Thanks for dropping by. I’m probably not best placed to offer help on designing new maps, since I’m only a web designer and not particularly involved in the MW2 community. I’d suggest asking around on the Infinity Ward forums (or other MW2 ones) and I’m sure there would be some people able to help.

Best of luck with the design!

Cennydd

Another problem they’ve dealt with well in COD MW2 is avoiding the monotony of online gameplay. With older FPSes, you quickly learned your place in the game rankings, and you tended to stay there. If you weren’t a great player, you’d always be near the bottom. It was demotivating and a bit depressing.

The kill-streak reward system in COD MW2 avoids this, by giving novice players the ability to get into a positive feedback loop where suddenly they feel like they’re “on fire” – after a few kills they are given radar (the UAV) where they can see enemy players, allowing them to rack up more kills, which in turn rewards them with things like sentry guns, air strikes, and helicopter gun ships, each of them giving the player progressively more and more kills. Not only does it feel amazing, but it pushes them to the top of the ranking for that game.

You’ve also got the between-game reward system where the player gets power-ups that make gameplay even easier – laser sights, heartbeat sensors, faster aim, faster running speed… This creates another positive feedback loop which motivates the novice player. This tricks them into believing their skill levels are increasing much more rapidly than they really are, giving them the illusion of mastery before they have it.

In all, it’s a very clever manipulation of the player’s psychology… Or at least, that’s what I tell myself after I’ve been playing it for 3 hours straight without a break!