It's fresh, its clean, its about to be seen!

T minus 5 days and counting folks.

Thats right, that many days until call of duty : blackops releases with the hopes of the competitive community riding high on its shoulders. Are we excited yet?

As a gamer, I couldn't be more thrilled that we have a new cod game out. Lets face it, I'm plain tired of cod4. I haven't liked it since roughly season 2. I play because I still enjoy the people I play with. A new zombie mod will be fun for the pubbers. and of course, ctf is back. And I love ctf.

From an admin standpoint, its a headache in the making. I've got a relatively new staff, although they are great and hardworking. They weren't admins at the start of cod4 to see how much of a pain in the ass it was with rulesets, people whining, the works. Hopefully it won't turn them into bitter hermits like it has me in regards to cod4. We have a lot to decide on though. Gametypes, settings, weapon modifications, perks to leave in/take out, basically we're going to be busy. I know I've preordered the game and will be spending the first couple of weeks it is out without having a life and doing nothing but playing.

With that being said, I have high hopes for ctf. I'm bored with SD! my only problem is I'm concerned that ctf cannot make it as the main gametype, in fact i'm worried that SD would be the only gametype able to survive by itself. But i'm bored of SD, its time for something nouveau, as the french say. Juvey brought up the point that it should be a mixed league bo3 matches. (i.e. one ctf, one sd, one dom) and while I'm open to the possibility, we really need to see how the damn game plays first before we commit to something. As I've stated time and time again, on shows like the round table at e-rev and on bash and slash, I like to give the game that golden month at the start in which we decide the rulesets before popping out some worthy competition wise.

At least it has dedicated servers and record function, right?

As I was talking to jockyitch yesterday he brought up a few interesting subjects, such as what this game needs to be competitive and last, cevo's plans for the game, a few other things. I love going on his show and interviewing with him, and he should have a piece up with me at http://bashandslash.com/ in the near future. But he really did get me thinking about it. His initial question was something along the lines of "What is the biggest problem of bringing competitive cod into e-sports?" and that of course got my gears turning in my brain.

After thinking about it for a little while my response to him was the dividing line between casual and competitive gamers, geographic/economic problems and lack of serious backing from sponsors, dwindling lan support, and game developer not backing the game.

I mean lets think about it. We have the same core group of competitive gamers every game that happens. We get a few from cs, the bf community and other games but sometimes its a challenge keeping them around. The pub community is the life essence of the cod game, not the competitive community, regardless of what people think. So how do we go about getting those pub gamers into learning about competition? I remember how I started back in 2001 in delta force 2. I would find a favorite server to pub, I saw some guys in there with tags on that would constantly whoop my ass, and I strived to get better. I eventually joined their team. From there I learned more about the game, and continued to get better and better until I finally joined one of the best teams in the game. I stayed with that core group on into CoD2, where we initially started in the likes of twl and ogl. We then went on into CAL, the premier FREE league for competition. From there ,we learned about CEVO. There's a balance to these things you know. We face a challenge of getting these pubbers to start playing competitively and keep breathing life into the game. How can we get them to compete and stay around? The first thing in my mind is strip the bare minimum out that we have to. And I think blackops presents us with the unique opportunity in that regards.

Geographic and economic problems are self explanatory to me. America's economy hasn't exactly been booming the past few years. It cost roughly 400/500 dollars for a round trip ticket from California to jersey. (Hello to eurogamers, you have the ease of taking a train trip cross country to all of your major lans. I hate you for that.) When even winning first place in these lans isn't enough to cover your ticket to the event you have a problem. Top teams certainly aren't willing to invest in that. Hopefully with the new game coming out companies such as nvidia, ati, and what not are going to be wanting to push their products onto gamers having to upgrade and will invest in these lans and make it worth time. I'm not holding my breath though. My solution would be stop having podunk lans in the middle of no where new jersey. I am not a gamer that is ever going to be able to place top 3 in these lan events and win prize money. So I look at several other things when I lan. A lan is basically a vacation for me. Not only am I going to go to the lan, I'm going to go to the nearest big city, sight-see, and experience the culture. (Seeing king tut in philly, philly cheese steaks on south street, and visiting new york were some of the highlights of my gaming career.) Maybe that's just me though, as I know at nerv the big thing was always partying with people in their hotel rooms. Of course at nerv, it was a pretty "close knit" group of gamers who all knew each other anyways. You need ways to attract these gamers that aren't going to win and place big. Give them more than a couple of matches to play. Relatively inexpensive hotels. Stuff to do in that city while there if its more than a one day event. Prize giveaways such as video cards, processors, what not, and of course the lans need to be worthwhile for the competitive teams to cover the cost of their trips. Anyone have any ideas on HOW we do that?

I'm no rocket scientist but I'm open to any explanations that people can find for me.

Anywho, its update time.

• Congratulations to Loaded for winning season 5 of cevo P, and dX for winning season 5 of cevo-a.
• the pam 4 tourny went decent. Lots of teams for a free tourny considering the stage in the game. We're currently in the bracket finals, which is sabotage on overgrown. Sure to be exciting!
• My rangers got to the world series but fell short. Still pretty pleased. If only now we keep cliff lee from becoming a yankee.
• I was recently interviewed on the cod4 roundtable at e-rev. You can check it out here. You'll have to register though. Myself and ted ottey were on talking about the future of cod. I apologize for my inattention though.
• Had an interview with JockYitch from Bashandslash.com last night as well, I'm sure that will be up soon. Make sure to check it out!

Thats it for now. Can't wait for the new game to come out! I'm excited! Looking forward to my social life being non-existent for the near future. If anyone has any ideas for what we should be doing with black ops let me know! I'd be excited to hear about everyone's ideas on how to make this game succeed. Email me(itannehill@cevo.com) with your suggestions!