Introduction and History to Competitive Call of Duty
This first article explains what Competitive Call of Duty
(CCoD) is about and why people compete; in this introduction I will be giving
you an outline and the basics that you will need to know.
First off, Competitive Call of Duty is when people play with
a certain set of rules. These rules
allow for a level playing field. If this
was not introduced, a beginner with certain tools (which will improve their
performance) could beat a more experienced player. This “rule set” takes the
randomness out of the original game play.
In this way we can more easily see who the best players are. There are several elements which make up the
skill set of a player and or team; some of these are: gun skill, tactics, and
communication.
Also as a note CCoD has always been on Xbox (Except some MW2
events) but some people think it should be changed since the rise in PC players
and the better gameplay experience, and also you have better control with a
mouse and keyboard. There also is no aim assist on a PC.
Call of Duty (CoD) has always been a competitive game, even the
first release when the online multiplayer version was very basic and people
mainly played it for fun. You always
want to win because it’s more fun for most people getting the most kills and
winning the game. (The first game was
also only on PC.)
When Call of Duty 2 (its official name on Xbox, PlayStation
and GameCube was Call of Duty 2: Big Red One) was released it improved the gameplay
and the ability to play online added a lot more competitive modes. With limited weapons and ways to kill people,
the skill of the individual player determined their success in the game, in
other words the skill gap was still quite large. Thus the skill gap was large. Around this time people would start competing as it is human nature to find
better competition for themselves and also with more objective modes been added
in this helped with the start of CCoD and the game in general.
Call of Duty 3 was pretty much similar to Call of Duty 2 but
it added a lot more to the game. It allowed each team to have 24 players on Xbox 360
and PS3. It also had a mode to help console players, this mode was to help with aiming. This is around
the time that CoD was getting bigger and was attracting more people as most
people had a console. CoD developers and Activision was starting to aim for that audience.
When Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare came out in 2007 is was
a massive boost to as it was the first smooth feeling CoD for a console. The was modern warfare and this attracted many people that was looking
for a modern shooter rather than a World War 2 style game. Also this is when people
started to compete, and many (some who are still playing to this day) 13-19 year olds at
the time. This also when local area network (LAN) events started. This is because LAN eliminates the lag that comes with playing over an
internet connection. LAN is when people come and meet up to play at the same
location, this takes out the factor of internet lag which takes out even more randomness that may effect the outcome of
the game. LAN was played on Xbox as was the cheapest console and most people in
North America had this console. Also consoles are all the same whereas PC's
can have different specs which affects gameplay in different ways. Also MLG the
biggest company that hosted most events used Xbox so it became sort of
standard but unofficially.
When Call of Duty: World of War came out people still played
Modern Warfare Competitively as well as World at War because people preferred
Modern Warfare. At this point because CCoD was still not as
big as Xbox and Activision were not as heavily involved as
they are today.
When Modern Warfare 2 came out there was a big surge of
people that wanted to started playing more competitively because the game
itself was fun to play. Even thou the skill gap was made much smaller with
normal online multiplayer. Although with the rules set by MLG it became very tactical
and relied heavily on being accurate with your gun and also good reaction time as
you died very quickly.
With the release of Black Ops, Activision started becoming
involved with the competitive side as it started to gain a bigger audience on
streaming services and YouTube. This is when it was starting to be taken more seriously by
the company. Also other organisations like MLG started to host their own events
and tournaments, both online and on LAN.
In 2011 Modern Warfare 3 was released, Activision had an event
called CoD: XP, in which 32 pro teams fought for a $1 Million
prize pool in which the winners will get $400,000 to split between 4 team
members. This was hosted and fully funded by Activision (Using Xbox consoles) and was used as a way
to sell the game and promote it. OpTic Gaming won this tournament and was the
start of a reoccurring event that has happened every year since.
The release of Black Ops 2 saw a major push for competitive
play, as the developers (Treyarch) put competitive rules into a separate
multiplayer game mode for people to causally play, without using other websites
to find matches via MLG, UMG etc. Also in this game mode there is a ranking
system on how you perform in each match and your team won the game.
This new game mode was also used to get the teams that would compete in the World
Championship finals based on their team ranking. Black Ops 2 also had many new
features that help casters commentate over the game and bring stats of players,
map positions etc. For the view of spectators.
The next game, Call of Duty: Ghosts, saw a step back in the
view of competitive play especially for the casting point of view. This was because the
features added in Black Ops 2 to help castors, was not put in to the game and
the competitive game mode was not as good as Black Ops 2. The World Championship was still held but the qualifying was done via the MLG website.
The latest game in the Call of Duty series is Advanced
Warfare, this game saw improvements from Ghost but was ultimately the same as
Black Ops 2 in respect to the competitive aspect of the game. It has competitive
game mode similar to Black Ops 2, also the casting features improved a little
bit. The World Championships was held again by Activision.
In summary Call of Duty has come a long way in both gameplay
and supporting competitive and pro gamers. As the audience grows for
competitive play so does the intensive by developers and Activision to make a
game that will please casual players and competitive players. They have added
ways to make the game fun for everybody and not just focus on one target
audience, although this is mainly a marketing decision. It feels like without
the backing from Activision it wouldn't be as big as it is and because many
people have made a career from being a pro CoD player it has helped a
lot of people become who they are today.
