Shipment 24/7

Shoothouse easily ranks among one of my most hated maps in a video-game. 

Every single version of it in-fact, and I'm not talking about the facelift it received in Modern Warfare II '22 (really, it couldn't have been any other year?), but all the versions of this level that I've also played in every single free to play Korean FPS made in the early 2000s.

I've played Shoothouse in Crossfire, Combat Arms, hell, even Wolf Team, and it sucked there too.

Why?

It's the Toyota Corolla of game levels.

It is something that features absolutely no unique sightline, axis, style, chokepoint, hill, pit, spawn, path, cover, obstacle, jump, or decision. I've seen couches more exciting than this. It stirs nothing in me when playing this map, regardless of any mode. Every time I play it I feel like I'm eating flour.

The real reason its sucks though, is that it does demand attention.\

Having such obvious sightlines, means that running around like a chicken is off the table, at least if you're playing against people who know what they're doing, and if you're playing against people who really know what they're doing, they'll ensure you don't so much as a leave five feet from your spawn point without getting instantly mowed-down, naded, or bombed, as the maps number of sightlines and spawns is so limited, all it takes is six players to completely lock down the enemies movement.

Whether I'm the person getting that long range spawn-kill, or on the receiving end of somebody's Symtex pre-throw, I'm not having fun when playing this map.

Which brings me to Shipment…

I didn't enjoy 64 Player Conquest Metro on Battlefield 3.

I avoided 64 Player Conquest Locker on Battlefield 4.

I don't like Meatgrinder maps.

Not in Halo, Battlefield or Call of Duty…

Shipment though?

I played it for about 4-5 hours this week during the Christmas Playlist.

I wanted to unlock all the platform trees.

For those that don't know, in Modern Warfare 2, weapons are unlocked via the traditional progression system like always, but not all of them. Some of them are earned by completing "platform" trees. Basically, if you want the M16, you've first gotta use it's Cousin, the M4.

What better way to grind platforms than Shipment?

The map is notorious for its shoebox size, spawn-fragging, container filled chaos. You can't possibly play on this map, and not make a notable dent in the progression tree, no matter how bad you could be at the game.

Like Meatgrinder maps, I also hate this.

I hate grinding.

I hate booting up a video-game with the explicit intent of grinding for gear or dice-rolls. I don't want to kill my time. Booting up a video-game and not remember anything I just did on it except boosting a progression bar, feels like a waste of time…

Yet I played Shipment for 4-5 hours.

How?

Why?

How.

Unlike Shoothouse, I don't need to pace myself. I don't need to isolate my playstyle to certain parts of the map that are designed for that weapon I'm using. There's no objective rush that's disadvantaged depending on what angle I'm approaching from. I'm not keeping track of how many enemies are deliberately occupying a certain spawn point.

I'm just running and gunning.

Yet, not completely mindlessly, because there is strategy in Shipment, but it's like having strategy in a Casino… the house will get you.

After your fifteen kill run of having a perfect string of kills, catching every enemy off guard via them rushing after you, or forcing a spawn… the game's mechanical brain will fry, and the enemies will spawn two feet behind you with the weapon already locked on your head.

Nothing personal kid…

…so I don't get mad.

It happened to me, and it will happen to someone else.

It's getting caught in traffic.

We're all in this together.

Unlike traffic though, there's never a lack of movement during a game of Shipment. Every match, I feel like I've had a shot of Expresso. You could legit fund a Government experiment with this game to see how people's reaction times could improve just by playing Shipment ever morning.

When enemies are potentially behind you with every step you take, you can't relax.

I'm pumped when playing this map, but not in a "yeah, I wanna win" sense, but just a "I wanna get a flow."

It's the same fun I get out of racing games… only unlike any racing game I've played (Dirt 4, I know), the enemies make it different every single time.

I find Shipment is also a bit of a personality test for players.

You can judge a lot about someone based on how they play Shipment.

Do they give up and charge every spawn?

Do they never leave spawn and go for "long" range kills?

Are they actively gaming the system's spawns?

How long are they in that one container for?

Instead of everyone blandly holding one angle or changing into the same pathways on Shoothouse over and over and over with an initial ten seconds of silent running to see if you get fucked or not, in Shipment, you sometimes get fucked before you can even react.

It's great!

Why.

I really did go into this with the intention of just leveling up one or two platforms, but I ended up getting all of them in just that one day of playing while blasting music or chatting with friends.

The reason I kept going though was ironically enough, that this experience, of grinding on one mode for a couple hours to get an minor tangible thing in a video-game, was for me… unique.

I was doing it without this experience being fifty hours, nor waiting for blueprints, or playing a map I hate. I'd play a match, unlock a platform, sometimes two. I'd get those new platforms, build them from scratch, get new attachments along the way, all in the pursuit of getting to the next one.

Everything I did, kept adding to another.

That experience was enjoyable, valuable, and something that I'm not going to be repeating. I got my platforms, I made my enemies, I had my flow, I'm now going to do something else in the game, but it's something that's been in COD since 2007, and is unlikely to go away, and it's because Shipment, is perfected chaos.

It's so small, it feels vast.

It's so chaotic, it's calming.

It's such bullshit, I don't care.

And I expect to be here all over again when Modern Warfare 3 is inevitably released.

…At least that one can't come out in 2033.