The role of COD PC Gamers as critics.
The tumult raised by groups and individuals of the Cod community and pointed at Treyarch seems to be quieting down as we enter the second quarter of 2009 and in hindsight could have been predicted.

What do I mean by tumult and why could it have been predicted.It was tumultuous because It was a riot never fully responded to by Treyarch in spite of the employment of a community manager with the ungodly task of communicating with a somewhat petulent PC Community (I am being nice here).As concerns the Community manager I am reminded of the famous line used in the movie The Godfather 2 where Willie Cicci say's;

"Oh yeah, a buffer. The family had a lot of buffers!

So,with the the half life of a COD game appearing to be considerably shortened by yearly releases the community could have predicted the general outcome of all the hubbub in regard to the delayed response of Treyarch concerning patches.Treyarch must put it's attention first and foremost to it's financial position that is driven by the half life of the game.DLC must take some presidence over solving all of the games shortcomings in an area where 100% of the people will never be fully satisfied.

"half-life" - the time required for something to fall to half its initial value

I think it is unrealistic to expect,and therefore fight for,the level of focus and attention, regarding game support that may have occured in the past.This is a battle that cannot be won.

We have to accept that console gaming is and will be the primary focus of gaming developers for the forseeable future. Let me state here that "acceptance need not be surrender to an inferior product".The very fact that the games we love are ported over from console at all should give us some solace.Though our buying power is diluted we are still seen as a market force and hopefully "a valuable soundingboard for the finer development of games"

So how do we as gamers,consumers and invariably critics consolidate our position and adapt to the changing face of the cod series?We the PC community just dont have the finacial clout to be making demands that exceed our market position.In addition,being a thorn in the side will never replace a serious conversation in respect to garnering respect and being allowed to contribute some of the fine input that the community can offer.Yes I said ALLOWED.We dont own the game that we think we bought .We have only purchased the permission to run it on our machines.Somewhere deep in some dusty legal tome I am sure that there is presidence for "Class action lawsuits" and if the moon sat on the earth it would be an 8.There are a few things you can do to be a proper critic and help the community become more accepted if not respected.

1.Choose your community voices with the same passion with which you play the game

2.Know the community and have a roadmap to it.

3.Frequent the best of what the community has to offer.You will generally know by the tone of the site which ones are good for the community.

4.Make the developers websites better by using them often and with your known community name.

5.Share the great sites you know with others and encourage site webmasters to develope resposible link directories that have a central hub as it's starting point.

6.Go to Omnilinkit.com and help create a community roadmap where new blood can find the best of what the community has to offer.Yes this is my site but there's nothing stopping anyone from doing it better.To help contact webmaster@omnilinit.com and ask to be an admin or moderator.Or just steal it and do it better.

7.Lastly if you have a voice that hasn't been heard use it.Move around the best sites. Be reasonable.Be fair and write articles where they can be posted.The pen is still mighty and debate is not a four letter word.If you are flamed by the principals of the site never return.

Let's debate this

Great, great article. I think you have come to an excellent conclusion as to why the developers don't have to care about the communities, that being the game has reached a half-life. However, I don't believe that is why certain voices have decided to retract their previous statements and quieted down. But that's not the point of your article and therefore I won't provide an opinion on that ridiculousness.

I also fully support your message at the end, "If you are flamed by the principals of the site never return." Running MODSonline[.com], I strive to create a community where people are welcome and not ridiculed. Community members don't have to agree with each other, but they also should not be pushed in the mud for saying what they feel.

Thank you for this article, and with your forward permission, I am going to reprint this on MODSonline in the hopes that your ideology spreads a little wider.

I wont say that all the responses to the article have been reasoned and fair lol. In fact I have been accused of being an apologist for Treyarch and got hammered pretty hard in one particular forum. I was intentionally flattered on it's "well written" attributes and cordially invited to post there.I knew what the game was and decided to post it anyway.I needed some practice obeying my last rule. By "quieted down" I only meant that as a description with no qualification attached.You may repost the article as you please. Tough in hindsight I would clarify some thoughts in the piece.

I agree with some of what you are saying, however, I do disagree about your statement that we the consumer are stuck with what we get. Yes we do not own the software, however, we as consumers have a right to the expectation, that the game will work as advertised. This has not happened. Since day one this game has been riddled with all kinds of bugs, broken patches and tools. A comprehensive list of problems has been provided to the developer, and they continue to go on ignored. Its as if this console developer either does not understand computer platforms, or doesn't seem to care whether it works or not. There has been little communication and in some cases none, what so ever with the consumer. When bringing a problem to their attention, you are made to feel inferior or small. Being an avid gamer, and also the fact that I have been playing computer games (as well as building systems) since the 1980's, I do no need some immature community manger talking down to myself or my peers. We seek answers to our questions, not to be blamed that is is our fault the game doesn't work right and it must be our computers and not the software that is at fault. That being said this entire event since 11 Nov 2008, has be a dismal failure. If the developer doesn't want to support the PC then don't release the game for PC just release it for console only. That way there is no expectation that the game will be released complete and not a BETA release, packaged as a complete game. Its as if we the consumer have had to BETA test this game and give the input to the problems, which I wouldn't mind if they hadn't charged me $50.00 for it. I have sons who play console games, but I will tell you this, I will not buy any games from developers that will not support their games, I have already stopped buying EA, and Ubisoft games, and Actvision will be next if they don't get their collective act together. In this economy we are looking for good entertainment and if they will not provide it, I am sure someone will come in and take their place.

I never meant to imply that.I have read over Thirty replies to this article and it's construction has caused some misunderstanding. I am simply trying to see both sides of the equation with some editorial flair while trying to see a way in which the community can be better and more successful .

While the article is well written with regard to language, I do feel that it stumbles over its own wording at times, in a way it chases its own tail and fails to make the point in full. I think as you said, some further clarification would be useful.

Personally I find it hard to accept the level of unfinished work that gets sold on the shelves now. I've only ever played PC games seriously, starting WoW - that game had a lot of issues but you were paying for the continual development of the game and that's what kept me playing and paying. Now I've moved away to other games, and I start playing games that are released on both PC and consoles - and I must say I fail to see how a publisher even considers releasing a game that isn't complete. I cannot fathom the thought process which for one second justifies such incompetance.

I can understand ongoing development with regard to online balance changes, but actual bugs and plain oversight of seemingly obvious issues are unforgivable. Just because developers know they can patch games now, since broadband has become something just about everyone in their target market has, it does not mean they should rush games out which are - to be perfectly blunt - unfinished. Broadband seems to have encouraged the professionals to adapt a sloppy work ethic which simply shouldn't be tolerated on any level.

Regardless, the point is somewhat moot. If the company is happy to release shoddy work with a view to completing it *after* we've shelled out, then we can't be surprised if they infact turn out to be happy abandoning us, seeing as we have indeed already filled their pockets. In a sense, more fool us.

I don't fully know what happened regarding Treyarch, I bought the game and played it briefly before falling back to CoD4 and never playing it again. I am going to give it another go in the summer however my memories of it were disappointment given how hyped up it was by magazines, promises that it was built on the CoD4 engine so would play much the same. It did, but I don't know what they changed - it just felt incredibly clunky. My first impression of how good CoD4's online play was how brilliantly the players animate around the map, running, jumping, climbing animations, all looked excellent and rarely glitched badly. Made it very easy for me to sink into the game. The first thing I noticed with WaW online was how sprinting players looked like dolls with floppy legs flailing about.

Anyway, nice article, though as I said - I'm not entirely sure on what your overall aim was, the point was lost a bit on me.