Call Of Duty Modern Warfare Ii Battle Pass
Ogier Dudley
Ill just put it out there up front. I don't play a lot of videogames, but my partner and I wanted a nostalgic hit, so we bought the new Call of Duty game. It's really fun! The multiplayer is really exciting (Even if I hate that one death and wait for respawn mode on the trench map), and we've been enjoying it the last couple of days.
However...there's one thing I just don't understand. It's the "Battle Pass". I don't think I've ever played a "Live service" game before, but I understand they're all over these types of games. But it seems like at every avenue, there's a meter filling up, or we're unlocking baubles for our guns, or we're completing quests.
I'm no stranger to videogames historically, but all this is new to me. Please can someone explain all this, what looks very predatory, concept? Please dumb it down as much as you can, because I'm utterly clueless.
@sombre: While it might seem like a predatory system, it's actually a step to be less predatory since regulators were starting to wise up to how bad loot boxes were, whereas players tend to not like the "buy what you want from the store with Michael Transactions" style of monetisation.
The easiest way to explain the general gist of Battle Passes is actually CoD. Back when Call of Duty came up with leveling and prestiging, it was somewhat of a revolutionary concept for multiplayer games. Instead of the game relying on the core gameplay loop being fun, you earned stuff from just playing the game so it felt like there was permanent progress. Battle Passes are this, but brought to the modern live game ecosystem. You pay for a season's Battle Pass and it gives you an XP track, where you unlock cosmetics related to the theme of the Season and the more you play and achieve goals, the more you unlock.
The cool thing about Battle Passes is that it gives you a fun incentive for playing and coming back to the game. The flipside is the question of "what happens when the season is over?". Different companies have solutions that range from shitty to actually fair to the players. One: Do you lose your battle pass? Some games like Halo let you keep grinding even if the Season is over, others cut you off immediately so you HAVE to play it as much as you can to unlock everything. Two: If you missed a season, have you missed the cosmetics completely? For a lot of games the answer is yes, because bringing back old cosmetics pisses of the people who already own them. For others, they come back to the store from time to time.
But really, don't think of it as something you have to buy. If there are cosmetics that would seem cool to you in the Battle Pass and you feel like you want to play, go ahead and buy it. If not, don't. You're playing with your partner, so there's no peer pressure to get the coolest possible cosmetics anyway. Just do what makes you happy.
It's pretty simple. If you like a game enough to pay a little bit of extra money for in-game content, the battle passes is a way to do that without breaking the bank buying store cosmetics and other items. However, these days, developers like Bungie will also lock story content and progression behind battle passes, so if you care enough about the lore of a game, you'd have to pay to see how the story advances. Call of Duty for example now has battle pass tiers like the "Black Cell", and they try to encourage players to pay for the most expensive version instead of the basic eleven dollar one.
But I will say when it comes to CoD, one of the good things is that you can earn in-game currency by playing through the battle pass, and save up enough to buy the next one without spending any more money. This is what I've been doing for years since the release of the Modern Warfare remake. For example, I recently got the last CoD MWII battle pass, because the character Spawn is featured, and I'm a fan of that series. But given how gross MWIII turned out to be, I might be done with CoD, at least for a while. We'll see...
While past Call of Duty games have featured a season pass and paid map DLC, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will instead employ a battle pass system, much like the one popularized by Epic's hit battle royale shooter, Fortnite. Fans are still waiting for the first battle pass to arrive, but according to Activision, it'll be ready to go next month.
During its latest quarterly earnings call, Activision revealed that Modern Warfare's first season will kick off sometime in December 2019. The company didn't pin down an exact date, but it did note that the December time frame is "later than planned." Modern Warfare released on October 25.
Activision has previously shared a few details on how the new battle pass system will work. There will be both Free and Premium streams of content to earn; the former will let you unlock anything that has an impact on gameplay, such as weapons and attachments, while the latter will only feature vanity items like cosmetics. Players will also be able to earn COD Points with the battle pass.
In the meantime, Activision is rolling out some free new content for the game later this week. Beginning Friday, November 8, players will have access to a new multiplayer map (Shoot House), a new Ground War map (Krovnik Farmland), and another game mode, Hardpoint.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare launched on PS4, Xbox One, and PC and quickly became PS4's best-selling game of the month in the US. GameSpot awarded the title a 7/10 in our Call of Duty: Modern Warfare review. Critic Kallie Plagge wrote, "The pitfalls of Spec Ops don't detract from what Modern Warfare does well. Realism mode is an excellent addition to the slate, and although not all the new multiplayer modes are great, Gunfight and the Night Vision playlist are refreshing standouts."
Update: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Season 2 has now launched on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, which means the new Battle Pass and its rewards are now available. More notable than what's available now, perhaps, is the apparent tease for a battle royale mode. Nothing has been officially announced, but the opening cinematic strongly suggests that such a mode could be on the way to the game. Additionally, the official CoD Twitter account has shared a new trailer that showcases some of the rewards that await in the new battle pass. The original story follows; be sure to also check out the Season 2 patch notes for more.
Infinity Ward has announced a slew of details about its upcoming Season 2 content for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, including much more info about the upcoming Battle Pass. The new season will launch tomorrow, February 11, on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
The Season Two Battle Pass will again be split into free and premium tiers, with any balance-impacting gear in the free one. That means the free tier will include the two new weapon additions, the mobile assault rifle Grau 5.56 and the powerful SMG Striker 45. Those will unlock at tiers 15 and 31, respectively. You can also earn 300 Call of Duty points and some cosmetics like calling cards and weapon charms.
Purchasing into the Battle Pass will get you 100 tiers with more than 100 items. The centerpiece of the goodies is the new operator Simon "Ghost" Riley, who will be unlocked instantly on purchase, and a new Operator mission. Infinity Ward began teasing the addition of Ghost last week.
With the premium Battle Pass, you'll also get access to more weapon blueprints, XP tokens, Operator skins and challenges watches, and up to 1300 Call of Duty points. The Battle Pass Bundle will grant you 20 Tier skips, and it can be purchased anytime throughout the season to jump you ahead 20 spaces. The Season 2 update will also bring back the classic map, Rust.
Activision recently shared its financial results for the most recent fiscal quarter, which revealed that Modern Warfare outperformed Black Ops 4. The company is unsurprisingly planning another Call of Duty release for this year, though it isn't counting on it selling as well as Modern Warfare.
The previous few days have proven to be poor for Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) following the release of its quarterly earnings. Despite beating predictions, share prices faltered from $56.78 upon opening on the 7th of November to $52.52 upon the close of the day yesterday, the 11th of November.
Why the cause for this recent continued fall in price for Activision Blizzard? Seemingly, this appears to be down to the short term, with the battle pass of the hugely successful Call of Duty: Modern Warfare having been delayed now from a November launch to December. In the earnings call following the release of the quarterly earnings, the company stated this regarding the battle pass:
We will support other key franchise with a stream of content, services, events, and features. This includes our new in-game system for Modern Warfare, which begins in December, slightly later than originally planned.
This slight delay will likely cause a lowering of sales figures, particularly due to the shorter time the pass will be on sale as well as the fact that releasing in December, it has to compete with the holiday season and potentially lower spending from those customers whose funds will go elsewhere. However, I don't personally believe this is the primary cause of the recent fall.
Other factors that have likely contributed to the fall in stock price are factors that weren't as well covered during the earnings. The primary one being user engagement, where the company saw falling user engagement across all three of its brands, Activision, Blizzard and King. The company as a whole saw a fall of 8% when it comes to MAUs (Monthly Active Users).
Activision Blizzard also saw a rapid decline from $83.19 before their Q3 earnings in the 2018 calendar year to $50.94 following their earnings. That period saw a huge backlash from fans and investors following the announcement of Diablo Immortal as well as the failing of Destiny 2 and the lowering number of MAU's during their earnings at the time, the company seeing a YoY fall of 39 million MAUs. This year saw a YoY fall of 29m MAUs.
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