As many of you know, I took a break from playing online competetive shooters back in October. The hiatus was to last until the holiday season was over, and I stood firm against my urge to pop in Call of Duty until after the New Year. That urge was easy to fight because it simply did not exist.
Yet against my better judgment, I went ahead and plopped $60 down on Call of Duty: World at War when the holiday season was over, and my experience hopping back into the competitive world after a 3 month break was interesting to say the least. Hit the jump if you want to know.
Anyone who’s played World at War knows that you start off in a training playlist. My guess is that they give you this playlist so you can get familiar with the mechanics, and if you’re already a seasoned CoD veteran, so that you can familiarize yourself with the maps.
Remember those griefers I mentioned in my original article?
The level cap for the training playlist is 8 or 9. My first experience with the game was playing on a team with level 2’s and 3’s who had just gotten the game against a team of people over the level of 40 – with a full slew of attachments between them. There was one low level on their team, which I’m just guessing was their gateway into the list. So I spent the first 8 levels of Call of Duty: World at War being completely and utterly dominated on maps that I didn’t know against people with weapons and attachments (the attachments make a HUGE difference) that I wouldn’t see for another 10 levels or so.
I plowed through it, though, usually by camping in a spot with a Trench Gun or Thompson while waiting for someone to run towards me. I did my best in the maps that were in the beta, but even then I hadn’t touched them for quite a few months. Before you ask, I did back out and sign off for a while before reaching the level cap for the playlist, but there was always someone in the room with a vast knowledge of the maps and attachments for his (or her) favorite gun looking for easy kills.
I know it’s a sob story, but it accentuates one of my main problems with online competitive shooters. Instead of people looking for the competition, they’re looking for the easy road to the top, and the easy way to pad their stats. This is apparent in just about every game out there, including Call of Duty 4.
It’s not all bad, though. You can find the good on page 2.
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too true
Man you hit it on the head. I still play but only with good friends.
@TOO KINGS – Yup, I may still play the occassional match in a party with friends, but as for doing the PUG thing or hopping in with one or two people? No thank you.
I guess the way to work around this is to get in there nice and early when something your interested in comes out. With a little luck you can avoid the majority of the boosters and general purpose asshats. Not very cost effective however, and you will probably need to put up with the super hardcore out to prove something by hitting the level cap early.
I almost felt bad playing around xmas as there was a huge boost in new people… Then that feeling went away when i kicked their asses XD
Yeah… I have a problem. I’m competative.
So what are you playing in the absence of FPS’s? In terms of games, not just genres. And WoW doesn’t count.
I find that online PC shooters are more enjoyable. There’s not as many douchebags and it’s community driven so you have admins that regulate servers. That and the fact that PC gamers are older than the average console gamer.
@barely trying.
That doesn’t remove the problem though.
Activision, should they give a damn about the problem, need to get their teams at IW and Treyarch to rigorously implement the “Nobody above level 10″ (or whatever the cap is) in the training levels.
Let the level 11s and over invite level 10s and under into their games, but prevent it from happening the other way round.
@A Rabid Moose: Rock Band 2, Tales of Vesperia, Fable 2, Saints Row 2, Burnout Paradise, LotR: Conquest will be coming from Gamerang, and I need to get a copy of Fallout 3.
And WoW.
I rarely am in there to win. I mainly goof off or try to suicide kill the enemy. Most fun I have ever had was going along the top of the wooden bridge in COD4 and dropping down behind the snipers in the house while holding a grenade.
Not sure why I am in the picture, but thanks
.
You don’t need the shooters ani, all you need is Rock Band 2, and maybe some Saints Row
.
@Waffle: Our resident comic artist gave me a sheet for the Livecast logo, out of everyone on there, the pic I thought that would cover Cheney’s head the best was yours.
I was right.
Well spoken sir. I still don’t even have an XBL Gold account because of crap like that. I’ve played different games online throughout the years, and power gamers usually do a good job of ruining it for me (and everyone else). It started with PvP killing in Diablo when your lvl 7 character would get demolished by someone at lvl 25 for no good reason. WoW is equally as annoying. I play BF2142 about 3 times per week and place in the top ranks in most matches, but that came with a lot of growing pains. I play offline occasionally just to learn maps or kits better.
@DeathByWaffle – Ever shot anyone in the face with a shotgun (not while playing a game)?
@OMG: Yeah, but I thought he was a quail, honest!
Just wait until you run across an a-hole who is hiding UNDER the map and making kills. That’ ll really piss you off!
@DeathByWaffle: Yeah a lot of people look like quail. It’s an honest mistake. But you didn’t have to tag him, take him home, stuff him in a turkey and eat him.
@Animathias: I did some research last night and played CoD: W@W on the Base Camp server. Like you said, there were powergamers in there, levels 40-59. I asked what was up with that, and the response I got was that EA put some sort of goal (whether there are official achievement points for it, I don’t know) for getting x kills in a row. These guys are trying to get that unlock by playing on the easy servers.
I actually went in to one profile to give him an “unsporty” negative review, and IRONICALLY he had an SG Red Show icon for his profile pic. Douche.