Responding to a HEXUS.gaming article regarding a recent Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare patch that had caused unrest among the community, Infinity Ward has sent us an email.

In our first article, we reported that hackers had taken over the multiplayer component of COD4 in order to give themselves an unfair advantage in the online arena, through the likes of infinite ammo. Infinity Ward responded promptly and issued a patch to prevent the cheating. However, HEXUS.gaming reported in its second article that the patch had caused a new issue.

"The new issue revolves around semi-automatic weapons, which have now been restricted by a time limit of .5 before every shot. Many elite gamers can pull the trigger faster than that. Via the official forums and a number online petitions, the community is now requesting that Infinity Ward amend that cap time to .3-.4 seconds, " we wrote.

An Infinity Ward programmer who worked on COD 4 believes that the community is wrong. "The reported firetime of .5 seconds is incorrect, " he told us in an email. He should know because he wrote the code, so he tells us. He claims that the firing rates are actually 4 times faster than that.

"It's upsetting to see unverified rumors reported as fact, especially on a game that we all work so hard on," he wrote. Indeed, he's is right in that respect. We reported the issue based on other reports rather than doing what we should have done, and check out the game and the issue. At the time of writing, we still haven't done that so can't confirm whether the reported firetimes have been affected as much as some sites are making out.

The Infinity Ward representative obviously feels passionate enough to write us an email and he is the coder.

Does anyone have experience of COD 4, and if so, have you noticed a change in firing rates?