CoD BO: Dedis, support and betas Written by Jock Friday, 14 May 2010
There is so much news coming at us tonight regarding Call of Duty: Blacks Ops, one wonders whether we should be calling it White Ops.
1. Trailer coming
First bit of news is that the full Black Ops Trailer will be aired during the NBA Eastern finals (that's American-style basketball for all the non-Yanks out there) May 18th, 2010. This is the full trailer. The vid from last week was merely a "teaser".
2. Dedicated servers
Our rumors of dedicated servers being a certitude for CoD:BO seem to have come true.
Responsibility for their confirmation in-game fell to none other than Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia.
Here is a snippet of Lamia's words from Computerandvideogames.com:
"I think dedicated servers are excellent. I don't see any reason not to see them unless... well, I just don't see any reason not to.
It seems people like them and we're excited about what we're doing right now....We do work very hard to reconcile the desire to manipulate and modify those dedicated servers with offering them the persistent experience and benefits that the console system provides."
To call this good news is an understatement.
This revelation reverses a recent mini-trend away from fully dedicated servers in online shooters. BFBC2 had dedis, but they were ranked servers...no modding possible. And of course, MW2 had no dedis at all. The comment that the community is interested in "manipulating and modifying" must have made all community mapper and modder hearts flutter.
This is the first time I think I have seen such pro-CoD-community wording used since Grant Collier uttered similar comments back in CoD4.
3. Competitive community support?
For those of you that may be new to the community, let me say Treyarch has made great strides when it comes to supporting the competitive community. Though some important competitive features were initially missing in CoD:WW (their last game), the team from Santa Monica came on strong in the second-half and provided players with all the usual bells and whistles they required. In the end, a very respectable Euro competitive scene for CoD:WW developed.
Trey also spent considerable time and resources "roughing-in" CoD TV support. This latter item never fully materialized due to the reliance on one over-taxed community modder (Garetjax), who had to prioritize real-life over community, for its full implementation.
Many of us have spent many hours explaining to Treyarch's staff how and why to please the competitive community. I strongly believe they have taken many of those talks to heart.
Exhibit A your honor:
From JD_2020's Twitter today: @Arseynimz Oh I hope to see the competitive community back #CODBlackOps - we're very supportive of you guys!
Outside of the folks at DICE, it's been years and years since the last time a community manager answered a competitive guy's pleas for support. Though it was not substantial in nature, the gesture goes a long way to suggest that there actually may be something in CoD:BO that will directly appeal to the comp. guys.
Reason for hope.
4. Beta?
Videogametester.org is suggesting that a slew of code-massagers (ok..."hackers"), have discovered tell-tale signs that CoD:Black Ops will in fact have a "Beta" on console. A console beta sounds like good sound marketing strategy. If true, it still does not necessarily mean there would be a PC beta. So I'm not counting hens quite yet.
Title: Re: CoD Bo dedis
Post by: smitty1258 on July 23, 2010, 12:35:02 PM
still the same guessing game bullshit mw2 and bfbc2 had. Just tell us flat out yes you will have dedicated servers, that anyone can host, and yes we will release mod tools.
Ill buy today if I hear a definite YES to both those things.