How I Still Enjoy Modern Warfare 3 Despite Its Failings

Connectivity issues, lag compensation, hit detection, spawning systems, overpowered/used weapons are just the top few things among the vast array of grievances the majority of the vocal Call of Duty community seem to be having issues with on the most recent Call of Duty title, Modern Warfare 3.

It’s not affecting me.. well, maybe.. well, sort of.. of course it is!  Spawning and general connectivity of the multiplayer servers seem to have something against me and my posse of friends.  But does that stop us from playing the game pretty much every evening for a few hours?  No it doesn’t – and by no way am I saying you should continue to play it if you don’t enjoy it.  For all intents and purposes, I never play solo; that’s just not bearable.

Tolerance vs. Frustration

How is one still suffering?  Well, get to know me here; my tolerance levels are skyscraper level and – in terms of games and how I “rage” – I can endure any sort of nonsense multiplayer games want to throw at me.  I mean, I actually really enjoyed Modern Warfare 2 despite its constant barrage of filth, which would make anyone’s playing session a living nightmare.  Commando, One Man Army explosives, Quickscoping, unbalanced weapons were all big issues in that game – but I still actually loved playing the game, even when Black Ops was released (note: I wasn’t the guy running around with grenade launchers, silenced UMP or Marathon, Lightweight, Commando – my favourite weapons consisted of the F2000, Vector and M21 EBR).

Same goes for MW3; I actually love to hate the game, I love to play the game as well.  However, by no way am I saying MW3 has no issues and I have fun all the time.  Another opinionated editorial will probably merit a detailed “issue report”-styled discussion for another day, but for the benefit of the doubt – Infinity Ward developers have said they are trying to fix a lot of issues, have fixed many bugs so far.  Executive Producer Mark Rubin has said in the past that matchmaking/connections, lag compensation and spawning system – in that order – will be getting complete overhauls.  Will these patches fix the problems, is probably anyone’s guess – because they sometimes don’t for many players regardless of how many ‘fixes’ are implemented.

An evening with CourtRoom and chums

Mostly every night myself and two or more friends will pop onto Team Tactical or 6v6 Domination/Search & Destroy for a night of fun, but also a night of rage – one of us will always send the others a simple comment like “time to rage?”, our colloquially structured sentence for “you guys wanna’ play MW3?”, and it justifies completely what we do in our gaming sessions.  We rage a lot, but we still play a lot more; perhaps psychologically the game is so rage-intensive, it’s fun?  Addictive, for sure!

Our main annoyances are not about connections or spawns as I mentioned, but the general community.  We see players joining games to instantly leave again and again, we see players boosting or trying to get into boosting lobbies (Team Tactical is rife of them), we see players using “easy” weapons, we see players thinking its MW2 by only using explosive weapons, we hear players trash talking all the time, we see.. you get the picture. And, if you have not experienced one of the preceding gripes, then please tell me your godly secret for a frustration-free session.

It’s not convenient when previous Call of Duty titles are either lacklustre or hacked to be completely unplayable in public matches; where in the former case we don’t particularly enjoy Black Ops multiplayer, and latterly we cannot actually find a clean COD4 or MW2 lobby to keep us interested, and even then is it hard to enjoy ourselves when people decide to just constantly use grenade, RPG, launcher and explosives spam.

I still enjoy it, regardless

Put all displeasures aside, we still play and enjoy the game actively.  Why do you think we still do, and still more importantly: how we still keep it all fresh?  We’ve been working on completing challenges, attaining maximum Weapon XP to dip our guns into the barrel of liquid gold – oohh, so shiny! – and randomizing our classes to really challenge ourselves – because that’s basically what we, as a group, like to do, challenge our mental and experience ability.  Tactically, while ironically, it’s not really doing us any good – but we get a mountain of laughs out of it!

Modern Warfare 3 still has a lot more playability that what most people would think.  You must think we’re all demi-Gods by still being able to play the game as if it’s fresh as daisy.. after all, I have a combined total of almost 19 days played at the time of conjuring up this editorial.  And I’m more than likely going to extend that for a good while longer. For as long the game keeps us raging, and keeps us playing.

“All warfare is based on deception..” – that’s the sound of the game start-up, which means it’s time for another session!  Let’s see here: PM-9 w/ Extended Mags and Silencer, Desert Eagle Tac-Knife, C4, Stuns, Specialist Setup — “time to rage” …

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