Mixed feelings. Anime really isnt my thing but I can still appreciate the subject matter. I really cant help but cringe at all the back flips and dual wielding though. I know there is a certain level of over the top action that inherently comes with an anime production, but this is an established universe. Over the past 5 years we've become familiar with how the characters in the universe move and behave. To see the alliance military suddenly populated by Olympic gymnasts is a rough transition and cant help but break the immersion for me.
@Chris_Watters Its a helpful little tid bitt and again, it makes things that one step easier for talented casters to reach out with their work.
The problem is again though, any serious caster (and lets face it, there will be half a dozen casters who accumulate a strong audience and a pool of subscribers) will already have the means to do this. If you were not passionate enough about casting the game to go to the extra trouble of doing it without this developer placed tool, you wont be passionate enough to pull off an interesting cast WITH this tool.
These tools wont make bad narrators good and wont make good narrators better. Its only tangible effect will be to unleash a wave of amateur casts that serve only to spam up the good casts.
I see this as more of a bribe and incentive to attract talented commentators away from other games to focus on COD, and I think it has a good chance of working.
The other problem that I see is that I dont find COD games to be particularly good for spectators. There is no ebb and flow to the games. The limitation of only using players views is also extremely limiting. Some kind of "ghost cam" would have offered a truly new perspective to the game. One of my personal biggest hates of the COD multiplayer experience is the use of randomised spawn locations. When everybody can spawn everywhere, there is no loss and gain of territory during the game. I like to refer to it as the carousel of death. You run around the outer border of the map from the place you spawn hoping to come across someone doing the same. If you manage to survive and fight across to the other side, then you turn around and fight back the other way having gained nothing but maybe some kills. Rinse repeat, see who has the highest score at the end
Even the kills are somewhat meaningless as that the player will just spawn right back into the action. A casting feature like this would have been great in a game like mag. With the massive battlefields, there was a fantastic flow of combat. Battle lines constantly shifted back and forth as attackers pressed forward when objectives went down and defenders pushed them back and repaired assets. The field morphed and changed as meaningful hotspots flared and fizzled across the board
COD has always felt to me like a game of 0 consequence. When you die, there is no long shameful walk back from the spawn point, there is no (real) respawnwaiting time. This nonstop "wtfpwage" crazyness can be fun to play, but when watching, it makes even the excitement of a kill feel meaningless (other than adding +1 to the score board). Other people may be different, but i even find watching my friends play COD in real life to be distinctly flavorless
Soooo basically a spectator mode that lets you record a voice over at the same time?
Im sure there will be a wave of succesful "codcasters" who will emerge to provide entertaining casts. But people with the talent and inclination to do a good podcast can and already do so by their own means without this tool, as can be seen on youtube right now. The only people this will really help will be casual casters who wouldnt have gone gone to the trouble to set up their own system and who likely wont be able to provide a very engaging play by play in most circumstances.
A fun idea, That I suppose will help to attract and make things that one step easier for talented casters, but will also have the downside of throwing up thousands of junk and spam casts recorded by "codgod12x231" and "snipzorzpwnzorz1998"
We will see how it pans out, but it doesnt feel particularly innovative or ground breaking.
shado_kat's comments