Friday, January 18, 2013

2010 - 2013: Black Ops, MW3 and Black Ops 2

In the last three years GDawgg Clan has been rather obsessed with the three CoD releases that followed MW2: Call of Duty: Black Ops, released 11.9.10; Call of Duty: MW3, released 11.8.11 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, released 11.13.12. In October of 2010, while waiting for Black Ops to be released, we played Medal of Honor (the 2010 release). We even had an MoH server running for about 5 weeks.

Also, during these years I maintained contact with the HL2DM and UT3 gaming communities with numerous map releases for both games. I made 14 maps for HL2DM in 2011 and 2012, none in 2010. I created 13 UT3 maps between 2010 and 2012. Our clan also continued running servers for both these games during this time, however, I finally bagged the UT3 server in early 2012 because traffic in this server had slowed to a mere trickle. HL2DM, released in 2004, has proven to be more resilient. People just won't stop playing it and every time I create a new map for this game the players thank me profusely for the "new content". Currently GDawgg Clan has one HL2DM server running, GDawgg.com-Killbox -- 66.150.214.58:27015 I made the map that's running on this server. I named it Killbox2013. It's called that because I ran out of "catchy" killbox names. I refused to include this map in the list of maps I've made simply because it's "just a box" with my stock whitish wall, floor and ceiling textures, a huge GDawgg Clan logo, a boatload of weapons and throwables; and that's it. Players like the simplicity apparently, at the moment, our GDawgg-Killbox server is ranked #46 out of 562 HL2DM servers world-wide. Here's our GDawgg-Killbox PsychoStats page.

I must mention the Dawggs that have joined our clan in the last three years: Crysis, Joseidon, Loblo, THOR, F.N.G., Tank_Jr and FreeRadical. We met Crysis, Joseidon and Loblo while playing CoD4. We met THOR, F.N.G. and Tank while playing HL2DM and FreeRadical is our first and only recruit from CoD: MW3. These guys have meant a lot to GDawgg Clan. They have infused our ranks with their collective zest for the games we play. They're all remarkable gamers and fantastic guys too boot. We're certainly glad to have them on board.

Back to our CoD obsession, as a clan, we played the living snot out of BO, MW3 and BO2. Our clan had three BO dedicated servers running for many months. BO is an ok game. Certainly many people are still playing it. I feel it's been completely overshadowed by MW3 and BO2. While MW2 (released one year before BO) still remains a huge favorite amongst players due to it's awesome maps (Rust, Terminal, Favela) and popular innovations (TAR-21, dual-wield SMG's, etc).

A controversial MW2 innovation was the G-18 dual wield or akimbo. This is probably the second most hated weapon in Call of Duty history after the grenade launcher, aka "noob-toob". The akimbo G-18 is reviled by so many players and their typical whine is, "it takes no skill to kill with it". I say that they're probably just natural whiners, you know the type, a little soft. Probably still wetting the bed. And, I say any weapon that affords you that much fire-power at such a high rate of fire, coming out of two barrels is a good one to have, lmao. The folks at Infinity Ward and Treyarch have stuck to their guns (pun intended) for the most part when it comes to dual wield machine pistols. These handguns remain in their games and they remain over-powered. MW3 has the dual wield FMG9 and BO2 has the dual wield KAP-40. However, the dominance of the KAP-40 is reduced by it's extremely small clip size and the inability to use fast reload (Fast Mag attachment) if dual wield is selected.

Let's see, where was I... we currently have two heavily modded and very popular MW3 dedicated servers running: GDawgg Hi-Jump Mega#1  --  76.114.233.132:27025  and GDawgg TRMNL 999999 XP  --  76.114.233.132:27015.

Unfortunately, no dedicated servers for BO2 have seen the light of day as yet but we're hopeful it'll happen at some point. Treyarch and Activision went to great lengths to make sure that BO2 wouldn't be "altered" in the same way MW2 was. So far (1.18.13) they've been successful in preventing outside entities from creating dedicated servers for BO2. One thing Treyarch and Activision did to accomplish this is to have no .iwd files associated with the game. These critical .iwd files were replaced with .ipak files and their directory location was moved from the traditional "\main" directory to the new "\zone\all" directory. Unlike .iwd files, .ipak files cannot be unpacked or extracted using winzip or winrar. However, an ipak extractor has been created by an enterprising individual and does work. With this in mind, perhaps BO2 dedicated servers aren't too far away.

BO2, the game, is quite well done, with two exceptions: no developer's console and the aforementioned lack of dedicated servers. Apart from those two HUGE items being excluded, the game is awesome to play.

It should be noted that prior to the game's release, Treyarch assured the PC gaming community that we would have traditional dedicated servers in BO2. They lied to us. They flat lied and I'm still pissed about that.

On a more positive note, I reached "Prestige Master" on December 19, 2012. 36 days after the game was released. I enjoyed the game for the most part. Cheaters spoiled it for me on a few occasions but I didn't get bogged down complaining about cheaters, I just reported them and moved on.

MW3 was probably the most progressive of the three CoD titles released since 2010 in that it's dedicated servers are easily altered. Black Ops was ground-breaking with the dive feature and weapon personalization (carried over to BO2). The face-paint was rather novel too. I have a screen shot of my player character, in NukeTown, holding dual HS10 shotguns, wearing "joker" face-paint. I personally have logged more than 2000 in-game playing hours in these three CoD games.

Finally, as much as it pains me to give kudos to Treyarch, some of the features they included in BO2 are noteworthy:
  • Select fire - enables players to select automatic, semi-automatic or burst depending on the weapon
  • Weapon Prestige and Diamond Camo - players can prestige their weapons twice which unlocks personalization, the diamond camo is attained after getting gold camo for every weapon in a given category (SMG, Shotgun, Assault Rifle, etc)
  • Shock Charge - tactical throwable that shocks and freezes players
  • Tactical Mask - this perk allows players to be immune to concussion grenades and shock charges
  • Flak Jacket - this perk allows players to be immune to most explosives (frag grenades, bouncing betties, claymores)
  • Engineer - this perk allows players to see all enemy equipment glow red through walls, this perk also delays enemy explosives that were triggered by players, you can also booby trap care packages or re-roll the care packages
  • Wild Cards - features used to modifiy a players load-out structure
  • Perk Greed - this wild card allows players to double up in any or all three perk slots
  • Primary Gunfighter, Secondary Gunfighter - these two wild cards allow players to add an attachment to the default attachment allotment for primary and secondary weapons
  • Awesome maps: Hijacked, Carrier and Slums are my favorites, Cargo is ok, Plaza and Meltdown should've been left out of the game altogether in my humble opinion
I'm sure I'm leaving something out. If so, I'll add those things later.

In my next post I'll talk about my 2012 map-making binge (made maps for the first time for Soldier of Fortune II, Quake 3 Arena, Quake 2 and Quake 4) and GDawgg Clan's return to Half-Life, the game that started it all for us...