Treyarch: The phoenix crashed while rising from the ashes (bugs are suspected)

On the 9th of November 2010, a little (massive) game called Call of Duty: Black Ops was released. The hype which been created around it was incredible, and it easily tore apart Modern Warfare 2's previous sales records (which had been the world records across the entertainment industry at the time). Treyarch shook the world with its sheer awesomosity and innovation. The underdogs had come from behind to become the flagship developer of the Call of Duty series... or so the sales figures would indicate.

In reality?

I don't think Treyarch really realised the incredible position it held... with Black Ops they could make or break their name as a developer, and win over a market which had been teetering on the brink of adopting a new figurehead for their cult. There is an important distinction which needs to be made between successful in sales terms and what I mentioned above. The sales are a result of the fact that 'Call of Duty' is in the title of the game... there are a whole lot of people out there who buy a game for no other reason but that. What I am talking about, however, is the way the more autonomous quota of the community view Treyarch... not as important as profit, certainly not, but a more abstract reality. It may not matter in the scope of their success as a company, but I am going to write on anyway.

I'm pretty sure I outlined everything in my last post, but if you didn't read it then I suggest you scroll down the page a tad to contextualise this a bit better... at least skim it... please?
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Rightyo then, now that you have read and internalised (0.o) my post, let us sally valiantly onwards into the nitty (knitty? gnitty?) gritty of this here virtual publication!

So, Treyarch had it's chance to make or break itself in the eyes of the community. To make themselves, they simply had to create a game at least as mindbogglingly awesome as Call of Duty 4 (the standard to which all FPS games are compared nowadays, 'cause that's just how things work). To break themselves, they had to not do that.

In all truth, they were so close... they were so damn close. The game itself is amazing, it has the makings to easily rival CoD4, in addition to the added zombie mode which kicks ass like an ostrich on steroids... but. There are a few massive, pretty much gamebreaking bugs which have been around since the game's release – the kind of stuff which should have been dealt with in the Beta testing,

First of all, the game was written for quad-core PCs, not dual-cores... dual-cores being what most of the market runs on, of course. So, right from the word go there were huge performance issues felt by everyone running a dual-core system, despite the fact that their system specifications were at least equal to, if not greater than what was specified on the box. It was not only the dual-core crowd who suffered from performance issues either, and massive hindrances were also had by those with the kind of monstrous computers that eat little games like Black Ops for brunch, while hardcore PC nerds get all excited about during their happy time. Overall, the general trend indicated some sort of gamble which you (knowingly or not) entered into when you bought the game, the result of which would determine whether or not you would actually be able to run the damn thing, and as with any gamble the negative outcome was far more likely than the positive.

Second, the crashes. My word, the crashes... most prominent in the multiplayer aspect of the game, you are indeed extremely lucky if you manage a consecutive thirty minutes of game time before the game mockingly freezes up, just as your crosshair comes in line with the head of an unsuspecting n00b and you click the left mouse button, only to have the resulting crack from the gun isolated and looped over your speakers resulting in a continuous sound not unlike the sort of high tempo house music all the cool kids are listening to these days.

I vehemently believe that words can't adequately describe just how frustrating it is to have spend your money on a game, on a product, which by all means should work as intended upon the moment it is released onto the shelves of the various worldwide purveyors of gaming awesomeness only to not be able to adequately enjoy your new piece of software. Perhaps Treyarch would have been forgiven if they had patched the offending (I have only named the two which got to me the most) bugs out like they should have, but with it having almost been two months since the release of the game in question one does begin to doubt whether Treyarch really does give a hoot about just how it's market views it.

The scary truth is that it really doesn't matter how badly treated we are, they never feel the repercussions, because people just keep lapping up the games.

So, Treyarch has been on quite a journey regarding their standing with the community... at the start, they were laughed off whatever the hell a game developer can be laughed in an offwards direction of... then they managed to find acceptance by not completely failing their next installment. When Modern Warfare 2 epic failed the PC market into the ground, they became the last bastion of hope for our CoD fix this year.... and they failed to deliver. By a rather bare margin, perhaps, but a failure is a failure not matter the scale.

Good readers of this hither blog, I think it is time for me to declare that I have finally lost faith in the Call of Duty series... I tried optimism, I really did, but I prefer realism to be honest. Modern Warfare 3? Not for me, thanks.

Rightyo then, good and venerable fellow gamers, where to look for our next fix? Who to turn to now that the series which was the former king of FPS has sacrificed its standing and instead decided to turn Robert Mugabe on us? Well, that is a question which I have every intention of answering... in a further post, howver, as Starcraft 2 do be calling :D

Duncan
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A Summary of the Call of Duty games and developers thus far

This is a reprint of a note I did on Facebook a while ago, which will serve as a nice intorduction to the Treyarch/Black Ops related post I have in the pipeline, which should hopefully be up tomorrow.

With CoD7 imminent, and one announcement in particular that made me very, very happy, I'm going to be doing an overall CoD7 note very much soon like, but before I do I figure I should just set the CoD scene a bit, enjoy...

Way back in late 2003, the original Call of Duty was released. Developed by Infinity Ward, it was generally groovy and cool and people enjoyed it. Nowadays, however, it finds itself decently dated and as such has faded into obscurity. A mere harbinger of the awesomeness to come. Almost exactly two years later, Call of Duty 2 was released, and with it came a decent step up in quality from the original - the sort you would expect from any sequel worth its salt. Also developed by Infinity Ward (IW from hereon), it finds itself slightly less dated than it's predecessor, and remains epic to play, despite having next to no community. Then, in 2006, Call of Duty 3 arrived. It was the first installment of the series to be developed by Treyarch. The gaming world cringed one long, collective, horrified cringe. No one is entirely sure what went wrong, it just sucked ass. The gaming communities faith in Treyarch was irrevocably shaken... or so it seemed. But more on that later.


Luckily for the CoD series, a shining light so bright and holy and awesome that I am barely worthy to bask in it's reflective glow AND that it demands its own paragraph emerged from the development studios of IW - I am, of course, talking about Call of Duty 4. Arguably the best game of the decade, easily one of the top contenders, it kicked the crap out of all that came before it and set a new benchmark for the FPS genre, which has not yet been surpassed. In short? It OWNED, and without it the CoD series may well have died then and there. But it didn't, so yeah :P

A new paragraph, for a new year, a new developer, and a new game. In 2008, Treyarch released Call of Duty: World at War, and the gaming community did a prepared action cringe... until they realised it wasn't that bad. Treyarch has seen a formula that worked, decided to adopt that formula and add a personal quirk to it - as a result, CoD5 was essentially CoD4 set in World War 2, with zombies. And no one can argue that zombies aren't awesome... well, you could, but you'd be wrong. It was easily one of the best games in the series, although the fact that it cloned CoD4 wasn't too well received - luckily, zombies redeem it tenfold. A massive improvement by Treyarch over CoD3 - not enough to redeem it in most gamer's eyes, but certainly enough in mine to make me at least optimistic for future prospects. In 2009, Infinity Ward, or Activision, or whoever the hell it was decided to pull a massive middle finger at it's most loyal fanbase (the hardcore PC market) and not include dedicated servers in cod6. I would use capitals and a full, proper, respectful name, but then again, I wouldn't. I don't think I've ever held a grudge this long... pricks...

In terms of upcoming games, we have two:

- Call of Duty: Black Ops, being developed by Treyarch. Slated for release on the 9th of November, this year. Get ampd. Note to come soon. I wish I had money :(

- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Developed by 'Infinity Ward'. Release in 2011. :/

So, now we have the games out of the way, let's take a very brief look at the developers...

Infinity Ward, hailed as the king of CoD and purveyor of all that is good and awesome, up until CoD4. When cod6 was announced, people had big hopes. Very big hopes. But then the announcement came for the lack of dedicated servers... and lack of modding tools... and the lack of a freaking lean function... and perceptions changed very quickly. They went from being king to the village idiot who people laughed at and blamed their problems on. Then there was a massive legal debacle between them and Activision. No one is entirely sure what the hell went down, not even the aforementioned...

Treyarch, originally hated by the entire CoD community for the pig vomit which was CoD3, managed to slowly win back the trust and affection of the gaming community with CoD5, which was really very ok! They could not have imagined how fortunate they were about to become, however, with the massive cod6 conflict and widespread hated of IW which stemmed therefrom. Luckily for them and us, they realised the delicate position they hold... with their next game, they can either win support from the entire PC community (by not failing), or put them off CoD for the rest of ever (by being like IW). Luckily, they realised that they didn't need to reinvent the wheel, rather improve the spokes... which is exactly what it seems like they are doing.

So, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed the summary, and please do forgive me if there are errors or it sucks, it was written a while ago...

Duncan
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Introductory Mundanities

So, I suppose my first post on my first blog should be geared toward providing a bit of insight into exactly what the hell I perceive the purpose of this blog to be... and as such, that is exactly what this post is going to be about.

Personally, I think I make a pretty damn talented peanut gallery and I've tried my hand at it a few times in the form of Facebook notes, but with holidays now in their full swing I have come to realise that I have an awful lot of time on my hands... so, in addition to my staple 6 hours of gaming daily, I've decided to fire up a blog and slap my obligatory opinions on issues pertinent (in my perception, at least) to the game industry downthereupon.

I quite enjoy writing, and think I have at least some smidgeon of ability in it. I also love games – so I'm combining the two in a more routine effort than before, in the vague hopes of keeping my brain even vaguely stimulated... no, I kid, I've had enough mental stimulation for the holidays already. I'm just going to write things, and hope you read them :D

Just a bit about me, meself and I, so that I don't lose self-esteem due to the minuscule nature of my first post, before I actually kick things off.

I'm overall quite an FPS-junkie. I love me my Call of Duty and... well yeah, CoD4 has been pretty much my staple diet for 3 years now. Good times... in addition to that, I've recently acquired Call of Duty: Black Ops and Starcraft 2 (it's brutal – I don't do strategy...). In addition to that addition, I love me some RPG every now and then – Fallout 3 simply could not fall out (see what I did there?) of favour with me. Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed 2... the list goes on. Ok, well, it doesn't go on that much further, but I thought saying that would make me look better in some regard :D

Apart from conventional video games, (I'm a PC die-hard, just by the way) I also play some Dungeons and Dragons (Pathfinder), and am currently hosting a campaign for a couple of kids from my school.

Rightyo then, with that out of the way hopefully we can proceed...

Duncan

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