official Call of Duty: Black Ops

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

This game is great in so many ways. Unfortunately, it's not so great in 2 ways: Lag and spawning. Most of the games I play have moderate to severe lag. Sometimes, I will run around a corner and bounce right back like a rubber band. Also, the spawning system is ridiculous. There were times were I just joined a game and spawned only to get killed a mere second later. It's really annoying on a small map like Nuketown.

[Corris Veteran]

I would have to agree with the not so neat spawning, It hasn't happened a lot, but I've been killed a number of times from people spawning out of no where right behind me.

Can't say I'm a fan of that snow map with the bunker thing in the middle, I don't know its name, but I only played on it once and got completely raped by the other side in deaths, seemed wherever I went I got killed by someone no matter where I spawned.

[WastedJoker]

I'm going to have to look out for this spawning issue. It has not affected me at all.

Even Nuketown has been good - the game recognises which house to spawn you at on that map and it is one of the most fluid and small maps in the game.

I've decided I really like the Firing Range map too.

[Chasethebase Reporter]

To where it's supposed to save? I'm probably being an idiot but where abouts is that?

Also have you tried running steam/black ops as administrator (right click icon and 'run as administrator'). Also other general things like updating graphics card drivers?

Finally no more stuttering FPS in MP since the patch and I can play some proper games! My first hardcore CTF went well :D

Well when I watched a video, the game saved just after you see his face in the intro.

[Livin in a box]

Nuketown is possible the worst map in the game for just 1 reason: spawning. Though sometimes it can't be helped, especially on free for all when people camp in the gardens and you spawn directly in front of them.

Though I'm getting REALLY annoyed with the RC cars...and spawning. It seems to ignore when there's an RC car near you and just spawns you there anyway.

Plus...one shot kills in the foot. 'Nuff said.

[rajputwarrior]

just finished single player. IMO story wise this is the best one yet (in terms of the non WWII's, can't really mess with true events...) The variety of levels and guns were awesome, really gave me a taste of what I want to unlock in multiplayer. Also JFK zombie killing level after you finish the game is awesome. which is what i plan to do next because all i have done is played about 20 mintues of nuketown on my ps3 so far.

[Sethos]

Another night, another group of guys that can't play together because of the broken matchmaking system and then we had to disband - Awesome.

[habnad]

Black Ops fixes update

Call of Duty gamers:

For the past two years, we've been working day and night to deliver the best game we possibly can to our fans. We are committed to making sure that continues for a long time to come. If you have questions, concerns or just need more info, we want to hear, so please continue coming back to the COD forums to share your thoughts.

We've always been committed to our community and we'll be here to help in every way we can. We've already fixed some things that have popped up in recent days now that large volumes of players have arrived online. Let us know how we can continue to make the best possible experience for you, the fans.

Please bookmark the links below for ongoing updates about fixes that have already been made and fixes that are in the works.

PS3: http://www.callofduty.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=313365

X360: http://www.callofduty.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=313362

PC: http://www.callofduty.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=313146

Wii: http://www.callofduty.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=313460

Thanks as always for your support.

Regards,

-JD

[Cupcakes]

Map spawns get progressively worse when you have morons on your team (or opposing) that are spread ALL OVER THE PLACE. You can't expect a good spawning system when you're spread all over. I know my friends constantly bitch and moan about this and they sometimes fail to realize that when you push into their spawn, you **** it up. The only map I've seen some epically retarded spawning has been Radiation. Otherwise it's still pretty predictable as to where they'll spawn so long as you don't have people all over the place (which is probably the case most of the time tbh if you're doing TDM.)

My only qualms with this is really just the ****-poor matchmaking system right now. Yesterday, I would say that about 2 of the 5 hours I played were spent trying to find a match. Either our party would drop/break or we'd find a lobby with one person waiting and no other players would join the session... Which results in either the lobby breaking or backing out to start the same process over again.

Otherwise everything else has been peachy keen.

Edit: Also, running around with flamethrower + ghost + ninja pro = epic luls.

[Sethos]

They just need to adopt the system from MW2, you can't ask pub players to not spread out, bit hard :p

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

just finished single player. IMO story wise this is the best one yet (in terms of the non WWII's, can't really mess with true events...) The variety of levels and guns were awesome, really gave me a taste of what I want to unlock in multiplayer. Also JFK zombie killing level after you finish the game is awesome. which is what i plan to do next because all i have done is played about 20 mintues of nuketown on my ps3 so far.

I have yet to play MP, still making my way through the SP, on Level 11 of 15. Just have not had that much time since release and have only been able to play a hour here and an hour there. But I have to say this is easily one of my favorite SP experiences in the past couple of years. I am honestly surprised not more conversation is being had about it. It really is just kick ass, no other way to put it. The level of variety truly is perfectly executed. I still do not think it is the best story in the world, but that really all comes down to the fact I do not think video game stories on a whole are well done. I always find them somewhat cheesy to be honest. With that said, the story is definitely better then most. But it really is the variety and amount of different things one does gameplay wise that really makes this game shine.

And they really made some cool achievements in regards to the SP, 2 of which I had no idea I was even going for but wound up getting. One was

going down the river in the boat and destroying all the structures, and the other was guiding the team through the village from Black Bird without them dying.

In both instances I was just playing the game as I would play it, and I got those achievements, which I thought was really cool. Seems like most achievements that are created one has to try and get them on purpose, and they do not just happen naturally. For someone who views achievements as something I can do with or without, that is a perfect example of ones I feel are done properly.

So I hope to be done with the SP by the end of the weekend, possibly sooner if I can, and I really looking forward to checking out some MP, even if nowadays my MP prowess is nowhere near what it used to be due to lack of time and the fact is most people playing it have already played the maps for hours upon hours. Plus everyone is already gonna be crazy high levels. My main strategy is going slow getting one kill and taking other peoples gear until I can get better stuff myself. :laugh: Hopefully it works. But really looking forward to MP more then I usually am, and that has almost everything to do with how much I am enjoying the SP. It is easily better then either MW game IMO.

[Cupcakes]

They just need to adopt the system from MW2, you can't ask pub players to not spread out, bit hard :p

I didn't say to ask 'em ;). I don't even play with randoms and my friends still run around like chickens with their head cut off and wonder why the spawns go nuts.

[Sethos]

I didn't say to ask 'em ;). I don't even play with randoms and my friends still run around like chickens with their head cut off and wonder why the spawns go nuts.

No but you did make it sound like stuff like that doesn't usually happen on pubs, can't really blame the players - Developers are supposed to create a system that caters for the typical sort of pub play, Ya'know. :p

Oh well, I just want them to fix the matchmaking system so I can play some proper HC S&D matches with my mates and it starts selecting proper hosts. We were 4 Danes joining a Wager match, all with massive connections and then it picks some Italian dude as host with some crappy line and leaves us all at 2-3 bars ... Pathetic.

[Cupcakes]

No but you did make it sound like stuff like that doesn't usually happen on pubs, can't really blame the players - Developers are supposed to create a system that caters for the typical sort of pub play, Ya'know. :p

Oh well, I just want them to fix the matchmaking system so I can play some proper HC S&D matches with my mates and it starts selecting proper hosts. We were 4 Danes joining a Wager match, all with massive connections and then it picks some Italian dude as host with some crappy line and leaves us all at 2-3 bars ... Pathetic.

O.o I didn't make it sound like anything. I just said that if either teams are all over the map, then spawns get progressively worse. Unless it was the morons bit that implied that? GAWD SETHOS LRN2RD. :cry:

Oh speaking of odd host selection.. One of the few laggy matches last night were due to host being a person from Japan. Funny since 8 of us are all located within ~15 miles of each other and the other few were on the East coast. LETS PICK THE ONE FROM JAPAN TO BE HOST!!

[Kyle A]

I'm sure this have been posted in this thread already but for PC users, trying opening the console in multiplayer (by pressing ~) and typing "/cl_maxpackets 100" or maybe "/set cl_maxpackets 100" (no quotes) and see if that helps at all with lag. And I agree with everyone with the spawning. In Modern Warfare 2, when you spawned, you were basically "safe" long enough to get oriented and moving again. I can't count how many times I've spawned right next to a fire fight, spawned and immediately drop a care package only to be overrun as soon as I drop the damn thing, or been rushed from the back because of spawn changes.

[Sethos]

O.o I didn't make it sound like anything. I just said that if either teams are all over the map, then spawns get progressively worse. Unless it was the morons bit that implied that? GAWD SETHOS LRN2RD. :cry:

Referring to "You can't expect a good spawning system when you're spread all over." makes it sound like you are covering for the developers and blaming the players - L2UNDRSTAND CUPPY! :(

( Sorry, doing this because I know you hate the arguing :p )

[Cupcakes]

Referring to "You can't expect a good spawning system when you're spread all over." makes it sound like you are covering for the developers and blaming the players - L2UNDRSTAND CUPPY! :(

( Sorry, doing this because I know you hate the arguing :p )

Well, some of the sandwich spawns (this is when you spawn behind an enemy and you're like OMG IMMA KNIFE HIS BACK!! and then an enemy spawns behind you, killing you just before you reach the guy to knife him :() I can def agree that it's not the players but rather the development itself but you can't deny that crappy spawns do happen because of the team itself. There's only so many safe zones to spawn to and once those 'safe' have enemies in it, spawns will just be random/stupid.

and yes i hate arguing and you made me angry :cry: :angry:

[Sethos]

I agree but that's what seems odd, other games and even MW2 just does it a lot better. In MW2, it seemed very 'zone' based and the two spawn zones for each team wouldn't cross boundaries and people would spawn in these zones. In Black Ops, it seems to spawn players on players on the frontline / behind enemy lines making an entire team pop up in the middle of another team's current hold-out position. In MW2, you would constantly have a battlezone / frontline where all the action would take place, in Black Ops, it seems there is no zone and there's just tons of sporadic battles all over the place because people just pop up at whatever player is close to a bunch of enemy players.

... So basically, there's a lot of room for improvement because the spawn system is rubbish.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

As bad as the spawn system is, it's fairly predictable. Sometimes I use that to my advantage. :shifty: In all seriousness though, they should have used the spawn system in Modern Warfare 2. As Sethos said, the spawn system in Black Ops doesn't care if you're behind enemy lines or chilling by your tent. I really hope Treyarch addresses this issue.

[rajputwarrior]

I have yet to play MP, still making my way through the SP, on Level 11 of 15. Just have not had that much time since release and have only been able to play a hour here and an hour there. But I have to say this is easily one of my favorite SP experiences in the past couple of years. I am honestly surprised not more conversation is being had about it. It really is just kick ass, no other way to put it. The level of variety truly is perfectly executed. I still do not think it is the best story in the world, but that really all comes down to the fact I do not think video game stories on a whole are well done. I always find them somewhat cheesy to be honest. With that said, the story is definitely better then most. But it really is the variety and amount of different things one does gameplay wise that really makes this game shine.

And they really made some cool achievements in regards to the SP, 2 of which I had no idea I was even going for but wound up getting. One was

going down the river in the boat and destroying all the structures, and the other was guiding the team through the village from Black Bird without them dying.

In both instances I was just playing the game as I would play it, and I got those achievements, which I thought was really cool. Seems like most achievements that are created one has to try and get them on purpose, and they do not just happen naturally. For someone who views achievements as something I can do with or without, that is a perfect example of ones I feel are done properly.

So I hope to be done with the SP by the end of the weekend, possibly sooner if I can, and I really looking forward to checking out some MP, even if nowadays my MP prowess is nowhere near what it used to be due to lack of time and the fact is most people playing it have already played the maps for hours upon hours. Plus everyone is already gonna be crazy high levels. My main strategy is going slow getting one kill and taking other peoples gear until I can get better stuff myself. :laugh: Hopefully it works. But really looking forward to MP more then I usually am, and that has almost everything to do with how much I am enjoying the SP. It is easily better then either MW game IMO.

it's definitely gets better and better as you go. i definitely understand how you think VG game stories are cheesy and this one has it's moments for sure. the helicopter parts were fun. you may not want to read this part until you are done,

the part where you have go to into rebirth island with hudson and you are on the tank, that part toke me FOREVER, kept getting shot in the head...

.

this is also the hardest one i have played so far. some moments toke me forever to figure out, well not figure out, not die. Corris talked about getting stuck at one particular part and i almost did there too. I just got tired of shooting **** and ran down and noticed the "E" (my interact button) show up beside the barrel and was like "wow, i'm an idiot".

just tried out MP for a little bit (got to level 4 in like 2 matches) and it was fun. everything seems balanced. haven't had an honest chance at it yet as I played it on my laptop and it was a little slow, definitely can't wait until more optimizations happen because even bad company 2 runs better then this game and that doesn't make sense to me. I'm not saying bad company 2 looks better (i really don't know what looks better, they both have their advantages/disadvantages in that department) but not enough is said about how gorgeous this game really is. I can't wait until more patches come out that will improve the performance. Right now I am averaging about 40-45fps for most of the time, but sometimes it will dip down to about 25ish. Definitely need better then that though, you would think a game that runs on almost a 8ish year old engine would run better.

[rajputwarrior]

multiplayer frame rates are terrible... i can never get around 60 no matter what the settings.

[sweetham]

Another thing that I would like to see them do is change the map selection/voting options. I really dislike the option to vote for the next map, previous map, or random. The end result of this is always getting stuck playing nuketown 5-6 times in a row. As soon as that map enters the rotation, that is all anyone will vote on. While it is not my favorite map, I would not say that it is bad either. I just hate playing the same maps over and over again. I would really like to see the next/previous disappear and have them change it to 2 randomly chosen maps to vote on with the last option to randomize the map once more. It also should never let a map be played more than twice in a row with the random map generation.

I would also like to seem them changing voting to a once and your done thing. None of this changing your vote at the last minute crap. Once you cast your vote, it should not be able to be changed. It would really cut down on a lot of the childish crap that goes on in this game.

[+.Vamp Subscriber²]

Has anyone else had issues with Theatre Mode? Pc or console?

I've got 3 matches that have been there since i played them on launch day (random 3 matches not even the first or last 3 or anything) but nothing new gets added.

[WastedJoker]

I agree but that's what seems odd, other games and even MW2 just does it a lot better. In MW2, it seemed very 'zone' based and the two spawn zones for each team wouldn't cross boundaries and people would spawn in these zones. In Black Ops, it seems to spawn players on players on the frontline / behind enemy lines making an entire team pop up in the middle of another team's current hold-out position. In MW2, you would constantly have a battlezone / frontline where all the action would take place, in Black Ops, it seems there is no zone and there's just tons of sporadic battles all over the place because people just pop up at whatever player is close to a bunch of enemy players.

... So basically, there's a lot of room for improvement because the spawn system is rubbish.

Spot on. I realised this last night - I clearly remember in MW2 maps there was an invisible frontline which was pretty much halfway between the opposing teams spawn points (or the nearest landmark-type place) but in BO on some maps you can find an enemy anywhere.

I'm not sure which I prefer because I kinda like the unpredictability of BO's method but I also liked knowing that I could always find action in a certain place in MW2 because that's where everyone congregated.

Having said that, I noticed on some maps in BO that people do tend to cluster around some places - in Grid it's the truck area between the two main buildings and in the ice one (Radiation?) it's in the circular building in the middle of the map.

As for spawning, I'm not sure which would be better - MW2's method makes it easier to spawn camp but BO's method means you're more likely to get random backstabs from an enemy spawning behind you.

Maybe they could implement a mix of both? Create several spawn zones but if there have been 5 deaths in the last 30 seconds there you will spawn in the quieter zone where no enemy has spawned recently.

[WastedJoker]

Has anyone else had issues with Theatre Mode? Pc or console?

I've got 3 matches that have been there since i played them on launch day (random 3 matches not even the first or last 3 or anything) but nothing new gets added.

I've not had anything appear there :(

Gutted too because I hit someone with a Tomahawk about 150 metres away - totally meant it too :(