Call of Duty 4 DLC Maps Now Available

[CSN NewsBot]

Just a friendly reminder that the new Variety Map Pack is now available on the Xbox Live marketplace. The pack consists of four maps and is on sale for 800 MS points, or roughly $10.



Additionally, the Game of the Year edition of Call of Duty 4 should be on retail shelves now, or coming very soon. The GOTY edition will have these new maps already available on the disk.

[LMN8R]

lol



paying for maps



lol

[meowmeow]

Paying for maps that are already part of the single player campaign? (except China Town) isn't that just.. dumb..?

[Bokuho]

They're heavily modified from the single-player versions.



And yes, paying for bonus content. Big whoop. You expect them to spend time and resources (not to mention money) creating extra content, and for you to not have to pay?





Also lawl. The CoD4 rush for these maps on XBL has crashed the entirity of XBL for several hours now. If people would stop trying to get the maps and let the damn thing recover then everyone would be playing on them by now, but everyone seems to think that constantly refreashing the marketplace page and mashing the buy button is the fastest way to get things done.

[Jason X]

*protip - The GOTY edition will not have the maps on the disc but available as a free download via the marketplace.

[Bokuho]

*protip - it's not really a free download with the GOTY edition since in most stores the GOTY edition costs more than the regular one does in the first place.

[LMN8R]

Bokuho wrote..

They're heavily modified from the single-player versions.



And yes, paying for bonus content. Big whoop. You expect them to spend time and resources (not to mention money) creating extra content, and for you to not have to pay?

Go talk to Epic and Valve about that one. If you knew anything about game development, you'd realize that these maps were probably made by some low-tier map developer by himself over the span of about two weeks. It's not like the entire company was invested in putting a couple blocks together. Compared to the rest of game development, map making is simple, which is exactly why - formerly to the console folk gobbling them up - the idea of paying for maps was absolutely absurd.



There are already tens (hundreds?) of user-created maps for CoD 4 out there. Are they all top notch? No, of course not. But are they fun? You bet your ass they're fun. Are at least a few of them likely better than any of the maps Infinity Ward has put out? Absolutely.



If you want to charge me for content, then put together a decent expansion. Give me things that the community can't easily whip up. Give me an expanded single player campaign. Give me new game modes. Give me weapon balancing, and/or new weapons. Give me a further improved online structure. Give me new maps on top of all that other stuff as a nice little bonus. *THEN* I'll be ready to plunk down $20-30 for it.



But $10 for 3 fucking maps? lol.

[meowmeow]

LMN8R wrote..

Go talk to Epic and Valve about that one. If you knew anything about game development, you'd realize that these maps were probably made by some low-tier map developer by himself over the span of about two weeks. It's not like the entire company was invested in putting a couple blocks together. Compared to the rest of game development, map making is simple, which is exactly why - formerly to the console folk gobbling them up - the idea of paying for maps was absolutely absurd.



There are already tens (hundreds?) of user-created maps for CoD 4 out there. Are they all top notch? No, of course not. But are they fun? You bet your ass they're fun. Are at least a few of them likely better than any of the maps Infinity Ward has put out? Absolutely.



If you want to charge me for content, then put together a decent expansion. Give me things that the community can't easily whip up. Give me an expanded single player campaign. Give me new game modes. Give me weapon balancing, and/or new weapons. Give me a further improved online structure. Give me new maps on top of all that other stuff as a nice little bonus. *THEN* I'll be ready to plunk down $20-30 for it.



But $10 for 3 fucking maps? lol.

^ What he said. Point match, LMN8R with the win.

[mars_eto]

Can i get that?

[Bokuho]

Have you even played on the new maps? Have you even seen them outside of a few low-quality preview videos on YouTube? If you had actually used them, (or if you'd stop showboating just for the sake of it) then you'd know these are not things that some random community member could have whipped up in a short time frame.



Additionally, you're forgetting, the current issue is on the Xbox 360 platform, which can't support user created content on a scale such as this. It's not like 360 users can just go to a fansite and download a .zip.





Are these maps perfect? No. Have I played better maps, in this or other games? Yes. Would it be nice if they'd thrown in a few other things along side the maps? Of course.



Does that mean though that they should get no money for their content? Fuck no. They deserve to get paid. We're talking a tenner here, it's not like they're asking you to shell out for a whole new game and give them blowjobs.







It's crap like this why so many dumb arguments come up about the state of the music industry or film pirating; just because someone somewhere will hand out something for free, doesn't mean that suddenly everything in the world should be handed to you for nowt.









You also seem to be forgetting the difference between developing for PC and developing for console. The standards are different, the user base is mostly different, your methods and resources are different. It takes longer - not to mention requiring more time, effort and money - to create anything for console than it does to create it for PC. Even just the 'simple' things like an extra map become significantly harder when it's intended for console instead of PC use. I remember back in the days of Quake and Unreal Tournament, modding the PC games was a piece of piss, you could practically re-write the entire game in a weekend. Modding the PS2 ports? You could forget it, it took you three days just to recolour one hand texture. I can't say I've had any experience with the new engines being used on modern games, but I don't imagine it's gotten much easier. In fact if anything it will have gotten harder - expodentially so when you take into account the fact that these maps are being made for three separate platforms, two being the 360 and PS3 which are infamously different and expensive to cross-platform develop for (not to mention the sheer difficulty that comes with working on the PS3).





It's not like some kid sat down at his little computer, stuck two existing maps together, switched the lighting from day to night and then said "finished, stick this up". You grossly underestimate what goes into developing any professional, internationally published release, let alone the current hit on three separate platforms.