2015 -- where's this headed?

[SeasonSix]

Started browsing the forum in... '09, I think? Been a while. Over the years, I've seen CoDz thrive -- and I've seen it decay.

 

This declination in quality came directly from Treyarch -- and started with the release of Ascension (early 2011). Overly grandiose easter eggs are not what lured me in - I liked the small stuff. So did the rest of the adult community. When the focus shifted from small hints (radios, notes) to story quests of large proportions, the adult community started tuning out -- and the kiddies arrived. 

 

CoDz used to be centered around analyzing radios/images/codes, and that's what built up an adult community. That's what kept the site active from Der Riese to Kino. Unfortunately, Treyarch's continuous release of massive easter eggs meant that maps would be milked dry of content within 4-5 days; what's that gonna do for CoDz? No point in discussing theories when there isn't anything to ponder -- starting with Shangri-La, we were spoonfed entire story-beats in 10-12 step quests.

 

The difference between early/late Black Ops is vast. In terms of subtlety, it's like comparing Kubrick to Michael Bay, Pynchon to JK Rowling. I liked researching for story info; I liked the actual effort that was built into analysis. 

 

I mentioned 'kiddies', earlier. To avoid the incoming wave of slander, I'd like to clarify that I'm not judging anyone by age -- I'm judging by mindset. Maturity. Before the realities/responsibilities of adulthood arrived, Carbonfibah was (in my opinion) the gold standard for zombie research. He went to incredible lengths to analyze loading screens, handwritten notes, radios, etc -- and so did a multitude of others. From what I gathered, those members started losing interest mid-Black Ops. I saw less and less analysis, more and more 'easter egg quest' threads (which died down 3-5 days from release, as mentioned earlier).

 

These 'easter egg quest' threads were largely populated with immature, lazy children, working solely to draw attention to themselves. While there was a strong sense of community, it wasn't nearly as intellectual as before -- and that's largely because of Treyarch's failure to deliver smart, well-written content. For their 2015 release, this needs to change.

 

If it were up to me, I'd scrap the original story - start out fresh. I'd completely trash the giant easter eggs, replace 'em with small ones. Stuff that'd take much longer than 3-5 days for CoDz to figure out. Codes that'd require much more brainpower to deduce. 

 

CoDz fell from an adult community to a children's community -- and that's because most intelligent individuals aren't interested in wasting their efforts on corny, unimaginative, incredibly easy-to-discover content. Anyone with me?

[Undead]

I've preached left and right around the forums about how the WaW days of Easter Eggs and how the story was a lot more cryptic, dark and mysterious. And about halfway through the first Blops season, "Easter Eggs" weren't really easter eggs anymore. They were objectives. 

 

The CoDz community wrote the storyline, not Treyarch. Hell, Treyarch practically admitted that a few times as their influence for several places and characters. And that's what I miss too, all the scraps the community would piece together through nods towards real History and Mythology or Tales and come up their their OWN stories and theories. Not be fed the story just to push things along. I've been around since the late WaW days. I watched this change from deep and extensive theory threads and discussions to "Easter egg Quest" threads first hand. So I agree with you wholeheartedly on that. 

 

However, I wouldn't necessarily point fingers at the community itself due to this sudden change as we really had no control over the direction Zombies started to take in regards to the story and it's involvement in "Easter Eggs". Both the Zombies and the community shifted pretty evenly IMO, and that tends to happen between seasons with other CoD releases and more and more speculation being added on top of what we know and came up with already for Zombies. There's no changing or fixing that. But believe me when I say there's always room for a fresh start.

 

It may be a unpopular opinion, but I'm actually right there with you on a fresh start of it all. This is half the reason I'm eager to see what even AW brings with it's take on Zombies.

[Black Hand Smith]

To be fair the Large Easter Eggs are just smaller Easter eggs put together to form one larger one. I mean really how people playing Shangri-la knew that pressing all 4 buttons at the same time turned back time? Or that you needed the SVU upgraded to get the dragon balls?

That's hard to figure out unless someone puts it up on youtube. It's not that zombies is getting more spoon fed it's that youtubers take the fun out of Easter egg hunting by telling you exactly where to find what on the Map.

It's like putting up a video telling players to Hide in a trash can so other players can't find you. Well you know what. Those 500,000 who just saw the video now know exactly where to check if you hide in the trash can. No point in hiding there anymore.

[Stop Mocking Me0]

Now, I actually don't agree with you. 

 

 

While yes, many of the things in BO2 were corny, and easy to find, a lot of things were actually REALLY hard to find out about. Look at @PINNAZ ! This is defiantly still an adult thread in the gist of it. It's just UNBEARINGLY hard to find the clever adult stuff anymore. 

[The Clay Bird]

I think we can have our cake and eat it too with this.  First i want to say I vehemently disagree with the assertion that the side quests or whatever are kiddie, or not adult.  Now one byproduct of the nature of BO2's "advertised"  side quests was the kiddie gamers screaming in the pregame lobby "can we please do the easter egg??" but the addition of the quests themselves didn't cause this, it was the advertised nature of them, and like @Black Hand Smith said, youtube being soooo popular with the children and teens of today has brought attention to them to this demographic.

 

Heck, I didn't even know the ascension EE existed until well after the black ops 1 season, and I was an active member of this board then even! I just never thought to look for such a thing.  

 

Now also, the EE's having a reward like the perma perks also seemed to increase the screamers in pre game lobbies jonesing for doing the easter egg,  This is fine, since as we all know doing the EE on Moon was really well worth the time spent gameplay wise.

 

 

BUT!  I really would like to see them go back to the radios and cryptic messages that were so fun to try and figure out.  There was quite a bit in Origins, which was neat, but the EE was far too forced imo.  I think its about finding a balance, and as many of us (not all mind you I know)  agree, the EE should be a bit more subtle for sure, and then again adding more back story through messages and radios would be great as well

[Boom115]

I mentioned 'kiddies', earlier. To avoid the incoming wave of slander, I'd like to clarify that I'm not judging anyone by age -- I'm judging by mindset. Maturity. Before the realities/responsibilities of adulthood arrived, Carbonfibah was (in my opinion) the gold standard for zombie research. He went to incredible lengths to analyze loading screens, handwritten notes, radios, etc -- and so did a multitude of others. From what I gathered, those members started losing interest mid-Black Ops. I saw less and less analysis, more and more 'easter egg quest' threads (which died down 3-5 days from release, as mentioned earlier).

 

I've preached left and right around the forums about how the WaW days of Easter Eggs and how the story was a lot more cryptic, dark and mysterious. And about halfway through the first Blops season, "Easter Eggs" weren't really easter eggs anymore. They were objectives.

 

I've heard this time and time again of the good old days and the degradation of the call of duty zombies community. In actuality that veteran members have the same mentality of a widow recollecting her beloved husband or a child recalling how great their old school was. In reality the husband was an asshole and the school was a broken down crack den. Take off your rose colored glasses and realize that cod hasn’t changed, your standards have. I’ve read most of the old content and with the exception of a few outliers most of it was subpar.  The majority of the current “adult” community were children when the game released, allowing continuous improvement on their methods. Admittedly the developers have jumped the shark, but the in-game analysis has not lost any of its drive.            

[Speedo Cola]

Big easter eggs aren't the problem. The lack of small, little cryptic things is.

[PINNAZ]

Agree with you to an extent OP. @Speedo Cola has it spot on. The lack of small hard to find/hidden story is what was missing form Black Ops 2.

Tranzit had the makings of continuing a great mix of history, myth & conspiracies. Continuing the "Space Race" story & into the "Atomic Age" but somehow fell down & was completely left out of all the other maps.

Though there is still a lot of really well hidden Easter eggs in all of the other maps, many of these things are probably not known or not of interest to people & the big popular YouTube channels. Can you give me a run down on all the things you know in these BO2 maps @SeasonSix ? By the sound of it there are probably heaps of things you do not know about.

But the "Not shoved down your face" Easter eggs are what was completely missing & a dissapontment to me.

Who knows what Treyarch will do with this years Zombies? Time will tell

[Tac]

I disagree wholeheartedly @Boom. I think most arguments about World at War being better for the story are valid, and @ hit it spot on.

[Boom115]

I disagree wholeheartedly @Boom. I think most arguments about World at War being better for the story are valid, and @ hit it spot on.

That wasn't the point I was trying to make.

[PINNAZ]

I disagree wholeheartedly @Boom. I think most arguments about World at War being better for the story are valid, and @ hit it spot on.

That wasn't the point I was trying to make.

In all versions of CoDz there has been some great stuff posted but also a lot of junk!

[Slade]

Have we all forgotten Origins that quickly?  It's very clear that Treyarch tried to return to its roots with Origins, both in setting and story. Apart from le grande easter egg, we have radios scattered around everywhere, revealing what happend before and elaborating on some very interesting stuff like how PaP and the Mystery Box work. Not only that, but the blueprints from Richtofen and Maxis showed us that the Big Drill device in Nuketown is actually a 115 extractor drill.  Not to mention all the cryptic messages that took us weeks to decipher, and that First drawing which has us still scratching our heads.
 

Origins showed us that we can have both, big story-focused easter eggs and smaller more hidden stuff in the background elaborating on the events that are unfolding.

 

@Speedo Cola said it best.

[Guest]

Have we all forgotten Origins that quickly?  It's very clear that Treyarch tried to return to its roots with Origins, both in setting and story. Apart from le grande easter egg, we have radios scattered around everywhere, revealing what happend before and elaborating on some very interesting stuff like how PaP and the Mystery Box work. Not only that, but the blueprints from Richtofen and Maxis showed us that the Big Drill device in Nuketown is actually a 115 extractor drill.  Not to mention all the cryptic messages that took us weeks to decipher, and that First drawing which has us still scratching our heads.

 

Origins showed us that we can have both, big story-focused easter eggs and smaller more hidden stuff in the background elaborating on the events that are unfolding.

 

@Speedo Cola said it best.

 

So true. I think that things such as big easter eggs are here to stay, sorry if you dont like them but they have been around for a while an dont seem as if they will let up as its a big thing among the community. Origins was brilliant for small Easter Eggs, whenever anyone tries to say something good about Origins someone else will bring up the ending and say it ruined the map. I dont understand that because they dont know all the ins and outs of the ending so why should that ruin a great map which shows us how everything began? Things like that are amazing just knowing where you are and what the map is.

[Undead]

Perhaps it's just me, but most of the point I was trying to make is that it strikes a nerve for some reason anytime the "Big Easter Eggs" are called "Easter Eggs" anymore. Pulling apart from Zombies specifically, if you were to line up these "Easter Eggs" with your typical definition of an Easter Egg in any other game, it doesn't match the description at all. When an "Easter Egg" suddenly has steps, it's not an Easter Egg anymore. Everything people have called an "Easter Egg" since Ascension, became more and more " hidden objectives" more so than anything else. And here's what I mean when I related it between WaW and Blops II for example:

 

- Finding "Tunguska" written inside a shack outside of the map which is only found while spectating or using the "no clip" feature, is an EE. 

- Coordinates pointing to (or at least near) Area 51 heard within the radios in SNN or Verruckt, is an EE. 

- Various hidden Radios with indirect cryptic messages and no prompt to activate them, is an EE.

 

- Being told you need to connect A to Z somehow by figuring out steps B through Y is NOT an EE. 

 

Hell, you were given a checklist in MOTD even.

 

Going back to the Zombies and it's story, and the other half of what I meant was combine such EE examples with real history and myths and you had a bone-chilling series of puzzle pieces to connect and put together of just how the Zombies came to be and what actually happened. That way of apporaching everything seemed to be pushed aside after about half way through the first Blops season. After seeing how the community reacted to the Ascension EE formula, 3 Arc took that formula and ran with it.

 

Now, was this necessarily a bad thing? Not really no, but that's where the feeling of the whole eerie and cryptic mystery-solving story progression just shifted entirely to fill-in-the-blank instead.

[Guest]

Perhaps it's just me, but most of the point I was trying to make is that it strikes a nerve for some reason anytime the "Big Easter Eggs" are called "Easter Eggs" anymore. Pulling apart from Zombies specifically, if you were to line up these "Easter Eggs" with your typical definition of an Easter Egg in any other game, it doesn't match the description at all. When an "Easter Egg" suddenly has steps, it's not an Easter Egg anymore. Everything people have called an "Easter Egg" since Ascension, became more and more " hidden objectives" more so than anything else. And here's what I mean when I related it between WaW and Blops II for example:

 

- Finding "Tunguska" written inside a shack outside of the map which is only found while spectating or using the "no clip" feature, is an EE. 

- Coordinates pointing to (or at least near) Area 51 heard within the radios in SNN or Verruckt, is an EE. 

- Various hidden Radios with indirect cryptic messages and no prompt to activate them, is an EE.

 

- Being told you need to connect A to Z somehow by figuring out steps B through Y is NOT an EE. 

 

Hell, you were given a checklist in MOTD even.

 

Going back to the Zombies and it's story, and the other half of what I meant was combine such EE examples with real history and myths and you had a bone-chilling series of puzzle pieces to connect and put together of just how the Zombies came to be and what actually happened. That way of apporaching everything seemed to be pushed aside after about half way through the first Blops season. After seeing how the community reacted to the Ascension EE formula, 3 Arc took that formula and ran with it.

 

Now, was this necessarily a bad thing? Not really no, but that's where the feeling of the whole eerie and cryptic mystery-solving story progression just shifted entirely to fill-in-the-blank instead.

 

I think that a better name for these big quest things is just a Quest Egg, which some people do call it as it usually is hidden and is a form of Easter Egg but isn't like the real EEs we see in other games.

[Slade]

@ They're (side)quests. Calling them easter eggs makes as much sense as calling temporary upgrades "Perma-Perks"

 

The main reason why we still stick to these terms, even though we know we use them incorrectly and the definitions don't add up, like easter eggs for sidequests, perma-perk for persistent upgrades and Leroy is that Treyarch never bothers to release some actual names for these things to the community on let's say their website, because "woah, look at all this stuff you don't know what it's actually called, so cryptic, right guys? :^)"

 

So instead some random youtuber, I mean - the community just makes up a bunch of names and uses whichever sounds best, regardless of definition.

[Guest]

@ They're (side)quests. Calling them easter eggs makes as much sense as calling temporary upgrades "Perma-Perks"

 

The main reason why we still stick to these terms, even though we know we use them incorrectly and the definitions don't add up, like easter eggs for sidequests, perma-perk for persistent upgrades and Leroy is that Treyarch never bothers to release some actual names for these things to the community on let's say their website, because "woah, look at all this stuff you don't know what it's actually called, so cryptic, right guys? :^)"

 

So instead some random youtuber, I mean - the community just makes up a bunch of names and uses whichever sounds best, regardless of definition.

 

I dont know where Perma Perks came from but I dont see whats wrong with calling them that, its easier to say when your in a rush. Its like criticizing the fandom for not knowing any better. They cant help it if 3arch done ever even mention something existence.

[The Clay Bird]

 

@ They're (side)quests. Calling them easter eggs makes as much sense as calling temporary upgrades "Perma-Perks"

 

The main reason why we still stick to these terms, even though we know we use them incorrectly and the definitions don't add up, like easter eggs for sidequests, perma-perk for persistent upgrades and Leroy is that Treyarch never bothers to release some actual names for these things to the community on let's say their website, because "woah, look at all this stuff you don't know what it's actually called, so cryptic, right guys? :^)"

 

So instead some random youtuber, I mean - the community just makes up a bunch of names and uses whichever sounds best, regardless of definition.

 

I dont know where Perma Perks came from but I dont see whats wrong with calling them that, its easier to say when your in a rush. Its like criticizing the fandom for not knowing any better. They cant help it if 3arch done ever even mention something existence.

 

 

And I don't think it's any different calling the side quests "easter eggs"  they started out as legitimate easter eggs, just little quirks, then came der reise and the fly trap egg, and the musical EE's, and the name just kind of stuck with the community even as the definition changed.  It happens. Nothing wrong with calling them Easter Eggs

[Slade]

@Nightmare Voyager @the_clay_bird

I'm saying it doesn't make much sense to still use some of these terms. Like Easter Egg for something that's literally thrown in your face the second you start up a map like Undad explained. Some never made sense to begin with (Perma-Perk; we all know there's nothing permanent about it). That doesn't make it inherently wrong to use the terms. It's subjective, after all.

I still say EE and Perma-Perk whenever I play Zombies. In the end you can call them whatever you want.

[Guest]

@Nightmare Voyager @the_clay_bird

I'm saying it doesn't make much sense to still use some of these terms. Like Easter Egg for something that's literally thrown in your face the second you start up a map like Undad explained. Some never made sense to begin with (Perma-Perk; we all know there's nothing permanent about it). That doesn't make it inherently wrong to use the terms. It's subjective, after all.

I still say EE and Perma-Perk whenever I play Zombies. In the end you can call them whatever you want.

 

Thats what I was trying to say, I know its wrong but I say it. Not because I just don't want to say the right thing but its easier to say.

[Undead]

Haha it seems I've started a bit of a tangent here.

 

Bottom line, I'm just bitching that I wish Zombies had more actual EE. Side-Quests/Hidden objectives aside. WaW got me into the whole Zombies storyline for that reason alone.

[Guest]

Haha it seems I've started a bit of a tangent here.

 

Bottom line, I'm just bitching that I wish Zombies had more actual EE. Side-Quests/Hidden objectives aside. WaW got me into the whole Zombies storyline for that reason alone.

 

Times change... 

[Stop Mocking Me0]

 

Haha it seems I've started a bit of a tangent here.

 

Bottom line, I'm just bitching that I wish Zombies had more actual EE. Side-Quests/Hidden objectives aside. WaW got me into the whole Zombies storyline for that reason alone.

 

Times change... 

 

Pulled that card already lad. 

[Guest]

I am not omniscient, how would I know that?