Call of Duty rumors.."an mmo".."banning legit PC players"

doctorie · Nov 27, 2009

an MMO?

The Call of Duty franchise is already split between two studios, Infinity Ward and Treyarch, but an LA Times report seems to hint the series may soon be taken roughly by a third. The report also claims that an MMO based on the Call of Duty universe is being considered.

"As Activision seems to be discovering this year with Guitar Hero, there's danger when a title is overexposed with too many iterations," explains the report. "Nonetheless, the publisher has aggressive expansion plans for Call of Duty. Although Infinity Ward and Treyarch have produced sequels in alternating years since 2005, the publisher now has a third development studio working on future versions.

"One person close to the company said it also was considering adapting Call of Duty as a massively multi-player online world. The genre, in which Activision's Blizzard Entertainment subsidiary is a leader, requires huge upfront investments but can be very profitable as players pay a monthly subscription fee."

Talk of a Call of Duty MMO is nothing new, although the idea of a third studio creating games is interesting. Perhaps the third studio can do ones set in the future or something. It's bound to happen sooner or later.
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Banned players

Alright, you're sick of PC gamers whining about Modern Warfare 2 and how they're getting shafted by Activision and Infinity Ward. Dirty pirates and hackers deserve to get shafted, and that's all PC gamers are anyway, right?

Well, among all the dirty hackers and pirates are more than a few legitimate players, and it seems that a bunch of them are getting banned for legitimately buying Modern Warfare 2. On the Steam forums, players have been reporting that their (legitimately bought) game CD keys being revoked. Valve representatives responded, saying that the players in question bought their keys from an "illegitimate seller" and would not be getting their games unlocked.

For console-only gamers and folks in the developed world, I cannot emphasize this enough: THIS IS NOT PIRACY. Digital CD key vendors exist and - in the majority of cases - are legitimate sellers. The vendors buy authorization codes at bulk prices, selling the keys to customers for profit. They're used as an alternative form of digital distribution designed to address lower-income markets, like Russia and Asia. Customers then redeem the codes for access. LAN cafe owners also use CD key vendors to buy and authorize multiple copies of the same game without having to buy a huge amount of boxes or discs.

It seems these legitimate vendors are no longer legitimate. At least not in Valve, Activision and Infinity Ward's eyes. In retrospect, one can see why this would happen. CD key vendors operate (legitimately) in a loophole that exists outside the usual channels, one uncomfortably close to piracy. Since Modern Warfare 2 incorporates Steam natively, it would be natural for Valve to want to channel all purchases of the game through Steam and at Steam's pricing. Savvy players (namely the people who just got revoked) would undoubtedly want to take advantage of the low bulk rates, eventually undermining region-based pricing schemes. Plus, Valve (and Blizzard) have their own Steam/Battle.net-based mass-authorization deals for LAN cafes that they would like to push.

The logic behind the move is solid and is a natural sign of the way the business is adapting but that doesn't really help the people who can't play Modern Warfare 2 anymore. Until they can cough up $60 dollars, anyway.
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hidden multiplayer modes

The first thing many hackers do once gaining access to a games innards is start screwing around. We saw that when folks shoved the developer console back into Modern Warfare 2, setting up servers and gametypes with wild gravity, infinite grenades and that sort of thing.

Once the elation dies down, the next thing they do is start exploring, and if these rumors are true, they've turned up a few gems that might have impact on console players in the future.

A post on the official Infinity Ward forums claims that the developer console can be used to activate a number of elements that aren't present in the game in its unaltered, console-less state, including several multiplayer modes.

By starting private matches and inputting a number of console commands, players are supposedly able to turn on a "Global Thermonuclear War" mode, an objective-based gametype that has players scrambling to capture - and detonate - a nuke placed somewhere on the map. Assassination/VIP-escort modes and variations on capture the flag were also allegedly unlocked and tested.

The post has since been removed from the IW forums, but the text (and associated commands) survive on ModernWarfail2. We've contacted Activision for comment and will update once we receive word.

What do you think of this? Are they scrapped gametypes or planned DLC? Is anyone using the developer console hack on their PC version?
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Spirit · Nov 27, 2009

interesting... Wonder who the 3rd developer is

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Call of Duty rumors.."an mmo".."banning legit PC players"

doctorie
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Call of Duty rumors.."an mmo".."banning legit PC players"

doctorie Veteran

Spirit Veteran

doctorie
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Spirit
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