Call of Duty to Have 3 Year Dev Cycle?

[Trunks]

In an interview with Metro, the Co-founder of Sledgehammer Games, Glen Schofield, has revealed that Activisoin might implement a 3 year development cycle where Sledgehammer Games, Treyarch, and Infinty Ward would take turns developing the franchise. If this were to happen, with the time left in this generation of consoles, it brings up the question whether Sledgehammer will have their first solo stab at the Call of Duty franchise when the next generation consoles, PS4 and Xbox 720, are released. Glen explained “probably, yeah [it could be on the next gen consoles]. I’d bet on us to make a good Call Of Duty.”

I'm liking this, gives the game designers 3 years to make a game instead 2. I hope it happens.

[paecmaker]

But its still a new call of duty a year, I wonder how long they can keep a yearly call of duty up. But its still great to add a new year, maybe they can implement a new engine and greater changes.

[Trunks]

The More call of duty's the better IMO. Each company would have 3 years to make there game, so have one out every year wouldn't hurt the production of them.

CoD has used the same engine for almost 7 years now. What many people don't know is Call of duty 2 ( not Modern Warfare, but the original Call of Duty 2 ) is the same engine as CoD MW. A new engine doesn't mean the games going to be good or different, if you use the same engine enough, you know how to manipulate it better. I think people need to give the game a shot before they call it the same game.

To me there isn't really much you can change with online FPS games. Gameplay is the biggest thing, and the IW engine is really smooth running at 60 fps and looks brilliant still. Smooth gameplay is what you want most with FPS, along with the maps and guns. What else can you add? I meant hey have perks and will even have gun perks this time as well. Along with different kill streak packages you can get. There isn't much more you can really change.

[paecmaker]

The More call of duty's the better IMO. Each company would have 3 years to make there game, so have one out every year wouldn't hurt the production of them.

CoD has used the same engine for almost 7 years now. What many people don't know is Call of duty 2 ( not Modern Warfare, but the original Call of Duty 2 ) is the same engine as CoD MW. A new engine doesn't mean the games going to be good or different, if you use the same engine enough, you know how to manipulate it better. I think people need to give the game a shot before they call it the same game.

To me there isn't really much you can change with online FPS games. Gameplay is the biggest thing, and the IW engine is really smooth running at 60 fps and looks brilliant still. Smooth gameplay is what you want most with FPS, along with the maps and guns. What else can you add? I meant hey have perks and will even have gun perks this time as well. Along with different kill streak packages you can get. There isn't much more you can really change.

But still, seven years for a game engine is extremely long time, soon they have to change to keep up with other games, even if they are really used to use it. And even if it will be problems with implementing a new engine(look at bf3) they will get used to it and if you look at bf3 engine that thing got lots of potential and can probably be used for years ahead, but The fact that IW and sledgehammer have made mw3 so good as it looks is still pretty impressive.

Well in online play you can change pretty many things more than just perks and customization. They must be creative and add new gametypes, look at fear3 gametype run like hell, and the zombie mode in bo. I havent played black ops or mw2 but one thing I would want to see is dynamic maps, aka maps that change in realtime, for example one map might be in a large building that is crumbling to pieces the longer the match lasts.

[ROFLBRYCE]

New engine, same engine, I don't really think it matters to me. Like Trunks said, the devs get to manipulate it more and learn how to utilize all parts of it better with each new game, but a new engine could lead to new possibilities at the same time.

I'd like to see a game put out at least every 2 years though instead of 1. The majority of the CoD community leaves for the next new game, and mostly stragglers behind are those amazing at the game, younger people who can't afford the next game, and hackers/cheaters not worried about being caught anymore with all the support going towards the newer game. There are still people who want to stick with it and wait for price drops, but not nearly as many as in the other categories.

That being said, 2 years would be tons of time for people to experience all the content the game has to offer, and I know there's many like myself who simply don't have the time to play it all the time. I got MW2 and Blops at midnight release, I prestiged once up to level 35 on MW2, and have yet to breach level 50 without prestiging on BLOPS. I know it's focused more on hardcore players, but I still like to pop it in from time to time, and it would be nice to experience more content. (Locked skins, nameplates, camo, guns in my case, etc.)

Just what I think about it

[Trunks]

But still, seven years for a game engine is extremely long time, soon they have to change to keep up with other games, even if they are really used to use it. And even if it will be problems with implementing a new engine(look at bf3) they will get used to it and if you look at bf3 engine that thing got lots of potential and can probably be used for years ahead, but The fact that IW and sledgehammer have made mw3 so good as it looks is still pretty impressive.

Well in online play you can change pretty many things more than just perks and customization. They must be creative and add new gametypes, look at fear3 gametype run like hell, and the zombie mode in bo. I havent played black ops or mw2 but one thing I would want to see is dynamic maps, aka maps that change in realtime, for example one map might be in a large building that is crumbling to pieces the longer the match lasts.

I don't see Call of Duty ever making a new engine, the way the IW engine was made was to make it easily upgradable. Here is what sludgehammer said.

"I've worked on a lot of engines over my lifetime and spent a lot of time putting graphics in to them and this thing is Porsche," he claimed.
"And what I mean by that is that it is stream-lined, everything in it is perfectly freaking clean. You can tell it's been worked on for years. It's easy to upgrade.
"We worked with engines before that are like f****** spaghetti. You can't work on a part and put it back in without messing with everything else. Modern Warfare 3's levels now are so much bigger than the old ones because they go more vertically, they have a bigger footprint and on top of that, higher fidelity, more textures and a lot more detail."
Schofield insisted that the engine is continually upgraded, as should be obvious when Modern Warfare 3 ships next month. Critics who say otherwise, he argued, don't know what they're talking about.

Dynamic maps would be cool, but with this gen consoles, they won't be able to run those type of things and still keep the 60 fps. MW 2 also had spec ops, a new gametype kind of like the zombies. Black ops had 4 new game types including wager matches. There is also 4 more new game types in MW3. The game changes a lot, if you actually played them you'd know lol. People keep asking for change in Call of Duty, but there isn't much to change that hasn't already been done.

[paecmaker]

I don't see Call of Duty ever making a new engine, the way the IW engine was made was to make it easily upgradable. Here is what sludgehammer said.


Dynamic maps would be cool, but with this gen consoles, they won't be able to run those type of things and still keep the 60 fps. MW 2 also had spec ops, a new gametype kind of like the zombies. Black ops had 4 new game types including wager matches. There is also 4 more new game types in MW3. The game changes a lot, if you actually played them you'd know lol. People keep asking for change in Call of Duty, but there isn't much to change that hasn't already been done.

I think its pretty stupid to compare a car and a game engine, for they got nothing in common.

But if he wants to do that, Even a porsche will sometime be obsolete agaisnt newer types of cars, the only people driving it are those fond of old cars and nostalgicers. I think atleast they should change the game engine for the next generation consoles. And yes it will be bugs and problems like BF3 but that engine will live on for a long time ahead and it will be worked on and improved.

And what says a new engine cant be simple and easy to upgrade, if they design it for that purpose.

But dont get me wrong here, I think mw 3 looks pretty good, and the engine might make it for another game but not much longer.

[Trunks]

I think its pretty stupid to compare a car and a game engine, for they got nothing in common.

But if he wants to do that, Even a porsche will sometime be obsolete agaisnt newer types of cars, the only people driving it are those fond of old cars and nostalgicers. I think atleast they should change the game engine for the next generation consoles. And yes it will be bugs and problems like BF3 but that engine will live on for a long time ahead and it will be worked on and improved.

And what says a new engine cant be simple and easy to upgrade, if they design it for that purpose.

But dont get me wrong here, I think mw 3 looks pretty good, and the engine might make it for another game but not much longer.

Haha yeah, not sure what he was going with that simile. I was hoping for a new engine with next gen consoles as well. After doing a lot more research on how game engines work I don't think they'll need it. I mean if Call of Duty 2 graphics can jump to Call of Duty 4 using the same engine, that's pretty insane. I think if they would make a "new" engine for next gen consoles They would still use the same framework that the IW engine has and just change it from there.

What I don't understand is people keep saying that BF3 is using a whole new engine. But it's just the Frostbite engine, obviously upgraded like every other game does with a new release. I mean Bad company was when the FrostBite engine was first created. Bad Company two had Frostbite 1.5, then BF3 uses Frostbite 2.0. So they aren't using a whole new engine like everyone says they are. They are just upgrading and modifying the old engine just as Call of Duty has been doing.