I blew a full weekend's worth of gaming on the recent Call of Duty: WWII multiplayer beta, and I have to agree that it was "pretty damn fun." I also agree that cheaters are the worst, although that's mostly a matter of principle: Aside from one bonehead single-handedly holding the bridge in a War mode match, I didn't encounter substantial amounts of skulduggery.
Nonetheless, Sledgehammer said in a post-beta update that it's aware of problems with hackers, and has plans to deal with them.
"Sadly, there are always those who aim to spoil the fun, even in a beta," it wrote. "We have yet to deploy the suite of anti-cheat/hacking technology we will use when the full PC game is live. We take a level playing field extremely serious and will monitor and react to this as a top priority on an ongoing basis."
Sledgehammer also listed other additional changes it has in the works for the release version of the game:
- Scroll bars on options that scroll.
- Allow numerical entry to mouse and controller sensitivity options (in addition to slider).
- Streamline the exit of the game.
- Clearly indicate being in Party status in UI.
- Making the resolution options more clear and consistent.
- Video option video memory indicator.
- Warnings about video memory over-commitment.
- Option to bind lean left/right keys in multiplayer.
- And a number of smaller issues that we’re tracking, which we’ll update in future patch notes.
"Streamline the exit" sounds like a very minor point to worry about, but in reality it's kind of a big and necessary change. As we pointed out in our after-action report, the "quit" button is buried deep within the options menu, which is both entirely senseless and a hassle to get to. I was actually hoping for a more comprehensive overhaul of the menu system: Maybe I wasn't sufficiently committed to learning it because all I wanted to do was dive in and shoot stuff (no time to think in beta!) but I never felt fully comfortable with what should have been simple tasks, like changing my lobby uniform or default loadout.
One thing at a time, I suppose, and if it's a choice between a simpler interface and shutting down the cheaters, I'll happily opt for showing cheaters the door. Call of Duty: WWII comes out on November 3.
