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  1. #81
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    b ut i will be day 1ing so i can dive around with qalberto while w epwn nigs.

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    http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/02/bl...ice/#continued
    Garnering legions of fans tends to wedge a franchise right between those that crave more of the same content, and those that loathe its existence. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is in the same spot, but developer Treyarch is looking to create some wiggle room between the two camps in its next contribution to Activision's billion dollar franchise.

    At Treyarch's office in Los Angeles, company boss Mark Lamia steps into a darkened theater filled with journalists. He's chipper, excited to finally talk about the game his team has been slaving over for more than a year. Despite a tightly constructed marketing schedule, the secret of Black Ops 2 was hard to contain; its existence began to leak in January.

    "Let me introduce you to the worst kept secret in the game industry," Lamia says as he walks in front of a giant screen embellished with the sleek Black Ops 2 logo. The walls around the screen are lined with concept art, some of it modeled after surveillance photos from in-orbit satellites, but all with a futuristic tint to them. "Saying that," Lamia continues, "we think what Black Ops 2 is about is one of the best kept secrets in the industry." As implied by the early marketing, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 thrusts the franchise into the near future. But this isn't Halo or Battlefield 2142 – this is a future that isn't as far off as we may think, and it's not the period of time gamers will be visiting when the game launches this November.

    "This is a direct sequel to Black Ops," Lamia says, adding that one of the central characters from the previous installment, Sgt. Frank Woods, is alive and well in the sequel. Rather than lead off from the previous game, Black Ops 2 will feature two distinct time periods: the 1980s vintage Cold War, and a grounded future in which the United States and China are embroiled in a new Cold War. The idea, Lamia admits, is to show some parity between both periods and allow players to get a better glimpse into the characters involved. Technology and the reasons for battle change, but the objective remains the same: win at all costs.

    In Black Ops 2 players will play as former protagonist Alex Mason in the 1980s, and as his son, David Mason, in 2025. The two periods are entwined with the return of Woods and a new villain, Raoul Menendez. The story arc spans the Mason family and Woods, and plot out the rise and fall of Menendez. Working with David S. Goyer, who helped co-develop the story for The Dark Knight, Treyarch has decided to shine a more detailed light on its villain. Players will see the breaking point for Menendez in the 1980s to better understand his motivations for terror in the future. We see a man go from good soldier to bitter terrorist, and his story is as important to the entire plot of Black Ops 2 as any other character we meet. "It's a character study. It's a story about these characters," Lamia explains to me later.


    It's Menendez's actions that throw the United States and China into a chaotic war. A cyber attack cripples the China Stock Exchange, which leads the country to horde a precious material that is making headlines in real life today.

    Though control of the world's oil reserves continues to be the source of tension today, the future battle for resources in Black Ops 2 revolves around Rare Earth Materials. Rare Earths are a combination of minerals used to create everything from smart phones, laptops, and earth-conscious, wind-powered generators. It's also a central component in the creation of weapons: guided missiles, drones, and more rely on these rare earths.

    President Barack Obama was recently in the news stating that the U.S., European Union, and Japan will bring a case against China to the World Trade Organization because of the nation's export restrictions on the material. China, according to multiple reports, produces over 95 percent of all rare earths. In Black Ops 2, the stock exchange incident, which traces back to the United States, offers the perfect excuse for China to keep the materials to itself.
    Remember those 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books? That's sort of the idea we have here.
    - Dave Anthony, Game Director
    According to Lamia, Black Ops 2 comes from a team that has worked together for an extended period of time, where comfort levels and success allow them to challenge assumptions and deliver something they believe can push the franchise forward. This leads to one of the most interesting changes since Infinity Ward took the franchise to the modern era: branching stories.

    Throughout the campaign, players will be given the choice to take part in 'Strike Force' missions, with a key objective that can shift the landscape of the greater battle between China and the United States. Sometimes multiple missions will be available, but only one can be selected. Based on the success or failure of these missions -- and you can actually fail to accomplish your objective -- the campaign story will change. There are also choices within levels. In a mission shown at the event, players were given the choice between covering their team with a sniper rifle from a perch, or hitting the ground alongside their squad. According to Lamia, player choice can also lead to the death of key characters during the campaign.



    Setting the majority of the game in 2025 doesn't mean Treyarch will showcase a war of laser guns and giant mech suits. The conceit in Black Ops 2 is that technology has continued to grow and the military has better embraced the use of drones on the battlefield. Many of the concepts featured in Black Ops 2 are taking existing technology and increasing its ferociousness, or shrinking it down to size.

    In another mission, Los Angeles has been ravaged by unmanned attack drones. David Mason and his partner, Harper, are tasked with escorting the President of the United States when their convoy is attacked by a fleet of these drones. Here we're introduced to a new piece of gear: a scope with the same ability as the full-body scanner found in modern airports.

    "The military has something like this now, except it's this huge rig on a truck," Lamia tells me, describing an area scanner that takes a three-hundred-and-sixty degree image, revealing everything within nearby structures and underground. It's this giant prototype that has been shrunk down into the scope in Black Ops 2, allowing players to see through structures and spot hiding enemies. It's certainly future technology, but it could be within the realm of possibility in the next decade.

    Former Pentagon employee and author Peter W. Singer, whose book Wired For War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century outlines the military's change in attitude toward unmanned technology in recent history, is helping Treyarch keep the future setting grounded in reality. "In some cases he told us we didn't go far enough," Lamia explains after I ask him about concepts that seemed too futuristic to be included in the game. But will war ever escalate to call for the amount of drones and machines seen in the Black Ops 2 trailer? "When U.S. forces went into Iraq, the original invasion had zero robotic systems on the ground," Singer wrote in 2009's Wired For War. "By the end of 2006, it had reached the 5,000 mark and growing. It was projected to reach as high as 12,000 by the end of 2008."



    To keep things even, and to show off the near-future technology Treyarch has added to Call of Duty, Black Ops 2 multiplayer will take place exclusively in 2025. Though the developer wouldn't go into detail on the franchise's most important component, game design director David Vonderhaar noted it was important for the team to strip the entire multiplayer down to the most important pieces, to ensure Black Ops 2 would have the "best gameplay system that you can have, period." Two multiplayer maps were shown: a destroyed downtown Los Angeles map called 'Aftermath' and a map called 'Yemen,' set in a deserted island town. A more detailed multiplayer reveal is expected later this year.

    Zombies, of course, will also return, but those are timeless creatures. The only shred of info revealed for the returning mode is that Treyarch will now present it within the multiplayer engine, making it easier to take advantage of certain elements found in that mode.

    Call of Duty detractors may complain the series hasn't evolved enough over time, but Black Ops 2 may change things. The developers at Treyarch, from what I've seen, are doing what they can to make this a unique experience for fans – and perhaps garner the interest of people outside that huge group. The studio certainly has the ability to rise to the challenge, so we'll be keeping a close eye on Black Ops 2 as the game's November 13 release date inches closer.
    bullet point list, talks about strike force and zombies http://kotaku.com/5906808/48-things-...y-black-ops-ii

  3. #83

    I really hope they simplify multi-player. Keep create-a-class, attachments, camo, etc. for guns to unlock, but maybe only have 1-2 perks and only 1 piece of equipment. pistol/launcher sidearms only again please

    And if they make sniping challenging but fair, I will cum a lil bit

  4. #84
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    http://kotaku.com/5906808/48-things-...y-black-ops-ii

    The game's story will jump between two timelines, with the primary one set in 2025. "Most" of the game will be set in 2025.
    It is a direct sequel to Black Ops.
    We will find out definitively what happened at the end of Black Ops—presumably, Mason didn't actually kill JFK, given that he's out in the field in Black Ops II. But who knows?
    The second timeline will be set in the late 80's near the end of the Cold War.
    The story will be narrated by Black Ops character Frank Woods, now an old man. Apparently he didn't die at the end of Black Ops after all.
    In the 80's timeline, players will take on the role of Black Ops protagonist Alex Mason.
    In 2025, players will take on the role of David Mason, who is the son of Alex Mason. The father/son relationship will play a part in the story. Hello daddening of video games!
    In the game's fiction, there is a second Cold War happening between China and the US due to the scarcity of Rare Earth Elements used to make tech devices and military weapons.
    The story is based on a real-world possibility, as China (according to the folks at Treyarch) currently controls 95% of the rare earth elements in the world. Topical!
    Many of the real-world hooks are inspired by P.W. Singer's Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.
    A good deal of the 1980's action will take place during proxy wars in Central America. Tropical!


    Game Director Dave Anthony hinted that we may find out more about "imaginary" Viktor Reznov. "He was essentially a figment of the player's imagination," Anthony said.
    "Or was he?" Studio Director Mark Lamia chimed in, playfully. "Will we find out more about that?" asked Anthony with a smirk.

    David Mason (the son)'s callsign is "Section." Which is kind of a cool callsign.
    The villain will be a man named Raul Martinez, who in 2025 is pitting the Chinese and US governments against each other by hacking into their drones and other robotic weapons.
    The 1980's missions will chronicle what started Martinez on setting his current-day plans in motion.
    The story is was written from the ground up by Dark Knight and Batman Begins co-writer David Goyer. Goyer joined the first Black Ops part of the way through. He wanted to "create a memorable villain" with Martinez.
    Martinez has hacked into the US's unmanned drones and unleashed an attack on Los Angeles. In the mission we saw, a fleet of drones were destroying buildings in downtown LA.


    There will be at least one female soldier in the game, a pilot named Anderson. She laid quite a bit of waste during the entire LA mission.
    The president in 2025 is also a woman, and appeared in the LA mission.
    David Mason's sidekick is a soldier named Nelson who appears to be played by Michael Rooker of Mallrats and The Walking Dead fame.
    The game will be using full-body performance capture to place its actors in the game; the tech demo I saw demonstrated both male and female actors captured with the sort of clarity we've come to expect from games using full-performance capture. James Burns will be reprising his role as Frank Woods, of course.

    From what I saw in several demo sections set in a burning, futuristic LA, drones are controllable in combat and will play a large part in the game. Players have a drone-controller on their wrist in the game, and can use it to assign targets and waypoints.
    There will be horses, and horseback-riding, during at least one sequence in the 1980's. They even went so far as to bring a horse into the motion capture studio.
    At one point in the demo, the player jumped into a futuristic anti-aircraft gun and shot down enemy drones.
    Vehicle segments will be back, including one piloting a futuristic VTOL airship. Part of the VTOL mission was mostly on-rails, but the second part involved free-flying and dogfighting with drones.
    The Black Ops II story will be branching—it will feature choices and variable outcomes. Wait, what? Yep.
    At one point, players had an option to either grab a sniper rifle and cover their squad, or rappel down to join up with them. Presumably that choice leads to a slightly different gameplay experience—this looks like one of the smaller of the choices offered in the game.
    A large part of the branching will be due to Strike Force, which is a brand-new game mode featuring tactical, open-ended gameplay in sandbox-style levels.


    Strike Force missions will be woven into the core single-player campaign, and will present themselves as various black ops missions available around the globe.
    Players won't be able to play all of the strike force missions in a single playthrough.
    Strike Force is currently only included in the campaign and isn't a separate mode. It won't allow for multiplayer but, at some point down the road, could be fleshed out. "Things like Zombies originally started as unlocks," said an Activision representative after we followed up to make sure. "We're not taking the option off the table."
    Depending on the outcome of a given strike force mission, the story will change. "You're going to choose a mission," said Lamia, "and that's a branch for the story. Say there's three missions out there—you're not going to go back and play all of them; the story goes on. If you die on a strike force mission, you die in the story."
    Going on that, it would seem that the playable characters don't feature in the Strike Force missions.
    Strike Force allows players to control squads of troops, giving follow/hold commands with the shoulder buttons.
    Strike Force also allows a zoomed-out command view via an unmanned aerial drone that lets you to set waypoints for your units to achieve shifting goals.
    Strike Force will allow you to control (at the very least) armed aerial drones, armed land-drones, and unarmed aerial drones in addition to being able to hop to the viewpoint of any of the soldiers in your squad.


    The strike force missions will unfold organically but will be written into the story—in that way, they'll function somewhat like a single-player version of the multiplayer in Mass Effect 3.
    I think I heard Kiefer Sutherland voicing one of the squad members in Strike Force, but I'm not sure. Consider this a Kiefer! Rumor!
    Multiplayer

    Multiplayer director David Vonderhart relayed that the new approach they are taking is "One size does not fit all." That means, he said, that there is no one way to play a Call of Duty game. So, they're pulling back features like create-a-class, killstreaks, and other features and reexamining them, challenging their assumptions of "what cows are sacred."
    Multiplayer will take place entirely in the year 2025—there will be no multiplayer missions set in the 80's.
    They are taking the E-sports community very seriously. In part, that means that they're focusing on making the game more fun to watch as a spectator. Hopefully that means super cute, colorful uniforms!


    Online Director Dan Bunting took us through a tech demo of the upgraded graphics; while lighting upgrades and tech aren't usually the most interesting topics, what they were showing looked great. As they put it, they are aiming for "PC quality graphics running at 60 FPS on a console." The illusion was quite convincing.
    We saw two unpopulated multiplayer maps: The first map we saw was a naturalistic map located in a village in Yemen.
    The second map was called "Aftermath" and was set in a ruined downtown LA, presumably after the drone-attack that we saw in the demo.
    Zombies

    Zombies will definitely be back in Black Ops II, and will feature all new modes that are more fleshed-out than ever.
    "There will be more zombies and more modes; just more."
    The zombies are "In the multiplayer engine." "If you think about all of the things we can do with our multiplayer engine," Lamia said, "You can start to think about how we might be looking at this." Okay then!
    Zombies are the only confirmed co-op aspect of Black Ops II. The campaign and strike-force modes do not appear to feature co-op.

  5. #85
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    High speed horse chases and bad graphics aside, I am a bit excited for the story. More so that if the futuristic setting is the norm, BF2143 won't be too far behind. Titans and walkers for everyone!!

  6. #86
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    wait, i can only imagine this. Horseback riders with swords killing shit left and right just like attack dogs... AWESOME!! Hopefully dismemberment will be implemented and we see some heads flying.

  8. #88
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    I am excite.

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    Surprising no one:
    Amazon's pre-order numbers indicate Activsion's Call of Duty gravy train is still going full steam. Earlier today, Amazon UK told MCV that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 pre-orders were three times higher than its predecessor, Black Ops, two years ago. We wanted to know if that anticipation crossed the pond.

    "Pre-orders from day one of Black Ops 2 were more than ten times the amount of pre-orders for the first Black Ops on its first day of availability," Amazon US told Joystiq this afternoon, but that's not all the buzz.

    "Black Ops 2 even out pre-ordered the first day of availability for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 by more than 30 percent. Modern Warfare 3 currently holds the record for the most pre-ordered game of all time and was amongst the top 20 pre-orders ever on Amazon.com, including books and movies."

    Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 went on to gross over $775 million globally in five days, flying past Call of Duty: Black Ops' $650 million record and the $550 million record before it, set by Modern Warfare 2.
    http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/03/am...-black-ops-mo/

  11. #91
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    Call of Duty 21h
    Zombies are coming…... Where’s your shotgun? #BlackOps2

  12. #92

    I hope that doesn't hint toward them changing the player characters. I had sort of hoped it would follow Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo and Samantha and pick up where moon left off.

  13. #93
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    bad graphics really? i thought it was pretty good.

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    I don't get the hype surrounding this game atm. I've never spent as much time on Campaign as I do in multiplayer. To me, multiplayer defines the game and I'm not preordering this until I'm sure it can deliver. If it's anything close to black ops (lolol rc car spam fuck ur killstreak) I won't be buying this.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Takedown3 View Post
    bad graphics really? i thought it was pretty good.
    Yeah, I dunno what people were expecting, it's not like they're gonna switch from the CoD4-engine, lol.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Trocian View Post
    Yeah, I dunno what people were expecting, it's not like they're gonna switch from the CoD4-engine, lol.
    I didn't really see gameplay, but I thought that MW3 was the last time they were going to use that engine. Or does that not apply to Treyarc releases?

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    Amazon preorder wallpaper if anyone wants it

    http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/image..._1920x1200.png

  19. #99

    That sniper rifle looks like sex.

  20. #100
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    not sure of the original source, but it is rumored/alleged to support up to 8 players in Zombies, whether this is survival mode or other modes is unclear, but they have said there will be more modes. also alleged to have its own campaign

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