Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

[Kav]

I hope so man!

[Zechs Merquise]

I hope so man!

 

More sources:

 

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/726768/call-of-duty-black-ops-2-coming-to-wii-u/

 

It looks a lot like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is coming to Wii U. Today's evidence: Pre-order tags have appeared at a Best Buy store that indicate there is a Wii U version of Black Ops 2 on the way.

 

According to GoNintendo, pre-order cards on display were created by a Best Buy employee, but the UPC sticker on them is the real-deal.

 

"The barcodes he placed on them are the actual preorder UPC to preorder the game. He also said the SKU's exist in the Best Buy system."

 

Although it hasn't been announced yet, I'd put my money on BlOPs 2 coming to the Wii U, giving gamers perhaps their first next-gen, hardcore gaming experience. We'll give you details as we get them.

 

and:

 

http://www.gonintendo.com/?mode=viewstory&id=182904

 

UPDATE: Best Buy Call of Duty Black Ops 2 preorder tag

 

Aug 08, 2012 by gimpee

 

The Best Buy employee who made the preorder signs was kind enough to email us to let us in on the situation. He says that even though the preorder cards were made by him,the barcodes he placed on them are the actual preorder UPC to preorder the game. He also said the SKU's exist in the Best Buy system.

[ben]

In-depth Multiplayer Trailer analysis... good watch, if a little long.

 

 

Multi team TDM! Can't wait ....

[Kav]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-14-call-of-duty-black-ops-2-multiplayer-ditches-kill-streaks-embraces-e-sports-first-screenshots

 

A fair bit of info on multiplayer here!

[lostmario]

Multi team TDM! Can't wait ....

 

So is that confirmation you'll be getting a Wii U on day one?

[ben]

So is that confirmation you'll be getting a Wii U on day one?

 

Well it's only half handheld so no excuse not to

[Zechs Merquise]

Well I certainly hope we don't get the crappy spin-off the PSVita is getting - it looks awful. It's basically just a re-hash of the first Black Ops game and looks about on a par graphically with the Wii version but with a lower online player count.

 

Also, Treyarch aren't developing it. It's been farmed out to Nihilistic Software.

[Zechs Merquise]

Possibly the best collection of information on how Black Ops 2 will work:

 

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/14/3239603/call-of-duty-black-ops-2-multiplayer-custom-classes-perks-scorestreaks

 

To the casual observer — or maybe the forum-dwelling grump who delights in taking shots at Activision's billion dollar franchise — this year's Call of Duty will look a great deal like its forebears. Only this year, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, the multiplayer battles take place in the unexplored near future, an online war fought between men and remote controlled drones. Black Ops 2 will, naturally, deliver the high-speed, explosive multiplayer slaughter that has made the series a bestseller. There will be perks, weapon unlocks, and millions of bloody, glorious firefights — all running at a smooth 60 frames per second — between hardcore virtual soldiers.

 

But developer Treyarch is reinventing many of the established systems in Black Ops 2, the follow-up to the bestselling Call of Duty of all time with more than 25 million copies sold. It's the studio's fifth Call of Duty multiplayer effort and easily its biggest in scope.

 

Black Ops 2 will offer class customization that tosses out the traditional rules of Call of Duty multiplayer. It will place a much larger emphasis on catering to the eSports crowd. And with the introduction of League Play, Treyarch's new seasonal, skill-based matchmaking brackets, Black Ops 2 will separate the men from the boys — specifically those highly-skilled teenage boys who always seem to be on the delivering end of a no-scope headshot and an insult.

 

Easily the most disruptive change to Call of Duty multiplayer is Black Ops 2's revamped Create-A-Class mode. In previous games, players defined custom classes by choosing one primary weapon, one secondary weapon, grenades, equipment, and three skill-enhancing perks. Custom classes in Black Ops 2 now follow a "Pick 10" system, giving players access to ten customization slots to fill with class options and, as a result, far more freedom and variety.

 

Here's an example: If you find yourself rarely using your secondary weapon, you can simply drop it from your custom class. That frees up a slot for something else; an extra attachment for your primary weapon, perhaps, or a second explosive grenade. Or you could equip a back-up tactical grenade, like the new Shock Charge, which stuns enemies with a bolt of electricity. You can even bend the rules by customizing your class with a fourth or fifth perk. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2's debut multiplayer trailer shows an extreme example, a custom class armed with nothing but a combat knife, revolver, and six perks.

 

These rule-breaking custom choices are made possible thanks to the inclusion of Wildcards. Equipping a Wildcard will consume one of your ten available slots, but it allows for customization unseen in previous Call of Duty games. With Wildcards, players can equip two primary weapons (rifles, shotguns, SMGs) or affix three attachments (red dot sight, extended clip, stabilizer) onto a single gun.

 

"It was important for us to challenge our assumptions about Create-A-Class," said David Vonderhaar, game design director at Treyarch. "When we started development on Black Ops 2, we were really passionate about and inspired by the need to challenge all of the core assumptions about what cows were sacred inside the game. So every gameplay system has been re-examined very critically and carefully to be sure that we give the player the utmost control over his experience. All these changes push the boundaries of what fans expect, but we do it in all the right ways that they'll be okay with.

 

"We didn’t want to take anything for granted. We asked ourselves some very key questions: Why is all content in Create-A-Class so rigidly structured? Do we do this for game balance? Was it usability? Why do we do things that way? What if everything was in a giant bucket?"

 

Treyarch tested "Pick 10" customization and Wildcards by playing a separate game altogether. Vonderhaar says the studio built a custom, deck-based board game based on Black Ops 2's Create-A-Class system to explore the "core philosophy design at a paper level."

 

"It allowed us to try ideas, play them out, and test them without writing a single line of code," he says. "I will never design games again without this process."

 

The process of actually editing your custom classes is quicker and more efficient in Black Ops 2, thanks to the reworked menu system dubbed "the Grid." Gone is the old way of diving into a menu, burrowing deeper, then backing out to the top. Players can now browse weapons, attachments, and perks with a visual carousel a la Cover Flow, making it easier to compare and contrast class options.

 

In another change, albeit one slightly more subtle, the Killstreaks of the original Black Ops have been replaced by Score Streaks in Black Ops 2. Instead of doling out rewards like care packages and air strikes for racking up consecutive kills without dying, players will accrue points for both killing enemies and completing game mode objectives.

 

"We want to reward players who are helping their team win the game mode, not just the game."

 

A normal kill in Black Ops 2 awards players 100 points. Grabbing an enemy flag in Capture The Flag mode also nets 100 points, whereas a flag capture awards 150. Making a kill while carrying the flag awards a hefty 200 points. As those points add up, players accumulate Score Streak rewards. So, when a player's score reaches 375 they can call in a UAV. At 500 points, they can request a Lightning Strike attack. At 1275 points, Treyarch's trademark attack dogs become available.

 

Certain Score Streaks can add even more points to your score. While your UAV is active, for example, you'll get a 25 point bonus for every kill your teammates make. Those assist points can quickly add up to Score Streaks far deadlier.

 

Treyarch's Vonderhaar says the adoption of Score Streaks was designed to encourage "desirable gameplay behavior," whether it be securing territories in Domination, placing microwave emitter sentries to block routes, or calling in a UAV.

 

Treyarch's made some changes to the way players use their streak rewards, with new interaction states and swap in, swap out control of certain combat vehicles like the AGR (Autonomous Ground Robot), the mechanized killing machine that looks like a pint-sized ED-209. At any time, players can whip out a control pad for their AGR, assume control, kill a few enemies, then relinquish control back to the AI.

 

Other examples of streak reward interaction provided by Treyarch include the option to instruct an AI-controlled pilot to relocate to another position on the map and the option to burst fire a Hellstorm Missile attack mid-drop, either to spread the destruction over a larger area or concentrate it in a tight cluster.

 

Black Ops 2 will boast about 20 Score Streaks, including Swarm, seen in the game's premiere multiplayer trailer. Swarm fills the skies with Hunter Killer drones that attack enemies and equipment in a "morale destroying swarm."

 

Changes are also coming to Call of Duty's perks system in Black Ops 2. No longer will perks have an effect on the performance of your guns — no Deep Impact for better bullet penetration, no Steady Aim for improved hip fire accuracy. All weapon-related enhancements are limited to attachments, Treyarch says.

 

"That is the best way for us to allow you to have an experience with that gun that is appropriate for that gun," Vonderhaar explained. "You'll see it. You'll see the laser sight. You'll have some context for why you just got mowed down by an opponent. Visualizing gameplay is always more visceral than a guy with an icon that you didn't get to see. And we can tune the weapon to its attachments."

 

That means not every gun has access to every attachment, naturally. The burst fire add-on for a semi-automatic rifle would not apply to a shotgun, for example. New attachments coming to Black Ops 2's weapons include the Target Finder, a sight that makes it easier to separate friend from foe on the field, and the Millimeter Wave Scanner, a powerful optic that can see stationary enemies at close range through walls and objects.

 

Treyarch has scrubbed "absolutes" from perk design, Vonderhaar said, the hard and fast rules that make perks more difficult to balance. As an example, he detailed changes to the perk "Ghost" from the first Black Ops. Ghost's previous iteration made players undetectable by UAVs, infrared sensors, and sentries. In Black Ops 2, Ghost's benefits only apply while players are moving, a design change that hopes to prevent the perk from being exploited by campers.

 

Getting your hands on all those weapons, perks, and streaks will require leveling up through Black Ops 2's take on Call of Duty's oft-imitated method of player progression. Player progression in Black Ops 2 will span 55 levels of rank and 10 levels of prestige, and Vonderhaar says Treyarch hopes to "return some simplicity to the progression system."

 

"We don't want players to be overwhelmed," he said. Unlockable content will be gated by ranks. As players hit major rank changes, they'll get access to new chunks of content. "If I give you seven or eight things at a time, it's pretty digestible."

 

The game will mete out weapon and gear purchases by giving players one token each time they level up, which they can spend on new weapons, equipment, and perks. By the time players reach level 55 and have cashed in all those tokens, Vonderhaar says, players still won't have unlocked and seen everything multiplayer progression has to offer.

 

Some of the new weapons and equipment players can look forward to unlocking include the M1216, a semi-automatic shotgun that rechambers every four rounds; the AN-94 assault rifle, which fires its first two rounds at a faster rate; and the Raging Judge revolver, a beast of a side arm that fires shotgun shells.

 

Also new is the Assault Shield, a tactical shield that can be used for cover while moving, but can also be planted into the ground, creating stationary cover for your team. Defending your teammates with the Assault Shield also scores points toward a Score Streak, more encouragement for desirable gameplay behavior through teamwork.

 

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will include many of the classic multiplayer modes players now expect from the series: Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Search and Destroy, Domination. Treyarch is expanding multiplayer's scope with multi-team support. Up to six teams can compete at once in multiplayer modes, with options ranging from three-versus-three-versus-three, two-versus-two, and four-versus-four-versus-four-versus-four.

 

Vonderhaar says multi-team support forces players to think about small group tactics, making players "care about being in a team again."

 

Spectating multi-team games, watching six different factions go at it, is "really fun," Vonderhaar says. Multi-team games certainly add to the intensity of Call of Duty multiplayer. Three-on-three-on-three matches on the map Turbine, a big, open map that already plays fast, felt downright chaotic.

 

The thrill of watching Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is just as important to Treyarch as playing it, which is why the developer is making a major push on its eSports initiative, adding League Play, player ranking brackets, and shoutcasting tools to the game.

 

Treyarch is promising even more with Black Ops 2, with still unrevealed updates to Challenges (which "return with a twist"), Theater Mode, Combat Training, and new "Core and Party Game types," which the developer calls the "evolution of Wager Match" mode.

 

We'll see what further fundamental assumptions Treyarch feels like challenging by the time Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 ships for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Windows PCs on November 13th, 2012.

[Kav]

This just has to come out for WiiU... and WiiU just has to be out by the time this releases!!!

[Zechs Merquise]

This just has to come out for WiiU... and WiiU just has to be out by the time this releases!!!

 

Yes, it really does. It also looks gorgeous!

 

And for @lostmario - if you couldn't be arsed reading the whole post COMBAT TRAINING is BACK!!!

[madeinbeats]

Treyarch QA tester listing Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 for Wii U on his Linkedin profile.

 

Expérience

QA

Treyarch

 

Public Company; 201-500 employees; ATVI; Computer Games industry

 

May 2012 – Present (4 months) Santa Monica, CA

 

QA tester for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Duties include QA testing on PS3 and Wii U, multiplayer testing while collaborating with team, ad hoc testing, and regression. Bug writing, research, and documentation are performed with each issue that is found.

[Mokong]

Just wanna pick out a few things from that wall of Text

 

 

Treyarch has scrubbed "absolutes" from perk design, Vonderhaar said, the hard and fast rules that make perks more difficult to balance. As an example, he detailed changes to the perk "Ghost" from the first Black Ops. Ghost's previous iteration made players undetectable by UAVs, infrared sensors, and sentries. In Black Ops 2, Ghost's benefits only apply while players are moving, a design change that hopes to prevent the perk from being exploited by campers.

 

I like this, good move.

Getting your hands on all those weapons, perks, and streaks will require leveling up through Black Ops 2's take on Call of Duty's oft-imitated method of player progression. Player progression in Black Ops 2 will span 55 levels of rank and 10 levels of prestige, and Vonderhaar says Treyarch hopes to "return some simplicity to the progression system."

 

"We don't want players to be overwhelmed," he said. Unlockable content will be gated by ranks. As players hit major rank changes, they'll get access to new chunks of content. "If I give you seven or eight things at a time, it's pretty digestible."

 

The game will mete out weapon and gear purchases by giving players one token each time they level up, which they can spend on new weapons, equipment, and perks. By the time players reach level 55 and have cashed in all those tokens, Vonderhaar says, players still won't have unlocked and seen everything multiplayer progression has to offer.

 

So they are basically forcing players to Prestige in order to get new weapons?

BOOOO, I don't like this

[Zechs Merquise]

So they are basically forcing players to Prestige in order to get new weapons?

BOOOO, I don't like this

 

I don't like this either. I never prestige, so forcing me to do it to see every gun seems a little harsh - however I'll trust in Treyarch as they are the masters of COD.

 

Ever since Modern Warfare Infinity Ward games have got worse and Treyarch games have got better. I can't wait to see where they have taken Black Ops 2.

 

I just hope more than anything that they have kept the map design and weapon balance closer to the first Black Ops as I would hate to see the Black Ops series descend into the choatic madness that MW3 did!

[Kav]

Full game of Hardpoint game mode on map Yemen taken from Gamescon.

 

 

 

TDM on map Turbine

 

 

 

TDM on map Aftermath

 

 

 

Just in case you wanted to get a feel for what the maps will be like.

Edited August 19, 2012 by Kav

[Zechs Merquise]

Black Ops 2 pops up on the Wii U OFFICIAL Activision release date list.

 

Date of release is 13.11.2012

 

http://wii.mmgn.com/News/black-ops-2-heading-to-wii-u

[Kav]

@Mokong X\-C @Nightmare

 

So if this is released on WiiU upon release day, as mentioned above, will it be a day 1 purchase for you?

 

I needn't ask you eh @Zechs_Merquise?

[lostmario]

@Mokong X\-C @Nightmare

 

So if this is released on WiiU upon release day, as mentioned above, will it be a day 1 purchase for you?

 

I needn't ask you eh @Zechs_Merquise?

 

Of course!

 

The N-E clan will be kicking ass day one!!

 

I think we need to get back into Black Ops just so we aren't rusty for BO2.

 

Some of us became disillusioned with MW3 and havent played much COD for the last 6 months.

[Kav]

Of course!

 

The N-E clan will be kicking ass day one!!

 

I think we need to get back into Black Ops just so we aren't rusty for BO2.

 

Some of us became disillusioned with MW3 and havent played much COD for the last 6 months.

 

One of those people being me, I've not gamed on my Wii since moving out of the old place in March... I don't know what's wrong with me!

I'm eyeing up TVs now to make sure I get a decent enough one for the WiiU too so I'll puck one up soon and be back on finally!

[dazzybee]

I'll definitely be picking this up if it's as good as the HD version with good online and gamepad features! Just don't understand why it hasn't been announced yet?!

[Mokong]

@Mokong X\-C @Nightmare

 

So if this is released on WiiU upon release day, as mentioned above, will it be a day 1 purchase for you?

 

I needn't ask you eh @Zechs_Merquise?

 

I'm kinda 50/50 cause I also ain't sure if I'll even be able to get a WiiU itself on Day One.

 

If I can get a WiiU day one BO2 (if it's there day one also) depends on what else is out. I'm determined to get ZombiU cause I love Zombie games and Survival horror and I like to get "new" games when I can on day one. Plus if I get a 2nd game (which I plan to if I can get a WiiU day one) I'd like for it to be a 1st party game.... though at the moment Nintendo only "big" game for launch is Pikmin and I ain't into RTS games so unless when they finally confirm launch details and day one games unless they surprise us with some good new 1st part games then BO2 would likely take up position as my 2nd day one game.

 

Somewhat worried about voice chat too though...they'll probably make us buy a new headset, it better be cheap

 

I'll definitely be picking this up if it's as good as the HD version with good online and gamepad features! Just don't understand why it hasn't been announced yet?!

 

Erm.... would the WiiU version be a "HD version" too?

[dazzybee]

You know what I mean!!!

[lostmario]

Just don't understand why it hasn't been announced yet?!

 

Whats funny is if it was coming to the Wii, it would have been officially announced by now.

[Zechs Merquise]

You can guarentee I'll be getting this day one! This looks amazing. Plus, despite us all being a little burned by MW3, this is a Treyarch game and hopefully that'll mean superior weapon balance, better maps and more balance streak rewards and perks.

 

Also, let's hope they don't include any blue shells (dual wielding machine pistols).

[lostmario]

You can guarentee I'll be getting this day one! This looks amazing. Plus, despite us all being a little burned by MW3, this is a Treyarch game and hopefully that'll mean superior weapon balance, better maps and more balance streak rewards and perks.

 

Also, let's hope they don't include any blue shells (dual wielding machine pistols).

 

"Day one" for the Wii U Version, March 2013? :p

[edza]

Jayzis lads I nearly came with the news that this might be a launch title on WiiU. Like Mokong, I was going to get ZombiiU first but wait 'til chrimbo to get the system to begin with.

 

With this news, I may have to make it a deffo-day-one purchase....now to just work on the family to schneak it into the house.....

 

One thing though; has anyone heard rumours or have any suggestions of their own for the touchpad integration? Are we going to have to look down at it for the sentry gun view and will the big screen show an elevated view of the area above said gun perhaps? That would maybe, be a lot of fun methinks.

 

By the way, I know it's been a while since I was here but I swear I've just built an enterprise solution all by myself in work lately and the kids are, well, now three under three but still.....I'm like Sarah Connor at the end of the first Terminator with the whole WiiU thing where the Mexican kid says something and she asks what he said; "There's a storm coming" "I know...." except I'm really looking forward to it and not "I'm thinking apocalypse right now so I ams"....

 

Gotta go, glass is empty...