"Some Things Just too Big For Current Consoles" MW3 Developer

Glen Shofield revealed a new Spec Ops mode and also made a bold statement with an interview for Gametrailers.com.

[WhiteLightning]

LOL

Most of the COD games have enough room for a ton of content....you know the stuff you'd rather wait and make into DLC so you can sell it for a higher price.

If this was Epic Games, NaughtyDog, Dice, Crytek, Id software talking then fine....but a MW3 developer...

No....just no

EDIT: I know right I mean...

"we always want to throw in 1 more tank or 10 different enemies but we have a long way to go"

Dice have managed to put in a ton of vehicles in Battlefield 3 and even jets....bloody jets for christ sake and these guys think one tank is a challenge.

[samoon]

Yea I'm kind of upset they would say something like this. I mean look at the leap that DICE can do with the current gen consoles so why can't these guys. I guess it has to do with their glorious 60 FPS that they have somehow sweared an oath not to touch.

[ShoryukenII]

I'm actually pissed that they're saying this too. You look at their game and you look at Battlefield. It's just so obvious that they are years behind. Now look at their game and look at 2009's Killzone 2. They are still years behind. If they can't add 1 more tank (which isn't need because you won't be able to ride it), then maybe they are years behind because they are bad devs not because Activision is too greedy to fund a new engine.

...That is...unless he is talking about Battlefield 3...

Edit: I forgot to mention that the graphics don't suck because of the 60 FPS. Look at RAGE. That will no doubt be one of the best looking games this year and it is running at 60 FPS and 720p. Not 60 FPS, crappy graphics and sub-HD.

[dragonelite]

60 fps is better then some destruction.
it actually one thing console gamers get close to glorious pc gaming.

[Rush]

I wish Call of Duty was "Just too Big" for current and next generation consoles....

@above,

Get it right It's the glorious pc gaming master race.

[Persistantthug]

Lots of devs could do 60 frames with SUB HD.

Please.

Everyone knows Call Of Duty is garbage.

[Convas]

"Dice have managed to put in a ton of vehicles in Battlefield 3 and even jets....bloody jets for christ sake and these guys think one tank is a challenge."

I'm not disagreeing, but I would wait till the Beta for Battlefield 3 before we start hailing DICE for Battlefield 3's MP on consoles, especially when it comes to Conquest.

That trailer that blew everyone away was like a lapdance peep show. The PC BF3-ers are inside the window booth getting the show up close in person from Battlefield 3.

Us console folk simply have to watch from outside the widows with 24 players. That's a 40 person drop from the utter chaos we saw in the trailer.

[JsonHenry]

^^ Exactly.

[samoon]

yea definitely am looking forward to say how the beta is shaping up on consoles. Do you guys know if they've announced a date??

[iamnsuperman]

well said. +bubs. The likelihood for that level of chaos is very small

[Mr Patriot]

We all hate COD but in terms of business perspective, Activision knows that people are hungry for more cod every year, why the hell stop when there is some serious cash to be made, I would have done the same

[LoVeRSaMa]

All the money the get from the COD games and they just throw the games together, Battlefield is LEAPS beyond this..

When BC first came out I thought "Nice try, they'll never be able to get the battles like the are on PC" but look at Battlefield 3..

Lazyness thats all I can say.

[DeadIIIRed]

+Bubble, DICE has even said that they went with 24 because they feel that's what console players want. As if we would shun the game if it had 64 players.

[BulletToothtony]

this is what happens when you use a 7 year old engine

[RedDead]

Ok, check out Bad company 2. Leaps and bounds above cod on technical terms, now add jets, better graphics.

BC2 still had like 8 vehicles in a map at once, BF3 will have tank battles, for consoles thats 24 tanks(playable I might add) all at once...

And TheDivine down there, Halo has almost all of that, besides a minigame like Dead ops. Botzone is not something I would ad to a list of features. Oh and add forge ;) As big a feature as Firefight and zombies.

[TheDivine]

To be fair black ops had way more content than kz3, r2, homefront, moh, and almost all fps excluding halo. You got a campaign, dead ops arcade, zombie mode, alot of multiplayer maps, and slitscreen for multi/zombies, and botzone. Mw3 will have campaign, multiplayer, spec ops, and survival mode. Thats olot of content before dlc. People say the dlc is milking but not to me, fans want it so they give it. I dont buy maps but i sure as hell will buy the zombie map bundle.

[radphil]

"You got a campaign, dead ops arcade, zombie mode, alot of multiplayer maps, and slitscreen for multi/zombies, and botzone"

A lot of multiplayer maps that you paid a whole nother game for. Bots and splitscreen are present in the games that you mention.

The only thing different it has going was zombie and dead ops arcade, and zombies is done from L4D and many many other games.

And yes DLC is milking when you have to pay $60 for 4 sets.

[iagainsti120]

Im sure you can do more in Halo 3 or Reach than Black Ops, theirs a lot to do in those games. But that does not make one better than the other i personally didn't like the Multi-player in any of those games and never purchased Black-ops. (for halo Halo 2 had the best muti-player and MW for Call of Duty). Personally iv been playing Homefront and Battlefield BC2 on online as of right now. (ps i stopped playing Call of duty online when they started charging $15 for 3 new maps and 2 old)
(DLC maps for homefront $6, DLC BBC2 $15 for Vietnam, all others free)

[skip2mylou]

killzone had bots and splitscreen before cod..... R2 had co-op before cod.....

[BubbleSniper]

cant argue with this at allllllll!

[KingDustero]

For once I actually agree with you. CoD doesn't need a next-gen console to get better at all. They just need to make a new engine that uses more of the current gen console's power.

[theonlylolking]

He should say xbox because if you saw the recent article about how M$ forces devs then you will know why he should say xbox.

[Lazy_Sunday]

We totally overestimate the power of our consoles. Seriously. If they add any more to CoD (*cough* Black Ops *cough*) it doesn't run at 60FPS. I know, I know--RaGE runs at 60FPS as they say--but we'll really have to see if that's 60FPS constant, or Black Ops "visceral 60FPS" (45-50FPS lies).

These consoles are not capable of what we think they are, we take for granted the amount of work that goes in developer side to make these games run well. Most games that look beautiful today--excluding CoD--require an actual period of development where they compress everything downward to a point where they will actually work on consoles. And that's regularly to a point where they *just* work on consoles--30FPS, which is half of the actual immersion factor sacrificed for fancier effects and visuals which almost make up for the lack of FPS.

I'm all for adding on content to these consoles, but both consoles aren't capable of the same things. You could easily add stuff onto the PS3 version of any CoD game with all the space on disc, and utilize certain protocols with that space to make sure the game runs at 60FPS constant--especially if CoD for PS3 utilized the CELL. However, the 360 just barely fits that 8GB of CoD on there, and doesn't have the same type of CPU power--and since both games have to look equal, well... you know what happens.

[nycredude]

WTF is wrong with 30 fps. that is totally acceptable framerate for a game. I played plenty impressive games that were 30fps and my pc plays all at higher fps and honestly I couldn't care less. Give me a great game at 30fps and throw the crap game with 60fps in the garbage.

[jimmins]

John Carmack said 360 has more available power. Saying the 360 "doesn't have the same type of CPU power" is nonsense.

[Lazy_Sunday]

@nycredude: Nothing is wrong with 30FPS. It's the set standard. Most movies and animations run at 24FPS. But they're designed to be watched, not experienced firsthand. For most games, meeting the 30FPS standard means factoring in the toll it has on controls and the overall experience. When a game is made to run at 30FPS there is always a factor of delay that has to be added in to gameplay mechanics to smooth out slight drops in framerate--easing the unnatural viewing speed, to make the game seem like it's just naturally a bit unresponsive. Whether it's animations--idle or transitional--or actual controls that lag, it does happen when a game is coded down--because you remove and compress things to make them work with the hardware.
Games like Uncharted and Gears do this with finesse, but games like Crysis 2 and GTAIV fail miserably because they are unable to bridge the gap between framerate drops and gameplay. They are fun, but GTAIV's length, coupled with it's frequent framerate issues makes it hard for most people to bear through the entire game.
Don't be blind, gameplay is affected by how fast a game runs. The only difference is that FPS is the easiest way to detect how fast a game is actually running, since your movement and all that goes with it in-engine is measured by frames per second.
30 FPS is great in games that are coded well, but for most games on the market, it simply isn't enough.
However, 60FPS is the natural point at which immersion instantly occurs. This is because 60FPS is the speed at which untrained eyes process reality. This is why CoD is able to argue "60FPS! 60FPS! 60FPS!" and why people think this argument may be ludicrous, it is actually just. 60FPS is a huge immersive advantage. The casual game will play CoD because it "plays faster than other games."

@jimmins: John Carmack, of id Tech. Who gets their paychecks from Bethseda. Bethseda, whom we have already distinguished that they have agreements with Microsoft to support their console. It is why Skyrim was made primarily on 360 first, not PC. He does support that these consoles are capable of more, but then again, do realize that there are 3 discs for RaGE to encompass the same type of processes Blu-ray handles. Splitting up the game into multiple parts helps the game run, and more space to store the code means less compression and more protocols and better performance. Now lets simplify the term--"space-to-game& quot ; mechanics are used in order to increase performance. With a better disc drive (*cough* Blu-ray), the 360 could in fact be capable of more. However, it needs a more powerful CPU to handle all of the miniature processes that go on from "space-to-game" mechanics. See, the Cell processor can handle all this data because it was designed to, but not only does the 360 need to have the game in parts because of DVDs, it needs them in parts because it can't handle the whole amount of code all at once. The big advantage that the 360 has is the GPU which is a little bit better than the PS3s, and the small bit of cache for background tasks in the CPU, which is superior to the PS3s, since the PS3 has no small cache left over and uses it all up on the games. The PS3 may have a superior CPU, but they never factored in background tasks *facepalm*.

[IcarusOne]

@Lazy: please cite references for this notion that the human eye sees at 60fps and therefore it's a more immersive experience. Because that sounds like a load of bullshit. Never have I heard of a scientific measuring of "fps" for human vision.

However there have been studies that compare the differences between a brain watching video frame rates (30 & 60) and film (24). And a brain watching video enters a state more closely related to hypnosis and therefore drifts away and has a harder time recalling details. While a brain watching a film frame rate enters of reverie and is much more attuned to what's happening on screen. It's precisely this reason why filmmakers do not shoot in variants of 30fps.

[Lazy_Sunday]

Do I need a single reference?
There is no set factual natural "immersion" framerate. Yet. There is a Hz though. Since televisions and most monitors are limited to 60Hz, 60FPS is the highest count of frames that the screen can render. 60Hz is that point for the untrained eye. However 60fps is more frames than the viewer can process and perceive in one single second, and a point which is beyond perception is a point you see without error, flicker or frames--which is where I say natural immersion comes in.
Our eyes perceive everything through light, and they are capable of seeing more. In fact our eyes are capable of seeing at the speed of light itself, but we actually don't--much like we don't use 100% of our brain capacity. But untrained eyes can only process so much immersion. Trained eyes can notice the difference between 60FPS and 200FPS, but it's really not such a big difference unless you're really, really picky.

There is a study based in Hz that determines 60Hz is the maximum for untrained human perception, since 60Hz is 60 screen traces in one second, coupled with 60FPS is 60FPS as 60Hz. I'll edit this when I can find it...
Here's a comparison of 15, 30 and 60 FPS: http://www.boallen.com/fps-...
Here's a nice little article on apps running at 60FPS, detailing the natural point of immersion: http://www.allenpike.com/20...
You might want to check out what Carmack thinks of 60FPS:
http://beefjack.com/news/ca...

Yeah, I agree on the goal of movies and tv should never be to be seen in anything higher than 24FPS, since I don't want everything to look like a sitcom. But anyway, you might be interested in taking a gander at this article: http://www.tweakguides.com/...

30FPS isn't bad. It just isn't as smooth or natural as 60FPS. There's nothing wrong with 30FPS if you're happy with it, and regularly, if the framerate can be consistent--the average guy won't know the difference. But they will keep playing CoD, since it runs "faster" than Battlefield.

[IcarusOne]

Thanks, Lazy. Some very interesting readong. Interesting, interesting...

First off, your assertion of most TV's and monitors running at 60hz is rapidly becoming antiquated. Practically every high end screen in Best Buy now runs at least 120hz.

The Tweak you reference article contains a very telling phrase: "In my experience..." That's all I needed to read.

Carmack seems to be saying 60fps of good graphics is better 20fps of awesome graphics. I don't think many people would argue with him.

The comparison between 15, 30 and 60fps is most telling to me. Obviously 60 looks the best, but pay attention to the corners of the bouncing square. They're still ghosting. If it were truly past the point of our natural persistence of vision (the true immersion factor), we'd see no ghosting. Just the perfect edges of the square as the rotate.

I think the comment just below there is what I'm talking about. The user is discussing the difference of feeling between the frame rates and the benefits of 24fps:

"I want to suck you into the world of the story, suspend your disbelief and make you forget about yourself and your life and just be in the moment..."

Do me a favor. If you have BioShock, throw it in and start playing. This game is capped at 48fps. That was a deliberate choice by 2K. They knew that variants of 24fps have a more filmic and whimsical feeling and can draw the viewer into the story in a much more captivating way. Now go into the options menu and unlock the frame rate. This bumps it up to 60fps.

And suddenly you're no longer in Rapture. You're sitting in front of your TV. Playing a video game.

All I'm trying to say is this argument over fps is meaningless to me. If I had things my way, every game would come in variants of 24fps, except for maybe sports and driving games.

Feel free to PM me. I like this conversation. It's rare to meet an n4g poster who thinks beyond the typical fanboy rant. Have a bubble, sir.

[subtenko]

If MGS4 was 59.9 GB total on a 60 GB bluray disc...you could still fit the whole Modernwarfare trilogy on it and pacman as bonus content.

(yes I know...heavily exaggerated :s )

Agree or Disagree if you Agree

[neonlight45]

LOL dude you can put in the MW trilogy and Uncharted 2.

[samoon]

I'm also sick and tired of them throwing an extra tank or more enemies. Jesus they think it's fun when we constantly have to destroy one more tank or kill 2000 more mindless enemies in the campaign.....

[dangert12]

So Mr Shofield how does all the both CoD blacks + All DLC And Mw3 fair I'm sure we can get them on a single current gen disc with no more compression then whats already been done

[samoon]

hahaha true ^

[Fishy Fingers]

Ummm... He's probably talking more about processing power/hardware capabilities, than storage space.

[sikbeta]

That's even worse, we're talking about COD, the franchise that keeps using the same old modified Id Tech 3 Engine for yeaaaars....

[Blitz001]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, and this comes from CoD developer??? Hahahahahahah...hilarious...

[BladedTech]

This is exactly why Battlefield is head and shoulders above Call of Duty.

[Styxoric]

I lol'd

[paladinaz]

"Some things are just too big for the consoles we have right now, we always want to throw in 1 more tank or 10 different enemies but we have a long way to go…"

Su true. He does not say that consoles do not allow this, but that THEY "We" can not do that :D

[mac_sparrow]

I might be more inclined to believe you if your engine wasn't creaking from age.

[kza]

LOL its too easy to hate on these guy!!

[samoon]

word the bigger you are the more enemies you make lol.

[madjedi]

Considering most of his statements are slagging the competition, over selling cod/it's features and ignoring it's faults, or saying stupid statements like this are you really surprised.

I think koticks oblivious pr style is spreading. Yeah i agree with him, but it's hardware related, nothing a cod dev can thrown at us is too big for current consoles, especially when stuck in 2007 is the theme for cod.

Now id, dice and some other devs i could, readily agree with and accept, but cod devs are the last people to be talking about things too big for current consoles.

[MilkMan]

Dude, I had to stop laughing cause I shitted my pants.
Let go watch those jets flying again in Battlefield.
Later.

[e-p-ayeaH]

ermm MW3 as jets...you know the killstreaks

[superrey19]

Lol, no...

[neonlight45]

dude you fail, you can't control the jets.

[skip2mylou]

no just no those "jets" are always flying off in the background you can never fully control them like this http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[Raven_Nomad]

This is an article about a new COD developer and every comment is some stupid Battlefield 3 BS.
Cant wait till MW3 gets great reviews and amazing sales. Gonna be good for a laugh around here, not as good a laugh as when Kinect sold amazingly well, but still going to be good.

[Jack_DangerousIy]

You're right. Even YOUR comment has Battlefield 3 in it.

[El-Fenemeno1213]

And here I thought they were afraid to leave their comfort zone.

[kaveti6616]

Oh sure, praise DICE for having better graphics and more enemies to kill on-screen.

Screw the narrative.

Not that Modern Warfare's story is any better, but this argument about visuals and enemy counts is just another reason why the FPS genre is so shallow and mindless.

Have a better story. Think of something more interpersonal, not the constant "World war 3 / save the world" affair.

Halo, Gears, Killzone, MW, and BF all have the same contrived stories.

[Jack_DangerousIy]

Nope.

[Anti-Fanboyer]

Funny this is something I'd expect DICE would be the one to say.

[JohnnyMann420]

Yeah this proves that the people that really left IW are the people with not only the ambition but also ability.

[rob6021]

You have to wonder if when mentioning "Some Things Just too Big For Current Consoles" He's referring to Activision being in bed with MS, thus forcing them to put everything on a single DVD9, instead of multiple disks. Just because 2 or more disks would make MS look bad.

[Hectic_Kris]

i personally think that MW3 will be the best yet, I was dissapointed with both MW2 & BO (even tho i spent alot of time on both) the spec ops survival looks great dont know why it wasnt in MW2 to be honest.

And 1 more tank who really cares? id prefer them to make sure that the online multiplayer is tight and consistant so i can actually play it without having a problem round every corner when it firsts come's out and for couple months after but really dont see that hapening.

And before you all have a go i will be buyin BF3 aswell as soon as it comes out can't wait both wil be great games!

[e-p-ayeaH]

You guys are such trolls...

MW3 visuals are more refined than MW2 and contain 60 fps fluid gameplay and if anything hurts the framerate its better leave as it was.

Call of Duty games praise more the gameplay than the visual updates that you usualy see in every other shooter.

gameplay over graphics people.

[Hectic_Kris]

Tottaly agree!

[Pandamobile]

BF3 could look like the Wii version of Call of Duty and it would still be a better game.

[Hectic_Kris]

Oh and you have played them both have you?

[Pandamobile]

If you've played one COD game, you've played them all.

I've played a number of hours of BF3 in the alpha too.

[Hectic_Kris]

fair play then but have faith i reckon this time round we may see a great game!

[Pandamobile]

I'm not one for blind faith. I've seen all the MW3 footage, and it looks exactly like the previous game.

[JeffGUNZ]

@ Panada.

You have seen ALL the MW3 footage? Please, by all means, send me over the link for the multiplatyer. Oh. That's right. They haven't released any yet, that is coming next week.

Two things champ;

1. Graphics doesn't compare to gameplay, ever.

2. BF3 and MW3 are not even close to being the same. Other than being FPS and in modern era, everything else is different. MW3 is built to be a run and gun, arcade style, fast paced game. BF3 is targeted for a team/squad based, slow/cautious type of gameplay. Both games do what they are set out to do nicely. So, why even compare?

I am so tired of this BF3 vs. MW3 crap. Are we really going to copy and paste the same shit comments on every article? Don't we have anything else better to talk about?

[fossilfern]

And BF3 has both visual fidelity and gameplay,

[madjedi]

@e-p Yeah same non destruction, same retarded kill strikes, same rambo style no recoil guns, same knifing. I can accept jrpgs and niche developers have average or below graphics.

But the top selling shooter, bullshit there is no excuse for it using such an obsolete engine, and sorry bfbc2's gameplay over cods.

Funny that cods guys are towing the wii fanboys line, it's called an opinion don't like it oh well.

Must maintain 60 fps at any cost lol, a new engine would look better and likely still be able to run at 60 fps, but what else should i expect from the cod crowd. And no this is alot more than people being graphics whores.

[e-p-ayeaH]

"Yeah same non destruction, same retarded kill strikes, same rambo style no recoil guns, same knifing. "

wait that´s mw2 and black ops not mw3 easy there.

[neonlight45]

Yes, but what about game-play with graphics.

[mamotte]

Pretty awesome taking in account that the color palette for all games are, like 10 colors, plus black.

[rattletop]

AHAAHAHA. oh the irony..!!

[artdafoo]

LMAO, these guys are talking like COD is pushing the boundries of PS3 and 360. I don't think even DICE has said such a thing and they got a lot more shit in BF3 than Wack Ops and MW2 combined. What a joke.

[Ludakriss]

Have their amazing, intelligent, dev minds not considered multiple discs? Yeah, I know. So last gen. Oh well. I guess we're stuck.

Pull your fu**in fingaz out biatch! Oh, and no the way this is not directed to a MW3 dev in particular but to all who complain about the same problem.

Didn't understand it. Never will.

[zak94ma]

definitely there is new consoles on the making . lot of developers talking about new hardware these days .

[TheRag]

we've seen KZ3.. we already know this!

[BlackSharinganX]

yo MW3! BF3 says hi!

[StitchJones]

When you divorce yourself from the 60fps goal and operate at 30fps, you are allowed to put more things on the screen at one time. If you put any of the COD's next to BF:Bad Company 2 you really can see the depth and quality of Bad Company 2, and the fact it's running at 30fps really doesn't matter. I mean look at this current generation of consoles, both the 360 and PS3 'can' display native 1080p resolution graphics, but they do not. 95% of the games are 720p or 640p up scaled. It's high time for a new generation of consoles that have more then enough horsepower to run at 1080p and upwards of 60fps as the norm.

[HebrewHammer]

Glen used to be with EA on the Dead Space team. He is now with Acti and CoD? What a step in the wrong direction...

[Mario4life]

yea right if the engine your using can be on wii with little modification other than graphics, your engine isnt pushing anything this gen hardware can do, even some wii games have better distruction and ai then cod, im not hating on the wii or anything just the stupidity of the developer

[e-p-ayeaH]

I'm laughing so hard at the BF3 players making a big deal about CoD players or "Fanboys", I could careless i'm getting both to play for fun. It's a game who gives a shit.

[MasterD919]

Like Developer Egos?