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Originally posted by BarnshaW
i dont know why people whinge about cheats on MW2? i can honestly say in the last 4 or 5 months I have not seen any cheats, maybe the odd occasionaly people trying to get nukes but then just kill them? also in the new map pack you have the barebones thing where there are no killstreaks so you have the option to play games without killstreaks?

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Originally posted by chris_uk
'also in the new map pack you have the barebones thing where there are no killstreaks so you have the option to play games without killstreaks? ''

is this true even if you dont get the map pack??

if so im gunna get back on it

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010

With a rather terse reply to a forum comment on the official CoD:BO site, head developer for the PC platform, Cesar aka "pcdev" Stastny, may have laid to rest some of the more deep seated fears the keyboard&mouse guys might have had for Treyarch's upcoming release.

In response to the question of whether we will get "demo recording", that is, the ability to record game-state, pc-dev said:

demo recording: confirmed

-pcdev-

Source

This has great ramifications for PC competitive gamers who typically use demo-recording (the "/record" feature in previous CoD's) to prove the fact that they played on the 'up-and-up' during sanctioned online and LAN games. The lack of "/record" was another nail in MW2's competitive-play coffin and in BFBC2, the lack of a similar feature, has seriously hamstrung that game into ever becoming a serious competitive shooter.

Undoubtedly, pcdev's short comment will set off a flurry of speculation in regards the presence of the console in the game. The console, for those who may not know, was a mode that could be invoked within previous PC-version CoD games (with the exception of MW2) by hitting the tilde key. Once in console, direct commands could be entered to modify or set client parameters, not limited to those that could be changed through the menu system. This was a powerful tool, in that unique client-side configurations could be made or changed in game. And if the scripts were bound to keys, the changes could be nearly instantaneous, thus making the knowledge of these console commands quite important.

Presence of a console could mean that CoD:BO would not be that far different from the CoD:WW user-interface. This would be a welcome relief for most hardcore PC gamers who are giving CoD one last chance after the debacle that was MW2.

First dedicated servers, now the hint that the console might exist. Good news.

However, I would like to caution that unless we get absolute confirmation of a console, any conclusion-jumping is somewhat premature. Note that I have not been able to get that confirmation from Treyarch, so for all I know, the record function could even be hardwired without the need of a console. We just do not know at the moment.

Fingers crossed.



Thanks to Beaknuke, here are additional pcdev'isms:

cod:black ops will allow US and EU to play MP together.
-pcdev-

Scroll wheel - yes.
Prone - yes.
-pcdev-

Shiny new server browser: confirmed.
-pcdev-
The good news is that the pc version of cod:black ops will allow you to play either way so bring on the kb+mouse vs controller matches!
-pcdev-

cod:black ops will run on XP, Vista, and Win7.
-pcdev-

We decided to have dedicated servers for this title from the very beginning of the project. We have not wavered from from this for a moment. CoD Black Ops PC has dedicated servers. Definitely.
-pcdev-

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I have started to notice a few people asking questions of the Treyarch devs regarding the sound tech that will be in CoD:BO. Some of these questions were answered last May when Treyarch had its community event.

As regular readers of BASHandSlash.com know, I was at that event and was fortunate to be in the audio booth with Audio Director Brian Tuey. Brian's audio team is currently working on Black Ops, but you all may remember the fact that he also was involved with Call of Duty:World at War.

The CoD:WW Sound Experience

And speaking of CoD:WW, recall that hardcore gamers took a long time to come to any judgment on CoD:WW's sound. In the end, that judgment was mixed. Casual gamers seemed to like the attempt at simulated real-world sound. That attempt at realism was the philosophy behind the CoD:WW sound.

Many gamers were not so appreciative.

Among the more ardent haters were pro-gamers who wanted clear distinct audio cues to help them know where the enemy was hiding.

I must admit that I was in the latter camp.

Here were my thoughts on CoD:WW's audio soon after I played the Beta, back in October '08:

...sadly, the sounds in the Beta are simply dissatisfying, to put it mildly. With the exception of the bazooka and the tank main guns, all weapon sounds including all the guns and the grenade explosions are pathetically meek.
The lack of realistic sounds in-game completely nullifies any of the visuals. I cannot emphasize this point enough. Everyone playing with me in the Beta servers said virtually the same thing.

CoD:WW Beta Review Oct '08

While I was, in retrospect, quite harsh in dealing with the in game audio, my opinion soured further when I later agreed with the competitive community regarding the lack of situational awareness that the sounds provided. Anyone playing BFBC2 nowadays will understand what I'm talking about. Nearby enemy sounds were nearly inaudible and distant sounds were echoey and could not be pin-pointed. Anyone wanting to play the game with skill wants to remove randomness and hardcore gamers found the sound tech in CoD:WW took skill away.

Not everyone agreed on this of course. Many loved the cinematic audio, but some of the real hardcore players found issue with it. North American competitive "pros" would typically point to sound as the number one reason for staying with CoD4 as the competitive game of choice.

Occlusion and Flux

CoD:WW sported two new sound technologies for the CoD franchise. Occlusion and Flux.

Occlusion was simply a fancy sound-attenuation algorithm, while Flux allowed sound to bounce off surfaces and produced echoes in game. Occlusion made it difficult to hear someone around a wall and simulated the real-world effect of attenuation through solid objects. This made hearing someone approaching you from around a wall very tricky. But the real problem was Flux, which tricked you into thinking the sound was coming from somewhere else. In CoD4, good players were accustomed at cranking the sound up to figure out where their enemy was, but in CoD:WW, it was harder to determine position, thanks to Flux.

Many attempts were made to try remove these two technologies as CoD:WW modders tried to remedy the situation by attempting to revert back to a CoD4-like sound.

Raf1, maker of CoD4's Promod, spent a great deal of time on this problem and eventually gave up. Though he managed to remove some of the Occlusion by deleting global attenuation dvars, the Flux algorithms were woven too tightly into the game and he was not able to budge them.

Fast forward to Black Ops

Two years later, at the BO Community Event in May, Brian Tuey reflected on CoD:WW and gave us an inkling about what we would get in Black Ops:
Jock: You brought a technology in CoD:WW that I hadn't seen before in CoD (Occlusion/Flux). What will happen in BO?

Brian Tuey: It's refined. It's a lot more natural now. One of our new, big audio tech features is that we have surround reverb now. We've got a brand new reverb engine. It interacts with the occlusion system in a really nice way to make it feel a lot more natural. So you'll still be able to tell when things are behind buildings, but it's not the abrupt unnatural thing that it became last time. It was new technology, you refine as you go.

Also, we're doing some things with compressors on the output, so that people with television sets can hear quiet sounds better.

Brian went on to point out three different sets of speakers around the room: professional monitors, a consumer 5.1 system and also a pair of crappy computer speakers. The three sets allowed him to simulate most gamer systems...the variation in end-user technology had to be accounted for.

Brian also told us that he had to re-record all in-game weapon sounds as the old WWII weapon audio was now outdated.

Brian Tuey: We had 45 mics set up (20 for CoD:WW). We were in a canyon (recording the gun sounds) and we even had some mics just pointed at the mountains. Remember the Flux stuff we did back in CoD:WW? We recorded the movement of the echo (off the mountains) and this was re-integrated back into the gun's sound.

Jock: Can you take away the Occlusion/Flux? Like a switch? Can that be shut off if you were playing a competitive mode?

Brian Tuey: I think it will be less of an issue now, but there is a way you can shut it off. (We were directed to speak to pcdev at this point -- who did seem to indicate he was amenable to creating such a switch).

While Occlusion/Flux will make a reappearance in BO, the real question is whether that switch to turn the tech off is
included. I'm going to bet it is. If so, even more good news for the competitive crowd.

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As Modern Warfare 2 did last year, Call of Duty: Black Ops will get a Hardened and Prestige Edition. According to elder-geek.com the Black Ops Special Editions will be priced at $79.99 and $149.99, respectively. Other than the leaking of the SKU numbers, prices and names there is no proof or details on what the Black Ops Hardened and Prestige Editions will contain, so file this under ‘rumor’ for now.

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The last Call of Duty game Treyarch developed, World at War, had a maximum of 18 players online. Sony says it will be 24 this time around in Black Ops.



Sony has updated their Black Ops page on PlayStation.com » with information that sounds quite exciting; hinting that the game can be played with 1-24 players. Since Xbox.com » has not updated their page with this information yet, we can not tell with complete certainty that it's confirmed or not. It sure does look like it, but only a few days back they made a mistake with announcing » new multiplayer material that didn't come through...

If it is true however, let's think about what this means for a second. The difference between 18 (World at War and Modern Warfare 2) and 24 players in an online multiplayer game mode can be huge. Even though 3 more team mates doesn't sound that many, it completely changes the way games will be played. First is the subject of lag (latency between you and the server, more info on wikipedia »), since the more players in a game will cause more lag and will make it less fun to play. Maybe Treyarch has found a way to keep the lag down with more players in the same game, which would be the ideal situation.

Besides the lag, we're excited to see how Treyarch will make this work map-wise. Smaller maps will be packed (usually resulting in a grenade-fest) and larger maps will look empty if not played in a 12 vs. 12 game.

Since it's not yet been confirmed by Activision nor Treyarch, let's await the first official multiplayer news, shall we? On that note, Treyarch's community Manager Josh Olin (JD_2020) is on press tour across America as we speak! So whenever news becomes available you will read it here on BO24/7.

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>>>> Chris <<<<

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Originally posted by dava.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_fsM6LBi54

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Originally posted by Eck
Looks like I'll be buying this instead of MoH. Turns out there won't be any damage Fuck that. I'll wait for BC3.

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Originally posted by DannyB

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Originally posted by dava.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_fsM6LBi54

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Awesome, I hadn't seen it yet nice one Dava

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