Modern Warfare 2 stripped the game of its Party Chat because it made it easier for 'boosters'—players who collaborated with each other in order to game their levels and unlocks—to cheat on servers or rig matches.
Infinity Ward says that a change will be made to Modern Warfare 3 that allows for players to use Party Chat once again, but only in certain modes. This comes in the wake of complaints that the lack of Party Chat made it difficult for competitive gamers to set matches up.
"When designing multiplayer, especially Modern Warfare multiplayer, you have 30 million people. They are all very different," said Robert Bowling. "You have guys playing just for fun, just want to jump on there and have a good time. You have your hardcore competitive guys. You have your casual guys that maybe are competitive, they're just not as good. It's all about delivering a platform to allow you to have fun the way you want to have fun without hindering the other audiences.
"A major focus of Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer is allowing you to have a lot more control over how you play, looking at those restrictions and doing away with stuff like Party Chat blocking that's super hardcore. It's about giving options. We will have places where competitive guys go where you might have restrictive voice chat. And then you have an option to maybe play that same mode without the same restrictions if that's the type of player you are.
"The only place where Party Chat should be blocked is Search & destroy, and won't be blocked for modes like Domination."
Multiplayer maps with likewise be seeing some major changes to their spawnpoints in order to prevent players from being surprised by those they just killed. It's a regular problem in games like Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 where players often respawn behind their enemies immediately after death because of how spawn points are currently set up.
Robert Bowling says that maps will be revamped to have fewer hot spots, thus discouraging players from camping.
"Modern Warfare style is, for me, all about the high-speed, fast-paced—and I'm talking in terms of smooth controls and 60-frames-per-second framerate—infantry-focused combat. And it's all focused on that gun-on-gun gameplay, especially in Modern Warfare 3"
The game, he said to Kotaku, will return Modern Warfare to its roots in the first game, away from the air strikes and killstreaks of MW2 and Black Ops.
"I feel like it's something we nailed with Call of Duty 4. We moved away from it a little bit with MW2, relying heavily on air support, killstreaks, perks and stuff like that. Modern Warfare 3, very much [is] building up from that call of duty 4 mentality of gun-on-gun, fast-paced infantry gameplay."
"Call of Duty 4 was much more simplistic in its map design: you have the sight points, you have the routes players will take. It was very flat in terms of where you could go. Modern Warfare 2 had a major focus on vertical combat, increasing the multi-floor levels, increasing the number of buildings you go into," he said.
"There were a lot more players you could go than just the main routes and buildings where you were meant to go. That encourages and discourages a lot of types of gameplay. With Modern Warfare 3, it's much, much more on allowing you to focus on what's necessary; it's making vertical combat when it makes sense but not a blanket rule across every map. You will have some maps that focus on verticality and that are focused on multiple things. And then you have other maps that are very limited on the hotspots. The hotspots are a key thing on Modern Warfare 3. We went into each map wanting you to be able to turn a corner and know very easily that these are three—no more than five—places I need to check.
"For the hardcore guys who have been with us since the beginning, that speaks volumes: the map design, the return to focus on gun-on-gun, all that stuff. I like to always make sure the hardcore players know we're building it up for them."
