Losing respect for Call of Duty

Last weekend, Call of Duty: Ghost was %50 off on Steam, this also included a Free Weekend trial where Steam users were able to play Ghosts Multiplayer for free for the weekend.

I was a fan of the Call of Duty franchise, until MW2 was released. (Black ops is still considered good, but not a good as the previous titles). The shift from gameplay and player requirements to pushing out content for investors is destroying franchise for gamers.

That said, I jumped on the opportunity to try out Call of Duty:Ghost. Hearing that how this is suppose to be next gen and new direction for the franchise I thought to try out to see if they were telling the truth. I had played around six hours of Ghost, and I can say the game was not worth it. Call of Duty:Ghost was not what the developers and publishers made it out to be.

So let me go through the list of problems that COD:Ghost has;

• Create a Class – From all the Call of Duty titles that featured Create a Class, I found that Black ops 2 was the best. Ten free slots that can be filled in a way that you want  to play. While in Ghost you provided with slots for weapons and attachments, and slot limit for perks (Each perk can take up a different amount depending on value given). Ghost also includes squad points which are used to unlock perks, weapons, attachments, killstreaks and loadout slots. Black ops 2 had squad points too but they could only be used to unlock weapons and perks when they were available when you reach a certain rank. Squad points in Ghost can be used on weapons and perks which are available to be unlocked from the start, ranking up only provides you with squad points. I feel that giving player everything from the start allow them.

• Weapons and Perks – The perks system is all over the place. There are so many of them, which spoils the game by making you and/or other players super soldiers. I prefer the Call of Duty 4 perk system where you are only given three slots without crossover perk selection and without perk pros. On the other hand there are a reasonable amount of weapons in the game but most of them are wasted because of the maps are stuffed with objects that could discourage you from using certain weapons. Weapon of choice in Ghost is an assault rifle, but overall the weapons are well balanced in terms of damage and recoil.

• Maps – There are two type of maps in the Ghost; maps with open mid-areas or very compact maps. The maps do may feel big, but it is actually an illusion, because they are quite small (Similar to the idea of meal on big plate). A few months back I watched a video on youtube that explain the map layout pretty well, unfortunately I was not able to relocate it. The video explains the difference of map development between standard mutiplayer map design (which I use when making CS:GO maps) and Ghost maps design ;

• Support – Zero. Just like MW2, MW3, and BO2. Matchmaking instead of dedicated servers, which means that you will be meeting cheaters, trolls, racists, brain dead players and more. I did not get to test out league games (if there was any) or Clan wars.

• Graphics – Next generation Call of Duty supposedly running on a new engine. When I first launched the game all of the video setting was set to low, this was recommendation setting. Played a few rounds and I found that the world seemed ugly and textures were rough. Then decided to set everything to high, and all I can say is that this was the outcome;

So from this I can say is that Call of Duty:Ghost PC is a cheap console port. Full of graphical bugs, cheaters, rude and naive players, re-used content and maps that have been designed horribly. Ghost is one of the Call of Duty game that you have to give a miss.

Call of Duty:Ghost is the number one most sold game on console, unfortunately not on PC, and after this player turn away from future titles. Ghost multiplayer was developed by Sledgehammer Games and with the announcement that they will also be doing the next COD game,  I have to say they will get very little or any at all support from PC gamers, after this ridiculous show of effort. That so, Treyarch now has an extra year to hopefully create a comeback. It’s too soon to say.

Thing they could do to make the next Call of Duty a success on PC;

1. Ranked Dedicated Servers (Let admins take charge of removing bad players. Also allow up to 32 for PC).
2. Mod Tools and Map Builder (Make good use of the Steam Workshop, allow players to help make the game grow).
3. Graphical change (Use modified Unreal or Cryengine, both have development kits that are free for the public to test).
4. Less Perks(Skill comes from the player not the game. No super soldiers).
5. Environmental Maps (Snow, Rain, Sand, Jungle. Add atmosphere. Different range of ideas).
6. Less Killstreaks (Don’t over reward the player).
7. Increase the number of weapons (10 per primary weapon class).
8. Player Customisation
9. New Co-op mode. (Similar to beast/zombies).
10. Singleplayer or Co-0p based storyline (Like World at War).

People say Call of Duty killed Medal of Honor, but in fact Medal of Honor was killed by EA. Now people say Titanfall will kill Call of Duty, but why all know Activision will do that job.

If everything fails there is always Valve with Counter Strike. Go download the Steam client and purchase the CS:GO for £11.99.

Why I won’t be buying Titanfall

In this post I will explain the reasons why I wont be buying Titanfall, which is set to be released for the PC, Xbox One and Xbox 360 this March.

Before starting, I would like to indicate that I did not buy Battlefield 4 or Call of Duty: Ghost, because I anticipated the problems that came with them when they were released. I will do a few comparison between Titanfall, Ghost/BF4 (using what information there is online) and Black Ops 2/BF3 (games that I have played).

So let me start with Content.

From reading the articles, playing the beta and watching videos of the game online, it appears that Titanfall will not have a great deal of content to keep me playing.

The game is mutiplayer only, but has singleplayer elements.  Following the same idea that was used in Brink, do you remember that game? Which was hyped to reasonable standard before release but unfortunately it did not live up to that hype.

While playing the beta I did not take notice of the singleplayer elements, as I was focusing on staying alive. This made me think of how many people will do the same thing? Think the story that someone spent great time working on will be wasted.

The beta only featured few amount of weapons, but yet again its a beta. Although there hasn’t been any information about the weapons in-game but from what I have seen and read  it looks like the game will only be having a few handful of weapons. Battlefield 3 in my option had a good number of weapons for players to select from. While Black Ops 2 had a reseasonable amount, good enough to last months.

As there will be no singleplayer, that then could mean more mutiplayer maps, right?. Well as I am writing this post I have discovered that there will be fourteen maps overall. The ones I played in the beta felt like a medium size map when I played as a pilot but felt small while in the Mechs. Compare the number of maps with other shooters (Not including DLC maps, just standard game copy maps) like Battlefield 4 which has ten maps (which are big but can be cut sort depending on the game mode) and COD:Ghost which has fourteen medium sized maps.

So by comparing three games; Battlefield 4, Ghost and Titanfall. You will notice that;

• Battlefield 4 has Lots of Guns, 10 Maps (Ranging in size), Singleplayer and Co-op.
• Call of Duty: Ghost has Good number of guns, 14 Maps (Medium size), Singleplayer and Extension (or Zombies if you’re a Treyarch supporter).
• Titanfall will have a good number of guns, 14 Maps and three Mech/Titan types.

It does not look like you get much with Titanfall. So this then allows me to move on to the second reason.

Price

The cheapest place to buy Titanfall is from Amazon, at the cost of £34.99 ($58.45) for PC. While the most expensive place to buy Titanfall for PC is directly through Origin (EA’s failed Steam clone) and it will set you back £44.99 ($75.16).

When COD:Ghost and Battlefield 4 were released, they had the price tag of £34.99 on Amazon. With Battlefield 4 costing £44.99 on Origin and Ghost costing £39.99 on Steam.

So the reason here that I do not want to pay EA and Respawn £34.99 for a game that has less content than other games. I also do not want to pay them to forcing me to use Origin.

Support

The final reason is support. I will not expect any. The game will have no dedicated servers as everything will be running on Cloud servers. So you are provided with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 style of matchmaking, which give you random bans, increase of cheaters and lack of good games.

Studio co-founder revealed that Titanfall will not support mod and map tools at launch, but then again as the game will require Origin, so do not expect support even after launch. This shows that the game will have no future in growing, compared to other titles such as Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament and Quake, which to this day are still played by millions, due to the fact of the community support creating free content for players to play.

Beta Opinion

This is based on my opinion, others may differ.

Things that I did not like:

• Matchmaking Sucks.
• Everybody gets Mechs, its not earned.
• AIs are useless.
•  Hit Marker Latency/Not registering.
• Climbing problems.
• Some weapons are useless and others are overpowered.

Things that I did like:

• Movement and wall running felt smooth.
• Wildcard boosts also known as burn cards.
• You always enjoy watching Mechs fall from the sky.

So to sum up Titanfall would be that it’s a over-hyped and overpriced game. This does not mean that game is not good, its just that you don’t really get much for your money. It’s a little pick me up that will only last couple of months before getting bombarded by DLC until Titanfall 2 announcement at E3 2016.

Titanfall Maps , Battlefield 4 Maps , COD:Ghost Maps 

CS:GO SDK Rotating Object (Alarm Light)

In this post will show you how to make Alarm Light, like this;

This post will also teach you how to create rotating brushes by tying the brush into an entity. For this you will require few things;

1. Two prop_dynamic_overrides.
2. Small brush (size of the prop) that has the Invisible texture applied to it.
3. Two point_spotlights

Lets starts by adding the brush.  Select the browse button to open up the Textures window. Filter for ‘invisible’ and double click on it to select it. Create a small rectangle template (10 Width, 10 Length, 15 Height) and hit Enter to create the brush.

After yo have done that select the brush and hit Ctrl + T. This will open the object properties. Search for ‘func_rotating’ in the Class drop down list and hit Apply. In the properties there are few thing that will be required to change and set.

• Set the name to alarm1
• Set the Max Rotation Speed to 360
• Under the Flag tab tick the Start On box
• Under the Flag tab un-tick the Large Sound Radius

Now we move on to adding the props. Click the Entity Tool or Shift + E, and filter for prop_dynamic_override. Left-click in your level twice to add two. Select one of them and open up the properties. Under World Model select Browse to open the Model Browser. Filter for emergency and select emergency_lighta.mdl.

Select the other entity and do the same thing but instead select emergency_lightb.mdl. Also under the Skins tab and select the second skin (skin1). Then hit OK and then in properties set the parent to be the name of the rotating brush , and then hit apply.

Make sure they are within each other;

Final part is the lighting. Select the Entity Tool or shift + E, and left click in your level. Open the entity properties and do these settings;

• Set the parent to alarm1.
• Change value of Spotlight length to 250.
• Change the colour of the light to red.

Reposition the light close to entity and make it face the light represented in the entity. Also create a duplicate the light to face the other direction.

Compile and Run the game to view it in-game.

CS:GO SDK Breakable Windows

In this post I will teach you on how to add three different types of breakable windows which are provided in Counter Strike: Global Offensive hammer editor.

The types are:

1. Breakable Brush Window.
2. Breakable surf Brush Window (like in CS_Office).
3. Prop Window.

Before starting, recommend creating space to add window. Like so;

Prop Window

We will start with the easier one. This will simply require two entity types. A prop_physics_multiplayer and four phys_ballsocket.

Select the Entity Tool or Shift + E, then filter in through the dropdown list for prop_physics_multiplayer. Left click in your level to add. Now that you have added a prop_physics_multiplayer you will need to set the world model. Double click the entity to open the properties. Under World Model select Browse to open the Model Browser. Filter for ‘window’. Under the info tab search for model that allows physics properties. (I’m going with window_industrial.mdl). once you have found it select OK, then give the entity a name (e.g. wind1)  and hit Apply.

Resize the brushes to fit your window

Now that you have window inserted, you will need to attach it to the brushes around it so it wont fall off. That is where you will need the four phys_ballsocket. Select the entity tool and filter for ‘phys_ballsocket’ and place one on the top, bottom, left and right side of window. Like so;

Enter select them all and open their properties. You will need to set the Entity 1 to the name of the window (which I choose to be wind1)

Compile and run the game to test it.

Breakable and Breakable_Surf Brush Window

For this we need to create a brush that will be in the centre and them tie that brush into an entity. So select the browse button from right side of the editor to open the Texture window. Filter for ‘nodraw’ and double click the texture to select it.

Now that you have the texture, select the Block Tool or Shift + B, and create a template within the other brushes (window). I recommend it to be 2-4 units thick and as high as you want. Then right click and select create object or hit Enter.

Now you have two choices;

• func_breakable
• func_breakable_Surf, like the windows in CS_Office which break into small crystals.

You require to add glass to the brush (window), do this by opening the Face Edit Sheet by selecting the Toggle texture Application or Shift + A. Then select the browse button to open the Textures window. Filter for ‘glass’

There are one glass texture that will work with func_breakable_surf. There are also few textures that do not allow the brush to break. This image shows you which work with what, choose carefully;

• Red – Wont work with any breakable brush.
• Green – Only works with func_breakable.
• Purple – Works with func_breakable and func_breakable_surf.

func_breakable

Once you have selected the glass texture, apply it on both sides of the brush (window). I recommend setting the texture to fit or centre the brush. Then select the window brush and hit Crtl + T to open the object properties window. Search for func_breakable under the class drop down list, then hit apply.

func_breakable_Surf

While for func_breakable_surf, apply the glass texture to only one side of the brush (window) leaving the other side to have nodraw. Select the brush and hit Ctrl+T to open the object properties window. Search for func_breakable_surf under the class drop down list and then hit apply.

On one side of window brushes difference between breakable and breakable_surf.

 

Compile and run the game to see the affects.

Extra Information

Here are few things you can change within the window brush properties;

• Parent – To attach it moving objects
• Material Type – Could change the material type to something else when it breaks.
• Health/Strength – Is the amount of damage brush can take before it breaks.