Why does Activision(Call of duty) avoid the vietnam war like the plague?

D

damonposey

2[H]4U
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We've seen 3 WW2 games and now a modern warfare game. Great, but when are we going to see a vietnam COD? And COD5 is most likely going to be ww2.

I can understand how it could have been a technical limitation in the past, but the PC/ps3/xbox360 can easily handle the vietnam environment now. The jungle makes for a great gameplay dynamic, vietnam is still 'hip' because of hollywood, and I just don't understand why this isn't being capitalized upon by game companies.

Imagine a gameplay scene like in the movie platoon where its at night and flares are being launched, and you see the vietcong creeping toward you. ahhh. We have that technology(dynamic lighting) in our engines and hardware today. what are we waiting for?

CHARGE!
 
maybe its because of the battlefield:vietnam malediction

:D
 
Uh, they've done one game besides WWII. You could say the same thing about WWI or Korea.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
Uh, they've done one game besides WWII. You could say the same thing about WWI or Korea.
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oops i meant to include this in my post. WW1 and korea were never popular among hollywood, or pop culture in general, so they wouldn't sell well. vietnam on the other hand. and i know i might sound like a douche to vets reading this, but i mean no disrespect, just stating the facts!
 
because we lost? ... no matter what battles we're supposed to believe we won, the ending kind of brings things home.

A good WWII makeup would be an all-eastern-front CoD... thats where the heaviest action was anyway... and I'd like to see them do operation August Storm where the USSR invaded Manchuria and cut Japan off from all its metal. Happened between the two bomb drops and was listed by Japanese historians as the main reason they stopped fighting. I know, odd, but if you look at the Japanese mentality, it makes sense, kind-of. It could be a very grizly industrial shooter for a portion of it, could be pretty sweet. STALKER-esque even.
 
damonposey said:
oops i meant to include this in my post. WW1 and korea were never popular among hollywood, or pop culture in general, so they wouldn't sell well. vietnam on the other hand. and i know i might sound like a douche to vets reading this, but i mean no disrespect, just stating the facts!
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Are you saying M.A.S.H wasn't popular? because I think the series finale to this day was the most watched anything in America, including the superbowl.
 
I think its because there was a string of Vietnam games for the past few years. Why modern then? Because Modern Era allows for greater flexibility because you are not locked into historical constrains.

Besides, there are plenty of Vietnam era weapons in COD4. M-16, Ithaca Shotgun, AK-47, M-60, RPD, RPG-7, M-14, M-21, M1911, SVD, Claymore Mine, M203...
 
Battlefield: Vietnam was one of my favorite games. I totally fell in love with that game.
 
I hear ya man, i LOVE COD4 but i always wish there were a little more maps with more brush.
 
The Red said:
because we lost? ... no matter what battles we're supposed to believe we won, the ending kind of brings things home.

.
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We clearly won all the major battles. The war for the USA ended in January 27, 1973 with the Paris Peace Accords. Henry Kissinger even won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the truce. We ended it with a draw. The South may have lost when the North Vietnamese came back almost two years later and took over, but we were no longer a combatant then.
 
BladeVenom said:
We clearly won all the major battles. The war for the USA ended in January 27, 1973 with the Paris Peace Accords. Henry Kissinger even won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the truce. We ended it with a draw. The South may have lost when the North Vietnamese came back almost two years later and took over, but we were no longer a combatant then.
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We lost.

Tell me what we gained from fighting in Vietnam. Then compare it to what we lost.

For example, two kingdoms fight over a rock. One side loses 100,000 and wins the rock, the other loses 200,000 and gets nothing. Who wins? NEITHER. It's a rock FFS! You have to weigh the actual gains against actual losses for a realistic judgement of the value of war. And who does the asking? Even if leaders or a "country" wins, what did the average family receive? What did they lose?

Believe me, we lost Vietnam. There are wars worth fighting but this certainly wasn't among them.



Back on topic: WWI games are rare because an attempt to mimic anything beyond the first year and a half of the war makes for a really shitty game. Two sides aim down the line at each other, shoot until you die or everyone dies. Successes were measured in yards taken. WWII was highly mobile since trenches were unable to stop tanks, and heavy fighting was done in urban environments.

Vietnam is certainly doable, but really, only the Far Cry engine has given a real shot at FPS play in a jungle. It's pretty tough to compete with their jungle environments. Jungle environments also involve a great deal of deaths-out-of-nowhere since the jungle brush obscures everything, especially if you're not given an in-game radar. So you'll have to work around this aspect of gameplay. It's a solvable problem and in time we will see some games set in Vietnam.
 
Because the Vietnam War is a very controversial war. It desvasted the American view of the military, the confidence in our president and government. It caused stagflaton in our country for a very long time while violent protests are going on at home, and it cost the lives of almost 60k Americans. All this for what? To see Communist take over as soon as we left?.. . I can go on forever with the list of why many people will not like to expirience the Vietnam war in any shape or form, it was clearly not a draw.
 
kelbear said:
We lost.

Tell me what we gained from fighting in Vietnam. Then compare it to what we lost.

For example, two kingdoms fight over a rock. One side loses 100,000 and wins the rock, the other loses 200,000 and gets nothing. Who wins? NEITHER. It's a rock FFS! You have to weigh the actual gains against actual losses for a realistic judgement of the value of war. And who does the asking? Even if leaders or a "country" wins, what did the average family receive? What did they lose?

Believe me, we lost Vietnam. There are wars worth fighting but this certainly wasn't among them.
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Proof or shens! Lets see the documents of surrender if we lost.

I can prove it ended in a draw. Paris Peace Accords All sides agreed to it. The USA was the only side that lived up to the agreement.
 
BladeVenom said:
Proof or shens! Lets see the documents of surrender if we lost.

I can prove it ended in a draw. Paris Peace Accords All sides agreed to it. The USA was the only side that lived up to the agreement.
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Did you not read my post? Just because there was no unconditional surrender doesn't mean we won. A peace treaty doesn't prove crap. If you actually studied the war in detail instead of going on wikipedia you'd realize that there are tons and tons of proof that America sacrificed so much for nothing, only to see Communist take over Vietnam again shortly after we leave. Ask yourself what the condition was in the US during and after the war? It was the first time STAGFLATION ever happened. If it was a draw then why the hell did 99% of our soldiers there did not even know what they were fighting for?

Please don't talk about stuff you don't truly know about, because dicussing something as controversial as the Vietnam War that way will piss many people off.
 
leSLIe said:
yeah, i'd love to see Vietcong 3 with the Crysis engine !!
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I didn't like Vietcong..

Well depends what version. The U.S. one was censored. You could get that patch and all, but it didn't work in MP... oh well..


Really, a Vietnam game needs to be done right, and that's really hard to do. When I was younger I thought it was kind of cool, but really it was never done right... yet.
 
BladeVenom said:
Proof or shens! Lets see the documents of surrender if we lost.

I can prove it ended in a draw. Paris Peace Accords All sides agreed to it. The USA was the only side that lived up to the agreement.
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Nobody really wins a war, once the killing starts all you can do is lose less. To the Vietnam vets who fought, and to those who died I salute you. Regardless of my personal beliefs regarding that war. We entered into a conflict where there was no prize. I can not find a justification for that sort of war. No matter what happens there can be no victory without some gain.
The middle east I understand, the oil must flow, whatever the cost, or America dies, taking much of the rest of the industrialized world with her.

BOT There are a few Vietnam games out there, just not as many as there are for WW2. The appearance of victory is alway easier to sell.
 
Met-AL said:
Battlefield: Vietnam was one of my favorite games. I totally fell in love with that game.
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There's nothing quite like dropping boats from helicopters just to crush all the plane campers on the runway or in the hangar. \o/ and.. GOAL!!

Cause I fought the L.A.W., and the L.A.W. won.

Loved that game.
 
America LOVES war. America NEEDS to be the TOP DAWG. America doesnt do things wrong or for the wrong reasons.

America was shamed with the Vietnam war. Any person who is not a "sheeple" knows this yet America continues to TEACH the LIES in our schools.

America CAN NOT admit fault........EVER.

America fuked up........yet we didnt. The history is obscured by the mountain of lies.....the web-work stretches and touches EVERYONE.

Try to make a game out of that.

WWII was and IS, for lack of a better word....romanticized!!!!

America LOVES a good war....

America - We Came, We Saw, We Kicked Their Ass. THAT is what America is about. To say different and your burned at the stake.

America - Home of the Free, Land of the Brave, Home of "Do as I say, not as I do".and lets not forget.."READ MY LIPS"

Will YOU die for a lie?

Welcome to America
 
leSLIe said:
yeah, i'd love to see Vietcong 3 with the Crysis engine !!
Click to expand...

Wait, what? There was a Vietcong2?

Vietcong was actually a very good game, it promoted slower creeping through environments rather than running around like a madman like most other FPS's degenerate into.

I think a Vietcong game on the same engine they built for Crysis would be great, one thing I'd love to have in games is actual cover in the grass/shrubbery which never seems to occur because you can only draw that stuff to a max distance before it fades out.

With a jungle scene that shouldn't be a problem since visability is never that far anyhow, so you'd be able to prone in the grass and actually be safe, creep around and ambush people. It'd be nice to be part of a squad of maybe 4-5 guys and you're actually walking (yes walking) through the jungle, because if you start running around you get ambushed straight away, it'd be great to have to carefully check all the bushes and tall grass for enemies, and when you do stumble upon somoene the firefights would be intense with people diving behind trees and into natural cover and just shooting wildly into the darkness.

Please someone make this :(
 
from a technical standpoint, doing jungle is a bitch. I mean think about it, getting computer players line of sight, what they can and cannot see through. From a graphical aspect, you need an environment that moves around. You're going to need some seriously cool shader effects.

edit:

wow saw... you just keep on thinking that. I don't think anybody would call World War Two "Romantic". I mean thats beyond vulgar. I understand your a troll but I thought even they had some decency.
 
Honestly, I hope they put the CoD series on hold, while they re-think how they can actually innovate the concept. I liked the CoD series, but it's way too linear for the tech available today. If they keep on using the same linearity and just changing the environment where the war/conflict occurs, then they lost a customer.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
from a technical standpoint, doing jungle is a bitch. I mean think about it, getting computer players line of sight, what they can and cannot see through. From a graphical aspect, you need an environment that moves around. You're going to need some seriously cool shader effects.

edit:

wow saw... you just keep on thinking that. I don't think anybody would call World War Two "Romantic". I mean thats beyond vulgar. I understand your a troll but I thought even they had some decency.
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Hollywood has done plenty to romantisize WWII so I can see how someone could view a WWII scenario romantic. That scenario naturally includes purely social exchange not real combat. TV and movies have given a truly romantic view 90% of the time when handling war - Vietnam was a first and the last in reporting a spade as a spade. After the disaster the government learned its lesson and imposed strict censorsip and a propaganda engine to prevent it from ever happening again.

Which is why you're being fed with carefully calculated information of your current wars. You don't see the maimed children and other attrocities happening all the time - you get the politically approved version of information. You don't see the smart bomb miss its target 50% of the time and killing civillians or friendly troops. You don't see the suffering caused by medical embargo, wounded children having to be treated without any kind of anesthesia. They stick a long needle all over the abdomen and suck with the syringe to see if blood is coming - a sign of internal damage. That stuff still happens today in afghanistan/iraq.

So it goes..
 
Frosteh said:
Wait, what? There was a Vietcong2?

Vietcong was actually a very good game, it promoted slower creeping through environments rather than running around like a madman like most other FPS's degenerate into.
Click to expand...

i didn't lik Vietcong 2 very much, i liked the the feeling of Vietcong1 better, being in the jungle and crawling through VC holes.
 
SAW said:
America LOVES war. America NEEDS to be the TOP DAWG. America doesnt do things wrong or for the wrong reasons.
...

Will YOU die for a lie?

Welcome to America
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Stop listening to rage against the machine and get a life.
 
COD 4 was the only game in the series I wanted to play specifically because it was NOT based on WW2. I loved the "Modern Warfare" theme of 4. I sincerely hope 5 continues in the modern era. If they go back to WW2 (or WW1, Korea, Vietnam), I'm done with it.
 
Mr. Wolf said:
COD 4 was the only game in the series I wanted to play specifically because it was NOT based on WW2. I loved the "Modern Warfare" theme of 4. I sincerely hope 5 continues in the modern era. If they go back to WW2 (or WW1, Korea, Vietnam), I'm done with it.
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Infinity Ward have stated they will not be doing any more WW2 CoDs. Call of Duty 5, however, is not being down by IW. Supposedly CoD5 is gonna be set in the PTO.
 
Mr. Wolf said:
"PTO" = present time only?
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Pacific Theater of Operations. WW2 era. If true, it means I'll be avoiding it, as the only CoD games I have liked have been 1 and 4, and 1 was the last WW2 FPS I ever played. At that time Normandy was the new Hoth. :p
 
I never thought about it, but great point. Vietnam with this same COD4 engine would be spectacular.
 
SAW said:
America LOVES war. America NEEDS to be the TOP DAWG. America doesnt do things wrong or for the wrong reasons.

America was shamed with the Vietnam war. Any person who is not a "sheeple" knows this yet America continues to TEACH the LIES in our schools.

America CAN NOT admit fault........EVER.

America fuked up........yet we didnt. The history is obscured by the mountain of lies.....the web-work stretches and touches EVERYONE.

Try to make a game out of that.

WWII was and IS, for lack of a better word....romanticized!!!!

America LOVES a good war....

America - We Came, We Saw, We Kicked Their Ass. THAT is what America is about. To say different and your burned at the stake.

America - Home of the Free, Land of the Brave, Home of "Do as I say, not as I do".and lets not forget.."READ MY LIPS"

Will YOU die for a lie?

Welcome to America
Click to expand...

wow. it's too early for poetry.
 
Vietcong2 veered from jungle environments for some strange reason, and into city warfare. In the demo I found the funnest thing was finding a bush to squat in and pretend i was in the jungle.
 
SAW said:
America LOVES war. America NEEDS to be the TOP DAWG. America doesnt do things wrong or for the wrong reasons.

America was shamed with the Vietnam war. Any person who is not a "sheeple" knows this yet America continues to TEACH the LIES in our schools.

America CAN NOT admit fault........EVER.

America fuked up........yet we didnt. The history is obscured by the mountain of lies.....the web-work stretches and touches EVERYONE.

Try to make a game out of that.

WWII was and IS, for lack of a better word....romanticized!!!!

America LOVES a good war....

America - We Came, We Saw, We Kicked Their Ass. THAT is what America is about. To say different and your burned at the stake.

America - Home of the Free, Land of the Brave, Home of "Do as I say, not as I do".and lets not forget.."READ MY LIPS"

Will YOU die for a lie?

Welcome to America
Click to expand...

going blank here. Feels like I heard this before. reminder? Movie?
 
I love COD4. If COD5 is another goddamn WWII game I will not play it. I'm tired of WWII games.
 
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