The Crossfire Challenge 5 was the last international Call of Duty 4 LAN to be announced, right now the tunnel is dark and the future is bleak for the game. However CoD4 needs to take a leaf out of ET's books if it wants to survive until its sequel at the end of the year.
The point quite rightly made by Crossfire admin Klieneman is that ET is mainly being kept alive by the prospect of 2 LANs a year run by Crossfire. Throw in the odd Polish LAN here and there and the Eurocup and there is the ET competitive community. So in Klieneman's logic, why can ET pull 24 teams to Enschede and CoD about half that?
I addressed in my column on Cadred where the problems lie in the games future, but post Gamerland and CC5 the clouds have perhaps cleared that the top players really aren't interested in CoD5 and not one multigaming organisation is willing to touch it. Throw in the fact that CoD5 Promod's coder,
raf has quit his position and that CoD4's latest competition mod, DAMN mod has been well received by the community and there might be life in CoD4 yet.
The important fact is however, life in CoD4, and by life I mean money, has to come without Activision's assistance. Multiplay, AEF and TeX all were sponsored by the publishers for their CoD4 tournament, one would assume those sponsorships are gone. So looking at those events, who has the money to support without Activision?
Multiplay have already announced that they will be moving to CoD5 for April's i36. Multiplay boast a strong relationship with Activision, and demo'd CoD5 at i35 so one can assume their hands are tied. The Antwerp eSports Festival is supposedly not happening this year, whilst I'm yet to hear that from
dfb, a number of reliable sources claim to have. However, The Experience sit right now with the ace up their sleave with confirmation that they will be returning this year with another event. TeX are poised to play their hand in January with the announcement of their game titles, that decision will prove crucial for CoD4.
That leaves two other organisations who could throw money CoD's way, Crossfire and UKeSA. Crossfire will be running our next event under the brand of eSports Heaven in April. It will include, ET both CS's and perhaps CoD4. The question is can the CoD community prove that it can organise itself into action to both make a decision and stick to it.
This is where CoD must learn from ET, ET's biggest strength is its centralisation and by that I mean if you want to do something in ET post it on Crossfire and everyone will read it. For Call of Duty you've TeK-9, the biggest CoD site. Cadred the CoD site with the most bespoke (articles and columns) content right now, LLL who have Bocerbo and Crossfire at the end. Then you've got one other organisation who perhaps dont know their importance just yet, #CoD4.wars - A channel with 1500 people in it at 2pm in the afternoon, some of whom who dont have an account on any of the sites above. Beyond that you've got a number of regional websites, Gotfrag vaguely serve the US scene, CallofDuty.se play a very active role in the games development beyond Sweden and then there other nationalised sites beyond that.
No offence to all of those organisations, but that fragmented approach is hurting the game if you are looking to an ET model to save and centralise the game.
Somehow, CoD needs to either come into one place or have one group of people working for its betterment. The likes of Morg, Klieneman and fRijec have all put many hours into this however, if they want something posted somewhere they dont have the access (other than on cf ofc!) and thats what it will take, it will take those three having the ability to post the non-important newsposts about the events on every one of the organisations I listed above. It will also need the help of Clanbase and EnemyDown.
Information will be king to CoD's success, right now Call of Duty's #1 site (TeK9) is 100% dependent on its star JetSet. Posting on Cadred is limited to those who have access, posting on Crossfire will only get you a small proportion of the players. Posting about community news on Clanbase is impossible. However it HAS to happen, there must be the uprising of the middle skilled players to fill the void created by the top's departure. There must be an opening of arms to new players rather than the shunning or simple lack of information distribution to get them to play.
So to answer the many PM's I got this week about what game Crossfire will support in the CoD series for our next event, its quite simple. Fix the institutional problems I've listed above and I'll pick CoD4 and I'll increase its CC5 prizepurse. Show me that you care enough to save your game.
The point quite rightly made by Crossfire admin Klieneman is that ET is mainly being kept alive by the prospect of 2 LANs a year run by Crossfire. Throw in the odd Polish LAN here and there and the Eurocup and there is the ET competitive community. So in Klieneman's logic, why can ET pull 24 teams to Enschede and CoD about half that?
I addressed in my column on Cadred where the problems lie in the games future, but post Gamerland and CC5 the clouds have perhaps cleared that the top players really aren't interested in CoD5 and not one multigaming organisation is willing to touch it. Throw in the fact that CoD5 Promod's coder,
raf has quit his position and that CoD4's latest competition mod, DAMN mod has been well received by the community and there might be life in CoD4 yet.The important fact is however, life in CoD4, and by life I mean money, has to come without Activision's assistance. Multiplay, AEF and TeX all were sponsored by the publishers for their CoD4 tournament, one would assume those sponsorships are gone. So looking at those events, who has the money to support without Activision?
Multiplay have already announced that they will be moving to CoD5 for April's i36. Multiplay boast a strong relationship with Activision, and demo'd CoD5 at i35 so one can assume their hands are tied. The Antwerp eSports Festival is supposedly not happening this year, whilst I'm yet to hear that from
dfb, a number of reliable sources claim to have. However, The Experience sit right now with the ace up their sleave with confirmation that they will be returning this year with another event. TeX are poised to play their hand in January with the announcement of their game titles, that decision will prove crucial for CoD4. That leaves two other organisations who could throw money CoD's way, Crossfire and UKeSA. Crossfire will be running our next event under the brand of eSports Heaven in April. It will include, ET both CS's and perhaps CoD4. The question is can the CoD community prove that it can organise itself into action to both make a decision and stick to it.
This is where CoD must learn from ET, ET's biggest strength is its centralisation and by that I mean if you want to do something in ET post it on Crossfire and everyone will read it. For Call of Duty you've TeK-9, the biggest CoD site. Cadred the CoD site with the most bespoke (articles and columns) content right now, LLL who have Bocerbo and Crossfire at the end. Then you've got one other organisation who perhaps dont know their importance just yet, #CoD4.wars - A channel with 1500 people in it at 2pm in the afternoon, some of whom who dont have an account on any of the sites above. Beyond that you've got a number of regional websites, Gotfrag vaguely serve the US scene, CallofDuty.se play a very active role in the games development beyond Sweden and then there other nationalised sites beyond that.
No offence to all of those organisations, but that fragmented approach is hurting the game if you are looking to an ET model to save and centralise the game.
Somehow, CoD needs to either come into one place or have one group of people working for its betterment. The likes of Morg, Klieneman and fRijec have all put many hours into this however, if they want something posted somewhere they dont have the access (other than on cf ofc!) and thats what it will take, it will take those three having the ability to post the non-important newsposts about the events on every one of the organisations I listed above. It will also need the help of Clanbase and EnemyDown.
Information will be king to CoD's success, right now Call of Duty's #1 site (TeK9) is 100% dependent on its star JetSet. Posting on Cadred is limited to those who have access, posting on Crossfire will only get you a small proportion of the players. Posting about community news on Clanbase is impossible. However it HAS to happen, there must be the uprising of the middle skilled players to fill the void created by the top's departure. There must be an opening of arms to new players rather than the shunning or simple lack of information distribution to get them to play.
So to answer the many PM's I got this week about what game Crossfire will support in the CoD series for our next event, its quite simple. Fix the institutional problems I've listed above and I'll pick CoD4 and I'll increase its CC5 prizepurse. Show me that you care enough to save your game.
Morg, Kleineman and Frijec can easily PM any of the writers for those sites mentioned to get a post on, they don't need the rights to actually post themselves..
Get your point though.
Just a quick reply because some friends are coming over, I'll write a bigger one later.
We had a 2½ hour debate night, with many questions asked by the community. We all agreed on teh fact that it would be CoD4, which would become most succesfull untill CoD:MW2. CoD2 and CoD:WaW will still be played, they will not be as big as CoD4.
And we had so many questions discussed, also how to improve the competitive community, in so many ways.
There were so many things said, can't really remember it all, and the podcast isn't ready yet.
I don't remember lineup changes in the former MYM team, yet they got removed. Same goes to fnatic (well, they were kinda forced to remove a few players I guess, after disappointing results). SK got removed as well after bad results.
I'm not sure what happened to LLL, EG or other "few weeks" top teams, as I didn't really follow the "scene" anymore.
Whether it's the game that did not allow teams to perform equally at different events, I do not think so. EG, Pandemic, KC/bb and L3 were all quite stabile during the summer raids. Of course organisations such as mYm and SK demands a constant top3/5 for their teams; the teams could not deliver this.
However, with DAMN becoming more developed, more "randomness" is being pulled out of the game. A thing that bugs me though, about DAMN, is that CoD4 might end up being just a little bit different than the CS series, which in turn could have a negative effect on the game.
But yeah, there were so many suggestions to many of the topics. I can't really remember them all.
:)
These games are worlds apart. Granted a very large contributing factor to the success of ET in Europe has been Crossfire & the subsequent events it holds but I have to believe regardless of that ET's longevity will still be greater than that of COD4's no matter what kind of attention you give it.
Gameplay is a huge deciding factor here in my mind COD4 simply does not have it & the gameplay for COD5 is essentially the same.
CoD4 is exactly in that position, and therefore Toss is basically asking if CoD4 is worth fighting for...
The problem is it sustainable with it's communities current unorganized state? What hes saying in the article that it is not & that the writing is on the wall & unless something is done & people step forward & unite the community rather than divide it, it will surely die.
Sorry that had to be said :P
I get your point though
Don't even dare to make an April Fool about this event next year btw!
but i think q3 would be a better addition :O!
Somehow hits your point, and when he answered that question to me it sounded pretty logical x)
So here we go CoD4 community, come together and do what is needed to bring you anothe feature on Crossfire Lans!
If I would adress some I would start with;
This is very important at this stage. At the moment the movement are directed towards so many ways, that do not benefit anyone, not the teams attending events, nor the teams playing for fun. One problem though with appointing a group of people that will act as the frontpersons for a game is that to many people will find that they work often for themself, even if that is not the case.
Comparing the ET strenght with having CF and COD having several sites is hard in the way that COD will never just have 1 site. This is a problem indeed but can be solved as long as all sites work towards the same goal. Information will then come out on all sites quickly.
We truly indeed need the works from sites such as CB, ED and ESL to get the information out towards the minor teams, open their eyes and making them interested for events/tournaments etc. COD have always been a community that have not used it potential in sites as the ones mentioned above. From the start until present day few important people have made the game with it is. This is an area that need more sites, more dedicated people behind to spread the community and the game. These real enthusiasts need to keep working but even more together then before, without them the game will die.
Regarding the lack of teams attending CC5 I think a big reason was Gameland that were so close to it. This is not good for a game to have events that close and are often a big problem. It is hard to force an event to change their dates so events do not clash with other events. This is something a group of representatives should work with, give the game a stable schedule with events and tournaments. The three summer events were imo to close as well, hurting the community in the sentence that teams splitted, people got bored because of the high schedule and intense gaming.
All things above end up in one word really - Information. An important word that is hard to handle to its perfection.
Sorry wall of text so I write more later
Centralisation helps in smaller communities but it is counter-productive in larger and more professional games. The problem is the divide between the competitive players themselves. Some are happy to embrace the desires of the publisher and some want to push CoD onto the next level. But, no one in the community has a clue what to do or the power to influence people into making the right decision.
Here's a thought experiment for you then. Getting VAE to LAN. Flights would be Ryanair from Tampere to Bremen for 70 euros per player. For a 6 man team that's 420 euros total. Entry fees are 240 euros for the team. For accommodation you stay in the Bad Boekelo for 450 euros (assuming you find someone to fill the spare beds) - a cheaper option would be the cabins for 325, or around 260 if you hire the whole cabin and fill all the spares. Hire 2 cars from Bremen airport for the team for 350 euros and you're done, Total cost 1460 for the expensive option. If you can blag a lift or get cheap train tickets and stay in the cabins you can take that down to 900 plus the cost of Bremen->Enschede (depending on trains or lift). And that's for a 100% Finnish team - if you've got a couple of german, belgian or dutch players you can cut the transport costs in half, especially if one of them has a car.
Admittedly, I'm not factoring in transport from various places in Finland to Tampere.
so conclusion, getting it with even with 2k would be total superb!
Safer to get them one single plane :-P
i'm not playing cod4 activly but i enjoy it to play some mixes with friends beside t :) and this since cod2. as you already said the community have to find a place where everyone is gathering like crossfire for et :)
sry for my crappy english :<
And to be fair, at its prime, it had a LAN, where most top teams at that time competed.
and im not joking or speaking ironically.
another issue was that the game was from the beginning made for public, the balance with vehicles, deploys and radar was again horrible.. the community worked hard to make these community rules and they were good, but with a original game that was so different all the "newbs" didn't get along with the real competitors, hence again. a fail. the official pro mod was released too late (atleast taken into account the beta stages and the demo).
etqw was a great game when it was played with the community ruleset or the pro mod. but things doesn't always work out as they should.
(and sorry for my horrible english but i'm stressed as fuck).
cheers
:p
its too late idd.
It was just ridiciculous to play compared to the old id-engines. The maps are a point which can be easily solved, but it felt like there was no proper hit detection at all. And even with promod 200 fps in QW feel like 43 in ET. This game and its engine just sucks, you can´t deny that.
Q3 engine games are way more successful and the gameplay feels just nice, let´s say Wolfenstein Series, COD and Q3 ofc.
It´s sure a point, maybe not the main issue, but I see a clear connection in the engine and the fail games (imho).
Also, having one community site for competition doesn't necessarily mean that its members' opinions are all in unison. There have been countless discussions on how to handle gameplay changes, maps, cheaters, etc. at Crossfire - with diverse opinions from both sides of the field. The prone-delay debacle springs to mind, not to mention the 5v5 & 6v6 split and countless others.
Oh, and Killerboy has absolutely no sway here whatsoever, you can blame Clanbase for that one!
As some of you know I've been trying to cover the scene for TEK9 aswell as possible for the past month and a half, trying to do my bit and keep people interested..
I read this blog and I couldn't have put the necessities into words better. COD4 needs centralisation, and not technically in the sense of one website. It needs everyone to be working towards the same thing, with EVERYONE included. Obviously, being a TEK9 writer, I'd love to have everyone focussed on tek-9.org but in reality I'm gonna do whatever is required to keep the game alive.
If ANYTHING AT ALL needs posting on the TEK9 website, I WILL post it for you, and I could see to it that either Morg/Kleinemann or fRiJeC get all the coverage they need - as jetset said before, the rights to tek9 website.
I commend the work people are doing to keep COD4 going and I'll do all I can to help.
Then there is this: http://www.thecodalliance.com/
I don't know what it is yet, I haven't had a chance to catch up with people.. but there will be announcements soon. Hopefully this will aid the centralisation of COD4.
Until then come and play TEK9's Christmas Cups! I think there are prizes involved.. contact scarface to find out more.
Comparing cod to ET, I won't mention the fact that ET is just naturally better game and still lives easily after almost 5 years whereas cod4 barely has had 1st birthday.
But I guess u are right about the community work in ET that is keeping it alive. Surely also the LANs play a role although I don't see ET dying although the money hunters would quit without the offline events.