As interesting as the CoD < CoD > CoD discussion is, here's a different topic to whine about!
I really dislike how they've handled map packs in CoD.
Splitting the multiplayer community is _never_ a good thing, and selling map packs as a subscription and as individual packs is guaranteed to do exactly that.
In general I'd rather see a move towards free maps and monetization via cosmetic or time enhancing boosts (ie, xp boosts etc), rather than monetizing the core game content.
Microsoft/343 seem to have figured this out to some degree, because of the inclusion of the map pack in the LE, there is a guaranteed userbase for those maps that will always be present, and the comparatively low price for the map pack makes it appealing even to me and my friends, who are almost universally anti-pay-for-maps (and we're huge CoD fans).
What's more frustrating is that while CoD (and Halo, and a few other games) have figured out that hey, once you have really excellent core gameplay, you can simply refine and iterate on that and release new versions (to the endless derision of the anti-sequel brigade), what they have not done is carry forward previous content, which is a huge waste of time and effort.
How awesome would it be to have not 10 or 20 maps for the newest CoD, but a huge roster of all previous maps? Yes, in some cases they would require art asset updates, but it would also give a chance to fix any really egregious issues that popped up on the map, and it would still take less effort than remaking a map from scratch.
Running popular game mode playlists that had huge maplists, and playlists that had a 'filtered' list that selected all community favorites based on global voting (hell, even an underdog list that had the less popular maps in it) would be awesome.
What's obnoxious is that they've done this piecemeal, by porting forward a few maps, but not even close to all, so many excellent maps from the past are now lost, which is a huge shame. Playing old maps with new gameplay is already a refresh, and if the map was a favorite because its layout played really well in many modes, that will still be true.
I've mentioned this in another thread, but the f2p shooters on the PC more or less have this exact issue cracked, as instead of releasing 'sequels', they simply continuously update and patch the same core game, constantly adding refining the gameplay, while at the same time adding new content - new maps, new weapons, new classes, new vehicles, new stuff.
This is exactly what is occuring with the franchised games on the consoles, but instead of seeing a smooth and constant iteration on the formula (which is more nimble and more able to respond to both problems and praise), we see a twelve month gap that is a twenty four month gap in internal development.
This results in oddities like simple ui or gameplay features that are an improvement being missed in the other yearly release, which feels really awkward to take a few steps forward in one area, and a few steps back in another area that was already improved.
This is another area 343/MS seem to be tackling with Halo 4 and the release of Spartan Ops, plus the promise of 'more substantial' title updates. Obviously, they are very uniquely situated, and the same process wouldn't be doable by all other companies. On top of that, I don't think the current gen consoles are well suited to the sort of continuous development that something like Tribes Ascend, World of Tanks, Mechwarrior Online, Planetside 2, Hawken, Blacklight, TF2, etc can pull off.
But I would love to see that happen on the next gen consoles, for whatever game turns out to be the CoD style games, where the core gameplay is continuously refined over time in response to community feedback, but the amount of content simply grows over time, instead of resetting in these completely arbitrary yearly cycles that are divorced from the community due to their development cycles.
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tldr: Paying for map packs sucks, fragmenting the community with map packs sucks even more, and lengthy development jumps instead of smooth development upgrades are frustrating.
