Episode 601: WARDOGS Beta vs Modern Warfare 4 Beta — We Played Both

Two shooter betas dropped on the same weekend, so we played both and came back with very different verdicts. WARDOGS is Bulkhead's 100-player, three-team tactical shooter with a real money economy — you buy your loadout every respawn, you lose money when you die, and it turns out that changes how a match actually feels. Modern Warfare 4 finally dumps omnimovement, removes bloom from hipfire, and put a campaign mission in the beta for the first time ever. We get into the WARDOGS recon grind and the 5.56 break-action "sniper" that shouldn't exist, the money system and whether it creates real gear fear, three-team fights and whether they actually matter, spawn vehicles as an infinite money glitch, base building and anti-air, and why there is never — not once, not ever — an unoccupied tower. On the CoD side: how the movement feels without omnimovement, no-bloom hipfire on keyboard and mouse, opening-night demon lobbies, whether Warzone and DMZ2 have a chance, and the annual spawns discourse that needs to die. Jake played both. Raz refused to pre-order. Somehow they still ended up disagreeing. 0:00 - Intro 2:26 - How to even get into these betas 2:50 - "I'm not pre-ordering this pile of shit game" 3:23 - Patreon, the FPS lore bonus episode, and the patron hangout 6:09 - Gut check: which beta did we keep loading back into? 6:39 - Jake played the MW4 campaign mission first thing in the morning 8:10 - Opening night of the CoD beta was as sweaty as it gets 11:09 - The WARDOGS recon grind is making the game worse 12:22 - The 5.56 break-action "sniper" that should not exist 13:31 - Two gripes: no free look, and you can't reload while sprinting 15:10 - Recon 10, the Mosin, and a $50,000 unlock 16:41 - There's loot on top of the towers — finding an SV-98 17:44 - What surprised us 18:43 - MW4 movement with no omnimovement 21:48 - So what's actually new in MW4? Pipes and underhand grenades 23:21 - Keyboard and mouse, and the no-bloom hipfire 25:26 - Did we quit a session annoyed? Demon lobbies on day one 26:36 - Ground War and looser SBMM next weekend 27:21 - "The MW4 beta had more concurrent players than BO7's peak" 28:20 - Spawn vehicles and the infinite money glitch 30:25 - Learning to fly the helicopter (badly) 32:19 - Chopper runs are the easiest money in the game 33:50 - Base building, FOBs and anti-air 35:26 - Best moment of the weekend: spawn camping a Lone Star vehicle 36:36 - Pro tip: pack a second optic and hot swap 37:58 - Claymores and tower loot 38:53 - Class leveling and why the grind is a good thing 40:06 - Tanks, attack helicopters, and getting strafed off a roof 43:56 - Do three teams actually change anything? 47:36 - The money system: did it change how you played? 52:01 - Gear fear — "I'm here to PvP" 53:59 - We want there to be consequences to dying 56:06 - Bandages, revives, and running out of resources 58:38 - The crane fight and the parachute escape 1:01:31 - There is never an unoccupied tower 1:03:04 - Shotguns, SMGs, and the two-primary backpack build 1:05:42 - Could a kit ever get too expensive to fight over? 1:09:00 - Armor, AP rounds, and no hit markers 1:10:27 - The SKS chamber bug 1:11:46 - Tac sprint in WARDOGS is driving us insane 1:13:41 - Proning while ADS, and other small friction 1:14:42 - People who refuse to learn a new game 1:19:07 - Who is WARDOGS actually for? 1:21:20 - You can't win if everyone's Bob the Builder 1:22:28 - The one type of player this game won't work for 1:24:39 - Give it a real try before you refund it 1:26:53 - Hesco barriers and why building matters 1:27:18 - MW4 first impressions: movement and gunplay 1:28:38 - The annual spawns discourse needs to stop 1:33:36 - Warzone and DMZ2: the fundamentals are finally sound 1:34:29 - "Will they be good? No" — the prediction 1:35:42 - "It just looks like MW2" is a lazy take 1:37:35 - We are done talking about graphics 1:40:44 - What we're testing next weekend 1:41:10 - Should you buy WARDOGS? And the refund loophole 1:42:11 - Patreon, the hangout, and outro _Note: timestamps may be slightly misaligned on podcast apps (but not on YouTube) due to dynamic ads._ The podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts, and ad-free & early access versions - as well as bonus episodes - are available to all of our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/thedropshot) supporters. We stream the podcast live on our YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/thedropshotpodcast) every Saturday morning at ~9 o'clock Pacific Time. We typically start the stream 30 minutes early to answer viewer questions, banter, and chat. Links for everything are below. 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