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 With the upcoming release of Call of Duty: World War II, there has been a lot of talk about the series returning to its roots. But, what exactly are those roots? Back in 2003, a small development team named Infinity Ward released a game like no other of the time. Instead of a lone space marine taking on hordes of hellish creatures, it emphasized squad combat and offered a more grounded experience. Let's take a trip down memory lane and play the game that started it all, the original Call of Duty. However, I will not be playing through the single player campaigns. If you want to see that, CoolGuy and TheLastRoboKy already did a great LP of the single player game, which you can view on the LP archive here. For this LP, I will only be covering the multiplayer aspect of the game. But wait, isn't CoDMP practically dead? Well, yes, there aren't too many active servers left these days. This means that we're going to have to take drastic measures. We will have to go back in time to play the game when it was at its peak in popularity! So pop your collar and load up your Blink-182 CD, we're going back to 2005!  How is this possible? Back around 2004-2006ish, I played CoDMP pseudo-competitively. During this time, one of my friends showed me how to record in-game demos using the console. After that, I began recording almost every game I played, practicing on public servers just about every weekend. The result is that I have hours upon hours of in-game footage of pub stomping from that era. In a sense, you could say that this LP was 10 years in the making. And since we're going to be playing on public servers in the mid '00s, here are some things to look out for: - Unironic leetspeak - The word "pwned" ad nauseum - Chappelle's Show references - Horrendously outdated memes - Occasional commentary on Bush and Iraq With that being said, let's go over the mechanics:  There were a total of sixteen maps in the final patch of CoDMP, all based on historical battles. Some were just modified single player maps, while others were totally original. I will not be going over the actual history each map is based on, only how they fair in multiplayer. I'll be convering each map in detail on their respective episodes, so no reason to list them all here. If you really want to see a list of all the maps, you can view one on the Call of Duty wiki here.  Teams are separated into Axis vs Allies. The Axis are always the Germans, but the Allies can be Russian, British or American depending on the map. Each faction has their own set of weapons to choose from.  GERMANS MP40  German submachine gun. Does decent damage but has a low rate of fire, making it one of the less popular submachine guns. Trumped in every way by the MP44. Sturmgewehr 44 (MP44)  Highly accurate and powerful machine gun. Lethal when put into skilled hands. One of the most popular weapons. Kar98k  Bolt-action rifle that functions as a close range sniper rifle. Not for noobs. Very powerful and deadly if used by an experienced player. Scoped Kar98k  The exact same thing, but with a scope. The scoped weapons weren't as useful here as they were in the later games in the series.  AMERICANS M1A1 Carbine  Useless pea-shooter. Semi-auto with poor accuracy and damage. Used only by noobs who don't know what they're doing. M1 Garand  Better than the carbine but still pretty useless. Only has an 8 round clip and you can't reload without emptying. Thompson  The second best submachine gun. Excellent choice for new players who like to spray and pray. Hated by Axis players. Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)  The deadliest (read: broken) of the machine guns. Takes some time to master due to its high recoil, small magazine and long reload time. But, can be an unstoppable force if used properly. Springfield M1903A4  The Americans' requisite sniper rifle. Pretty sure this functions the same as the scoped Kar98k.  RUSSIANS PPsh-41  The original noobtube. While the Russians only have a submachine gun and no standard machine gun, this puppy more than makes up for it. It has a 71-round drum and sprays bullets like a lead fountain. Mosin-Nagant  The Russians' answer to the Kar98k. Powerful and deadly bolt-action rifle. There were often debates over whether the Mosin or the Kar was better. (Hint: It's the Mosin) Scoped Mosin-Nagant  The scoped version of the Mosin-Nagant. Virtually the same as the unscoped rifle but you can zoom.  BRITISH Sten Mk II  The worst of the submachine guns. Poor accuracy and damage. The British really got shafted in the weapon selection. Bren Mk2  The only decent British weapon. Has high accuracy and power, but is awkward to use because of the bulky model and sight. Lee-Enfield  The British bolt-action rifle. Unlike the Nagant and the Kar, this one carries 10 bullets per clip but does less damage, making it an inferior rifle. Springfield M1903A4 Literally the same as the American sniper rifle. They weren't even trying with this one.  OTHER FG42 A full-auto scoped weapon that can be used for both close-quarters spraying and effective sniping. Presented in this game as a "super gun" of sorts that can be found at select positions on some maps. Panzerfaust One-use rocket launchers that can be found in crates on some maps. Instantly kills anything within its blast radius. MG42 Mounted machine guns that cannot be picked, but instead manned as a turret at specific positions on the map. Shoots incredibly fast and does a lot of damage.  Team Deathmatch The absolute most popular and the one most people played the most. Two teams are pitted against each other to see which one can more effectively slaughter the other. This gamemode will be the main focus of this LP. Deathmatch Like Team Deathmatch, but without the teamwork. An all-out free-for-all to see who can get the most individual kills. Search and Destroy A complete facsimile of the bomb defusal game from Counter-Strike. Matches are split into rounds. Each round, one team must bomb one of two points and the other team must defend it. Death = out until the next round. Headquarters A unique and fun "king of the hill" style gamemode where teams must fight over a designated position marked by a radio. Points are earned by how long each team can keep and hold the position. Retrieval Similar to Search and Destroy except instead of bombing positions, one team must capture some documents and bring them back to their spawn point. This gamemode was rarely played for some reason, and as such, I won't be able to show it in this LP. Behind Enemy Lines Infinity Ward's failed experiment of a gamemode. Known only for its confusing rules and lack of fun. Nobody ever played this, and therefore, I will not be able to show it in this LP. Kubbles fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Sep 3, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 08:21
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 23:57 |
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 For the purposes of this Let's Play, I will be showing Team Deathmatch on all sixteen maps for vanilla, unmodded Call of Duty Multiplayer. Then, I will go back and revisit some of the maps to show off different gamemodes, some interesting mods and other oddities that were recorded.  Date: February 6, 2005 Team: Axis (German) Video: Youtube, Polsy For the premiere episode, we will be visiting the town of St. Mere Eglise, or as the old boys know it, Dawnville. I'll be going over some of the core basics of the game while getting some sweet MP44 frags on some yanks.  Date: August 27, 2005 Team: Allies (Russian) Video: Youtube, Polsy In the second episode, we'll be channeling our inner Vasily Zaitsev on one of the most popular maps in CoDMP.  Date: August 21, 2005 Team: Allies (American) Video: Youtube, Polsy This time, we'll see one of the more infamous maps. I'll be showing exactly why Axis players hate this map while also demonstrating the fundamental rule, you don't snipe on Carentan!  Date: October 21, 2005 Team: Axis (German) Video: Youtube, Polsy This episode will be the first time we'll be seeing the British faction, and also seeing why they were the least popular. We'll also be visiting the Depot map, one of the few decent maps where the British are featured. Kubbles fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Sep 3, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 08:21
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lol the PPsh was so much fun. If you're a noob it saves you the trouble of reloading (because you die way before you run out of bullets) and if not, you can get about 3 kills per clip by holding your fire and letting the sights narrow down again for a second
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Aug 13, 2017 01:13
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This looks really interesting! CoD was a bit before my time, but I like seeing how older games played and how things have changed over the years. You did a pretty good job of having your voice cut through the game's sounds, but I think you should quiet the game a little bit more. The gun shots are really loud and make it hard to pay attention to what you're saying. I'm looking forward to the next episode!
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Aug 13, 2017 06:04
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Kubbles posted:Mosin-Nagant  I remember I'd get people to stop and type by starting this argument in pub games, which made them easy targets.I used to clan up in CoD1 too, haha! Thanks for the shout-out in the OP, I'll be following this closely!
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Aug 14, 2017 20:00
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God, I wish I'll see my name pop up in the killlfeed. The likelihood shouldn't be that bad. I don't think there were many more than 1000 players online at any given moment even during the peak years.
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Aug 14, 2017 20:38
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Thanks for the feedback, guys! Glad to see some interest in this old game.  I just finished re-recording the commentary for the next episode (for a third time  ) but the next map is a crowd favorite. I'm planning to put it up this weekend, either Friday or Saturday. I'll do my best to keep this thread updated on a weekly basis.quote:You did a pretty good job of having your voice cut through the game's sounds, but I think you should quiet the game a little bit more. The gun shots are really loud and make it hard to pay attention to what you're saying. Yep, this game is very loud. I'll see what I can do to control the audio in future episodes.
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Aug 15, 2017 15:49
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 UPDATE: NEW EPISODE As promised, here is the next episode featuring mp_harbor. This one is action-packed with lots of drama and suspense, and will be a nice treat for those who love the rifles.  Date: August 27, 2005 Team: Allies (Russian) Video: Youtube, Polsy In the second episode, we'll be channeling our inner Vasily Zaitsev on one of the most popular maps in CoDMP.
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Aug 19, 2017 05:56
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UPDATE: NEW EPISODE Decided to release the next episode a bit early. I'm thinking to begin posting updates at a bit of a faster pace. Date: August 21, 2005 Team: Allies (American) Video: Youtube, Polsy This time, we'll see one of the more infamous maps. I'll be showing exactly why Axis players hate this map while also demonstrating the fundamental rule, you don't snipe on Carentan!
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Aug 24, 2017 19:34
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This game is so chaotic compared to what I'm used to. So spawns are entirely based on where the rest of your team is? Does anyone ever abuse that to grief their team? (Like in Ep. 2 when one guy on your team was hiding in the house away from the fight, so you respawned there.) What was the competitive scene like for CoD? Do you have recordings of any of those matches? On the more technical side, I think these last two episodes are much better in terms of sound. And your commentary was good, too.
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Aug 27, 2017 02:36
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This is great, the game brings back so many childhood memories.  The Q3 engine is a legendary part of pc gaming history.
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Aug 27, 2017 09:35
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I will contest the MP-40 being the worse weapon (or rather a *bad* weapon) though. It's much more accurate than the Thompson, especially aiming down the sights. Then again, I also liked the M1 carbine since the sound it makes is satisfying. Did you ever record any United Offensive footage?
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Aug 27, 2017 11:03
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the mp40 is much more accurate than the tommy but the issue is that there's no space whatsoever for an accurate smg in CoD1. either you're close enough that accuracy functionally doesn't matter or you're far enough away that the time it takes you to shoulder and fire the weapon is all the time an actual rifle user requires to blow your loving head off. there aren't any real mid-range engagements where the distinction is helpful.
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Aug 28, 2017 08:18
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quote:Garand quote:Pretty Useless Sir, this is a travesty. I protest. That word is only to be applied to British weapons. And the British in general. (But it's been a million years since I've played CoDMP so the protest is mostly out of principle)
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Aug 28, 2017 11:19
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yeah the Americans kinda get hosed because the Garand doesn't have the kill power of the bolt action rifles. a hit from one of the bolt-actions in the body does like 95% damage, but a similar hit from the garand will do 50% if you're lucky - more likely 40%. latency, recoil semantics, and other network weirdness being what it is, you will always, always, always go for the weapon with least shots to kill at range like that. so the Americans are sitting here trying to line up three shots while their German counterparts are being all 1sh0t1k1llsnyp@r and it's just not a good time for them at range. again, the way the MP of this game set up, long range multi-shot weapons just do not have a reason to exist. for this reason, most American games revolve around using a minority of dudes with Springfields to provide some token resistance and keep heads down while the bulk of the team rolls up with tommy guns, which actually are good.
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Aug 28, 2017 18:24
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Solumin posted:This game is so chaotic compared to what I'm used to. So spawns are entirely based on where the rest of your team is? Does anyone ever abuse that to grief their team? (Like in Ep. 2 when one guy on your team was hiding in the house away from the fight, so you respawned there.) I don't recall any griefing in that sense, but there were a few spots where you could spawn camp with a scoped weapon if you knew exactly where the spawn points were. Solumin posted:What was the competitive scene like for CoD? Do you have recordings of any of those matches? There were a few websites that kept track of clans, scrims, etc. The two biggest I remember were ClanBase and TeamWarfare League (TWL), both of which hosted some crude ladders and tournaments. This is back when MLG and the like was still in its infancy, so the online competitive gaming scene in general was a lot different back then. Much of the competitive scene was still being held together by teenagers in their parents' bedrooms. I'm planning on doing an episode where I go over clan culture and how it shaped the online scene in great detail. I do have some recordings of some loosely organized scrims, which we will be seeing eventually. I also have recordings of ladder matches that I downloaded off of the aforementioned sites, but I'm hesitant to upload those since they're not mine.  Solumin posted:On the more technical side, I think these last two episodes are much better in terms of sound. Thanks, pal.  817 posted:I will contest the MP-40 being the worse weapon (or rather a *bad* weapon) though. It's much more accurate than the Thompson, especially aiming down the sights. Then again, I also liked the M1 carbine since the sound it makes is satisfying. It's not a bad weapon per se, it's just that in a one-on-one match-up, it gets beaten by the Thompson and PPsh at close range. Plus, the Germans have a much better weapon for medium range combat (the MP44). 817 posted:Did you ever record any United Offensive footage? Sadly, I don't.  I did play UO and CoD2 for a short time, but when I upgraded PCs, the CoD demos were the only files I transferred over, simply because I had so many and didn't want to just throw them all away.Coolguye posted:yeah the Americans kinda get hosed because the Garand doesn't have the kill power of the bolt action rifles. a hit from one of the bolt-actions in the body does like 95% damage, but a similar hit from the garand will do 50% if you're lucky - more likely 40%. latency, recoil semantics, and other network weirdness being what it is, you will always, always, always go for the weapon with least shots to kill at range like that. so the Americans are sitting here trying to line up three shots while their German counterparts are being all 1sh0t1k1llsnyp@r and it's just not a good time for them at range. again, the way the MP of this game set up, long range multi-shot weapons just do not have a reason to exist. Pretty much this, plus the fact that the Americans have a much better alternative for medium and medium-long range combat, the BAR. I dunno, I always just found the American semi-auto rifles awkward to use. I'd much rather have either a full-auto or a one-shot-one-kill sniper rifle. But, I will concede, the Garand does have a very satisfying reload sound.
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Aug 28, 2017 20:11
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 23:57 |
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UPDATE: NEW EPISODE Don't worry, folks. This thread's not dead, just got a little behind on my update schedule. Short episode this time, but we'll be seeing the British for the first time. Date: October 21, 2005 Team: Axis (German) Video: Youtube, Polsy This episode will be the first time we'll be seeing the British faction, and also seeing why they were the least popular. We'll also be visiting the Depot map, one of the few decent maps where the British are featured.
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Sep 3, 2017 04:33
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