I have no delusions that anyone will actually ever read this, but I'm not going to send it in an email to some customer support line, or try to post it on The OFFICIAL BLACK OPS 2 FACEBOOK TWITTER MEDIA HUB, or email any game review websites or even spend anymore time than necessary on this one but I have to get it out of my system:
Black Ops 2 is officially the last shooter I will ever buy and play online.
Modern Warfare 2 redefined gaming for me. I actually joined a clan online, started playing with the same guys and all was grand. When everyone went to Black Ops, I played that for a while and then got sick of the absolutely horrid spawns and connection issues. Modern Warfare 3 got me back in the game, more serious than ever. I was involved in actual clan battles and held a respectable 1.28 K/D. I've never had as much fun playing a game in my life as I did online with my friends on Modern Warfare 3. I think I prestiged seven times.
The teasers for Black Ops 2 looked promising. It was future tech, which was never in a online shooter before. We were hungry for a new game and it was clear that Activision was pulling servers because the signal on MW3 was deteriorating before our eyes. Plus by summer no one wanted to sit inside anymore and play games. When it dropped, it was a big deal. I bought my copy and started playing.
At the beginning there were some issues but that is bound to happen with a game that popular and almost one million players at any given time trying to connect from all over the world. The problem is, those things never really got ironed out. To this day, I still have a ton of trouble joining lobbies, trying to keep our group together in games and generally just using the system. I get a 'Server Full' notice probably three or four times a night. There are dozens of YouTube videos addressing lag compensation. Games are constantly stopping to migrate to new hosts, etc, etc, etc.
Worse yet is that the actual gameplay has been refined to reward players for doing bad things. Hardcore Team Deathmatch should be full of people who want to step it up a notch, to be a bit more competitive. Instead, submachine guns often kill from across the map (not that the maps are that big anyway. More on that later). Since there is no ricochet (ie, I shoot a friendly player and I die) in almost every match someone is getting kicked for killing teammates BO2 even has a narrator say 'Get that sonofabitch out of here.' I think players should get kicked for that behavior, but what ends up happening instead is that you finally connect to a game, you are playing for a minute and some dipshit kills three of his team members, gets kicked and the host migrates. For a game with as shoddy of connection issues as this one, that is a death knell.
In MW3, a team that worked together could run maps. That game rewarded planning, communication and most of all solid shooting. BO2 is exactly the opposite. Give some dipshit a CHICOM with full auto and he is almost guaranteed to have a 1.0 KD. It is impossible to hold down an area, due partially to the fact that BO2 released an update that allows for instant spawns in HCTD but also because deaths and respawns happen so quickly, it is not at all uncommon to get killed by the same person three times in a row. It is nearly impossible to snipe. I'm not even a sniper, but this past weekend I tried to use a sniper rifle and I can't even explain the frustration. If you know everyone on your team it is a little better. But if you just jump into a random match, you are bound to either get team killed by some fast twitch moron shooting around corners or kill someone only to have them spawn behind you. Since the respawn update dropped, I have yet to see a game not end early from one side getting all of their kills. I looked at my videos tonight and on average a game of HCTD lasts about six minutes now. MW3 routinely ended with neither side getting all of their kills.
The death knell for me is the new map pack. The settings of the maps are inspired. It is interesting to have a shootout on a ski hill and at a dam. But along with the map pack came a new gun, the Peacekeeper. It is very, very clear at this point that this gun is not only remarkably overpowered (and over ranged) but that it was put it in there as an advertisement for those who don't have the map pack to buy it. The gun is an absolute killing machine anyway, but on the new maps? I swear it is unstoppable and everyone is using it.
Now I will absolutely admit this is whining. In fact, that is the entire point of the post. But there is a bit of a message here that I know no one anywhere will actually pay attention to. See, I'm creeping up on 40. Online multiplayer gaming was not even remotely interesting to me until I saw what a team of six people could do in a game. Some of the guys I played with are current military, their training translated to a better gaming experience. BO2 is literally exactly the opposite. It encourages everyone to use the same guns, to play lone-wolf style and to never leave a comfort zone. It is obviously aimed at casual gamers, probably those under 18 who technically shouldn't be able to buy the game anyway who want to rack up huge killstreaks and get diamond plated weapons. BO2 doesn't even bother to support a robust server infrastructure because the kids that play for these reasons don't care about a shoddy server. In fact, it may actually help them. Split screeners are the worst to play against. I've watched a corner only to have a split screener appear 10 feet around it and shoot me point blank at least a dozen times. What BO2 did is in effect eliminate an entire market sector When this game came out, it wasn't uncommon for me to see 20 friends playing it. Tonight there were five. None of my friends want to play this kind of game. None of them play HALO for the exact same reason.
Here then is the message: BO2 is the shining example of the gaming industry. It set records in sales and claims to be The Standard of competitive online shooters. But, BO2 didn't win any awards for, well anything. It just isn't a quality product. That is fine for the 13 year old kids out there but it won't hold water for those of us who are looking for a clean, fair gaming experience. To make matters more interesting, the next gen consoles are around the corner. If what is being leaked is true, used games won't work on the system and there will be no backward compatibility. Sounds like the perfect system for parents, but I'm out. The stage is set for someone to come along and wipe the slate clean, to make a game that serious gamers will enjoy. By all rights, BO2 should have been that game. But it utterly, completely failed.
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