Simply put, players bought into the Activision hype knowing full well that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 would probably have issues, as the previous titles have. Many of the previous Call of Duty titles have been met with similar frustration and yet, millions of gamers, almost zombie-like, shelled out their hard-earned cash for yet another iteration of the game, and it’s broken, and now they’re angry about it. To really show Activision that displeasure from the previous games, they should have not purchased in the first place.
However, there does seem to be a good deal of merit for the displeasure with Infinity Ward. In the official Modern Warfare 3 forums there is a question that was posted on December 2nd, 2011 that has yet to receive an answer:
When can we expect the patch for the lag compensation? I shouldn’t be penalized for having a fast Internet connection.
There’s another from even earlier that is still not answered completely, however, one of the Call of Duty Elite, the online service and DLC subscription did reply with:
Lag Compensation: This is something that is being adjusted by the developers in increments. It’s definitely something they are looking into and working on. However, these adjustments take time to make and implement.
Lag compensation attempts to slow down the game for those who have a faster connection speed and better data throughput so that they are on the same footing as those with a lower data connection. Many players complain that they pay for higher speed broadband specifically to be able to play Modern Warfare 3 better. It does seem that being able to pay more for a faster connection does create an uneven playing field in the game. However the Lag compensation system seems to not be an ideal solution because many seem to think that it is negatively impacting their game performance and enjoyment level. Effectively, the game is penalizing those with faster speed connections.
Perhaps what Infinity Ward should have done in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 was made matchmaking more based on ping times and broadband speeds than anything else. They could do a quick speed test to determine the bandwidth available to the player each time they connect to the servers and then group players for auto-matchmaking that be using ranges of upload/download speeds and ping times to servers.
They could also allow players to make the decision by giving them a set of options allowing them to choose min/max values for players they want to be matched up against as wellas being able to turn the settings on and off at will. The current lag compensation system does not sound like it is functioning exactly as they had hoped and by giving the gamers the ability to choose a range, within a certain distance from their speeds (for example +/- 1Mbps or 5Mbps centered on their download speed) they might overcome a lot of community pushback. The ability to turn if off as well as connection speeds could easily be shown in the lobby so that players on slower connections would be able to see those things and choose to play or not. It could even implement an auto-warning when entering a lobby stating that X number of players in the lobby are/are not using lag compensation or that they are outside the player chosen range of speeds, etc.
Instead of simply assuming they know what the gamers want this would give gamers the ability to pick and choose their games and get into games without lag compensation but with players that are not too far above or below in terms of speed. If the dozens of forum posts on the official forums is any indication, and it should be, there are plenty of players who are extremely displeased with what Infinity Ward has done and failed to undo. Considering that some posts date back to November and people still believe lag compensation to be broken, it seems only prudent to remove it altogether until they can implement a system that would function correctly and return the power to the players. After all, the players are the ones that pay to keep the lights on and if you anger enough of them, they might simply not buy your next game. At a million players boycotting the next game, it’s a loss of $60 million in sales, which trickles down to probably just $3-5 million for the publisher, Activision, and $1 Million for the developer, Infinity Ward. According to VGChartz, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sold some 13.72 million units. a 20% drop would require about 2.75 million players to forgo purchasing the next iteration of the franchise.
Perhaps the MW3BlackOut will work, perhaps not. Perhaps it will require a week of blackout, or a month. Maybe it will take a concerted effort and campaign to keep people from buying the next game in the Call of Duty franchise. Either way, it’s going to be a lot of work getting the companies to stop and listen. If the drive continues and does result in a 20% loss of unit sales when the next Call of Duty is released (later this year allegedly Black Ops 2) that might finally be enough to get them to come to the table and talk about how to fix things.
In a perfect world, a single day of black out would bring Infinity Ward into the forums and begin an open and earnest discussion about lag compensation and some other possibilities. But it’s far from a perfect world.
