Day Of Defeat
<div class="IPBDescription">So aptly named....</div> Hi all,
I've just been over at the DoD forums, and have noticed a large number of threads posting their grievances with the DoD dev team. A little while ago, Inf posted a small rant in the Discussions forum as to why he was angry with Valve, and a lot of it was to do with Day Of Defeat. Players are becoming increasingly frustrated with each and every move the DoD dev team make, and over and over we hear repeated "Once CoD comes, I'm out" or "I havent played in months but I hang around waiting to see if things will change" or "once you've played Red Orchestra you cant go back to DoD", and I'm starting to agree.
Personally, I'm a beta 1.2 original. That was my first play of the game, and I've been in love ever since. Never (not even since NS1.0) have I seen so much promise and potential in a mod. But it seems to me that the dev team has lost the plot. They rarely communicate with their fans, and they do things that frankly seem to be a deliberate attempt to really make them angry.
Take bleeding for example. I have seen entire threads in the general section attempting to find one poster who DIDNT like bleeding/bandaging. Unsuccessful threads mind you, everyone loved it. There was no rational arguement for the removal of bleeding, even the DM supporters wanted it back in. But those DoD developing fools took it out. The only reason for taking it out - and this is a reason that scares me - is that CS doesnt have bleeding. CS and DoD were worlds apart back in 1.3b days. I loved both, and they were so unique, but as time goes by the similarities and sameness is really starting to upset me.
And then the kar debacle. Now this one was a little more tricky. For those of you unfamiliar with dod's history, back in pre 2.0 days (2.0 was the first version when recoil was introduced) the garand reigned supreme, and the kar was the worst weapon you could pick. Perfect one shot kill semi auto firing on the run with 9 rounds garand raped everything, especially the "one shot only kill if body/head hit .9 sec bolt working 5 round kar". Using the garand as allies was considered pretty lame, and garand whor4 was a common insult. But the end was in sight, 2.0 was coming and finally the garand would be nerfed, balance would be restored. And lo, the garand was balanced all right - it was the rough equivalent of picking up sand and chucking it at the Nazi's. It got the biggest flogging with a nerf stick that I have ever seen. The inclusion of recoil not enough, it got a massive kick back, 2 shots for kills and incredible inaccuracy.
I was still happy though, I'd had enough of the garand to last me a life time. And suddenly I was kicking some major rear with my old favourite - the kar98k. I thought I had just gotten better overnight. Then everyone on the axis team started using it, there was no arguing with "point stop click winnah" that was the kar. For a while I defended the use of the kar on the DoD forums, until I started playing allies more regularily, and I realised just how overpowered the gun was. Still - the DoD team had never let me down before, I was sure they would sort this out in due time.
2.1 rolled around - no change, kar still dominated. I waited, I played CS, I hoped and I prayed. 3.0 came, and it freakin rawked, but the kar still dominated. 3.1 now surely that would save me. Kar still dominated. I waited for a year and a half (correct me if I'm wrong) for them to correct this, and 1.0 was released, and it was still not fixed. Couple that with bleeding being simultaneously removed, and the kar was now unstoppable in any situation. 1.1 is supposed to be the messiah, bringing a standing accuracy nerf to the kar, but I no longer trust the DoD team to do the right thing.
1.0 was buggy, it left the kar unfixed, it killed off many long time community favourite maps, it left the garand still useless, it removed bleeding, and it added the British. I have nothing against the British personally, but every map they play feels like WW1 - rifles all round. The maps were incredibly unbalanced, and I cant believe they spent more than 5 minutes play testing some of them (round of forest anyone? what about charlie? flash that should be fun...).
To cut my already too long rant short - I'm disgusted with the DoD team. They dont talk to us, they have no respect for community wishes, and I think they've sold out to Valve. I played a game of v1.3b the other night, and I felt like crying. The nostalgia was overpowering, and I remembered days when I knew that this already awesome game could only get better. But looking at it now, I feel taken, and I get the impression a lot of other community members feel the same. I dont think I'm alone here. Opinions anyone?
I've just been over at the DoD forums, and have noticed a large number of threads posting their grievances with the DoD dev team. A little while ago, Inf posted a small rant in the Discussions forum as to why he was angry with Valve, and a lot of it was to do with Day Of Defeat. Players are becoming increasingly frustrated with each and every move the DoD dev team make, and over and over we hear repeated "Once CoD comes, I'm out" or "I havent played in months but I hang around waiting to see if things will change" or "once you've played Red Orchestra you cant go back to DoD", and I'm starting to agree.
Personally, I'm a beta 1.2 original. That was my first play of the game, and I've been in love ever since. Never (not even since NS1.0) have I seen so much promise and potential in a mod. But it seems to me that the dev team has lost the plot. They rarely communicate with their fans, and they do things that frankly seem to be a deliberate attempt to really make them angry.
Take bleeding for example. I have seen entire threads in the general section attempting to find one poster who DIDNT like bleeding/bandaging. Unsuccessful threads mind you, everyone loved it. There was no rational arguement for the removal of bleeding, even the DM supporters wanted it back in. But those DoD developing fools took it out. The only reason for taking it out - and this is a reason that scares me - is that CS doesnt have bleeding. CS and DoD were worlds apart back in 1.3b days. I loved both, and they were so unique, but as time goes by the similarities and sameness is really starting to upset me.
And then the kar debacle. Now this one was a little more tricky. For those of you unfamiliar with dod's history, back in pre 2.0 days (2.0 was the first version when recoil was introduced) the garand reigned supreme, and the kar was the worst weapon you could pick. Perfect one shot kill semi auto firing on the run with 9 rounds garand raped everything, especially the "one shot only kill if body/head hit .9 sec bolt working 5 round kar". Using the garand as allies was considered pretty lame, and garand whor4 was a common insult. But the end was in sight, 2.0 was coming and finally the garand would be nerfed, balance would be restored. And lo, the garand was balanced all right - it was the rough equivalent of picking up sand and chucking it at the Nazi's. It got the biggest flogging with a nerf stick that I have ever seen. The inclusion of recoil not enough, it got a massive kick back, 2 shots for kills and incredible inaccuracy.
I was still happy though, I'd had enough of the garand to last me a life time. And suddenly I was kicking some major rear with my old favourite - the kar98k. I thought I had just gotten better overnight. Then everyone on the axis team started using it, there was no arguing with "point stop click winnah" that was the kar. For a while I defended the use of the kar on the DoD forums, until I started playing allies more regularily, and I realised just how overpowered the gun was. Still - the DoD team had never let me down before, I was sure they would sort this out in due time.
2.1 rolled around - no change, kar still dominated. I waited, I played CS, I hoped and I prayed. 3.0 came, and it freakin rawked, but the kar still dominated. 3.1 now surely that would save me. Kar still dominated. I waited for a year and a half (correct me if I'm wrong) for them to correct this, and 1.0 was released, and it was still not fixed. Couple that with bleeding being simultaneously removed, and the kar was now unstoppable in any situation. 1.1 is supposed to be the messiah, bringing a standing accuracy nerf to the kar, but I no longer trust the DoD team to do the right thing.
1.0 was buggy, it left the kar unfixed, it killed off many long time community favourite maps, it left the garand still useless, it removed bleeding, and it added the British. I have nothing against the British personally, but every map they play feels like WW1 - rifles all round. The maps were incredibly unbalanced, and I cant believe they spent more than 5 minutes play testing some of them (round of forest anyone? what about charlie? flash that should be fun...).
To cut my already too long rant short - I'm disgusted with the DoD team. They dont talk to us, they have no respect for community wishes, and I think they've sold out to Valve. I played a game of v1.3b the other night, and I felt like crying. The nostalgia was overpowering, and I remembered days when I knew that this already awesome game could only get better. But looking at it now, I feel taken, and I get the impression a lot of other community members feel the same. I dont think I'm alone here. Opinions anyone?
Comments
Anyways, to agree with you... DoD blows sweaty sacks now. I was extremely disgusted with the retail version and quit playing it altogether after playing that for 2 days.
I've been in the dod clan community (1911) for somewhere near 2-3 years.
I've found that Waldo is a pretty good guy. He did some stuff for the clan community a while back, like fixing the scoring so people could actually play decent matches. The whole thing has gone down hill. Jump shooting, poor hit detection, hell, they even had a bug in the clan round start commands in 1.0 that made it impossible to start a round. The work around that we had to do for that was annoying as hell.
Grievances
-Jump shooting removed. This causes rifle supremacy. Taking out an auto's ability to leap around a corner to take out a one shot kill weapon makes it a rifle game.
-Rifle supremacy
-Total and utter disgust of clan players on public community forum
-Clan community actually deserves it
-No communication about 1.1
-Basically pleases the pub community totally, and ignores the clan community.
-Poor hit detection
-Never testing Clan settings before releasing 1.0. (Oh, I’m sorry clan_restart_round (?) doesn’t work. We’ll get you a patch to fix it in 3 months.)
-Removal of bleeding
-Crappy clan community
-Did I mention the crappy clan community?
-(Seriously, No matter what you say about NS clans (competitive ones) being immature, you cannot compare that to the DoD community. If you think that vets flame people, or that we have little respect for pubbers, just count yourself lucky. You can't even begin to imagine how bad it is over there.)
-Para maps. What in the seven bloody hells were they thinking? “Yay, lets make it CS in World War 2!!!”
-Realism over gameplay people. I’m SURE that’s a great way to make a game. It’ll be totally unfun to play, but you will be able to brush your teeth after your MRE.
I really enjoyed DoD from 1.3b to 3.1. It got really old, and I was glad for NS to come out. I’m much happier here. The community is more centralized; there is less animosity from the factions. The dev team actually tests the clan settings here too. That’s a definite plus.
[edit: That'd be the Sergeant for the allies. You were using the Thompson.]
I miss my DoD.....
I played it like a fiend until I picked up EQ and was addicted to that forever. When I came back to playing DoD and other HL mods, I tried out the new version, not a clue what it was, and discovered recoil. Immediately I uninstalled it and went back to CS, because I hated recoil.
I've played DoD recently and it just hasn't captured me as much as it did in the early days. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
I liked taking a break from the terminator robots of CS that could take 20 freaking bullets to the chest without flinching. (exageration I know, but thats how it feels)
Speaking as someone who has experience with the actual firearms used in these games, I like my bullets to go where I aim.
Then when i got sorted out at home with my own computer and internet connection, i got DOD back and start playing, and really enjoyed it still. Then 3.1 came out, and to be quite honest, the para maps disgusted me. I spent about... 3 months playing CS almost exclusively, then i went back to DOD. Because of the community i played in, the para maps weren't all that bad, because i liked all the regs on the server and we had a good laugh when we were dead.
Then 1.0/4.0 came out and... wow. My first impression: Seeing that damn dog in an army helmet. Jesus Christ, what the hell? A dog giving me advice? Ok, ok... i carried on playing. Turned off autohelp.
I hated the crosshairs. I hated the new weapon sounds (especialy the knife-hit-wall sound, which IS the CS knife one, ripped straight from CS with little or no modification), i hated the new models and i hated the way the game *felt*. The textures just looked wrong to me, the characters felt wrong, the way the weapons fired felt wrong, i didn't like the new maps etc...
I know most of that can be answered with "Get a custom pack then", but i shouldn't have to at all. I don't play DOD any more, and my first words after my first game were literally "They've sold out to Valve <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo--> ".
With 3.0B though, I did like the addition of the M1A1 Carbine. I love that gun. It looks so cool. I do hate the size of the Thompson muzzle flash. These are tommy guns!
Compaired with the DoD today, i miss the old one,
Anyone remember the origional forest? And the origional Omaha.
Remember oslo, and Cherbourg, and even Hill was fun, yea yea it could turn into a snipe fest, but it was fun counter sniper warfare.
Now its this No bleeding, keeping every gun like the awp, etc stuff
When I play DoD I feel Like I did when the NS team accidentally lost nancy, but with the whole mod. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
[rant] That's a problem with clanner in most games/mods. They hold themselves above those who aren't in a clan (like me for example). Just because I play on public servers doesn't make me a stereotype. I don't hump the armory and Rambo <i><b>all</i></b> the time. You'll often find me coordinating small squads for raids on enemy resourcers, or assaulting the hive with 2 or three squad mates in order to draw pressure off area's that may otherwise be overwhelmed by aliens. And I especially resent when clanners scoff at me when I offer advice to the comm, only to have the clanners <i><b>themselves</i></b> prove me right by ignoring my advice and brashly attacking a fortified resourcer or try and directly attack and alien raiding party. [/rant]
But you're right about DoD. It wouldn't suprise me if half the players were under 12 years old (the same goes for CS).
The boxart for Retail Day of Defeat has to be the most crummy, cheapest looking piece of rubbish I've ever seen. The case itself was about 1cm thick. I felt as if it could break in half in my hands. The layout was shoddy. It reminded me of a low budget game that the publisher had just thrown onto the shelves as fast as possible.
I looked at the slogan " from the makers of Counter-Strike" .......not exactly a winning slogan. It could be me, but i was under the impression that the CS and DOD teams were completely different people. Then i realised that this was the work of Valve.
CS has none of those, but within one day of playing, the similarities were amazing. This was a WW2 themed deathmatch. Its always been like that, but never to this extent. Especially in the Brit maps, which became every kar/enfield for himself. Its been noobified to the extent that the immersion level drops waaaayyyy down. Oh, and something else I forgot to add to my list of grievances - killcam and autoreload. DoD had something when it didnt have autoreload. It gave it uniqueness, it gave the player a feeling of control/responsibility - all that went south when Valve got their hands on it. Its hard to feel like "This is it, this is as close as it gets to the real thing" when you have a bloody bulldog in the top right hand corner making suggestions.
And killcam basically ended mgs, snipers, and any attempt at a camp. Not that I support camping, but it was one of the few ways to counter kar ho's. Then they gave the mgs a good flogging with the nerf stick, and now the most powerful mg of the war (mg42) has all the accuracy of a shotgun over 1000m. With MG's laughable, bleeding gone, sniper zoom strafe, bolt action rifle dominance, really unbalanced maps, autoreload introduced and a whole host of other things that I cant be bothered writing down, its rubbish. I still play, hoping 1.1 will return us to the glory days, but I cant help but get the feeling that its rubbish because this is specifically how they want the game to be. HLWW2themeddeathmatch.
Amen tensix, but part of that may be to do with the Kar. The kar makes any long distance combat for the allies well nigh impossible. And even if you do snipe, the second time round they will know exactly where you are thanks to the wonders of killcam, strafe out leaving 1/4 of their body exposed for .01 of a second, shoot you from the other side of the map in the foot and your out. Not that the kar is overpowered or anything - BAH!
And on the subject of 1.0, its called change its a **** and now you know how I felt when the NS community suggenly grew massively.
Change happens just get used to it and move onto something else.
for fans of the game (on Avalanche, i think its avalance, it used to be the German nadewhoring map) there is a balcony above Flag 2 for the Germans, it overlooks the plaza, and the entrance to the church, I used to be a sick MG-42 gunner, id set up on the balcony and I had the plaza covered, now its nearly impossible to score a kill on a guy running for the church with the MG-42 from that position. I love the HL engine with all of my heart, but I fear that I;m gunna go buy Call of Duty, my fried just bought it, and he says once you get over the "feel" change (it feels too smooth for me, no friction like the HL engine, reminds me of Wolfenstien, but he says its better in retail than the demo) its a great game.
I think the only people who could truly improve on DoDs feel would be Codemasters (they made Operation Flashpoint, the best war/sim I've ever played, and I've played alot of them) Codemasters makes great sims (Colin McRae <sp> 3 was sick, and 4 is even better, Pro Race Driver was superb) If you like war games, and dont mind playing a game set in 1980 go get operation flashpoint, you'll be presently surprised.
Ironic you said that. I can't remember the fellas name, but on Lunixmonster this guy was like "Well, I don't really want to uh, think much so I'm just gonna rambo off and practice my aim" Great people we have balancing NS.
Athlon XP2600+(oc'ed 8%)
512 mb DDR ram
GeForce 4
Because of the fps probs I havent been playing it lately. Been sticking to NS where I get framerates that are 80+.
www.redorchestramod.com
it's far superior and no silly crosshairs either <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
no kar whoring..more like ppsh whoring but still \o/
I was alone, vulnerable, at a loose end and looking for something to fill the endless days and lonely nights since my days with Blazkowicz. I thought I'd never find a way to move on until a friend emailed me and told me of a zip file on some far flung computer somewhere out in cyberspace.
I was nervous, I'd been alone for a while and I wasnt sure if I was ready to pick myself up and start with something new, but I took the plunge and sat attentively, trying to figure this mysterious creature out.
She was nothing like Blazkowicz, she seemed deeper, more three dimensional than that harlot. Yet despite her flaws and her embaressing crudity, I found myself falling for her more on every occasion we met.
She had me around her little finger, I couldnt stay away. The acrid waft of her cordite perfume made my nostrils itch. The way she would spin and fall enveloped by rippling crimson ribbons every time I would hit her "the right way".
Things got more perverse. It wasnt long before she had be dropping to my stomach every time we'd start one of our sessions, desperate to reach my obejctive sooner. Oh how I felt the giddy rush of excitment as she would sit on her hill casting mortar shells to the wind, smacking me down like a ginger step-child.
Life was good. Be it on the beach, a walk in the hills or just window shopping in some snowy street I wouldnt change it. I couldn't believer she was just 13, she seemed older.
By the time she turned 20 we'd become so familiar to each other. Even though we'd added larger louder toys to our games. I had to do more, I had to keep things alive, I had to get deeper inside her and see what made her tick.
It seemed to work, she was suprisingly receptive to my request of making small changes to our relationship. Though she was ageing gracefully I couldn't help but wanti to embellish on her natural charms. And so I did and others commented on how beautiful she looked now, I'd really turned her into something of my own.
Well as you grow old together with someone things can get a little stale. We'd had a few bumps at 30, even Blazkowicz had tried to lure me back but by the time she was 31 we were back to our old tricks.
Sometimes we would meet at night amongst the hedgerows, creeping about like giggling children. She even suggested the "mile-high club" and took me for several gliding trips. Time had taken its toll, as sometimes on these adventures I'd only last a minute and would take almost ten to regain myself. But she was patient and always waiting for me to get back in the game and give her another solid performance.
But then it happened.
There had been rumours of someone else for a while - some big city "hotshot" with money and sucess. She'd mentioned his name before, some "family friend" but until now I had thought nothing of it.
Though we still fooled around and spent long weekends together I noticed she spoke less of her hopes and dreams for the future. No more did she tell me of all the things she was planning or wanted to do. She would vanish for weeks without a word, only replying to my enquiries about when she was coming home with "soon...". I knew she was with "him" but I said nothing. I loved her too much.
The truth was a shock when it came.
I couldnt believe she was whoring herself for money, turning tricks outside stores for $30 a pop. Of course "he" turned out to be nothing more than a pimp, promising fame and fortune, driving her around in his shiney new vehicle. We'd been happy with the way we'd got around before but now it seemed if you didn't have a fast set of wheels, she didnt want to know you.
She looked like hell. Even at 31 she still managed to look good despite her age but this pimp had her dressed up like a tart with flashy accessories and semi-transparent clothes. He'd even got her telling customers she was 10 again. She couldnt barely carry herself, she was lagging and the sparkle and flicker in her eyes had become a slow dull blink.
I stuck by her, I loved her too much, we had so much history, so many good times together, I'd invested so much effort in making her mine - I wasn't prepared to throw that all away.
But it couldn't go on forever. I tired of watching what this pimp was doing to her. Everytime she'd fall he'd only prop her up rather than giving her real help. Of course he promised to "fix 'er up proper like" but he never followed through.
So we went our seperate ways. Me? Well its back to boring lonely nights staring at the screen looking for something to do. For her? Probably luring more people with her lies about her age and pretending she's something she's not. They'll spend their $30 and have their fun, but in the end, they'll realise its pointless and for what?
But I do miss her...
- Jed