Call of Duty 4 (Xbox360): Clueless about Clans

I am proud to present the article below, written by Karmus, our runner up in our in our Call of Duty 4 article writing contest. Please share this article with your fellow Call of Duty 4 players and let us know what you think in the comments section.
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I would readily classify myself as a gamer. I’ve been playing long enough to have my own magic blowing technique to get those pesky NES cartridges to work on the first try. I’ve sunk an untold amount of hours into “pwning nubs” on de_dust2, while having a laugh (and a few drinks) over Ventrilo. I’ve even ventured into the depths of Molten Core to take my shot at some epic loot. Rarely has there been a game that I could even remotely classify as perfect, but despite the inherent flaws, its that unconditional love that makes me a true gamer. What upsets me, however, is when a game can be perfect, it has the potential, but for whatever reason it falls short because of what I can only assume to be laziness. Call of Duty 4 just so happens to be one of these games.

The first time I cracked the crisp wrapper on my COD:4 package on Christmas morning to stare slightly slack-jawed at the awe inspiring graphics, I knew this could be one of those game. The controls were intuitive; not overly complicated but still with enough functionality to get the job done. The graphics, especially for a game so reliant on the multiplayer scenario, are tough to compete with. The matchmaking, even though it had some hitches off the bat, was smoothed out over time making for a relatively painless and expedited process. Needless to say, I was immediately drawn in by the game.

For the first few weeks everything was coming up roses. I was meeting, chatting, and horsing around with everyone and anyone who would entertain my wild extrapolations over voice chat. My friends (real life) and I were able to play together without much fuss, and the friends I made online were easily integrated into our roving band of gypsies. The game was, dare I say, fun. At this point, after I had sufficiently learned the maps to my liking, my friends and I decided perhaps it was time to take it to that next level, the making of a clan.

I had seen the Clan Tag selection staring me longingly in the face since it changed from that ominous grey to that oh-so-inviting white when I hit the right level. I had wanted to mess around with it, to taste its forbidden fruits, but I reprimanded myself, always saying that now was the not the right time. Finally I was allowed to indulge and affix my loyalties to the front of my name. After having decided on the appropriate clan tag, Dingles or [dngl] for short, I hastily entered it in with a sense of finality that one usually reserves for death or marriage. We had selected our banner, and proudly let it fly. That is until we entered the next game, and through some untold ancient evil and sorcery, some heathen had divined our clan tag and wore it mockingly into battle. “Certainly this can not be allowed to stand,” I declared defiantly into my microphone. Whenever I am troubled, much as I was in this situation, I flee to my sanctum, the interweb. Furiously typing I searched the depths of the internet in hope of gleaning some nugget of information to enlighten me about the sacrilege I had just witnessed. It is at this moment when the flawless exterior of the game I had come to love began to crack and flake off, revealing below its true hideous nature.

The Clan Tag functionality was nothing more than an afterthought it would seem. In hindsight I am sure it was added to do the very thing it had done to me, fool you into a sense of completeness that one could readily get lost in. Not being derived from the internet itself, but rather fed to us through some proxy (Xbox live), perhaps Activision and its subsidiaries took for granted those little things that make the internet so great. Forums, IRC, and Ventrilo are add-ons for games, not derived from the makers themselves, but still very much present in the game design and implementation process. “So what if we have a crap in-game voice communication system, it’s not like they use it anyway,” the PC division thinks to itself. “Our Clan system is merely a façade, but its ok, them internet boys will be able to work something out.” This type of thinking is poisonous in the game development process because all platforms are not created equal in this regard.

Those of you who play the PC version of COD:4 are hopefully lucky enough to not have to understand what it is I am talking about. You have ancillary means of making up for the shortcomings of the game designers because of the machines you employ. On the Xbox360 we are slaves to their whims and designs. Without the ability to access forums or third party communication programs we are stuck with what they have deemed sufficient. What this does is cripple the “clan” aspect of the game. Without means of proper organization, delegation, and communication clans might as well as be renamed communals. The inability to enforce your clan tag makes them useless. What is the point of creating a clan with the intent of seeking renown if some schmuck can don your banner and sully your good name.

When I have voiced this grievance in the past, people have told me to suck it up and just use my computer for all that which the Xbox falls short of. I find this argument repugnant. You mean to tell me that I spent $450 on a wonder machine, spend $7.99 a month to be able to access a completely commercialized and twisted “internet,” and they don’t have enough bandwidth to host a freaking forum over Xbox Live? That would be like buying a television, and then the cable company saying that you have to buy a different television to be able to watch TV on the new one.

Enough complaining I suppose, I’ve kind of wore myself out there. After all of this I just want to point out that Activision, Xbox, and Call of Duty 4 missed something, something big. They missed making a complete game, which is rare by any standard. The game has no problems luring people in, but sustained replay value wavers without an efficient clan system. Prestige is a failed attempt to introduce something to make players keep coming back, another afterthought, but I can’t fault them for this one, it sort of makes sense. I suppose in our parallel dimension, where everything ends up as it should have been, my other half is playing COD4 till the wee hours of the morning, laughing it up with his comrades and clanmates. I just wish I could do the same.

Written By Karmus