendis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ed8c4c/32.png) [@yendis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yendis)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/94 "2009-11-12T09:32:04Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Better than what other PC games? None of that I can think of that anyone would actually play use that bullshit. Left for Dead, Gears of War, MoH: Airborne all had bad matchmaking, [IW.net](http://IW.net) is a bit better. I realise that this is like discussing bus vs train when you are used to having your own car. And you are right that the PC games that actually get played long term all have dedicated servers. And I’m sure that by February next year the CoD4 severs will still be full while CoD6 will be a wasteland because all the casual players will have moved onto something else. I am not defending [IW.net](http://IW.net), it sucks, it is in no way a replacement for dedicated servers. IW have created a multiplayer system that is massively inferior to all pevious PC CoD games. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/95 "2009-11-12T10:56:06Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > “it took me 20 minutes just to get into a game because every time I tried it gave me a disconnect error, and then when I finally made it it was laggy for 5 minutes before the host left and I was back to square one” I find this very strange as the PC version has basically been made the same as the console version. I’ve played mutiplayer games on my xbox for a few years now and rarely have problems playing and finding games. The times I’ve had problems it was my ISP’s fault or XBoxLive was having a general problem. COD:WaW, CODMW, Halo 3, LFD etc all generally play well online. I’ve a 7MB connection BTW I haven’t played this game yet as I’m currently in the UK on training but it’s sitting in my suitcase waiting to be played as soon as I get home on Fri evening. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/96 "2009-11-13T09:06:37Z")
> [@yendis](#): > > Left for Dead, Gears of War, MoH: Airborne all had bad matchmaking, [IW.net](http://IW.net) is a bit better. L4D is in a different category, both because it uses actual dedicated servers, and because it’s not really the sort of competitive FPS game where people can hop in and out at any time that needs dedicated servers. It has a clear start and finish for every game, is coop oriented, and works well enough with that model. Gears of War is one game specifically I referred to as dying a pretty much instant death on the PC because of the multiplayer model. If I’m not mistaken MoH: Airborne suffered the same fate. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/97 "2009-11-13T09:30:48Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Maybe I’m just being nostalgic. Is COD3 even worth getting? I’ve heard terrible things about it, yet part of me wants to own the whole catalog. Shit, I don’t have COD5 yet, either, which I need to buy. > > I wonder how long they can keep this series going and keep it realistic. They’ve probably dipped into the WWII well as much as they possibly can over three games now, and now they have two titles with modern weapons, etc. Can a Crysis-style evolvement be next? A nano-suit or something to spice things up? Imagine Call of duty Civil war: cannon cocker, musketeer, cavalry trooper, Being able to call in fire support from a balloon. Declan ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/98 "2009-11-13T13:17:12Z")
> [@Declan](#): > > Imagine Call of duty Civil war: cannon cocker, musketeer, cavalry trooper, > > Being able to call in fire support from a balloon. > > Declan I’d have to play as the Union and take advantage of the gatling gun…and repeater rifles. That actually could be an interesting game, but I don’t think the instant grat crowd would buy enough copies of it to make it viable. A Civil War FPS? Maybe if they made it like Fallout 3 where there was a lot of interaction with NPC’s and took some liberties with weapon reloading times, etc. I’d play it! ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/99 "2009-11-13T19:47:23Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I’d have to play as the Union and take advantage of the gatling gun…and repeater rifles. > > That actually could be an interesting game, but I don’t think the instant grat crowd would buy enough copies of it to make it viable. A Civil War FPS? Maybe if they made it like Fallout 3 where there was a lot of interaction with NPC’s and took some liberties with weapon reloading times, etc. I’d play it! Well, Darkest of Days had you going back in time and fighting in Civil War battles, using authentic equipment…some of the time. In the demo level, you start using civil war equipment, until your handler gives you an assault rifle from the future and tells you to go nuts. Which is wierd, because you’re supposed to be preserving history. Even wierder, nobody else on the battlefield even notices you have a strange gun that can fire and reload much, much faster then theirs. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835/100 "2009-11-14T02:21:31Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > Well, Darkest of Days had you going back in time and fighting in Civil War battles, using authentic equipment…some of the time. In the demo level, you start using civil war equipment, until your handler gives you an assault rifle from the future and tells you to go nuts. > > Which is wierd, because you’re supposed to be preserving history. Even wierder, nobody else on the battlefield even notices you have a strange gun that can fire and reload much, much faster then theirs. That would be weird. I do think a quasi-historically accurate, sandbox-style Civil War FPS set up in a similar vein to Fallout 3 would be really cool. You would have to fudge with the weapons, though. I can’t really see a way around that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-warfare-2/515835.md?page=6)