Why Is COD So Popular?

I don't.

I assume you have never played one game of serious customs, with MLG rules if you like, or with your own rules.
Without Killstreak Rewards and some of the weapons (Noobtube, rockets, shotguns ...) and some perks (commando,well everybody uses ninja as perk 3 anyway ,danger close ...) the game is way more tactical than halo will ever be.
'But Halo is way more of a Team Game, CoD is just Camping!' you might say now. Wrong! In casual Matches most people camp because they suck or because they want to get they NukezZ. If you play with experianced players and without killstreaks, camping is reduced to holding a position, just like in Halo.

Judging CoD by 'Matchmaking' is like playing a game of Basic Training on Snowbound and think you have seen all of Halo now.

 

People like getting kills, so they play CoD. Even the noobiest of players can shoot someone in the back once or twice a game... I prefer playing games where getting a kill actually required skill, so I play Halo or Battlefield.

 

Because it's a video game. I hear "the kids" love them.

 

My vote is it's easier. People that are horrible at fps can jump into CoD and still get a kill or 2.

Though the reason why so many people play it is due to the unlocks. They're like crack for people.

 

This.

Call of Duty is a game that requires little skill and little thinking. Those that do think end up doing as well as people using about 1 brain cell to play. People like it because it boosts their self esteem by giving them shiny unlocks and telling them that they are really good, but in reality, anyone can be really good at it. I jump on sometimes when my friends are commanding me to play and I end up dominating them on my first game in months. It proves that there is little skill because I don't need to think, try or practice to be the best in a game...

 

Stop fooling yourselves.

CoD requires as much skill as Halo does, if not more. The threat of instant death from noobtubes, camping snipers, magical shotguns, claymores, CG/AC130s, etc. makes gameplay run at a much faster pace than any other Halo game (except for Reach, cant compare them yet). Games get a lot more tactical, almost like chess, when it's easy to get/give up kills. It's the common response to such a threat - either running and knifing, or camping and waiting - that everyone gets angry about.

CoD is more of a thrill ride than Halo is, and all the short-term rewards make it easier to keep playing.

 

The other day I let my nephew play on my brother's Xbox which was running MW2. He managed to get three kills by the end of the game. Did I mention my nephew is three years old? That's gotta say something.

 

All that does is confirm the existence of 3-year-olds in Multiplayer.

Which I believe everyone on this site has had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting one ...

 

YouTube - GameBattles Live - Winter Classic 4v4

In my opinion this as as exciting to watch as the Pro Circuit even better sometimes. Some Games are faster some are slow, but somehow all of them are great. The different strategies and the teamplay is awesome.

 

It's because of all the unlocks and the fact that anyone can do good like someones 3 year old nephew or my 82 year old grandma. People that play the game are all like "dam I'm so good at this game with my kill streaks and unbalanced weaponry"

I really wish it would die. It lacks quality and care. Look at all the glitches and exploits. Reach is going to make mw2 and this years undeveloped cod installment bungie's *****.

 

I'm not a massive fan of CoD, still think it'd be the next best game on the stream if it made it, but I still don't think it can be called as exciting from a spectator perspective. Ok, first game is a good example. Primarily, single life games are kinda boring to watch, a good part of the reason why GoW2 was taken off the stream imo, I always found it boring. I know this is just SnD, not all of MW2, but on that front I really dislike that gametype being in MLG from a spectator angle. Watching it play out really struck a cord with common complaints about MW2 as well, since it basically constituted seeing various people camping a corner and covering angles until something happened. That dude holding the nose of the plane just sat there and camped, second kill was nice but only because that dude really should have killed him, I guess he got cocky that the camping guy had turned around and didn't put in the explosive quick enough. But yeah, SnD is incredibly boring to watch imo, for exactly the reasons that Guardian TS was taken out of Halo, watching players sit watching an angle is boring, switching screens from player to player and seeing them all do it is very boring.

I just don't like MW2 for so many aspects of the way it plays, I'd probably end up watching it when Halo wasn't on if it made it to event streams, but I still think it's got some serious knocks against it as a spectator game.

Sorry, but just have to take issue with that. First I'd make the distinction between Skill and Strategy, and paint a picture of balance between the two in competitive gaming. I think this is a useful balance to consider for both Halo and MW2, and it's one I use a lot when people start the old "Halo 2 was more competitive than 3" discussion.

Skill as I'm talking about it can be better specified as the potential for individual skill (a terms that whiners over at MLGPro.com seem to gravitate to above all else) inherent in basic player gameplay. I don't deny that H2 had a greater such potential than H3 (through lack of spread, button combos, slightly faster mechanic), and by the same token I think the easy-to-die nature of MW2 places it even lower in this scale. My argument in defence of H3 as overall more competitive is the increased emphasis on team play and strategy this brought (and when I use the word strategy, I'm actually grouping team strategy, team tactics and individual mental game/decision making as a part of that team) over H2. Since a player could rely less on their own individual skill and thus slaying power to win out a situation, a carefully planned and properly implemented strategy on all the levels I bracketed before becomes more important to win out as a team. Since MLG Halo is a 4v4 sport at heart, I think this move towards more strongly promoting 'team skill' over individual skill was a good one (and, at risk of sounding rather smug, Ghostayame agrees).

However, I think it's a careful balance between promoting individual skill and promoting and a strategical team approach, and personally I find MW2 much less diverse and interesting as a competitive game as a result of the sway towards team strategy. The problem, as I see it, with reducing an emphasis on individual skill so far from games like Halo is that, as strats become more important to winning outright, they also become less diverse and interesting as a result. As it becomes more important not to give up a kill, the more 'play it safe' becomes the best approach when both devising strats as a team and implementing them as a player. In this sense, I think saying that it runs at a much faster pace than Halo is a bit far from the mark, strats in Halo are able to be more dynamic and reliant on the ability of a single player to go off, thus allowing for swings in gameplay that MW2 can't match imo.

Basically, strategy, not skill (what I'd guess you meant when you said 'requires as much skill as Halo' is what I would have phrased as 'as competitive a game as...'). And imo, too far in that direction for a balanced competitive game. And I know I'm a Halo ***** which gives me a bias, but then look at other competitive FPS games generally appreciated as pinnacles of competitive performance: Shadowrun, CS, Quake and Unreal. Faster, allow for more individual impact within a team dyanamic etc. I personally think that putting a plain label of objectively more or less competitive is flawed at heart, but in terms of why I'd gravitate towards Halo not just for fun, but for competition, I personally find the easy-to-die nature too far, and actually find it much less thrilling from a player and spectator standpoint as a result.

 

Whilst i'm still an avid call of duty player, i realise that it should have stopped some time ago. I wish that MW was a different franchise, and people didn't brand it with all the other Call of duties. I can see why IW and Activision kept it going so long, but it needs to die sometime or another, i think even activision realise that. IMO, the quality of the call of duty games has gone down since around CoD2. It was a awesome online game, but since then all they have really done is made updates, not really branched out (apart from the obvious (MW) the flow and gameplay of the game can be pretty generic) and accomplished so much more which was available. I really hope that whoever makes MW3 takes more time on it to make it a completely new and unique experience, or that it is at least the last in the series.
-My thoughts.

 

This is what keeps the average player playing that game with such intense drive compared to Halo.

 

THIS IS NOT ABOUT WHICH IS BETTER. BACK ON TOPIC. RAWR.
noncaps/

 

Remember, MW2 is popular because CoD4 was popular, and MW2 < CoD4. CoD4 was popular 'cause it had good maps, more or less balanced weapons, and simple controls. Once you get the hang of the game's dos and don'ts, it's pretty easy to play, and with every kill you get a progression of rank and unlocks, so it never feels like your screaming upon deaf ears when you are actually good. MW2 though is pretty bad in comparison, if only IW were EA/Dice, then they would actually balance stuff like the Assault Rifles and UMP, wouldn't that be nice?

Oh and the whole Halo vs. CoD discussion, we all know your toy is better than my toy just because it's yours, but why can't we both agree that they are both good? Why even bother comparing two awesome games, and just appreciate them for what they are. You don't have to be a Halo player to appreciate Halo, and same for CoD.

 

Your post is pretty much completely backwards lol.

 

To both of you, I actually specified the subjectivity of what I was saying in my own post. My point was rather why I tended towards Halo over CoD in fun and competitive terms, as a specific response to those posts (and, I'll admit, some other specific issues that I took with certain comments such as the 'skill' point), but which is imo linked strongly to why it is so popular with others. CoD 4 really set a bar of popularity in terms of an FPS which gravitated more strongly to solid strategy. Just because I prefer Halo and the balance its chosen, doesn't mean I don't see the merit of MW2 in it's own right, and I think it's taken this chosen point of balance and still kept the experience feeling involving and fast in its own way.

As for this:

It's pretty funny because my house mate basically said exactly this the other day, or rather that CoD 4 was good, and MW2 was advertised to hell and was always going to sell massively as a result of those two things. I personally like to have a little more faith than that, but I haven't played CoD 4 at all really, and whilst I think MW2 has strong merits I do think the massive ad campaign must have increased the demographic quite a lot, in turn reinforcing the core demographic further. MW2 wasn't just popular on release, it was weirdly trendy in its own, quite significant way.

 

I would probably lock this due to it turning into a flame war.
Were on a halo based website for god sake. Take this into a CoD forum and watch halo get raped with negative feedback.