Call of Duty 4 - The Competitive Side
A decent multiplayer game always has two sides to the coin - public play, and competitive play; they are very similar in content, but the gameplay is worlds apart. This article is a detailed analysis of the competitive side of Call of Duty 4 (CoD4); therefore it will not tackle the single player experience, public multiplayer or the technical details of the game, but rather the factors that made, make and hopefully will continue to make the Call of Duty franchise, particularly CoD4, a popular choice for the people seeking fun and competition.
The Call of Duty franchise has quite a devoted following, especially in Europe and North America, yet it has never picked up the pace of games such as Counter-Strike 1.6 (CS) and Warcraft 3 (WC3), which will be taken as to be the role models of a successful competitive game in this article. Despite not being in the league of the big names in the competitive scene, most people knew that Call of Duty indeed had the potential to be one of the best competitive team-games around. Gotfrag's Andrew MacKenzie noted that the majority of the Call of Duty community migrated from Soldier of Fortune 2, Battlefield 1942, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Medal of Honour and Counter-Strike amongst other gaming scenes, thus the community had, since birth, been one aiming for competitive play.
Cups, ladders and even LAN tournaments were common place during CoD’s prime time, yet the spark to ignite the fuel of real, all-out competition was still on its way. The biggest news to hit the Call of Duty community came about when one of the world's biggest eSport organisations, the Cyber-Athlete Professional League (the CPL) announced a $50,000 Call of Duty tournament back in 2004, and the gamers knew it would only get better in the future. 2005 marked the release of the second game in the series. The shift of the community to the new game was swift, yet remarkably destructive at first, as people whined about the gameplay atrocities; two years from then and the community not only continued playing the game, but the scene swelled. Major LAN tournaments with decent prize money brought together the top teams from around Europe in a bloody fight for glory and fame: The Crossfire LANs, shgOpen, Netgamez, and Outpost on Fire amongst countless other tournaments, with WSVG in the United States as the cherry on top of the cake. Yet again, Call of Duty 2 never reached the status of being a game played by professional gamers; no CoD2 gamer played his game of choice for a living and there were no tournaments which could be set on parallel with the events for games such as CS and WC3.
Yet this time round, Infinity Ward have actually listened to the community and introduced a game which can actually make it to the top. Proof for Infinity Ward's dedication towards the CoD fans are the three patches released within a short period of time, unlike the months taken for the company to release the first decent patch for CoD2. Again, Call of Duty 2 teams rapidly left behind their rusty World War II bolt-action rifles to get their hands on the killing machines of contemporary war. Not only do the top CoD2 teams, such as
TeK-9, Dignitas, 
H2K.Qpad and 
Logitech.fi return to the scene, but teams and players throughout the eSport world have given a random shot at the game, to find out that they actually liked it. Supporting my argument are four notable teams, who despite having been successful at their game, have ditched everything just to start afresh at Call of Duty 4, for e.g. 
Team Ebuyer is one of the top British Counter-Strike Source teams, yet despite being successful at their game of choice, they decided on moving over to the new game, and even so, their organisation decided to keep them as their own CoD4 squad. The team recruited two CoD2 players to fill the gap left by the players who decided not to change over to CoD4.
(Quoted from www.cadred.org)
Another surprising switch to CoD4 was from the
Team-Dignitas Battlefield 2142 squad, a team famous for being consistently in the top 4 throughout both Battlefield 2 and 2142. Right after their win at the ESL Pro-series, the Germans announced they would quit Battlefield and focus on CoD4 together with former SPEED-LINK player, z1N.
(Quoted from www.tek-9.org)
The Swedes over at
One2 are a third high profile team who recently moved over to CoD4. The former Copenhagen-eSport team was perhaps the best European Enemy Territory: Quake Wars squad, yet the slow start of Quake Wars turned down the motivation for the team.
(Quoted from www.crossfire.nu)
Circus Noir is a team made up from players who had made an impact in the first game of the series, yet never got on to play Call of Duty 2 at a competitive level. The team has a mixture of Dutch, German and Scandinavian players known from their time in teams such as Dignitas, Emprisa, Epitaph, Team 64AMD and fnatic. Such legends have returned to the scene to try to achieve the results they did in the original Call of Duty. (Source: www.tek9.org)
Call of Duty 2 lacked support from the professional organisations, and only a few selected teams had the luxury of major sponsorships. This is clearly changing in Call of Duty 4, as the big boys set their sights on CoD4. British powerhouse Four-Kings (4K) announced a Call of Duty 4 lineup before the game was released, featuring players from around the United Kingdom including former Check-Six (x6) star Crow and Dignitas player palmz. The 4K Management is confident that their new team will make it to the top:
(Quoted from www.four-kings.com)
The very well known Swedish organisation EYEBALLERS also picked up a Call of Duty 4 team, namely the Svea Royale team (former fukyuu) who achieved the gold at Wonderbase in September. Such deep-pocketed organisations will be of great benefit to any team and community who aspire to take their competitive play to the next level:
(Quoted from www.gotfrag.com)
The Australian organisation
Fnatic had announced a €5000 Tournament to choose a Call of Duty 2 team a couple of months ago, yet as interest in CoD2 went down due to the imminent release of Call of Duty 4, the tournament was postponed to early next year. Such a prize fund merely for recruitment is proof of the dedication eSport teams of the caliber of Fnatic have towards the CoD franchise. The Danish team 
MeetYourMakers, who are rumoured to sport the highest salaried Warcraft 3 player, have shown interest in taking in a Call of Duty 4 team replacing their professional Counter-Strike 1.6 team, as stated by the COO of MYM, Mark 'Mercy' Peter de Fries:
(Quoted from www.mymym.com)
This just proved to be just a smokescreen as MYM picked up another 1.6 team, yet still this does not necessarily mean CoD4 is not a future possibility for the Danish powerhouse. There are also rumours of the Polish
PGS.pokerstrategy organization in joining the CoD4 world as their America’s Army squad is showing interest in the new game. Tek9’s Mike Long notes that this makes four out of the ten of the G7 teams (G7 represents the ten most well known and respected eSport organizations) possibly taking on a Call of Duty 4 team.
The game is just five weeks old yet tournaments and LAN events are common place. The Americans got their hands on more than $30,000 worth of hardware prizes as they battled it out in the Xfire First Strike CoD4 Tournament. In Europe, several LAN events popped up, spear headed by Multiplay's €6000 tournament at i32. Paul Bowsher from Multiplay told Gotfrag that they would host an even bigger event for CoD4 in their next event:
Over in Paris, the CoD-Gamer LAN attracted the likes of TeK-9, H2K, TLR and Oxmoze amongst other French teams with €3000 up for grabs. British eSport website Enemy Down are organising a €2500 Online tournament, whilst Crossfire.nu are already busy with the online CrossfireQCup which features €750 as a prize in preparation for the €4000 CDC4 LAN (Crossfire Devotii Challenge 4) event in February.
Such figures may not be as impressive as any prize money for a Warcraft 3 event, yet signs of a rapidly growing community are definitely apparent. Time will tell on how this game will evolve and turn to a highly competitive game worthy of representation in the most prestigious of eSport leagues.
Original Article at: playreaction.com
Sources:
www.tek-9.org
www.crossfire.nu
www.gotfrag.com
www.cadred.org
www.mymym.com
www.four-kings.com
A decent multiplayer game always has two sides to the coin - public play, and competitive play; they are very similar in content, but the gameplay is worlds apart. This article is a detailed analysis of the competitive side of Call of Duty 4 (CoD4); therefore it will not tackle the single player experience, public multiplayer or the technical details of the game, but rather the factors that made, make and hopefully will continue to make the Call of Duty franchise, particularly CoD4, a popular choice for the people seeking fun and competition.
The Call of Duty franchise has quite a devoted following, especially in Europe and North America, yet it has never picked up the pace of games such as Counter-Strike 1.6 (CS) and Warcraft 3 (WC3), which will be taken as to be the role models of a successful competitive game in this article. Despite not being in the league of the big names in the competitive scene, most people knew that Call of Duty indeed had the potential to be one of the best competitive team-games around. Gotfrag's Andrew MacKenzie noted that the majority of the Call of Duty community migrated from Soldier of Fortune 2, Battlefield 1942, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Medal of Honour and Counter-Strike amongst other gaming scenes, thus the community had, since birth, been one aiming for competitive play.
Cups, ladders and even LAN tournaments were common place during CoD’s prime time, yet the spark to ignite the fuel of real, all-out competition was still on its way. The biggest news to hit the Call of Duty community came about when one of the world's biggest eSport organisations, the Cyber-Athlete Professional League (the CPL) announced a $50,000 Call of Duty tournament back in 2004, and the gamers knew it would only get better in the future. 2005 marked the release of the second game in the series. The shift of the community to the new game was swift, yet remarkably destructive at first, as people whined about the gameplay atrocities; two years from then and the community not only continued playing the game, but the scene swelled. Major LAN tournaments with decent prize money brought together the top teams from around Europe in a bloody fight for glory and fame: The Crossfire LANs, shgOpen, Netgamez, and Outpost on Fire amongst countless other tournaments, with WSVG in the United States as the cherry on top of the cake. Yet again, Call of Duty 2 never reached the status of being a game played by professional gamers; no CoD2 gamer played his game of choice for a living and there were no tournaments which could be set on parallel with the events for games such as CS and WC3.
Yet this time round, Infinity Ward have actually listened to the community and introduced a game which can actually make it to the top. Proof for Infinity Ward's dedication towards the CoD fans are the three patches released within a short period of time, unlike the months taken for the company to release the first decent patch for CoD2. Again, Call of Duty 2 teams rapidly left behind their rusty World War II bolt-action rifles to get their hands on the killing machines of contemporary war. Not only do the top CoD2 teams, such as
TeK-9, Dignitas, H2K.Qpad and Logitech.fi return to the scene, but teams and players throughout the eSport world have given a random shot at the game, to find out that they actually liked it. Supporting my argument are four notable teams, who despite having been successful at their game, have ditched everything just to start afresh at Call of Duty 4, for e.g. Team Ebuyer is one of the top British Counter-Strike Source teams, yet despite being successful at their game of choice, they decided on moving over to the new game, and even so, their organisation decided to keep them as their own CoD4 squad. The team recruited two CoD2 players to fill the gap left by the players who decided not to change over to CoD4.(Quoted from www.cadred.org)
Another surprising switch to CoD4 was from the
Team-Dignitas Battlefield 2142 squad, a team famous for being consistently in the top 4 throughout both Battlefield 2 and 2142. Right after their win at the ESL Pro-series, the Germans announced they would quit Battlefield and focus on CoD4 together with former SPEED-LINK player, z1N.(Quoted from www.tek-9.org)
The Swedes over at
One2 are a third high profile team who recently moved over to CoD4. The former Copenhagen-eSport team was perhaps the best European Enemy Territory: Quake Wars squad, yet the slow start of Quake Wars turned down the motivation for the team.(Quoted from www.crossfire.nu)
Circus Noir is a team made up from players who had made an impact in the first game of the series, yet never got on to play Call of Duty 2 at a competitive level. The team has a mixture of Dutch, German and Scandinavian players known from their time in teams such as Dignitas, Emprisa, Epitaph, Team 64AMD and fnatic. Such legends have returned to the scene to try to achieve the results they did in the original Call of Duty. (Source: www.tek9.org)Call of Duty 2 lacked support from the professional organisations, and only a few selected teams had the luxury of major sponsorships. This is clearly changing in Call of Duty 4, as the big boys set their sights on CoD4. British powerhouse
Four-Kings (4K) announced a Call of Duty 4 lineup before the game was released, featuring players from around the United Kingdom including former Check-Six (x6) star Crow and Dignitas player palmz. The 4K Management is confident that their new team will make it to the top:(Quoted from www.four-kings.com)
The very well known Swedish organisation
EYEBALLERS also picked up a Call of Duty 4 team, namely the Svea Royale team (former fukyuu) who achieved the gold at Wonderbase in September. Such deep-pocketed organisations will be of great benefit to any team and community who aspire to take their competitive play to the next level:(Quoted from www.gotfrag.com)
The Australian organisation
Fnatic had announced a €5000 Tournament to choose a Call of Duty 2 team a couple of months ago, yet as interest in CoD2 went down due to the imminent release of Call of Duty 4, the tournament was postponed to early next year. Such a prize fund merely for recruitment is proof of the dedication eSport teams of the caliber of Fnatic have towards the CoD franchise. The Danish team MeetYourMakers, who are rumoured to sport the highest salaried Warcraft 3 player, have shown interest in taking in a Call of Duty 4 team replacing their professional Counter-Strike 1.6 team, as stated by the COO of MYM, Mark 'Mercy' Peter de Fries:(Quoted from www.mymym.com)
This just proved to be just a smokescreen as MYM picked up another 1.6 team, yet still this does not necessarily mean CoD4 is not a future possibility for the Danish powerhouse. There are also rumours of the Polish
PGS.pokerstrategy organization in joining the CoD4 world as their America’s Army squad is showing interest in the new game. Tek9’s Mike Long notes that this makes four out of the ten of the G7 teams (G7 represents the ten most well known and respected eSport organizations) possibly taking on a Call of Duty 4 team.The game is just five weeks old yet tournaments and LAN events are common place. The Americans got their hands on more than $30,000 worth of hardware prizes as they battled it out in the Xfire First Strike CoD4 Tournament. In Europe, several LAN events popped up, spear headed by Multiplay's €6000 tournament at i32. Paul Bowsher from Multiplay told Gotfrag that they would host an even bigger event for CoD4 in their next event:
Over in Paris, the CoD-Gamer LAN attracted the likes of TeK-9, H2K, TLR and Oxmoze amongst other French teams with €3000 up for grabs. British eSport website Enemy Down are organising a €2500 Online tournament, whilst Crossfire.nu are already busy with the online CrossfireQCup which features €750 as a prize in preparation for the €4000 CDC4 LAN (Crossfire Devotii Challenge 4) event in February.
Such figures may not be as impressive as any prize money for a Warcraft 3 event, yet signs of a rapidly growing community are definitely apparent. Time will tell on how this game will evolve and turn to a highly competitive game worthy of representation in the most prestigious of eSport leagues.
Original Article at: playreaction.com
Sources:
www.tek-9.org
www.crossfire.nu
www.gotfrag.com
www.cadred.org
www.mymym.com
www.four-kings.com
It is interesting to see so many top players from CoD1 sniffing around CoD4 though, would like to see how they shape up against the top CoD2 players.
Good article though, keep this stuff coming! :)