Cold Front DLC is out! No I'm not dead

Hey guys,

Ya it's been a while since I made a post. Been busy and SOCOM fandom was at an all time low but now with Cold Front finally hitting, I'm back.

So, like all of you probably did, I purchased the Cold Front DLC on Thursday while it's still $9.99 (price goes up this weekend to $14.99, which is way too much btw), and though I've only played Vigilance and Night Stalker so far, I'm loving it.

As I expected, it's seem to have split the community with tons of Cold Front map-only games and not a lot of mix yet between the regular maps the CF maps. This is the nature of DLC now and there really isn't a way around it sadly. Once paid-only DLC is introduced there is always going to be the haves and have nots.

What I'm hoping is for a re-issue of SOCOM Confrontation, that comes with the 1.6 patch and Cold Front DLC on it, for a Greatest Hits price of $29.99. Since Confrontation released on the wrong foot, this would be a great way to bring in more players, exposing them to a polished and full-featured version of the game. It's been done with other games (See LittleBigPlanet GotY Edition, Oblivion GotY Edition, Call of Duty 4 GotY Edition, and many others), and for Confrontation it makes the most sense as the game has evolved so much since it's initial release.

Anyways, hope you're all enjoying the Cold Front DLC. I just had a 5 kills round on Night Stalker so I'm going to get back to playing now.

1.6 out and DLC release date announced

Finally...

SOCOM: Confrontation Patch 1.60 Available Now for Download
Posted by Mark Rogers

We have some great news for SOCOM: Confrontation fans. We’re excited to announce that the 1.60 patch is now available for download. Patch 1.60 contains a massive amount of new content and features entirely free to all players.

New Special Forces – The Dutch KCT and Italian COMSUBIN Special Forces teams are featured in this update. Each Force is provided with two new heads, a new voice and light, medium and heavy variants of their own torsos and legs (each with a unique camouflage pattern).

New Weapons – Two new primary weapons will be immediately accessible to players who select to play as the new Special Forces. The Dutch KCT will have access to the 417 assault rifle, while the Italian COMSUBIN Special Forces will receive the SPAS 15 shotgun.

Additionally, four new weapons will be made available to players regardless of assigned Special Force. New weapons include the 9mm Sub Machine Gun, M82A1A, AK-74 and SR-25.Weapon Updates – A number of weapon updates and adjustments to existing weapons have been included in the patch.

Below is an overview of the updates and adjustments that have been made:

M87ELR is given .50 cal rounds to balance it against the Mercenaries’ M82A1A.

Shotguns are balanced to do less damage at long range but more damage at close range.

Grenade launchers and rocket launchers have less delay in between shots.

Front End weapons values are updated to reflect the new Cold War DLC Pack weapons.

In addition to the new characters and weapons, the team has also added 100% Random Medleys to the patch update.

We also have some big news on the SOCOM Confrontation ‘Cold Front’ DLC Pack. To begin with, we now have an official release date: December 17th on the PlayStation Network. We want to make sure that you’re able to spend the holiday break playing ‘Cold Front’. In addition, the special $9.99 pricing will now be available from launch through Sunday, December 20.

You can comment on this post here.

God of War 1&2 hitting PS3 in bluray re-release. Can SOCOM 2 do it?

So if you haven't heard the big God of War news recently, essentially Sony is going to re-release God of War 1&2 on a PS3 blu-ray disc. It'll be in 720p, 60fps, AND have their own set of trophies. Even though I've already played and beaten both games, it has shot up to the top of my most-wanted list. It also got me thinking, is this setting a precedent for the future?

If Sony can do this with God of War 1&2, who says they won't do it for other popular franchises too? Clearly they wouldn't want to make this a huge thing as they have plenty of new software coming down the line, but why not bring back some more huge PS3 classics. Say...SOCOM II?

Just imagine. At E3 Sony announces SOCOM 4 developed by Zipper. Since it's still quite a way off, to compensate Sony plans to re-release the most popular game in the franchise [SOCOM II] onto a set of reliable servers, in 720p and 60fps. Oh ya, and they also fix all the bugs and hit detection issues that were prevalent in that game. Undoubtedly sales for the PS3 and the re-released SOCOM II would explode, and it would generate hype for the upcoming SOCOM 4. It's a license to print money.

Chance of this happening? Personally, I think it's highly unlikely simply because Sony doesn't want to take support away from SOCOM Confrontation and it's DLC which is sure to come. For God of War it kind of makes sense because the God of War 3 doesn't hit till next year and God of War 1&2 don't rely on a set of servers run. But if it were to happen, the one thing that it may do is bring those last few stragglers that are still playing PS2 online, over to the PS3 and onto the PSN.

Regardless, I have no doubt in my mind that a SOCOM II re-release would sell a million copies, and barely cost anything to make with the game already being done. But the politics of it might be too much for Sony to make it happen.

Some 1.5 issues addressed

Abigale has posted a response on the socom.com message boards to some of the issues that have come out of patch 1.5. Read it here:

Hi, All-

As I mentioned earlier, I have been passing on your feedback about Patch 1.5. This evening I was able to get some responses to some of your questions and concerns. So I wanted to pass the these reponses along to you.

Quick Match Issues
We have discovered that users who join a Ranked 8 v 8 Small quick match game are sometimes being matched into an unranked game instead. When this happens, M203s and RPGs will be available in the game and the ranking will not update as it is a unranked game even though the user selected the ranked 8v8 quick match game. We are working on a server side update to this issue and hope to have it deployed later this week or early next.

Confrontation Rating
We are looking into the Confrontation rating issue, where the rating increases or decreases by an abnormally large amount. So far, this is still in the discovery stage and we will provide more information on our progress as it is available.

Team Select Issue
For the SOCOM Confrontation 1.50 update, we did change the team select logic so that late joiners should no longer be able to switch teams. This is an intentional change in order to balance out the teams as in previous SOCOM games. However, as many users noted there are a couple of issues with this change where users can bypass this restriction by bringing up their friends list and closing it. Also, late joiners are unable to change teams even when returning to the game lobby after the match has ended. Both of these issues will be fixed in the next SOCOM Confrontation update.

Voice Chat Quality
Some users have noted that the quality of the voice chat has deteriorated and that the voice chat is significantly louder in the SOCOM Confrontation 1.50 update. We are looking into both issues. Part of this is a side effect of the bandwidth optimization made for the 1.50 update as the voice chat was using a very large amount of bandwidth which was causing latency (lag) issues for some users. We will try to improve this but we may not be able to restore the voice chat back to the same fidelity as before the 1.50 update as it would again cause latency (lag) issues for some users. We feel that the improved on-line performance is worth sacrificing a little bit of the quality of the voice chat.

Tie Breaker Logic
One item which was left off of the SOCOM Confrontation 1.50 build notes was the change to the tie breaker logic. We did intentionally change this logic to make the tie breaker decided by number of kills per team rather than objectives completed for the game type. This change was made based on community feedback in order to prevent the exploits which were happening such as players suiciding our voting out their own teammates. We understand that this is a controversial change for some but we feel that the change is the right one to make especially as the clan ladders and tournaments start to heat up. It should be noted that this only applies in the situation where there is a tie and so completing objectives is still a requirement to win some of the game modes.

Not being able to switch sides in the lobby after the game is of most annoyance to me. It's kind of hard to fathom how that was overlooked before the patch went into the approval process. Taking a look at how long it took for this patch to hit, I can only wonder how long its going to take for the next one, that fixes this issues, to arrive.

1.5 Patch is out. No this is not a joke.

Yes, it's FINALLY here. I've been playing for the past hour and so far I can tell you that there is a huge difference. I'm finding myself having a lot more fun than I used to. The menus run smoother, the game runs smoother, the weapon selection menu is redesigned and doesn't force you to stop moving, you can join games from the clan list (and presumably the friend's list as well), the briefing rooms are set in some kind of order rather than being randomly listed, I can go on and on, and I've barely scratched the surface.

For a proper list of the fixes and changes, look here.

This might single-handedly bring me back into playing SOCOM on a regular basis.

Come back later for more impressions, and possibly a short podcast from me and [possibly] Hellman.

SOCOM Confrontation makes Greatest Hits

Starting today you can pick up SOCOM Confrontation (stand-alone) for $29.99.

SOCOM Confrontation - Biggest online game on PS3 says Sony Producer

This doesn't really come as a surprise to me at all, given the dedication of the SOCOM fanbase.

What's the biggest online game on the PS3? No, it's not Killzone 2. No, it's not even Resistance 2. According to SCEA senior producer Mark Rogers, SOCOM Confrontation stands above both of Sony's high-profile first-party FPS offerings by having the most simultaneous online connections on the PlayStation Network. He attributes Confrontation's success to the community's commitment to the franchise. Whereas other gamers may play an online game for a few weeks and move on,SOCOM fans have proven to be far more dedicated (despite the game's ... troubled launch).

The devotion of the SOCOM community will be rewarded by an upcoming patch, Rogers promises. While the Slant Six team has been largely quiet about progress on the patch, he says the massive scale and scope of the patch has led to an extended testing cycle. With the promise of DLC in the future, it's clear that SOCOM addicts will find even more reason to avoid playing other games for a long time.

Source Joystiq