NFL | Friday Night Fantasy Football Episode 9 | Unstoppable

From MP1st – New Black Ops 2 Multiplayer Details – Game Modes, Challenges, Player Card, Theater and Prestige

Call of Duty is seeing some major improvements and additions in Black Ops 2′s multiplayer – more that you might of initially expected.
We’ve already learned about some of the initial Black Ops 2 multiplayer features back in September, including Pick 10, scorestreaks and wildcards etc., but after having recently visited the Treyarch Studios down in Santa Monica LA, MP1st was fortunate enough to preview a slew of brand new multiplayer features and content that have yet to be revealed.
Though unable to attend the event in person, game design director David Vonderhaar put together an informative presentation detailing some the exciting new multiplayer goodness making its way to Black Ops 2 this November 13.

Game Modes

Multi-Team

At launch, three modes will be playable with up to three different teams within the regular assortment of playlists. These three teams can be made up of three to four players. Treyarch calls these “3×3′s” and “3X4′s.” Multi-team game modes include:

• Team Deathmatch
• Kill Confirmed
• Hardpoint

Party Games

Party Games essentially replaces Wager Matches from the original Black Ops. However, players will now be able to earn XP and rank up in the regular progression. Game types include:

• Gun Game
• Sticks and Stones (Yes, the crossbow and ballistic knife are returning.)
• One in the Chamber
• Sharpshooter

Combat Training

Combat Training is now integrated into the main game and will include three different modes at launch.

• Bootcamp – In Bootcamp, players can rank up from level 1 to level 10 while gaining full experience. This playlist is solely made up of the Team Deathmatch game mode and pits one team of humans and bots against another team of human and bots. This eases the level of expectation placed on someone who may be new to the game.
• Objective – Here, players can rank past level 10, but will not earn the full amount of XP. Once again, two teams made up of both humans and bots are pitted against each other in various objective-based game modes.
• Bot Stom – No XP is earned in Bot Storm. Quite simply, a team of humans is pitted agains a team of bots – great for practice, map knowledge, and nailing down the basics of Call of Duty.

Customization

All game modes are customizable in Black Ops 2. Bots can be added to almost all game modes if a team needs filling out, for example. Players will also have the power to restrict content like certain attachments, perks and equipment. Interestingly, players will also be able to redesign the Pick 10 system to either a Pick 3 to Pick 17 system and anything in between. This can make for some extremely skill-based matches when weapons, perks and equipment are limited to only three slots. A slew of competitive settings and options have also been thrown in, including how FFA, TDM and CTS are scored, the ability to turn off 3rd person spectating, the ability to disable the announcer and a whole lot more.

Challenges

Challenges reward players for almost anything and everything – ranging from simple tasks to more difficult feats. Completing challenges is ‘the’ way to unlock cosmetic content for your character which can be shared throughout all aspects of the multiplayer. These challenges, numbering in the thousands, also reward players with XP in order to level up even faster.
Every weapon in the game, including atypical weapons like launchers, knives and assault shields all have challenges for camoflage patterns. Once these base camos are unlocked for a weapon, a whole new set of challenges are unlocked to complete for special camos, including some interesting hidden ones.
These challenges also extend to optic reticles. There are a total of eight unique reticles for each optic that are all unique to that optic which can all help your aim and precision. Just for the lol’s, Treyarch has also thrown in a number of comical shapes, including a mustache, aka “The Steve,” as well as the “EOTech Zombie Stopper.”
In-game, these rewards show up as a neatly presented icon in the top center of the screen when earned and are reviewable in the after-action report.

Player Cards

Every Player Card in Black Ops 2 is made up of these elements: a background, a clan tag, a player’s matchmaking level and a player’s current League Play rank.
In the emblem editor, players will have up to 32 layers to work with. Objects can be flipped, moved, rotated, scaled and copied and pasted from one layer to another. The choice of colors has been improved and RGB color mixing can also be tweaked. The emblem editor now also supports transparency.
Should you choose not to create your own emblem, default emblems will also be provided. For those willing to get creative, more complex shapes will become available upon completing specific challenges. When it comes to backgrounds, over 150 are selectable, not all of which are simple rectangular shapes.

Theater

The theater mode in Black Ops 2 is back and has seen some major improvements while keeping all the same tools, including the dolly cam, from previous Call of Duty’s. The new Social Features allow players to bookmark gameplays so that they can be revisited, meaning it’s now much easier to go back and search for your favorite moments after a plentiful night of games. The Meta Data has been expanded to include score, captures and defends while the robust Community Filter can help sort videos to a player’s preference. Up and down-voting is now also included for both films and screenshots.
An extremely powerful new feature, the Highlight Reel, allows players to create a film with the simple touch of a button. Simply load a game in the theater, select ‘Hightlight Reel,’ and “bam,” the game instantly creates your very own montage of your most excellent moments. Settings can be customized, however, to expand or simplify the contents of your film. Further editing can be done once completed as well.
As previously mentioned, players can also CoDCast previously recorded games in order to either get some practice in, or create some nifty commentaries. Parties can now head into theater mode and watch videos together while having the ability to watch any player from a first-person perspective.
Treyarch has also doubled the amount of clips or segments that can be put together in one video – up to 20 in total. Additionally, clips can now be merged into each other, creating one big clip. The brand new Attach to Object feature, a brilliant addition, will let players produce some really fancy shots. By entering free-roam, objects that are selectable will turn green. When selected, the camera will simply follow that object as it moves throughout the gameplay. Objects can range from various scorestreaks all the way down to the rocket that is launched out of an RPG. This means you can now follow said rocket in slow-mo as it plows into your enemies face.

Prestige

What everyone’s been waiting for.
Treyarch is handling prestige very differently in Black Ops 2. Once again, assumptions are being challenged. No longer is Prestige a “restart” as it was in previous Call of Duty titles. This time around, weapon experience and earned attachments are are carried over, as are all challenges.
Black Ops 2 is meant to be played all the way to prestige 10. Upon prestige-ing, tokens are rewarded to the player which can then be used to unlock what ever item you want forever, including items that you have yet to reach the required level for. On top of these tokens, an additional reward can be selected. These rewards include:

• New create a class slot – Up to 5 extra slots.
• Stats Reset – This is a complete wipe of all stats and unlocks. This is essentially like buying the game new.
• Refund – This gives back all unlock tokens a player has spent so far that prestige level. This basically allows players to re-roll or re-spec their character.

Only at prestige 10 is absolutely everything unlocked for the player. It seems Treyarch really wants players to see it through to the end in Black Ops 2 in order to achieve 100% of the benefits.
Ambitious, indeed, is Call of Duty: Black Ops 2′s multiplayer, but that’s not even the half of it. There’s still Zombies. Treyarch is holding nothing back this year and is sure to prove that Call of Duty’s still got the magic. Stay tuned for more undead info, as well as our very own thoughts and impressions of the multiplayer gameplay.
Any of these new features in particular have you interested? Let us know in the comments below!

Merry Christmas Call of Duty Players: 2 Hours Double XP and a Prestige Token for Your Stocking

From charlieintel.com:

Call of Duty Developers have just announced that Elite PREMIUM subcribers are will be getting an early Christmas present today in the form of 2 Hours Double Xp and 1 Prestige Token!!! This is truely unexpected and a great holiday gesture by the folks at Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer, and Raven. Merry Christmas Guys and thanks for all your hardwork the last 2 years, now stop working and go drink some eggnog!

Mtn Dew Winners Play MW3 at Dallas Stadium on the world's 2nd largest HD TV

Mountain Dew Fans Have a "Mega Fan Experience" from Stellarhead on Vimeo.

From charlieintel.com:

Four lucky fans just got a chance to play MW3 at Cowboys Stadium which is home to the world’s second largest HD screen. This was the grand sweepstakes prize as part of a Modern Warfare 3 Mountain Dew promotion. In 2009, the screen was the world’s largest, with over 20,000 square feet of HD display.
-SOURCE: Kotaku

Another Rumor/Leak for MW3′s First DLC Pack

From charlieintel.com:

Another day, another MW3 rumor.. This time it comes from ModernPrestige.com via Kotaku. We’re very skeptical however we thought it was only fair to bring you the latest MW3 news that hit the web today. Screenshots look real but theres no telling if this is a hacked lobby or even just temporary names for the maps. Here they are:
Leaked Map Names:
-Morning Wood
-Concrete
-Park
-Italy
-Overwatch

Kotaku bring’s up a good point regarding the supposed map names, “Morning Wood”.. really?!?! And “Overwatch” which was also a map name in Modern Warfare 2′s Spec-Ops. We’re expecting an announcement regarding DLC next month so stay tuned!
-SOURCE: Kotaku and Modern Prestige Via RK1EliteKnight

Xbox 360 Dashboard Update Goes Live On December 6

The headline pretty much says it all: Microsoft has confirmed that the latest update to the Xbox 360 dashboard, announced at E3 earlier this year, will go live on December 6, TeamXbox reports. The dash is currently being tested in a beta, which some of you may be a part of.
The updated dash features a user interface designed to resemble the "Metro" layout used in Windows Phone 7 and the upcoming Windows 8. You can also expect to see Kinect functionality more deeply integrated into the core interface and new features like voice-activated Bing Search.
Source: TeamXbox

Read more: G4Tv

Call of Duty ELITE “up and running” by December 1 -UPDATE

From charlieintel.com:

-UPDATE: Daniel Suarez just confirmed with G4, that ELITE’s new target launch date is by December 1st. “They kind of have to bear with us while we bring this all back up,” the VP of production said, “but for us it’s literally ‘give us those couple weeks, we’re giving those to you for free’ and come December 1, the goal is that we’ll have everything up and running.’”

-PREVIOUSLY:
Beachhhead Studios has finally shed some light on the reasons for ELITE’s troubled launch and what’s currently being done to fix it. In the interview, several questions are answered that you won’t find in the official Elite F.A.Q.
“It’s going to take at least a couple of weeks to get Elite operational to the standards we want, we are making progress.”
In a exclusive interview to Kotaku, Daniel Suarez, vice president of production at Actvision, explains how one of the most experienced online gaming companies in the world was “blindsided by the demands for their new stat-tracking”, community-building Call of Duty service Elite.
“We had all sorts of issues: A broken registration system; poor scalability of the service; poor experience trying to login to the web or console and confusion in terms of getting 2XP or your Founders Entitlements,” he said. “A lot of this was just core infrastructure issues – mainly tied to specific databases serving up data for the console, web and ultimately mobile (when that’s released).
“For lack of a better term – our databases got hammered with the millions of people trying to use Elite and it couldn’t put up with the demand.”
In regards to why the Elite BETA didn’t prepare them, he said “Due to the fact that we didn’t have a console app on Black Ops, there wasn’t a clear picture of user behavior coming from the console,” Suarez said. “The beta helped us refine the web experience from a feature set, but really didn’t give us all the metrics at scale we needed, specifically the additional load from the console….which was a lot higher than our expectations. This was key contributor to the performance and stability issues consumers have experienced.”
Premium members able to login faster, “We’ve prioritized premium subscribers into the service via a prioritization queue, so if you are a paid member you get into the console or web automatically,” he said. “Free users, due to demand, are put into a queue and allowed in when we have bandwidth or capacity.”
On Tuesday Activision was finally able to turn clan creation on. Within 12 hours they had 22,000 clans created…
-UPDATE SOURCE: VG247
-SOURCE: Kotaku

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Multiplayer Preview ***New***

From G4TV:

PS3 Games - E3 2012 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

After you rank up double XP with Mountain Dew, listen in to Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling on using the three Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer strike packages Specialist, Assault, and Support.

MW3: Developers Playing on XBOX Live

 From Digital Warfare 24/7:

It looks like Modern Warfare 3 is hot off the press due to developers of the game playing it on Xbox LIVE.

Modern Warfare 3 went gold last month but that didn't mean it was completed. Microsoft and Sony had to certify the game and then copies have to be made and shipped to stores all over the world.

It appears that the game has passed the certification process and the first few final copies of the game have been created. A member on our forums noticed Infinity Ward creative strategist Robert "Fourzerotwo" Bowling playing a certain Modern Warfare 3 on Xbox LIVE. Other than having countless amounts of people now stalking the accounts of developers to see what they're playing, what else does this mean? Chances are millions of copies are now being produced and shipped in time for the game's release in 24 days.

Our forum member also noticed Bowling played five Spec Ops levels called Invisible Threat, Little Bros, Stay Sharp, Milehigh Jack and Hit N Run. Along with Spec Ops, he managed to fit in some time on the Single Player campaign by playing 'Prologue' and 'Dust to Dust'. Apparently he was also 'In a Party' for about an hour, so either the servers aren't up and running or no one else was online and available to play multiplayer. Bowling's Xbox LIVE profile is currently restricted meaning only 'Friends' can see his games library and what he is currently playing. A few other developers have done the same, so it's likely Bowling isn't the only one to have a copy of the game or that he's using a practice disc.

To back this up further, CharlieINTEL uploaded a TwitPic of Bowling's Xbox LIVE profile showing him on the main menu of Modern Warfare 3.

With it looking like the game is now out in the open, expect plenty of leaks to hit the net. What comes with leaks? Spoilers. So avoid Call of Duty and gaming websites within the next few weeks if you wish to experience the game feeling fresh on November 8th. You don't have to avoid us, however. We will not post spoilers or leaks, specifically for the single player campaign. If we do for whatever reason, we'll make sure that the article is clearly marked as a spoiler and leak; something that we expect our forum members to abide by when opening new topics.

Make sure to visit DW24/7 for the latest Call of Duty: MW3 news! Only 24 days until this game releases!!!

MW3: Who will be Crowned King of Custom Matches?

From Call of Duty Community:
Written by Space Octupus

Anyone who plays Call of Duty, knows that Custom Matches are a big part of why we play, from proving your point in a 1 on 1 quick-scope battle, to laughing at your friends in Mike Myers. This year, Modern Warfare 3 will take the Custom Match experience to a new level, allowing some new and some fan favorite game types to come to the field. They are:

One in the Chamber

Infinity Ward is bringing back this fan favorite to satisfy the needs of those craving the wager match, although it is worth mentioning, that this time there is no prize. Just the knowledge that you are better than your comrades.

Gun Game

Again, another fan favorite and something I’ll be falling over myself to play when the game is released to see which guns I like to play with. Definitely something to look forward to.

Infected

An age old game mode that never ceases to amaze, this is by far the best way to find out the best hiding spots in the game and how to get there. An aside to this, is that this has been called several names over the years. Mike Myers is one of the names, and also Zombies was a name given to it.

Drop Zone

Almost like Headquarters, except that it’s call Drop Zone. Oh, and given that it is called that, Care Packages drop to the glee of the team in command of the zone. I have visions of horrific “death by box” kills in killcams on this one.

Team Juggernaut

Didn’t get a lot of information on this one, but as far as we can tell, it’s Team Death Match with a Juggernaut on your team. Pretty straight forward huh?

Juggernaut

Now, this also sounds like a “Pro” version of Mike Myers. 1 person is a Juggernaut, your job is to kill him, then you become the Juggernaut. Easy right?
If you rather watch someone explain these game modes to you, have a look and see what WoodysGamertag has to say about the game modes.

I can definitely see some awesome lads (or ladies) nights in where these game types are put the test. Personally, I think this will really make for a better game as far as Modern Warfare 3 is concerned as it will mean a longer shelf-life!
As you can see, Infinity Ward have taken on some fan favorites, and produced some fine sounding other game modes. It really shows that they have taken some time to make sure that the Custom Matches are as good as the online ones. If you have any questions, please feel free to visit the forums: www.callofduty-community.com/forum/