Mike Nomad
10-19-2009, 08:22 AM
As covered at that time by MTV;
Gamers' "Global Call To (In)Action" Could Thwart "Call Of Duty 2"
Strike planned for Saturday believed to be first in video game history
If the virtual battlefields of World War II seem a little more desolate this weekend, that may be because thousands of players who enjoy storming Normandy Beach via their PCs will be on strike.
In what is believed to be the first widespread call to inaction among players in video game history, gamers across the world are preparing to boycott online play for bestselling PC game "Call of Duty 2" for 24 hours beginning Saturday. The strike will begin at 6 p.m. local time wherever players are based. Objecting to what they see as an unfinished game that limits creativity and allows rampant cheating, organizers said they've garnered 10,000 pledges of support.
The disappointed gamers are hoping their action/inaction will prompt the game's makers to issue a patch that corrects the flaws. "It seems like with 'CoD2' somebody dropped the ball," said a 63-year-old Florida gamer who plays as "Mike Nomad" and is one of the organizers of what is officially called the Call of Duty 2 Call to Action. Nomad said he has bought 34 copies of the "Call of Duty" games for himself, friends and family and plays the new game about two or three hours a day. But he says he's fed up with what he sees as the game's fatal flaws. On Saturday he intends to participate in the play stoppage along with 900 other gamers who compete on a server he runs. Instead he'll spend his time hanging Christmas decorations.
"Call of Duty 2" was the bestselling PC game in America last month, according to the NPD Group, which tracks industry sales. The Xbox 360 version was the third-bestselling console game. It is unclear how this stoppage would affect the game's publisher (Activision) and developer (Infinity Ward) and why the problems players complain of are in the game.
Activision has called for patience. When reached for comment about the possible play stoppage, an Activision representative provided MTV News with a company statement: "After two years of nonstop work on 'Call of Duty 2,' Infinity Ward has just returned from a much-deserved break. The team is aware of some concerns about multiplayer cheating in the game and is looking into an anti-cheat solution."
Mike Nomad had been an avid player of the first "Call of Duty" but had been frustrated by the game's initial flaws. The game didn't sufficiently block cheaters, and it limited the ability of modders to create their own maps, a common and generally sanctioned option for PC first-person shooters. But after months of player complaints, Activision and Infinity Ward began releasing effective patches that remedied those issues. Nomad said a follow-up expansion, "Call of Duty: United Offensive," seemed to get things right at the start. But this year's sequel brought back the headaches of the original.
"This has to be the biggest kick in the teeth for the 'CoD2' community," said Sharon, a 36-year-old gamer in Kent, England, who will also be participating in the strike.
"It just seems like they just killed it," said Steve Sanderson, a 47-year-old "Call of Duty 2" fan from Tennessee whose 20-person gaming league will be joining the CCA stoppage. "I convinced everyone in my gaming league to go out and spend $50 with this game and nobody's happy with it." He thought the game makers would take action. "We kept waiting and waiting, thinking surely they're going to release a patch to this game."
In late November, on the Infinity Ward Web site, a gamer known as "Butch Cassidy" posted five questions asking Activision and Infinity Ward what they would do to fix the cheating and mod issues. He offered a rallying cry: "There comes a time when a little revolution can do an awful lot more good than meekly submitting to the will of others, especially if you feel you have a genuine grievance." Hundreds of responses quickly poured in and the call to action spread across the Internet.
While Nomad said the CCA would be called off if Activision or Infinity Ward would simply say in the Infinity Ward forum that they are planning to address the players' complaints, the companies have yet to do so.
And some players say they shouldn't have to. In an anti-CCA thread on the same forums where "Butch Cassidy" made his post, a gamer known as "Upandrunnin" urged gamers to let Infinity Ward take care of the game's problems in due time. "I doubt that IW appreciates the hate directed at people that don't support CCA. We're all fans of 'COD,' and this is just crap."
The kind of cheating presently possible in "Call of Duty 2" can swiftly cripple an online game. Sanderson said he bought the game three days after its release and opened a server to 32 players. "By the end of the first day at least half the people who were playing on my server were cheating," he said. He used what's called a "kill cam" — an option in the game that allows players to view their killed character's final moments from afar — and saw that some people were already using a common type of cheat. "They would have their gun pointing at the wall as you're walking on the outside of it, so you know they can see you through that wall." A game's vulnerabilities to such cheats can be shielded with programs such as PunkBuster, which was eventually applied to the first "Call of Duty."
Limitations on players' ability to create robust mods of the game have also raised hackles.
Nomad, who has never participated in a strike in the non-virtual world, acknowledges that it is tricky to ensure such an action will have an impact when it is staged virtually. "For anybody to see it, they have to first buy the game and see we're on strike, so Activision's got their money," he said. What Nomad hopes is that some extra publicity will spur the company to action.
And if Activsion and Infinity Ward don't respond, he said the group may call for a second CCA and do it all, all over again.
- by Stephen Totilo
This report is provided by MTV News (http://www.mtv.com/games/video_games/news/story.jhtml?id=1518343)
The Strike is scheduled to run from 6:00pm Local Time Saturday 12/17 'till 6:00pm Local Time Sunday 12/18.
Participate!! Show Activision YOU care!
Just setting the record straight.
Gamers' "Global Call To (In)Action" Could Thwart "Call Of Duty 2"
Strike planned for Saturday believed to be first in video game history
If the virtual battlefields of World War II seem a little more desolate this weekend, that may be because thousands of players who enjoy storming Normandy Beach via their PCs will be on strike.
In what is believed to be the first widespread call to inaction among players in video game history, gamers across the world are preparing to boycott online play for bestselling PC game "Call of Duty 2" for 24 hours beginning Saturday. The strike will begin at 6 p.m. local time wherever players are based. Objecting to what they see as an unfinished game that limits creativity and allows rampant cheating, organizers said they've garnered 10,000 pledges of support.
The disappointed gamers are hoping their action/inaction will prompt the game's makers to issue a patch that corrects the flaws. "It seems like with 'CoD2' somebody dropped the ball," said a 63-year-old Florida gamer who plays as "Mike Nomad" and is one of the organizers of what is officially called the Call of Duty 2 Call to Action. Nomad said he has bought 34 copies of the "Call of Duty" games for himself, friends and family and plays the new game about two or three hours a day. But he says he's fed up with what he sees as the game's fatal flaws. On Saturday he intends to participate in the play stoppage along with 900 other gamers who compete on a server he runs. Instead he'll spend his time hanging Christmas decorations.
"Call of Duty 2" was the bestselling PC game in America last month, according to the NPD Group, which tracks industry sales. The Xbox 360 version was the third-bestselling console game. It is unclear how this stoppage would affect the game's publisher (Activision) and developer (Infinity Ward) and why the problems players complain of are in the game.
Activision has called for patience. When reached for comment about the possible play stoppage, an Activision representative provided MTV News with a company statement: "After two years of nonstop work on 'Call of Duty 2,' Infinity Ward has just returned from a much-deserved break. The team is aware of some concerns about multiplayer cheating in the game and is looking into an anti-cheat solution."
Mike Nomad had been an avid player of the first "Call of Duty" but had been frustrated by the game's initial flaws. The game didn't sufficiently block cheaters, and it limited the ability of modders to create their own maps, a common and generally sanctioned option for PC first-person shooters. But after months of player complaints, Activision and Infinity Ward began releasing effective patches that remedied those issues. Nomad said a follow-up expansion, "Call of Duty: United Offensive," seemed to get things right at the start. But this year's sequel brought back the headaches of the original.
"This has to be the biggest kick in the teeth for the 'CoD2' community," said Sharon, a 36-year-old gamer in Kent, England, who will also be participating in the strike.
"It just seems like they just killed it," said Steve Sanderson, a 47-year-old "Call of Duty 2" fan from Tennessee whose 20-person gaming league will be joining the CCA stoppage. "I convinced everyone in my gaming league to go out and spend $50 with this game and nobody's happy with it." He thought the game makers would take action. "We kept waiting and waiting, thinking surely they're going to release a patch to this game."
In late November, on the Infinity Ward Web site, a gamer known as "Butch Cassidy" posted five questions asking Activision and Infinity Ward what they would do to fix the cheating and mod issues. He offered a rallying cry: "There comes a time when a little revolution can do an awful lot more good than meekly submitting to the will of others, especially if you feel you have a genuine grievance." Hundreds of responses quickly poured in and the call to action spread across the Internet.
While Nomad said the CCA would be called off if Activision or Infinity Ward would simply say in the Infinity Ward forum that they are planning to address the players' complaints, the companies have yet to do so.
And some players say they shouldn't have to. In an anti-CCA thread on the same forums where "Butch Cassidy" made his post, a gamer known as "Upandrunnin" urged gamers to let Infinity Ward take care of the game's problems in due time. "I doubt that IW appreciates the hate directed at people that don't support CCA. We're all fans of 'COD,' and this is just crap."
The kind of cheating presently possible in "Call of Duty 2" can swiftly cripple an online game. Sanderson said he bought the game three days after its release and opened a server to 32 players. "By the end of the first day at least half the people who were playing on my server were cheating," he said. He used what's called a "kill cam" — an option in the game that allows players to view their killed character's final moments from afar — and saw that some people were already using a common type of cheat. "They would have their gun pointing at the wall as you're walking on the outside of it, so you know they can see you through that wall." A game's vulnerabilities to such cheats can be shielded with programs such as PunkBuster, which was eventually applied to the first "Call of Duty."
Limitations on players' ability to create robust mods of the game have also raised hackles.
Nomad, who has never participated in a strike in the non-virtual world, acknowledges that it is tricky to ensure such an action will have an impact when it is staged virtually. "For anybody to see it, they have to first buy the game and see we're on strike, so Activision's got their money," he said. What Nomad hopes is that some extra publicity will spur the company to action.
And if Activsion and Infinity Ward don't respond, he said the group may call for a second CCA and do it all, all over again.
- by Stephen Totilo
This report is provided by MTV News (http://www.mtv.com/games/video_games/news/story.jhtml?id=1518343)
The Strike is scheduled to run from 6:00pm Local Time Saturday 12/17 'till 6:00pm Local Time Sunday 12/18.
Participate!! Show Activision YOU care!
Just setting the record straight.