Modern Warfare Analysis: 2012

Monday, December 17, 2012

Milehigh Turbulence Taker

Modern Warfare 3's campaign mission Turbulence is complemented by two Special Ops missions, Milehigh Jack and Hostage Taker. I really enjoyed the small extension of the campaign in those two missions and hopefully Infinity Ward will expand on that idea in their next game.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Welcome to the Roughneck: MW2 and MW3

Download the song.
Lyrics.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Survival Strategies: Parish

Here is the Parish survival map:

For regular waves I post up in the shop on the left:

Put claymores in the blue area to keep yourself safe from behind and then sit in the red area watching out towards the hovercraft. The enemies will come in along the yellow arrows. A few will enter the shop from behind, but not many and of the ones that do not all of them will come attack you. For some reason they come into the shop, duck behind some cover, and then leave and circle around to the front (red circle).

For juggernaut and helicopter waves I did a loop around the whole map:

This loop passes the air support armory in case you want to buy air strikes, and also the equipment armory if you need anything else. I would always go prone right in front of the equipment armory and get equipment, and in that position the helicopters took a solid 10-15 seconds to get into a position where they could hit me, by which time I was gone.

Parish is a Tier 5 map.
Jugg/helo waves: 4, 9, 14, 19, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Survival Strategies: Decommission

The Decommission survival map:

I set up sentry guns facing out the doorway of the room in the top left of the map, and claymores on the back stairs to that room, like this:

Most of the enemies during normal and helicopter waves come along the red arrows, and the claymores take care of the back stairs fairly well. I sit at the blue/red circle with the pillars for cover, and the sentry guns do a decent job thinning out the enemies at the doorway. For juggernaut waves it's the same looping strategy as on any other map. The houses between the air support and the equipment armories work pretty well since there is more cover and more ins-and-outs there.

Decommission is a Tier 2 map.

Jugg waves: 9, 12, 18, 21, 27, 33, 39, 45
Helo waves: 6, 15, 24, 30, 36, 42

Survival Strategies: Off Shore

I don't actually have a coherent strategy for Off Shore, rather a few simple tips. Here is the map:

I'll call the vantage point up the long ramp a crow's nest for convenience.

For all regular waves you can sit up in the crow's nest and do extremely well money-wise. I've played waves 1-4 a number of times and can easily get $20,000 simply sitting up there and going for the rampage and kill streak bonuses.

Wave 4 brings a juggernaut but it's very easy to simply flash and kill him before he reaches the top of the ramp.

Wave 5 is the first wave with a helicopter and you should run around for all jugg + helo waves from there on. The map has tons of cover and stairs and hall ways to run through for those waves.

Off Shore has a brand new wave progression. Let's call it a Tier 6 map.

Jugg + helo waves: 4-5, 9-10, 14-15, 19-20, 24-25, 29-30, 34-35.....

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Chaos Mode: Resistance

Weapon and equipment locations:

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Chaos Mode: Dome

Dome is the smallest map so the weapons are closer together:

Chaos Mode: Village

Chaos Mode on Village:

I don't have a real strategy for Chaos Mode yet. Maybe never will. Just run around pulling the trigger. It's incredibly fun though.

Modern Warfare 3: Chaos Mode

So far Chaos Mode is awesome. It really is a crazy arcade mode.

PS3 Elite premium members can expect to get this about September 6th, and the Chaos Mode map pack a week or less after that.

Here is a picture of the upgrades you can get:

Starting from the left they are:

Juiced
Fast health regeneration
Steady Aim
Stalker
Extreme Conditioning
Quickdraw
Sleight of Hand

You get one perk for every 10 combo points starting with SoH at a combo of 10 and going up to Juiced at a combo of 70.

You start with 500 points of body-armor and the red juggernaut tags give you 250 points of body-armor.

Apparently there are AH-6 Overwatch choppers that show up when your combo is at about 550.

You get two minutes of life, and once that two minutes is up you die unless you have a combo going, and you can keep playing as long as you keep that combo up.

You start with three self-revives, but you can pick up more as you go.

Your combo is built by hitting enemies (riot shields don't count), killing enemies, picking up their tags, picking up care packages, picking up weapons, picking up equipment, and deploying items (freezes, sentry guns).

If you pick up a weapon it will disappear from the map. After you've switched that weapon for another you can pick up the first one again.

If you pick up the snowflake care package you can freeze your combo and you have about 10-15 seconds before it starts degenerating again.

The points you get in it won't count toward your spec ops profile at all. You can't rank up in Chaos Mode.

I think IW should have made Chaos mode for all of the Face Off maps, that way they would have a mode for normal maps, and a mode for small maps.

Weapon locations:

Chaos Mode: Underground

Here's the Chaos Mode map for Underground:

I had a great time going between the akimbo MP9s and the RPG. The MP9s take down juggernauts really quickly, just put the muzzles right in their face and mash both triggers. Then run up to the RPG and blast down those stairs between the RPG and the MP5.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

September DLC for Xbox

Release date: September 5

PS3 September DLC - Release date: September 9 for Elite, Sept 10th as map pack

The very last month of DLC for Xbox and we're finally getting a large drop. Three maps are on the calendar:

September maps:

Boardwalk

Gulch

Parish

More.

Content Collection #3:
Chaos Pack will consist of four Special Ops missions, 3 Face Off maps, and the new Survival Chaos mode, up for general purchase August 9th.

Missions:

Arctic Recon
Vertigo
Special Delivery
Light 'Em Up

Face Off maps:

Vortex
U-Turn
Intersection

Special Ops Chaos Mode delivers a frenetic form of combat that demands players to outlast waves of enemies, while chaining kills on maps littered in power-ups to achieve the highest possible score:

Resistance
Village
Underground
Dome

Great picture for Chaos mode:

Content Collection #4:

Final Assault is a classic map pack and will consist of five multiplayer maps up for general purchase September 6th.

Off Shore
Decommission
Parish
Gulch
Boardwalk

Here's the Final Assault trailer:

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Upcoming for MW3 (Info as of July 1st)

I see some people are getting here from looking for July's content drop (see here), but this post is just a general update.

Here are a few things you can look forward to over the remainder of MW3's life-span:

- A patch for lag is coming.

- A patch for spawns is coming.

- A weapon balance pass has now been implemented (video).

- Terminal is coming July 17 for Elite premium and July 18 for all other Xbox players for free. Considering the release dates for the free Face Off maps my guess is that PS3 players will get Terminal August 16th and 17th. PC is anyone's guess.

- Face Off maps will get alternative game modes each weekend.

- The DLC calendar was just updated and it probably now shows the final DLC count: 12 maps, 8 missions, 5 Face Off maps, and 1 game mode (Chaos Mode).

Also, I think it's safe to assume that the patches for lag and spawns are as much for MW3 as they are for IW's next game.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Mark Rubin Tweets #47

Two things stuck out in my most recent browse through Mark Rubin's twitter feed, the first one is that they are looking at getting other game types going on the Face Off maps:

The other is that PC players may be getting Face Off maps this week:

Friday, June 15, 2012

MW3 Weapon Balancing Coming Soon

Mark Rubin has tweeted numerous times that they are going to go back over the weapons again soon:

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

MW3 Will Not Get Gun DLC

Survival Mode Strategies: Mission

I played Mission a couple of times back when the game first came out but ignored it since then. I had gotten to 24 which was good enough for the Unstoppable title/achievement, and put me at 20,000 or so on the leaderboards. Today I thought I'd kill some time and gave it another shot. I didn't come up with a strategy per se, but here are a couple of spots I found useful:

For normal waves the raised platform in the top right is a pretty good spot. You have some cover, the enemies bunch up mostly along the fat yellow line, and if you are using a delta or riot shield squad they will rappel down right there and stay pretty much along the red line.

For helicopter waves:

Jump onto the air support box, then onto the pile of cement bags next to it and the helicopters won't be able to shoot at you. The enemies that come up along the green line are easy to kill, however the enemies that come up along the yellow line are more difficult. They have some cover and are harder to see, but it's still a pretty decent spot for the early waves.

For juggernaut waves there's no strategy, just run loops and thin out the enemies, and take out the juggernauts at your leisure.

I got up to wave 33 putting me in the top 600 on the leaderboards which really surprised me. Give it a try or two and you'll be able to get a decent rank on this map.

Mission is a Tier 2 map.
Helicopter waves: 6, 15, 24, 30, 36
Juggernaut waves: 9, 12, 18, 21, 27, 33, 39

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

More Mark Rubin Tweets

I also added these tweets to the original Mark Rubin post because I don't know where they are most likely to be seen:

AK-74u:

Rust and Shipment:

So Rust, Shipment and the AK-74u are not planned, and Rust and Shipment are not in development (which takes over 2 weeks anyway) which means the soonest Rust and Shipment will get here is July, but that's only if they haven' planned July's DLC yet which is very unlikely.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Pitch Meeting for MW3

I know of a humor columnist who writes about these types of pitch meetings for movies. Here's the pitch meeting for New Year's Eve he wrote.

Here's my take on one of these meeting for MW3

Developer 1: Hey everyone, I appreciate you coming to the meeting.

Dev 2: You're the guy who came up with Final Stand! Of course we'll come to your meeting. Everything you say is gold!

Dev 3: Pure gold!

Dev 4: 40 carat gold!

Dev 1: Thanks guys. So, I feel like the support strike package lacks a little pizzazz, know what I mean?

Dev 3: It lacks pizzazz and it lacks oomph.

Dev 2: What other ways are there to support your team?

Dev 4: Ammo drops?

Dev 3: A support care package?

Dev 1: Umm, those sound ok, but they don't have the glamour I'm looking for.

Dev 2: A beer drop!

Dev 3: Slurpees!

Dev 4: A mani-pedi!

Dev 1: How about this, You know how the Assault strike package has the air strike? Let's give the support package something similar except it covers about 10 times more of the map.

Dev 2: Brilliant!

Dev 3: Amazing!

Dev 4: That's why you get paid the big bucks.

Dev 1: So it's settled then. Let's get that coded into the game. Who's ready for tomorrow's release?

-End scene-

Despite liking MW3 quite a bit there are a few things that bug me a bit.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Mark Rubin Twitter Update

I was browsing through Mark Rubin's twitter account and he answered a lot of questions in the last 3 days. Here are some things I found:
(edit: I decided to put a link to his twitter account in the heading of the blog because he's always answering questions.)

A patch for lag is coming:

Regarding gun DLC:

Regarding small maps for all playlists (e.g. Dome):

What is required to bring an old map into a new game:

The status of Rust and Shipment:

Added June 12th:

Added June 13th:

Saturday, June 9, 2012

The Right Infected Recipe

I've played Infected quite a bit and I've watched a number of private match Infected recipes online and here's how it should be on average maps (medium to large maps, 18 person games):

- Survivors get anything they want
- 1st infected gets a handgun with limited ammo
- When there are between 2 and about 5 people infected they get throwing knives and tac inserts
- When there are more than about 5 infected they have nothing but a tactical insert

Thursday, June 7, 2012

MW3 Kill Switch Easter Egg

If you pick up an AK47 with a red dot sight you'll notice it's not the MW3/CoD4 RDS, it's the MW2 RDS:

Black Ice had a UMP45 with this type of RDS on it as well.

Another tidbit from Kill Switch that I learned from the behind-the-scenes video on the Elite website is that it is based on the Russian coastal city of Vladivostok. There is a bridge there which while under construction suffered a massive fire:

You can see the similarities to the bridge in the mission:

Monday, June 4, 2012

MW3 August DLC for Xbox

Release date: August 7

August DLC for PS3 info - Release date: August 16 (PS3 general and PC will get Terminal August 17th)

The calendar says:

I was so sure they would use the Kill Switch and Arctic Recon maps again for these two missions, but I was wrong. They have two entirely new missions, Special Delivery and Light 'Em Up. Official info has been released with a couple of screenshots:

Light 'Em Up (from the campaign mission Stronghold)

Special Delivery (another map not from the campaign)

This is a screenshot from Gamecheat13, not officially released.

UPDATE: Gamecheat13 put video up of Light 'Em Up, one of the spec ops missions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7E0C_jR3W4

OFFICIAL UPDATE: Activision has let out the info on the rest of the DLC season. They are re-organizing the last few drops into two content collections:

Content Collection #3:
Chaos Pack will consist of four Special Ops missions, 3 Face Off maps, and the new Survival Chaos mode, up for general purchase August 9th.

Missions:

Arctic Recon
Vertigo
Special Delivery
Light 'Em Up