So the long awaited Call of Duty: Black Ops has been out for over 48 hours now, and it is abundantly clear that the multiplayer component on the PC version is completely broken. Interface issues, lag problems, and a host of other irritating bugs are being reported across the board.
For a start, lag spikes are painfully common, and tend to occur most when you come into contact with other players on the server. This has been observed by gamers all over the world, and obviously makes for a highly frustrating gameplay experience.
But that is not all. Some users have experienced crashes whenever they click to view the leaderboard, and some report that when they go to view the theatre mode, they are told to “play more games and come back later.” This would be understandable, however, one enthusiast who has already leveled to rank 44 and played countless games reported receiving this message.
Game invites also appear to be broken, for normal multiplayer as well as the zombie mode. Invites are simply just not showing up. Also, many users are reporting that sometimes the game will freeze up at the end of a round.
Then there are the reported frame rate issues, with CPU usage peaking at unexpected times. This is indicative of possible memory leaks.
Pings range anywhere between 30ms and 1000ms on local servers
Some comments left in the official MyGaming Black Ops multiplayer thread:
Jack Bauer: I am sorry but I feel that I wasted R500. Partly due to the lag and Counterstrike feel. Maybe when the issues are fixed I will feel different.
Maplassie: The lag is horrible. Playing on a 30-50 ping, then it shoots up to over 600 and stays like that for like 20 seconds then disconnects, or comes back down. Stutter everywhere!!!!!!!
Kyubi_Brat: I didn’t play a single game last night after all the issues I experienced. At first the game would crash while updating, then when it finally installed, I launch the multi-player and the game gets stuck on “fetching stats”. I don’t have any stats!!!! I finally resolved this after a while. I finally jump into a game and my ping keeps jumping from 70-999 within the first few seconds. My FPS drops to 20fps and it lags horrible rendering the game unplayable for myself. I tried with both my Mweb and Axxess account and it’s the same issue. Eventually I just got rather frustrated and didn’t bother trying anymore and just went to cry myself to sleep.
Terak: I was lucky enough to play a couple rounds last night with Plassie. For the most part I was getting really annoyed, it seemed that every time I shot at someone my ping was jumping to 500+. Other rounds it was perfect and I was really enjoying it. This game is definitely made of win but they need to fix the online lagging issues.
DenSweep: As for general gameplay, AWESOME! This is all the issues aside obviously! The lag is kak. I also kept getting Steam disconnects. Or map ends and then just “hangs” and eventually kicks you back to menu. Not always being able to see all the servers.
Other than that, FUN FUN FUN! Very cool game modes. LOVE the in-game currency idea. The Contracts also very cool. Once all is up and running, would love to see how the wager mode will work.
Isengard: Played about an hour of multiplayer tonight and so far I’ve observed the following.
*Framerate is not so great, setting the affinity of the game to high mostly fixed that problem (still needs a patch though).
*There definitely is a strange lag happening, even though my ping was hovering around the 80’s. It happened so few times though that I mostly had a very enjoyable time playing it.
*Multiplayer is pure fun, plain and simple. With a few patches it’s going to be hard to beat. I love the pace of the game.
From the looks of things, the problems are not isolated to just a few individuals. The in-game chatter on the local servers is dominated by players complaining of lag.
On the bright side, Treyarch has recognised the problems. A MyGaming user received the following email in response to a support ticket he opened complaining about the issues:
Hello,
This is in response to your ticket regarding Lag. We are in the process of rolling out an update to the black ops server configuration. This will be automatic. After testing, we have found that our update will significantly improve performance on all servers.
No action is required to be taken by you. Please, we appreciate your patience. This roll out will happen in the next 2-4 hours. Please wait 24 hours before submitting any additional support requests regarding lag, as your issue will likely be resolved as a result of this change.
Thank you,
Zachary Williams
So there you have it, Treyarch is hard at work on a solution. Hopefully in a week from now, this will all feel like a horrible nightmare. One does have to wonder just how Black Ops PC made it through quality control in its current state.
Big thanks to the MyGaming users whose input was used in the article. Special thanks to Maplassie and Sockmoney for the image.
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